Fan In Freed Keeps Rays Radio Voice Ahead Of Pack

Andy Freed had a lot on his plate during the Tampa Bay Rays’ 2023 season.

It’s been nearly three weeks since the Rays were eliminated from postseason play, a two-game sweep in American League Wild Card play by the Texas Rangers, and Freed is still in his ‘baseball zone.’

Spring training, 162 regular season games, and the final two contests with the Rangers, Freed’s a baseball lifer; with the season until the final out of the World Series. On the MLB level, for the past 19 seasons, Freed has been a lead voice of trust throughout the Rays’ 16-station radio network.

“Every inning of every game,” said Freed of his following MLB’s postseason play during a recent phone conversation.

Freed isn’t alone among Rays nation when summing up the club’s series with the Rangers. He labels baseball in Tampa’s season ending as abrupt, and so sudden. There were high hopes and World Series aspirations from Rays fans.

“You’re never really ready for the end,” says Freed.

The end of baseball locally, as Freed assesses the off-season, is kin to not seeing your best friend in school for months at a time during summer vacation.

Now, though, Freed has his 13-year-old son to talk over the game they both admire. The sting of not moving on in October to the next level of the postseason, for Freed, for this season will offer time to evaluate more than what took place on the field.

The conquering feeling for the club and fans, when in September the Rays caught the Baltimore Orioles in the standings and fell just two games back in the standings, this is a positive to clutch to during the coming months. The multiple injuries sustained by the Rays’ starting rotation were a monumental hurdle to climb from the start of the season and one that hopefully won’t be repeated in 2024.

Then, there was the ‘Wander situation’. The club continues to address allegations made against Wander Franco. Since August, when the Rays’ shortstop was taken out of uniform, he remains under investigation in his native Dominican Republic for allegations of relationships with underage girls.

However, the injured list news and losses on the diamond, for Freed, remain palpable, when reviewing another hurdle that suddenly entered the Rays’ universe.

Early Sunday morning, on March 5, Dave Wills,58, died in his sleep.

Freed and Wills were broadcast partners for 18 seasons. A generation of Tampa baseball fans grew up with the pair. Rays’ games on the radio meant, beginning in 2005, at least a couple of hours of talk, laughter, insight, and connecting listeners with their favorite players through a variety of angles.

In your car, at home, laptop, desktop, or Alexa, it was easy to connect to Rays radio, and easier to become long-distance, anonymous friends with the duo.

Tragedy is never easy to accept, and often requires considerable time, privately, to accept and move on from. For Freed, in his very public work, his very public co-worker and friend didn’t have the ability to grieve as one perhaps should be afforded, and at the same time, the show of calling Rays baseball had to go on.

On March 5 Freed received the call that his friend and broadcast partner were gone. Hours earlier they were both in Tampa broadcasting the Rays-New York Yankees game from George M. Steinbrenner Field. It was the Rays’ eighth spring game. There were 22 more exhibition games scheduled until the 2023 regular season was to begin in Detroit on March 30.

With Wills living in Lutz and Freed in Bradenton, they didn’t ride together to the game, but their cars were parked next to each other.

Freed recalls Wills' passing and decisions to keep the Rays’ broadcasts going were happening so fast. There was a meeting with ownership. On March 5, the Rays hosted the Baltimore Orioles at Tropicana Field. The game wouldn’t be broadcast on radio. A moment of silence was held in Wills’ honor.

“Neil (Neil Solondz) slid into play-by-play,” recalls Freed, his new partner who previously hosted the Rays pre- & postgame shows, among other assignments along the network. “It never had the chance to go away. I was talking about Dave on the air, still, in mid-season. I was missing him. Finally, I called Dave’s wife Liz, and explained that I can’t keep talking about him. I had to figure this out.”

Perhaps the best advice Freed received from so many with genuine concern about such a life-changing event as he experienced came from his wife.

“My wife said I was doing everything for everyone else. She said I haven’t been able to mourn. It’s been an exhausting year.”

Complete support from Rays’ Owner Stuart Sternberg, from learning of Wills’ passing, is something that Freed is clearly appreciative of. It helped Freed to move on in his life.

Freed and Wills had known each other since the 1990s when they both were working in the minor leagues. Freed honed his craft with a resume that includes working five years on the Double-A level in Trenton, New Jersey, and four seasons with Triple-A Pawtucket (Rhode Island).

After being friends and booth mates for nearly two decades, with Wills’ sudden passing, Freed couldn’t say goodbye.

As Freed says, it was quite a process to once again have the Rays’ radio team back operating as a trio. As would be expected many audition tapes; links to applicants’ calling of balls and strikes came to ownership. Naturally, ownership wanted someone who seemed to be the right fit with the group.

“You want to take your job seriously, not yourself,” according to Freed’s approach on the airwaves.

The loss of Wills and the necessity of having to welcome a ‘newbie’ to the team was a tough situation for all involved. By late June, as Freed labels the newest member of Tampa’s radio team was selected - “a really good pick.”

Chris Adams-Wall arrived. With more than eight years of radio duty with Tampa’s Double-A affiliate – the Montgomery (AL) Biscuits, like Solondz who came up the minor league ranks including eight seasons with Triple-A Durham (NC) before getting the call to Tampa, he had earned his stripes to the MLB level.

With Solondz doing play-by-play, providing in-game analysis, and producing This Week In Rays Baseball, Adams-Walls' arrival meant the veteran of 11 seasons of the Rays’ broadcast team could finally begin to concentrate on his new, primary duties.

Some semblances of broadcast normalcy could develop.

With all three members of the team having an affinity for the minor leagues, where they learned how to do their jobs right, the fit seems to be working.

Spring training promises to have a more routine flavor than the start of 2023’s camp. Charlotte Sports Park, Tampa’s facility on El Jobean Road in Port Charlotte wasn’t available beginning last February. Suffering significant damage due to Hurricane Ian the previous September, the Rays opened camp at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando until March 1.

From March 1 until departing for Detroit at month’s end, the Rays shifted training to their permanent home in Tampa – Tropicana Field. This will not be repeated for Freed, Solondz, and Adams-Wall.

The Rays’ 99-63 regular season record and 15-14 spring win-loss record are in a distance, as all prepare for what lies ahead in 2024.

Turning the page on those who touch our lives is difficult but necessary to keep on keeping on. An off-season of private healing time for Freed, whether driving alone or pouring over ongoing postseason stats, however, he sees fit, the coming months are extremely important to this man who talks for a living.

Spring training truly is a season of rebirth; where all is possible, and when excitement brews – especially, once more, for the Tampa Bay Rays’ radio team.