Jonathan Gould (presenter)
Template:Distinguish2 Jonathan Gould (born 1961 in Kenya) is a British television presenter who was the host of the UK baseball show MLB on Five from 1997 until it was cancelled in 2008. In 2010 he presented a similar show on radio for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Education
Gould left Epsom College in 1979 with A-Levels in economics, history and English which he himself says were "highly unsatisfactory"[1] yet he obtained a place at Durham University. He graduated with 2-2 single honours politics degree and later completed a post-graduate course at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.
TV presenting
For two years he was presenter/coordinator of Cable 17 Sport which proved the big break. Turning freelance in 1996 he presented the sport on ITV Carlton's London Tonight.
He started presenting Channel Five's coverage of live Major League Baseball shortly after it (and the channel) were launched in 1997, taking over from original presenter Tommy Boyd on MLB on Five. When the soap Family Affairs ended, MLB on Five became the longest surviving programme on the five schedule.
Gould is a passionate fan of the Atlanta Braves and would defend them on the show with regular calls of "G'won the Braves" when they won; his favourite player is Chipper Jones. MLB coverage had been the jewel in the crown of Five's late night schedule, and led to the station also securing late-night NFL, NHL and NBA coverage.
Gould's approach to the sport has been that of passionate supporter, constantly learning from and bouncing opinions off his co-presenters on the five TV show. These included Todd Macklin, Josh Chetwynd (who later returned as the incumbent), David Lengel (who left for a job with mlb.com covering the New York Yankees) and Mike Carlson, the channel's regular NFL analyst. He made liberal use of catchphrases, such as "Greetings fellow baseball nuts!", and "It's the last chance saloon!" Gould is a fan of Chelsea F.C. and rarely missed an opportunity to use them as an analogy in his baseball presenting. He also included a section on the show regarding fantasy baseball. His nickname on five's Baseball coverage is Gouldfish, which refers to his 'goldfish-like' memory.
In 2004, he presented the game show Memory Bank, taking turns with Rachel Pierman. Since then he presented BrainTeaser, taking turns with Alex Lovell throughout 2005.
Although BrainTeaser aired at 12:30pm and the baseball coverage ended in the early hours, an unanticipated clash occurred in October 2005 when Game 3 of the World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the Houston Astros went to 14 innings, causing the match to end at 7am UK time, resulting in his missing the train to Bristol to record BrainTeaser.
Subsequently Gould was seen on satellite channels Monte Carlo Roulette and Sky Poker, as well as presenting the online Fantasy Football show for TelegraphTV "Fantasy Football Friday"[2]
MLB on BBC 5 Live radio
5 live started broadcasting a Major League Baseball audio feed each Sunday night[3] on 4 July 2010 with Jonathan Gould hosting the broadcast and Josh Chetwynd providing analysis[4] between innings. The series returned in 2011 with an earlier timeslot of 6pm - 10pm every Sunday but Gould was replaced by Nat Coombs.
References
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