Media: Remembering Dave Niehaus

TORONTO, ONTARIO - With the exception of a scant few seasons, the Seattle Mariners have never been much of a baseball team. Yet, their popularity throughout the Pacific Northwest grew to remarkable levels and has endured in large part thanks to the effort of one man to build interest--their lead radio broadcaster, Dave Niehaus. Neihaus was the voice of the team right from its inception in 1977 until his voice was silenced on Wednesday from a heart attack. He was 75.

Whether on KVI, KIRO, or KOMO, Dave Niehaus' distinct voice immediately let you know that the Mariners were playing. Since 1983, he has been paired with Rick Rizzs (except for a time in the early 1990's when Rizzs went to Detroit), and the two have combined to narrate the summers of anyone that cared about baseball with story-telling skills that would impress the Greek epic poets. Growing up in the area, I took them for granted until I lived somewhere else--the broadcasters working the Oakland A's simply could not stack up, and if I wanted to listen to baseball, I would tune in Eugene's KPNW 1120 AM--a Mariners affiliate in that era that came in quite clearly in the Bay Area at night. Niehaus would be there to keep me interested.

Niehaus probably made a greater impact on the vocabulary of the Pacific Northwest than anyone else, certainly more profound than Howard Schultz teaching us Italian names for drink sizes. I considered any well-lit ball to be "belted," since Niehaus always used the phrase "swung on and belted deep to {whatever} field"--in Boston, the verb drew strange looks. If a Mariner hit the ball over the fences, he would continue, "and it will fly away, MY OH MY!" What he really thrived on was coming up with nicknames. Niehaus might not have been the first one to codify Ken Griffey Jr. as "The Kid," Alex Rodriguez as "A-Rod," or Jay Buhner as "Bone," but he was the one to introduce me to those short-hands. Once he started using them, the whole Pacific Northwest started using them, and at least in the case of "A-Rod," the entire world followed.

I've actually encountered a small minority of people over the years that didn't like Niehaus as a broadcaster. Uniformly, they all considered him too much of a "homer," or always focusing on the Mariners at the expense of the other team. They missed the point. That was his job--he was paid to make people interested in the Mariners, and he did this better than anyone else ever will.

This talent was so widely recognized throughout the sport and the industry that Niehaus was the second person to be inducted in the Mariners' Hall of Fame and he earned the Ford C. Frick Award in 2008, the sport's top honor for broadcasters. After his death, even my local morning show here in Toronto played a clip of Neihaus' famous call of the Mariners victory in the 1995 American League division series. I can't think of another local Seattle figure ever even mentioned on that show before.

There are no "happy totals" (as his partner Rizzs would say) right now, but Niehaus broadcast 5,284 Mariner games, nearly all of the 5,385 games so far played by the franchise. That's well over 10,000 hours of live entertainment. Mariner fans have gone through Neihaus withdrawal before, as previous heart problems had taken him off the air for limited periods, but we always knew he would be back. It's hard to imagine that the era is really over now. Niehaus would find a way to turn our attention to the future and create excitement, but it is probably a good thing the only thing in season is the Hot Stove League. It will take until the spring to face a Mariners future without Dave Niehaus.

Media: Watch it on HD

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As long as twenty-five years ago, there was an interesting phenomenon amongst unlimited hydroplane racing fans. Enthusiasts of the sport that would attend every race that they could over the course of the year would not attend race day in Seattle, Washington. Why? It wasn't the weather or ticket prices. The Seattle race was always televised, and the coverage on the local station was often so good, and the views from the television camera so much better than what could be seen from the shore, that the fans thought the experience was more engaging at home on television than along Lake Washington.

In twenty-five years, a lot has improved in television technology. Large-screen televisions are far more commonplace for average consumers. Analog television has been replaced with digital television that makes the picture even more clear and real to the viewer. Watching television feels even more like actually being somewhere than it ever has before, and now the same phenomenon that was occurring long ago with unlimited hydroplane racing is happening to other sports.

The Toronto Blue Jays, the only major-league baseball team in Canada, is now receiving record television ratings. Despite being on a cable channel, the games are often viewed by more than 500,000 people (as cited in the Toronto Star). Meanwhile, the in-person attendance at the Rogers Centre is about as low as it has ever been. According to TSN, opening night aside, the team has averaged just 14,853 fans in its first 25 home games. Attendance has exceeded 20,000 only twice, in a stadium that holds nearly 50,000.

Clearly, the team doesn't have a popularity problem. Besides the record television ratings, their on-the-field record has exceeded expectations, competitive in the American League East and the wild card race. It just seems that the fans prefer their in-home television experience to the experience in the Rogers Centre.

Perhaps this isn't so surprising. Traffic and parking are huge problems in Toronto and around the Rogers Centre in particular. The amenities of the Rogers Centre pale in comparison with more modern stadiums from the new Camden Yards in Baltimore to Safeco Field in Seattle. Ticket prices effectively went up this year with the end of some package deals and most promotions.

Yet, the Blue Jays might really be canaries on this issue. As home entertainment technology improves (think live baseball in 3D), this phenomenon isn't going to be limited to Toronto. For that matter, it will not be limited to baseball. It is not inconceivable that within a decade, for most fans, the experience at home will be better than the experience in person. The whole business model for sports may need to be re-evaluated--and the teams and sports that anticipate this and create a new sustainable model will be the ones that will still be around in a generation.

Politics: It's all Bud Selig's Fault

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As some people search for the correct place to put the blame for the economic crisis gripping the world, there's a pretty good explanation going around. I first heard it on the Brian Copeland Program, and its origins seem to date back at least to a Gail Sheehy column in Vanity Fair in 2000. The thesis? It's all Bud Selig's fault.

Back in 1994, Bud Selig, then owner of the Milwaukee Brewers, was the acting commissioner of Major League Baseball after the owners had ousted Fay Vincent in 1992. It was thought that the owners were going to find a permanent commissioner and George W. Bush, then an owner of the Texas Rangers, was a potential candidate. As reported in Sheehy's column, Bush wanted to be the commissioner of baseball more than anything else in his life, and when he was approached by Texas Republicans about running for governor, he initially put them off, thinking that he was in line to become the commissioner.

Bud Selig had other ideas--he wanted the permanent position for himself. The temporary commissioner held on to his post during the 1994 strike, had himself elected permanent commissioner in 1998, and now will apparently serve until 2012--if he even steps down then, since he had previously agreed to step down in 2008.

As revealed in Vincent's 2002 autobiography, it was only after former commissioner Vincent told Bush that Selig had no plan to propose Bush as commissioner that the future president took the governor's race seriously. Bush defeated Ann Richards in the Texas governor's race in 1994, went on to run for president in 2000, and we all know what happened from there.

Had Bud Selig stepped aside to let George W. Bush take the job he had always wanted, that of commissioner of Major League Baseball, he would not have run for governor of Texas. He would not have been in a position to run for president in 2000. World history would have been different in the ensuing eight years.

So, need someone to blame for the economy? Try Bud Selig.