Longtime WJZ-TV sports director Mark Viviano grew up in St. Louis as a Cardinals fan. The Cardinals were a middle-of-the-road team in the 1970s when Viviano was a kid, but the Orioles, led by Jim Palmer and Brooks Robinson, dominated. Viviano revered them as “royalty.”
Fast forward several decades and Viviano knows or knew both players as friends. In one instance, Viviano and Palmer were walking into Camden Yards to cover an Orioles game when Palmer was talking to Robinson over the phone about Viviano. It then sunk in for Viviano how blessed he was to be in a position for two of his childhood heroes to be having conversations about him.
Now set to retire after 40 years in the industry, he’s spent plenty of time reflecting on the impact of his career.
“The job we get to do … I never take that for granted,” Viviano said on Glenn Clark Radio July 3. “Those [conversations] are those fun treasures that you get to encounter, because we’re very privileged to do what we get to do.”
Viviano, 59, arrived in Baltimore 30 years ago. He spent 22 years with WJZ and more than five years as a reporter for WBAL-TV in the 1990s. His biggest splash came at WBAL in 1995, when, as a second-year reporter, he broke the news that the Cleveland Browns were moving to Baltimore.
“I was filling in on WBAL Radio for Ken Rosenthal … and the producer of the show said during a commercial, ‘Somebody wants to talk to you during this commercial break, they don’t want to go on the air,'” Viviano said. “It was a gentleman in the area who said, ‘Listen, I’ve seen you in town, I like you, you do good work. I want to let you know something. I’m involved in the transaction that’s bringing the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore and I want to tell you about it.'”
“We met the next day. He had documentation of everything. It was real,” Viviano added. “This was a guy who didn’t have to sign one of those confidentiality agreements, and he was willing to share the story. At WBAL, we broke the story ahead of everybody else.”
Viviano got his start at a radio station in Monroe, Iowa, and worked as an anchor in Dayton, Ohio, for five years. He also spent two and a half years as a sports anchor for CNN, from 1999 to 2002.
He met his wife, Megan, while working at WJZ. Megan was a producer for the station at the time, and the couple bonded over their love for running. They married in 2013.
Viviano looks back at his career fondly, but says he’s ready to spend more time with Megan and their two sons, who are 8 and 6 years old.
“I didn’t get married until I was 49. I didn’t become a father until I was 51,” Viviano said. “… In those 40 years that I worked, I worked full-time radio, full-time TV, I filled in at MASN. I think I packed 50 years into those 40 years. So I’m done working. … More important than the work or the paycheck you get is time, and time with the people that you love.”
He was in the Orioles press box when his son had his first Little League hit last year. That was a breaking point for Viviano, who was already considering retirement.
“That hurt. That bothered me,” Viviano said. “I had already been thinking about wanting to be home more, but that was the one kick that [made me say], ‘This is wrong.’ I’m going to coach the boys’ teams. I’m signed up to be a coach for fall baseball. I’ll be coaching soccer, basketball. That’s what I want to do. Those are the sports I’m going to care about.”
Viviano balked at the idea of coming back to host any special events, or reviving his career later on. His retirement is final, he said.
His last show will be on July 18.
“It’s the people that make the place, whether it’s your workplace or the place where you live, your neighborhood,” Viviano said. “… The people of Baltimore have just always been wonderful. My experience has been nothing but great. And being in a public-facing position where I’m on TV, it was a wonderful way to meet people, interact with people, and everybody’s been so kind.”
For more from Viviano, listen to the full interview here:
Photo courtesy of Mark Viviano