On Monday, Feb. 12, Rowan University hosted its second Pizza With the Pros of the semester. This week, New York Mets radio broadcaster Pat McCarthy spoke with the students.
This is now back-to-back weeks that Pizza With the Pros has brought in a Baseball speaker, with senior writer Jayson Stark making an appearance last week.
Pat McCarthy is entering his second season as the pregame/postgame host and occasional play-by-play voice for the New York Mets. Formerly, he was the play-by-play broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies’ AAA affiliate, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. McCarthy was also the college basketball radio broadcaster for Westwood One, Princeton University, and St. Joseph’s University.
Growing up, McCarthy played multiple sports. He played Baseball, but described himself as “not that great at it”. He succeeded in little leagues, but that was only because of his size. Basketball was his main sport, with McCarthy being 6’2 In high school. He ended up growing 4 inches after high school, which he said “would’ve been beneficial.”
In his senior year of high school, McCarthy wanted to try pitching. He went to Syracuse and played club baseball there. After wanting to live closer to home, he transferred to TCNJ, playing two more years of Baseball there until he got injured. McCarthy said the injury was a “blessing in disguise.”
“It forced me to step away from the field and allowed me to get my first internship in writing in 2017,” McCarthy stated.
McCarthy wrote for the Philadelphia Phillies for his first internship, which was his entry into professional baseball. His first time calling a game came during his senior year. McCarthy’s cousin worked for the Trenton Thunder. When one of the broadcasters couldn’t announce the game because of a wedding, they asked McCarthy if he wanted to do it. He got a text at 11:30 in the morning asking if he would want to call the game, where he would finally get his opportunity.
He announced 3 innings of baseball, with the Thunder scoring nine runs in those innings, allowing McCarthy to announce important parts of the game. He used his recording of the game to send out to minor league teams, which later on got him an internship.
“It was the perfect internship because it was like a transitional internship into minor league baseball,” McCarthy said. “I did one inning of play-by-play a game. That was it. Did a little bit of pregame and postgame. Otherwise, I cooked hotdogs, I ran in vegetable races, I operated the pitch clock,” McCarthy stated, showing the commitment that it took to get to where he is today.
Eventually, this internship led to him being the voice of Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs for four years.
McCarthy credited his love for wanting to broadcast from his father, Tom McCarthy, who is the voice of the Philadelphia Phillies. McCarthy is set to announce Sixty of the New York Mets games this season.
Pizza With the Pros will continue next Monday, with a new exciting guest coming in each week.
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