TORONTO — For Ben Wagner, life has been on fast-forward since February. He doesn't anticipate things will slow down much until the baseball season ends in October.
In April, Wagner fully expected to be on the air calling Buffalo Bisons games for the 12th consecutive season. Everything changed on Feb. 13, when legendary Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play man Jerry Howarth suddenly announced his retirement after 36 years in the radio booth due to health reasons.
Wagner was summoned to spring training in Florida for what was expected to be a week-long tryout. The stint turned into a month. And it ultimately turned into his lifelong goal: Being awarded the microphone for a major-league team. Like so many players who have made the trip up the Queen Elizabeth Way from Buffalo the last five years, Wagner is now with the Blue Jays as their top radio voice.
"It's nuts," a smiling Wagner said before a recent game in Rogers Centre. "Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to keep my head above water, but you have to pinch yourself to remind yourself it's real. Life has changed. The lifestyle is completely different."
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Indeed, there are no more overnight bus trips home from Pawtucket, arriving at Coca-Cola Field in the middle of the morning rush hour. The big leagues are about charter flights and top-shelf hotels, though the schedule remains arduous. During one May trip, for instance, the Blue Jays arrived in St. Petersburg, Fla., at 5 a.m. following a doubleheader in Cleveland that stretched more than 10 hours.
"I don't think I've ever fallen asleep faster on a plane than I did after that day," Wagner said. "People are with you from their lunch break all the way until it's time for bed on that one. You had to be sharp, and that was the biggest test of this entire process so far."
Sleep is valued because you have to be wide awake in this gig. The Blue Jays' flagship radio station is Sportsnet the Fan 590, the most prominent all-sports voice in Canada. But the reach of the games, of course, is worldwide through the Internet. Wagner spends most of his time on the air calling innings with veteran Mike Wilner, who has also been the longtime host of the team's popular postgame call-in show.
Former players, including ex-Bisons and Blue Jays catcher Josh Thole, have spent time as analysts this season and some games also include Dan Shulman, the Toronto native who stepped away from his role on ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" this season to focus more of his energies at home. There is a veteran, trusted engineer in Tom Young (Wagner had to do his own engineer work in the minors). Sportsnet has its own statistics department to help fill Wagner's notebook and he said he has tapped the invaluable knowledge of Toronto television announcers Buck Martinez, Pat Tabler, Joe Siddall, Cliff Floyd and Hazel Mae.
Wilner, who has been part of the broadcast team for 18 seasons, quickly formed chemistry on the air with Wagner
"Mike has made it extremely easy on me," Wagner said. "His longevity, the fact he's an encyclopedia of Blue Jays baseball, that fact he's so passionate about it, makes him such a resource. He's been here and I'm the new guy and he has been an ultimate pro though the entire thing. A lot of booths and situations don't finish as comfortably as this has, with Mike ensuring it's going to happen that way. I'm really fortunate for him to be supportive of me."
“If it sounds like there’s been an easy chemistry between me and Ben on the air, that’s because there really has been," Wilner said via Twitter direct message. "Having known each other for a few years and having enjoyed each other’s work, I was excited to get the chance for us to do some games together this spring, and we clicked right away. He’s an excellent broadcaster, he knows and loves the game, and it really feels like we’re on the same wavelength on the air. Ben is all about having the best broadcast possible.”
WE ARE LIVE! Welcome to Minneapolis for #BlueJays baseball tonight. https://t.co/yE8JvxoFcX
— Ben Wagner (@benwag247) May 1, 2018
Building a relationship
Wagner, an Indiana native, was in Buffalo from 2007 to 2017 after starting his career at Class A Lakewood (N.J.). Once the Blue Jays and Bisons hooked up in 2013, Wagner was a frequent guest on the the Fan 590 discussing the Bisons and top Toronto prospects. He also regularly appeared across the country on shows in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
"There are a number of plum jobs in the big leagues, but if you had asked me six years ago before the affiliation in Buffalo if the Toronto Blue Jays is one of those jobs, I don't think I would have said yes," Wagner said. "But I learned. Experiencing it as the Triple-A affiliate and getting to know Jerry and going through these moments where the prospects come up and I'm getting requests to talk about Marcus Stroman or Aaron Sanchez, it really started to sink in that this is really a big deal. So I was able to embrace the importance of the reach and the fan base and the network. It's awesome."
It also helped that Wagner developed a relationship with Howarth as well, from visits at spring training and chats during the season.
