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SALT LAKE CITY — Steve Klauke admits he doesn't know how he'll feel when he hangs up the microphone at Smith's Ballpark for the last time Sunday, largely because it's something he doesn't want to think about.
"I've really tried hard not to think about it all. I've been fairly successful except when other people bring it up," he says, sitting in his broadcast chair in an office filled with baseball memories, memorabilia and books filled with every tiny detail about the Salt Lake Bees games he's called since the team began playing in 1994.
He's found it difficult, however, to avoid thinking about the end because of the response he's received over the past few months — not just within Utah but throughout the Pacific Coast League — since he announced he would retire as the radio broadcast voice of the Salt Lake Bees after 29 years.
Every team in the league has offered some sort of a retirement surprise when he's arrived for the last time, though he's lost track of everything the nine clubs have done on his farewell tour.
What he does remember is that Las Vegas gifted him a personalized Aviators jersey with No. 29 sewn in the back, and Oklahoma City set him up with a dinner featuring a smoked tomahawk ribeye steak prepared by a nationally-ranked grill master from the area. Several other teams have celebrated his career on their video boards or had him throw out the first pitch before a game.
"It's really, really nice of them and really surprising, considering I'm the other team's announcer," he said, as his voice starts to crack a smidge. "I'm not one to focus on myself. ... It's really been special."
Bees general manager Marc Amicone said the team has a handful of events and surprises planned over the weekend to send Klauke off in grand fashion as the team celebrates his contributions over three decades.
It's a way to commemorate the legacy he built with the help of a legendary Chicago broadcaster, a newsletter, and a work trip to Oregon.
Finding a passion for broadcasting
Klauke's path to his position began all the way back to his childhood, where he grew up in Chicago. Since the Chicago Cubs only played home games in the afternoon at the time, kids had to watch the team on WGN first before any cartoons or reruns of "The Three Stooges" came on later in the day, at least from April through September.
But he found himself glued to the broadcasts despite being more of a fan of the team's crosstown rival, the White Sox. He developed a particular appreciation for Jack Brickhouse, a legendary broadcaster who called games for both Chicago teams at the time, as well as the Chicago Bears and Chicago Bulls.
Brickhouse's ability to paint the scene inspired a young Klauke to follow in his footsteps. The youngster purchased his first tape recorder when he was 10 years old from the points he accumulated by selling Christmas cards door-to-door. He then brought the device to Wrigley Field, Comiskey Park and Chicago Stadium every chance he could to work on his own broadcast skills.
"(I'd go) where people weren't sitting and practice," he said, recalling those formative years.
It paid off fairly quickly. When he finally got to high school, Klauke signed up to work at its FM radio station, and was already calling the varsity football games by his third week.
He'd also go on to broadcast school basketball and baseball games, as well. That included a friendly basketball game between the school's faculty and members of the Chicago Cubs at the time, including future Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins.
All of it helped him launch a professional career.
Becoming the voice of the Bees
Klauke bounced around the scene, taking jobs he found interesting before he landed in Utah during the summer of 1991.
He remembers using a 1-800 number that put sports broadcasters in touch with vacant jobs in an age before the internet, during a 19-month stretch he was mostly out of broadcasting. The company told him they would switch to a biweekly newsletter he could sign up for. As it turned out, the first edition he received included a listing for a Utah Jazz radio show co-host and producer, as well as a spot working the team's halftime and postgame radio broadcasts.
By that point, he was working as a freelancer, helping broadcast the Little League Softball World Series games in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He got a callback and flew out for an interview before he got the job with Sports Radio 570, despite having only two previous connections to Utah — calling road games for an Illinois-based fastpitch softball team when they came to the Beehive State in 1985 and 1989.
Baseball wasn't a thought at the time time, either; Klauke said he was content working Jazz broadcasts. But then one idea changed everything and cemented his career legacy.
In 1993, after everyone learned that the Portland Beavers would relocate to Salt Lake City beginning the following year, Sports Radio 570 and KSL Radio began bidding for the team's broadcasting rights.
Klauke pitched a trip to Portland, Oregon, to his bosses, so he could call the team's final two home games. This, he explained, would provide ownership an idea of what baseball broadcasts could sound like on their station, while Utahns could get a feel for the team coming their way. What he didn't know is that Joe Buzas, the team's owner at the time, tuned in, and it ultimately tilted the scales in the broadcasting rights battle.
"He liked what he heard to the point where he told both entities, whichever one had me would get the broadcast rights," Klauke said, adding that there was a short-lived recruiting battle from both stations after the revelation.
Having a passion for radio play-by-play, he decided to stick with 570 and moved over to baseball.
"That's how I ended up getting the broadcast," he said.
Celebrating a long career
Klauke has remained the team's primary broadcast voice ever since, also becoming the voice of the Weber State football and men's basketball teams in 2015. Barring any last-day rainouts, Klauke will leave having called 4,181 Bees games, with fill-in spots with the Los Angeles Angels and Toronto Blue Jays along the way.
He's not completely stepping away from broadcasting, though, and will continue to call games for Weber State.
As he peers back toward the booth's window overlooking the baseball diamond and a majestic view of the Wasatch Mountains beyond it, Klauke jokes that he's still able to witness something new that he hadn't seen before in his first 4,000 Bees games, referencing a pair of peculiar stats from a game Tuesday.
That's something he says he'll miss, but he also found calling home and away games for both the Bees and Wildcats too difficult to juggle every year. Balancing the two pried him away from home for about half of the year, especially in the summertime.
"I owe it to my wife. We've done everything in my career based on what I need to do, and this decision had a lot to do with what she wanted," he said. "This was the right time to do it, and (I have) no regrets."
There's plenty of change already coming the Bees' way after the changes MLB already implemented for minor league baseball. The team announced in January that it will move to a new stadium in South Jordan beginning in 2025 after what will be 30 years at Smith's Ballpark.
Yet, not hearing Klauke's voice on the air might be even more difficult to adjust to, Amicone says.
The team has several surprises and tributes lined up for their broadcaster's final few games, including a bobblehead the team will give to the first 1,500 fans who attend the team's game on Saturday. Amicone said all of the plans are the team's way to honor the man who has quite literally been with the team since even before they moved to Salt Lake City.
"He is the Bees. He's been here since the inception of this franchise," Amicone said. "It'll be different; I'll miss him."
