The legendary Cuban radio broadcaster Rafael “Felo” Ramírez, the voice he identified for the Miami Marlins team, died this past Monday at the age of 94 after suffering a fall in April, the club said. Baseball (MLB, for its acronym in English).
The Marlins’ team “is saddened by the death of a great friend,” a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame and “community icon, Felo Ramirez,” said the franchise in a message of condolence.
“Felo,” since the Marlins’ inaugural season, “told virtually every magical moment in the franchise to generations of fans,” he added.
“Farewell to our kind friend,” the team said in his Twitter account in Spanish in which he gave the “thank you” to the announcer.
Last year, Miami’s Tropical Park baseball field number three was renamed Rafael “Felo” Ramirez, in honor of the beloved Marlins’ narrator.
A gesture that Miami-Dade County paid tribute to the journalist for “connecting generations of Spanish-speaking radio listeners to the sport of baseball in its more than 70 years in the air.”
“The Pride of”, as it was known, “leaves a deep pain among fans of several decades and different cardinal points, because Felo walked his talent and his voice of Cuba to Puerto Rico, of Venezuela to Nicaragua”, emphasized the newspaper the New Herald.
Born in Bayamo in 1923, Ramirez soon discovered, with only 16 years, the vocation of the world of live narration with the story of the baseball games held at La Lechera stadium in his hometown.
In 1945, the young Cuban was hired to tell amateur baseball games after passing a radio test and shortly afterwards worked for the COCO station.
From those early years, Ramírez dedicated himself to narrating baseball and boxing matches, initially in Cuba and then in the United States, in a relevant career in Puerto Rico and Venezuela.
Included in 2001 in the US Baseball Hall of Fame, Ramírez was, after Martin DiHigo, the second Cuban to achieve that recognition, which was awarded for “his great contributions to baseball.”
From 1993 he was the official narrator of the Spanish transmissions of the parties of the Marlins in the Great Leagues; However, throughout his career has been reviewing figures such as Roberto Clemente, Tany Pérez and Orlando “Peruchín” Cepeda.
Among the great moments of this sport that he has been able to transmit are Roberto Clemente’s 3,000 bats or Hank Aaron’s 715 home run.
Ramirez remained professionally active until practically last April, when he suffered a fall in Philadelphia and hit his head.
