Jim Weber, the play-by-play announcer for more than 6,000 consecutive Toledo Mud Hens games in a career spanning 50 years, has died, the team announced Friday.
“Jim Weber will forever be synonymous with Toledo Mud Hens baseball,” Mud Hens VP and GM Erik Ibsen said in a statement . “He was a complete icon, a legend in his field and a good friend. He will be deeply missed by all who knew him and had the pleasure of listening to him call games for nearly 50 years.”
Weber got his start with the Triple-A team, a longtime Detroit Tigers affiliate, on April 12, 1975. He became a jack-of-all-trades with the organization, with his duties including coordinating the team’s travel. In the booth, he became beloved for his storytelling, playful personality and sense of humor. All that developed as part of a coping mechanism to get him through the team’s struggles back in the day.
“If things aren’t going well, I’ll start some kind of crap, you know. Get everybody laughing,” Weber told MILB.com in 2018. “People want to know how I can go through so many bad years. I mean, at one point there were, like, 15 or 20 in a row when we didn’t win anything. Eh, we still have fun. You find the good stuff and there’s always stories. … I’m just trying to keep it interesting. Find the humor and have fun with it.”
Fans and colleagues paid tribute to the “Voice of the Mud Hens” on social media.
[ Toledo Mud Hens ]
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