Finding My Calling as a Public Address Announcer

A few weeks ago, at my friend’s house, I interviewed for a job as a public address announcer for high school hockey games. During the digital video interview, I was asked what was my proudest accomplishment in producing the Foul Play-by-Play podcast, which covered the week’s cheats, cheap shots, and alleged criminals in sports. I looked at my friend, Brad (not this one), with a shit-eating grin on my face. We were both thinking of the same moment, when live, on-air, I bet that the Minnesota Twins’ Max Kepler would not hit a third home run in the game. He immediately hit his third homer of the game, and I had to shotgun my first beer in probably a decade.

I, of course, didn’t tell the two representatives of the City of Coon Rapids that was my proudest moment. I said it was reaching over 8,000 unique listeners with coverage of cheerleaders suing the Houston Texans for withholding their wages and creating a hostile work environment. This is despite 75 percent of our listeners being men.

The next day I was at my friend’s house, enjoying a cup of coffee and The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz when the City of Coon Rapids called to offer me the position pending a background check. While on the phone, I danced a little jig and my friend gave me a little dap. I was surprised by how excited I was about being offered a seasonal, part-time position serving as public address announcer for high school hockey games. Is it because I hadn’t worked in over a year, or because this was a dream come true I didn’t even know I had?

In 2019, I attended a St. Paul Saints baseball game and was introduced to the talents of public address announcer, Lee Adams. I went to the game because the Saints were celebrating Minnesotan “Mean” Gene Okerlund with a professional wrestling match after the baseball game. But it was Adams’ “Inning of Zen” that was the most entertaining moment of the evening. Imagine “The Dude” from The Big Lebowski calling a baseball game. I laughed throughout the inning, even as an opposing player hit a home run, and it wasn’t solely because I had eaten cannabis cookies prior to the game.

 

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I was immediately enamored with Lee Adams. When we met, I went from being an outlaw journalist writing a story about the Saints’ success despite falling attendance throughout the sport to a fan in awe of a true entertainer. Instead of stepping onto the field to meet Lee after the game, I awkwardly shook his hand through the netting protecting fans from foul balls. He invited me onto the field immediately, and was incredibly gracious with his time. He even accepted a draft of my business plan’s executive summary, saying he’d give me notes on a show I was attempting to produce. Of course, I failed to give him my contact information because I was so starstruck.

The Saints have plenty of in-game entertainers, but Adams was clearly the star of the show. I’ve been to a lot of baseball games in a lot of places. I’ve been to Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Safeco Field (now T-Mobile Park) in Seattle, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, and the Metrodome and Target Field in Minneapolis. I’ve seen minor league games at Frontier Park in Rochester, New York, and Newman Outdoor Field, where the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks play. None of them utilize the public address announcer better than the Saints do at CHS Field in St. Paul. I wish they all would.

Thanks to my friend, Chad (this one), I got into All Elite Wrestling after my summer with the St. Paul Saints. Public address announcer Justin Roberts soon had me imitating introductions of wrestlers like Orange Cassidy, Thunder Rosa, and Kenny Omega. The itch I scratched by mimicking Justin Roberts’ introductions of AEW wrestlers every Wrestling Wednesday made me realize I had a suitable voice to be a public address announcer. I’d always known I had a good, while untrained, and powerful singing voice, but I’d never considered being a public address announcer. I just figured my voice wasn’t deep enough. I was wrong.

While voice plays a role in being a great public address announcer, it’s the creativity of Justin Roberts and improvisation of Lee Adams that make for good public address announcing. My first day on the job was Groundhog Day. Since I know most of the dialogue from the movie, Groundhog Day, I thought we should do a bit during the final game of the night. I asked my colleague who controls the music to play Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe.” I proceeded to recite the dialogue coming from the radio that wakes up Bill Murray with the same music every morning.

“That’s right, woodchuck chuckers. It’s Groundhog Day!” I told the audience I was happy to announce that Punxsutawney Phil said we can expect six more weeks of winter. It got a great response. The athletic trainer for my next game told me I was a natural. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. All I know is I like doing it a lot.

Introducing athletes and watching and commenting on their play doesn’t feel much like work. I’ve been doing something similar as a sportswriter for over a decade, but the danger of performing live is what makes this so much fun. At least I know I won’t end up saying “fag” like Thom Brennaman did during a live broadcast of a Cincinnati Reds game. I’ll do this for as long as they let me, and since I’m apparently more professional than a professional broadcaster, that could be a long time.