Catching Up with Joe Angel

Over the weekend, longtime radio broadcaster Joe Angel, the winner of the Herb Armstrong Award for non-uniformed personnel, was inducted into the Orioles Hall of Fame. Angel spent 19 seasons over three stints with the Orioles as a radio broadcaster before retiring after the 2018 season, completing the final 15 years of his 42-year broadcasting career in Baltimore. He recently sat down with Geoff Arnold and Brett Hollander to discuss how he got started as a broadcaster, how his infamous catch phrases came about, what team he likes the least, and what retirement has been like.

Born in Colombia, South America, Angel didn’t move to the United States until he was seven years old, and didn’t start speaking English until he was 10. But he made sure to take advantage of every opportunity he was given.

When he was younger, he would grab a hairbrush, turn down the volume on the Cubs games, and call the game himself. Eventually, he moved to San Francisco and bought a recorder and microphone, but he still watched Major League Baseball games, this time from the stands, to practice calling the games.

“Out of the blue came a phone call from the program director at the flagship station of the Giants and they were looking to fill a position as the full-time sports director – not only to become the sports director, but also occasionally fill in on the Giants’ play-by-play team,” said Angel. “He asked me if I had ever done baseball before, and if he would have asked me in a different way, I would have had a different answer. But the way he phrased the question was, have you ever done baseball before? And I said ‘Yeah, I’ve done baseball before.’”

That night Angel went to a doubleheader between Cleveland and Oakland where he sat and called 13 or 14 innings of play-by-play. Then, he went back to the radio station where he worked and cut it down to his best three or four innings.

The next day, his career was born.

“I took it in the next day, they listened to it and they got back to me and they offered me the job,” said Angel. “Two weeks later, I’m in an airplane flying to Atlanta to make my Major League broadcasting debut, and my partner that day was none other than Al Michaels.”

With a broadcasting career comes catch phrases, and Angel had plenty to go around. He recounted the story of how his famous “In the win column!” came to be.

“In the win column started with the Orioles in 1988,” Angel said. “My debut, my introduction to Oriole baseball was the 1988 season that began 0-21. It was one of those situations when they finally won a ballgame, and we were elated at the results. I remember listening to a tape after the game, and I ended it with saying ‘And the Orioles are finally in the win column!’ And I thought it sounded really good, so I thought I’d incorporate that in my broadcast. It turned out pretty well. I took it with me every place after that.”

He also discusses another phrase, “Hasta La Vista, Pelota!” A call that he would only use for Latin players, that also paid a special tribute to his heritage.

The trio talks about what it was like for Arnold and Hollander, both Baltimore natives, to grow up listening to Angel, how he impacted their own career paths, and what that means to Angel.

“It’s great to be a broadcaster of a generation, and it was your generation,” said Angel. “When you get into broadcasting, I don’t think you have those goals in mind. You just want to get the job and do the best job possible, and you want to influence people and you want to entertain, but you don’t think of yourself as a generational guy. You don’t think of young people listening and you influence them.”

Angel, who spent time calling football for Stanford, also explains why he believes broadcasting baseball games is the hardest broadcasting job there is.

“Baseball is the only broadcast where I think broadcasters carry the game,” Angel said. “Because there is so much dead time in baseball, there is so much time to fill in. I think it’s the most challenging job, but that’s why it’s a full-time job. You have a game every day and every game is a continuation of the game before, but it’s different in many ways. That’s why I think it’s the most challenging and the most rewarding.”

They wrap up with Angel reflecting on his career with the Orioles and what his time in Baltimore meant to him.

“I don’t think any other broadcaster accomplished what I did in Baltimore, said Angel. “And I say it very humbly. My debut with the Orioles was 1988 and that was the 0-21 team. And eventually I would leave Baltimore on two occasions, I left after 1988 and after 1991 and I came back. It’s not very often you see a Major League broadcaster leave a market and come back on two different occasions. The Orioles kept taking me back and that’s the place where I was supposed to be, and it worked out fantastic.”

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