His voice is one of the most recognizable in all of professional sports – especially for Los Angeles sports fans. He arrives at Dodger Stadium several hours early before every home game to prepare for that day’s game. Dodger fans are so familiar with his flawless and dynamic voice that they often take him for granted, yet when he takes a rare day off or goes on vacation, everybody at Dodger Stadium immediately knows it and there is a sense of awkwardness throughout Chavez Ravine. But unless you stay for the totals after every game at Dodger Stadium, you might not even know his name.

No, it’s not the golden voice of Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, it’s the other golden voice of the Dodgers – Eric Smith, the Dodgers longtime Public Address (PA) announcer and he is, hands down, the best in the business.

Eric Smith fully realizes and appreciates that he has a job that every Dodger fan dreams of having.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Smith was born and raised a mere 20 minutes from Dodger Stadium in San Gabriel, California and now lives in Glendora with his wife Jenny, son Calvin and daughter Casie. And like most Dodger fans of his generation, he grew up listening to Vin Scully on the radio and legendary Dodgers PA announcer John Ramsey during his many childhood trips to Dodger Stadium. But even as a high school teenager, his teachers and counselors realized that Smith had a special gift – he was blessed with a perfect voice and they encouraged him to pursue a career in radio.

Following the advice of many, Smith attended and graduated from Pepperdine University with a degree in broadcasting with aspirations of getting into radio. Realizing that this was a difficult field in which to make a living and raise a family, he returned to Pepperdine and earned his masters degree in education – which he has put to good use. In addition to being the Dodgers full-time PA announcer since 2002, Smith also teaches Advanced Placement U.S. History, regular U.S. History and a college prep Computer Skills class at Glendora High School.

So how did the 49-year-old Southern California native land what is arguably one of the greatest jobs in the world, one that every Dodger fan would love to have?

“Like a lot of people I did high school football games,” Smith said. “As a teacher, I’ve been teaching for over twenty years, and when you’re a teacher sometimes you’re asked to do this, that and the other, and I was a broadcasting major at Pepperdine and had done some radio stuff and things like that. So when I started [teaching] at a high school they asked ‘Would you mind doing some football games?’ I said ‘Sure, it would be fun.’ So that’s how I got my start, doing high school football games.”

Smith estimates that in his 12 seasons with the Dodgers he has announced nearly a thousand Dodger games – but that’s not the half of it. He became a part-time PA announcer for the L.A. Clippers in the mid ’90s and their full-time announcer in 2001. So what does he do when there are schedule conflicts with the Dodgers and Clippers, who are playoff-bound this season?

“My priority is to be here at Dodger Stadium even when it comes to Clippers playoff games,” said Smith without hesitation. “My first calling is here and I’m hoping I don’t miss too many Clippers [playoff] games. I’m praying that the schedule gods are in my favor.”

If Dodgers and Clippers fans also happen to be USC Trojan football fans, they undoubtedly recognized Smith’s distinctive voice at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum recently as well.

“I started doing USC football games two seasons ago,” said Smith. “People must say ‘That guy is everywhere, why doesn’t he shut up,'” he added with a chuckle.

Doing any job for 12 years there are bound to be occasional sick days, but believe it or not Smith has missed only one Dodger game due to illness.

“I missed a game two years ago when I had a horrible case of the flu,” said Smith. “It was the kind where I could not get out of bed, so I have missed one game because of the flu and that was it. But in my whole life I’ve never had laryngitis. There have been times I have come here and I have been very sick and I made the announcement and I put my head down, and they’d tap me when the next guy is at bat and I’d say it, and I put my head back down again.”

Smith has also missed a handful of games for field trips abroad with his high school students. In fact, he missed the Dodgers 2014 home opening series against the Giants earlier this month. Ironically, it was the first Dodgers home opener he has ever missed.

“Every two or three years I take trips with some of my history students,” Smith said. “I just spent 12 days in Europe with 42 students and missed the home opener. I may have to miss a few more games in the future, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

In Smith’s absence for this year’s home opening series the Dodgers brought in former Dodgers broadcaster Ross Porter for game-one, popular sitcom actor Jason Bateman for game-two and beloved lifelong Dodger fan and former Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart for game-three. What does Smith think about these well-known replacements filling in for him?

