Baseball in the calendar year 2023 looks and feels drastically different with history being made in ways never before perceived as possible. The pitch clock has had a dual effect in that it has correlated to a shorter average game duration of two hours and 38 minutes – down from last year’s figure of three hours and eight minutes), but has also caused batters to accumulate balls or strikes through a timer violation of some kind. As a play-by-play announcer, Mike Monaco precipitously felt the effect of the rule changes when calling a Boston Red Sox spring training game against the Atlanta Braves. The score was tied at 6, and the Braves had the bases loaded with a chance to win the game.
On a 3-2 count with two outs in the ninth inning, Red Sox pitcher Robert Kwiatkowski prepared to deliver a potential game-altering pitch; however, the umpire quickly gestured to stop play and mark a seminal moment in baseball history. Atlanta Braves shortstop Cal Conley was called out without a pitch being thrown since he was not set in the batter’s box with at least eight seconds to go.
The crowd at JetBlue Park at Fenway South in Fort Myers, spring training home of the Boston Red Sox, had just witnessed something new: the first professional baseball game to end on a pitch clock violation, and in a tie nonetheless. “America’s Pastime” has officially been altered, and now there is no turning back.
“I said to Lou Merloni – who had just finished calling his first Red Sox TV game because his experience in the past had been on radio for Red Sox broadcasts – I said, ‘Did you think you’d go viral in your first game in the booth?,’” Monaco recalls. “It was a crazy ending, and at that point, we were still sifting through the mechanics of the call.”
Just as the new rule alters pitchers in terms of their usual sequence, it has changed the way hitters approach a plate appearance. Because they are only allowed to call for a timeout once per at bat, along with the fact that they need to be ready at the plate by the point in the countdown where at least eight seconds are remaining, batters must remain focused and locked in at all times.
Moreover, the institution of the pitch clock has, in essence, altered the sound of a game broadcast and forced commentators to render their points more compendious and succinct in nature.
“It’s made me rethink about how I set up stories and how quickly I try to get into something,” Monaco expressed. “In the past, you might be able to meander into something and then kind of get your story started and your point across in a more ‘folksy’ way that we always think of with baseball broadcasting. It’s definitely changed how I view it from a broadcast perspective.”
In listening back to the call, Monaco’s reaction is obviously one of shock and mesmerization, and it can be discerned that most viewers felt the same way. As a broadcaster, he portrayed the feelings of the audience at that moment, demonstrating his adept versatility and instincts.
Make no mistake about it – Monaco is familiar with the history of the Boston Red Sox. He has been watching the team both at Fenway Park and at home since he was young, and he considers their play to have been a vehicle that fueled his love of sports. Reflecting on his time as a young Boston sports fan, he realizes that he was spoiled with success, highlighted by the Red Sox breaking the infamous, 86-year “Curse of the Bambino” when the team won the 2004 World Series.
Since the turn of the century, the New England Patriots, led by head coach Bill Belicheck and quarterback Tom Brady, formed a dynasty and won six Super Bowl championships. The Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins have had formidable chances to win multiple titles over the last 20 years as well, with the teams securing glory in 2008 and 2011, respectively.
Aside from being an avid fan of the teams, Monaco was an athlete himself, yet inherently aware that he had no chance of completing the path to competing professionally. As a student at Cohasset High School, Monaco played baseball and basketball and, in his senior year, was named captain of the soccer team. When it was time to think about applying to college, Monaco decided to try and study to become a general manager of a Major League Baseball team, an occupation with only, at most, 30 potential job openings.
During his formative years as an undergraduate student attending the University of Notre Dame, Monaco remained focused on his classwork but joined various campus organizations including the school’s newspaper and radio station.
Through opportunities to write and broadcast on these platforms, he recognized that he wanted to pursue a career in sports media, leading him to major in journalism and learn the trade. From Notre Dame softball games, fencing events and even football contests between different dorms, Monaco covered all different types of sports at a high level, and also worked to develop hosting skills in the campus radio studios.
Additionally, he was promoted to sports editor of the school newspaper and had the ability to cover events and write a variety of stories disseminated to the local community. The athletic department’s decision to begin streaming games engendered additional chances for him to take the microphone, providing him with a litany of repetitions and the credentials needed to land an internship.
“For two years in college in the summers, I interned in the Cape Cod Baseball League calling baseball games,” Monaco said. “It was 44 games in a little less than two months, so basically a game every day. I knew that I loved it; I loved hanging out at the batting cages during batting practice in the afternoons and talking to players and coaches, and it’s really cool how many guys I know from there.”
The Wareham Gatemen, the team for whom he called these games, exposed him to the quotidian nature of the sport and how to prepare and execute broadcasts. Before that though in the summer after his freshman year, Monaco had interned with New England Sports Network (NESN), specifically on its Boston Red Sox broadcasts.
For select games, his role was to sit in an edit bay throughout the duration of the Red Sox game and help produce a 30-second commercial for the next contest. By being present, he discerned the conversations happening in the broadcast truck between producers, directors, broadcasters, and other personnel. It allowed him to develop a cognizance of industry jargon, invaluable to cultivating a fastidious approach in his preparation that continues to pay dividends today.
“There’s no shortcut for it,” Monaco said of preparation, “and it’s the baseline expectation of a fanbase tuning into your game, whether that’s a national broadcast or a local broadcast. They are watching because they care so much about the team – or maybe about a family member or a friend on the team – or just fandom. You can’t cheat that, and you can’t shortcut it.”
By the time he was a senior at the university, Monaco became a media assistant with the South Bend Cubs in its first year as a minor league affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. The roster featured future major league players to go with an environment where development was at the top of mind.
By that fall, he was off to Western Michigan University, not to attain another degree, but to broadcast its basketball games, marking his first job out of college with some pressure to prove the people that took a chance on him sagacious in doing so. The games were televised on ESPN3, granting the production team the capability to establish its own identity and make the broadcasts unique and compelling to watch.
“It gave me a chance on air to try different things and to make mistakes and to learn,” Monaco said. “….Through the basketball season, [I found] ways to tell stories about the same team and [not only covered] them each time I had their game, but [tried] to bring something new to it. It was an amazing experience.”
The next spring, Monaco resumed his baseball duties – this time with the Fort Wayne TinCaps, a minor league affiliate of the San Diego Padres. In broadcasting a sport with an average of less than 20 minutes of action, a fundamental aspect of the job is in attracting and maintaining an audience, something that is often done by being invested in the game while having synergy with on-air partners.
“To really be a good partner and a good teammate, even with the production crew as well, and to accentuate the other people that are a part of the broadcast and to bring out their strengths and be a good point guard so to speak,” Monaco described as part of his role. “That’s a lot of what I think being a play-by-play [announcer] is – to have that role and to hopefully put others in a position to be successful and make them feel comfortable and bring out their best characteristics.”
Over the time Monaco assimilated into working professionally in sports media, he sought out and received advice from many prominent broadcasters in the field, such as Sean McDonough, Adam Amin, and Len Kasper. As time has gone on, he has established relationships with Brian Anderson and Jason Benetti, receiving insight and expertise into what it takes to succeed in the industry and how to best position himself moving forward. One method anyone pursuing a career in most professions could take is by aligning oneself with a proven commodity, something that has been refined and established with the proper ethos.
By joining the Pawtucket Red Sox as an intern in broadcast and media relations in the spring of 2017, Monaco was doing just that. The organization has a long list of alumni who have made the transition from the minors to the majors over the years, including Cincinnati Bengals radio play-by-play voice Dan Hoard; San Francisco Giants broadcaster Dave Flemming; and New York Mets television play-by-play announcer Gary Cohen. Yet when he joined the organization, regularly going on air was no guarantee, and the situation became more unpredictable when the team landed a local television deal.
In the end, Monaco was assigned to broadcast Saturday home games in the first season and performed other tasks under Josh Maurer and Will Flemming, both of whom now broadcast Major League Baseball games on the radio. When Flemming received a chance to broadcast Boston Red Sox games, Monaco was paired in the booth with Maurer, forming a duo that called games throughout the course of the 2019 season.
“You’re right in the Boston market basically, and there’s coverage from Red Sox media of the PawSox, [so] that was a great learning experience too [in] being a step closer to the major leagues and seeing how things operate. It was three amazing years there, and I’m still really close with all those people and wouldn’t be where I am without them.”
In the midst of his final season with the Pawtucket Red Sox, Boston play-by-play announcer Dave O’Brien was unable to broadcast two late-season home games against the Baltimore Orioles. As a result, Monaco was paired with Jerry Remy and Dennis Eckersely, officially receiving his call to the show and a new vantage point from which to watch the game at historic Fenway Park.
“Two of the biggest days of my career to that point and two days that I still hold really closely to my heart,” Monaco said of the occurrence. “I was incredibly excited. I couldn’t believe [it] when they called me to tell me that they were going to have me fill in for Dave. It was an honor then to fill in, and it’s an honor any time I fill in now.”
Broadcasting his childhood team alongside Remy and Eckersley was somewhat intimidating for Monaco, but an opportunity he knew he would never pass up. Feeling excitement, nerves and disbelief as he entered the NESN broadcast booth, he remembers both color commentators making him feel comfortable and affirming the value his intellect and impressions garnered. They offered to adjust to him and try to make the broadcast as enjoyable as possible, helping make that stretch even more memorable.
“I’ll never forget [that], and I hope to pass that on to any new partner that I work with at whatever level down the road,” Monaco expressed. “They really did go out of their way to make me feel like I was supposed to be there and that my opinions, thoughts and words were as valuable as theirs. Certainly, the experience factor says otherwise.”
Since that time, Monaco has had several chances to broadcast Red Sox games on NESN, requiring somewhat of an adjustment from his days in the minor leagues. Additionally, he has been given the chance to fill in for Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox games in parts of the last few years.
