In multiple roles, Pat Malacaro has been around the Buffalo Bisons off and on since 1999. Duke McGuire's days with the club date nonstop all the way back to 1980. So not being at the ballpark, be it at Sahlen Field or on the road around the International League, is going to be very different for both of them.
They spend their spring and summer nights talking baseball – and sometimes whatever else is on their minds – during Bisons broadcasts on ESPN1520. But there will be no play-by-play from Malacaro, no bemoaning the leadoff walk by longtime color analyst McGuire. Like every other voice in Minor League Baseball, they were silenced Tuesday with cancellation of the 2020 season in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
"It was definitely a different kind of day," said Malacaro, 36. "For the last month, maybe even six weeks, you knew that it almost impossible to get 30 guys to Buffalo for a season. Expected it really but with it being official as the night went on, it set in and you're saying to yourself, 'This is real now.' "
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Malacaro was at spring training in Florida, sharing a stint on the air for Blue Jays games with current Toronto voice and former Bisons play-by-play man Ben Wagner while preparing for his third season as the Voice of the Herd. When workouts were paused, he said he was hopeful things would resume with a delay of no more than a month or two.
But Opening Day, April 9 at Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, came and went. So did the home opener, April 17 against Rochester. Friday night was slated to be the team's 80th game of the season, the annual Independence Eve bash with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra following the matchup against the Syracuse Mets. Instead of 16,000 people in the stands and fireworks in the sky, the park will be empty.
"When I'm on the 190 and drive by the ballpark, I remember it," Malacaro said. "I'm like, 'Oh yeah, we would have been playing today.' Maybe I'm just good at compartmentalizing things. That's why it hit so much Tuesday night. Knowing we won't be at the ballpark again until ... to be perfectly honest, I don't know when."
The 2020 season at Sahlen Field was slated to be the 136th in the history of professional baseball in Buffalo.
McGuire was the long-time public address announcer at War Memorial Stadium and then-Pilot Field through 1995 and has been a regular on the air since 1996. The Amherst native has been on the air at least part-time since a stint on International Cable in 1980 with the Double-A Herd.
"I was hoping they would have at least Triple-A. I really thought the lower minor leagues were done right off the bat," McGuire said. "But once the players and owners started going back and forth, putting things off and getting them backed up, I really said to myself, 'That's a problem right there.'
"Then when they put the taxi squad idea out there to keep their top prospects going, I realized this wasn't going to be good for us and it wasn't."
Malacaro, a South Buffalo native who was a batboy for the Bisons from 1999-2001, got his first full-time gig calling Batavia Muckdogs games from 2008-2010. So this was a double loss: Batavia is one of the cities that will likely lose its franchise to contraction as the minors and majors negotiate a new working agreement.
"That was really one of my first thoughts Tuesday," he said. "There's going to be players who have played their last game and not even known it when they played or pitched last season. And it hurts me to know people in Batavia probably won't have the ability to have that proper sendoff. That's going to hit those diehards in that community hard. You think of other broadcasters and front office people around baseball who planned to have one last great season and won't have the ability to interact with people in their communities."
While Malacaro is a full-time Bisons employee who was furloughed from his job, McGuire is a part-timer paid on a per-game basis for his broadcasting work. McGuire, 67, is a member of the Buffalo Baseball Hall of Fame and is a retired attendance officer at Amherst High School.
"You just have to adjust. Hope you get some reps in other sports this winter," Malacaro said. "Maybe there's college sports in your area you can help out that you never did before. It's not baseball but it will give you that ability to stay in that 'muscle memory' mindset."
"I'm going to play a little golf – or maybe a lot," McGuire said as he was heading to the links Thursday morning. "I'm on my way now and I have the best tan I have probably in my life. I burn and peel but this is the best tan ever. I've been playing golf, cutting the grass without my shirt on, taking a walk every day. I went up to 4-4 1/2 miles but my knees were sore so I cut it back to about 2."
Malacaro said the Bisons are paying his health care through the end of the year and he's hopeful of continuing his part-time work on WGR revolving around Sabres broadcasts. And he said he's planning on being back with the Bisons on Opening Day in 2021, whenever that is.
"The situation isn't great but they certainly didn't create it and I absolutely don't want to go out after just two years and never call another game again," he said. "If I have the ability to stick this out for however long it goes, I'm going to do it."
