\u201cHe leads with optimism,\u201d said Shannon Drayer, the Mariners\u2019 longtime pre- and postgame radio host. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not a blind optimism. It\u2019s truly based in a rock-solid belief that good things are going to happen. He\u2019ll talk to guys behind the cage in batting practice, pat them on the back and give encouragement, and it\u2019s from such a real place. That belief and goodness just radiates from him.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Drayer, the feeling crystallized in the abbreviated 2020 season, when pandemic restrictions kept fans from the ballpark and broadcasters from traveling. They called road games off a TV screen in the home booth of a silent stadium. Invariably, Rizzs would remind the audience that scientists were working hard on a vaccine, and someday soon they would all be together again.<\/p>\n
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\n Rizzs celebrates with fans at T-Mobile Park after the Mariners\u2019 Game 5 win over the Blue Jays in the 2025 ALCS. (Tyler Kepner\/The Athletic)<\/p>\n
It was hard to find light at such a dark time, Drayer said, but Rizzs did. That outlook makes him the perfect correspondent for the daily saga of the only franchise to never reach the World Series.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s who he is,\u201d she said. \u201cHe believes that the Mariners can get to a World Series. He believes he can sit down with Dave Henderson and figure out, on a cocktail napkin in a bar at the end of a season, how they can help thousands and thousands of needy kids in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rizzs and Henderson, the former outfielder, founded a charity in 1995 that has provided new toys at the holidays for 360,000 underprivileged children in the Pacific Northwest. In the decade since Henderson\u2019s death, Rizzs has awarded 80 $5,000 scholarships in Henderson\u2019s name, while starting another foundation providing baseball equipment to kids in need.<\/p>\n
\u201cRick is so kind,\u201d said Chicago Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd, a close friend of Rizzs who welcomed him for pancakes at his home just last week. \u201cAs a human being, it just doesn\u2019t get any better. He\u2019s selfless, he cares for others. He\u2019s kind to my whole family. I\u2019m just so grateful to call him a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Boyd grew up a Mariners fan on Mercer Island, Wash., and the first time he pitched in Seattle, he sought out Rizzs to thank him. Riding home from Little League games in the back of his father\u2019s Crown Victoria, Boyd said, it was always Rizzs on the radio, synonymous with childhood. Rizzs and Dave Niehaus, he said, made him fall in love with the game.<\/p>\n
Niehaus is the Mariners\u2019 forever voice, from the first game in franchise history in 1977 until his death in 2010. He has a statue at their ballpark, which sits at the corner of Dave Niehaus Way and Edgar Martinez Drive.<\/p>\n
When Rizzs was struggling in Detroit, it was Niehaus who lobbied to bring him back home \u2013 and he did, just in time for the 1995 playoff run that sparked the kind of baseball fervor Rizzs always knew could grip Seattle. His mentor is always on his mind.<\/p>\n