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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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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Know When To Fold Them

I need to make a phone call, but I’m not sure where to start.

In 2003, I was in my first year as the broadcaster for the Kalamazoo Kings, a minor league baseball team that played in the independent Frontier League. The Kings had a rough year on the field, firing their manager with more than half the season remaining and finishing in next-to-last place in their six-team division. But, it was a good year for me; management and the fans seemed pleased with my on-air work and several others around the league complimented me on the job I did. Near the end of the season, I was named the Frontier League Broadcaster of the Year. A couple of months later, I got a plaque for my achievement, my name written in gold script. I gave the hardware to Mom, who still displays it in my old bedroom. I called Kings games again in 2004 and again won Broadcaster of the Year. Joe Rosenhagen, the tobacco-dipping general manager of the Kings, requested that the team be allowed to display that plaque in their office and I was more than happy to oblige. It would be nice to have the second plaque, I thought, but it’s neat to know my award will be on display in Kalamazoo long after I leave.

As it turned out, I left Kalamazoo in the spring of 2005. The Kings carried on without me, winning the Frontier League Championship in ’05 followed by several more successful seasons on the field. The Kings continued to pride themselves on community outreach and charity, donating lots of tickets and all of their profits to the less fortunate. However, attendance started to dip after the championship year and 2010 was the final season of Kalamazoo Kings baseball. Officially, the team suspended operations, but it doesn’t appear that suspension will be lifted anytime soon.

I’m sure my Broadcaster of the Year plaque is sitting in a box in a closet or storage shed somewhere. And, if the Kings are no longer, I’d love to have it. But, I don’t know who to call.

The first minor league team I worked for was also named the Kings and also relocated, but that was the plan. In 2000, shortly after completing my junior year of college, I got an internship with the Queens Kings, of the short-season New York-Penn League. The Kings were in their first season, moving from St. Catharines, Ontario, where they had been a Toronto Blue Jays affiliate for many years. The franchise still had one more year left on their Player Development Contract with Toronto when they were purchased by New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon after the 1999 season with the intent of moving the team to Coney Island, on Brooklyn’s southern tip, where the team would be a Mets affiliate. However, a stadium in Coney Island wouldn’t be ready until the 2001 season, at the earliest, and plans to play temporarily in other Brooklyn venues fell through, leading Wilpon to strike a deal with St. John’s University that allowed the ballclub to play in a renovated baseball stadium on their campus in Queens as a Blue Jays farm club. Several people in the residential community surrounding St. John’s were opposed to the plan, afraid that the Kings’ 38-game home schedule would lead to traffic snarls and that the night games and noise from the ballpark would become a distraction that would interfere with their quality of life.

As it turned out, the community’s concerns were mostly unfounded. Despite playing in America’s biggest city, the Kings were last in the New York-Penn League in attendance, so noise and traffic weren’t significant issues. And, the Coney Island stadium was completed in time for the 2001 NY-Penn League season, so the Kings left St. John’s with a brand-new baseball field to become the Brooklyn Cyclones, a Mets affiliate that’s seen nothing but success both on and off the field.

Things have worked out for the erstwhile Queens Kings, but not for the Yakima Bears, the second minor league baseball team to employ me, and the first to hire me as their radio broadcaster. When I got there in 2002, the deck was already stacked against the Bears, who were in the smallest market in the short-season Northwest League. Moreover, Yakima, Washington was in an out-of-the-way locale that relied heavily on agriculture, which helped lead to high unemployment and a lack of discretionary dollars for families and businesses. The Bears played in a tiny stadium on the Yakima County Fairgrounds that lacked the amenities of many of the other league’s stadiums. And yet, I had a great summer getting paid to talk about baseball and getting to know the close-knit group of Bears supporters.

