Dave Flemming
David Braxton Flemming (born May 31, 1976) is an American sportscaster who has been a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball since 2003. Flemming also calls college football, college basketball, major league baseball, and golf on ESPN.
| Dave Flemming | |
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Dave Flemming calls a San Francisco Giants game on April 10, 2013. | |
| San Francisco Giants | |
| Broadcaster | |
| Born: May 31, 1976 Alexandria, Virginia | |
| Teams | |
As Broadcaster
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Flemming grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, listening to current Giants partner Jon Miller call Baltimore Orioles games. In 2004, Flemming began his first full year as an announcer for the team, working with Miller, Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow on San Francisco station KNBR and the Giants Radio Network. Since then, he has split time between television and radio.
Early life and career
After graduating from St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School in 1994, Flemming received bachelor's and master's degrees in classics from Stanford University and a master's degree in broadcast journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. While at Stanford, Flemming broadcast Stanford Cardinal baseball, men's and women's basketball, and football[1] and served as Sports Director at KZSU. In 2000, he broadcast play-by-play for the Visalia Oaks and served as the assistant General Manager, before moving on to the Pawtucket Red Sox.
Flemming called games for three seasons on the eight-station PawSox Radio Network. His rise in the baseball broadcasting industry was fast, as he went from Class-A ball (Visalia) in 2000 to Triple-A from 2001 to 2003 (Pawtucket) and finally the Giants.
Career with the San Francisco Giants
In twenty seasons calling Giants games, Flemming has been a part of many memorable on-air moments.
On April 27, 2003, in his second ever major league broadcast, working as a fill-in for Jon Miller, Flemming broadcast the Phillies' Kevin Millwood's no-hitter against the Giants. In some ways it was an indication of the moments to come.
Barry Bonds provided several of those. On May 28, 2006, Flemming had the chance for his voice to go into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum when he was set to call Barry Bonds' 715th home run, passing Babe Ruth for second place on the all-time home run list. However, as he was making the call, his microphone went dead:
Finley runs. The payoff pitch. A swing and a drive! Deep cen –
Flemming, unaware of the problem, continued to make the call, but all listeners heard was about ten seconds of dead air. Only Duane Kuiper's call on Fox Sports Net's broadcast was sent to the Hall of Fame.[2] On September 23 of the same year, during Flemming's third-inning call of a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Miller Park, Bonds hit a home run off left-hander Chris Capuano. This was Bonds' 734th career homer (26th for the season), which broke Hank Aaron's record for National League home runs. (Aaron hit his last 21 homers as an American League player.) Eventually on August 4, 2007, Flemming was able to call Bonds' record-tying 755th home run in San Diego on the radio against the San Diego Padres.
That call of #755 proved to be a notable one in a weekend of milestone moments for Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Later that week, the New York Times sports media critic Richard Sandomir wrote of the collection of broadcasts that past weekend,
"But the best one on radio or TV came from Dave Flemming, the Giants’ radio announcer, who said clearly and excitedly on KNBR: "Bonds swings, 2-1 pitch. He drives one to left. Going back on the ball is Hairston. It's gone. Off the facing of the second deck. And Barry Bonds has equaled baseball's all-time home run record: 755 for Bonds."
On July 14, 2006, for a Friday night home game, Flemming made his television broadcast debut for the Giants. Since then, he has appeared regularly on both NBC Sports Bay Area and KNTV during the baseball season.
Other milestone broadcasts Flemming contributed to include the calls of Greg Maddux and Randy Johnson's 300th pitching victories. Including the Milwood game on his debut weekend, Flemming has broadcast seven MLB no-hitters.
On November 1, 2010, during the seventh inning in Game 5 of the World Series at Rangers Ballpark, Flemming made the winning home run call that eventually sealed the Giants' win, and thus the World Series:[citation needed]
Lee pitches...Rentería hits a high drive, deep left-center field, David Murphy going back, he's on the warning track, IT IS...GOOONNNNE! Édgar Rentería...has hit a three-run homer...against Cliff Lee! And the Giants lead here in the World Series, 3-0! Édgar Rentería, the World Series hero, and it's 3-0 here...the Giants are nine outs away...
On June 13, 2012, Flemming made the radio call of the final out of Matt Cain's perfect game, the first in the history of the Giants. In 2013 Flemming (along with Kuiper and Miller) won an Emmy for his coverage of the perfect game.
