Hired To Be Fired

I’ll never forget when I knew Trey Hillman was about to be fired. I was sitting next to him on the dais in the media interview room in the bowels of Kauffman Stadium.  In my role as the Kansas City Royals reporter for their flagship radio station, I got to ask Hillman, the Royals manager, the first three questions during his post-game press conference before heading upstairs to host my Royals post-game call-in show. The Royals had lost another game in which they struggled to score runs and their bullpen imploded and I asked Hillman what could be done to fix the struggling offense.

“You start to think about squeezing in the first inning,” Hillman said.

Things had gotten so bad, the Royals manager was talking about bunting in a run in the early innings, which almost never happens; even the most offensively-challenged or small ball-oriented teams don’t squeeze bunt that early. And, bunting early won’t get a team out of its offensive doldrums; if your team has the talent to score runs, it eventually will; if it doesn’t, it won’t. There isn’t a managerial strategy that can alter how many runs an offense scores to a significant degree. This is a man, I thought to myself, who has run out of ideas. It wasn’t long before Hillman was fired.

When you’ve covered sports long enough, it’s not hard to figure out when a manager or head coach is on the verge of resigning or being let go. Sometimes, the giveaway is the badmouthing of the leader by his players. Other times, it’s the lack of respect or attention the coach/manager gets from his superiors. But, the surest sign is public statements like Hillman’s, when it’s clear the coach or manager has no idea how to get his team out of their morass. I saw something similar over the last few months, when Kansas City Chiefs head coach Romeo Crennel was clearly a dead man walking. In his press conferences after games and during the week, Crennel didn’t seem to have many answers as to why the Chiefs, picked by many to contend in the AFC West, were on their way to a 2-14 season and the first overall pick in the NFL Draft. Crennel tried to shake things up by firing himself as defensive coordinator, by indicating that players who turned the ball over would sit out for at least a handful of plays and by making a quarterback change. None of those moves worked, mainly because the Chiefs’ problems were so embedded, they weren’t going to be fixed with a few in-season changes. The day after the season ended, the Chiefs announced that Crennel was given his walking papers.

The unfortunate thing for managers and head coaches is that, generally, they’re pawns and the problems with their roster are often out of their control. There wasn’t much Hillman could do with a roster filled with young players who weren’t ready to contribute and/or didn’t belong in the Majors, over-the-hill players and dead-end veterans. At the time, we knew the Royals were a year or two away from having talented young players from their farm system ready to help, but it seemed Hillman had already lost his way and wasn’t worth keeping around for the impending youth movement. In Crennel’s case, what was seen as a talented roster wasn’t as talented as initially thought and there was little depth. Also, Crennel had a very young team that had little-to-no experience with winning at the professional level and terrible quarterback play in a league dominated by teams with excellent quarterback play. Most Chiefs fans knew Crennel was hamstrung and, as a result, directed the majority of their ire toward general manager Scott Pioli, with whom the Chiefs also parted ways.

When a team is struggling or not playing as well as some expected, fans and media are always looking for signs that a manager or head coach is on his way out. Fans often focus on in-game coaching decisions, but rarely do those indicate anything about a manager’s fate either way. Sure, some managers or coaches are more aggressive when they think they’re on the hot seat, but some will become more conservative, playing it close to the vest in an effort to avoid making waves. And, in my experience, players don’t react to game-to-game coaching decisions in the same way fans do; when players don’t win, they’re more likely to put the blame on themselves. Of course, players will notice egregious mistakes or miscalculations in strategy but, even then, they’re more likely to blame the poor results on their poor execution. That’s especially true in baseball, where there are games every day and relatively little time is spent dissecting each an every maneuver.

