Broadcasters will join fans in stands for game next week

Make room in the bleach- ers for Braves broadcasters Chip Caray and Jeff Francoeur.

They are scheduled to call a game next week from the right-field stands at Truist Park, rather than from their customary perch in the TV booth behind home plate.

“It’ll be a fun way to call a game: out there among the fans, interacting with them,” Caray said. “It’s certainly a different perspective for us, just watching the ball fly. It breaks the monotony of going to the same office every day, and that’s not to knock the office.”

Play-by-play announcer Caray and analyst Francoeur will work Thursday night’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies, the finale of a four-game series, on Bally Sports Southeast from a temporary broadcast space that will be set up amid the seats in front of the Chop House.

It’ll be the third time that Caray and Francoeur have broadcast a game from the Truist Park stands. They did so twice during the 2019 season and remember the expe- rience fondly.

“We had Nick Markakis (then the Braves’ right fielder) throwing balls to fans in the stands and playing catch with Jeff between innings,” Caray said.

Caray recalled that his grandfather, the late great baseball broadcaster Harry Caray, used to occasionally call games from the bleachers in Chicago. Chip Caray also called a game from the left- field stands at Wrigley Field when he was the Cubs’ playby-play announcer.

“It’s a different way of getting the job done, a different way to look at the game,” Caray said. “What’s so cool about it is seeing the fans get into it.”

Bally Sports Southeast plans to schedule special guests to join Caray and Francoeur for parts of Thursday’s telecast, which the network is dubbing “Baseball From the Bleachers.” During their two 2019 telecasts from the stands, Caray and Francoeur were joined by Tom Glavine for one game and Chipper Jones for the other.

Before returning to Truist Park for a four-game series against the Phillies beginning Monday, the Braves will play a three-game series at Miami this weekend. All three games against the Marlins will be televised on Bally Sports Southeast, with Caray, Francoeur and Brian Jordan in the booth.