Kansas City Leader Joel Goldberg – The Royals & Our City

[00:00:00.160] – David Maples
Just give me a brief intro over who you are and what you do.

[00:00:12.120] – Joel Goldberg
Okay. My name is Joel Goldberg, television broadcaster with the Kansas City Royals, a motivational
speaker. Podcast host.

[00:00:19.690] – David Maples
You’ve been involved in sports broadcasting for like 20 years?

[00:00:24.380] – Joel Goldberg
Twenty-nine years, almost 30 years. I think it’ll be 29 this month. It is 29 this month. Here for 16. I
guess I call it 15 and a half years here, 16 full seasons. Got it. Then the switch, I think, to how I’ve
ended up… I think the fun thing about everything outside of the sports world is you meet people like
you that I was never meeting before. I think we can be fairly siloed in the sports world. I started a
speaking business seven years ago, really knowing nothing about what I was doing. Just a suggestion
from someone, What are you doing the off-season? A little this, a little that. I’m speaking to some
group. You do a lot of that? Not really. You could start a business doing that. I have no idea.

[00:01:12.450] – David Maples
Tell me a little bit about your background and how you ended up in Kansas City. How did you end up
here?

[00:01:17.310] – Joel Goldberg
It was not by accident. It was not necessarily on the wish list, per se, but I was working in St. Louis
before which was the third television market I’d worked at. I had two different jobs there. The first one,
the first six years was the local Fox affiliate. I was doing sports on the news. The last three years was
with the Regional Sports Network, then Fox Sports Midwest. There were essentially three of us that
shared the responsibilities of what I now do in Kansas City. Meaning somebody hosted the pre and
post game shows for St. Louis Cardinals Baseball, someone traveled with the team and reported and
we traded off with all of that. The same network that I was working for, Fox Sports Midwest, took over
the rights or won the rights to the Kansas City Royals beginning in 2008. When that started to go
down in 2007, I started to inquire about it. The not by accident piece is that my wife grew up here.
Now, she had long moved away. I mean, she moved away when she was 11 years old, so it had been
years. However, her sister and brother-in-law settled here. Their kids were born here. I was coming
here with my wife, or not even before we were married, when our eventual niece and nephew were
born. We were coming here a couple of times a year for family trips and holidays and all that. When it
came to my attention that my employer was taking over the rights to Royals Baseball, I thought, I
know Kansas City. Seems like it’d be a good place to live and it’s a better job. That all played out.

[00:02:59.350] – David Maples
But I mean, You came over here, you started getting involved with the Royals in what, 2008?

[00:03:03.280] – Joel Goldberg
2008, yes.

[00:03:04.190] – David Maples
So, you got to watch that entire meteor rise to the World Championship.

[00:03:09.590] – Joel Goldberg
Yeah. That was, without knowing it, initially, when I started my speaking business and it was
suggested to me, You could start a business on the side, a side hustle. It became a main hustle, 1A1B
with baseball. To me then it was, Well, what do I speak about? Wait a minute. I just watched an
organization, and this doesn’t have to be a sports thing, but I just watched an organization go from the
laughing stock of baseball to world champion. How do they do it? In a smaller market where you can’t
just go and spend all that money. You can’t spend the way the Yankees do or the Dodgers do or
whatever it is. What do you have to have? Yes, you have to have talent. You can’t make as many
mistakes, and you have to get the culture right. You have to get the people right. I thought, Well, that’s
the same as every profession, really. That was the start of my business, which really led me to doing a
lot of podcast appearances like this or vice versa, having people online. To me, that’s the beauty of it.
I’ve always been a huge sports fan. I was always a very mediocre athlete at best. I’m not being
humble. I’m surrounded by people that I work with that played at the highest level. I’m not one of
them, but I could always talk. I always like to talk about sports. What I didn’t realize that it would lead
to so many other things to do as well.

[00:04:27.020] – David Maples
It’s interesting. You started your speaking business. When did you start that officially?

[00:04:32.820] – Joel Goldberg
Started late, maybe, 2016. There was still some of that high from the world series, and you’re only a
year plus removed from that. That was still very fresh on people’s minds. I didn’t know that. I’d never
run a business before. I didn’t know anything about business. I didn’t know anything about the
companies that I would eventually go and talk to. I knew a lot of the CEOs, or I didn’t even necessarily
know them, they might have known me because they’re sitting in the front row and they were
watching. I knew I might have an in. I know people. I know how to connect with people. That’s what I
do with the athletes every single day. I might have had as much in common with the big-name CEO as
I did the superstar athlete. I don’t have their abilities with that, but I know how to connect. I know how
to treat people. If you know how to be around successful teams. That started. I understood, too, that
if I could just get in the door here in Kansas City while the Royals were hot, that I might be able to get
a little bit of traction, start to build this business. If the Royals are in last place and they’ve been there
every single year as they were, and now I’m trying to get in, yeah, maybe. There were always the rotary
clubs and the church groups that wanted to hear what was going on, Hey, how’s our team doing?
What’s the outlook? Then it became, How can we dig deeper? How can we make people better? It
really, without expecting it to, gave me a whole new purpose, which was cool. When you do something
as long as I’ve done it and something that you’ve dreamed of doing forever, you’re going to get a little
bored at times. Years. Now, the easy way to fight that is they pay me to talk about baseball everyday.
Life is good. But it’s a long season. Good seasons or bad seasons, it’s a grind. I mean, it’s six to seven
days a week for six months, and it does take a toll. But when you start going to the ballpark every day
and you’re looking for something more, you’re looking for something beyond the wins and losses and
that you could share with other people, it really changed the trajectory of my career.

[00:06:28.980] – David Maples
Did you find out about the opportunity here in KC, or did you just knock on the door and say, Hey, I’d
love to come over here and do this?

