A Voice From The Past

Oh, shit, what I'm hearing right now is blowing my fucking mind.

I have mentioned in the past that I was in El Paso for six months in 2001 interning for the baseball team.  One of the two announcers of that team that season, one of the two people I essentially worked for the most,  was a lifer.  His first-ever game as professional, in Minor League Baseball, was a perfect game.  He's been toiling in the minors for years.

Well, after I went to the Minnesota History Museum tonight (I went to see the 1934 exhibit, which closes at the end of the month; did you know that one of FDR's New Deal plans to pull the country out of the Great Depression was to pay artists to paint?), I turned on my satellite radio while driving here to Caffetto.  I listened to the end of the Boston Red Sox's loss to Tampa Bay and then turned to the Oakland-Texas game.  I space out, driving and only halfway listening to what at the time was (and still is) a tie game between two teams vying for the playoffs.

But then the voice of the play-by-play starts to seep underneath my brain dermis.  And then I said to myself, "Oh my God, is that (his name here)?!?!?!"  And the more I listen, the more that voice sounds familiar.

Wow, this guy made the big time.  I know that he left El Paso several years after my internship for a better situation in, I think, Corpus Christi.  That is the AA affiliate of the Houston Astros.  But somehow he got called up to do games for the Rangers.  I've learned that to move up in the tough, competitive business of broadcasting, you have to take advantage of every opportunity, and he got his after one of the commentators on the radio side, Dave Barnett, was struck with aphasia during a game, which made him speak gibberish, and "decided" to take a sabbatical.

And you know what?  He's good, damn good.  He was great in El Paso, and he's doing great for the Rangers.  Now, we had our screaming matches when I worked for him 11 years ago, but really, on the whole, he treated me very well, and I consider him to be someone to emulate if I ever get back into sports on a serious level.  And so I am very, very happy for him that he finally, after almost, what, three decades surviving in the business, got his call-up to the Big Show.  Hope he sticks.