McDonough Takes Advice to the Bank

Earlier this year, not long after being named CBS’ lead baseball play-by-play announcer, Sean McDonough was in his bank in Quincy, Mass.

“Hey, I see your dad got you a big new job with CBS,” a stranger said.

McDonough shuddered. “Oh no, not this again,” he said to himself.

In 1988, when McDonough was only 25, he was hired to replace longtime announcer Ned Martin on Boston Red Sox telecasts. At the time, McDonough’s major league baseball experience consisted of one exhibition game.

Martin moved to cable, with McDonough doing over-the-air telecasts.

Naturally, there were whispers that McDonough got the job because of his influential father, Boston Globe sports columnist Will McDonough, who also dabbles in sports television.

“My father tells me he has never helped me get a job, and I tend to believe him,” McDonough said.

There is considerable evidence that McDonough, who turned 30 in May, has risen to the top of his profession at such a young age without much outside help.

He was the one who studied broadcasting at Syracuse and graduated cum laude from the university’s respected S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.

He was the one who auditioned for and got a job with the minor league baseball Syracuse Chiefs during his sophomore year as the team’s radio announcer.

And he was the one, after graduation in 1984, who got several broadcasting jobs in the Boston area, doing such things as sideline reporting for Ivy League football telecasts on public television.

In 1985, McDonough landed a job at WSBK-TV, the Bruins’ and Red Sox’s station, to serve as studio host for Bruin telecasts. He also did play by play on college hockey for WSBK, as well as a variety of other assignments.

When the station made McDonough the lead play-by-play announcer for the Red Sox in 1988, the move drew criticism from some fans and, in particular, from the Boston Herald, the Globe’s competitor.

But McDonough soon won over most of his critics with his refreshingly straightforward, precise style.

The people at ESPN, headquartered in Bristol, Conn., about 100 miles from Boston, also were impressed and in 1990 hired McDonough to work Tuesday night baseball telecasts, as well as college football and basketball.

Also taking note of McDonough’s work was Ted Shaker, the former executive producer of CBS sports, who hired McDonough to work part time for the network on pro football and college basketball last year and gave him the plum baseball job this year.

McDonough, who did six NFL games for CBS last season and, for the second year in a row, did six NCAA basketball tournament games with Bill Walton in March, still does Red Sox telecasts for WSBK--he will work 62 of 75 telecasts this season--and still works about 25 non-baseball events a year for ESPN.

“I guess if you plotted out a sportscasting career, it would be hard to come up with one better than this,” McDonough said.

McDonough, who will be a guest on Roy Firestone’s “Up Close” today, is in Los Angeles for Saturday’s Dodger-St. Louis game, which will be televised by CBS at noon. Then it’s on to San Diego for his biggest assignment to date, Tuesday’s All-Star game.

McDonough does credit his father for one thing: some good advice.

When McDonough was in high school and not sure whether to pursue a career in journalism or broadcasting, his father went straight to the core of things.

“Broadcasters make more money than newspapermen,” Will McDonough told his son.

Even though the networks have had to tighten their budgets, McDonough’s two-year contract reportedly will pay him $325,000 per year, or about five times what he probably would be making at a major newspaper.

Ned Martin, whom McDonough replaced at WSBK, was one of his idols. He had known Martin since McDonough was 4 or 5 and used to accompany his father to the Red Sox’s spring training home at Winter Haven, Fla.

Someone else McDonough has always looked up to in the broadcasting business is Jack Buck, whom he replaced at CBS.

McDonough’s father and Buck are close friends. They were colleagues at CBS and worked a few NFL games together the one season the elder McDonough tried his hand at game commentating.

Sean McDonough met Buck under difficult circumstances in February of 1990.

“My father was to be given an award in St. Louis by the March of Dimes, but two weeks before the banquet he suffered a heart attack, so I went in my father’s place,” McDonough said. “Jack was also being honored, and he came up to me, put his arm around my shoulder and acted just like Jack Buck--helpful, warm and caring. Everybody loves Jack.”

But Buck fell into disfavor with the CBS brass at last year’s World Series. They didn’t like his penchant for anticipating plays, particularly when the plays didn’t develop as Buck expected.

Shaker, considering a change, called McDonough into his New York office for an interview in December.

Everything went smoothly except for one thing. Shaker, only half kidding, told Sean to tell his father--who had worked for Shaker before going over to NBC--to quit giving anti-CBS quotes to TV-radio columnists.

“Not only did my father not help me get this job, he may have been a negative factor,” McDonough said with a chuckle. “I remember thinking, ‘Way to go, Dad.’ ”

Still, McDonough left Shaker’s office confident that he was a top candidate, although his excitement was tempered somewhat by his concern for Buck.

“I don’t cheer for things like that,” he said. “I didn’t want the job at Jack’s expense. But I had a long conversation with my father, and he said it was obvious I had nothing to do with the change, and that if CBS was going to replace Jack with someone else, it might as well be me.”

McDonough said he hasn’t had a chance to talk to Buck yet, but he will.

“I know it’s not going to be a problem,” McDonough said. “I’ve seen some nice quotes about me from Jack. That doesn’t surprise me. Everyone in broadcasting knows Jack Buck is a class act.”

TV-Radio Notes

One thing to look for during Tuesday’s All-Star telecast is a new camera angle of runners trying to steal second. It will be provided by a lipstick-size camera implanted into first base. . . . KNX will carry the CBS radio broadcast of the All-Star game. . . . Recommended viewing: “When it Was a Game II” makes its HBO debut Monday night at 10. There will be five other play dates during the month. As with last year’s first installment, this show is a keeper.

If Wimbledon is any indication of how NBC will fare at Barcelona, look out. Rain delays at Wimbledon are inevitable, but NBC was unprepared and inflexible. The network also deceived viewers on what was live and what was on tape. And one more thing: Can’t anybody put a muzzle on Bud Collins? . . . The U.S. Olympic basketball team’s lopsided victories sure didn’t turn off viewers of the Tournament of the Americas. Last Sunday’s national rating was an 8.2 after a 7.5 for the first game the previous Sunday. . . . What genius at Channel 4 decided, right in the middle the medal presentations to the U.S. team last Sunday, to break in with a news bulletin about an aftershock hardly anybody felt?

Former USC offensive lineman Mike Lamb has been hired as co-host of the Raider pre- and postgame shows for KFI. Lamb replaces Jim Plunkett. . . . KMPC’s Joe McDonnell and Doug Krikorian will broadcast live from the Richard Nixon Library in Yorba Linda next Wednesday, when Nixon and son-in-law David Eisenhower announce their all-time all-star team at a luncheon attended by several baseball legends. . . . Channel 5, with a new emphasis on local sports, has picked up the Raycom Pacific 10 basketball package, formerly carried by Channel 2. Channel 5 will show 14 games, including 10 involving UCLA or USC. . . . KLAC will carry Notre Dame football this fall.

Michael Jordan heads a list of athletes competing in a celebrity golf tournament at South Lake Tahoe this weekend. Today’s round will be on the USA network, with NBC covering Saturday and Sunday. . . . The “World Firefighters Games,” taped at Las Vegas, will be televised by Prime Ticket Saturday night at 9:30. . . . The Corporate Nationals at UC Irvine this weekend will be taped by David Bolter Productions and shown on SportsChannel in September. Business executives will compete in golf, tennis and track and field. Former Channel 5 sportscaster Joe Buttitta, now teaching pro at Westlake Golf Course, will call the track portion with Edwin Moses. . . . ESPN’s highly acclaimed “Outside the Lines” series takes a look at the financial side of sports in a segment entitled the “Sport of Money” next Wednesday at 5:30 p.m.