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Boston Red Sox public address announcer Carl Beane (the voice of Fenway Park whose booming baritone called ballplayers to the plate for two World Series champions) died on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack while driving. He was 59.
“We are filled with sadness at this tragic news” – Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said in a statement issued by the team that attributed the death to a heart attack. “His legion of friends with the Red Sox and the media will miss him enormously, and all of Red Sox Nation will remember his presence, his warmth, and his voice.”
The Worcester district attorney said that Beane died in an accident after his car, an SUV with a spare tire cover stitched to look like a baseball, crossed the double yellow lines and left the road before hitting a tree and a wall. He was pronounced dead at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge a short time later, according to a release from D.A. Joseph D. Early Jr.
A longtime fixture in the Red Sox media who provided radio reports and gathered sound for broadcasters, including The Associated Press, Beane landed what he called his dream job when he won a competition for the job announcing the lineups at Fenway Park after the 2002 season. In his second season, he announced the home games of the World Series when the Red Sox won the championship to end an 86-year title drought.
“His voice was pretty unique” – Sox DH David Ortiz said Wednesday before Boston’s game in Kansas City. “I’m pretty sure everybody is going to remember that forever.”

Carl Beane.

Red Sox public address announcer Carl Beane, whose warm baritone welcomed “ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” to Fenway Park for nearly a decade, died in a one-car crash in Sturbridge Wednesday afternoon after suffering a heart attack while driving. He was 59.
Beane (who became just the fifth PA announcer in franchise history when he won a competition for the job before the 2003 season) was pronounced dead at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge a short time after the crash.
Golfers from nearby Hemlock Ridge Golf Course called police at 12:39 p.m. to alert them to the crash, according to Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early.
A preliminary investigation showed that Beane’s 2004 Suzuki was traveling northbound when it crossed double solid lines, left the road, and hit a tree and a wall. There were no passengers in the car.
Red Sox personnel, in Kansas City, Mo., for a series with the Royals, turned somber upon receiving the news.
“I’m shocked, just shocked. I know it was his dream job, very similar to me” – said Don Orsillo, the Red Sox’ play-by-play voice on NESN.
“Every time I’d pass him in the hall, he’d always say: ‘We have the coolest jobs in New England.’ And I’d always say to him: ‘Yeah, we do. This is great.’
“To me, it’s going to be such a weird thing at Fenway Park not to have his voice, because I’ve been there 10 years and there’s been no other PA announcer than Carl Beane. His voice resonated.”
Beane unabashedly cherished his role as the “Voice of Fenway Park” and took pride in following in the footsteps of the iconic Sherm Feller, who served in the role from 1967 until his death in 1994.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8qeN0-O3Lw

As a boy growing up in Agawam, Carleton “Carl” Beane had three dreams. He wanted to play for his beloved Red Sox and win the World Series; he wanted to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame; and he wanted a part in a movie about baseball.
When he died yesterday in Sturbridge, the 59-year-old had accomplished all three — just not in the way he had planned.
Mr. Beane, from Holland, was pronounced dead at Harrington Hospital in Southbridge at 2:30 p.m. following a single-vehicle crash on Holland Road in Sturbridge reported at 12:39 p.m. by golfers at Hemlock Ridge Golf Course. The Red Sox, in a press release, said Mr. Beane suffered a heart attack while driving.
Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. issued a statement saying the accident remains under investigation, and the medical examiner will determine the cause of death.
In 2003, Mr. Beane became the public address announcer at Fenway, a place where he’d spent years covering the Red Sox for Central and Western Massachusetts radio stations and newspapers. His trademark booming voice at the start of every home game — “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Fenway Park” — was featured in the 2005 movie “Fever Pitch,” and his is the lead-off voice in “The Baseball Experience,” at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y.
As a tribute to his team, he wore red socks every day and ordered them by mail in bulk – he once said.
While Mr. Beane’s voice was heard around the world, people in the small towns where he got his start knew him from WARE 1250 AM where he has continued to cover high school sports, even though he’d hit the big time.
“That was part of what he did so well was to remember where he came from” – said Wayne Higney, who covered high school basketball with Mr. Beane for years at the Palmer-based radio station. “He was always happy to come back.”