Brewers PA announcer throws 1st pitch, works final game: 'Baseball and music have been my life'
Robb Edwards
MILWAUKEE -- Robb Edwards, the public address announcer for the Milwaukee Brewers, worked his final game at Miller Park when the Brewers hosted the Chicago Cubs in a matinee game Sept. 8. Edwards threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to the game.
"When you call out a name, you don't go, 'OK, Yasmani Grandal,'" said Edwards. "You make it so it has a rhythm to it."
For more than two decades, fans at Miller Park or County Stadium could feel and hear the unique rhythm Edwards created.
"Baseball and music have been my life," said Edwards.
The veteran radioman was able to combine the two when he officially entered the sports world in 1999 as the new stadium voice for the Brewers at County Stadium.
Robb Edwards
"Was I nervous when I first came out here? Yeah," said Edwards. "I was overwhelmed. It was like, 'Boy, this is something I just can't imagine I'm doing.'"
The nerves quickly calmed, and for the next 20 years, his voice was synonymous with Brewers baseball in Milwaukee.
In September, with almost his entire family behind him, Edwards got to enjoy a final day at the stadium.
"Kind of a captured audience," said Edwards. "It's like, 'Man I got them all here.'"
Before the game, he stood alone on the mound to throw out the ceremonial first pitch in front of family and friends.
Robb Edwards
"I think they will probably realize that their dad is no big spiel when they get out there," said Edwards. "But they will know that it is difficult to place yourself in front of 40,000 people, and tough enough to throw that little sphere as far as you can throw it at my age, and bounce it in, and that's it."
He also stood alone with a plaque outside the scoreboard control room named after him in Miller Park's Press Box.
"That means a whole heck of a lot, and I don't think I ever thought of it to begin with, but once I realized what was going on here, I was like, 'I don't deserve something like that,'" said Edwards.
One last time, he rhythmically delivered his lines before turning over the microphone to his successor.
Robb Edwards
"I did my job," said Edwards. "I was happy when I did it. I worked for people I really enjoyed, and to me, that ties it all up."
Robb Edwards
Edwards left the job after 21 seasons. He was working part-time ahead of his retirement, and actually took over for another legend, Bob Betts, who was the stadium voice from 1976-1998.