Matt Vasgersian (Transcript)

Robby Incmikoski:
Here we are recording with my boy, Matty Vasgersian. Hey Matty, tell me—this is the 95th interview for Sacred Grounds. How do you put into words the feeling of walking into a Major League Baseball stadium?

Matt Vasgersian:
Yeah. Matty V—the kid, the fan—saw it as a part of the experience that was tied so closely to the brand it housed. In other words, I loved the Oakland A’s as a kid. I loved the Oakland Coliseum as a kid. There was no separation between the two, even though the Coliseum grew more outdated all the time.
When I was going to games—back when multi-use stadiums were still a thing in the 1970s—you didn’t think of it as the eyesore it eventually became. It was perfectly fine back then.

Now, Matty V the employee of MLB Network—I look at ballparks and think, “Thank the Lord we have these places,” because the experience for the tens of thousands of fans who show up every night... it’s unlike anything else in pro sports.
You’re not going to get that at a hockey game. You’re not going to get that at basketball. You’re not going to get it at a football game. Heaven knows.
It’s that perfect place that combines warmth and intimacy with majesty and grandeur and awe.

Robby Incmikoski:
No doubt. For sure. And I guess where I’m going with this is—when you look at a baseball stadium... yeah, the sport itself is great. But how much does baseball connect families—father and son, mother and son, daughter and dad, brother and sister, whoever it is?
It just connects families and friends in a way that no other sport does. Why do you think that is?

Matt Vasgersian:
I think it’s because there’s more depth with our game than with any other major North American team sport. We’re older. We’ve been around longer.
Not only do our dads have reference points in baseball, their dads do—and maybe even a generation beyond that.
If you live in a place like Boston or Chicago, you can connect with people through baseball even when there’s no other common ground.

If it’s something that keeps you close to your family—great. If it keeps you connected to friends who live in other cities—great.
You know the line: “We’ll always have Paris”?
Well, we’ll always have baseball.
We’ll always have our favorite team.

And I think it’s because there’s just so much depth there.
People connect over the NBA, or indoor soccer, or whatever their sport is—but you’re not reaching back generations for that. It’s all somewhat recent.
Sure, there’s history in the NBA and the NFL—don’t get me wrong—but it’s not what it is in our game.

Robby Incmikoski:
Exactly my point. We’re not ripping other sports. We’re just talking about how great baseball is and how it connects people through generations.
So Matty—what originally drew you to the game?

Matt Vasgersian:
I think it was my dad. He was the one who facilitated it. He’s from Boston—a dyed-in-the-wool Red Sox guy from Somerville, Mass.
The earliest baseball memories I have are of my dad loving the Red Sox and exposing me to the Major League product when I was a kid—places like Oakland.

We lived in Southern California for a year in the early ’70s. He took me to an Angels–Red Sox game, and I’ll never forget it.
We walked around the parking lot twice because he forgot where he parked the car.

I actually have photos, Robby, of the first time he took me to the Coliseum to see the Red Sox. He took pictures at the game—photos of Carl Yastrzemski, of Bobby Doerr.
It was a game in 1968—the A’s first year at the Coliseum.

That’s how far it goes back.
Then you start playing the game—rec league, Little League—and if your team is good, you’re hooked.
When you grow up in the early ’70s as an A’s fan, all you know is your team is good.
You’re hooked forever.

Robby Incmikoski:
How special was the Coliseum for baseball? I know it was a dump—everyone knows it—but it was a lovable dump. Reminds me of the Vet.
How cool was that place?

Matt Vasgersian:
I’ll always remember the Coliseum as the pre–Mount Davis Coliseum.
When the Raiders moved back and the stadium commission gave in—when the city gave Al Davis those luxury suites—that f***ed up that place forever.
They took the bleachers out.

You used to see this great panoramic view of the Oakland Hills. You saw the BART station. You saw the Ascension Greek Church on the hill. It was lovely.

Then they built that monolith, and it ruined everything.
Look—it wasn’t perfect before. But when the team was winning—not the ’70s team, surprisingly, because that team didn’t draw well due to horrible front office management—but in the Tony La Russa years, the Bash Brothers years, Oakland and the A’s were the class of the American League.
Not the Yankees. Not the Red Sox.
The Yankees were stuck in the Mel Hall years back then. It was the A’s.

So I’ll always remember the Coliseum as that place. Not the version from the last five or six years—with exploding toilets and raccoons in the press box.

Robby Incmikoski:
Let’s get back to baseball. You’ve had an incredible career—play-by-play for the Brewers, Padres, then one of the original faces of MLB Network when it launched in 2009, later working with the Angels.
How special is it to you, Matty, to have been so closely tied to not only individual teams, but the league as a whole—especially through its flagship network?
When you look back someday, when you’re retired and no longer a beautiful, talented host—go f*** yourself, by the way—how do you reflect on the impact of being so deeply connected to the game?

