it. Thompson explained the details in Curt Smith's Voices of the Game: He was a great guy, very proper, and like any golfer, he had some real frustrations. But instead of cussing, he'd come up with the phrase, 'Go to war, Miss Agnes!' I didn't know what it meant, but don't feel bad – he may not have known. What I did know was that it sounded so funny. I picked it up and used it to emphasize something big and exciting on the ball field, and it just caught on – with listeners, it snowballed. Thompson phased out the expression when the Vietnam War was protracted, although it was later picked up by North Carolina Tar Heels football and basketball broadcaster Woody Durham. "Ain't the beer cold!" became the title of Thompson's autobiography, in which he described the story behind the exclamation: For years in my game broadcasts I had used the expression, 'Ain't the beer cold!' when things were going especially well for the home team. I got that phrase from Bob Robertson, a spotter who worked with me on Baltimore Colts football games (that were sponsored by the makers of National Beer). Eventually, I received lots of mail from people in the Carolinas, the area sometimes referred to as the Bible Belt. The listeners felt they shouldn't have to put up with my ad libs about beer with all the beer advertisements they were already exposed to, and I thought they had a legitimate beef. So, I stopped using the line sometime in the 1970s. References External links Chuck Thompson Ford C. Frick Award biography at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Chuck Thompson, Voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Dies The Baltimore Sun, March 7, 2005 Marylanders Celebrate Chuck Thompson's Life Isaacs, Stan. "The Orioles Play Stop The Music", Sports Illustrated, October 8, 1979 Bibliography Smith, Curt. Voices of The Game. 2nd edition. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. Bready, James H. The Home Team. 4th edition. Baltimore: 1984. 1921 births 2005 deaths United States Army personnel of World War II American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Baltimore Colts announcers Baltimore Orioles announcers Bowling broadcasters College football announcers Ford C. Frick Award recipients Major League Baseball broadcasters Minor League Baseball broadcasters National Football League announcers People from Palmer, Massachusetts People from Reading, Pennsylvania Radio personalities from Youngstown, Ohio Radio personalities from Baltimore Philadelphia Athletics announcers