It is 10:43 p.m. on Wednesday night, and Michael Kay is leaving Yankee Stadium. He is heading home. Even for the triple-booked broadcaster — a play-by-play man, radio host and studio personality — at 14 hours straight with barely a breath, it has been a busy day.
Kay arrives at an East Harlem studio at 8:48 a.m. He headed upstairs and did some final preparation for hosting an episode of “CenterStage” on the YES Network. After some light conversation and makeup application, Kay emerged from behind a thin black curtain to a round of applause from a small audience at 10:01 a.m. Though he prefers the variety of hosting pop-culture guests, citing “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David as his favorite, on this day he will sit with MLB commissioner Bud Selig.
Taping takes over 90 minutes, but preparation began weeks ago. On a recent Yankees road trip, Kay used the airplane as his office, sifting through more than 700 pages of research for an interview encompassing Selig’s entire life.
“Someone once told me that you should never ask a question that you don’t know the answer to on a show like this, so I try to know the answers to all the questions,” Kay said. “The guy that you’re interviewing, this is his life, so he knows it pretty well. But if I have a strength at all — I’m not saying I have many — I think I’m a pretty good interviewer, so I always wanted to do a show like this.”
Normally, he would tape back-to-back shows, but the Yankees have a day-night doubleheader. So, he heads north toward Yankee Stadium, reading Toronto newspapers on the ride to catch up on the Yankees opponent, the Blue Jays, while listening to New York sports radio.
Kay arrives a few minutes before noon, jumping into comfortable repartee with the production staff before eventually settling into a seat near the far right of the YES broadcast booth. To his left are Al Leiter and Ken Singleton.
In front of Kay on the desk are a monitor, a scorebook (one of two he will use per season), his phone and a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, which he often plays with, but hardly wears, as he continues to adjust to their introduction into his life last year.
Just before the game starts, Kay and Leiter engage in good-natured ribbing, which continues during several commercial breaks. When Kay gets his cue, he jumps back into action as if the game had been paused and nothing had occurred in the booth between the top and bottom of the inning.
Kay is confident and experienced, owning the most recognizable voice in the booth, but many minutes can pass without him uttering a word. It is intentional, but after 10 years as a radio analyst for the Yankees, it was an adjustment he had to make when he began calling televised games with YES in 2002.
“As the analysts, they’re the stars,” Kay said. “In my eyes, baseball broadcasts are made by how strong the analysts are. If they’re going strong, I’ll just lay back. Sometimes I’ll pick up my energy to engage them. It’s just a feel. I’m really just like the point guard. I just want to set them up.”
After a Rafael Soriano strikeout, the Yankees take the first game of the doubleheader, 4-2, and Kay begins planning his escape, grabbing his scorebook and bag.
“Have a good one, everyone. So long,” Kay tells the audience, and sets off to join a new one.
After an elevator ride down and an eight-minute walk from behind home plate to beyond left field, he’ll join the “Michael Kay Show” on ESPN Radio, which typically airs from 3-7 p.m. and is already in progress. Normally, he is texted by producers during an afternoon game, letting him know the show’s rundown so he can jump in seamlessly. Today, that hasn’t happened.
He walks past a slew of nondescript trailers, up the steel steps to a rectangle container that looks as if it got lost en route to a shipping port. It is 4:06 p.m.
“Wait till you see this,” Kay says as he enters. “You’ll be shocked.”
The room barely could fit two billiards tables. The floor and door are severely scuffed. The grandeur of Yankee Stadium feels miles away. In the back, there is a small refrigerator, a smaller printer and half a pack of computer paper. On one windowsill sit seven empty plastic beverage bottles and on the window across the trailer is a can of Raid.
Kay sits in a chair and rolls towards the microphone. He looks at a laptop program that lets him see caller information then pins the show’s rundown on the dingy wallpaper just in front of him.
Kay is alone. His partner, Don La Greca, is in studio today. He puts on his headset and joins the show. It is 4:07.
After deferring to Leiter and Singleton for nearly three hours, Kay throws “a little bit of cold water” on Andy Pettitte’s return performance and says manager Joe Girardi should be ripped if he doesn’t start Ichiro Suzuki in the nightcap, that it would be “ridiculous.” The point guard is no longer thinking about passing first.
“It’s not like there are two different people, but there’s definitely a different role on the radio,” Kay said. “I have to give my opinions and give them strong. On TV, I’m more of a traffic cop. People say, ‘Why don’t you say what you said on the radio on TV?’ Because it’s not the venue. That’s not my job, so I’m not going to be as opinionated on YES as on ESPN Radio.”
As the show continues, Kay alternates talking with callers, guests and La Greca, mainly about baseball and the NFL. During a commercial, a young assistant enters and hands Kay the lineup for the Yankees nightcap. He promptly leaves and Kay immediately begins filling in his scorebook. But a commercial break is merely a countdown to live. He is not just on the air, he has to be “on” on the air.
“The radio show’s a bear. You’re carrying four hours of conversation,” said Kay, a Bronx native. “I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I could keep both jobs going for an indefinite period of time. At one point, it would have to be one of them. As you get older, physically this would wear you down. I’m 51. Even though in my head I don’t feel like I’m 51, I can’t see me doing both jobs at the age of 60. I’d have to choose one.”
For now he doesn’t. He even bought himself some extra time on the radio by taping a pregame segment for the night game after the conclusion of the day game, even though it took four takes.
At 6:12, the radio show continues, but Kay is gone. He retraces his steps to the booth. The sky is darker, the air is cooler and the YES backdrop in the booth has been switched to My9, but little else has changed. Leiter and Singleton are waiting. It’s time for baseball, again.
“I love the game so much, it just comes so natural,” Kay said. “Baseball games, they almost do themselves. You let the game come to you. You don’t create the excitement of the game, you let the game create your excitement.”
The second game begins, and Kay opens his third bottle of caffeine-free diet coke, having given up a sometimes eight-can-a-day habit of the hard stuff more than a year ago. The assembly line of advertisements he’s handed to read sends him on a continuous carousel from play-by-play to promotions that never seems to stop.
The game is slow and scoring is scarce, but Kay still tends to lean forward when the count gets deep, placing both elbows on the desk. He’s seen nearly every situation a baseball game can offer, but what’s next is still unknown. It’s still compelling. After Ichiro’s eighth-inning, go-ahead single, Kay’s voice rises appropriately, with emotion that is evident but not overblown.
It is 10:15, and the Yankees have won 2-1, with Ichiro going 4-for-4. All that’s left is the postgame wrap-up and the car ride home.
“A day like this is not routine, but it is fun,” Kay said. “How many people get a chance to do three things you really love and do it in New York? Not to get too dramatic, but I grew up poor. My parents said, ‘You gotta work. There’s no free rides. You gotta work harder than everyone else.’ Also, there’s people who really work hard for a living, pull cable, do construction. This is great. This is an easy way to make a living. If the hardest thing I have to do is keep up my energy, I can do that.”
The rest of the night is simple. He’ll eat a late dinner with his wife, watch an episode or two of “30 Rock” and go to sleep.
The next day, if the sun is shining, promises another game.
And a little radio, too.