Ken Levine To Replace The Late Dave Niehaus In Mariners Booth?

[DToTheJ]

The Seattle Mariners have announced that, rather than name one person to replace the late and legendary Dave Niehaus, they will utilize a rotation of "at least five announcers with prior experience in the booth on a rotating basis to work primarily with Rick Rizzs on radio broadcasts for the upcoming season." And one of them could be Niehaus' former booth partner, Ken Levine, who currently hosts a Dodgers postgame show on KABC in Los Angeles:
http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-thoughts/post/_/id/10341/niehaus

Flashback: Read Ken's farewell to Dave on his blog:
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/11/dave-niehaus-1935-2010.html

 

[searadiofreak]

The Seattle Mariners have announced that, rather than name one person to replace the late and legendary Dave Niehaus, they will utilize a rotation of "at least five announcers with prior experience in the booth on a rotating basis to work primarily with Rick Rizzs on radio broadcasts for the upcoming season." And one of them could be Niehaus' former booth partner, Ken Levine, who currently hosts a Dodgers postgame show on KABC in Los Angeles:
http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-thoughts/post/_/id/10341/niehaus

Flashback: Read Ken's farewell to Dave on his blog:
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/11/dave-niehaus-1935-2010.html

DtotheJ: I enjoy your posts, but this subject headline is deceiving. The M's are indeed replacing Niehaus with a number of announcers, not Levine alone. This move, as speculated by many, is the exact right move, as anyone who is individually tagged as Dave's replacement will fail. I also find it interesting that Ken Wilson, who was one of the M's original announcers with Dave (1977), will return after many years outside the market.

 

[SRP]

This thread is a perfect example of what happens when out of towners try to act like they know what's going on in a city by reading a few stories online.

You're messing with a dangerous topic here, OP. There's a lot of raw emotion over Dave's passing that has yet to be settled.

 

[searadiofreak]

I won't be quite as harsh as the last poster, but I do think SRP brings up an important point. There is a tremendous passion about Dave's passing. Why? Because he was the soundtrack of a major sports franchise that came into Seattle when the city needed one. Thus, he became the soundtrack of the city. These audio connections were and are important, regardless if it is Ernie Harwell, Harry Carey, or Vin Skully. All which could be compared to Niehaus in what they brought to the listeners.

 

[Randy Roadz]

The Seattle Mariners have announced that, rather than name one person to replace the late and legendary Dave Niehaus, they will utilize a rotation of "at least five announcers with prior experience in the booth on a rotating basis to work primarily with Rick Rizzs on radio broadcasts for the upcoming season." And one of them could be Niehaus' former booth partner, Ken Levine, who currently hosts a Dodgers postgame show on KABC in Los Angeles:
http://espn.go.com/blog/los-angeles/dodger-thoughts/post/_/id/10341/niehaus

Flashback: Read Ken's farewell to Dave on his blog:
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/2010/11/dave-niehaus-1935-2010.html

As announced to Mariners affiliate stations last week.

RR

 

[SRP]

I won't be quite as harsh as the last poster, but I do think SRP brings up an important point. There is a tremendous passion about Dave's passing. Why? Because he was the soundtrack of a major sports franchise that came into Seattle when the city needed one. Thus, he became the soundtrack of the city. These audio connections were and are important, regardless if it is Ernie Harwell, Harry Carey, or Vin Skully. All which could be compared to Niehaus in what they brought to the listeners.

My post wasn't meant to be harsh nor should it be taken as such.

I guess what first set me off was seeing "Dave Neihaus" and "Cockroach" on the same page. Those are words that should NEVER be together, intentionally or not.

Secondly, people that think they know it all after reading a couple of stories is a pet peeve of mine. The Internet can't transmit what it felt like last November when we got the shocking news of Dave's passing. That's why the word "dangerous" appeared in my post.

Now - to steer this back on topic - I heard Tom Tangney filling in for Burbank today with Dave Ross. Tangney thinks the Mariners decision was a "cop-out" so they didn't have to hire someone to succeed Dave. And he thinks that when the M's DO hire Dave's replacement it will be a younger announcer - someone who (hopefully) stick around a couple of decades or more.

I totally disagree with the first point - it was smart for the M's to give it some time before bringing in a new voice. But Tom's right on with the other point - and the new guy will probably end up getting top billing, bumping Rizzs back to "second banana".