Ken Brett Now Talking Good Game for Angels

Great moments in Angel radio broadcast history:

Trip before last. Al Conin and Ken Brett are in the Angel radio booth. Reliever Sherman Corbett is in the Angel bullpen.

Conin and Brett are yakking away when Brett notices that Corbett has completed his warm-up routine and is ready to enter the game. Brett, smoothie that he is, calmly announces: “Well, Sherman Corbett has finished throwing up in the bullpen . . . “

Silence. Conin is stunned. Brett is speechless. A radio audience is doubled over in laughter. A KMPC radio executive is tossing his cookies.

What Brett meant to say was that Corbett was finished doing just about anything other than throwing up in the bullpen. But there it was-- the mistake-- zipped across the airwaves, irretrievable, lost forever, the nightmare of microphone jockeys everywhere. Ralph Kiner, master of the malaprop, would have been proud. Jerry Coleman would have applauded.

“What can I say?” said Brett, slouched comfortably on the Angel dugout bench before a recent game. “It’s out. That’s my big one this year.”

That’s his big one for a decade. Maybe two.

Brett recovered, of course. If nothing else, Brett knows how to chuckle at himself. If he didn’t, he’d be wearing one of those jackets with sleeves that tie around the front.

Here’s a guy who applied for his first broadcast job by sending the Seattle Mariners a four-minute videotape that included a series of interviews he gave during his major league career, a Miller Lite beer commercial he appeared in, and some footage of him pitching his little heart out. The Mariners hired him sight unseen.

“The first time I flew up to Seattle was to sign a contract,” Brett said. “The first time I went in front of the camera, the red light was on.”

And it showed. Brett, TV analyst for the Mariners in 1986, appeared as relaxed as someone settling into a dentist’s chair for a long afternoon of drill work. His voice squeaked. He got too excited during big moments. Every single was a home run, every home run was the greatest thing since polyester uniforms.

And then he did something else, which wasn’t quite as annoying: He got better.

Not Al Michaels better, but better. When the Angel radio job became available, Brett applied. He liked the area. He liked the market. And sure enough, KMPC liked him back.

So they teamed him with Conin, the play-by-play man, and flicked the switch. It didn’t go well. Brett was fine as an analyst, but not so fine when KMPC suddenly asked him to do play-by-play of every fourth and seventh inning. By himself. Just him and the microphone.

“I went, ‘Oh, gawd. Oh, my gaawwwd,’ ” Brett said. “I went to Al’s room and said, ‘Al, what am I going to do?’ ”

Al said not to worry. Al said he’d help Brett smooth out the rough spots. Al went through a lot of sandpaper.

One time, Brett became so unnerved that his mouth quit working. His description of a complicated rundown play sounded like an enemy attack, and his words ran together. So flustered was Brett with the on-air performance that he kept silent for nearly five seconds. Listeners didn’t know if Brett had left the booth for a sandwich and soft drink. And they certainly didn’t know what happened in the rundown.

“I know I was not real good last year,” Brett said. “I know there was some criticism and it was deserved.”

He’s still not Red Barber, but who is? Now listen to Brett and you get coherency and an opinion. He’s a little bit like this year’s Angels: slow start, admirable recovery.

Brett works at his job. He doesn’t show up five minutes before the National Anthem, glance at the starting lineups and start talking about the good ol’ days when he was with the Boston Red Sox. Brett works the locker rooms, picking up tidbits here and there. He asks questions that only a former pitcher could think of.

Conin has helped. He baby-sat Brett for much of last season, and his own work may have suffered. At times, it sounded as if Conin was trying to do the work of two.

“Al’s got a tough job in this town,” Brett said. “He’s forever going to be compared to the guy up the highway and to Dick Enberg. I think Al does a hell of a job. He’s been a big help to me. He’s a very good man.”

Agreed. Now if we would just quit saying, “Jose Can-SAY-co,” or “a man on SAYcond.”

Conin taught Brett how to warm up by “announcing” batting practice. “Joyner lines one to right field.” . . . “There’s a bouncer up the middle.” That sort of thing.

And KMPC suggested that Brett see a specialist, broadcast tutor Roy Englebricht of Newport Beach. Englebricht pinpointed Brett’s weaknesses, offered some remedies, and, several sessions later, sent Brett on his way.

So much more comfortable is Brett that he says he and Conin “stack up fairly strong against a lot of the competition.”

I’ll buy that. When the Angels were doing their Atlanta Braves imitation earlier this season (and Corbett actually may have been throwing up in the bullpen), Brett wasn’t afraid to point a few fingers. Though employed by the team, Brett thought first about his duty to the listener rather than worry about the origin of his paycheck.

“When people make mistakes, I think it’s our job to point them out,” Brett said. “I don’t think we have to dwell on that. You comment on it and then you move on. The only thing I will harp on is if they don’t hustle. And if they don’t like it, tough. That’s my philosophy.”

Brett will never make anyone forget Vin Scully. But at least he has made us forget last year’s Ken Brett. In a profession that sounds easier than it is, that’s no small victory.