Baker’s back, with voice that could make an empty seat stand and cheer
From his press-level seats in Veterans Stadium and Citizens Bank Park, he has seen almost everything in the last 48 baseball seasons. World championships won and playoff games blown. Triple plays, rallies, slumps, Hall of Famers and walk-offs.
The one thing Dan Baker has never seen, however, upon peering up from his microphone is a public-address announcer’s nightmare: No public to address.
Yet that will be the situation late in July when the Phillies finally begin their season after a long coronavirus-inspired delay. Baker will be speaking to a ballpark without a single spectator, not one in the upper deck, the lower deck, the luxury suites or the standing-room perch.
Still, his show, popular for generations, will go on. Break a leg?
“Even without fans, I have an obligation to say the names correctly,” Baker said. “At one point, I’d even heard speculation that there would not be P.A. announcers. Of course, I was hoping that was not the case. It’s going to be interesting. I’m just grateful that baseball and sports is getting back. I think we’ve really missed it.”
Baker is 73 and he missed it all, the pre-game introductions, the in-game situations and his subtle ability to adjust his announcements to the situation, using his mastery of voice inflection to maximize fan response and, as a result, maximize the Phillies’ chances to prevail.
Yet with no fan reaction, what would emphasizing the name, “Bryyyyyce Harrrrrrper” achieve during a late rally?
“That’s a very good question,” Baker said. “Without the fans there, without somebody to excite, somebody to motivate, to perhaps get their involvement which might be to some benefit to the home team, the emphasis will be on providing information. So I don’t see a need for that. But it’s a new experience.
“I guess harkening back to your natural tendencies in a situation where the Phillies might be rallying, instinctively you might want to say it in a more enthusiastic way. But, really, I don’t think it’s going to affect the players that much. I think it has more of an effect on the fans. I think the fans can affect the players. But I don’t think the announcer affects the players.”
As much as Baker is appreciated for his steady professionalism, a baseball public-address announcer can have a literal impact on a game. That’s because the phrase “announced pinch-hitter” is not just a description but a potential game-changing designation. Once a pinch-hitter is “announced” by the public-address person, he officially has entered the game whether he actually bats or not. At that point, re-entry would be forbidden.
So Baker and the other 29 with his job in the major leagues truly are essential to the way the game is played.
“I consciously wait for the umpire to point up toward us,” Baker said. “In some cases, he’ll just turn around and point to the official scorer. Typically, the home plate umpire will point at the intended pinchhitter and point up to the P.A. booth or to behind home plate as if to say, ‘OK, go ahead and make the announcement.’ And we’re not supposed to make this announcement until we get the signal from the umpire. If an opposing manager wants to make a pitching change, a lot of times he will wait until that announcement is made. That means that batter has now been ‘announced.’ So the announced pinch-hitter is used. That’s it.”
While there were moments in recent months when Baker naturally wondered if there would be games at all this season, he is enthusiastic about moving closer to becoming only the third P.A. announcer in baseball history to have worked for 50 or more years. He would join Bob Sheppard, the Yankees’ voice from 1951 through 2007, and Pat Piper, the voice of Wrigley Field from 1916 through 1974.
Baker and his wife Cathy, formerly a longtime Phillies employee, recently were blessed with their first grandchild, Reo Daniel Narra, the son of their daughter Courtney and her husband Yash Narra. Even through the delayed season, Baker continued to host a weekly baseball talk show with Greg Luzinski, heard locally on WBCB 1490-AM and WTEL 610-AM. And he has nicely recovered from the five oral-sinus surgeries that caused him to miss
14 games last season … one fewer than in the previous
47 years combined.
“I still did 67 home games last year, and I was very proud of that,” he said. “I came back to announce games a couple times not long after a surgical procedure. I just love it so much and was highly motivated to get back. I really missed it. I felt terrible missing the
14 games. At one point after talking to the doctors, they didn’t think I was coming back last year. But I did. I came back for the final two homestands in September.
“I had really good doctors. They were very mindful of my career and what I do for a living. And I can’t thank them enough for the care and concern for me and my career and enabling me to get back. I still have a little discomfort. But I can still perform, and fortunately it hasn’t affected my speech.”
While ballparks will not have fans for a while, there will be 35 credentialed reporters or photographers permitted to attend every game. With groundskeepers, training staffs, team personnel, security guards, television cameramen and, yes, mascots in attendance, in addition to the players, Baker’s
announcements will remain typically helpful. And his recognizable voice in the background will provide some measure of welcome familiarity to TV viewers.
“I think the Phillies are going to have a good team,” Baker said. “I think they are going to be very competitive. I think there’s going to be four very competitive teams in the NL East. And I really like Joe Girardi. He did a terrific job with the Yankees. He did a terrific job with the Marlins. And I think he’s going to do a terrific job here. I’m excited about it.
“It was bad enough with the coronavirus threat, but here was one of the most anticipated Phillies seasons in recent years and a lot of people are very optimistic. Then, all of a sudden, the rug was pulled out from under us. So that was a disappointment to a lot of people.”
It was disappointing and it was game-changing, at least for the rest of this season. Soon enough, though, a Philadelphia sports legend will be back addressing the public … or something like it.
“Everybody has a job to perform,” Dan Baker said. “You can’t say, ‘There’s not that many people here, I’ll just nonchalantly mail it in.’ I don’t think you can do that. That’s just not the right thing to do.”