Blue Hill man lured to mike GSA grad lands job broadcasting Berkshire baseball games

Broadcasting and baseball were nowhere near the forefront of Owen Newkirk’s thoughts about his future just two short years ago.

He was almost finished his junior year at Haverford (Pa.) College and looking forward to a final year as an astronomy major and member of the varsity soccer and hockey teams.

Thanks to the unlikely intervention of the World Wrestling Federation and a friend’s college radio show, the 22-year-old Blue Hill native finds himself as the new radio voice of the Northeast League’s Berkshire Black Bears.

Newkirk returned to his home state this week as the Bangor Lumberjacks hosted the Black Bears of Pittsfield, Mass., for a four-game series.

“This is really great. I didn’t expect to have the chance to do this with my family and friends seeing and listening to me,” said the 1998 George Stevens Academy graduate.

The son of Art and Joyce Newkirk wasn’t even supposed to be broadcasting away games when he was hired by the team as a radio intern last April.

“They hired me to be the number two guy and broadcast intern, and I would have done the middle innings of the home games and been in the studio for the other ones, but then they offered me all the games and the job as the voice of the Black Bears,” he said.

Newkirk had a similar job offer from the Portland Beavers, the Triple-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres, but because the job offered less air time than Berkshire, he chose Berkshire.

The first full season of baseball broadcasting has gone very well for Newkirk, whose only previous experience was broadcasting basketball, baseball, and lacrosse games for the low-power station owned by the Division III school in Haverford, Pa., those last two years.

It’s been quite a winding path to the broadcast booth for the former baseball player-turned-No. 1 singles tennis player for the GSA Eagles.

“I’d never done radio before I started doing a show in college my junior year. Somehow one of my roommates got me into the WWF, so we started a radio show primarily built around pro wrestling and our favorite music and stuff like that,” Newkirk explained. “The station was primarily webcast because its signal only had about a 50-foot radius.”

When Newkirk heard one of his fellow students broadcast a basketball game and learned of plans to do more sports coverage the next year, he jumped at the chance.

“I started doing a couple of basketball games without any formal training. I just did it and I ended up doing about 10 men’s and women’s basketball games and all the home baseball games,” he said.

It was the basketball broadcast experience that hooked Newkirk on broadcasting.

“Our men’s basketball team was 3-21 and even though they were losing, it dawned on me that I was still having a lot of fun. So then I really started thinking about a broadcasting career,” he explained.

About a year and 50 job applications later, Newkirk got the Berkshire job.

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or ANeff@bangordailynews.net

“I’m pretty pleased with how things are going. It’s not an office job by far,” he said. “I still have to go into the office and it’s a long day on home game days, but I’m having fun.”

Andrew Neff can be reached at 990-8205, 1-800-310-8600, or ANeff@bangordailynews.net