Sports Broadcaster and COM Alum Tyler Murray Heads to the NBA
Worcester Red Sox play-by-play announcer lands dream job with the New York Knicks
Sports Broadcaster and COM Alum Tyler Murray Heads to the NBA
Worcester Red Sox play-by-play announcer lands dream job with the New York Knicks
On a Saturday in late August, in the waning days of the 2024 season, the Worcester Red Sox hosted the Toledo Mud Hens for a midafternoon game. Triple-A is often the last stop before a professional baseball player makes it to the majors and the Worcester roster was loaded with future Boston Red Sox stars. Roman Anthony, Kyle Teel, and Kristian Campbell could be household names across New England by next summer.
But on this day, the one person who knew he was headed to the big leagues was sitting above home plate in Polar Park’s NESN broadcast booth.
Tyler Murray worked his way to Worcester just like the players on the field: step by step. He began his career with the single-A Daytona (Fla.) Cubs in 2011 as an unpaid broadcast intern who earned $50 a game to clean the park. Stops with Florida’s Dunedin Blue Jays and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats followed. In winter, he called college basketball, football, and hockey games.
The Worcester Red Sox hired Murray (COM’11) to lead their television broadcasts in 2022—a big break since the franchise has a reputation for producing broadcast stars. A dozen former Worcester announcers have gone on to broadcast major professional sports. Murray makes it 13. He filled in on WEEI Boston Red Sox broadcasts throughout 2024 and on October 22, he will call the opening game of the NBA season as the new lead radio play-by-play voice for the New York Knicks.
Finding His Voice
Prior to the Red Sox—Mud Hens game, Murray had walked around the third floor of Polar Park, greeting colleagues. When he ran into his broadcast partner, JP Ricciardi, the former major league general manager mentioned Corporal Klinger, the character who wore a Toledo Mud Hens hat on the 1970s sitcom MASH. Catching a puzzled look from Murray, Ricciardi made a crack about their age difference. It was a fleeting moment that would pay dividends hours later.
At 3:30, the partners settled onto stools in the broadcast booth. At a cameraman’s signal, Murray launched into his introduction for the game. “It’s WooSox baseball from Polar Park on NESN+,” he said. For the next 3 hours and 10 minutes, he narrated the action on the field with a deep, steady voice.
Murray says that he arrived at the College of Communication hoping to become a sportswriter, but he realized early on that it was easier talking about sports than writing about them. It’s a self-deprecating anecdote since Murray’s job is wildly difficult. A play-by-play announcer must weave together the story of a game on the fly. There’s no time for revision, no second draft.
On that August 31, nine pitchers from Worcester and Toledo combined to throw 302 pitches. Murray had to explain what happened a split second after each of them. There were wild pitches, batters hit by pitches, double plays, and stolen bases. Toledo hit two home runs in the first inning while Worcester never scored. The ball can go in any direction on a given play, at speeds over 100 miles per hour. Basketball will pose an entirely different challenge: there are fewer players on a smaller playing surface, but they’re in constant motion, whipping the ball up and down the court without pause.
While Murray talked, he monitored what was going on around the park—relief pitchers warming in the bullpen, weather conditions, even a scuffle between teammates in the WooSox dugout—anything that could contribute to that game’s story. A chat app was open on the laptop in front of him, and a sideline reporter and Bill Wanless, Murray’s boss, who sits in the press box on the third base line, fed him observations and interesting stats.
Wanless, the senior vice president of communications, has been with the franchise since 1986, when it was located in Pawtucket, R.I. He’s overseen the hiring of the team’s announcers for nearly four decades. “We’ve always looked for the guy who’s going to be the next major league broadcaster,” he says. Before Murray was hired, Wanless shared tapes of the top candidates with some of the WooSox broadcast alumni in the big leagues and they offered their opinion: Murray was the guy.
“The ones who are going to be great are just like a player. You could tell that Mookie Betts was a great player. You could tell with Rafael Devers,” Wanless says, citing Red Sox stars past and present. “There’s certain guys where you just know. It’s the same when it comes to broadcasters.”
On the field, the game between the WooSox and Mud Hens had begun to drag. Toledo’s pitchers kept the Sox off balance and Worcester couldn’t score. “This is the longest two-and-a-half-hour game I’ve ever watched,” Murray cracked during the break before the ninth inning.
Without a compelling narrative developing on the field, Murray and Ricciardi had to get creative. Ricciardi spent more than two decades in major league front offices, so to get his partner talking, Murray asked about famous players he’d known. Baseball’s rich history can fill many gaps in a long broadcast if an announcer knows which questions to ask. The partners also bantered playfully about Murray’s ignorance of Corporal Klinger. “I know stuff—just not MASH,” Murray said in mock defense of himself.
“Anyone can do the big highlights, but the games aren’t all highlights,” Wanless said earlier that day, prophetically. “It could be a three-hour game and two hours of it don’t have much action. You want someone that is easy to listen to, by all cross sections of age and demographics. Tyler certainly has that.”
Realizing a Dream
In a quiet moment before the game, Murray—who grew up in Fairfield County, Conn., near the New York border—had deflected a question about whether he had been a New York fan. “I’ve never told anyone that,” he said. It’s not the sort of detail you share when your paycheck says “Red Sox.”
After the Knicks and the MSG Network announced that they’d hired him, Murray is more forthcoming. “My wife and I have joked that when I’m not broadcasting a game, we’re at home watching the Knicks,” he says. When he first became a broadcaster he hoped that maybe, by the end of his career, he would call games in Madison Square Garden, the Knicks home arena. But he’d put his New York allegiances aside to work in Worcester.
In his new job, Murray’s primary role will be to call games for the MSG Network’s radio broadcast, alongside color commentator Monica McNutt. Just like in Worcester, it’s a prestigious job. Marv Albert, Gus Johnson, and Mike Breen, all Knicks radio alumni, are among the biggest names in sports broadcasting. Murray will also fill in on television when Breen and Kenny Albert are called away for national NBA and NFL broadcasts.
As for the Boston–New York rivalry, Murray is excited to be in the middle of it. “The Knicks and Celtics have never really been good at the same time in my lifetime,” he says. “It does feel like this year could be the start of a rivalry.” The Knicks spent the offseason bolstering their roster to challenge the defending champion Celtics.
And Murray’s regular season debut behind the microphone will come on Tuesday, October 22, at Boston’s TD Garden, when the two teams face off in the NBA season opener.
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