Wednesday, March 04, 2020

EP164: And now for the play-by-play


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.


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5 comments :

Jeff Boice said...

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.

scottmc said...

Just 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%.

By Ken Levine said...

Otto 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.

Mike Barer said...

I 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.
I 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.

Mike Barer said...

Here in the Seattle area, everything getting cancelled. Corona Virus outbreak has been an ordeal.