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Kenny Albert has one of the craziest schedules in sports, regularly calling games for the NFL, MLB, NBA, and the NHL. But Albert’s TV ironman abilities were put to the test when he managed to call Game 3 of the NLDS between the Dodgers and Braves, despite spending the previous day prepping for a colonoscopy.
Here’s what happened: the 58-year-old Albert had scheduled his colonoscopy for Tuesday morning. But on Monday around 6 p.m., word came from Fox Sports that play-by-play Joe Davis was “under the weather” and had lost his voice. Could Albert be on standby to fill in for Davis on FS1’s game telecast on Tuesday?
Anybody who’s had a colonoscopy knows you have to take several doses of medicine to painfully clean out your bowels. But there was no decision for several hours. With Davis still uncertain, Albert went ahead and took his first dose around 9 p.m. But he also started prepping for the baseball game. That’s when the situation became fluid, pun intended.
Around midnight, Fox told Albert they wanted him in Atlanta just in case. He left for the airport at 6:30 in the morning from the New York area and cancelled the colonoscopy. Thankfully, Albert skipped his second dose around 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday. He hopped on a flight, flew in Tuesday morning, then called the Dodgers’ 3–1 win at Truist Park with color commentator John Smoltz and reporter Ken Rosenthal.
“I did baseball prep instead of the other kind of prep,” Albert, who earned widespread praise for his stellar work calling Olympic hockey for NBC Sports/Peacock earlier this year, told Front Office Sports.
“So basically, the whole morning, the whole flight, the whole afternoon, I crammed. I hadn’t seen either of the first two games because it was a football weekend. I was in Dallas. So I had to catch up. Do a lot of reading. Luckily, I had the same exact matchup, same teams, same pitchers, in a regular season game on Aug. 27. So I was able to pull out my stuff for that game. That saved a lot of time. It was very helpful. Everyone on the crew, and John and Joe, couldn’t have been more helpful as far as sharing information and just making sure I got down there.”
Brandon Gaudin will fill in for Davis on Fox’s telecast of Game 4 of Dodgers-Braves on Wednesday night. Typically, play-by-play announcers spend up to a week to prepare for games. Despite his colonoscopy prep, Albert is proud he was able to pull it off in one day.
“The colonoscopy wrinkle? That’s certainly another chapter for my next book,” says the author of the 2023 memoir, “A Mic For All Seasons.”
It’s the second time in recent months a colonoscopy has figured in sports media news. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons said he was in the middle of his colonoscopy when his beloved Celtics traded Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for Paul George. The Sports Guy only learned the big news from his wife and daughter after waking up from anesthesia.
