Yesterday morning, in a quick post welcoming Jody McDonald back to 950 ESPN radio (he was recovering from heart surgery) I realized that while I have listened to Jody Mac for years I had never actually had the chance to chat with him.  With the Phillies in a crucial spot and McDonald returning to the airwaves, I figured that there was no time like the present, reached out to Jody, and he was gracious enough to chat with me this morning.  

Jody McDonald

courtesy of sr950

We talked his recovery, the effect blogs are having on radio, the state of the Phillies and much more.  Highlights ATJ

Before anything,
I just want to welcome you make sure you’re completely healthy. 

I’m doing much better, but everything takes time.  You have to get used to
the new things in your body, and I’m still a little sore in places – but I’m getting
back to full strength. 

I’ve lost over 20 pounds – I’m not
a completely new man but I’m headed there.

How hard was it
to be away?

If you’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for as long as
I’ve been doing it, when you’re watching a game your mind thinks about what you’re
going to talk about the next day. I’ve been doing this for twenty years, and outside of my
honeymoon haven’t been away for more than two straight weeks, so this was new
ground for me.

You missed some
pretty exciting times in Philadelphia
sports, how much attention did you pay to the teams when you were recovering?

Oh, as much if not more attention – I had nothing else to
do.  In the beginning I couldn’t even go
to my daughter’s basketball games, so all I did was sit around and watch
sports. It wasn’t time away from the games at all.

Did you have a
sounding board, did you keep wanting to talk about the games or was this a
vacation away?

Well, my daughter is a pretty big fan – she doesn’t follow on
my level but she’s still on a pretty darn good level – so I was able to talk with her. 
Also I have some friends that I’ll call or email back and forth with.  I’m not the type to call or email during
games, but when I would normally be on the air I’d go back and with them.  It wasn’t enough to get my fill, just enough to keep my appetite whet.

You’re coming
back with a partner (Harry Mayes); long term is the plan to keep that together?

That is to be determined by management.

Differences
between working in a pair and working on your own?

Some ways it is easier, some ways harder.  It’s easier in that you don’t have to have a
response for everything
and you don’t have to be as reliant on listeners.  It’s harder in that you have to keep guys
involved in the show.  As the lead guy
it’s my responsibility to make sure that Harry has his say.

In the end it’s about as much work either way.

I’ve been listening to you for awhile, and it doesn’t seem like not having a response is too big of a concern for you. Do you prefer to have
your own show?

Let me put it this way; I am a loyal employee and I do as I’m
told.

Switching gears
a little bit, I’d like to talk about radio as a medium. With the rise of sports
related web content which gives fans the chance to react immediately to news,
do you think sport radio’s role is changing?

There are some similarities. 
Blogs give people who might be tentative about calling the show a chance to
get the ball rolling in terms of participation. 
If you aren’t totally comfortable talking in front of an audience blogs
let you talk with a smaller audience, or go back and forth with your friends,
and may bolden you enough to go on the air and share your views with tens of
thousands of people or whoever may be listening. 

If you’re not comfortable jumping right into the deep end,
blogs can be sort of like the shallow end in terms of participation.

You’ve been in
sports talk radio for almost 20 years, how is the internet and blogs changed
your job?  Do you read them? Pay attention?

Absolutely I do.  Like
everything, I have the ones I like, ones I check daily, ones I check once a
week and ones I’ll check once a month.  If
you wanted to you could spend eight hours a day on there, so you have to pick
your spots.  But they’re another outlet,
you have to be aware of them.  I have the
ones I like.

Such as?

Well, I don’t want to name some because then the others tend
to get mad at you, but rest assured I have the ones I like.

Is the prep work
different for a morning show than the mid-afternoon?

Just the clock.  You
put in about two hours at the studio before either way and stay informed
throughout day.  So to me? No, it’s exactly
the same. 

The one difference in content might be that at nine o’clock
I’m some people’s first outlet.  They’ll
wake up at eight, might catch a little bit on the TV, but basically get in
their cars and I’ll have to introduce some of the news.  At 3:00 you believe people have gotten
indoctrinated pretty well.

