Former Braves, Brewers and Rangers Broadcaster Merle Harmon Dies at 82

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Legendary Brewers, Braves, and NBC Sports broadcaster Merle Harmon has died. He was 82 years old.

Harmon, a St. Louis native who started his broadcasting career with the minor league Topeka Owls, was perhaps best known in Milwaukee as the last play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Braves and the first voice of the Milwaukee Brewers.

When Major League Baseball moved the Seattle Pilots to Milwaukee shortly before the 1970 season, Harmon was hired to do the play-by-play and was joined a year later by a young Bob Uecker.

"Merle helped me from the start," Uecker said. "I'd never done baseball when I joined him in the booth, not unless you count my play-by-play into beer cups in the bullpen."

Harmon teamed with Uecker and Tom Collins until 1979, when he signed a broadcasting deal with NBC and called the World Series and Summer Olympics in 1980.

Replaced by Bob Costas in 1982, Harmon signed with the Texas Rangers, and broadcast their games until his retirement in 1989.

He opened Merle Harmon's Fan Fair in 1977, and saw it grow to 140 stores nationwide before selling the business in 1996 and retiring in Arlington, Texas.