Sports Commentator Jim Rosenhaus ‘82

SportsCommentator Jim Rosenhaus ’82

Returns

By Jessica Fiddes

On September 16, Jim Rosenhaus ’82, a fourteenseason veteran of the Cleveland Indians (and, soon, the ‘Guardians’) radio broadcast team, returned to Delbarton to speak about his career as a professional sports broadcaster. During the season, Rosenhaus partners with Tom Hamilton, ‘The Voice of the Indians’, on every Indians game broadcast. He also hosts Indians Warm Up and Tribe Talk on the Indians Radio Network. His work includes webcasts on Indians.com for spring training games and, for the past eight seasons, he has served as Indians team correspondent for MLB Network.

After delivering a brief introduction to his education and career path, Rosenhaus answered questions from our aspiring broadcasters. Asked how to break into the field, he compared his experience — which included job fairs and submitting audio cassettes — with the many opportunities young people have to produce sports content. One suggestion: find ways to create content at your high school and continue the process in college. In the audience was Delbarton podcaster Hayden Kim ’22 who has done just that, developing his freshman podcast project into an engaging collection of 36 podcasts about Delbarton life and people. Rosenhaus encouraged boys to find ways to build a personal audio portfolio and develop contacts with professionals in the field. Mentors are key. He credited several minor league bosses who helped him develop skills by constantly pointing out ways he could improve. He once prematurely called a homerun during a minor league game. His mentor’s advice? Watch the ump’s signals, then make the call, and if you can’t see the signal, stretch your play-by-play until you can. “You learn by doing,” says Jim. “And that’s also how you improve.”

“Balancing the play-by-play with stories is another art: ‘You never want to interrupt a story with 'Oh, by the way, there goes a home run’.”

Jim Rosenhaus ’82 is a fourteen-season veteran of the Cleveland Indians (soon, ‘Guardians’) radio broadcast team.

In July, 2021, the Cleveland Indians changed its name to the Guardians. For years, the Indians name and logo had been deemed racially offensive. The new name references an iconic art deco statue, Guardians of Traffic, at the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge within sight of the team’s home field in Cleveland, Ohio. Getting to know players and coaches is also important, and a way to bring sports coverage to life with storytelling. Anyone can repeat statistics; Today, everyone with a smartphone has instant access to them. A successful broadcaster is also a connector, getting to know players and coaches, and mentally filing away their stories. Nine innings is a long time to hold listeners’ attention, so top broadcasters pepper their patter with tidbits they pick up in locker rooms and back offices. Balancing the play-by-play with stories is another art: “You never want to interrupt a story with ‘Oh, by the way, there goes a home run’,” says Jim. A proud member of the Class of 1982, Rosenhaus is the younger brother of Mike Rosenhaus ’80, Delbarton Director of Senior Guidance. His classmate and friend Craig Paris ’82, Assistant Headmaster for Advancement, also attended. After graduating from Delbarton, Rosenhaus moved to Lafayette College where he ran track and majored in Economics with a Computer Science minor. He discovered that his passion for baseball, and the broadcasting experience he acquired in college, eclipsed his academic interests. Actively avoiding a desk job, he set his sights on combining both interests and advised boys to “Do what you like — everything will fall into place if you do what you like.” Rosenhaus joined the Indians in 2007 after eleven years as the play-by-play voice of then-Indians affiliate the Buffalo Bisons. He began his broadcasting career with the Tribe’s long-time Single A affiliate in Kinston, NC. Prior to professional baseball, Rosenhaus spent eleven years as the official voice of the University of Buffalo men’s basketball team. in 2011, he was inducted into the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame, together with former Indians catcher Tony Pena. Rosenhaus lives a labor-intensive professional life from mid-February through October, covering 162 games in 180 days. The night before he spoke at Delbarton, he had been in Minnesota until 11pm (after a 12-3 win over the Twins), and landed in NJ at 5am the next morning. September 16 was a rare day off. On September 17, when the Indians faced the Yankees for the opener in a three-game series, Rosenhaus arrived at Yankee Stadium by 1pm to set up the broadcast booth, did a player interview at 4:30pm and a pre-game show at 6:30pm. Game time was at 7:05pm and he was on air for nine action-packed innings. Sunday night, it was a flight back to Cleveland to start a four-game series against the KC Royals. Rosenhaus works hard and clearly loves every minute of it.