Veteran broadcaster goes way back with local baseball
Sportstalk host Dan Russell ‘tickled’ at induction into journalism hall of notables for long association with Vancouver Canadians
Dan Russell’s affinity for hockey is well-documented.
Vancouver Canucks discussion was front and centre during much of Russell’s 30-year run hosting Sportstalk on the radio.
Rabid fans of the show can tell you that Bill LaForge was Sportstalk’s first guest, coming on during his short tenure as Canucks coach in 1984.
The second guest?
It was Vancouver Canadians manager Tony Muser, who had just finished his first full season at the helm of the then-triple-A affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers based out of Nat Bailey Stadium.
Russell, now 57, has long been a baseball devotee, and the C’s will honour him Saturday at The Nat with a spot in their broadcast and journalism hall of fame.
There will be a ceremony before the 7:05 p.m. game against the Boise Hawks.
We got a chance to sit down and speak with Russell earlier this week: Q: What did you think when the C’s called to let you know about the hall of fame? A:
I was quite tickled ... I had done a lot of things in the early 1980s with the team. I’ve been out of sight, out of mind for the last while and it hadn’t dawned on me that they might do something like that. I am pretty tickled. Q What’s your greatest Canadians memory? A There are many. I was asked to oversee the broadcasts in the early 1980s. I would do the 5 p.m. sportscast on CJOR and then drive to Nat Bailey and do the 6 p.m. from the press box and then do the pregame show from the press box and the post-game show from the dugout. I did it for a couple years. I was young and I was impressionable and it was great for me, because there were a lot of great people around. I got to know Dick Phillips as the field manager and then as general manager. I got to know Tony Muser. And there was the media room, with Lowell Ullrich and Dennis Feser and Pat Karl, and a host of others. The media room back then was legendary to me.
Q And there was the night you did Sportstalk from The Nat on the fly. A There was. I knew one day there would be a marathon game. It was a slow night for us and the game was still going on at about 11:15 p.m., so I raced out to my car on a commercial break and started driving over to the ballpark. It was the early days of cellphones, probably 1986 or 1987. I’m on my cell, driving, doing the show. You can hear me driving and you can hear me walking into the ballpark. I interviewed some people in the concourse and then I went up to the press box to see my colleagues and friends. I really enjoyed those times, but I love baseball and I love the fact that we still have a team and I’m so happy that they’re doing so well. Q We’d be remiss to not ask you about all-sports radio in this town now, what with Sportsnet 650 about to begin Year 2 of duelling with TSN 1040. Your thoughts on sportstalk radio these days? A
There’s certainly a lot of it. One of the reasons for my success was that I was the only show in town for the longest time. You listened to me or you didn’t get your sport-talk fix. There’s some great quality now, but there’s more quantity than anything else. That makes it harder. I don’t know how they do it with so much sports talk going on. And it was a different time. You hear a lot of Canucks now, and I think it’s because there’s a fear that people aren’t nearly as a patient as they used to be. We felt like we could diversify. We felt like we could tell a B.C. Lions story or a Vancouver Canadians story or a high school story, because we felt people would give it a chance.