Media often focus on what’s going on in the locker room or clubhouse as a way of taking the temperature of a team. But, many times, that approach bears little fruit. Off-the-record comments from players and assistant coaches are the most revealing but, on the record, there usually is very little that indicates a team’s dissatisfaction with their boss. And, even if a team doesn’t like their manager or head coach, it doesn’t always mean a manager or head coach is in trouble. Likewise, a coach or manager who is liked by the players isn’t always safe. When he led the Royals, players often chafed at Hillman’s managerial style. There seemed to be a feeling that Hillman – who had never played, coached or managed in the Major Leagues before the Royals hired him – was out to prove he knew more about baseball than anyone else. One player even told me – off the record, of course – that Hillman’s first name was Trey because he thought he was three times smarter than everyone else. A strong argument could be made that Hillman never had control of the clubhouse or the respect of the players. On the other hand, the Chiefs players seemed to love Crennel; he had an avuncular way about him and was a hard guy to dislike. Even when the Chiefs were at their worst and Crennel was at his wits end with the media or with his players, it was hard not to feel sorry for Crennel. On the flipside, I don’t ever remember media feeling sorry for Hillman, even though he was dealt a bad hand. Crennel never had success as an NFL head coach and he clearly was out of ideas when it came to trying to fix what was wrong with the Chiefs, but most of his players seemed to like and respect him.

So, how are those who cover a team – and even some media who don’t cover a team – able to figure out when a coach or manager’s time is almost up? Some of it is simply intuition and an understanding of history. But, much of it is parsing what the coach/manager is saying, or not saying, to the media. Coaches who seem to be out of ideas and/or look or act defeated on a regular basis are usually taken out of their misery sooner rather than later.

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To Catchphrase Or Not To Catchphrase

I go through stages where I only listen to a specific music genre or musical artist for a few days. During this particular period, I was listening to a lot of old-school rap from the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of my favorite groups from that era is A Tribe Called Quest, a trio of rappers from Queens, New York who were adept at combining sounds unique to rap with superb wordplay. At the moment, “Can I Kick It?”, a Tribe song held in place by guitar chords borrowed from Lou Reed’s classic rock hit “Walk on the Wild Side”, was playing. In the song’s chorus, Tribe asks “Can I kick it?”, with the audience responding “Yes you can!” over and over again.

Then it hit me. I can use that.

I was in the middle of my first – and, as it turned out, only – season as the radio voice of The College of St. Rose men’s and women’s basketball teams. St. Rose’s women’s team had a two-guard whose primary job was to come off the bench and fire three-point shots. Like most long-range shooters, it was apparent within one or two shot attempts whether she was hot or cold. And, when she was hot, even the rare threes that missed looked like they were going in. One night, she came in and hit her first two threes and I knew she was on. So, when her next three went up, I saw my opportunity.

“Can she hit it?” I asked my listeners and the basketball floated through the air.

“Yes she can!” I exclaimed as the ball snapped through the bottom of the net with ruthless precision.

And, just like that, I’d come up with another way to describe a three-point shot.

Catchphrases in broadcasting can be a dangerous thing. Often, for something to truly become a catchphrase, a broadcaster has to use it over and over again in the same situation, which can become paralyzing and a threat to a broadcaster’s creativity. I see “Can he/she hit it…Yes he/she can!” more as an option than a catchphrase because I don’t use it on every three-point shot attempt; I don’t think I’ve ever used it more than once in a game broadcast and I’ll often go several games without using it at all. I feel that something like “Can he/she hit it…Yes he/she can!” has to be used sparingly, if at all. And, it works well only if the shot goes in; “Can he/she hit it…Nope” doesn’t have the same ring to it.

When I got my first play-by-play job, calling minor league baseball, I had six months to prepare before I called my first game. A good portion of that six months was spent trying to come up with a catchphrase for home runs. Every baseball broadcaster has a home run catchphrase, I thought, so I should too. I finally settled on “Forget it!”; I can emphasize the “r” even more on bigger home runs, I thought to myself. I spent countless hours going over that home run call in my head and aloud.

Then, the season started. And, I barely used the home run catchphrase I’d spent months perfecting. There were two main reasons for that. For one, I was overwhelmed, particularly at the start of the season, and I focused more energy on getting the nuts and bolts of baseball play-by-play correct and less on catchphrases. And, I realized my best calls – of home runs or of anything else – came when I just reacted and described what I saw. Play-by-play is hard enough, I reasoned, and I don’t need to make it even harder by trying to force specific catchphrases or expressions into my vernacular.

