Felo Ramírez, 1923-2017

Felo Ramírez and Jaime Jarrín at Marlins Park

There have been 3 voices of Spanish-language baseball in America: Eloy "Buck" Canel and Felo Ramírez on the East Coast, and Jaime Jarrín on the West Coast.

Canel died in 1980. Now, Jarrin is the only one left. And he is 81 years old.

Rafael Ramírez Arias was born on June 22, 1923 in Bayamo, Cuba -- not to be confused with Bayamón, Puerto Rico. He was known as El Orgullo de Bayamo, the Pride of his hometown.

He played 2nd base as a teenager, but admitted he wasn't good enough to play professionally. One day, using a friend's microphone and amplifier, he began describing the game as if he were a professional broadcaster.

"Calling baseball games was my passion since I was a child," he said in 2001. He began his career at Radio Salas in the Cuban capital of Havana in 1945. Even before the Castro revolution took over the island in 1959, he left to seek his fortune elsewhere in the Caribbean, in Puerto Rico and Venezuela. He maintained a home in the former to the end of his life, and remains enormously popular in the latter.

Raul Striker Jr., the Miami Marlins' Spanish TV play-by-play man, said, "You have broadcasters who are Cuban, and they have their Cuban following. And you have Puerto Ricans, who have their Puerto Rican followings. Felo's following was across all countries."

He called games for the 2 most popular teams in Puerto Rico, the Senadores de San Juan and the Cangrejeros de Santurce -- the Senators and the Crabbers, the latter of which produced Roberto Clemente.

The aforementioned Buck Canel was his idol, as pretty much the only man on the radio talking about the American major leagues in Spanish, including on the Spanish version of The Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, the English version of which ran on radio from 1942, and on television from 1946, both until 1960. Ramírez would eventually join Canel on the program.

He was the voice of the Caribbean World Series, and the Spanish voice to Spanish ears who wanted to listen to American baseball, including 32 World Series. His highlights include Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series, Clemente's 3,000th hit in 1972, and Hank Aaron's 715th home run in 1974.

Along the way, he made it a point to get to the ballpark 3 hours early, and talk to the players, to get a feel for what they were thinking and going through, so he could accurately represent them on the air.

"Felo gave me a great piece of advice at the beginning of my career, when we worked together in Venezuela," said Mike Flores, a journalist and a longtime friend. "He said, 'You will learn more if you arrive early to the games.'"

When the Florida Marlins were founded in 1991, and based in the metropolitan area of Miami, which is America's most familiar Spanish-speaking city (along with Los Angeles, and even more so than New York or any city in Texas), they marketed themselves to the area's huge Caribbean-descended population, and to the Caribbean itself.

Hiring Felo, even though he was approaching age 70, was a natural. And so, when they first took the field at what was then named Joe Robbie Stadium (last I checked, its current name was Hard Rock Stadium) in Miami Gardens on April 5, 1993, Felo Ramírez was the play-by-play voice on Radio Mambi, 710 on the AM dial.

In 1997, and again in 2003, he broadcast postseason runs for the team now known as the Miami Marlins, both of which ended with winning the World Series. While the endings were painful for fans of the Cleveland Indians and the Yankees, respectively, Felo finally got to call an American, rather than Caribbean, World Series win by a team he could call his own.

He never married or had children -- the life of a traveling baseball employee has been hard on many who have, and many families have broken up because it was handled poorly -- but he left a legacy for all radiodifusores to follow.

"He's a master at what he dies," said Luis "Yiky" Quintana, who spent 16 years as his last broadcast partner. "There's never been anybody in Spanish broadcasting who has called as many games as he has. He's dedicated his life to baseball. When the season ended here in the United States, he would go call games in Venezuela, Puerto Rico. He would call winter league games, even juvenile games. His life is baseball, and there isn't a broadcaster in Spanish radio today who isn't influenced by Felo."

In 2001, he followed Canel as only the 2nd Spanish-speaking, and only the 2nd Hispanic, broadcaster awarded the Ford Frick Award by the Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2012, when Marlins Park opened on the site of the Orange Bowl, the street to the north, NW 6th Street, was renamed Felo Ramirez Drive. In 2016, a ballfield at Tropical Park in Miami was named Rafael "Felo" Ramírez Field.

On a 2011 roadtrip to San Francisco, he called a group of sportswriters over to the broadcast booth. He had a blackboard with his name, and that of former San Francisco Giants' slugger Barry Bonds. On it, he had written, "Bonds 762 homers, Felo 0." Then he pointed to himself, and said, "Hall of Fame." Then he pointed to Bonds' name, and shrugged his shoulders. Bonds was not yet eligible. Through the elections of 2017, Bonds is still not in.

He announced last year that, like many aging broadcasters before him, he would cut back. But while most of those decided to do only home games, Felo wouldn't even limit himself to that: He said he would limit his travel to East Coast games, thus permitting himself to fly to the Caribbean.

"I think about it sometimes," he said of retirement, "but I adore what I do so much. It's really my life, not just a job."

But this past April 26, as he was getting off the team bus in Philadelphia, he fell, and hit his head on the ground. He was taken to a nearby hospital, and later transferred to one in nearby Wilmington, Delaware that specialized in head injuries. When it became clear that recovery was unlikely, he was released, and allowed to return home to Miami.

Felo Ramírez died on August 21, 2017, at his home in Miami, at age 94. Descansa en Paz.

UPDATE: His final resting place is not publicly known.