Cody Pasby, the San Jose Giants’ new public address announcer at Excite Ballpark, had already done a whole game before he finally felt he had passed his initiation. And, that didn’t come until his second game — Saturday when the San Jose native announced the first strikeout of the opposing team’s “beer batter” this season, prompting the crowd to rush to the concession stands for half-price beers.
“Now, I’m officially the PA announcer because I got to do the beer batter,” Pasby said with a laugh before Sunday afternoon’s game against the Fresno Grizzlies. “This job means a lot to me, and this organization means a lot to me. I’ve been coming to games here since I was a little kid.”
San Jose native Cody Pasby joined the San Jose Giants as the team’s new public relations announcer for the 2024 season. He succeeds Russ Call, who retired following the 2023 season after nearly three decades in the job. (Sal Pizarro/Bay Area News Group)
Pasby, 34, took over microphone duties from Russ Call, who stepped away from the booth at the end of last season after nearly 30 years of being the voice of the ballpark formerly known as Municipal Stadium. Call, who also was the longtime stadium announcer for San Jose State football, moved to Oregon to be closer to family members.
“It’s a voice that’s as iconic to me as it is to everybody else in this park,” Pasby said. “I know that it’s a big, big part of a lot of people’s lives, growing up here in San Jose.”
Those are big vocal shoes to fill, but Pasby received a warm reception from the crowd opening weekend. A group gathered at the press box and gave him a round of applause after the last out of Friday’s opening night game. San Jose Giants General Manager Ben Taylor even said some fans told him they could barely tell the difference between Pasby’s voice and Call’s.
The search for Call’s successor took about three months and included live auditions in a nearly empty Excite Ballpark, Taylor said.
“We were looking for a voice that fit the ballpark,” he said. “But that job is a lot more than just announcing the lineups because we rely on that person to do so much of our in-game experience.”
Because of the tight press box in the 82-year-old stadium, Pasby is also in charge of the sound and music board, as well as announcing fan-involved activities between innings like bingo numbers, Valley Water’s “Water Save” water-balloon toss and Casino M8trix’s “Blackjack Challenge.” Pasby worked as a camera operator for the San Jose Giants a few years ago, so he’s already comfortable with the rhythms of minor-league baseball.
You can give Pasby’s voice a listen for yourself during the team’s next homestand, which begins April 16. Go to www.sjgiants.com for ticket information.
SAY WHAT?: San Jose Stage Company’s newest show, “Hangmen,” is a bilingual production, but not in the way that you’d think. The dark comedy by Martin McDonagh takes place in northern England in the mid-1960s so there are plenty of terms in the dialogue that might not be familiar to 21st century American audiences. Good thing the program — which you can access on your phone with a QR code — includes a glossary in case you don’t know a “nowt” from a “git.”
Of course, the play — about the lives of three executioners as hanging is phased out in Britain — is much easier to follow, language-wise, than the “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the Oscar-nominated 2022 movie McDonagh wrote and directed about the goings on in a village in Ireland. The “Hangmen” cast, which includes Will Springhorn Jr., Matthew Kropschot and Judith Miller, worked with dialect coach Kimberly Mohne Hill, a voice and acting professor who is the chair of the department of music and dance at Santa Clara University.
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In any event, both the play’s comedy and the tension overcome any barrier caused by our common language. You can check it out through April 28; go to www.thestage.org for times and tickets.
PLAYING FOR THE TIE: There’s been at least one amusing result from the historic second-place tie between Assemblyman Evan Low and Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian in the race to replace Rep. Anna Eshoo in District 16. (The top vote-getter was former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, in case you forgot.) The players in one long-running South Bay poker game started using the term “Simitian-Low Split” to describe when the two players left in a hand decide to divvy up the pot instead of risking everything by playing it out.
DANCING AROUND: The Stanford Theatre is switching Fred Astaire’s dance partners from Cyd Charisse to Leslie Caron for this weekend’s double-feature. Because of an issue with its print of 1957’s “Silk Stockings,” “Daddy Long Legs” from 1955 will take its place on the bill with “Funny Face,” co-starring Audrey Hepburn. As far as substitutions go, this isn’t bad as all three films were set in France. Check out the schedule at www.stanfordtheatre.org.