Latest / Sports Exchange / Retired CNN Sportscaster Jerome Jurenovich

Transcript

Retired CNN Sportscaster Jerome Jurenovich · Sports Exchange

0:19
Happy Monday, everybody. My name is Scott Morgan, Rothelmotor City, Manmouth
0:25
and we have a great sports exchange on TAP. I'm very pleased to be
0:29
joined by my regular partner, George Ikorn. George, welcome back. We're
0:33
going back and looking forward to the night show Scott and our special guest Jerome
0:38
Jerenovitch. If you haven't heard of him, which I'm sure a lot of
0:41
people probably have, here's a man well traveled, but one of his biggest
0:45
acts was over at CNN Sports. Welcome to the show, Jerome. We
0:49
appreciate you being on. Gentlemen, good to be with you. Let's have
0:53
some fun. Huh oh, We're gonna do that. There's a lot of
0:55
experience on this show, that's for sure. Before we go into some of
0:59
the US and Zoe, I want to pass on our deepest condolences to Chris
1:03
Roberts, who passed away at the age of seventy four. He had a
1:07
stroke as well as Parkinson's disease. He was a sportscaster in LA for twenty
1:14
three years and was a voice of UCLA Sports. And I had the opportunity
1:19
to get to know Chris the last several years and went out there for the
1:22
Southern California Sports Casters Banquet and I got to know him and he taught me
1:29
a lot. So since I have a great sportscaster on there, like you,
1:33
Jerome, I wanted to make sure I passed my deepest condolences to Chris
1:37
as well. All Right, you said one of the best stories I've ever
1:41
seen, especially knowing you didn't relate to a tie. So first of all,
1:46
how did you get your start, Jerome in the business? And tell
1:48
us how you got to Atlanta. I know you told me that you were
1:52
in LA for four years and Denver two and you were an Erie. Yeah.
1:57
I started in Erie, Pennsylvania. Grew up outside of Pittsburgh. And
2:01
you know, when you're a Western pa boy where your father and your uncles
2:06
and all your neighbors and everybody works in the steel mill and you're growing up
2:09
into seventies, you grow up on Clement a Star, Joe and the Pittsburgh
2:13
Steelers. So I went to college in Erie, Pennsylvania, graduated from it's
2:17
now a Gannon University. It was just a college then. It was a
2:21
Division two school Catholic schools. Small, pretty good basketball program though for its
2:25
size, played Cheney State in Philly and all those type of schools made it
2:29
to the national championship. Couple times went there to study communications. To be
2:36
honest with you, I started because I wanted to produce television commercials. I
2:39
was one of those kids that grew up on TV. If it wasn't out
2:43
in the yard or out in the street playing ball, I was inside watching
2:46
TV and not one for the books. And it always had a weird,
2:50
this weird element to my mind. I would watch commercials even as I think,
2:54
at ten twelve fourteen year old kid, try to figure out what was
2:58
the message. Obviously they're trying to sell you cheerios or tires, but are
3:02
they trying to sell to a certain demographic and what are they trying to differentiate
3:07
their product from their competitors. I know that was really weird for a young
3:10
man, but I did so. I thought that's exactly what I would do.
3:15
In my senior year. I was fortunate enough to get a job at
3:17
the local CBS station in Eerie and started doing local car commercials those types of
3:23
things, and I quickly realized that you know, when you use your creativity
3:28
and then you're back to carry that camera and the tripod and edit everything together.
3:31
The only person may get any money is the salesman. So out the
3:36
window goes commercial production. And one day they said, hey, what are
3:38
you doing Sunday? I said, what do you need? We're down a
3:42
camera guy. Can you run down the three rivers and shoot video and do
3:46
postgame interviews for the Steelers game? And next thing I know, it's a
3:51
Sunday afternoon, beautiful skies September. Steelers are beating the Bengals. I'm in
3:57
the locker room. There's Bradshaw, there's star Work, there's Franco, there's
4:01
Jack Lambert, and I'm sitting there going these guys are my heroes and I
4:04
get to hang out in this room. How do you get paid for this
4:09
on a full time basis? And that's when I went back to Erie.
4:12
The next day. I told the news director I got to get into sports
4:15
department, and next thing you know, I was in there. Erie had
4:18
the benefit third largest city in Pennsylvania. However, because a third of the
4:26
broadcast signal went out over Lake Erie into Canada, the Nielsen ratings don't indicate
4:31
households in Canada, So even though it's the third largest city population wise,
4:35
it was only market one forty, so as you can imagine, nobody made
4:40
any money and there was always a lot of turnover, which was great for
4:43
young people like myself. The beauty of Erie was we were an hour and
4:46
a half from rich Stadium, maybe an hour and forty minutes from Cleveland Stadium
4:50
in two hours and twenty minutes for three rivers. So Friday night high school
4:56
football Saturday, you're doing whatever you can do to pirate, you know,
5:00
major college football games off of the massive satellites at the time. And on
5:04
Sundays, I'm twenty one, twenty two years old, and I'm covering the
5:09
Steelers, Browns or Bills every Sunday. While most people are still rehashing what
5:14
happened on Friday night football, I'm talking to Joe Ferguson or Terry Bradsawer.
5:17
The beginning of the Bernie Kozar career, it was very, very unique and
5:25
well rewarding position that really paid dividends much later on down the line. Did
5:29
that for a couple of years. As you guys know, our business never
5:32
really paid all that much in the seventies and eighties. So you're out of
5:38
college, I broadcasting you know you're working Thanksgiving, Christmas, Christmas Eve if
5:44
you don't get holidays off because the TV is always on. And I realized
5:47
I'm making eleven thousand dollars a year. I'd have two nickels that run together.
5:51
I have a week's vacation coming up. I don't have a girlfriend.
5:54
What am I going to do. I hadn't seen my best friend and his
5:58
wife since I stood up as a groomsman in their wedding the prior summer.
6:01
So I just drove down to Atlanta. He went to Atlanta. I drove
6:04
to the eleven hours in the car, drove down to Atlanta to hang out
6:06
with him and his wife and check out Atlanta. Next day, we go
6:11
to church. I'm looking across the exact sty and I see this young face
6:15
and I'm like, I know that kid. He was an intern in Area
6:16
a year before and he was working at CNN Radio. And I asked him,
6:20
said, Michael Johnson, Mica, let me know if they have anything
6:24
down there. That night, he went to work Sunday night, called me.
6:27
He said, there's two openings in the sports department. My career,
6:29
Fellas is always right place, right time. Pure luck. The Lord was
6:33
looking out for him. So he goes call this number tomorrow and tell him
6:40
that you know me and I'm an anchor at CNN Headline News. So I
6:43
did just that, and this young lady gets on the phone and she says
6:47
hold on, and I'm on hold for like five minutes, and I'm about
6:49
to hang up. It's a Monday, late morning, and she calls up
6:54
Shoes, can you come in today for an interview? I said today.
6:57
She's yes, can you be here at two o'clock? I said, I
7:00
can be there too, but I'm on vacation. I don't have a suit,
7:02
I don't have a resume, I don't have a resume tape. I
7:05
mean in the nicest clothes. I have her khaki pants and a golf shirt.
7:10
She's like, hold on with this voice of disgust. You know you
7:13
can just hear it. And I'm on hold for like three minutes. She
7:15
says. The boss says, don't wear cutoff jeans and a tank top and
7:18
he'll see you too. And the man me was the late great Bill mcphil
7:24
who's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Bill McPhail was the very first
7:28
president of CBS Sports. His brother and his father, both named Lee mcphil,
7:34
Lee Senior and Lee Junior both at both of them, at one point
7:39
in your career were president of the Yankees and then elevated to president of the
7:43
American League. Lee Junior was the win the maide the infamous Pinetard decision.
7:47
Remember when George Brett hit then get through him out and he reversed it?
7:53
Oh my gosh. And Bill used to have a bat, an authentic George
7:57
Brett back game used in his office all the time, and it had the
8:01
pine tar on there and everything. To visit him one day and bills out
8:05
to lunch and he leaves you Leamfield, junior president, former president of American
8:09
League. He's just sitting and building the Pill's office all by him. So
8:11
I go in there, a huge office. I'm talking, mister McField,
8:13
pleasure to meet you. And I grabbed the bat out of because I'm nervous,
8:16
and I'm swinging the bat and I look up and it says George Brett,
8:22
and there's George Brett and Lee mcfields, and I wanted to ask him
8:26
so badly what were you thinking? But I couldn't do it. And Bill
8:31
basically hired me on the spot and years later, you know, I had
8:37
a unique sign off, which when I was doing Headline Sports, we were
8:41
the first network in the country to have the crawl the scores on the bottom
8:46
of the screen, but that wasn't until my last two years there. So
8:50
for my first thirteen years, if you wanted a score of a ball game
8:52
across the country, the only way you could get it was to watch CNN
8:58
Headline Sports at twenty after fifty after and that was from you know, it
9:03
was all day, but people would watch the local news, the games would
9:05
start at seven, they tune on seven, twenty seven, fifty eight,
9:09
twenty eight, fifty until Sports Center at eleven or CNN Sports Tonight at eleven.
9:13
And you know, myself and two are one or two other guys had
9:16
unique names, unique deliveries, and they were almost embedded in sports fans of
9:22
that generation in their mindset. So I still run into a lot of guys
9:26
our age and they know the name right away that people used to ask me,
9:30
did you make that name up? I'm like, are you kidding me?
9:31
How do you make a name like that? But you know, and
9:35
CNN went through its issues at the time time Warner Bottom and it was okay,
9:41
and then AOL bought Time Warner. AOL was ahead of a curve.
9:43
Unfortunately made a major mistake. They bought it for all the streaming material they
9:48
needed content, but they did it twenty years earlier and they overpaid, so
9:52
they had to start slashing. They got rid of sports and next thing I
9:56
know, I'm just calling around and Fox Sports hires me out in LA for
10:01
four years. And while I'm out there, Altitude Sports in Denver was just
10:05
starting up. And I went to a going away party for one of the
10:09
producers at Fox Sports who had come from Denver, and he pulled me aside,
10:13
because you want to get back into TV on camera, and I said
10:16
yeah, and he goes, give me your take before I leave town next
10:20
Tuesday, just stick at my mailbox. Next thing I know, they're flying
10:22
me up on that Friday and they hired me on the spot to be the
10:26
main anchor and we covered the Avalanche and the Nuggets. Stan Cronk he owned
10:30
it, still does and Stan was great to work with, you know,
10:35
I mean he owns I think Manchester United over there in Premier League. Of
10:39
course, he owns the Rams Avalanche. It's the ball Center now used to
10:43
be Pepsi Center indoor outdoor lacrosse. He was partnered with John Elway for the
10:50
Arena Football League. He owned like twelve sports teams. He's a sports fanatic,
10:54
and the best part about them is after the game, we'd sit in
10:56
the bar in the Arena and we would just sit there and talk about He
11:00
loves the NBA. We would just sit there and talk about the Nuggets.
11:03
I used to tell, get rid of Andre Miller. You got five Thoroughbreds
11:07
and he's walking it up the cord and he goes on. Andrew's a good
11:09
point guard. Jeroma said, he is a good point guard, but he's
11:13
like an old man. He just walks up the cord. Run, Run,
11:16
Run. Why do you think showtime was so successful? And of course
11:18
two years after I left, they end up getting rid of Andre Miller and
11:20
then they start doing really well. I knew us talking about and I was
11:26
out there for a couple of years in Atlanta. Fox at the time.
11:31
Now it's Bally Fox Sports Style decided they wanted to start all the Fox regionals.
11:35
They're gonna do pre and post game for their teams. And everybody knew
11:39
the Braves. They loved the Braves down here beside next to college football,
11:43
Graves are the second most popular team. Everybody knows the NBA, and not
11:48
one person here knew anything about hockey. They didn't know a blue line from
11:50
a red line. I'm I'm a hot there with Rob Blake and Joe Sakik
11:54
and all these guys that won the Stanley Cup twice, a couple Hall of
11:56
famers, And they looked at me and they're like, you're And first year
12:01
there, Thrashers win the division. Everybody's ecstatic. Next year there Thrashers doing
12:07
yard sale, got rid of all their good players, and two years later
12:09
Thrashers lead down. I'm like what. But stuck around with the Braves and
12:13
the Hawks for a total of fifteen years, and I hit sixty two,
12:18
and I said that's enough. You know, that's enough. From nights and
12:22
weekends for forty years. I got out of it a little earlier. They
12:26
wanted to keep me, and I said, no, can't do it,
12:28
fella as my wife nagging at me to live a normal lifestyle, you know,
12:33
Friday and Saturday nights off, and it was it was well worth it.
12:37
You know. In the last four years, I've been the sixteen country.
12:41
So we've been doing a lot of travel. Man, you look fantastic,
12:43
So let me go over you alluded to it, Jerome. So you
12:48
talked about your list of employers, you know, Valley's Sports South, what
12:52
you talked about your braves and hogs stuff to altitude in Denver. I have
12:58
I told you I had a friend of mine that actually lives there in Fox
13:01
Sports Radio and then CNN Sports Anker and w se E TV. So I
13:07
guess as I list all your places, describe each situation and how you grew
13:11
with each one. Well, let's start at the beginning, and here's Erie
13:18
Pennsylvania. Here's a guy that just loved television. When they first hired me,
13:22
they hired me to be a news cameraman, one of the E and
13:24
G guys. You go out to shoot the accidents, to fires, city
13:26
council, so forth. And to be honest with I didn't know what I
13:31
was doing. Day one. I would literally go home. This was back
13:35
in the VCR days, and I would set my VCR to record ABC,
13:39
NBC and CBS. Now this was pre Fox so and it was also pre
13:43
cable. In nineteen eighty two eighty three, Erie did not have cable TV.
