Giants' Ritzo relishes big league debut

Giants manager Bruce Bochy was in his office on July 15 when San Francisco's latest prospect walked in, set to make his big league debut that day. It wasn't on any Major League transaction sheets, but Bochy knew.
"The first thing that Jon [Miller] and I did when we arrived at Coors Field about two hours before first pitch, we went into the clubhouse and met with Bruce Bochy," Joe Ritzo said. "I walk in with Jon and 'Boch' sees me, and I've known him from Spring Training, and he looks at me and goes, 'Alright, big callup day.' He knew exactly what was going on."

For over a decade, fans of the San Jose Giants have listened to Ritzo's broadcasts. The 35-year-old native of Palo Alto, California, has been with San Francisco's Class A Advanced affiliate since 2007, through the big league club's run of three World Series titles in five years. He's seen dozens of players whose names he called in the California League become part of dream moments in the Majors. Two weeks ago, he got to join them.
Ritzo, who has called Cactus League games for the Giants since 2017, got a phone call at the beginning of the month. On the other end was San Francisco executive vice president of business operations Mario Alioto. The Giants had a doubleheader coming up in Denver, and radio voice Dave Flemming would be unavailable due to a national outlet commitment.
"They just had Jon Miller in the radio booth and wanted somebody to work with Jon for both games. He asked if I would do it, and," Ritzo laughed, "of course, I said yes."
As the day neared, San Jose drew up a plan for its own substitute in Ritzo's chair. Justin Allegri, who's worked with Ritzo on San Jose home games in recent seasons, stepped in.
"We were on a Southern California road trip in Lancaster that weekend. Ironically, Lancaster's a Rockies affiliate, so I went from a Giants-Rockies Minor League game to Giants-Rockies Major League," Ritzo said. "Justin drove down and met us in the middle of the road trip, and he took care of the two San Jose games that I missed."
The day before his big league call, Ritzo flew to Denver, and the immensity of the coming moment hit him.
"It hadn't really set in that I was doing this, really, because I'm right in the middle of my San Jose season, and I'm preparing every day for a San Jose broadcast and involved with my responsibilities with the Minor League Giants," he said. "It wasn't really until I left the San Jose team the day before and hopped on this flight to go out to Denver that I was like, 'Yeah, this is really happening."
On a Monday morning, Ritzo woke up in his temporary team's downtown Denver hotel and headed to the corner of 20th and Blake, where he'd fulfill a lifelong dream by calling his first Major League game -- alongside a voice from his childhood.
"I grew up a Giants fan," Ritzo said. "I grew up in the Bay Area. I grew up listening to and watching Giants games, and that includes Jon Miller. He came on in '97. I was in middle school, big Giants fan growing up and remember listening to Jon all the time on the radio. Pretty surreal, then, two decades later, that I'm in the chair next to him calling games for the San Francisco Giants."
Before settling into that chair, he and Miller headed to the clubhouse.
"Jon did his five-minute pregame interview [with Bochy], and then it was just the three of us sitting in there talking for about a half an hour," Ritzo said. "I'm with a Hall of Fame broadcaster and a future Hall of Fame manager, and here I am in my first day in the big leagues and we're just talking about baseball, talking about the team and what Bruce was expecting to happen with the doubleheader that day, and then after a while Bochy starts asking me about what's going on with the San Jose team. He wants to know how some guys are looking down at the Minor League level. It was a great chat, and then Jon and I went upstairs and got ourselves ready for the broadcast."
Ritzo and his partner entered the day with a familiar relationship already in place because of their mutual time in the Cactus League, even though they'd only been in the booth together a couple times.
"[Miller's] down there in Arizona the whole month, so we actually get a chance to go out and have meals together frequently over the course of Spring Training," Ritzo said. "It's a great opportunity for me to sit there with him and soak in all of his great broadcasting and baseball knowledge. We'll talk about broadcasting, talk about the Giants, talk about what's going on around baseball, talk about non-baseball stuff. Jon is so well-traveled and well-versed on so many subjects. It's been great to have that experience the last few years, so when I got the chance to work with him a couple of weeks ago, it felt very comfortable."
With Miller handling the early innings on play-by-play, Ritzo focused on taking it all in.
"You have that moment where you look out and there's 30,000 people in the crowd, which is very different from what I'm used to experiencing in the Minor League level," he said. "But then once my play-by-play started, it was almost as if I didn't have a chance really to get nervous because it all happened so fast and I'm just trying to keep up and call the action to the best of my ability."
The Giants didn't disappoint, and neither did Ritzo. In the opener, San Francisco blitzed Colorado pitching for 19 runs, including seven in the top of the third, Ritzo's first half-inning on play-by-play.
"I think it was such an exciting day for the San Francisco Giants, and I was just trying to capture that in my innings," he said. "When you're going into a doubleheader at Coors Field, you're trying to prepare yourself for some long games and some high-scoring innings, but I don't know if you ever could've envisioned seven runs in your first half-inning of Major League play-by-play."
After his team cruised to a 19-2 rout, Ritzo -- finally -- could breathe.
"In between games, Jon says, 'I'm going to go for a walk and grab something to eat,'" he explained. "Coors Field is right in the middle of downtown, lots of good places to eat. I said, 'You know, I'm going to stay right here. I'm in the big league ballpark. I don't want to go anywhere right now.' Plus, it gave me a chance to catch my breath and get some normal prep in for the second game."
The night game was the antithesis of the afternoon: a tidy, two-hour, 42-minute affair that finished as a 2-1 Giants win. With the sweep under his belt, Ritzo took off the next day. He was headed back home.

"I think it just meant even more to me because it was the Giants," he said. "Growing up right down the road, I probably went to just as many San Jose games if not more than San Francisco games as a kid. I remember as a 9-year-old bringing my tape recorder to San Jose Municipal Stadium and doing a San Jose Giants game in the bleachers there. To be able to do games for San Jose was already just a dream come true and an amazing experience, and then to have a chance to do it at the Major League level was just a whole other deal and something I'll never forget."

Back in San Jose, Ritzo returned to the embrace of his club -- in ruthlessly jocular baseball style. Hitting coach Thomas Neal didn't waste a second.
"I called his games as a player and now he's a coach, in his first year as our hitting coach, so I've known him for a long time," Ritzo said. "The first thing he says to me is, 'Joe, man, I heard you on the postgame show taking credit for the team scoring 19 runs in your first game.' He says, 'How about you give the hitters a little credit?' He's a hitting coach. I'd said on postgame on radio with Jon and Duane Kuiper, who came over from TV, 'Hey, the Giants are averaging 19 runs per game when I'm on the broadcast.'
"I guess a lot of them were listening when they were in Lancaster that day. The reaction and the support from everyone has been great. A lot of our fans in San Jose have come up to me and congratulated me and said how awesome it was to hear me. It's been great."