RIP Joe Nuxhall

[Jackdog]

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRy4Bp4S3m0WgXt7YPoU8HOJCrog

Thanks for the hours of great broadcasting.

Rounded third and made it home. RIP Joe.

[jim416]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

One of my favs from the era.

[Trevytrev11]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

Pitched in the majors at 15 years old.

[joshuar9476]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

what a great broadcaster a better individual.

[TheLetterZ]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

RIP to a great ambassador for baseball.

[SlimKibbles]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

We'll miss ya Ol' Left-hander. Those who haven't lived or aren't from Cincinnati probably don't know how much he was beloved in the community and by fans in the area. He was very popular. I'll never forget the sounds of him and Marty on the radio together all these years of my life, especially while growing up. I've missed it since he cut back on doing games. Marty & Joe were the best. Here's Doc's column today about him. RIP, Joe!

Doc: We've lost an icon
BY PAUL DAUGHERTY | ENQUIRER.COM

Joe Nuxhall was the only person we’ve ever known about whom a bad word was never spoken. If you can go through an entire life and leave that as your epitaph, you’ve led quite a life.

He died at 10:55 Thursday evening, at age 79. Earlier in the day, his son Kim reported that Joe’s spirits were good. Of course they were. When weren’t they?

Joe had bad days, mostly lately. You could see them in his face, but not in his demeanor. The bad days emerged in his voice, more faint with every broadcast, sounds getting deeper into the well. But not in his spirit. You could never tell a thing was wrong with Joe if his spirit were the gauge. Joe was one lucky guy. Luckiest of all, he recognized that, and never failed to spread the news.

We’ve lost someone essential to who we are around here. Joe Nuxhall represented what we like to think is the best of our nature: Friendly, approachable, loyal. If you need us, we’re there. We’re incapable of pretense. What better described Joe than that?

Here’s something else about us: Once we love you, we don’t leave. Joe never left. He never will.

Joe was summer. Joe was nights on the deck, a can of perspiring beverage in our hand. Joe was the big sky above, the mysterious sounds of the evening, what the composer Andrew Lloyd Weber calls “the music of the night.’’

Joe sounded like baseball: Lolling, drowsy, taking his own sweet time. We spend much effort running here and there, hoping at a dead run to wring meaning from our days. Joe taught us to slow down, put our feet up and listen to the ballgame. Baseball was not on the clock. Neither was Joe.

“You feel like you’re a fan, talking to a fan, so to speak,’’ Joe said to me back in 1999, when he was pondering whether to sign a new radio contract and it seemed he’d be here forever. Joe didn’t feel like a fan, talking to fan. He was a fan. There were Reds homeruns that only cleared walls because Joe’s exhortations blew them over.

Joe needed Marty Brennaman in the booth. But no more than Marty needed Joe. Theirs was a partnership as good as any marriage. Marty was the consummate pro, smart and prepared, authoritative, caustic when needed. Joe leavened him. Marty informed Joe. Joe smoothed Marty’s edge.

Joe called baseball the way roosters call the morning. Not always accurate, not always on time, but always in his own unique way. To Joe, baseballs flew into the gaps in right left-center. Close plays could take days for Joe to call. You could hear the crowd react in the background. You could get up, stretch your legs, grab a beer, call an old friend, write a letter, cut the grass, and Joe’d be there when you got back, making the call.

And he-e-e-e-‘s. . . out! No, safe! He’s safe!

Joe sometimes had a tough time pronouncing Latin names. Many years ago, one of the many Castillos that have populated baseball came to the plate. Joe called the guy Costello, among other things. Joe wasn’t perfect. Or maybe he was. Perfection belongs to the ear of the listener.

Joe liked Budweiser and golf in equal measure. Joe liked people. He was a lot like Arnold Palmer. Joe never forgot a face, and rarely a name. Joe once told me the most satisfaction he got from calling games was in knowing shut-ins were listening. “To do something for them is very special,’’ he said.

Did Joe ever say no? Joe was at your stag and your golf tournament and your fundraiser. Joe was at your civic club, your fire hall, your classroom. Joe was a fundamental stitch in the fabric of life around here.

Joe always said he wanted to travel. Joe wanted to see the Grand Canyon, a spot he’d flown over thousands of times. Joe hated the travel, the 4 a.m. wakeup calls, the four white walls of yet another Westin or Hyatt. “Yosemite,’’ he told me once. “I’d like to go there."

I don’t know that he ever made it to Yosemite. He got to Europe, though, and to all those ballparks. Nobody ever loved baseball more.

He’s gone, but he’s not. The radio belongs to someone else now. But the memories do not. Joe moves along the river of time. He’ll be missed, terribly, but if you look hard enough next summer, if you gaze deeply into the evening when the Reds are on the radio, you’ll hear the music of the night. It’ll be Joe, home.

[Motown]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

I'll never forget Joe Nuxall...
RIP "Lefty"

[Jackdog]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

We'll miss ya Ol' Left-hander. Those who haven't lived or aren't from Cincinnati probably don't know how much he was beloved in the community and by fans in the area. He was very popular. I'll never forget the sounds of him and Marty on the radio together all these years of my life, especially while growing up. I've missed it since he cut back on doing games. Marty & Joe were the best. Here's Doc's column today about him. RIP, Joe!

Thanks for posting the column.

[nyisles16]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

RIP.. sad to see the old radio legends go.. lost my favorite a few years back (Bob Murphy)... man, i still can't believe he was 15 when he made it in the Show.. too bad I never caught him on the radio - shame too..

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

Years back, when finding a ballgame over the internet was a new concept, I would listen to Reds games just to hear Marty and Joe call a game. I didn't even like the Reds, but heard them while visiting a friend up in that area once and fell in love with the way they called a game.

RIP, Joe. You will be missed.

[Tribe1]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

RIP, Joe.

Even when the Reds were on tv, I'd turn the volume down and turn the radio on just to here Marty & Joe call the game.

[SPTO]

Re: RIP Joe Nuxhall

RIP

Seems most of the great voices of baseball are dying out. I don't know too much about his broadcasting work but when I had the MLB internet package for a while I saw a Reds game from the late 70s and they only had the radio audio so I was able to hear Marty and Joe.

What a duo!