13:48
So what I would do is I would watch how each of the network
13:54
news shows nightly news shows would present their story, and I would watch the
13:58
different camera angles that were used into three different networks, how they approached each
14:05
story differently, how their camera people were different from each other. And I
14:09
was, you know, one of those amateur thirty five millimeter guys, So
14:13
I know how to work a camera. I knew, I knew depth of
14:16
field angles, so forth, and I just learned from mimicking people that knew
14:22
what they were doing. And next thing you know, you know, you're
14:26
in a locker room. And I always thought that was the easiest thing to
14:30
interview an athlete, because we love sports. The only thing you had to
14:35
get over was being intimidated by the fact that, my god, that's Terry
14:37
Branshaw. You won four Super Bowls, you know, but he's still a
14:41
human being, you know. And as long as you know degrade the guy
14:46
and make an insult the athlete, you know they're going to have bad days.
14:50
And most of them are stand up guys, and you know they address
14:54
the issues. But more often than if you ask them, you know,
14:56
a positive question, they truly respond and you know the game, you know
15:01
the strategy of the game. We all grew up watching it, so you
15:03
already know what went wrong and what went right in the third quarter or fourth
15:07
quarter, on that final drive or maybe the last two minutes of an NBA
15:11
game, or you know what happened to the starting pitcher in the sixth inning,
15:13
why you didn't pull them earlier? You know, watch Eldment as long
15:16
or whatever. You know. You learn by asking questions, and in a
15:20
small market like that, you make your mistakes. I'm not about making mistakes.
15:26
I made my mistakes, but that's how you'll learn. And then you
15:30
know, I was. I was pretty good by the time I left Eerie.
15:35
And then you know, usually at CNN, they were hiring people from
15:39
major markets. You know, Dallas, Cleveland. They couldn't afford to pick
15:43
take people away from New York in LA or Chicago, but you know Miami,
15:48
Kansas City, you know Houston, and like there's this kid from Mary
15:52
Pennsylvania. You know. And I was bottom of the ladder. But you
15:56
got to start somewhere right now, that's okay. I do want to tell
16:00
you before you go any further, and I don't want to sidestep your question.
16:03
Yeah, you know what, I'll get back to that remind me about
16:07
my my best moment in Erie. So anyway, so their eerie CNN was
16:12
was very interesting. A funny little side note to this story is it was
16:19
basically almost like like radio is now, headlines was run on computer q tones.
16:27
Even though the on air talent I hate to use that word talent,
16:32
but they do in TV. Even though the audio broadcaster was live, it
16:36
was very regimented. You know, in local news, you're watching the six
16:38
o'clock news, if the weather guy goes thirty seconds long, they usually tell
16:42
the sports guy in the commercial, hey go thirty seconds shorter. You know,
16:45
they can adjust, but on q tone it is set by computer,
16:51
so add exactly. You know, twenty minutes after the hour, the music
16:59
and the video for the beginning of the headline sports was going to roll,
17:02
and you had you know, it lasted about five six seconds. Then you
17:06
start talking on jerone Drenovicy in the headline sports and you did your thing,
17:10
and you had during the week, you had a minute. It was a
17:11
minute forty two to a minute forty seven. Couldn't go longer. Nothing worse
17:17
than saying Jerome Dremnet and cut off because you went too long. You sound
17:19
like an idiot. Correct. So I wasn't that efficient in radio, and
17:26
the other guys were kind of did a little bit of both, and they
17:30
were more experienced. So I was petrified I was going to go too long,
17:33
so I kept rushing through my report, you know, and I kept
17:37
finishing too short. It was like a minute thirty eight, and they're looking
17:41
at me in the control room like you gotta keep talking. I know it's
17:44
only nine seconds, but it sounds like nine minutes, you know, on
17:47
television. So the next time I went down there, I said, oh
17:49
my goodness, I'm never going to let that happen again. So what do
17:52
I do. I do the same thing. I come up like nine seconds
17:56
short, but when I go to say my name, I go Jrone Jim
18:02
Seeing in headline Sports. I dragged it out for six seconds everybody, and
18:07
it was a minute forty five. It was perfect. Everybody in the control
18:11
room is laughing. It's not going on the mic. I could see them
18:15
through the class. They are laughing at me. And I walk out into
18:18
the newsroom and a couple of the malest most of the writers were women.
18:22
There were a couple of guys there, you know, Wandn't played football at
18:25
John Carroll in Cleveland. They were like, they were like, yeah,
18:27
this is pretty cool, you know. And I went upstairs and the guys
18:30
in the sports department were all over me. You know, man, are
18:33
they're just crushing me? And I said, you know what, I did
18:37
that one time and like forty different people reacted and I'm sure there's probably like
18:42
five hundred thousand people probably heard that. I guarantee you half of them were
18:48
laughing too. So I just started doing it that way every single time.
18:53
And you know, most of the guys would say Mark Mcasey and a headline
18:56
sports and that's fine, you know, they would just do it real professional,
19:00
And I just dragged it out in about three months in. I'm just
19:06
sitting there at my desk, getting ready to go into the control room and
19:10
do my thing. And who comes walking by but Ted Turner and he looks
19:15
at me and he goes, young, man, I like the way you
19:18
say your name. And I'm sitting there going that's total validation. Man.
19:22
Anybody can make fun of me all they want, but the big guy likes
19:25
I am never stopping and that's just because it was unique. First of all,
19:30
the unique name to begin with. You know, most people in our
19:33
business back in the day, they would have like a three syllable name,
19:36
like a Mark McKay, Jim Daniels. It was always like one syllable and
19:41
then two or two, and then one day they were all fake names,
19:44
of course, and I'm like, oh man, I'm keeping it because in
19:48
cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh and Cleveland and you know that rust belt in the
19:52
industrial Northeast, there are so many people from different countries in Eastern Europe that
19:56
came over, you know, on the boat. Whether you or Italian or
20:00
German, Slovak, Croatian like me, it didn't matter, you know,
20:03
and they needed somebody to relate to. You know, not everybody could be
20:07
you know, Bill Smith and you know Jim Johnson. So that was another
20:11
reason why I kind of caught on in popularity, and to be honest with
20:15
you, I probably would have stayed there. But when the time wandering an
20:21
aol thing started, they just start chopping heads. It didn't matter who you
20:25
were. And at that point I said, well, you know, they
20:30
came in one day and they said all of you guys are fired. Then
20:33
they called me up the next morning. They said, well, we didn't
20:36
realize what all you did because I was doing for four different networks. And
20:38
they said, can you come back. We'll keep you on for anywhere from
20:42
six months to eighteen months, and we'll pay you time and a half every
20:45
day. And I said, okay. So I went back and I started
20:51
looking run away. And about two months later, my cousin who was working
21:00
he was a record promoter, music promoter in the record industry, and we
21:06
were just chatting and I told him what was going on. He said,
21:08
email me your resume because he worked with Premiere Radio Networks out in LA.
21:14
And you know, they did the gem Rome Show, Doctor Laura ksey Ks
21:18
and Rush Lindbaugh, and they also ran Fox Sports Radio. They leased the
21:25
name Fox Sports from the Fox News Group, but it's Premiere Radio Networks.
21:30
And next thing I know, they're offering me a really nice chunk of change.
21:33
I almost doubled my salary if I came out there and weren't for him.
21:37
And I always wanted to live in LA. Never really worked in radio,
21:40
so that was a new experience for me. And you know, I
21:45
knew that my time was limited at CNN. I was fortunate that they kept
21:48
me. They kept two of us and they let the other twenty eight go.
21:52
So I went in and they wanted me to stay six months, and
21:56
I said, gott to go. I got an opportunity I can't pass up.
22:00
And I moved out to la and I fell in love with the city,
22:03
the palm trees, the weather, the energy, just loved everything about
22:06
it. Radio really wasn't my gig. It was nice not having to wear
22:11
a suit and tie and put on makeup, but it was a little different.
22:14
It was a different monster. But it only took about a month to
22:17
really transition for me. I was doing updates during the week and on the
22:22
weekend, I hosted the Major League Baseball Show with Kevin Kennedy and then hosted
22:26
the NFL Show. We had a rotating group. Jim Morris Senior came in
22:34
an awful lot, Marv Leavy came in every once in a while. It
22:40
was kind of an interesting group that we had. When we were on the
22:45
main Fox lot. Jim Brown James Brown would come in when he got off
22:49
the air after the final wrap up of the West Coast Games. He'd come
22:53
down to like the last half hour with us. Brad John never came down
22:56
to dirty red bastard. I love the guy to death though him and how
23:00
he never came down. But you know, I was out there for about,
23:04
like I said, for about four years, and then Denver called and
23:07
it was a chance to get back into television. And I had never worked
23:11
for a regional, so I'd never covered just two teams. Now you're covering
23:17
two leagues, of course, but you know you're covering two teams. And
23:22
it was an eye opening experience for me because there is a part of you
23:27
that wants to be a homer. I'm employed by the Avalanche and the Nuggets.
23:32
They are writing my paycheck. I also worked with them, and my
23:36
job is a hundred times easier when they win because the players are in a
23:40
good mood. The interviews are easier to get when they score a lot makes
23:45
the postgame show so much better. It gives you more material for the next
23:48
pregame. Life is good when you win, and you want them to win
23:53
for selfish reasons. You also want them to win for you know, business
23:57
reasons and for economic reason and your viewership and ratings are going to go up
24:03
if the team is winning because there's more interest in them, you know,
24:06
more people in the stands, making for an exciting I like, there's a
24:10
there's a million of reasons why. And I went out there. And when
24:15
I was at CNN, it was night and day than what it is now.
24:18
CNN back then was a and I don't want to say they're not legitimate
24:22
now, but it was hardcore facts only, no opinions. You know nowadays,
24:29
you know you watch CNN or you watch Fox, and these anchors will
24:32
give you a new story, They'll they'll tell you something and then they'll throw
24:34
in a little snide comment afterwards. You know that you would get fired at
24:38
CNN back in the day if you did something that they were. They were
24:42
solid journalism one oh one and there was no stepping over any any boundaries back
24:48
then. The business has changed and they all do it now, but back
24:52
then, no way. So I came and all of a sudden, I'm
24:55
like, well, do I do you know facts? You know Avalanche won
24:59
the game three two? You know the outshot the wild or you know,
25:03
do I throw a little levity in there? And I know from gaining popularity
25:08
with the way I did in my voice look all the successful sportscasters, they
25:14
all add their personality. They all add their personality, right, Nobody did
25:18
it better and bigger than Chris Berman, you know. And it's personality plus
25:25
the guys that are solid and do a solid job and buy the book and
25:29
buy the numbers. You can count on them, but you'll never remember who
25:33
they are. And the guys that have a little bit of personality and throw
25:37
in a little wit, you know, as long as they're not being a
25:40
jerk, you know, people people enjoy that. People like them. And
25:44
I I just started rolling the dice and I remember the the radio TV writer
25:49
in the Denver Post just crushed me. I don't know who this guy is.
25:52
He's a homer and all that. And my boss said, they'll listen
25:56
to that idiot. He's just a grumpy old man. You just keep doing
26:00
what you're doing because we're the home We're not ESPN doing an Avalanche game.
26:04
We are the Avalanche TV network, you know. And I'll never forget that.
26:11
And I thought to myself, I don't care who you are. There
26:14
are people that are not going to like you no matter what you do.
26:18
That's just life. And there are other people that are gonna love you even
26:22
if you're not good, just because you're representing their favorite team. So all
26:27
I can do is be myself. And when the opportunity, Denver was not
26:36
a good fit for me. The teams were fantastic. First year I go
26:38
out there, the hockey's on strike, so it was just Nuggets. And
26:42
then year two, I mean it was it was the second year of Carmelo
26:48
Anthony's run out there. So they were a good squad. She say,
26:53
went through three coaches in one season, and fatherly got George carl You know,
26:59
they make the playoffs, and they just kept losing to the Spurs every
27:03
year. But then again, everybody lost to the Spurs or the Lakers there
27:07
ten year rush, you know, you know, and then one of those
27:10
two teams would lose to the other. So one of those two was always
27:11
in the in the finals representing the West. You know, that was the
27:15
Shaq Kobe years and you know, Duncan Robinson years. So they were powerhouses
27:22
and Nuggets were a really, really good team. They just weren't quite on
27:25
that level. And you know, sadly, the bosses out there, they
27:37
were not they were not they were not experienced, they were not trustworthy.
27:44
There were three guys. I don't want to name their names. I would
27:45
never do that. But when Stan Crockey was taking bids to start his own
27:49
network, because he figured, why not, I can make a ton of
27:52
money if I had my own network and sold all the rights and you know,
27:55
sold all the advertising, instead of having somebody else do it for me.
28:00
They literally came from the Houston area and they took the budget from the
28:06
nineteen eighty six HSC which was the Houston regional that did the rockets and the
28:11
astros and stuff. And we're like nineteen eighty six, this is two thousand,
28:17
two thousand and five. So they were like forty percent lower than the
28:21
three other bids, so Stan went with them. When we launched, we
28:23
had one tape deck. One tape deck. I didn't even have a desk
28:27
to sit out. I did a Nuggets half hour pregame, halftime, and
28:33
half hour post game without an analyst, without highlights, and without scoreboard.
28:40
The only highlight we had was the truck would feed us the actual Nuggets highlights
28:44
from that day and we would record it on one tape deck. We couldn't
28:47
even edit because we only had one tape deck. It would record and then
28:51
play back to highlights. So in the post game I would show highlights of
28:52
the game that we just watched. I could never show highlights from other games
28:56
in action that night. And you know, that was where the radio experience
29:02
came in, because I had to talked for thirty minutes by myself, not
29:03
you know, not in cluding the commercials. And man was out of challenge
29:08
and didn't even know a desk the first year, and they were you know,
29:12
my executive producer, he didn't even know basic television terminology. And you
29:18
know, we had very young people running camera and a lot of them in
29:22
the control room. My director was good, the game people were experienced,
29:25
the producers and that they were top of the line and they are still there
29:29
and they are fantastic people, but you know, because it was the pregame,
29:32
they never had it. They threw it, you know. And the
29:33
director was good, but everybody else was like right out of college and they
29:37
didn't know anything, you know, and they're taking the wrong camera, they're
29:41
appointing at the wrong way, stuff, side of focus. I'm calling for
29:44
a score and they're they're putting up my name and it's and after two years,
29:48
it wasn't getting better, and I knew it wouldn't get better. And
29:52
the Atlanta thing popped up, and I said, you know what, I
29:56
don't want to live in the cold anymore. I don't know what the hell
29:57
I was thinking going back to the cold. Grew up in a cold stand.
