Why Sports Broadcasting...

Every single time I have been asked, "What did you want to be when you were a kid?" I answered:

"I wanted to be the Beatles, be on GUTS and play outfield for the Detroit Tigers."

But when my girlfriend Lexxa recently asked me why I wanted to get into sports broadcasting, I had a much more in depth answer than I thought.

You see, when I grew up, I had quite the imagination. As did any kid, really. But with me I always took it a step further. Especially with sports.... and my Tim Allen from Home Improvement phase.

While other kids were figuring out who their favorite player or team was, I was reading the box scores of the paper. Asking my dad what all the abbreviations meant and how to write a baseball game on a score card.

I was six.

I remember specifically one time when I was at my grandma's, my friend Danny who lived a few doors down from my grandma, would only let me in his house if I could recite the batting order of the previous day's Tiger game.

Whenever I played video games, I would always mute the sound of the announcers and do the play-by-play myself.

I had a Tigers uniform, Lions uniform, Pistons uniform and Red Wings uniform, so depending on which sport was in season, I would dress up and go out on my front yard or drive way and re-enact games.

I had a whole system when it came to baseball games. If I played on the lawn, those were the home games. If I played at my grandma's, those were away games. I loved every minute of it.

And one time when I played at my Aunt's in Sau Sault Marie, I even had my Aunt Peggy sing the Canadian National Anthem. Before I played a Red Wings game.

I just got so into it.

My neighbors, Elenore and Pete would always cheer me on when I had home games on my lawn. Pete lived across the street from me. So if I even hit a ball across the street, he would get it for me, on account of me being too young to cross the street without my parents.

Elenore was a die-hard Tigers fan and she would tell me that I did better than some of the Tigers on any given day. She would get a kick knowing that I am getting into this field. Especially if I worked with the Tigers.

I just guess sports broadcasting is just one of those random things that has always been in my life really.

I always impersonated announcers and would recite their lingo. I remember freaking out one time listening to a Tigers game in my dad's truck. Ernie Harwell had said that Tony Clark was retired. My dad was getting gas and I bursted  out of the truck and yelled, "Dad, dad! Mr. Harwell said Tony Clark just retired!" My dad gave me this weird look, listened to the game on the radio and told me that getting "retired" meant that the batter was out.

Naturally I added that line to my front yard baseball games.

Even to this day, I still mute the television and do my own play-by-play when playing video games. Sometimes I am Ken Daniels, Mickey Redmond, Marv Albert, definitely not Joe Buck, Al Michaels or just plain ol' me. And I act like a giant kid.

I get transported to playing video games with Joe Strayer at my grandmas, or my brother's room on the rare occasion that he actually let me play a game with him.

I guess when you really boil it down though, I have really been broadcasting my own little sports game my whole entire life.

Now other people can actually listen.

But if you asked my family this same question, they would probably just smile and say,

"It's because he never shuts up."