What is the prep
work? How do you get ready for your day? Is it similar to that of a hardcore fan?

Absolutely.  Only
difference is I might be able to pick up a phone and call somebody and find out
if a story has changes, or if there are emerging details.  But basically I follow sports the same way fans do.

You’re a fan,
and you’re obviously a fan, but you’re also media.  Does your hope that the Phillies win affect
your ability to be impartial?

I feel, and I might be different from people in my business in this regard,
that impartiality is the most important thing. 
I’m not a homer I’m not a fan, I don’t root for the teams, and I’m not paid by any of
the teams.  Now, off the air I’ll buy
tickets and I’ll scream and yell and go to the games like the rest of the
people, but on air I’m going to tell you exactly how I see it as an unbiased
observer.

That also means that I won’t be overly critical for the sake of
ratings or to tick people off either. 
I’ll just try and offer my honest opinion.  

Playing off
that, you’re in a profession with a lot of guys who make their names being
jerks.  You’re famous for doing people
favors, is that a conscious decision or just your genuine personality coming
off?

I certainly believe that you cannot divest your own
personality from your show. Now it might be possible, and some people might
choose to do their show that way, but my show has a lot to do with my
personality.  That’s just the way I
started.

When you’re on the air for four hours a day, five, six,
seven days a week, you’d have to be one hell of an actor to keep your
personality out of your show.  I think
you would be ill advised to not incorporate your personality.

Lets get to the baseball: you’ve obviously been around a lot of management types in baseball,
how concerned were the Dodgers about bringing a personality like Manny into the
locker room?

Now I haven’t talked to [Dodgers' Manager Joe] Torre or
[General Manager Ned] Colletti about this, so it’s just speculation, but I
think that any team has to be concerned about Manny after what he did in Boston. I have to believe that if they didn’t have a chance to talk with him ahead
of time they wouldn’t they wouldn’t have made the move. 

Now I don’t know who talked to who – if Torre talked to
Manny, or Boras, which you obviously have to take with as big a grain of salt
as you can – but you just don’t make that move without assurances that Manny is going to behave.

I guess what I’m
driving at is, what role does personality play in personnel decisions?  The Phillies have a lot of questions of who
to resign/who to go after.  Are they
looking at the numbers, or are they looking at the guy on the field?

It’s a balancing act, there are three things you’re looking
for, those three being production, cost, and personality or how well you fit
into the team. 

Now some teams can skew that, the Yankees don’t have to
worry as much about cost because they generate more revenue than any other team
in the league, but if you’re a good team you can’t forsake any of the three.
Now if you have good leaders you can mitigate some of that.  Manny going to LA has a lot to do with Torre,
who obviously has dealt with the biggest egos up with the Yankees.

What about this
Phillies clubhouse? How do you feel about the hometown guys?

Very good.  A lot that
stems from Manuel.  The team is light,
they don’t take themselves too seriously. 
And they have almost no stone cold jerks in the entire clubhouse – in
major league baseball that doesn’t happen often.  The Phillies do a good job at not obtaining
those guys, or if they do obtain those fringe guys they do a good job of
indoctrinating them into the clubhouse.

So they get
along, but they also aren’t great quotes. 
As a fan and a media member what makes a good clubhouse to you?

As a fan all you should care about is production.  As media I like guys who have a little bit of
personality and will give you the quotes, but my job is much more based on
reacting to the play on the field.

Predictions for
this team going forward?

I think the Phils are gunna win the series in 6. 
I think their big lefthanded bats will snap out of it.  Burrell may have a tough time, Werth may have
a tough time, but in the end I think Howard and Utley are going to carry them
over the top.

Thanks again to Jody. He really is one of the good guys and we’re glad to have him back. He’s on from 9am to 1pm Monday-Friday, now with Harry Mayes. You can listen to him HERE, right now.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 10:54 am and is filed under Inside the Press Box, media, other people's thoughts, sports radio. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.