Hello! Welcome to another edition of the A’s beat newsletter.
Tony Kemp is back with the Athletics.
After spending four of his nine Major League seasons with the green and gold, Kemp was hired back as a broadcaster, providing A’s pre- and postgame coverage on A’s Cast on NBC California, as well as serving as a television and radio analyst for select series this summer.
We caught up with the former fan favorite to discuss his new role with the A’s.
MLB.com: How did this opportunity to come back to the A’s come about?
Kemp: During Spring Training, I kind of knew. I didn’t have any offers yet. I was monitoring players around the league and I kind of figured, talking to my wife, that it might be getting close to that time to retire. My agent said that Maxx Sports & Entertainment had been pursuing me. I ended up talking to their president Mark Lepselter and he’s like, ‘Hey, I think you have potential to be good in the media world and the broadcasting world if you want to.’ A week or two goes by, and I end up signing with them. Probably a week or two later, they reached out to the A’s in early May, and they said, ‘Hey, would you be interested in coming out to do some pre- and postgame and some radio?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’d be cool.’ So, that’s pretty much how it got started.
MLB.com: Throughout your career, everyone in the media complimented you about how great you were to deal with. Do you feel like it was always in your future to do something like this?
Kemp: When I majored in communications at Vanderbilt, I was always so interested in interpersonal communication and just body language. Public speaking always came naturally to me. Then, I would see guys in the booth, and I was like, ‘I think I can do that.’ I didn’t know if I wanted to hop into coaching right away because it’s like the same schedule with more hours. My first plan was just to take a summer off and let it slowly build. Talking to my wife, I wanted to be respectful and ask, ‘Hey, should I pursue this?’ She was like, ‘Listen, there’s no better time than the present.’ So, I went for it.