30:00
It moved down stop. Then I moved in La where it's eighty five
30:03
and Sonny every day with palm trees. Next thing I know, it's freezing
30:07
cold in Denver. And Atlanta popped up, and because of the Avalanche connection,
30:11
I got the Atlantic Gig and it was an opportunity for me to work
30:17
with the experienced people both during the game and in pregame, and we had
30:22
a whole lot more equipment. We had. It was like working at a
30:26
legitimate sports network. And let me just put it this way, in my
30:30
first three years, I won three Mmies. I won eight Emmys in eleven
30:33
years. Never would have happened if I stayed in Denver, no matter how
30:37
good I was, it just wasn't gonna happen. So it would be the
30:41
difference between playing for like a last place team that's been in last place for
30:47
ten years. Remember how the Pirates struggled for twenty years. It'd be like
30:49
playing for the Pirates for two years and then all of a sudden, you
30:53
know, the Yankees say hey, we want you to start, and you
30:56
go into an organization that just spends and spends and bends. The next thing
31:00
you know, you're in the World Series. It was it was night and
31:02
day. It was just night and day, you know. And there were
31:04
good people back in Denver, a lot of good people and made a lot
31:07
of friends, and you know, I wished them well. I was happy
31:11
the Apps won that Cup because I'm still friends with the producer of the game
31:15
there should he sent me up He texted me a picture of him in the
31:18
locker room holding the Stanley Cup and all the players were showering him with champagne.
31:22
Up Man, that's the greatest moment of your life, next to your
31:26
son being born. And he said, you're exactly right. And I know
31:29
the Nuggets game producer really well, he's still there, been doing it,
31:33
grew up in Denver, he'd been doing it for probably thirty years, good
31:36
man, and I know he's fingers crossed this year that they can get back
31:40
to the Lakers. I'm rooting for him. To get by the Lakers,
31:41
you know, for those people. So in Atlanta fifteen years, man,
31:45
what can I tell you? When I started, Smoltz was still there with
31:48
the Braves. So you had Smoltz and Chipper and that crew, and they
31:55
started to fade out. They Chipper was still there, but surrounded by a
32:00
bunch of average players, and then Chipper retired and they were bad for two
32:04
or three years. They were bad. They were the question was will this
32:08
marquee franchise lose one hundred games? And they came pretty dark close. They
32:12
lost over ninety two years in a row. That's when they had the Upton
32:15
brothers, and it was it was not good. But what they wisely did
32:19
was they wisely just sold off every decent veteran they had for draft picks,
32:28
and they went from one of the worst minor league systems in the majors to
32:34
one of the best. And then next thing, you know, I mean,
32:37
you see, they've won five divisions in a row in a World Series,
32:40
so it paid offful. So teams like teams like the Braves and so
32:45
forth, they're not going to be down long grave stealers. Those kind of
32:49
teams. They have good ownership they have good management. Eventually they're going to
32:52
get where they need to be. It's just impossible to stay on top as
32:54
long as they did. The Hawks have been a different story. But games
33:00
are a blast to work, man. It's it's high energy. I worked
33:02
with a ton of good people, you know. Bob Rathman, one of
33:06
the one of the great uh played by played guys in the business. Did
33:08
the Tigers for I think a year or two. Yeah, he did.
33:13
During the middle it was like right after they got rid of Ernie, the
33:15
dumbest decision they could have possibly be made, and before they brought him back.
33:17
Um. And then uh, Dominique was my was my analyst on pre
33:23
and post for a year and now he's the game analyst. Um. And
33:27
it's just, uh, it's you know, I mean, even when the
33:30
Hawks were bad, they were fun. And their first eight years I was
33:34
there, they made the playoffs every year, and then they struggled for a
33:37
bit. They brought in coach Bootenholzer. Next thing you know, they win
33:38
sixty games. They're battling Lebron for the Eastern Finals. And then they didn't
33:44
sign a couple of guys and Bud got mad and so he left and they
33:46
struggled for a while. And now they got Trey young and a couple of
33:50
young guys around him. And they're not bad that they're they're just not up
33:54
for echelon. You know. Well, you know, Droom drew a lot
34:00
of people when you were there, So I got a couple of drills.
34:04
I need you to take care of it. You saved your own. Jaranovitch
34:07
was six seconds. I can only imagine what Howard Schnellenberger would do a that
34:10
big good name. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you
34:15
drag you drag out Durantovitch, then you drag out headline. You know.
34:19
Just trying to keep your breath the entire time was a challenge, but you
34:22
know, uh, they were fun jobs, a lot of jobs. I
34:27
told you. I wanted to tell you about a highlight of my my first
34:30
job in here. Yeah, please do um. When I first started there
34:35
as a cameraman, they didn't have cable in here yet, their largest city
34:37
didn't. They didn't have cable till nineteen eighty four. So they get cable,
34:42
but most of the city still hadn't had it yet. You know how
34:44
it is, back when they were putting in cable. You had to wait
34:45
five hours for the cable now to show up, and then he never showed
34:47
up. That's you know it was. That's how it was back then.
34:52
Um, so we're at work and I'm the weekend sports at Castor So I'm
34:58
recording everything I can off of it NBC, CBS, ABC, ESPN,
35:02
MSG. I didn't care who it was. I mean I showed more Islanders
35:05
and Rangers highlights in erie than I did Penguins because they were always on TV
35:08
and I couldn't get the Pens. So I showed a ton of NBA.
35:12
I love basketball, showed a ton of NBA and none of the other stations
35:16
you know this, ABC and NBC. The locals there, they didn't care
35:21
about that stuff. Yeah, they would rather repeat a sound bike from a
35:24
Friday night high school football game then show the Celtics seventy six years game from
35:30
earlier that day. I'm thinking this is nuts, you know. So you
35:32
know I'm showing a ton and I don't mean like twenty seconds per game.
35:37
I'm going like forty five fifty seconds. I mean, if you're a sports
35:39
fan, I was doing eight to ten minutes at six o'clock on Sunday Night
35:44
and another tenant for the eleven. So the Pirates had fired their manager and
35:50
they had hired Jim Leland. Now he was Laruss's third base coach with the
35:53
White Sox. Well, you know, back in the eighties like that,
35:58
you didn't have the Internet. You had no way of knowing what Jim Leland
36:01
looked like. If you guys remember the old baseball media guides, they had
36:06
these little black and white photos of the assistant coaches in him. And we
36:09
didn't have the American lead because we covered the Pirates, so I had no
36:13
idea what Jim Leland looked like. And Meadville, PA, hometown of Sharon
36:17
Stone, tiny little town, you know, maybe eighteen thousand people, but
36:23
they had a fantastic high school sports banquet. They would bring in Steelers and
36:28
Pirates, Indians and Browns and it was big time. And so Leland was
36:32
supposed to come. They had just hired him. So my boss goes,
36:37
hey, run down the Meadville. It's like forty five minutes. Awagas run
36:39
down in the mediall. I'll try to get an interview. You know,
36:42
it's just one or two soundbites with this Jim Leland guy about being the new
36:45
managger. I said, okay. So I go walking in the front door.
36:47
Everybody that walks in, they get handed a baseball and I'm like,
36:52
okay, and my cameraman takes one. I take one, shove it in
36:53
my pocket. We walk in really stargels there, Don Robbins and these guys
36:58
they're shaking hands, their fingers or Lexi Gars. I'm like, oh my
37:00
God. Talked to a couple of the players and this one guy goes,
37:05
I'm going to do you the biggest favor in your young career. And I
37:10
go what. He goes, You're the new guy that plays all the basketball
37:13
highlights, right, I said, yeah. He goes, you're the only
37:15
one that shows NBA. I love the NBA. He goes, go in
37:17
the kitchen, and I go what he goes, Just trust me. Go
37:22
in the kitchen and wait there. So I look at my cameraman and I
37:25
go into kitchen and it's like, you know, one of those New York
37:29
kind of big places, you know, the doors that flapped as the waiters
37:31
are going in and out with the trace. And I'm sitting there going my
37:36
competition is out there getting interviews with Browns players, and you know I'm gonna
37:42
get fired. And within like thirty seconds, these five big Italian goom bass
37:47
and these silk suits come walking in the back doors, just out of the
37:51
sopranos. Man, it was unbelievable. And who's behind him Joe DiMaggio.
37:57
They didn't even announce it. He was the surprised speaker. So there's chose
38:01
the bus show and I looked at my Cago turn out late on. I
38:05
go, mister Demagio, can I ask you a few questions? He goes,
38:07
sure, young man. He walks right up, pure class, just
38:10
like everyone's always talked about him. I was so nervous. I called him
38:14
mister Demajo and every question they left me ask five, mister Demajio, what
38:17
do you think about George Steiner? Mister you know? And he answered them
38:22
all eloquently. And what was funny was after about the third question, at
38:27
the bottom of the screen, like where my fingers are right now, all
38:30
you start seeing was ballpoint pens and baseballs. All the little kids knew we
38:36
were in there, and they came running in the kitchen. They were holding
38:37
up their balls and stuff, and Joe starts signing while he's talking to me
38:42
it was awesome. So one of the guys whisper in my year's final question
38:45
and I nodded, yeah, sure. I asked them the fifth question,
38:50
and I thanked him, and as he started walking away, I go,
38:52
mister Demajo, I said, you know, members of the media aren't really
38:57
supposed to ask for autographs. But I'm not at a stadium, and even
39:00
if i were, I really, frankly don't care because you were Joe di
39:04
Maggio. Would you sign my ball too? He goes absolutely, And I
39:07
shoved that ball in my pocket. It's in my safe upstairs. I mean,
39:12
I've been in I've been on air for six months that I'm interviewing Joe
39:15
to Maggio in me Ville, PA, of all places, I mean,
39:20
just a little cow town at Western PA. I couldn't believe it. I
39:22
thought, this is the greatest thing in the world. Showed up. Who
39:24
gets to interview Joe to Macio? You know, when you're twenty two years
39:28
old. It was great. It was just great. It was awesome.
39:31
Well, in the eyes of wol Vogel, that's an amazing story. I
39:35
know you got a kick out of what I sent you. Muhammed Ali at
39:37
nineteen years old when I sent you that one. Yeah, yeah, Ray
39:42
Leonard, but no that Jomajo. See. So let's go to the chat
39:45
room real quick. I want to continue with a lot of great stuff,
39:49
and we're so happy to have you, Jerome. Your stories are unlivable.
39:54
Before we go, I gotta tell you the Bill McPhail story. It blows
39:59
everybody away. If you're an NFL fan, let me tell you. Now,
40:01
let me tell you. Okay, So I told you Bill was the
40:05
very first president of CBS Sports. And this was back, you know,
40:09
in the day when CBS was running the New York Giants and they just sent
40:15
it all over the country. They you didn't Roselle was he went anywhere near
40:19
the NFL at the time, right, So the AFL was just you know,
40:23
NBC up in the Northeast. It really wasn't all that big of a
40:27
deal yet. And Bill hired Frank Churkinny and the legendary producer of The Masters.
40:31
He hired Pat summer All. He hired every big name that we grew
40:36
up watching when we were very young, every major sportscaster. Bill mcphil hired
40:40
him. So Bill's telling me a story, and I'm reading this great book
40:46
right now. It's about the seventies football, the Steelers and the Cowboys and
40:52
tech Shram. So tech Shram is general manager pr director of the Rams,
40:58
and he had a young man named Pete was all working for him, and
41:01
you know, the Ram struggle whatever. And tech Shram gets fired and Bill
41:07
hires Texts. Because Bill, you know, he knows all the NFL people
41:12
don't know anybody in AFL. He hires all. So he hires tech Shram
41:15
as the vice president of CBS Sports. The only thing tech Shram knew at
41:21
the time about TV was how to turn one on and turn one off.
41:23
He didn't know it about TV. But Bill's doing his buddy a favor,
41:27
right, I mean, we all do it if we could. So Texas
41:30
working there, and text turned out to be a brilliant television negotiator on behalf
41:36
of the NFL. He learned he was not a dummy by any means.
41:38
I'm just saying he didn't have a TV background. So one day tech Shram
41:43
comes in, or Bill goes up to tech Tram. He goes, hey,
41:45
Bill, there's an NFL banquet tonight. You know, as the president
41:49
of CBS Sports, I get invited to these things every day. I don't
41:52
want to go. You're going to see a lot of your old friends.
41:55
Why don't you go? Represent CBS go to the banquets today in Texas.
41:59
Sure love to go. So Text goes and he sits at this table and
42:05
he's sitting next to a man who he knew of but had never met personally.
42:09
And the man at the time was the defensive coordinator of the New York
42:14
Giants and his name is Tom Landry. So about three months later, tex
42:21
Shram walks into Bill's office and says, Bill, I don't know how to
42:23
say this to you. You hired me when I needed a job. You
42:27
didn't need to hire me. You could have hired something more experience. I'm
42:30
internally grateful, but I have an opportunity to go back into the NFL.
42:35
They're starting a brand new franchise in Dallas, Texas, and they want me
42:37
to run it. And Bill goes by, all means, you gotta go.
