When Justin Choate was growing up in Delaware County his parents had a Sunday ticket plan at Veterans Stadium for seats in right field.
His favorite Phillies stadium announcer was 50-year veteran Dan Baker.
Baker was honored recently by the Phillies for an end-of-season milestone– 4,000 Phillies games announced and 300,000 batters.
“We sat right behind Bobby Abreu. It’s just the feeling that I got when I heard ‘Bobby ahh-BRAY-ooo’ from Dan Baker. It was just unbelievable to me,” Choate said.
He decided that’s what he wanted to do.
When Choate was 18 and heading to college, he wrote Baker a letter. Baker gave him a call.
“My jaw dropped,” he said.
They’ve been friends now for 12 years.
These days, Choate works in marketing by day and at night is a public address announcer at Coca-Cola Park in Allentown, home field for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Choate said if it wasn’t for Baker calling him when he was 18, he wouldn’t be where he is now.
“Who knows,” he wrote in an essay, “maybe someday a kid will grow up pretending to be Justin Choate, and thanks to Dan, I’ll know exactly how to handle it.”
Read more at The Athletic about Justin Choate and Dan Baker.
Here’s a 50th anniversary tribute video to Dan Baker,
