Early career McDonough was an intern at the short-lived
Enterprise Radio Network in 1981. It was in
Syracuse where McDonough began his broadcasting career in 1982 as the play-by-play announcer for the
Syracuse Chiefs of the
International League. McDonough was also an
Ivy League football announcer for
PBS. He was a sideline reporter from 1984 to 1985 and a play-by-play announcer from 1986 to 1987.
Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins Four years after graduating from Syracuse, he began broadcasting
Boston Red Sox games on
WSBK-TV (Channel 38) in Boston with former Red Sox catcher
Bob Montgomery and later former Red Sox second baseman
Jerry Remy. While not calling Red Sox games, he also hosted select
Boston Bruins games on
WSBK-TV with the most notable game being the last game at the old
Boston Garden (a pre-season game against their rival
Montreal in 1995). McDonough continued announcing broadcast Red Sox games through the
2004 season, moving over the years to various local stations, including
WFXT (Channel 25),
WABU (Channel 68), and
WLVI (Channel 56). In
1996, he was teamed with Jerry Remy. He worked with Remy for nine seasons, ultimately only Friday night games, before being replaced in
2005 by
NESN announcer
Don Orsillo. McDonough attributed his firing to his salary and disputed talk that his "candor" was to blame. He turned down an offer to become the
New York Mets play-by-play man on television in
2005 before the Red Sox notified him that they would not pick up his option for 2005.
CBS Sports He began work for
CBS Sports in 1990, where he broadcast
college basketball (including 10
NCAA tournaments),
college football (including the prestigious
Orange Bowl game), the
College World Series, the
NFL,
US Open tennis, three
Winter Olympics (
bobsled and
luge in
1992 and
1994 and
ice hockey in
1998), and
golf (including four
Masters and
PGA Championships). In December 1999, CBS Sports President
Sean McManus informed McDonough that his contract would not be renewed. Once
Dick Enberg, late of
NBC was available, McDonough became the odd man out.
Major League Baseball on CBS Outside of
New England, he is probably best remembered for his time as
CBS's lead baseball announcer, a role in which he was teamed with
Tim McCarver. In
1992 at the age of 30, he became the youngest man to announce the national broadcast (and all nine innings of all of the games played) of the
World Series. Coincidentally, that particular record would be broken
four years later by
Fox's 27-year-old
Joe Buck, the son of the man McDonough replaced on
CBS,
Jack Buck. Perhaps McDonough's most famous call is his emotional description of the
Atlanta Braves'
Francisco Cabrera (who had only 10 at-bats at the major league level that season) getting a dramatic, game-winning base hit in
Game 7 of the
1992 National League Championship Series against the
Pittsburgh Pirates: He also called the final play of the subsequent 1992 World Series, in which the
Toronto Blue Jays became the first non-American based team to win the Major League Baseball's world championship: A
year later, McDonough called
Joe Carter's dramatic
1993 World Series ending home run off
Mitch Williams of the
Philadelphia Phillies: Three years later, while calling the College World Series for CBS alongside
Steve Garvey, McDonough called another series-clinching home run. This time, it was
Warren Morris, who hit a
two out, 9th inning
walk-off home run that won the
1996 College World Series for the
Louisiana State University Fighting Tigers against
Miami.
NCAA Basketball on CBS McDonough's other major endeavor at CBS was his
coverage of the NCAA tournament with then-partner (and fellow Irish-American)
Bill Raftery. McDonough and Raftery covered a number of regional finals in the 1990s before McDonough's run at CBS came to an end. The pair developed a terrific on-air rapport, thereby enabling them to spice up their broadcasts. Before the
1999 South Regional Final between
Ohio State and
St. John's from
Knoxville, Tennessee, McDonough and Raftery donned fishing gear as they previewed the game from a boat on the
Tennessee River, which was just outside the
arena. In 1998, McDonough—with Raftery at his side—called one of the great buzzer-beaters in NCAA Tournament history, as
Connecticut defeated
Washington in the
East Regional semifinals on a last-second shot by
Richard Hamilton.
ABC/ESPN Since 2000, McDonough has announced
baseball,
college basketball,
college football,
golf,
NBA,
NHL, and
NCAA hockey for
ESPN/
ABC. Specifically, McDonough announced many
Big East college football and basketball events. He has also contributed to ESPN's coverage of the
U.S. Open and
British Open golf tournaments, and called the
2010 NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championship Final Four alongside
Quint Kessenich. McDonough called NCAA basketball play-by-play on March 12, 2009, on ESPN between
UConn and
Syracuse which went into 6 overtimes, becoming the longest game in Big East history, clocking 3 hours and 46 minutes. The final score was 127–117 in favor of Syracuse. Also on the broadcast was color commentary from
Bill Raftery and
Jay Bilas. On September 28,
2011, McDonough called the nationally televised game in which the
Baltimore Orioles came back to defeat the
Boston Red Sox 4–3 after Boston closer
Jonathan Papelbon came within one strike of closing the game. McDonough called Baltimore's
Robert Andino's walk-off single, which occurred only three minutes before
Evan Longoria's walk-off home run against the
New York Yankees in
St. Petersburg gave the
Tampa Bay Rays, who trailed the Red Sox by nine games on September 3, the
American League Wild Card, as follows:
College football, the NFL, and the NHL McDonough was also behind the mic for the fumbled punt in the final seconds of the
Michigan State-Michigan football game on October 17, 2015, that resulted in the game-winning touchdown for the Spartans. Starting in
2013, McDonough started play-by-play work for the
NFL on ESPN Radio. Others included
Ryan Ruocco,
Marc Kestecher, and
Bill Rosinski, who previously did NFL games for
NFL on Westwood One as the
Atlanta Falcons and the
Carolina Panthers. McDonough was named the lead play-by-play announcer for
Monday Night Football (succeeding
Mike Tirico, who departed for
NBC Sports) beginning in the
2016 season. In March 2018, ESPN announced that McDonough would be leaving
Monday Night Football and would return to announcing college football games. On June 29, 2021, ESPN formally confirmed that he would be its lead play-by-play voice for their forthcoming
NHL coverage beginning in the
2021–22 season, when the league returned to ESPN and ABC, after 16 years at
NBC. He was reportedly interested in an NHL role ever since ESPN reacquired the rights to the NHL in March, and ESPN reportedly considered him and
Steve Levy for the #1 play-by-play announcer role before eventually choosing him. He teams with up with former NHL center
Ray Ferraro, and
Emily Kaplan, who provides reports throughout the game, on the lead team. Previously, he teamed up with
Brian Engblom on ESPN2 NHL broadcasts from 1993 to 2004. Initially, ESPN had McDonough and Ferraro together in the booth before the network decided to place Ferraro at ice-level. On May 4, 2024, he called Game 7 of the Eastern Conference First Round series between the
Boston Bruins and the
Toronto Maple Leafs and he received praise for predicting the circumstance in which the overtime goal was scored immediately before it happened.
Acting McDonough acted in the 1992 film
Mr. Baseball. == Health ==