Phoenix TV Sports Guys (and Gals)

[KeithE4]

Since there's a similar thread on the radio board, I thought I'd start one here.

Diamondbacks
Thom Brennaman - He's outta here to join his dad in Cincinnati, but I think he'll be missed. Some people hate him, but he is one of the best PBP men in the business when he stays on-game and quits BSing with Mark Grace.

Mark Grace - As bad an analyst as he was great as a player. Too much BS and not enough game commentary. Rumor has it that he's on his way back to Chicago now that his arch-enemy Andy McFail has been fired by the Cubs as team President. If Bob Brenly (ex-D'backs manager & Cubs' color man on WGN-TV) takes over as their manager, bet on this happening.

Joe Garagiola - Still a gem, although he's lost a step or ten (he is 80, after all) and his stories are getting as old as he is. Nobody better at analyzing a game, though.

Greg Schulte - Mainly the radio guy, but he's just as good on TV. We'll see if Ken Kendrick & the boys make him the full-time TV play-caller next year. No decision has been made yet.

Cardinals (Pre-Season Only)
Brian Davis - An excellent PBP man, easily as good as Dave Pasch, Thom Brennaman, and Al McCoy. Maybe he'll be considered for the Diamondbacks, although I believe he's based in Seattle.

Bill Lewis - Does a decent job but could be more exciting. Very knowledgeable about the game (as befitting an ex-player) without the lame jock-talk of Ron Wolfley. He's much better in this role than being a talk-show host on the Gumpdusky garbage-dump in Guadalupe (how's that for alliteration? ;D ).

Suns
Tom Leander - Sorry, folks, but he was a much better pregame host than a PBP man. They need to go back to the KTAR/Channel 45 simulcast and bring back Al McCoy.

Eddie Johnson - One of the best analysts in the NBA. He's been looking for a coaching position but no offers yet. Good for us.

Gary Bender - Zzzzzzzzzz....... Bender's been calling games like an old retired guy for years. I call him the Pat McMahon of sports broadcasting. They should simulcast McCoy on FSN as well.

Dan Majerle - Great player, so-so broadcaster. Kinda like Mark Grace but not as obnoxious.

Coyotes
Curt Kielback - His voice just oozes "hockey" and he knows the team like the back of his hand (he came here with the team from Winnepeg). His biggest fault is that he talks too much. Hey, Curt, you're doing TV now, not radio!

Darren Pang - How the Coyotes were able to lure him away from ESPN I have no idea (I'm sure Wayne Gretzky had ju-u-u-ust a bit to do with it). Glad they did since he's one of the best.

Local Sportscaster Teams
KTVK Ch. 3 - Brad Cesmat, Ross Shimabuku - Cesmat was better on radio but just OK on TV. Shimabuku seems like a nice guy but out of place doing sports. Bring back Gil Tyree!

KPHO Ch. 5 - Chris Corragio & Gary Cruz - They've been there a long time (does anybody remember their predecessors Vic Lombardi & Paul Calvisi?) and hold their own. Neither is a ball of fire, but they're not dullards or loudmouth-jock types either. I rank them right behind Jude LaCava & Craig Fouhy.

KSAZ Ch. 10 - Jude LaCava, Gayle Jansen, & Richard Saenz - LaCava is easily the best sportscaster in Phoenix by a long shot. Jansen & Saenz aren't bad either, although Saenz needs to work on losing his accent a bit more.

KPNX Ch. 12 - Kevin Hunt & Bruce Cooper - Memo to Mc12: This is Phoenix, the #13 TV market, not Terre Haute! Hunt reminds me of a cross between J.D. Hayworth and J.T. the Brick. Send him back to Milwaukee. Cooper has been there as long as I've been in Phoenix and is decent...barely. The #1 station in town (just ask them) should be able to do better. Bill Denney has to be spinning in his grave.

KNXV Ch. 15 - Craig Fouhy & Nicole Zaloumis - Fouhy's underrated, mainly due to the lack of sports committment by Channel 15 over the years. He's almost up there with LaCava. Nicole Zaloumis I'm not familiar with. She must be fairly new.

