MASN Announcers Will Join Orioles On The Road For First Time Since 2019
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- For the first time since the 2019 season, announcers with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network will travel with the Orioles on the road and call games from the opposing team's stadium, the network said in a statement.
The Athletic was first to report the news. Play-by-play man Kevin Brown and color analyst Jim Palmer are scheduled to be at Yankee Stadium for the Orioles' upcoming three-game series against the New York Yankees.
The decision also applies to the television team for the Washington Nationals, whose games are also broadcast by MASN.
Announcers on the Orioles Radio Network, however, will still call games from Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the team confirmed. Washington's radio broadcasters are employees of the franchise and have been traveling with the Nationals since the start of the 2022 season.
During the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, which saw teams playing in empty stadiums, visiting teams had to broadcast road games remotely as part of Major League Baseball's safety protocols.
As The Athletic notes, some franchises started sending their broadcasters back on the road during the 2021 season, and by this year, nearly every team had resumed pre-pandemic travel schedules. But MASN, of which the Orioles own a majority, decided to keep remote broadcasts for road games.
Both the San Francisco Giants and Boston Red Sox are limiting road coverage.
The Los Angeles Angels started 2022 with a similar arrangement to the Orioles, but the team changed course last week -- a decision that came shortly after play-by-play broadcaster Matt Vasgersian mistook a Jared Walsh opposite-field home run at Texas' Globe Life Field for a foul ball.
Matt Vasgersian channeling his inner John Sterling on this one @Starting9 pic.twitter.com/kXmzrCU2oq
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) April 16, 2022
Technical difficulties have plagued Orioles broadcasts, including a delayed call on an error that gave the Birds their only run in a 1-0 win over the Oakland Athletics, as the site Camden Chat observed.
Gutiérrez up the middle! pic.twitter.com/PSfinGZBoB
— Baltimore Orioles (@Orioles) April 20, 2022
An anonymous MASN production staffer told The Washington Post the errors show the limits of Internet feeds.
"I liked the old way — everyone was there," the person said. "It's a concern for the on-air product because the tech we're trying to use isn't bulletproof. It's still immature."