Dan Baker Announcement Maker

Caught a segment on Comcast Sports today about the old mainstay of the Phillies' PA system, Mr. Dan Baker, who has announced Phils' games for 37 years. The story showed how his gameday routine works from pre-game preparations like getting the pronounciation of players' names accurate (Julian Martinez is pronounced like Hulian Martinez, for those who didn't know) to fighting his way up through crowds to get to his PA booth.

While the story about him wasn't all that intriguing, quite frankly, I do find it intriguing that announcers (public address announcers or broadcasters alike) have the ability to last so long at their respective jobs. If you look around the city as well as national scene, it seems like once you get "in" you're "in" for life. For instance, consider these big names and how long they've been or once lasted on the job:

-Harry Kalas
-Merrill Reese
-Marv Albert
-Andy Mussberger
-Keith Jackson
-Howard Cosell
-Vin Scully
-John Madden
-and so on...

I'm not quite sure what the reasoning is for this, but my hunch would be that these on-air personalities develop a certain rapport and comfort with the fans and become instantly recognized with the team, channel, or sport they represent. As a result, these announcers maintain their job security and boost their salaries over the years (not to mention picking up endorsements and other speaking gigs), while simultaneously preventing younger up-and-coming announcers from getting their day in the sun. And as it is easy to see, not only do these announcers not gracefully just hang up the mic and go away... they practically have to be dragged out of the booth.

Ironically, this longevity is why so many college students go to study broadcasting... because once you establish yourself, you can be around a long time, not to mention get to watch sports and talk sports all day. Paradoxically, with so many broadcasters lasting so long and a limited number of announcing gigs, it becomes harder and harder for these young graduates to get work. Murphy's Law I guess.

So at any rate, thank you Dan Baker for your your three+ decades of in-game announcing. And if you happen to have an inkling as to when you plan to leave, please give me a shout and I'd love to try out for your job!