Even though I don’t focus on catchphrases in my play-by-play, I still spend a lot of time trying to come up with different words and phrases I can use on the air, but I do that as a way of preventing my play-by-play description from becoming stale. For example, last month I realized I was using “puts up” too often when describing an outside shot attempt (e.g. “Phillips puts up a three”). So, I focused on using other words to describe the act of shooting a jumper, paying close attention to the words used by other broadcasters when they described similar plays. It didn’t take me long to reduce my penchant for “puts up”.

However, some words and phrases work well, even if they’re repeated over and over. Perhaps the best example of that is NBA broadcaster Marv Albert’s “Yes!” call after made jump shots. Albert says “Yes!” after a healthy portion of successful outside shots in almost every game he’s done for at least the last four decades. However, it works for Albert because it’s simple and he varies the “Yes!” based on the importance and/or difficulty of the shot; Albert’s “Yes!” is more emphatic after a game-winner than it is after a first-quarter make. And, it never sounds like Albert is forcing “Yes!” into his call. Albert says he came up with “Yes!” as a youngster, when he heard a referee say “Yes, and it counts!” after a player made a basket despite being fouled and he and his friends started using “Yes!” in their own pickup basketball games. A broadcaster never knows when inspiration will strike.

Whenever an inexperienced or aspiring play-by-play broadcaster asks me about catchphrases and signature calls, I always tell him or her not to worry about coming up with any; let it happen organically. Instead, the focus should be on economy of words and on being able to describe the same plays in myriad ways. As broadcasters get more experience, their personality will emerge, and so will their style and any pet phrases; trying to force a style or catchphrases into play-by-play usually sounds contrived and inauthentic. I also tell broadcasters you never know when or where your favorite words or phrases will emerge. Maybe you’ll have some old-school rappers to thank.

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140 Characters Or Fewer

I’d heard about Twitter for months but it took me awhile to grasp the concept. You send out short messages called tweets? Who reads them? Why would anyone care? How is this any different from status updates on Facebook? Eventually, I joined Twitter reluctantly; I kept hearing about links to interesting articles that were showing up in people’s tweets, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I had no preconceived notions about how much, or how little, I would tweet.

I started by following people I knew and following people who covered baseball; the former for obvious reasons and the latter because I’m always up for reading something about the game I love and cover for a living. The baseball season was in full swing when I joined, so I started tweeting my observations about the Kansas City Royals games I was watching every night in my role as the Royals pre- and post-game show host on their flagship radio station. At first, my followers were all people I knew. After a while, more and more people I didn’t know started following me; those people were mostly Royals fans who wanted more information about their team. I figured I’d wind up with no more than 1,000 followers. There can’t be that many people interested in what I have to say, I thought.

It didn’t take long for Twitter to become addictive. If I was away from the computer or my phone for a few hours, I’d spend 20 minutes scrolling through all the tweets on my timeline that appeared during my hiatus. I’d wake up in the morning and check every tweet that was sent while I was sleeping. It wasn’t until my now-wife and I visited her family in rural Puerto Rico – where internet access and reliable cell phone service weren’t easy to come by – that I broke myself of my obsessive-compulsive Twitter behavior. I still check Twitter regularly, but I no longer fret over the tweets I might be missing.

