Rick Rizzs: The goal of Mariners radio broadcast is to let fans ‘see’ the game

Hours before the start of every Mariners game, well before the press box starts to fill up, you can pretty much count on who will be the first one in the door.

Anyone who’s been around the M’s the past 30 years knows it could only be one guy &#8212 the irrepressible Rick Rizzs. After all these seasons, his game day prep still begins the moment he gets up.

“Because I love it,” he said. “I’ve been doing this, it seems like, my entire life.”

Rizzs wanted to be a broadcaster since he was 12. His dream became reality in 1983, when the legendary David Neihaus convinced then owner George Argyrus to give him a shot.

Since then, Rizzs has worked tirelessly to make every game special.

“David taught me a lot about the preparation of the game,” he said. “That’s so much of being successful in our business. Because no matter what is going on in our lives we have to check it at the door. We have a responsibility to the fans.”

Sitting alone in the broadcast booth, Rizzs pours over his bible &#8212 a scorebook he crams every day with facts and figures gleaned from every source imaginable &#8212 from a player’s education to their era. It’s amazing how much he can pack onto the page in what looks like some strange code or hieroglyphics, decipherable only to him.

“Yeah, everything has a place and everything has a reason for being in my scorebook,” he said.

But even though he’s armed with enough information to bore even the biggest baseball geek, ultimately, conveying what’s happening on the field is what matters most, Rizzs said. It’s another lesson he learned from Neihaus.

“That’s what the listeners are waiting for,” he said. “For you to describe what’s happening. In our job, if we choose the right words and do our job well, then we can make the fans listening on the radio, see it on the radio.”

Rizzs sees and hears a lot more than the rest of us. Spending so much time with the manager, coaches and players, he gets all the inside scoop. But a lot of times he has to keep mum, even if he gets a juicy scoop

“Lou [Piniella] was like that, very trusting. Lloyd McClendon is the same way,” he said. “There are things I would never bring back to the booth, because once you break that trust you never get it back.”

And once in awhile, you say something you can’t take back. Rizzs admits he’s stuck his foot in his mouth more than once.

“This is live radio,” he said. “We do it pretty much on a daily basis, but that’s the excitement. You just laugh it off or forget about it if it’s a doozy.”

And sometimes he just plain screws up, like the time he turned off his mic while introducing his partner Aaron Goldsmith.

Rizzs doesn’t miss much. His ability to remember the most seemingly random facts and stories is one of the things that makes him so special.

It’s one of the traits he shared with Neihaus, a guy he still thinks about every day.

“Sometimes I think he’s going to walk into that door,” Rizzs said. “He taught me everything about this and gave me the opportunity.”

Now, Rizzs is paying it forward. He is mentoring Goldsmith, the young guy plucked from the minors to fill out the broadcast team three years ago.

But don’t expect Rizzs to step away from the mic any time soon and don’t be surprised to see him sitting here years from now, still going bonkers for baseball just like he did as a kid.

“I’ll be right here 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon, working on my notes,” he said. “Having a cup of coffee. Going over all notes for our club and whoever we’re playing that night. And I’ll be right here, God Willing.”