Prince, Popular Pittsburgh Pirate Announcer, Dies

PITTSBURGH —  Bob Prince, the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates for nearly three decades and one of baseball’s best known play-by-play broadcasters, died Monday of complications following cancer surgery. He was 68.

“To many, Bob Prince was more than just the voice of the Pirates. He was the Pirates,” Joe L. Brown, interim general manger of the Pirates said of the man who started broadcasting Pirates’ games in 1948.

Prince, whose controversial firing in 1975 angered thousands of Pittsburgh fans, rejoined the team’s broadcast team only last month, four weeks after undergoing extensive surgery to remove cancerous growths from his mouth.