Inducted in 2009
Sportscaster

Induction Video

During his years as a broadcaster for Orioles and the Colts, Bill O’Donnell never shied away from mentioning the Prep on air, often reminiscing fondly about his Hughes Hall days. Over the course of his career, Baltimore fans were given more than a glimpse into Bill’s boyhood days in the Bronx and into the Jesuit high school at Rose Hill that he would often say had helped make him the man he was.

William T. O’Donnell Jr. was the son of William Sr., a furniture salesman, and Eleanor Shram O’Donnell, a homemaker whose family had immigrated from Finland. He was born on the 4th of June in 1926 in Manhattan, but the O’Donnells soon moved from Inwood to the Bronx and young Billy grew up on Walton Avenue between East 183rd and 184th Streets and later on Webb Avenue near the VA Hospital. 

During his at Prep years, Bill was an enthusiastic participant in intramural athletics, and played football and JV baseball. “Scoop” — O’Donnell’s nickname among his classmates — got his start in sports journalism as a staffwriter for the Prep’s Athletic Councilmen and as sports reporter for Rampart. 

Graduating the Prep, O’Donnell enrolled at the University, but shortly afterwards left Rose Hill to join the Marine Corps, answering the call to serve his country during the Second World War. After his discharge, Bill served a stint as a copy boy for the New York Times and then as a sportswriter with the New York World Telegram. But O’Donnell really began to make a name for himself as a sports reporter in Utica, New York at the Daily Press in print and with WIBY on the air.

Recalling his early days in radio, Bill would often recount how he once did play-by-plays for 24 high school basketball games over six nights for $5 a game, and how during another broadcasting marathon, he had actually called 27 boxing matches over the course of 48 hours.

Utica would be much more for William O’Donnell than the springboard for his career. It was also the city where he would marry Mary Patricia “Pat” Martin on September 10, 1949 at Our Lady of Lourdes Church. His marriage to Pat was extremely important to him, and he was very proud to have Patricia as his wife, crediting her with much of his personal and professional success. As he once told a reporter, “You marry the right person and it is heaven; you marry the wrong person, it could be hell.”

Together, they raised five children — a son, Kevin, and four daughters: Kathleen, Eileen, Colleen and Maureen. 

Leaving Utica in 1950, Bill took a detour as broadcaster at KWIK in, Pocatello, Idaho, returning to New York three years later as sports director at WSYR, Syracuse  — radio and television — and as the voice of Syracuse University sports for the next 13 years. 

In 1966, O’Donnell moved to the big leagues, becoming a full-time member of the Baltimore Orioles broadcasting team, a position he held until 1982. Along the way, he worked each of the Orioles’ first five World Series, announced NBC’s Game of the Week team, covered other teams in other sports including the Baltimore Colts, and became a favorite of fans across the sports spectrum. Toward the end of his career he even did some work for what was then a fledgling cable outfit: ESPN. 

William O’Donnell’s life was unfortunately cut short by cancer on October 29, 1982 while he was only in his mid-fifties. At the time of his death, he and his broadcast partner, Chuck Thompson, comprised the longest running announcing team in the major leagues. 

Bill’s on-air style was described as unflappable, objective and calm; his delivery was characterized by accuracy and a brilliant command of the language. He was said to be immune to foot-in-mouth disease. “If you’re always getting excited, you will lose your credibility when it is time to be excited,” he once remarked to the Syracuse Sunday Herald.
 
O’Donnell’s renown as a broadcaster occasionally took him beyond sports, and he conducted interviews with Robert F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower and, on several occasions, Larry King. 

A member of the Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame since 1997, Bill O'Donnell was inducted into the Baltimore Orioles Hall of Fame on August 24, 2007. He was also the posthumous recipient of the Herb Armstrong Award, which the Orioles organization presents to non-uniformed personnel who have made significant contributions to the ballclub and the game of baseball. His name stands alongside such greats as Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripkin, Sr. and Jr., Frank Cashen, Hank Bauer, Jim Palmer and Luis Aparicio.
 
In the words of his beloved wife Patricia,

“Bill loved the Prep and often said so. It meant a lot to him.”