Heat, Marlins, Panthers announcers explain unusual looming challenge. And Le Batard change

Steve Goldstein and Glenn Geffner remember watching games on television as wide-eyed kids, calling the action — either aloud, into a tape recorder (in Goldstein’s case) or in their head, audible to only themselves.

They’re now about to do the same for the first time as professionals — watching on TV and describing what they see, but this time with thousands listening in.

While their teams are playing miles away over the coming weeks, the Heat, Marlins and Panthers announcers will be holed up inside South Florida studios, calling games on monitors while wondering if they missed anything not captured by TV cameras.

The situation is unusual, and far from ideal, but it’s the new way of life in a pandemic. Faced with restrictions about the number of employees that can travel, the teams believe keeping their announcers at home is the best approach.

“The whole thing is going to be unique, not only doing games remotely, but more important is that we will look back years from now and say this was a noteworthy and historic thing, each of us helping to bring pro sports back to our marketplace,” Heat TV announcer Eric Reid said.

Whereas national NBA announcers will work primarily from the game site, Reid, Heat TV analyst John Crotty and the team’s radio voices will announce games from a studio inside AmericanAirlines Arena, 234 miles from where NBA games are being played in Lake Buena Vista.

While the Panthers are playing the Islanders in Toronto, Goldstein and his Panthers’ TV partner, Randy Moller — as well as radio play-by-play man Doug Plagens — will be calling the games from Fox’s Fort Lauderdale studios.

And Geffner, radio partner Dave Van Horne and TV announcers Paul Severino and Todd Hollandsworth will be inside their booth at Marlins Park, announcing the games whether the Marlins are at home or on the road.

Reid, Goldstein and Geffner share the same concern: missing something important that’s not visible on the TV monitor.

They spoke in recent days about the challenges of calling games without being there:

▪ Reid has called games from a monitor before, when he worked alongside four candidates who auditioned for the Heat TV analyst job that went to Crotty two years ago.

“We did that from the Heat TV studio and I did the same game on tape with four different candidates,” Reid said. “I had it in my mind to bring real game-type energy and enthusiasm to make it as real as I could for the guy sitting next to me. This is going to be so much easier than that because we’re going to be doing meaningful games.”

The biggest challenge of not being at the game?

“Right off the bat, before the game, it’s the conversations you have with players, coaches, other media members,” Reid said. “Most of that will not be there.”

Reid and Crotty will have two 75-inch TV monitors in front of them - one the traditional feed and another with a different angle. So that’s a positive.

But “from talking to a lot of people about this, you cannot anticipate things as well as when you’re seeing the whole court,” Reid said. “There will be certain adjustments all of us have to make. What the real obstacles are, nobody will be sure until we start.”

Fox Sports Sun has permission to televise all eight Heat seeding games - including the four on national networks - and all first round playoff games that aren’t on ABC.

The hope is that the location of the announcers won’t be noticeable to viewers.

“Under all circumstances, especially now, the home viewer does not care and rightfully so where the announcer is or whether our headset works well or not or whether we’re upstairs or courtside,” Reid said. “People are so hungry to watch games again; they just want to watch the game.”

▪ Goldstein notes that “not being able to see the whole ice” is what’s most problematic.

“If you are live and see a player with the puck and another guy is flying up and you know it will be a 2 on 1, it changes the entire play and inflection of your voice,” he said. “You will not see that guy coming from behind on the monitor.

“Hockey is a tough sport to do this because you see so much when you’re at the game -- the players in the neutral zone, the benches. The goalie may be getting up slowly. You will not see a guy limping off. All these things you notice, you kind of lose all that. I’m hopeful we will get extra angles [on the monitors]. The more angles, the better.”

Without fans in attendance, Goldstein might speak more after a big play than he ordinarily would.

“If there’s a goal or a big save for the home team, you don’t say anything; let people hear what’s going on and cut away to a shot of fans,” he said. “The fact we’re losing all that, that’s going to be very different.”

