Thanks for Tait

This column was first published on LandLoyalty.com on April 13, 2011.

Before I joined the staff of LandLoyalty, the site named Tait as the most loyal person in Cleveland sports. They couldn’t have picked anyone better, and it’s sad to think that tonight will be the last time his raspy pipes will bring us basketball from Quicken Loans Arena.

It was 35 years ago today that the Cleveland Cavaliers played in their first playoff game, and think of all that has changed since then. From Richfield to Cleveland, from Nick Mileti to Ted Stepien, through Gordon Gund and Dan Gilbert. From Austin Carr playing in that playoff game to calling tonight’s game alongside Fred McLoed on FoxSports Ohio. The arenas and the colors and the personnel have all – understandably - changed. It has been 35 years.

But not radio play-by-play man Joe Tait.

He was there in 1976 (having started in 1970) and he’ll be there tonight when the Cavs conclude the 2010-11 season. Just think of the run he’s had. Mix in the run he had with the Indians long before my time, and he really is the voice of Cleveland athletics.

Sports are about wins and losses, sure, and Tait saw lots of losses. (Think of all the bad basketball that man had to sit through?) But they are, at the same time, so much more. Play-by-play men play a part in that as all of us have a “remember when” story, recalling a time we just couldn’t be in front of a television and had to dial in to a game on the radio.

I remember frantically hopping from graduation party to graduation party in the summer of 2007 and listening to bits and pieces of game six of the Eastern Conference Finals on WTAM. The enthusiasm in Tait’s voice as Boobie Gibson drained “three-ball” after “three-ball” told listeners it was time to start preparing for the reality that the Cavaliers were heading to the NBA Finals.

People my age remember Jim Donovan yelling “RUN WILLIAM, RUN!” as the rookie from Boston College broke the big one to get the Browns into the playoffs after the 2002-03 season. We remember Rafael Betancourt striking out Mark Ellis in 2007 and Indians play-by-play man Tom Hamilton ensuring fans they would have an October to remember. Calls stick with us forever, and they trigger memories.

Tait presided over 38 years worth of memories, and had few witty one-liners of certain calls that stick with us. It doesn’t come up a lot in basketball. I’m not saying the other play-by-play men in town do, but Tait never made the game about him. He told us when it was “basketball time at the Q,” he told us what happened during the game, and then he wished everyone a good night.

Now we wish him a good bye, and good health. It’s been a real privilege to listen to him call games, and something sports fans take for granted.

It will still sound nice when the good guys hit a “three-ball.” But it will sound so, so different.