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I don't know if people who don't have such an irrational attachment to a passtime can understand how that part of someone's life can come to mean so much more than entertainment.  I hear people constantly telling me baseball is only a game.  Logically, I know that it means less on the grand stage than many other things, but this thing to which I devote such passion and attention every day is not just a game to me.  This is a piece of my soul...a reason for my heart to go on beating.  I don't know why, really, but if I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with Dave Niehaus.
I watch the games these days, because I love the team too much to bare not seeing the events unfold, but before there was MLB.TV for me, there was Dave Niehaus over radio.  My 56k modem sometimes couldn't handle the strain of streaming that audio to me from thousands of miles outside of his listening area, but I kept trying to bring that signal back.  You see, on some important level, I handle the unpredictability and hardships of this life by building routines.  Dave Niehaus was one of those routines.  He was like a crazy uncle telling perfectly crafted stories by my bedside during night games.  He was the reason I loved the Mariners before they had a date with destiny in '95.  And now he's gone.  A piece of my soul goes with him.
I never knew the man personally, but he left all of who he was on the field like the greatest of players.  I believe the man he truly was suffused his every turning of phrase - fly fly away, rye bread and mustard, and all.  In that sense, I feel I did know him like I would know my own family, and there isn't anything anyone can say to me tonight that will take away this pain.  The games will never be the same...a piece of my world is gone forever.
God rest his beautiful soul and may the Mariners win it all someday while he screams from above with the same joy that once poured from his heart as the perfect line drive sailed into history from Edgar's mighty bat.