Al Leiter and Harold Reynolds were sitting in front of MLB Network cameras on the day the channel launched in January 2009. They’re still there in 2026, and somewhere along the way, they realized they weren’t just doing television.
The two recently reflected on what their work together has actually meant, not just as television but as genuine baseball education. For Leiter, the realization came through the feedback. When clips from their studio segments started circulating on social media, and coaches were sharing them with kids, parents were forwarding them to travel ball teams, and the response wasn’t just “great TV” but “this is exactly what my son needed to see.” Something clicked about what they were actually doing every night.
“When I started getting feedback from social media, but coaches, parents, kids — looking at this as, hey, look what Al and Harold were doing — and they’re, we’re actually teaching,” Leiter said. “I realized what we were actually providing for the viewer and baseball fans. It was the coaches, it was the kids. That excited me when I come into the studio. I’d say, ‘Who am I working with? What can we do in studio for two?’ I want to show — and the feedback was the fans and the viewers.”
Reynolds agreed and pointed to how the format evolved as the network found its footing. The studio breakdowns gave way to something more hands-on, bringing current big leaguers into Studio 42 — MLB Network’s replica baseball field inside its Secaucus, New Jersey headquarters — and having them demonstrate exactly what was being discussed rather than just describe it.
“You’re teaching the game, you’re taking people into places they’ve never been able to get to,” Reynolds said. “You can talk on video, breaking down a guy’s swing or whatever, but to be able to take it to the umpteenth degree and now hop in the cage and see a major leaguer swing a bat and him explain it was even better. So it went from us being able to do it to bringing current big leaguers in.”
That kind of content has been the backbone of MLB Network’s identity since its launch in 2009, and it’s what has separated it from everything else on the dial. MLB Tonight has won the national sports Emmy for Outstanding Daily Studio Show eight times, with Leiter and Reynolds central to that run.
The two are still very much part of MLB Network’s fabric in 2026. Last year, MLB Network rebranded the early edition of MLB Tonight to the National Pregame Show, expanding it to a daily 5 p.m. ET start with Greg Amsinger, Dan Plesac, and Reynolds as the regular faces. The show is up 38 percent over last year in average viewership through May 31, per Nielsen, peaking at 249,000 average viewers on April 16.
The teaching, it turns out, never really stops.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.