Even though I wasn’t surprised when I started reading about the possibility that 2012 could be the last season of Yakima Bears baseball – I’d heard stories about the Bears exploring relocation even before I got to Yakima – the reports of the Bears’ demise saddened me. I knew how much baseball meant to that community and I worked closely with many of the people who put in many hours of labor to keep baseball viable in Yakima. Not to mention, I have many fond memories of my season with the Bears, even if it was the least successful season in their history. But, the Bears’ history ended last week, when they played their last game in Yakima; they’ll spend 2013 and beyond in a sparkling, new facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. Unlike Yakima, Hillsboro isn’t in the middle of nowhere; it’s a suburb of Portland, the largest metropolitan area in the United States without professional baseball. Their stadium is sure to have many of the money-making amenities that were lacking in Yakima and Hillsboro’s populace is sure to help the franchise move out of the Northwest League’s attendance cellar, which is where the Bears resided for a good portion of their 23-season existence.

After Yakima and Kalamazoo, I wound up in Binghamton, New York, as the voice of the Double-A Binghamton Mets of the Eastern League. Like Yakima, Binghamton is the smallest market in its league and plays in a stadium that was built without many of the frills modern minor league stadiums have. However, the folks in Binghamton worked hard to modernize the ballpark as much as they could, constructing a weight room for the players, adding luxury boxes and installing a state-of-the-art video board, among other things. But, like Yakima, Binghamton often finds itself at the bottom of its league in attendance and, for years, some have quietly wondered how much longer Double-A baseball would last in Binghamton. Those concerns grew louder several months ago, when news reports out of Ottawa, Ontario claimed that owners there were ready to buy the B-Mets and move them into a refurbished stadium in Canada’s capital city. Binghamton’s team president strongly and forcefully denied those reports, but the skepticism remained.

That skepticism was quashed with last week’s news that Binghamton and the New York Mets agreed to extend their Player Development Contract for four more seasons, through 2016.  So, the Binghamton Mets appear safe for at least a little while longer; hopefully, baseball remains in Binghamton for the foreseeable future. Several of the B-Mets staff members I worked with have moved on, but a few remain. I still check the Eastern League standings to see how Binghamton is doing. The fact that the Binghamton Mets still exist means part of my past still exists. You can never go home again, but it’s nice to know that your old home still stands. It’s nice to know there’s still somebody I can call.

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Postponed

The five Binghamton Mets players thought they were big shots, smoking their cigars while walking through the Mohegan Sun Casino in southeastern Connecticut. We were staying at a Days Inn 20 minutes away for a series with the Norwich Navigators. Rather than take the team bus, I opted to drive my own car during this road trip. My car came in handy when the first game of Binghamton’s series with Norwich was rained out. After the postponement was announced, five players crammed into my tiny, green Saturn: one in the front passenger’s seat, three in the back seat and another player laid horizontally across the three seated in the back. Those five tried to talk me into putting a sixth player into the trunk, but that’s where I drew the line.

I wasn’t in the mood to gamble, and neither were Jeff Duncan, a speedy outfielder who’d spent time in the Majors with the New York Mets the previous two seasons, or Tim McNab, a gregarious Floridian whose sinker and slider make him an effective relief pitcher. So, the three of us had dinner and hopped from bar to bar – I was driving, so I didn’t imbibe as much as the other two – before we came upon a cigar shop. Duncan decided he wanted to buy everyone a cigar, which led to the summoning of his other three teammates and a careful perusal of the cigar collection. In addition to cigars and other tobacco products, this store also sold autographed sports memorabilia, which is what I honed in on while Duncan methodically examined the cigars on hand while getting counsel from a middle-aged female employee. After what seemed like 15 minutes, Duncan finally found cigars he felt were suitable for 20-something, Double-A baseball players. A lighter was passed around and off we went, five cigar-smoking athletes and one amused radio broadcaster – Duncan offered to buy me a cigar, but I declined – traipsing through Mohegan Sun’s indoor mall and multiple casino floors.

After the cigars were about half-finished, Duncan paused and looked at the cigar ring.

“Hey! This cigar says it’s a product of Connecticut!”

“They probably grew that next to the casino,” I said, unable to contain my laughter. “But, you like the cigars, right?”

Duncan nodded.

“Well, then, that’s all that matters.”

*          *          *

Baseball is the only sport that’s played every day, so repetition and routine are paramount. However, baseball is also the only sport with regular delays and postponements because of weather, usually rain, which break up that precious routine. And how one deals with such disruptions is important.

