Top 100 sports talkers: Francesa No. 1; Mad Dog Russo, not so much

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We love lists. Yes we do.

In fact, some people (me) even write a book with the list theme: The Great Book of Chicago Sports Lists. And even another: Golf List Mania.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that Talkers.com is getting a lot of traction for its list ranking the top 100 personalities on sports talk radio.

Here’s the top 10 of the “Heavy Hundred.”

1. Mike Francesa, WFAN, New York

2. Jim Rome, Premiere Networks

3. Dan Patrick, DirecTV/Fox Sports Radio Network

4. Boomer Esiason, Craig Carton, WFAN, New York

5. Mike Valenti, Terry Foster, WXYT, Detroit

6. Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, ESPN

7. John Dennis and Gerry Callahan, WEEI, Boston

8. Tony Kornheiser, WTEM, Washington

9. Doug Karsch and Scott Anderson, WXYT, Detroit

10. Angelo Cataldi, WIP, Philadelphia

Initial reaction:

OK, Francesa, given the weight (not his) and history of that show. But I’m sure his former partner, Chris Russo, is steaming. The man behind Mad Dog Radio placed 39.

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How does a Detroit sports talk grab two spots in the top 10 and ESPN, with all its power and branding, get only one?

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Paul Finebaum, who has a network based out of Birmingham, is woefully low at 41. He is huge in the South.

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Also, hard to believe how many former sportswriters have their own shows. Dan LeBatard, Terry Boers, Dan Barreiro, Brian Murphy, Patrick Reusse, John Lopez, Randy Galloway, among others. Former press box seatmates who actually found a way to make a buck in this business.

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Speaking of former sportswriters, the omission of the Mike Mulligan-Brian Hanley show on WSCR-AM 670 in Chicago is a major mistake. They have been huge in morning drive for many years, and do a solid, informative and entertaining show. Not only should they be in top 100. You could make case for top 10 in my book.

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And who knew? Joe Morgan placed 100 for a show on Sports USA Media. Turns out it is a weekly two-hour show.

 

 

 

 

 

Damon Hack leaves Sports Illustrated to join Golf Channel

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Damon Hack had a great gig. It doesn’t get much better than covering the NFL and golf for Sports Illustrated.

However despite a professional career as a sportswriter, Hack always wanted to get back to the broadcast side. Monday, the Golf Channel offered him the opportunity.

From the network:

He will serve as a “Golf Channel Insider” for the network’s news programming, including Morning Drive and Golf Central, and as a senior writer for GolfChannel.com. He also will be seen occasionally on NBC Sports Network, reporting golf.

I covered a few golf tournaments with Hack during the day. So naturally, I had to give him Monday grief when he mentioned he had “a broadcast agent.” Don’t get too big, big guy.

Actually, the Golf Channel opportunity came somewhat out of the blue. A few weeks ago, he served as a substitute host for Morning Drive. Apparently, he did a good job.

A subsequent GC offer coincided with Sports Illustrated looking for staff to take buyouts. So Hack even got a nice going-away prize.

“When it all came together, we thought, ‘Maybe this is a sign we should do something different,'” Hack said.

Even though Hack has spent 18 years as a sportswriter, he studied broadcasting as an undergrad at UCLA.

“I wanted to be the next Chick Hearn or Vin Scully,” he said. “I always had a quiet dream to do broadcasting, and golf is my favorite sport to cover. It couldn’t work out any better.”

Hack said his exact TV role has yet to be defined. The GC still hasn’t named a permanent co-host to join Gary Williams for Morning Drive.

Would Hack be interested?

“Definitely,” he said. “That would be great. I had a lot of fun doing the show. I think the plan for now is to get me down there and see where I fit.”

The GC also hired Ryan Burr from ESPN as an anchor for Golf Central.

 

 

 

Not just Penn State: HBO Real Sports story of administrators failing to prevent death at Florida A&M

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The Jerry Sandusky story has been getting all the the attention of late, and rightfully so. However, there’s another story of colleges and abuse that went on unchecked by university administrators.

Coming Tuesday on HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (10 p.m. ET), Frank Deford has a stunning piece about the marching band at Florida A&M. A member of the band died last year during a brutal hazing ritual.

In 2010, Deford did a story about the hazing rituals at Florida A&M, documenting scores of eye-opening incidents. Yet officials didn’t step in. As a result, a young student died.

