By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
They come to ol’ Cashman Field every night hungry to make the giant jump from Triple-A baseball to the Big Leagues — the players, the umpires and even a Las Vegas man who has sat behind the radio microphone for the past 19 years at Cashman calling the games for Southern Nevadans.
Man, 58-year-old Russ Langer — the radio baseball voice of Las Vegas at AM 920 on your dial — has come so close several times to landing a full-time radio gig in the Major Leagues. Not only is it a career pursuit, Langer has held this MLB radio job dream since he was a kid growing up in Encino, California listening to the rich, velvet, storytelling voices of baseball broadcasting legends Vin Scully of the Dodgers and Dick Enberg of the Angels.
Just like the players who take the field during Las Vegas’ hot summer nights, Langer also longs for the Big Show.
Over the years, Langer has contended for radio broadcasting openings with the Kansas City Royals in the 1990s, and the Tampa Bay Rays, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins and Philadelphia Phillies in the 2000s. He’s had Scully and San Francisco Giants broadcaster Jon Miller, considered one of baseball’s premier broadcasters, in his corner.
But he came away disappointed each time.
“The pursuit of the big leagues is ongoing,” Langer said in his press box office before Thursday’s Las Vegas 51s-Tacoma Rainiers dollar beer night game at Cashman. The 51s beat Tacoma, 8-6, in the Pacific Coast League game and have only four games left at Cashman Field.
“I’m the Susan Lucci of baseball. I’ve come so close,” Langer said, referring to the soap opera star who was nominated 19 times for an Emmy before she finally won one. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another baseball broadcaster who has come so close so many times as I have.”
If you think job competition is intense in your line of work, then consider there are only 30 Major League Baseball teams, and each one typically has only two radio broadcasters. There are less MLB radio voices than there are U.S. senators.
But it’s not as if Langer, the Nevada sportscaster of the year many times over, hasn’t had a taste of broadcasting at the Major League Baseball level.
Langer did radio work for the Montreal Expos in 2003 and 2004, getting the chance to meet Scully at the Dodger Stadium broadcast booth area in 2003. Langer also had a radio pinch-hitting stint with the Baltimore Orioles in the 1990s.
Langer also does website broadcasting work for the Chicago White Sox during spring training, and even had the chance to broadcast a national TV White Sox-Cubs preseason game in March this year. He has done the spring training webcasting for the White Sox since 2012.
When you chat with Langer, there is no hint of bitterness of coming up short to landing the MLB radio gigs. He has been married for the past 3 1/2 years and he will become a father in several months for the first time. Langer lives in old west Las Vegas, but he and his wife are looking for a new home in Summerlin, which will be the new base for the 51s when they christen a new $150 million ballpark in Downtown Summerlin for the 2019 season.
“It’s unfortunate that he has been so close to working in the Big Leagues, but our fans have been the beneficiary,” 51s General Manager Chuck Johnson said while enjoying nachos during Thursday’s game. “Russ has had several stints working spring training and subbing in during the regular season. He’s a master of his craft and we’re lucky to have someone who is so experienced.”
Langer is considered a full-time 51s employee and also works on selling sponsorships to restaurants and car dealerships, Johnson said.
Langer is also the play-by-play voice of UNLV football and will return to Southern California Saturday to call the UNLV-USC game.
Interestingly enough, after listening to the legendary Scully as a kid in Southern California, Langer met his broadcasting idol at Dodgertown, the former longtime spring training home of the Dodgers, 30 years ago. At the time, Langer was broadcasting games for the Single-A Vero Beach Dodgers of the Florida State League.
Langer had two clear memories of that Vero Beach experience. First, it was meeting Scully at the Dodgertown cafeteria and recalling that Scully used the same voice asking for breakfast as he did calling Dodgers games. And second, Langer remembered the gigantic spiders and the slew of cockroaches at the place he lived in that eventually was condemned.
Scully made a big impression on Langer. who rattled off Scully’s baseball broadcasting qualities: energy, enthusiasm, managerial knowledge of the game, storytelling skills, warmth and poet-like delivery. Langer said it meant a lot when Scully congratulated him when Langer got the call to the Big Leagues to broadcast those Expos games at Dodger Stadium in 2003.
Langer also has worked for a Double-A and two former Triple-A teams — the old Phoenix Firebirds of the Giants and the old Albuquerque Dukes of the Dodgers — before he began calling Triple-A games in Las Vegas.
Langer’s radio persona is energetic, professional and earnest, with player details and history anecdotes peppered into his broadcasts. On Wednesday night during the 51s game’s latter stages, Langer dropped in a fun fact about the Yankees trading pitcher Lew Burdette to the Milwaukee Braves in 1951 only to see Burdette come back to haunt the Yanks in the 1957 World Series when Burdette beat New York three times and the Braves won the World Series.
Langer keeps an egg timer near him to remind himself to relay the score to radio listeners. He said he picked up that radio tip from Jon Miller, the famed Giants broadcaster, who learned it from Red Barber, the legendary radio broadcaster of the Reds, Dodgers and Yankees. Langer figured if the egg timer worked for Miller and Barber, it’s good enough for him.
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Langer, born in New York state’s Hudson Valley region before moving to Southern California when he was a youngster, appreciates the connections he makes with his listeners. Those bonds keep him motivated and give him purpose behind the baseball mic.
He remembers receiving a note from a woman in traction at a local hospital when he was broadcasting Phoenix Firebirds games. The woman wrote to tell Langer that his play-by-play helped her endure painful nights in the hospital’s cold institutional setting.
Then there was a blind boy of 11 or 12 years old who listened to Langer, whose radio baseball words in Phoenix provided the eyes for the young boy to enjoy the Triple-A baseball games.
Langer has been broadcasting Triple-A baseball for so long in Las Vegas that young men come up to him to explain they listened to him as a young boy and that now their own young sons are learning baseball through the play-by-play storytelling of Langer.
In the end, Langer said his entire work package of 51s radio play-by-play, plus sales and marketing for the team, doing a monthly baseball radio show for ESPN radio, calling UNLV football on the radio and webcasting White Sox games during spring training rivals being a number two radio man for a Major League Baseball team.
Langer will keep on applying for MLB radio jobs. But no matter where he calls baseball games on the radio, he will still love the game.
“It’s a wonderful sport. It’s an heirloom sport,” Langer said. “You get to pass it down to the next generation.”
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