Los Angeles Dodgers play-by-play caller Stephen Nelson peeled back the curtain on how he landed his job with the team as a key member of the Dodgers’ booth.
Nelson sat down with Dodgers Nation’s Noel Sanchez to talk about his career leading up to his role with the Dodgers and how things have developed since then.
Nelson is a Southern California native who attended Chapman University, where he was a play-by-play broadcaster for the school’s sports.
Since then, he has ground his way up, working at multiple different outlets in different on-air roles, eventually landing his first big play-by-play role with Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+.
After that, the Dodgers picked Nelson up as their secondary play-by-play man in the booth whenever Joe Davis is busy.
Davis has become one of the fastest-rising stars in sports broadcasting, taking on a major role with Fox over the years, during which he has called World Series and NFL games.
Nelson steps in to fill Davis’ massive shoes, a job which he thought would never come nor did he feel ready for.
“The Dodgers called at the end of 2022; I was probably at my lowest point professionally as I’ve ever been in my entire life. Had like zero self-confidence to do play-by-play because I’ve always been, like, a studio host and anchor guy,” Nelson said.
“I never really did play-by-play consistently until 2022. So, when the Dodgers call, and they’re like, ‘Hey, do you want to join our team?’ And I was thinking, ‘This has got to be some twisted joke’ because I’m awful at this. Why would the Dodgers want to hire me?
“So coming in with that low expectation for myself, like I truly didn’t know how long I’d be here. And so to now look back, this is my fourth season on the heels of back-to-back World Series championships. Just never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that I would be here at Dodger Stadium in that booth with that lineage.”
Even now, Nelson does not know what the Dodgers saw in him during his time with MLB Network that gave him the shot, but with the help of his wife, Corey, MLB The Show, and Chicago Cubs and ESPN announcer Boog Shambi, he found a way to get past his imposter syndrome.
“I saw Boog at spring training in 2023. I was wrapping up my duties for MLB Network doing spring training camps, and I’m talking to him… I’m telling him about all these mental hurdles and struggles that I’m having, and this is impostor syndrome.
“I’m going to fake it till I make it, and I’m terrible, like I messed this up, I messed that up, like little things. I’m trying too hard, and Boog said this gave me the simplest piece of advice that I’d ever heard, but it changed my life. It was: be nice to yourself.
“Give yourself some grace. Like you are just starting out in this play-by-play world. And you need reps just like with anything, any player. Like you need to go out there and take hundreds of swings every day.”
For more on what it is like to be an announcer for the Dodgers, check out his full interview with Noise by Noel.