Baking in Bake-oh

The primary purpose of this blog is the photo. It's basically to make you laugh, and make you feel sorry for me.

This is the "broadcast booth" in Bakersfield. I couldn't doctor this photo, even if I knew how. The window really is that dirty. The room really is that tiny. Not to mention, what you can't see is how the temperature in that closet is somehow 10-15 degrees hotter than it is in the ballpark.

Fortunately, it was only in the lower-90s this weekend in Bakersfield. It could be well over 100.

So earlier this season, when it was raining and I had to close the window to keep the equipment dry, and I unfathonably said a home run was a home run, even though it was flyout, my excuse is trying to call a game through that disgusting window.

Calling the other team’s walkoff

Like a lot of things in broadcasting, the excitement level when describing the other teams’ dramatic moments is a fine line. Don’t want to get too excited. Don’t want to show no emotion either.

Last night was my fourth game calling the other team’s "walkoff" victory. Listened back to my call, and actually wished I’d have gotten just a little more excited. Not a lot. Just a little more excited. My biggest regret was taking so long to say the final score.

Thought my setup was pretty good. Bakersfield’s Chris Davis was 4-for-4 with a home run. As the Blaze batted in the eighth, I said Davis would get another shot in the ninth. As the Nuts batted in the ninth, with a one-run lead, I said it would be wise to get more runs because Davis is due up in the ninth. As the bottom of the ninth started, I said the dangerous Davis is due up third.

Sure enough, Davis hit a two-run walkoff home run. Problem was, he hit it so quickly, I didn’t have much time to call it. It was a line drive that barely cleared the 20-foot fence. The crowd, as usual, was pretty weak in Bakersfield -- so there wasn’t a ton of excitement coming from the crowd mic. I should have delayed my call a second or two behind the action, giving it a more dramatic call. But at the same time, it’s the other team.

Earlier this week, I heard the A’s Ken Korach say, “do you believe it?” when Kelly Shoppach hit a three-run, pinch-hit walkoff home run to beat the A’s. That was on my mind, but I could believe this one.

I flat-out expected it, and felt it coming for a couple innings. Ended up saying something like, “can’t say it’s not surprising” based on what he’d done earlier in the game. The biggest thing I wish I’d had done is say that Bakersfield won sooner. It was implied, and I definitely said it, but I should have stated it precisely a little sooner.

With nothing else better to do in Bakersfield, listened back to some of my calls from earlier this year when the home team beat Modesto.

Actually really liked my call – short and precise – when Inland Empire’s Luke May hit a walkoff homer in late April. The stupid train horn interrupts the call at the end.

Probably a little too excited, and tried to say too much in too little amount of time, when Stockton beat Modesto in the 11th inning last month.

The game winner by San Jose a couple weeks ago was a little tricky. It was nearly a spectacular, “catch of the year” play by Modesto left fielder Cole Garner. Couldn’t tell, in fact, if he caught it or not. Even after he dove, I wasn’t sure because nobody chased after the ball to the wall, so I had to wait longer. That ever-so slight delay minimized the so-called “perfect call” from occurring.

The other factor making it a difficult call is that play basically won the first half for San Jose because Stockton was about to lose in Visalia. But it wasn’t official yet. So again, I couldn’t accurately state the San Jose Giants had won the first half just yet. I did quickly say, “it’s pandemonium at San Jose Muni” and did what I think announcers should do – shut up and let the crowd tell the story. The crowd was going nuts, pardon the pun, but the crowd mic didn’t pick up on that as well as I’d hoped.

Oh well. I’m reminded of something my friend Johnny Doskow, the announcer for Triple-A Sacramento, recently told me: “you’re never as good as you think you are; and you’re never as bad as you think you are.”

The inevitable rut

The past few games I've felt like the broadcasts were ... well, not bad. Just not great. Perhaps it's an inevitable rut from doing so many. Perhaps it's not coincidence my rut arrived at the same time as the team's hitting rut. The games haven't been very interesting. Quite boring, truth be told. I know it's my job to make them interesting, but it's tough when the storyline becomes the same.

It leaves me with a few options.

1. Rip the team's offense. Not going to do that.
2. Neglect the team and talk about other stuff. Don't want to do that.
3. Turn into a homer who is cheering/urging the offense on.

The last is the lesser of three evils. Being a homer is a very, veryyyyy fine line. Talked with my program director about this, and he reminded me of the audience.

I'll paraphase his advice: this isn't the majors; it's still A-ball; the only people listening are the season ticket holders, host families, relatives and friends, and diehard baseball fans who just love any baseball on the radio. They aren't exactly looking for a down-the-middle, ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast.

It's funny, one of his other pieces of advice was, if a certain player is really slumping and gets a hit, it's alright to say, "there you go (insert name)". I laughed because I did exactly that last night. Travis Becktel was in a 12-for-115 slump. When he singled, "there you go" might have been my exact words. In fact, in my excitement for the kid coming through, I called it an RBI single immediately.