It also didn’t take long for me to realize there were a lot more people interested in what I tweeted than I ever imagined. I currently have nearly 4,200 followers, more than four times my original estimate. I’m conscious of how many people follow me – and that most of them follow because I tweet quite a bit about the Royals and other Kansas City-area teams and happenings – but I don’t want to become completely beholden to my followers. Most people on Twitter are relatively anonymous, but I’m not; I’m on the radio regularly and easy to track down if one so chooses. And, because of my lack of anonymity, I have to be conscious about what I tweet. Many in my position choose to play it close to the vest and to only tweet about a specific subject or subjects, keeping the tweets relatively benign and unlikely to stir the pot. However, I couldn’t play it close to the vest if I tried; that doesn’t mean I tweet recklessly, but I don’t place limits on what I tweet about. Most of my tweets will relate to baseball or another sport and I try to be honest in my assessments, making critical statements when I deem criticism to be necessary. However, I tweet about lots of other topics: parenthood, politics, pet peeves, observations, news that may only interest me, etc. Like everything else I do, I want my Twitter account to be a reflection of me; I consider myself to be a sports fanatic who has a variety of other interests and concerns and I want my tweets to show that.

I enjoy answering questions and discussing a variety of topics with my Twitter followers; they learn a little more about me and I learn a little more about them, too. The majority of my interactions on Twitter have been positive, even my interactions with those whom I disagree. More often than not, I enjoy the back-and-forth with my followers and many have told me they appreciate that I’ll actually respond to them, whereas many others won’t. I will even respond to the handful of people who are harsh or unnecessarily negative toward me; I usually respond by retweeting those comments or responding to them in a way that allows all of my followers to view my response. I have yet to block someone for tweeting negative things or unsubstantiated criticism to me; often, such haters are so surprised you’d respond to them, they back off. Twitter has also allowed me to connect with others who cover baseball; I’ve arranged several radio interviews and developed a few contacts thanks to Twitter. Through Twitter, I’ve also gotten restaurant recommendations, reconnected with acquaintances I haven’t heard from in years and been offered free legal and medical advice from apparent experts in those fields (I’ve declined those offers).

Sometimes, I have to remind some of my followers about the free and voluntary nature of Twitter. I’m amused by the “no one cares” responses I occasionally get regarding my tweets from some. It cracks me up when I’m told to “stick to sports” or “stick to the Royals” when I tweet about non-sports or non-Royals topics. One of the great things about Twitter is it can be whatever you want to be; I will never understand those on Twitter who don’t get that concept. Besides, Twitter would bore me if I, and everyone else, only tweeted about work and/or followed the same boilerplate. By the same token, it amuses me when I see articles and blog posts about how to use Twitter. There are no hard-and-fast Twitter rules; tweet about what you want and follow, or don’t follow, whomever you want. Don’t want to reveal much about yourself? Fine. Want to use Twitter as your personal confessional? That’s fine, too. Want to follow only a handful of people who only tweet about a specific topic? Go for it. Want to follow thousands of people from a variety of disciplines? Make it happen. I think the universal and adaptable nature of Twitter is why its popularity continues to grow.

Okay, time for me to post this blog, so that I can tweet a link to it. Even if no one cares.

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A Basketball Play-By-Play Education

I didn’t know exactly when the game would start, so I showed up shortly after the junior varsity contest tipped off. That’s when I noticed my broadcast position was less than ideal – on the stage behind one of the baskets. A center-court location would’ve been preferable, but I wasn’t nervous; I’d been preparing to call basketball games for quite some time and I was certain I was ready. I’d spoken briefly with Kalamazoo Christian High School’s head coach and I knew the starters. I didn’t have any statistics, but it was a high school game and the first game of the season, so I didn’t think statistics would matter much. Also, I was working with an analyst, who would help fill in the gaps.

The first few minutes of the game were a bit of a struggle, because I was still learning the players on both teams. And, it was even harder to identify the combatants when they were on the opposite end of the floor from our broadcast position. But, as the seconds ticked off of Kalamazoo Christian’s brand new purple scoreboard, I was starting to get comfortable.

Then, Kalamazoo Christian substituted.

That season, Kalamazoo Christian felt they had ten players who could start for them. Of course, you can only have half that number on the court at a given time, so they decided to break up that group of ten into a first unit and a second unit; each unit would always play together. The head coach, wary of revealing too much to someone he’d just met, didn’t tell me about these two units in our pre-game chat. If Kalamazoo Christian subbed in a more traditional fashion – one or two guys in the game here, another guy in the game there – I would’ve had an easier adjustment. Instead, five new players came in at once. Fortunately, my broadcast partner – who had been Kalamazoo Christian’s play-by-play broadcaster the previous few seasons before sliding into the analyst’s chair upon my arrival – helped me out and disaster was averted.

