For veteran sportscaster Gary Thorne, taking a job as Baltimore Orioles’ television play-by-play announcer is almost like returning to his roots.

No, not his geographic roots. It does, however, hearken back to the Old Town native’s broadcast roots.

“I really hadn’t been looking for anything,” said Thorne, who is calling Orioles broadcasts for Mid-Atlantic Sports Network this year. “I really wasn’t in the mindset to do this, but they really did make it impossible to turn down. Why wouldn’t you want to do this?”

Thorne, who called New York Mets games on radio (1985-1988) and then TV for Madison Square Garden Network, WPIX, and New York City’s WB affiliate (1994-2002), also called Chicago White Sox TV games for WFLD in 1989.

For the last four years, Thorne’s Major League Baseball broadcasting has been done for ESPN and ESPN2.

“I’m still under contract with ESPN, so I had to think about [the offer],” Thorne said. “ESPN lost about half its baseball games this year, so that was a factor.”

ESPN went from broadcasting five games a week last year to three this season as part of an offseason contract revision.

“ESPN had to approve the deal. I’ll still do college football, basketball, and hockey, as well as College and Little League World Series games plus Major League games,” Thorne said. “I knew primarily which chunks of games and things I’d be doing for ESPN, so we worked around them with the Orioles.”

Thorne will call 110 Orioles games for MASN with either former Baltimore All-Star pitcher Jim Palmer or former big league manager and player Buck Martinez. MASN studio host Jim Hunter will do play-by-play when Thorne is unavailable.

“It just seemed like a really good fit with both guys, who I’m friends with,” Thorne said. “It also works out great because I’ll be able to travel with direct flights from Sarasota and Portland to Baltimore.”

Still, even with all that, the best thing about the Orioles job for Thorne, who grew up a Red Sox fan, is calling American League East division contests.

“That part was important to me. I don’t know that I would have been as anxious to do a central or western division team,” he said. “That’s a big positive for me and a really fun part of this.”

Thorne has a two-year contract including an option year with the Orioles.

Thorne says broadcasting for a team instead of a network allows him to become more familiar and knowledgeable about the team, players and coaches.

“Sure you do. There’s much more personal contact with guys and it’s much more involving for you,” he explained. “You really get to know the people you deal with a lot better. It becomes more personal.”

Thorne was the radio and TV voice of University of Maine hockey from 1977 to 1986. He also called game action for the Maine Guides Triple-A minor league baseball team, which he was a part owner from 1984 to 1988.

He earned a business degree at the University of Maine in 1970. He then graduated from the UMaine School of Law in Portland in 1973 and earned a doctorate in law from Georgetown in 1976 before becoming an assistant district attorney in Bangor.

Thorne moved out of state to take a job with SportsChannel New York calling New Jersey Devil games (1987-92) and NHL games for SportsChannel America (1988-92). He also called MLB games from 1990 to 1993, and NHL games over seven seasons for ABC.

The 58-year-old Thorne is now in his 30th year of broadcasting.

Boston Cel-texts

Fox Sports Net New England is employing a unique way to poll Boston Celtics fans.

FSNNE is taking polls via cell phone text messages this week on Celtics game days.

Tuesday’s poll question was “What would you do with the No. 1 NBA Draft pick? Wednesday’s was “How many wins will the Celtics have in 2007-08?” Today’s is “Which Celtic will have the most career all-star appearances?”

Fans can participate by watching FSNNE’s 7:30 p.m. broadcast of the game against Milwaukee tonight and/or the postgame show at approximately 10:15 p.m. for the nightly text-in number.

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