Rob Fai called up
Voice of the Vancouver Canadians is in Florida to call five pre-season games
Longtime Vancouver Canadians play-by-play broadcaster will call a series of Toronto Blue Jays spring training games this week in Florida
For the time being at the very least, Rob Fai has been promoted to the big leagues from short-season single-A baseball.
Fai, the longtime play-by-play voice of the Vancouver Canadians, is in Dunedin, Fla., and will call a series of Toronto Blue Jays spring training games this week on Fan 590 and mlb.com, starting with Wednesday’s tilt between the Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies.
Longtime Blue Jays radio voice Jerry Howarth retired two weeks ago. There’s been no announcement about who will take over from Howarth, who worked Jays games on the radio for 36 seasons.
Besides Fai, Mike Wilner of the Fan 590 and Ben Wagner, who did playby-play last season for the Blue Jays’ triple-A Buffalo Bisons affiliate, are slated to call games in the coming week.
Wilner has done 15 seasons as a member of the Blue Jays broadcast crew. He’s also been the post-game show host.
Former Blue Jays pitcher Scott Richmond, a Vancouver native, is also working on these spring training broadcasts.
Fai would only say that he’s scheduled to call five games. He still sounded elated for that chance.
“This is an opportunity 44 years in the making,” Fai said. “I was born and raised in Toronto. I moved to Vancouver when I was 21. I’d say that I’m half from Toronto, half from Vancouver.
“Just to be able to go to spring training and call games is surreal. I don’t know if it will hit me until I get behind the mike.”
Fai has done play-by-play for 11 seasons of the C’s games. Vancouver became a Blue Jays farm club in 2011, so that’s given Fai a chance to
make connections in the organization.
The Blue Jays have eight farm teams. Four are above Vancouver on the development ladder, and three are underneath.
The C’s, who are in the Northwest League, are one of the entry levels for Toronto prospects. Their roster is often made up largely of players from that year’s draft class.
“It’s good when someone asks a question about a player on the big club or a prospect in the system and you have the answer right away,” Fai said.
C’s president Andy Dunn has tagged his club as “one of the top five franchises in all of minor league baseball,” in the past and Fai getting a crack at calling even spring training games at the major league level
certainly looks good on the team.
“We’ve always said that we have one of the best broadcasters in the minor leagues and this proves that,” C’s general manager J.C. Fraser said. “We’re extremely proud of Rob.”
Fraser wouldn’t bite on questions about what the C’s might do if Fai ends up getting a new play-by-play job out of this stint.
“Rob Fai is our broadcaster until
someone tells me otherwise,” Fraser said.
The Canadians averaged crowds of 6,303 last summer at Nat Bailey Stadium. Capacity is listed at 6,413 at the Nat, meaning Vancouver filled the seats at a 98.2 per cent clip last season.
Vancouver also won the Northwest League title in 2017, marking their fourth crown in seven years.