SI

Karl Ravech On a Few Days of Crazy Travel and Baseball

ESPN's coverage of Major League Baseball's Wild Card round continues today.

Kyle Koster

Ravech called three high-stakes games in less than 36 hours.
Ravech called three high-stakes games in less than 36 hours. /

ESPN's Karl Ravech had a taxing and unusual start to his work week.

He was part of the network's coverage of a bizarre Monday doubleheader between the New York Mets and Atlanta Braves where both teams needed a single win to advance to the postseason. A long, strange day ended with a split and Ravech on his second flight day as he traveled to San Diego, where he is working the Padres' Wild Card series against those Mets.

Ravech talked to Sports Illustrated about announcing three high-leverage games over the span of 30-some hours on opposite ends of the country.

Sports Illustrated: How are you feeling? Are you tired?

Karl Ravech: I'm trying to think of what day we started this whole journey. Buster [Olney] and I happened to board a plane Monday morning at 6 a.m. so that means a 3:50 a.m. wakeup call, then I drive an hour to the airport. He and I get on that plane to Atlanta. We have rooms at the airport hotel. So you basically go to your room, you shower and then you get in the car to go to do the two ballgames which, you know, were incredibly unique. We knew going in it was going to be a weird day. You just knew it was going to be odd.

To have Game 1 turn out the way that it did, you talk about the air out of a balloon. Game 2 felt like nobody wanted to be there, even the Braves, who had to win the game. So you go through that and then you move to the airport and you get on a 10:30 p.m. flight to San Diego because the decision was made regardless of the outcome you're going to the Padres and the Braves or the Padres and the Mets. That's how it was going to play out. We end up San Diego and get into the room at midnight, which is 3 a.m. ET, which means you've been awake for 24 hours. Then you go to bed for a little bit and you wake up on the West Coast, which means you're getting up at a ridiculous early hour because your body's on the East Coast. Then you go and do a Wild Card game. I've never experienced anything like it.

I will say that I am not physically tired. I think most of these types of things take it out of you mentally more than physically. But when you're involved in atmospheres like this with such a unique seat, there's no time to be tired, there's no time to think about what you've just done. You're along for the ride. You cannot take this stuff for granted because it's not going to be there forever. I love every minute of it and I think having done it for so long, to be honest, I like when there are unique challenges. This was one of those. And to navigate it well makes you feel really good.

Sports Illustrated: The way the Padres started that game last night, with Michael King looking electric and Fernando Tatis Jr. hitting an early home run, there was a ton of energy. Did that help at all?

Karl Ravech: That was a cup of coffee, that was a shot of adrenaline. I think what makes San Diego unique is that there's very much a party-type feel to the ballpark. San Diego has basically had that since Peter Seidler decided to invest all of his money, may he rest in peace. He turned it into the place to be and the Padres being the only game in town have played well and attracted the masses. When they go to the ballpark, this is a participatory event, it's not sit on your hands. They are into every second.

And now you introduce a team that has a chance to go deep in October if not win a World Series. So that shot that Tatis hit may have been like a boost but the whole day you knew what it was going to be like when you got there and it lived up to it. The ballpark certainly carries you because it is unique. The relationship between the fans, the team, and city is unique. The homer and King's performance accelerated it a bit but it was there. I didn't have any doubt that we'd be able to get up. And I'll be honest, the first three games of the day helped provide that. There were three really good games. Going in you're feeling really good about the way the day is going from an ESPN and network perspective.

Sports Illustrated: Do you worry at all about the logistics of it all when you're in a situation with all of that travel? I'm the type of person who needs to get to the airport super early and any type of delay really gets me concerned.

Karl Ravech: We actually had that conversation on the air at one point. I think any time a situation like that presents itself, flying the day of a game is always a risky proposition. We certainly don't do that as a practice, we rarely if ever do that for baseball. But in this case where you weren't sure you were going to San Diego and who they were playing, I opted to not spend a night in Atlanta if those games weren't going to be played, so yeah, absolutely. I went to bed around 9 p.m. on Sunday night knowing we had to get up at 3:50 a.m. for that ride to the airport. And for about four hours you have a real peaceful sleep. Even though there were flights at 6, 7, and 8 so you have the backup plan in the back of your mind. Okay, so if the 6 o'clock flight doesn't go, there's a 7. And God forbid, there's an 8 just in case. Around 1a.m. is when you wake up and you can feel your brain going when you don't want it to. Your brain is telling you what happens if a pilot is sick, what happens if the airplane has a mechanical issue.

Sports Illustrated: I am looking right now at the graphic ESPN put out with all the coverage teams. It's an impressive group with you, Michael Kay, Jon Sciambi and Sean McDonough calling games and a lot of great analysts. Is this the biggest showcase for the broadcasting teams the network has?

Karl Ravech: When you're talking about Sciambi or McDonough, you're talking about guys that I have grown up with in the business who I'm very friendly with, who I have a tremendous amount of respect for. I think as a company with Sunday Night Baseball being really the only game we do once a week, when you have the opportunity to do four and you're able to parade out guys who I think are Hall of Fame-type broadcasters and to be one of them and to be on the marquee game is enormously gratifying, flattering, humbling, all of those things. In listening to all of them I think they're all fantastic.

It's a challenge and I think Sciambi referred to it the other day. It's very well-known that Major League Baseball is a sport in which the local broadcasters, 140-150 times a year depending on the team, are listened to by the fans and are the same voices. It's such a unique, comfortable, intimate relationship. I've always known this. You want to hear the familiar voices. You want to know that they know exactly what happened last month, last week, and yesterday.

When the national guys come in, the feeling is that they're not as invested, they don't know the players, they just sort of parachute in and parachute out. All I can say is we're not day to day with those teams. Certainly Sciambi with what he does with the Cubs, Sean with the Red Sox, and all of our broadcasters. It's not like we don't follow the teams and the games. We do. And we speak to so many people involved. When we get there in the early hours of gameday, you're talking to players, you have relationships. We also have a tremendous amount of respect for the local broadcasters.

Sports Illustrated: Was wondering if we could go back and you could speak about the support staff you have that allowed pulling something like this off even possible?

Karl Ravech: What I've benefitted from in my years at ESPN, having sat in studios and certainly doing Baseball Tonight for so many years with over 60 different analysts is that you learn that the only way you are going to be good—and I mean not individually but collectively—is to trust the people around you and make them better. While I'm sitting there trying to get the best, in this case, out of Eduardo and David Cone and Buster, there are ... I'd love to name them all but I'd leave out some of them. But all you have to do is look at the email chain that we have and how many people behind the scenes make this go.

The baseball group at ESPN is a family and I know you could ask anybody about how important the relationships are between the people in front of the camera, the people in the control room, the camera people, the audio people, the people who support us in every which way from graphics to hotel rooms. Everybody has each other's best interests at heart. Not only is it on the television side—as we discussed earlier, how are we going to get from Point A to Point B. All of that stuff has to be taken care of. I love the people that I work with.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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