Enrique Cerna Interviews Dave Niehaus
Other Transcripts:
DN: Thank you Enrique.
EC: And congratulations on being inducted into the Hall of Fame as the Ford C. Frick award winner for broadcasting excellence in baseball. Tell me about that day.
DN: Well you know it was probably with the exception of my marriage and the birth of my kids, 3 of the biggest days of my life, they were the 3 biggest days of my life. To go back there to Coopers Town. I was lucky enough to go back one month prior to the induction ceremonies to do an interview with an author by the name of Kurt Smith who is written about baseball broadcasters. His book’s name is Voices of the Game. And I went back for the first time to Coopers Town when we were in New York to play the Yankees and they drove me up there and I’d never been there.
And it was an epiphany, it really was. You’ve heard so much about the place you’d think that after all these years I would have been there once. Matter of fact, we even played there once and didn’t go because we were going from Chicago to Milwaukee, Chicago, Coopers Town, Milwaukee. Which is a crazy way to go. Milwaukee is 90 miles from Chicago, I got sick and I ended up going directly to Milwaukee to kinda sweat out my illness and didn’t go to Coopers Town. But this time I did and it was an unbelievable experience but then on induction day to be there with 56 of the 63 of the living Hall of Famers.
Most number of living Hall of Famers to ever attend an induction, it was absolutely unbelievable. To bump into to Sandy Koufax and Ferguson Jenkins and Reggie Jackson and Phil Niekro and on and on and on and on. Bill Mazeroski my good friend. It was just unbelievable to go to parties with them and they kept saying “don’t forget you are a member of the club now you’re one of us”. Well I never threw a ball, never hit a ball, never caught a ball and yet to be to be taken in as one of their very own was something I will never forget the rest of my life.
EC: And the fact is your photo. It’s gonna be there in the hall…
DN: Yeah
EC: In the Museum forever.
DN: Yeah. I’m one of 32 uh so there’s even less of us than there are guys in the Hall of Fame, baseball players in the hall of fame and I feel so honored to be there with the with the 31 previous winners I mean to look at that at the honor role of Ford C. Frick award winners Red Barber, Vin Scully, Harry Caray, a guy I grew up with on and on and on Lon Simmons, Russ Hodges you know Mel Allen, all of these guys. Meant so much to baseball, meant so much to my life.
EC: Yeah. The one thing about when you come to Safeco, you never know what kind of noise you’re gonna get.
DN: Kinda like Shea stadium.
EC: Yeah. Waiting for the train noise which I love here when I come here.
DN: I do too.
EC: You know, I thought it was just really perfect that the day you find out about your induction into Hall of Fame was your birthday.
DN: It was, it was my 73rd birthday. It was, I don’t know, it was about five till 10 in the morning and I just got out of the shower and I ran over to the phone. I didn’t even realize, I did not know, I swear, that this was the day they were going to name the winner of the Ford C. Frick award. I did know that I had been one of the most mentioned names in the last several years, one of the finalists, but you either do or you don’t. You have no control over it. So I didn’t worry about it.
And the phone rang and I picked up the phone and he said “Dave?” and I said “yeah?” He said “This is Dale Petrosky, the President of the National Baseball Museum and Hall of Fame”. He said “I’d just like to welcome you to the Hall of Fame family”. I said “Do you realize this is my birthday?” I thought somebody was pulling my leg. He said “It’s your birthday?” I said “Yeah it is.” He said “Well, this is the best birthday present you’re ever going to get.” And it was. Believe me it was. That was the beginning of an incredible 6 months.
EC: Take me back. You grew up in Indiana. Princeton, Indiana?
DN: Princeton, Indiana! Princeton, Indiana. Population of 7,313 when I was growing up.
EC: When do you remember first hearing a baseball game or getting excited about the sport?