Problem was, the runner hadn't scored. In fact, the runner was only about one-third of the way home. Luckily, the runner scored. In my call, I pretended like I never said "RBI single" as I described the close play at the plate. As I looked at my partner Greg Young, he gave me a "that was close" look, so I decided to just talk about it on the air. I said how I was so excited for Travis that I gave him the RBI wayyyyyy before he had it. Probably a mistake on my part, but I hope it's because my heart was in the right place.

Again, being a homer is a very fine line. The overwhelming majority of your audience wants your team to win, so you should speak to them like a fan. The old journalist inside me wants to stay more objective, but one of the things that I really like about this career switch is that I don't have to be objective anymore. It's fun to get fired up when your team does something well.

Of course, when your team is struggling, then it's a struggle balancing between being honest, being supportive, being excited (even when there's nothing to be excited over), and still sounding genuine about it.

The midway report

Hard to believe, but the season is halfway over. Seventy games in 74 days. Whew. Time flies when you're talking baseball all night and barely sleeping. Figured the all-star break was time for some deep, philosophical thoughts on how it's going.

The more I think about my feelings, the more I just feel lucky that I landed where I did. For a couple years, I've been trying to get back into broadcasting. But no team anywhere in minor league baseball would give me the time of day. Some of my broadcasting friends went above and beyond the call of duty to hype me up as a possible No.2 announcer at a couple Triple-A jobs two offseasons ago. But for all the No.1 jobs I applied to get, I basically was totally ignored.

When somebody finally did give me a chance, it came in a city just outside the Bay Area, limiting how far I had to move, and allowing me to stay close to my friends and family. It was with a team that happened to hire my cousin (when neither of us knew the other was about to get hired).

The official employer was an all-sports radio station, which allowed me to:

1. continue my journalistic background as the sports director of the morning news.
2. be a fill-in, talk-show host for a couple segments of my co-workers' talk shows regularly, or even the entire show when somebody is sick.
3. cover the NCAA west regional in Sacramento.
4. do live interviews with players, such as Bobby Crosby and Nick Swisher, or just yesterday with A's general manager Billy Beane, that we air later that day or the next day on the radio station.
5. basically yuck it up and have fun on radio.

Most minor league radio announcers -- as in 99 percent -- work exclusively for the team. Not me. Which means, more important than anything else, I don't have to sell advertising. Nothing is more deflating than applying for a job as the play-by-play announcer, and being told that your ability to sell ads means more than you're ability to call a game.

Granted, not every game is on our radio station because we carry the Oakland A's and other pro sports, which get first priority. (All games are live on the internet though.)

But the all-sports station provides a priceless amount of crossover programming opportunities, such as broadcasting live for six hours yesterday from Stockton's ballpark to pump up the California-Carolina League all-star game -- even though we weren't broadcasting the game. Some of the other announcers in the Cal League, who I've quickly come to call good friends, call their games during pledge drives for PBS or on a station that switched to a Spanish format during the season.

I'm lucky at how our product has turned out too. This might sound arrogant, but at least for home games, we have -- by far -- the best overall broadcast team in the Cal League. And it's not even close.

No other team has a daily manager show. Nobody else does a live postgame interview with a player down on the field. Nobody else has a newspaper beat reporter with the talent and knowledge, not to mention the feel for radio, like our Brian VanderBeek of The Modesto Bee. I humbly think Greg Young is the best No.2 in the league, could be a No.1 right now, will be a No.1 next year for sure, and I'd find it hard to believe that anybody else has better on-air chemistry than we do. If nothing else, nobody has as much fun as we do.

Don't worry, I'll stop bragging shortly.

And here's the kicker: not only did I not know any of that coming in, I didn't even make the decision to setup the broadcasting team. Pure luck.

This blog started three months ago with me mostly making fun of myself and my mistakes. Call it all-star break nostalgic thoughts, or the lack of sleep, or an over-indulgent sense of self, but we've been damn good.

Now, just wait until we know what we're actually doing.

That gut feeling

So far, so good when it comes to my worst fear about broadcasting -- needing to badly use the bathroom in the middle of a game. The first thing I scout out, when arriving at a ballpark for the first time, is how far the bathroom is from the press box. You know, just in case.

I can make it, between innings, in Modesto and Lake Elsinore. San Bernardino would be close. No chance of making it in Visalia, Bakersfield, Stockton -- or this weekend, here in San Jose. So when I'm calling games solo at those four places, I do three things.

1. Hit the bathroom about 5-10 minutes before starting the broadcast. (I also call this my daily nervous pre-game pee.)
2. Avoid drinking lots of fluids.
3. Carefully watch what I eat before the game.

Now that the temperature is over 100 degrees, this is a challenge. The need to stay hydrated and keep the pipes from getting dry is important. A couple close calls this weekend. When the game ended Friday, the bladder was running out of patience with me. The game Sunday went 11 innings, and there were a couple moments when it seemed like it could go forever. That was another welcome end to the game.