42:42
That's the opportunity of a lifetime. Who's the first person tex Shram hires
42:46
Tom Landry and Bill mcphil goes to that dinner that night instead of tech Shram,
42:52
Tetram never meets Tom Landry and the history of the Dallas Cowboys in the
42:55
NFL as we know it today has completely changed. All because Bill phil didn't
43:00
want to go to dinner that night. Isn't that crazy? Isn't that crazy?
43:02
Now, that doesn't mean that text. Maybe he would have hired him
43:06
anyway through interviews or whatever. But the whole point was he spent all nights
43:09
sitting right next to him at the table talking football, talking philosophy, talking
43:13
life, and you got to know the man. And when soon as he
43:15
got the job, because I don't need to interview five people, I'm hiring
43:17
Tom Landry. That's just to me, that just blows me away. Just
43:21
because Bill didn't want to go to dinner, that's Stuff's crazy. Well,
43:23
when we tell you this, Okay, when I covered a Super Bowl here
43:25
in Miami, I am an opportunity this one time with Hayt tech shram Rather
43:31
and we talked for a long time. He was so gracious with his time.
43:34
It was ridiculous. This guy. Yeah, he was a yard guys,
43:37
you know, a marketing guy at start that they always said he was
43:40
great with the meeting. He always pays for the media to eat, whether
43:46
they were on the road or home. He always took care of the tap
43:49
in the meeting. And that's part of the way, one of the way
43:52
you get favored, you know, favored coverage. Right, you know you're
43:54
you're a little less likely to crush him when they're losing. If the guy's
43:59
paying for your meals, you feel bad because you like, you know,
44:00
yeah, he was no dummy. Well you're true crowds at CNN. So
44:05
now I have I gotta take a couple of things. We have a lot
44:08
to talk about, and we'll stay on as long as you want to because
44:12
we're just getting warmed up here. First of all, will everybody know that
44:15
the audio version the Sports Exchange can be heard on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify,
44:21
Google, wherever you get your podcasts. Please hit the red subscribe button
44:23
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44:28
comment, like, and share the broadcast. Want to be a guest,
44:30
send topic ideas to selfworda tribute at gmail dot com, or do what you're
44:35
doing. Purchase fate in the chat room. If you want to advertise costs
44:38
efficiently call me at nine five, four three or four or four nine for
44:42
one, we are live on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube having a
44:45
blast of Jerome jaranovat Chari Jerome. We gotta go to the chat room because
44:51
you got a lot of fans out here. The pundits poet that says what's
44:53
up mentors to say and I and I grew up with Jerome Geranovich on Headline
44:58
Sports, So there you go. John yet wove Vogel is one of the
45:01
most active guys on the planet. Here's one of his favorite. Uh.
45:06
Well, he'd love to have you on basketballs if you're available. But you
45:08
know what the main thing is, I'm falling in love with these stories.
45:12
Joined the club. I haven't quiet this long, and I don't mind.
45:16
You'll leave it to you when you come up with stuff like this, all
45:20
right, we'll continue wait wait to you guys. Here the most embarrassing uh
45:24
part of my career and I'm not ashamed to tell it because it's so hilarious.
45:30
But you know, I thought my career was over when it happened.
45:35
But I want you to keep going with what you're doing. And oh,
45:38
we're gonna do that, hey, Jerome, And there's originally that story.
45:42
These guys will love it. He's ever men and women? Who's ever ladies?
45:45
You know I don't want to be that way. Who's ever listening?
45:47
Uh? You know? Male female? I know you're all sports fans,
45:51
and I'm sure you'll all agree it's it's embarrassing. But if you can't laugh
45:54
at yourself, who can you laugh at? Right? Well? No,
45:57
no, I'm with you, so Joshua Burnley's is what's going on? All
46:00
right? We got to go up the ladder, my friend Jerome, And
46:04
you know what, after talking to you last week, I knew that we
46:07
were only going to go with the Soul show, and boy, my instincts
46:10
were dead on Jeremy Bee. We'll see it around night. But hello,
46:15
gentlemen, Jeremy b you're on with Jerome Jernovitch? Alright? What else?
46:20
And you camp biting? What is Nie camp biting about? Detroit Lions Campbell?
46:29
Oh, coach Campbell and one of will Vogo's earlier ones. Wanting to
46:34
continue on, but he says, thank you for answering. My friend.
46:37
I wanted to ask you, did you ever work with I mean, Wilkins,
46:40
will you already? I worked with I worked with Dominique for fourteen years.
46:45
Consider him a good friend. Uh. The first year that we launched
46:50
Hawks Live, Grant Long, Grant Long. You Detroit people will remember Grant.
46:55
Grant was my analyst on the Hawks in post game at halftime. Year
47:01
two, it was Dominique. Then Dominique moved over to become the game analyst
47:06
with Bob Rathman and Mike the Stinger. Glenn and I were teamed up for
47:10
the last thirteen years. Jeff Francour, I love that man as a brother.
47:17
When my mother passed away back in twenty fifteen, he was the first
47:21
person to call me. Worked with Frenchie. I was a sideline reporter for
47:25
Frenchie's last three years with the club. When they traded him, I got
47:30
the first interview with him outside the locker room, and I got the first
47:34
interview with him as a member of the Atlanta Media in New York. Tom
47:39
Glavin worked with him. He's been doing it about four years. He was
47:45
doing it intermittently. A little bit love Tommy, you know what, I
47:49
think. Tom Glavin is brilliant on the year his first year, you know,
47:55
he was a little on the soft side, didn't want to interrupt.
48:00
Joe Simpson had a big personality you know, and Joe's was used to doing
48:02
it as a two man booth also, and there's a three man booth,
48:06
and you know, Tom had to learn when to interject and all that.
48:08
First of all, Tom is incredibly intelligent when it comes to First of all,
48:15
he's a really smart guy. You know, he was the lead player
48:19
wrap up when they were a strike. Unfortunately he's talking about that. He's
48:22
a very smart individual. But his baseball intellect is remarkable. And you know,
48:30
once they brought in Frenchie and moved Joe over to radio, Frenchie was
48:37
more. They just they complimented each other very very well, and Tom kind
48:40
of came out of his shell. And I could listen to Tom Glavin call
48:45
a baseball game one hundred and sixty two times a year. He's that good.
48:49
He doesn't want to call that many games. A lot of these guys,
48:51
you know, they made pretty good money. They don't want to be
48:52
you know, they traveled for twenty years. Next thing, you know,
48:54
you don't want to start traveling again. So he does mostly home games,
48:59
does couple of road trips. But I work with Glavitt and Frenchy and I
49:02
love those guys. Man, they're absolutely fantastic, great just you know,
49:07
one of the things about the Grave's organization, and they don't suffer fools.
49:13
You know, if you're a good player, but you're a jerk, they
49:17
will get rid of you. And they keep good people and they treat good
49:23
people well and it's all a matter of respect. And you know, when
49:29
you get to know people and like Chipper and Frenchy and Glavitt and stuff,
49:36
they're just really I mean they're good people. They are really really good people.
49:39
They're from different parts of the country, different backgrounds. They've had tremendous
49:45
athletic success and with that became you know, great financial rewards, but it
49:49
doesn't change who they are and they don't big time. Yeah, they're just
49:53
good dudes. You know. That's like what we say in Pittsburgh. He's
49:55
a good dude, you know, And that's what they are. And I
50:00
I you'll never hear me say a negative word about Glavin or Frenchie. I
50:07
literally love Jeff Francour. I mean he is just such a just a great
50:10
person man, great guy. All right, Well, you know what you
50:15
asked for it, you're gonna get it now. So all right, so
50:16
we're gonna go to the and we're just I got some great topics. Rome.
50:22
I'm so glad you got the energy. And I guarantee you one thing.
50:24
I won't lose my voice and you taking taking the uh adn't share all
50:31
that you did it for a lot of years anyways, having to curious show
50:36
by myself for thirty minutes, I'm used to talk, used to make us
50:40
feel the rain delays. I'm so mad. Tell him what we did,
50:46
Tell him what you gotta hear this one George telling what we did for six
50:50
hours on the Sports Exchange on a Saturday, God, from six till midnight.
50:55
Man, and most of our sign you talk about Lake Erie. Most
50:59
of our signal was going into Lake Saint Clair. We were in a suburb
51:04
of Detroit called Mount Clemens, Michigan, and with a heat we bartered the
51:07
time we got six hours. He wouldn't pay us a nickel, but he
51:10
says, you fill these six hours and then you also have to be the
51:15
morning drive sportscaster Monday through Friday. Yeah, but you get to keep all
51:21
your ad revenue. If you sell any ads, you get to keep all
51:22
your revenue. So unfortunately then only lasted about two years and then we kind
51:30
of walked away from it because it just wasn't wasn't producing the kind of revenue
51:34
that we wanted. So but you come up with features. Oh my god.
51:37
We had Dick bike Tal as our basketball analyst. We had Gary Veto,
51:43
a friend of Mike Keillich, to talk about softball, he was a
51:45
softball manager. On and on. I mean, we had bowling expert.
51:51
We had a football expert. Roger Stanton and his wife Pam were on the
51:54
show from Football News. It was a great show. And Scott and I,
51:59
yeah, we we certainly cut our teeth on that show with a fella
52:01
name filled with stella, Yeah, we did. And think about it.
52:05
Jerome, Okay, we're in there for six hours broadcasting. Can you imagine
52:08
the prep time that went in on that Saturday? And it was unreal.
52:12
I know. That's why it's just a blast when you and I and George
52:15
are on the same show. People. For all you out there that are
52:20
watching here on YouTube as well, there's a heck of a lot of experience
52:24
amongst the three of us. Yeah, and it is still cool to listen
52:28
to Jerome's story. So you asked for us, and now I'm really gonna
52:31
put you on this spot with his Jerome. Okay, we'll talk about your
52:35
biggest events highlights and you asked for it. Tell me your most embarrassing moments
52:39
in your career. That's a three part question, Jerome, biggest events,
52:44
highlights, and embarrassing moments in your career. Well, the demagio at the
52:50
beginning was the highlight. Perhaps my favorite memory doesn't have anything to do with
52:57
being in an actual broadcast. When I was working in Denver, there are
53:04
a boatload of former Major leaguers that live in the greater Denver area between Denver
53:10
and Colorado Springs because they all love the hunt Fish. A couple of former
53:15
major league umpires as well, and one of the guys had a son that
53:22
had an affliction I can't remember for the life of me which it wasn't downs,
53:25
but it was something similar and he wanted to put together charity baseball game.
53:30
He came up to Denver and asked if we would do some advertising Ford
53:32
on our show set absolutely and next thing and out he goes, Hey,
53:39
you want to play in it? And he asked me and two other members
53:43
of the Denver media if we wanted to play. And I'm thinking. You
53:45
know, I played in many of these type events in Erie and in Atlanta,
53:50
and it was always all the sportscasters, a couple of news reporters,
53:53
a couple of camera guys. You know. I go down there and there's
53:58
me and one other sportscaster, and everybody else is a former Major leaguer.
54:02
I remember Greg, Greg Brock, former Dodger. It was cracking me up.
54:08
These guys could all hit just like they could. When they first of
54:13
all called her out of springs, You're way up there in the altitude.
54:15
They are launching balls off the wall, but they couldn't run anymore. Their
54:19
legs were shot. So they're launching balls in deep right center, hitting the
54:22
wall on a fly and it's a single to them because they can't run.
54:25
They made me play center field. I have a bad back, too bad
54:28
knees. I'm like, oh my gosh. So he told me who was
54:32
showing up. It was really cool. It was the year after the All
54:35
Star Game in Houston, so they asked Major League Baseball. They sent us
54:39
all the All Star uniforms, and they asked, who's your favorite team?
54:44
So I said, well, I got a pirate's pillbox hat, I'll just
54:47
bring it. So we got to where the National League All Star uniforms the
54:52
ones they used in batting practice, you know, and then the other guys
54:55
had the American League, and then we all had our own hat. And
55:00
he told me Goose Gossage was going to show up. Goose is my favorite
55:02
Yankee by far. I just I just loved hard throwing relievers like that,
55:07
and he was in parts for year. He's phenomenal. So I have a
55:12
Gossage Yankees jersey. So I brought it with me and we're all sitting there
55:15
and these guys are slanted there is in the locker room, and it's like
55:17
a high school locker room practically. We're just laughing and joking, you know.
55:21
And I said, Goose, I said, I don't know if to
55:22
see a red opp of time to show this or whatever. And I don't
55:25
want to embarrass anybody else, I said, but I got this jersey.
55:29
Would you sign up for me? He oh, that's a Yankees jersey.
55:31
I go, yeah, let's turn it around. And he was genuinely touched
55:37
that it was number fifty four, that it was his jersey. He goes,
55:40
I said, Goose, I said, man, I loved you with
55:43
the Pirates. I did not want you to leave Pittsburgh. I lived in
55:46
New York City for a brief summer in eighty four. I said, the
55:51
day that Thurman's plane crashed, I kind of adopted the Yankees as my second
55:54
favorite team. I love you, I love Gidre met was rand Off,
56:00
even Reggie Billy. I just you know, I just was fascinated by you
56:07
guys. Man, And he goes, Jerome, I never wanted to leave
56:10
Pittsburgh, he goes. The day I went in and talked, I can't
56:14
remember who the GM's name was. He goes. My wife and I sat
56:17
in the pickup truck when he told me they weren't going to match the Yankees
56:21
offer, and I had to take the Yankees offer. It was ridiculous back
56:23
then compared to Pittsburgh's. He goes. We sat in my pickup truck in
56:27
an empty parking lot outside three of her stadium. My wife and I both
56:30
cried. We loved Pittsburgh so much, and I was like, Wow.
