Hitting it out of the Park
乔·戴维斯(Joe Davis) 10岁时才20多岁，就飙升到了一个令人垂涎的职位——湖人队的实况转播播音员.A. Dodgers after iconic broadcaster Vin Scully retired. How has he come so far so fast?
During a desultory college basketball matchup February 21 between Arizona and California, both Pacific-12 Conference teams mired in losing streaks, Joe Davis’10 had done his homework. The still relatively new Los Angeles Dodgers announcer knew that his broadcast partner, former UCLA coach Steve Lavin, had once suffered through his own losing streak—and one with a bizarre twist. “True story,” said Davis to Lavin about midway through the first half, when the teams were struggling to hit the rims. “During your nine-game losing streak at UCLA, a student reporter in a press conference asked you who a good replacement would be. As memorable as the question was, your response was even more memorable.” This elicited from Lavin that, no, he didn’t coldcock the student reporter. Rather, 实际上，他详细地讨论了四五名教练的优点，这些教练被传言可能是他的继任者.
Davis’s vignette was not just the product of diligent preparation, it was deft. 这给了陷入困境的球迷们微笑的机会，同时也让他们看到了所有球队和球迷都会遇到的不幸, sooner or later.
Two days later, Davis was working a preseason Dodgers baseball game in Phoenix with his analyst partner, Orel Hershiser. Taking advantage of the relaxed nature of a spring training game, Davis encouraged Hershiser, a celebrated and cerebral former Dodger pitcher, to explore the differences between spring training then and now, 包括在测量投球运动和投球旋转速度方面取得的科学进步, which Hershiser expanded on with relish. “有了所有这些信息，我不知道我怎么能睡得着，”Hershiser总结道. “You would’ve loved it,” Davis said. “Oh, my gosh,” agreed Hershiser. “I would have eaten it up.”
这种交流是戴维斯让观众温和地了解他的搭档性格的许多方式之一，同时保持不那么重要的直播生动.
The beginning of Davis’s meteoric rise as a television sportscaster has been chronicled in this magazine (summer 2015). After graduating in 2010, in lightning succession, 他从为AA小联盟蒙哥马利饼干队做详细解说变成了大学棒球的组合, football, and basketball for Comcast Southeast, ESPN, and Fox Sports, where he also called major league and NFL games.
Credit: Photo by: Max S. GerberDavis has come a long way since then. In 2016, in anticipation of the retirement of the legendary Dodger broadcaster Vin Scully, Davis was hired to call 50 games for the Dodgers. 他表现出色，并在2017年接替了斯库利的继任者，同时继续打棒球, college football and basketball, and the NFL for Fox.
道奇队的机会是多么大的一件事，多么艰巨的挑战，怎么说都不为过. The Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers is a storied sports franchise, and the Los Angeles TV market is huge. But, more than that, the 20-something (now 31), baby-faced kid from Potterville, Mich., (pop. 2,671) became only the second “voice” of the Dodgers in seven decades, succeeding a man who is a virtual icon, not just in Southern California but in all of sports broadcasting.
Pursuing the profession you love, excelling wildly, and being well compensated for it—that’s pretty much anyone’s definition of a dream job. And it is certainly Joe Davis’s, who will be the first to tell you that he didn’t build his career all on his own. It took a college. Beloit “set me up to get ahead of the curve when I graduated,” Davis says. 经济学和创业名誉教授杰瑞·古斯塔夫森63年和退休广播教练戴夫·克努森94年可以告诉你如何.
“乔是一个很好的例子，他试图利用学院的资源，而不是正式的, standardized courses,” recalls Gustafson. “他在伯洛伊特学院得到了很多你认为普通大学无法提供的帮助.其中之一是古斯塔夫森与伊利诺伊州小联盟球队绍姆堡飞人队(Schaumburg Flyers)的老板有关系, which helped lead Davis to a broadcasting summer internship. Gustafson encouraged Davis to pursue his own entrepreneurial instincts, 这让戴维斯开始了一项编辑高中运动员招募影片的生意(这让他赚了几千美元，还帮他支付了一些费用), Davis recalls).
大一开学第一周，戴维斯告诉广播老师克努森，他想成为一名体育播音员, Knutson told him: “It’s not just sitting behind a mic and talking.”
Davis got it, fast. 他学习了所有关于制作的知识，并在大一的时候开始转播伯洛伊特的篮球比赛. 然后，他得到了机会和鼓励，将原始的一台摄像机扩展到三台. 他开办了自己的社区电视体育节目——他甚至被允许在伯洛伊特市中心的一家爱尔兰酒吧处理远程广播的棘手后勤问题.
An eagle can’t soar in a tunnel, and at a big institution, Davis’s progress would likely have been constrained by both protocol and numbers. 克努森说，如果他能在大一结束时操作照相机，那就很幸运了. 如果他去了威斯康星大学(University of Wisconsin)或圣母大学(Notre Dame)，就会有人注意到他的才能. 但在伯洛伊特，他可以从第一天起就全身心投入，并得到一对一的鼓励.”
