I've thought about longtime M's announcer Dave Niehaus, and the conclusion I come to is, he's probably a kid that never grew up, along with manic-depressive tendencies...his grand-slam home run calls are truly things of beauty..."get out the rye bread and mustard, grandma; it's GRAND SALOME TIME!"...yet, when the Mariners fall short, Niehaus' voice is laced with disgust and disappointment; yet he can turn around and rejoice soundly whenever the M's do something right. A quality that Niehaus demonstrates is to bring the listener INTO the game; Niehaus lets the pace of the game dictate how much he says; oftentimes there are silent periods of 20 to 30 seconds where Niehaus won't say anything, letting the crowd noise and general ambience of the game come through. Rick Rizzs, on the other hand, fills you up between plays with non-stop game details, history of baseball details and all kinds of baseball-related verbage, and sometimes I have screamed during a game, "RIZZS, SHUT UP, FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!!!" For the rest of the post by CDADave/Thin Air, click here.

BTW, according to CDADave's "Bush Term Ends" clock, the Bush administration has 838 days, 16 hours, 27 minutes, and 25 seconds left here.

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