That game took place nine years ago this December. And, I’ve been calling basketball ever since.

Even though that game in a tiny gym with wooden, fold out bleachers in the southwest corner of Michigan was my first on-air basketball broadcast, I’d been practicing for several years. During my junior year at Syracuse University, I decided to get serious about pursuing a career in play-by-play. Syracuse is known as a play-by-play broadcaster factory but WAER, the on-campus radio station where many of those play-by-players got their start, required students to start working their way up the station’s hierarchy as freshmen before (hopefully) getting a chance to call a handful of Syracuse basketball and/or football games as upperclassmen. Play-by-play wasn’t on my radar for much of my first two years of college – I thought I wanted to be a television sports anchor – so I never considered working at WAER and, by my junior year, it was too late for me to get a chance to do play-by-play there. Instead, I purchased tickets for seats in the upper reaches of the Carrier Dome, where I would call basketball games into my tape recorder. One of the first games I remember doing was a contest against Seton Hall, which Syracuse’s Allen Griffin won with a 15-foot jumper in the closing seconds. I was disappointed when I listened back to the tape and heard how out-of-breath and raspy I sounded. My voice was very close to a yell in the final minutes of that close game and I sounded like an unabashed Syracuse fan who was calling one of their games, which is what I was.

That tape recorder continued to get a workout after I graduated from Syracuse. That first winter in the “real world” was spent in living at home in New York City, where I was either working, visiting my girlfriend in Massachusetts or doing basketball play-by-play into my tape recorder. I lived a 20-minute bus ride from Manhattan College, which had one of the best mid-major teams in the country that year and I was a frequent fixture in the top row of Manhattan’s Draddy Gymnasium bleachers, my recorder and notes in tow. Columbia University’s basketball team wasn’t nearly as good, but their campus was easy to get to via subway after work, so I often found myself calling many of their games as well. I would prep for games at work, using the team websites for statistics and player information. I would turn a manila folder into my spotting chart – a technique I learned from Dave Pasch, one of my adjunct professors in college, who doubled as the radio voice of Syracuse basketball and football. Player numbers were written on the folder in black Sharpie and all other information was copiously scribbled in black ink; each team got one half of the manila folder. A yellow legal pad was used to write down each team’s schedule and other notes. Since I didn’t have access to in-game statistics,I taught myself how to keep track of each player’s points and fouls on the folder during games.

I employed the same manila-folder-and-legal-pad system when I started doing Kalamazoo Christian’s games, except high school teams didn’t have websites with statistics and player notes, something I wasn’t prepared for. But, after that first game, I got better. I started photocopying all of the high school basketball box scores in the local paper and would file them away, so I’d have some basic statistics for every team. Before games, I would look for the opposing coach and ask him for his starting lineup, key reserves and basic information about his squad. I also served as an analyst on the college basketball broadcasts for Division III Kalamazoo College, which helped me to see the floor better and pick out some of the nuances in team defense and offense, especially away from the ball. And, as I did more Kalamazoo Christian games, it became easier to see what was happening off the ball; I started noticing who was setting screens and what players were doing to get into proper position to rebound or shoot before the ball came their way. My confidence grew, and I realized I had a chance to become a very competent basketball voice.

