Baker: Alex Rodriguez’s path to redemption on baseball TV
From Katie Baker at The Ringer on October 25, 2017:
Alex Rodriguez and David Ortiz have been opponents for years, and on the Saturday morning of Game 2 of the ALCS between the Yankees and the Astros, they’re in a new, if unwitting, competition. At the Fox Sports studios in Los Angeles, three-fifths of the on-air talent from the MLB on Fox show sit around a conference table before a pregame production meeting, all casually dressed and at ease: Hall of Fame slugger Frank Thomas in a black short-sleeved button down; Mets great Keith Hernandez in a red polo, khaki shorts, and flip-flops; and host Kevin Burkhardt in a green Philadelphia Eagles T-shirt featuring Tecmo Bowl graphics. The only guys still missing are Rodriguez and Ortiz, the show’s biggest names and oddest couple.
Rodriguez, the 14-time All-Star covering his third World Series as a studio analyst for Fox, which will broadcast all of this year’s games, is notoriously scrupulous and fanatical, often arriving to the studio early, armed with copious notes. In 2015, when Fox tapped him to join its team for something of a pre-retirement test run after the Yankees’ elimination from the playoffs, Rodriguez approached the gig with the same fastidious preparation that he displayed in the Yankees clubhouse.
Read the full article here: https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/10/25/16539596/alex-rodriguez-redemption-mlb-on-fox-world-series
Originally published: October 25, 2017. Last Updated: October 25, 2017.