Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — According to multiple media reports, our own Joe Davis will become the play-by-play announcer for the World Series broadcasts on Fox Sports starting this October. According to a report first broken by Andrew Marchand, Davis will replace Fox’s longtime voice of baseball Joe Buck, who has bolted the network for a gig at ESPN. John Smoltz will continue as the main analyst, the report states.
Michigan native Davis has already been on a meteoric rise to the heights of sports broadcasting. Still only 34 years old, Davis got his first taste of calling baseball games when he was in Beloit College. He interned with the independent Schaumburg Flyers back in the old Northern League while still a student. Then, thanks to some of his Schaumburg connections, Davis got a gig for the Montgomery Biscuits in double-A. But his talent was too big to say in minor league baseball for long. After two years in Alabama, and he was working for ESPN, and then Fox Sports, where he covered football, basketball, and baseball.
And when it came time to replace the legendary Vin Scully for the Dodgers, it was Davis who got the gig. Of course, nobody “replaces” Vin Scully, but the Dodgers really lucked out in getting Davis. He calls a clean game, knows when to shut up, and has a nice easy rapport with broadcast partner Orel Hershiser. In fact, Davis honored his booth-mate by naming his youngest son Theodore Orel Davis.
Not quite sure what, if anything, this new gig does to Davis’s job with the Dodgers. I imagine if he’s going to be doing the weekly game at Fox as well, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Tim Neverett in the booth this year. And of course, if the Dodgers get to the World Series, there will be the inevitable whining that Davis is a homer for the Dodgers. But if Vin can do it, Davis can, too. He’ll be a welcome breath of fresh air to those who were longing for the Joe Buck era to end.
And we knew him when…
