50 years, by George!
Pistons announcer George Blaha is 80 but hanging up the microphone doesn't seem to be in his near future.
The voice isn’t quite as strong. The energy is a little lower.
But George Blaha is still calling Pistons games. This marks his 50th season.
I started listening to the Pistons in earnest on the radio in the mid-1970s. Right about the time Blaha, 80, took the microphone and never gave it back.
Those were the Cobo Arena days, when Bob Lanier was the center, Marvin Barnes was delivering “bad news” to coach Herbie Brown and Kevin Porter was scowling.
I was in the 8th grade. The 1976-77 season—Blaha’s first with the Pistons—wasn’t my first NBA go-round, but it was the first time that I tuned in on the radio on a consistent basis.
Mark “Doc” Andrews was the PA announcer at Cobo. The games were broadcast on WJR radio, and on TV occasionally on WKBD (ch. 50).
It was a grand time.
When I started listening in ‘76, I was 2 years removed from my first (and to that point, only) live Pistons game that I attended—a February 1974 tilt against the Phoenix Suns. So I had a visual in my head of what the arena looked like inside, which helped greatly as I heard Blaha call the games.
Fifty years is not a short amount of time to broadcast a team’s games.
Gerald Ford was president when Blaha made his Pistons debut in Kansas City on my mom’s 37th birthday (Oct. 22, 1976).
If you’re not counting, that was 9 presidents ago.
Mark “The Bird” Fidrych had just beguiled the baseball world the previous summer.
The country was celebrating its bicentennial.
The Lions were coached by Rick Forzano.
Mickey Redmond was 28 years old and trying to overcome a back injury with the Red Wings.
It was a long time ago.
But unlike bell bottoms, disco music, pet rocks and mood rings, George Blaha never went out of style.
Most legendary announcers have a style that is unique to them, regardless of sport.
“Five and twenty-five left in the third quarter.”
“Count that baby and a foul!”
“In and out and back in again!”
“Cade brings it over the time line.”
That’s another Blaha hallmark: calling Pistons players by their first names as he describes their actions on the court.
Duncan Robinson, nee of the Miami Heat, will no longer be “Robinson” this season. He’s “Duncan.” Because now he’s a Piston.
Lanier was “Bob-a-Dob,” or simply “The Dobber.”
Kevin Porter was “KP.”
Richard Hamilton was “Rip.”
Isiah Thomas was, of course, “Isiah.”
John Long’s outside shot was the “rock set.”
Any three-point shot is a “long gun.”
A layup is a “bunny.”
And the nicknames.
Worm. Buddha. Big Ben. Spider.
Fifty years of broadcasting on the “Pistons radio (then television) network”!
Blaha has been around so long that his broadcast partners read like a Who’s Who of basketball.
Gus Ganakas
Hubie Brown
Mike Fratello
Dick Motta
David Bing
John Mengelt
Kelly Tripucka
Bill Laimbeer
Ricky Mahorn
Vinnie Johnson
Kevin Loughery
and of course, “Special K”—Gregory Kelser.
I’m sure I missed some.
Blaha has broadcast through the thick, thin, thick, thin, thick, thin and thick of Pistons basketball. Again, I probably missed some “thicks” and “thins.”
There have been 3 championships, countless playoff games and also the ignominy of 16-66 (1980) and 14-68 (2024).
The coaches have been Herbie Brown; Bob Kauffman; Dickie Vitale; Richie Adubato; Scotty Robertson; Chuck Daly; Ron Rothstein; Don Chaney; Doug Collins; Alvin Gentry; George Irvine; Rick Carlisle; Larry Brown; Flip Saunders; Michael Curry; John Kuester; Lawrence Frank; Mo Cheeks; John Loyer; Stan Van Gundy; Dwane Casey; Monty Williams; and JB Bickerstaff.
That’s 23 coaches.
There was no 3-point shot when Blaha started calling Pistons games; that didn’t get introduced until his fourth season. When he started, the NBA-ABA merger was still fresh.
I don’t endeavor to run through George’s biography. You can do that HERE.
But I do want to point out that after some 4,000 regular season games and hundreds of playoff matches, George Blaha hasn’t gone out of style.
He’s not too “old school.” His style isn’t a bygone one. The game hasn’t passed him by.
If anything, I’ve noticed that in his later years, Blaha has become more crotchety with the refs and with opposing players he feels are showboats or disrespecting the Pistons.
The late Free Press columnist George Puscas used to maintain that iconic Red Wings announcer Bruce Martyn was the best football play-by-play guy he’d ever heard. Bruce did lots of college football in the 1960s.
Lest we not forget that Blaha has the gridiron covered too; he’s still the Spartans football radio guy—something he’s done since 1971.
That’s a lot of hectic weekends.
When someone of Blaha’s longevity and status (he’s in the Naismith Hall of Fame) starts to hit milestones like 50 years, it’s natural to wonder how much longer they can continue. Usually, the answer is “As long as they’ll have me.”
For Blaha, it’s this.
“Why would you want to stop working?” he told the Free Press last April.
Count that baby!