The last stories of Joe Tait, voice of the Cavaliers and a friend to so many – Terry Pluto

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Well, he made it.

That was my first thought after receiving the call that veteran Cavs broadcaster Joe Tait died at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday. He was 83 and been suffering from kidney failure, cancer and blood clots in his leg.

Arrangements are pending.

Joe and I were close friends since 1980, the kind of friends who could say almost anything to each other. We had been working on a story that ran in Sunday’s Plain Dealer. The main picture was of Joe holding Penelope, his cat.

“I’m not doing so well,” Joe told me the middle of last week.

“Well, you can’t die until Monday,” I said.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because Penelope The Cat has her picture in the Sunday paper,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Joe said, then unleashed one of his belly laughs.

I later learned he told some friends, “Terry said I can’t die until Monday.”

JOE’S LAST STORIES

I took many copies of the story and Penelope’s picture to his house on Sunday. We talked for about an hour, more memories of deceased friends such as Pete Franklin, Les Levine and Nev Chandler.

Joe told me the story of being in a motel room in Las Cruces, New Mexico. The Cavs were playing an exhibition game there against the old Cincinnati Royals. It’s when preseason games could end up being held almost anywhere.

“It was the middle of the night,” said Joe. “I heard something in my room. I got up. I saw someone right near the bed, staring at me. I bolted out of bed, ready to fight … and hit my head on a mirror.”

He laughed.

“I saw myself and got scared,” he said. “I banged my head. Blood was everywhere. I patched myself up. When I got on the bus, (Cavs coach) Bill Fitch looked at me and my head and said, ‘I don’t even want to know how that happened!’”

Then came another story, this time about his son, Joey.

“You remember how Joey could draw,” said Joe. “He wasn’t much of a basketball fan. He sometimes sat next to me at press row during games. I’d be broadcasting, he’d be drawing something.”

I remember Joey doing that. As a kid, he was fascinated by World War II and often drew tanks and other military equipment.

“(NBA official) Darell Garretson was working the game. He came by the scorer’s table, glanced down and noticed Joey drawing something. Then there was a time out, Darell came back … looked for a moment at Joey’s stuff … then said, ‘Hey, that kid is pretty good!’”

Cavs broadcaster Joe Tait called NBA games for 41 years, 39 with the Cavs. David I. Andersen, The Plain Dealer

LOVE OF TRAINS

As usual, Joe had his train videos on the big screen TV as we talked Sunday afternoon. He was cutting out the story from the Sunday Plain Dealer when I arrived.

“This was hard to explain in print,” I said, pointing to the train videos.

He stared at me.

“Joe, it’s just trains going by, no drama,” I said. “It’s boring.”

Another belly laugh. Then we talked about a trip to Astoria, Oregon. When I covered the Cavs for the Akron Beacon Journal, Joe and I often took side trips on days off.

“Remember when we were eating lunch at that little cafe on Main Street,” said Joe. “I heard a train coming. I got up, ran out the door. The waitress came over to you and asked if anything was wrong.”

“Right,” I said. “I told her not to worry, he does that all the time when he hears a train coming.”

Joe’s daughter, Karen, told me how she grew to like the train videos.

“They’re comforting,” she said.

Joe was the only person I ever knew who drove to a train crossing hoping to be stopped by a train. There were times when he’d pull off the side of the road and wait for a train to come because he had a schedule and one was due.

Joe Tait, nearing the end of his 39th season as Cavaliers play-by-play broadcaster, was honored with his own banner, April 8, 2011, at then Quicken Loans Arena. It hangs next to the retired numbers of Cavaliers players.Joshua Gunter, The Plain Dealer

THE VOICE OF THE GAME

Joe never knew where he came up with phrases like “Wham with the the right hand” or “The Cavs are going right to left on your radio dial.”

He said the Miracle of Richfield season (1975-76) cemented his spot as a broadcaster in Cleveland.

“It was so much fun, the games were so close,” he said. “After all the lousy seasons, we finally had something to get excited about.”

It seemed Joe was screaming almost every night. He reflected the heartbeat of the team and the fans in that remarkable year. But we didn’t talk much basketball Sunday. Joe didn’t care about being in any broadcasting halls of fame, and he’s in almost all of them.

He quit in 2011. At that point, he had recovered from major heart surgery. His wife, Jean, was slipping into Alzheimer’s.

“I still love doing the games,” he told me. “But everything else around it, you could keep it.”

The NBA had become too much glitz, too much money. He felt more at home in the NBA of the 1970s and 1980s when it was battling for survival and attention.

Joe also didn’t want “hang on too long. I’ve heard other broadcasters embarrass themselves. Thirty-nine years (of the NBA) was enough.”

THE LAST VISIT

My wife, Roberta, and I visited Joe on Monday. It was shocking to see what had happened in 24 hours. He had been retaining a lot of water because of kidney failure. But instead of being conversational as was the case Sunday, he no longer could speak. He would grip your hand. He’d smile.

It was clear he was slipping away.

Joe called himself an “agnostic.” He’d joke with people about, “Terry came over and prayed for me.”

Roberta and I did that again Monday. My wife sang a song called, “Holy Spirit come.” Joe loved her voice. I prayed for him, holding his hand, speaking quietly of God’s forgiveness and how peace could soon come to him.

“Joe,” I said. “God loves you, whether you like it or not.”

He seemed to grip my hand a little tighter. I swear, he smiled. Or maybe I wanted to see that.

But I do know, Joe did indeed, rest in peace. His friend Paula Ross who helped take care of him in the fourth quarter of his life told me as much Wednesday when she called with the news.

“He died quietly,” she said. “I was so glad about that.”

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