I’ve spent plenty of time huffing and puffing about what a circus sideshow the Seattle Mariners of 2015 have become this year. So many words have been dropped on the page about who is to blame and why. I’m not here to keep doing that. I’ve already raked them over the coals and vilified the front office. It’s been passionate, but a different form of passion than I am used to displaying.
I think at this time it is important to remember why we are mad in the first place, to remind ourselves why we love this team. Every few weeks I’ll be writing retrospective Mariners pieces about the guys who taught us how to love and root for the flag no matter what the state of the team was, and maybe a few that were just plain fun to hate. Let’s start with the man who best exemplifies what it is to cheer for Mariner baseball, the true voice of Seattle, Dave Niehaus.
The Mariners hired Dave Niehaus to be the radio voice of the Mariners in 1977, five years before I was born in ’82. For the for first 28 years of my life, before his death in 2010, the one constant I could count on between the months of March and October (rarely after), was that I would get to listen to Dave’s dulcet tones deliver baseball gold, five to seven nights a week. For years as a kid I would drift off to sleep listening to him describe another stellar start for Mark Langston, or beautifully excuse Russ Davis’ third error of the game. Occasionally I would be jarred awake happily as the exclamation, “Get out the rye bread and mustard, Grandma, it’s grand salami time,” the best grand slam call ever made, rang out on my bedside radio.
Growing up is never easy, and a lot of times other complications make it even harder for a kid to cope with life as they are learning to navigate it. I dealt with this as others have as well, but we aren’t here to discuss my third nipple. Having someone on the radio most nights whose voice made you feel safe is a pretty special thing. Year after year, dealing with life’s hurdles, from not having cool enough clothes in junior high school all the way through your first broken heart, turning on the game that night and listening to Dave wax about Bret Boone and Carlos Guillen turning a beautiful, rally-killing double play, would instantly alleviate pressure and help me breathe through the stress. When no one else was there for me, I could always tune into 710 AM and Dave would be.
A few years ago, a couple friends and I had flown into Nevada for a massive 25-person bachelor party in Lake Tahoe, centered on the first weekend of the NCAA March Madness tournament. After three days of strict rules following and proper gentlemanly behavior, it was time to depart and drive through some beautiful desert back to Reno to catch a return flight home. The countryside is gorgeous until you sit the capitol. As we cruised through the depressing abandoned buildings of Carson City, a song came on by Seattle-based hip-hop “artist,” Macklemore. As a huge rap fan, Macklemore isn’t someone who me or my buddies would have in our musical rotation, but we happened to have My oh My on the playlist. Seconds into the song we were all dead silent, as my flesh popped with goosebumps. Everything in the song was dead on to my experiences years prior. I ventured a glance over at Greg, who was driving. He had tears streaming down his cheeks. I laughed and started to flip him some guff about it, even though my own eyes were blinking back their own cascade when he cut me off and yelled, “It’s because Carson City is so damn sad!” I chuckled and swallowed the lump in my throat. Three guys in the middle of the desert with goose bumps and tears, weeks from the first baseball action of the season and years removed from childhood. Dave Niehaus left quite the imprint.
On April 8, 2011, Opening Day, Macklemore payed tribute to Niehause by performing the song live for a packed house. You can watch it here and listen for, “We’d huddle round the radio twist the broken knob, 710 AM no KJR ,Dave Niehaus voice would echo throughout the yard, couldn’t have been older than 10 but to me and my friends the voice on the other end might as well have been God’s.” Good luck staying stone faced.
I wish Dave were still alive and well and sitting in the broadcast booth. Not just for me, but so my kids could get a chance to experience him as I did. My only amendment to the way I embraced him would be that my children wouldn’t need to see him as a source of safety, but just comfort and entertainment. Luckily the Internet exists and I can at least show them clips of the man whose name deserves to be mentioned along with Vin Scully, Harry Caray, and Mel Allen. I wish that he had gotten the opportunity to see the M’s hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy, and when they do, I hope they dedicate it to his memory.
Dave, thanks for always being there for me.
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