I really came into my own as a basketball play-by-play broadcaster my first winter in Binghamton, New York. I moved there from Kalamazoo to call baseball but, I was employed by the team just for the season, rather than year-round by the radio station, like I was in Kalamazoo. I landed a job calling high school basketball for a small-town radio station outside of Binghamton, but that wasn’t going to be enough to pay the bills. I was working in pizza delivery when I learned that The College of St. Rose – a Division II school two hours away, in Albany – had just lost their play-by-play broadcaster about two weeks before the start of their season. On a whim, I left a phone message for St. Rose’s athletic director and, two days later, their sports information director called me. After overnighting a CD with clips of my Kalamazoo Christian basketball play-by-play and an in-person meeting, I was hired and my pizza delivery days were over. Most of St. Rose’s basketball games were part of doubleheaders – the women would tip off first, and the men’s game would follow a half-hour after the women’s contest was done – and they wanted me to call all of their men’s and women’s games. Fortunately, St. Rose’s games didn’t conflict with the high school games I’d already agreed to do, but it was still a hectic schedule. I usually called a high school game on Friday night before waking up early on Saturday morning to drive at least two hours to call a pair of St. Rose’s games. One Saturday, I called a St. Rose doubleheader in the afternoon before driving back to the Binghamton area to do a high school basketball playoff game that night. When I wasn’t calling a game, I was traveling to one or preparing for another. That winter, I did about 5-6 games a week and wound up calling 75 basketball games, all of them solo. However, when the season ended, I wasn’t burned out; I was actually energized because I realized that, not only could I call a decent game, but I loved calling basketball. Baseball will always be my favorite sport to broadcast, but I now realized that basketball was a close second.

The following year, I was prepared for another hectic winter of calling basketball when I learned Division I Binghamton University needed a women’s basketball broadcaster. Thanks to contacts I’d cultivated, I was the top candidate for the job. By the end of my interview, I was hired, and I called Binghamton women’s basketball for four years, eventually giving up the gig calling high school games (Instead, I refereed high school and middle school basketball games, which increased my understanding of the game and the rules even further). Cutting back to “only” 30 or so games a year still proved enjoyable.

Wednesday, I start my third year as the voice of University of Nebraska Omaha basketball and my tenth year overall calling basketball. Since there’s more information available, college basketball games easier to call than high school games. Over the years, I’ve learned developing a good relationship with your team’s head coach is invaluable. So is planning ahead and preparing for games in advance, especially if you have a stretch of three or four games in a seven-to-ten day period. Great preparation will lead to me being able to drop the right anecdote or statistic at the right time, which is crucial in basketball play-by-play, since there are few breaks in the action.

Even though a lot has changed since that first game in Kalamazoo, I still get excited whenever I put on a headset and I still look forward to the moment when the ball is thrown into the air for the opening tip. Hopefully, that excitement lasts for a long time.

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The End Of The Road

It feels weird that the 2012 baseball season ends on a Wednesday. I’m used to the season coming to an end on a Monday – I worked in minor league baseball for several years, and their season usually ends on Labor Day – or a Sunday. But, Wednesday it is.

Like most people who work in baseball, I’m terrible at saying goodbye, even though there are several people I probably should say goodbye to. I come into contact with dozens of people over the course of a season, people I see at every home game. There’s the security guard I wave to as I walk from my car to the ballpark, the attendant I make small talk with as I wait for the clubhouse to open, the writers with whom I talk baseball. I talk to some more than others, but we all are united because of baseball. But, on Wednesday, the last game will be played and we’ll scatter without much acknowledgement.

And, that’s the thing: because we’re united by baseball, there seems to be little reason to communicate once baseball season ends. Plus, an effort would have to be made to communicate in the off-season, whereas in-season communication is effortless. I’ll cross paths with some of them before next season, but not with the same frequency. Many of us will go months without seeing each other, if we ever see each other again. The following year, there are always new faces and faces that disappear; questions will be asked about the people who are gone but, rarely, is there any follow up, regardless of the circumstances that led to that person’s departure from our daily baseball routine.

It always takes me several days to decompress from baseball’s every day routine. Since early March, when I was in Arizona for spring training, there’s been a game to cover, post-game work to do, a player to interview, a manager to question every single day, save for the handful of off-days scattered throughout the season and spring training. You have to be wired a certain way to deal with the baseball grind; most people can’t handle a schedule with no weekends off and few evenings off. Few would want to deal with a summer with brief vacations – if any vacations – and the constant travel (I currently don’t travel with a baseball team during the regular season, but I did for seven years) that covering baseball requires. I figured out right away that the baseball lifestyle suits me, but it takes a little while to get used to a normal lifestyle again, with more evenings at home and no game every day.

