Talking Baseball

JAB and Johnny Doskow in the Broadcast Booth, originally uploaded by drtaxsacto.

As part of the season ticket holder's benefits for the Sacramento River Cats you get a breakfast with the team in June. At that I won a chance to be in the broadcast booth with Johnny Doskow - the voice of the Rivercats. It was supposed to be for a half inning - but because the top of the fourth went by in about 8 pitches I got to do the whole fourth.

It was a fun thing to do. Doskow is one of the best play by play guys I have heard. He has the gift that Vin Scully has in being able to tell the story of the game and at the same time weave in a lot of extra information. He is also not a homers announcer - he calls them without the hoopla of some people in the profession - he is a real fan but he doesn't color it with rah rah comments. What I also found out yesterday was he also knows a lot about baseball. He remembered that Fernando Valenzuela came up in 1981. (FV was one of my favorites.) Doskow is a graduate of University of LaVerne - which is a member of the Association I am president of - and he liked his experience there.
This was the first time back to see the Cats for us in about 10 days - they were awfully flat. We went with some old friends who really know baseball. He is an A's fan and went to spring training and so knew a lot about many of the players. But even though they were 7 games up in their division they sure did not look it against the Albuquerque Isotopes (formerly a Dodger farm team now of the Marlins). Today the Round Rock Express comes in for four and then Fresno. Before the end of the month and the regular season they meet Fresno several more times - four this week, then five in Fresno followed by the last three at home against them. So a lot of the season depends on how well they do against one team.
The picture was taken by an intern that did not seem to understand that when taking into the light one uses a flash. Ah well - the real light came from the game and the announcers not the stupid picture!