Here is an excerpt form Major League Mindset: Elevate Your Baseball Play-by-Play. It examines the attributes that make a good baseball play-by-play announcer.

So what are the attributes of a good baseball announcer?  In my opinion there are five key characteristics that all good baseball play-by-play announcers possess.

Know the game:  There is nothing more important than knowing the game when it comes to earning respect from listeners and your peers.  Take time to learn the rules, understand the strategies and absorb as much about the game as you can.  When a listener tunes in to your broadcast, they view you as an expert. You are delivering the game to the fans and that automatically makes you an authority.  Make sure you are knowledgeable about the game you are broadcasting.   

Respect the game:  One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a young broadcaster was to always remember that people simply tune in to follow their favorite team.  You just happen to be the person delivering the broadcast, but make no mistake, it really doesn’t matter all that much who the broadcaster is.  People are tuned in to follow their team.  If broadcasters were the only reason people listened, fans would have stopped listening to Dodgers games when Vin Scully retired.  Tigers fans would have thrown in the towel when Ernie Harwell stepped away from the mic. 

Likability:  Imagine tuning into your favorite team’s broadcast on a nightly basis and being annoyed by the announcer.  Not exactly an enjoyable experience.  In baseball broadcasting, as in most sports really, the ability to wear well over the course of the season is important. So how do you make sure you are likable?  To start, it is important to never talk down to your listeners.  Baseball fans today are more knowledgeable than they were when I was growing up, but there is still a large swath of people that are simply casual fans.  Make sure you speak to them, and not above them.  A condescending attitude toward listeners never works.  Be willing to connect with fans, whether on the air, at the ballpark or on the street.  Accommodating fans with requests to take pictures or simply talk about the team goes a long way.  Approachability is essential to building your reputation. 

Be willing to keep learning:  The successful announcers never think they have it all figured out.  I found that thirty years into my career, I was still learning and still trying to improve.  It’s the same in any vocation, because the really good ones are always looking for better ways to do their jobs.  Accepting constructive criticism may sting at times, but it’s one of the best ways to improve at your craft.  Strive to increase your knowledge of the game. 

Learn to embrace the grind:  We’ll touch on this quite a bit in this book.  The baseball schedule at the professional level will grind you down both mentally and physically.  Understand that going in.  Don’t be surprised when you’re dragging in the dog days of August.  The weather is hot, and you have over 100 games under your belt.  Off days are few and far between and you have to find a way to bring energy to a  broadcast yet again.  Understand that when the season is over, you will feel a great sense of accomplishment for having “survived” the season.