David Arnold Niehaus (February 19, 1935 – November 10, 2010) was an American sportscaster. He was the lead play-by-play announcer for the American League's Seattle Mariners from their inaugural season in until his death after the 2010 season. In 2008, the National Baseball Hall of Fame awarded Niehaus the Ford C. Frick Award, the highest honor for American baseball broadcasters. Among fans nationwide and his peers, Niehaus was considered to be one of the finest sportscasters in history. Biography Early life and career Niehaus was born and raised in Princeton, Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University in 1957, entered the military, and began his broadcasting career with Armed Forces Radio. He became a partner of Dick Enberg on the broadcast team of the California Angels in 1969. Niehaus also broadcast for the Los Angeles Rams of the NFL and the UCLA Bruins football and basketball teams during this period. Seattle Mariners In 1977, Danny Kaye, part-owner of the Seattle Mariners expansion team, recruited Niehaus to become the franchise's radio voice. Despite working for a franchise which from its first year in 1977 until 1991 was without a winning season, Niehaus's talent gained recognition, and he was considered one of the few attractions for Mariners fans. Even in the period before the team's memorable 1995 season, the Mariners were regularly one of the leading major-league teams in terms of the percentage of radios in use. Niehaus became immensely popular in Seattle, twice being named Washington Sportscaster of the Year. The team chose him to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the opening of its new ballpark, Safeco Field, on July 15, 1999. That same year, Niehaus was added to the Nintendo 64 game Ken Griffey, Jr.'s Slugfest as an announcer during gameplay. In 2000 he was the second person to be inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame, and in he was named the winner of the Ford C. Frick Award, which recognizes career excellence in baseball broadcasting and is considered the highest baseball broadcasting honor. As of the end of the 2007 season, Niehaus had called 4,817 of the 4,899 games the Mariners had played since their inception. May 7, 2009, was Niehaus' 5,000th game as a Mariners broadcaster. Niehaus broadcast 5,284 of the 5,385 Mariners games which had taken place as of the end of the 2010 season, and had intended to broadcast the full 2011 season. Notable