DN: Gosh, I guess when I was a little kid… 6, 7 years old because I was in Cardinal Territory, Camelweck’s territory out of St. Louis. That 50,000 watt voice just beamed throughout the mid-west. Everybody in that particular area of the mid-west... Southern Illinois, Missouri, southern Indiana on even into Tennessee, Kentucky, around that area, was Cardinal territory because of the power of Camelweck’s. And certainly, because of the voice of Harry Carry. And I used to sit out on the porch on a hot, muggy summer evening and listen to him broadcast. It was really before television too.
Although television was in existence, we didn’t have one. And all we had was a floor model Zenith radio and I’d have the screen door closed and Dad and I would sit out on the front porch and have some cold watermelon and sit there and listen to the ball game. And the lightening bugs would flicker and I’d go get a Mason jar and punch holes in it with an ice pick and put the lightening bugs in there so you could see ‘em light up. And every once in a while I’d take one and squish em so you could watch ‘em light up. Anyway, that was part of growing up too. But, to listen and all of a sudden you hear this voice: “It might be… it could be… it is! Home run!” And thousand of miles away something magic was happening.
Stan Musil had hit another home run. And… that’s the way I remember beginning to listen to baseball. And as I listened once I listened again and again and again. And I think that that’s what every baseball announcer has on a family is... is… You’re with them every day. And if you’re a baseball fan you have something to look forward to every day. It’s not every weekend like a football announcer. Every three days like a basketball announcer. But from February when pitchers and catchers report until hopefully the end of October when the World Series comes, you’re with them almost every day. For six months you become a member of a family. And how well I know that because of the letters I have received and the things that people send me and the letters I get about how, you know, generations have grown up with me. And… I feel a great responsibility because of that. To be fair, to be honest, to not be too much of a ‘homer’.
I don’t think I’m too much of a ‘homer’. If it makes any sense, I try to be as objective as my subjectivity will allow me. And that doesn’t make any sense, because you can’t travel with a ball club 162 games during the regular season, be with them 32 games during spring training, 200 games a year and not care what they do. You have to. And I certainly deeply care how the Mariners finish year after year after year. On the other hand, I have a responsibility to my audience to treat each game for exactly what it is: 1/162nd of a season. Every baseball game has a different story.
I think that’s the romance, the beauty of the game of baseball. Every baseball game has a different story. I’ve done 13-14 no-hitters. Never seen a no-hitter the same way. Came close to a perfect game but didn’t see one. But it’s a… every night during a baseball game I’ll turn to my partner or him to me and say “Have you ever seen that before?” And here I am 7 or 8 thousand games into a baseball announcing career. I think that’s the magic of the game.
EC: What was your first big break?
DN: Well, believe it or not, my first big break was probably getting drafted.
EC: Into the military?
DN: Yeah into the military. In the military I graduated from college with a bachelor of science in radio and television but that’s after I decided I didn’t want to become a dentist. And then I was just waiting to be drafted. During the summers, the previous three summers, I worked at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, where the four Presidents faces are carved of course, and became friends with a lady there whose husband was out there painting a mural of a buffalo hunt. His name was David Miller. Her name was Jan Miller but she went by her name Jan Bame, and she said “What are you doing?” And I said “Well I’m waiting to be drafted.” She just happened to be the talent coordinator of a show at that time called ‘This is Your Life”, Ralph Edwards Show.
EC: Really?
DN: “Would you be interested in coming to Hollywood and working on the show?” I said “Are you kidding me? I’m going to be drafted” “Well we’ll find something for you to do.” Well, I’d never been west of where I was in South Dakota, which is pretty far west up there in the Black Hills. But me and my buddy took off. “You be here at a certain date.” Very irresponsible. We went to the Grand Canyon. We went to Las Vegas. We went here. We went there. And a week after I’m supposed to report, I get there and call her “I’m here!” “Where have you been?” I said, “Well, you know, I’d never been west and I just thought that I’d see a few things.” She apologized and she said “Well I’m sorry but I told you… we don’t have anything for you now.” I didn’t know what to do. So she made some phone calls and I ended up at NBC as a page.
