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Big Joe
- Thread starter imlayguy
- Start date
Sad news indeed!! Joe McD was one of my favorites... Even listened to him on KMAX (!!).... I met him at Angel Stadium under the big helmets in front... He looked unhealthy then years ago. Even though he lost weight after his operation, he had an awful lot of weight to carry around so this news while very sad is also not surprising. Condolences to Elizabeth and the McDonnell family :>(
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Thomps2525
Guest
I taped some of the shows that he did with sports writer Doug Krikorian. Their program was cleverly known as McDonnell-Douglas, a nod to the defunct McDonnell-Douglas aerospace manufacturing corporation. The news of McDonnell's death is already on LARadio.com today (March 13):
http://laradio.com/
http://laradio.com/
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Thomps2525
Guest
Here is what I wrote about McDonnell for a radio fanzine:
Longtime sports commentator Joe McDonnell has died. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the man who would be nicknamed "Big Joe" and "The Big Nasty" attended Alemany High School in Mission Hills and Los Angeles Valley College. He originally wanted to be a newspaper reporter. Because his voice was, as he put it, "bad, nasal and scratchy," he had not planned on a radio career but in 1975 he was hired at KGIL to provide sports updates on Dick Whittington's morning show. In 1982, McDonnell became a sports correspondent for AP Radio, UPI Radio and Mutual Radio. In 1988, KFI sports director Chris Roberts hired him as a producer and reporter and McDonnell soon began filling in for vacationing talk-show hosts. In 1991, he became one of the original program hosts at the new Sports Radio 710 KMPC, which had just switched from a music format to sports. He later worked at KMAX, KWNK, KABC, KXTA, KFWB, KSPN, KLAC and KNX. McDonnell teamed with Long Beach Press-Telegram sports columnist Doug Krikorian on a long-running talk show that aired at various times on four local stations. It was cleverly known as The McDonnell-Douglas Show, a nod to the defunct McDonnell-Douglas aerospace manufacturing corporation. In 2010, Krikorian described McDonnell as "loud, opinionated, obnoxious, irreverent, outrageous, unpredictable, knowledgeable, brash and, most of all, entertaining." Because McDonnell was held in such high regard by listeners and athletes, he was able to get exclusive interviews and scoops involving some of Los Angeles's most famous sports figures, including Pat Riley, Magic Johnson, Kirk Gibson, Mike Piazza and Wayne Gretzky. McDonnell became obese as a teenager and at one time weighed 740 pounds. Each local team provided him with a heavy-duty chair with no arms so he could sit at their press tables and eat in their press rooms. After undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2004, McDonnell eventually lost 400 pounds. In 2010, he overcame a serious infection by flesh-eating bacteria. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak noted that McDonnell was "opinionated and brutally honest" but at the same time "knowledgeable and fair." McDonnell died March 13 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles after a long illness. He was 58.
Longtime sports commentator Joe McDonnell has died. Born in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, the man who would be nicknamed "Big Joe" and "The Big Nasty" attended Alemany High School in Mission Hills and Los Angeles Valley College. He originally wanted to be a newspaper reporter. Because his voice was, as he put it, "bad, nasal and scratchy," he had not planned on a radio career but in 1975 he was hired at KGIL to provide sports updates on Dick Whittington's morning show. In 1982, McDonnell became a sports correspondent for AP Radio, UPI Radio and Mutual Radio. In 1988, KFI sports director Chris Roberts hired him as a producer and reporter and McDonnell soon began filling in for vacationing talk-show hosts. In 1991, he became one of the original program hosts at the new Sports Radio 710 KMPC, which had just switched from a music format to sports. He later worked at KMAX, KWNK, KABC, KXTA, KFWB, KSPN, KLAC and KNX. McDonnell teamed with Long Beach Press-Telegram sports columnist Doug Krikorian on a long-running talk show that aired at various times on four local stations. It was cleverly known as The McDonnell-Douglas Show, a nod to the defunct McDonnell-Douglas aerospace manufacturing corporation. In 2010, Krikorian described McDonnell as "loud, opinionated, obnoxious, irreverent, outrageous, unpredictable, knowledgeable, brash and, most of all, entertaining." Because McDonnell was held in such high regard by listeners and athletes, he was able to get exclusive interviews and scoops involving some of Los Angeles's most famous sports figures, including Pat Riley, Magic Johnson, Kirk Gibson, Mike Piazza and Wayne Gretzky. McDonnell became obese as a teenager and at one time weighed 740 pounds. Each local team provided him with a heavy-duty chair with no arms so he could sit at their press tables and eat in their press rooms. After undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2004, McDonnell eventually lost 400 pounds. In 2010, he overcame a serious infection by flesh-eating bacteria. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak noted that McDonnell was "opinionated and brutally honest" but at the same time "knowledgeable and fair." McDonnell died March 13 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles after a long illness. He was 58.
