Ned Martin, 78; Voice of the Boston Red Sox for 32 Years

Ned Martin, 78, the radio and television voice of the Boston Red Sox for 32 years, died Tuesday, a day after attending the Ted Williams tribute at Fenway Park.

Martin collapsed at Raleigh-Durham International Airport in North Carolina after a return trip from Boston, team officials said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Martin’s trademark call--”Mercy”--was familiar to generations of Red Sox fans. He called the Carlton Fisk home run that won Game 6 of the 1975 World Series, Carl Yastrzemski’s 3,000th hit in 1979 and Roger Clemens’ first 20-strikeout game in 1986.

A native of Philadelphia, Martin served in the Marines in the Pacific during World War II. The Duke University graduate began his broadcasting career in 1956 covering minor league baseball in West Virginia.

He joined Curt Gowdy in the Red Sox booth in 1961 and stayed for the rest of his career. He retired in 1992. Martin was also a football announcer and did play-by-play for Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale and the Boston Patriots.

Known as a scholar of literature, Martin often quoted Shakespeare, the Boston Globe obituary reported.

One of his favorite lines, which he used when the Red Sox encountered difficulties, came from Hamlet: “Oh, Gertrude, when sorrows come, they come not as single spies but in battalions.”

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Thomas Baca Jr.--Thomas Baca Jr., father of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, died Monday at his home of natural causes. He was 86. The funeral is private.