One of the most vital things I learned in my seven years as a minor league baseball play-by-play broadcaster is to always assume the game will be played to its completion, regardless of how much it has rained, how cold it is or how ominous the forecast looks. After all, it’s easier to prepare oneself to play in or broadcast  a game and then call off the dogs than it is to mentally relax thinking there will be no baseball, only to find out there will be, forcing you to get in game mode after you’ve cooled down.

Early in my minor league broadcasting career, I got into the habit of consulting the people who are the most in the know and powerful during rain delays: the general manager and the head groundskeeper. Everyone who makes his or her living in baseball follows weather forecasts and radar closely on bad weather days, but none more closely than those two. However, you have to approach those decision-makers with caution, because they’ve been getting asked all day whether there will be a game but, as long as you use the appropriate level of tact and sensitivity, you’ll usually get the information you seek. There was one opposing general manager when I worked for Binghamton who was especially difficult. He would quietly consult with the groundskeepers and ignore anyone else who asked him about the weather, even keeping the rest of his own staff and the two field managers out of the loop. It never made sense to me to guard information about the possible length of a delay or potential rainout contingency plans like it’s a state secret.

There’s nothing worse than losing an entire series to weather. That happened to me twice in the minors, both times while I was with Binghamton. One was a four-game series in Portland, Maine in late May; it rained heavily all four days. During that time, me and Binghamton’s pitching coach compared crossword puzzle answers via our hotel room phones and I ate plenty of meals at a Mexican restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. I was also with Binghamton when a four-game, season-opening series in Akron, Ohio was called because of snow and cold weather. Fortunately, there’s plenty to do near the hotel we stayed at in downtown Akron. On that trip, I somehow lucked into a room with a Jacuzzi, which I used several times; after tough days of going to the ballpark, learning there was no game, and returning to the hotel, I needed to unwind somehow, right?

Rain delays can lead to some interesting problems and creative solutions. I was calling games for the Kalamazoo Kings, of the independent Frontier League, when the start of one of our road contests was delayed by rain in Chillicothe, Ohio. The Chillicothe faithful had come out in full force for a post-game fireworks show and, when there’s a big crowd, the likelihood that a game will be played increases (rainouts result in lost ticket sales). However, the fireworks had to be shot off by a certain time – I think it was 11 pm – and, even if the game started, there was little chance it would end by then. So, a compromise was reached: the game would be stopped right around 11, fireworks would be lit, and the game would resume immediately thereafter. We hit 11 after about six or seven innings and, as promised, the game was halted, fireworks exploded and the ballpark emptied. We had to wait another 15-20 minutes for the smoke to clear after the pyrotechnics display; it wound up being about a 30-minute fireworks delay.

Sometimes, postponements come on clear, summer days. That’s what happened when I was working for Kalamazoo, which had road games scheduled versus a team in Hamilton, Ohio. The team was known as the Florence Freedom, but their stadium in Florence, Kentucky – an hour away – had yet to be built (the stadium opened the following year, half-finished because the team didn’t pay all their bills, which later led to lawsuits. Florence’s owner wound up going to prison for lying to banks about his assets in order to acquire loans and lines of credit). In the meantime, the Freedom called a glorified American Legion field home. On this day, an unexpected brief rainstorm hit about 30 minutes before the scheduled first pitch. Problem was, the grounds crew – which I believe was comprised of municipal employees – hadn’t arrived yet. As a result, no one put the tarp on the infield and no groundskeepers were there to prepare the field for the game after the brief soaking. Instead, several Freedom players and manager Tom Browning broke into the groundskeepers’ shed, grabbed bags of drying agent and spread the sandy stuff all over the infield in an attempt to sop up the water. There was Browning, 12-year Major League veteran and, at the time, one of only 17 pitchers to ever throw a perfect game, raking drying agent into the infield around the third-base bag. I was amused as I watched the scene unfold from my perch in the metal press box behind home plate. I was less amused when the umpires arrived, surveyed the field and, minutes before the game was supposed to start, decided to postpone it. When the home plate umpire turned toward the press box and made the horizontal slashing gesture with his right hand that symbolizes a game has been called, I was on the air and at a loss for words for a moment. I then explained to my listeners that “this game has been called because of…stupidity!”

I could’ve used a cigar after that one. Even if it was from Connecticut.

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