Better Know A Broadcaster: Erik Bremer

What Is Your Name?

Erik Bremer

Which Team Do You Work For?

Fredericksburg Nationals, high Class A affiliate of the Washington Nationals

Which Other Baseball Teams Have You Broadcasted For?

Potomac Nationals (high Class A, Nationals), Colorado Springs Sky Sox (Triple-A, Brewers), Biloxi Shuckers (Double-A, Brewers), Brisbane Bandits (Australian Baseball League), Wareham Gatemen (Cape Cod League), Northwestern Wildcats (NCAA)

What Other Sports Have You Broadcasted?

Basketball, football, hockey, softball, volleyball

Who Is Your Favorite MLB Broadcaster Of All Time?

I spent a lot of time growing up listening to Dick Bremer with the Minnesota Twins.

Where Is Your Favorite Road City?

Depending on the league and hemisphere, either Myrtle Beach, South Carolina or Auckland, New Zealand.

What Is Your Career Highlight?

Being a part of the Brisbane Bandits’ fourth consecutive ABL Championship in 2019 was a lot of fun. They clinched the division on the final day of the regular season, aided by a triple play in the seventh and a go-ahead homer in the eighth. We cobbled together an improvised audio stream from the concourse of the visiting ballpark and got fried in the Australia sun, but we provided a service to people across the country who wouldn’t have been able to follow the game otherwise.

What Unseen Parts Of The Job Do You Feel People Should Know About?

Seasonal employment offers some broadcasters (myself included) the opportunity to stay on the air year-round if they have a winter sports gig, but it can pose logistical challenges beyond the obvious burden of a transient lifestyle. I know colleagues who saw their apartment leases run out at the end of the regular season, and had to sleep in the clubhouse or press box when their team made the playoffs. During my season in Biloxi, I did all my laundry in the stadium facility after the clubbies were done washing the players’ uniforms. Those industrial chemicals probably weren’t good for the fibers of my dress shirts.

What’s Your Best Story From The Road?

It might be cheating since I wasn’t in the traveling party myself, but in 2018 an unknown change to our commercial flight itinerary left the Sky Sox stranded at home in Colorado Springs with a game in Memphis later that evening. A mad scramble ensued, with our manager and starting lineup getting top priority in the search for last-minute airline tickets. I think there were five or six different routes that the team took, some with a constellation of connections.

Enough players from the team arrived in time, but the equipment bags didn’t. The Sky Sox stepped in the box wearing Redbirds helmets, and my broadcast partner, Dan Karcher, described the first few innings from his phone as he called in to the radio station. The broadcast equipment arrived in the middle of the game, and I did studio play-by-play off the MiLB.TV stream as Dan set things up in the booth. All in a day’s work.