EP 11: Steven Brault on Pirates Baseball, Broadway & His Only MLB Home Run

you have enough talent to play Major League Baseball.

The odds that any player has to overcome to get one at-bat or throw one pitch in the big leagues are astronomical.

So you carve out a seven-year career as a Major League Baseball player.

Left-handed pitcher.

You sing the anthem not once but twice before a game.

Right.

You sing with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.

Mm-hmm.

Okay? Then, as your playing career...

I wouldn't say winding down.

It was still going at that time.

But you pulled me aside and...

We had always talked from day one, I knew you were destined for television.

There was no doubt about that.

We knew that instantaneously that TV was going to be your post-playing future and employment.

But the most interesting thing you said to me was that you wanted me to introduce you to play-by-play guys.

You did not want to meet TV executives who just step in there as a former player.

Right.

No player actively playing wants to meet play-by-play guys so they can ask questions on how to be a play-by-play guy.

What possessed you to do it? Well,

just to be honest with you, I just think

it's

more fun.

I like doing the analysis, and I love doing the pregame, postgame show that I do now with the Pirates, but the truth is, when it comes down to it, if you're going to be in the booth, would you rather be the guy who, when the big moment happens, gets to, and there it is, a deep drive out to left, or the guy who just goes...

And then waits.