Joe Nuxhall

He was the only person I've ever known about whom a bad word was never spoken. If you can live your entire life and have that be your epitaph, you've led quite a life. We've lost someone essential to who we are around here, someone who represented what we like to think is our finest nature. We're friendly, if guarded if we don't know you. We're approachable. If you need us, we're there.

Mostly, we're regular. We're incapable of pretense. Who you see is who you get and once we love you, we don't leave. Joe never left. He never will, of course.

On the radio, where most of us knew him, Joe was summer. He sounded like baseball: Lolling, drowsy, taking his own sweet time. Balls went to right-left-center. Latin names could be mangled. Calls on close plays could take days and really, so what? You didn't listen to Joe for perfection. Or, maybe you did. Perfection assumes different forms.

The best ambassador we've ever known has passed. He'll be missed.