"Live" at the K with Royals pregame/postgame host Joel Goldberg
You are Joel Goldberg.
Twenty-seven years ago, you were just a kid cheering your hometown Philadelphia Phillies to victory in the 1980 World Series. That was about the time when you discovered the pleasures of turning down the volume on the TV set and calling the game yourself in the voice of Harry Kalas, the Phillies' legendary play-by-play announcer.
Fast forward to 2007. You are now in the same business as Harry Kalas, covering major league baseball for a living.
You're not a play-by-play man like Kalas (mostly you do interviews and report on- and off-the-field activities of the St. Louis Cardinals), and the Cardinals aren't the Phillies (but they are the defending world champions).
But with 44,000 fans packing the new Busch Stadium and hundreds of thousands more watching the Cardinals -- and you -- on TV, you could not have a more engaged, informed or enthusiastic audience anywhere in baseball.
To top it all off, St. Louis is an NHL town, which is great, because hockey is your second favorite sport.
So, in 2007, life is pretty good if you're Joel Goldberg.
But then you learn that your employer, Fox Sports, will be producing all of the telecasts of Missouri's other major league team, the Kansas City Royals. And instead of being the bottom guy in St. Louis, you could be the top guy in Kansas City.
So: Do you go to Kansas City?
If you are Joel Goldberg, the choice is surprisingly easy -- in baseball terms, it's the equivalent of leaving a team where you are a dependable backup for one that would let you play every day.
Nonetheless, for Goldberg, his wife and two young children, there was sacrifice involved in leaving St. Louis.
"We miss the hockey," he says.
Goldberg does the pre-game and post-game shows bookending every Royals game telecast by Fox Sports Kansas City. He is an up-and-coming talent who could develop into a reliable performer for years to come. (The Royals can use some of those.)
In fact, given how much airtime he eats up every game day, and how vital television is to the team's bottom line, the person holding the microphone for "Royals Live" 140 times a season is arguably more important to the Royals' fortunes than a right-handed relief pitcher.
And though I don't know Goldberg's salary with FSKC, I'm going to say that dollar for dollar he is a steal next to outfielder Jose Guillen.
Attendance at Kauffman is up this season, but viewership of "Royals Live" has spiked even higher. According to FSKC, ratings for the pre-game show were up 37 percent through mid-June, and the Royals' post-game show has the highest "viewer retention" of any team in major league baseball (56 percent).
When he was in high school, Goldberg and his family moved to the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. After graduation, he became a Badger at the University of Wisconsin and, continuing his northern migration, took his first job after college as a TV news reporter in Rhinelander, Wis. His job included covering Rhinelander's high school sports team, the Hodags.
In 1999, he was hired at the Fox station in St. Louis as its No. 4 sports anchor, which is kind of like football Hall-of-Famer Bart Starr being taken in the 17th round of the NFL draft. There simply isn't a fourth sports anchor position at most TV stations today.
He caught a break five years later, when he covered the Cardinals' appearance in the 2004 World Series. Goldberg isn't sure, but he thinks his work caught the attention of somebody at Fox, because he was hired the following season. He was living the dream, covering baseball full time.
"Quite honestly, I could be covering a different sport today," Goldberg says. "I'm just grateful because this was my favorite sport as a kid."
The game I watched Goldberg cover was noteworthy for two things: It was the first time that the announcers, Ryan Lefebvre and Frank White, left the press box to call the game from the right field standing-room-only section known as the Pepsi Porch.
And it was the night that Fox Sports Kansas City's on-air talent unveiled their Hawaiian look. A network executive had decided that tropical fashion would be a cool way to usher in summer baseball. Because, after all, if more people wore Hawaiian shirts on TV, the world would be a happier place.
Goldberg, as usual, hosted the pre-game and post-game shows from Rivals, the sports bar on the main concourse overlooking the game from high above right field. FSKC and the Royals collaborated on the design of the joint.
"Royals Live" is done in the far corner of the room against a backdrop of the park, with railings on either side that also give spectators a place to set down their beers. Mostly, though, the patrons leave the TV guys alone. The only time Goldberg had trouble hearing himself was opening day, when Rivals was stuffed full of rowdies.
