Emrick to call Pirates-Cubs baseball game: report

Fresh off calling an 11th straight Stanley Cup Final for NBC, Mike "Doc" Emrick is going to lend his voice to MLB Network when the Pittsburgh Pirates play the Chicago Cubs on July 8 at PNC Park in Pittsburgh.
"I just want to make sure that what I do is at least MLB Network level," Emrick told the New York Times on Saturday. "Maybe the bottom of the bar they set, but I want to be halfway professional."

Emrick in May won his fourth (third straight) Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Sports Personality, Play-By-Play for his coverage of the NHL on NBC.

Emrick, who has been a Pirates fan since his childhood in Indiana, will call the game with Bob Costas, who reached out to Emrick after hearing him express a desire to call a Pirates game.
This will not be Emrick's first foray into baseball; he called two spring-training games for the Pirates in Bradenton, Fla., in March.
"He's a lifelong baseball fan and follows the Pirates so closely, he's not going to be asking, 'Which one is Andrew McCutchen?'" Costas told the Times. "And he's an obsessive preparer."

Emrick called water polo for NBC at the 2004 Athens Olympics and 2012 London Olympics, and the NCAA men's basketball tournament and NFL for CBS.
He is known for using an expansive vocabulary to describe hockey action but said he has nothing planned for baseball.
"I don't have a home run call," Emrick said. "Whatever happens, happens."
Emrick, who will turn 70 on Aug. 1, has been calling professional hockey games since 1973. He received the Lester Patrick Award in 2004 and the Hockey Hall of Fame Foster Hewitt Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to hockey broadcasting in 2008.