Dodgers announcer put in hilarious spot to break down son's swing after strikeout

Eric Karros had to wear two hats this week when the Los Angeles Dodgers took on the Colorado Rockies. His son, Kyle, is the starting third baseman for the Rockies, and Eric is the guy paid to objectively explain what’s happening on the field. You can see where this is going.

At one point during the series, Kyle came to the plate, took a hack, and had to walk back to the dugout after Emmet Sheehan struck him out. The replay rolled and there’s Dad, headset on, presumably trying to figure out how to tell the audience that his own kid got fooled on a breaking ball without sounding like, well, a dad. 

He went about it like a professional, noting the pitches from Sheehan and nothing else. Good for Eric. Thankfully for him, there was some good to describe without it ruining the Dodgers’ day.

Eric Karros announcing games against his son is a storyline that keeps writing itself

This isn’t actually new territory for Eric. Last August, when the Rockies visited Los Angeles, Kyle hit his first career home run off the same Sheehan who struck him out this week. His dad was there, but as a fan, as he’d wrapped his 45-game broadcast slate and was elsewhere in the ballpark. He admitted that he kept repositioning himself nervously for each of Kyle’s at bats. 

For this one, he didn’t get to hide, but Kyle has had a good series with his dad on the call. He singled on Monday, which led to a fun moment where Freddie Freeman incessantly tried to get him to look up at the booth. Kyle laughed. Freeman laughed. Eric probably exhaled. He also hit a three-run homer, so the swing has worked pretty well at times this series too. 

Let’s just sit with this for a second. Eric spent 12 of his 14 seasons in Dodger blue. He was the 1992 Rookie of the Year. He was a Silver Slugger in 1995. He even holds a franchise record … for sacrifice flies. The man’s name is woven into the fabric of the organization. 

And now he’s sitting in a booth at the stadium where he built that resume, employed by the team’s broadcast partner, watching his kid wear another uniform and try to beat the team he gave more than a decade of his prime to. How do you do that? There’s no handbook to explain “how to call your son striking out and looking bad in front of a TV audience.” 

It’s fun to watch Kyle, though, as he and Eric have a pretty similar path. Both went to UCLA and played corner infield. Both were drafted out of college, but the Rockies grabbed Kyle instead of the Dodgers to rob us of a feel-good father/son broadcast story instead of a slightly cursed one.

Color commentary means you’re paid to have opinions on every single swing, every single pitch, and everything else that happens on the field. There’s a job to do, and it stops for nobody, including when a guy steps to the plate who might still be on your cell phone plan. 

And Eric has handled it about as well as anyone could. He’s joked about divided loyalties and has generally treated the whole thing like the surreal and slightly absurd experience that it is. He already got to call his other son, Jared, pitching in 2024 spring training, albeit for the Dodgers. He stood up, clapping in the booth after the strikeout because sometimes the dad in a guy just has to come out. 

Kyle told Dodgers Beat last year that the Karros family's dream is to have Jared pitching to him while Dad is on the call. Jared is currently on the mend from Tommy John surgery, so we’re not quite there yet. But the building blocks are there, one weird broadcast moment at a time. 

And while the Rockies are playing the Dodgers, Eric has to wear both hats, which isn’t always easy. It’s somehow difficult when he does well because he’s doing it against the team for which he calls the game. And it’s somehow difficult when he does poorly because who wants to watch their kid not succeed? But that’s the gig. You can’t exactly pass your headset to Stephen Nelson every time the kid whiffs. Although, honestly? Nobody would blame him if he tried.

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