[00:06:34.800] – Joel Goldberg
Well, it was interesting because I found out about it just through a little bit of people talking, what they
do in my business. I usually put my head down and go do my job. It was actually, ironically, I think
there’s my irony to this, Brian McCray, who played for the Royals for a lot of years, and I’d gotten to
know him because at the time, his father, Hal McCray, who was a Royals legend back in the day, was
the hitting coach of the St. Louis Cardinals. I was covering the Cardinals. Brian and I had hung out
some. He’d come in, hang out doing some playoffs, I think, the year before. He was one of the early
reporters or baseball experts before MLB was doing a lot of online stuff. Now they’ve got people in
every city and they’ve got websites in every city and all that. He was one of the early ones, and so he
let me know about it. I think he might have been interested, too. He said, You know that they’re taking
over to the Royals broadcast and I thought, Well, these are the people I’m already working for. It’s not
like they’re walking into my little cubicle or walking to find me at the stadium saying, Hey, by the way,
we’re also taking over Kansas City. Would you like that? Would you be interested? But as soon as I
found out that was going on, I thought, Wait a minute… This could be a better opportunity. This could
be, in sports terms, this is going from the part-time player to the full-time starter. In whatever your
role, however you want to put that, there were some days that I was the guy. There were other days
that I was off for doing other assignments. It was a chance for the first time in my career to really
specialize on one team, on one schedule. Then it became, okay, like I said, I know Kansas City. I think
that’d be a great place to be. Now I got to convince them that I’m the right person, which was a
challenge, too, because I was already in St. Louis. We’re good. You’re here. Well, no. I think this is a
better opportunity for me, which confused a lot of people too, because the Cardinals have a very long
tradition. I think if you talk to people in St. Louis, they would say, Well, how could you possibly leave
here to go anywhere else, let alone Kansas City? I would say, and I think this probably fits very well
into the theme of this podcast, that not only was it the best move for me in terms of broadcasting
career, and then I mentioned the speaking, but we, my wife, now my kids who are pretty little when we
moved here and are mostly grown now, we love Kansas City. Not a knock on St. Louis or anywhere
else, but it’s very easy for me to go back and say, “What was Kansas City like when I got here in ’08?
What is Kansas City like now?” I’ve seen incredible growth. It’s become a place that isn’t just
somewhere that was the next stop along the way. It was, I hope, the last stop along the way and still
with a while left, I hope. This is home.

[00:09:26.150] – David Maples
Kansas City is really a city that’s on the move. We’ve got the World Cup coming. There’s been a lot of
major conferences coming here, and there’s a lot of opportunities for growth in this city. What do you
feel like your role is in helping contribute to Kansas City’s growth, making it the best place in America
to live, play, and work?

[00:09:47.400] – Joel Goldberg
Yeah, it’s a great question because first off, I think we all have a part of that. If we want to. Some
people just go and do their thing and they may love their city, they may not. I think that I hope most of
us all love where we live. I learned a long time ago in my travels around baseball, it’s very easy to take
a shot at somebody else’s city while somebody’s home. Everybody hopefully has pride in where they
live. Do we have more pride than anyone else? I don’t know. It feels like a lot of days we do. I don’t
really know a whole lot of other cities where the people that live there walk around with T-shirts and
sweatshirts with their own city name on it. You don’t walk around New York and live there with an I
love New York shirt. It’s a pretty dead giveaway that you’re a tourist. Here you see most people, and
they probably live here because they want to wear those “KC Hearts” and they want to wear all that
stuff. But I think to the question, we all have the ability to have a little say in that. We all have the
ability to spread the word. I think in my position, having a little bit or more than a little bit of a platform
that I have more opportunities to do that. Whether that means just bragging about Kansas City on
social media, whether that means telling people all around the country about it, whether that means
going to functions and events and supporting charities, whatever that might be, I think that it might
just be that person that’s buying the “Charlie Hustle”, “KC Heart” shirt and wants to brag about their
city. I think we all have the chance to be able to brag about our city. I think I just have a greater
opportunity because I’m going to get up on stage and emcee an event. I’m going to go and moderate
this panel. I’m going to get to do those type of things. Then traveling around the country and getting
the chance to brag about where I live, where I’m from, too. That doesn’t have to be a Royals thing, per
se, but I want to let everybody know that we live in a really cool place and people should visit it and
people should check it out. Hopefully not too many because we still want to be able to maintain what
we have, be careful what you ask for. But there’s nothing to me more exciting than family, friends,
someone that I knew way back when that says, I’m coming in. This just happened a couple of weeks
ago. Hey, I’m coming into town for a buddy from back home in Chicago. I’m coming into town for the
Bears and the Chiefs. I’d love to see you. Well, a couple of things. One, I’m going to be out of town if
the Chiefs are playing. We’re probably out of town with the Royals, so I’m going to miss you. Two,
sorry, it’s not going to go well for you. You’re going to lose big. Three, let me tell you where I think you
should go. Then you start listing off the barbecue and you start listing off the museums and you start
listing off the cool bars and on and on and on. That’s a fun thing to be able to do.

[00:12:31.770] – David Maples
Joel, one of the really interesting things about it is it feels like everything’s coming up in the city lately.
Ted Lasso. It seems like every other episode there was a tie into KC. Of course, we’ve got the KelseySwift dynamic, whatever that is. I mean, look, it’s not a bad thing for us, you know?

[00:12:50.230] – Joel Goldberg
I was just saying to someone the other night, the Purists, I’m talking in terms of sports fans or the
diehards, whatever you want to call it. I’ve heard so many people so sick of hearing about her. Let’s
focus on football. Well, you can’t control that, first of all. But if you want to focus just on football, tune
in to ESPN and you can watch your highlights. They’re going to… I’m going to show her too, by the
way. What I was trying to explain to some friends, and this is where I’m as much as I am knee-deep in
sports, and I haven’t covered the NFL for years, I did back in the day. But I have a pretty good grasp of
all American sports, having covered them at some point, and just understanding the rhythms of them
and not really being the traditional fan. I’m a storyteller. I see things with less emotion. Not that I don’t
get excited about it, but it’s on to the next one, on to the next one. I’m just looking at this and I’m
saying, Do we really understand how small football is compared to Taylor Swift’s world? There are all
these memes or viral videos going on of, Who is this Travis, Kelsey fella anyway? Is he any good? It’s
like, Are you kidding me? Even the football fan in the United States knows that. But guess what? When
you start looking at most popular figures around the world… Around the world… Patrick Mohomes
isn’t making that list. Travis Kelsey might have gotten a little bit closer right now. It’s Taylor Swift. I
always say, Who’s the Michael Jackson? Who’s the Michael Jordan?

[00:14:18.850] – David Maples
Beyonce was just in town!

