Why broadcaster Jerry Howarth is definitely a Blue Jays legend
“He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.”
It’s the first line of Don DeLillo’s Underworld — kicking off a novella-length prologue that in itself must be one of the best baseball stories ever written. But it comes to mind sometimes when I think of the Toronto Blue Jays broadcaster Jerry Howarth, who announced this week he was retiring after 36 years of calling the team’s games on radio.
He was American, from Pennsylvania by way of California, Washington and Utah, but once he got to Toronto, he seemed to speak in our voice — and managed to shine something halfway hopeful into us.
Howarth has always had that reedy, nasal voice that for generations defined Canadian sports announcers: Foster Hewitt, Dick Irvin, Howie Meeker and Bob Cole on Hockey Night in Canada; Paul Morris on the Maple Leaf Gardens PA system; Joe Bowen on Leafs radio; Dave van Horne of Montreal Expos broadcasts.
You can hear some of the same quality in the calls of legendary Dodgers sportscaster Vin Scully, though in my lifetime American sports generally always seems to be narrated in thunderous baritones and southern drawls — the movie voiceover sound of masculine authority. In Canada, until recently we seemed to hear our narratives from the voice of the guy on the next bar stool at the legion hall — pitchy, excitable, human voices. He speaks in your voice.
It’s the voice of childhood nights in my grandmother’s living room, where a family friend we knew as “Aunt” Peg sat chewing on fat cigars and listening to games on a portable transistor radio through an earpiece — one she would turn toward me as we crowded together on the couch, cheeks pressed side by side, so we could listen to the full-count call while she blew smoke rings and the picture of a game hovered amid them in my imagination.
It’s the voice you would hear when you put the game on the tube and then muted the TV volume so you could crank up the radio to tell you what you were seeing. The voice in the car giving you something to focus on during a long highway drive.
It’s the voice that comes from Exhibition Stadium, or SkyDome, or Rogers Centre, from New York or Anaheim or Arlington or Atlanta, live to your ears, bringing you there to see and feel and live the games.
It’s the voice of lazy summer afternoons near the lake on the deck of my grandfather’s trailer, frogs hopping by, through the reeds, and some boat motor roaring off in the distance. “Yessir, it’s time for Blue Jays baseball here,” Howarth would say as someone cracked open a beer and you swatted away mosquitoes. And then Tom Cheek and Jerry would take you away and bring you the exploits of George Bell, Dave Steib, Tom Henke, Roberto Alomar, Devon White and Kelly Gruber. And Joe Carter. Of course. “Touch ’em all Joe. You’ll never hit a bigger home run in your life” — that was Tom’s voice, not Jerry’s, that made that most famous Blue Jays call of all in 1993. But Howarth called Dave Winfield’s eleventh-inning double that put the Blue Jays ahead for good in their first World Series-winning game a year earlier. Tom and Jerry were there together. Sometimes it seemed they’d been there together forever.
It wasn’t forever — it wasn’t even since the beginning of the Blue Jays, really. Cheek had been there with Early Wynn for the first four sea- sons, until Howarth joined him in 1981. And Howarth carried on without him after Cheek died in 2005. Still, close enough to forever for many fans’ purposes.
Those voices, our voices in the summer, they were the voices of every Blue Jays moment you might wish to recall.
“Shot to right-centre, hit deep. Long run for Bush, back he goes, he looks at the wall — YES SIR! There she goes! A two-run home run for George Bell!”
“Swing and a miss, he StruckHimOut. Great job by Stieb, that’s four strikeouts.”
“That’s heading for Windows restaurant, and — yes sir! Let’s admire that one! Four home runs for Carlos Delgado!”
Through good teams and bad teams, Howarth has been there telling us what to admire, describing the precise placement of balls that hit batters, narrating the details of convoluted running plays and passed balls and bizarre umpire calls. And in what may be the second most famous moment in Blue Jays history — certainly the proudest recent one — he was there, too: “They’re on their feet here, nearly 50,000 strong. One-and-one to Jose, all eyes on the mound and the bearded Sam Dyson. Now he comes set. Kicks. The one-one pitch, fly ball deep left field — YES! SIR! There! She! Goes! Blue Jays six, Rangers three.” A bat was flipped. The roar of those 50,000 fans took over. Local sports legend was written. The first draft was a story Jerry Howarth told us as it happened.
After 36 years in the booth, thou- sands and thousands of games, more than a decade after losing Cheek, Howarth is forced to retire due to “health and stamina and continuing voice issues.” A sad day, not least for those of us whose “voice issue” now is that, when it comes to baseball, we seem to have lost ours. Someone will follow Howarth in the booth, of course. But they cannot replace him, of course.
Yes sir, there he goes. Thirty-six years in a career, a lifetime of baseball memories. Let’s admire that one. Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca. Follow: @thekeenanwire
Through good teams and bad teams, Howarth has been there telling us what to admire