Radnich’s final show full of emotion, tributes
His voice breaking at times, Gary Radnich bid farewell to his longtime radio audience Friday after 24 years of sports talk at KNBR and more than three decades in Bay Area broadcasting.
After a final tribute to him was read by a young station colleague, he responded with his signature putdown: “Nobody cares!”
Radnich, 69, had retired from KRONTV a year ago after more than 33 years. A couple of generations of Bay Area sports fans had either chuckled or groaned over his iconoclastic brand of humor.
“I’m a TV guy by heart,” Radnich said of his career. “TV paid for the homes. Radio paid for the cars.”
Radnich struggled when trying to explain how he was able to succeed in college basketball and how he found his plainspoken style in broadcasting. “It was important to me to control my own environment in which I worked,” he said.
That is, he wanted to do radio his own way, leavened with humor that would appeal to people who didn’t necessarily follow sports. A series of sound bites, in some of which he sounded nearly hysterical, brought that point home. His fans liked that he wasn’t smooth and didn’t pretend to know everything about sports. They liked him the way they liked an amiable, wisecracking guy at the corner bar.
Some of his listeners got emotional, too. Chrystine DM French tweeted: “I had no idea that @GaryRadnich last show on @KNBR would affect me as it is. It is like saying goodbye to my dad again. We spent countless hours listening to Radnich on the radio in my childhood.”
Radnich, accompanied by his wife, Alicia, a former KRON producer, and his son, Spencer, joined Larry Krueger at 11:01 a.m. for the twohour show, which wound up running an extra 10 minutes.
“We had a good thing going,” he told Krueger. “Your knowledge and my nonchalance paid off.”
Before leaving the studio to Radnich and his family for the rest of the show, Krueger said, “I didn’t know what you were going to be like when we got together. But you love people. That’s the one thing I’ve learned from you: just treat people well. That’s why people gravitate to you.”
Former 49ers/Browns executive Carmen Policy soon countered on the phone, telling Radnich: “I don’t understand something. People are actually saying good things about you.”
Radnich asked Spencer where he thought Kevin Durant would wind up. “The Knicks,” Spencer said in his debut as a talkshow “expert.”
His dad’s radio career started when former KNBR general manager Tony Salvadore invited him, well into his career at KRON, to pinchhit as a talk show host. The stint eventually led to a regular show.
When the station recently decided to revise its lineup and lured Greg Papa from 95.7 The Game, Radnich said he knew it was time to go rather than wait till the end of the year as he had planned. He insisted he was treated fairly. “Nobody was going to treat me poorly” because he had helped “build the station,” he said.
Longtime Radnich collaborator Tony Bruno, a former talkshow host in Philadelphia who now does a sports podcast, joined the party. They talked briefly about the decline of the Giants and how high NBA draft picks are now “brands.”
“I’m retiring to spend more time with my family,” Radnich said, mockingly repeating a familiar sportsworld refrain. Bruno said, “You’re the first person who has said it that actually means it.”
Bruno riffed on the cheating that went on in the UNLV basketball program back when Radnich played. Radnich agreed: “Vegas back in those days — we really cheated. Guys on the team would look at their report card and say, ‘I didn’t even know I had that class.’ ”
Not everybody liked the RadnichBruno repartee, with its endless popculture references. A Twitter follower named Javachik said, “I used to enjoy their shtick together in the early 2000’s, but Bruno’s twitter feed is really gross. Rather listen to a Kars4Kids commercial than him.”
Some people didn’t care for Radnich’s act altogether. Midway through the show, “Sandra” tweeted, “In less than an hour, KNBR will become a little better.”
Others loved him. Kate Scott, a former KNBR hand now with the Pac12 Networks, said, “I learned so much from you. You’re such a good interviewer and such a good entertainer. That’s why you lasted so long.”
Among other wellwishers who called in were Giants PA announcer Renel BrooksMoon, KRON anchor Pam Moore and KNTV news anchor Raj Mathai.
Former Giants outfielder and current Washington Nationals broadcaster F.P. Santangelo sent a tribute: “Congrats to @GaryRadnich for having a career that we, in broadcasting, all wish we could have. He was a huge positive influence on my career @KNBR when I first started, always giving great advice. And as Gary would say ‘if you’re doing it that long, you’re doing something right.’ ”
Salvadore, who had brought Radnich to KNBR, sized up the key to Radnich’s longevity: “It was the talent that took it all the way. It’s all about talent — and you had it.”
Before signing off, Radnich said, “I appreciate Larry, the audience — thank you, thank you.” Getting to do the show for so many years, he said, “was the luckiest break I ever had.”