[00:14:20.090] – Joel Goldberg
Beyonce is at that same level. You could argue more or less, too. But it’s oftentimes the big soccer
stars. Lionel Messi, who right now has to be the, I’m assuming he’s the highest paid and most famous
sports athlete in America right now, and the bulk of Americans don’t know who he is.

[00:14:38.870] – David Maples
And they’re selling out stadiums.

[00:14:40.350] – Joel Goldberg
They’re selling out stadiums. But that’s the level. It’s a Beatles type of level. It’s a Stones type of level.
It’s a Michael Jackson or a Madonna type of level. It’s a Taylor Swift level. It has reminded me that we
get so wrapped up in our world, in our city, in whatever we love, which is great. So now if we have this
greater world that’s going to learn about Kansas City and the Chiefs and Travis Kelsey, and you see
what? The jersey sales are up 400%? I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And if that gets a little bit
annoying that we get all the glamor shots and all that comes with it, well, I guess it’s just one more
thing of Kansas City being on the map. You mentioned Ted Lasso and any of us here that saw every
little subtle reference about something that Jason Sudeikis grew up with from his childhood in
Overland Park or some reference to barbecue or whatever it is, they’re on and on and on. I’ll take that a
step further to say that I’ve been lucky enough with my job for now the better part of 13 years, I
missed a year with the pandemic, to interview all those guys that come back for Big Slick. I think
probably the first couple of times it was like, Oh, my gosh, I’m interviewing Paul Rudd. Now it’s just
like, Welcome home. Here’s Paul Rudd, here’s Jason Sudeikis, here’s Rob Regal and David Koechner
and Heidi Gardner. They’re bringing all of their friends back here. I think it was the first year he
brought Will Ferrell here. It’s like we’re exposing all those people to Kansas City, too. Yeah, I think
we’re very much on the map. You don’t see that. I don’t see as much of that in a St. Louis or
Milwaukee or name whatever city that is of this size. Not a knock on them. It’s just, I think, a
compliment to the growth that we’ve had here.

[00:16:29.750] – David Maples
I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately because there’s a lot of these different initiatives. The new Fresh
Prince of Bel Air, that guy’s from here. There’s been a-

[00:16:38.010] – Joel Goldberg
I got to be honest, I didn’t even know there was a new Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

[00:16:40.420] – David Maples
Oh, yeah, they did a new show.

[00:16:41.440] – Joel Goldberg
But if you catch me during baseball season, it’s like… Whew. You’re going to get a lot of that.

[00:16:44.840] – David Maples
You’ve got things. But they’ve been talking about there’s a burgeoning film community that’s coming
back here. I met a guy the other day. He’s an Uber driver and he’s like, Oh, yeah, from L. A. And we’re
working on shooting some stuff here. I was just like, But you’re driving an Uber? He’s like, Oh, dude, it’s
on the weekends to meet people. He’s like, It’s a contact thing. I thought it was really interesting. Well,
it’s just different things. I was thinking about what is one thing, initiative or product that you’ve been
involved in or something that you know about Kansas City, you’re pretty proud of? You’re like, I’m
really glad KC is doing this.

[00:17:19.950] – Joel Goldberg
I was thinking about this on my way down here, and there are a million things, and I’ll forget a lot of
them. This isn’t a look at everything I’ve done. It’s more of just I’m lucky that I have these
opportunities. Like I said, this platform before, what it really means is that you can only do so much,
and so you have to say no. There’s so many good causes. Let me go something a little bit, I think,
deeper that’s not so much of a cause, but more of, I think, something that I’m proud of and say, or that
Kansas City should be proud of, is the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. When people ask me where
to go and they come in, it’s the first thing I tell them. Because I say, and I like the tie that it is baseball
since I’m a baseball guy, but I tell everybody it’s not a baseball museum. It’s a civil rights museum. It’s
an American history museum. I mean, if you walk in there and one of the displays you’ll see in there is
all of these signed baseballs. They come from Getty Lee, the longtime lead singer of Rush. His
donation. He’s a huge baseball fan. We just saw him. I say I saw him; I saw him but I don’t think he
saw me, but just saw him. We were in Toronto last month and he was sitting in the front row and then
he walked off right by our, as we were doing our postgame show. I met him years ago for a quick
handshake and that was it. He’s a huge baseball guy. But anyway, I wanted to drop that Getty Lee line
because there’s again, someone that knows that you wouldn’t expect a lot about Kansas City and that
has a specific donation at that museum. Anyone that is checking out this podcast right now, if you are
in Kansas City and have never been to the Negro Leagues [Baseball] Museum, I will not shame you for
not having gone. I will just encourage you to go. I would say that anyone that has been there before, I
am certain would back me up to say, “You got to go back”. They would understand that because when
you go through that museum, it’s never enough time. You walk out saying, Boy, I wish I had more time
to have looked at this, this, and this. There’s so many levels of this from the incredible baseball
players that have they been given the access and granted the access and the inclusion before Jackie
Robinson broke the color barrier, they would have been listed among the Babe Ruths or the Joe
DiMaggio’s or whoever it was, as the best. A lot of that was formed. I mean, the League was created
right here in Kansas City. Some of the best teams, the teams, the level of the Yankees were the
Kansas City monarchs. They were an institution. They were selling out games. They were
barnstorming around the country. This museum so beautifully captures all of that. For me, where I’m
proud of this is that the people that work over the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and I never got
to meet Buck O’Neal, I got here two years after he passed, the people at the Negro Leagues Baseball
Museum perfectly channel everything that Buck O’Neal was about. And the legacy of all these men
and women who were pioneers in baseball and who dealt with the same type of discrimination that
others in all types of fields all over the country dealt with. To have that right here in Kansas City, there
are some smaller museums and tributes all around the country, but this is where it’s at. To have
watched that when I got here, to have been a cool little small thing to blow up bigger and bigger and
they minted coins to raise money and there have been massive donations from all over baseball
around the country and the world, and they’re going to end up in a new building and you can see the
legacy being passed on and carried on here so it’s not forgotten, right here in our own backyard. Then
there happens to be Arthur Bryant right down the street and the great history of jazz in the
neighborhood. To me, that’s something. Just to put a cap on that too. Last year we went, and I never
missed games, but was fortunate enough to be given the assignment to beg for the assignment,
really, because this is where I’m at, wherever the Royals are at I’m at. They brought someone to fill in
for me, and I went to Cooperstown last July of 2022 for Buck O’Neal’s induction into the Hall of Fame,
what, 16 years after his death. He should have already been in. They messed that up. They got it right.
To have been there and done interviews and been a part of all of our normal pre-game shows from
Cooperstown, our group just won an Emmy for that show the other night. From what I’m told, I was
busy working a baseball game and I got a text saying, Hey, we won an Emmy for the… That meant a
lot to be able to be a part of something that I think is truly Kansas City, but so much bigger.

