Courtesy Sports Illustrated

(May 28, 2010) Ken Rosenthal does not look the part. Slight of frame, measured in tone and unlikely to appear on Dancing With the Stars in this or any other lifetime, Rosenthal is the first to admit Fox Sports did not hire him as a field reporter because he is, in his words, "Mr. Television." But the 47-year-old field reporter for Fox's Major League Baseball broadcast has become one of the best sports voices on television, a prepared, thoughtful and straight-shooting chronicler of his game. "He gives our broadcast incredible ballast," said Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck. "There's a credibility factor there."

Both Buck and his partner Tim McCarver praised Rosenthal's unselfishness as a staffer. Prior to each national game he works, Rosenthal sends producer Pete Macheska a couple of pages of notes that Macheska then forwards to select Fox Sports personnel. Last week's packet for the Mets-Yankees broadcast included, among other items, reporting on Mets manager Jerry Manuel's tenuous future in New York, the decline in Mets attendance, why Yankees pitcher Phil Hughes had improved, and the Yankees' age-injury issues. One of Rosenthal's notes on Jason Bay included the player's telling the reporter that he had started to feel better about his swing. That day Bay had four hits; the next day he homered twice. Buck and McCarver often deliver Rosenthal's reporting on the air without viewers' knowing who unearthed the information. "He's not territorial," McCarver said. "He gives us great information, and it comes out of our mouth."

In addition to his on-air work for the network, Rosenthal is a baseball columnist for Fox Sports' website and hosts a video notes segment. He says he might speak with 30 people for less than four minutes of total airtime on a national broadcast, often in 30-to-45-second spurts. Indeed, as he was talking to SI.com last Saturday night at Citi Field, he apologetically walked away midsentence to grab Mets third baseman David Wright. The player greeted him warmly.

Rosenthal admitted that being on television had significantly changed his relationship with players. "The players give you more credibility simply because you are on TV," Rosenthal said. "It has nothing do with your journalistic quality. The weirdest thing about being on TV is, all of sudden, players look at you and talk to you differently. It is a different vibe. It's weird. Some of them, I don't even know if they are aware I write."

The recently hired ESPN analyst Doug Glanville, who played for nine seasons and this month finished a terrific run as a New York Times op-ed columnist, explained the phenomenon this way. "It's an era of social networking and access, and the younger players coming up in the thick of this era see that value very differently," Glanville said. "The weight of your voice and sometimes your trustworthiness relies on your visibility. In being visible, you can be found, and being found means you can be vetted.... Nowadays, anyone with the Internet can have a voice, so the standard has changed as to how these experts are evaluated."

Rosenthal said he was interviewing Cardinals star Albert Pujols before a playoff game a couple of years ago when Pujols said, "Ken, you know how the writers are." "I was like, 'Yeah, Albert, I know exactly how they are. I'm one of them.' I think he is aware now, but I don't know if he was aware then."

Rosenthal worked for years as a Baltimore Sun reporter before moving onto The Sporting News as its national baseball writer. He started getting gigs as an analyst on regional television and said he opted for Fox Sports over ESPN -- both offered him a deal a number of years ago -- because the Fox deal was more lucrative. "To me Fox had the greater upside," Rosenthal said. "I thought if it worked out it could be unbelievably great, but I was not sure it would work out. They had not had a sideline reporter and they did not guarantee I would be the reporter."

Said Fox Sports president Ed Goren, "He's spent years developing outstanding relationships in the sport and is not the kind of guy who throws a lot of stuff up against the wall, hoping that one of them sticks. He is very selective -- a professional. You know, you would not necessarily look at Ken and say, 'There's the next television star.' But that's almost better, actually. If I could change one thing; The Ken Rosenthal that does a wonderful job on [the MLB Network] with the freedom of time is much looser. If I could get that guy and join him with the guy we have, it would be perfect. And I think he is working toward that; he has loosened up from when he started with us, and with Buck needling him from the booth, I think he is much looser."

Rosenthal said that neither Fox nor the MLB Network has censored him when he's been critical of the league or commissioner Bud Selig. "On Fox, my role is to talk about the game and players and not trash the commissioner, but there are times I do that in my column, and I feel strongly about that," he said. "If I ever lose that or have to lose that, then I am not the person I want to be or the person people expect me to be. The people at Fox have always understood that."

Rosenthal praised Buck and McCarver for accepting him into their broadcast. "To have Joe's and Tim's acceptance and embrace what I do has been a huge part of this job for me," he said. "The fact that Fox is willing to have a guy like me and not someone there just for their looks -- because I'm obviously not there for that -- I think shows they are making a commitment to journalism, or at least what I do, which is information."

Later this year Rosenthal and his wife will relocate to New York City to support the performance career of his 14-year-daughter, Sarah. Last year Sarah was cast in one of the principal roles (she played The Little Girl) in the Broadway production of Ragtime. He also has a 19-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter. "They are not fans of baseball, and I much prefer it that way," he said. "I live the sport every day, and the fact that none of them are in that world grounds me and gives me the proper perspective."

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