There have been over 20,000 individuals who have played in Major League Baseball, and each has attained varying results. Some have stood out, being named to the All-Star Game or receiving other accolades. An even smaller number – 270 to be exact – have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, considered one of the highest honors in the game. On the other hand, some players get to step between the lines just once in their careers, captivated by the allure of the historic pastime.
Former pitcher Rob Dibble is among an exclusive list himself as players who have won at least one MLB World Series championship. In fact, he was an integral member of the Cincinnati Reds during the team’s postseason run in 1990. Before the World Series, he earned the distinction as the co-most valuable player of that year’s National League Championship Series ahead of the team’s four-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics.
Dibble retired from the sport five years later and was pondering his future plans when he ran into ESPN anchor Chris Berman at a Hartford Whalers game. During the game, Berman informed Dibble about ESPN Radio, which had debuted in 1992, and how there was availability to take the air on the weekends.
“He was doing a show with Keith Olbermann at the time, and I sat around and I watched what they were doing,” Dibble said, “and at the time – my dad passed a little bit later on; about a year later – but my dad was like, ‘Listen, sports radio is going to explode. It’s going to be the next thing to do, and so why don’t you just give it a shot?’”
Dibble’s father, Walt, was a respected journalist who worked as the news director and managing editor of WTIC-AM in Hartford, Conn. Additionally, he taught courses at the Connecticut School of Broadcasting as one of its original instructors.
Growing up, Dibble was privy to various radio formats and appeared on ESPN Radio on weekends before landing an overnight job with WLIS in Old Saybrook, Conn. The six-hour shift from midnight to 6 a.m. involved playing music from carts and saying the call letters every 15 minutes. Perceiving himself to be in the bottom echelon of the industry, Dibble became acquainted with the studio and its technology, rendering him more versatile overall.
“I didn’t just go out and pitch in the big leagues,” Dibble explained. “I talked to the hitters, I talked to the coaches [and] I tried to get their perspective. Any way I could gain an edge was going to help me stick around, and so it’s the same thing in this industry.”
One day while Dibble was hosting, an agent happened to be listening alongside an executive from FOX Sports at the Super Bowl. Shortly thereafter, the agent contacted him to suggest he audition for a studio job for FOX Sports News on cable television. Even though Dibble had just moved back to Connecticut and was studying to become a state trooper, he traveled to Los Angeles to try out.
Auditioning with Kevin Frazier, a media anchor whom he had known while in Cincinnati, Dibble earned the role over several other former MLB players. It also represented the first multi-year contract of his career since he had played on one-year deals throughout his entire MLB tenure.
“We were doing three live shows every day on television, and I had to learn how to write my own scripts,” Dibble articulated. “They’d tell you, ‘You’ve got a minute [and] ten [seconds] to talk, and once that red light goes on, your time starts,’ and so you would have to write whatever you were going to say into the teleprompter.”
FOX Sports increased its distribution while Dibble was on the air, a factor he believes led to his being replaced. As the company was growing its MLB on FOX property amid a five-year contract worth a reported $575 million with the league, Dibble was let go three months into his tenure on the air. The haste cessation prompted him to evaluate his self-efficacy and overall performance as he was adjusting to offering commentaries about a game he had once played.
Dibble opted to return to Connecticut where he started hosting with ESPN Radio in Bristol while contributing to the outlet’s television programming. When he was on Baseball Tonight, Dibble continued to deliver observations and analysis about major-league players and teams. Finding a way to balance objectivity and subjectivity without being presumptuous was a fundamental concept he yearned to master over each repetition. Moreover, he needed to consequently defend his rhetoric and demonstrate accountability to the subjects of discussion.
“They want you to be opinionated, so you’ve got your experience as a baseball player, but you don’t really have a lot of experience as a journalist and a broadcaster, and so you pop off a lot,” Dibble said. “You say things that maybe an insider would know and not someone who’s never played. A lot of active players were kind of offended by my mouth and some of my opinions.”
Upon beginning his tenure with the Dan Patrick Show, Dibble learned more about the job from the eponymous host. A valuable lesson imparted to him pertained to never being the first person to get something wrong, oftentimes prevented by ensuring facts are accurate and corroborated. In addition to conducting effective interviews, Patrick also underscored how imperative it is to have supportive colleagues.
“When you want to entertain people, you’re only going to be as good as the people you surround yourself with,” Dibble said. “Look at Howard Stern and how he’s been his whole career. It’s not just about Howard; it’s about all the people he surrounds himself with. If you look at Dan’s show, it’s all the people he surrounds himself with, so that’s something that I learned early on.”
Dibble became friends with Kevin Kennedy when he began hosting various programming on XM satellite radio as one of the early members of its MLB-dedicated channel. Through the company’s merger with competitor Sirius, he continued to appear on the air on programs such as The Show with Jody McDonald. Dibble also made a return to FOX Sports Radio where he co-hosted alongside Mike North, Denny Hocking and Amy Van Dyken. Furthermore, he continued his television pursuits on The Best Damn Sports Show Period with Chris Rose, John Salley and Rodney Peete.