戴维斯还从当时的通讯项目主席那里获得了独立学习的帮助, Associate Professor of Theatre Amy Sarno, who told him up front that she knew nothing about sports broadcasting. Nonetheless, Sarno taught Davis useful sportscasting skills, such as how to project his voice and how to breathe while speaking. 戴维斯很感激:“哪所广播学校要研究如何投射他们的声音? Well, it’s what I wound up having at Beloit.”
The small liberal arts college experience that Beloit provided, according to both Gustafson and Knutson, gave Davis the opportunity to craft his own customized education. It was personalized—if he had an idea, he could take it to his instructor and get smart, timely feedback. It was flexible—let’s do a community access TV show in an Irish bar. It was hands-on—instead of just reading about using multiple cameras, let’s try it. And there were no artificial barriers—he was never told that freshmen don’t get to do that. It was, in short, a very good environment for a proactive learner like Davis.
Another point of emphasis at Beloit helped Davis, 尽管他对准备和细节的重要性有着超自然的倾向. “I’m obsessive in everything I do,” says Davis, who graduated summa cum laude. “I think that obsessive nature is the fuel to the persistence.” Another self-descriptor he uses is “meticulous.” Indeed, both Davis and Hershiser cheerily describe themselves, and each other, as anally retentive, 这两个人尽管年龄相差很大，但还是成为了非常亲密的朋友，原因之一是什么.
Hershiser, 60, 他一直是ESPN的分析师，多年来与各种各样的实况转播播音员一起工作, is awed by Davis’s level of preparation. “If I forget something,” Hershiser says, “like when a trade was, he’ll finish my sentence. That’s how prepared he is. 这看起来像是谈话，因为这就是谈话，因为他对任何事情都准备好了.”
Credit: Photo by: Max S. Gerber
That preparation takes several forms. When Davis gets home after games at about 11 p.m., he puts in another 90 minutes or so researching the pitchers for the next day. In the off-season, he rises at 4:30 a.m. 对道奇队下赛季将面对的对手球队的球员进行同样的研究. This effort produces ridiculously detailed electronic pages for hundreds of players, filled with data, minutiae, and anecdotes. Oh, and did I mention? They’re color-coded six ways.
在六月中旬旧金山巨人队的系列赛中，这种疯狂的劳动产生了这样的掘金:巨人队的投手王牌麦迪逊·布姆加纳在北卡罗来纳州的一个小县城长大，那里有很多布姆加纳，一个地区被称为“布姆镇”,布姆加纳是一名猎熊人，他用他的奖金买了农田，还了他母亲的抵押贷款. 在典型的戴维斯/好时广播中，这些花絮几乎每一局都有规律地出现，并穿插着技术分析和历史轶事, such as a fabled early 20th century Giants manager John McGraw being so mean, according to a contemporary, that he “eats gun powder for breakfast each morning and washes it down with warm blood.”
Davis’s journey to Beloit was not entirely typical. A star high school quarterback who was recruited, the kid from Potterville had options, including Brown, Harvard, and Syracuse. 他选择伯洛伊特的原因之一是在大一的时候有机会踢足球. At least one other Beloit alumnus is particularly happy he did: Rick Krajewski’09, 他是兄弟会的一员，也是道奇队的全职统计员，坐在道奇体育场同一间舒适的广播亭里，向戴维斯和赫时提供神秘而精彩的棒球统计数据. Davis’s wife, Libby, is also happy with that choice. Even though she didn’t attend Beloit, they met at a New Year’s party his sophomore year. They now live in South Pasadena with their two small children.
Looking back on it, Davis says he would have been “crazy” not to have made the decision to attend Beloit. “有很多人愿意创造机会，并帮助我创造这些机会——这成为了最大的好处.”
He also says he benefited from his liberal arts education. “我不知道这句话是谁说的，但我以前听过:你花了一周的时间准备播报一场足球或篮球比赛, but you spend your whole life preparing to call a baseball game.”
A theatre arts/communications major and journalism minor, Davis also took classes in political science, psychology, economics, and philosophy. “You name it, pretty much every category of every discipline you can think of,” he says. “A little bit of learning in those is what a liberal arts education is and, as a baseball announcer, a very valuable background to have.”
Crazy not to have chosen Beloit over Harvard? Well, it’s hard to argue with Davis’s life and career choices to date. No doubt his prodigious talent would have won out regardless of his undergraduate decision. But it is also hard to argue with the conclusion that a customized, hands-on, no artificial barriers education gave the rocket a boost.
Before becoming a trial lawyer in Alaska, Peter Gruenstein’69 was an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., where he also did a bit of sports writing. 他关于国防承包商向五角大楼官员和国会议员送礼的系列报道获得了普利策奖提名. His son, Leo Gruenstein, assisted in the preparation of this article.