I'm not sure how to categorize the FSN Arizona reporters (Kevin McCabe, Jody Jackson, Todd Walsh, Brad Steinke) since they don't fit in any of the above categories. All are good, however.

 

[cdk]

Good analysis, although I disagree with you on Brian Davis. He is quite possibly the worst play-by-play man I've ever heard. Why? He is so inaccurate...whether it is calling yardages or player numbers or even alma maters (Arizona State Wildcats), it is a pathetic display.

 

[KeithE4]

Good analysis, although I disagree with you on Brian Davis. He is quite possibly the worst play-by-play man I've ever heard. Why? He is so inaccurate...whether it is calling yardages or player numbers or even alma maters (Arizona State Wildcats), it is a pathetic display.

I did notice a bit of that as well. Davis gets a slight break only because he's the only Cards broadcaster not based here. He obviously doesn't know the team as well as Pasch, Wolfley, & Lewis, although he should do his homework a bit more. I still like his style and didn't see too many errors in his play-calling.

 

[desertskies]

Not meaning to detract from what you wrote Keith, you did make some very good choices for PBP.

But Al McCoy was very good when he did TV PBP and still is doing radio PBP.
I can close my eyes and "see" the action on the court.
The late (and missed) Cotton Fitzsimmons was very adept at color.

Probably a safe bet the bench mark for local sportscaster would be Bill Denney and possibly Steve Pascente.
I miss them both.

If I deviated from your original post, please accept my sincere oops.

 

[KeithE4]

Not meaning to detract from what you wrote Keith, you did make some very good choices for PBP.

But Al McCoy was very good when he did TV PBP and still is doing radio PBP.
I can close my eyes and "see" the action on the court.
The late (and missed) Cotton Fitzsimmons was very adept at color.

Can't say I was a Cotton Fitzsimmons fan, at least as a game analyst. Good guy and he's missed, but I thought McCoy made him sound better. He wasn't as good with Bender.

Probably a safe bet the bench mark for local sportscaster would be Bill Denney and possibly Steve Pascente.
I miss them both.

I never saw Pascente (he passed away right after we moved back here) but I remember Denney going back to his Channel 10 days in the '70s. Two more good sportscasters from that era were Channel 3's Tom Schoendist (the only reason to watch that Total News trainwreck) and Channel 12's Ted Brown, who also was at KTVK later on.

 

[brian4]

Quick observation: I was born and lived in Detroit. I moved to Phoenix six years ago. In Motown, the sportscaster was a major part of the news team and considered to be an equal to the weatherguesser and a notch below the newsreader(s). I just don't see that here in PHX. I went to the 4 TV websites (ABC15.com is down) and none of them have their sportsperson as a part of the news team. On 3TV Ross Shimabuku is a part of the GEAZ 'introduction.' On ABC15 Craig Fouhy is a part of their commercial.

Why the disinterest in sports? Even though Phoenix is a four-sports town is it because two of the teams were stolen from other markets? Is it the ESPN effect?

 

[KeithE4]

Quick observation: I was born and lived in Detroit. I moved to Phoenix six years ago. In Motown, the sportscaster was a major part of the news team and considered to be an equal to the weatherguesser and a notch below the newsreader(s). I just don't see that here in PHX. I went to the 4 TV websites (ABC15.com is down) and none of them have their sportsperson as a part of the news team. On 3TV Ross Shimabuku is a part of the GEAZ 'introduction.' On ABC15 Craig Fouhy is a part of their commercial.

Jude LaCava is prominently mentioned on Channel 10's news intro. As he should be.

Why the disinterest in sports? Even though Phoenix is a four-sports town is it because two of the teams were stolen from other markets? Is it the ESPN effect?

Stolen? We tried to give the Cards back but St. Louis didn't want them. ;D

Phoenix is a four-sport town (5, if ASU is included), but the fan-base isn't there yet except for the Suns. It takes at least 20 years for a fan-base to be established. You have to go after the kids from Day One, something the Suns and D'backs have done, the Coyotes are working on, and the Cards are just making a half-a$$ed attempt.