For starters, Major League Baseball teams, especially in large markets, receive what may seem like an interminable amount of press. As a result, there is an unimpeded circulation of news, analysis, statistics and other information that factors into the broadcast. Furthermore, a large proportion of fans are recurring viewers of content related to their favorite teams, indicating that they comprehensively and instantaneously know the ins and outs of what is happening.
“There’s just a baseline understanding between announcers and [the] audience of who guys are that I [do not] necessarily need to rehash a player’s backstory when I’m doing a game on NESN,” Monaco said, “whereas there’s maybe a little bit more introduction of who someone is in the minor leagues to a listener in a town where the fanbase isn’t as big.”
Around the time when he began working with the Pawtucket Red Sox, Monaco signed a deal to broadcast games for FOX Sports and the Big Ten Network including football, soccer, volleyball, and lacrosse. Calling myriad sports with varying rules and rosters without a fixed, recurring role took an adjustment period, but fostered an even greater sense of versatility and value in his craft.
“There have been times in the fall or even in the spring where I might have five games in five days and they might be three different sports,” Monaco said. “Trying to keep everything straight is a challenge, but it’s also the joy in this and it’s why you get into it in the first place. It doesn’t feel like work.”
Although he continues to keep in touch with lead NHL on ESPN play-by-play announcer Sean McDonough, Monaco says that their relationship had no direct influence on his joining the network in 2019. It took considerable effort for Monaco to learn the game well enough to be considered for professional broadcasting roles, and surely his time calling college hockey at Notre Dame gave him somewhat of a background in the nuances of a sport predicated on dynamic action.
Last March, he made his debut and today calls a variety of national contests throughout the course of the regular season; in fact, he estimates that, at this point, he has worked with nearly every one of the property’s analysts.
“I’ve learned a ton just from sitting next to them at a morning skate [and] over the course of a two-and-a-half hour broadcast as well,” Monaco said. “It’s an incredibly challenging sport to call, but it’s incredibly rewarding.”
The skill and abilities of the athletes to play with finesse and physicality on the ice make the sport somewhat of an outlier in that no matter the situation, fans are always at the edge of their seats. In an era with interminable amounts of distraction and other activities to engross oneself in, hockey shines through and holds its broadcasters to a high standard to keep up and cohesively describe the game.
“It’s the fastest sport there is,” Monaco said. “That’s a reason why I think from a sheer fan entertainment perspective, I think it’s the most enjoyable sport. If you plop down at a sporting event, it’s the most enjoyable sport to watch in person because of how fast it moves paired with the incredible skill in the game.”
No matter the broadcast, commentators have set a standard since the advent of sports media in acting as acquiring information and delivering it on the broadcast, instantiated in an objective manner. Although there is opinion imbued in sports broadcasting, stellar broadcasts utilize it to contribute to the game story rather than attack individuals personally. In having a platform with the capability of reaching a large number of people, Monaco and his broadcast team, whether it is on NESN, ESPN, or the ACC Network for college football, has a responsibility to precisely depict the game and, if the situation calls for it, accompany it with mirthful moments.
“If someone has a career game, that might be the biggest moment of their life at that point,” Monaco said. “I feel a duty to be prepared to hopefully tell that story accurately for how that person got to this point and what this moment means for them.”
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the time thereafter, a question about sending broadcasters to road games has been posed throughout the industry – and it made gathering stories to tell considerably more difficult. Those opposing broadcasts on the road usually cite how it hurts teams financially and that a comparable product can be generated from a remote site, while those in favor talk about the importance of being able to discern the whole game and gain intangibles through their observations.
In Major League Baseball, the Toronto Blue Jays and the Los Angeles Angels are the only franchises that do not send their English radio announcers on the road for games – and they have received a fair amount of backlash for their decisions.
Monaco is of the belief that broadcasts sound better when announcers travel with the team and call the games in person, but also understands the other side of the quandary. There were occasions when he flew back home to Chicago just to call a game remotely, and he still continues to do so in special circumstances. He knows the stretch of time doing it regularly was a challenge for him and adjusted his means of preparation. The relationships with those around the industry made the time easier in keeping an open line of communication and remaining in the subconscious of decision-makers.
“I think in any industry that’s probably the name of the game,” Monaco said of relationship building. “In any walk of life, it’s great. What you’ve done and what you’re capable of, but also who you know is really important.”
While he tries to resist thinking about future goals and instead remain grounded in everything he is presently doing, Monaco knows he wants to continue broadcasting meaningful games and telling stories to an audience. There are many people with this same desire, making sports media a particularly competitive and sometimes cutthroat industry in which to work wherefore establishing a work ethic is of the utmost importance. In addition, astutely watching other broadcasters and reaching out to get feedback demonstrates humility and a yearning to enhance one’s skills and adapt.
Quite simply, staying ahead of the curve is crucial in staying in the industry, and while there is a certain allure to tradition, the industry continues to look forward and find new ways to implement its talent and showcase the best the games have to offer.
“There’s no substitute for the hard work component,” Monaco said. “….Just bring a thirst and a great unparalleled work ethic to it.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
