Mark Teixeira, be warned.
Former major-league slugger and ESPN baseball analyst John Kruk, who was introduced in a press conference Tuesday for his new role as a member of the Phillies broadcast team, said he had one particular, ever-present annoyance in his 12 years working for the Worldwide Leader.
“If I say this I’m going to get in trouble, but I’ll say it anyway,” Kruk said, according to CSN Philly. “Me? I’m not big on meetings. We had a lot of them up there [at ESPN]. A whole bunch. Incessant phone calls. I didn’t answer most. Pretty rude when somebody’s hitting to answer your phone when you’re playing golf.”
Kruk, known for his comedic personality on air, was light-hearted about the “rude” phone calls, but it’s emblematic of the corporate atmosphere of a company that has more than 8,000 employees worldwide. If anything, the former Phillies first baseman’s career switch, returning to Citizens Bank Park to work a local broadcast, was a telltale sign he craved a more hands-off outlet.
“The phone calls weren’t that bad,” he later clarified, adding a joke for good measure. “It was having to listen to them that was painful.”
As Kruk leaves ESPN’s baseball coverage, Teixeira enters. The network announced Tuesday the former Yankees first baseman, who retired at the end of the 2016 season, was joining the team as a studio analyst.
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