Early life Woods was born in
Kansas City, Missouri. When only four years old, he 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
U.S. 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.
Broadcasting career New York Yankees, New York Giants and NBC 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 to fire someone for no reason at all. In 1957, Woods called both
New York Giants games with
Russ Hodges and the
NBC Game of the Week with
Lindsey Nelson and
Leo Durocher. The Giants moved to San Francisco after the season, without Woods; Giants owner
Horace Stoneham wanted someone who knew the Bay Area to work alongside Hodges. This marked the second time within a period of two years in which Woods was dismissed by a club for different reasons that had nothing to do with any fault of his own. ==References==