SNY’s annual Kidcaster program, which sees a child invited to the broadcast booth to call a half inning of a ballgame alongside the New York Mets announcers, went down last week. Winner Christopher Ivazes of New Jersey visited the booth, the 14th participant in the Kidcaster contest. Ivazes, who just turned 11, described his August 8 booth debut as “unforgettable.”
Some Kidcaster alumni have parlayed their childhood moment of fame into a job in baseball. Johnny Gadamowitz was a Kidcaster in 2013, when he was 12. He said eight youths were picked to try out in Manhattan, calling the game as a replay of Johan Santana’s 2012 no-hitter aired.
A couple of days later, he got the call that he’d won. “As a 12-year-old kid, I don’t think I fully understood the importance of what I was doing, and the number of people who would be tuning in,” he said. “I was thrilled to say the least.”
Once in the booth, Gadamowitz, in a suit and tie, said play-by-play guy Gary Cohen and analysts Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez “made me feel right at home.”
Cohen told him, “You are immediately the best-dressed Kidcaster we’ve ever had on the show.”
Speaking on his 11th birthday, Ivazes echoed Gadamowitz in discussing his veteran boothmates. “Very nice and very helpful,” he said.
After his time in the booth, Gadamowitz began thinking more and more about a career in broadcasting. Years later, he called a wide range of games that were live streamed for his Long Island high school, Harborfields, including baseball, football, basketball and lacrosse. He then enrolled at Syracuse, where he called basketball games. For a couple summers, Gadamowitz called baseball in the Cape Cod League.
Kidcasters “really launched my passion for sports broadcasting,” he said.
Graduating from college in May, Gadamowitz now calls games for the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets’ minor league team that plays at Coney Island.
“It’s a unique spot to be calling baseball,” Gadamowitz said. “The backdrop is the amusement park and beach and boardwalk. It’s everything I could’ve hoped for.”
Two years before Gadamowitz first stepped into the SNY booth, Jacob Resnick did so as an 11-year-old Kidcaster. He said he had just one batter to call, and was allowed to pick his favorite player. After he picked Jose Reyes, the shortstop responded with a fortuitous home run. Resnick mentioned how his call of the round-tripper ended up on ESPN’s SportsCenter.
“It was incredible. It was a whirlwind,” he said. “I felt like I was floating when I was calling the play.”
His Kidcaster stint resulted in more TV work. A year after his debut, Resnick hosted Kids Clubhouse on SNY, which led to covering the Mets for an assortment of blogs.
Resnick mentioned the “domino effect” that began with Kidcasters. He studied broadcasting at Quinnipiac College, and his first job out of school was covering minor league baseball as a reporter for MLB.com.
These days, Resnick, who is 23, works for the Mets as an associate in minor league operations. He started in April, and described the job as helping the young players with their needs, assisting club executives with their endeavors, and studying how the higher-ups go about their business.
Resnick’s Kidcaster stint got it all going. “I don’t think I can stress enough how much of a one-thing-led-to-another kind of deal my career has been,” he said. “I was in the right places to meet the right people who’d heard from me in the previous thing I’d done.”
Time will tell if Christopher Ivazes goes on to a career in baseball. He described following in the footsteps of play-by-play guy Gary Cohen as a dream job.
A few Kidcaster alums, for their part, say the program has been vital in their own careers.
“If not for that Kidcaster experience,” said Gadamowitz, “I really don’t know if sports broadcasting would be something that crossed my radar.”
