On April 1, Terry Smith broadcasted his 12th Opening Day as an announcer for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim on AM 830 KLAA. In his first year in 2002, the Angels won its first and only World Series championship. The Ladera Ranch resident joined the Angels after serving as the radio voice of the New York Yankees Triple-A affiliate Columbus Clippers for 19 seasons. From 1983-1997, Smith also served as Sports Director on WBNS AM in Columbus, Ohio and was simply known as “The Voice,” serving as play-by-play announcer for the Ohio State University football and basketball radio network from 1986-1997. Smith started his baseball broadcasting career in 1978, calling games for the Jacksonville Suns and later called games for the Memphis Chicks from 1981-82. We got a chance to sit down with Smith and asked him a number of questions regarding the Angels, his love of hockey and pop music, and living in Ladera Ranch.
Q. What does Opening Day mean to you?
A. Opening Day is a way of wiping the slate clean; starting a brand new season. The anticipation of Opening Day is always one that you’re kind of geared up for. Opening Day is an exciting day. It’s a fresh start to a new season. It’s a very exciting time for the players and the broadcasters as well.
Q. What’s been the biggest highlight of your broadcasting career?
A. Without question the 2002 World Series. I’ve had a chance to call some no-hitters as well, but in my first year as an Angels announcer, to see where that season started at 6-14 and then end with the Angels’ first world championship. I’m hoping I have another season that matches that, but that’s something that I’ll never forget. People always say the first one is always special. It certainly was for me.
Q. You played college hockey. Ever consider broadcasting the sport?
A. I’ve never had the opportunity, but in the back of my mind it’s the one thing in my broadcasting career that I would like to fulfill. I know I can do it. I know the game. I grew up in Philadelphia during the days of the Broadstreet Bullies. I was a big Flyers fan. Attended their championship parades. Maybe somewhere down the line I will have a chance to do that. That would be exciting for me. And it would really be exciting to go back to my hometown – not as a Flyers announcer – but to do a game with the Flyers playing. That would be extremely exciting.
Q. What is the best part of your job?
A. For me, I’m such a huge baseball fan, that to me my job is kind of my hobby. If I wasn’t do this, I’d proabably have like 5 or 10 fantasy teams and I’d be following that religiously. I have the best seat in the house and travel to the best cities in the country. This is a hobby that’s turned into my job. For that, I’m exteremely grateful. This is what I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve done major college football and basketball at Ohio State, but I always wanted to do major league baseball. I’m extremely thankful I was given the opportunity. I will never take this for granted.
Q. What is the worst part of your job?
A. Being away from your family. To a big extent, my son, who is going to graduate in June from college, I missed a lot of things with him growing up because I was away. Missed a lot of little elague games. That was a sacrifice, but I think my wife knew what she was getting in to when we got married. We’ve been married for 30 years. My son, I guess he would’ve liked me to be around a little more, but we’re still very close. He knew that this was part of the job, especialy in the spring and summer time, that I would be a way a lot. I’ve been doing this every single season since 1977, either at the minor league level or major league level continuously without the break. It became my life and my family grew to expect it.
Q. What do you expect from this year’s Angels?
A. The sky’s the limit. I would love to see the Angels get back to the World Series. I certainly think they’re going to get into the playoffs, and when you get into the playoffs, strange things happen. Strange things happened in 2002 when the Angels went right through the playoffs. So you never know what happens when you get there. I expect this team to be a postseason team. I think the talent is there. As long as the tealent lives up to their capabailities and expectations…this is a playoff team. I think they’re capable of going to the World Series, but they’re going to have some breaks for that to happen.
Q. Did you always want to be a broadcaster?
A. I had three career paths. I thought, as a youngster: one was to be an athlete, which I found out in high school that that wasn’t going to happen. Then the next thing would’ve been to kind of follow my dad’s footsteps. He was a high school football coach, coached basketball, but primarily football. Coaching is in my blood. I did that with some of my son’s basketball teams. In my last year in high school, I kind of got a itch to see what broadcasting was all about. I always like following sports on TV and radio. My senior year in high school, instead of going to school five days a week, I went four. They had a work study program. If there was a field you thought you wanted to pursue in college or maybe as you got older, they would try and set up an internship for you as a high school senior. My senior year, every Tuesday I went to a radio station, and that convinced me I wanted to pursue broadcasting. That was probably the best thing I ever got out of high school. That chance convinced me that, hey, I want to try this.
Q. What’s one thing most people do not know about you?
A. I’m a huge pop music fan. People find that hard to believe, I think. But I like Katy Perry, Rhianna, the Lumineers, Mumford & Sons. That’s soemthing I really get in to. I don’t watch a lot of TV, but I love “The Shark Tank.” I watch that religiously. I’ll TiVo that and watch it when the season starts.
Q. How do you like living in Ladera Ranch?
A. We really like it. It’s been our only home in Southern California. We watched our house get built, which was exciting. We saw a neighborhood come to being from nothing but dirt. We don’t have very many relatives in southern California, so it was a whole new experience for us. Someone in the Angels organziation had recommended Ladera when we were house hunting. We checked it out and have no regrets whatsoever.