56:32
So we go out there to take BP before the game, and I go
56:37
up there. You know, the guys are just launching missiles, right,
56:42
and but they're maraged major leaguers. Hey, former major leaguers, obviously,
56:45
but still so I go in the box and all of a sudden, I
56:51
heard, Hey, I'll throw it to him. And Gossipe gets on the
56:53
hill and I'm thinking, oh my god, I get you know, I
56:58
know it's only VP, but I get to hit off Goose Gossage, how
57:00
cool is this? He goes, where do you want it? And I
57:01
said, beltie, fastball, middle of the plate. You know. He
57:05
goes, Okay, he threw that ball so fast. Fella said, it's
57:10
in the glove. And I don't even know if I moved my arms.
57:15
And I look back and the catcher's looking at me through the mask in the
57:17
umpire and they're just laughing because they know that this kid who hasn't played ball
57:22
since high school and never saw anything like that, right, And Goose has
57:27
this smirk, you know, It's like he's like, hey, where do
57:29
you want I go? Same spot, you know, And he must have
57:31
took a little off, you know, and I just I just through the
57:37
grace of guide, perfect contact, but I pulled it a little bit.
57:40
It was a frozen rope screamer down the left field line, but it was
57:45
followed by about ten feet or so, and Goose snapped his head like,
57:49
I can't believe he hit that ball. So I get in the box and
57:52
I'm waiting for another just juicy pitch in the middle of the plate. He
57:57
fricking buzt me. I went out. I got. I'm like, oh
58:00
my god, I'm laying and I got dirt all over me, and the
58:05
catcher and the umpire are laughing. I look out at the mound and Gossage
58:08
is like doing a belly laugh, and I'm thinking to myself, this could
58:13
be the greatest moment in my life. I just got dusted by Goose Gossage.
58:16
I mean, how many people can say that. You know, It's
58:19
one thing to interview a guy. It's another thing that Dusty in the game
58:22
went over three in a game because everyone had a different pitcher every inning,
58:27
and those guys were all still throwing in the high eighties, low nineties with
58:31
movement. This left you can't remember his name pitch for the Mariners. He
58:36
came out, He's thrown. I never saw a ball move like that,
58:38
you know, at least not right up on in the box. And I
58:44
ran my butt off that day because they were all just hitting. They were
58:46
a lot of long singles and all I did was chase, chase, chase,
58:50
chase, And it was just if Mark Knutson was the player that organized
58:54
the whole thing, And I wish I could would have kept a list of
59:01
who all the players were. So that's my favorite moment. So Demagio is
59:06
probably a career highlight. Getting dusted by Goose is maybe my favorite moment.
59:13
I've been to the Olympics. I've been to four Super Bowls. I've been
59:15
the three World Series. I've been to three All Baseball All Star Games,
59:20
an NBA All Star Game, Hockey All Star Game, Stanley Cup Final.
59:27
You know, I've been to Championship fight. The only thing I didn't I
59:30
never went. I haven't been to a NASCAR race, never went to NASCAR,
59:34
Indy Race or Churchill Downs. There was there only three big events I
59:36
didn't go to. I didn't go to the Kentucky Derby, I didn't go
59:38
to the Indy five hundred, and I never went to a NASCAR race.
59:42
And other than that, I've done everything you could possibly do. Um you
59:47
know, I mean, I've had a blessed career. My embarrassing moment is
59:52
one that every time I tell it it, you know, brings out a
59:55
couple of chuckles. You know, the cameras that we used to back then,
1:00:00
they're a lot different than you know now. They got this like four
1:00:02
and buy two inch color screen. Well back in the late seventies early eighties,
1:00:08
they were no different than those cheap VSCR cameras that you could buy for
1:00:12
your home. They's a little postage size black and white viewfinder, right,
1:00:15
you're squinting, You're trying to see in his little black and way viewfinder.
1:00:20
Right. So I'm doing my interviews in the middle of the Steelers locker room
1:00:25
after a game, big game. That's my first mistake. You're a young
1:00:30
person. You want to learn something. When you interview an athlete, make
1:00:32
sure he's standing in front of his locker. Never let him stand it with
1:00:36
his back to the locker room. So you know, my camera guy is
1:00:40
shooting video. I don't know what he sees in his viewfinder. I'm doing
1:00:45
the interviews. So I'm interviewing Stalworth, and you know I do Bradshaw,
1:00:47
Stalworth and Franco. We get the heck out of there, and we didn't
1:00:52
have news that night. So when we got back. We just put all
1:00:57
the equipment, you know, we just chucked it in there. I'll get
1:01:00
it tomorrow. I'll come in an hour early and I'll put together a sports
1:01:02
report before I have to go out and start doing the news for the day.
1:01:07
So we had these little square black and white waters. Cheap little square
1:01:09
black and white waters. Man. Let me tell you you weren't much bigger
1:01:14
than your iPhone. So you know, I'm in this booth and I'm you
1:01:17
know, I voice it, I write what I think is, you know,
1:01:22
something that Bob cost Us would be proud of, and you know,
1:01:25
and I voice it, and I start laying in the video highlights and then
1:01:29
there's you know, stop my track for a sound bite, more track and
1:01:31
a sound bite, and I'm slapping this together, and because the monitors are
1:01:36
so small, I'm focused on just what's in the middle of the screen,
1:01:40
if it's matching what I'm saying, right, And everything is going great,
1:01:45
And next thing you know, it's I'm running behind. News is coming in.
1:01:49
I got to edit all this stuff for news and go and at six
1:01:52
o'clock the news starts, and you know, we're starting to wind down.
1:01:55
And the Monday through Friday sports guy. He throws to my package. And
1:02:01
I'm in the back room. I'm trying to clean up. I can't even
1:02:05
watch it live, and I'm doing a million things, and all of a
1:02:07
sudden, the phone rings, and you know, here you Market one forty
1:02:12
four, and nobody ever calls the news department to say, hey, that
1:02:15
was a great story. You know you're gonna run it again in eleven,
1:02:17
right, And you know, one of the reporters, the assignment desk guy,
1:02:21
goes, hey, you gonna run that Steelers piece again at eleven?
1:02:23
I said probably, And then next thing into the phone start ring. We
1:02:28
got another call. Then we got two or three other calls. It's like
1:02:30
five people are calling, which is unheard of, unheard of, okay,
1:02:37
and I don't really know why. And you know, everyone saying, yeah,
1:02:43
it's gonna run again. It's gonna run again. You know this female
1:02:45
reporter, yeah, you know, no, it was We're just telling the
1:02:47
people yes. And the news director comes out of his office goes, hey,
1:02:51
Joell, did you do the Steelers piece? I said yeah. He
1:02:52
goes, hey, why don't you come on in here. I want to
1:02:54
talk to you about it, And so I go walking in there. You
1:02:58
know, I'm a chest puffed out like I am, Chris Berman, a
1:03:00
Bob Costas. We have five calls in two minutes. I'm bigger than life.
1:03:05
And I sit down on a chair, you know, and he goes,
1:03:08
let's watch your story together. And he's got this big, thirty inch
1:03:10
color monitor, so we put it in there. Starts out, you know,
1:03:15
Stalwarth catching this TV pass and then Stalwarth catching a pass over the middle,
1:03:20
you know, and it's focused on John big game, and all of
1:03:23
a sudden, here comes my first SoundBite with John Stalworth and he's in the
1:03:27
middle of the locker room, and all of a sudden, I look and
1:03:31
behind him in the far wall is the offensive lineman and there's a giant African
1:03:37
American and a giant white guy and all they have on or their towels.
1:03:42
They just got out of the showers and their backs are to us. And
1:03:46
I'm sitting there going, oh my god, please no, please know And
1:03:52
there go the towels and it is bare moon rising. Baby. We're talking
1:03:57
all four cheeks and I Am like, oh my god, these guys are
1:04:00
mooning. This is what people wanted to see. And I just you know,
1:04:03
I'm sitting there going, oh my god, he's never gonna let me
1:04:06
do a story again. And the piece continues, and I'm thinking, Spike,
1:04:13
he's another John's Stalwarts sound bite coming up, and I'm just horrified.
1:04:17
I am horrified. And here it comes John and the big office that the
1:04:24
one guy had gotten out of the picture, and the big white offensive lineman
1:04:28
is sitting there and he's got the towel between his legs and in the front
1:04:32
hand in the back and he's doing the floss and I'm oh, my lord,
1:04:39
I mean it was horrendous. I mean, I don't even want to
1:04:42
see myself do that when I get out of the shower. A little of
1:04:44
the guy some two hundred and eighty pounds in a locker room after a game,
1:04:47
and it's all over the TV. It's going to everywhere. That's why
1:04:50
everybody was calling. They couldn't believe they saw we put naked Steeler offensive lineman
1:04:55
on TV. And suffice it to say that I never put another show,
1:05:00
another report out on the air without watching it on at least, you know,
1:05:05
like a sixteen inch color monitor. Never did that again. I never
1:05:09
did that again. Long after that, they went ahead and got upgraded monitors
1:05:14
for all. Yeah. Yeah, they needed to do from the beginning.
1:05:17
So, Jerome, do you want to hear my Goose conscious story. By
1:05:19
the way, you're really popular the pund that's fund that they've given you an
1:05:23
invite to go on Basketball Sunday Night. Basketball's on Sideline Sports. Sideline Sports
1:05:28
happens to be a partner of ours. But I'll gotta give you my Goose
1:05:30
gotch story. Okay, back then, I was like twenty years old.
1:05:34
You know, Oh you aren't you and I aren't that far away age wise,
1:05:38
you know, so we're you know, parallels h wise. Anyways,
1:05:42
you know, I had a tip from a friend of mine who was a
1:05:45
sports anchor in Miami. He attempted to interview Goose Gotjens got nothing but one
1:05:49
or two word answers because Goose at that time didn't really want to talk to
1:05:54
a while people is more reserved at that time. We're talking about, mind
1:05:57
you in the eighties. So I knew I knew about this. I had
1:06:00
said, listen, a friend of mine as a local anchor, said,
1:06:03
you didn't go ahead and get him very long answers. I get it,
1:06:05
I totally understand it. But here's the deal. Okay, I got editors
1:06:10
rubbing down my throat and I can only ask you politely, please give me
1:06:15
more than two or three word answers, or I'm going to ask you a
1:06:18
lot more questions and get more audience, because any good journalists is going to
1:06:23
continue to go out there and probe. So if you want to make this
1:06:26
interview shorter, make your answers a little bit longer. He gives me this
1:06:30
interesting look and actually put I put together representative stories that didn't consume much of
1:06:36
his time that the editors were satisfied. I'm sure you probably run into situations
1:06:41
where how do you make a lot of short answers and you have to go
1:06:45
ahead work through that. So there are just some guys. We had a
1:06:53
reliever when I was the sideline reporter, Erico Flaherty, and he was the
1:06:57
same way. He just he just didn't want to He didn't like to do
1:07:01
the interviews, so he just gave it two or three word answers. And
1:07:08
whether he did it intentionally or that was his personality at the time, I
1:07:12
just figured I'm not going back to him. He's not a starter. Um.
1:07:17
He did become a very predominant role player in our in our bullpen,
1:07:24
when our bullpen got good, when Craig Kimball was there, he was one
1:07:28
of three guys, and him and Johnny Veners and Kimball the three up more.
1:07:31
They were like lights out. It was it was pretty phenomenal. Um
1:07:36
but Eric, I just avoided Eric because it was boring. And now what
1:07:43
does he do now? He does a podcast with the Braves Beat writer.
1:07:46
It's like, really, you wouldn't talk to me for more three words at
1:07:48
a time. Now you're doing thirty minutes at a time. You know.
1:07:51
It's like, you know, I've got one. Who was it? Not
1:07:55
not Shannon Shark, but Sterling Shark wouldn't talk to the media when he's playing
1:07:59
for the Packers, wouldn't talk to the media. And then he becomes an
1:08:00
ESPN analyst. I always thought it. I always I was always mad at
1:08:04
ESPN for hire. I don't know the man personally. I'm sure he's a
1:08:06
nice guy. He actually was pretty good. But that's not the point.
1:08:10
You did not want to cooperate with the media your entire career. Now you
1:08:13
want to be a member the media. I think that's very unfair. Tried
1:08:17
to cover you over the years. I've got one that compares to what you
1:08:19
just said. Retty. I'm covering the Tampa Tarpins, the class A affiliate
1:08:24
of the Reds at that time. And I know you've heard the name Chris
1:08:27
Hammond, right, Yeah, sure, I know Chris well well, but
1:08:31
I know it was back then, so you know, I'm sure he's much
1:08:34
a different cat now. But you know, he said, I want to
1:08:38
be like Carl, I want to talk to media really, okay, And
1:08:42
I'm thinking, okay, I mean, you know I can't answer. You
1:08:45
do what you want to do, but I would think in class say,
1:08:48
you'd probably want to if you get to the major leagues. I get it,
1:08:51
but not here. And you know, I politely said, okay,
1:08:55
no problem, don't want any convenience. Left it at that. And I'm
1:08:58
not one to hear and burn a bridge. I've never tried to do that
1:09:01
Jerome at all. But I'm thinking of my league. Guy wants to shun
1:09:04
the media when you're just trying to get attention to build your Yeah, you
1:09:08
know, baseball players are I have. It's been my experience. Let's put
1:09:14
this way. The baseball players were always the worst. I always defended them
1:09:17
because it's like an eight month deal. I mean they go down to spring
1:09:20
training and the media's in the locker room every day, and then the seat
1:09:25
it's one hundred and sixty two game season, and the media is in the
1:09:28
locker room every day, and you know, you're around them, and you
1:09:32
know they want to stretch, they want to do their routine, and somebody,
1:09:35
oh, can I stop? You know? And I did learn over
1:09:39
time that, especially if if you're following the team on a daily basis,
1:09:44
like we did that. If you go to Freddie Freeman on Monday and say,
1:09:48
Freddie, you know, I know you're getting ready to do your routine,
1:09:53
can you give me three minutes tomorrow or Wednesday? And he goes,
1:09:57
yeah, I'll give it. And most of the guys will say yes if
1:10:00
you set it up in advance. But if they're running from just getting their
1:10:05
stretching in or just getting iced or doing whatever, and they have to go
1:10:09
out and do X, they don't. They don't want to stop to answer
1:10:13
questions because they're in the middle of getting ready to do their job. So
1:10:16
I kind of understand that. And there's people every single day no, no,
1:10:21
no, no, I'm not excusing him. I'm just saying players in
1:10:25
general. You know, you're there every day we're football. You know,
1:10:28
you're there on Sunday, you're maybe there for one or two practices during the
1:10:31
weekend. That is it, right, you know? And you know the
1:10:34
hockey guys, you know there's two or three beat guys and that's really about
1:10:39
it. Um. Well, the guys, once they get to know you,
1:10:43
they're pretty cool. They're they're probably the um. Hockey players are the
1:10:46
best with the meat. Yes, And when the NBA guys know you,
1:10:50
when they get to know you and they let their guard down, they're really
1:10:55
cool. They're really guys like that too. But you know the thing is,
1:10:58
though, Jerome, I would work for the Tampa Tribute, not some
1:11:00
weekly paper. And you remember the Tampa Tribune was a big newspaper back in
1:11:05
the day until newspaper business got turned around. And yeah, you're right,
1:11:10
hockey players, Yeah, I don't have a lot of problem with both.
