Fish banter For longtime voice of the Goldeyes, theatricality is the name of the game By: David Sanderson Posted: 2:05 PM CDT Thursday, Jul. 17, 2025

Thanks, but no thanks.

Shortly after infielder Brian Duva was signed by the Winnipeg Goldeyes in 1995, Ron Arnst, the American Association baseball club’s public-address announcer, began introducing him as “Brian Duuuuuu-vaaaa,” whenever it was the Florida native’s turn to bat.

Fans in attendance ate it up. Before long, they were getting in on the act, too, by making the long, drawn-out “ooh” and “aah” sounds together with Arnst.

One season Duva, the first player in Goldeyes history to have his jersey number retired, was struggling at the plate.

He approached Arnst with a request: he knew the married father of three was only doing his job, but he was hoping Arnst might cease announcing his name when he stepped into the batter’s box, as the accompanying clamour was becoming, in his words, a major distraction.

“Brian was one of my favourites, so of course I told him that wouldn’t be a problem at all,” says Arnst, whose signature, “And now, your Winnipeg Gooooooldeeeeeeyeeesss” call is as synonymous with a night out at Blue Cross Park as hot dogs and mini doughnuts.

“So for a few games I kept my big mouth shut. But as soon as he started hitting again, I went back to my old shtick. I guess that was OK since he never brought it up again.”

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Arnst, 75, was born in Nipawin, Sask. His father was a grain buyer and for a few years the family bounced from town to town before eventually settling in Viscount, Sask. Viscount was a big baseball community, recalls Arnst, the eldest of three siblings, and though he gave it a whirl, it turned out he wasn’t much of a ballplayer.

Part of that was eyesight, he says, seated in a Charleswood coffee shop, blocks away from where he lives with Alma, his wife of 56 years.

He was nine when he got his first pair of glasses, at which point the optometrist informed his parents he couldn’t see clearly a foot in front of his face, that’s how bad his vision was.

OK, so maybe baseball wasn’t Arnst’s forté, but he fell in love with the sport nonetheless, due in large part to games played in far-away places, which he would listen to on his transistor radio in his bedroom, while pretending to be asleep.

He didn’t have a favourite major-league team, necessarily, but he did tune into “a ton” of St. Louis Cardinals games on KMOX, a 50,000-watt AM station whose nighttime signal can still be heard across much of North America.

“They offered me a part-time job that summer and for the next 23 years, I was in the radio biz.”–Ron Arnst

The Arnsts moved again in 1964, this time to Melfort, Sask., 170 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

CJVR was the only radio station in town and during Arnst’s Grade 10 year at Melfort and Unit Comprehensive Collegiate, a sign went up in the hall stating the station was looking for high school students to produce and run a Saturday-morning information program.

Close to 40 kids volunteered their services. By the end of June, that number had dwindled to four, Arnst among them.

“They offered me a part-time job that summer and for the next 23 years, I was in the radio biz,” Arnst says, listing Weyburn, Sask., Yorkton, Sask. and Brandon as places he worked during that period of his life, as both a play-by-play announcer and news director.

Arnst was living in Brandon in 1988 when he accepted a media-relations position with the newly elected Filmon government, causing him to relocate to Winnipeg.

He was still working for the Progressive Conservatives in 1994, the year the Goldeyes joined the Northern League. He purchased a mini-pack of tickets that season and one Tuesday evening, while he was taking in a game at Winnipeg Stadium, the Goldeyes’ old home diamond, he bumped into John Hindle, an old friend and the team’s then-general manager.

Hindle asked him what he thought of the operation. Arnst replied that the product on the field was top notch, but the person handling the public address duties left something to be desired.

Two innings later, the Goldeyes GM sidled up next to Arnst in the stands to ask, “What are you doing Thursday night?”

“I said I didn’t have any plans and he pointed to the press box and told me, ‘See you at six o’clock.’”

So Arnst landed the gig and became an instant hit with the Goldeyes faithful, right? Wrong.

