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I'm a basketball guy. No sitcom guy. I don't care about all that jazz. I care about basketball. It's not me. And I stayed with what I did, and I'm very proud that I did that because I make a great living and I'm lucky and I get to be involved with the thing I truly love, and that's the game of basketball.
All my life I've worked and I was so lucky to go from a radio station in Washington to the Dodgers and of course, it never stopped. For me to suddenly put the key in the ignition and turn the engine off, it's kind of a frightening thought. I put the key in and left it there, God willing, for another year.
I always like to pretend two things: one, I'm sitting in the seat beside you watching the game together. I'll say, 'Wasn't that a great shot? Boy, it sure was.' The other thing I do is pretend I'm talking to people who are non-sighted. I try to create a word picture. I get more mail from blind people thanking me.
The greatest single moment Ive ever known in Detroit was Jim Northrups triple in the seventh game of the World Series in St. Louis. It was a stunning moment because not only were the Tigers winning a world championship that meant so much to an entire city, they were beating the best pitcher I ever saw-Bob Gibson.
I got fired - November 8, 1979. And all of a sudden, I got a call, two weeks later, about doing a game on ESPN. And I truly said - Scotty Connal, the head of ESPN production at the time, was the guy that called me - I said, 'Man, ESPN sounds like a disease. What is ESPN? I know nothing about it, never heard of it.'
From my mom and dad, because they're happily married for a long time: Just listen. Listen to him. I'm so independent and driven and stubborn. Just let him talk. It's about not being so stubborn and having to win every argument. My parents set a great example. They love each other and take care of each other so much.
A lot of rappers say 'I'm talking about stuff that goes on, what I grew up in, that I know about.' And these journalists say, 'Yeah, but you're making 80 million dollars, that stuff's not about you.' Look how long he's been making 80 million. He grew up poor in an urban city and the things he's experienced and knows.
The game is just one long conversation, and I'm anticipating that, and I will say things like 'Did you know that?' or 'You're probably wondering why.' I'm really just conversing rather than just doing play-by-play. I never thought of myself as having a style. I don't use key words. And the best thing I do? I shut up.
Super Bowl V was the Colts against the Cowboys and Jim O'Brien kicked a 32 yard field goal to beat the Cowboys. I was traumatized by it. Everyone at school knew I was the only Cowboy fan in the area. I didn't want to go to school and I begged and pleaded with my parents. Those are indelible memories when you are a kid.
I know what baldness can do to a man. When you see guys with a toupee that should come with a chinstrap, or somebody whose been through hair replacement surgery and tapped out early because it's too painful, you realize guys will do anything to maintain their sense of virility. They don't want to give up looking young.
I started playing in '98, but I got hooked by playing celebrity golf tournaments. Tiger had a lot to do with it - his passion, the way that he plays. He's unique and different, and he inspired a lot of my passion. It's a sport you can't master. If you're an athlete, you can do almost anything, but golf is not like that.
It was tough getting fired by the NBA. I really didn't know where I was going, until [ESPN] called me. I said, "Hey, 'ESPN?' Never heard of it. It sounds like a disease." Now I have that same disease as a sports fanatic. All this sports madness we didn't have years ago, now I'm very blessed and fortunate to be part of it.
We survive our way through basketball hoping the # Lakers will survive and we hope for the # Kings and for the # Ducks and we want them all to succeed but if you are a true fan and especially if you are a # Dodgers fan deep down inside you are saying please get out of the way, get off the stage, here come the DODGERS!
The Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan’s three-point explosion in Game 1 of the 1992 NBA Finals against Portland is easily one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen. As he made his sixth straight, he winked directly at (broadcast partner) Mike (Fratello) and me and held his palms up in a shrug, as if to say, What can I do?
I've always felt, it's a gift of God, whatever I have, whatever has made me do what I do for as long as I do it. But I know I can lose that in one second. A stroke. Whatever. One second. Blow the whole thing. So, when you do think about that, you realize how fortunate and how blessed you've been, and that's really how I feel.
I can't imagine anybody who showed up at Firestone for the first time who felt like they knew it better than I did. For me to travel to Akron the first time, 'Oh, my gosh, I can't wait, I know every hole on this golf course. I know the big water tower with the Firestone ball on top, I grew up with this. Here it is! It's real!'
You know, my father used to look at people and he treated everyone with such respect, and he always believed that he would rather trust you face on and be disappointed perhaps down the road, be disappointed some of the time rather than never to trust someone, never to believe in someone, and alas, be disappointed all the time.
