Courtesy the North Andover Eagle Tribune

(August 10, 2010) Former Andover resident Alex Vispoli is in the midst of a 28-day stretch without a single day off and a 152-day stretch when he will receive just 12 off days.

He works 15-hour shifts most days, starting between 9-9:30 a.m. and sometimes lasting until midnight. The 24-year-old broadcaster is not only the lone radio voice of the Winston-Salem Dash, a single-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox in North Carolina, but he also works as the Dash's media relations director.

"At this level of the game you have to do both because the organization isn't big enough where it can hire someone to be a full-time broadcaster and (another to be) full-time media relations," he said.

The long hours haven't seemed to bother him though.

Actually, during one of his 12 days off, he drove approximately four hours to Syracuse, N.Y. to help call a Syracuse Chiefs triple-A baseball game with one of his buddies.

Vispoli someday would like to call NFL games for CBS or FOX, but right now the broadcaster, who graduated from Phillips Academy in 2004 and Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2008, is working his way up the ladder and loving every minute of it.

"At game No. 109, I've still got that same fervor and enthusiasm that I did for game No. 1, which is encouraging for me because it tells me I'm in the right line of work," he said.

Long days

Vispoli's pregame tasks include preparing daily game notes for the media, finding story lines to present to the media and setting up player interviews.

He then calls every single inning of every single game, anchors a post-game show, writes a game recap, sends out the recap to all the different media outlets and posts the recap online before finally heading home usually around 11:30 p.m. or midnight depending on how long the game lasts.

"Sometimes on the road that writeup gets a little bit crunched," he said. "I have to make sure I finish it, send it out and post it online before the bus (to the hotel) leaves without me. That adds another level of stress."

This is Vispoli's first job as a team's No. 1 announcer. He was the No. 2 announcer for the three other professional baseball teams that he worked before accepting his job at Winston-Salem in February.

He said he will have his own No. 2 guy next year but for now he is alone in the booth — and that can be difficult sometimes.

"It's sometimes a challenge to find enough to talk about," he said. "Some of these guys, you don't really know much about them. Maybe they're a 19-year-old guy from the Dominican."

All signs point to a sports career

While he grew up, all signs pointed to Vispoli having some sort of career in sports.

"When he was elementary school he would play his imaginary Wiffle Ball games in the backyard and do the lineups in his head while he was playing," his mother Ann Vispoli said.

Vispoli also hardly ever just sat down to watch an NBA game as a kid. He instead often was hard at work keeping statistics on every player.

"He'd put together these books for the different NBA teams," his dad Alex J. Vispoli said. "And he'd put his own stat sheets together and he'd follow the season."

Vispoli's dad said his son spent much time analyzing the box scores in the newspaper each day and reading the sports section daily.

The older Vispoli added that he and his son attended several professional games together and that he never needed to buy a program because he had his son there to provide him with all the information he needed to know.

"When he got to be 10, 11, 12 (years old), he would know where all the players went to college," older Alex said. "He would know all their positions. ... And I would ask him questions. ... I would say, 'Oh, this guy doesn't look good' and he'd come back and say, 'No, he does look good and let me tell you why.'"

First gig

Vispoli played soccer, baseball and basketball while growing up.

"I wasn't really good at playing sports," he admitted. "I realized that by the time I was in middle school."

Vispoli failed to collect any hits during the baseball season he moved from Little League to the big diamond, his dad said.

So Vispoli searched for another way to remain involved in sports, knowing he would never be a varsity athlete.

He began writing for The Phillipian, the student newspaper at Phillips Academy, and worked as a beat writer, covering the football, baseball and basketball teams, then became a sports columnist.

He even got to interview Patriots coach Bill Belichick for a Phillipian article.

Vispoli, meanwhile, also had a sports talk show on Phillips' radio station.

"I wanted to listen to him but we were too far out of (the radio station's) range," his dad said. "So I used to take my car and park in one of the school lots (to listen)."

Still listening

Vispoli's dad and mother are still listening to their son — a lot. Vispoli's broadcasts can be heard online.

"Just about any night that we're home we'll put the Internet on so we can hear him," Ann Vispoli said. "We might be doing other things in the household, but we'll have the laptop on with him reporting in the background.

"One night I was sitting with my daughter and it was about 10:30 and I said, 'We should have Alexander on,' I thought, 'Oh, today he had a doubleheader so it might still be on.' The first game was over but the second game went 20 innings and went on past midnight. I think it went on until about 12:30. My daughter and I, we were both tired, but we felt guilty to go before the game ended. That was a long day."

Vispoli said that he knows many of the player's families listen to his broadcast every night and he loves to bring the game to those who can't make it to the stadium.

"I think I have the best job in the ballpark other than the guys who actually get paid to play," he said.

ALEX VISPOLI'S CAREER

— Caught the sports bug in the early '90s. "You grow up in the Massachusetts area right around Boston and you get that sports bug in you," he said. "I remember going to my first Celtics game. I think it was 1992 at the Boston Garden. I still remember that it was a Celtics/76ers game and Jeff Hornacek lit us up. I've been going to games with my dad really since the early 90s."

— Went to Phillips Academy from 2000 to 2004. Worked for The Phillipian. Was also on the school's radio station. Interviewed Patriots coach Bill Belichick for an article for The Phillipian.

— Went to Syracuse University from 2004 to 2008. He called football and basketball games at the Carrier Dome and elsewhere. He worked the Big East basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden his senior year. He also did sideline reporting for Syracuse football and lacrosse games and called some New York State high school football championship games.

— Has already worked as a broadcaster for four minor baseball league teams (all Class A): Winston-Salem Dash, Dayton Dragons, Lynchburg Hillcats and Salem Avalanche.

— This offseason he will work as a studio host for Georgia Tech football and basketball games.

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