Sidelined

Or

Craig and the Amazing Technicolor Death Shroud

(Props to Phil)

Craig Sager, whose outrageous wardrobe served to distract from the utter pointlessness of sideline reporting, has died of leukemia at the age of 65. Since college, Sager sought an up-close view of sports. At Northwestern, he suited up as Willie the Wildcat and taunted Ohio State fans after an upset football win. As a stringer in Atlanta on April 8, 1974, he ran onto the field for an interview after Hank Aaron hit his 715^th HR. He slept in Seattle Slew’s stable the night before the 1977 Belmont Stakes where the thoroughbred won the Triple Crown, saving a pile of shit as a memento. Collecting crap would come to be his stock in trade. After stints with local TV and CNN, Sager joined Turner Sports, where he brought his basketball knowledge and closet full of pastels, neons, paisleys, TV test patterns, plaids and Rorschach tests to highlight pregame and between period interviews with sweaty players telling him they need to play harder and get more open shots and cranky coaches rolling their eyes while being asked why their team wasn’t winning. His rarefied status among the ranks of the useless is typified in an exchange with renowned misanthrope Gregg Popovich: “This is the first time I’ve enjoyed doing this ridiculous interview we’re required to do, and that’s because you’re here and you’re back with us. Now ask me a couple of inane questions.”

All My Dowdy Friends are Here on Monday Night

Frank Gifford, Chuck Bednarik’s favorite tackling dummy, has died at the age of 84. Gifford played 12 seasons for the New York Giants, earning the 1956 MVP en route to leading the Giants to the NFL Championship, his only win in 5 tries. He also missed 18 months when a hard tackle by Bednarik forced a temporary retirement. He brought his distinctive monotone to Monday Night Football, where his 1950s blandness offered a welcome respite from the distinct personalities of Dandy Don Meredith and Howard Cosell. ABC eventually spread his gaffes into their Olympics coverage and Wide World of Sports. Gifford’s playing career also was notable for throwing 6 interceptions, tied for the most by a non-QB in NFL history. Not all his passes went for naught, as in 1997, the Globe thought that getting a video of an NFL broadcaster cheating on his wife with an ex-stewardess was worth $100,000 and set him up, effectively ending his broadcasting career. Unfortunately, it did not have the same effect on his wife Kathie Lee’s. 

Cold as the Other Side of the Pillow

(An epitaphany shared with Joe and Monty)

 

Or

Just Call Him Gopher, ‘Cause He’s in a Hole

 

Or

Boo? Yay!

 

Or

Stuart's Scotch-Irish Wake

(Props to Phil)

Somewhere Pookie, Ray-Ray, Nieesha and the rest of the congregation are mourning, as Stuart Scott, who helped to speed the downfall of SportsCenter by trying to convince America he was black, has died of cancer at the age of 49. Hired for the start of espn2, then the New Coke of the mothership in 1993, he was moved to the anchor’s desk on SportsCenter in what should be known as the Dread Scott Decision. His hip hop slang, catchphrases and easy rapport with Rich Eisen quickly found a non-discriminating audience. As his stature and his colleagues’ irritation with him grew, he spent more time on the road. On a trip to New York Jets mini-camp, he got hit in the face while attempted to catch a pass, leading to a detached retina, drooping eyelid and a 6-year contract offer from the Jets. In July 2014, he won the Jim Valvano Spirit Award, an award named for the former NC State basketball coach who caused a state school in a basketball-mad region to voluntarily put itself on probation because his team couldn’t read and were selling their game tickets and school-issued shoes on the side, but is a good guy because he got cancer and isn’t Dick Vitale. The award was presented at the ESPYs, which surprisingly two people on our list apparently still watch.

That Was the Broadcaster That Was

David Frost, an integral part of Richard Nixon’s legacy-shopping tour, has died of a heart attack at the age of 74. In more good news for the cruise industry, he had been in the middle of a lecture aboard the Queen Elizabeth at the time. Frost got his start as the perfect straightman to anchor the BBC’s satirical take on world events That Was The Week That Was, which boasted a writing staff that included John Cleese, Graham Chapman and Peter Cook. After 2 successful seasons, the BBC canceled it for fear of affecting the 1964 elections, so Frost brought his show to America under the same title. He returned with The Frost Report, more satire and sketches notable for bringing together Chapman, Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin. Frost moved from comedy into in-depth interviews, including eight prime ministers and seven US presidents, most notably Nixon two years after his resignation. In those interviews, Nixon alternated between his version of contrition and contentiousness, insisting "When the president does it, that means it's not illegal," in between asking about Frost’s fornicating. Frost was the first host of Inside Edition, lasting just 3 weeks before producers decided that Frost’s combination of wit, gravitas, integrity and intelligence was poorly suited to the program and replaced him with Bill O'Reilly.