I grew up on hip-hop. I grew up on Run-D.M.C., Whodini, LL when I was in college, so I'm more of a music fan. I probably have the most eclectic collection of music in my Grand Cherokee. Literally, in a span of a week, I'll go from 2Pac to Boyz II Men to Sister Hazel, right down to West Side Story or the Wiz. I love show tunes.
He is so efficient. He seems to be playing smarter, more confidently. I think they have given him more responsibility. He's very, very accurate and doesn't make many mistakes. The statistics show he has three interceptions, but in reality it's only one. The others were deflected passes by receivers who should have caught balls.
On the air, it's as if somebody draws a heavy drape to block any bias. I don't even feel it inside. It's the same curtain that keeps you from swearing. I've known broadcasters who can't get one sentence out in normal conversation without being profane, and yet, they can go on the air and talk for three hours and never slip once.
So much happened (in 1968) it was hard to keep up with everything. We had Denny McLain's thirty-one victories, Gates Brown's great pinch-hitting in the clutch, Tom Matchick's home run to beat Baltimore in the ninth inning, then Daryl Patterson striking out the side to beat them in the ninth. Excitement every day in the ballpark.
The way social media is now, and people are with cameras - we all live different lives whether you're in the spotlight or not. I mean, you can't be a boss or an executive of a big time company and act a fool, because there are cameras everywhere and people are going to document it and take pictures. I'm not used to stuff like that.
I can't do anything about how people who are all but completely unaware of my actual motivations and my actual thought process and my actual worldview, how they characterize me. There's not much I can do about it, except never say another word other than 'there's a ground ball to shortstop.' And I don't think that's going to happen.
I feel very fortunate that I'm doing what I wanted to do from the third grade on. I became very interested in the sports broadcasting aspect even at that early age. I'd turn down the sound on the TV and do games in my house - and probably get everybody looking for me to go into a room and lock the door so they didn't have to hear it.
I feel blessed to be able to do these events. As I travel around, I'm fully cognizant that there are a lot of people out there who are sportscasters or who want to be sportscasters who would kill to do the Maui Invitational or the Ohio State-Michigan game. So if you have to endure some inconveniences along the way, that's fine by me.
On radio, you're in your own little world. Every time I'd be doing a possible no-hitter - I think I've done something like 25 no-hitters and a couple of perfect games - I would always put the date on the tape. Not for me, but for the player, so that 25 or 30 years later when he's playing it for his kids or grandkids, you have that date.
The late, great ABC golf anchor Jim McKay once advised me, 'When you look into the camera, imagine you are talking to one person on the other end.' The next time you hear 'Hello, friends' at the start of a broadcast, just know that I'm channeling my father at that very moment. I see him on the other side of that camera, smiling right back.
We have really, really good-looking men who work for our network, and that's never brought into question. Our men dress very well, and look fantastic in a suit, and not once is that ever talked about. I can be called out on the Internet or in newspapers for asking a question, but if a male asked the same question, it would never be a topic.
Broadcasting golf is not like broadcasting baseball or football. You see the ball and the action through your own eyes. The story is unfolding in front of you. In golf, the story is unfolding here and there and everywhere. As the guy in the broadcast tower, you're getting it all on screens and from reporters in the field. It's a tricky business.
Fox doesn't treat me any differently, and that's one thing I'm very lucky with - my network treats me like a woman, but they never make me feel like I don't fit in or anything like that, which is great. But within the industry, yeah. It's a double standard, but it's something that you have to deal with or try to make better; turn into a positive.
My father was very athletic. He was a life-of-the-party kind of guy - walked into the room and there was a presence about him. He was a great storyteller, just a terrific sense of humor. Having said that, he never put all of those talents or abilities into some public arena. He was never interviewed, never on television. His family was everything.
My father used to look at people and he treated everyone with such respect, and he always believed that he would rather trust you face on and be disappointed perhaps down the road, be disappointed some of the time rather than never to trust someone, never to believe in someone, and alas, be disappointed all the time. There's a big difference there.
Every day, I am reminded that our life's journey is really about the people who touch us. When you die, it does not mean you lose to cancer. You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and in the manner in which you live. So live. Live! Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight, then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.
When I was growing up, I wanted to be a coach. I had people telling me you can't do this, you're not a great player. Be realistic. When I got rejection letters from colleges where I wanted to coach, my mom would say, "You are going to make it someday. You have something special within you and that is your spirit for life which will help you get to the top."
You have to make that stand out from the rest of the three hours. There are times when I'm having fun and being loose, and there are times when I'm ultra serious - calling the Giants/Patriots in the Super Bowl is a lot different than calling the Giants/Cubs game last Saturday. There are different levels of intensity, and I try to respect that when I'm doing it.
