After 20 Years

The old WGCH banner

The fascination with play-by-play began as a little boy for me. By my teens, I had decided I wanted to make that my vocation.

I had practiced. I called games in my yard -- football/baseball, and often alone.

I called games off TV. I took a cassette player to an all-star game and played around with it there.

Still, by the '90s, I hadn't quite figured out how to get a foot in the door.

Then came a strange offer. Out of nowhere, during a softball game that I was playing in.

"They want you to broadcast the championship and all-star game," Dave Ruvo said to me. Dave, one of the best players in the history of that league: Philip Morris/Kraft (later Altria/Kraft), was a man of few words.

Harold emailed me not long after. It was the beginning of a 24-year friendship.

Maybe I'd found my calling, as Miguel Villafane and I called that 1995 championship series. Still, these games weren't running on TV (although they did air on the in-house TV's) or the radio.

By 1996 I was at WREF Radio. By early '97, it was closed. Still no play-by-play gigs, though I continued to call PMKF Softball, even after departing the company in late '96.

I joined WGCH in 1997 and by late '98 had ascended to the role of lead board operator/studio host. Then-sports director John Connelly asked me to join him on Jan 28, 1999 to do color on a hockey game between Trumbull and Greenwich. To be honest, I was in over my head, but I faked it well enough to survive, I guess.

The Greenwich baseball team started 1999 with a doubleheader. John decided to call the early game with Russ McCarroll. I stayed in the studio and ran the board.

He gave me the lead of the second game. Russ would do color and call the middle innings.

Baseball. Officially/professionally my first play-by-play call.

Twenty years ago today.

Was I nervous? You bet. Was I good? Probably not. I raced over to the field from the studio, scribbled down the lineups, and then proceded to call Port Chester Rams "the Tigers."

Ugh.

But no matter what, I could now say I was a radio play-by-play announcer, and I loved it as much as I hoped.

Another 1219 games have come and gone and I'm still enamored. Through the politics and jealousy and criticism and lousy equipment and breathtaking highs and demoralizing lows, I still love it.

I've been blessed with partners on the air who have become friends off. I've been blessed with some ability (I hope). The "booth" (often a misnomer) has been my safe place. I've been parts perfectionist and complete jerk as I've stressed "the right way" to call a game.

I've also made enemies, though I never meant to, and I'm sorry for doing so. I realize I'm not often the most popular guy in the room.

It hasn't made me rich, but basically, this is what I've also wanted to do.

It began in the fascination of a little boy in the '70s. It really started in August 1995. But professionally it began 20 years ago today.

Thank you all for listening, reading, and supporting. I hope I've honored the profession I love so dearly.

This is what that first game sounded like 20 years ago -- April 10, 1999.

As luck would have it, I got to call a game today (via Local Live). So this is what it sounded like 20 years after that first call.