1:11:13
In this situation though, Jerome, it was kind of like that exception of
1:11:15
the rule where it's a minor league player versus a major league player. Stitude,
1:11:21
Dude, you're you're in single A. You may I don't even make
1:11:24
it a double ay exactly that you know. But but regardless of mean,
1:11:30
as a reporter, you have to accept what you're going to accept. But
1:11:33
that's why I found it pretty unique. But you know what, I'm gonna
1:11:35
tell you this though, Jerome, I've made a lot of good friends in
1:11:39
baseball and I've had a lot and I can tell you if you follow a
1:11:42
lot of the things I've done, you'll realize that, hey, you know,
1:11:44
this guy knows a whole lot. And as we get to make you,
1:11:47
Lolas, just a little teaser because we're having a lot of fun,
1:11:50
stay tuned, we have you have a little more time there, Jerome.
1:11:55
Yeah, I gotta get going here in a minute or so. So why
1:11:58
don't you do what you need me to do? That? Sent Well,
1:12:00
I got to ask you one, did you know Fred Hickman very well?
1:12:03
I knew Fred Hickman very very well. I figured you did, and he
1:12:08
had him. We had him up in Detroit on the NBC affiliate for a
1:12:12
couple of years. So I worked with Fred for Yeah, I worked with
1:12:15
Fred fifteen years at CNN and then he uh when I came back to Atlanta
1:12:20
about two years later, he joined us and I was working with him again.
1:12:26
Uh, we were That's what I was doing sidelines. He was hosted
1:12:30
a pre and postgame show, and then he left to go down to New
1:12:35
Orleans and then Baton Rouge, and then he went to the Black News Channel.
1:12:39
And even even after he left, we would talk on the phone probably
1:12:43
twice a year. It was really in you know what. He never told
1:12:46
anybody he was sick, and I can't remember the last time I talked to
1:12:51
him. And I remember telling my wife. I said, you know,
1:12:57
I said, I haven't heard from Fred. I said, I wonder what's
1:12:59
up with a hitman? And what prompted that question was the Black News Channel
1:13:03
said they were going to go out of business, and I said, I
1:13:05
wonder what Fred's gonna do? Man, I said, you know, I
1:13:08
haven't heard from Fred in a while. And within just a week or two
1:13:12
went by and he had passed. I was I was stunned. I was
1:13:16
stunned. Good dude, What I'm going to do with the rest of the
1:13:19
show, okay, is I'm going to go rapid fire? Because when I
1:13:24
promote, they go rapid fire. Oh yeah, they're do it all right,
1:13:28
we'll do it our first well, as George was getting to let's talk
1:13:30
about seeing it's worth in its prime. Obviously had the opportunity to work with
1:13:34
Hannah Storm, Nick Charles and Fred Heckman. What was that like working with
1:13:38
those particular individuals. Nick and Fred were the cream of the crop. Nick
1:13:45
and Fred were in a class by themselves in sportscasters. Among sportscasters, there
1:13:49
was a time when Sports Tonight had much better ratings than Sports Center at eleven
1:13:54
o'clock. And that is why Sports Center moved from eleven thirty to eleven because
1:14:00
people were sports fans were tuning into Nick and Fred and then they are going
1:14:02
to bed because they to go to work, and X stay Why I stay
1:14:04
up an extra half an hour? They didn't need to. And they first
1:14:10
of all, nobody knew boxing and horse racing like Nick Charles. He was.
1:14:15
He was just phenomenal. There's video you could probably google it when you
1:14:20
see Mike Tyson when he's arrested and he's in the Marion County prison and he's
1:14:26
walking out. He's in a suit tie, he's got his hands in his
1:14:29
handcuffs with the overcoat overs and he's walking through and all the cameras and lights
1:14:32
are flashing. He stops and he looks at the camera goes, how you
1:14:36
doing, mister Charles, and he keeps going. That's respect when Mike Tyson's
1:14:41
arrested for rape and he stops in the middle of that to say hello you.
1:14:45
I mean, Nick was just he was just superb at what he did,
1:14:49
and he was just a really good human being. And I don't think
1:14:53
there was a better presenter than Fred. Fred's the kind of guy that he
1:14:58
didn't have to know what the he was talking about. He just sat there
1:15:01
and smiled into that camera and made you feel like he was talking to you
1:15:04
and you alone, and that he knew what he was talking about. When
1:15:06
after time he did he would track me out that ain't right, you know,
1:15:11
and uh he he was one of those just naturally gifted television and nonsens
1:15:19
and we just had funny and funny man. CNN Sports back then was like
1:15:25
a giant fraternity house. It was so much fun and a lot of the
1:15:29
stuff we did was probably politically incorrect. One thing we did was crazy.
1:15:33
We gambled like crazy. We amongst ourselves. We would throw five dollars in
1:15:40
a big can and everybody would pick out a name, whether who's going to
1:15:44
be the MVP for the All Star Game, you know, who's going to
1:15:46
win the US Open, every major golf event, every big anything big.
1:15:53
We were throwing in money and picking out names and stuff, and it was
1:15:58
it was, it was just amazing. I remember one time, Gary Miller,
1:16:01
who went on to work at ESPN as well. We were in this
1:16:04
intense battle for I used to play just baseball in one of those Rodo leagues,
1:16:14
you know, and we had a small league because it was just too
1:16:16
intense. Everybody was working. I think we had we had five starters,
1:16:19
three relievers, No, three starters, two relievers, and five position players.
1:16:28
Didn't matter what position. They just couldn't be the same position unless it
1:16:31
was outfield, Like you couldn't have five first basement because obviously that's a lot
1:16:34
of power. So and I and we had a baseball show on Saturday morning.
1:16:39
How Bodily would fly in and be our analysts, you know, and
1:16:42
whoever was playing the Braves, we'd send the car to pick up one of
1:16:45
the star players from the visiting team to come in as a guest. And
1:16:47
I remember coming in. It was Saturday morning and we were playing the Reds.
1:16:57
The Braves were playing the Reds. I wasn't I still see at the
1:16:59
time. And I come walking in and Gary Miller's already there, and our
1:17:01
desks were next to each other. I ain't even got to and I'm looking
1:17:04
up at the monitors because we had twelve monitors up there and there showing highlights
1:17:06
from all these games. And Miller goes, how you doing? And I
1:17:11
said, those mother f and Reds, I'd like to kick every one of
1:17:15
their asses. And Gary Miller goes, let me introduce you to Paul O'Neill.
1:17:18
He's sitting right there. And man, I got worry. Man,
1:17:24
Oh my god. And I'm like, oh, embarrassing was that? But
1:17:28
it was a lot, a lot of fun. Dan Patrick and Gary Miller
1:17:31
or a weekend people. And then Patrick went to ESPN. They hired Hannah
1:17:35
Storm and Dan Hicks. That's how those two ended up getting married. They
1:17:39
were sitting right next they got hired at the same time. They were sitting
1:17:42
all the way at the end of the department, right next to each other.
1:17:45
They were like two newbies and new department and they were great. Everybody
1:17:48
liked both of them, you know. But because they were working together same
1:17:51
I were the same shift, and next thing, you know, you know,
1:17:55
came one of those office romances. And now look at them. You
1:17:57
know, they both had a great career. Yeah, talk about Hannah Storm
1:18:00
real quick. And then I had one more CNN question as we try to
1:18:02
educate some students. Hannah Storm obviously one of the finest people out there.
1:18:08
For sure, I'll you talk. You know, I had the opportunity to
1:18:11
leslie this or recently and the pioneers of women and Hannah Storm certainly to me,
1:18:15
is certainly somebody that I have so much respect for. Yeah, Hannah
1:18:20
and I used to have this little rivalry. She went to Notre Dame.
1:18:25
I'm a huge Penn State guy. And it was so funny because Penn State's
1:18:33
playing Notre Dame. It's November, it's late, Notre Dame is ranked number
1:18:39
one in the country, and Penn State's there. You know, there's touchdowns
1:18:43
Jesus, and Notre Dame's up seven nothing. She walks behy my desk and
1:18:46
just looks over the shelf and gives me a little smirt. Next thing you
1:18:49
know, it's fourteen nothing and she comes over all since she's patted me on
1:18:54
the shoulder. Oh that's okay. Maybe your little lions, you know,
1:18:58
you know, have a better Dame, you know, this kind of stuff.
1:19:00
And I'm sitting there and I am just burning, man. I want
1:19:02
to strangle her, you know. And then next thing, you know,
1:19:05
it's like seventeen seven at the half and she's over there cloathing, and you
1:19:12
know, I'm getting round. I'm getting ready to go on the air,
1:19:14
and we're doing our gig and I'm looking and I am live on the air
1:19:19
in a broadcast booth and I'm looking through the window as I'm doing my spiel
1:19:25
and Penn State kicks a field goal as time expires to win twenty four twenty
1:19:30
one. Notre Dame had never lost in South Bend in November when they were
1:19:35
ranked number one, until they lost Paternal beat Holts. I stopped broadcasting.
1:19:40
I flung open that door and I started going we are, we are,
1:19:45
and I ran over and I jumped up on hand as desk and I was
1:19:47
jumping on her desk. Oh my gosh. She was ready to kill me.
1:19:50
She was ready to kill me. But it was awesome. And people
1:19:54
are like drunk, you know, you're supposed to be on the air,
1:19:55
I'm like, I don't even care, even care, all right, so
1:19:59
let's stay the CNN thing and then we have a few more. I wanted
1:20:01
to definitely get to because I know a lot of people have been asking me
1:20:04
to. I've had a lot of input going into this thing as we promoted
1:20:09
it, So I guess I should ask, isn't it a shame that CNN
1:20:13
Sports Tonight didn't last? Because I thought it was a formidable competitor of the
1:20:17
ESPN Sports Center And you already stated that headline, first of all headlines was
1:20:25
the breaks. The commercial breaks before and after that minute forty seven, two
1:20:28
forty seven on the weekend sold out every all day, twenty four hours a
1:20:30
day. The only breaks that were completely sold out all the time. CNN
1:20:35
Sports Tonight very profitable. Our sports department was probably one fifth the size of
1:20:41
ESPNS at the time, maybe even smaller than that. I mean, we
1:20:44
had like ninety people, but you think about ESPN they have thousands up there,
1:20:46
right, And we had quality people every I mean, you know,
1:20:54
from the on air people to the producers to the editors that young people were
1:20:58
good and we did great work and it didn't go away because it was bad
1:21:02
and it didn't go away because it wasn't making money. It went away because
1:21:06
Time Warner merged with CNN and everything was fine. The only people that really
1:21:12
lost their jobs. CNN had a publishing branch. They got rid of that
1:21:15
because obviously Time Warner was publishing right between you know, Time Newsweek, Sports
1:21:18
Illustrated and all the hardcover stuff and everything. It was a great merger.
1:21:23
You know, everybody's getting along, right, And then AOL body and they
1:21:28
overpaid and they realized, you know, they wanted to stream video and content,
1:21:34
and that's what everybody does now we stream, right, but nobody was
1:21:40
streaming in two thousand, ninety nine and two thousand, so AOL was losing
1:21:45
money. It just right down to toilet. And what does every company that
1:21:51
has bad managers when they make bad decisions, what's the first thing they do.
1:21:56
They get rid of people because that's their biggest expense. And they just
1:22:00
out there and they you know, they literally start laying off like crazy in
1:22:03
the entire company. And it wasn't even belt tightening, and so they just
1:22:09
said, we're a news organization, why are we even doing sports? Let
1:22:15
ESPN do sports, And so they just shut it down and We went from
1:22:19
I think ninety six people to like fifteen, and they kept those fifteen to
1:22:25
cover Wimbledon, Kentucky Derby, super Bowl, that kind of stuff, big
1:22:30
events, but not daily sportscasting. And I thought to myself, it's profitable,
1:22:38
right, right. You may not be making twenty million a year on
1:22:42
sports, you may not be making wonder million, but if you're still making
1:22:45
money, right, you know, you're paying everybody's salaries, everybody's benefits,
1:22:50
for all the equipment, all the utilities, and you're still making money and
1:22:56
you get rid of it, it just still it was still as stupid decision.
