Update 11:30 a.m. Thursday Jan. 31: This just in from Karen Forgus, Reds Senior Vice President of Business Operations, about Tommy Thrall's addition to the Reds Radio team:
“Tommy Thrall was added to our broadcast staff for 2019 as our 'utility' broadcaster. His duties will include hosting the Reds on Radio post-game show and producing stories and interviews for the radio pre-game show. Additionally, he will fill in on play-by-play for the games Marty is not working. We have no plans beyond 2019 at this time.”
Thrall is expected to do the postgame show starting with the Reds-Indians spring opener Saturday, Feb. 23. Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley will call the game.
Orignial post 12:49 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30: Tommy Thrall, voice of the Reds' Pensacola Blue Wahoos AA team for seven years, will join Marty Brennaman and Jeff Brantley in the Reds Radio booth for the 2019 season starting with spring training games in February.
Thrall, who called three Reds games last September while Brennaman hosted his 14th annual golf tournament for the Reds Community Fund, is scheduled to do play-by-play with Brantley for the Reds-White Sox game on Wednesday, Feb. 27.
Brennaman, who retires after 46 years at the end of the season, will do the Cactus League opener against the Cleveland Indians Saturday, Feb. 23, with Brantley on flagship WLW-AM. The Reds main radio duo will call the next four games on WSAI-AM (1360).
Thrall's spring play-by-play premiere with Brantley airs on WLW-AM, followed by the Reds Hot Stove League weekly show. Thrall will call parts of 20 games this spring, more than Brennaman (19), Brantley (17) and former Reds infielder Doug Flynn (3).
It is expected that Thrall will do the postgame show, as Jim Day and Jim Kelch have done in recent years.
This year Day will work exclusively on Fox Sports Ohio TV games and not return to radio, he says. Day split the year between TV and radio broadcasts last year, moving into the secondary radio play-by-play role after Kelch was not renewed after the 2017 season.
A Missouri native, Thrall has been the voice of the Pensacola Southern League team the first seven years of the franchise. After the 2018 season, Thrall left his job as Wahoos media relations coordinator and broadcaster, and gave up calling University of West Florida games on radio.
Thrall was honored as the Southern League "broadcaster of the year" in 2015.
"We’re incredibly proud of Tommy for taking this well-deserved step in his career," said Blue Wahoos President Jonathan Griffith in a media release. "Since Opening Day 2012, he has been an invaluable part of our organization and we are grateful for his numerous contributions to 'Hoosville' over the past seven seasons."
Thrall studied broadcasting at Northwest Missouri State University. He was born in Smithville, Mo., north of Kansas City, and attended Smithville High School.
For 2019, the Reds have switched their AA affiliate from Pensacola to the Chattanooga Lookouts.
