Greg Brown (broadcaster)

For other people by this name, see Greg Brown (disambiguation).

Greg Brown is an American sportscaster, born in Washington, D.C., who has worked as a play-by-play announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates on Root Sports Pittsburgh and KDKA-FM since 1994. He works with Steve Blass, Bob Walk, and John Wehner. Originally, Brown called games with Lanny Frattare until Frattare retired after the 2008 season.

Brown grew up in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. He became a Pirates fan through the broadcasts on KDKA radio and would visit Pittsburgh each summer with his parents to see baseball games at Three Rivers Stadium. Brown enrolled at Point Park College and landed an internship with the Pirates' promotion department in 1979, where his duties included serving as the backup Pirate Parrot. He then worked in the Pirates' front office for 10 years in a variety of roles for the sales, broadcasting and public relations departments. He was the public address announcer in 1987 and did weekend sports anchoring at WFMJ-TV in Youngstown, Ohio in 1988.

Brown spent five seasons (1989–93) doing play-by-play for the Pirates' Class AAA affiliate in Buffalo, NY. He also hosted a sports talk show on WGR radio. For three seasons (1991–93), Brown was the color analyst on Buffalo Bills radio broadcasts and also hosted pre-game and post-game shows for the Bills games. He also called basketball games for the Buffalo Bulls.

Brown is known for his call "Raise the Jolly Roger" after every Pirates win. This is keeping in line with Pirate broadcasters, such as Lanny Frattare and Bob Prince, who also ended each Pirate win with a distinctive statement ("We had 'em all the way!" for Prince and "There was no doubt about it!" for Frattare). He is also known to exclaim "Clear the deck, cannonball coming!" on home runs hit by the Pirates, as well as "It's a trip-trip-triple!" when Pirates players hit triples.

Brown and his wife Kim have one son, Ryan.

See also

• Pittsburgh Pirates broadcasters and media

References

• Root Sports Pittsburgh broadcaster bios (Greg Brown)
• Greg Brown's Pirates Photoblog

Preceded by Pete Weber

Buffalo Bills color commentator 1990–1993

Succeeded by John Murphy