ATLANTA — Brandon Gaudin has two recurring nightmares. Both are frightening in their own ways.

One is that he’s at the airport and witnesses a plane crashing.

“That’s just very morbid,” Gaudin said, “and I wake up in a cold sweat.”

The other is that he’s called to do a broadcast for which he is not prepared.

“And I show up, and I’m trying to fill in the scorecard, and the game’s getting ready to start, and I don’t even know who the first batter is,” Gaudin told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And I think the reason that is a recurring nightmare for me is because I know that I never want to be in that spot.”

As Gaudin begins calling Braves games as the new play-by-play announcer for Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast — a journey that began with four spring-training games in North Port, Fla. — he is armed with hours of preparation. In his job, passion and preparation are equally important. Since the networks hired him for his dream job (he grew up a Braves fan), he has carved out time during his busy days to continue digging into the team he’s now covering.

Before Gaudin arrived in North Port, he was calling college basketball games as the sport entered its postseason. Oh, and while he did that, he found three to four hours to do Braves prep each day. Gaudin would prepare for his college basketball calls in the morning, then use the latter half of the day to become more acquainted with the Braves. And he called college hoops games.

“Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” Gaudin said, chuckling. “But it’s one of those things where if you ask me 99 times, do you want to do this again? Ninety-nine times, I would say yes.”

To Gaudin, the Braves play-by-play job is a dream role because he grew up a fan of the team. He idolized Skip Caray, the longtime play-by-play man. But rooting for a team and covering that team are much different. Gaudin has sought to develop a large knowledge base about the Braves and their current players.

“I think a lot of times, there’s this assumption that, oh, you know, (broadcasting) baseball, you show up and you talk baseball,” Gaudin said. “But there is so much more, no matter what the sport is, that goes into that I think.”

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