When Atlanta Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies launched a three-run walk-off home run to secure a sweep of the New York Mets in early June, Truist Park was in a state of bedlam. As Albies rounded the bases and approached home plate, fans were jumping out of their seats to be a part of the mass exultation. Moreover, his teammates stood ready to douse him with liquids and mob him in celebration. For the team, it was another show of dominance against their divisional rivals, but the triumphant moment garnered additional significance for Bally Sports South/Southeast, the local regional sports network.
The broadcast entity had taken a chance by pairing four Braves legends in the broadcast booth together to call the game – without a play-by-play announcer – for the first time. Even though all of these analysts had some form of broadcast experience, the network opted to make their alternate broadcast the primary offering that night.
The performance was undoubtedly helped by the vacillating nature of the game, during much of which the Mets held the lead. The situation set itself up for Albies to walk it off, but led to a moment of brief confusion in the booth about who was responsible for making the home run call.
Lead FOX Sports analyst and Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz punctuated the moment by saying, “That’ll do it!,” and let the crowd tell the rest. Chipper Jones, Tom Glavine and Jeff Francoeur joined in the fun as Atlanta regaled its young superstar and supremely talented baseball team.
“Smoltzy went nuts and said all the things and I just looked over,” Francoeur said. “Chipper’s been a friend of mine forever and I know he loves Crown Royal, and so I just said, ‘Pour Larry a Crown!’ It was perfect.”
Francoeur’s pithy statement stuck with Braves Country and was plastered on T-shirts instantly. The catchphrase is now associated with the team as it seeks to capture its second World Series championship in a three-year span.
“I think we captured that moment pretty well even though we weren’t maybe 100% prepared for it, but I think that’s the stuff you just react to,” Glavine said. “You know you have to call those moments even though you’re not doing play-by-play on every pitch.”
The success of that broadcast compelled Bally Sports South/Southeast management to plan a sequel last week when the Mets returned to Atlanta for the teams’ final meeting of the season.
As a member of the Braves, Glavine was afforded the luxury of national exposure through a unique arrangement with the Turner Broadcasting Company. Before being granted a national MLB media rights contract in 2008, the Atlanta-based broadcast company presented Braves games to the nation starting in 1973. Skip Caray, Pete Van Wieren and Ernie Johnson Sr. became household names, and the Braves garnered backing from all corners of the country en route to a World Series title in 1995.
“No disrespect to the [Dallas] Cowboys – we were ‘America’s Team’ – that’s what we were dubbed after a while and [it was] certainly true in baseball and that’s the way it was,” Glavine said. “We would go on the road, and the amount of support we had on the road because of the people who watched us on TBS was off the charts.”
Once his playing days were reaching an end, he began to think about what would come next and had conversations with professionals and mentors about assimilating into sports media.
“I don’t think anybody’s perfect, but my dad always used to tell me when I was going to play ball, ‘You’re going to have a lot of people tell you what to do and they’re all trying to help you, but it’s up to you to figure out what works for you,’” Glavine recalled. “I think that’s been the case in broadcasting too, just like it was when I was a player.”
Throughout the 2010s, baseball went through a variety of seismic changes that rendered the game more difficult to watch, largely linked to a new sabermetric philosophy. Because of tactical decisions being made by organizations, the sport began to inherently change in terms of adventitious outcomes and the overall fan experience.
“You’re playing a three-and-a-half-hour game every night with 100 pitching changes and not much going on,” Glavine said. “It wasn’t the greatest product to watch, let alone talk about.”
Combined with the loss of his father during the previous summer, Glavine decided that he would step away from broadcasting in the 2022 season. He spent the summer with his mother in Massachusetts, cherishing time with his family after devoting several decades to “America’s Pastime.” In weighing the decision to return to the broadcast booth after his mother’s death in December, Glavine recognized how much he enjoyed watching the game and noticed rule changes that had the potential to hasten the action.
In being scheduled for 35 to 40 broadcasts throughout the year, he knew that coming back would mean adjusting to a new play-by-play announcer after Caray signed on to call St. Louis Cardinals games. Brandon Gaudin, the voice of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and a presence on the Big Ten Network, ended up landing the Braves television job.
Similarly to Glavine, Francoeur had been working with Caray since his broadcast debut in 2017, although his initial assignments were on the studio’s pregame and postgame coverage. Being recently removed from 12 seasons in the big leagues – including parts of six years with the Braves – he focused on providing intel regarding the modern game and what adjustments players have to make in real time.
As a player, Francoeur remembers Braves manager Bobby Cox addressing the team before each season about their obligation to media members. Cox was forthright by expressing that it is the job of the team to provide journalists information to disseminate to the public. He understood that if they tried to take advantage of the players, coaches and personnel, it could lead to issues. In an effort to avoid acrimony, he inculcated how to best handle these interactions to cultivate a professional working environment conducive for success.
“When the visiting teams come in, I have them out to my golf course – a couple of the players or something – and kind of just get some information and see what’s going on,” Francoeur said. “I’m usually able to interact in that style.”
