When Jim Hunter got to
“I asked Chuck for some pointers and he was kind enough to tell me that you must be the voice of the fans. Tell them what is good and what is bad with the team, fans will accept honesty. Next he said that I needed to be passionate about the team and covey that passion to the listeners and lastly the most important thing. You must last 11 years as a member of the Orioles broadcast team – if you can do that then you will the voice of a generation of fans. You will be their guy and that is the true success of a broadcaster to be the fans voice. I was sorry that Chuck was not around to see me make that 11th year,” said Hunter.
Well as he gets ready for his 12th year as part of the Orioles broadcast team Hunter, along with his long time radio partner Fred Manfra and TV partner Jim Palmer have provided the soundtrack for Orioles fans for over a decade.
For Hunter he begins his second year as part of the MASN broadcast team. He hosts O’sXtra the pre and post game show along with his partner former Orioles catcher Rick Dempsey and he also does 50 plus TV games as the play by play voice of the team.
JW: How do you like your role of studio host and part time broadcaster?
JH: “I love it. I love working with Rick on the pre and post game shows and of course it is always fun to get behind the mic and do a game from time to time. But it is fun to sit in the studio and really watch a game with Rick and then break it down for the fans. I still prepare just like I did when I was doing play by play on radio. I look for player trends and team trends I like crunching the numbers. You can really understand why a team is winning or losing with trends and it helps me point out things to the fans that they may not be aware of.”
JW: When you do the pre and post game shows for MASN at the studio what happens?
JH: “Well first of all we work out a massive studio that we share with the Nationals broadcast team of Johnny Holiday and Ray Knight. So there is a fun and very friendly rivalry going on between the crews and Rick [Dempsey] and myself to do the best job that we can. But I must say that Johnny, Ray, Rick and I have become great friends and we share information and play golf together and the MASN studio teams for the Orioles and the Nationals have become a big family.”
JW: “What is new for the 2008 season?
JH: “Well we are excited that we will be doing O’sXtra from Camden Yards live every weekend this season. I hope that fans will stop by and say hi, and of course watch the show. Both Rick and I love interacting with the fans and I think doing more on site shows will help all of us enjoy the season more. We also plan to do more features on our minor leaguers because so many of the O’s farm team are within the MASN viewing area and they hopefully will be with the big club some day. Lastly, the growth of MASN has been awesome and people all over the region love our telecasts and that shows what an exciting future that we all have because this really is a team effort. ”
Hunter and Dempsey will be on hand opening day for a special hour long version of their show on Opening Day against
Gary Thorne, Jim Palmer, Buck Martinez and game and post game reporter
March Maddness starts today:
Games to watch starts at noon with Georgetown hosting Louisville at the “Phone Booth,” on CBS with the winner getting the #1 seed in the Big East Tournament this week.
At 1pm on CSTV it is another good national battle with UAB@Memphis. The last time these two played there was a wild finish with the Tigers winning and UAB fans causing a real mess at the end.
2pm is a huge PAC 10 game with Stanford at USC in a must win game for the Trojans. The game is on CBS after the Georgetwon game. The Cardinal has hopes for a PAC 10 title and they need to keep winning.
Also at 2pm on MASN we have a MAAC Tournament game with NCAA Tournament chances on the line.
Loyola takes on Fairfield – for the locals they know that they must win the MAAC Tournament to get in to the Big Dance and winning today is a big step toward getting into the Dance.
ACC Women’s game of the day is Maryland taking on Duke at the ACC Tournament a 3:30pm start on CSN.
The game of the day comes in primetime with Duke taking on North Carolina at 9pm on ESPN.
Racing fans big race in Atlanta as part of the Nationwide Series at 2pm on ESPN 2
LAX fans it is Virginia @ Princeton at noon on ESPN
Channel 2 has Duke at Loyola @ 2pm
Both the Nationals and Orioles have their weekdend games on the radio – The Birds and the Mets on 105.7. While the Nationals are on 1500AM.
