Rick Monday - Broadcasting Career

Broadcasting Career

Soon after his retirement as a player, Monday became a broadcaster for the Dodgers. He began in 1985 by hosting the pregame show and calling play-by-play on cable TV. From 1989-92, Monday moved further south to call San Diego Padres games alongside Jerry Coleman, replacing outgoing announcer Dave Campbell. He was also a sports anchor at KTTV for a time in the 1980s. In addition, he served as a color commentator for CBS-TV at the College World Series championship game in 1988. Monday rejoined the Dodgers in 1993, replacing Don Drysdale who died suddenly from a heart attack in his hotel room on a Dodger road trip in Montreal. From 2005 to 2008, Monday mostly handled the analyst role, with Charley Steiner handling most of the play-by-play, except during road trips outside of the National League West division, during which Steiner broadcast the games on television (because Vin Scully limits his broadcasting to all home games and road games involving either the NL West or AL West,) and Monday handled the radio play-by-play, usually with Jerry Reuss as his analyst. In 2009 Steiner (play-by-play) and Monday (analysis) began covering all games on radio, with Eric Collins doing TV play-by-play for games not covered by Scully.

Although Monday is not known for signature home run calls or pet phrases, he does use Rocket's Red Glare on occasion after a player hits a home run, and when a ball goes over the head of an outfield and head towards the wall, he uses the term no man's land.

Monday's "Blue Monday" home run (which crushed the Montreal Expos' championship dream) was not forgotten in Montreal. He reported, in an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in a documentary feature about the Montreal Expos, that when he was a broadcaster years after the homer, he was unexpectedly held up at Dorval Airport by Canadian immigration officer and missed his connecting flight. When he inquired about the reason, the officer asked if he was the former Dodger player, and smiled.

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