{"id":329335,"date":"2025-10-24T14:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/329335\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T14:32:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T14:32:14","slug":"joe-davis-world-series-interview-for-fox-sports-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/329335\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Davis World Series Interview for Fox Sports 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe first Major League Baseball<\/a> game was played in the 1870s, before the major leagues as we currently know them really existed. The first MLB game televised by Fox<\/a> was held nearly 30 years ago in 1996, with the upstart network seeking to disrupt the broadcast status quo.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite that long history, earlier this month Fox\u2019s MLB broadcast accomplished a multitasking feat never seen before in the history of baseball: The first ever game called while carving a turkey live on-air.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe carver? Joe Davis, the lead MLB play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports<\/a>, NFL play-by-play announcer for Fox, and broadcaster for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The taster? Davis\u2019 boothmate, analyst John Smoltz. The occasion? Canadian Thanksgiving, with the Toronto Blue Jays facing off against the Seattle Mariners in the American League Championship Series.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI can\u2019t say that there was much foresight put into it,\u201d Davis says. \u201cWe knew we had the turkey and that we were going to come on camera and show it, and then right before we came on camera, they sat a big knife and carving knife and fork next to me. I said, well, hey, let\u2019s go ahead and have some of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a made-for-TV moment that also served as a showcase for Davis\u2019 skills, not only with the carving knife, but with the mic. \u201cAre you not impressed folks? It\u2019s not going to be perfect, I\u2019m trying to also do the job they are paying me to do,\u201d Davis said on air, after calling a strike mid-carving.<\/p>\n

\n\tDavis, 37, is hitting his stride at Fox, now in his 11th year with the company, and third as its lead MLB announcer. Earlier this year he secured his first Emmy win for Sports<\/a> Personality\/Play-By-Play, he now has multiple iconic calls under his belt (\u201cGibby! Meet Freddie!,\u201d \u201cHarper, the swing of his life!\u201d and he even secured his own bobblehead, as the Dodgers, where he works throughout the regular season, honored their most prolific TV personality.<\/p>\n

\n\tAhead of the World Series between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, Davis spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what goes into a call, the state of MLB, and more.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re now a couple years into being the lead baseball announcer for Fox, I know you won your first Emmy Award for play by play sports personality earlier this year. It feels like you\u2019re kind of settling in a little bit. Can you reflect a little bit on what the journey has been like since you joined Fox and took over the top spot there? I know it\u2019s been a whirlwind couple years, but I\u2019m sure it\u2019s been a rewarding one for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it\u2019s always been my dream to do this. From the moment that I found out that I was going to call the World Series it was like, wow. You know people say living the dream, and it kind of becomes cliche, but for me, this really is what I wanted to do. I grew up watching Joe Buck, wanting to call the World Series. When I came to Fox, I guess it would have been 2014, Joe was obviously there and you\u2019re like, yeah, I\u2019m at the company that has the World Series and the Super Bowl, but you don\u2019t figure Joe\u2019s ever really going to go anywhere, or that he\u2019s ever going to choose to not do the World Series anymore. So when that happened, it was a massive surprise, and when they chose me as the person to take over for him, it was a dream come true, a huge responsibility being the guy to follow Joe, and it\u2019s something that I do look at as a responsibility, and I love it, and it is something that I get so much fulfillment out of. But it\u2019s an awesome responsibility to to be the person who tries to capture these moments.<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that your job is actually a really complicated one, because you\u2019re helping the viewers understand what\u2019s happening. And for a national broadcast, like may not be as familiar with the teams, they may not be as familiar with the players, it\u2019s kind of a different set of skills than the local broadcasters, which I know you also do for the Dodgers. So how do you prep for that? How do you make sure that you\u2019re ready so that you can help the national audience understand what\u2019s happening? Even if they may not be quite as familiar with everyone on the field?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, you\u2019re right. It is a shift, especially when you get teams like we have in the Championship Series right now, Blue Jays and Mariners, who definitely are on that end of the spectrum of new to the national conversation. And you do have to pull back and give kind of the headlines on the guys, as opposed to the really nitty gritty details you may get on the local broadcast. When I do a Dodger game, I may tell you what Will Smith did on his off day. Totally different conversation than we\u2019re having about Alejandro Kirk where we are telling you the real headline backstory of where he came from and what he means to the team. So it\u2019s definitely a shift in how you frame things, what angle you take on talking about these guys. But for me, this time of year, it\u2019s the most fulfilling thing, just this headlong plunge into learning everything that you can possibly learn. Because, yeah, you\u2019re introducing these people to a national audience, but also the most important fans in these cases are the fans of the Mariners and the fans of the Blue Jays that know these teams like it\u2019s their job, so we have to come in and we follow them throughout the year, but really in a short time, learn them enough to be able to teach those super fans something about their team. And I just love that challenge of going as deep as I possibly can and really getting immersed in each team that I cover, and doing my best to draw those stories out.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tFox Sports play-by-play announcer Joe Davis and lead MLB analyst John Smoltz at game 4 of the 2022 World Series at Citizens Bank Park on November 2, 2022 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Frank Micelotta\/PictureGroup for Fox Sports<\/p>\n

