AT THE FIRST TURN
At the one-eighth mark of the 2026 season there are surprises and delights, expected outcomes and wide deviations. I have watched a ton of baseball on the radio. Documenting impressions here will be a great reminder in September of the vicissitudes of a long season. It’s the same in individual games. The story reveals itself. Little is a foregone conclusion.
Race tracks are marked by furlongs on green poles. A furlong is an eighth of a mile. Consider this our first furlong check-in of the storylines and narratives of the 2026 baseball season.
It’s a thrilling season. No need to challenge that. The ABS system is the biggest story, inserting a whole game-within-a-game excitement. Radio broadcasters are still adapting to calling the big reveals. They’ll get better as the season goes on.
Following Sunday’s play, the Cardinals swept the Astros, illustrating two early-season surprises. The Cardinals are 13-8. JJ Wetherholtand Jordan Walker are busting out at the plate and in the field. They are doing it with singles and walks and taking a base and stealing and pressing the advantage of the other team’s defensive errors. It’s like it’s 1982 all over again. The Astros, a paragon of consistent success the last decade, look like stinkers. The Houston team is 8-15 and firmly in last place in the AL West.
Speaking of... No team in the AL West has a winning record. The Rangers and A’s are on top with 11-11 records. And look at that! The Sacramento A’s are playing .500 ball. That counts as an eye-opener.
The Dodgers, Braves and Padres all have 15 wins to lead the bigs after play ended Sunday. Steve Nelson delivers an incredible broadcast for the Dodgers on KLAC. He and Rick Monday have plenty to work with in the two-time defending champs, but it is a thoroughly professional show, smooth and hip, full of insight and cool as a soft spring breeze. The broadcast features Big Band standards as bump music. Classy with a C. Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuna Jr., and Mason Miller are each putting on convincing imitations as aliens visiting from other planets. Their respective radio announcers with the Dodgers, Braves and Padres all do otherworldly jobs describing these sublime performances.
The Guardians remain where they finished 2025, atop the AL Central. Parker Messicktook a no-hitter into the ninth on April 16. It was broken up before Messick could end a 37 year no-hitter drought for the Cleveland club. Tom Hamilton, play-by-play legend in his last year behind the mic, was crestfallen but bounced back immediately on WTAM, focused on the win. It arrived, brought in for an enthusiastic lake-effect call from Hamilton.
Chandler Simpson is a full oddball for the Rays, pressing the Yanks in second place and only a half game behind. Simpson slaps the ball, chops it, bunts it, rolls it through the infield. He is the fastest player in the game. He’s great in the field at left. Andy Freed holds it all together with aplomb on WDAE from The Trop, where the Rays are back under the roof.
The Reds lead the NL Central. It’s not a surprise – not as much a surprise as the Cubs and Brewers in last place, if only by a game and a half. Sal Stewart is tearing it up. He only barrels up and makes solid contact with hard swings. That’s all. Last week he had 6 RBI after a 3 ribbie first and a trio again in the second.
One of the most gratifying aspects of the young season is the Mets swirl around the toilet. The New Yorkers are in the midst of an 11-game losing jag. They only reason they didn’t lose Monday is because they did not play. They entered the ninth on Sunday with a 1-run lead. Howie Rose on WCBS described how the Cubs put one across with resignation, calling the inevitable. His narration of extras reflected the conclusion was foreordained. The Mets, his call said, never stood a chance. We’ll see if that is a diagnosis that persists.
Winning is a contagious opportunity. Losing is a self-fulfilling terminal diagnosis.
The story is being told. I’ve been entranced finding the narrators, the scene-painters, for Sacramento, Ken Korach and Johnny Daskow on KSTE. Will they seem so great if the A’s return to the mean?
Pittsburgh Pirates broadcasts of Oneil Cruz and Paul Skenes are classic and engaging with Greg Brown and Joe Block on KDKA who sound like black and gold. A heartbreaking opener with a first-inning lead for Skenes immediately went south as the Mets overwhelmed the NL Cy Young winner back in March – that narrative has already flipped once in the early going. Will it stick or change yet again? That’s what I will be watching on the radio.
I want to watch to the Braves radio broadcast more. They are comfortable with their huge audience and the team is back to its metronome beat of winning. That glory will play out against the Mets and Phillies incensed fans if current storylines stay in force.
Far Out
Denny Matthews and Jerry Garcia
Monday night – that's April 20, or 4/20 -- was Royals Grateful Dead Night at The K on the banks of Interstate 70 in Kansas City. I tuned in to the call on KCSP to see if Denny Matthews had anything to say about the tie-dyed festivities. Matthews is the only lead play-by-play radio guy the Royals have ever had since the team’s inception in 1969. Denny Matthews and Jerry Garcia were both born in 1942.
Matthews is beloved across Kansas City and the teams wide radio audience. Deadheads revere Garcia. I guess there is not a very big shared set there. I cannot say for sure Denny is not a big Deadhead. I do know he didn’t say anything about the special promotion Monday night while I was listening.
I’ll check back now and see if I can see the fountains in all those wild colors, man.