On Monday morning, Ken Carman took a call from a listener named Tom on his show on 92.3 The Fan in Cleveland. On Tuesday, he was still thinking about what Tom had to say.
Tom was not happy that Guardians third baseman José Ramírez isn’t recognized as one of Major League Baseball’s superstars. According to Tom, that is at least partially the fault of Ken Carman and everyone else at 92.3 The Fan. Later in the day on Monday, Carman said he was fielding emails from listeners that agreed with Tom.
Carman explained that he tries to talk about the subjects the largest swath of his audience is interested in each morning. He has learned that it isn’t easy to talk about baseball in Cleveland.
“We’re at a real watershed moment. I don’t want to turn it into a fight, but I want to recognize this moment here,” he said Tuesday morning. “Any time we talk Guardians, we are put in a bit of a rock and a hard place. If I talk about the Guardians and I say glowing things about them, well to some people I am a shill and I am a homer.”
It isn’t fun to talk about baseball. Carman says that any time he brings up the team or has a player or writer on the show, the text line explodes with people demanding that he ask the guest about the team not spending enough on players or changing the nickname.
“Every time you talk baseball, it turns into a fan on fan crime, and I don’t want to do that.”
As for José Ramírez, Carman says the fans’ problems should be with Major League Baseball. The league is most concerned with talking about the parts of the sport that people hate, like debating if steroid users from 20 years ago belong in the Hall of Fame rather than the game.
He said that if Major League Baseball really wants to market itself and its players better, it should start by getting out of its own way. He pointed to the biggest NFL story in the market, saying that Rob Manfred should take note of how little information about the DeShaun Watson investigations is coming from the NFL.
“They (the NFL) will ignore an issue until the last possible moment when they are forced to deal with it.”