“I realize that there are a lot of people who would love to do this [job],” Smith said. “I think most people want the opportunity to do it once or twice. I think the idea of doing it eighty times in a row? ‘Yah… no thanks.'”

Trust us, Eric – although Porter, Bateman and Hart all did a great job (especially Mary Hart), your job is safe.

You’d have a hard time convincing anyone that lifelong Dodger fan Mary Hart didn’t have an absolute blast as the guest Dodger Stadium PA announcer. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

When you have announced nearly one thousand Dodger games over a 12-year period, you have undoubtedly witnessed some great and perhaps even historic baseball moments. What are some of Smith’s greatest memories while behind the Dodger Stadium PA mic?

“The back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in 2006 was amazing,” recalls Smith. “And it was capped off by Nomar’s walk-off home run [in the 10th inning], so that game was unbelievable. But every time Eric Gagné came in when he was the closer, it was amazing… that feeling when he came in. I remember as a kid Fernandomania and that kind of excitement and all, but when we started playing the song [Welcome to the Jungle] and the bullpen gate opened up, the crowd just went nuts during the years that Gagné was on that streak. It was a magical time. I remember the night that the streak ended, the fans stood and applauded him for several minutes. He was an unbelievable entity for the Dodgers. It’s not just a time, it’s that era, the Gagné era.

“And then there was the Alex Cora at bat, the 18-pitch at bat that he capped off with a home run,” Smith added. “That has to be the greatest at bad I’ve ever seen.”

When you stop and consider that Smith speaks before nearly four million Dodgers fans every year, that can be a little overwhelming and intimidating, and as you might expect, things don’t always go as planned.

“Luckily I have great audio guys who will tell me when the microphone is open,” Smith said. “I used to wear the Madonna headset kind of thing where I had to hit a button to turn it on and hit a button to turn it off, and sometimes I’d think I turned it off and I started to say something and it creeps out over the speakers. One time during a game we had someone in here watching the game and he was leaving and I knew he was flying out, and I turned around and said ‘Have a great trip,’ so everybody here knew that somebody was going to have a great trip. There have been a few other minor things but that’s kind of the worst thing that’s occurred. For the most part I’ve been kind of lucky,” added Smith as he knocked on the wooden counter top.

With the growing number of Latino and Asian baseball players in the game today with names that are difficult to pronounce, how does Smith always seem to get them right?.

“Part of the pre-game process is to usually go talk to the radio and TV guys from the visiting team,” said Smith.” If I have a chance to do that they’ll give me the name, but even that doesn’t always work. For instance, with the Tigers, they have [catcher] Alex Avila. I think his father or grandfather was [legendary Dodgers scout] Ralph Avila so I announced yesterday Alex Avila. Later I was told ‘No no – he’s changed it, it’s pronounced A-VEE-la.’ So sometimes it’s the ones you think are easy – how can you mess up Avila? But when you mess one up you’re usually told.

“Believe it or not, the Japanese names look like they’re going to be horrific but they’re usually phonetically pronounced,” added Smith. “But some of the names are a bit difficult like [recently signed Cuban shortstop prospect Esribel] Arruebarrena, I’m going to have to make sure that I get the correct pronunciation for him. Usually I’ll have the radio and TV guys and the Dodgers PR guys come talk to me, that’s usually the best thing.”

When asked if he ever goes down on the field before games to speak with visiting players to confirm the pronunciation of their names, Smith said that he does not.

“I don’t even go down to talk to our own guys,” Smith said emphatically. “I like to keep that separation. I don’t think they want to be bothered by me. I’d love to be able to have a chat with them, but no, I keep my distance without bothering them. We have good PR guys to help communicate whatever I need.”

Much like Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully, Eric Smith spends several hours preparing for every Dodger game. And much like Vin Scully, there isn’t anything he would rather be doing. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

We as Dodger fans are perhaps the most spoiled fans in the entire sporting world – we have the greatest broadcaster of all time in Vin Scully, we have the most beautiful stadium in all of baseball, we have an ownership group that is willing to spend the money to acquire (and keep) the best players in the game, we have a team that will most likely make it deep into the postseason, we have the great Nancy Bea at the Dodger Stadium organ and we are blessed to have the best PA announcer in the game in Eric Smith.

Man, it’s great to be a Dodger fan!