Affiliation Shuffle: The Radio Guy’s Perspective

“Are you moving to Oklahoma City?”

“Do you think the Rockies will retain you?”

Over the last month, some variations of those two questions were posed to me frequently by family members, friends, colleagues, strangers and Twitter followers.

The every-other year affiliation dance between major-league teams and minor league affiliates can be confusing. A lot of people working in the minor leagues answered similar questions. For play-by-play radio announcers, like me, the waters can be extra murky because our broadcasts are streamed on the internet for free, and that creates a connection to the major league affiliate and its diehard fan base.

My connection to the Los Angeles Dodgers was multi-layered. For four seasons, I was the reporter for the Los Angeles Dodgers Radio Network and the co-host of Post Game Dodger Talk. I also published the book, Miracle Men: Hershiser, Gibson and the improbable 1988 Dodgers.

It was these strong Dodgers ties, and a couple of recommendations from high-ranking Dodgers front office employees, that helped me land the job as the Albuquerque Isotopes play-by-play announcer in 2013.

It was a natural fit. I knew the organization thoroughly. The Dodgers people knew me. The fan base knew me. Half my wardrobe was already blue. It added to the strong connection between Albuquerque and the Dodgers.

Then came a historic two-day stretch, on Sept. 17-18, when six of the 16 teams in the Pacific Coast League changed affiliations. The Dodgers bought the team in Oklahoma City and will relocate their Triple-A team to that city. The Isotopes quickly seized their natural geographic partner, signing a four-year contract with the Colorado Rockies.

This triggered a flurry of questions about how the move impacts me.

I’m an Isotopes employee, not a Dodgers employee. That means I’m staying in Albuquerque, not moving to Oklahoma City. That also means it’s not up to the Rockies to retain me. (They’re stuck listening to me.)

In the 48 hours after the massive affiliation shuffle, my thoughts were typical of life in 2014: How many Dodgers people should I unfollow on Twitter? Should I mail my Dodgers clothing to Oklahoma City radio announcer Alex Freedman? How many Dodgers decorations should I remove from the walls of my office/radio booth? Do I need Rockies schwag?

I’m looking forward to working with the Rockies, but I’ll cherish my seven years being associated with the Dodgers. No question, it’s going to be confusing next season. Awkward, at times. Mostly, just plain weird. It started on the day of the Isotopes announcement. The Dodgers were getting pummeled by the Rockies at Coors Field, at the exact same time as our press conference.

Strong as my connection was to the Dodgers, it pales in comparison to some of my play-by-play brethren in the PCL.

Imagine you’re Doug Greenwald. His legendary father Hank, who taught me so many lessons just listening to him as a kid, was the San Francisco Giants iconic radio announcer for two stints covering 16 years. Doug just finished his 12th year calling the Giants’ Triple-A games for the Fresno Grizzlies. Doug has called hundreds of Giants spring training games and filled in on Giants regular season broadcasts. He grew up with the Giants and is synonymous with that organization.

In the affiliation shuffle, the Giants moved from Fresno to Sacramento. The Houston Astros, who must leave Oklahoma City because the Dodgers are moving there, ended up with their affiliate in Fresno.

Next year, Doug Greenwald will somehow be calling Houston Astros Triple-A games. That boggles my mind.

Johnny Doskow has called Sacramento River Cats games the last 14 years. He’s the voice that described the 11 division titles and four PCL titles those teams won as the Oakland Athletics affiliate. A’s fans knew him as the voice of their prospects. The A’s chose Doskow as their fill-in announcer in 2012, when lead voice Ken Korach underwent knee surgery and couldn’t travel. Now, Doskow becomes the voice of the Giants’ Triple-A team, a bitter development for the passionate Athletics Nation.

The list goes on. Dan Karcher spent the last 23 years calling Colorado Springs Sky Sox games, linked to the Rockies through that affiliation, the short one-hour drive, and the  “Sox and Rox” radio show he once co-hosted with a Rockies beat writer. The Rockies used him as a fill-in announcer as well. Next year, Karcher becomes the announcer calling games for the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate, because the Rockies are moving to Albuquerque and the A’s took over the Brewers’ old home in Nashville.

This is life in the minors. Las Vegas 51s play-by-play announcer Russ Langer went from calling games for the Triple-A affiliate of the Dodgers to the Blue Jays, then the Mets – all in a six-year stretch, from 2008-2013 – without changing his seat in the Cashman Field press box.

Then there’s the unique story of El Paso voice Tim Hagerty. He was hired as the No.2 radio announcer for the Portland Beavers in 2008. Three years later, the team moved to Tucson.  It was supposed to be there only one year, before settling in Escondido, Calif. The Beavers lead announcer, Rich Burk, elected to stay in Portland. Hagerty was guaranteed only one year in Tucson when he made the move. One year turned into three years in Tucson. Then came another move, this time to El Paso.

