Ford Shares Baseball Journey With Newhouse Students

SYRACUSE, N.Y- Robert Ford made time to answer questions from current Newhouse students Friday afternoon during his weekend trip back to Central New York. Ford has risen through the ranks in professional baseball as a play-by-play broadcaster since he graduated from Newhouse in 2001. The two-time World Series Champion is entering his 12th season as the radio voice of the Houston Astros and gave students insight into his career journey.

Ford grew up subway stops away from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx but gravitated towards the Mets and Darryl Strawberry during their rise in the mid-80s. Even though baseball was his favorite sport, Ford admitted playing wasn’t working for him on the diamond at Bronx High School of Science. 

“I had a teacher in my sophomore year of high school who told me that I should write for the student paper. I decided well, they have a sports section, and I like sports. So, I wrote for this school paper at my high school covering the sports teams, and that got me interested in journalism,” Ford said.  

When Ford started his college search, he remembered his father mentioning years prior how Syracuse is known for sports broadcasters after seeing Bob Costas on TV. After four years at SU with Newhouse Sports Media Center Director Olivia Stomski, Ford got his first job with the Yakima Bears in the Northwest League. A grueling schedule of 76 games in 80 days for the Arizona Diamondbacks Class A-Short Season affiliate resulted in an opportunity in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

Ford spent two seasons with the Kalamazoo Kings, an independent organization in the Frontier League. He transitioned back into affiliated baseball with the nearby Double-A Binghamton Mets at the start of the 2005 season. The reasoning for the opening in Binghamton was due to “Voice of the Orange” Matt Park accepting his current position at Syracuse.

Four years later, Ford’s program director from Kalamazoo offered him a job at an all-sports radio station in Kansas City. 610 AM KCSP recently bought the rights for Kansas City Royals broadcasts, and Ford became their new pregame and postgame host. Still eager to return to the booth, Ford jumped at every chance he could to do freelance play-by-play gigs in the region. He also did mock play-by-play at Royals games when he wasn’t doing his normal duties. 

“I would watch games in Kansas City and think about how I would be talking about certain situations in a game. I would call games into a recorder a few games every year to always have updated demo material. That’s what I sent to the Astros when they had their opening,” Ford said.  

In 2013, Ford got his big break as an MLB play-by-play broadcaster with the Houston Astros off two innings of a Kansas City Royals game that he called into a recorder. Even though his new prominent position was uncharted territory, Ford felt ready for the challenge. 

“That transition to Houston was fantastic. Not only was it a big league play-by-play job, but I really missed doing baseball play-by-play. I enjoyed my time in Kansas City, and it made me better as a broadcaster to do something different because I’d never done sports radio. Kansas City also helped in the sense that I already knew about how it worked being around a major league team, and that’s what the Royals helped me with was just understanding the ins and outs of the job,” Ford said. 

Houston had their third consecutive 100-loss season in Ford’s first with the organization, but the Astros were building one of the best young cores in baseball. As the ‘Stros improved to 70-92 in 2014, Ford learned even more in the beginning stages of his tenure. 

“I realized that you can’t read everything. You come from the minor leagues where you’re struggling to find any sort of kernel of information. Then you go to major leagues where you’re drinking out of a firehose, and I think that was one of the first things I had to learn is you can’t read everything. It’s impossible,” Ford said. 

With Major League Baseball continuing to evolve, Ford has had to adapt to the times in recent years. New rule changes and an influx of advanced analytics create a shift in his preparation in comparison to when he started with the Astros. However, when it comes to Ford’s process of compiling information, that won’t change any time soon.  

“I have a page on every single player on every single team in Microsoft OneNote. I also have information on each team and a bunch of other stuff. I’m reading something at lunch, or if I’m reading something today that I think is interesting about a certain player, I’ll cut and paste that into OneNote, and so it’ll be there on that player’s page,” Ford said.  

Ford likes to think that broadcasting is similar to continuing your education by continuously studying and searching for information. He’s built a solid connection with his fellow MLB broadcasters who love to help one another in any way possible. Before the pandemic, information was kept much closer to the chest until remote broadcasts. Collectively, they realized it would be more beneficial to remain in close contact to create a more collaborative environment. 

“We really are like a fraternity. Like a brotherhood. I’ve actually had this conversation with a couple of other broadcasters about how it wasn’t always like this. It used to be way more cutthroat and competitive, and not that it’s not competitive now, but I think there’s more of an appreciation for what everybody else brings to the table,” Ford said. 

Be sure to listen to Ford all season long with the Houston Astros during the 2024 season. Follow @Raford03 on X to see what college basketball games he is calling on ESPN during the offseason.  

Also, be on the lookout for other alumni guest speakers throughout the academic year by following the Newhouse Sports Media Center on social media.