[00:22:09.840] – David Maples
Obviously, that should be on the shortlist if you’re coming to town. There’s a few things. That should
be on the list. We’ve got the National World War I Museum.

[00:22:18.230] – Joel Goldberg
Which is to me, 1A and 1B. I would tell people, if you can get to both, go to both. I wouldn’t say one
over the other. I think they’re both American history. They’re both extremely powerful. I’m sidetracking
here, but a handful of years ago, it was actually right when the pandemic was starting because we
were doing the spring break with the kids and we were driving down to Florida and then everything
shut down. It was different on the way home than it was on the way there. There were still stuff open.
We stopped at the Martin Luther King Museum in Atlanta. This isn’t a matter of what’s more powerful
or less powerful, but the feeling that I had walking in there was my first time in there was the exact
same feeling I get when I walk in the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum here. It’s very, very powerful.

[00:23:06.470] – David Maples
Going back to this historical look, what do you see as unique opportunities or challenges coming to
Kansas City in the next few years? What are things we’re facing? What are we dealing with? What do
you think? Or opportunities either?

[00:23:19.420] – Joel Goldberg
All of the above. As far as challenges, unique challenges, I don’t think they’re all that different than any
other city. We still have too much gun violence. We have too many racial issues. We have too much
still segregation. I like to always say that our city is really moving so well. Look at all the growth
downtown. Look at the Crossroads and what the Crossroads was when I got here in ’08 versus now. I
love seeing all that growth, but I think it’s important to remember that that doesn’t mean that we don’t
have major issues here in this town. The homelessness that everybody has in every city I go, and
that’s every city right now, the crime, all of it. I say that because I think it’s important to note that as
amazing as this place is, and it is, I will champion it everywhere I go, we still have our issues too. Just
because we’re seeing all this growth doesn’t mean that we don’t have a lot of work to do. Now, as far
as the positives, when I see new areas developing, when I see the growth, whether it had been the
Crossroads, when you think about the World Cup coming here, the World Cup is something that is at a
Taylor Swift type of level.

[00:24:35.860] – David Maples
Yes it is.

[00:24:36.990] – Joel Goldberg
You could argue maybe even more so than her because everyone around the planet is watching, and
they chose to have some of those matches here. That’s no small thing. The NFL draft, I think for those
of us that don’t follow it at the level of others, and I follow it casually, but you also have to remember
that I don’t really start paying good attention to the NFL until October and the draft is in April. I’m
already in baseball season and we were on the road somewhere. By the way, if there’s any big event,
World Cup, Beyonce, Guns and Roses, whatever it is here, there’s a pretty good chance during baseball
season, almost certainly that we’re on the road by design. Right? You share a parking lot with their
head. But I was watching it like everybody else from out of town and I’m like, This is so cool. Look at
what they did to Union Station, which doesn’t need any work anyway. Look at how well that showed
up. Look at how amazing the whole rest of the world, or at least in terms of NFL, all the football world
is seeing it. It looked amazing. You go back and look at the Chiefs parades, you go back and look at
the Royals parade, all ending up at Union Station. I see all those type of things, whether people like it
or not, and I understand that some will and some won’t, I think we’ll end up with a new baseball
stadium downtown. That’s hard for a lot of people, just like it is a new airport. In the end, it’s going to
be like, This is really cool. But in advance, there are a lot of people that are saying, But this is what I’ve
always done. Change is hard. But it feels like there’s just more and more and more and more that
keeps happening at this rapid pace. I don’t know where it’s going, but even amidst the problems that
we do have, I see growth here in this city that I’m not necessarily seeing in other places.

[00:26:29.220] – David Maples
Just talking about that for a second, from the World Cup to what’s going on downtown. You
mentioned the new stadium, which is going to happen at some point. There’s a debate about where
it’s going to happen right now. I think North Kansas City is going…

[00:26:45.080] – Joel Goldberg
North Kansas City or Downtown.

[00:26:46.100] – David Maples
They’re making a play for it, too. I’m not sure how that all works.

[00:26:48.580] – Joel Goldberg
I don’t know that either.

[00:26:49.880] – David Maples
Either way, I don’t have a dog in this fight, but I think either way, it’ll be a good thing for the city. Just
like the airport, people complained about that, and then it came in and they’re like, Man, this is really
cool. I don’t mind having a layover in KC now.

