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At 28, the Bronx-born Ford just completed his third season behind the microphone for the Mets' Double-A team in the Eastern League. Like minor league players, Ford's goal is to reach The Show, but their respective roads traveled couldn't be more different.

"People ask me all the time, 'Are you going to be here next year? When are you getting out of here?' Ford said. "And I don't really think about that. I'm here in Binghamton for the long haul, as far as I see it. And the best job is the one that you have. And I think it's very easy to lose sight of that."

Still, this starts an important time of year for minor league broadcasters. Last off season, Ford sent demos of his work to every Major League team, seeking work. Their responses ranged from form rejection letters to, in a few cases, personal responses.

"I actually got some great feedback on my stuff, and I plan on doing the same thing again this off-season, sending my stuff out to every team," said Ford, who owns a classically deep announcer's voice, combined with a smooth, clear on-air delivery.

As Ford spoke, he was already at the ballpark before Noon for a 7 p.m. game -- following a 13-inning affair the night before. He was eating his Wendy's, preparing for another long day -- and night -- at the park.

In Binghamton, Ford's title is director of broadcasting and media relations. He's responsible for updating statistics and game notes, coordinating media interview requests, and attending to numerous other odds and ends. Yes, he has some help, a college intern who's only there part of the season.

"It's the sort of stuff that's not hard, but it's tedious," Ford said. "And it takes away from the time that you really need to prepare for the broadcast.

"I think that I've gotten better as a broadcaster, and I'm pretty happy with where I am as a broadcaster and where I'm going. But the fact of the matter is that until I get into a position, if I get into a position, where I can just focus a hundred-percent on the broadcast, I am never going to be as good as I could possibly be.

"And that's just the cold reality of this business."

Ford calls his grandfather, a former Negro League pitcher, the "World's biggest Met fan," but his father took him to his first Met game in April of 1985. Ford's favorite player was Darryl Strawberry, who homered off Cincinnati's John Franco in the bottom of the ninth to win it.

"My dad, he'd been trying to get me to quit sucking my thumb," Ford said. "And so he told me that he's not going to take me to a game until I quit sucking my thumb, because Darryl Strawberry would not play if he looked into the stands and saw me sucking my thumb.

"As a five year old, I believed him."

After getting the broadcasting bug in high school, Ford attended Syracuse, where he often called basketball and football games into his tape recorder in the uppermost reaches of the Carrier Dome.

"I was sitting all the way up in Row Z of the third deck," Ford said, laughing. "The court was probably 500 feet away from me, at least."

While in college, Ford called minor league hockey in Syracuse, then did high school football in Oswego, N.Y., on a station called WZZZ -- please, no jokes about him putting the audience to sleep there.

As an intern for the now-defunct Queens Kings of the New York-Penn League, there was no play-by-play, but Ford handled public address announcing and MC'd on-field promotions.

After graduating in 2001, Ford was assistant for a sportswriter in the New York City bureau of the Yomiuri Shinbun, Tokyo's largest newspaper. He occasionally covered the Mets, who then had Japanese outfielder Tsuyoshi Shinjo.

Using a Met season credential, Ford made play-by-play demos in Shea Stadium's upper deck.

"The first tape that I made to get my first job, the first call on it, is my call from the stands of the home run that Mike Piazza hit against the Braves in that very first game after 9-11," Ford said of Piazza's memorable, go-ahead blast.

Attending the winter meetings in Boston, Ford used that call to land an interview for a gig calling A-ball in Yakima, Washington. The team's general manager liked what he heard.

"He offered me the position, and it took me, well, roughly about two seconds to accept," Ford said. "The more I started to get into minor league baseball, the more I realized I wanted to do play-by-play, I wanted to be a broadcaster."

After a stint in Kalamazoo, Michigan broadcasting independent baseball in the Frontier League, along with Division 3 basketball and football, Ford had his first big break, getting the Binghamton job in 2005.

There are 650 Major League roster spots, but only two to three slots per team for play-by-play announcers between radio and TV. Statistically, the odds of reaching the Majors as a broadcaster are far longer than those for a player.

"That's something that I don't think a lot of people really realize," Ford said. "But yeah, when you sit down and do the arithmetic, and you start paying attention to how teams fill their vacancies, you realize it's very difficult."

Often, well known, veteran announcers fill the precious few Major League jobs that open each year, but Ford remains hopeful that his time will come.

"In the last few years, you're starting to see a few more teams bring in guys from the minor leagues," he said.

During the winter, when Ford's Binghamton Mets job slows down, he handles women's basketball play-by-play for Binghamton University. Those cold, update New York winters, however, are warmed by Ford's dreams of a big league future.

"The ultimate goal of any baseball broadcaster is to get to the Major Leagues," he said. "Plain and simple.

"I feel that I'm still young enough that I have a more realistic shot of making it to the Major Leagues than maybe someone a little older. And teams may still look at me as a viable commodity, being still relatively young.

"Now in a few years, when I'm 34, 35, 36, that's not going to be as likely. And so I think if your goals don't change, something's wrong."

"Right now, my goal is to get to the Major Leagues, but I think even more importantly than that, my goal more than anything is to really just enjoy what I do, and to be in a good situation. I'm in a great situation here in Binghamton."

Ford also happens to be African-American, in a field where black baseball play-by-play announcers are rare. Dave Sims, hired this year by the Seattle Mariners, is among the few in the Majors in recent years.

Might Ford's ethnicity help him reach the bigs?

"I don't really think so, especially when you talk about radio," Ford said. "Maybe if it becomes TV, then that's a little different situation. But with radio, I got hired over the phone in Binghamton, I got hired over the phone in Kalamazoo. And I doubt either situation that the person who hired me knew my ethnicity."

"I don't think it helps, I don't think it hurts. Maybe one day it will make a difference, but it really hasn't impacted my career a whole lot to this point."

What will have an impact are those demos Ford will again send out soon.

"I feel that if I keep sending stuff every year," Ford said. "And hopefully people will listen, and hopefully people will realize, 'Hey, this guy's getting better, and he's very good,' then maybe I'll get a shot somewhere."