Condolences: Dean Rogers

• We keep losing legends… Maine’s own Dean Rogers, who enjoyed a four-decade local radio career and was the longtime public address announcer for the Double-A Portland Sea Dogs, died Sunday, July 5 at the age of 73.

According to the The Portland Press Herald, Rogers, a member of both the Maine Broadcasters Hall of Fame and the Maine Baseball Hall of Fame, died from cardiac arrest after undergoing hip surgery last Sunday. “He got through the hip surgery OK, but his heart just couldn’t take it,” said Sharon, Rogers’ wife of nearly 50 years. “He had a lot of back issues and neck issues, but he never complained about anything.”

Rogers worked at several Maine radio stations over the course of his career, most prominently at WYNZ and WHOM/Portland. In 1994, Rogers was hired as the first public address announcer for the fledgling Portland Sea Dogs, the Double-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox — a gig he proudly held until 2012. Rogers was inducted into the Maine Baseball Hall in 1996, not only for his work with the Sea Dogs but also because he founded and played in the Southern Maine Senior Men’s Baseball League for players 30 and older.

Tim Moore, now VP of Programming for iHeartMedia New Hampshire, originally hired Rogers away from WYNZ to do mornings for him in the early 2000s when Moore was programming Townsquare AC WHOM. “Smooth, velvet voice on the air — and about the nicest guy you could ever want to encounter,” Moore tells RAMP. “Gentle, soft-spoken with a terrific sense of humor, a mischievous side and just a delightful human being. He leaves behind a wife, Sharon, with whom he would have celebrated 50 years of marriage this year — and a son, Mark, whom he adored.” [Photo from Sharon Rogers’ Facebook post]