This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's a versatle five. Sport broadcaster Kenny Albert
Marx his thirtieth season with Fox Sports this year, and he's been calling the
NFL games on Fox since nineteen ninety four, currently the only broadcaster handling play
by play for all four major US sports, the NFL, NBA, MLB,
and National Hockey League. Kenny Albert has written about his experiences in a
new book called A Mic for All Seasons. My three decades announcing for the
NFL, NHL, NBA, m MLB and Olympics, and I didn't have
a choice. I fell in love with this business at a very early age,
Kenny. But you were born into it, well, Lee, I
certainly was, and also fell in love with it as at a young age.
Thanks for having me on this show. Did grow up with my father
and uncles as played by play broadcasters, so it was all that I really
knew right from the start. My parents gave me a tape recorder for my
birthday when I was five years old, and I set up my bedroom like
a TV at a radio studio with the desk and then the bed in the
middle TV on the other side, and would call games into the tape recorder
and it was a lot of fun. Learned a lot via osmosis from all
of them. I would listen to just about any sporting event I could find
on the radio, and started to bring the tape recorder to sporting events when
I was old enough for that. A huge break in high school. A
local cable station came to my school to fill the girls basketball game, and
all they had was a small production van and two cameras. That was it,
and I volud here to announce the game. They clipped the microphone on
my shirt and for the next two and a half years they sent me all
around Long Island to call various games and any sport you can imagine. So
that was a great head start and again really really all that I ever wanted
to do. Kenny Alberts Mike for all seasons, I've always admired play by
play. The only play by play I ever really got good at was football.
I imagine I could do baseball because it's a lot slower paced, but
I've always been in awe of basketball and hockey. How do you do it?
You know, I get the question often which is the hardest sport to
call? And most people think hockey would be the answer. To me,
it's actually the easiest, maybe because I've done it for the longest period of
time for thirty three years now professionally, especially on the radio, and I
bounced back and forth with hockey on radio and television. But on the radio
it's like riding a bike. It's just a continuous call the fucks and action
for sixty minutes. There are stoppages, of course, but basketball is pretty
similar, balls and action for forty eight minutes. It's a little slower paced.
There are more whistles, more stoppages for fouls, and the ball out
of back. Football, to me, is the most riderick. It's one
play and then it's twenty or twenty five seconds. It's another play and then
it's twenty or twenty five seconds. Baseball has always been the most challenging of
the fourth with all the downtime between pitches between batters, although it's the pace
is picked up over the last year with the pitch clock, which I know
all broadcasters are pretty happy with, but to me, the most challenging I've
done some other sports through the years. You know, Boshton, there's no
ball of puck, and you want to make sure you get some of your
good information, your good nuggets in early, because it could end at any
time. I've done a little bit of track and field and volleyball, and
those were sports that I really had to learn. Not a shame to admit
that. I picked up the books Track and Field for Dummies, Volleyball for
Dummies, watched a lot of prior tapes, and spoke to experts in those
various sports. But you know, as far as the four that we talked
about, you know, people might think I'm crazy, but to me,
hockey is the easiest, despite the the line changes on the fly and the
European names. I've done several Winter Olympics, men's and women's ice hockey,
and on the on the men's side for the most part, in four of
those six Olympics, it's been mostly at HL players, but in the other
two a lot of unfamiliar names. Uh. Learning the names and the teams
on the women's side as well, so that that could be pretty challenging.
But once you get into the flow at the game, uh, like I
said, it's pretty much a continuous call that's consistent with our local minor league
hockey play by play guy. I asked him the same question. His answer
was, I don't I don't even think. I just describe what I'm looking
at and it just and it just keeps going. Yeah, and then you
have the you know, the legendary story for Bob Costas. You know,
I've heard him tell him during interviews and in books. Early in his career,
he was assigned to call a hockey game, a minor league hockey game,
and the only problem was that they had given him rosters, and all
of a sudden, the team's come out for warm ups and most of the
players are wearing different numbers. So I'm sure that was a bit of a
challenge for him. We're talking to Kenny Albert. He's the legendary play by
play for Fox Sports. He's written a book on Mike for All Seasons my
decade, announcing the NFL, NHL, NBA, and LB and the Olympics.
You also, I mean, it's more than a memoir too. You
have some stories to tell about some of the pro athletes you've rubbed noses with,
right, you know, it's a compilation of early life, and then
stories about calling each of the individuals, sports, stories about the Olympics,
travel tales, anecdotes about the various analysts I've worked with, and also,
like you said, stories about athletes that I've had the pleasure of interviewing,
either on the air or off the air, just for background. And when
we go into call NFL games every weekend as a crew, we do have
the opportunity to sit down and chat with players and coach. So I write
about Brett farre who was one of the most generous with his time. Met
with him on numerous occasions calling the Packers games and then the Vikings later in
his career, and he was there for as long as you needed, forty
five minutes, and he would be telling stories about hunting and fishing in his
family. It wasn't even all about football, but he was certainly a character.
We always enjoyed meeting with Brett, Peyton Manning, who has a photographic
memory. He would talk about games that happened five, ten, fifteen years
ago with precise recall. And then in hockey, Win Gretzky, who's become
a colleague. He's in the studio with TNT, but worked a game with
us a couple of years ago and had the chance to interview him a few
times earlier in my career. Wayne and will Clyde Fraser were kind enough to
write the forwards for my books. So hopefully, hopefully the listeners who've had
the opportunity to read it, or we'll have the opportunity in the future,
enjoy it. There are some stories in there that I've told through the years
at various events and sportscasting camps, and during the pandemic had a lot of
time in my hands and started to put pen to paper and very excited when
the book came out a couple of months ago. Kenny Albert is with Us.
Mike for All Seasons is his book. His dad was the legendary Marv
Albert. What's the number one thing you learned from him? Definitely the preparation.
I would sit at home or in hotels with him on trips and just
watch how much time he put in for each and every game that he worked,
and I kind of learned by osmosis just by watching, And that's the
number one thing that I tell young play by play broadcasters. I have a
checklist that I go through prior to each and every game that I work,
and it involves watching prior to games and doing a lot of reading and preparing
charts and going through notes and statistics. But by far the number one thing
that I learned was the preparation aspect. Read all about his adventures and in
the business of MIC for all seasons by three decades. Announcing the NFL,
NHL, NBA, MLB and Olympics. Kenny Alberts, Fox Sports, thanks
for joining us in Happy Holidays. Thanks We rare appreciated your tip. Thanks
for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember
to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation.