David Braxton Flemming (born May 31, 1976) is an
American
American(s) may refer to:
* American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America"
** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America
** American ancestry, pe ...
sportscaster who has been a
play-by-play
In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...
announcer for the
San Francisco Giants
The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...
of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
since 2003. Flemming also calls
college football,
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
,
major league baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
, and
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
on
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
.
Flemming grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, listening to current Giants partner
Jon Miller
Jon Miller (born October 11, 1951) is an American sportscaster, known primarily for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball. Since 1997 he has been employed as a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants. He was also a baseball annou ...
call
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...
games. In
2004, Flemming began his first full year as an announcer for the team, working with Miller,
Duane Kuiper
Duane Eugene Kuiper (born June 19, 1950), nicknamed "Kuip", is an American sportscaster and former professional baseball player. As a player, he was a second baseman for the Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball ( ...
and
Mike Krukow
Michael Edward Krukow (born January 21, 1952), nicknamed "Kruk", is an American former professional baseball player and sportscaster. As a starting pitcher, he played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, and ...
on San Francisco station
KNBR KNBR may refer to:
* KNBR (AM), a radio station (680 AM) licensed to serve San Francisco, California, United States
* KNBR-FM
KNBR-FM (104.5 MHz) is a commercial radio station licensed to San Francisco, California, serving the greater San ...
and the
Giants Radio Network. Since then, he has split time between television and radio.
Early life and career
After graduating from
St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School in 1994, Flemming received bachelor's and master's degrees in
classics from
Stanford University and a master's degree in broadcast journalism from the S.I. Newhouse School of Communications at
Syracuse University. While at Stanford, Flemming broadcast
Stanford Cardinal baseball, men's and women's basketball, and football and served as Sports Director at
KZSU
KZSU is a freeform FM radio station broadcasting from the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California, United States.
KZSU broadcasts in stereo at 90.1 MHz FM with an effective radiated power of 500 watts. The station is owned b ...
. In 2000, he broadcast play-by-play for the
Visalia Oaks
Visalia ( ) is a city in the agricultural San Joaquin Valley of California. The population was 141,384 as per the 2020 census. Visalia is the fifth-largest city in the San Joaquin Valley, the 42nd most populous in California, and 192nd in ...
and served as the assistant General Manager, before moving on to the
Pawtucket Red Sox
The Pawtucket Red Sox, known colloquially as the PawSox, were a professional minor league baseball club based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. From 1973 to 2020, the team was a member of the International League and served as the Triple-A affiliate ...
.
Flemming called games for three seasons on the eight-station
PawSox Radio Network
The Pawsox Radio Network was the radio network of the Pawtucket Red Sox, a Triple-A minor league affiliate of the Boston Red Sox. There were 12 stations (nine A.M. and three F.M.) and three F.M. translators in the network, including the flagsh ...
. His rise in the baseball broadcasting industry was fast, as he went from Class-A ball (Visalia) in 2000 to
Triple-A from 2001 to 2003 (Pawtucket) and finally the Giants.
Career with the San Francisco Giants
In twenty seasons calling Giants games, Flemming has been a part of many memorable on-air moments.
On April 27, 2003, in his second ever major league broadcast, working as a fill-in for
Jon Miller
Jon Miller (born October 11, 1951) is an American sportscaster, known primarily for his broadcasts of Major League Baseball. Since 1997 he has been employed as a play-by-play announcer for the San Francisco Giants. He was also a baseball annou ...
, Flemming broadcast the Phillies' Kevin Millwood's no-hitter against the Giants. In some ways it was an indication of the moments to come.
Barry Bonds provided several of those. On May 28, 2006, Flemming had the chance for his voice to go into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays basebal ...
when he was set to call
Barry Bonds' 715th
home run
In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...
, passing
Babe Ruth
George Herman "Babe" Ruth Jr. (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Su ...
for second place on the all-time home run list. However, as he was making the call, his microphone went dead:
Flemming, unaware of the problem, continued to make the call, but all listeners heard was about ten seconds of dead air. Only
Duane Kuiper
Duane Eugene Kuiper (born June 19, 1950), nicknamed "Kuip", is an American sportscaster and former professional baseball player. As a player, he was a second baseman for the Cleveland Indians and San Francisco Giants of Major League Baseball ( ...
's call on
Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...
's broadcast was sent to the Hall of Fame. On September 23 of the same year, during Flemming's third-inning call of a game against the
Milwaukee Brewers at
Miller Park
American Family Field is a retractable roof stadium used primarily for baseball. It is located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just southwest of the intersection of Interstate 94 and Brewers Boulevard. It is the home of Major League Baseball's Milwauk ...
, Bonds hit a home run off left-hander
Chris Capuano
Christopher Frank Capuano (born August 19, 1978) is an American former professional baseball pitcher whose professional playing career spanned from 2000 through 2016. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Milwau ...
. This was Bonds' 734th career homer (26th for the season), which broke
Hank Aaron
Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. One of the gre ...
's record for
National League
The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...
home runs. (Aaron hit his last 21 homers as an
American League
The American League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the American League (AL), is one of two leagues that make up Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada. It developed from the Western League, a minor league ...
player.) Eventually on August 4, 2007, Flemming was able to call Bonds' record-tying 755th home run in San Diego on the radio against the
San Diego Padres
The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...
.
That call of #755 proved to be a notable one in a weekend of milestone moments for Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Later that week, the New York Times sports media critic Richard Sandomir wrote of the collection of broadcasts that past weekend,
"But the best one on radio or TV came from Dave Flemming, the Giants’ radio announcer, who said clearly and excitedly on KNBR: "Bonds swings, 2-1 pitch. He drives one to left. Going back on the ball is Hairston. It's gone. Off the facing of the second deck. And Barry Bonds has equaled baseball's all-time home run record: 755 for Bonds."
On July 14, 2006, for a Friday night home game, Flemming made his television broadcast debut for the Giants. Since then, he has appeared regularly on both
NBC Sports Bay Area and
KNTV during the baseball season.
Other milestone broadcasts Flemming contributed to include the calls of
Greg Maddux and
Randy Johnson
Randall David Johnson (born September 10, 1963), nicknamed "The Big Unit", is an American photographer and former professional baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (1988–2009) for six teams, primarily the Seattle M ...
's 300th pitching victories. Including the Milwood game on his debut weekend, Flemming has broadcast seven MLB no-hitters.
On November 1, 2010, during the seventh inning in Game 5 of the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
at
Rangers Ballpark
Choctaw Stadium, formerly Globe Life Park, is an American multi-purpose stadium in Arlington, Texas, between Dallas and Fort Worth. Originally built as a baseball stadium, it was home to the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball and the Tex ...
, Flemming made the winning home run call that eventually sealed the Giants' win, and thus the World Series:
On June 13, 2012, Flemming made the radio call of the final out of
Matt Cain
Matthew Thomas Cain (born October 1, 1984), nicknamed "The Horse", "Big Daddy", "Big Sugar" and "Cainer", is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played his entire Major League Baseball (MLB) career for the San Francisco Giants ...
's perfect game, the first in the history of the Giants. In 2013 Flemming (along with Kuiper and Miller) won an Emmy for his coverage of the perfect game.
Later that season, on October 28, 2012, Flemming made the call for the final out of the
2012 World Series.
Flemming was again a part of the broadcasts for the 2014 postseason, and the Giants' third World Series win of the decade. In his time in San Francisco, he has won three Northern California Emmys for sports play-by-play.
Stanford football and basketball
Starting in 2007, Flemming began broadcasting
Stanford Cardinal football and basketball. He spent three years as the voice of Stanford basketball on the radio, and six years in that capacity with Stanford football before leaving the Stanford broadcasts to concentrate on his ESPN work.
The period Flemming served as the voice of Stanford football coincided with perhaps the most successful stretch in the school's football history. Flemming's first broadcast on the Stanford radio network was the epic upset of #1 ranked USC on October 6, 2007. Over the next six seasons, Flemming was behind the microphone for the record performances of Toby Gerhart and
Andrew Luck
Andrew Austen Luck (born September 12, 1989) is a former American football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons with the Indianapolis Colts. One of the most highly touted amateur prospects during hi ...
, and for three BCS bowl appearances, including a
Rose Bowl victory over Wisconsin on January 1, 2013.
National work
Flemming became a regular ''
College Basketball on ESPN
''ESPN College Basketball'' is a blanket title used for presentations of college basketball on ESPN and its family of networks. Its coverage focuses primarily on competition in NCAA Division I, holding broadcast rights to games from each major c ...
'' announcer in 2010, after having called a couple of games for the network the previous season. He has covered the
Big 10, the
Big 12
The Big 12 Conference is a college athletic conference headquartered in Irving, Texas, USA. It consists of ten full-member universities. It is a member of Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) for all sports. Its f ...
, the
Pac 12, and the WCC for ESPN college basketball, teaming with
Dan Dakich
Daniel John Dakich (born August 17, 1962) is an American basketball sportscaster. He is a former player, assistant coach, interim head coach for the Indiana University Hoosiers and former head coach at Bowling Green State University. He current ...
,
Sean Farnham
Sean Travis Farnham (born September 16, 1977) is an American sports analyst who covers college basketball for ESPN.
Farnham typically calls games featuring the Southeastern Conference as part of ESPN's Super Tuesday and Thursday Night Showcase pa ...
,
Fran Fraschilla
Francis John Fraschilla (born August 30, 1958) is an American basketball commentator and former college basketball coach.
Career
Fraschilla was an assistant coach at University of Rhode Island for Jack Kraft, Ohio University for Danny Nee and B ...
, and many other analysts. In recent years Flemming and Farnham have frequently followed
Gonzaga and have documented that program’s rise to the top of the college basketball world.
