AN UPHILL BATTLE
On TV/Radio: Lack of unifying force may keep more media out of Texas Sports Hall of Fame
There’s a lot of time to think and contemplate assorted topics during my annual three-hour drive to Waco each June for the annual meeting of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame selection committee.
It takes the better part of an afternoon for our group to hammer out a ballot of 20 candidates, plus another dozen on the veterans’ ballot. And then, a few weeks later, comes the hard part of deciding which candidates to include among the eight inducted each year. (Ballot details, by the way, are available online at www. tshof.org).
While I’m at the Hall of Fame, I always stop by the library dedicated to my friend Dave Campbell, the founding editor of Texas Football magazine, for which I have worked for the past 38 years. The library includes arguably the best collection of books about Texas sports gathered in one location, not to mention a wax figure of Dave, perched at a desk in front of one of his old typewriters.
Nearby are photos of the writers and broadcasters who have been induced into the state hall. We inducted eight in one election in 2005, and our committee has been discussing ever since when or if anybody else will be considered for membership.
The first group, granted, is unbeatable. On the writers’ side, it included Dave Campbell, Mickey Herskowitz, Dan Jenkins and Blackie Sherrod. The four broadcasters were Jack Dale, Frank Fallon, Verne Lundquist and Kern Tips.
Lundquist is familiar to readers and viewers of all ages from his CBS and Turner Sports work prior to his days as a sportscaster in Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth.
The other three were best known for their work on the Southwest Conference Radio Network. Tips,
who was the Chronicle’s sports editor in the 1930s, was the network’s lead announcer for more than 30 years. Fallon and Dale also called games on the network before finishing their career as play-by-play men for Baylor and Texas Tech, respectively.
The question we ponder is whether anybody else rises to that level of excellence. Thus far, we keep kicking the can down the road, and I’m not sure if or when we will ever consider another media honoree.
If we do, we have one potential honoree in the room — Brad Sham, a selection committee member and Hall of Fame trustee who is the longtime radio voice of the Cowboys and briefly called Rangers games on radio along with his other CBS Radio Network sports duties.
One problem is that with the end of the SWC, there’s no real unifying force around which to reach consensus. There are a few national figures that might deserve consideration, among them Jim Nantz, who got his start in Houston but has worked most of his career for CBS Sports; Charlie Jones, who was the original voice of the AFL Dallas Texans and later a longtime fixture at NBC Sports; Frank Glieber, another longtime Cowboys voice who did NFL games for CBS; and longtime Oilers announcer and former ESPN college football voice Ron Franklin.
Who else? Heck, what about Phyllis George? Nobody was more popular than the former Miss Texas and Miss America during her years on “The NFL Today.” Hannah Storm got her start on radio and TV in Corpus Christi and Houston before moving on to the networks.
Three longtime baseball announcers who have received the Ford Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of
Fame would merit consideration — Milo Hamilton and Gene Elston of the Astros and Colt .45s and Eric Nadel of the Rangers, not to mention the late Rangers announcer Mark Holtz and former Astros voice Bill Brown.
Another would be arguably the greatest Texas radio legend of them all — Gordon McLendon, the Old Scotsman, who owned KILT in Houston and KLIF in Dallas and was one of the inventors of the fine art of game recreations through his Liberty Radio Network in the 1940s.
Everybody else, though, would be a regional sensation. Dale Hansen has been the most-watched sportscaster in Dallas-Fort Worth for years. Bob Allen had a long run in Houston. Dan Cook had an even longer run as a writer and broadcaster in San Antonio.
Dick Barron (no relation) created Home Sports Entertainment, which became Fox Sports Southwest, the longtime telecast home of Bill Worrell, Norm Hitzges and Greg Lucas, who has the distinction of having called major league events for teams in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.
