Voice of the Blue Jays

In their 29-year history, the Toronto Blue Jays have seen players come and go, managers hired and fired, uniforms changed to match baseball’s fashion trends and their original stadium abandoned and eventually torn down. They have gone from the last-place struggles of an expansion team to the glory days of 1985-93 — in which they won more games than any other team and capped their run with back-to-back World Series titles — and then back to the doldrums again. But from the first pitch thrown on April 7, 1977, into the 2004 season, there was one constant: the voice of Tom Cheek.

Had he called the games of a more storied franchise — say, the Yankees, Cubs, Red Sox or Dodgers — Mr. Cheek’s career would have been the stuff of legend, and he assuredly would have been granted the place in the Hall of Fame that he was denied after being nominated earlier this year. In an unprecedented streak beginning with the Jays’ very first contest, he called 4,306 consecutive games on the radio before finally taking time off when his father died early last year.

But it was the quality as much as the quantity of Mr. Cheek’s broadcasts that earned him a place in fans’ hearts. With a booming voice and an easy manner that perfectly befitted baseball’s relaxed pace, he provided the perfect soundtrack for lazy summer afternoons. And when the time came to raise the excitement level, he would have just the right words for the moments the Jays made baseball history — not just his famous “ Touch ’em all, Joe” call of the 1993 World Series-winning home run, but hundreds of other times along

the way.

As important as his

knowledge of the game

was the warmth that Mr.

Cheek brought to every

broadcast — and, by all accounts, to his dealings

with friends, family and

fans. In an era in which

sports personalities have

tended to do more to

alienate the public than to

win it over, his old-fashioned charm and fundamental decency made him a perfect ambassador for the game.

Mr. Cheek may not have become a household name across the baseball universe. But the wave of heartfelt tributes in the wake of his death this past weekend following a lengthy battle with brain cancer were a reminder of just how many lives the unassuming Floridian touched in his adopted country.