Courtesy Houston Chronicle

(February 27, 2009) Rice University graduate Jonathan Yardley will take over as the Dynamo’s radio play by play voice this season on KBME (790 AM). He steps in for Steve Mark, who is no longer with the Dynamo organization, and will work home games with James Clarkson, the Dyano’s youth development director.

Yardley, the team’s communications manager, helped call Rice baseball games on KRTU (91.7 FM) in 2003, when the Owls won the College World Series, and has called minor league games for teams in Yakima, Wash., and Alexandria, La.

“Baseball games have lots of pauses and places you have to fill in with information you have on hand,” he said. “Soccer is much more continuous. It’s a challenge to tell stories while also telling people what is going on.”

Yardley is a native of Morristown, N.J., and majored in history and English at Rice.

He’s the latest of several new voices for Houston team broadcasts, and at least some of the newbies are getting together to compare notes. Astros broadcaster Brett Dolan recently convened the inaugural Young Guns Luncheon with Astros colleague Dave Raymond, Craig Ackerman and the grand old man of the group, Marc Vandermeer of the Texans.