Dave Niehaus

For maybe a million people, and for 34 seasons, baseball in the Northwest has meant Dave Niehaus. His voice was the background music of summer.

Our region and its up-and-down Major League franchise have been blessed all these years with one of the supremely gifted sports broadcasters of all time.

From Diego Segui’s first pitch in the 1977 season opener, year after year, right up to Ichiro Suzuki’s fly ball to end the sorry 2010 season, Dave Niehaus has lived in our homes and in our hearts.

Dave was family, and it was as family that fans were stricken with the word of his death November 10 at the age of 75. It was as family that the spontaneous tributes poured forth – the notes and flowers at the gates to the ball park, the thousands who came to view mementos of his career and to sign memory books.

Whether he was describing a strike-out pitch, a crisp double play, or a great catch in the outfield, what came through, in Dave’s marvelous voice, unspoken but unmistakable, was, “What a great game baseball is!”

Dave broadcast about 2,500 games, and I was with him for maybe a thousand or so. Not once did I find him less than respectful to a player. African American, Latin, Asian and white players were invariably accorded equal dignity. In the most important sense of the term, Dave was an all-American.

In a couple of months, when Mariner pitchers and catchers once again report to Arizona for spring training. some other voice will be at the microphone. We wish the new broadcaster well, but it just won’t be quite the same.
-- Will Parry