My first memories listening to Jack Corrigan as the play-by-play radio announcer for the Colorado Rockies were on the actual radio.
Whether I was in the car, at home, or at work, I turned the dial or the digital numbers on the AM radio to 850 KOA. I lived in Colorado Springs, so there were occasional issues with the signal to the Denver radio station. But I was mostly able to listen, so long as I had a radio.
That context ties so many of those memories to the places I lived and worked. I listened on the way home or while I was at work. I listened while I played video games on the couch or while I helped in the yard.
I listened in a lot of different places, but they mostly had to be Colorado places. More on that "mostly" in a minute.
Jack Corrigan has been one of my "friends in the booth," as Joe Posnanski recently called it, since he started calling Rockies games in 2002. In the time since, I have moved to Minnesota and lived here more years than I lived in Colorado. But thanks to the technology advances that make streaming a possibility, I can now listen to the games on my phone.
Each time I hear Jack Corrigan calling the action for the Rockies, I feel at home.
Thanks for reading Ongoing Attempts, the newsletter about sports and connections. Sometimes that means it isn't really about sports at all, even if that's where we start.
Read on for more from a writer who is apparently 40 going on 70, given my affinity for sports on the radio. You can subscribe, too. Just click below.
From the security booth to the open roads of Wyoming
The Colorado Rockies last reached the MLB playoffs in 2018. They made it the season before that as well. Even so, I think of 2009 as the last time they had a really good team.
I don't have much substance to back that up, and I don't have the energy to argue about it. I just know that's the last time I actually thought the Rockies might have a team that could win the World Series.
That opinion is likely informed by the excitement I felt about that team at the time. That excitement was likely propped up by the excitement I heard from Jack Corrigan during some of the key victories in that season's pennant race.
I remember one win over the New York Yankees. I worked in hotel security, and was assigned to check vehicles at one of the entrances. That job involved sitting in a small hut for most of the time, walking out to the curb as people arrived.
Using an old radio that would baffle younger generations, I tuned into the Rockies game. They needed the win, and I was still at the point where the very notion of my team beating the Yankees seemed kind of impossible. If they could do it, then it was proof that this team was for real. Or at least it could be.
At some point during my shift in the later innings of that game, the Yankees had runners on base. The Rockies were clinging to a lead. I'm light on the details of the game, but I don't think they ultimately matter. You just need to know that the Yankees had a big chance, and a Rockies pitcher was in big trouble.
What I remember distinctly was the extra notch of volume and excitement from Jack Corrigan when the Rockies escaped that jam.
"Struck him out!"
It was luck that I was able to sit in the little security hut for that moment. No cars to welcome to the fancy hotel. No drunks on the sidewalk. Just a couple minutes of to sit and listen to baseball on the radio.
"Some of my best friends are baseball announcers … and I never even met some of them." - Joe Posnanski
Those hotel security shifts accompanied an uncomfortable period in my life. There was some family stuff. I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. Lots of things were changing.
I marked the bookend of that time when I drove from Colorado to North Dakota for my wedding. All by myself, on stretches of I-25 that alternated between chaos and peacefulness as I crossed from Colorado into Wyoming, I listened to the Rockies on the radio.
I won't say that I ever felt particularly settled on that drive. I was pretty nervous. I was also excited. But with all the uncertainty that was ahead of me, hearing Jack calling a Rockies game brought me a little bit of peace.
"There is nothing more personal in sports, I think, than the relationship between the baseball fan and the announcer." - Joe Posnanski
It has been about 15 years since those moments that stand out to me. A lot has changed for me in that time, as I'm sure it has for you. I've had a few different jobs and even one that would be considered a career. I have less hair overall and more gray hair. I entered and exited my 30's.
We got through COVID. Our family has two beautiful kids now. I get to face down a whole new set of challenges and things I don't know and things I don't understand. Lots of things are changing.
But I still get to listen to sports on the radio and spend time with my friends in the booth.
Now it might be one earbud with the Rockies game while I clean up the kitchen. I feel like I'm back home.
Now it might be background noise while I try to overcome anxiety about falling asleep, listening to Jack Corrigan calling another hopeless Rockies loss. I feel like I'm back home.
For the ruthlessness of sports media and what is surely a waning interest in sports on the radio, the longevity of these play-by-play announcers is remarkable. We get to have the same friends in the booth for years, sometimes decades.
