By Amaury Pi Gonzalez

On August 21, 2017 when the talk was the Solar Eclipse, I was arriving at the Long Beach Airport on my way later to the Rangers vs Angels game at Angel Stadium, Anaheim. The morning after, on August 22nd, I learned about the passing of my mentor, friend and what I have considered him, part of my family. Rafaed”Felo”Ramirez who has been broadcasting since 1945 and was the Spanish Voice for all Miami Marlins games, since that team began in the National League in 1993.

Felo was 94 years of age. Early this season, an accident in Philadelphia as he was traveling with the Marlins, sent him to a hospital in nearby Delaware, and he never called another game. He slipped and fell as he was coming out of the team bus.

My mother Olga used to tell me all the time, that while in Cuba I would get a broom, turn it upside-down in the patio of our home in Havana and do an imitation of Felo. I must have been 14 or 15 then. Yes, I always listened to the games on Cuban radio them of the old Cuban Winter Professional League, and Felo was the guy. I never met Felo while I live in Cuba in the first 17 years of my life (I left for Miami in 1961 to live with my aunt, I was 17).

Knowing Felo was a real cool thing, like the kids would say today, because even though his age was 94, he was young and sounded young on the air. In 1998 I got a call from producer Armando Talavera from New York City, who asked me to work with Felo during the National League Championship Series for the Caracol International Network, to the USA and all of Latinamerica, over 200 radio stations in that network. I remember before we went on the air for the first game I asked him if it was OK for me to mention that I used to listen to him in Cuba when I was a little boy, he said: “desde luego” trans- “of course”. We had a great time working together, his memory and knowledge of the game was amazing. Felo called also many boxing matches, very important ones during his career, but baseball is what he was known for and is enshrined in every conceivable Baseball Hall of Fame in the world.

As a person that was born in Cuba, for me (like for many Cubans around the world) especially those that follow baseball, and for Cubans baseball is part of our lives, he was the Voice of Baseball.

I thank God that I was able to meet this man, work with him and share time with him.

There will never be another Felo.

Descansa en Paz Felo.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez lived to have his dream come true when he got to work with Felo Ramirez in the broadcast booth at the 1998 NLCS for Caracol International Network, Amaury is the Spanish voice at the Oakland A’s and does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com