[00:27:03.430] – Joel Goldberg
Part of this, and I hope this makes sense, is that as much as we love our city, if we want to love our
city and tell everybody else about it, don’t we want to do it with the best we can have? Telling people
about how great Kansas City was with that old airport was embarrassing. As I heard Sly, James say
once this was built in, I think, ’73 for 1973, not for 2020 something. For everyone that loved the
convenience of walking right out of their car and walking in there, I get that. I get that anybody that
lives here, for the most part, could care less if there’s food because they already ate by the time they
got to the airport. Now, try doing that when you have young kids and you’re waiting and you’re delayed
and it’s seven o’clock at night and whatever was last open, closed at 6:00. Okay, are these major
problems? No, not really. But now you start hearing from people. I don’t hear from a lot of baseball
people because the teams all fly charter. But you start talking to whether it be fans that come into
town or a good barometer for me because I know all these guys as the umpires, they fly commercial.
Suddenly they start showing up this year and they’re saying, Oh, my gosh, your airport is legit. Imagine
everyone that’s coming into town for business or doesn’t want to come into town to business
because they’re looking at that airport versus this airport. I have a funny story. I had an umpire a
couple of weeks ago that said to me, I think we were in Detroit. He said, I think I’d been off on vacation
or something. I was flying in on the first thing in the morning flight from I don’t remember where it
was, Denver or something to Kansas City. It was like 5:00 in the morning. I got on the plane, I closed
my eyes immediately. I slapped, we landed. I got off the plane in Kansas City and I walked out. I’m like,
“Oh, I think I’m in the wrong city”. I think he thought he was in Orlando or something like that. Because
he hadn’t been here yet. He knew there was a new airport, but being half-awake and waking up to not
seeing the old dump. And look, I get it. I’m calling it that I grew up before I moved to Chicago and
Philadelphia. We moved when I was 13. My stadium growing up was Veterans Stadium, known as one
of the worst, biggest dumps of all time. I didn’t care it was my dump. I loved it. It’s my childhood. So
that brings me full circle. When you’re talking about a new baseball stadium, whether it’s the right or
wrong thing, I believe it’s the right thing, and no one’s asking me to promote this for the team, I’m
pretty sure they probably wouldn’t want me being out there being like, “No Stadium!” but I stay out of
the opinion stuff for the most part. Other than saying that I’ve been to every stadium in baseball, I’ve
been to all 30 stadiums and another 20-something of them that are no longer around. For the most
part, the best ones are in downtown locations. Do you have to figure out some logistics? Yeah, the
parking and the infrastructure and the traffic flow and all those types of things. I trust that they’ll do
that because they know they have to. But seeing the life around a downtown stadium, Denver is a
great example. It used to be a really bad area where they’re at. Now there’s all this nightlife and
excitement. I think it’s growth again. It’s exciting. But I understand why people are hesitant because
this is the way we’ve always done things, and it’s my memories, it’s my childhood. Well, you know
what? There are people that grew up going to municipal that I don’t know if they were upset or not
when the team moved over to then, Royal Stadium, I guess they called it back then, Kaufman Stadium.
But you move on. I hear people say, I’m never going if it’s… Yes, you will. If you don’t want to, that’s
fine. But you’re welcome to come back anytime.

[00:30:50.480] – David Maples
The funny thing about it, just thinking about how the change has done things, I know that just for
somebody who has to travel a lot for work, the new airport has opened up a lot more connection
flights. So all of a sudden, if I have to open up my schedule and I have to go somewhere, there’s, I
don’t know, there’s what, four non-stops in New York? There’s a whole bunch of opportunities that
were not there prior.

[00:31:15.630] – Joel Goldberg
I think we’re all wired in some way or another to whether we mean to or not to say, How does this help
me? There’s a selfishness to it. I get that. We want to be able to… I think that’s it. That wait a minute. If
you’re traveling, then you’re going to start to notice it becomes easier to travel. There are going to be
more non-stops or more flights to vacation spots. Okay, if you’re not one of those people that travels
a lot, or maybe you travel occasionally, I don’t know, maybe it’s more money, maybe it’s more jobs,
maybe it’s more… I think we could rattle off dozens of benefits to all of this. Maybe that’s where you
start. How will this help me? Well, it will help you because of this or this or this or this. For those of us
that travel a lot, and I do, I travel with the team, so we fly out at downtown airport, incredibly spoiled.
I’m just caught in the web of taking care of high-level athletes, and I get to be along for the ride. But
it’s not like I’m not using the new airport with my family, and it’s been incredible. I walk through there,
I’m proud when I walk through there, when I see all the glitz and the glamor and all the Kansas City,
the coffee shop and the gift shop, and it doesn’t look like what it did before with all the Dorothy Tshirts. It was brutal. You walked out before and it was like, Yeah, we really are in the middle of
nowhere. Now it’s like, Hey, this looks like a pretty cool place.

[00:32:47.690] – David Maples
How do you approach… And you’ve worked with all these different teams, that is the definition of
collaboration. How do you approach collaboration and fostering unity within your field?

[00:33:00.720] – Joel Goldberg
It depends on… Let’s start with just the baseball piece of it, because really I am collaborating with
these athletes every single day. I think the common theme with all of this, whether you want to work
with this organization or this charity or… Let’s be honest. When we are extremely busy, for those of us
that are… This could be a lot of people. Think about that big-time CEO that everybody wants a piece of
that big-time athlete. Or anyone. I’m an independent contractor with everything that I do. That means
that you’re probably wired in a way that you want to do everything, and you have to figure out, What
should I say no to? What do I need to say no to? A lot of us, myself included, don’t say no very well. It’s
hard to say no. Many of us are people pleasers. I want to work with good people. I want to figure out.
To me, the currency for all this is people. By the way, sometimes you don’t have a choice. There are
going to be some teams in some years that I’m going to have to deal with some difficult athletes.
We’ve been pretty lucky here. I think being in a smaller market, developing a lot of homegrown talent,
that there’s enough time for me to build those relationships. When I’m collaborating, so to speak, with
the players, on the surface, that looks like, Okay, I’ve got to ask questions. They hopefully are willing to
give answers, and that’s it. Well, I spend time from spring training on, and even when they’re in the
minor leagues of trying to build the relationships, not just with the players, but their families, and
hopefully build up enough trust that not only do they not say no to the interview, they can, lucky
enough, they usually don’t, that they give me good answers, thoughtful answers, that hopefully they
show a little personality that they trust me enough to share their personalities with the fan base,
which by the way, in this day and age, is becoming easier and easier because the younger generation
of players, what are they all about? They’re all about the brand. The past generation was like, No, we’re
here to play baseball. That stuff’s all on the side. I don’t want to bring attention to myself. Now it’s the
way when you bring attention to yourself, you have a chance to increase the money that you’re
making. For a young guy that’s not making and doesn’t have the guarantees, that’s a very appealing
thing. I’m collaborating with those players, with those coaches, with the front office and all that every
day. That, to me is a collaboration with the fans. I want to be able to walk in the shoes of a fan and
say, What are they interested in? What can I show them or share with them that they don’t have? That
part is easy, though. That’s what I do every single day. The bigger question then becomes, Who do I
want to work with in terms of speaking, in terms of podcast guests, in terms of how are you spending
your time networking? There’s only so much time for so many coffees and happy hours and lunches
every day, which during baseball season is close to none for me. When it’s off-season, it’s, Okay, here
we are. The season is now over. I don’t know if I have it in me to do this seven days a week, but where
can I go? Who do I want to meet with? Who should I try to meet with? Then you meet cool people and
you say, You know what? I want to do some stuff with you. There have been a lot of really cool people
in the business world that I’ve met where we’ve said, Not really sure why we’re meeting or what we’re
going to do, but we’re going to do something and it’s going to be cool. Sometimes that leads to just a
really good cause, a DEI panel, whatever it might be. But it’ll come back to what I said. The currency is
always people. I think that translates and is accurate across any profession: sports, not sports.
Kansas City, somewhere in wherever in the United States, around the world. Then that’s the other
piece, too. A lot of the players that I’m working with don’t speak English, or they speak English as a
second language. They come from different cultures, different backgrounds. How do you make that
work? That, to me, is the fun stuff every day.

