for those who may remember my dad from broadcasting both the Portland Beavers from 1950-1967 and also the Oregon State, U of Oregon and many other area sports ( including the first couple of seasons of the Portland Buckaroos) he has been hospitalized for the last few weeks in the seattle area after taking a fall and having to have brain surgery.he has had a hard time of it and my mom is doing her best to help him out, i know that he would love to hear from any fans who'd like to send a get well card or email, you can email me at la.bob@hotmail.com or send cards to his attention at
Timber Ridge
100 Timber Ridge Way
Issaquah, Wa. 98027

i recently archived many of his broadcasts and sent him over 110 cd's form his career., we hope to be able to share many of these with his fans and the general public somewhere down the road, we feel they are a great slice of Northwest sports radio history
thanks so much

bob blackburn "jr"

I sure remember him. He had a radio show in addition to doing baseball. I remember he never did the road games live but had sound effects. He was the Sonics broadcaster for years. I hope he gets better.He was in Portland last summer

Random Bob Blackburn factoid: he taught my younger brother how to water ski!

He was my hero as a kid when he did Beavers baseball broadcasts with his then-partner, Rollie Truitt. I ended up worked with Bob at KJR. He did the morning sports from his home.

A great childhood memory of old Multnomah Stadium is watching Bob in a white short-sleeved shirt doing the Beavers game from that field-level press box right behind home plate. From the third-base side looking in, you could see the radio guys and newspaper reporters amidst a cloud of smoke and the whack of typewriters. They looked to be having a lot more fun than the tuxed and gowned sophisticates partying on the big old ivy-covered balcony of the Multnomah Athletic Club, would occasionally take a glance at the common folk enjoying their pasttime.

Bob's a sports legend. I loved his play-by-play of the Seattle sonics. Best wishes on a good recovery.

thank you all for the messages and kind words, i've also received a few get well emails at my email address la.bob@hotmail.com and have forwarded them to my mom to read to my dad, i will also alert her and my siblings to this post and comments, since he owned the broadcast rights to both the Portland Beavers and the Oregon State football and basketball games that he did,m we are looking at perhaps releasing some of those on cd in the future to help defray the medical costs, these include the 1967 "Giant Killers" game of OSU upsetting USC , and some play by play with Heisman winner Terry Baker, will keep folks here posted, again thank you!!

bob "jr"

BobJr;

I had the pleasure of finally meeting your dad and mom last year at a Beaver Huddle luncheon. As many questions as I could ask Bob about his career...he asked me just as many about mine. Truly gracious. Truly a gentleman.

Please keep us posted on those recordings. I know Beaver Nation would love to have them, certainly if it helped defray his medical costs.

Bob

I remember the giant killers and that USC game. I was in the OSU Marching Band and we were all down ready to go on the field in those heavy wool uniforms as the game was ending. It was cold, heavy misty rain falling, and dark because the Parker Stadium of those days had no field lights yet. The field was a mudbowl with a little of the natural turf that was left. But we had managed a field goal and OJ Simpson had been shut down all afternoon by the stellar defense led by Jess Lewis...and we were estatic as the team boosted Dee Andros on their shoulders.

At age 13 my Dad drove me to the KEX studios (by portland state) to pick up news copy that was in the garbage. I would take it home and practice being a news guy! One Sunday the news man takes me to a window to watch Rollie Truit & Bob re-enact a road game. At that point I knew this was RADIO at its finest. Bob with a toy Beaver bat in his hand and Rollie taking the new copy handed to him (of what was going on in Spokane!)
Great memory...and boy were they good. Someone out there can clarify the story of when the news machine went down & Bob & Rollie had a guy hitting a long list of foul balls!!!!!!!

thanks again for the kind thoughts and memories of stories about my dad, my mom has been reading these to him and i know that it helps with his recovery.i am currently going thru the cd's,to index what there is, surprisingly there are few full games, they usually only recorded a couple of innings, part of a half of a football game or a quarter or two of a basketball game, among the most interesting things i have are some recording sof his doing the first two seasons of the Portland Buckaroo hockey games,
i also found a Port. beavers vs. tacoma giants partial game with Juan Marichal pitching in his only monor league season, 1960...
also some UCLA basketball with some guy named "Alcindor"
again, this will take a few months to do, but we are certainly hoping to get these out...
thanks again
bob "jr"

Bob Jr,

If you or your mom are reading these messages to your dad, please read this one to him:

I grew up listening to Sonics basketball in the early 70's in Seattle on KOMO and later KIRO. It was a great time to be a Sonics fan, as the Sonics were THE game in town. I can still remember some of the great names from that era: Slick Watts; Spencer Haywood; Tommy Burleson; Lenny Wilkens; "Rocket" Rod Derline; Leonard Gray; "Downtown" Freddie Brown; Jim Fox; John Brisker; Bruce Seals; and the great players from '77 to '79 like DJ, JJ, Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster, Gus, Jack, Lonnie Shelton, Paul Silas, and Dick Snyder. Somewhere around here I still have a "DJ and Gus" Nike poster. I went to Lenny Wilkens Basketball Camp in '77 and '78 WAY out there in the woods near Issaquah. And of course I still have my coveted 78-79 Sonics championship vinyl album which I believe was only available through JCPenney stores. Who says we don't remember the sponsors...I can recall those Superior Fast Freight ads from those Sonics broadcasts in the 70's!

I will always think of Pete Gross as the Voice of the Seahawks, Dave Niehaus as the Voice of the Mariners, and YOU as the Voice of the Super Sonics. I wish you the very best for a speedy recovery!

P.S. to Bob Jr: I would LOVE to hear those Buckaroos broadcasts...any way you could make them available?

Bob was one of my earliest radio memories. I would listen to Beaver Baseball on my little tiny transistor radio under my pillow, with Bob calling play by play. Probably around 1962 or so. When my dad FINALLY took me to Portland to watch a Beaver Baseball game, I could care less about the game, I was fascinated with the broadcast booth, and BOB BLACKBURN broadcasting live!

I wasn't (and never became) a sports fan, but I listened to Blackburn's Beaver baseball broadcasts, because he made them so interesting. It was great radio.

Whatever happened to Lew?

thanks again everyone for the kind posts, i will remind my mom to check on here every few days as i keep seeing new posts, nothing new to report, he's making slow but steady progress, we need to wean him off his ventilator in order to treat some of the other infections, but at least he's awake, talks a little, but with difficulty due to the tube in his throat, he really appreciates all of these messages and the cards that all of you great people have been sending his way, i will continue to monitor this thread and let you know of his condition, also, we will somewhere down the road over the next few months be releasing some of his broadcasts that he owns the broadcast rights too ( not sure about Buckaroos, but those are probably in the public domain at this point) but he owns the Portland Beaver rights, and the Oregon State football, we don't have complete & basketball, we don't have but one or two complete games as back then the station would only record a half or quarter as for the sposors or potential sponsors, but we have some with Terry Baker, and the 1967 "Giant Killers: including their upset win over USC and O.J. Simpson, we also have a couple of the early '60's Hayward Sports banquets with guests like Ty Cobb and Satchel Paige, these are very historic Portland archives.
will keep everyone posted when these become available. will probably be a "Bob Blackburn Sports Archive" series...
thanks again
bob "jr"

I never cared much for the way the away games were handled, I would rather hear them live. Maybe the away team could handle both ours and their proadcast. other than that Bob was a real radio legend. He had a live show from 4-7 on KPOJ 1330 and then did baseball on KEX. I used to wonder how he could travel that fast.