I can stream the Rockies audio and it's still Jack Corrigan, the same as it was 24 years ago. I can listen to the Denver Broncos and there's Dave Logan, the same voice that I remember hearing on 850 KOA for most of my life. So much has changed about sports and sports media, and yet those guys are still there.
I'm grateful for that.
This used to be funny
Speaking of friends in the booth, I leaned on the "SVP and Russillo" radio show to get through a lot of miserable days at work back in the 2010's.
Let me tell you about a weird place to be: the pitch-black Loss Prevention office of a Kohl's, with the dark only interrupted by the glare of the four screens that show the security cameras in the store. That's where I found myself each day during my tenure in retail security.
I was mostly uncomfortable as I sat there, one day after the next, watching people shop and trying to spot shoplifters. And for whatever it's worth, I wasn't very good at it. That's despite the fact that people steal a lot.
They steal so much, you guys. If you're ever shopping at Kohl's, just assume someone around you is shoplifting. Maybe a couple people.
Anyway, Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo talking about sports helped me fill crucial minutes on those shifts. I always looked forward to listening to them.
It was a smart show, but it was also just silly enough. Those two had just the right balance of running jokes and self-deprecating references.
For Russillo, that schtick was his being kind of a bro-ey meathead. He was a gym guy and would talk about bro stuff. The contrast was Van Pelt, who would joke about not understanding that world and not really being a tough guy.
That oversimplifies the dynamic, but you get the idea. And with the contrast between them, combined with the fact this was pre-2016 election, Russillo's bro act was funny.
Now that persona is just kind of sad. We don't have the time to get into all the reasons. I'll just ask you this: What can any of us do after the last 10 years of grievances and nonsense and cruelty from a certain population of bros but shrug and feel kind of sad?
I want to be clear: I have never met Ryen Russillo. I have no idea what kind of guy he is, and I haven't followed his work for a while.
With that qualifier out of the way, I will say I wasn't terribly surprised that he's now with Barstool Sports. I learned that when I read this hilariously titled blog post from Tom Ley at Defector ($): "Ryen Russillo Hawks Troughs Of Sodium In Grim Video."
To be fair, it doesn't appear that Russillo thinks this whole act is funny anymore either. Maybe we're all on the same page about that point. But it is certainly clear that the days of Russillo being one of my friends in the booth are firmly behind me.
We know too much about these bros now. Or at least we should.
Lemon flavored Italian ice
Alfred Morris was an NFL running back from 2012 to 2020. He burst onto the scene with three 1,000 yard seasons for the Washington Football team. From there he floundered at a few different stops, but he was always an easy guy to root for as a 6th round pick out of Florida Atlantic.
He was also a pesky name to figure out for those of us who play fantasy football, especially after his left Washington D.C. More than once as he bounced around over the years on rosters for the Cowboys and 49ers, we wondered if we should reserve a spot on our pretend teams for Morris.
One such program with some Alfred Morris conversation was Harris Football, a noted favorite of mine. Host Chris Harris frequently has his cousin Josh on the show, and on one of those appearances back in that era, Josh said Morris was like a "lemon-flavored Italian ice."
It made Harris laugh. It made me laugh. It made many listeners laugh, I am sure.
Morris has been out of the league for six years. On the one hand, I cannot believe it was only six years ago that Alfred Morris was in the NFL. On the other hand, I had mostly forgotten about Morris until I recently came upon a new flavor of Waterloo seltzer.
Waterloo Sparkling Water
This flavor is one of a handful that represent a collaboration between Guy Fieri and Waterloo. Let me tell you, if this newsletter is interested in unlikely connections, then you know I love getting from Alfred Morris to Guy Fieri in the course of two sentences.
I also love the fact that a seltzer flavor made me bust out laughing. I was by myself, and nobody who might have been around would have gotten it anyway.
But I know that a fellow Harris Football listener would get the joke and appreciate the chance to remember Alfred Morris. We could chuckle and say, "let's crack open another Alfred Morris selzer."
For that and so many other inside jokes and moments of joy, I have Chris Harris and his cousin and his guests to thank.
Call it the 2026 version of friends in the booth. And if anyone ever asks you what Jack Corrigan could possibly have to do with Alfred Morris, you can high-five them for their appreciation of deep cuts and niche sports figures. And then you can share this newsletter with them.
