Courtesy photo Longtime local public address announcer Bob Bates passed away just over a week ago after a battle with cancer.

Bob Bates once recounted one of his many amusing adventures as a local sports public address announcer.

“You’re apt to do some goofy things as a P.A. Announcer,” he wrote a few years ago in a trade journal. “Because the game you’re announcing may be intensely interesting – or intensely boring – your mind can begin to wander.

“One evening as I (announced) a football game, in the excitement I reached to pick up my microphone, but no sound came out. In my enthusiasm I was speaking into my water bottle instead of the microphone.”

Gotta love it. That took place, of course, at Stellos Stadium, and was one of the few times up until his semi-retirement a few years ago we were robbed of hearing The Voice.

But it certainly showed one thing – while Bob Bates took his job as a public address announcer very seriously, he never looked at himself the same way.

Telegraph Sports Reporter Tom KIng.

Bates’ golden pipes were arguably the best in Nashua, and when he spoke into a microphone, people in the stands at Holman Stadium, Stellos Stadium, Conway Arena, and a few other spots around the area always listened.

Yes, there was that noted Bob Bates quick-witted sense of humor. He always got the crowd’s attention.

Bates was the best PA guy around, and it’s crushing that we won’t hear that voice any longer after he sadly passed away over a week ago due to a couple of years of battling cancer.

True, we only heard him infrequently the last few years, after he decided about five years ago he was going to take it easy and enjoy life. And he certainly did.

But, of course, the lure of the mike and the love of the events he worked would pull him back in for fill-in duty here and there.

Heck, he hated in some ways moving to South Nashua with his wife Sharon the last year or two ago after downsizing. It took him further away from the ballfields he would frequent.

Yours truly last heard from Bates in early April, when he relayed the news via email of the passing of his sidekick, Larry Hodge. Bates considered Hodge a brother and took him to whatever games he could the last couple of years after another Hodge sidekick, Bill Neverett, passed. Now the community is sadly without all three.

We’ll miss that Bates twinkle, a great sense of humor. Had to chuckle when reading a bit more of that National Association of Sports Public Address Announcers Association journal-newsletter (NASPAA) article and Bates recalled when he once tested the crowd at Conway Arena.

It was right around all the Tom Brady-DeflateGate controversy.

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