Big Joe always seemed to have more access to the local athletes, especially Dodgers and Lakers, than your usual press reporters, columnists, and radio talkers and he transferred that extra access into more inside info on his shows, especially in the McDonnell Douglas days. He would often contradict local sports stories and rumors by saying he had talked to the player involved directly, and more times than not, Big Joe turned out to be correct. I think it was that access and the fact that he took his "reporter" hat just as seriously, if not more so, than his "commentator" hat, that allowed him to work at KFWB and KNX even after the sports station gigs had run their course. (This is a good lesson for many guys on the radio now). He was popular with the listeners because he gave it to you straight - he called things the way he saw them regardless of whose feathers he ruffled.
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Thomps2525
Guest
McDonnell was one of few people to get an interview with Dodgers outfielder Kirk Gibson. In 1990 when Pat Riley was forced to resign as Lakers coach, Riley gave the exclusive story to McDonnell. In 1994 when Magic Johnson coached the Lakers, Magic would often give exclusive interviews to McDonnell and no one else. Los Angeles radio listeners are fortunate to have had Cleve Hermann, Jim Healy and Joe McDonnell.
Joe worked at KMPC when it went sports and Jim Healy was doing is 5:30 show, and Joe appropriately always spoke very reverentially about Jim. Nobody had more local scoops back in the day than Jim Healy, and I gotta believe that Jim was a definite influence on Joe.
Interestingly though, they both got their scoops in very different ways. Jim had a network of "spies" working for or near local sports teams who would get juicy stories, feed them to Jim (who fact checked constantly) and wait for the story to show up on Jim's show. Joe simply worked hard to get access to the newsmakers themselves and turned that access into exclusives as noted above.
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Thomps2525
Guest
Yes, but did anyone ever ask Jim Healy for his opinion of McDonnell's performance? 
Big Joe was recognized for a minute on the LA Kings telecast on Saturday night. Bob Miller said he had great memories of Big Joe's radio shows, especially of course when he was partnered with Doug Krikorian.
Yes, but did anyone ever ask Jim Healy for his opinion of McDonnell's performance?
This is a joke that never gets old.
You couldn't have it said any better...
I was in mid-teens when I first listening to the McDonnell-Douglas Show on the old KMPC 710, and that's how I pretty much got into listening to sports talk radio as whole. The local connections Joe and Doug had, plus their level of expertiste made their show a must-listen to me. Ironically enough, once he stopped doing a regular show, that's when I pretty much stopped listening to live and local sports radio shows. I'm pretty much a sports podcast person now.
Time Warner Cable SportsNet (the Lakers' network) was showing the documentary of the '71-72 Laker team late Friday night, and Joe (along with Doug and a host of other local reporters that covered the team back in the day) was part of a panel discussing everything that happened that season. I'm not a Laker fan by any means, but it still nice to see the historical perspective from the people who covered the team.
RIP Big Joe
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