Two decades into his professional broadcasting career, Joe Ritzo decided to try something new.
The date was May 14, 2025. The San Francisco Giants were playing the Arizona Diamondbacks at Oracle Park in the afternoon, and the Single-A San Jose Giants had a game that night, 82 miles away in Stockton.
Ritzo was already committed to calling the big league game on the radio, but when his San Jose broadcast partner couldn’t make it to Stockton, Ritzo decided to call both games.
He did something similar in 2021, when broadcasters weren’t traveling, calling a San Francisco road game from home before driving to Modesto for San Jose’s nightcap. This day, though, was a true doubleheader.
San Francisco Giants KNBR broadcaster Joe Ritzo in the booth at Oracle Park in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
San Francisco and Arizona didn’t bless Ritzo with a quick game. Despite pitch clocks and other methods to speed play, it ran over three hours. Immediately after the final out, Ritzo braved rush-hour traffic. His commute lasted two-and-a-half hours, but he arrived at Banner Island Ballpark in time for first pitch.
For Ritzo, 41, the day was a microcosm of his career.
Ritzo got his start as a student at Santa Clara University, working for the San Jose Giants in varying capacities and serving as the voice to multiple generations of prospects. And since 2023, Ritzo has become a fixture in the San Francisco Giants’ broadcast rotation, a full-circle moment for the Palo Alto native who grew up rooting for the black and orange.
“It’s incredibly exciting to just be part of the Giants broadcast family in any capacity,” Ritzo said. “I’m grateful to learn from some of the best to ever do it, and that energizes me the most. My job is to be ready and do my best wherever they need me.”
Ritzo’s broadcasting origins begin at San Jose Municipal Stadium, where he practiced broadcasting games from the bleachers as early as 9 years old.
Ritzo knew at an early age that he wanted to be around baseball, but he wasn’t sure how to turn his knowledge and love of the game into a career.
As a freshman at Palo Alto High, Ritzo worked the scoreboard at Stanford’s baseball games. He cozied up to the broadcasters over the years and when he was a junior, they let him call some innings here and there.
Most of his broadcasting opportunities were on the road because he still had to operate the scoreboard at home. Ritzo traveled on his own dime, since he was not part of the traveling crew, but the broadcasters let him crash on the floor of their hotel rooms.
Ritzo’s first official broadcast was in April of 2001, when Stanford played USC. In 2001 and 2002, Ritzo flew to Omaha, Nebraska, to call the Cardinal’s games in the College World Series, including the 2001 title game. Ritzo described himself as shy and quiet in childhood, but these opportunities brought him out of his shell.
Joe Ritzo, center, was still a student at Palo Alto High school when he
made his first official broadcast on April 20, 2001, joining Chad Goldberg for
Stanford’s game at USC. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOE RITZO
“Doing games only confirmed this is what I want to do,” Ritzo said.
After graduating from Palo Alto High, Ritzo sent the San Jose Giants some of his Stanford broadcasts. At the time, San Jose only broadcast home games and relied on a rotating cast. Ritzo entered the fold and did five games that first season, but called about 50 games by the time he was about to graduate from Santa Clara.
Around that time, San Jose decided it wanted a full-time broadcaster. The Giants were already familiar with him and as Ritzo prepared for finals, the team offered him the position.
“There was plenty of hard work that I had to show to put myself in that position,” Ritzo said, “but it was certainly the right place, right time.”
Broadcasting was only one of Ritzo’s many responsibilities with San Jose. He doubled as a member of the front office, where his daily responsibilities included — but weren’t limited to — updating the website, writing game stories and game notes, working with the coaching staff and coordinating travel with bus companies. For Ritzo, 15-hour workdays that concluded around 2 or 3 a.m. were the rule, not the exception.
“Early on, he did everything,” said Mark Wilson, the former San Jose Giants general manager. “He would do our preview of the series, he would do our postgame notes, and he would update our website. He did it all.”
From 2007 to 2019, Ritzo broadcast nearly every San Jose Giants game. The list of future big-leaguers he covered included Buster Posey, Madison Bumgarner and Brandon Crawford. He called three San Jose championships (2007, ‘09, and ‘10).
The work was taxing, but the opportunity to broadcast baseball made it all worth it for Ritzo.
Jon Miller and Joe Ritzo take a selfie ahead of Ritzo’s first broadcast at Dodger Stadium in September of 2023. (Photo courtesy of Joe Ritzo)
Still, as he saw the players he called matriculate from San Jose to San Francisco, Ritzo wondered about his own path forward.
“When I was growing up, I just wanted to broadcast baseball. Getting that first full-time position with San Jose right after I finished college, that felt like I was fulfilling a dream,” Ritzo said. “Then, as you go through a decade-plus in minor-league baseball and work those long hours, go on the bus rides, not getting back home until five or six in the morning, and you see the players that you knew in San Jose go up to San Francisco.
“You start to wonder, could that be me someday?”
In the middle of the 2019 season, Ritzo received a phone call from Mario Alioto, who spent much of his five decades with the Giants as the team’s vice president of business operations.
The San Francisco Giants had a doubleheader at Coors Field on July 15, and radio man Dave Flemming was unavailable because he had a national commitment. Alioto asked Ritzo if he wanted to fly to Denver and call both games with Jon Miller. Ritzo had called Giants spring training games since 2017, but this was his first opportunity to call a regular-season major-league game.
“I was ecstatic,” Ritzo said. “I hung up the phone, called my wife, called my parents, called all the important people in my life. ‘I’m going to be doing a regular-season major-league game!’
“When you’ve been a full-time minor-league broadcaster for 13 years, it’s a really big deal.”
The Giants didn’t give Ritzo much time to ease into his debut. They scored five runs in the top of the first inning and seven more in the third. With nearly 2,000 minor-league games under his belt, Ritzo handled the frenetic pace with ease.
“You had to be totally on your game when something like that happens, and it’s happening so quickly,” said Miller, the Hall of Famer who is entering his 52nd season as a broadcaster. “There’s no time to settle in at that point.
“He didn’t miss a beat. Nothing was overlooked, nothing piled up on him where he was in over his head.”
Before that cup of coffee, Ritzo had already decided that it was time for his next chapter.
Following 13 full-time seasons with San Jose, Ritzo moved into a seasonal role after the 2019 season. He and his wife, Emily, were expecting their first child, and 15-hour days were no longer a sustainable model.
Ritzo remained the radio voice of the San Jose Giants while filling in for the big-league team in 2021 and 2022. Before the 2023 season, Alioto offered Ritzo a designated block of games instead of last-minute fill-in work.
Joe Ritzo, right, has been calling San Jose Giants games since the 2007
season. Here, he calls a 2013 game from the press box at Municipal Stadium
while Ben Taylor, who is now the team president, updates the team’s mobile app.
LIPO CHING/STAFF ARCHIVES
Ritzo believes one of the crucial moments in becoming a regular came during the 2022 season. San Jose was in San Bernardino when Ritzo got a call at 6 a.m.from Alioto, who told Ritzo he needed a pinch-hitter behind the mic. Ritzo hopped on a flight to Denver and arrived about 30 minutes before first pitch.
“The one thing about Joe — and I think that really has made a difference — is that his answer is always yes,” Alioto said. “That’s important, because sometimes situations can change dramatically. … We were in a bind, he figured it out, and he did what it took.”
Ritzo is long removed from his days of juggling school and work, of working tireless days that end in the dead of night. And as he enters his fourth season calling both San Jose and San Francisco, that passion he possessed as a 9-year-old in the stands of San Jose Municipal Stadium has never faded.