A page being nothing more than an usher. I worked on all the big shows. I worked on… the Dinah Shore show. I worked on all the variety shows. Another Ralph Edwards show “Truth or Consequences”. I worked on “Queen for a Day”. And I became real close friends with Jim Neighbors. Jim and I lived in the same complex. I was with Jim the night that he was discovered in a place called the Horn in Santa Monica. We used to go over there and on Wednesday nights it would be amateur night where you could go and do your thing. A lot of Hollywood people hung out there. Jim used to go there and he was from Silicaga, Alabama.
He was one of the first to call me to congratulate me when I went into the Hall of Fame and we were talking about that particular night, and we would go there and he would sing like he was from Silicaga, Alabama and all of a sudden burst into this magnificent aria as you know he could. And Andy Griffith was there one night and asked him “Would you be interested in doing a one shot thing as a gas station attendant on my show?” Jim said “Are you kidding me?” And that’s the way it all started for him. That’s the way everything starts, you know. Luck, a little luck and I think that’s the way it was with me.
But I got drafted and after I was drafted I was sent right back to Los Angeles for, after my basic training at Fort Ord, for 6 weeks of what they called O.J.T. On the job training with the Armed Forced Radio and Television Service, then to New York the remainder of my military time and did nothing but sports for the military in New York for the final year and a half. And, quite frankly, the biggest break I’ve ever had in my life.
EC: So…of all the memorable moments during your years with the Mariners, what’s been the highest?
DN: Well probably, everybody asks me that question. And they think it’s probably Edgar Martinez’s double. And it’s certainly one of them.
EC: 95 yeah
DN: And they think its Randy Johnson’s no hitter… Chris Blaseo’s no-hitter and it’s certainly... those are a couple also. But I think just reintroducing Major League Baseball here in, I think it was April 11th, 1977. Kingdome had over 60,000 people there. Senator Henry Jackson “Scoop” Jackson was on the third baseline. Threw out the first pitch. And it was the rejuvenation of an area after a terrible experience that one year in 1969. When the Seattle Pilots were here. And the truck was headed north out of Spring Training to come back and play year 2, on April Fools Day, 1970, only to make a quick right turn and head for Milwaukee.
And in that, the Milwaukee Brewers. What a slap in the face for this area. And then Slade Gordon, who was the Attorney General of the State of Washington at that time, sued Major League Baseball and that’s the way this franchise was born. And to be able to be the man to reintroduce Major League Baseball to this area, opening night 1977, still my biggest thrill. We got shut out the first night. We got shut out the second night. Third night we finally won. I began to wonder… Frank Tanana shut us out the first night. Nolan Ryan, Ryan shut us out the second night... I said “Are we going to score a run this year?” Not only win a ball game. But we did and we were off and running. That was a thrill to me.
EC: I was there for the very first game. I can remember the starting pitcher. Diego Segii.
DN: That’s right. Who was the first batter? Jerry Remming. Strike one and then he ended up walking him.
EC: So do you remember a lot of these first pitches…
DN: Oh yeah I remember big moments… big moments, everybody remembers big moments in sports. But yeah, I’ll never forget that one.
EC: Let’s talk about the catch phrases because, my gosh, ‘My Oh My’…You have set a standard there. Where did ‘My Oh My’… where did… ‘Get out the Rye Bread Grandma and the Mustard, its Grand Salami Time’… I obviously can’t do it like you can.
DN: Well, you tell me where ‘My Oh My’ came from. I don’t know. When there’s nothing else to say, what do you say? ‘My Oh My’. I’ve just always said that. So I don’t have any idea where that came from. It was not manufactured. Obviously ‘Get out the Rye Bread and Mustard Grandma’ was. It was in 1995 when Tino Martinez seemed like he was hitting a grand slam home run at every other at bat, but he wasn’t. But… I’ve often called a grand slam... always called a grand slam home run a salami. And I went back to the hotel one time and went “Well what goes good with salami?” And I came up with rye bread and mustard and then I thought… When I was a little kid… and I never got my way, I could always go to my grandma’s house.
