Episode 36 with Ken Rosenthal

Fox reporter Ken Rosenthal joins Mo to talk about MLB's youth movement, ABS, Tony Vitello and more!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Well, it's my honor to be stepping in for Will and hosting along with the host of this show, the Move On Podcast, a brand new episode. And Mo and I are thrilled to be joined by one of the great men uh amongst the men and women that cover this sport with a legendary resume, whether it be a television personality or one of the great journalists heavily decorated. Um, and I've shared some dugouts with him during the postseason. It's always been my honor. Uh Kenny Rosenthal, thanks for being with us, Ken. We really appreciate your time. That is quite the building. Thank you very much. Yeah, well, it is what it is, right? I mean, so here's where I want to go with this. Moe's gonna go one direction, I'll go another. We won't get on totally different freeways, but I I a lot of people that watch our stuff are young. They're aspiring. And a lot of the stuff we do is with athletes and they learn from athletes. You are in a in a space where a lot of young journalists, broadcasters want to be. You know it, you talk to them. I talk to people that want to, you know, do what we have done. We've got you and I in a similar way. When did this passion for the written word and the sport of baseball combine for you as a young man, whether it be in Long Island at Orchard Bay High School, whether it be during your time at Penn, when did the two converge where you thought, I think I might want to do this for a living and I'm gonna do everything it takes to do it?

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Great question, Darren. Two different answers because they didn't combine immediately. Initially in high school, I was the editor of a high school paper, and I didn't care when I went to college at Penn whether I did news or sports. I wanted to do both, actually. And when I got to the newspaper there, they have a great newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian. They said, Well, it's one or the other, pal. You gotta choose. So I chose sports. Now, as for baseball, coming out of school, I didn't really start at a big paper at all. I started a small paper in York, Pennsylvania, kind of did a little bit of everything. And to me, my goal was to get to a large city newspaper, and I didn't care what I covered. Could have been baseball, basketball, hockey, football, college football, college basketball. Any major beat was good with me. And it just so happened that my first major job, first big job was baseball. And after that, I fell in love with it, and that was the path I stayed on.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

Yeah, you stayed on a mo. Can I ask one follow-up real quick before I hand you the microphone? Absolutely. All right, so he here's my follow-up, because I get asked this a lot, and I give an answer that actually you should give, not me, because I wasn't a journalist. But I've had young people say, hey, how do I do what you've done, Sut, to be able to stay alive in this industry, call games? And my advice to them was as a younger person, especially, write. Because if you can write, you can speak. If you can sit down and research and write, then you can speak. Did you find that the depth of the written word that you added to our world covering baseball as you grew in this industry, did it help you when you started speaking more and more and more and becoming a personality? Did you feel like you had that foundation, or was it a challenge to take the written word and combine it into the spoken word as now a full-blown television reporter?

SPEAKER_01 3:11

That is another great question, Darren. And I tried. The transition to TV for me did not come easily. And it didn't happen until much later in my career, 2005, around that range, a little bit before that, actually. And it took a while for me to learn how to speak on television to slow down. I spoke way too quickly. I also had a pretty thick New York accent when I was younger. My kids look at old tapes of me and they laugh their rears off. So that was gone by then. But learning how to do it on television, yes, the writing certainly helps, and it's the foundation of everything I do. But it's a completely different skill, and I had to learn how to do it, and I had to go through some difficult times where I wasn't very good at it. Even now I don't always feel comfortable at it, but it was a much different thing to learn for sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Jump in there, Mo. Kenny, I want to ask you two questions. I know you're on a short, short, you know, time time limit. First question is we have a a new managing style over in San Francisco. And what is the mood? What is the thought process? What is the general mood in baseball about that hiring? Um that's the first question. And the second question is ABS. I worry about how the ABS is affecting what the MLB players are thinking about the MLB umpires. How are those? I you know, you umpires are running the game. They have to have respect. They have to have when you're calling out these issues, what does that do for the respect of the home plate umpire with the with the with the boys playing the game? See what's what you think about those two things?