The other problem - not unique to Phoenix but common among all sun-belt cities - is that most of us grew up elsewhere. We grew up fans of the teams in the areas we came from. And the old-time natives got LA teams in baseball and the Cowboys in the NFL on Phoenix TV so that's where their loyalties are. The Suns have been here long enough now so their fan base is well-established.

 

[desertskies]

Phoenix is a four-sport town (5, if ASU is included), but the fan-base isn't there yet except for the Suns. It takes at least 20 years for a fan-base to be established. You have to go after the kids from Day One, something the Suns and D'backs have done, the Coyotes are working on, and the Cards are just making a half-a$$ed attempt.

I liked the Coyotes from day one for a simple reason:
They went out of their way to assimilate themselves into the local community.
They understood they were no longer the Winnipeg Jets (Phoenix Jets?), so they re-tooled their image to the benefit of themselves and the local potentual fanbase.
To me that's class. I hope they do bring the Stanley Cup to the Valley.
The Cards are just the opposite.

Bidwill family wishes to retain the "Racine-Chicago-St. Louis-Phoenix-Arizona" Cardinals.
It's all the same team!
"One size fits all" mentality. No real local feeling at all.
If one repaints the outside of a house and leaves the interior intact, it's still the same house.

Give Phoenix an expansion NFL team (we have three stadiums. ASU, Chase Field [which has and can be configured] and that one in Glendale), and I'll bet anyone $$$-donuts, the expansion team would do very nice as opposed to the visitors from Racine-Chicago-St. Louis in fanbase support.

As I understand, before the Cards "relocated" to the Valley in 1988, an expansion team was a lock within two years here. Bart Starr was to be their first Coach.
I'm still waiting for that expansion team.
Much like the Suns, Diamondbacks and to some extent, the Coyotes, win or lose, we'd love and stand behind them.
For a simple reason:
They went out of their way to assimilate themselves into the local community.**

(**stepping slowly off of the soapbox here).

 

[buster2]

Probably a safe bet the bench mark for local sportscaster would be Bill Denney and possibly Steve Pascente.
I miss them both.

I never saw Pascente (he passed away right after we moved back here) but I remember Denney going back to his Channel 10 days in the '70s. Two more good sportscasters from that era were Channel 3's Tom Schoendist (the only reason to watch that Total News trainwreck) and Channel 12's Ted Brown, who also was at KTVK later on.
[/quote]

Pascente was very good and he is missed. I remember Ted Brown from the old "12 Action News" days in the 1970s. He was solid. You can still hear him occasionally on TV spots. He does some local voice-over work. He also spent many years on KOY when it was live, local and had a large news staff.

Anyone remember Jon Bricston on Channel 5? He was there in the 80s. Nice guy. Solid on air. Too bad he worked for what was then an underfunded news operation and few people saw him.

 

[dhett]

As I understand, before the Cards "relocated" to the Valley in 1988, an expansion team was a lock within two years here. Bart Starr was to be their first Coach.

Bart Starr? Ouch. As much as I hate to dis a legend, I remember when Starr coached the Packers - he was every bit as pathetic as a coach as he was good as a player. Sorry, unless Starr would have undergone a Marv Levy-type metamorphosis, I think he'd have been fired before long.

Funny thing is, the Cards really aren't that bad - the organization just seems to suffer from fatal instinct, starting at the top. The kind of instinct that causes a team that just spent nearly 20 years trying to get out of a college stadium and being associated with college athletics to sell the naming rights of your new "professional" stadium to a college!

And back on the topic, am I the only one who thinks Ron Wolfley (on TV or radio) is like fingernails on a chalkboard?

 

[BobinPhoenix]

Anyone remember Jon Bricston on Channel 5? He was there in the 80s. Nice guy. Solid on air. Too bad he worked for what was then an underfunded news operation and few people saw him.
[/quote]

I believe I saw Jon not too long ago while covering a news event in Glendale. I think he is working for Glendale Channel 11.