Here’s a video preview:

From the release:

Among the most entertaining spectacles in college football is the game-day performance of the school band. Shockingly, behind the tradition and prestige of marching bands at historically black universities is a longstanding ritual of violent hazing, where bandmates hit, strike and even beat their counterparts. Two years ago, REAL SPORTS correspondent Frank Deford revealed some of the troubling incidents that led to the suspension of students and band directors, with victims filing and winning lawsuits. Yet the callous practice continued largely unabated. Last fall, at Florida A&M University, which was included in the Nov. 2010 report, drum major Robert Champion died after brutal hazing. Now, Deford leads HBO’s cameras back to the campuses to ask: Despite countless warnings, why does this dangerous initiation custom continue?

Indeed, in the piece, Deford confronts former Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Reverend R.B. Holmes, who helped preside over the school until last year.

The exchange:

Reverend Holmes: We were very forthright– very proactive– once we identified– an incident of hazing. No one that I know condones hazing.

Frank Deford: But there’s been so much. Let me just give you a run-down here. 2004 when you’re on the board, settled a case a clarinet player beaten 300 times. Almost dies from renal failure. A saxophone player is charged with three counts of aggravated battery. That’s eight years ago. 2006, four members of the band are investigated by the State’s Attorneys office. 2008 a female band member—cuts on her face, urinating blood—has to go the hospital. All of these things, you say you’ve been proactive…

Holmes: Those behaviors are unacceptable. Hazing is a dark, secret culture.

I know all the members on FAMU’s Board of Trustees and I know the president and the last several presidents.  And without any reservation, they do not, did not, will not, shall not, cannot tolerate any form of hazing.

Deford: But they have.  That’s what I’m saying.  That they have in the past, which led, ultimately to death. I mean, don’t they feel some responsibility for not being more proactive in the past so that Mr. Champion didn’t have to die?

Holmes: Oh, yeah. I think the president is very grieved.

Deford: Do you think the board and President Ammons acted sufficiently in response to these incidents? Not only incidents, letters to the president:  “I pray that God will give the Administration wisdom and courage to stand up against the stupid, idiotic practices that go on at FAMU.” “My son is scared.  He asked me to send him mace.”

Given all that evidence—the letters to the president, the number of arrests, it would seem to make a case for something bad is going on here. We ought to do something about it.  But it never came to that sort of thinking on the board when you were there?

Holmes: It became a sense of urgency in November when we all recognized that hazing has not gone away; that hazing is still unfortunately a part of the culture.

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Q/A with Bob Costas: The kid now is 60; his Olympics legacy

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Feel old everyone.

Bob Costas now is 60. Yes, the NBC broadcaster turned the big 6-0 in March.

How did this happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday that Costas was this hotshot kid working NBC’s Game of the Week with Tony Kubek?

I was taken off-guard that Costas had reached such a milestone birthday. And so were others, he said.

“Yes, they’re surprised,” Costas said. “It doesn’t seem that long ago to me that the word irreverent seemed affixed to my name. ‘Irreverant newcomer.’ I went from irreverent to venerable in what seems to me like the blink of an eye.”

Age, though, seems irrelevant since the ageless Costas continues to deliver on so many different platforms. He made national news with his masterful handling of the Jerry Sandusky interview; and he’s all over the place for NBC and MLB Network, ranging from football, baseball to golf and horse racing.

Perhaps Costas is evidence that 60 is the new 40.

Next week, Costas will return to his familar role as NBC’s primetime host for the Summer Olympics. It will be his 10th Games overall for NBC, and ninth as host.

It’s an incredible run. Think about it: Given the huge ratings for the Olympics, Costas is the most watched broadcaster of this generation.

On the eve of the Olympics, I had chance to visit with Costas during a media day session in NBC.

How does it feel to turn 60?

I don’t feel any different than I did either 10 or 20 years ago. I said this before to somebody, ‘When the miles go by on the right side of the odometer, you don’t take notice. When the number of the left side clicks from 5 to 6, you do take notice.’

Yeah, I’m aware of it. I don’t feel any different than I did when I was 40. But I realize mathematically, I’m equidistant between that and 80. So the facts are the facts. I’ll keep doing this for a while, but I’m not going to be one of these people who hang on just for the sake of being on the air.

There comes a time when everybody should transition. I hope when that time comes in my place, I’ll know it before they tell me.

Nobody will accuse you of slowing down. You have a full schedule with baseball on MLB Network, Football Night in America, shows on NBC Network, other assignments, not to mention the Olympics.

One of the things that has happened to me, because I’ve been around as long as I have, and have done reasonably well, I can do things more or less on my own terms. I’m not forced to present myself in a way where someone who’s younger and trying to break in would be forced to present themselves. To get attention. To jump out of the pack.

