Joe Simpson does not acknowledge the possibility of a truly bad day at the ballpark. Toward the end of his 24th year broadcasting the tidal flow of Braves baseball, however, even a stalwart such as he had to admit his love affair with The Pastime was tested.
“The last September was a challenge,” Simpson recalled, “because we had players who probably had to be used at the major league level who weren’t quite ready. The results showed it.”
For much of 2015, the runs came almost reluctantly, as if the Braves feared to wake the scoreboard operator. Every lead was a greased pig and the bullpen had no hands.
They finished with their lowest win total (67) in a quarter of a century. Chip Caray clearly recalls a moment in the final month that an exasperated and on-point Simpson declared into his mike: “This is completely unacceptable, and it’s embarrassing.”
“It was completely accurate way to summarize what the fans were feeling, what the players were feeling,” Caray said.
“But,” Simpson says here in the first blush of spring, “you know it’s a temporary situation, and it’s going to be resolved.”
Ah, the 25th year beckons. A silver anniversary season is about to unfold one dissected at-bat at a time. It is a time of rejoicing for a one-time .242-hitting outfielder who at 64 still thinks true enlightenment can be found not at the feet of the Dalai Lama but rather around the spit-marked boundaries of a pregame batting cage. Each new season bears a multitude of blessings for the most veteran analyst, who’ll call first pitch at 4 p.m. Monday on Fox Sports Southeast, following a two-hour pre-game.
OK, maybe the revival won’t be complete this year. Maybe there are more long nights ahead trying to make good television of lukewarm baseball as the Braves sift through their collection of new toys and seek a championship identity.
But Simpson feels that such a transformation is in the mail, and in that belief lies, he said, “another reason to stay in shape, do your homework, stay on top of the changes that occur in the game.”
When he began broadcasting with the Braves in 1992, they were coming off their first of 14 consecutive division titles. He got there just in time to hear Skip Caray serenade Sid Bream as he slid at home to end the National League Championship Series.
He’d be in the rhythm section in 1995 when he and Caray exclaimed, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!” after Marquis Grissom squeezed the fly ball that meant the Braves one World Series title.
He’d outlast multiple permutations in format — bopping between radio and television in mid-game, then serving an alphabet of different initials from TBS SuperStation days to the current regional network. He has learned from masters — first Dave Niehaus in Seattle, then Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren in Atlanta — and presided at some of their funerals. A lunch-pail player himself for nine seasons with three teams, he has kept company in the booth with Hall of Famers (Don Sutton and Tom Glavine). He has forged relationships with the troupe of workers off camera, the ones his wife refers to as his “second family.” He has spanned generations, the apprentice now the tenured voice working with Skip’s son.
“That tells you how good he is — neither one of us has ruined his career,” laughed the son, Chip.
Simpson provided a voice to the best of times, but, 2015 aside, he has been spared the worst of times.
Healthy, having given up pick-up basketball on the road (after a blown Achilles in 2014), he by all indications should be fit enough to move to Cobb County with the Braves in 2017. That would mean serving with one team in three different home parks, a testament to his own longevity as well as the diminishing shelf life of our stadium steel.
“Twenty-five (years) down,” he said, looking ahead. “Twenty-five to go.”
Simpson’s partner in the booth points out that television is an analyst’s medium. His job is to tee up the situation and let Simpson swing away. “The great thing about Joe, if you give him the coordinates, he doesn’t whiff,” Caray said. (Which beats Simpson’s strikeout percentage as a player — a respectable 12 percent).
As he has for the length of his Braves broadcasting career, Simpson in Season 25 will take it as his responsibility to explain the gearworks of the game as simply as possible, often concentrating on the mechanics of hitting and fielding. And for another season, he will take to the balance beam and walk the narrow divide between booster and broadcaster.
“I want the Braves to win, make no mistake about that,” Simpson said. “I could be criticized for being a homer. And that’s OK, I don’t mind that as long as those people also write that I will tell the truth.”
So, when might the officially “veteran broadcaster” be able to enjoy some thrilling days once more? Only when and if all the infusion of young talent develops in the same manner it did with the Braves at the onset of the 1990s. Back when winning was new.
“I’m excited to see these young players evolve into players who could quite possibly be compared to those players,” Simpson said. “I say that with no hesitation because they all come with such high credentials, such rave reviews. Hopefully there’s a few of them who fulfill that prophecy and bring the Braves back to where we all want to see them be.
“That enthusiasm for those young players and what’s on the horizon is what excites me the most,” he said.
It’s what keeps a much-seasoned voice young itself.
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