What I did on my day off

Posted on March 16, 2011

San Francisco Giants radio announcer Doug Greenwald does a webcast for sfgiants.com during Wednesday afternoon’s Cactus League game between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago White Sox from Camelback Ranch in Glendale, AZ on March 16, 2011. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

I have been working down here in Arizona covering spring training for Sports Illustrated for almost three weeks now. It is a blast getting to go to a ballgame every day at 1pm to shoot pictures of new guys on new teams, hot rookies, and old guys trying to hang on. With 15 teams training here in the valley there are so many games to choose from every day, with the farthest drive being only one hour away. This makes it easy for my editor and I to make some last minute decisions on what game to cover every day depending on who is in the staring lineup. Every once in awhile there is a day when nothing looks good on the schedule. Today was one of those days. Four teams were off and there were three night games. I had the day off!

What would I do on my day off? I was caught up on my laundry, and I could go to a movie any day back home. I figured I might as well head to a ballpark to watch some baseball! My San Francisco Giants were playing the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch in Glendale about 45 minutes from my hotel. I figured I would make the drive over there and spend the afternoon in the nicely air conditioned press box and hang out in the visiting radio booth with my friend Doug Greenwald. Doug is the radio voice of the Giants AAA farm club in Fresno, The Grizzlies. The past several years he has served as the Giants spring training voice for their audio webcasts broadcast over sfgiants.com on weekdays. Every year I try to spend a game with Doug in his booth as I watch a ballgame and marvel at his talent for calling a game. Today would be the day I spend with Doug in 2011.

Doug comes from a terrific family and grew up surrounded by the game, and the Giants thanks to his dad Hank. Hank started calling Giants games for KNBR radio in 1979 with Lindsey Nelson and spent many years endearing himself into the hearts of Giants fans all over the Bay Area until he retired after the 1996 season. Doug has great stories going back to the days in 1986 when he served as Giants bat boy for many games, including the day in September at Dodger Stadium when Candy Maldonado’s grand slam helped Mike Krukow win his 20th game of the season. Like his dad, Doug is a terrific story teller and seems to remember every pitch of every ballgame he ever saw.

Growing up in the Bay Area I wanted to be the play-by-play radio voice of the Giants. I thought it would be so cool to get paid to see every Giants game. In high school I discovered photography and everything changed, but I never stopped appreciating the great radio broadcasters. The ability to carry on a conversation with the listeners over a three hour ballgame is truly an art form. Spending the day with Doug was like watching a clinic on how it was done. He was able to interact with listeners via email, tell great stories, and call a game as good as any broadcaster working in the big leagues today. The way he changed his voice and showed excitement when something big happened, like Brandon Belt getting picked off first base and later hitting a 2-run home run was a pleasure to hear and watch.

I never got to get paid to call Giants games on the radio, but I do get paid to take pictures at Giants games, and I am beginning my 25th season of doing so. I will continue to do what I do, and I will leave to the play-by-play to the pros like Doug.