X's and O's: TU alum Steve Melewski talks baseball, broadcasting
By Sean Welsh on February 22, 2019
A number of Towson University alums will gather in Florida this weekend to share their Tiger pride, memories of TU and take in an Orioles game.
While they do that, another alum will be describing the action for the rest of us to hear in a play-by-play broadcast. That's because Steve Melewski '82 will call 16 Orioles' spring training games live over the next month on Orioles.com and the MLB At Bat app.
Melewski, a veteran broadcaster who also reports on the Orioles at MASNsports.com, took a few minutes this week before departing for Florida to talk with the TU Newsroom about the opportunity he has with this year's Orioles team.
TU: First and foremost: great news that we’ll hear you doing games this spring. Are you excited?
Melewski: I want to try to make it fun. We have to keep in mind it is a spring training game, so we aren’t hanging on every pitch. Hopefully we have some good guests, some orioles staff, some alumni in town. We’ll try to keep it fun. It’ll be a play by play broadcast, but we’ll drop in interviews and news of the day. We’ll make it an informative, entertaining and fun three hours.

TU: Where else can folks find your insights on air and online?
Melewski: MASNsports.com is the website. Roch Kubatko and I are 365 days a year Orioles reporters. We post something almost every day. It escalates as we get to spring training and as the regular season starts. The volume of material you put out now is massive. There’s no deadline or limit. If there’s something noteworthy, we write about it. And I do some Orioles shows on 105.7 The Fan.
TU: You know the prospects in the O’s system and the young talent as well as anyone. Any predictions for the O’s this season?
Melewski: It will be interesting to monitor any tweaks/changes Mike Elias and his staff make on the O's farm. He has said the O's farm is further along now than Houston's farm was when they were starting from the bottom there. So many interesting guys to follow this year, including DL Hall, Ryan Mountcastle, Austin Hays, Ryan McKenna, Zac Lowther, Grayson Rodriguez and Blaine Knight, to mention just a few.
TU: What are your fondest memories of TU?
Melewski: It is probably some lifelong friendships that started there. Spiro Morekas, the voice of the Tigers is one of my best friends and we met as freshmen. He and I broadcast many games together on what was then WCVT at 89.7 FM. It was cool because our parents and friends could hear us do games. We got better and learned a lot about broadcasting then. Our sports staff back then has done really well. We had Dave Johnson, the voice of the Wizards, and others like Bill Logan and Scott Cash who have done real well. I spent a lot of time at WCVT and have such wonderful memories of the people that worked at that station and the daily fun we had as we were trying to grow as people and students and learn about the radio business.
TU: What’s one way TU prepared you for the career you’ve had?
Melewski: I learned how to do a sportscast there and we gained experience not only covering our campus sports teams, but back then we got credentials to cover the Orioles and Colts, as well. What a great way to learn!
TU: Any advice for an aspiring sports journalist or broadcaster?
Melewski: I think beyond my class work, I gained so much via internships. You meet and learn from people in the business. Some of the same people that recommended me for my first job in 1983 at WFMD Radio in Frederick, MD.
I love Towson and always will. If you're at Unitas Stadium or Lot 13 in the fall, you'll find me tailgating and at a football game and at SECU in the winter at a hoops game. Towson is a special place!
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Tune into Steve's O's broadcasts this spring via Orioles.com or MLB At Bat.
This story is one of several related to President Kim Schatzel’s priorities for Towson University: TU Matters to Maryland.