Blue Jays: Radio crew are still calling games from Toronto

This subject has been addressed through a few articles this week. The antithesis of their articles was that the Voice of the Blue Jays Radio Broadcasts Ben Wagner and long-time Engineer Tom Young were calling road games from the Toronto studios while the Television crew were travelling to call games from the road stadiums. Buck Martinez, Pat Tabler, and Hazel Mae were in New York while Wagner and Young were back in Toronto.

Wagner, after 11 seasons calling the action for the Buffalo Bisons, arrived in Toronto in late 2017 to cover 2 games for Mike Wilner in a September series. Wagner would come up to Toronto in the previous seasons to review the Bisons campaign that was with Jerry Howarth and Joe Siddall. Howarth in his book made a recommendation for Wagner to take over for him as the Radio Voice of the Blue Jays.

Wagner received the promotion for the 2018 season and has been in the lead chair ever since. During the initial 2020 pandemic, Wagner hosted the radio crew in his house so they could continue spring training programming as a lot of the facilities in Florida were not accessible due to the COVID-19. Wagner and Wilner along with the television crew called games from separate studios in Toronto during the 60-game shortened season. Then in 2021, things became very weird for Wagner and the radio crew.

Toronto Blue Jays Radio Broadcaster Ben Wagner and Engineer Tom Young are still calling away games from the Sportsnet Radio Studios in Toronto.

Rogers Media made a decision to simulcast the radio and television broadcasts. Blue Jays fans rightfully so did not take kindly to this and at the end of July, when the Jays returned to playing north of the border, made the decision to have Wagner return to the booth for home games by himself with Young handling the engineering duties behind him. For the rest of the 2021 season, the television and radio crew either called games from the Sportsnet studios or their homes.

For the 2022 season, it seems Rogers has made the decision to send the television crew on the road and they are keeping the radio crew back in Toronto. However, it seems the Sportsnet.ca writing crew is travelling on the road as well. As you can see below Arden Zwelling is discussing the previous game below with Hazel Mae.

So if everyone else can travel on the road, why can’t the radio guys?