There are 120 minor-league baseball teams with broadcasters, and Adam Marco stands among the best of them.

The voice of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders, the Triple-A affiliate of the New York Yankees, was named Ballpark Digest’s 2022 Broadcaster of the Year.

“To be recognized and even just considered for it is an honor because I know many of the broadcasters across minor-league baseball, whether it’s casual acquaintances or close friends, and I know what each of them does and go through on a daily basis and what the job is and what’s tacked on to the job as we go through,” Marco said. “I’m truly honored and humbled to be considered for the award, let alone win it.”

Marco received a call from Jesse Goldberg-Strassler and was notified he won the award.

“He called, we talked for a few minutes, just a little bit of small talk, you know, how’s the family? How are things? And then he told me,” Marco said. “I remember I was at the ballpark. I was at work and went up to our suite level just kind of pacing around, and it truly stopped me in my tracks.”

Marco is at the pinnacle in broadcasting after winning the award, but he had quite the journey getting to this point. He spent his high school days playing soccer and was involved with chorus and musical theater at Kiski Area. But it was in Kiski Area’s broadcasting and journalism classes where he plotted his future path. He attributes his success in the industry to his parents, Don and Patti.

“(Don) can just spark up a conversation no matter where he is, and that ease that comfort of talking to people, I think has a lot to do with what I do,” Marco said. “My mom, Patti, was a conductor and teacher at Kiski Area and has always been on the performance side, which a lot of what this is (broadcasting), is performance. It’s combining those two things, so I can see a lot of validity to ‘we become our parents.’ ”

Marco also said his parents gave him a support system he never takes for granted.

“It’s a good combination for me of how they supported me how I grew up, the encouragement that I had, over the years, the support that I had over the years,” Marco said. “It truly helps shape what I do, how I do it, and how comfortable I am in doing it.”

Marco built his resume working for multiple minor-league baseball teams, including the Oklahoma City Redhawks, the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the West Virginia Power, the then-Single-A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 2018, Marco made the move from Charleston to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton to take the job as the broadcaster for the RailRiders.

He spent eight years in West Virginia, so moving to a new city had its challenges, but he is grateful his wife, Brienne, who is an established attorney, stood by his side through the thick and thin.

“I wouldn’t be here without her, without her support and saying, ‘Yes, let’s pick up and move to Scranton, Pennsylvania, and move our entire life there,’ ” Marco said. “There’s a lot of support between my mom, my dad, my sisters (Maria Marco and Christiana Hosler), my wife and her family, even, over the years to help us along the way.”

Growing up, Marco dreamt of working somewhere in the sports scene. He grew up in Pittsburgh, so it was natural for him to love the Pittsburgh Penguins and players such as Mario Lemieux, Jaromir Jagr and Kevin Stevens.

“I grew up in a time period where the Penguins were winning their first Stanley Cups,” Marco said. “I was delivering the Valley News Dispatch in, I remember, May, June that year. I would come home from delivering papers after school and I’d have that black ink all over my hands from the Penguins’ Stanley Cup run. Huge fan of all of our favorite Pittsburgh area sports.”

As for baseball, he grew up a Los Angeles Dodgers fan. Nevertheless, over time he became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan after working for the franchise’s minor-league affiliate.

Marco watched the Penguins dominate in the early 1990s and fell in love with not just sports, but the sound and enthusiasm of Pittsburgh commentators. He was inspired by Lanny Frattere, Greg Brown, Bill Hillgrove and Myron Cope, but Mike Lange stood out.

“Mike Lange, you think about iconic calls and living in this area, we certainly had one of the all-time great hockey announcers,” Marco said.

“Growing up in that era, when SportsCenter was really catching fire with Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann and Stuart Scott, even, everybody had catchphrases. Mike Lange had catchphrases before we knew what they were.”

Upon graduating from Kiski, he knew exactly what he wanted to do.

“I wanted to be involved in radio in some capacity,” Marco said. “I got accepted at a couple of different schools, but I knew at Mercyhurst I would have the opportunity sooner rather than later to get involved.”

Freshmen students usually have limited experience in broadcasting when they get to college. Marco was one of those students, but he was thrown into a radio show with limited instruction.

Nonetheless, he took the opportunity and ran with it, becoming the station manager at WMCE, the Mercyhurst student radio station, in his sophomore year.

Marco’s first job was as the overnight country deejay at Froggy Radio. He eventually became the production manager, and the exposure he gained led to more opportunities to broadcast, ranging from ice hockey and field hockey to football and basketball at high school and college levels.

“There were some nights and weeks where I was doing four games in seven days or five games in seven days, so every night I had something and something different,” Marco said.

“Ultimately, I was just trying to get repetitions in, make a little bit of money on the side. Anybody who was willing to throw a little bit my way to go talk about their particular team or cover sports for them.”

Marco decided he’d like to work in baseball full-time, and the opportunity presented itself. He had stints where he did games in the minor leagues from 2002-06, but in 2007, he took the job as an intern in Williamsport.

In 2008, he was hired by the Oklahoma City Redhawks and was there for two seasons.

In 2010, Marco and his wife moved closer to home, working for the Power. After eight years, he took the position to replace John Sadak, who won the Broadcaster of the Year in 2013.

What he enjoys most is the people he gets to meet and how important they are to the community.

“The number of people that I’ve worked with, that I’ve become friends with over the years, this industry can be a grind, and you really have to just stick with it,” he said. “Pick up points where you can learn, and find people you can learn from. It’s one of those things where you just keep your head down, and you keep working at it.”

He admitted there is a lot of pressure on the players and coaches because the Yankees are always a “win now” team. That’s to be expected from a franchise that has won the World Series 27 times.

He said he loves broadcasting for and working with future stars in Oswaldo Cabrera, Oswald Peraza and Estevan Florial, but also veteran players who have been in and out of the majors. He enjoys seeing what they do for the community.

“You get some tremendous people like Ryan LaMarre, who had a couple of stints with the New York Yankees,” Marco said. “You get Rob Brantly, who was one of our catchers these last two years, and Rob’s a veteran guy. But you get a lot of great people mixed in. Nestor Cortes, who starred for the Yankees and was an all-star this past year. … Nestor was tremendous in the community.”

Marco is multifaceted, as he’s also the marketing for the RailRiders. He also worked in promotions and was the marketing director for the Power.

The magnum opus of promotions was the Nestor Cortes “bobbleleg” where the leg was the thing that bobbled, replicating his funky leg kicks and different deliveries per pitch. On the bottom of the bobblehead, they referenced to Biloxi the Turtle, the playoff mascot for the Yankees in 2001, using it as the base.

“We put that on the base right by his feet on the mound. Little layer after layer of trying to make this fun and unique,” Marco said. “It turned into one of our best giveaways in the last couple of years.”

Marco said he’s excited for what the future holds and he has some tips for upcoming broadcasters.

“It’s finding things that inspire you or motivate you, and the ability to stick through it,” Marco said. “Look for opportunities, look for any chance you can go broadcast the game. Writing is a massive part of it as well. There’s not a day that goes by where I’m not writing something in addition to a game of broadcasting.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)