The tone and sensibility of what I do is not that much different than it was 10 years ago when I started working at HBO. I bring that same tone and sensibility to the NBC Sports Network. That’s who I am. There are lots of people who I watch and enjoy, where I say, ‘I really like that guy. Or I like that woman. But it would be foolish for me to do it that way, And it would be foolish for them to emulate me.’

Luckily I have enough standing where I can do what do in a way where it seems true to me.

You hear so much talk about the need to reach the younger demographic. Yet so many of the top sports broadcasters are in their 60s and 70s. How do you explain that dynamic?

You have people who are well-established. They have a certain standing. You hope as you continue, you do a good job. Al Michaels is in his 60s (67). It would be foolish to say, let’s get someone who is 35 for the sake of someone who is 35. He won’t be remotely as good as Al Michaels.

How do you view your career as being defined by the Olympics the same way Jim McKay career was defined.

Even to be in same sentence as Jim McKay is a compliment. The world has changed considerably. When Jim hosted Olympics, or for that matter, Wide World of Sports, people were utterly amazed that you were getting a television transmission from Munich or Sarajevo, or wherever. The total of hours were different, the sensibility and expectations of the audience was different. There was a great sense of wonder. He was in fact, he was spanning the globe to bring you a wide world of sports of which people were not familiar.

This is a different world in which we now live. Also, a lot of what Jim did, although he did horse racing and golf, a lot of stuff he did with Wide World seemed to be related to the Olympics. So the Olympics were even more at the center of the definition of him than they are from me.

They are big thing for me. People, though, also associate me with baseball, football, and to a certain extent, basketball (from calling games in the late 90s).

What is your approach as host?

You’re looking for personal stories. You’re also looking for quirkiness too. I think any good broadcast, not just an Olympic broadcast, a good broadcast of a baseball game should have texture to it. It should have information, should have some history, should have something that’s offbeat, quirky, humorous, and where called for it should have journalism and judiciously it should also have commentary. That’s my idea. That’s my ideal. Sometimes we exactly hit that, sometimes we don’t.

How has covering the Olympics changed since your first in 1988?

I will say this, that the essence of good storytelling, and the essence of good broadcasting remains the same.  You know, there, there are a lot of things that technology has brought us, and these additional, you know, tubes of communication have brought us that are wondrous, and a lot of it is just crap.  You know, the more you broaden anything out, it’s like American Idol auditions, you let everybody audition, and you’re going to find some diamonds in the rough.  You’re also going to find people who would be lousy singing in the shower.

The essence of what’s good hasn’t changed.  The essence of how you call a ball game well, you know, there may be different camera angles, there may be different graphics, there may be ways that you can interact with social media if you’re watching it, but the way Al Michaels calls a football game is not that much different, nor should it be, because it’s perfect, than it would have been in 1970.  You know, so some of the features may be shorter because of attention span, some of where we funnel the viewership may be different, but the way in which I anchor the games, based on what they ask me to do, is not much different.

My point I think it was pretty clear, is this: that our objective, at least from a broadcaster standpoint, hasn’t changed that much.  It’s to do a good broadcast, it’s to present things well.  Now, what these additional platforms have done, is that they’ve given us opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. This isn’t an Olympic example, but I think it’s a good example, I wouldn’t expect NBC as a network to do a show like the one they do each month with me on the NBC Sports Network.  HBO did that, they were well suited to do it.  Now we come close to replicating that idea here on, on the eighth floor, that well suits the NBC Sports Network. But my objective in doing that is just the same as it would have been 20 years ago, to do a good show with good content.

 

 

Sunday bookshelf: A biography of Lefty ‘I’d rather be lucky than good’ Gomez

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A biography on one of baseball’s great pitchers and characters.

Here’s a trailer about the book:

From Amazon:

A baseball legend distinguished by his competitive nature, quick wit, and generous spirit, Lefty Gomez was one of a kind. Told for the first time, this is his remarkable story. Born to a small-town California ranching family, the youngest of eight, Vernon “Lefty” Gomez rode his powerful arm and jocular personality right across America to the dugout of the New York Yankees. Lefty baffled hitters with his blazing fastball, establishing himself as the team’s ace. He vacationed with Babe Ruth, served as Joe DiMaggio’s confidant, and consoled Lou Gehrig the day the “Iron Horse” removed himself from the lineup. He started and won the first-ever All-Star Game, was the first pitcher to make the cover of Time magazine, and barnstormed Japan as part of Major League Baseball’s grand ambassadorial tour in 1934. Away from the diamond, Lefty played the big-city bon vivant, marrying Broadway star June O’Dea and hobnobbing with a who’s who of celebrities, including George Gershwin, Jack Dempsey, Ernest Hemingway, Marilyn Monroe, George M. Cohan, and James Michener. He even scored a private audience with the pope.

