Raad rode his experience at Dayton, where he called games in a number of different UD sports for the student station (WUDR) to gigs in Minor League Baseball with the Dayton Dragons, Long Island Ducks, Frisco RoughRiders and Brooklyn Cyclones and then to the game’s biggest stage.
“I think the thing that we’re all searching for when you’re a minor league broadcaster and your mom’s the only one listening to you,” Raad said Wednesday, “is that validation. Are you good at this? Am I big league? Do I have the sound? It’s high risk, high reward. It’s like trying to be an actor or a singer.”
Raad not only had what it takes to land the job in 2023, he did it with one of his hometown teams. He’s from Valley Stream, N.Y., which is 16 miles from the Mets’ stadium, Citi Field.
“It’s the old adage, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere,” Raad said. “It’s a dream come true to work in New York City with family and friends around.”
The Mets entered the final days of the 2025 regular season battling with the Cincinnati Reds for the final National League wild-card spot. Raad has been there for all the ups and downs. He calls every game, home and away, throughout the 162-game season.
“There’s just so much attention on the Mets every single day,” he said. “If we lose a game in May, it’s kind of like the world’s going to fall apart, which is kind of nice. You have so many eyeballs and ears on our radio broadcast. It’s great to be a part of that.”
Raad enrolled at the University of Dayton as a communications major but did not know exactly what he wanted to do early in his college career. He picked Dayton in part because it’s a Marianist school like his high school, Chaminade, in New York.
Raad started working for Flyer Radio (WUDR) because of his interest in music. He then joined the sports committee, where he learned from Michael Purves, who now works for WHIO.
Doug Hauschild, Dayton’s recently-retired director of athletic communications, asked Raad to call volleyball games on the radio. That led to him calling women’s basketball games.
“There are people in places who help you unlock your potential by giving you an opportunity,” Raad wrote on X in January about Hauschild. “Doug was that guy at Dayton for me. Kind when I was a nobody. Selfless when he didn’t have to be. The person you want to be around because of who he is as a person and as a pro.”
Other opportunities followed. When the men’s basketball team played in the NCAA tournament in Buffalo and Memphis in 2014, Raad was there. He called the NCAA tournament games in Columbus a year later, too.
Raad interned with the Dayton Dragons as a sophomore in 2013, . He worked with Tom Nichols, the longtime radio voice of the Dragons. He called one inning that year at the end of the season.
In 2014, Raad called games near home in the Hamptons Collegiate Baseball League. Then in 2015, after graduating from UD, he broadcast 70 games for the Dragons. He was the No. 2 broadcaster behind Nichols and worked all the home games.
“Tom was amazing at teaching me how to do it,” Raad said, “and then the Dragons were amazing at showing me that this is one of the greatest minor league teams in the country.”
In a 2023 interview with MetsMinors.net, after getting the Mets job, Raad said Nichols had a bigger impact on him than anyone else in his career and said Nichols “believed in me before anyone else did.”
Back where it all started for me with the man who taught me how to do it the right way. Was here my first year in the minors in 2015.
— Keith Raad (@KeithRaad) September 5, 2025
Tom Nichols of the @DragonsBaseball pic.twitter.com/1DdRD2YZk4
Raad didn’t know the minors well then but learned fast calling so many games in Dayton and then in Long Island and Texas in the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
“A lot of baseball,“ Raad said. ”Away from home. Not a lot of pay at all. You realize that it’s a long journey. It’s a lot of learning, a lot of relationship building.”
In 2018, Raad started calling games for the Brooklyn Cyclones, the High A affiliate of the Mets. He called 132 games every season until landing the Mets job in 2023.
“I spent 10 years in the minor leagues,” Raad said. “It was one of those things where I looked at my wife, who has a good job and makes decent money, and said, ‘Let me get to 40, and we’ll see where we’re at.’ I made the majors at 29, which I never, ever would have thought. That’s pretty young. I never thought I would have made it in New York for my first job, too, because they always go out and hire the big-name person that people have heard of.”
Raad works alongside a Mets radio legend, Howie Rose, who has been the Mets’ lead radio voice for decades. Raad grew up listening to Rose.
“He’s one of the all-time great radio broadcasters,” Raad said.
Working with the Cyclones helped Raad create connections with the Mets.
“The job is great,” Raad said. “I got here way faster than I thought. I’m grateful for every moment, probably more so than some people that have been up here for a long time and may complain about the travel or this hotel not being as nice as the other.”
Raad talked to the Dayton Daily News on Wednesday while staying at the Ritz Carlton in Chicago, where the Mets were playing the Cubs.
“I used to stay in some dreary minor league hotels,” Raad said. “Every day is amazing. I really am proud that I put the work in. I felt like I did earn it in a sense.”
Raad met his wife, Kaitlyn, at the University of Dayton. Kaitlyn played volleyball at Dayton as a freshman and sophomore transferring to Hofstra. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Charlotte, and another baby on the way in October.
Raad doesn’t know where he’ll be next month. Last season, the Mets made an unexpected run to the National League Championship Series.
As of Wednesday, the postseason picture was still cloudy for the Mets.
“The Mets are extremely talented,” Raad said. “They have a lot of money on the field, and they are taking us to the very end of this thing. They may break our heart. They may build some belief here.”
About the Author
