Submitted photo / Canfield native Richie Juliano is broadcasting for the AA Tennessee Smokies

Baseball has always been a love affair for Richie Juliano. So much so, the Canfield native has begun his career still involved with the game.

The Canfield native moved to Tennessee in April and serves as a broadcaster and media relations specialist for the Cubs’ AA affiliate, the Tennessee Smokies. The Smokies are located about 20 minutes east of Knoxville.

The journey to the Volunteer State was arduous, however. Juliano said he applied for “10 or 11” different broadcasting jobs with Minor League teams before catching his break with the Smokies.

It all started with a connection back home in Youngstown.

Area broadcaster Ron Potesta, with whom Juliano worked Youngstown State events, used to work in the Smokies’ league, the Southern League, years ago, and maintained contacts there. Potesta connected Juliano with his now-boss, Mick Gillespie, who brought Juliano on board.

“It was difficult filling out a lot of applications, doing some interviews, and I just couldn’t get a job at first,” said Juliano, who graduated from Canfield High School in 2018. “But luckily, with Ron and that connection, we were good.”

Juliano moved April 1, and the season was underway April 6.

With such a quick turnaround, there was a lot of learning on the fly, Juliano said, particularly with the media relations aspects of the job.

“It was kind of like flying the plane and building it while in the air,” Juliano said. “Some of the stuff, I’ve done — obviously broadcasting I’ve done. But the media relations title of this job, I didn’t have much experience. So a lot of it was having to adapt and overcome a lot of adversity, because some of the time I didn’t know what I was doing.”

In fact, it was a bit of a trial by fire out of the gates. Gillespie caught an illness the first weekend of the season, and Juliano took over in his absence. Thankfully, Juliano said, he was able to rely on those around him in the organization to help stay afloat.

Those media relations duties include putting together each day’s game notes, about 15 pages of details and facts for local media and helping the organization to put its best foot forward with the public.

On the broadcast side, Juliano said one of the biggest first steps was developing a rapport with the players and coaches he’d be working with. To that end, Juliano uses the MLB research tool to be able to view players’ entire game logs and track how their seasons are going.

In addition, the Smokies organize in-depth player interviews between the broadcast/media relations team and the players in order to get to know the players on a more personal level, allowing the broadcasters to provide more in-depth information on the players during games.

“It’s all about trust with your manager, with the players and the entire coaching staff,” Juliano noted.

Many of those skills — both in terms of broadcasting and developing that trust — were honed while Juliano studied at Youngstown State, where he earned a degree in telecommunications/sports broadcasting in 2022. While at YSU, Juliano was able to call baseball, women’s basketball and volleyball games, and also served on the Mahoning Valley Scrappers broadcast team.

“In this industry, you only get better with reps,” Juliano said. “So I think that (Youngstown State’s sports information department members) Trevor Parks, Dre Smith, John Vogel, Jamie Hall, all those guys, those guys gave me those opportunities, and I can’t thank them enough because without them, I wouldn’t have the on-air experience. As a sports broadcasting student, I wasn’t really there for class, I was there for the on-air experience and everything that goes with being a sports broadcaster.”

Now achieving his career goals, Juliano said there have been some surprises and that the life of a Minor League broadcaster is a labor of love. Juliano begins his days at 10 a.m. and typically doesn’t depart the ballpark until 11 p.m. And with the team’s schedule, Juliano could work 12 games in 14 days.

“That was something I was pretty surprised by — I didn’t realize the hours and the time that is put into this, because sometimes it’s a little pay for a lot of hours, and you just have to grind through it,” Juliano said.

But, at the end of the day, there’s no place Juliano would rather be than the ballpark.

“I love it, it’s my favorite sport,” he said.

Juliano added, “I never thought I would have this opportunity, but I was fortunate enough to take it, and I love it. There’s no better place to be than at the ballpark every night. It could be a lot worse, right? … There are a lot of pros, there are some things like the hours, but you have to respect it, and you just have to love it. If you don’t love the game of baseball, you’re not going to love this job.”