For those of you that follow me on Twitter, or are big Carolina Mudcat fans, or have ESP, you will remember that there was a benches clearing incident last week in our series vs the Winston Salem Dash. As a result of this fight, Ronny Rodriguez, Jesus Aguilar, and myself were handed a suspension from the league. During the time that we are suspended we are not allowed to dress out or be on the field, so I took the opportunity to do something I've always kinda wanted to do anyway - announce the game on the radio.
Our radio guy, Darren Headrick (who I'm sure doesn't like being called a "radio guy") was kind enough to let me come up in the booth with him and provide the color for the game. It was a great experience to see the game from this angle, the height of the booth adds a perspective that you don't get on the playing field and as Darren told me before the game started, you start to see plays unfold before they happen. You can tell if a play will be made in the infield, you can make pretty good guesses as to where a cutoff is going to be thrown, even if a runner is going to be safe or out when stealing.
The first 5 innings flew by, crisp pitching performances by Jimenez and McCray didn't allow Darren and me much time for banter or story telling. But the game started to slow down, and I was surprised by just how tiring it was to fill up all that air time (a tip of the cap to Darren, who does the games by himself every night). We did start to find a rhythm by the 7th, and filled up the airtime nicely with a combination of his play by play and my color, also a little help from twitter. This is the first time in my life I've ever had a hard time coming up with things to talk about, nothing like being put on the spot I guess.
I had tweeted prior to the game that I would be taking questions from my followers and answering them in the booth, and even though things started slow, questions started to pour in as the game slowed down (that's just how cool my followers, they know when I need some help filling up air time). I had come up with the hashtag #askamudcat, but Darren came up with #tweetthebooth which was way better (and I felt he was kinda showing off by one-upping me like that). That's neither here nor there though, tonight we're gonna open the twitter streams back up and answer questions on air and on twitter that y'all ask during the game.
I hope some of you listen tonight, tune-in online by following the link (http://64.34.190.77/MiLB/GameAudio/LiveStreamFlash/sou_carolina_mudcats) or if you're in North Carolina check out The Big Dog 98.5, or WRNS AM 960. Please tune in, and tweet us questions (@C_M_Cook and @Darren_Headrick) for us to answer, even after one day on the air I'm starting to realize that taking up an entire radio broadcast is hard work.
That's all for today folks. Sorry there was so much down time between blogs, life has a way of getting in the way from time to time, but I know you guys like reading them so I will try my best to get back on some sort of consistent posting schedule. Until then, tune in tonight, listen to a little bit of Mudcats Baseball and tweet me questions. Have a great week, be happy Monday is already come and gone, and GO TRIBE.
