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The D-backs’ radio engineer Leo Gilmartin dedicates career to his dad

BY CHRISTINA FUOCO-KARASINSKI

Leo Gilmartin sits high above the players at Chase Field, in a small room with souvenir newspapers peppering the walls. The decor is typical for a journalist, but he’s no ordinary media type.

Reporting and sharing information are in the blood of Gilmartin, who is celebrating his 24th year with the Arizona Diamondbacks. Currently the team’s radio engineer and producer, Gilmartin comes from Arizona royalty. His father is the late, great Joe Gilmartin, the first president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association and a 2014 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee.

Gilmartin couldn’t help but enter the sports journalism field.

“Beats working for a living,” Gilmartin says with a laugh.

In short, he produces and engineers the D-backs’ radio broadcasts, taking the audio from the ballpark to the radio station and to the team’s affiliates.

“Everything’s different,” the Chandler resident says. “The game itself is different every day. It keeps things fresh. Every day’s a different storyline, a different conversation, a different outcome. Baseball, more than any other sport, is so unique in how each game is so different, for so many different reasons. I’ve been around sports my entire life.”

Suns fan

Following in his dad’s footsteps, Gilmartin was obsessed with basketball. He started his sports career as a ball boy for the Suns in the mid-1970s.

“I grew up around sports and around the Suns,” he says. “I wanted to be a professional athlete. Basketball was my goal 12 | SEPTEMBER 2020 when I was a young kid. In junior high, I figured out that probably wasn’t going to happen. I had to figure out other ways I could stay in sports.”

His family spent time in Tempe, a mile from ASU. ASU football head coach Frank Kush lived around the corner. Baseball coach Bobby Winkles lived down the street.

“It was such a different time back then, in terms of the relationship media had with sports,” he says. “We were all close to each other.”

Gilmartin became acquainted with Phoenix Suns player and subsequent coach Paul Westphal, who was recently diagnosed with brain cancer; the Colangelo family; Connie Hawkins and Dick Van Arsdale. Around the late 1970s, early 1980s, Gilmartin started working for the visiting team on the bench and became acquainted with Dr. J, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

“Sports was everywhere I turned,” he says. “My dad was unassuming about it. I get a little embarrassed the more I drop the names.”

After graduating from Tempe High School, Gilmartin went to Minneapolis for a year to a broadcasting school recommended by Suns broadcaster Al McCoy. He returned to the Valley and went to ASU, from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in broadcast journalism in 1991.

Afterward, he coached basketball for nearly a decade at Tempe High, Phoenix College, NAU and Arizona Western Community College. From 1994 to 1996, he worked as the assistant to the director of the Arizona Department of Commerce in Sports Development.

Currently the team’s radio engineer and producer, Leo Gilmartin is celebrating his 24th year with the Arizona Diamondbacks. (Photo by Taylor Jackson/Arizona Diamondbacks)

“The D-backs were born, and the rest is history,” he says. “It’s an evolution. It’s a wild evolution.”

Joining the D-backs

Gilmartin joined the D-backs in September 1996 as manager of broadcast services, overseeing the club’s radio and TV network relationships.

Since 2001, Gilmartin has been an integral part of the radio broadcast production team and a full-time member of the travel party.

“I got to be around that entire team,” he says. “Anyone who’s come through the Valley, who has some sort of high profile, I’ve had some sort of relationship with them, absent of the current Suns. I’m on the outside looking in. Al McCoy and their broadcasting group does a fantastic job. I still consider myself connected, and I feel privileged.”

This season, things are different—vastly different. Gilmartin isn’t traveling with the D-backs.

“We’re doing every game from the ballpark—home or road,” Gilmartin says. “It’s the times we live in, and baseball’s doing everything it can to keep the player and the staff safe. We want to keep ourselves safe as well. We’re fine doing it from the ballpark.”

He has his eye on switch-hitter Ketel Marte as an “unbelievable talent and a fun-to-watch player.” He’s rooting for Buckeye native/right fielder Kole Calhoun.

“He’s fun to watch and a real genuine guy,” he says. “Starling Marte is a new addition who plays the game right and is a very good player. He’s very understated. He’s really good at what he does.

“It’s always great watching Nick Ahmed. Fortunately for our franchise, we’ve had some really good players—not only really good players, but really good people who are fun to follow, get to know and be around.”

As a child, he grew up watching athletes win championships and celebrate on the field or court or in the locker room. He always dreamed of joining them.

“Fast forward to 2001, and while I wasn’t on the dogpile, I was able to get in the clubhouse and celebrate with the people I became very close with,” he says.

