Jack Corrigan was in the drama club in high school and began as a theater major in college. The training helped him develop and deal with his emotions, and he remembers one particularly disappointing event.
As a freshman in college, he tried out for a part in a Shakespeare play but got beat out by a classmate. That classmate was Christopher Reeve, who would go on to be immortalized in the now-classic 1978 film “Superman.”
“I learned to handle disappointment,” he said. “That's why things like what the Rockies are going through right now is no big deal. I've gone through the ups and the downs.”
In baseball, there may be no “downs” quite as low as what the Colorado Rockies are going through, struggling through one of the worst losing seasons in baseball history.
Corrigan appeared on the Cowboy State Daily Morning Show with John Baggett last week to discuss his lengthy career as a sports broadcaster and how he has learned to approach the job game by game, which helps him sit through loss after loss.
Longtime Colorado Rockies announcer Jack Corrigan waves to fans as they show their appreciation for him call his 3,000th Rockies game in May 2022. (Colorado Rockies via Facebook) 
Jack Corrigan prepares to call a Colorado Rockies game. (Colorado Rockies via Facebook) 
The Colorado Rockies radio broadcast team of Jack Corrigan, left, and partner Jerry Schemmel, right. They're pictured here with producer Jesse Thomas. (Courtesy Jack Corrigan via X)
Baseball Mom
The second oldest of seven kids, Corrigan grew up in Cleveland and developed a love for baseball from his mother, who was a sports fan.
In the summer, she would turn on the radio and listen to Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Graney call Cleveland Indians games, he said. When he was in kindergarten, his mother would use the sports pages to teach Corrigan to read.
Corrigan’s path toward becoming a play-by-play broadcaster began when he and a friend would bring a portable reel-to-reel tape recorder to Cleveland stadium, sit in the upper deck and record games with Corrigan doing the narrating.
He attended Cornell University on a football scholarship and went to graduate school in Ohio, where he began his career as a sports reporter and broadcaster on local TV and radio.
He began broadcasting Cleveland Cavalier games in 1985 with Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Tait, learning from him along the way.
“Whether your team is good or bad, that night might be a great story,” Corrigan told Cowboy State Daily. “So, you go into that game with enthusiasm.
“There's somebody coming to that game for the first time or there's somebody there who spends a big chunk of their annual income to be a season ticket holder because that's how much they love the game,” he added. “So there's that obligation to bring all the elements of the game, good and bad, to that listener, to make it appealing.”
Corrigan jumped at the chance to become the Cleveland Indians play-by-play announcer, a role he held for 17 years until the broadcast moved to a different radio station.
After the death of legendary St. Louis Cardinals broadcaster Jack Buck, who had held the job for 47 years almost until his death in 2002, Corrigan applied for the job but lost out to then-Colorado Rockies broadcaster Wayne Hagin.
That opened up a play-by-play spot with the Rockies, which Corrigan slid into.
“And 23 seasons later, here I still am,” he said.
Rockies Lows And Highs
Over the decades, Corrigan has seen some of the Rockies greatest moments.
He was on the call in September 2007 when Todd Helton’s two-run walk-off home run sparked a stunning streak of 21 wins in 22 games, launching Colorado into “Rocktober.”
He was there a few weeks later when Jamey Carroll delivered a pinch-hit sacrifice fly to beat the San Diego Padres in a one-game playoff that gave the Rockies the National League Wild Card spot that would eventually lead to the franchise’s first and only World Series appearance.
That was the peak for Rockies fans, and now Corrigan is in the midst of the lowest point in franchise history.
The team has not had a winning season in seven years. This season, the team is on a historic slide.
Through Saturday, the Rockies are 17-60 so far this season, have been outscored by 204 runs. They’re on pace to eclipse last year’s Chicago White Sox (41-121) as the worst season in the modern era.
They also could surpass the 1899 Cleveland Spiders (20-134) for losing the most games in pro baseball history of any era.
“There was some understanding that this was going to be a transitional year between injuries, maybe some misjudgments on guys being ready or guys having the talent to be successful,” Corrigan said. “Plus, just the way the schedule played out, the sort of strength of schedule that the Rockies have dealt with in the first two and a half months all contributed to the start they've had.
“I told people before spring training started, I said this will be a different team and they will be better at the end of the year than they are at the beginning but that it could be challenging at times,” he added. “I don't think people thought it would be this challenging.”
Contact Justin George at justin@cowboystatedaily.com
Justin George can be reached at justin@cowboystatedaily.com.
