Courtesy New York Times

(April 3, 2010) Ernie Johnson may be best known as a basketball guy, sandwiched between Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley in TNT’s studio coverage of the N.B.A. But he has always held baseball closest to his heart. Johnson’s father, Ernie, pitched for the Milwaukee Braves clubs of the 1950s and was later a Braves play-by-play announcer for nearly four decades. E. J., as the younger Johnson is known, joined his father in the booth for four years in the 1990s. For the past three years, Johnson was TBS’s studio host for baseball. But this season, he will call 40 Atlanta Braves games as well as TBS’s Sunday games after the N.B.A. season. Johnson also does play by play for TNT’s golf coverage. STUART MILLER

Q. Does having such a full lineup, with basketball, golf and baseball pose any concerns?

A. I don’t think so, though you have to hope you don’t say, ‘The Bulls will have a good chance if Phil Mickelson has a good year.’

Q. How does it feel to return to the baseball booth?

A. I’ve always loved baseball. My dream was to be a baseball player. At the University of Georgia, I walked on as a freshman, but I was told to walk off as a sophomore. Calling games with my father in the 1990s rekindled that love in me — and it was indescribable having him as my partner. He’s 85 now, and when I broadcast the games this year, I’ll picture him and my mom in front of their set.

Q. Did being the son of a ballplayer make it easier for you to deal with athletes?

A. Watching my dad work taught me to always just be myself. And when you grow up hanging around the batting cage and Hank Aaron is asking how your Little League team is doing, it definitely makes it easier. You realize that everyone is just a human being and you don’t build a shrine to these guys.

Still, when I was young, I got caught up in it a little bit. The first time I met Michael Jordan, it wasn’t even a one-on-one interview, mine was just one of three microphones there, but I was thinking to myself: Look at me. I’m talking to Michael Jordan.

Now it’s different. Last year, I was talking to Joe Torre in the clubhouse before the N.L.C.S., and I was remembering my dad taking me with him when he went to visit Joe in the hospital back in the early 1960s when he was on the Braves. So it feels like a link to my past.

Q. How will you adjust to the broadcast booth and working with several new sets of analysts, nationally for TBS and locally for the Braves?

A. After 10 years with Charles and Kenny, I can handle anything. With those guys, you really have to hustle to get in some words, and then Charles still interrupts halfway through a sentence just to say, “You have a big forehead.”

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