Green Bay Packers radio announcer Jim Irwin shakes hands with fans in the stands as he walks around the field during halftime of the game between the Packers and Tennessee Oilers on Dec. 20, 1998, in Green Bay. Irwin retired at the end of the 1998 season. Credit: Associated Press

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Jim Irwin wore many hats during his long and distinguished career as a sports broadcaster, and they all fit him well.

He'll be remembered primarily, however, as the play-by-play announcer for the Green Bay Packers, a job he performed with distinction for 30 years for WTMJ Radio.

He called 612 consecutive Packers games, including the preseason and playoffs, before retiring after the 1998 season. The last 20 years of that time, he teamed with analyst Max McGee and their voices became synonymous with Packers football.

"Jim and Max got to where all of us in this business want to get - they became a part of the fabric of the game," said Larry McCarren, who joined Irwin and McGee in the WTMJ broadcast booth in 1995 and remains the color analyst. "It wasn't a Packers game without Jim and Max."

Irwin died Sunday from metastatic cancer, which was first diagnosed in 2010. He was 77.

"We're so thankful that he was never in pain," said Gloria Irwin, Jim's wife. "He was just as positive as he could be the whole way through. It's a very mean disease."

Known for his folksy style and distinctive voice, Irwin was one of the most prolific and popular sports broadcasters in Wisconsin history.

In addition to his Packers duties, he called Milwaukee Bucks games for 16 years, University of Wisconsin football games for 22 years, Wisconsin basketball games for five years and UW-Milwaukee basketball games - with Bob Uecker - for two years. He occasionally filled in for Uecker on Milwaukee Brewers broadcasts.

"He was a great radio play-by-play person," said John Steinmiller, the Bucks' vice president of business operations. "He had a great vocabulary, a good observational skill and he really painted the picture for the radio listener without overdoing it.

"He had fun doing the games and you could tell. He entertained as well as informed."

For 16 years Irwin was the voice of the Packers, Bucks and Wisconsin football simultaneously, a difficult juggling act. Yet, over that span he never missed a Packers game, missed only one Wisconsin game - when his father died in 1977 - and missed just a handful of Bucks games.

"There were a number of times when I would do a Packers game then jump in a plane and fly home for the Bucks," he said in a 1998 interview. "Somebody else would start the (Bucks) game and I would slide into the chair at the end of the first quarter and take over."

Steve Wexler, who worked closely with Irwin as a sports producer and now is executive vice president for television and radio operations for WTMJ, said Irwin's travel schedule caused logistical nightmares.

"I can still remember looking at the itineraries and trying to figure out how we were going to get him from Camp Randall on Saturday to Tampa on Sunday for a Packers game to Portland on Monday for a Bucks game," Wexler said.

Irwin also handled the sports announcing duties on WTMJ's early morning show for more than 30 years. He continued in that role until July 1999.

"He had a great perspective on sports," Steinmiller said. "His editorials on WTMJ really hit the mark. He made people think about the game in the process of entertaining them."

The Packers were a bad team for much of the 1970s and '80s and Wexler marveled at Irwin's enthusiasm during that long drought.

"I remember listening to him when I was working the board and thinking, 'Boy, he just knows how to make those three hours entertaining, interesting and bearable,' " Wexler said. "When he finally got a chance to call playoff games and the Super Bowl, I felt so good for him."

Irwin was born in Linn Creek, Mo., a small town near the Lake of the Ozarks, and grew up listening to Harry Caray, then the voice of the St. Louis Cardinals, and Merle Harmon, who broadcast Kansas City Athletics games from 1955 to '63.

Irwin served in the U.S. Army in Korea and then enrolled at the University of Missouri, where he majored in speech.

"I had a wonderful teacher who taught me to speak from the front of my mouth," he said. "You've heard people who are guttural; their voice comes from the back of their throat. Mine comes from the front of my mouth, which allows me to go three or four hours without straining my voice."

McCarren said Irwin had the rare ability to add intensity to his voice without shouting to describe a big play.

"A lot of guys start yelling, but Jim was able to add juice without raising his voice," McCarren said. "That's very hard to do."

In 1964, Irwin took a job as sports director at WLUK-TV in Green Bay, but he knew deep down that his calling was as a play-by-play announcer. To gain experience, he called Lawrence University football games for an Appleton radio station.

In 1969, WTMJ hired him to team with Ted Moore on Badgers and Packers broadcasts. Irwin worked with Gary Bender from 1970 to '74. After Bender moved up to CBS, Irwin teamed with the late Lionel Aldridge until 1979, when Aldridge was replaced by McGee.

Irwin and McGee retired together following the 1998 season. Wayne Larrivee replaced Irwin as the play-by-play announcer, and McCarren remained in the booth as the analyst. McGee died in 2007.

"Max and Jim went through 20 years when the Packers had next to nothing," Larrivee said. "They made that broadcast come to life. They sold the Packers. They were the Packers. I was really happy for Jim when they won the Super Bowl in '96. He had paid his dues."

"He was a wonderful guy. He was a good friend."

Gloria Irwin said at one point the Packers offered her husband a job as the team's public relations director. He gave the offer serious consideration before deciding to stay in broadcasting.

Asked once to describe his style, Irwin said, "Friendly. Breezy. I don't think there's anything terribly distinctive about the way I broadcast a game. It's like you and your neighbor sitting down and discussing a game."

Said Wexler, "I think his authenticity was the thing people responded to. It wasn't necessarily his technical skills, although they were quite good. I think Jim was real. He was genuine."

After Irwin retired, he and Gloria moved to Orange County, California, to be closer to their son, Jay, their daughter, Anne Sinek, and their three grandchildren.

A golf fanatic, Irwin had a respectable handicap and played often with close friend Hank Stoddard, the former sports director at WTMJ who also retired to southern California and lived about 10 miles from Irwin.

Irwin was inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame in 2003.

In 2010, he discovered he had cancer, which by then had metastasized.

"It was devastating to my family, of course, but they've just been rock solid all along here," Irwin said in an interview last year with Mike Jacobs of Today's TMJ4.

Funeral arrangements are pending.