It Wasn’t the Time for KMPC to Talk About Fun, Games

This was not a good week for KMPC to change to a sports format, as it turns out. Those aren’t games they are playing in the streets.

But games were what Bob Rowe and Steve Yeager were talking about late Wednesday night after fires, looting and rioting had erupted.

On this night, the questions had nothing to do with sports. But Rowe and Yeager and, amazingly, their callers, carried on about the Dodgers and Angels and other baseball matters that suddenly seemed trivial.

Jim Lampley initially reacted to the Rodney King verdict in the afternoon, but then, after the Angel broadcast from Toronto, KMPC dropped the ball.

It was embarrassingly bad.

When Rowe and Yeager finished talking baseball shortly after midnight, a four-month-old Jim Healy show was played, complete with a taped Laker report by Mike Kaufman drowning out a portion of it.

Next up was overnight talk-show host Fred Wallin. One of his first calls was from an outraged listener, who couldn’t believe what he had been hearing. Just what everybody wants--an old Jim Healy show in the middle of a disturbance. And what had Rowe and Yeager been thinking?

Wallin attempted to defend his station, saying, among other things, that Rowe and Yeager had been isolated in a studio. Isolated? The studio isn’t on Mars.

Wallin finally suggested that the caller write to management.

KMPC was given a chance to react to a major story that transcends all boundaries. But it did nothing.

KMPC program director Len Weiner, who said he was in phone contact with the station, admitted Thursday that he should have gone in.

What KMPC should have done, as other news outlets throughout the Southland did, was call in all available personnel, put them to work and scrap everything else.

There were plenty of sports-related topics to deal with. What was the atmosphere at the Laker game at the Forum? What about at Dodger Stadium? What about the status of Clipper game scheduled for the next night?

Also needed were appropriate sports guests to talk about what was happening.

“We’re not happy about Wednesday night,” Weiner said. “We knew we might have some problems starting off, and we did. All I can say is, it won’t happen again.”

KMPC, to its credit, rallied Thursday. In the early morning, Robert W. Morgan and Scott St. James talked only about the verdict and the ensuing violence. The Angel pregame show, scheduled for 10 a.m., was scrapped, giving Morgan and St. James an additional half hour.

St. James kept his sports report brief. “The Angels lost.”

After the Angel game, Jim Lampley picked up where Morgan and St. James had left off.

Councilman Michael Woo and Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores were among his guests. So were Arthur Ashe and CBS sportscaster Irv Cross.

Lampley probably threw a few people off with his first show on Monday, unveiling what he calls his “Let’s Get Serious” show. His first guest was U.S. Congressman Tom McMillen of Maryland, a former pro basketball player whose book, “Out of Bounds,” deals with the overemphasis of sports in our society.

That seems to go against the grain of what an all-sports radio station is all about, but that’s what Lampley plans to do regularly.

“We are going to be taking on serious issues,” he said. “And sometimes we’ll stray away from sports.”

Thursday was a good time to do that.

KMPC’s mid-day crew will normally be Joe McDonnell and Todd Christensen, but this week Brian Golden of the Antelope Valley News has been McDonnell’s in-studio partner. Christensen, who has yet to move to Los Angeles from his home in Utah, has been taking part by telephone.

McDonnell and Golden surprised Christensen on Wednesday by having one of his former Raider teammates, Matt Millen, on the show. Millen, now with the Washington Redskins, was asked by Christensen to compare Raider owner Al Davis with Redskin owner Jack Kent Cooke.

Said Millen: “Al Davis used to have our lunches catered. Cooke made a deal with McDonald’s in which he buys quarter-pounders for 23 cents apiece. So every day we get quarter-pounders.”

The first guest on what McDonnell and Christensen call the “Monsters of the Mid-Day” show on Monday was Fred Claire, which should answer some questions about what kind of treatment the Dodgers will get on the Angels’ station under the new format.

Tom Lasorda was on later with Lampley, and former Dodger Duke Snider was a guest on the “Baseball ‘92” program that night, as was Commissioner Fay Vincent.

It also should be noted that KMPC has assigned a full-time reporter to the Dodgers, Larry Kahn, who offered this gem: “Maybe you’ve heard this one. How do you spell Offerman? With two ‘F’s’ and 50 ‘E’s.’ ”

TV-Radio Notes

Congratulations to Chick Hearn on becoming the third broadcaster inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The only question is, why wasn’t he the first? Hearn was given a standing ovation when the announcement was made at Wednesday night’s Laker-Portland game. . . . Magic Johnson got a good test last Sunday when he worked alone as a commentator for the first time on the Chicago-Miami playoff game. Johnson got plenty of time to talk, since his friend, Michael Jordan, and the Bulls, beat the Heat by 30 points. . . . At the top of the telecast, Johnson, with microphone in hand, told play-by-play partner Dick Enberg, “Playing in one of these games is a lot easier for me than doing this.” . . . Johnson’s enunciation isn’t the best, but his endearing personality more than makes up for his shortcomings.

A week ago, it appeared that ABC might have to take Jim McKay off Saturday’s Kentucky Derby telecast. And that would have been fine with McKay. A horse he and wife Margaret own, John The Bold, was in line to run in the Derby if he won a stakes race at Pimlico in Maryland last Saturday. But John The Bold ran eighth, squelching McKay’s longtime dream--but also eliminating a possible conflict of interest.

“For years, people have asked me what would happen if I had a horse in the Derby,” McKay said. “I always said, ‘It’s a problem I’d love to have.’ ” Dennis Swanson, ABC Sports president, and Curt Gowdy Jr., the producer of the Kentucky Derby telecast, decided last week that if John The Bold was in the Derby field, the best thing would be to take McKay off the telecast. “I was in full agreement,” McKay said. “I don’t think my mind would have been in the telecast anyway. I would have been a wreck. As it was, the tension I was feeling was unbelievable.”

ABC has another horse owner in its announcing stable, Al Michaels, whose Barraq won the fifth race at Santa Anita Monday. . . . Another possible conflict of interest ABC had to address was that racing expert Charlsie Cantey, who will be a part of Saturday’s Derby telecast, has been dating LeRoy Jolley, the trainer of Derby entrant Conte Di Savoya. ABC decided this was not a significant issue, particularly because the network holds Cantey and her reputation in high regard. . . . ABC’s Derby coverage begins at 1:30 p.m. Estimated post time is 2:35. . . . KMPC will offer radio coverage of the Derby, along with the other Triple Crown races.

More on KMPC: The station is carrying CBS baseball on Sundays at 5 p.m., followed by Bob Costas’ syndicated show. Also, Michaels will have a daily sports quiz. . . . Ernie Harwell, who spent 32 years with the Detroit Tigers, will work the first of his five fill-in Angel broadcasts for KMPC on Monday, when, appropriately, the Angels, are in Detroit.

For those who like to plan ahead, it’s in the works for Jerry Tarkanian and his San Antonio Spurs to play the Clippers at the Sports Arena on Christmas Day in an NBC game. . . . Tarkanian worked the Clipper-Utah game for SportsChannel Tuesday night. . . . About his return to the Sports Arena on Christmas Day, Tarkanian said: “My wife (Lois) isn’t going to be happy about me playing on Christmas Day. Only once did (Nevada Las Vegas) play on Christmas Day, and we lost to North Carolina. My wife said, ‘See, that’s what you get for playing on Christmas Day.’ ”