Longtime Mariners broadcaster Dave Niehaus listened to last Sunday afternoon's NFL playoff game between the Giants and Eagles, and he liked what he heard.

"I thought he did a great job," Niehaus said of Dave Sims, who was named on Thursday as the newest member of the Mariners' broadcast family. The club also announced that Mike Blowers, former Mariners third baseman and KOMO News analyst, is also joining the broadcast team for the 2007 season.

Sims will focus on play-by-play duties on Mariners television broadcasts, while Blowers will serve primarily as the Mariners' television analyst.

"This is a spectacular opportunity for me and my family," Sims said. "This is a chance for me to do something I've always wanted to do -- work for a Major League Baseball team from Game 1 on Opening Day through the World Series. I'm excited to work with Dave Niehaus. He's a legend. When you think of the Seattle Mariners, you think of Dave Niehaus."

The lineup is slightly different from the past 14 seasons, when Niehaus, Rizzs and Ron Fairly handled the bulk of the broadcast duties. Fairly retired at the end of last season.

A Philadelphia native, Sims is a two-time Emmy Award-winning sportscaster, handling play-by-play duties, hosting talk shows and anchoring/reporting sports news for ESPN and MLB.com. He has broadcast Big East college-football games since 1998 and college-basketball contests since 1991 for ESPN. He is also is a member of the CBS Radio/Westwood One team that broadcasts NFL Sunday night games, and he'll handle the play-by-play duties during the upcoming NFC Championship Game.

He was a finalist to join the Nationals' broadcast team when they moved from Montreal to Washington, D.C., prior to the 2005 season.

"I talked to Dave a couple of weeks ago and he seems like an awfully nice, young man," Niehaus said. "The only time I have met him was five or six years ago when we [Mariners] were in New York playing the Yankees.

"He was hosting a radio show for MLB.com ["The Early Show"], and we talked about the 'Miracle of '01'" -- the year the Mariners won an American League-record 116 regular season games.

In the 1990s, Sims provided play-by-play for CBS TV's coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament and served as a sports anchor/reporter/host for WCBS-TV in New York. His work on the local sports scene began with a seven-year stint as a sportswriter for the New York Daily News following his graduation from Bethany College in West Virginia.

Sims won his first Emmy in 1993 in New England and his second in 1997 in Philadelphia for his play-by-play work on football and basketball, respectively.

Blowers was a standout at Bethel High School in Spanaway, Wash., and was a Pac-10 Triple Crown winner with the University of Washington Huskies. During his 10-year Major League career, Blowers also played for the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland Athletics. Blowers lives in Graham, Wash., with his wife, Nicole, and their four children.