There’s a new regular Joe calling baseball games on Fox.
Joe Davis, a veteran sportscaster who has been known on the West Coast for calling Los Angeles Dodger games and as a Fox Sports regular, will take over as the lead play-by-play announcer for Fox Sports’ Major League Baseball coverage. He succeeds Joe Buck, the longtime Fox baseball and football announcer who has moved to ESPN to work on “Monday Night Football.” Davis will join John Smoltz in the network’s lead baseball booth.
“If you had asked me when I was 10 what I wanted to do when I grew up, I would’ve told you ‘Call the World Series.’ So when I say this is a dream-come-true, I really mean it,” said Davis, in a statement. Davis and Smoltz, along with reporters Tom Verducci and Ken Rosenthal, are expected to call Fox’s coverage of the 2022 MLB All-Star Game, MLB at Field of Dreams Game and the MLB post-season Postseason, including its 25th Fall Classic. Davis’ first appearance in his new role is set for Saturday, May 28.
The sportscaster’s ascension is the latest in a series of prominent sports announcer maneuvers that have come about as networks with big sports contracts have poached talent from rivals. ESPN lured both Buck and Troy Aikman to call NFL games next season, while Amazon lured Al Michaels from NBC Sports to call its “Thursday Night Football.” The moves have left some of the big sports-media organizations charting succession calls for some of the biggest names in sports TV. NBC, for example, replaced Michaels with Mike Tircio as one of the lead voices for its “Sunday Night Football.”
Davis is no stranger to Fox viewers. He joined Fox Sports in 2014 as a play-by-play announcer for the network’s MLB, college football and college basketball coverage, and filled in for Buck twice when football duties took him away from post-season baseball coverage. Davis has been in the booth for Fox Sports’ Division Series coverage since 2017.
He will continue his role for local Dodgers telecasts on SportsNet LA, where he succeeded Vin Scully in 2017.
Davis has been calling games from a young age. While attending Beloit College in Wisconsin, he assumed play-by-play duties for the school’s athletic department, calling baseball and men’s and women’s basketball games on local radio and television. Just before his senior year, Davis secured a job with the Schaumburg Flyers baseball team of the independent Northern League, serving as the team’s play-by-play voice and media relations director. He eventually landed a role as the play-by-play voice of the Montgomery Biscuits, the Double-A affiliate of the Tampa Bay Rays. Davis called Biscuits games for three seasons.
At 24 years old, Davis jumped to national TV, joining ESPN in 2012 as an announcer for baseball, basketball, football, hockey and softball games, and lending a hand calling MLB games for ESPN Radio, . In 2013, Davis was assigned to the network’s broadcast of the Poinsettia Bowl, becoming the youngest person to ever announce a bowl game for ESPN.
“It’s been amazing to watch Joe’s continued growth over the years developing into one of the elite broadcasters in all of sports,” said Brad Zager, president of production and operations at Fox Sports, in a statement. “As an integral part of our coverage over the last several years, his transition onto baseball’s biggest stage is a natural fit and we couldn’t be more excited to have him as the new voice of MLB on Fox.”
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