Sooner or later, all announcers will cover a player that is battling a prolonged slump. It’s the nature of sports. All athletes go through it at some point in their careers. An 0-4 tuns into a 1-32 before you know it in baseball.

I found in my career that a slump can find its way into the booth as well. There were times when I would put together a string of broadcasts that just plain stunk. I couldn’t figure out why. Maybe it was the fatigue of a long season or the fact that it’s just plain impossible to be “on” every night. There were times when I would screw up a stat, misidentify a player or botch a home run call. One mistake seemed to lead to another and I couldn’t break the string. It would last for several games.

When I was broadcasting for the Angels on radio, I recall walking out of Fenway Park one night wondering why I had made so many mistakes on the broadcast. The next night wasn’t much better. I was in the middle of a rough stretch and there was no end in sight. I learned eventually that I just had to let it go and move on to the next one.

Inconsistency is part of the business. You won’t have a a great broadcast every night. That much I understood. However, I couldn’t figure out why I would go through a stretch of six or seven games where nothing seemed to go right. Like the athletes you cover, it’s just part of the deal.

I soon realized that a tough broadcast or two is bound to happen. What I couldn’t figure out was how to keep it from stretching into six or seven straight games. Then I came to the realization that dwelling on a bad broadcast will increase your chances exponentially of having another bad one, and a bad one after that. I learned to let a bad broadcast go. Overthinking what you do in the booth never helps. The good thing about baseball, especially at the professional level, is that there is always another game tomorrow. Another chance to move forward.

It’s not easy, but look at the next game as a chance to start clean. What you did yesterday doesn’t matter.