10 Years, 6 Cities, A Lot of Teams

When I look at my experience in pro sports over the last ten years, I look at different places I've lived, different teams I've worked for and different people I've met.

For three years from 1998-2000, I lived in St. Petersburg, Florida while working for the St. Petersburg Devil Rays. During that time, I also worked for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, announced and/or played music for the Tampa Yankees, Charlotte Rangers, Orlando Rays (only one of those teams is still around), University of Tampa (baseball, basketball, volleyball and soccer), the NCAA, NJCAA, Conference USA and broadcast my first baseball games with the 2000 Florida State League all-star games and championship series. In 2000, I also provided play-by-play at our ballpark while also the PA announcer, the first time I ever really did it however not on the same basis as I do today. That year I made my Fox Sports debut when Tony Saunders broke his arm for the second time while on a rehab assignment with St. Pete. It was a rough night.

During those three years I also had the opportunity to announce for a lot of players coming up through the minors, quite a few stand out, others flaked out but in the end I can look at Major League Baseball teams and probably say I've announced for two or three players on every team. Several who played on rehab assignments include Curt Schilling, Todd Hundley, Albie Lopez, Rolando Arrojo and Wilson Alvarez. Mike Rabelo and Johnny Raburn were in college and Lastings Milledge was in high school when I announced for them. Matt Diaz and Aubrey Huff were making their way through the Devil Rays system among many, many others. My first game in the Florida State League was Dunedin at Tampa. Pitching for Dunedin was Dave Steib in his attempted comeback for the Blue Jays. In 1999, I also got to announce for some of baseball's great's in a legends game in St. Pete. Growing up an Orioles fan and getting to announce Brooks Robinson as, "the greatest third baseman of all time" was amazing. I had ad-libbed that line and the reps from MLB were fine with that. There were numerous others such as Dave Winfield and I wish I could go back to find the autographed program I have from that game. Why? Because it was signed by Tug McGraw.

Meeting Tug was awesome. This was around the time that he and Tim were getting back together and sorting things out. The previous year Tim was playing in the same celebrity/legends game at Tropicana Field and got a base hit. I wanted to play "I Like It, I Love It" for the hit but was told not to by my boss with the Devil Rays. The following year, the year I met Tug, I had the opportunity to play it when he came in to pitch. As Tug was warming up, I was scrambling to find the song as he had a rep radio up to the pressbox, "Tug wants you to play some Tim, do you have any?" I did, played it and after a pitch, Tug stopped, looked up at the pressbox and gave me the thumbs up. I got to talk to Tug after the game and told him what an honor it was to have him do that for me. He signed my program and we talked for about five minutes. In 2008, I had the chance to see Tim in concert and nearly came to tears when he sang "Live Like You Were Dying", a song Tim wrote about his dad.

That same year, I got to announce for a David Cone celebrity softball game that David Wells also played in. Jon Lovitz, Tom Arnold, Scott Stapp from Creed and many other celebrities played in this game as well. Then there was a tribute game that several rappers were a part of including Eminem. Before I had ever really heard of the guy, I didn't like him as he treated me like a slave. Had I known his history, I wouldn't have said what I said to him, but it makes for a great story without the kids around.

Also in 1999, I got to announce my first championship game when Orlando won the Southern League championship series. It was great and the final pro game at Tinker Field which is still there, amazingly. The year before, I had announced a 19-inning game in Tampa against Charlotte in the FSL playoffs, but the Yankees lost at St. Lucie in the championship series. 1999 was a really good year for me announcing.

2000 wasn't as much fun as the team was being sold at the end of the year and running a lame-duck team isn't fun. Plus, my first GM, Tony, was no longer with the team. Tony would bring me with him in 2001 to Auburn, NY where I got to work in short season ball. A hard switch going from working games from February to November to the New York-Penn League and only having games from the middle of June to September. The high school games and college tournaments we had helped fill the void, as did getting to Syracuse to see a few games. At Syracuse, I got to add my fourth park pulling tarp (Frederick, St. Petersburg and Orlando were the other three). During my time in Auburn, I was the media and PR guy for the baseball team, the sports information director at the local community college and a sports writer for the newspaper. Yeah, talk about your conflicts of interest.

