Plain and simply, Mike was a Pittsburgh institution, much in the way his one-time broadcast partner, Bob Prince, had been years earlier.
There was a time in the early 1980s, before we were blessed enough to draft franchise savior Mario Lemieux, when Mike was arguably the only reason to tune into Pens games. He found a way to make rooting for terrible teams less onerous, no easy feat given how truly dreadful those black-and-gold teams were.
I originally posted the following tribute to Mike when he retired back in 2021.