"It's daunting in a sense, but Jerry is so kind and compassionate it lessens the pressure, because you know him on a personal level," Wagner said. "It's very evident when he walks in the ballpark and everybody knows him. And he remembers everybody. ... It's those kind of relationships you hope you could replicate eventually someday."
Howarth, who joined original Blue Jays voice Tom Cheek in 1981, is in Wagner's corner.
"I like Ben a lot," Howarth said during a May interview with the Canadian Press. "What I’m really happy about is, No. 1, he got the job after 14 years in the minor leagues, 11 in Buffalo. Ben is a real pro. He works well with whomever is around him. He’s going to get better and better.
"He’s got a good style and a good pace. He works hard at it and he’s knowledgeable. He’s 37. I began here when I was 35, and 36 years later I retired. He can have that same kind of career."
Wagner said he was stunned when he was first shown Howarth's comments.
"It's incredibly emotional to think about that," Wagner said. "The first thing is that he believes in you that much and two, he validates what I've been doing and what he's been listening to. He didn't just retire and ride off into the sunset. He listens. He watches. He's out here once or twice a series to reconnect with old friends. To hear him say that is extremely gratifying and very humbling. It also reinforces the fact I have to do the job. There's no messing around here. When you get a major-league job, the real work really starts."
(Ben Wagner calls Curtis Granderson's walkoff home run April 24 vs. the Red Sox/MLB.com)
Wagner said he didn't have time to get nervous for the season opener March 29 against the Yankees because he had gone through a five-week leadup of games.
"It all really didn't sink in until Mike Wilner put it in a tweet that said, 'Here is the third-ever voice of the Toronto Blue Jays,'" Wagner said. "After the game I thought, 'Oh, my God, he's right.' I tried to take the approach of spring training where I'm filling the role, doing the job and moving on to the next one. You didn't realize the importance of the moment or the job for me for way after."
The kid and The Duke
Wagner arrived in Buffalo straight out of Class A ball with the massive task of replacing Jim Rosenhaus, who had called Bisons games for 11 years and had been the voice of the team's three championships during the Cleveland Indians affiliation. Wagner knew little about the franchise history and was put with longtime analyst Duke McGuire, whom he obviously didn't know.
"There was a synergy and camaraderie for Duke and I that developed with longevity. After the first couple years, we really got a chemistry rolling," Wagner said. "We had our side jokes in game, our season-long jokes. That made me appreciate getting away from the mechanics of the broadcast and having the chemistry. Duke's personality is so great and he's such an incredible resource for Bisons history. That's so important.
"You can't just roll the balls out and mechanically roll through the broadcast. You want that history connection and then Duke taught me a lot about the game. He really sensed things within the game. He really instilled a lot of that in me watching the game develop. That's even more important now."
Wagner has had plenty of marquee moments to call thus far, including a steal of home by Kevin Pillar, a walkoff home run by Curtis Granderson, a 41-degree night in Texas of all places and the marathon twinbill in Cleveland that, counting delays, clocked in at an American League-record 10 hours, 33 minutes and featured a 13-11, 11-inning win for the Jays in the opener.
But the biggest moment was easily the no-hitter thrown May 8 by Seattle's James Paxton, the first by a Canadian pitcher on native soil. It was a tough call too: It was against the Blue Jays and in Toronto.
"At first there was a lot of of mixed emotion how to proceed through that," Wagner said. "It's against the Blue Jays. There was clearly an extreme talent on the mound, and I'm a firm believer that in the big moments, you call the big moments even if it's against your team. Once the crowd realized what was happening and James Paxton's lineage, his pride of being Canadian and being called 'Big Maple' really resonated with the fan base. If everybody in the yard is behind it, I'm in. My cards go to the middle of the table.
"Mike Wilner is calling the 6th and 7th inning and it becomes very real. I was in. The crowd was excited and it's the story of the night in the country. It's the story of the night in Major League Baseball. This is a moment I was extremely fortunate to get so early in a major-league career and I hope I did it justice."
Former Bisons pitcher Chris LeRoux was hosting the postgame show, and during a break he asked Wagner if his call of the final out was everything he wanted it to be. Wagner said he didn't totally remember.
"Chris said, 'You better remember because that is going to live forever' and I was like, 'Oh my god, there it is. You're right. These moments do last," Wagner said. "You hear highlight reels now and it's Buck Martinez. It's Dan Shulman. It's Mike Wilner. It's Ben Wagner. It's pretty wild."
(Scroll to 1:55 to hear Ben Wagner's call of the final out of Paxton's no-hitter)
James Paxton. The no-no card. pic.twitter.com/uxA4MEMtwF
— Ben Wagner (@benwag247) May 9, 2018
