In some ways, things couldn’t be better for Portland Sea Dogs radio voice Todd Jamison.

In other ways, there is room for some improvement.

For the first time in his five years as the Sea Dogs Radio Network play-by-play man, Jamison is not alone in the broadcast booth for a good portion of the season.

This year, Jamison has been joined by veteran minor league radio announcer Mike Antonellis, who is in his ninth season of minor league broadcasting. He spent last season doing play-by-play for the Erie SeaWolves, a fellow Eastern League team.

“For me, it’s made me appreciate play-by-play all the more,” said Antonellis, an Ashland, Mass., native who took the job to be closer to his home. “It’s great to play off each other.”

Before Erie, he spent two seasons with Kane County of the Midwest League. He started his career with the Prince William Cannons and spent four years with them before moving to Syracuse (International League) and the Utica Blue Sox.

“Having Mike around is great. Specifically because there are a lot of things going on off the field with my responsibilities, so having two people to juggle things with production and sales and everything really takes a lot of the pressure off,” said Jamison. “And on air, it’s gone even better than I thought. He’s great.”

What’s not so great is the fact the Sea Dogs radio network, one of the largest in all of minor league baseball the last few years, has been cut in half. The number of member stations has gone from an all-time high of 12 last year to six this year.

The decrease coincides with a change in the flagship station, from Gorham’s WMTW (870 AM) to Portland’s WBAE (1490 AM).

“We ended up getting a great flagship station with better reach in the area and we’re into the Lewiston-Auburn area more plus Rochester, New Hampshire,” said Jamison. “But we lost a couple stations in Eastern Maine.”

Although the Sea Dogs are in their second month of play, Jamison said it’s not too late for stations to join up.

“Obviously we’d like to get up in that area and we’re going to be working on that next season, or hopefully add one or two more stations in Eastern Maine before the end of the year,” Jamison said. “That’s the one spot where we could use some penetration.”

Currently, member stations include WBAE, Lewiston’s WCNM (1240 AM), South Paris’ WKTQ (1450 AM), Rumford’s WTME (780 AM), Sanford’s WPHX (1220 AM), and WMEX (106.5 FM) in Rochester, N.H.

FX ready to rev up another 360

NASCAR fanatics rejoice. The FX network has ordered up a second season’s worth of episodes for the unscripted original series called “NASCAR Drivers: 360.”

The behind-the-scenes, one-hour show takes a look at the everyday lives of some of NASCAR’s top drivers, on and off the track. The first of seven new episodes will premier Friday, May 13 at 10:30 p.m., or immediately after FX’s live coverage of the NASCAR Busch Series race from Richmond, Va.

This season’s episodes will feature Kurt Busch, Kevin Harvick, Robby Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Jamie McMurray, and Kenny Wallace, along with multiple segments on retiring drivers Mark Martin and Rusty Wallace.

Last year, the show premiered to an audience of 1.3 million viewers and the cumulative rating for four airings throughout the week was 5.6 (household) and an estimated 6.5 million total viewers.

Minor thing for NESN

New England Sports Network will air the first of seven live minor league baseball game broadcasts Saturday from Portland as the Sea Dogs host the Norwich Navigators in a 1 p.m. game. It’s also the first of three Sea Dogs telecasts this season. NESN will also air the Eastern League All-Star game on July 13 and three Pawtucket Red Sox games.

Former Maine sportscasters Tom Caron and Eric Frede will split play-by-play duties for the broadcasts this season and former Angels shortstop Gary DiSarcina will join them as the color analyst.

Sounds of the Speedway

Racing fans can now listen to local track action as Searsport radio station WFZX (101.7 FM) will air live feature race broadcasts from Speedway 95 in Hermon each Sunday.

After rainy weather cancelled all but two races two weeks ago and the entire program last week, WFZX program director and race announcer Bill Butler hopes to be able to call a full slate of feature races starting between 3:30 and 4 p.m. (approximately) on Sunday.

All feature races run after the last of the heats will be broadcast. This is the second of 20 planned weekly race broadcasts this season.

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