There Are Other Talk-Show Hosts Besides Superfan

Joe McDonnell may not be Ed (Superfan) Bieler’s favorite radio sports talk-show host, but if you haven’t heard his show, check it out.

It’s on KFI from 8 to midnight Sunday nights.

He recently got a little carried away in bashing Bieler, his KABC rival, but McDonnell, for the most part, does his show the way it should be done.

He keeps things lively, provides credible inside information and usually attracts interesting guests.

McDonnell, 33, originally hired as a producer by KFI, has been on the air as a sports-talk host on a regular basis for only about a year. But he has been around the Southland sports scene as a radio reporter since the mid-1970s, working first for KGIL and then for UPI Radio.

He’s popular among athletes and coaches, and over the years has broken a number of major stories, including the Wayne Gretzky deal and the Pedro Guerrero-for-John Tudor trade.

McDonnell went to Alemany High in Mission Hills, where he played football and put the shot for the track team until knee and shoulder injuries ended his athletic career at age 16.

The ensuing inactivity contributed to a weight problem that already existed and grew considerably worse.

McDonnell prefers not to talk about it--”Let’s just say I’m 6-2 and over 300 pounds,” he said.

“I’m not going to try and tell you I don’t eat more than most people, but I know people who eat as much as I do and don’t have my problem. It’s just my body reacts differently.

“Otherwise, I’m pretty healthy. My cholesterol level is 130, my blood pressure 120 over 80.

“The thing is, I don’t want to make a big deal about my weight. I sure don’t want people to think I’m some poor soul crying out for sympathy.

“I’m responsible for the way I am. But it’s never held me back. It’s never kept me from doing what I want to do.”

McDonnell tried dieting in 1981 through the Optifast program and lost a couple of hundred pounds. But he put the weight back on.

“I got cocky and thought I could do it on my own,” he said.

Another outstanding radio sports talk-show host--one of the best anywhere--is Lee Hamilton, who can be heard throughout Southern California on powerful San Diego station XTRA (690) weeknights from 6 to 9.

Hamilton, 42, who has been at XTRA for three years, is also the Chargers’ play-by-play announcer.

With his contract due to expire, there’s a good possibility he may end up at KMPC as a replacement for Bob Starr, the Ram play-by-play announcer who is leaving the station to become a Boston Red Sox broadcaster.

“After the end of the NFL season, we’ll have to sit down and take a look at our options,” Hamilton said.

Bill Ward, KMPC general manager, also said any decision will have to wait until after the season.

Hamilton said he has talked with KMPC Executive Sports Producer Steve Bailey on several occasions.

“There was some interest there before, but the timing was wrong,” Hamilton said.

If Hamilton does end up coming to KMPC, he more than likely would also become the host of the station’s “Sportsline” talk show.

The current host, Paul Olden, is more suited for play-by-play work.

Hamilton has 16 years of experience as a sports-talk host. He worked six years in Cleveland and seven in Phoenix before coming to San Diego.

Changing careers: Former Herald Examiner TV-radio columnist Bob Keisser, who had accepted a job with the National, a yet-to-be-published daily sports newspaper, has instead decided to try his hand in the television business.

He’ll begin his new job as Channel 11’s sports editor/producer on Jan. 2.

“I told my colleagues from the Herald that if any of them ended up going into television, I’d hunt them down,” Keisser said. “Well, I guess I’ll be hunting myself down.

“It was just too good an offer to pass up.”

Former Channel 11 sports producer Bob Guerrero, now at Channel 9, is a former newspaperman who made a successful transition.

Ram-Raider logjam: A quirk in the NFL schedule has the Rams and the Raiders going head-to-head Sunday at 10 a.m.

The Rams’ game against the New England Patriots in Foxboro, Mass., will be on Channel 2, with Tim Brant and Dan Jiggets reporting.

At the same time, Channel 4 will show the Raiders playing the New York Giants at the Meadowlands, with Don Criqui and Ahmad Rashad reporting.

And with the Rams and the Raiders both on the road, Channel 2 will have a second game Sunday, Chicago at San Francisco at 1 p.m., with Pat Summerall and John Madden reporting.

About pitting the Rams and Raiders head-to-head, Val Pinchbeck Jr., NFL director of broadcasting, said: “It was just an unusual case where we scheduled both the Rams and Raiders on the road, and that enabled us to televise three games in the L.A. market.

“We thought having the Rams and Raiders both play early would be a good thing because, at the time, we figured Chicago-San Francisco would be a big game.”

Well, you can’t win ‘em all.

TV-Radio Notes

Los Angeles will not only get three NFL games Sunday but also three on Saturday. Because Sunday is Christmas Eve, ESPN will show its weekend game, Cleveland at Houston, Saturday at 5 p.m. The other NFL games Saturday will be Buffalo at the New York Jets on NBC at 9:30 a.m., with Dick Enberg and Bill Walsh, and Washington at Seattle on CBS at 1 p.m., with Dick Stockton and Dan Fouts.

Christmas Day will be a busy one for sports. Prime Ticket has a USC-UCLA 12-hour football marathon covering the past decade. It begins at 11 a.m. And SportsChannel has a Notre Dame 16-hour marathon covering the past season. It begins at 7 a.m. . . . College football on ABC includes the Blue-Gray game at 9 a.m., followed at 12:30 p.m. by Michigan State and Hawaii in the Aloha Bowl, with Keith Jackson and Bob Griese reporting. And there is also Monday night NFL football: Cincinnati at Minnesota.

Also on Christmas Day, CBS offers a one-hour winter sports special at 11:30 a.m. A highlight of the show will be a six-minute feature by Lessley Visser on the state of sports in East Germany after the socio-political upheaval there. . . . At 12:30 p.m., CBS will televise an NBA game, Cleveland at Atlanta.

Dick Manoogian, the packager of Nevada Las Vegas basketball, has filed a suit in Superior Court against Channel 9 and its new owners, Disney, claiming the station did not live up to contractual obligations. When Channel 9 threatened to put the Runnin’ Rebel games on at 1 a.m., Manoogian said thanks but no thanks. He has since made a deal with Channel 56. The first telecast will be Cal State Long Beach at Las Vegas on Tuesday, live at 8 p.m.

Congratulations to Channel 5’s Ed Arnold for breaking the George Allen-to-Cal State Long Beach story Sunday night. . . . Peter Vent, who did a sports-talk show at several L.A. radio stations, has a show on 50,000-watt KVEG in Las Vegas Saturdays and Sundays, 6 to 8 p.m. Vent is doing sports news at KIEV during the week.

The commissioners of the four major sports leagues--Fay Vincent, Paul Tagliabue, David Stern and John Ziegler--will talk about sports in the 1990s on ESPN Tuesday at 8 p.m. Bob Ley will be the host of the half-hour program. . . . “ESPN’s 10th Anniversary Special,” originally shown in September, will be repeated Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.

ESPN offers something different at 11 a.m. Saturday, the Corporate Sports Battle. Corporations from throughout the country will compete in athletic endeavors. National Medical Enterprises of Santa Monica is the California representative in the event, taped in Miami in October. . . . At noon Saturday, ESPN will show highlights of the Kinney cross-country national high school finals, held in San Diego on Dec. 9. . . . Steve Largent will make his debut as a broadcaster next summer during the Goodwill Games in Seattle. Turner Broadcasting has signed the Seahawk wide receiver as a feature reporter.