Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Dropping the Mic

For today’s Morning Chop, a tribute to a friend who has spent more time on a minor league bus than most of the minor league players he’s watched and reported on over the past six seasons.

Kyle Tait has been the voice of the AA Mississippi Braves since 2011.  You may have heard from some Atlanta Braves players talk about their struggles along the path to the majors, but there are steeper hills to climb – among those being umpires and broadcasters.

I met Kyle Tait for the first time on the day he was named Southern League Broadcaster of the Year in 2014.

Also on that day, the General Manager of the opposing club made a point to come to his booth – effectively a windowed closet, really – to congratulate him.  He then proceeded to expound to me for the next 10 minutes (unsolicited) exactly why Kyle deserved the honor.  We wrote about all of that – and his journey through broadcasting –  here.

Those words that day were all about Kyle’s preparation and professionalism, but as I got to know him and hear his work more, I realized it was more than even that and more than his resonating baritone “radio voice”.

So it was with a great sense of mixed emotions – good for him, bad for me – that I read this missive this morning:

It’s a Tough Life

Minor league radio guys are a one-man band.  There’s no color or play-by-play duties.  It’s all you.  You choose to fill the airways.  You have to supply the “picture”.  You have to make the listener care about what is being heard.

If the equipment is balky, then it’s on you to fix it.  If there’s a media event going on – especially on the road – then you have to host it.  If some unknown blogger like me wants to talk to a few players some night, then you have to arrange it.

Want dinner?  Well, that’s gotta be arranged… somehow.  Sometimes there’s ballpark fare… sometimes not.  Otherwise it’s a spate of lesser hotels and long hours from city to city every five days or so for a league spread from Jackson, Tennessee to Jacksonville in Florida to Biloxi on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

If you think that’s easy to do, then also consider this past season when Dansby Swanson was a near nightly phenomenon around the entire Southern League and suddenly things had to be a lot more scheduled and controlled for the sake of everyone involved.  After all, every city is in Braves’ Country, and everyone wanted to see Swanson.

And all the while… you call the games. 140 or more each season for six years.

Somehow he did all of this while making you feel like you’ve been best buddies for years.

Fortunately for us, Kyle Tait isn’t leaving the industry.  The new gig is at WZGC, 92.9 FM on Peachtree Street (is everything in Atlanta on Peachtree?)… conveniently close to Tait’s beloved alma mater of Georgia Tech.

But for those Summer broadcasts with the M-Braves:  you will be missed greatly, my friend.