SPEAKER_01 5:08

These are two entirely different questions, obviously. I'll start with Vitello because I was just in San Francisco this weekend for our first Fox game, and he is an interesting guy, and it's an interesting hire. And Mo, the one thing I keep coming back to, and you'll know this and understand it as a former big leaguer, longtime veteran, players can sniff out weakness in a manager like nothing else. I always tell people all right, you might not have 30 road scholars at a clubhouse, but those guys are smart in a street smart way, and they know when they see something that isn't right. That is going to be his challenge, in my opinion. Holding that respect from players when he hasn't been in the major leagues as a player, hasn't been in the professional baseball in any capacity. They don't care what he did at Tennessee. There might be a couple of guys who went to Tennessee who know him. Okay, that's different. But they generally don't care. And he's gonna have to hold that respect and earn it first, earn it and then hold it. And that will be a challenge. And he's a charismatic guy, he's energetic, he's a leader, all of those things, but it's an entirely different world, and there's no place more suspicious on this earth than a major league clubhouse of a guy that they don't think necessarily belongs. So we'll see how that goes. ABS just wrote about it today in the athletic, and it's a fascinating conversation. It's a fascinating development in baseball. First weekend went great. It was actually much more entertaining than any of us thought it would be. We had a situation in Cincinnati when C.B. Buckner got overturned on two strike three calls at a row to Aohaneio Suarez. Crowd is going nuts. He had some other interesting things happen. He had an ejection because the manager thought that a pitcher took too long to make his challenge. You had Randy Arosa Arena in Seattle. Walking to first on a ball four, he thought was a ball four, even though it's called strike three before Enick was even before he even challenged. He took three steps, took three steps and tapped his helmet. So there was a lot of entertainment value here. Now, to your question, Mo, respect for the umpires. I don't know that it will be diminished by this. And at its best, this will just help correct mistakes. Players do respect um, you know this, but players, I think, have a higher opinion of umpires for the most part than fans do, because players understand how difficult that job is. So to me, it's going to work out okay. The real question is going to be bases loaded, 3-2 count, ninth inning, tie score. Call gets overturned one way or the other. Game ends that way. How's that going to look? That to me is the rubber meets the road question here.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Mo, this is your podcast. Ask more, yes, please.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

And listen, you know, come on, Dan, you're you're doing great with this. Is this a great back and forth right now? How is Bo Bouchette hang handling you know, New York right now? Me personally, I think, you know, he has the lineage, his dad, you know, he's a I think he's a leader. I think he will be fine. Um I hope he's just taking this with a grain of salt. What are your what are your inside thoughts on how he's handling the New York media? And just to, just to, it's listen, it's cold outside. I don't I don't care what anybody says. It's hard to hit. You know, when it's cold, I think the Mets have been at home. I'm I'm I'm not completely sure. I'm not sure what type of type of weather they're they're playing in exactly, but I know if they're playing at home, it gets cold. But I uh what what what are your thoughts on how Bo's handling just the whole New York process? They've been at home.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

It was cold, in particular yesterday, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not there, but yeah, it they've been at home and it's chilly, sure. He is handling it great. And it's one weekend. First of all, he knows it's the first couple of games, no big deal, slump, whatever. He's got one hit, I think, in 14 at bats, whatever the case might be. And yesterday he was asked about getting booed. And his answer was great, Mo. What he said was, honestly, I was surprised it took him that long. I haven't liked my bats either. They've been terrible. So this is a guy who's been through it. He's had ups and downs in his career. He can hit like a few others. He's gonna hit and it's gonna be fine. Right.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

It's interesting, Kent. I had this 15-year run at the highest level where you live and cover across the nation, more team and local. And then I've had about a 10-year run in this space at the amateur level. And like Holiday's Jackson to us, Volpe is Anthony to us, you know, Sodostrum is Tyler. We we see them at 13, 14, 15, 16, and we get to know them. You know, Schemes was the catcher at PG National back in 2019. In your time, and you've now had enough time logged where I think your your barometer this, I'm curious to what you say. The U-25s in baseball are exceptional. The depth now in the list of it is exceptional. Of course, being in my space, I think the challenges they take on as younger men is different than it was a generation ago. It's not American Legion anymore. College is at a next level. It may take over a part of minor league baseball. Travel ball, albeit with its pitfalls and its challenges, has upped the game exponentially. I'd love your perspective from your chair of kind of the face of the game as you look at U-25s, the dearth of U-25 talent.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

