My Journey

My journey began when I was nine years old growing up in Northern Westchester County. I knew I wanted to be a sportscaster. (Truth be told, I wanted to be the next great Yankees outfielder, but I was too small, too skinny and extremely un-athletic). To this day, I steal Lou Gehrig’s line about “Being the luckiest man on the face of this Earth.” 

In my childhood, late at night, I would have an earpiece in listening to Yankee games on the radio and dreaming that one day I would be on the radio and young kids would be listening to me.

When I got to high school, I participated in sports and when I didn’t play (or got cut from a team) I was the team manager, public address announcer, scorekeeper or whatever was needed.

Once I chose my college, UNCG, it was imperative that I get on the radio station my first semester. Thus, the “CB Show” was born on WUAG in Greensboro, NC. The combination of my thick New York accent and a love of music gave me the first taste of being on-air and a chance to craft my sound.

While I was a sophomore in college, I got a lucky break. Midway through the season, the Greensboro Hornets moved to our college radio station. I shared play-by-play duties with my partner and got my first taste of professional baseball.

By the time I graduated,I needed to find my way back into minor league baseball. First, I went home to New York where I got a job as the mid-day on-air talent on an Adult Contemporary radio station. “65 and sunny out and here’s the latest from Madonna.  It’s called True Blue.”

In 1987, I was in Dallas, Texas at the Lowe’s Anatole Hotel for the Winter Meetings. Like hundreds of other prospective broadcasters, that’s how you get a job in this industry. Meeting the GM’s and pushing your tape and resume for as long as 16 hours a day.

After two years of constant phone calls, I met with the GM and AGM of the Bakersfield Dodgers in the big ball room where everyone congregates. They offered me a unique opportunity--be the Concessions Manager/Administrative Assistant when the team is at home, and we will put you on a bus to call the middle innings of play-by-play when the team was on the road.

I had only one question for those guys. “When do I start ?” In early 1988, I drove 3,000 miles from North Salem, New York to Bakersfield, California. 

After one season in Bakersfield, Both the GM and AGM wanted me to stay on with the team. The two of them thought I had a better chance in the front office than in the radio booth. My heart was committed to the radio booth and thus I turned them both down. 

A year later I was in Woodbridge, Virginia as the lead guy for the Prince William Cannons. My girlfriend, Laura, joined me. Two years, 280+ games and two rings later (1 championship and 1 wedding ring), I made the jump to Double-A as the lead broadcaster for the Huntsville Stars. After one year in the Rocket City, I moved two hours south on I-65 to the Birmingham Barons. Laura and I now had three addresses in less than one calendar year. 

Since coming to Birmingham, we have raised our two kids, in addition to our only grandchild, watched my wife earn her PhD, and I have been inducted into the Birmingham Barons, The Southern League, and The University of North Carolina Greensboro (Soccer) Hall of Fame.

To sum it all up, “The luckiest man on the face of the earth.”