By his own admission, he didn’t exactly light the world on fire in his first few games behind the microphone. Sure, he had the pipes for the job, thanks to the years he spent in radio. Except he was treating the assignment more like a newscast, and was somewhat monotonous in his delivery.

“Kevin Moore was the game-day producer when I got there and since he was a standup comic by trade, he was always focused on performance and connecting with an audience,” Arnst explains.

“After my first week he said, ‘Ron, can’t you liven things up a bit? I understand you’re trying to be respectful to the game, but you have to give it a little more punch.’”

That night on the drive home, Arnst thought back to the early 1970s, when he often caught Montreal Expos games on TV. He remembered how much he enjoyed it when Expos catcher John Boccabella came to the plate, and the Expos’ PA announcer animatedly introduced him as “John BOCC-a-belllllaaaa.’”

At the time, the Goldeyes had a number of players whose surnames naturally rolled off the tongue, such as Dann Bilardello, Kevin Dattola and Rocky Padilla. At the next night’s game, he made a point of giving his intros some oomph. Problem solved.

Later that season he added the seemingly endless “Gooooooldeeeeeeyeeesss” call to his repertoire, a pronouncement he’s now “stuck with,” he says, the same way the Rolling Stones could never leave the stage before performing Satisfaction.

“Sometimes I’ll be doing emcee events or whatever and people will ask me to do the Goldeyes bit,” he continues, noting he retired from the 9-to-5 life in 2018, after working for Investors Group for 17 years.

“I always tell them the same thing: if they wanna hear it, they’ll have to buy a ticket to a game ’cuz it’s all part of the show.”

“After my first week he said, ‘Ron, can’t you liven things up a bit? I understand you’re trying to be respectful to the game, but you have to give it a little more punch.’”–Ron Arnst

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Game day for Arnst goes something like this.

If the first pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m., he’ll arrive at the stadium no later than 5:15 p.m. He immediately takes the elevator to his perch in the press box, directly above Section L, where he’ll go over the script for that night’s game.

He checks that he has all the information he needs — lineup cards, up-to-date stats, what that night’s promotions are — then leaves his seat to grab a bite from the staff buffet.

The pre-game show gets underway at 6 p.m. He switches on his mic to inform the already growing crowd about 50/50 draws and the like.

At 6:15 p.m. he announces the starting lineup for both squads. Five minutes later he welcomes Goldeyes mascot Goldie to the field of play, then the evening’s umpires.

The game commences at 6:30 p.m. sharp. Besides introducing players at the plate for the next few hours, he also encourages everybody to “Make some noise!” when, for example, fan services reps fire T-shirts into the stands, between innings.

“As you might imagine, it runs through cycles,” he responds when asked how he keeps his energy level up for 50 home games, running from mid-May to early September.

“At the beginning of the baseball season, when the snow is starting to melt and the major leagues are just getting going, I’m counting the days till the Goldeyes’ home opener. Then for the first three or four games I’m physically beat, and will say to my wife ‘I don’t know if I can do this anymore,’ before I get my second wind.”

(Arnst doesn’t mean to intimate that he’s “up there breaking bricks or shovelling dirt.” That said, he does get quite demonstrative with arm movements and such during a nine-inning tilt, plus he isn’t as young as when he started with the team, 31 summers ago.)

He laughs, stating August isn’t referred to as the dog days of summer for nothing.

By then, he’s checking to see when the final homestand falls. He does get rejuvenated again, mind you, if the team is fortunate enough to qualify for the playoffs.

“I’ve never had a written contract but I’d say it’s reached the point where it’s pretty clear that I’m there for as long as I want to be,” he says, mentioning his son Kevin, who inherited the “family vocal cords,” has subbed for him on the rare occasion when he was feeling under the weather.

“It’s a tremendous feeling and I’m very grateful for the trust the Goldeyes have put in me. I’ve even joked with (Goldeyes GM) Andrew Collier about saving a six-foot plot for me in centrefield for when I really reach the end of my career here.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca