Numbers game

He is a legend in sports broadcasting, even though his voice is never heard by the millions of fans who watch the games he works.

Marty Aronoff shuffles papers, marks off numbers and scribbles and passes notes to coworkers. He has fashioned a long career of making small observations that are spoken on air by others. He is, in fact, something of a pioneer.

Aronoff serves as a statistician on broadcasts of sports events, feeding information and historical insight to the top announcers in the business: Jon Miller, Marv Albert, Brent Musburger, Dick Stockton and James Brown, among others. He has covered 13 World Series, 11 NBA Finals, five Final Fours and major bowl games.

The 68-year-old D.C. native also is among the busiest men in all of sports. He brings his notepads, pens, encyclopedic knowledge and genuine excitement to some 250 broadcasts each year.

In addition to high-profile postseason events, he works with Miller and Joe Morgan on Sunday night baseball, Mike Tirico on “Monday Night Football” and ABC/ESPN NBA games and Gary Thorne on ABC college football telecasts. He also does a heavy load of college basketball games, covers arena football every Monday and works Saturday baseball games on Fox with Kenny Albert.

When he has a night off, he serves as the Washington Wizards’ team statistician, the basketball equivalent of baseball’s official scorer.

“I look forward to every game I work,” Aronoff said. “I don’t care if it’s the NBA playoffs or the World Series or a CAA game or whatever level. I have been hired by somebody to be their person doing that job, and I never feel anything but to give a responsibility to give them the best I can. I can enjoy a GW-Xavier game or a Richmond-American game as much as I can a Red Sox-Yankees game.”

As if he weren’t busy enough already, Aronoff soon will pick up NBA playoff games with Stockton on TNT.

“Nobody sees more live sports than Marty,” said Tirico, who began working with Aronoff on ESPN’s Thursday college football telecasts. “He brings everything — the stats that matter the most when it matters the most. For the volume of games he does, Marty has an unbelievable, uncanny ability to write notes at the right time. It’s a science really that you can’t explain to people.”

Stats and more

Aronoff was not part of the initial Sunday night baseball staff, and Miller remembers receiving stats like someone’s “fly ball-to-ground ball ratio was 1.3-to-1 or he averaged 8.4 throws to first the previous season. I didn’t care about that. Nobody cared about that.”

Aronoff does not inundate announcers with numbers. He gives just the ones that provide meaningful perspective.

In Sunday’s ESPN game between Boston and Texas, Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon was brought in with one out in the eighth inning and the game on the line.

Manager Terry Francona had been criticized for using Papelbon too much last season and wearing out his arm. The manager suggested he would use him less this season. Aronoff quickly shot a note to Miller saying Papelbon did not even have a five-out save last season.

Papelbon went on to record the save.

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