Dom Amore: Jeff Dooley gets major league call, playoff hockey lives in Hartford and more in the Sunday Read
For 25 years, Jeff Dooley has called minor league baseball on the radio, or the internet and honored his audience, no matter how limited in number, with big-league devotion to his craft.
Of course, he has always dreamed of more, but each time a New Britain Rock Cat or Hartford Yard Goat has made his way from Double A to the majors, it has felt like a small victory, a piece of his own dream playing out.
“You watch these guys go up and you think, maybe it would be awesome to call their games someday,” Dooley said.
Then a couple of weeks ago, Dooley was at the Yard Goats’ team dinner when he got an email. He stared at his phone and read it over and over, unable at first to believe it was real. Jerry Schemmel, the Colorado Rockies play-by-play announcer (KOA in Denver), was asking if Dooley might be available to fill in for him for a weekend series in Philadelphia.
“It’s an email or a phone call that you wonder if you’re ever going to get,” Dooley said. “I read it a couple of times and I thought, ‘this is pretty amazing that they thought of me.'”
Well, what was Jeff Dooley going to say, “let me check my schedule and I’ll get back to you?” There was only one answer. Dooley joined Schemmel, filling in for Jack Corrigan on the Rockies’ network Saturday and Sunday.
“That’s why you get into this business,” said Dooley, “when I first became a broadcaster, I wanted to cover major league baseball.”
Full disclosure: I’ve known Jeff Dooley a long time and couldn’t have been happier when he gave me this bit of news. Further disclosure: I know several broadcasters like Dooley, who have toiled in the minors or at small colleges half a lifetime or more. The major league broadcasting icons are just that, icons who do not retire at what most consider retirement age. They stay behind the mic into their 70s, 80s, even 90s, their pipes remaining forever young.
So for the special breed with the dream of following in their footsteps, it can mean decades of waiting, hoping, knowing the chance may never come. The dreams die hard, and what remains is the pure love of the game and the art of telling its stories to whoever is out there listening. And in minor league baseball, “The Voice” usually sells ads, handles media relations, community relations, everything up to, and often including selling tickets.
Many of them, most of them, are big-league quality, big-time deserving. And this weekend, at least, Jeff Dooley can speak for all of them.
“I love all aspects of the job,” Dooley said. “We all do a bunch of different things. But the passion has always been broadcasting, the dream has always been to broadcast baseball at the highest level. You can control what you can control.”
Dooley, from Lincoln, R.I., began calling Rock Cats games in 1998. In 2004, he became the voice of UHart basketball, and put down roots in West Hartford with his wife, Marne. Their older son, Joe, plays baseball for UHart, his younger plays in the local amateur ranks.
Connecticut’s sportscaster of the year in 2015, Dooley’s career has been one of endless bus rides, hurried meals at ungodly hours and places … and loving it, getting to know the players in ways major league announcers rarely do. This weekend, with so many of the Rockies having come through Hartford, including starting pitchers Kyle Freeland and Jose Urina, Dooley can share stories the Rockies fans haven’t heard.
“I’ve gotten a chance to see these guys when they were kids,” Dooley said. “We’ve been through the truck stops at 2 in the morning, going through Akron, Ohio to Erie, Pa. The Road Goats in 2016 when the team was on the road (because Dunkin’ Park wasn’t finished). It will be a lot of fun.”
Come Monday, Dooley will be back with the Yard Goats, on his way to New Hampshire to call another six-game series. But he’ll return with a taste of the big leagues, a cup of coffee, they’ve always called such stints, a 48-hour dose of his dream to take with him on the bus all summer, and summers to come.
And if he reaches the right ears and it leads to something more? No one has paid more dues, or paid them with more joy than Jeff Dooley.
“To do it with the Colorado Rockies, an organization I’ve worked closely with for so long,” Dooley said, “and see so many of those former Yard Goats up there, it’s so special. I can’t wait to see them again, to get a chance to watch them there are broadcast the game at the highest level.”
More for your Sunday Read:
Heart of Alex Lyon
Yale’s Alex Lyon has been a feel-good story in the NHL playoffs. Lyon, 30, who has spent most of his career in the minors, was called up and thrust into goal for the Florida Panthers and went 6-1-1 down the stretch to get them into the playoffs, where they are battling the historically torrid Bruins.
Lyon got Game 2, but the Bruins lead the series 2 to 1.
Wolf Pack moving on in playoffs
Playoff hockey lives in Hartford, where the Wolf Pack clinched their first-round series with a 7-1 win over Springfield Friday night before an electric crowd of 5,742. Tanner Fritz had a goal and five assists in the two first-round games.
Now The Pack advance to the second round and a best-of-five against Providence, with Games 3 and 4 at the XL Center May 3 and 5, the latter if necessary.
Sunday short takes
* The CT Whale have been making some offseason news, signing Kacey Bellamy, who will come out retirement to play on defense in 2023-24. Bellamy played 15 years for the U.S. national women’s hockey team, helping to win Olympic Gold in 2018, and three silver medals. The Whale reached the Isobel Cup semifinals this past season. The Whale also re-signed Connor Orr to coach through 2025, and extended its arrangement to play home games at the International Skating Center in Simsbury through 2026.
* The Bristol Sports Hall of Fame is hosting a 1970s Reunion on May 3 at the Bristol Historical Society at 7 p.m. Ed Swicklas and Joe DeFilliippi from Bristol Central, Pete Losey and Gail Ericson from Bristol Eastern, and Frank Owsianko Jr. and Dave Pecevich from St. Paul are the panelist for the free program. For more info, reach out to to Dave Mills at 860-582-7900.
* Dan Hurley would love to find another Joey Calcaterra out there, a shooter from a mid-major who would not need any promises regarding playing time. Doesn’t have to be from California.
* UConn baseball took a tough home loss to a good Northeastern team, but rebounded with a mercy rule win at Boston College. The Huskies are in the top 15 in RPI, a spot that could mean hosting an NCAA Regional. Recent projections have had BC hosting with UConn a potential No.2 seed there. Uncharacteristic thing with the Huskies, though offenses have been explosive throughout the college game,, they’re giving up an awful lot of runs.
*So pitchers have to deliver the ball in 30 seconds, and batters have to be in the box ready to hit with eight seconds left on the pitch clock. Sounds like a lot for an ump to keep track of, and a formula for high profile mistakes in October.
*Philly, K.C., Oakland, Vegas. As a student of baseball history, here’s hoping that one of these decades, the A’s find a permanent home.
* My former boss, longtime Courant sports editor Jeff Otterbein, is among the Middletown Sports Hall of Fame’s Class of ’23. Thrilled for “Otto,” who always made us feel like we were working for a Hall of Famer.
Lawmakers call for Quinnipiac men’s ice hockey team to be invited to White House
Last word
From the Sports-Is-The-Front-Porch-of-a-University file: The whole world, or at least the part that doesn’t know from political polls, now seems to know who, what and where Quinnipiac is, since the hockey championship. What’s the value of that? Invaluable, I’d say.
