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Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Dave van Horne: the voice of my childhood
Dave van Horne was the play-by-play guy for the Expos. He’s now in the Hall of Fame:
That weekend, my buddies and I had made the long drive to see the Expos play the Reds at Riverfront Stadium. Just out of college, we were prolific drinkers and shit disturbers, bereft of any social skills. The first night there, we find out where the Expos were staying. Emboldened by more than a few beers, we sauntered into the hotel lobby, and found half the team throwing down cold ones. Only we didn’t go up to any of the players. Our natural instincts pulled us over to Dave Van Horne, engaged in a friendly conversation with Expos pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. Here were six 21-year-old lunatics from Montreal, drunk and uninvited, about to interrupt his conversation. He could have blown us off. He should have blown us off. Instead…
Me: “Ummm…uhhh….(burp)…HI! We’re ummm…from Montreal, and we drove down here to see the Expos. We ummm…we’re big fans!”
Dave: “Gentlemen, so happy to see you here!”
We all introduced ourselves. After politely excusing himself from his chat with Kerrigan, Dave spent a good 10 minutes asking us how our trip was going (we’d been to other games in other cities before going to Cincy), which players were our favorites, and more. We asked him what he thought of the team’s chances that year (Dave thought the Spos had a great chance – three months later he’d be vindicated, as the post-fire sale Expos went down to the final weekend of the season before narrowly missing the playoffs).
We were nobodies. Worse than nobodies. Drunk, rude, irritating kids, the kind of people that anyone else would have brushed off.
Not Dave. Not the voice of my childhood. Not one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. Not one of the most deserving inductees the Hall of Fame has ever invited in.
Congratulations, Dave. We salute you.
***
The other voice was Ted Tevan, sports radio host. He took my call once when I was a kid. Talked about Tim Raines. He insisted on keeping me on the air. As a kid, it felt great.
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