“I just want to keep doing what I’m doing and being valuable to the D-backs and root for their success. Their success will mean more unbelievable opportunities for me.”

But Gilmartin’s career comes down to his dad.

“I can’t even put into words what he means to me, aside from him being an amazing father,” he says. “The opportunities his career afforded me are just unbelievable. He did inspire me. He had tremendous respect. He was an extremely talented writer. I was just re-reading his Suns book. I was too intimidated to be a sportswriter, too, because of how good he was. But I knew sports was my future.”

Celebrating Grandparents Day

Unique ways to stay in touch with family during the pandemic

BY JOHN SKELTON

Senior Adviser of Senior Helpers of Tempe

The coronavirus pandemic has put a damper on family gatherings and celebrations, but there are still several unique ways to celebrate Grandparents Day this September or future special occasions. As Arizona’s leading in-home caregiving provider, Senior Helpers has compiled a list of ideas for families to create new memories while practicing social distancing.

First and foremost, daily video chats are a must. If you have an Apple iPhone, try FaceTime, and if you are an Android user, download Google Duo. These apps make it especially easy to video chat with your loved ones. Your grandkids will be pleasantly surprised to see your face while you talk, and video chatting is as easy as making a regular phone call these days.

If video calls are not the best option because of a time diff erence, Marco Polo is an app that allows you to stay in touch with the people who matter most by sending prerecorded videos. Think www.LovinLife.com of it like a “video w a lk i e - t a lk i e.” Video messages are sent immediately and are available for the recipient to view and respond to almost instantly. But you do not actually talk in real time. Instead, you take turns leaving videos for each other.

Snail mail is also an option. In fact, letter writing has helped people meaningfully connect during this period of isolation, grief and unrest. Think of sending a postcard, handwritten letter, a gift, pictures or even a puzzle. Once you are equipped with pens, envelopes and stamps, you might fi nd yourself crafting more letters than you think.

If you have a special event coming up that you will not be able to attend, try Kudoboard (kudoboard.com). It is an online group card for birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, sympathy or other special occasions. Add a message, photo or video; invite others to post; then deliver. The entire family can participate, no matter their location. This platform can also hold up to 100 posts, so you can really make a statement with a message board.

For new family members, there is a way to introduce yourself by letting them hear your voice, with a voice-recording stuff ed animal. Build-A-Bear allows you to create a custom teddy bear online with several cute outfi ts and a voice recorder. Just record a special message in your own words and add a personalized sound chip to your stuff ed animal. Your voice and your words combine to make a gift that delivers a perfect surprise. Hopefully, the newborn will get to know your voice and recognize it when you are fi nally able to meet them in person.

With that said, as in-person events continue to be canceled left and right, virtual events are popping up everywhere. Digital art classes are a great way to make memories with your family, and several art studios have moved their in-person classes online, like Carrie Curran Art Studios with an option to pick up an art kit. Book a private virtual event for the whole family, and everyone paints from the comfort of home while a studio artist guides you step by step through the process. The experience is completely interactive, and the lead artist will even take questions throughout the event.

Another idea that the whole family can enjoy is a Netfl ix party! Download the Google Chrome extension for watching Netfl ix movies or shows, sync up with others, and the extension includes a built-in chat interface for consistent communication. Besides comedy and action, Netfl ix has several black-and-white masterpieces available to stream. From the 1930s to the 1960s, stream some of the top fl icks during that time, including “His Girl Friday,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Let There Be Light” and “The Stranger.”

One of the coolest ways to connect with family is with a long-distance friendship lamp from Uncommon Goods (uncommongoods.com). Light up a loved one’s life across town or across the country with a long-distance friendship lamp. You can fi nd these online at sites like uncommongoods.com. When you turn one on with a simple touch of your hand, the other one emits the same ambient glow, no matter where it is and who is on the other end. Each person sets up their lamp via Wi-Fi, then reaches out and touches the lamp whenever they want to let their loved one know they are thinking of them. With every touch, the lamp cycles through a rainbow of colors, one at a time. You can also assign each loved one a color so that when they tap their lamp, yours lights up with their special hue.

If you feel comfortable enough to venture outside, consider decorating your loved one’s front yard with balloons and maybe a sign or two. Finish your gesture off by leaving a homemade treat at their doorstep, or wave to them from your car window. This can be especially fun around holidays or celebrations that have easy decorative themes.

Sometimes our loved ones have diffi - culty with technology. If that is the case, then a great option is to enlist the help of a caregiver who can help navigate technology and make it more accessible to those who may have challenges using it alone. Visit seniorhelpers.com to fi nd a Senior Helpers location nearest you.

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