I didn’t fall asleep listening to music, crickets or the wind when I was a kid. I fell asleep listening to Dave Niehaus call Mariners games. From the first pitch in 1977 to the last of 2010, Niehaus was the voice of the team that I will always call mine.
From the crappy teams of the 80s, to the excitement of Ken Griffey Jr., Randy Johnson and Alex Rodriguez in the mid-90s and the excitement of the 1995 Refuse To Lose Mariners to the 116 wins in 2001 with Ichiro, Niehaus’s voice reminds me of home, reminds me of being a kid and reminds me of loving baseball.
Niehaus passed away earlier this week at 75 years old. Coupled with Ken Griffey Jr. retiring earlier this season, it seems my childhood heroes have all moved on. Time to grow up.
Thank you, Dave Niehaus. Thank you for letting me feel a little closer to home when I heard you on MLB.TV. Thank you for making a crappy Mariners teams fun to listen to.
Here’s my favorite call from 1995. I saw it from my couch and Mariners baseball was never the same after.
Niehaus and Junior will be ever intertwined.
3 Comments on “My Oh My – Dave Niehaus passes”
Thanks for posting, Tyler. Watching this clip takes me right back to being a kid and being obsessed with the (usually horrible) Mariners. Dave’s voice is part of the soundtrack of my childhood…and my first love if you count my obsession with Alex Rodriguez in his rookie years (I know, me and every other now-twentysomething girl from the PNW).
I’ll never forget being in the Kingdome for one of A-Rod’s first ever MLB games, in the fall of 1994. I was in charge of watching my six year old brother while mom parked the car, but when Alex came out to sign autographs before the game, I forgot all about my brother, ditched him in the upper deck and booked it down to the third base line where I laid across three rows of screaming girls to reach Alex.
Luckily, we found my little brother, and I went home with A-Rod’s autograph on the cover of the first Beckett he was ever on.
You have A-Rod’s autograph? NICE! I never did get an autograph, but Raul Ibanez did give me my first-ever Spring Training tickets when I met him while working at the Biltmore Apple Store.
Not just his autograph, but the pen he used to sign it too. Which was brand new out of the pack that day, so he and I are the only people to ever touch it. And yes, I realize I sound 12 years old again typing this. 🙂