School’s Out for Summerall

Pat Summerall, who overcame being born with a backward leg, toy NFL kicker helmets and alcoholism only to spend 21 years covered with John Madden’s spittle, has died of cardiac arrest at the age of 82. With the New York Giants, Summerall played in 3 NFL title games in 4 years – all losses. His personal highlight came in 1958 when he hit a late 49-yard field goal in a snowstorm at Yankee Stadium that beat the Cleveland Browns in the season finale and forced the two teams into a playoff for the Eastern Conference title. The Giants also won that game before losing the Greatest Game Ever Played to the Baltimore Colts. Summerall was the rare ex-player who ended up as a play-by-play man rather than a color commentator, but his style seemed more suited to the golf tournaments he broadcast in the offseason than the gridiron. His sedate style worked well in his teaming with Madden, largely because his broadcaster partner tended to use up all the oxygen in the room, as well as large chunks of nitrogen and argon. In his career, he brought the same hushed tones to the NBA Finals in 1974 and was the man to let Bobby Orr’s father know his son had won the Stanley Cup for the Bruins in 1970. After stints covering the NFL for NBC, CBS and Fox he retired, making it a semi-retirement when he began broadcasting Cowboys home games and the Cotton Bowl in his hometown of Dallas.

They Buried Him

Allegedly beloved Phillies broadcaster Andy Musser died of a heart condition at the age of 74. Apparently the Phillies had two broadcasters named Andy Musser, because the one I remember was a shrill, annoying schmuck with a limited understanding of the game. His best known call was a glorious day in October 1980 when Mike Schmidt hit a 10th inning home run off Stan Bahnsen to help the Phillies clinch the NL East en route to winning their first World Series as he let loose a high-pitched “He buried it.” A member of a 4-man broadcast team for most of his time with the Phillies, he lacked Hall of Famer Harry Kalas’ smooth baritone, Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn’s folksy humor, and even shrill pedant Chris Wheeler’s deep knowledge of Phillies trivia, but at least he had good luck in broadcast partners.

No mustard, Grandma / The rye bread stays on the shelf / Dave Niehaus has died

Or
Fly Fly Away
In baseball, players, managers, coaches and even stadia come and go. The constants are the fans, and, if you’re lucky to have a good one, the broadcasters. Dave Niehaus, the voice of the Seattle Mariners since their debut in 1977, has died of a heart attack at the age of 75. Niehaus broadcast 5,284 of the Mariners 5,385 games, most of them losses, and his audible frustration with Dave Valle, Mike Moore and Mario Mendoza endeared him to similarly suffering Mariners fans. Although attendance dropped off as the losses mounted, the Mariners radio share was always among the tops in the league. For his time and trouble, Niehaus was inducted in the Broadcasters Wing of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2008, there was no one else who could have thrown out the first pitch to open the Mariners new stadium in 1999, and the next year he was the second man inducted into the Mariner Hall of Fame. Having seen so much ineptitude, no one appreciated the Mariners break-through to win the 1995 ALDS over the Yankees, and his enthusiastic call on Edgar Martinez’ game-winning double in the 11th inning of Game 5 to complete the comeback win ranks with the all time greats.

Cusick as a Dog

Fred Cusick, who did more in hockey than any other Northeastern hockey alum, has died at the age of 90, on the eve of his induction into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Broadcasters inducted prior to Cusick include Tom Bergeron, best known for evoking the emotion and import of getting punched in the groin, Bozo the Clown and hairdo Joyce Kulhawik. Good call guys. Between radio, television and cable, Cusick called Boston Bruins hockey for 45 years. He also called the first network NHL broadcast, for CBS in January 1957 and the first game in the history of the second incarnation of the American Football League, between the Denver Broncos and the Boston Patriots from Boston University’s Nickerson Field. The first American named to the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Broadcaster Wing in 1984, he came out of a brief retirement to spend 5 seasons as the home voice of the American Hockey League’s Lowell Lock Monsters.

Meet the Maker

Or
If its Friday, It’s a Massive Coronary
Backstabbing fat bastard Tim Russert has died of a heart attack at the age of 58, ironically enough on “take out the trash day” when politically unpleasant news gets dumped on an even more disinterested than usual populace. Russert, Buffalo’s favorite son and first cousin to Baltimore homicide detective Megan Russert, spent 17 years annoying politicians and pundits by asking direct questions until he got either an actual answer or enough rope with which to hang them later each Sunday morning as host of Meet the Press. He also eschewed fancy schmancy technology for the Electoral College Whiteboard, starting with Election Night 2000 when he showed how hard it was to count to 270. He was considered the definitive interviewer of the political process and scored the first U.S. solo interview with John Paul II. He also proved to be a big pansy coward, turning his back on long-time friend Don Imus, who had shamelessly and annoyingly plugged Russert’s book about his father, “Big Russ and Me,” after Imus questioned the follicular stylings of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

