ESPN’s Eduardo Perez is a baseball broadcasting veteran. You’ve undoubtedly seen him on the network’s various baseball offerings over the years, especially Baseball Tonight and, of course, the Home Run Derby.
This year, the 2024 MLB Home Run Derby will be held in Arlington, Texas. The Texas Rangers will host the event at Globe Life Park, where the MLB All-Star Game will also take place. Perez will be on the call yet again, but so will former MLB star Todd Frazier.
Ahead of the broadcast on Monday, Perez joined the ESPN Communications Podcast and discussed what he thinks Frazier will bring to the table.
“I’ve done this event in three different languages. And I’m about to do it in a fourth different language with Todd Frazier,” he joked. Perez explained his road to the current day, which included calling the event in three languages: Spanish, the language of StatCast, and the regular broadcast.
“This event is actually made beautiful for Deportes in general, but also, I was able to call it in the language of StatCast,” he explained. “That was also a great event as well. Next to Mike Petriello, Jason Benetti. We were the original three, right? That’s the way I call it; that’s the way I see it. And it changed me. That language of baseball changed me.”
“The one I’ve been doing with Karl and now Todd Frazier, I think I’m gonna learn new words,” Perez joked again. “I think I’m gonna learn new words, and I don’t know if they’re all gonna be perfect.”
Still, Perez was highly complimentary of his new broadcast partner.
“But I don’t care because the energy Todd Frazier brings and always brought to the field and the microphone. I’ve seen it in the Little League World Series. I wanna see that same energy, that same originality, that same person we see off camera. I believe we’re gonna see it on camera; I think it’s gonna be a great trio.”
Coverage of the 2024 MLB Home Run Derby begins Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022