How about Gene Peterson and Jim Foley, the longtime Rockets radio team, former Colts/Astros Spanishlanguages voice Rene Cardenas, longtime D-FW announcer Bill Mercer, the voice of Dallas-Fort Worth wrestling in addition to the Rangers and White Sox and many other sports, or Ralph Strangis, who did AWA wrestling duties before calling Dallas Stars games for 22 years.
Members of the Texas Radio Hall of Fame with sports connections include Gary DeLaune (San Antonio), Roger Emrich (D-FW), Mike Edmonds (Houston), Tom Franklin (Houston), Anita Martini (Houston), Mike Rhyner (D-FW) and Barry Warner (Houston).
There are others, some of whom escape my mind, and this list doesn’t include others who are in the Texas Sports Hall of Fame for their playing careers, like Larry Dierker, Don Meredith, Kyle Rote and Troy Aikman.
At any rate, it’s an interesting topic to contemplate on the long drive up Highway 6 toward Waco.
Listen to the watch
The benefits of technology: Jason Barfield, the sports information director at Sam Houston State and the school’s radio voice for basketball and baseball, says he was so amped during the Bearkats’ game Monday against Texas Tech that his Apple watch had to remind him to breathe.
Barfield complied, so he was able to call the final out of Sam Houston’s win over the Red Raiders to advance to its first NCAA super regional.
On the road
I asked Bill Brown, who had a guest stint on Astros radio during last weekend’s series in Arlington, about the last time he had heard so much noise from Astros fans during a road Astros-Rangers game.
“Probably never,” Brown said. “It was very noticeable. People were wearing their colors, and they said the Rangers fans treated them great.”
Alas, after years on the team charter, Brown learned how the rest of us travel to and from ballgames. United Airlines scrubbed its Sunday night flights from Dallas-Fort Worth, and Brown wound up renting a car and
didn’t return to Houston until midday Monday. ESPN poll results downplay political impact
In the wake of suggestions by some wags that ESPN’s ratings decline might be due to a more progressive political or social attitude, the network commissioned a poll in early May by Langer Research Associates of New York that indicated 18 percent of respondents think that the network represents a political bias in its reporting.
That figure, ESPN said, was consistent with the results of an October 2016 poll on the same topic. Sixty-four percent had no problem with the mix of sports and politics, 10 percent had no opinion and 8 percent said ESPN did not offer enough political content.
Of those who detect bias, 30 percent believe ESPN skews conservative.
“The findings belie the notion of any impact on our business” regarding politics, the network said in a story posted on its website.
Four DVRs, no waiting
AT&T officials say it is now possible for U-verse subscribers who get Root Sports Southwest to stream Astros games. MLB’s At-Bat app provides easiest access to the game stream. If you’re vague on the niceties of streaming, consult http://southwest.rootsports.com/viewer-faq/… Roger Clemens will join the Red Sox radio network as an analyst for Boston’s June 16 game at Minute Maid Park. He will be filling in for longtime announcer Joe Castiglione, who is not making the trip to Houston, alongside announcer Tim Neverett. … ESPN has set this coming Wednesday and Thursday for its five-hour “Celtics/ Lakers: Best of Enemies” documentary, directed by Jim Podhoretz and produced by Jonathan Hock, both of whom have contributed previous ESPN documentaries. …
ESPN will resume using the Hank Williams Jr. version of “All My Rowdy Friends Are Here on Monday Night” for “Monday Night Football” this season. Florida Georgia Line and Jason Derulo will join Williams. … Mike Tirico will call Thursday night games this season on NBC. The NFL last year required NBC to use Al Michaels on both Sunday and Thursday games but has relented to NBC’s request to use Tirico on Thursday games. … In Houston, the NHL’s Stanley Cup Final remains an afterthought. NBC through four games was averaging a 1.2 Nielsen rating in Houston, 51st among the 56 major markets. … The NFL for the first time this season will allow TV networks to accept no more than four 30-second spots for hard liquor during games this fall, the Wall Street Journal says. Ads must include a “prominent social responsibility message,” the newspaper said.