Drew Meyer flashes All-American form in radio booth
This weekend, as the South Carolina baseball team begins its SEC schedule at Tennessee – weather permitting – Drew Meyer will be doing what any father of a baseball-loving 4-year-old does on his son’s birthday: running T-ball practice in his hometown of Charleston.
“Saturday at 9 a.m., 11 4-year-olds,” the 2002 All-American and two-time All-SEC infielder said this week. “All of them are hitting it pretty good … and most are getting their gloves on the right hand.”
For followers of Gamecocks baseball this season on WNKT-FM/107.5 The Game, Meyer being at home instead of in Knoxville might be disappointing. The former first-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers has worked as a stand-in analyst on five of USC’s game broadcasts so far.
Meyer has paired with Tommy Moody, who shifted from his usual analyst’s role to handle play-by-play duties while regular PBP man Derek Scott was busy doing USC men’s basketball. For Meyer, that was fun and educational; he also discovered he was pretty good at it, despite zero previous experience.
“I just winged it,” he said. “I went in with the mindset that Tommy’s the play-by-play guy, I’m going to let him call the game, and I’d just talk about certain situations. Really, it sort of came natural; I’ve always been a student of the game, and I’ve talked strategy all my life.”
Moody, another former USC player in his 18th season calling games, said Meyer has been “a tremendous asset to the broadcast, and it’s really fun working with Drew. He brings insight into some things that, as long as I have been following baseball and listening to games, I don’t pick up sometimes.”
Liz McMillan, executive director for IMG Sports Marketing, also believes Meyer has been a success.
“We were so pleased to bring on a former player who has such a good perspective about what’s going on, why coaches and players might make decisions they make,” she said. “It made a lot of sense to look for someone who had played and understood the game at South Carolina, and Drew’s been a joy to work with.”
Meyer said his “ah-ha” radio moment came during USC’s game vs. Winthrop, when the Gamecocks fell behind 4-0 in the first inning.
“(The Eagles) weren’t hitting our pitching well, and we hit it well, but right at (defenders),” he said. “I think I said, ‘If we keep this up, we’ll have a chance to win.’
“When we came back to win, it made me look pretty good,” he added with a laugh.
That easy-going approach has been evident in his on-air work.
“I don’t want to take too long (to make a point) or get too wordy,” Meyer said, “and if you get too deep into the strategy, you’ll lose fans who don’t know baseball that well. But maybe I give them a side of the game they hadn’t heard before.”
Moody also offers a former player’s perspective, but Meyer’s experience is more recent. He played under former coach (now athletics director) Ray Tanner, current coach Chad Holbrook and assistants Jerry Meyers and Sammy Esposito, which helps him predict in-game moves.
What has Meyer learned?
“It’s different watching from the press box,” he said. “Defensive positioning, guys working the count – it’s a much fuller view than from the dugout. Up there, I can see if guys are playing too deep, see plays develop a lot better.
“And,” he said, chuckling, “it’s cool to have the stats at your fingertips.”
The “downside,” he said, is having to explain a game’s ebb and flow in real time.
“You keep it simple, stay short-winded, or you can talk yourself into a jam,” Meyer said. “Baseball moves slowly, but it goes quick up in the booth.”
Does Meyer have a future in that booth? Probably not, he said, at least not anytime soon. Besides having a full-time job in insurance (and having to commute to Columbia for games, meaning “8 to 9-hour days”), he doesn’t aspire to replace any of the regulars.
Doing games elsewhere? That’s a non-starter. “I am biased for Carolina,” he said.
“There’s a fine line between being a cheerleader and offering criticism, and I try to be constructive if a guy’s struggling. But here, I feel like I know what (coaches and players) are thinking – as opposed to, say, at Florida State, where I don’t know the tradition.”
Moody agrees. “He’s been there, and can give that to the listening audience,” he said. “I think that really comes across. I know I’ve gotten so many compliments about the job Drew’s doing.
“He loves it, and you combine that with his knowledge of the game … if someday he wants to do that, when the time comes, I think he’d be an asset to the baseball broadcasts for a long time.”
For now, though, Meyer will cede his microphone whenever Scott returns from basketball, and spend games listening to the regulars. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t thought about it, though.
“I don’t know when my next (radio) game might be,” Meyer said, “but the SEC Network does (live online streaming) for all the games. (Former USC player) Trey Dyson has asked if I could fill in for him on that sometimes.
“I told him, ‘Just let me know.’ ”
This story was originally published March 18, 2017 at 3:09 AM with the headline "Drew Meyer flashes All-American form in radio booth."