As he continued to explore different niches of the industry, Dibble became involved in live game broadcasts with the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) on Washington Nationals games. Working alongside play-by-play announcer Bob Carpenter, he articulated his knowledge of the game and proffered his opinions.
Dibble’s tenure with the team ultimately ended in the midst of his second season after comments about starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg he made that were perceived by some listeners as abusive on his XM radio show. Later on, it was revealed that Strasburg would need to undergo reconstruction of his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), thus ending his season.
“To me, I look back at it and I [think those] people had it in for me because I wasn’t in the same type of think-tank that they were in,” Dibble said. “Washington is a real huge melting pot of opinions, and certainly being a guy from where I’m from in a small town in Connecticut, I was way out of my league when I was working there.”
Dibble was drawn back to the Hartford marketplace a few years later and began working at 97.9 ESPN in afternoon drive alongside Paul Nanos. Entering the role after hosting a morning program with SiriusXM MLB Network Radio while living in Los Angeles, he needed to approach the craft without indifference while appealing to the audience.
“People are getting out of work, [and] some people are working second shifts so they’re on their way to work,” Dibble said. “They don’t want to hear the same stuff that the morning show did, [and] they don’t want to hear the same stuff that the midday show did. They want to hear some fresh stuff, and so we try to have a fresh take on what we’re doing, and like I said, sprinkle in what the other shows have talked about all day.”
Ben Darnell, the current co-host of The Rob Dibble Show, is also the program director of the radio station and oversees various other radio outlets broadcasting in different formats. Dibble affirmed that Darnell frequently travels between New Haven and Hartford to fulfill his responsibilities. Tim Spence preceded Darnell in the co-host/program director role, and having an executive as part of the program has rendered greater awareness towards the broader cluster of stations and how to engender a seamless flow between formats.
“We try to incorporate a lot of those listeners to our [show] because they might be like, ‘Okay, I’m tired of listening to music today. I’m going to give the sports talk show a chance,’” Dibble explained. “We’ve got to be on our game when that happens. If we want, whether it’s 10 minutes spent listening or 20 or 30, we’ve got to make it the best [time spent] listening that they’ve had recently.”
The station had previously been affiliated with ESPN Radio until earlier this month when it officially started carrying FOX Sports Radio programming. Leading up to Dibble’s local program in afternoon drive is 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe in morning drive and a midday split between the Dan Patrick Show and The Herd featuring hosts Colin Cowherd and Jason McIntyre. The alteration to Fox Sports 97.9 Hartford was part of a larger move by iHeartMedia that also involved the transformation of 970 AM in Pittsburgh.
The outlet is also the flagship station for the University of Connecticut, serving as the broadcast home for a variety of Huskies athletic events. The men’s basketball team won the NCAA Division I title last year and has a 14-2 record to begin the new season as a member of the Big East Conference. Although there is no longer an NHL franchise in Hartford, the station still discusses nearby teams, along with hyperlocal coverage on the college and high school leagues.
“We try to get people out from the New York market [and] the Boston market, so it’s not really backing yourself in a corner with, again, the 24-hour news cycle, but you sprinkle that in nationally to a local show,” Dibble said. “I’ll bring on a lot of national guests who bring the West Coast to us [and] bring the Midwest to us, but I always stay true to Connecticut, my roots and what’s going on locally, and I think that’s why we’ve been successful for 10 years.”
Dibble remains motivated by the listeners and always thanks them for taking time to hear the show, and he always possesses a mentality to improve each and every day. Akin to the work of other respected journalists, including Dibble’s father, he wants to maintain probity and eschew sentiments of bias in his job.
The sports media industry has the potential to take professionals on a ride of astronomical proportions, allowing them to cover marquee events and have a regular spot to express themselves and opine on sports issues. While he values his job, Dibble does not want to regularly travel with a team and cover a wide variety of national events. Instead, he is remaining committed to his local community by staying firmly in orbit and aligned with tasks related to fastidious preparation, diligent execution and genuine self-evaluation.
As he warms up in the bullpen, Dibble strives for excellence and is poised every time he enters the game, concentrating on projecting trust, retaining humility and keeping the fans invested in the contest. While he threw one immaculate inning during his big-league career, he has yet to achieve a “perfect show” in radio, an ambition that he wants to attain to benefit the listeners.
“We all, whether you’re an athlete or whether you’re a broadcaster or whatever industry you’re in – a teacher – you’re trying to get a nice long run in, and I think it’s being likable,” Dibble elucidated. “It’s hard to believe that somebody that had the reputation of being nasty as a baseball player has been able to survive almost 30 years [in sports media], so go figure.”
Derek Futterman is a contributing editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