Matt Vasgersian:
The impact is this: I’m never more than five minutes away from being reminded of how incredibly fortunate I am to have made my favorite hobby and pastime into a career.
I mean—how many of us can say that?

It sounds corny, but I’m blessed.
Sometimes, when you get too close to your hobby or passion, it can ruin it. That hasn’t happened for me—not at all. I still enjoy baseball as much as I ever did.
In fact, I might even enjoy it more now, because I have access to so many more people, stories, and resources than I ever did as a fan or a kid.

It’s only deepened my love for the sport—and especially its history.

Sure, we all wrestle with our role within the game.
Are there things I’d like to do differently from a broadcast standpoint? Absolutely.
Are there decisions I’d make differently if they were mine to make? Yeah.
But the role I occupy—as a play-by-play guy, as a host at MLB Network—just underlines how freaking lucky I am to be doing this.

Robby Incmikoski:
No question about it. And when you think about younger generations—kids growing up in the last 20 to 25 years, and even people our age in their 40s—a lot of us got to know the game through video games.
You’ve been the voice of what—five or six different titles?
I mean, you were the voice of MLB The Show for years. What’s that been like for you?

Matt Vasgersian:
Yeah, that was a cool thing. I was the primary voice for MLB The Show for 16 years.
And I had a couple of years before that as kind of the understudy to Vin Scully, believe it or not, when he was doing it. Which was also amazing.

The idea that I could go to a friend’s house and hear their kids playing the game with my voice coming from the basement—that was wild.
Or seeing the look on a kid’s face when he finds out I’m the guy who does the voice on the game he plays every day—those are cool moments.

It means even more to me now, having a 10-year-old who lives and dies for sports video games—Madden, NBA 2K, MLB The Show.
Those are the only three games he plays. And now I hear my friends coming from his basement—like people used to hear me coming from theirs.
It’s a very cool thing to know that kids will always remember you for that.

And you know what’s funny?
There are a lot of people who thought I got my job in baseball because I had done those old commercials for 989 Sports—Sony’s boutique sports brand in the late ’90s.
It was a fake SportsCenter-style campaign, and people saw those and thought I was just an actor playing the role of a sportscaster... then they found out I was a real play-by-play guy.
It’s funny how people associate those things.

But yeah—it’s really cool to know that kids grew up with your voice in their heads.

Robby Incmikoski:
That lives forever, dude. That outlasts any of our careers and maybe even our lives. You’re the voice of the game to a whole generation.

Matt Vasgersian:
It does... but also, it doesn’t.
Nobody’s out there playing MLB The Show 2018 anymore. It’s all about what’s current.
And I know that because my son owns four or five older editions—but he never plays anything but the newest one.

So yeah, as long as you’re on there now, you live forever. But once your voice is out of the rotation—it’s “on to the next.”

Robby Incmikoski:
Totally fair. Let’s talk about ballparks.
So many people want to visit all 30 stadiums but can’t—for reasons like cost, health, time, family.
You’ve seen most, if not all. Not just the current stadiums—but old ones, too: Qualcomm, County Stadium, Olympic Stadium.
How do you describe that feeling—of walking into those places? Of having seen as many as you have?

Matt Vasgersian:
The places that are no longer around—those are the most cherished to me.
Candlestick Park. Old Tiger Stadium. Milwaukee County Stadium.

If you asked me to name the coolest thing I’ve ever done as a baseball announcer? It might be hosting the coverage of County Stadium’s final game.
That was the end of the 2000 season. Miller Park opened in 2001.
The final game was on my birthday—September 28. And I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday, because I didn’t want to take anything away from the moment.
Not even a “happy birthday.” That day was about the ballpark.

The Brewers did an amazing job closing that place down.
They brought back all the old legends—Brewers, Packers, even Milwaukee Braves.
And I was the one on the air saying, “Here comes Paul Hornung... and here’s the great Hank Aaron.”
We weren’t hosting in the ballpark—we were broadcasting the ceremony for the viewers.
And man... when I rewatched it a few years ago, I thought: “Yep. That was every bit as cool as I remembered.”
That kind of experience is timeless.

Qualcomm. Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The second Yankee Stadium—not the house that Ruth built, but the one Jeter, Munson, and Catfish built.
Those are places I’ll always hold close.

Robby Incmikoski:
Did you remember doing the first game at Miller Park, Matty?

Matt Vasgersian:
Oh yeah, I remember it well.

Robby Incmikoski:
Let me ask you this—can I steer you a certain direction with this?
What did that stadium do for the city and the community?
I remember working the first game at Target Field on April 12, 2010—I'll never forget it. I know what that ballpark did for the city.
What did Miller Park mean to Milwaukee and the state of Wisconsin?

