Roy Smalley announces that he’s retiring from Twins broadcasts

The Twins’ new era of baseball broadcasts will be missing a familiar voice.

Roy Smalley, who played more games as a Twins shortstop than all but three players in team history, announced Wednesday on social media that he is retiring from a broadcast career that lasted a quarter century.

The decision, the 72-year-old Smalley posted on X, “is nearly as difficult as it was to hang up my spikes.”

Smalley appeared regularly to provide analysis on pregame and postgame shows, beginning in the mid-1990s, and occasionally filled in for Bert Blyleven on game broadcasts. Upon Blyleven’s retirement after the 2020 season, Smalley became part of a rotation of analysts alongside play-by-play announcers Dick Bremer and, beginning last season, Cory Provus.

“I’m struck by what a great run it has been,” Smalley wrote. He had considered retirement in each of the past three winters, he said, but not until now, with the Twins transitioning to a partnership with MLB to produce their broadcasts, could he “acknowledge that this great run is like all great runs. They come to an end.”

Smalley spent 10 years of his 13-season major-league career with the Twins, appearing in 793 games at shortstop — only Zoilo Versalles, Greg Gagne and Cristian Guzmán manned the position more frequently — and earning an All-Star selection in 1979. The Twins traded him to the New York Yankees in April 1982, but he returned to Minnesota in 1985 for the final three seasons of his career.

He appeared in 110 games, mostly as a designated hitter or pinch-hitter, for the 1987 Twins and retired shortly after the team defeated St. Louis in that year’s World Series.