Dave Niehaus, Hall of Famer
DMZ · February 19, 2008 at 2:29 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Press conference now on the team’s MLB site — after years of coming close, Niehaus won the Ford C. Frick Award and will be inducted into the broadcaster’s wing of the Hall of Fame.
Congratulations to Dave. He made many, many years of terrible Mariner baseball enjoyable for me growing up.
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I wouldn’t want to hear a Mariner game without him. Congrats, Dave. Well deserved.
Viva Dave! There are many of us who think we could do a decent job of calling a game for the radio. Have any of you ever tried? Turn the volume down on the TV some time and see how you do. It’s an art, in every sense of the word, and Dave is a maestro. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t make mistakes, but they pale in comparison to how he brings you along for the evening. Now preparing the lump in throat for Dave’s speech at Cooperstown. Again I say, Viva Dave!
Dave was doing his impression of Gene Autry talking about Dave’s time with the Angels:
“Dave, you call a helluva game. It’s not the game I’m watching, but it’s a helluva game.”
Congratulations, Dave.
In honor of this, I’m going to break out my fiancee’s old audio cassette of the Best of the ’95 Playoffs.
It’s officially licensed!
Travis
A perfect way to cap off a great weekend.
I’m a relative late comer to Mariner baseball having lived in the Alaskan gulag for many, many years — but Dave Niehaus has been and continues to be the voice of the team for me.
My oh my, what a nice salute to a man who has enriched a lot of lives including mine.
It’s about time! Several years later than he deserves… But at least they did him justice.
Congratulations, Dave!
speaking of Jerry Coleman, Dave was wondering earlier today just who had called more losing baseball between he and Coleman
Congratulations, Dave. This is an honor well deserved.
I had the great pleasure of meeting Dave (and Rick) in the press box at the Oakland Coliseum last year. I told him how much he meant to me growing up, hearing him call the M’s in my back yard in the summer. He seemed genuinely touched when I told him that.
A great honor for a great, classy man.
Reasons to love Baseball.
1. Dave filling the air with low-key, baritone reminicences
2. Ichiro, Fashion Icon.
oh, Dave said during his press conference that he would have loved for Drysdale to have been his HOF presenter; later when talking to G&G on KJR, he said that he wants Junior, but that Griffey ‘is working’ (the Reds play the Rox that day)
ITS ABOUT TIME!!! Congrats Dave. Now that I am stuck listening to the M’s on XM I only get to hear about half the games called with the hometown crew, but this award has been a long time coming. Dave made listening to the M’s as a teenager the only way to go. Turn down the TV and turn up the radio.
But I do wish that he hadn’t spent thirty-one years ignoring the broadcaster’s adage, you can’t give the score too often.</em
Otherwise, I echo Dave Clapper’s (# 5),
Regardless…, his voice still embodies everything that is baseball.
the KOMO hot stove show is a little like “This is your life” tonight– Dave is on the line from Peoria, and they are calling various and sundry friends. Dick Williams was just on, and next up, Red.
Dave said he got a voice message from Ken Levine that said “this is the happiest day of my life– Castro resigned”
Congratulations Mr. Niehaus. You are truly deserving of this reward. I spend a fair amount of time in L.A. during the season and it is excrutiatingly painful to watch the Mariners play the Angels when they are in town due to Rex Hudler being just so bad. Maybe the Angelenos like him but to my mind Dave’s the best and always will be “The Voice”.
Oh, Mr. barndawgie #12, how little I know you and how much you embody everything I hate about New Yorkers. Please go home.
Dave = the first true Mariner represented in the Hall. Am going to have to seriously consider a trip to Cooperstown for the ceremony.
More than the voice of the Mariners, Dave is the voice of the Northwest. He narrates all of my best memories growing up: painting the house on a hot summer day, sitting around the campfire with my grandpa and my dad, walking out of the Kingdome into the warm Seattle dusk clutching my transistor radio after a rare and glorious win.
Opening day in 1986. The entire Refuse-To-Lose run. Bosio’s no-hitter. Griffey’s 8th HR game in a row. And all the Rye Bread. Thank you for the poetry, Dave.
And, finally, I loved those early webcasts when the mic got left on between innings and we finally got to hear what Dave was really thinking. Does anyone know where I could find one of those gems posted somewhere?
What often is missed is that “My Oh My” is not always uttered as the exclamation point to big plays. Dave has my eternal admiration as a home team broadcaster because he found plenty of ways to express his disgust, including the use of “my oh my” as muttered disapproval. He is about as balanced as a company employee could be in his broadcasts, and in this he puts other local broadcasters in larger or more traditional markets to shame. The sound of summer–the man could make the long innings of blowout losses in Cleveland in the 80s tolerable. I still think Niehaus and Ken Wilson have never been bettered as the Mariner broadcast team.
And about the dead air–you would think Rizzs would have learned something after 22 years of working with a Hall of Famer. Get a clue.
I dread the day that he either croaks or quits. The guy literally lights up my spring and summer — there are few things more comforting to me than the sound of Dave calling a game on the radio. I worked for a summer as a barista, and every night, I would look forward to the M’s coming on so I could listen to Dave. (More accurately, looked forward to the bottom of the 5th so I didn’t have to listen to Rizzs anymore, but that’s a different thread.)
