One-on-One with Josh Maurer

Alan Hawes
The Post and Courier

Josh Maurer, the Charleston RiverDogs and Charleston Southern radio play-by-play announcer.

Josh Maurer is the radio voice of the Charleston RiverDogs and the Charleston Southern University Buccaneers. The 27-year-old Maurer is a native of Wynnewood, Pa., and a graduate of the University of Maryland. Before he came to Charleston he worked with the Brockton (Mass.) Rox. Between games at Riley Park, he took some time to go One-on-One with The Post and Courier’s Ken Burger.

You do baseball for the RiverDogs as well as football and basketball for Charleston Southern. What's your favorite sport to broadcast?

"I usually say it depends on the season, but around here people tend to think of me as a baseball person because we do 140 games. But I actually could take my pick. I'm kind of a man for whatever season it is."

Tell me about those long bus rides with the RiverDogs.

"You know, you get used to them. I don't mind them as much as some do. The worst ones are when you have to go back overnight; you finish a game about 11 o'clock and then bus back and get home about six in the morning and have to be at the park four hours later. But that only happens about six or seven times a year. This year our longest bus ride is about 15 hours to Lakewood, N.J."

I met your dad, he's a doctor. Where did you go wrong?

"My dad is in nuclear medicine. He wouldn't tell you this, but he's in the forefront of his field. As for me, I was lucky my parents didn't put any pressure on me to do anything. We were not a sports household. In fact, my younger brother started watching Phillies games on TV so I started watching them. It took about a milli-second and I was hooked on sports."

The real glamour side of the play-by-play business is you sitting alone in a press box talking to yourself for three hours. How do you stand it?

"I like how you said talking to yourself. That's how I describe it. I try to just tune everything out and have a long conversation with whoever the listener is. But you have to picture one listener. That's the person you're talking to. I'd like it to be like a three-hour conversation, sitting here chatting with you."

What's your favorite baseball memory?

"My very first game I ever went to in 1990. My mother had this coupon book that had coupons for certain days at Phillies games. We went and it was a thrill. I was 9 years old, sitting in the outfield seats at Veterans Stadium and Terry Mulholland pitched a no-hitter. It was the first nine-inning no-hitter in Veterans Stadium history."

Seventy home games and seventy road games. Do you have a life?

"No, I don't. I think it gets at you a little bit at times. I've been great about it the last couple of years, enjoying being at a ballpark everyday. There's something about knowing where you're going to be. You don't have to plan for anything else. It takes the guesswork out of life."

How do you know if anybody is listening?

"We do have listeners. In fact, they can measure who listens on the Internet. That number is usually in the hundreds who log-in online. This year we started doing this trivia game where we give away tickets and a T-shirt for the first person who calls in with the right answer and we've had a winner every night, and a different winner every night. I'm almost shocked at how consistent it's been."

Do you memorize all those baseball statistics or just wing it?

"I'm a stats guy. I like stats. Although you have to find a happy medium there because people don't want to hear stats. They want to hear the triple-crown stats — batting average, homers and RBIs. I try to dedicate two hours before each game to sit alone and go through the stat pack and come up with pertinent information for every player, if I need it. And hopefully, I won't use it. Usually, if you're using stats, it's as a crutch. You don't have anything else to talk about."

What's the worst job you ever had?

"I was an Ultimate Frisbee camp counselor after my senior year in high school. I was out in an open field every day with the kids and we had no shade."

What's the lowest point in your career?

"That's hard to say. There's a lot of rejection in the play-by-play business. You go after a lot of jobs and you don't get a sniff at most of them. You have to get used to rejection. It's very competitive."

And the highest point?

"What I'm doing now, professionally. But one of the best experiences was when I was in college. Maryland won the national championship in basketball and I got to broadcast it, April 1, 2002. I like to say it was the best day of my life."

Is Mike Veeck crazy?

"No, I don't think he's crazy at all. He's somewhat of a mad genius."

What's something about Josh Maurer that would surprise people?

"I don't watch sports on TV, hardly ever. I watch E! or MTV, anything else. I get into conversations with people and they want to talk about sports and it's the last thing I want to talk about."

Dream job?

"I'd love to be doing what I'm doing for games that people really care about: Major League Baseball, a big college, another professional sport, a network. Hopefully, someday. Not that people don't care about and listen to the RiverDogs or Charleston Southern. But I'd like to do it for games where I come to park every night and feel that excitement."