Father’s Day is a celebration of all the dads and father figures around us. But this year, it has a different meaning for Rockies broadcasters Drew and Zach Goodman.
During spring training, the Colorado Rockies and 850 KOA held auditions for a radio voice to co-host alongside longtime broadcaster Jack Corrigan. Ultimately, Zach Goodman won the job – joining his father, longtime Rockies TV broadcaster Drew. They join Ben and Dan Schulman from the Toronto Blue Jays, as well as Chip and Stefan Caray from the St. Louis Cardinals, as another set of father-son broadcasters in Major League Baseball.
For Zach, it was a step up from his previous broadcast job with the Double-A Amarillo Sod Poodles (Diamondbacks). He was there for two years and spent one of those years with Stefan Caray before Caray got the call to work with his dad.
After two years in the minors, it was extra special when Zach called his dad to let him know he’d won the Rockies radio job – not only because of the job news, but because of where he was when he received it.
“When he got the call, he called me immediately after and I literally burst into tears,” Drew recalled. “It was a visceral reaction, I literally was sobbing. I was so incredibly happy for him, and it was unbelievable. It’s surreal.”
The irony of learning of his son’s new gig in Toronto – where father-son duo Ben and Dan Schulman are part of the broadcast team – was not lost on Drew.
“I was in my hotel room in Toronto,” he said. “And then I go down to the ballpark, and I remember saying to Dan, ‘Hey, Zach got it!’ As a dad – and he’s such a good guy – he was genuinely so pleased for us. So a little bit of irony there, but it was pretty cool.”
Performing has always been part of the Goodmans’ lives. Drew’s parents were actors (though his dad ultimately became a litigator), so he knew he wanted to be a performer, but he also liked sports.
“Growing up, there was a show called ABC Wide World of Sports. It was an anthology show, and they would be skiing in Zermatt or cliff jumping in Acapulco. They were all over the world, and it was enrapturing watching this from afar,” he said. “I loved sports and, like [Zach], wanted to take baseball as far as I could, but I always knew that I wanted to get into sports television. So when I went to college, I decided I was just going to play baseball and the other pre-requisite was that they had a really strong communications program.”
And Zach knew very early that he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps.
“I always say that I wanted to be a player first. I wanted to play in the major leagues, but I was always realistic that it’s not an easy thing to do, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” he said. “There are pictures of me when I’m really, really young filling out the scorebook and calling games. I think all the way back through high school – I remember my first year of high school, I was immediately in the broadcasting class and then I went to college specifically looking for places I could play baseball but also did a sports communications degree so that it would set me up to be able to do this.”
And specifically, Zach chose broadcasting over print media because of the unique opportunities they have to not only tell the story of the game, but to “put a face to a name and give the players character and really humanize them so that fans can feel like they know them or they know a lot about them.
“If there’s no broadcasters, people are just playing,” he emphasized. “Of course you hear the sounds of the stadium and that’s all great, but you don’t really know the storylines and everything that goes along with it — for example, [Friday, June 12th] chronicling Sean Sullivan’s journey to the big leagues. So I think the ability that a broadcaster has to bring more to an already great game was something that intrigued me.”
One of the perks of having a dad who works in the sports industry is having a lot of unique opportunities as a family. And the Goodmans took full advantage of that as the boys were growing up.
“I have so many memories, especially when they’re little sitting on my lap, and we’d find the spare headset in the booth and put that on them,” Drew said. “And there’s so many great pictures of all of them up there – sometimes in Little League uniforms, sometimes in their own uniforms.
“And I’m pretty sentimental, so I can go to virtually any city and go ‘We played catch there’ because everywhere we go, we play catch,” he continued. “We’ve traveled as a family quite a bit. We played catch under the Eiffel Tower. We’ve played catch in different parts of the world, and we always have our gloves with us. So I can look at a patch of grass in Washington, DC or Central Park or San Diego or San Francisco and say ‘We played catch there.’ They’re all grown up now, they’re all adults, but that’s a cool feeling for me.”
And Zach has some of his own memories of being around the broadcast booth as a kid.
“I remember coming from my own baseball games, and I’d be in my uniform and be up in the booth and throw on the headset,” he added. “I remember you’d walk in – and he’s focused on the game – and you’d tap him on the shoulder and he’d get really excited. Obviously, it’s his little kids, and I remember being on air.
“But I remember that we were always going to the games,” he continued, “and my mom, Kristi, did such an amazing job to allow him to do what he did. She was taking care of us all the time, and she had to schlep us to all those Rockies games and watch a bunch of young kids.”
That all said, there was one memory in particular that stood out to Zach from when he was five or six years old.
“I remember one time I’d lost a couple of teeth, and that was somehow a part of the broadcast, because they turned it up to me and they were going through which teeth I’d lost,” he chuckled.
A different kind of Father’s Day
2026 marks a special Father’s Day for the Goodmans as it will be their first calling the same MLB game, though in different mediums.
“I still don’t know how to put it into words because it’s one thing to be able to do something with your father and work with your father for a living,” Zach said. “It’s also one thing to get to the major leagues as announcers – it’s so difficult, and I’m very aware of that and how fortunate I am to have the opportunity at such a young age – but to get to the major leagues is incredible. And then the fact that we’re both major league announcers is awesome. And then we’re both doing it for the same team – the team I grew up watching, and I get to live in my hometown. It’s great.”
“It’s really cool,” Drew added. “I usually don’t get all caught up in various dates on the calendar, and you kind of get into baseball mode. It’s day after day, and the next thing you know it’s Memorial Day, and then the next thing you know it’s the Fourth of July or whatever. That’s kind of part of what we do.
“But this one will be different and have some special meaning,” he continued. “The most important thing to me are my three boys, and I take great pride in hopefully being the best dad I can be and our time together. And obviously Zach and I are getting an immense amount of time together. I’ll never forget this. I feel so privileged to do what I do, and I’ve always felt that way. I never want to take for granted being in a big league ballpark and looking out, and now I can look across the way and my kid’s there, too. That’s so unusual. So I’m very thankful. I think I’ll feel that every day, but especially on Father’s Day.”
Baseball has always been a family business, even with the Colorado Rockies. What are some of your favorite father-son baseball moments in both Rockies and baseball history? We would also love to hear some of your favorite baseball stories that involve your dad. Let us know in the comments!
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