Tuesday’s DMN is running an article saying that there will be contact extensions given to the broadcast team (although they don’t mention the Spanish radio guys in this).
According to the article, Victor Rojas, Tom Grieve, & Josh Lewin will receive either three or four year extensions, depending on who it is. Eric Nadel will also get a deal that will make him a “Ranger for Life”. What that technically means, I guess we’ll find out later today. But it’s nice to see this. These are all “extensions”, so I’m not sure exactly when all their contracts run out. Kind of amsuing this popped up, as I was wondering what the contact status of these guys was anyway earlier on Monday. Also in the article is the note that Josh Lewin will increase his workload from 130 to 155 games a year. Quite frankly, I think it should be 162, I never liked the sub. Again, I have nothing against Bill Land, but Land broadcasts don’t have the same pulse as a Lewin broadcast. TOm Grieve seems to be a mirror of who is with him. When Bill Jones was the other seat, the broadcasts weren’t as lively, either. Josh Lewin really brings out “TAG”. And that’s a good thing.
The article also mentions that Eric Nadel will now be doing games for over 30 years. It’s nice to have that kind of continuity in a broadcaster. I grew up in Philly, and Philly baseball means Harry Kalas. It also means Richie Ashburn, but he’s been gone awhile now. Actually, Richie Ashburn equates to Tom Grieve pretty well. The only difference between Ashburn and Grieve is that Ashburn was never the GM of the club. They both played and both broadcasted for quite awhile after playing. Ashburn & Kalas mean a lot to this kid growing up in Philly. It’s nice to have Eric Nadel around – I get the same feeling from him. Whenever you hear Eric Nadel talk about broadcasters (and in particular Mark Holtz), he always downplays himself. Sorry Eric – you don’t have 28 years with a team and not be good. If you were as bad as you seem to make yourself out to be in speeches, you wouldn’t have been here this long. Eric is the same treasure to my baseball ears that Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn were.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to point out one of the lesser known pages on my site. It’s the broadcaster history page, which shows all the TV and radio broadcasters going back to 1972. There’s some big names in there which some people might not be aware broadcasted Rangers games. I speak of Don Drysdale, Tom Vandergriff, & Jon Miller.
UPDATE @ 2PM: The Rangers site has the official announcement about these extensions up now. You can read it here.
This morning I emailed Victor Rojas to congratulate him on the extension, and he told me his contract now runs through the year 2010. That’s a piece of info I did not see in either story (he said it wasn’t a secret, so that’s why I said it here).
Hi Joe,
Thanks for poosting this information about the Rangers announcers. Growing up in West Texas, I was able to see very few Rangers games live and we didn’t have cable TV so that I could watch them. So, I grew up listening to the Rangers on the radio. My fondest memories are of staying up late and listening to Mark Holtz and Eric Nadel on WBAP, then on KRLD. In my opinion, Eric deserves a place in the Hall of Fame (as does Mark Holtz). Victor Rojas is the first of the “replacements” that I feel could even come minimally close to filling Mark’s shoes.