\n\tHow do you balance that? Because, especially towards the end of the season, you\u2019ve got your responsibilities with the Dodgers, your responsibilities with Fox for baseball, and then also your your NFL responsibilities for Fox as well. It seems like that\u2019s kind of a stacked schedule, and I have to imagine, a lot of prep goes into each of those places.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt does. September is the craziest, because I\u2019m \u2014 like you said \u2014 doing all three of those. October at least I\u2019m focusing just on baseball, and that\u2019s where I get that headlong plunge right into the two teams that I\u2019m covering, it helps doing the Dodgers year round, where I\u2019m always paying attention, at least sort of, to each team. In a lot of cases, I\u2019ll see each team. So the Blue Jays, the Dodgers played in early August, and I had the background from having done that, but once you get into September, I do my best to plan out my weeks really carefully, to really be intentional about how I\u2019m going to use my time. I have a hard time blending from one thing to the other, so I try to block off time ruthlessly where it\u2019s going to be a few hours of NFL prep, and then I know that I have to be done. And then I shift to Dodger prep for the afternoon, get to the stadium and do the game, and then the next morning, maybe I\u2019m getting early in an hour of baseball prep, so just really trying to be diligent about putting those guardrails in to make sure one thing doesn\u2019t lead into the other prep, and that I am carving out enough time for each and that takes some intentionality, looking ahead at the week and the month that you have coming.<\/p>\n

\n\tI wanted to ask also about how you are able to adapt and react. You\u2019ve had calls like \u201cGibby, meet Freddie!\u201d You can do all the prep in the world, but at the end of the day, there\u2019s no script for baseball. There\u2019s no script for football. You have to be reacting to what\u2019s happening. So how do you learn to teach yourself to call, to look into that archive of baseball history and know when to pluck things out to emphasize a call, or make something really pop with the audience that just really resonates or connects with them<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\n\tI think that\u2019s the thrill of the job, is that it\u2019s live entertainment, and you don\u2019t have time to sit there and think about it. You\u2019ve got to be ready when the moment hits you, and hope that the right thing comes out. I think one thing that has been such a blessing for me has been doing Dodger games for the last decade. They\u2019re so good, they win so many games, they have multiple big moments each week. And how do you get good at calling the big moments without calling the big moments? In order to call the big moments, you just have got to be lucky enough to be sitting in the chair when they happen in front of you. <\/p>\n

\n\tSo being the Dodger announcer during the regular season has given me a bunch of practice at those moments. And that\u2019s the that\u2019s the big test, right? When the big plays happen and it\u2019s your job to capture them, are you ready for it? Because I think that yeah, you can call the play and you can nail the call and do a fundamental job, but to really do it justice, there\u2019s some more context there that needs to be brought into the moment. So I prep as hard as I can, and then when I get into those moments, instead of just reacting \u2014 I\u2019m not planning, because, like you said, you can\u2019t do that, you don\u2019t know exactly what\u2019s going to happen \u2014 but you can see, going into the ninth inning, there could be a rally coming here. What would this mean if this happened? I start to try to lean forward and wrap my mind around what the bigger context would be if the moment happened. And with all that work, you hope that when the moment does happen, you\u2019re ready to say what should be said.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJoe Davis with his kids at Dodger Stadium<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tJoe Davis\/Fox Sports<\/p>\n

\n\tOne fun thing: I saw that you you had a bobblehead at a Dodgers game this season. As someone who\u2019s got young kids, I feel like if I ever got a bobblehead, that would be like the highlight for them, more important than anything I would ever do professionally, so I\u2019m very curious what that was like for you.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was really special. The most special part about it was my two oldest kids got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch. And it just so happened that the night before Clayton Kershaw announced that it would be his last game as a Dodger, that he was retiring at the end of the year. So it became his last start at Dodgers Stadium, and it became a whole lot more special than just my bobblehead night. The kids will be able to say they got to throw out the ceremonial first pitch before Kershaw\u2019s last game in Dodger Stadium. Amazing, but it was a special night. Part of that was Apple TV had the game, so I got to be with my family during the game, and up in the suite, we had a big group of friends and family, and got to enjoy it all. But it was really cool. And yeah, I guess it probably gave me a little more street cred with the kids too. A few people asked me to sign their bobbleheads, and so the kids asked, would I sign theirs? So I did. I put something like, \u201cwhen my head moves, clean your room.\u201d So they got their own special edition sitting on their shelves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first Major League Baseball game was played in the 1870s, before the major leagues as we currently…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":329336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[623,41318,1884,1266,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-329335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-fox","9":"tag-fox-sports","10":"tag-major-league-baseball","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115429634857399336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}