God willing I will be back next year. Over the years I have been blessed to have so many friends including those that sit in the stands and listen as well as those at home, who listen and watch. It is just too hard to say goodbye to all these friends. Naturally there will come a time, when I will have to say goodbye, but I've soul-searched and this is not the time.
I've always felt that I shouldn't scream on the air...I just feel there's a way of rising enthusiastically if there's an exciting play, but you don't have to scream. There are people who do shout, and I think that's unnecessary. You have to be under control at all times, no matter what's taking place. Enthusiasm and excitement can be expressed without going berserk.
If somebody told me back in 1980 that I would have a 32-year career, and that I'd be [elected into the Hall of Fame], I'd say no way. For three years, I couldn't even break into the Phillies broadcast booth. I was just hoping to make it, much less be mentioned as a Ford Frick winner. Believe me, when I started out, this award wasn't even close to being on the radar.
My childhood was epitomized by my parents who were uneducated but had a doctorate in love. My dad pressed coats and through my mom and dad I learned about love, family and respecting people. They never went to high school but they had within them every element that makes a great American. They had pride and a great work ethic and they knew how to do things the right way.
I study harder now than I ever did in college or high school. There's just so much pressure to know what's going on, and I feel like, especially with social media, there's always new information coming out on the teams, the players, the coaches, and the games. You can never be fully read enough, and I'm just constantly reading articles, watching games, and trying to read blogs.
I feel so fortunate, Because some people think, well you're just relegated to the sideline. But I feel valued there. They trust me. We work very, very hard at making it worthwhile. We are not going to just be down there spewing a bunch of blah. With our halftime talking to the coaches we are really trying to get something meaningful there and something that helps spin the game forward.
The waves get high, they get low. It's been a wonderful journey, every bit of it, and that's from every praise to every criticism... To be able to able to hang around athletics for a lifetime and to meet all these wonderful people I've come in contact with, to have been around as many big events as I have, I can't imagine a day when I did not have something to make me happy about sports.
And also it's an ever-gathering process. If I pick up the Sporting News or some sports publication and there's an article on somebody and I think I might see that player, I will tear it out and put it in a file, and I have a looseleaf book so when we're going to play that particular team I take out all these clippings and things I pulled out, I go through them, highlight them, put them in the book.
I think once you start as an announcer, you have to decide what kind of approach you're going to have. I decided very early that I was going to be a reporter, that I would not cheer for the team. I don't denigrate people who do it. It's fine. I think you just have to fit whatever kind of personality you have, and I think my nature was to be more down the middle and that's the way I conducted the broadcasts.
America's gun culture demonstrates itself in the Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality of people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed in the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nutjob in body armor and military style artillery. When in fact almost every policeman in the country would tell you that that would have only increased the tragedy and added to the carnage.
I feel I'm better now than I ever have been. You learn so much as you're doing it. I'm watching tapes and I'll see things that get me annoyed and where I know I can improve. I understand better letting the crowd play more. I've always said it was important for me who I was working with, because I like to kid around a lot. But I've also learned to use my partner better. I'm feeling good. There's no reason to stop.
Wheaties was the big sponsor in those days (1940s). They sponsored almost all the baseball games in the majors and the minors. That was a lot of Wheaties. I think there were twenty-four boxes in a case and some of these guys were hitting twenty-five and thirty home runs a season. We had a dog in those days named Blue Grass and the players used to give us their Wheaties for him. Blue Grass loved Wheaties and so did I.
I get asked about the best games I've called, and as far as college football goes, the Florida-LSU environment was as good as I've ever been around. I had always heard about night games at Tiger Stadium and had never gotten the chance to call one. It was really special to be a part of that and then the game, my gosh, how can anybody ever forget that. The fourth quarter and LSU's final drive, that's something I'll always remember.
I never went into it [the business] thinking 'I'm a female sports reporter'. I just went into it thinking 'I'm a sports reporter'. No chip on the shoulder, no feeling like a victim when you walk in, no feeling entitled when you walk in. You've just got to do your job and work extremely hard. I think it's very basic. There's no magic to it. I think honestly it comes down to how badly do you want it. How hard are you willing to work?
The broadcasting industry definitely has changed, and I'm talking about young broadcasters who come along today, they really feel like they have to do something that's outlandish to make them stand out. They have to say something provocative that maybe they don't even really truly believe in their heart and, it's not really what their beliefs are, but they're going to sacrifice their beliefs to try to do something to gain attention.