Shane Brown landed his job with the Sugar Land Skeeters in about the same way as the organization has been successful in a league in which their closest opponent is over 1,400 miles away.  Filled with scrutiny about the team’s location in the Atlantic League, the team has been trailblazers in a league that’s always been known for doing things a little differently.

FortBendStar.com:  Public address announcer makes right call for Skeeters

Sugar Land was to be part of a western expansion of the Atlantic League which so far has only yielded the one team, the Skeeters closest opponent is the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs in Waldorf, Maryland.  That’s not typical for independent leagues when most fit within a footprint of half that mileage.

When it came time to choose a P. A. announcer, the English teacher from Kentucky came to Texas when he and his wife made an agreement to move to where ever gave either of them the best job after graduate school.  His wife, Stacy took a teaching job at Westbury Christian School in Houston in 1993 where Shane would wind up announcing a few games.

So a team who is joining a league that’s so far away from its opponent could wind up with a P. A. announcer who came to town with his wife and only had a few high school games under his belt.  It’s the improbable seeking the improbable.

To make the improbable dream even more improbable, Shane didn’t even apply for the job.  Stacy signed him up for the audition which happened behind a curtain and Shane believed was a fun thing to do, until he got called back for a second audition.  In a trial-by-fire audition in which the general manager was throwing unexpected announcements at him, he impressed the organization so much that they called him to be the team’s back-up announcer, until two weeks before the first pitch, their first candidate left.

Now it was up to Shane Brown to get behind the mic.  And to say his work opening night was not so good is an understatement.  Not only did he mispronounce the name of the York Revolution manager, he also called them the Rebellion.  With two strikes against him, his tongue got in the way when he called the Skeeters, the “Skeezers”.

He thought he’d be fired, but he bounced back and has improved on a game-by-game basis with the help and support of the game operations crew that he works with at Constellation Field.

Maybe they also recognize Shane’s ability to see the future as the Revolution play in Pennsylvania.  National Pro Fastpitch’s entry in the Keystone State is the Pennsylvania Rebellion who joined NPF two years after the Skeeters began play in the Atlantic League.  The Rebellion play in the same south western Pennsylvania stadium as the Frontier League’s Washington Wild Things.  The Frontier League is a competing league to the Atlantic League.