Longtime Detroit Tigers broadcaster and World Series champion Jim Price passed away on Tuesday at the age of 81. 97.1 The Ticket host Gator Anderson took time Wednesday to remember a friend and colleague.
Anderson was a part of the Tigers broadcast team starting in 2000, hosting pre and post-game shows.
He said Price helped make Anderson transition into the role seamlessly.
“Jim was so welcoming when I joined that team. It made me feel at ease right away,” he said on Karsch and Anderson. “It could’ve been a difficult situation. New kid on the block here, he didn’t care. He was just, ‘Hey nice to meet you,’ and wanted to get to know me a little bit. Jim Price was one of the truly nice guys in all of sports, and I haven’t heard anybody that has a bad thing to say about Jim. He was really, really great.”
Gator Anderson reflected on the relationship Price had with Tigers legend Al Kaline and how it was Price that allowed him to develop a friendship of his own with the Hall of Famer.
“It was one of the really cool things about going up in the broadcast booth before games was more often than not you would see Al come into the broadcast booth and just shoot the breeze with Jimmy,” Anderson said.
“Every time that I was in there when Al was in there, Jim took time out and said, ‘Al, you remember Scott don’t you?’ And he was like, ‘Yeah Hey how are you,’” he added. “And the last time I saw Al Kaline up in the broadcast booth a couple years ago Jim did the same thing and the three of us just sat there and had a conversation for about 15 minutes about not baseball stuff.
“And it was one of the coolest moments I’ve had in sports broadcasting that wasn’t even broadcasting. But I was given the opportunity because of the relationship I had with the guys. It was really awesome, and Jim’s gonna be missed. I mean he really, really will be missed because he epitomized friendly.”