Since the Mariners and I were born in the same year, I’ve known nothing else. He’d have been in the Hall a long time ago if he wasn’t in Seattle. Great to see an injustice righted, and I’m glad he’s still around, no matter what anyone says.
[off-topic, if you want to discuss site policies use the email the authors link and don’t derail threads]
I just hope to be lucky enough to hear Dave make the last out call when the M’s finally when a world series. (I said when, not if, just so that noone can say USSM is not an optomistic place:))
“The Mariners are going to play for the American League Championship! I DON’T BELIEVE IT”
Amen #30, I get goosebumps everytime I hear or watch that.
I thought a while back that it’s quite possible that apart from immediate family and close friends, I’ve maybe heard Dave’s voice more than any other in my life. Which would be weird, and cool, and nothing I would ever be ashamed of.
Go Dave. Congrats.
67 – I completely agree. What always strikes me about M’s broadcasts is that they spend at least as much (if not more) time discussing players on the other team. I always found it interesting because we already catch so much about the M’s in the pre-game, papers, etc.
Such a great contrast from the WhiteSox guys, who call the Sox “the good guys” and the opposing team “the bad guys”.
Dave always has done a good job of staying away from unabashed homer-ness.
I too think Dave was overdue for this. I really don’t care if he has lost a step, the day that he stops broadcasting will be a very sad one for me. He embodies the M’s to me more than any other person, whether a former player, coach, or GM.
Listening to Dave Niehaus call a game on the radio makes me think of a kid riding a bicycle down a tree-lined street on a sunny summer afternoon with no worries that will last past dinner, nothing that absolutely has to be done by any particular time, and the vague sense that not only was today a perfect day, but tommorrow will be even better.
I think voices like his are one of the reasons the game has endured for so very long, through so many changes in society.
I’m another person that he really brought into baseball.
It was 1997, I was 15 and driving grain trucks. I think one could play cassettes, but most had AM only. So during the down time or while driving I could read, or listen to those August games on AM radio.
Niehaus really made me enjoy baseball, and to this day I consider it the only sport that can be as good on the radio as watching on TV. Unfortunately, getting the right broadcaster to make that true is almost impossible now.
One thing about Dave that sticks out for me. I was hiking Emerald Pools in zion National Park in 2001. On the way back down the trail you hit a point where you get a great vista down the canyon. In April the canyon is very green from the winter runoff. I’m seeing this majestic view and the description that pops into my head is Dave’s voice from the ’95 playoff run.
“This is just…indescribable!”
I think it was in the bedlam after the one-game playoff with the Angels but it may have been after The Double.
My most vivid Niehaus memory wasn’t The Double – I was in the Kingdome for that, and even though I had headphones on to listen to the radio call, I couldn’t have heard it if I tried – it was in 1996 when there was an Earthquake during a home game. Dave figured out what was going on and promptly got the Hell out of Dodge. “I’m getting out of here.â€
I was listening to that earthquake game. It was amazing to hear the open mike with no one in the booth — could hear background noise in the dome for what seemed like a long time, more than 10 minutes anyway.
MY OH my is a nice catch phrase for Dave…but I much prefer, “Get out the rye bread, Grandma”….
The great thing about Dave is that he can just shut up every once in awhile and let the images and background sounds of the game entertain us. Some motormouth broadcasters are like disc jockeys, seemingly trained to cover ANY dead air with some inane comment. (see: Rick Rizzs)
Hooray! for Dave!
Definitely a warm treat to hear his voice every summer.
Hi folks,
I’m David, Dave Niehaus’ son. Dad calls me Andy, my middle name, long story… I was just googling and ran across this site. This is great and I’m glad it exists. I thought I would chime in for a few words.
First, the word “proud” just doesn’t quite say it all. I called my dad yesterday at 10:15 to wish him a happy birthday, and he told me the news. I was not to say a word until 11, probably the toughest 45 minutes since the birth of my first son. I actually had to pull over and sob like a little kid who just had Santa deliver exactly the toy he wanted. Our family has been waiting for this for years. We’re all just giddy.
Thank all of you for your warm comments. As far as those who think he’s lost a step or two… he’s 73 f’n years old, people. I’m 43 and I’ve lost a few steps, too.
People sometimes ask me what Dave Niehaus is really like. I always say, “you already know him.” He’s the same guy who has come into your home, your car, your campsite, wherever, between 7 and 10 on a Tuesday night, for 3 decades, to talk baseball. He’s a great dad and and even better grandfather. He’s a salty old bastard, with a dry wit and sometimes sick sense of humor, who loves this game like no one else. Let’s just say I’ve heard “MY OH MY!!!” in a variety of contexts, especially as a teenager in the late 70’s. ‘Nuf said.
Now it’s off to Cooperstown, where we all hope to finally paint that town Mariner Blue. I’m so damn proud of my father for reaching the pinnacle of his profession, for getting his Oscar. And like dad said, this belongs to all Mariner fans. Very humbling, if he could thank you all I know he would.
Kind Regards,
David “Andy” Niehaus
Thanks for stopping by and sharing that with us, Andy, and give your father our collective congratulations.