[00:36:57.330] – David Maples
You’re really busy during the actual baseball season.

[00:37:01.270] – Joel Goldberg
I blackout some.

[00:37:02.680] – David Maples
What’s that?

[00:37:03.320] – Joel Goldberg
I blackout some.

[00:37:04.050] – David Maples
Really?

[00:37:05.030] – Joel Goldberg
Just, Hey, it was great seeing you last night at the ballpark. I don’t remember at all. It might be a good
friend too.

[00:37:12.910] – David Maples
What really recharges the engines for you in the off-season?

[00:37:19.030] – Joel Goldberg
I’m someone that needs to be busy. Got it. I’m not going to sit there and sell you on “that means that
I’m all day long”; I need my downtime, I need to be able to relax. Whether that means getting to a
beach or hiking, or whether that means just reading a book or listening to music or live music or
whatever. But for the most part, I want to be busy. I want that calendar to be somewhat full. This is
weird, but in some ways, just having the ability to do all the things that I don’t get to do as much
during the baseball season. I’m trying to touch my business every single day, but there’s not a day that
goes by where I don’t think during baseball season, “I’m not putting enough into this.” In many ways, it
re-energizes me to be able to say, Okay, now I’ve got the time to do this. But also equally to that is I
have the ability to say, I don’t want to do this today. I don’t have this in me today. You know what?
Let’s push this back. I need to postpone. Let’s just take a day. I can’t do that during baseball season. I
think that there’s a freedom aspect to it. That doesn’t mean I’m doing nothing. It’s the opposite, but I
have the control over it. Once that baseball season starts, I have very little control over the little extra
things I can do. There’s a game today. I can’t control that it’s the 18th straight day of doing a game.
You’re in survival mode during the baseball season. What re-energizes me, I think, is to not have to be
in survival mode in the off-season.

[00:38:52.840] – David Maples
You’re speaking business. What do you love about doing that?

[00:38:55.800] – Joel Goldberg
It’s interesting because I think I have the ability with the platform to make an impact on people every
single day, and that doesn’t have to be as a motivational speaker, that could just be coming into
someone’s living room that’s having a bad day and sharing a fun story about Salvador Perez and it
puts a smile on their face, or someone that’s laying in a hospital bed, or someone that’s watching
overseas, serving our country. I’ve talked to so many people like that. That, from a baseball
standpoint, keeps me going on the slowest days. But there’s something different about getting on
stage. It’s like a live studio audience. They’re there to see me. They’re not there to see the game. Now,
I would argue that the game is probably more exciting than me, although there’s some nights that
maybe it’s not. But I’m going to make sure that they have a memorable experience. I love the fact that
I can get up on stage, whether it be here in Kansas City or around the country, and speak to just a
wide range of groups in professions that I have no interest in being in. Last year I was in San Diego for
a conference of 300 endodontists. I don’t know a thing about root canals, but I know about building
teams. I know where we’re at in this world right now where it’s hard to retain employees. I know that if
you are an endodontist running a practice or fill in the blank for any other profession, how are you
keeping your paralegal? How are you keeping your technicians? How are you keeping the
receptionist? How are you keeping those when the old days of you stay this long at a job, those are
over. We live more in a gig economy right now. If I have a chance to get on stage and provide some
perspective to be able to help people find a little bit of their purpose and why they do, to explain to
them how to better communicate or how to communicate across generations. If I’m 51 years old and
I can connect with a 23-year-old athlete, you can too. That to me is a totally different feel, almost at a
higher level than what I do on television. You see the faces, you get the reaction. They want to come
up afterwards and thank you. Some will send you a little message saying they didn’t like you so much
either, so that becomes more like TV and social media. That’s fine. But for the most part, get these
messages: “hey, you really inspired me to… I’m not happy right now with my job, but until I find
something else, you give me the motivation to keep pushing forward. You give me this, you give me
that.”. It’s like, Wow, I might have just helped somebody’s life. That’s not anything I ever signed up for.
That’s not anything. I tell all my audiences, Never underestimate the power of a dream. Dreams are
blurry and confusing and eventually they make sense or they don’t. I started doing this because I like
to talk and I love sports. I didn’t think about the person in the hospital bed watching the game. I didn’t
think about the person miserable at their job that suddenly feels a little better about it. There’s an
incredible high getting off the stage of, “I think I just helped somebody”. That’s a really cool thing.

[00:42:09.160] – David Maples
Is there a personal experience or a lesson that’s inspired you or shaped your career perspective?
You’ve got an interesting perspective on things. I was just wondering, is there something you can
point out and say, this was one of those moments?