It's incredible right now, the young talent in Major League Baseball. And I just did my own podcast this morning, and I was running through the top rookies from the first weekend. It's one after another. JJ Weatherhole in St. Louis, Chase DeLoder with Cleveland, Kevin McGonagall with Detroit, Sal Stewart with Cincinnati, the Japanese players too, Murakame and Okamoto. And those guys are not necessarily 25 and under, but they're young players in our sport. So to me, it's amazing. Sorry about that, guys, what is going on. And what's crazy to me is how quickly guys go from college now to the major leagues and make an impact. Skeens was one right away. Nick Kurtz with Sacramento, another one right away. And Mo, I don't remember your career exactly, but coming out of Seaton Hall, I don't think you went to the big leagues within a year.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

I was definitely not in the guys. Yeah, I was in the big leagues two years. I was definitely not uh as accomplished as these players are. And just for reference, I just came back from Sanford in our PG 12-13 U tournament with our son. We went to the championship game. And the amount of pressure and the type of teams that you're playing against, these young boys, and you know I'm a PG, I love PG. I'm a PG backer, I'm I'm I'm full, fully vested. I'll do whatever I can for them because of you know what the things that they've done for me and what they produce. But at 13 years old, iron is sharpening iron with these guys. And now you can see and understand why when they come up at such a young age, Roman Anthony, these guys have been playing elite level since they were young. That's all they know. It's a great point. They're ready.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

We just did the WBC mo, right? Pico Armstrong was on the 12 and on the national team. 12 and on the team. Yeah, a lot of guys. Yep. I and that's so true. All of these youth programs now, PG being one of them, all the ways that guys can learn and play, it definitely gets them ready quicker. They come to the major leagues. One thing I've noticed from a media perspective. But that juice. Yeah, they've got it. And just from my perspective, when I interview them, it's like they've been doing this for 10 years. They're 21 years old. And yeah, they've been interviewed by other people well before me. It's not like they get to the major leagues, it's the first time they've seen a reporter, that's for sure. So it's a different world. So you no question.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

So when we do so, you know, when we do the WB, the WB, you know, BC, WB, what we do, we're in Jupiter. I was a kid. I got drafted in the first round. I had five scouts at my games. These guys are playing against teams, and there's golf courts of scouts walking around the entire week. They're just used to it. I was shaking in my boots when I came up. I remember coming in from Scranton. I got in the I got in the batteries box and I see Don Malling. My back leg was shaking. These guys are these guys are grizzled. They're tough. They're tough. They're players.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Great players. We love, we love your perspective because obviously we have ours. Mo has his experience. I have mine from youth as a son, as a minorly player, and then a longtime broadcaster. It's interesting to see it occur. Um, we're gonna bid you adieu with this final question. We thank you for your time during your busiest time of the year. It always is. Yes. Um, looking at, and this is gonna be a selfish question, and just tell us what you know. With the concept of, you know, the working agreement, let them figure it out. I don't care about that, let them figure it out. But the one piece that I do is the concept of possibly the high school draft disappearing and players all going into college. Everything or anything you know about that discussion, and when you put your ear to the ground, what you've heard as that comes into the CBA discussions.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Darren, to be perfectly honest, I'm not even well versed on that at all. And one of my one of my deficiencies in my job is I cover all 30 teams, essentially. So I'm not as, like I said, well-versed on the amateur side on what's going on there. That's an interesting thought for sure. I don't know where they're gonna go with that. I don't know that you can necessarily legislate against it. I don't know the legality of that. Because if you're a high school kid, you want to play in the big leagues, you should be able or go to a big league organization, you should be able to do that, in my opinion. That's just off the top of my head. I I honestly have not heard much about that.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

No, and I think the reason I ask is we've seen progressively the, you know, the draft shrink dramatically. It's shrunk dramatically, obviously, and it's going to keep shrinking. Yeah. And these teams have realized we just as soon not have thousands of guys that could come to the big leagues. We'd rather have like 70 that we think are really good and we'll pick from them. Um, so it's interesting. Ken, thank you for your time. Your insights are epic. Again, it's an honor to have you on Mo's Podcast. I'm I'm honored to pitch in, but man, you're as you're as good as there is out there.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Hey, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. Good to see you both. Thank you, Chiang. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Cheers. Thanks for coming on. And thanks for hanging out with us. You know you can find Mo's podcast here all the time. Will's gonna get back in this chair. And like I said, uh, I'm the lucky one that got the pinch hit. We'll see you guys soon.