Wherever he traveled, the small-town kid from Minnesota made fast friends. There was a disarming nature about him that sanded others' rough edges. Don Robbs wasn't a smooth talker. He was just smooth, and he talked.

He wasn't the best at baseball, the Litchfield second baseman was the first to say, but he sure liked talking about it. Whether it was in Japan, Korea, Nebraska or San Francisco, he chatted about the game, and people listened. Even in a place as far removed from his roots — in both distance and culture — as Hawaii, he eventually convinced people to let him do it in front of a microphone.

"Baseball was always his love, ever since he was a little kid," said his son, Scott Robbs. "I think it was because of how he and his father bonded. They had a minor league team in his small town and … his dad would take him down, they’d walk to the park and watch the games together."

Robbs, the legendary radio broadcaster of University of Hawaii baseball games for four decades, died Thursday morning at his family's Pearl City home after some lengthy health issues. He was 88.

The man known as the “Voice of Rainbow Baseball,” called over 2,000 UH games in a career that came to prominence in the late 1970s when his work coincided with the Rainbows’ rise into a national power under coach Les Murakami and behind ace pitcher Derek Tatsuno.

The discharged U.S. Army sergeant called UH’s appearance in the 1980 College World Series, the only perfect game in program history — Paul Brown against Wyoming in 1987 — and all 13 of UH’s NCAA postseason runs, most recently in 2010. He also was on the call for the first statewide UH volleyball broadcast.

After calling UH's 1977 NCAA regional at Aloha Stadium, he convinced his bosses at KHVH to let him cover all the games. In 1978, he was the rare — if not one of the first — dedicated broadcaster to travel home and away for a college baseball team.

His affable, conversational nature and storytelling ability was a calling card in a sport that features the occasional long pause in action or a lopsided outcome. Many still refer to him as Hawaii's version of the late Los Angeles Dodgers legend Vin Scully for his tone and longevity.

"I think his biggest gift was being able to talk story," said Scott Robbs, who would follow his father into the profession of sports broadcasting and is now a mainstay with Spectrum Sports. "You always felt like he was talking to you. He just had that connection with the listeners. He never pandered, he never spoke down. You just felt like you were comfortable with him. He’s just a buddy who’s telling you what was going on on the field."

Robbs, who did much of his work behind the scenes as a radio station manager at several stops, helped secure the first radio broadcast deal for UH games. He was inducted into the UH Sports Circle of Honor in 2015. He called his last UH game for KKEA, 1420-AM the following year.

He had managerial positions at local radio stations KHVH, KGU and finally KKEA. Wherever he went, the UH broadcast followed.

The press box at Les Murakami Stadium was named after him and Jim Leahey, his longtime TV counterpart, during the 2024 season. Robbs called the moment “breathtaking.”

The son of the late Jim Leahey, Spectrum Sports play-by-play announcer Kanoa Leahey, was glad that Robbs got to see in person how much he was appreciated for his lifetime endeavor.

"I hope he understood and gathered from that and other testimonials over the years, that he got the gist of just how important he was to … the legacy of Hawaii baseball," Leahey said. "Rainbow baseball and Don Robbs are very much synonymous."

For Leahey, Robbs was an invaluable mentor as he was coming up in the local sports media landscape.

"He would always give me some very straightforward, very honest but always constructive criticism, and I valued that," Leahey said. "I had a tremendous amount of respect for him because I knew he had been there, done that and he was an accomplished a play-by-play announcer as anyone."

One example of Robbs' exacting nature was his insistence that baseball broadcasters use the gramatically correct "flied out" instead of the commonly used "flew out."

To this day, Leahey, despite appearing on TV as his primary job, considers radio the purest form of play-by-play in no small part due to Robbs.

He also made a lasting impact on former Hawaii sports broadcaster Bob Hogue, the retired commissioner of the PacWest Conference.

Robbs hired Hogue to call UH football on KHVH in 1990, and worked with him on other broadcasts on KCCN.

"He was outstanding to work with ... a wonderful man , and he loved Hawaii so much, it came through on all of his broadcasts," Hogue said. "Rest in aloha, Don."

He was drafted into the Army in his early 20s and was sent to Korea, then Japan, which he immediately loved. After he got out, Robbs traveled to Kearney, Neb., for a job in TV broadcasting. There, he met his wife and was shortly thereafter lured by a friend out to Honolulu to be news director at KPOI.

He announced the news of President John F. Kennedy's assassination on local airwaves in 1963.

"He said it was the only time in his entire career that he cried on the air," Scott Robbs said.

His world tour continued, as he worked in Japan for three-plus years for a Dutch public relations firm, including at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The family moved to San Francisco, where Scott was born, and back to Hawaii for good three months later in 1967. He remained in the islands with the exception of two short-lived endeavors on the West Coast in later years. Robbs maintained an avid fandom of the San Francisco Giants wherever he went.

He served as general manager at KHET (PBS Hawaii) for about a decade before returning to the radio realm and embarking on his UH baseball journey.

Robbs had a health scare in 2013, when he required open-heart surgery and had a stroke. He would recover to call two more full seasons of UH baseball.

The press box dedication game against UC Irvine was among a handful of games he attended in the twilight of his life, as well as the 2024 season finale, his son Scott Robbs told Spectrum News.  His last image of Les Murakami Stadium was seeing the Rainbow Warriors defeat Cal State Fullerton, 5-2.

One of his greatest desires in recent weeks was to see one more UH baseball game.

"That was his wish. Unfortunately it didn’t happen, but that was something he really, really wanted to do," Scott Robbs said.

UH Athletics issued a statement: “We are deeply saddened by the passing of Don Robbs, the ‘Voice of Rainbow Baseball’ for over 40 years. You can't tell the story of Hawaii Baseball without talking about Don, who brought the program's greatest moments to life. Don was more than just a baseball broadcaster, he was a true pioneer who had the vision to bring Rainbow Baseball and Volleyball to the airwaves and helped connect generations of Hawai'i fans with their teams. He was a true icon not only at UH, but in the Hawaii sports community as a whole, and has passed the torch to his son, Scott, who continues his legacy today. Our hearts are with the entire Robbs ohana at this difficult time."

Along the way, he called Hawaii Islander games with the late Les Keiter — for road games, they'd recreate the sounds of a game in a local studio as ticker-tape updates came through — as well as Hawaii Winter Baseball. He had a special affinity for Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan, which he visited more than 30 times over the years.

In remembering what his father stood for, Robbs said, "I think he cared. He cared about everything he was involved in. He cared about Hawaii, the university, his family. I think he had a hell of a life."

Robbs donated his body to UH's John A. Burns School of Medicine for research purposes.

Don Robbs is survived by his brother Rick; son Scott; daughter-in-law Dori; stepdaughter Susan Leong; granddaughters Iliahi and Oliana; and step-grandchildren Blake Kondo and Te’a Leong.

There are no immediate plans for services.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with details and quotes.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.