1:23:00
But you know, hey, look, you know our lives are filled
1:23:03
with stupid decisions, from getting rid of coke to new coke. Call that
1:23:06
kind of you know what I mean. You can go through it. You
1:23:09
can go through a million like that, well based on what you're saying,
1:23:12
and we'll continue to move through them. Is I really lost my respect for
1:23:16
ESPN as a news organization when they said tomorrow Hamlin was the only one and
1:23:21
they didn't mention that Chuck Hughes was a guy that died on the field and
1:23:26
the other ones at that station they got to write where Mike Wobin and Antonio
1:23:29
corne Eyes are. But I believe that out there for people because George and
1:23:31
I happened to be at that game. That's because that's because these organizations nowadays,
1:23:39
they all do it. When we were growing up, you know,
1:23:45
there were three networks, and then next thing you know, there was four
1:23:46
networks, and then next thing I know, there was cable. So people
1:23:48
start having twenty channels, and then forty and then sixty, and then direct
1:23:53
TV came and you started having two hundred channels, and now you got streaming
1:23:56
and you got everything in their mothers. So the piece of the pie has
1:23:59
gotten smaller, smaller and smaller. So the profits are lesser and lesser and
1:24:01
lesser. And you know, managers aren't going to take a pay cut.
1:24:04
They don't do that. Stockholders don't want less. So what happens is the
1:24:12
twenty five year veteran producer gets replaced with a three year producer who doesn't understand.
1:24:17
And I was at my last year at CNN, this young guy came
1:24:21
up and go, who is this Johnny Unitis? I got to make a
1:24:26
graphic for john Johnny Unitis. He didn't even know who Johnny unitis was,
1:24:30
And I mean, I've worked with guys that sat there, and you know
1:24:36
I'm in Atlanta, so they all love Andrew Jones down here. And I
1:24:40
look, if Bill Mazarowski and Ozzie Smith are in the Hall of Fame and
1:24:44
both deserved the beach, so does Andrew Jones. You can't be in the
1:24:46
home. You can't just put three hundred game winner at five home run guys
1:24:49
in there. Andrew Jones's glove was the best in baseball for about a fifteen
1:24:56
year run. He was a dominant defensive center fielder. And asked anywhere those
1:25:00
three saw young award winners that are in the Hall of Fame, and they
1:25:01
will all tell you that he saved them many runs. He's all of favor.
1:25:06
But these guys down here, oh he's so much better than William Maas
1:25:11
you never saw Williams. William is the greatest baseball player in my lifetime.
1:25:15
So I asked Bobby Cox. I said, Bobby, just between me and
1:25:19
you, we're just shooting ship one day, sitting there in the dug out.
1:25:23
Nobody's around is out in San Francisco actually, and we're talking about Barry
1:25:27
Bonds because I went and I stood up on that wall out there and I
1:25:30
said, you know, Bobby, I looked out there. I said,
1:25:31
that's a hell of a pope to put that ball in the bay out there.
1:25:34
He goes, yeah, it is. I go you know, I
1:25:38
said, say what you want. That's still pretty impressive, and Bonds does
1:25:41
it. He goes, yeah, but he has a little bit of help.
1:25:44
Jerom, He's got a little bit of help. And that was Bobby's
1:25:46
way of saying, you know, we all know he's juicing, but what
1:25:48
are you gonna do? And then I said, you know, Bobby,
1:25:51
I've always wanted to ask him. As great as Andrew Jones was, I
1:25:55
said, dude, there is nobody that can compare Junior Griffey was pretty close,
1:26:00
but you know who was Mayze better? He goes, Mays was the
1:26:05
best. Your oom. He goes, Andrew is good, and he's right
1:26:09
behind him, just a smidge that Mays was better. So I argue with
1:26:14
these guys all the time. And so you can love Andrew Jones and love
1:26:15
the Atlanta Braves all you want, and you should. But if his own
1:26:18
manager says Willie Mays is better and the greatest center fielder he's ever saw.
1:26:23
What's that tell you? Yeah? Really? Yeah? And I love Andrew.
1:26:26
He was the best defensive center fielder since Willie Mays. And there is
1:26:30
there's no crime in shan and I'll be the first to tell you these people
1:26:33
make a mistake every If you're gonna put Harold Bains in the Hall of Fame,
1:26:35
what the hell are you doing keeping Andrew Jones eye and dal Murphy and
1:26:40
Dave Barker? Come on, what are you doing? Man? What do
1:26:43
you do when you lowered the bar? Come on, don't get me started.
1:26:46
I'll talk a out. No, I won't, because I got another
1:26:48
five questions. I'll make sure you get to everyone. Okay, let's get
1:26:51
to everyone. I want to watch that third period of the Crack and it
1:26:54
starts, he st it. That's okay, no problem. Hey, listen,
1:26:58
we're enjoying our evening with you. And I know people judging by the
1:27:00
Will Vogel mentioned Don Manningley, don't get me started there. Well, even
1:27:04
though he probably had rome as an opinion, I always thought Manningly belongs in
1:27:08
the whole. I do too. Okay, there you go, Well there's
1:27:12
your answer. The short dog Cliffnold's version, all right, So let's talk
1:27:15
about today. How would you define sports journalism and media today with the emergency
1:27:20
podcast, social media, etc. I think it's not as good as what
1:27:28
it used to be. I think because the competition is so fierce. Instead
1:27:32
of rising to the level of the competition, people are too busy posting selfies
1:27:41
on Instagram and Twitter and look at what I'm wearing, and look at this,
1:27:45
and look at that. Give me the story. I don't care if
1:27:49
you're an attractive phenore or an attractive god. Give me the story. Tell
1:27:54
me, Tell me why, what happened? Tell me why anybody can tell
1:28:00
me that the Braves beat the Padres five to three. I want to know
1:28:03
what happened in that third inning to turn the game around, you know,
1:28:08
I want to know was he looking fastball? Was it a mistake pitch?
1:28:14
Tell me why. We don't get the why anymore, you know, we
1:28:17
get to look at me. The reporter is the story. The outrageous comments
1:28:23
that you hear on these sports talk shows are the story that ain't the story.
1:28:27
They'll be making stuff up. You make it more difficult for the sincere
1:28:30
and respectable journalists to do their job. When you've got to go in there
1:28:33
and they're lumping ya all together. So sorry, it's gone downhill. Amen?
1:28:40
All right, naxt one, Do you feel you were tired at the
1:28:42
right time as access decreases for us in sports media? And how is retirement
1:28:46
treating you? I retired at the exact right time for me. My bosses
1:28:53
were surprised when they came in. They said, we want to talk extension.
1:28:56
We were on two year deals and we usually waited until the end of
1:29:00
the season. He approached me in July and I needed back surgery at the
1:29:03
end of the season, and I just had knee replacement, so I knew
1:29:08
I was in a precarious position with my health. I was going to need
1:29:11
a lot of time off. I didn't want to have to rush back.
1:29:15
And because you know, when you got a bad back, it's not like
1:29:17
having a bad knee or a bad shoulder. It's you know, sleep right,
1:29:20
you know, sitting right. You're always uncomfortable, You're always grumpy,
1:29:23
You're always in pain or discomfort. And forty years of nights and weekends,
1:29:29
you know, the guys would get together and play cards around the corner.
1:29:31
Two or three couples would go listen to a local band on a Thursday night.
1:29:35
I can't tell you how many weddings I have missed. I had to
1:29:40
beg Borrow and steel the two times the Steeler the last two times the Steelers
1:29:44
were in the Super Bowl to go watch him play. You know, I
1:29:48
retired at sixty two. I could still be working. I missed the camaraderie
1:29:55
of the men and women I worked with that much fun. You know,
1:29:58
it was fun. It's a fun job. I don't miss the daily grind.
1:30:01
I mean I would spend two hours every morning watching Quick Pitch and then
1:30:04
Sports Center, and then I'd be on the computer for an hour reading the
1:30:08
out of town newspapers and then doing my own stuff. You know, And
1:30:12
you get to the ball but you gotta leave by two to get to the
1:30:14
ballpark. You don't get on till one, and you do it all over
1:30:16
again the next day. And yeah, it's time consuming. And after forty
1:30:23
years, I just said, my passion for it just isn't where it was
1:30:28
now. If the Braves are up five to one and it's the third inning,
1:30:31
or if they're down eleven to one and it's just I just turn it
1:30:34
off and turn on HBO. You know, I don't need to do it
1:30:38
every day. It was fun, glad internally, grateful for the opportunity to
1:30:44
you know, my boss has presented me, and for the teams and the
1:30:46
you know, the the commitment day gave to me and the cooperation. But
1:30:50
you know I had my run. Man, it's time for those young guys.
1:30:54
Let them have they can happen. All right, Well, what that
1:30:56
said? Do you think COVID nineteen land a lot of the way things gotten
1:31:00
changed in today's media? For example, you have communication, personnel and the
1:31:05
narrative and obviously micro managing us. Well, there were two big changes.
1:31:12
First of all, when when COVID happened, you couldn't get into the locker
1:31:15
rooms the NBA, you couldn't even get down into the tunnel. And the
1:31:18
players all loved it because you know, you were beholding on the team to
1:31:21
give you one player per game. Luckily in the NBA it's usually one two
1:31:28
guys that were stars. So but with baseball they were just giving you whoever
1:31:32
u But it forced everybody to kind of hustle up and give a little extra
1:31:41
effort. Now, the downside of it is is companies like Bally they decided
1:31:48
they're not going to travel there their truck people anymore. They used to always
1:31:56
travel the director of the producer, sometimes the assistant director of the funt and
1:32:00
five people. And all of a sudden, Valley created this remote setup where
1:32:04
they had to do their job in Atlanta, in the studios in Atlanta when
1:32:10
the Braves are playing, you know, the Cubs at Wrigley, they're producing
1:32:14
and directing that game from the room next to the newsroom, and you know,
1:32:17
you know, it's not real time. It's a split second or two
1:32:20
delayed. I'm thinking, how you can't see the whole field. You know,
1:32:25
the announcers are in the other room announcing the game off a TV.
1:32:29
They can't see what happened. The foul ball goes into the stands, they
1:32:32
don't know who caught it, what happened, They don't know. There's a
1:32:34
depth perception difference because you're not at the ballpark. And they had to do
1:32:41
it that way during COVID, and all of a sudden, you know,
1:32:43
Valley realized how much money they were saving. They implemented it full time.
1:32:45
I'm like, that's no way to do a game. They just finally start
1:32:48
traveling last year. I was like, but that's the announcers. That was
1:32:53
only the announcers. They were still holding the other people back. Yeah,
1:32:57
I cover the Marlins, so I know exactly where you're coming from there,
1:33:00
you know. All right, Well you know what we you and I talked
1:33:01
about this last week. So do you have a great makee lollage reference about
1:33:05
the creation of the American Hall of Fame inaugural class of twenty twenty three.
1:33:10
I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know
1:33:12
you wanted to get this in. And I have one more, maybe one
1:33:15
or possibly a second. But let's talk about Mickel, a guy who is
1:33:18
I think belongs in the Hall of Fame as well. This year, I
1:33:21
was too keys cousin this. I'm a Croatian American and um, you know,
1:33:26
we take pride in our heritage, much like everybody else, whether you're
1:33:29
Italian, German and Irish whatever, you know, God bless us all respect
1:33:33
everybody. So for a tiny little country that's smaller than the city of Detroit,
1:33:40
you know, eight hundred thousand people in the whole country, we have
1:33:42
had tremendous success. Okay, my last year at CNN, they they were
1:33:48
a country for just three years and they make it all the way to the
1:33:51
semifinals before losing to eventual champion France. The last World Cup, they lost
1:33:57
to France in the final. They gorne Ivanisovich wins Wimbledon. When the Dream
1:34:05
Team first started, they were the only team to lose to the Dream Team
1:34:09
by less than forty points. They took the silver medal that year. And
1:34:15
you know, I mean there are Croatian Americans scattered throughout the sports arenas like
1:34:21
there are you know. So here's Mickey little It who was you know,
1:34:27
I remember my mother who loved baseball. Back then, the World Series was
1:34:30
on during the day, you know, and the nuns would drag a little
1:34:32
black and white TV into the classroom and let us watch the World Series.
1:34:35
And because the Croatian guy was pitching, you know, everybody in the room
1:34:39
was going nuts because you know, they were all Croatian kids there. And
1:34:43
you know, so there's Fred Couples. His mother was Croatian. He considers
1:34:46
himself a very proud Croatian. You have Nick Saban, the head coach at
1:34:49
Alabama. You got Bill Belichick, the Patriots, very proud Croatians. Kevin
1:34:57
McHale, you say the last name Michale. He Croatian now obviously the father's
1:35:01
side is Irish, but he considers himself Croatian. And so they decided to
1:35:06
start a sports Hall of Fame, and last September they asked me to come
1:35:10
up in MC the inaugural class, and those were members. We didn't put
1:35:15
the two coaches in because they're still active. They have to be retired.
1:35:19
So Roger Marris was Croatian. So Roger's son, who looks Kevin, looks
1:35:26
just like Rogers spitting image. It was kind of freaky because I'm sitting there
1:35:30
and talking to him. He's sitting next to me the whole time, and
1:35:33
he's probably Roger's age when Roger was playing with the Cardinals and just retired,
1:35:41
and it's like sitting next to Roger, he looks that much like him,
1:35:44
like his dad. But Mickey's cousin came, and you know, Mickey's health
1:35:47
and the greatest, So his cousin came and accepted the induction for him.
1:35:50
But they're gonna do it every two years, and it's just a way of
1:35:55
honoring people of Croatian To send Mark Pavlich from the US men Olympic team another
1:36:00
one of the inductees. So George Mike in the first great center in pro
1:36:05
basketball Croatian. His granddaughter came, so it was it was a pretty story
1:36:12
class. I was pleasantly surprised. And we're gonna do about every two years.
1:36:15
So I know you guys are Detroiters, and I know how much you'll
1:36:19
look if you're our agent. You're from Detroit. Mickey Lowitch was a special
1:36:24
place in your heart for rest your life, right. I had the opportunity
1:36:27
to have him on the show before and I met him over at his place
1:36:30
in Southwest Florida. Was great. I know George works for the Polish All
1:36:32
Fame two lasting and one is the John Morant. I mean this is to
1:36:38
me, I don't know. Is there's a story you'd want to cover.
