After Chip Caray, who’d been broadcasting for the Braves in some form for 18 years, left to take the TV play-by-play position with the St. Louis Cardinals a few weeks ago, the Braves had a position they had to fill quickly. A fairly brief search ensued, and the main name that kept coming up was that of Tom Hart, former Braves field reporter for then-Fox Sports regional broadcasts and current SEC Network/ESPN announcer. These reports made it seem like he was the odds-on favorite, but the Braves sprung a surprise of sorts last week, naming Brandon Gaudin to the role of the team’s TV play-by-play announcer on Bally Sports broadcasts.
Gaudin is a fairly well-known name in the Atlanta sports scene, having served as the radio voice of Georgia Tech athletics for three years from 2013-16. I say only fairly well-known as, despite being actually located in Midtown Atlanta, Georgia Tech takes a serious back seat to the behemoth up the road in Athens when it comes to sports media in this town. That said, Gaudin’s predecessors at Georgia Tech, Wes Durham and Al Ciraldo, had much longer stays and built much larger followings in the Atlanta media landscape (the late Ciraldo is particularly beloved), so it’s entirely possible his short stay had more to do with any local anonymity he suffers from going in.
After leaving Georgia Tech, Gaudin took a TV job with Fox Sports. There, he’s called various MLB, NFL, college football and college basketball games, particularly focusing on Big Ten football and basketball games on the Big Ten Network. He also works on national college football and basketball radio broadcasts on Westwood One, with NCAA Tournament games serving as his most high-profile assignment there.
In probably Gaudin’s most well-known role nationally, he’s the play-by-play announcer on the Madden NFL video game, a position he’s held since 2017. It’s a position for which I hope he’s well compensated, as sitting in a studio for a week straight reading through the never-ending script of things you might say during a football broadcast has always struck me as being about as much fun as an arduous dental procedure.
Most of his baseball work has come in fairly boring national broadcasts on Fox Sports, so there aren’t really a whole lot of worthwhile YouTube highlights there, but I did find a couple of exciting highlights from his college football and basketball calls.
The first is probably his most well-known call from his time at Georgia Tech. Florida State is lining up for a long game-winning field goal to try and beat the Yellow Jackets on the last play of the game and it, um, does not go well for the Seminoles:
The second is from his time as the basketball radio announcer for Butler (I didn’t mention that…he was the radio voice of Butler basketball before going to Georgia Tech). This a crazy ending where Gonzaga is inbounding the ball up by one with three seconds left and manages to somehow lose the game to Butler:
I like both of those calls. They both show an appropriate level of excitement and are handled well. Of course, Chip’s problem was not handling the huge moments but in the day-to-day humdrum broadcast where he kept spouting the same platitudes over and over and over. On that front, I’ve never yelled at Brandon Gaudin to shut up the way I have at Chip Caray. However, I’m not a Georgia Tech fan, so I haven’t had to listen to him day-in, day-out for an entire season either. I will say I never heard any complaints like that from any Georgia Tech folks that I talk with, and I’ve always thought of him as a good, if not spectacular, broadcaster who gets the job done. I do, however, look forward to getting to know him day-in and day-out.
Though I tolerated Chip more than many, I don’t think there’s a whole lot of doubt that he’d started to get a bit stale. This state of affairs was helped for a time by replacing Joe Simpson with Jeff Francoeur, but it didn’t totally solve the problem. So this should serve as an interesting change to the broadcasts. How will everyone wind up liking Brandon Gaudin? I don’t know. I don’t even know how I’ll wind up liking him, to be honest. But it’s clear from all of his comments since getting the job that he grew up a huge Braves fan. If that shines through, that should give him a fair amount of leeway.
FYI: there are no hyperlinks in this article
@1 Nick’s just old school like that.
Rabid Nun Gonad is an anagram of his name, so I’m optimistic.
Of course, he isn’t Chip, so I’m REALLY optimistic.
I would have gone for Al Ciraldo, but I hear he’s unavailable.
@4 Too soon.
I’ve never met Brandon & I’ve never knocked him out with a softball either.
Good luck, Brandon!
#3
That’s a doozie. Wish I could’ve used that back in my parochial school days.
@2
If you can’t be bothered to do the work to paste it in your browser, you’re not worth helping. Ha!
In all seriousness, that issue is fixed now, @1. Thanks for pointing it out.
Apparently, Ian Anderson has developed a slider that got rave reviews in his 1st spring stint.
Sounds like a Yankee and honestly seemingly not much of an upgrade.
Off topic, but this is a lovely story about Mychal Givens, Orioles reliever and 14U travel baseball coach. He seems like a great guy, and I love it when these stories get told.
If Anderson has even a league average slider now, that would assuage a lot of doubts I have.
Has anyone seen any estimates how much the new rule changes will increase successful stolen base %?
@11 – So you are saying that if Anderson has developed a slider that he will silence his critics, and you are one of them? I always love a good silence his critics story during spring training . 🙌
Ozzie had shoulder surgery?!?
Braves Red Sox on mlb.tv tonight rather today your time – 1.05pm. Finally baseball is back. This has been one long winter. Go Braves!
So at which point is Ozzie the position player comp to Soroka? He sure gets banged up a ton
Of course the first ball in play goes to Grissom. Handled beautifully.
MH2 looks bigger.
DOOOMED
Un-DOOOMED
This game is FAST! I like it. A lot.
And Dylan Dodd looks awesome.
I’m actually enjoying the pace too. Dodd looked doddminant.
For those unaware, Dodd pitched 142 innings last year, started in High A and ended at AAA. Overall he had a 3.36 ERA with only 2BB/9 and a great K rate of 9.7 per 9.
He’s one of those guys that could come out of (seemingly) nowhere and plug in right behind Strider, and it’s another reason why I think prospect lists should be fluid, especially when Dodd, in his ST debut, comes out throwing gas that hit 96.
Officially the craziest end to a game ever.
What a joke. That is some bs. The first time this happens in a game that counts people are going to lose their minds
Hopefully they work the kinks out. There ought to be an exception to the rule in that situation. A game should never end on a pitch clock violation.
@26 it didn’t seem like the pitcher or catcher was any more ready than the hitter. The “alert” thing or whatever seems super subjective.
These rules will probably get some… refining.
In thinking about the whole silencing his critics thing, you know Kyle Wright was probably the best example for me of actually doing it last year. I’m surprised we haven’t gotten a best shape of his life story about Ozuna, but it seems like just about everyone, including me, has given up on him.
@29
I don’t doubt that he can probably still hit. I just don’t think he can still human.
@30 – I don’t know if it’s the fault of the Braves or MLB in general, but it is amazing to me that there appears to be no character clause in Ozuna’s contract. As bad as the first incident was, that he’s still on the team and getting paid after that and the DUI arrest is stunning.
I’m not aware of any professional sports where contracts have “character clauses” that would allow a team to void the contract for breach. If it was a thing that was done the Dodgers would be in a much better spot right now.
The team says Rosario is seeing the ball much better this year and is making good contact. If we can get him to play at even a 1 WAR level that would be a big relief.
New thread
https://bravesjournal.mystagingwebsite.com/2023/02/26/braves-fangraphs-rankings-infield/