EDITOR’S NOTE: This story originally appeared in Heart of Ohio Magazine in 2014. It is being republished through a cooperative agreement with Richland Source. To read more stories on Heart of Ohio Magazine log on at www.heartofohiomagazine.com.
Are you a reality show fan? If you are, you’re well aware that there is a veritable TV smorgasbord of real-life offerings these days, dealing with everything from housewives to house pets. For the most part, these programs are populated by regular Janes and Joes whose lives are turned into weekly, hour-long dramas for visual consumption.
Since 2007, former Ashlander Matt Underwood has been co-starring in one of Ohio’s longest-running reality series: the Cleveland Indians telecasts. If you’re not a follower of Major League Baseball, you may not know that Matt spends a good amount of his waking hours, April through September, sitting in the press boxes of big league baseball teams, calling the action with his announcing sidekick, Rick Manning.
(As most know, the Indians are at the epicenter of the baseball universe this week, when Cleveland hosts Game 1 of the World Series at Progressive Field on Tuesday night).
How did Matt land a job that most young baseball fans would do almost anything to have? Read on and you’ll find out.
Born in Zanesville, Matt moved with his family to Ashland at age 4 and would spend most of the next 14 years staying as connected with the Arrow (school nickname) sports scene as he could. He was both a fan and a participant. Football was his first love, and his skills allowed him to become a two-year starter at quarterback for head coach, Bob Quackenbush.
The high school football fortunes in Ashland had been in a downward spiral back in those days, so the 6-4 record the Arrows posted when Matt was one of the senior leaders had the team boosters more than just a little bit excited.
After graduation from Ashland High School, Matt moved on to Baldwin Wallace College in Berea with the idea of playing Division III football, and acquiring a degree. His collegiate football career was cut short by a stress fracture in his foot. Though he didn’t know it at the time, that injury may have been the “break” that led to his career in broadcasting.
He took a freshman course called “Intro to Broadcasting.” That helped him land an unpaid job on the college radio station (WBWC), where he did some DJ work, as well as some play-by-play of various Yellow Jacket sports. Never mind the fact that the signal of the 100-watt broadcasting giant was only heard to the outskirts of the BW campus; Underwood was getting his start in sports broadcasting, and that’s exactly what he wanted.
I can speak from experience that back in the days before satellite radio, and multiple stations carrying 75 percent of the same programming, the usual starting point for someone who left college with dreams of following in the footsteps of Al Michaels or Bob Costas was a small-town radio station, with a relatively weak signal, that was pretty much all things to all people.
However, Matt Underwood had bigger ideas. Since Berea is located on the south edge of Cleveland, he was able to get to Browns, Indians and Cavs games and make some acquaintances among the sports broadcasting community.
Proving the old adage that “it’s not what you know but who you know that counts,” Matt was able to secure an internship at Channel 5, Cleveland’s ABC affiliate, in 1990. There he would learn the business of sports broadcasting from Nev Chandler, who was the voice of the Browns and the Indians, as well as TV 5’s sports director.
Nev died of cancer in 1994 at the age of 48, but Matt said Chandler played a huge and positive role in his development as broadcasting professional. Chandler’s press box partner on the Indians games in the early 80s was the late Herb Score. He, too, was one of Matt’s mentors. Underwood said that he often recalls something the former left-handed fireballer for the Tribe told him as a young play-by-play announcer: “Every time I sit down to do a game, I see something that I’ve never seen before.”
Matt did a little bit of everything as an intern, including serving as a sports producer in 1990. In the fall of ’92, he did some work for WVIZ, Cleveland’s PBS TV station. He did some radio sports talk and hosted 20/20 sports reports on a Cleveland station, as well hosting Indians pre- and post-game shows. As Nev Chandler’s battle with cancer began, he took some time off from the sports anchor desk, and Matt would often be the fill-in.
Channel 5 did a nationwide search for Chandler’s successor after he passed away, but they discovered that they already had his replacement, and his name was Matt Underwood. Matt was named the station’s sports director in 1996 and manned the desk for four years.
Matt Underwood’s dream was to do play-by-play for a big league team. That opportunity came along when Dave Nelson decided to leave the Indians radio broadcast crew. Timing is everything, and Matt’s time had arrived. He was hired as a member of the Tribe’s radio broadcast crew in 2000, and joined the voice of the Indians, Tom Hamilton, behind the microphone for the games. Hamilton had been working Indians baseball for a decade by then, and he, too, has had a huge influence on Matt’s career.
Seven years later, Underwood went from doing the radio broadcasts to calling games from the TV booth for what is now Fox Sports Ohio. His color commentary partner there has been Rick Manning. The two had worked together on some other TV sports projects and had established an on-air chemistry that was evident in their work on Indians games from the very start.
You would think that doing play-by-play for a Major League Baseball team could have no downside, to which Matt Underwood and any of his peers would probably tell you, in Lee Corso speak, “Not so fast my friend.”
A Major League Baseball schedule includes 81 games on the road each season, which translates to a great deal of time away from the family for the players, coaches and others (including the announcers). Because of that, there are many family events that are missed by the travelers. In Matt’s case, that means his wife Shelley and their two sons, Max and Devan, attend many of the school functions and extended family get-togethers without dad.
I know that he would not want us all to feel sorry for him because of this perceived hardship. It’s part of the job that he understood when he got his break. Matt’s father, Gary, still has an advertising business in Ashland. I talked with him when I was researching this story and asked him to tell me, and you, something about Matt that would surprise those who have followed him as an Indians announcer over the years.
After some thought, Matt’s dad said that he doubted anyone but the two of them recalled that, as a junior, Matt played Col. Pickering in an Ashland High School Production of My Fair Lady. Following one of the performances, Gary and Matt’s mom were waiting to meet him, but he never showed. It seems that there was also a track meet that same day. When the curtain came down, Matt, a distance runner for the Arrow track team, rushed to the track meet just in time to enter and win the 1600-meter run. Now there is some reality show material.
In his work with Cleveland Indians baseball, Matt deals with the reality of the highs and lows that teams can experience. The Indians, as we who call them “our” team know, have had moments when they’ve resembled The Biggest Loser and have found their fortunes change thanks to an Extreme Makeover.
But through it all, The Voice (Matt Underwood) must maintain an optimistic outlook in order to remain a Survivor. And he has, which is why he has not been voted out of the press box.
