Oops, I Almost Forgot

 

I'm too focused on this (West Haven High School)

It's almost 10 p.m. here in Greenwich.

Let's see, I've been out and about, came back home, hosted "Doubleheader," edited and reviewed the Greenwich football roster (I'm still waiting on West Haven's), created and edited music for the broadcast, watched baseball, and have done myriad other things.

I'll spare you the drama. I was editing "Hanratty's Huddle" just now when I suddenly remembered that I hadn't written yet.

I suppose that's indicative of how focused I am on tomorrow.

I have to record a podcast for Hunt Scanlon and that will get my full attention. So will my preparation for next week's conference in New York.

Beyond that, I'm all about West Haven/Greenwich.

As I said, I have Greenwich's roster, and that means creating a new Excel file where I keep as many as I can as the season goes along. There were nearly 50 tabs from the last file, which is hardly the total number of games I called in the past year. I acquire them in a variety of fashions and I edit them to my style.

Thus, I started the 24-25 file tonight.

Copying Greenwich's roster from the PDF that was sent to me to an Excel sheet is easier said than done. But that's OK, as it means I have to drill down and pay extra attention to the details. It also helps to learn the names.

That's how my rosters used to be created. I'd get them faxed to me and I'd diligently type them up.

Now they're emailed or I find them via one of a couple of websites.

If I haven't said it already (I know I have) I don't have West Haven's yet.

I'll always need help understanding schools and rosters. It shouldn't be such an involved process to get them but it is. 

It's frankly the very lifeblood of what I do as a play-by-play announcer.

I'll strive for perfection tomorrow but this isn't my first rodeo. There is simply bound to be something wrong. It could be the music or something technical or the roster. Obviously, I can only do so much about it.

I'll be on the road early to make sure I'm ready for the battle with traffic.

But if it all goes right, Dan and I will be on the air from West Haven.

And, finally, it will be time to get back to calling games.

Don't worry.

I won't forget.