Joe Siddall
By Matthew Potichnyj
A four-year major-league baseball veteran turned Blue Jays Central analyst; Joe Siddall is one of the best at what he does. Growing up in Windsor Ontario, Joe loved baseball and football. In fact, he came out of high school with a scholarship to be the quarterback at Central Michigan University. It was only during the summer of that year that he was approached by a local Montreal Expos scout to attend a local tryout and camp. Out of camp, 19-year-old Joe was signed to a pro baseball contract. Point being, Joe only went to school for one year before he ended up playing 13 seasons of pro baseball.
After his 13-year career, Siddall decided to go back home to his wife and children and complete the post-secondary degree that he always wanted. He finished a Human Kinetics degree at the University of Windsor. Joe never went to school to become a broadcaster, and in fact, he worked for the Detroit Tigers for a number of years after his playing career in hopes of working in baseball management one day.
In 2014, Joe was working for the Tigers as a batting practice assistant, and tragically lost his oldest son to cancer in a very short battle. The legendary voice of the Blue Jays, Jerry Howarth, reached out to send his condolences. In a response Joe poked fun at Howarth and “I said, at the bottom, I look forward to seeing you in Detroit when the Blue Jays are in town… or maybe in the broadcast booth one day,” said Siddall. “Within minutes, he (Howarth) replied and said ‘How about right now?’” a shocked Siddall explained. Long story short, Jack Morris recently left the radio broadcast booth and Sportsnet needed a replacement.
The extremely untraditional route for Joe led him to be a fan-favourite today. However, he still has some words for those trying to become successful in sport media. “Reps, reps, reps, and more reps”, he shouted, as he explained that practice and experience is the best way to be successful. “The four years I had on radio was tremendous preparation for me”, and Siddall explained that he still works on honing the craft of broadcasting and storytelling. Most importantly, he exclaimed “use your experience to your advantage”.
Joe mentions that he is still a work in progress, “I still work on slowing down, and making sure to keep it short and sweet. You’ll lose people if you ramble on for too long”. There is always something to work on to better yourself, even for the best in the business. “Some days I am very prepared for our conversations on-air, other days I am not, and that is the beauty of this, you always get to learn something new”, Siddall said with a smile on his face.
Siddall loves what he does and says, “I wish we did a segment on our show one day of what it is like for us broadcasters on a game day, the preparation, media availabilities, and behind the scenes work, I think the fans would be very interested”. More importantly, “the broadcast is quite the team effort”.
The most rewarding part of my work would be “hopefully providing great insight for the fans across the country, that’s my goal. There’s nothing better than meeting the fans and hearing the positive things that they have to say”. The challenge on the other hand, “I’ve played the game, I know how hard it is, it’s very easy to criticize a player for a bad throw or for taking strike three right down the middle, but there’s many reasons why that can happen”, said Joe. He has found a way to criticize someone professionally, because at the end of the day, the fans want the insight, and if someone is performing, it’s his job to explain it and why that may be.
Overall, it is extremely important to tell a compelling story. With practice and by learning from other people, you can tell a great story. Although Joe went an unconventional route into broadcasting, he has some great lessons for those who want to enter the field one day. Remember, reps, reps, reps, and more reps, and always prepare and educate yourself on the topics you’re going to discuss.