Phillies fans will hear a familiar voice on NBC Sports Philadelphia Sunday

NBC Sports Philadelphia is going “Hollywood” for Sunday’s Phillies-Marlins game.

2008 World Series MVP Cole Hamels, the California native who spent 10 seasons on the mound for the Phillies, is trying his hand at broadcasting this season with NBC Sports Philadelphia. The new gig begins Sunday afternoon, when the Phillies finish their three-game series against the Miami Marlins at Citizens Bank Park.

Broadcasting wasn’t on Hamels’ radar during his playing days, but since officially retiring in 2024 (he threw his last pitch as a member of the Atlanta Braves in 2020), he wanted to figure out ways to remain close to the game. Other former Phillies players jumped to announcing — John Kruk, Larry Andersen, and Jimmy Rollins, to name a few — and it seemed like the natural move for the guy known as “Hollywood” to his former teammates.

“You always have to try things,” Hamels told The Inquirer. “And sometimes when you test things out, or you put yourself in uncomfortable situations, good things can happen.”

Hamels said the current plan is to call about a game a month on NBC Sports Philadelphia, where he’ll essentially fill in for Mike Schmidt when the Hall of Famer has other obligations. That means Hamels can get his feet wet in a three-person booth alongside longtime play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy and a rotation of experienced analysts including Kruk, Ben Davis, and Rubén Amaro Jr.

Hamels and Amaro Jr. go back a ways. When the Phillies drafted Hamels in the first round of the 2002 MLB draft, Amaro Jr. was the team’s assistant general manager. Thirteen years later, it was Amaro Jr. who traded away Hamels to the Texas Rangers as part of an attempt to rebuild the team following its World Series run. But don’t expect any ribbing about the move from Hamels Sunday when the two share the booth.

“I got to pitch in the postseason two more years,” Hamels joked. “I really have to thank him, because he gave me the opportunity to continue to try and go out and win, which is what I really wanted to do.”

Hamels is also continuing his role as a special adviser with the Phillies, which has him in the dugout with players and mentoring the team’s pitching staff. He hopes that proximity will help inform his commentary in the booth, especially during his first few games when he’s still figuring stuff out.

“I’ll have a better feel for what’s going on in the action of the game,” Hamels said, “so hopefully that I can be able to present that to fans.”

While Sunday will be his first regular-season Phillies game in the booth, he did call two spring training games alongside McCarthy, which proved difficult due to the number of players on the roster. That was especially true of his second game, which featured a roster of prospects even the most diehard Phillies fan probably couldn’t recognize.

“I was lost,” Hamels joked. “Some of these guys just got drafted, so you’re Google searching a lot of information quickly.”

“I thought he did a really good job,” McCarthy said. “I thought he brought a lot of good topics to the table, and he had a really good feel by the second day of how to do things like replays and listening to the producer.”

For now, Hamels is looking to have fun and listening to McCarthy’s advice, which includes not being afraid of dead air and projecting into the microphone. He’s also still getting used to the pitch clock, which wasn’t around when he was a player. But there’s one major pitfall Hamels is hoping to avoid, which snared Rollins during his first broadcast on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

“I’ll be very careful about the amount of four-letter words I use,” Hamels said. “I know Kruk has that on his mind. You can’t bring the clubhouse talk up to the booth.”