With the help of celebrity interviewer, Arlen Peters, Ken discusses his “other” career – that of a major league baseball play-by-play announcer. How he broke in, why he broke in, the stories and lessons along the way doing both minor and major league broadcasting (while maintaining a writing career). It’s not so much a “baseball” episode as “Walter Mitty” episode.
Thanks. Your discussion of the road trips in the minors made me wince. There are certain things about my old job that I miss- air travel is not one of them. When I was younger the business trips were fun- but as I got older the travel got really tiresome. I've read about how some of the drug usage of athletes can be blamed on their constant life on the road- and I can understand that.
ReplyDeleteJust back from seeing THE GERMAN PLAY. This has to be quick as my phone is at 8% and Spartacus just started on TCM. Your play played like gangbusters.The two actors were great, got every laugh. the actor doubling as director did a marvelous job. the name you gave the play write got a big laugh. they loved that you had him giving notes. The name you gave him, Otto schmidlap sounded familiar.at first I thought it was the name of one of sally's boyfriends on the dick van dyke show. then I thought it was the name of the guy groucho Marx played in that Tony Randall Jayne Mansfield movie. I'm at 4%.
ReplyDeleteOtto Schmidtlap was a character in the old LIFE OF RILEY show. He worked at the plant with Riley and Gillis. So glad THE GERMAN PLAY played well. Scotty & Hillary are both terrific. I got very lucky. Thanks for going.
ReplyDeleteI loved this podcast, I too had dreams of being a play by play guy, but growing up in Walla Walla, my influence was Verne Russell. I watched the Walla Walla Phillies in the Northwest League. Russell was a local legend for his radio station sign off that can be seen on you tube.
ReplyDeleteI used to turn the sound off the NBC game of the week and announce, but did not use a tape recorder.
I wonder if you could bring a tape recorder to a baseball game today when there are metal detectors that we go through before entering a ballpark.
Here in the Seattle area, everything getting cancelled. Corona Virus outbreak has been an ordeal.
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