1:36:41
I just can't stand it. To be honest with you, well, you
1:36:44
know you don't have to be a genius to be a great athlete. Okay,
1:36:54
Somewhere along the lie, somebody failed this young man, and right now
1:36:59
he is failing himself right and far too often. And I can't I don't
1:37:03
know him, I don't know his specifics, but far too often great athletes
1:37:08
get pushed aside, and people to have a tendency to look the other way.
1:37:13
When they do stuff that needs to be corrected, and it happens at
1:37:17
an early age, it happens in high school, and then in college,
1:37:20
and then next thing you know, you're twenty two, twenty four, twenty
1:37:25
six, and you're a multi millionaire, and no one has told you know
1:37:29
your whole life, you know, and when you did stuff that you knew
1:37:32
was wrong that your mother or your grandmother would smack you for if they found
1:37:36
out. But you got away with it when you were fifteen and sixteen and
1:37:41
eighteen and twenty. And it's this isn't an African American thing. This is
1:37:46
this could happen to any young man or woman that's an athlete of any color.
1:37:51
Doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what your background is. You could be
1:37:55
from a wealthy white family if you if you don't get the proper upbringing and
1:38:00
you don't understand the difference between right and wrong. Look, he's already been
1:38:05
suspended for this once. All right, he had to run in where he
1:38:09
beat up some high school kid at his in his own backyard because the kids
1:38:13
asked him or something that when you're playing basketball went in and got a gun.
1:38:15
Allegedly you know, had an altercation at a mall and does that you
1:38:21
just got suspended for and you're doing the gun thing again, and you're doing
1:38:25
it live on Instagram. It's not like it's not like somebody shot it on
1:38:30
their cell phone when you weren't looking. You're promoting. How stupid can you
1:38:34
be? And I don't know what the NBA is going to do them,
1:38:38
but they're obviously going to suspend them, and rightly, so you know,
1:38:41
I mean, what do you do? I mean, come on, man,
1:38:44
you're looking at like a two hundred million dollar contract coming up and you're
1:38:47
doing this bonehead stuff. Yeah, longing over me. I'd suspend him a
1:38:51
year and make him think about it. I mean, what are you doing?
1:38:55
It's a shame, but you know, and he's the problem right now.
1:39:00
But those kind of situations have you know, they rear their head every
1:39:06
other year. Go back to Johnny Manzil, He had life right in front
1:39:10
of them through the way. You know, these people do. People.
1:39:14
It's unfortunately, people do stupid things, you know. And now we have
1:39:18
one more question for the journalists and then I'll let you get to the cracking.
1:39:21
Okay, first of all, finally, can you give some advice or
1:39:25
perspective young people getting in sports media, the business, broadcasting and so forth.
1:39:30
Yeah, I'll tell you right now the first thing that you absolutely have
1:39:33
to do, whether you're just want to be a sports journalist or you just
1:39:38
want to go I'm medical. I don't care what your job is. Work
1:39:42
hard, work hard. Don't let anybody out work you. Every producer I
1:39:46
ever worked with Syndroma, nobody outworked you. You know, when the other
1:39:51
guys were showing up at four, I showed up at three. When the
1:39:57
other guys would leave as soon as eleven thirty, and the local news I
1:40:00
did. I'd stay till eleven forty five, eleven fifty, looking at what
1:40:03
I did, going over what I did, reviewing it, looking at did
1:40:09
I do something wrong? Did I do something right? I recorded every pre
1:40:15
and postgame show I ever hosted. I only went back and watched the ones
1:40:19
I knew I made a mistake, to see how bad it was most times
1:40:23
people wouldn't even notice it, or to see if one of my co workers
1:40:28
made a mistake, what it looked like on TV as supposed to be sitting
1:40:30
right next to them, and to see how I could have helped them prevent
1:40:34
that mistake or guide them away from it. So work out, work the
1:40:41
competition, all right, it'll pay off in dividends. Number two, Be
1:40:45
passionate about what you want, and then it won't really be work if you
1:40:49
think about it. If you're a stat head, you know, watch the
1:40:53
games, learn the games. You have to understand the strategy of the sport
1:41:00
that you're gonna cover. And Third, and finally, and I think this
1:41:04
is incredibly important and it's often overlooked, you gotta be yourself. Okay.
1:41:10
I couldn't be Fred Hickman. I couldn't beat Dan Patrick, you know.
1:41:14
I couldn't beat Nick Trump. I had to beat Jerome Jerenovitch. When I
1:41:16
was just reading scores, I was so vanilla and so boring. I wasn't
1:41:21
any different than the wallpaper. But once I started being me, people understood
1:41:26
who I was, and that's what separated me from the other seven guys that
1:41:30
did headline sports when I was doing it, and that's why they remembered me.
1:41:33
And that's why every job I have me people still remember me. I
1:41:36
got braising Hawks fans stopping me at the grocery store now or I went't gotten
1:41:42
you know, took my car and to get worked on. The guy goes,
1:41:44
aren't you get a sports guy? And I said, yeah, I've
1:41:47
been retired for about a year and a half, two years, but yet
1:41:49
I used to because yeah, man, you were really good. Why'd you
1:41:53
quit? I said, because I'm old and I want to enjoy life.
1:41:56
And my wife makes good money. He goes, shoot, I wish my
1:41:59
boy good money. Yes, you know, so I could do it,
1:42:01
you know, But be yourself because you you can't be anybody else, and
1:42:06
if you try to be somebody else, it's gonna look fake. It's not
1:42:11
going to be real, it's not going to be good. Be yourself.
1:42:14
There's only one you be you, your work forever anyways. And I always
1:42:20
hope Boon's under me is not only be yourself, be different, you know,
1:42:25
if you can be different and come up, don't be false, be
1:42:29
different, don't be false. And sometimes you gotta find it. I fell
1:42:32
into mind, you know, And but it'll happen. It'll it will happen.
1:42:39
And the best thing to do, the best thing to do is record
1:42:43
yourself and go back and listen and watch, because you're gonna be your worst
1:42:46
critic. You're gonna hate the way you look. You're gonna hate the way
1:42:48
you sound, and you're gonna think, well, maybe I should have said
1:42:53
it this way. I should put the emphasis on that. You know,
1:42:56
maybe I shouldn't rush, you know, and you will get better. You'll
1:43:00
get better because nobody else is gonna there's not You're not gonna have a coach
1:43:02
sitting next to you like you were in high school playing ball. Right.
1:43:05
Nobody gonna tell you what you did wrong and what you did right. You
1:43:09
know, your boss will y'all let you if you screw up. But no
1:43:11
one's gonna sit there and go, hey, Jerome, come in here for
1:43:14
twenty minutes. Let's look at your work and see if we can't make you
1:43:15
better. They don't do that. You got to do it well. When
1:43:19
I say different, anybody can look for the obvious content if you can find
1:43:21
different content, and that falls into the other three things that you're saying.
1:43:26
All right, So with that said, I'm going to go over a couple
1:43:28
of company things. I'll thank everybody for participating in the chat room. See
1:43:31
here, Jerome, we are popular over the place, and we do thank
1:43:33
you very much for being so gracious with your time. Let me take care
1:43:36
of a few things really quickly that The audio version of the Sports Exchange can
1:43:41
be heard on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, Google, wherever you get your
1:43:44
podcasts. Please hit the rent subscribe button on YouTube su Forlorida Tribune for Striving
1:43:48
for a thousand subscribers and more. Please also comment, like, and share
1:43:53
the broadcast. I want to be a guest getting in the chat rooms one
1:43:56
way or send your topic ideas the South Florida Tribute and Gmail dot com.
1:44:00
You want to advertise costs efficiently, give me a call nine five four three
1:44:03
or four four nine for one. We are live on Facebook, LinkedIn,
1:44:06
Twitter, and YouTube. Also check out our website www dot self, order
1:44:12
Tribute dot com. Kandy Ebling does a remarkable job putting it together, and
1:44:15
of course you can find me a tribute South so Jerome. I'm gonna let
1:44:18
George Korn promote his book first, because this is gonna pretty much be a
1:44:24
good closing here for our show. We talk about the amount of experience in
1:44:28
this show. You know what I mean, shows you've done, but at
1:44:30
least you know you've been on one to night where you have each and every
1:44:32
one of us at forty years at least into business. So you know,
1:44:36
we're over the century mark in that criery. So George, why don't you
1:44:40
let Jerome and everybody know about your book? And then sub, oh,
1:44:44
yeah, no problem. I talked to a lot of the sportscasters Jerome and
1:44:47
Detroit, Ernie Harwell, Ray Lane, George Kell, Bud Blanche, Bruce
1:44:53
Martin, the list goes on and on, and came up with the idea
1:44:56
of a book called Detroit Sports Broadcasters on the Air and it's a great picture
1:45:00
book, easy to read. Scott is in the book as well. Scott
1:45:04
did interviews with Muhammad Ali and with Jimmy Connors. There's pictures of Ted Williams
1:45:12
being interviewed and Tiger Woods and on and on and on. So I'm very
1:45:15
proud of this book. There's a link to purchase the book. You could
1:45:18
go to eBay or Amazon, but you can also just click on the link
1:45:24
that follows my column for the South Florida Tribune. I write for the Motor
1:45:28
City Tribune in the South Florida Tribune website, and also you can reach me
1:45:32
at Yahoo at gikorn at dot com. I'm sorry Gikorn at yahoo dot com.
1:45:39
And of course I am available on LinkedIn as well. So good to
1:45:43
have you, Jerome. And it was a fun time tonight. I appreciate
1:45:46
it. Fellas. Just want to leave you with the fact that Ernie Harwell,
1:45:53
one of my favorite all time announcers, had the distinct pleasure of introducing
1:45:58
myself to him at the batting cage at the All Star Game in Milwaukee,
1:46:00
remember the infamous tie. And my producer Peterson and I were working in LA
1:46:04
at the time. So we go up and he would be on the show
1:46:08
every once in a while. You know, we all know who these people
1:46:10
are, but they don't know who we are, you know. And I
1:46:13
went up and I said, Ernie, you know he had a little hat
1:46:15
on, you know, that little signature hat, you know, And I
1:46:17
said, Ernie, I just wanted to come up and shake your hand and
1:46:19
introduce myself. I said that you've been on our show before, and I
1:46:24
said, my name is Jerome Jerenovitch with Fox Sports Radio. And he goes,
1:46:27
Jerome, give me the CNN side off, and I did the sign
1:46:31
off for him, and he just laughed and we talked, and then when
1:46:34
he walked away, my producer goes, does that ever get old, I
1:46:38
said, are you kidding me, Ernie Harwall? Ask give me that never
1:46:41
gets old? Ernie Harwell, God, what a great guy man, Just
1:46:45
Ernie one of the voices of my youth. Well, you know what,
1:46:50
if Ernie Harwall's watching this up in heaven, he would be very proud of
1:46:55
you and I and George were doing this thing because he was like my uncle
1:46:59
and me. Every time I needed something, he was always there. I
1:47:01
never asked him for I just need time. He was, Oh, what
1:47:03
if you want? I don't care, you know, So he would be
1:47:06
smiling in heaven over this brod. So, Jerome, is there any particular
1:47:12
thing that you want to promote on your own charities or anything? And I'm
1:47:15
good, I'm good right now. I will say this. I'm involved with
1:47:19
dog rescues. So if you don't have a dog and you're able to go
1:47:24
to a shelter, get a dog out of there. It'll change your life.
1:47:28
I know it's a responsibility, but the love that animal will return to
1:47:31
you will be a thousandfold. I can't implore enough people to rescue a pet.
1:47:39
I am a dog fanatic. I am down to one. I've always
1:47:42
had three. They've gotten older, but got two more coming our way the
1:47:45
foster. I'm gonna foster two that are coming in from the shelter right now.
1:47:49
They're getting their shots and de wormed and all that stuff supposed to get
1:47:53
them on the twenty second. So rescue a pet and adopt a pet.
1:47:58
It'll save a life. You'll I got so much better about yourself for that.
1:48:01
I've adopted three cats, So there you go, Dad, dog,
1:48:04
doesn't matter what it is. Many love on you. So Jerome, I
1:48:09
can't tell you how much it's been a really delight to listen to all your
1:48:13
stories. As you as evidence in the chat room. Everybody was raving about
1:48:16
it, so we thank you so much for your time taking the time out.
1:48:20
So, but that said, this concludes this addition to the Sports Exchange.
1:48:25
My name is Scott Morgan Rolth please to be joined by my co host
1:48:28
George Eikhorn and Jerome Jernovits a guy who I've admired forever and at least it's
1:48:32
been really a great opportunity to have JAJ. Well, just I have to
1:48:36
do this. JJ is Dino Mike No, not walker By It. Oh
1:48:41
my gosh. You know what. I'm a journalist like you, I got
1:48:45
to come up with these one liners. So but that said, thanks again
1:48:47
for joining us share this broadcast to everybody, because Jerome Jeronovitch to me,
1:48:54
is a Hall of Fame broadcaster, but more importantly, you're a Hall of
1:48:57
Fame person, Jerome, and I'm so pleased to share time with you and
1:49:00
George tonight. It's been a real, truly great thrill to be around a
1:49:04
Steam colleague like you. You are really, really great and to me,
1:49:09
it's just been tremendously wonderful. And as you can tell, you know,
1:49:14
you only and you got a couple of requests to go out of a few
1:49:16
shows here. I don't know how that'll work. I don't even care at
1:49:19
this point. I'm more concerned about if it's meant to happen. It is,
1:49:23
but we're just so delayed that you were on here. So I'll be
1:49:27
half of George Corn Jerome Geranovich. My name is Scott Morgan, Ruth the
1:49:30
Motor City man Mouth. Thank you for joining us on this edition of the
1:49:33
Sports Exchange. Could even to get everybody and catch on the next episode.