Jim Woods (sportscaster)

James M. Woods (October 22, 1916 – February 20, 1988) was an American sportscaster, best known for his play-by-play work on Major League Baseball broadcasts.

When only four years old, Woods became the mascot for the Triple-A baseball Kansas City Blues; and when only eight, the team's batboy and reader of scores on local radio. He attended the University of Missouri for a year before taking a job at KGLO in Mason City, Iowa. In 1939, he replaced Ronald Reagan as the Iowa Hawkeyes football announcer.

Woods joined the Navy in 1942, where he spent four years as a Chief Petty Officer on the Navy War Bond circuit, working with stars such as Farley Granger, Dennis Day and Victor Mature. After the war he joined WTAD radio in Quincy, Illinois, where he spent two years before moving to Atlanta as an announcer for the Triple-A Atlanta Crackers, replacing Ernie Harwell.

In 1953, Woods was hired to call New York Yankees games alongside Mel Allen and Joe E. Brown. He was fired after the 1956 season when sponsor Ballantine Beer wanted to make room for former Yankee shortstop Phil Rizzuto. Yankee general manager George Weiss was opposed to this, and told Woods apologetically it was the only time he had had to fire someone for no reason at all.

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