No baseball team I’ve covered as a play-by-play broadcaster or pre- and post-game show host has made it to the postseason, and I would imagine it takes even longer to recover from a stretch with heightened intensity and uncertainty surrounding when – and how – the ride will end. But, watching postseason baseball helps me decompress. There are still daily games, but I’m not covering them, so I can watch a game without thinking about anything other than watching the game; I can tune in and out whenever I choose and I don’t have to concern myself with every detail. The postseason is the only time I really get to watch baseball as a fan, even though I’m not rooting for any of the teams.

Growing up, I used to suffer from baseball withdrawal. The end of World Series was always sad to me, because I wouldn’t have any baseball to watch for more than four months. When my Sports Illustrated would come in the mail, I’d scour it for any baseball nuggets, and I would do the same whenever I got my hands on a newspaper. But, as I got older and developed an affinity for other sports and cultivated other interests, that withdrawal waned until it eventually disappeared. I still miss baseball during the off-season but, the melancholy feeling has been replaced by a sanguine one; random stories and notes about the upcoming season get me excited about what lies ahead.

Even though I love baseball, I’m not a typical fan; I don’t see the game the same way an average fan does. The baseball off-season gives me a chance to be a fan of other teams and other sports. My attention turns to the New York Giants and Syracuse basketball in particular. I follow their games passionately and emote over every occurrence – good or bad – in their games, something I don’t do while watching baseball anymore. I also keep close tabs on the New York Knicks and on Syracuse football but, since both of those teams have struggled mightily for several years, I tend not to be as invested in their success – or, more accurately, their failures. Also, it’s possible for me to watch virtually every Giants and Syracuse basketball game live with minimal effort and little-to-no cost; the same isn’t true for the Knicks or for Syracuse football.

I also use the baseball off-season as a chance to cover other sports. This will be my 10^th consecutive winter doing basketball play-by-play and, in many of those years, I’ve also called football. My preparation for the basketball and football games that I call is more detailed and nuanced than it would be if I wasn’t calling baseball. During a baseball season, there’s little time to slow down and think too far ahead. But, with basketball being two or three times a week and football being once a week, there’s plenty of time to put together detailed notes and to gather information. Baseball play-by-play is my first love, but I enjoy the different challenges posed by calling faster paced sports as well. When I do baseball play-by-play, or even during my pre- and post-game shows, I like to tell stories and weave that day’s events into a larger narrative. But, in basketball and football, I enjoy the challenge of delivering the perfectly timed statistic or factoid; the action moves so quickly that, if you miss your chance to mention something, the pace of the sport often won’t allow you another opportunity.

Right before either my fourth or fifth year covering baseball, I was worried because the season was about to start and I wasn’t particularly excited and I didn’t feel energized. Do I still want to do this? I thought to myself. Then, I gradually started my preparations for the season and realized that, as I dipped my toe deeper into the baseball waters, that excitement and enthusiasm began to emerge. Later, it occurred to me that I’d been through the grind of so many baseball seasons that my mind and my body knew what to expect and, as a result, were conserving energy. They knew how long the season was and they weren’t going to expend energy or resources unnecessarily or prematurely. Before each game that year, I noticed I was very low key but, once the games started, it was like a switch went off and I immediately transformed into Baseball Mode. I still find myself switching Baseball Mode on and off, when needed.

I wonder if a day will come where I’ll tire of covering baseball, a day where I’m unable to switch into Baseball Mode as quickly as I do now and the grind becomes more of a burden and less of a badge of honor. That day has come for many of my friends and former co-workers who’ve left baseball; some of them don’t really miss it and some forever rue the day they departed. I hope that day never comes for me. Hopefully, I’m able to gear up and decompress for many more baseball seasons. Right now, I know I’m prepared for the end of this season and I’ll be ready for the beginning of next season.

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