KMPC Reports Angel Crash as a Flagship Should

When the rioting in Los Angeles broke out two days after KMPC switched to its sports format last month, the station dropped the ball.

Listeners to KMPC that night wouldn’t have known Los Angeles was burning.

When a bus carrying Angel players and personnel crashed on the New Jersey Turnpike, this was a major story for KMPC, the team’s flagship station. And this time it reacted the way a news outlet should.

The crash occurred at 10:50 p.m. PDT, and ESPN reported it at 11:58 p.m., at the end of the 11:30 edition of “SportsCenter.”

ESPN was tipped at about 11:30 by a viewer who either saw the mishap or was told about it. ESPN called the New Jersey Authority Police for verification.

Fred Wallin, as he prepared to go on KMPC at 12:04 a.m., got a call from a listener, informing him of the ESPN report.

The staff from KMPC’s “Baseball ‘92” program stayed on to help Wallin and his producer, Mike Johnson, try to track down more information.

Wallin had little to work with during the first hour of his show. The first Associated Press story, which came across the wire at about 12:30, offered little more than the fact that the injuries were mostly minor.

During the second hour of his show, Wallin had a New Jersey state trooper on, as well as a hospital spokesperson and Tim Mead, the Angels’ publicist.

During the third hour, play-by-play announcer Al Conin, who suffered a severe cut above his eye during the mishap, called in a report from the hospital.

The Robert W. Morgan team picked up the ball in the early hours Thursday, and KMPC stayed on the story the rest of the day.

Add crash: Conin’s radio partner, Bob Jamison, was on a second bus, following the one that crashed.

Mead reported on KMPC Thursday morning that Conin has a black eye. “He looks like Stallone in the first ‘Rocky’ movie,” Mead said.

Complaint Dept.: One thing that is really irritating about KMPC, besides the use of the slogan “the only game in town” a million times a day, is the use of the name “Morgan” in place of the word morning.

Here was Robert W. dealing with a serious story, and he’s talking about Buck Rodgers being transferred to Centinela hospital tomorrow “Morgan.” How inappropriate.

Jim Lampley makes his NBC debut this weekend, working the network’s sports update program from a studio in New York.

For the most part, Lampley has been tremendous on KMPC. But every once in a while he will come up with something like this: “Shaquille O’Neal needs an outside shot like the North Vietnamese army needs a panzer division.”

Say what?

Also, it seems Todd (Ego Monster) Christensen, who has decided to call himself Top Cat, isn’t letting up on the $4 words. “Eclectic” had colleague Chris Roberts scurrying for the dictionary the other day.

By the way, eclectic means gathered from various sources.

Recommended viewing: ESPN will deal with a sensitive topic on “Outside the Lines: Men & Women, Sex & Sports” next Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.

This is the eighth “Outside the Lines” special ESPN has done, and host Bob Ley said this was the toughest subject to get people to talk about. “People were more willing to talk about selling steroids,” Ley said.

Reporter Andrea Kremer, who began saving newspaper clippings dealing with sexual promiscuity and sexual assault some time ago, came up with the idea of doing such a show.

For one of the segments, Kremer went to the Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, Okla., to interview convicted rapist Nigel Clay, a former Oklahoma offensive lineman.

Kremer said her interview with Clay supports the underlying message in the special: that athletes are pampered and given so much that they can become accustomed to taking anything they want.

Although Clay, from Fontana, denies to Kremer that he committed the rape at an athletic dorm in 1989, he also says: “You get in that position where you can get anything you want, so you get a big head.”

Says Kremer: “Does this make you feel you can do things you wouldn’t do otherwise?”

Clay: “It makes you feel protected.”

Kremer, who works closely with athletes in her job, said she personally has never had a problem, “but after working on the show I’m going to be a little more leery.”

Dodger deal: One of the interesting things about Channel 5’s new five-year contract with the Dodgers is that the team was able to get an increase in TV rights fees at a time when most sports rights fees are declining.

According to sources, Channel 11 has been paying $13 million per year, and Channel 5 will pay $15.5 million per year.

A general manager at a rival station said Channel 5 figures to lose $65,000 per game if advertising rates and ratings remain at their current level.

TV-Radio Notes

Tonight’s Portland-Utah game will be TNT’s final NBA playoff telecast. It will be TNT’s 37th game in 29 days. Ernie Johnson will end up having spent 330 hours in the studio during those 29 days. . . . At halftime of tonight’s game, a piece by Craig Sager will focus on the problems in South-Central Los Angeles. Olden Polynice and Byron Scott will be featured. . . . After tonight, all remaining playoff games will be on NBC, including three over three days, all at 12:30 p.m. Marv Albert and Mike Fratello will announce Chicago-Cleveland games Saturday and Monday; Dick Enberg, Steve Jones and Cotton Fitzsimmons will work Portland-Utah on Sunday. Magic Johnson has the weekend off.

It’s a big weekend for Don Ohlmeyer. He is producing ABC’s Indianapolis 500 coverage for ABC, which begins Sunday at 8 a.m., and the LPGA Skins Game, an Ohlmeyer creation, also will be on ABC this weekend--Saturday, delayed at 4 p.m., Sunday, live at 12:30 p.m. . . . XTRA (690) will be the Southern California radio outlet for the Indianapolis 500 Sunday. Pole-sitter Roberto Guerrero will be Lee Hamilton’s guest tonight.

ESPN will devote 49 1/2 hours to the French Open, which begins Monday. The starting time for much of the coverage will be 6 a.m. . . . ESPN has hired Fred Lynn as a College World Series commentator. The Series begins next Friday. . . . ESPN’s baseball doubleheader in Los Angeles last Friday was San Diego at Pittsburgh, followed by Chicago at San Francisco. The majority of the country got the Angels at Boston, followed by the New York Mets at the Dodgers. ESPN had to black out the Dodger game, and because the Angel game was on the same feed, it was blacked out in Los Angeles as well.

A Channel 9 special, “Olympic Dreams,” to be shown Saturday at 10 p.m., will focus on Los Angeles Olympians. In one of the segments, Florence Griffith Joyner talks about what it is like to coach her husband, Al Joyner. Gary Cruz and Tom Murray are the hosts. . . . Don’t be alarmed if you see Jim Hill’s picture on a milk carton. He’s not missing. Adolph Farms has decided to honor the Channel 2 sportscaster for his anti-drug work with kids.

Jack Snow and Vince Ferragamo are apparently the finalists to replace Jack Youngblood as the Rams’ radio commentator. Snow, who has the more impressive credentials, is said to have the inside track. . . . Guests on Irv Kaze’s “Talking Sports” show on KIEV (870) tonight at 7 will be NFL referee Jim Tunney and Anita De Frantz, president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and a member of the International Olympic Committee. Tunney will talk about instant replay and De Frantz will talk about the unrest in South-Central Los Angeles and sports’ role in the healing process.