The radio team behind the baseball team won't be bragging about how it used to slug sliders.
Jon Laaser's hardball career peaked at a Minnesota high school. "Obviously, you want to be a major-league player, like everybody else," he said. "I knew that was a lost cause."
Anthony Oppermann's parents were so concerned with his grades in Texas that he wasn't allowed to play Little League. His most memorable personal involvement with the game: "Bat and ball in the pasture," Oppermann said.
They learned about professional baseball through experience as broadcasters in minor leagues, and this season are the voices of the Richmond Flying Squirrels, the San Francisco Giants' Double-A club.
"There's no reason that a minor-league broadcast can't sound major league," said Laaser, 30.
The Squirrels open April 8 at Bowie, with broadcasts on WRNL (910). Laaser [LAY-zer] will be with the club for all 142 games. Oppermann will work with Laaser on home-game broadcasts. When the Squirrels hit the road, Oppermann will operate from a Richmond radio studio as the primary voice of pregame and postgame shows.
Pregame shows will begin a half-hour before the first pitch. "We'll recap the previous night's game, set the scene for that night's game, preview the pitching match-up, go through the standings, lineups, interviews," said Oppermann, 27.
The half-hour postgame shows will wrap up the day's events in the Eastern League and include phone calls from fans. "You don't see that very much in minor-league broadcasts," said Laaser.
Game coverage will feature the play-by-play baseline, but expect lots of tangents.
"We're big on the entertainment side of things," Laaser said. "You won't find us chattering on about things that don't have something to do with what's going on in the game. But at the same time, I think there are any number of avenues through what's happening that you can bring humor and levity into it, and make that relevant.
"That's really what my goal is."
Oppermann intends to focus on the human element, give listeners a reason to root for players and tell their stories. "If they're succeeding, why? If they're not succeeding, what are they doing to get better?" Oppermann said. "Make those characters kind of come alive."
Laaser and Oppermann worked as broadcasters at previous stops for members of the Squirrels' management team, hence their presence here. The franchise came to Richmond on Sept. 23, and with the relatively short time available to get the stadium ready following a year without baseball, all Squirrels employees have been involved in facility polishing.
"For right now at least, it's 'We need to get this done. Do you have the skill set to do it?'" Laaser said. "Unfortunately, I don't, but they still throw me out there. If your seat is dirty on opening day, it's not my fault. I tried my best."
This is a new franchise, but Oppermann and Laaser plan on-air reflections about the Richmond Braves, Atlanta's Triple-A team during 1966-2008 that relocated because of dissatisfaction with The Diamond, and opposing players who came through the ballpark since its 1985 opening.
"In this day and age, when you build one [stadium] and knock it down 10 years later, you don't find many places that have as many years of history as The Diamond," Laaser said. "Whatever the situation was here in the stands or with stadium talk, that didn't change the baseball.
"There were some great players who came through here. Absolutely, we'll talk about them."
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