Legendary baseball broadcaster Bob Costas is retiring from play-by-play announcing, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reports. Marchand writes that Costas has confirmed the news but said he would make his own announcement in the future.
Costas, 72, has been broadcasting Major League Baseball games since 1980 and, over the decades, has become one of the sport’s most immediately recognizable voices. More recently, Costas has served as MLB Network’s lead game broadcaster for its entire existence, and he’s also called playoff games for TNT. If Costas is indeed done with play-by-play duties, then his call of ALDS Game 4 between the New York Yankees and the Kansas City Royals would be his last. Costas will continue with limited MLB Network duties, according to Marchand, but those duties won’t include play-by-play broadcasting.
Prior to next season, TNT will find a new lead game broadcaster for the regular-season and playoff games to which it has rights.
In 2018, Costas was chosen to receive the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence from the Baseball Hall of Fame.