Through it all, Hagerty has now called games for the San Diego Padres Triple-A affiliate for seven straight seasons, in three different states, for three different ownership groups. Oh yeah, and before that, he called games for Double-A Mobile for three years when that was a Padres affiliate. That makes 10 consecutive years being associated with the Padres, without ever collecting a paycheck from them.

The next time the Padres have a broadcaster opening, I hope they hire Hagerty.

OK, that’s a lie. I hope they hire me. But if not me, then Hagerty.

This leads to a natural question that all minor league radio guys hear, especially at Triple-A: Does being the announcer for the affiliate put you in a better position if the parent club has an opening?

Answer: Sometimes, but mostly not.

Joe Block is the perfect example of both possibilities. His experience calling games for Double-A Jacksonville, then a Dodgers affiliate, helped him land an audition in 2009 for the “non-Vin Scully” TV road games. Block didn’t get the job. But two years later, when there was an opening for my new Dodger Talk co-host, the Dodgers recommended him, and 790 KABC-AM hired Block to join me.

After that 2011 season, the Minnesota Twins had a rare No.1 play-by-play opening when John Gordon retired. The Twins didn’t hire any of their affiliates’ minor league announcers. They hired Cory Provus, who had been the No.2 voice for the Brewers. That opened up a spot with the Brewers. They also didn’t dip into the minors. Instead, they hired … Joe Block.

The Cincinnati Reds gave hope to the entire cottage of minor league announcers when they hired Jim Kelch in December 2009. Kelch had spent the previous 20 years at Triple-A Louisville: his first nine years as a Cardinals affiliate, followed by two with the Brewers, and then his final nine years as the Reds affiliate. It was a victory for the industry, but a rarity of plucking the teams’ Triple-A voice.

Three years later, the Arizona Diamondbacks sent a punch to the gut of that minor league announcer fraternity when they hired ESPN’s Steve Berthiaume, who had very little play-by-play experience. It was good for Steve. It was good for the D-backs to snag a well-known ESPN talent. It was rotten for those who grind out 144 games every year — with no analyst or engineer, often with brutal travel, always at low wages — waiting for their chance.

The Houston Astros went hunting for a new radio announcer in the winter of 2012. They didn’t hire the voice from any of their affiliates, or a minor league broadcaster. They selected Robert Ford, who had been doing the pre- and post-game for the Kansas City Royals. Ford had over 800 games of minor league experience (none with Astros affiliates), so this still counts as a victory for the minor league fraternity.

The Seattle Mariners used the talented Mike Curto, their Triple-A Tacoma affiliate’s announcer since 1999, for a handful of fill-in games over the years. But when it was time to hire a full-time announcer for 2013, they reached across the country and hired then-Pawtucket voice Aaron Goldsmith. My heart sank for Curto. It was a bittersweet victory for the fraternity.

I can’t begin to count the number of people who have mentioned to me that Vin Scully will eventually retire and that I was in line to take his place. I’d tell them they were crazy. The number of people who would need to turn down that job before they even considered me would fill up the outfield warning track. The Dodgers don’t hire minor league announcers. They hire superstars. Look who they hired this offseason: Orel Hershiser and Nomar Garciaparra were poached from ESPN as analysts, plus Alanna Rizo from MLB Network as a sideline reporter.

You’ll notice the recent trend is hiring pre/post guys from the majors — or raiding ESPN’s talent. Sucks for the minor league guys, huh?

This isn’t a sob story though. Nobody is looking for sympathy, least of all me. It’s part of the business. We knew it when we signed up. It’s still a fabulous gig. If I felt sorry for myself and left, more than 200 people would immediately apply for my job.

The moral to the story is that I’m only loosely tied to the Dodgers or Rockies. As I’ve learned, it’s probably better for minor league announcers to not be so closely associated with any team, even though this is almost entirely out of our control. Why?

For example, let’s say for the sake of argument the Giants had a broadcast opening and really liked my work. You think the Giants could sell to their fan base they were hiring the Dodgers’ Triple-A announcer? No chance. Even though I’m a Bay Area native and wrote a book about Barry Bonds, those Giants fans would hate me more than they hated the Crazy Crab because of my Dodgers ties.

The minor league radio guy is employed by the minor league team. We do sales in the offseason, or public relations, or social media, or coordinate travel, or graphic design, or write a blog, or marketing, or all the above. Our connection to the majors can be strong, but it’s usually fleeting.

We do our job because we love it, because describing the ninth inning of a tie game is the most incredible high you can possibly imagine, and because maybe, just maybe, any of those 30 major league teams will one day give us the opportunity of a lifetime.