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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear

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Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's
a versatle five. Sport broadcaster Kenny Albert

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Marx his thirtieth season with Fox Sports
this year, and he's been calling the

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NFL games on Fox since nineteen ninety
four, currently the only broadcaster handling play

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by play for all four major US
sports, the NFL, NBA, MLB,

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and National Hockey League. Kenny Albert
has written about his experiences in a

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new book called A Mic for All
Seasons. My three decades announcing for the

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NFL, NHL, NBA, m
MLB and Olympics, and I didn't have

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a choice. I fell in love
with this business at a very early age,

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Kenny. But you were born into
it, well, Lee, I

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certainly was, and also fell in
love with it as at a young age.

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Thanks for having me on this show. Did grow up with my father

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and uncles as played by play broadcasters, so it was all that I really

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knew right from the start. My
parents gave me a tape recorder for my

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birthday when I was five years old, and I set up my bedroom like

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a TV at a radio studio with
the desk and then the bed in the

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middle TV on the other side,
and would call games into the tape recorder

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and it was a lot of fun. Learned a lot via osmosis from all

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of them. I would listen to
just about any sporting event I could find

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on the radio, and started to
bring the tape recorder to sporting events when

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I was old enough for that.
A huge break in high school. A

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local cable station came to my school
to fill the girls basketball game, and

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all they had was a small production
van and two cameras. That was it,

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and I volud here to announce the
game. They clipped the microphone on

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my shirt and for the next two
and a half years they sent me all

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around Long Island to call various games
and any sport you can imagine. So

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that was a great head start and
again really really all that I ever wanted

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to do. Kenny Alberts Mike for
all seasons, I've always admired play by

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play. The only play by play
I ever really got good at was football.

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I imagine I could do baseball because
it's a lot slower paced, but

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I've always been in awe of basketball
and hockey. How do you do it?

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You know, I get the question
often which is the hardest sport to

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call? And most people think hockey
would be the answer. To me,

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it's actually the easiest, maybe because
I've done it for the longest period of

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time for thirty three years now professionally, especially on the radio, and I

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bounced back and forth with hockey on
radio and television. But on the radio

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it's like riding a bike. It's
just a continuous call the fucks and action

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for sixty minutes. There are stoppages, of course, but basketball is pretty

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similar, balls and action for forty
eight minutes. It's a little slower paced.

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There are more whistles, more stoppages
for fouls, and the ball out

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of back. Football, to me, is the most riderick. It's one

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play and then it's twenty or twenty
five seconds. It's another play and then

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it's twenty or twenty five seconds.
Baseball has always been the most challenging of

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the fourth with all the downtime between
pitches between batters, although it's the pace

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is picked up over the last year
with the pitch clock, which I know

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all broadcasters are pretty happy with,
but to me, the most challenging I've

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done some other sports through the years. You know, Boshton, there's no

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ball of puck, and you want
to make sure you get some of your

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good information, your good nuggets in
early, because it could end at any

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time. I've done a little bit
of track and field and volleyball, and

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those were sports that I really had
to learn. Not a shame to admit

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that. I picked up the books
Track and Field for Dummies, Volleyball for

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Dummies, watched a lot of prior
tapes, and spoke to experts in those

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various sports. But you know,
as far as the four that we talked

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about, you know, people might
think I'm crazy, but to me,

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hockey is the easiest, despite the
the line changes on the fly and the

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European names. I've done several Winter
Olympics, men's and women's ice hockey,

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and on the on the men's side
for the most part, in four of

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those six Olympics, it's been mostly
at HL players, but in the other

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two a lot of unfamiliar names.
Uh. Learning the names and the teams

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on the women's side as well,
so that that could be pretty challenging.

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But once you get into the flow
at the game, uh, like I

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said, it's pretty much a continuous
call that's consistent with our local minor league

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hockey play by play guy. I
asked him the same question. His answer

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was, I don't I don't even
think. I just describe what I'm looking

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at and it just and it just
keeps going. Yeah, and then you

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have the you know, the legendary
story for Bob Costas. You know,

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I've heard him tell him during interviews
and in books. Early in his career,

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he was assigned to call a hockey
game, a minor league hockey game,

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and the only problem was that they
had given him rosters, and all

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of a sudden, the team's come
out for warm ups and most of the

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players are wearing different numbers. So
I'm sure that was a bit of a

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challenge for him. We're talking to
Kenny Albert. He's the legendary play by

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play for Fox Sports. He's written
a book on Mike for All Seasons my

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decade, announcing the NFL, NHL, NBA, and LB and the Olympics.

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You also, I mean, it's
more than a memoir too. You

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have some stories to tell about some
of the pro athletes you've rubbed noses with,

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right, you know, it's a
compilation of early life, and then

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stories about calling each of the individuals, sports, stories about the Olympics,

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travel tales, anecdotes about the various
analysts I've worked with, and also,

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like you said, stories about athletes
that I've had the pleasure of interviewing,

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either on the air or off the
air, just for background. And when

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we go into call NFL games every
weekend as a crew, we do have

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the opportunity to sit down and chat
with players and coach. So I write

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about Brett farre who was one of
the most generous with his time. Met

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with him on numerous occasions calling the
Packers games and then the Vikings later in

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his career, and he was there
for as long as you needed, forty

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five minutes, and he would be
telling stories about hunting and fishing in his

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family. It wasn't even all about
football, but he was certainly a character.

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We always enjoyed meeting with Brett,
Peyton Manning, who has a photographic

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memory. He would talk about games
that happened five, ten, fifteen years

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ago with precise recall. And then
in hockey, Win Gretzky, who's become

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a colleague. He's in the studio
with TNT, but worked a game with

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us a couple of years ago and
had the chance to interview him a few

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times earlier in my career. Wayne
and will Clyde Fraser were kind enough to

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write the forwards for my books.
So hopefully, hopefully the listeners who've had

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the opportunity to read it, or
we'll have the opportunity in the future,

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enjoy it. There are some stories
in there that I've told through the years

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at various events and sportscasting camps,
and during the pandemic had a lot of

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time in my hands and started to
put pen to paper and very excited when

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the book came out a couple of
months ago. Kenny Albert is with Us.

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Mike for All Seasons is his book. His dad was the legendary Marv

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Albert. What's the number one thing
you learned from him? Definitely the preparation.

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I would sit at home or in
hotels with him on trips and just

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watch how much time he put in
for each and every game that he worked,

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and I kind of learned by osmosis
just by watching, And that's the

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number one thing that I tell young
play by play broadcasters. I have a

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checklist that I go through prior to
each and every game that I work,

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and it involves watching prior to games
and doing a lot of reading and preparing

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charts and going through notes and statistics. But by far the number one thing

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that I learned was the preparation aspect. Read all about his adventures and in

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the business of MIC for all seasons
by three decades. Announcing the NFL,

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NHL, NBA, MLB and Olympics. Kenny Alberts, Fox Sports, thanks

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for joining us in Happy Holidays.
Thanks We rare appreciated your tip. Thanks

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for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember

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to listen to The Drive Live weekday
afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation.