Josh Lewin has the simple word Rangers fans want to hear. When the team seals a victory with an out or a run, the exclamation from Lewin is a simple but emphatic "Ballgame!"
Lewin is in his eighth year as the Rangers' television play-by-play man, alongside analyst and former Rangers general manager Tom Grieve. Lewin is also the radio voice of the San Diego Chargers in the fall.
The 40-year-old talked about the Rangers' success this year, his Fox Sports Southwest cohorts and his musical side project in an e-mail interview.
Q: How much more fun is it to call Rangers games when they're contending like this?
Lewin: No number exists to explain it. It's everything when there's a buzz in the stands and in living rooms across the Metroplex. I've always said there's nothing quite like pennant fever baseball. It galvanizes millions of people. What a thrill.
Q: How did you get interested in broadcasting in your younger days, and who did you grow up listening to?
Lewin: I was a total broadcast nerd from age 5. My first-grade friends all wanted to be cowboys and astronauts. I wanted to be Harry Caray. Monday Night Baseball and Football meant turning the TV volume down and practicing into a soup spoon-turned- microphone. "Nerd" is actually a polite way to describe it. "Single-minded Captain Ahab-style obsession" is closer to the pin.
Q: Out of the memorable broadcast calls in baseball history, what's your favorite?
Lewin: The ones with genuine, unrehearsed, unbridled emotion. "The Giants win the pennant!" springs to mind. Russ Hodges nearly had a coronary when describing the pandemonium. Jack Buck's "I don't believe what I just saw!" was pretty hair-raising too, when Kirk Gibson homered off Dennis Eckersley.
Q: How did "Ballgame!" become your signature phrase?
Lewin: Is it? Do I have a signature phrase? Wow ... hadn't really considered that, but it is something I say a lot. Thankfully, a boatload of times this year in particular. I guess it just seems like a succinct way to let people know the game's over, and it's time to switch back to Scrubs reruns or whatever. Catchphrase, huh? Should I get it put on T-shirts?
Q: What's a more difficult name to get right each time – the Rangers' Jarrod Saltalamacchia or the Chargers' Brandon Manumaleuna?
Lewin: Manumaleuna. And "LaDainian Tomlinson" is a mouthful, too, so thank goodness for the universally accepted "L.T." Can't in good conscience shorten "Brandon Manumaleuna" to "B.M." That would be in questionable taste. By the way, when my son was real little, he called L.T. "Hartunian Torgleson." I'm sorry that never caught on.
Q: Who wins in a footrace –Tom Grieve or Jim Knox?
Lewin: Knox. Younger, spry and catlike. Tom wins the long-drive competition handily, though.
Q: Knox or Emily Jones?
Lewin: Is this something we could actually stage, by the way? Hmm ... Knoxy, I guess, but Emily would make it interesting.
Q: Help us out here, Josh: What's up with Ric Renner's hair?
Lewin: My theory has long been that he lost a bet, but I have no true insider's knowledge. I think it may also be a corollary of the old "if ya got it, flaunt it" theory. I'm getting a little thin up on top myself, so I don't want to be a hater.
Q: In a typical week at the Ballpark, how many food items are delivered to the booth by fans of the broadcast?
Lewin: Cookies alone, it's probably 10 to 12. And we've been getting things like pecan pies and submarine sandwiches lately, too. How we all don't gain 30 pounds a summer, I don't know. But it's awesome that people care enough to fatten us up ... one of the many perks of this job.
Q: You play keyboard in a local band called Independent George. Describe the band for us, please.
Lewin: It is a way better midlife crisis than a sports car or hair plugs. Also, louder. Lots of '80s cheese and hair metal, but also Nickelback, Jet, Seether and some stuff that the younger crowd actually likes.
Q: I hear that you take lead vocals on a cover of Green Day's "Basket Case." Which begs the question, are you just paranoid, or just stoned?
Lewin: Closer to paranoid, I guess, although many viewers of Rangers baseball may find that surprising, I would imagine. Believe it or not, all the on-air foolishness is wholly organic.
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