Dave Wills passed away suddenly last month. The play-by-play voice of the Tampa Bay Rays was 58 years old.
With the Rays on the Southside of Chicago this week, the White Sox took a moment before their game on Thursday to pay tribute to Wills.
The video board at Guaranteed Rate Field showed footage of Wills during his tenure with the White Sox. Gene Honda, the public address announcer acknowledged Dave Wills’s time with both teams as well as his loved ones.
Chicago was Wills’s hometown. He had 20 family members in a suite on Thursday including his son and his sister. Nearly 40 more friends were in the stands.
Andy Freed, who was partnered with Dave Wills on the Rays’ radio broadcasts, took to social media to show off a special gift left for him by the White Sox. The team put white roses and an assortment of photos of Wills and other memorabilia in the visiting radio booth.
“One of the joys of working with Dave was being with him for his homecomings to his beloved Chicago,” Freed told the Tampa Bay Times. “It seemed like he knew everyone. (Thursday), like so many days the last few weeks, was emotional. I took some time to walk to many of the spots he’d show me. Experiencing Chicago without him for the first time, the silence was deafening.”