Matt Vasgersian:
There are a few things. First of all, the roof was huge.
The Brewers used to lose so many dates a year due to weather. Not just cancellations—but rain delays.
If you're driving in from Kenosha and it looks gloomy, you're probably not making the trip. So getting that stadium with a roof was massive.

Also, you’ve got to remember what the community had been through. When a crane collapsed during construction, three workers lost their lives.
People were pessimistic about whether it would even get finished.

Even before all that, there were real doubts—going back to ’92—about whether the Brewers would stay. There was talk of them moving to Charlotte or elsewhere.
And then came the debate about where to put the new stadium: the existing site or downtown.
Back then, downtown ballparks were becoming the thing. But the Brewers held out and said, “Nope—it’s staying right here,” because of the tailgate culture, the freeway access.

And it was the right call.

So when it finally opened, it was a huge exhale for the city—for all kinds of reasons.
It made Brewers fans feel big again.
They hadn’t felt that way since ’82, when the team went to the World Series.

And now they had something they were proud of.

You know the people I’m talking about—the folks in the parking lot, the maintenance crews, everyone who works there. They love it.
It’s a point of civic pride.

That’s what places like Oakland missed. That’s what cities miss when they try to squeeze every last dollar from their team instead of investing in what it means to have a stadium like that.
I know that’s a long answer—but that’s exactly what it meant.

Robby Incmikoski:
That’s exactly what I was looking for.
Let me ask you this, Matty—the tailgate culture. Obviously Green Bay and the Packers are known for it, but how do you describe tailgating at Brewers games?
Because when people think of tailgating, they think football. They don’t think baseball.

Matt Vasgersian:
It’s very similar to football culture, because you’re talking about the same fans.
They’re Packers fans spreading that energy into the summer.

The folks who make that trip to Lambeau—they go big.
And they bring that same attitude to Brewers games.

It’s a science.
You’re not just dragging out a cooler and a folding chair. You’ve got your whole gear setup.
You’re soaking the bratwursts in beer, boiling them, then broiling them over coals that are just right.

Nobody does it better than Wisconsin.

They do it in Buffalo. They do it on the West Coast. But nothing beats Wisconsin tailgates—whether it's Badgers, Packers, or Brewers.

Robby Incmikoski:
For a fan or a family who wants to visit all 30 ballparks—whether it's a father and son, mother and daughter, whoever—how would you describe the baseball experience overall?
What’s it like when someone walks into a stadium?

Matt Vasgersian:
Let me take this in a slightly different direction, if that’s okay.

Robby Incmikoski:
That’s exactly what I want—open-ended on purpose. Go ahead.

Matt Vasgersian:
Here’s what I’d recommend:
A lot of people go on ballpark pilgrimages—see all 30, or just all the AL parks, or everything on the East Coast.

If money were no object, and you had all the time in the world, here’s how I’d do it:
I’d go in reverse chronological order. Start with the newest parks and end with the oldest.

So I’d go to Marlins Park (or whatever it’s called now), Target Field—places built in the last 10–15 years.
And I’d work backwards. Because that way, when you finally get to Fenway and Wrigley, you can appreciate what it took to get to those places.

If you start with Fenway, you might miss that.

The Cubs and Red Sox organizations have done an incredible job preserving those places—while adding value: party decks, club rooms, suites.
They figured it out.

You know who you should talk to for this book, Robby? The woman who designed Camden Yards.

Robby Incmikoski:
Already on it. She’s doing our foreword. Janet Marie Smith—April 14 at 2 p.m. is our next interview.

Matt Vasgersian:
That’s her—Janet Marie Smith.
She’s the one.

Robby Incmikoski:
Talked to her once already—second interview’s booked.

Matt Vasgersian:
What she did at Dodger Stadium is unbelievable—digging into the earth to expand the clubhouses. You didn’t think there was room to do that.
That’s some serious s***.

Robby Incmikoski:
Yeah, we’re highlighting her. We’ve got Chuck D from Public Enemy doing a foreword, too. Reaching out to Gretzky now that the Ovechkin chase is over.
But honestly—so few people realize how much Janet Marie Smith has shaped the fan experience for millions.

Matt Vasgersian:
Yeah, her brain and fingerprints are all over Camden Yards, which kicked off the “new ballpark” era—opened in 1992. It’s not new anymore, but it started the renaissance.
Incorporating an existing warehouse into the ballpark design...
They’ve done it since in places like San Diego.

Everywhere you can do that now—you get that Camden vibe.
She’s had an impact from Baltimore to LA. You couldn’t have two more different cities, and yet there she is in both.

Robby Incmikoski:
And Camden has stood the test of time. Since 1992. It’s insane.

Matt Vasgersian:
Still considered the best.
Petco’s great too—but it has limits.

From a broadcast perspective, for example—PNC Park is beautiful, but we’re way too high up.
Nationals Park is shiny and new, but again—the press box is way too high.

Robby Incmikoski:
Crazy high.