Friday, December 19, 2008
By Dejan Kovacevic, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/
Pirates hire Tim Neverett as new play by play announcer.
Most play-by-play men live for the big call, but this was one Tim Neverett was dreading.
He had spoken with the Pirates late last week and knew he was one of two finalists to fill the vacancy left by Lanny Frattare's Oct. 1 retirement and, as Neverett acknowledged, "It made for a really long weekend" waiting for the result.
His last words on Friday to Marc Garda, the Pirates' director of broadcasting: "I'm the right man for the job."
And, when the phone rang Monday in Neverett's home in Highlands Ranch, Colo., Garda's first words to him: "You were right. You're the right man for the job."
Neverett broke down, failed to compose himself and asked Garda if he could call back.
"I needed a minute," Neverett recalled. "It's been a long time, and I was so honored to have such a chance."
Neverett, 42, was announced yesterday as the Pirates' choice to share play-by-play duties with Greg Brown, culled from a pool of 200. He worked the previous four years for FSN Rocky Mountain as the host of pregame and postgame shows for Colorado Rockies broadcasts, as well as doing some play-by-play for the Rockies and for college football and basketball on Versus and the Mountain West Conference Sports Network.
Before that, he called more than 1,000 minor league and college baseball games, from Boston to Providence, R.I., to Las Vegas to Nashua, N.H., where he started broadcasting in 1985 at age 19 for what then was the Pirates' Class AA affiliate.
"Tim's ability, combined with his work ethic, passion for baseball and desire to make a positive impact in the community, made him the ideal addition to our broadcast team," Pirates president Frank Coonelly said.
There will be no formal Voice of the Pirates designation. That was dropped by Frattare two years ago out of respect for Brown. Brown will take the lead play-by-play role, but he and Neverett are expected to roughly split duties between television and radio.
The Pirates are responsible for hiring the announcers for their broadcasts, though they kept their local rights-holders, FSN Pittsburgh and Clear Channel, involved in the process.
The initial count of applicants was 200, a figure that was reduced to 40 simply by listening to submitted tapes. From there, communications director Brian Warecki, who oversaw the process, and Garda took it to 10 to four -- when the first face-to-face interviews were conducted -- to two and, finally, to Neverett. The only local applicant to reach the final 10 was Jason Dambach, play-by-play man for the Pirates' Class AA affiliate in Altoona.
None of the area's top local possibilities, including Stan Savran and Rob King, applied.
Neverett and his family -- wife Barbara and three sons, ages 14, 12 and 9 -- have lived in Denver the past five years, and he sounded eager to end what has been a nomadic existence.
But he also seemed aware that, for someone who has visited Pittsburgh only casually, he has a formidable task ahead to gain the respect of an audience that has a history with play-by-play men that ranges from making icons of them -- Bob Prince, Mike Lange -- to quickly dismissing them.
"It's like drinking out of a fire hose," Neverett said. "It's going to be my No. 1 priority, to get established in the community. With only one sport to focus on, it's going to give me a lot of opportunity to learn. There's no way I can say I was born in Pittsburgh. I wasn't. But I think I can become part of it."
On the air, according to those who have heard Neverett's tapes, his style comes with a wry personality but is mostly no-nonsense, stick to the action and let the color commentators -- still Bob Walk, Steve Blass and John Wehner, in the Pirates' case -- do their thing.
"When you talk about baseball, people tune in every single night, and you become part of the fabric of the game," Neverett said. "I think I bring a friendly style, an informative style. I think I have the ability to fit in with Greg, Bob, Steve and John, and I think we'll have good conversations about baseball. But I think I'm pretty straightforward. I don't have schtick, so to speak. But I have a style, and I think that will develop over time with the Pirates."
His top priority?
"Get the score right. Always."
Dejan Kovacevic can be reached at dkovacevic@post-gazette.com.
First published on December 18, 2008 at 7:18 pm
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