CLEVELAND — When Jimmy Dudley was working as an apprentice announcer on Chicago Cubs games, his lively, melodious voice caught the ear of a major sponsor of Cleveland Indians radio broadcasts.

  ``That's the man I want to do the Indians games,'' the chief of Erin Brew beer decided in 1948.

  For the next 20 years, Dudley was the voice of the Cleveland Indians and greeted fans tuning in on the radio with ``Hello baseball fans everywhere.''

  On Friday, Dudley died at age 89 after a stroke, said his wife, Angie. He suffered from Alzheimer's disease and spent the last two years in a special care home in Tucson, Ariz.

  ``There was not a better baseball announcer than Jimmy Dudley,'' said Hall of Famer Bob Feller on Monday. ``I'm sorry for the ones he's leaving behind.''

  A gifted storyteller, Dudley covered the Indians from  1948, the year the team won its last Worlde Series, until 1967.

  He often used the term, ``The string is out,'' when the count on a batter would come to three balls and two strikes. He would end his broadcast with, ``Lots of good luck, ya heah,'' his Southern voice filled with friendliness.

  In recognition of his work, Dudley was inducted into the broadcasters' wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in 1997.

  Dudley, a native of Alexandria, Va., majored in chemistry at the University of Virginia. He served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps during World War II and then turned to radio broadcasting after the war.

  Dudley also did play-by-play for the Cleveland Browns in the 1950s, for the Baltimore Colts and for Ohio State University football games.

  He became the voice of the Seattle Pilots in 1969, but a year later, the team transferred to Milwaukee, leaving him behind. Dudley never announced a major league game again.

  Besides his wife of 49 years, Dudley is survived by a son, Douglas, a Presbyterian minister in Carroll Stream, Ill., and a daughter, Barbara Wolf of Pittsburgh; two grandchildren; and a brother, Warren of Dallas, Texas.

  Services will be in Tucson at a time to be announced.