Later that season, on October 28, 2012, Flemming made the call for the final out of the 2012 World Series.[3]
2 and 2 the count. Romo shakes off Posey. Now has the one he likes. Romo's 2-2 pitch on the way... Cabrera TAKES STRIKE THREE CALLED! And the Giants have won the World Series in Detroit! And the celebration begins as the Giants mob the mound! Cabrera strikes out looking to end it! And not only have the Giants won the World Series, they have swept the Tigers in 4 games in dominant fashion. And it's the second World Series title for the Giants in the last three seasons. It's Romo who gets the final out, and he gets the great Miguel Cabrera to win it for the Giants, and the celebration begins here in Detroit, and we can only imagine how the celebration has begun back in San Francisco.
Flemming was again a part of the broadcasts for the 2014 postseason, and the Giants' third World Series win of the decade. In his time in San Francisco, he has won three Northern California Emmys for sports play-by-play.
Stanford football and basketball
Starting in 2007, Flemming began broadcasting Stanford Cardinal football and basketball. He spent three years as the voice of Stanford basketball on the radio, and six years in that capacity with Stanford football before leaving the Stanford broadcasts to concentrate on his ESPN work.
The period Flemming served as the voice of Stanford football coincided with perhaps the most successful stretch in the school's football history. Flemming's first broadcast on the Stanford radio network was the epic upset of #1 ranked USC on October 6, 2007. Over the next six seasons, Flemming was behind the microphone for the record performances of Toby Gerhart and Andrew Luck, and for three BCS bowl appearances, including a Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin on January 1, 2013.
National work
Flemming became a regular College Basketball on ESPN announcer in 2010, after having called a couple of games for the network the previous season. He has covered the Big 10, the Big 12, the Pac 12, and the WCC for ESPN college basketball, teaming with Dan Dakich, Sean Farnham, Fran Fraschilla, and many other analysts. In recent years Flemming and Farnham have frequently followed Gonzaga and have documented that program’s rise to the top of the college basketball world.
He has also called baseball for ESPN and ESPN Radio, including postseason Division Series games from 2013 to 2019. He worked a season calling college football games for the Pac-12 Network in 2012 before shifting to College Football on ESPN in 2013. Also in 2013, Flemming began calling NBA games on ESPN Radio and contributing to Little League World Series coverage on ESPN and ABC. His LLWS work continued for seven years. In 2015, Flemming began calling NFL games for ESPN Radio as well.[4] In 2016, he began calling select Monday Night Baseball games for ESPN,[5] as well as College Football Thursday Primetime games.[6] He has also served a hole announcer for ESPN golf coverage, including the Masters and PGA Championship tournaments. In 2022 he called the AL Wild Card series between the Seattle Mariners and Toronto Blue Jays with Jessica Mendoza, Tim Kurkjian and Coley Harvey, during the 9th inning of game 2 in reference to Cal Raleigh he said "It's hard to dump your big dumper".
Personal life
Flemming and his wife, Jessica, live in San Francisco with their identical twin daughters Katie and Carter and their son David Henry.
Flemming's brother, Will Flemming, is a play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox Radio Network.[7]
Flemming is a descendant of Carter Braxton, a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence.
References
- ^ "Dave Flemming". ESPN Press Room. Retrieved April 30, 2021.
- ^ Transcript from Neil Conan's interview with Dave Flemming on the Monday, May 29, 2006 edition of Talk of the Nation on National Public Radio (NPR) News.
- ^ "Dave Flemming". Kemmetmueller Photography. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
- ^ Zaas, Stuart (November 15, 2015). . DetroitLions.com. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2015.
- ^ Cafardo, Ben (January 13, 2016). "ESPN Names New Sunday Night Baseball Analysts: Jessica Mendoza & Aaron Boone". ESPN Media Zone. Retrieved March 23, 2016.
- ^ Volner, David (July 20, 2016). "ESPN Announces New Commentators for Thursday and Friday Night College Football Telecasts; David Pollack Re-Signs". ESPN Media Zone. Retrieved September 3, 2016.
- ^ Finn, Chad (August 15, 2020). "Will Flemming a pleasure to listen to on WEEI's Red Sox broadcasts". The Boston Globe.
External links
- Who's on First; Dave Flemming’s straightforward style—and smooth-as-silk voice—have made him a Giant hit Stanford Magazine article, July-August 2007
- Bonds Call Gone in a Glitch
- "The great home run call that wasn't" San Francisco Metblogs, 05/28/2006