▪ Geffner, like Goldstein, sees the need to adjust his approach after a big play.

“The bottom line is we are happy to have baseball back,” he said. But it’s going to be hard. It’s going to be a completely different experience, working off a monitor, working without energy of a crowd. When you have a big moment in the game, you call a play and lay out and let the crowd react and let fans carry the moment.”

Without fans expected - at least initially - that won’t be possible.

And there’s another issue:

“Baseball is complicated working off a monitor because my eyes are moving around the ballpark,” Geffner said. “I want to see where the infielders, outfielders are positioned. Is anyone up in the bullpen? What’s going on in the dugout? Where are base runners when a ball is hit in the gap? Is a guy from first going to score on a double? it’s going to be complicated. But we have no choice.”

Geffner expects the home team to provide two feeds that he and the other announcers can watch. For example, when the Marlins play at the Mets, Geffner will be able to see the standard shot that viewers on Fox Sports Florida will see and then another in-house shot from above CitiField.

Geffner said Marlins fans will hear audio from the ballpark where the Marlins are playing. For example, if there’s music playing between batters in a Marlins-Mets game in New York, Marlins radio and TV broadcasters would pick up that audio at CitiField.

“My understanding is you will hear the bat crack and ball go into the catcher’s mitt,” Geffner said. “You will probably hear chatter in the dugout.”

As a 7 year old, Geffner would do play-by-play of NBCs Game of the Week and Tuesday night Yankees games off the TV in his bedroom.

“I’d lay out baseball cards representing the lineups of the two teams in front of me so I had statistics to refer to,” he said. “That was my introduction to broadcasting. So this should come very naturally.”

Despite the concerns, Reid, Goldstein and Geffner want to make clear that they’re thrilled to have their sports back and happy to be calling them.

“We are fortunate the games are coming back,” Goldstein said. “We will deal with whatever we have to deal with.”

The Marlins, Heat and Panthers expect every game to be televised on one of the Fox regionals and/or a national network.

NEW ESPN RADIO LINEUP

Dan Le Batard’s South Florida-based radio show, which airs nationally from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and locally on WQAM-560, will lose an hour and run from 10 a.m. to noon slot beginning Aug. 17 as part of a revamped ESPN Radio lineup featuring a new morning show.

Le Batard said on the air that ESPN executives told him losing an hour on radio was “not a demotion” and will give him more time to do a podcast.

And beginning on Monday, Le Batard’s TV show Highly Questionable is returning to its 30-minute format after airing in a 20-minute block in recent weeks. Highly Questionable will air from 4:30 to 5 p.m. beginning next week.

Meanwhile, former NFL receiver Keyshawn Johnson, former NBA player Jay Williams and SportsCenter anchor Zubin Mehenti will be ESPN Radio’s new morning team (6-10 a.m.), replacing Trey Wingo and Mike Golic, whose future roles at the network are being discussed. It’s unclear if they will remain with ESPN.

That’s followed by Le Batard at 10 a.m., Mike Greenberg from noon to 2 p.m. (Greenberg will remain host of ESPN-TV’s morning show Get Up); Max Kellerman from 2 to 4 p.m. (he will remain on TV as Stephen A. Smith’s sparring partner on First Take) and two-time WNBA All-Star Chiney Ogwumike and Mike Golic Jr. from 4 to 7 p.m.

WQAM-560, which carries Le Batard’s show, might also pick up Greenberg’s show, but the station isn’t ready to commit to that.

▪ In an unusual move, ABC will allocate two hours in prime time on Saturday, July 25 to an ESPN studio show previewing the NBA restart. It will air opposite a Yankees-Nationals game on Fox.

▪ At the moment, ESPN is planning to have its baseball announcers call its MLB games from a studio, instead of at the game site.

▪ ESPN might wait until there’s clarity on whether there will be a fall college football season before deciding who will announce Monday Night Football. Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit remain very much in play, especially if college football season is moved to the spring.