Dewayne Staats (born August 8, 1952) is a sports broadcaster who has been the television

play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

commentator for the

Tampa Bay Rays The Tampa Bay Rays are an American professional baseball team based in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Rays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since its inception, the team's home v ...

since their inception in 1998. He is currently teamed with

color commentator A color commentator or expert commentator is a sports commentator who assists the main ( play-by-play) commentator, typically by filling in when play is not in progress. The phrase "colour commentator" is primarily used in Canadian English and ...

Brian Anderson. Staats has been a broadcaster for several teams over his 40+ year career.

Biography

Staats regularly listened to the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

baseball broadcasts, featuring

Harry Caray Harry Christopher Caray (; March 1, 1914 – February 18, 1998) was an American radio and television sportscaster. During his career he called the play-by-play for five Major League Baseball teams, beginning with 25 years of calling the games ...

and

Jack Buck John Francis "Jack" Buck (August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002) was an American sportscaster, best known for his work announcing Major League Baseball games of the St. Louis Cardinals. His play-by-play work earned him recognition from numerous hal ...

. He graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) in 1975 with a degree in

Mass Communications Mass communication is the process of imparting and exchanging information through mass media to large segments of the population. It is usually understood for relating to various forms of media, as its technologies are used for the dissemination o ...

. He began his broadcasting career reporting sports on WSIE, the SIUE radio station; as an announcer for high school sports on several of the nearby small town radio stations such as WOKZ in Alton, Illinois; and as an intern at

KMOX KMOX (1120 AM) is a commercial radio station in St. Louis, Missouri. Owned by Audacy, Inc., it is a 50,000 watt Class A clear-channel station with a non-directional signal. The KMOX studios and offices are on Olive Street at Tucker Bouleva ...

in St. Louis. Staats began announcing professional baseball with the

Oklahoma City 89ers Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

(1973–74) while still a student at SIUE. After graduation, he was sports director at

KPLR-TV KPLR-TV (channel 11) is a television station in St. Louis, Missouri, United States, airing programming from The CW. It is owned and operated by network majority owner Nexstar Media Group alongside Fox affiliate KTVI (channel 2). Both station ...

in St.Louis (1975–76), then he worked for the Houston Astros (1977–84), Chicago Cubs (1985–89),

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one of ...

(1990–94), and

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

(1995–97) before joining the Rays in their 1998 inaugural season. Staats' first wife, Dee, died in 2005 after a long battle with cancer. He has since remarried to the former Carla Berry. He has two daughters, Stephanie (b. 1978) and Alexandra (b. 1984), from his first marriage. Stephanie is married to former MLB relief pitcher Dan Wheeler, who played with the Rays (the team Staats commentates for) from 1999-2001 and from 2007-2010. Staats has three grandchildren, Gabriel, Zachary, and Evie.

Highlights and honors

With the Cubs, Staats called the first MLB night game in

Wrigley Field Wrigley Field is a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. It is the home of the Chicago Cubs, one of the city's two MLB franchises. It first opened in 1914 as Weeghman Park for Charles Weeghman's Chicago ...

history with Steve Stone on August 8, 1988, although the game was canceled due to rain. Staats celebrated his 30th season as a

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

announcer in 2006, and on June 22, 2010, he called his 5000th major league game. Among the several

no-hitters In baseball, a no-hitter is a game in which a team was not able to record a hit. Major League Baseball (MLB) officially defines a no-hitter as a completed game in which a team that batted in at least nine innings recorded no hits. A pitcher wh ...

Staats has announced were

Nolan Ryan Lynn Nolan Ryan Jr. (born January 31, 1947), nicknamed "the Ryan Express", is an American former professional baseball pitcher and sports executive. Over a record 27-year playing career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanning four decades, Ryan ...

's fifth on September 26, 1981 for the Houston Astros, one-handed pitcher

Jim Abbott James Anthony Abbott (born September 19, 1967) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball for the California Angels, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, and Milwaukee Brewers, from 1989 to 1999. He ...

's on September 4, 1993 for the

, and

Matt Garza Matthew Scott Garza (born November 26, 1983) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He made his Major League Baseball (MLB) debut in 2006 with the Minnesota Twins, and also played in MLB for the Tampa Bay Rays, Chicago Cubs, Texas ...

on July 26, 2010 for the

. Staats announced college football and

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

games during his tenure at ESPN. As a promotion in 2006, dual talking

bobblehead A bobblehead, also known by common silly nicknames such as nodder, wobbler, or wacky wobbler, is a type of small collectible action figure. Its head is often oversized compared to its body. Instead of a solid connection, its head is connected t ...

dolls of Staats and Joe Magrane were given away at a home game against the

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion team ...

. The Dewayne Staats Award for Broadcast Journalism was established in 2008 by the Mass Communications Department at SIUE. This award "recognizes a student who exhibits Staats’s passion for sports, and who demonstrates the writing, announcing and analytical skills needed to excel in the field of Sports Journalism." He was named recipient of the SIUE Distinguished Alumnus of the Year Award in 1987. He became a member of the SIUE Alumni Hall of Fame in 2006 and of the SIUE Athletics Hall of Fame in 2012. Staats has been repeatedly nominated for the Ford C. Frick Award, the broadcasters' path to the Baseball Hall of Fame, since 2008. Staats and his broadcast team have won multiple local Emmy awards from the Suncoast Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Staats, Dewayne 1952 births Living people American radio sports announcers American television sports announcers Chicago Cubs announcers College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers Houston Astros announcers Major League Baseball broadcasters Minor League Baseball broadcasters New York Yankees announcers People from Stoddard County, Missouri People from Wood River, Illinois Southern Illinois University Edwardsville alumni Tampa Bay Rays announcers