REAL PEOPLE/The Rookie
He Made It to the Show at 56
Announcer Johnny Doskow worked in minor-league baseball for 30 years before the Oakland A’s called
Doskow at work: the play-by-play box at the Oakland Coliseum
THERE ARE ANNOUNCER job openings every year with one major-league team or another. Whenever I saw something I thought I’d be a candidate for, I would send my résumé and demo tape, but I never got any bites. In 30 years, I really never came close, to be honest. In 2012, Ken Korach, who was doing the radio with the Oakland A’s, had knee replacement surgery, and I was able to fill in for a few weeks, but then it was back to my minor-league team. I started telling my wife, “It’s probably not going to happen for me.”
I wasn’t unhappy, though. As a AAA team announcer in Sacramento, I still got to call baseball for a living, which is a pretty cool deal. It was long days and a lot of travel, but it never felt like a job. Every day was different. Many of the coaches and players became good friends. I’ve officiated at nine of the players’ weddings by now.
I’d always dreamed of being a big-league announcer, though. Players and coaches would get called up to the majors, and I was always excited for them. But it was never me.
Then in the fall of 2022, the A’s reached out to me and said, “We may have something for you.” I kept in touch with them over the winter, and not long before opening day, they brought me on board. My first game on the radio was against the Mets on April 14th of last year. I was a 56-year-old rookie. To be in that seat to call baseball was really a thrill. And it’s still pretty thrilling.
You dream your whole life of working at a big-league level. It took me 30 years. But that’s OK, because it shows my 18-year-old daughter: Don’t give up on your dreams. I appreciate my job every day. It’s beyond anything I could have expected. Everything is first-class, and I’m just learning so much. To get this opportunity later in life, it’s very rare. That’s not lost on me. —As told to John Rosengren
Major-league play-by-play announcer Johnny Doskow, 57, lives in El Dorado Hills, California.