In 2002, it was off to California for the Modesto A's and the California League. I was brough out there by the GM who had hired me to announce some games back in Orlando. Unforunately, it was an assistant GM who was my downfall in Modesto as he had convinced the GM I wasn't doing my work. I needed to make 100 sales calls per week during the offseason, which should lead to 10 appointments, which should lead to 1 or 2 sales. My problem, I was making 75 calls because I had 20-25 appointments, and making 4-5 sales out of those. A lot of those sales were turned back after I left. We also set an attendance mark in Modesto that stood for 10 years and was barely broken even though the A's/Nuts tried to stack the schedule in their favor several times.

The largest scoreboard in the minors is in Zebulon, NC, home of the Carolina Mudcats, where I went to work in 2003. They brought me in as back-up PA announcer and in-game host. I gained popularity very quickly, but the team just wanted me in for one season and that was it. We won the championship that season with Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis leading the team to a first-half championship, won the second half and then went on to win the league with an amazing team.

It was after the '03 season that I got an e-mail from Eric Hardman, the head coach of West Springfield hockey whose e-mail literally changed my life professionally and personally. I had several high school hockey teams in Virginia asking me to announce for them like I had in the 02-03 season (when back home between jobs). I had thought about moving back up to DC, however Eric's was the one that gave me the push to do it. When looking at the financials and the tournament I was to announce that year, I found that I could just barely make a profit if I limited myself, but Eric's was enough to make it worthwhile to find a place to rent and move "back home" though my parents had moved to North Carolina.

I decided to move up to Prince William County, wound up staying with a family of a Hylton high school player, got a job working at the ice rink driving the Olympia ice resurfacer and made enough to stay up there and put some money away. I knew the announcing job with the Potomac Cannons was available as my dad knew the announcer from the year before was leaving. My dad had run the video/message board for the Cannons in '03. I knew this information and in late February, made the call to the GM of the Cannons to inquire about the job. I started out at $45/game and after opening night, was brought up to $70/game using my own equipment. I was also in charge of making sure the video board was ready and updated during the games.

In 2004, I met a girl online and wound up moving to Portland, Oregon the following season and did the music for the Portland Beavers and Timbers. I got to announce a pair of games for the Beavers, against Colorado Springs and Las Vegas. The Colorado Springs game made that the 30th Major League affiliate I had announced for. I also announced one Timbers game, against the Richmond Kickers who were a client of mine.

I came back in 2006 and that year sucked personally, but met my future wife Spring who I love and am so happy to have met. I also started my relationship with George Washington Univeristy and American University. I lasted half a year with the Potomac Nationals and announced a game at RFK Stadium. I'm done with pro baseball and have been to two pro ballparks since leaving pro baseball. Bowie hosted the Washington Glory in 2008 and went to a high school championship game in Newark, New Jersey a few weeks later. I can't stand the thought of going to another professional baseball game, I just know way too much. But I'm enjoying my time with both AU and GW in addition to my lasting relationship with the Washington Capitals.

The Washington Glory came along in 2007 and they won the league championship and are poised again to go back to the playoffs in 2008. I've had a ton of fun with the Glory and have had a lot of great moments with them. I just hope that the next 10 years of the professional side for me goes as well as the first ten.

When people ask me if I've seen something in pro sports, there is a great likelyhood that I have in baseball and hockey but I've also seen some things in basketball and football. I've called three no hitters (one high school baseball and two high school softball) and a perfect game in 2008 alone, announced an NCAA D-I team make their first ever trip to the Dance and got to see Alex Ovechkin's first foray into the NHL playoffs. Yeah, a lot seen, but a lot more to come!