Legendary sportscaster Bob Costas will retire from calling Major League Baseball games, according to a report.
Costas, 72, is set to call it quits on live play-by-play after calling his first major league game 44 years ago, The Athletic first reported Thursday. The veteran journalist confirmed the report, but said he would address his decision on a later date.
Costas worked for TBS for the past three seasons, and his contract with the network’s parent group Warner Bros. Discovery is up at the end of the year. The last MLB game he called for the network was the New York Yankees’ win over the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series on Oct. 10.
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He will also retire from play calling for the MLB Network, where he has also worked as an announcer since 2009. He will continue working with the channel, reporting on events like Baseball Hall of Fame announcements. Costas decided to retire before the 2024 MLB season began, sources told The Athletic.
The veteran sportscaster began his career at NBC Sports, and began calling MLB games for the network in 1982. Costas also covered play-by-play analysis for NBA and NFL games, and spent over two decades leading NBC’s Olympics coverage before retiring in 2016.
But his voice was synonymous with baseball for decades, having called three World Series in 1995, 1997, and 1999. He received the Ford C. Frick Award, the Baseball Hall of Fame’s award honoring broadcasters, in 2018.
Costas left NBC in 2019, after he was reportedly pulled from the 2018 Super Bowl broadcast—which he claimed was due to his criticism of football’s ongoing problem with concussions and player health.
