The best news I heard all week came Tuesday, when it was announced that Seattle Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus won the 2008 Ford C. Frick Award and its resulting enshrinement in the Baseball Hall of Fame’s broadcasters wing.
The honor is well-deserved and long-overdue for Niehaus, the voice of the Mariners since their inception in 1977. The man transcends the Mariners, he transcends baseball, he transcends the city of Seattle. He is a regional icon, the one man who represents the only Major League Baseball team between the Bay Area, Denver and Minneapolis.
I grew up listening to Dave Niehaus. In fact, I probably spent more time during the baseball season listening to Niehaus than to either of my parents. I certainly paid more attention to what he was saying. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting at home listening to his Mariners radio broadcasts. I became a Mariners fan as Ken Griffey Jr. was hitting his prime and the picture Niehaus painted of The Kid, The Big Unit, The Sheriff, Bone and the rest of the M’s hooked me for life.
His signature call, “My, oh my!”, is one of the most recognizable in the game, and along with his home run call, “Fly, fly away!”, and grand slam call, “It’s a Grand Salami!”, Niehaus owns one of the most formidable arsenals of any sportscaster.
He has called 4,817 of the team’s 4,899 games, but it was a stretch of six games in October 1995 that sealed his legacy, not only for me but for an entire generation of Mariners fans everywhere. Starting with the one-game playoff against the California Angels and continuing through the five-game epic Division Series against the New York Yankees, Niehaus spun a series of broadcasts that I will never forget. There are a good half-dozen calls from that week that I still know by heart 12 1/2 years later.
Luis Sojo’s inside-the-park grand slam (“Everybody scores!”) set the stage and he followed that up with Randy Johnson’s division-winning strikeout (“K inserted, it’s over, Randy looks to the sky!”), Edgar Martinez’s Game 4 grand slam (“Get out the rye bread and the mustard this time, Grandma! It’s Grand Salami time!”) and, of course, the coup de grâce, the double that sent the Mariners to the ALCS. Niehaus’ 30-second masterpiece still gives me chills. I can listen to it all day long and never grow tired, never lose the big, stupid grin plastered across my face.
Niehaus sealed his ticket to Cooperstown with that one week’s work.
Even though the quality of his broadcasts may have deteriorated over the years, the deep, smooth sound of his voice makes it feel like every game, every pitch means something and is worth listening to. Which is no mean feat, because for most of the last four seasons, they haven’t been.
There are only two broadcasters that I can say I love listening to. One is Keith Jackson, now retired, and the other is Dave Niehaus. I dread the day he retires and Dave Sims or Mike Blowers have to take over. In fact, it is listening to the other broadcasters that makes me appreciate just how good he is.
Niehaus has won just about every other honor there is. Twice named Washington State Sportscaster for the Year, honored by the Washington State House of Representatives for “contributions to the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest,” and the second member of the Mariners Hall of Fame, he was even honored by the Washington State Society for the Blind because he allowed blind people to see the game through his descriptions. The call from the Baseball Hall of Fame was just a matter of formality.
So, congrats Dave. You’ve earned it.
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