At my father's house after the game, during a Father's Day BBQ with the family, my sister asked if I lost weight. Since she was the second person to ask in less than 24 hours, I weighed myself. Sure enough, I've lost about 20 pounds since the season started.

I have four reasons why.

1. No alcohol since the season started. (My longest stretch of sobriety since high school.)
2. The major-league press dining room is all-you-can-eat, and always has desserts. Now, I alternate between chicken fingers and a slice of pizza at home games.
3. The overall minor league lifestyle. It's hard to eat quality meals consistently. The small towns don't have many options, and not much is open after a night game. I've somehow continued to avoid eating any fast food burgers (or Taco Bell), a streak that dates back to December 2002.
4. It's now over 100 degrees in Modesto, and I simply can't eat anything hot when it's this hot. That means lots of salads and fruits and sandwiches. Who knew that hot weather could be so healthy?

Who the hell is Joshua?

Just before the season began, I spent a game in the A's radio booth with Ken Korach and Vince Cotroneo. The idea was to watch the A's announcers describe the game on the radio, and takes notes on how they went about doing it. Found it very helpful. Vince volunteered to listen to one of my games, and I finally took him up on it.

Vince's first resposne was, "who the hell is Joshua?"

Ok, so here's the story.

For 33 years and some change, the only person who called me Joshua was my mom ... and that's when I was in trouble. I was always Josh. I used Josh in print, and for all the radio/TV interviews I did. Always thought Joshua was too formal and biblical.

Of course, ever since the "Friends" episode in which Rachael says her boyfriend's name as "Josh ... ooooohhh .... ahhhhh" I've been a much bigger fan of Joshua. But that's another story.

Anyway, the name Josh Suchon is a tongue twister. To say Suchon, it's like the girl's name Sue and the boy's name Shawn. That makes for a lot of sh's in a short amount of time. You have to consciously pause between my first and last names, or else they run together. It usually gets butchered.

So I decided to go with Joshua Suchon. Thought it sounded smoother. Also liked the idea of a slightly different name to coincide with my new career. Josh was the writer. Joshua is the broadcaster.

Everybody still calls me Josh in person, including my program manager -- even on the air. So I guess the new name isn't exactly taking off.

Working solo vs. partnering up

The first game of a road trip is always an adjustment because I broadcast all nine innings, solo, for road games. For home games, I do six innings of play-by-play (always with somebody in the booth with me), and two innings sitting "second chair."

Must say I'm very happy with this schedule. I get to learn how to work solo, and how to work with somebody. After all, if I ever reach the majors -- or I should say, when I return to the majors -- there's a very high chance that I'll have one (if not two) analysts in the booth with me. Yet, there's times you need to be able to carry a broadcast solo.

We're nearly halfway into the season, and I've realized that I definitely prefer working with somebody. Main reason is because I think I'm just a social butterfly who prefers to be around other people. But also, it's damn awkward spending three hours basically talking to yourself. A lot more exhausting. Harder to come up with something to fill the time between the action, especially when the game is lopsided.

The key, of course, is who your partner is. If the two people are fighting over the microphone, it's a disaster. The second guy needs to let the broadcast "breathe" by picking the right time to talk, and then knowing when to ... well, shut up.

I try to randomly listen to a different minor league broadcast every game, just to get a feel for how other broadcasters approach their craft, and compare that to my own style. There's always something you can learn, either good or bad, from others. I heard one game when the "color analyst" felt the need to analyze every pitch and say something between every pitch. It sounded horrendous.

Brian VanderBeek, our buddy from The Modesto Bee, is really good at knowing when to talk and when to let me do my thing. I think Greg Young and I have developed good chemistry as well. Greg will rarely say anything the first inning of a game, just so I can set the stage and get into the flow of the game. I try to do the same for him, when he takes over in the third inning.

Beek joins us for the middle innings, and that's when it becomes story time. Sometimes, it's like we're hosting a talk show within a baseball game. I try to have 1 or 2 topics to discuss within the flow of the game, which have to do with what's happening with the team or around baseball. I'm sure there's been a couple times we ventured too far from the game, but I don't think we do it often. Besides, you can't know what's too far over the line, until you cross that line.

For the last three innings, it depends on the game. If the game is over, Greg and I will be more chatty. If it's close, I try to stay out of Greg's way in the seventh inning. Besides, he's looking to build his demo reel, and every inning is potentially the inning that will land him his next job -- so I need to stay out of his way.

For the last two innings, Greg is usually frantically putting together highlights for our post-game show, or he's thinking of questions to ask our postgame guest. So he's not on the air much anyway.

I can honestly say there hasn't been one time, in nearly 70 games, that I've wished my broadcast partners would shut up. That's quite an accomplishment. And trust me, I'd write it, if I felt it.

Overall, I'm damn proud of our broadcasts. Between having three voices, and mixing the time spent focusing squarely on the game and branching out, I think there's great variety to the broadcast. I might not be Vin Scully, and Beek might not be Tim McCarver ... well, actually, thank goodness Beek is not Tim McCarver.