Mike "Doc" Emrick has spent more than 40 years broadcasting hockey games, calling 11 Stanley Cup Finals.
But Friday night he ventured into uncharted territory by calling his first regular season MLB game.
MORE: Minor league team to have 'Full House' day
The 69-year-old Emrick joined Bob Costas in the booth for MLB Network's national broadcast of the Pirates-Cubs game from Pittsburgh's PNC Park. It's a dream come true for the longtime Pirates fan.
"Imagine yourself as a fan, and you're handed the microphone for the night … and you spend the night watching your team play live," Emrick said on the MLB Network pregame show.
Emrick certainly has no peers as a hockey broadcaster. He's won four Emmy Awards — no other hockey announcer has ever won the award — and he's a member of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame, the first announcer to be so honored.
But he's always loved baseball, especially the Pirates. He grew up in Indiana listening to longtime Pirates announcer Bob Prince call the team's games on Pittsburgh's KDKA 1020 AM. So after Costas saw a feature on HBO's "Real Sports" last year, in which Emrick said his dream was to call a Pirates game, Costas set the wheels in motion.
"It's a wonderful gift when you consider that these games in the regular season, they belong to the professionals," Emrick told NHL.com. "For [Costas] to share a night and allow me to live a lifelong dream on a national network, that's pretty impressive. To be alongside him is going to be special. You just want to do your best job that you possibly can and be entertaining."
While Emrick has admitted to being a bit nervous, he said Costas told him not to worry.
"He said, 'We're not going to get twisted into a pretzel over this,'" Emrick said. "'I'm your safety net. Everything is going to be fine.'"