Cultivating and maintaining relationships formed throughout his playing days and beyond are fundamental aspects of any success Francoeur may have on the broadcast. Whether it is with those in the dugout, executives or other journalists, everyone is enmeshed within the labyrinthine information highway. The stream of consciousness generates interest and the ability to enterprise stories and editorialize with merit rather than exuding persistent obsequiousness.
“That’s your lifeline; that’s how I get my stories,” Francoeur said. “….I make sure to stay on top of that, to talk to them and be a part [of it] because ultimately, that’s where I get my content [and] that’s where I get myself to be good at my job.”
Francoeur considers analytics and other statistics more in the purview of the play-by-play announcer, realizing that the top priority for analysts should be to expound on why something unfolded in a specific manner. On national broadcasts, he is often paired with Brian Anderson and dissects each team at surface level, making sure that they inform viewers and provide close to equal coverage on both teams. Conversely, local broadcasts have a narrower distribution and appeal, leading most of the discussion to center around the play of the team instead of the opponent.
“When you do the national approach, it’s one of those things that you’re obviously [discussing] both teams; you’re trying to give the info you can. I’d like to say you can dig in more,” Francoeur explained. “When you’re doing your team obviously, look, you’re not going to be a complete homer, but at the same time, 99% of your fans are Braves fans watching the game so you also want to be cognizant of that.”
National broadcasts frequently add new voices, whether it be through studio shows, game broadcasts or alternate presentations – and Francoeur and Smoltz are the two members of the alternate booth with that level of consistent experience. Glavine does not wish to travel as much and chooses to remain close to his family.
“It’s nice what I have with the Braves because I can pick my schedule [and] pick my spots,” Glavine said. “I’m never gone from home for more than six days, so that’s the important stuff to me.”
Prior to the 2023 regular season, MLB implemented various rule changes intended to hasten pace of play and increase offensive output. The pitch clock in particular has shaved 25 minutes off of the average time of a nine-inning game, leading to a 9% increase in attendance and broadened interest in the sport across the board. When the contests are deadlocked in the final innings with a chance for a momentous finish, most broadcasts proceed to fixate on the pitch-by-pitch action with minimal extemporaneous discussion. No matter the scenario though, Francoeur conveys that the game should take precedence.
“I will not talk over a pitch,” Francoeur said. “Even if I’m telling a story, I can slowly kind of bring it to a stop, and then of course if there’s a pitch thrown and nothing happens, I can pick it up. I always want to give that ability to, whether it’s Brandon [or], in the playoffs, Brian Anderson, I want to give them that ability to make the call if they need to.”
Both Francoeur and Glavine want the Braves to win when they show up to the ballpark. When they were working with Jones and Smoltz devoid of a true play-by-play announcer, their fandom for the Braves shined through. This was by design by the regional sports network though, granting viewers a new way to consume sports and a template for other baseball teams to consider in crafting new methods to reach the fans.
“It’s not that the Braves fans can tune in to another broadcast if this style is not what they want to watch,” Glavine explained, “but I do think there is a level of people tuning in because they’re intrigued by the broadcast and what’s going to happen and just having the opportunity to hear the four of us together.”
For the second edition, the Braves and Mets were squaring off in the rubber match of the three-game tilt. From the first inning on, Atlanta was in full control of the contest thanks to starting pitcher Charlie Morton posting seven scoreless innings on 11 strikeouts. Without the play-by-play announcer, the analysts had the responsibility of keeping viewers informed and executing other tasks, including sponsored elements. They also had to contend with the challenge of interacting with special guests throughout the game, including Braves legends Greg Maddux, Fred McGriff and Brian McCann.
Entering the first iteration of the alternate broadcast, the alumni had a plan in place about whose inning it was to narrate a home run should one be hit. In the end, Jones, Francoeur and Smoltz all got to announce the five home runs hit during the game, leaving people wondering how Glavine would deliver such a moment.
Last week, Glavine finally got to make his first home run call on the alternate broadcast saying, “It’s too early for a Crown, but it’s gone!” as outfielder Marcell Ozuna launched the only home run of the contest. His remarks elicited laughter from the rest of the broadcast booth, reminiscing on the viral moment from last game that conceived a second outing.
“It’s being around these guys, which is always fun,” Glavine said. “I think that’s the one thing as an ex-player that we would all tell you we miss. It’s not necessarily going to the ballpark every day and playing – I think to some extent we all do miss that competitiveness. The blood-flowing; you’re getting ready to go play a big game; we miss that, but we all kind of miss the clubhouse banter [and] the camaraderie.”
After the first broadcast, Glavine remembers being approached by a fan and saying that the games should be disseminated in that format all the time. While he is unsure if alternate styles of broadcasts will ever become the primary means of viewership, he is aware that what the Braves have differs from anything on other niche presentations.
“I think it’s something that had a good enough reaction that I think it only makes sense for Bally and the Braves to try and do more of,” Glavine said. “I would venture to think that other teams and other sports are looking at it and trying to see if there’s a way that they could integrate something like that with their teams.”
“Fans like seeing the action,” Francoeur added, “but I think if you had to do it all the time, I think that’s probably a little less desirable.”
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.