I wanted that extra piece of candy, and I’d go over there and then grandma would say “You mean they won’t give you another piece of candy? Here” And then she would hand it to me and I’ve never forgotten that. So that was kind of a salute to her. We were in, I believe, Detroit, and on television and Ron Ferly was with me on television and it was Tino Martinez who hit another grand slam home run. And I said “Get out the Rye Bread and Mustard, Grandma, its Grand Salami time! My oh my!” He looked at me like I had taken a step on the other side. And I looked at him... and I knew that I had taken a step on the other side. I got back here and the town went bananas about that phrase.
The Oh Boy Oberto people had salamis set up to the booth. At the King Dome, above me, there was of course the upper deck and people used to drop jars of mustard tied on ropes and twine and things down into the booth so I could make my own sandwiches. They would send sandwiches down. I still use that phrase. Always will use that phrase. So that’s the way that happened.
EC: ‘Fly away’.
DN: ‘Fly away’ was, a phrase that… probably I didn’t use the first year. Second year I think. I’ve often thought that baseball announcer’s signature is the way he calls a home run. There’s the generic call “Back to the warning track, back to the wall, it’s gone.” A lot of Major League announcers use that, but I wanted something different. And I was coming back from dinner one night up in the mountains in Spring Training, a place called Pinnacle Peak which is still there, and I heard this group singing this song and the refrain was “It will fly away.
It will fly away.” The gentleman I was with, I said “That’s exactly what a home run does when it is hit”. And I said “That sounds really good to me.” I didn’t know if I had the guts to use it the next day or not. Forget who we were playing but two or three Mariners hit home runs and I used that phrase and that also took off. And, I guess I’m the only guy that uses that too.
EC: Swung on and belted. Every time I hear you say that I’m wondering, how he knows that that’s really going to go out of the park.
DN: When I say that I do know that. I will say sometimes there’s a long drive to left, but that’s not ‘Swung on and belted’. When a ball is plastered, you know that that ball is gone. It’s ‘swung on and belted’ with little doubt about it. Those are the tape-measure jobs that, over which there is no doubt. That’s the way I’ve always said it. 95…1995 and the King Dome that year. I got to be a part of that kind of the rebirth of baseball here.
And I remember going with my nephew here and all the people around us, we were up in the rafters at the King Dome watching as they beat the Yankees and of course that tremendous play where Edgar hit that double… That seemed to be a time when Seattle saved baseball for itself but also it helped the whole atmosphere of baseball in the country at that time because it had come off a really bad time, a strike hadn’t it? That’s what I remember most because we went to spring training with what they called “replacement players”. Guys that were trying to make a major league roster because the other guys were on strike. And I’ll never forget, we went through a whole spring training. Lou Panella said “If you see me, this is the final game.”
I forget who we were playing… we were on the way to Florida to play the Toronto Blue Jays and their replacement players. But he said “If you see me walk down the right field line in the 6th or 7th inning, this strike is over.” Somebody’s told me… these guys are done. The other guys are coming in another couple of days. And I was up there and I saw Panella take off down the right field line and I said to myself, “This strike is over.” And it was. And we ended up playing 144 games instead of 162. Only we ended up playing 145 because we ended up tied with the Angels. And then the magic happened. After we beat the Angels, you just knew it was over because we went to New York and
I’ll never forget seeing Jimmy Layrich hit that home run about 1:15 in the morning with the rain coming down at Yankee stadium and we had a 3,000 mile flight home. Down two games. And to advance anymore you had to win 3 in a row. And that wasn’t going to happen. That just was not going to happen. But it did. Yes it did. That was the magic that captured the imagination here in Seattle. The Mariners could win the World Series, and they will one of these days. Believe me, I hope I’m here when they do it, but they will, I mean, one of these days… just remember that the Cubs are trying to do that for the first time in a hundred years.
