When the Covid pandemic of 2020 took root, people and places throughout the world were turned upside down and professional baseball was right in the middle of the chaos. Spring Training was canceled, the Minor League season was soon to follow and no one in the baseball world knew what to expect, or had any idea what was in store. It was a time like no other, and people were dealing with new issues, situations, and problems, that had never been dealt with in their lifetime. It truly was a historic period of time and one that will go down in the history books as one of the most chaotic chapters of human existence. As with all periods of this nature, the stories that have come from the measures that people took to operate otherwise normal operations continue to be historic. One of those stories comes from Dodgers Play by Play announcer Tim Neverett, as he chronicled the Dodgers 2020 World Championship season, the season that threw a “Covid Curveball.”
While out for a walk back home in New Hampshire after the cancellation of Spring Training, Neverett decided to chronicle the 2020 World Championship Season for the Dodgers as he saw it from his broadcast booth.
It was something I never thought I’d ever do, but, during quarantine, after the first shutdown of Spring Training, my wife, the dog and I were out in the woods walking, and kind of an “out of the box” idea came up and my wife was like, yeah, you should chronicle the day to day happenings because you never know what’s going to happen. And, hey, this teams pretty good she said, and you never know, this team is pretty good and they might win the World Series.
So, I thought it needed to be chronicled what the Dodgers had to do going all the way to the World Series and some of the things they may have done differently than other teams, and what we had to do to get broadcasts on. I wrote the book in real time so it’s like a day to day diary so by the time the World Series ended, maybe a week later, the manuscript was done.
One of the fascinating parts of the book is the foreword that Orel Hershiser wrote that was, in typical Hershiser fashion, very descriptive, very passionate, and absolutely riveting.
Orel did a great job with it. In fact, when the foreword was submitted the editor said that they had never read a more thorough and interesting foreword for a sports book. It was neat because he takes you from the moment just before he recorded the last out in the 1988 World Series, where he stepped back and took it all in like you would see in a movie, but he did it in real life. So he takes us through what was going on in his mind and when he punches out the last Oakland hitter and he bridges those moments, and being the MVP of the last Dodger Championship, to the 2020 Season with Corey Seager being the MVP.
Covid Curveball also accounts for some of the hurdles that the Covid restrictions placed on the baseball experience. The Major League schedule was reduced to 60 games, restrictions were at every corner, no fans were allowed, broadcasters had to social distance, crowd noise had to be pumped in and travel to road games was not allowed. While fans were relying on the broadcasts as their sole access to games, broadcasters were having to watch monitors and listen to artificial crowd noise, sometimes from 1000’s of miles away and from different locations. If that sounds like a very difficult process, that’s because it was, but, despite all the complications, Neverett feels fortunate to be one of the few that actually got to see the home games from Dodger Stadium.
First of all, I don’t want anybody to feel badly for us because we got to watch baseball, and we got to watch it in person for the home games when most people didn’t, so I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining. But, it was more challenging, especially when the team was on the road, let’s put it that way. At home it was different because you have this big stadium and no one is in it, so it was just bizarre. When you look at the shots from center field, you see all the cardboard cut outs. Well, we were looking at the backs of those which were nothing like the front, and it looked like rows and rows of tombstones. Many other teams were allowed to use the sound track provided to them by the video game MLB the show, but the Dodgers had a grammy award winning audio group come in and customize their crowd noise. But, it was weird, because you would hear the crowd noise, and the “Let’s Go Dodgers” chant, but it was weird because you would hear that, yet you would see nobody saying it.
The History of Neverett
The Dodgers are one of the most diverse organizations in the history of any sport, so it’s only fitting that Neverett has such a diverse range of experience himself. Neverett grew up in Nashua, New Hampshire, and attended Emerson College where he majored in Mass Communications, interned at WEEI in Boston, and played college baseball. Since then he has worked in Las Vegas calling games for the AAA Dodgers, has been a studio host, has broadcasted 9 different sports, 4 different Olympics, has been the Play by Play Announcer for the Pirates, has broadcasted for the Red Sox, and now is with L.A.
Good Luck Charm
Neverett is, no question, very experienced, but he has also turned into something else, and that is a good luck charm. During his last 3 years as the play-by-play announcer for the Pirates, the Buccos made the Playoffs every year, but since his departure, they haven’t made the postseason since. When he moved to Boston, the Red Sox won the World Series in 2018, and LA won it in his 2nd year with the Dodgers in 2020.
It’s been a really good coincidence I guess. But, since I left Pittsburgh they haven’t made the playoffs, when I got to Boston they were in last place the year before, then won the Division 3 straight years and the World Series, then I got to L.A. and I thought they were going to win it in 2019, but the Nats were playing too good at the time. And then in 2020 the Dodgers win it and with the Dodgers you don’t just think about winning the Division, you think about winning the World Series every year and it’s a realistic possibility.
Up Close Account
Neverett and crew use their broadcast chair to make Dodgers fans feel as close to the action as possible. “Covid Curveball” goes well beyond that which is why the book is a must-read. It has a fantastic foreword by Orel Hershiser, stories that you won’t be able to stop reading, accounts, that, quite honestly, are hard to believe, and it will make you appreciate everything that went into broadcasting Dodgers baseball in 2020, the year of the “Covid Curveball”.
To purchase your hard copy, audiobook or Kindle digital version of Covid Curveball visit Amazon and search Covid Curveball by Tim Neverett or just simply click any of the highlighted and underlined sections of this story to visit the direct link.