 

And even when his pro ball career was done, Lefty wasn’t. He became a national representative for Wilson Sporting Goods, logging over 100,000 miles a year, spreading the word about America’s favorite game, and touching thousands of lives. In 1972 he was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Three baseball fields are named for him, and to this day the top honor bestowed each year by the American Baseball Coaches Association is the Lefty Gomez Award. Now, drawing on countless conversations with Lefty, interweaving more than three hundred interviews conducted with his family, friends, competitors, and teammates over the course of a decade, and revealing candid photos, documents, and film clips—many never shown publicly—his daughter Vernona Gomez and her award-winning co-author Lawrence Goldstone vividly re-create the life and adventures of the irreverent southpaw fondly dubbed “El Señor Goofy.”

“I’d rather be lucky than good,” Lefty Gomez once quipped—one of many classic one-liners documented here. In the end he was both. A star-studded romp through baseball’s most glorious seasons and America’s most glamorous years, Lefty is at once a long-overdue reminder of a pitcher’s greatness and a heartwarming celebration of a life well-lived.

 

Remembering remarkable life of blind sportscaster

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The Chicago Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes about Bob Greenberg, who died this week.

Despite going blind shortly after birth, Greenberg still pursued a career in broadcasting. He was a fixture in the Chicago press boxes and locker rooms.

And yes, as Zorn writes, Greenberg was a mix of amazing and annoying.

Greenberg lost his sight shortly after birth but never considered that a reason not to pursue a career in sports broadcasting — a particularly bravura goal given that the disabled were even more pigeonholed then than they are today.

He sat in the press box and interviewed athletes in the locker room at major Chicago sporting events for more than a decade. That he achieved his goal was a heartwarming story.

But Greenberg was not a particularly heartwarming guy. He was loud and blustery, stubborn and occasionally obnoxious. He was known to push his way clumsily through media scrums, interrupt other reporters’ interviews and even play “the blind card” to get reluctant athletes to talk to him.

It probably served him well. Once the novelty of being a blind sportscaster wears off, you have to bring the goods — get the tape, know your stuff — because no one’s going to hand them to you out of pity.

Without going into details, Zorn notes there was the story of Greenberg sticking his microphone in an inappropriate place. The story, if I remember correctly, was that Greenberg plunged the mic in between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s butt cheeks while asking a question.

“What do ya think, Kareem?”

Jabbar jumped about 10 feet in the air.

Yes, Greenberg truly was a memorable man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BTN special to finally address Penn State situation; Sally Jenkins weighs in: Everything about Paterno must be questioned

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Better late than…

From the BTN:

BTN will air a Penn State Special Report at 9 PM ET tonight following Thursday’s release of the Freeh Report as to Penn State’s handling of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse case. Hosted by Dave Revsine, the show will include BTN Analysts Gerry DiNardo and Howard Griffith in-studio and Glen Mason from Minneapolis, as well as  Malcolm Moran, Penn State professor and the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism, from State College, and others.

Also, here is Sally Jenkins’ column in the Washington Post. Jenkins, of course, had the last interview with Paterno before his death in January. It would seem he lied to her face.

Jenkins writes:

Paterno didn’t always give lucid answers in his final interview conducted with The Washington Post eight days before his death, but on this point he was categorical and clear as a bell. He pled total, lying ignorance of the ’98 investigation into a local mother’s claim Sandusky had groped her son in the shower at the football building. How could Paterno have no knowledge of this, I asked him?

“Nobody knew,” he said.

Everybody knew.

Never heard a rumor?

“I never heard a thing,” he said.

He heard everything.

“If Jerry’s guilty, nobody found out till after several incidents.”

Not a whisper? How is that possible?

Later she writes:

We can’t un-rape and un-molest those boys. We can’t remove them from the showers and seize them back from the hands of Sandusky. That should have been an unrelenting source of rage and grief to Paterno. Yet in perhaps the most damaging observation of all, the Freeh report accuses Paterno and his colleagues of “a striking lack of empathy” for the victims.

Everything else about Paterno must now be questioned; other details about him begin to nag. You now wonder if his self-defense was all an exercise in sealing off watertight compartments, leaving colleagues on the outside to drown. You wonder if he performed a very neat trick in disguising himself as a modest and benevolent man. The subtle but constant emphasis on his Ivy League education, the insistence that Penn State football had higher standards, now looks more like rampant elitism.