EC: That’s right. And it’s Lou!
DN: But yeah, yeah. And it’s Lou. But… but remember that one of these days they will. I may not be here. You may not be here. But I’m gonna tell you something. It will not be as exciting as 1995. It will be much talked about. It will be nice to hang that pennant out that says “World Championship”, but nothing ever will take the place of 1995. 2001 tried to, 116 wins in 2001, but that really didn’t do it. What a tragedy that was. Not only because we didn’t advance any farther but of course for the nation on 9/11. That’s when time stopped for everybody. Certainly baseball stopped for a while and it ruined the whole year. It ruined everybody’s lives.
EC: You know, the one thing that I love to hear when I’m listening to you broadcast a game, and others like you, like Vince Skully and when Harry Carry was doing the games and all those things. You guys have this ability to create this picture and, on the radio, but also develop a story. And where does that come from?
DN: I don’t know. I guess it’s just natural. It’s just natural for me to try to tie a boy on a story or something like that. The beautiful thing about radio that television cannot capture is that you can use the English language in radio where on television you are a slave to what’s on the monitor, what’s in the producer and director’s mind, what’s on that box. That’s what they want to talk about. You can talk about anything you want on radio. Let your mind wander. And that’s when stories of old games, old time ball players come up.
You remember things and you try to remember things. Things that may be comparable to what’s happening at that particular time. And having done so much baseball, I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about when I go back to the 40’s or 50’s or whatever. And I read a lot about the game of baseball and… as I said when I was inducted in the Hall of Fame… I said, I’m going to be one of these guys that probably adds a little whip cream to the Sunday and maybe a maraschino cherry on top. I plead guilty to that. But there’s nothing wrong with…you know, if you’re accurate, if you’re having fun. If you’re emotional, if you show your love for the game, I’m happy I did it.
EC: You still love it?
DN: Oh my gosh yes. Heavens yes. I’ve never worked a day in my life. And here I am 73 years old and who knows how many games I’ve really done, counting exhibition games and all that. If I wasn’t here doing it, I’d be here anyway.
EC: And to come to the ballpark on a day like we have today.
DN: And this ballpark. And this ballpark. This ballpark is the best in baseball. I know the Yankees are opening up a new billion dollar ballpark. Everybody’s opening up new ballparks. But as I go, and I haven’t seen the one in Philadelphia. But as I’ve seen them all in the American league… as I go around… I just don’t see where anybody has anything up on Safeco Field in Seattle. And everybody who is on the other teams’ broadcasting… they’re always saying “I can’t wait to get back to your beautiful ballpark. I can’t wait to get back to your lovely city. How come we’re only making one trip into Seattle this year. instead of two?” Everybody loves to come to Seattle. I can’t say that about us going to other cities.
EC: So when you hear the train?
DN: Oh! Takes me back to my childhood. Listening to that radio. Listening to the train out on the plain. The steam engine… the whistle way out there. That reminds me of a lot of my childhood. I love the trains.
EC: And it’s really what it’s all about. It’s the naturalness of the game and the environment.
DN: Absolutely
EC: Well you know what, Dave Niehaus, you are a treasure for us and thank you so much for your time. And congratulations on your honor. No one deserves it more.
DN: Enrique, thank you so much for having me.
Comments
Posted by Mitch (not verified) on Tue, 09/29/2009 - 4:10am
I enjoy listening to Dave's home run call, "Get out the rye bread and the mustard this time Grandma. It's Grand Salami time"! I thought it might be interesting if Dave could have a home run call for the opposing team as well. Maybe it could go something like this: "...Swung on and belted...Deep...Get out the white bread and the mayonnnaise Grandpa. It's Grand Bologna time"!
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