[00:42:22.770] – Joel Goldberg
Well, one of the moments I talk about in most of my speeches, and I’ll give you the less-performance,
on-stage version of this, but it really is a signature story is… No one ever coming up, and this isn’t just
a journalism 101, how to be a broadcaster. But when I went to college, I went to the University of
Wisconsin in Madison and I went through their J-School and I did a couple of years of internships and
all that. Nobody ever taught us how to build trust. They taught us how to set up cameras and lights
and how to ask questions and, “Hey, you need to look at the camera this way,” and all those types of
things, how to write, how to edit. Well, how do I earn the respect of the players? Or if you’re covering
local politics, how do I connect to the politician? How do I, on and on and on. I never knew how to do
this. My last year in St. Louis, and I had been at that point with Albert Pujols for seven years, his first
seven years in the big leagues, and it became very apparent quickly that he was one of the bright up
and coming stars to hands down the best player in the world. I couldn’t get the interview with him. I’d
say maybe one out of every 10 times he might agree to do it, but for the most part, he would walk by
me and say no or shake his head or just ignore me. How do I get this guy? What do I have in common
with a guy that is the best player in the world, and I’m just some guy talking. The very short of the
story is that I pulled him aside in 2007. We were in Houston, Cardinals playing the Astros, and I
walked up to him. I was very nervous and I said, Hey, can I talk to you in private? I have some
questions I wanted to ask you, and they’re not for the broadcast and there’s no camera. I think that
piqued his interest. He said, Sure, let’s go to the visiting batting cage. We did. For those that don’t
know, not too far from where we’re recording right here, Albert Pujols went to junior college here.
Before that, he had gone to high school here in Independence. The reason, he’d grown up in the
Dominican Republic. His family moved to the States to New York when he was 16. I don’t know all the
background of the story, but they had a lot of family in the Kansas City area. What do people do when
they when they immigrate to somewhere like the United States? They oftentimes go where family and
friends have gone. That’s where you have the pockets of Somalians in Minneapolis or Bosnians in St.
Louis or here, I think there’s a nice Sudanese population. Somebody comes over, they make a living
for themselves, and they come here. They had family here, and they ended up in the Dominican, or
from the Dominican, to New York, to Kansas City. He had an off-season home still here. I said, Albert, I
have this job opportunity in Kansas City next year. This is when I was pursuing that. I said, Nobody
knows that this is going on, but my wife and my boss. I hope you’ll keep this quiet. But could you give
me any advice about Kansas City? We talked for 10 minutes a little bit about life and why he thought
Kansas City was a great place. A great place to raise a family and on and on and on. We wrapped it
up. He said, “Hey, two things: one, I promise I won’t tell anybody; and two, let me know when you find
out.” I had goosebumps because I’ve never had a real conversation with him before. A couple of
weeks later, I found out I was going to get the job the next year. We’re in Milwaukee. I tell him in the
hotel lobby, He takes me out to lunch. Oh, my gosh. The greatest player in the world, who I really did
not like three weeks ago, is now taking me out to lunch. What happened over the years, I came here
and then they’d come into town and I’d get the one-on-one interview with Pujols. Then he went to
Anaheim for $300 million or whatever it was. By the way, when I came here, he tried to sell me his
house. He’s like, It’s only 5,000 square feet. I’m like, We don’t really make the same amount of money.
We had a good laugh about that. But over the years in Anaheim, I’d get the one-on-one. There’s me
with Albert Pujols, says he was getting all these milestones. Even as recently as last year, where I’ve
got him on camera with me doing a one-on-one. Last time I’ve interviewed him before he retired,
laughing hysterically. It’s like I couldn’t get this guy to smile to save my life. The punchline or, it’s not a
punchline, but the piece of the story that brings it full circle is I went up to him, I don’t know, four or
five years ago and I said, Hey, I’ve got a confession. He said, What’s that? I said, We’ve built a nice
relationship over the years, and I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me. But I just got to
let you know you used to scare the living daylights out of me. He got really embarrassed. He got right
in my face and he said to me, “Everybody wants something from me. Once I trust you, I’ll do anything
for you.”. That was the moment in my career, 2007, that I took with me to Kansas City to say, Look,
we’re all guilty of putting people on a pedestal. “Oh, that’s the big wig. That’s the superstar. That’s the
Taylor Swift.” It’s so silly. I can walk around the stadium and sometimes people will be like, “Hey,
there’s Joel Goldberg!” I’m like, Just a person. I’m right here. Now, I don’t think I’m that big of a deal,
but maybe to them in that moment, I am. We forget sometimes that back to the whole people piece to
this, they’re just people. When you learn to treat people, even the biggest superstar, like a normal
person, I’m not saying they don’t want some perks every now and then, but when you can treat them
and not be awkward with them and actually have normal conversations, it’s amazing what comes
back and forth with that. That really taught me that these baseball players, they’re just like you and I.
They’re living unique circumstances. They might be making more money. They might have freakish
abilities. They all do, by the way, even the worst of them. I can’t swing and hit it 100 miles an hour. If
you think you could time that out, let’s throw a curveball to you right after that and then see how you
do. That was the big moment for me, and there have been a lot of them. Coming here was a big one
because it changed the course of my career. I’ve done, I don’t know, 2,000, 3,000 pre and post game
shows. I can’t remember what happened three weeks ago in a game necessarily, but I’ve been here for
all of it. So, it’s pretty cool.

[00:48:48.860] – David Maples
That brings me to a very, very important question I have to ask. The best barbecue in Kansas City.

[00:48:58.990] – Joel Goldberg
I’m not going to be totally political on this because what I’ve come to learn is that everybody has their
own favorite. I don’t know that there’s a wrong answer. I mean, we could tell each other there’s wrong
answers.

[00:49:09.260] – David Maples
Sure.

[00:49:09.440] – Joel Goldberg
But, put it to you this way, when someone is coming into town… I think that’s the way to ask it. When
someone comes into town, where are you telling them to go? To me, my two favorites are Jack Stack.
I’m married into a family that lived here for a lot of years, and their childhood was going to
Smokestack in Martin City. I’ve heard the story a million times. Nothing existed out there, but
Smokestack and maybe Jess and Jim’s or something. I don’t know. I was indoctrinated into cheesy
corn and all that right from the beginning. I really don’t think you could ever go wrong with Joe’s and
now it’s Joe’s. It was Oklahoma Joe’s, whatever. If people are coming in town, I want to send them to
the original gas station and just say, “Just go experience that”. But I’ve also had this desire, it’s
probably never going to happen, of trying to go to every barbecue place that exists. I’m sure I’m not
the only one. That’s a slippery slope too, because what qualifies, what doesn’t qualify, what is new
and opening? Is it just Kansas City? I mean, I like the, and we’ve done this a few times, but I don’t
know, the romanticism, if you will, of going to some small town in the country 30 minutes away, two
hours away, and just out what they have. But it feels like there are always new places opening up.
There’s new… I think I was reading recently, we still haven’t gone yet of a new Thai barbecue fusion
type of place. I’m like, Sign me up for that. That sounds really good, too. But for me, it’s those two. I
want to try to get out to all the little mom and pop places, too, because I think that they do things a
little bit differently.

[00:50:58.500] – David Maples
Is there anything like… What would you say is what really helps Kansas City stand out amongst- you’ve traveled a lot- What makes us stand out as a city?

