The longtime radio announcer for Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Angels returned to the mic March 4, following a hit-and-run crash where his car was rear-ended and totaled by a car traveling as fast as 90 mph.
The accident, which took place Feb. 28 on a street in the Phoenix, AZ area, near the Angels’ home park during spring training season, left the team’s 35-year play-by-play voice, Terry Smith, with just a thumb injury. Smith, 70, told the Orange County Register that the first officer on the scene said he was “lucky to be alive.”
The driver in the crash, who already was being pursued by police, remains at large.
“I feel extremely fortunate to be on the air with you,” Smith said at the start of his first broadcast back on the team-owned radio flagship “Angels Radio” KLAA-AM (830). “This was a harrowing experience for me and my family, but I am ready to go and give it a test today. A lot of things have happened to me and my family over the last 72 hours and I’m extremely happy to be with you for today’s broadcast.”
Smith, who also hosts the Angels’ post-game call-in show “Angel Talk” and the team’s hot-stove program “Angels Tonight,” joined their broadcast booth in 2002, the year the team won its first and only World Series to date. Prior to his move to Los Angeles, Smith spent 19 years in Ohio calling the plays for the Yankees’ former Triple-A affiliate, the Columbus Clippers, and 11 years for the Ohio State University Football and Basketball Radio Network.