Nine Innings In: Stephen Nelson on Calling Dodgers Games, the Sounds Nobody Records, and the Pitch That Creates a Baseball Fan.

Stephen Nelson calls play-by-play for the Los Angeles Dodgers on SportsNet LA and AM570. He sometimes asks his producer if they can do an inning of pure game sounds. No commentary, just the crack of the bat, the pop of the mitt, the cleats on the dirt. The producer always says no. He asks anyway.

There is a camcorder video of Stephen Nelson, not yet two years old, cursing at a Lakers game on television. He cannot explain the specific words. He can explain where they came from: his dad. Whatever his father did, Stephen wanted to do. Whatever his father loved, Stephen wanted to love. Sports were among his father’s greatest passions. It was that simple, and it was that permanent.

Stephen Nelson is the fourth guest on Nine Innings In, Sideline’s baseball fandom podcast hosted by Vin Samperio, and the first broadcaster to appear on the show. Previous guests included Xavier Scruggs and Steve Perrault. Nelson covers the back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers on SportsNet LA and AM570, and also works for NBA TV. He is a father of two boys who have recently taken to sitting on his lap to watch Dodgers games on weeknights in June when the outcome has no bearing on anything at all.

Steven Nelson in the broadcast booth at Dodger Stadium calling play-by-play for the Los Angeles Dodgers on SportsNet LA and AM570, the back-to-back World Series champions, as he discusses on Nine Innings In Episode 4 his approach to broadcasting including his recurring request to do an inning of pure game sounds with no commentary — Stephen Nelson calls Dodgers games on SportsNet LA. Sometimes he asks his producer if they can do an inning of pure game sounds — no commentary, just the crack of the bat and the pop of the mitt and the cleats on the dirt. The producer always says no. He asks anyway.

——— INNING ONE / THE ORIGIN ———

HOW IT STARTED

Stephen Nelson: From a South Side Childhood to the Booth at Chavez Ravine

Nelson grew up a Chicago White Sox fan in a household where sports were the common language between a father and a son. Baseball entered his life not through a single moment but through proximity: his father’s passions became his passions by simple inheritance, the way fandom has always worked before anyone had a term for it. He stopped playing baseball as a kid earlier than most of his sports — he tried everything — but never lost the connection to the game. He kept up with standings through the sports section of the newspaper. He collected baseball cards. He carried the game with him even when he wasn’t playing it.

A father and young son watching baseball together in a living room in the early 1990s, representing Steven Nelson's origin story as a sports fan — following his father's passions because his father was his first hero, leading to camcorder videos of a toddler cursing at Lakers games and a love of baseball rooted entirely in wanting to be like his dad — There is a camcorder video of Stephen Nelson, not yet two years old, cursing at a Lakers game because that’s what his dad did. Whatever his father loved, he wanted to love. Sports were among his father’s greatest passions. It was that simple and that permanent.

The players who defined his childhood fandom were Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. He describes them as the two who encapsulated everything: Thomas was the first, Griffey was the inevitable second. There was a Sports Illustrated cover featuring both of them, with a giveaway of mock statues of each player side by side. He still has it, somewhere, packed away. And then came Hideo Nomo — and being Japanese American, Nelson says, that was something different entirely. “You didn’t have to be Japanese to be a kid in the backyard trying to do the tornado windup,” he says. “Every now and again you catch yourself doing it when you’re just standing around waiting.”

The path from South Side fan to Dodger Stadium broadcast booth ran through years of working in sports media, including a stint where he and Vin Samperio were coworkers — the reason this episode has the specific warmth of a conversation between two people who go back further than the podcast. Nelson moved to Los Angeles, got the Dodgers job, and has been calling games for a franchise that has been to back-to-back World Series, in a park that he describes the way people describe a destination rather than a workplace. “Cotton candy skies, San Gabriels in the distance, the lights flaring down.”

——— INNING FOUR / THE SOUND ———

WHAT BASEBALL SOUNDS LIKE

Stephen Nelson: The Broadcaster Who Wants to Stop Talking and Just Listen

One of the recurring threads in Nelson’s episode is sound. He talks about remembering his first game not through images but through the sensory accumulation: the smell of a ballpark, the specific acoustic of a bat making contact, the pop of a mitt receiving a fastball, the cleats on the dirt, the crowd building from a murmur into something larger. As a broadcaster, his job is to describe and to fill. He does it well. But he also jokes with his producer about doing an inning of pure game sound — no commentary, just letting the audio be what it is. The producer always declines. Nelson keeps asking.

A baseball bat making contact with a pitch at the moment of impact, representing the sounds of the game that Steven Nelson describes as a beautiful and poetic part of baseball — the crack of the bat, the pop of the mitt, the cleats on the dirt — and his recurring request to do an inning of pure game sound with no broadcast commentary on Nine Innings In Episode 4 — The crack of the bat. The pop of the mitt. The cleats on the dirt. The roar of the crowd. Stephen Nelson calls games for a living. He wishes the broadcast could highlight these sounds more. He is in the business of talking over them.

He connects this directly to the argument for baseball’s distinctiveness as a sport. The game produces sounds that no other sport does in quite the same configuration: the specific crack of wood on a baseball is unlike anything else in American sports, and it carries meaning that people who grew up with the game process before they process the visual information. “The crack of the bat,” he says, “the pop of the mitt, the roar of the crowd — all those things are just a really beautiful and poetic part of the game.” He wishes the broadcast could highlight them more. He is in the business of talking over them.

“You could hear the cleats on the dirt, the pop of the mitt, the roar of the crowd. All those things are just a really beautiful and poetic part of the game. I wish that we as a broadcast were able to highlight them a little bit more.”

Stephen Nelson · Nine Innings In · Episode 4 · SportsNet LA Dodgers broadcaster

——— INNING SEVEN / THE TAKE ———

THE HILL HE’LL DIE ON

Stephen Nelson: The 2005 ALCS Was the Last Time We’ll Ever See That, and Nobody Talks About It

Nelson’s hot take on the pitch clock is not actually that hot: he loves it. Given where sports consumption is, given the need to budget time, the evolution makes sense to him. He gets the counter-argument. He has heard it. He does not find it compelling enough to change his position.

A pitcher completing a complete game in the 2005 ALCS between the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels, representing the streak that Steven Nelson argues is the most underappreciated in baseball history — four consecutive complete games by four different White Sox starters including Mark Buehrle John Garland José Contreras and Freddy García managed by Ozzie Guillén to win the American League pennant — 2005 ALCS. Mark Buehrle. John Garland. José Contreras. Freddy García. Four consecutive complete games. Four wins. The pennant. Nobody gets the chance to go the distance anymore. That’s why it will never happen again. “Of all the streaks talked about in the game, “Stephen Nelson says, “that one isn’t discussed enough.”

The take he actually wants to die on is older and more specific. The 2005 ALCS. The White Sox, managed by Ozzie Guillén, beat the Los Angeles Angels with four consecutive complete games to win the pennant. Mark Buehrle. John Garland. José Contreras. Freddy García. Four starters, four complete games, four wins. Nelson argues that streak will never be replicated in the modern game — not because the pitchers aren’t capable but because the culture of bullpen management, the arbitrary authority of the 100-pitch threshold, the proliferation of matchup-based relievers, and the basic economics of protecting arms have made the complete game nearly extinct. The Yoshinobu Yamamoto postseason last year was extraordinary precisely because he did it twice, in a single postseason, at the moment when a complete game had become the rarest thing in October baseball.

“Of all the streaks that are talked about in the game,” Nelson says, “that one isn’t discussed enough.” He pauses. “Just the way pitching has evolved, or some might say devolved, depending on who you’re talking to — nobody gets the chance to go the distance anymore.” It is the kind of take that requires knowing what you’re talking about to appreciate fully. For the fan who knows what the 2005 postseason meant to the South Side of Chicago, it lands the way a good take should land: obviously right, and somehow never said.

——— INNING EIGHT / THE FAMILY ———

PASSING IT ON

Stephen Nelson: His Five-Year-Old Is Hitting Rockets and His Boys Want to Watch the Game

The most personal section of the episode comes in Inning Six, when Nelson talks about how his relationship with baseball has changed as a father. As a kid, you live and die with every pitch. As an adult who covers the game professionally, you develop perspective — not indifference, but proportion. A three-week stretch of mediocre baseball for the Dodgers in 2025 is not the end of the world. He knows this. He has to remind himself anyway.

A father with two young sons on his lap watching a baseball game on television, representing Steven Nelson's story on Nine Innings In Episode 4 of his two boys wanting to sit on his lap and watch the Dodgers play the Twins in June — an interleague game with no bearing on the season — and what that moment meant to him as a baseball fan who got to pass the game to his children — His boys wanted to sit on his lap and watch the Dodgers and the Twins. It was June. An interleague series with no bearing on anything. “That meant something to me,” he says. “To have my boys be like, ‘I wanna watch the game with you.’ And they just come and sit on my lap. Here we go. This is the good stuff.”

But the thing that brought the feeling back was simpler than any game result: his oldest son, about to turn five, hitting the ball so hard during backyard practice that Nelson had to construct a makeshift protective screen to keep from taking a line drive to the face. And then the two boys, recently, wanting to sit on his lap and watch the Dodgers play the Twins on a weeknight. Not a playoff game. Not a rivalry. The Dodgers and the Twins in June, an interleague series with no bearing on the rest of the season. “That meant something to me,” he says. “To have my boys be like, ‘I wanna watch the game with you.’ And they just come and sit on my lap. And I’m like: here we go. This is the good stuff.”

“It’s Dodgers and Twins in June. Like, it’s an interleague series that has no bearing on the rest of the year. But that meant something to me, to have my boys be like, ‘I wanna watch the game with you.’ And they just come sit on my lap. Here we go. This is the good stuff.”

Stephen Nelson · Nine Innings In · Episode 4 · on passing baseball to his sons

——— INNING NINE / THE PITCH ———

HOW TO CREATE A FAN

Stephen Nelson: Put Them in the Top Deck on a Summer Night and See If It Takes

Inning Nine is always the same question: if you had to pitch baseball to a non-fan, what’s your argument? Nelson does not hesitate. He would drive them to Dodger Stadium, get tickets at the top of the park, and tell them to look and listen for a few innings. Clear summer night. Cotton candy skies. The San Gabriel Mountains in the distance. The lights flaring down on the infield. Shohei Ohtani in the lineup. The best team in baseball competing against whoever showed up.

“There’s more than enough there to make a compelling pitch,” he says, “and create a new fan.” He has made that pitch a few times. It has worked. He is not surprised. The same argument his father made without making it — just watching the game, just being present, just caring visibly — is the argument that turned a toddler in a Chicago living room into someone who now gets paid to describe those same sounds for a living. It did not require a speech. It required a lap and a television and a father who let the game speak for itself.

Nine innings. A camcorder video of a toddler cursing at the Lakers. Frank Thomas and Ken Griffey Jr. on a Sports Illustrated cover. The Nomo windup in the backyard. The 2005 ALCS four complete games that nobody talks about enough. A five-year-old hitting rockets. The Dodgers and the Twins on a Tuesday in June. Cotton candy skies.

Put them in the top deck. See if it takes.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify: Nine Innings In on Spotify · and everywhere you get your podcasts.

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