[00:51:08.190] – Joel Goldberg
I think the people are great here. Beyond what I said about people and all that, people are friendly
here. I think some of that is everything we’ve been talking about. People want to show the city off.
People want to brag about this city. I think there are other places where it’s like, You’re not from here.
We’re from here. We want you to be from here. We want you to come here. I love that. I don’t know
that this is answering it, but I love the fact that we are in an area. This is a sports piece, but I don’t
have a dog in the fight. I’m wearing a Kansas shirt right now because I’m paying for tuition right out
there. One of my two kids go to KU. We’re writing checks there. I’m going to root for them. I also think
going to a game at Allen Field House and watching a basketball game for a sports fan, it’s a pretty
religious experience. But I love that we have this area with three major Division 1 programs within two
hours with KUK State and Mizzou. You add in, Iowa State is not that far away and they come in
massive numbers to the Big 12 tournament every year. I haven’t mentioned the Big 12 tournament.
That is one of the great parties and events, and I haven’t been to it enough because some years I’m at
spring training, sometimes I’m home. But I love the fact, I noticed this when I moved here, that you
can have people in the workplace, more than even households, that really dislike each other just
because they went to KU and K-State. It makes for such a fun, friendly competition. Most places you
go, Okay, this is the team. Oh, here’s the country, and that likes the Cowboys or the Yankees or
whatever it is. But here you expect to hang your KU flag and your neighbor next door hates KU
because they love K State or Nebraska or or Iowa State or Mizzou, I think that makes Kansas City very
unique as well and makes this one of the best sports towns because people become very opinionated
and they don’t all have the same opinion.

[00:53:10.980] – David Maples
Are there any local events, organizations, or places that people should know about? Like you’re like,
Hey, I’m on the podcast. I want to say this is something people should know about.

[00:53:20.240] – Joel Goldberg
Well, I mentioned the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. I’ll still always go back to that, go there.
There are… I mean, it’s across the board, whether it be a major organization like a big brothers, big
sisters, and I did some fundraising for them. I’m not a good fundraiser, by the way, either, but it’s an
organization I believe. I don’t like asking people for money. Some people are much better at that than
me. I could not be raising capital for any company. But a really cool event I did last year, I just MC’ed
it. You’re not going to get me on stage otherwise, is this dancing with the stars or whatever they call it
to benefit Cristo Rey. I don’t dance, but I’m happy to talk about people dancing. It was so cool, the
vibe in that room. They were raising money for Cristo Rey. Cristo Rey is an incredible school, and
kids coming from lesser socioeconomic backgrounds that are oftentimes the first one to go to
college in their families, their breaking cycles. That’s one that the Sherman’s are very involved into. I
really love what they’re doing. I mentored kids for a few years at Cristo Rey. There are opportunities
everywhere. My wife is involved in a program called Lead to Read. She was just there today, and I
think it’s less than an hour or 30 minutes a week, and going and reading with the younger kid and
exposing them to the importance of literacy at an early age to change the trajectory of their lives.
There are so many things here in this town.

[00:54:55.660] – David Maples
Everything that we’ve talked about on this podcast today will be listed in the Show Notes and on
YouTube so people can go get involved. If they want to get involved with you and support your
initiative and things you’re doing from your speaking business, etc, How would you suggest they do
that?

[00:55:09.870] – Joel Goldberg
Well, website is ‘JoelGoldbergMedia.com.’ That’s the best way. Within there, there’s all the contact
page and all that. Easy to find on social media too, but we’ll get a lot. The email attached to that
website is ‘[email protected].’ Of course, I want to go speak to any group if it fits, if it
makes sense, and all of that. I love the ability to speak in town and out of town, meaning that I like to
get out of town because it’s a different group of people and becomes less of a Kansas City thing,
meaning can these stories about baseball and the Royals still work elsewhere, they do. But then when
I’m here to be able to drive down the street and to go speak downtown at the Sheridan or at the
Overland Park Convention Center or all that. It’s all about teamwork, leadership, culture, everything
that goes in, really the soft skills of any business and always interested in any opportunities with that.

[00:56:11.760] – David Maples
I know this brings us to the end of the show, but I do have to ask, what’s required for the Royals to go
back to the World Series again?

[00:56:20.330] – Joel Goldberg
Let’s see. Better pitching, better hitting, better… Which is going to be, by the way, the case for any
team that doesn’t make it. I have an even greater appreciation now for what they did in 2014 and ’15
than I did at the time. I knew, like everybody else, that we were going through something that was
incredibly amazing. We talk about pride in a city. That’s why sports in these stadiums are so
important. It’s oftentimes framed, as it should be, in a… Wait a minute. Should education be more
important? Should be, yes. But what sports can do for a city to bring people together, not to mention
the economic impact, is huge. I think that part of the piece of them getting back, does it guarantee
they’re going to get there if they build a new stadium? Of course not. But as they move forward,
attracting players to come here, being a place that is ahead of the times, not behind the times, people
still think in No Kaufman Stadium is a beautiful place. Can we have something better? Can we have
something more modern? Can we have something not just for the fans, the players, everybody
involved, that is an easier place to be successful? But this is what I call a loaded question. This is a
question that an answer I can give you for the next 10 hours. They’ve got to do everything better. But
they just finished their third year with a new owner. They just finished a year with a brand new
manager. They have, and this is very similar to business. They have really gone knee-deep into all the
analytics and all the everything technology that a lot of other teams already had, and they were behind
in some of that. You have to be up with the times on all this type of stuff. The other piece that I will
give you, they’ve got to develop all this. They’ve got to be able to… The coaches have did a great job
this year. As frustrating of a year as it was. They have one of the, I believe, the top 10 most exciting
players in baseball, Bobby Wood Jr, he’s 23 years old. He is in my 16 years here, hands down the most
talented player that they have had on the roster of the hundreds and hundreds of players that I’ve
covered here. He’s just getting started. He just had a season in terms of statistics that no Royals ever
had before. He did that in the second full season in the big leagues. He’s a big piece. Then people say,
Well, they won’t keep him that long. They can’t afford him. Right now they’re trying to sign him to a
long-term contract to keep him here longer than four more years, and maybe it’s six or seven or eight
more years or something like that. It starts with him.

[00:58:59.760] – David Maples
Got it. Well, Joel, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

[00:59:04.940] – Joel Goldberg
Pleasure.

[00:59:05.470] – David Maples
This has been wonderful.

[00:59:06.780] – Joel Goldberg
Thanks for having me.

[00:59:07.940] – Producer
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