Todd Leitz was one of two UC San Diego graduates, along with marine biologist Sam Chin \u2014 who also has ties to the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Center on Mission Bay \u2014 who were runners-up to New Hampshire resident Alex Miniak in the job hunt for Petco Park\u2019s next public-address announcer.
\nThe trio was culled from a field of more than 800 who originally tried out to be the Padres\u2019 next P.A. announcer. That voluminous field was narrowed down to 50, then 30, then 10 \u2014 with the help of a fan vote. It finally led to the last three standing.
\nMiniak bested Chin and Leitz after each had the opportunity to announce a full game at Petco Park.
\nA senior account executive with Gigunda Group, Miniak said he plans to move to San Diego, leaving his current role as the public-address announcer for the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays.
\n“Alex has the iconic voice that we were looking for, and we\u2019re excited to welcome him to the Padres family,” said Padres chief marketing officer Wayne Partello. He said Miniak, who was picked from “a tremendous pool of talent,” has “the right voice to take us into the next era of Petco Park.”
\nLeitz, the first-runner-up for the announcing job, said the three-month-long selection process was a real learning experience, adding he has no regrets and no hard feelings about not being picked.
\nA Studio City resident in Los Angeles, Leitz is a public-information officer for MYSAFE: LA. He is a former radio news anchor and reporter.
\n“I\u2019ve always loved baseball, and I thought, \u2018I could do that. How fun would that be?,\u2019” said Leitz about the seasonal, part-time position.
\nLeitz came back to San Diego four or five times in three months for auditions.
\n“I\u2019m proud they liked my voice and how I handled myself,” Leitz said, adding he felt the edge Miniak had in besting his final two opponents was his “eight seasons of experience as a minor-league announcer.”
\nLeitz said he\u2019d do it all again, too. “I hope I have another chance to audition for some other major league team. I thank the Padres for the opportunity and for a fun ride,” he said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Todd Leitz was one of two UC San Diego graduates, along with marine biologist Sam Chin \u2014 who also has ties to the Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Center on Mission Bay \u2014 who were runners-up to New Hampshire resident Alex Miniak in the job hunt for Petco Park\u2019s next public-address announcer. The trio was culled from a […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":258638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11559","_seopress_titles_title":"Padre announcer (who almost was) reflects on stadium job hunt By DAVE SCHWAB","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11559,11551],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beach-bay-press","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}