CLEVELAND, Ohio – Well, he did it.
That was my first thought after receiving the call that veteran Cavs host Joe Tait died at 4:10 pm on Wednesday night. He was 83 years old and suffered from kidney failure, cancer and blood clots in his leg.
Agreements are pending.
Joe and I had been close friends since 1980, the kind of friends who could say almost anything to each other. We were working on a story published in Sunday’s Plain Dealer. The main photo was of Joe holding Penelope, his cat.
“I’m not doing very well,” Joe told me in the middle of last week.
“Well, you can’t die until Monday,” I said.
“Because?” he asked.
“Because Penelope The Cat published a photo of her in the Sunday paper,” I said.
“I’ll see what I can do,” said Joe, then let out one of his laughs.
I later learned that he said to some friends, “Terry said I can’t die until Monday.”
JOE’S LATEST STORIES
I took many copies of Penelope’s story and photo to her home on Sunday. We talked for about an hour, plus memories of deceased friends like Pete Franklin, Les Levine and Nev Chandler.
Joe told me the story of being in a motel room in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Cavs was playing an exhibition game there against the old Cincinnati Royals. That’s when pre-season games can end up being played almost anywhere.
“It was the middle of the night,” said Joe. “I heard something in my room. I got up. I saw someone very close to the bed, looking at me. I jumped out of bed, ready to fight … and hit my head in the mirror. “
He laughed.
“I saw myself and I was scared,” he said. “I hit my head. Blood was everywhere. I patch myself up. When I got on the bus, (Cavs coach) Bill Fitch looked at me and my head and said, ‘I don’t even want to know how it happened!’ “
Then another story came, this time about his son, Joey.
“You remember how Joey knew how to draw,” said Joe. “He was not a big fan of basketball. He sometimes sat next to me in the press queue during games. I would be broadcasting, he would be drawing something. “
I remember Joey doing this. As a child, he was fascinated by World War II and often designed tanks and other military equipment.
(NBA official) Darell Garretson was working on the game. He came over to the marker table, looked down and noticed that Joey was drawing something. Then there was a break, Darell came back … he looked at Joey’s things for a moment … and said, ‘Hey, that kid is really good!’ “
Cavs host Joe Tait has called up NBA games for 41 years, 39 with Cavs. David I. Andersen, The Plain Dealer
LOVE OF TRAINS
As usual, Joe had his train videos on the big screen while we talked on Sunday afternoon. He was cutting out the Sunday Plain Dealer story when I arrived.
“That was hard to explain in print,” I said, pointing to the videos of the trains.
He looked at me.
“Joe, it’s just trains passing by, no drama,” I said. “It’s boring.”
Another laugh. Then we talked about a trip to Astoria, Oregon. When I covered the Cavs for the Akron Beacon Journal, Joe and I often took extra trips on our days off.
“Remember when we were having lunch at that little cafe on Main Street,” said Joe. “I heard a train coming. I got up and ran out the door. The waitress came to you and asked if there was something wrong. “
“Okay,” I said. “I told her not to worry, he does it all the time when he hears a train coming.”
Joe’s daughter Karen told me how she started to like the train videos.
“They are comforting,” she said.
Joe was the only person I met who drove to a train crossing in hopes of being stopped by a train. There were times when he stopped at the shoulder and waited for the train to arrive because he had a timetable and another was about to arrive.
Joe Tait, nearing the end of his 39th season as a game-by-game host for the Cavaliers, was honored with his own flag on April 8, 2011, at the then Quicken Loans Arena. It is next to the number of retired Cavaliers players.Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer
THE VOICE OF THE GAME
Joe never knew where phrases like “Wham with the right hand” or “The Cavs are going from right to left on their radio dial” came from.
He said the Richfield Miracle season (1975-76) cemented his place as an announcer in Cleveland.
“It was a lot of fun, the games were so played,” he said. “After all the bad seasons, we finally had something to look forward to.”
It seemed like Joe was screaming almost every night. It reflected the heart of the team and the fans in that remarkable year. But we didn’t talk much about basketball on Sunday. Joe didn’t mind being in any broadcast hall of fame, and he’s in almost all of them.
He dropped out in 2011. At that time, he had recovered from major cardiac surgery. His wife, Jean, was beginning to suffer from Alzheimer’s.
“I still love making games,” he told me. “But everything else around you, you can keep it.”
The NBA had become too bright, too much money. He felt most at home in the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s, when he fought for survival and attention.
Joe also didn’t want to “wait too long. I’ve heard other broadcasters embarrass themselves. Thirty-nine years (in the NBA) was enough. “
THE LAST VISIT
My wife, Roberta, and I visited Joe on Monday. It was shocking to see what happened in 24 hours. He was retaining a lot of water because of kidney failure. But instead of talking, as he did on Sunday, he was unable to speak. He would hold your hand. He smiled.
It was clear that he was escaping.
Joe calls himself “agnostic”. He joked with people about, “Terry came and prayed for me.”
Roberta and I did it again on Monday. My wife sang a song called “Espírito Santo come.” Joe loved his voice. I prayed for him, holding his hand, speaking softly about God’s forgiveness and how peace could soon come to him.
“Joe,” I said. “God loves you, whether you like it or not.”
He seemed to be squeezing my hand a little harder. I swear, he smiled. Or maybe I wanted to see that.
But I know, Joe really, rest in peace. His friend Paula Ross, who helped care for him in the fourth quarter of his life, told me that Wednesday when he called with the news.
“He died peacefully,” she said. “I was so happy about it.”
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