By Steve Ginsburg, PressBox
With his youthful appearance and animated demeanor, Ken Rosenthal scurries around the Orioles’ clubhouse looking more like a batboy than one of Major League Baseball’s most influential broadcasters.
When the diminutive former Baltimore Sun reporter interviews a player on the field, his neck is craning upward at such an angle it’s as if he’s holding a microphone to one of the stone carvings at Mount Rushmore.
And those around-the-table panel discussions on the MLB Network? He’s aided by an extra seat cushion. Or two.
But make no mistake, the affable, 54-year-old Rosenthal is one of the heavyweights of the industry, having left the Sun to search for another challenge before finding his unlikely niche in front of a television camera.
“I feel very, very fortunate to achieve what I have,” Rosenthal said. “I never wanted to be more than a beat guy on a major sport at a major paper. My dad, figuring I would never make enough money, would tell me early in my career, ‘Maybe one day you’ll be on TV.’
“I would laugh at him and say, ‘No chance.'”
The 5-foot-4, bow tie-wearing Rosenthal is now a ubiquitous figure for the baseball fan, whether he’s in the dugout interviewing players during Fox broadcasts or debating the future of New York Mets pitcher Matt Harvey on MLB Network.
But Rosenthal would have never acquired his much-envied seat on the sideline if he had taken the advice of former Newsday sports editor Dick Sandler. Rosenthal, at the time a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, had interned at Long Island’s Newsday two summers before and was seeking career advice.
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Top photo: Kenya Allen/PressBox
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