This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola’s Marlins Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
There was no Plan B for Kyle Sielaff. It was always going to be baseball for the New Yorker.
Sielaff, who played first base at Finger Lakes Community College in Canandaigua, snapped his leg in half sledding down a hill during the winter of his sophomore year. It was around that time Sielaff decided to transfer to the University of Miami, where he would go on to graduate in December 2012 with degrees in broadcast journalism and sports administration.
Over the past 12 seasons, Sielaff has worked with the Marlins Radio Network, the past two as the lead play-by-play voice. He now takes over that role, but on the TV side for FanDuel Sports Network.
Below is a Q&A to get to know Sielaff, my former WVUM 90.5 FM radio partner who is an avid golfer, country music fan and cat dad to “Miss Mittens.”
MLB.com: What's your first baseball memory?
Sielaff: I was born in Orlando, [Florida], and when I was 3 or 4, we moved up to New York. I vaguely -- and maybe it's just because I've seen pictures -- remember going to a Spring Training Marlins-Orioles game with my dad, or maybe it was Marlins-Braves. This had to have been like '94. But my real baseball memories are growing up going to Shea Stadium. All my dad's side of the family's from Long Island, and they were big Mets fans growing up. So that's who I grew up cheering for.
MLB.com: Why baseball?
Sielaff: Honestly, I think I really fell in love with it because I grew up on farmland in New York, and I just remember using a little transistor radio. It makes us sound like we're 85 years old, but it wasn't that long ago that you could use a transistor radio. I remember once in a blue moon I would find the Mets games up there on a clear night. I know it sounds stupid, but on a clear night when there were no clouds, I could hear baseball. My grandfather, who passed away in October '18, I would call him after every Mets game for years. We would literally break down the games.
I don't know what else to say, other than I know for a fact that I wouldn't miss a game. I fell in love with the broadcasters more than the players.
"I'm never going to play it, but I want to broadcast it and be around it." I felt like that was the one sport that I knew better than others, and I just loved baseball. It has really been my only plan. "How can I broadcast baseball?" I didn't care where it was, but I just wanted to do it.
MLB.com: How would you describe your broadcasting style?
Sielaff: Passionate, energetic. I think I don't necessarily need to dial that back a little bit on television. But again, I think the television and the images do the talking. But I'm a huge believer, especially in baseball, of becoming an extension of people's families. I don't want to annoy them. If you have your family in the house for too long and you don't shut up, you're going to annoy them. So honestly, that's the way I kind of like to think about it: "Don't annoy people."
You're going to be in their homes, on their TVs, seven months out of the year. Make them enjoy you. Speak when spoken to. I want people to have fun. I want them to know that I'm one of them, because I'm living a charmed life. But at the core of it, I'm just a huge baseball fan, because I don't know what else to do with myself. I want people to enjoy what they're watching and have fun. The one thing that [producer] John Sulser and the Marlins have done on TV for a really long time that's been really cool [is] it's light, it's fun.
MLB.com: How different will your broadcasting style be on TV?
Sielaff: I have spent a ton of time watching any team's broadcast. I have watched how they open the show, like the mechanics of it. I've also turned on a Pirates game in the middle of June, in the seventh inning on a Wednesday just to listen and watch. I chatted with Tommy Hutton about this on the phone last week. On television, the color analyst is more the star of the show, and it's my job to keep the car between the lines. On radio, the play-by-play guy is more the star of the show, because you have an obligation to literally call every single pitch.
So that's the biggest conclusion I think I've come to for me to start until I really get comfortable and people understand the way I work, from a truck perspective and everything, is that "less is more." If I've got nothing to say, don't say anything at all. I'm not obligated to fill time. People just want to watch. I don't want to be overbearing. I'm going to let them watch the game and have a good time and just hang out with people, is the way I see it.