He has also called baseball for
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
and
ESPN Radio, including postseason
Division Series
The Division Series is the quarterfinal round of the Major League Baseball playoffs. Four series are played in this round, two each for both the American League and the National League.
1981 season
The first use of the term "Division Series" date ...
games from 2013 to 2019. He worked a season calling college football games for the
Pac-12 Network in 2012 before shifting to ''
College Football on ESPN
''ESPN College Football'' is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football across ESPN properties, including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN3, ESPN+, ABC, ESPN Classic, ESPNU, ESPN Deportes, ESPNews and ESPN Radio. ''ESPN Colle ...
'' in 2013. Also in 2013, Flemming began calling
NBA games on
ESPN Radio and contributing to
Little League World Series
The Little League World Series is an annual baseball tournament for children—typically boys—aged 10 to 12 years old, held in the Eastern United States. Originally called the National Little League Tournament, it was later renamed for the Wor ...
coverage on ESPN and
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. His
LLWS
The Little League World Series is an annual baseball tournament for children—typically boys—aged 10 to 12 years old, held in the Eastern United States. Originally called the National Little League Tournament, it was later renamed for the Wor ...
work continued for seven years. In 2015, Flemming began calling
NFL games for ESPN Radio as well.
In 2016, he began calling select ''
Monday Night Baseball
''Monday Night Baseball'' was a live game telecast of Major League Baseball that aired on Monday nights during the regular season.
These games formerly aired weekly on ESPN. The game started at 7 p.m. ET, following ''SportsCenter'', and usually l ...
'' games for ESPN, as well as ''
College Football Thursday Primetime'' games. He has also served a hole announcer for ESPN
golf
Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible.
Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...
coverage, including the
Masters and
PGA Championship
The PGA Championship (often referred to as the US PGA Championship or USPGA outside the United States) is an annual golf tournament conducted by the Professional Golfers' Association of America. It is one of the four men's major championships ...
tournaments. In 2022 he called the
AL Wild Card
AL, Al, Ål or al may stand for:
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Al (''Aladdin'') or Aladdin, the main character in Disney's ''Aladdin'' media
* Al (''EastEnders''), a minor character in the British soap opera
* Al (''Fullmetal ...
series between the
Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...
and
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...
with
Jessica Mendoza
Jessica Ofelia Mendoza (born November 11, 1980) is an American sportscaster and former softball player. Currently, she serves as a color commentator and analyst for ESPN's coverage of Major League Baseball and Los Angeles Dodgers coverage on ...
,
Tim Kurkjian
Tim Kurkjian (; born December 10, 1956) is a Major League Baseball (MLB) analyst on ESPN's '' Baseball Tonight'' and ''SportsCenter''. He is also a contributor to '' ESPN The Magazine'' and ''ESPN.com''.
On December 7, 2021, Kurkjian was named ...
and
Coley Harvey, during the 9th inning of game 2 in reference to
Cal Raleigh
Caleb John Raleigh (born November 26, 1996) is an American professional baseball catcher for the Seattle Mariners of Major League Baseball (MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2021. His nickname is Big Dumper.
Amateur career
Raleigh attended Smoky M ...
he said "It's hard to dump your big dumper".
Personal life
Flemming and his wife, Jessica, live in San Francisco with their
identical twin
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two ...
daughters Katie and Carter and their son David Henry.
Flemming's brother,
Will Flemming
William Flemming (born April 3, 1979, in Alexandria, Virginia) is an American sportscaster who broadcasts play-by-play of Boston Red Sox games with the WEEI Red Sox Radio Network alongside veteran announcer Joe Castiglione; Prior to joining WEEI ...
, is a play-by-play announcer for the
Boston Red Sox Radio Network
The Boston Red Sox Radio Network is an American radio network composed of 54 radio stations which carry English language coverage of the Boston Red Sox, a professional baseball team in Major League Baseball (MLB). Lawrence, Massachusetts statio ...
.
Flemming is a descendant of
Carter Braxton, a signer of the
United States Declaration of Independence
The United States Declaration of Independence, formally The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen States of America, is the pronouncement and founding document adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Pennsylvania State House ( ...
.
References
External links
Who's on First; Dave Flemming’s straightforward style—and smooth-as-silk voice—have made him a Giant hit ''Stanford Magazine'' article, July-August 2007Bonds Call Gone in a Glitch"The great home run call that wasn't"''San Francisco Metblogs'', 05/28/2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Flemming, Dave
1976 births
Living people
American radio sports announcers
American television sports announcers
College baseball announcers in the United States
College basketball announcers in the United States
College football announcers
Golf writers and broadcasters
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Minor League Baseball broadcasters
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Football League announcers
Pawtucket Red Sox
People from Alexandria, Virginia
People with alopecia universalis
San Francisco Giants announcers
Stanford Cardinal football announcers
Stanford University alumni
S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications alumni
Women's college basketball announcers in the United States