Courtesy MetroWest Daily News

(September 14, 2009) A career in professional baseball can become a bit routine, even for those most passionate about the sport. Luckily for Ashland native Mike Antonellis, there's been plenty of surprises to negate those long stretches of tedium.

Antonellis, the play-by-play broadcaster for the Portland Sea Dogs, the Red Sox' Double-A affiliate, has had more than his share of fun moments over his five years in Maine. It could be sharing the booth with legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg for a few innings, or allowing one of the Sea Dogs to come up for a brief attempt at play-by-play, or watching the constant parade of minor leaguers through the Boston system toward Fenway Park.

And some of his favorite nights are when established major leaguers come down for rehabilitiation starts - Antonellis remembers a game at Trenton where Roger Clemens brought 6,000 fans in for batting practice.

"Those times are really cool," the 36-year-old Antonellis said.

To top it all off, last week he was named the Eastern League's Broadcaster of the Year, an award distributed by the fellow announcers and media relations directors from the 12 teams in the EL.

"That's an award from my peers, and it's a nice sign of how people think about me," he said.

Antonellis, who played baseball at Ashland High School, did two years at Dean College before moving to Framingham State. While taking classes at FSC, he sought out radio work at WMRC in Milford, where he began his career by announcing Milford Legion games.

"If I didn't do that, I wouldn't have gotten to this," he said. "And I purposely sought out that station, because I knew they did a lot of local stuff."

His break into professional baseball came in 1997, when he joined the staff at the Prince William Cannons in Woodbridge, Va. Since then, he's had stops in Utica and Syracuse, N.Y., Kane County, Ill., and Erie, Pa., before heading to Portland in 2005.

The combination of being close to home, the presence of his team throughout Maine (the Sea Dogs are broadcast on seven stations across the state) and working for the organization he's always supported has been a dream come true.

"It really is a phenomenal organization for how it's run," Antonellis said.

And one of the best parts, he said, is watching the guys he knows well get their opportunity on the big stage. In late July, Antonellis was eating lunch in the hotel lobby when Josh Reddick walked through after just getting the news he was being promoted. He's also seen Junichi Tazawa rise through the ranks this year, and Jon Lester, Justin Masterson, Jed Lowrie and Jacoby Ellsbury over the past couple seasons.

"You root for them differently - it's hard to explain," Antonellis said. "I wish I could watch everyone move up and succeed."

Even with a few travel perks - the Sea Dogs are allowed to take flights to some of their longer road trips to Pennsylvania and Maryland - Antonellis sometimes gets worn down with the grind of a 142-game season. He's got a broadcast intern that does pre- and postgame shows and frequently will fill in on play-by-play duties, but by Labor Day, Antonellis needs to decompress with a few baseball-free weeks.

"I've done this for so long, and all the feelings and emotions always seem new," said Antonellis, who will do several Assumption basketball games in the offseason. "The first day after the season, you don't know what to do with yourself. I kinda enjoy where I am, just walk on the beach. And I was so excited to watch football.

"It's demanding, that's the one thing going into it that you don't always know. You commit to this for five months. There's no, 'I don't want to do this today."'

Moving up to the major leagues is still in the forefront of his mind, but Antonellis also wants to expand his horizons. He dabbles in acting, and also envisions himself anywhere from marketing to writing screenplays.

"I just feel like there's no limits if you work at it," he said. "I want to be a big-league broadcaster, but I feel like I can do a whole lot more."

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