'Hot Karl' Ravech

Hello everybody. I’m ‘Hot Karl’ Ravech. Hot Karl for short. I earned the nickname honestly, because in this business everyone knows what I’m capable of doing. To you I’m just a show host. A guy who chaperones the likes of John Kruk, Buster Olney, Steve Phillips, Timmy Kurkjian, Eric Young, and in the past my partner Harold Reynolds through a night of baseball scores.

But there’s a reason that I am the best Baseball Tonight show host. There’s a way I differentiate myself from all the rest (you know who I mean: Brian Kenny, etc.), I seperate myself by breaking wind. I have learned to master this through the years. Sure there’s been a few rocky times, times when I didn’t know how things would turn out. I’ve shit my pants in the process a few times. But that happens to everyone in this business at sometime or another.

The year was 1995 when I received a change of fortune. I was gifted by my colleagues a leather rise chair. One that probably needs greased that can move up or down and increase or decrease in height behind that big highlight desk. I learned that if I lean forward at just the right angle during commercial breaks, I can create a sound coming from my posterior that is unmatched within the industry. When people tune into the show and they look at John Kruk; they see a man that they’d probably lay money down on when it comes to ripping nasty ass smacking, undulating farts. However, those who are truly behind the scenes and have been in this business know: there is no match for ‘Hot Karl’.

On most nights you see me as a guy who’s just going to tell you the storyline of the Atlanta-Philadelphia game. What you don’t know is at any moment, a very concentrated and sometimes warm puff of air has just crept out of my butt. Especially if I had thai or chinese food in the preceding 24 hours. You should smell it then. It’s awful. Awful in a good way. It hurts but it’s good kind of thing. It’s a good deal for me really.

In 2002 I re-negotiated my deal with ESPN with a clause in the contract that I would be able to fart whenever I want, and a side-clause that if I should shit my pants while on the set or while passing gas, I cannot be terminated for it. I’m untouchable now. Colleagues know that if they cross my path, the only answer they’ll get from me for their complaints sounds likeable to a crumpled trombone. You don’t fuck with ‘Hot Karl’ Ravech.

Many think that ballplayers are the only ones in this business that get their uniform dirty. I can tell you from firsthand experience that just isn’t true. You should see my laundry hamper. There’s poopy stains and streaks on I’d say 85% of my underwear. I’ve worn a mark on that leather hydraulic chair of mine. I am a guy who doesn’t mind getting his uniform dirty and those I work with have come to know and appreciate that about me.

In recent years, others that talk about the game have tried to replicate and all have failed. There is no replacement and there is none higher. For every baseball show with highlights–there’s a host somewhere within that show who’s tried to produce the way I do–out of their O-ring orifice. No one can do what I do.


Karl Ravech in his kitchen. July 18th, 2005: