Dewayne Staats

Dewayne Staats (born August 8, 1952) is an American sports broadcaster who has been the television play-by-play commentator for the Tampa Bay Rays since their inception in 1998. with a degree in Mass Communications. He began his broadcasting career reporting sports on WSIE, the SIUE radio station; as an announcer for high school sports on several of the nearby small town radio stations such as WOKZ in Alton, Illinois; and as an intern at KMOX in St. Louis.

Staats began announcing professional baseball with the Oklahoma City 89ers (1973–1974) while still a student at SIUE. After graduation, he was sports director at KPLR-TV in St. Louis (1975–1976), then he worked for the Houston Astros (1977–1984), Chicago Cubs (1985–1989), New York Yankees (1990–1994), and ESPN (1995–1997) before joining the Rays in their 1998 inaugural season.

Among the several no-hitters Staats has announced were Nolan Ryan's fifth on September 26, 1981 for the Houston Astros, Jim Abbott's on September 4, 1993 for the New York Yankees, He was named recipient of the SIUE Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award in 1987. He became a member of the SIUE Alumni Hall of Fame in 2006

Staats has been repeatedly nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award, the broadcasters' path to the Baseball Hall of Fame, since 2008.

Staats and his broadcast team have won multiple local Emmy awards from the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.