Jamie Quirk became Goldberg's co-host after White moved to the broadcast booth to replace regular color commentator Paul Splittorff, who was benched with an infection that makes announcing impossible.
Quirk has been in professional baseball since the Royals picked him first in the 1972 draft. Remarkably -- given his strong voice and TV-ready physique -- this is Quirk's very first job in television.
When I remarked on how quickly he found chemistry with both of his co-hosts, Goldberg said he just had to figure out his partner's strength and play to it.
In the cases of Quirk and White, they had the same strength.
While both men are known to Royals fans from their playing days, much of the baseball knowledge they impart on television derives from their coaching years. White managed many of the current Royals starters in the minor leagues, while Quirk sat at Colorado Rockies manager Clint Hurdle's right hand before leaving at the end of last season (Quirk also works as a scout for the Cincinnati Reds.)
"As a player you looked at the numbers one way, but as a coach you look at them totally different," Quirk tells me before the show.
And indeed, White's coach-friendly breakdowns make "Royals Live" must viewing for parents of Little Leaguers.
Goldberg doesn't do much of a run-through before the game with Quirk.
"He's easy," Goldberg says. "He knows the game so well -- not that that always translates to TV. It's a lot harder than people think."
As for White, I asked Goldberg how he broke the news to the former second baseman that he was pulling for the Phillies when they played the Royals in the 1980 World Series."Well," Goldberg says, "let's just say I made sure it wasn't the first subject to come up when we met."
They say that fans don't fill out scorecards at the game anymore. But I counted at least six members of the FSKC crew keeping score during the game.
Goldberg's card is more idiosyncratic than most, because it doubles as his on-air cheat sheet. He scribbles lots of things in the margins, like players' season statistics. He writes down not only the names of today's starting pitchers but tomorrow's. He makes sure to write the final score on the winning team's side and circles it for quick reference.
Interestingly, Goldberg is not much of a numbers guy.
"Stats can be overused," he says.
Though he used to be much more into fantasy baseball and managed several teams at once, he is down to a single National League-based game this season.
"With my workload, I have become a mediocre owner," he says. "There are times where suddenly we're light and somebody needs a little extra something about the random third baseman who just came up. And you realize that you know something about them that nobody really should know -- because you're playing fantasy baseball."
FSKC keeps its production truck parked outside Gate B. Here, two games are produced -- the one airing on FSKC and the version being produced for the visiting team's fans by Fox Sports Arizona (FSAZ). Both crews sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the truck.
Two things were surprising about the set-up. One was seeing the roving reporter for "Royals Live," Nate Bukaty, sitting in front of a laptop.
Bukaty, who also co-hosts the morning show on WHB-AM Sports Radio 810 with Steven St. John, spends each game operating the "Fox Box," the intricate little scoreboard that appears in the upper left corner of the TV screen.
As conscientious as Bukaty is -- he, too, keeps score -- the balls-and-strikes count usually goes awry a couple of times during the game. Here's why: The "Fox Box" lacks common sense. In the heat of the action Bukaty sometimes accidentally hits the same key twice, which the system then records as separate pitches.
The other surprise was how much fun they were having in there. It's low-key fun -- I must report that I kept alive my streak of control-room visits in which I had to be shushed -- but it's not lost on these guys (and one gal) that they are being paid to broadcast a baseball game.
"Not everyone's lucky enough to work for the team you root for," producer Kevin Shank says.
When Miguel Olivo tried to leg out a single, both Shank and director Steve Kurtenbach immediately locked in on the video, saying in unison, "Go! Go! Go! Go!" When Guillen beat out a throw to second, earning his first "hustle replay" in a long while, heads nodded and commented approvingly. When a camera showed a little kid in the stands grabbing a foul ball, everyone in the front row of the truck applauded.
Goldberg had told me he was going to take over the broadcast booth sometime during the game. Lefevbre and White were out in right field and couldn't do a thing about it.
I was in the truck in the top of the second when word came in to put a camera on the booth. The soles of two shoes appeared, propped up on the desk.
Like all journalists, Goldberg would like to be remembered for a quote or a scoop he got. But he understands his role during the game is mostly to create amusing distractions for the broadcast team.
"I can interview Zack Greinke after he's pitched one of the better games of the season, and I'm not going to have very many people come up to me afterwards and say, 'Hey, that was a great interview,'