He's All Gone

Or
Agony of De Old Age
Jim McKay, who spent a lifetime spanning the globe to bring back a constant variety of sports that no one cared about, has died at the age of 86. As host of the Wide World of Sports from 1961 to 2001, McKay helped bring viewers the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat while watching log rolling, cliff diving and, of course, downhill skiing. He recalled when he was first given the assignment, it would involve “a little travel.” Between Wide World and his other assignments, McKay covered more than 100 different sports in 40 countries, traveling more than 4.5 million miles. McKay broadcast 12 Olympics, none more significant than his work at the 1972 Munich games, when he showed a sportsman could handle the news, anchoring 16 consecutive hours of coverage of the kidnapping of 11 Israeli athletes, and, when the rescue attempt failed, announcing to the world, “They’re all gone.” His skilled handling earned him both news and sports Emmy Awards, as well as the prestigious George Polk Memorial award. He earned a total of 13 Emmys, including his last, in 1988, for writing the openings for ABC Sports' coverage of the 1987 Indianapolis 500, the British Open and the Kentucky Derby.

Anchor’s Away

(Props to Monty)

Or

Signing off for the last time, he's Peter Jennings

(Kudos to Craig)

Or

He's News Tonight

(Honorifics to Mark)

Or

Anchored Man

(Tip o’ the cap to Mark)

Burying the Lead

(Mark completes the trifecta)

Peter Jennings, an inspiration for all Canadian high-school dropouts, threw a monkeywrench into the 2006 GHI, succumbing to lung cancer at the age of 67. Recognizing that no one would ever be able to read news behind a desk with such élan, ABC, NBC and CBS announced that, following the customary 3 days of round-the-clock coverage of his death and impact on the world, their news divisions would be shuttered immediately and they would begin airing infomercials in place of the evening news. Jennings first took the chair in 1964 at the age of 26 in a failed experiment. He was let loose on the world shortly thereafter as a foreign correspondent and helped ABC to emphasize its foreign coverage. From London, he would co-anchor the evening news with Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson in another failed experiment, before retaking the anchor spot in 1984. For a decade, Jennings kept ABC atop the news ratings, until the mid-1990s when most Americans could no longer find the rest of the world on a map if you spotted them a hemisphere. Expected to return to glory after Tom Brokaw passed the torch to hairdo Brian Williams and Dan Rather was put out to pasture like a cross-eyed steer with the mange in March 2005, Jennings made the surprising announcement in April that he had advanced lung cancer, and never appeared on camera again. He did visit the newsroom once, telling his fill-in anchor Charles Gibson how much it meant that he continued to sign off each broadcast, “For Peter Jennings and all of us here at ABC News, Good night.” Ever the newsman, he then set about critiquing the plan for that evening’s broadcast.

Ain’t that Broadcaster cold?

Chuck Thompson, hall of fame broadcaster for the Baltimore Orioles, has died at the age of 83. The unabashed homer was the voice of the Orioles for more than 50 years, and had been the voice of the Baltimore Colts for 30 years before the moving vans arrived in the middle of the night. The 1993 baseball hall of fame inductee’s best known catchphrase was the nonsensical, “Ain’t that beer cold?” to punctuate an Orioles homer or Colts touchdown.

Skydoom

Blue Jays television announcer John Cerutti was found dead in his hotel room at SkyDome Sunday at the age of 44. Cerutti was due to call the season finale against the New York Yankees at SkyDome, where he had won the first game in the park’s history in 1989. Cerutti was Toronto’s first-round pick in the 1981 draft out of Amherst College, where he was a teammate of former Red Sox GM Dan Duquette. After making his major league debut with the Blue Jays in 1985 and playing there for 6 seasons, then signing with the Detroit Tigers for a season, compiling a lifetime record of 49-43. Cerutti is the second baseball broadcaster in the last 11 years to die in a hotel room in Canada, after Don Drysdale in Montreal in 1993 and is the second broadcaster to die in a hotel room before playing a New York team in the last 7 years, joining Richie Ashburn who died before a Phils-Mets game in 1997. Just an observation.

Good Night, David

Breaking News: The floodgates have opened, our second mortal-coil shuffling of the week. David Brinkley, rated as one of the giants of broadcast journalism for more than 50 years, has accepted a new assignment in the afterlife. He learned the true meaning of the term deadline last night at the age of 82 following complications from a fall.

Brinkley anchored only one pool entry - Greg's Wily Veterans, bringing him into a five-way tie for first with himself, his lovely wife Kirsti, their lovely friend Michelle and me, whose loveliness goes without saying. I don't want to suggest mob ties or anything, but the Chicago contingent has accounted for 4 of the 5 hits in the pool this far.

Now that we actually have 5 hits, the leaderboard returns
1st: Greg's Fresh-faced Rookies 1 dead, 20 points
(tie) Kirsti 1 dead, 20 points
(tie) Michelle 1 dead, 20 points
(tie) Greg's Wily Veterans 1 dead, 20 points
(tie) Me 1 dead, 20 points