[Elvis]

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-jim ... olumn.html

This article is a year old but...

Remembering radio's Jim Healy, the greatest mocker of them all



Twenty years ago today, somebody goofed and we've got to know. Actually, we knew. Jim Healy had died.

There are still those in Los Angeles, a bit gray of beard and long of tooth now, who occasionally glance at their watches out of habit as the workday nears its end. Can they get to the car in time for Healy? Maybe save that last bit of work until tomorrow?

Healy had a sports radio show. It was like nothing before and certainly nothing since.

It was on KLAC (570) and, for the last 10 years or so, on KMPC (710). He was then, and perhaps still would be today, the only positive about getting on an L.A. freeway.

Over the years, he had developed this quirky show that relied on noise from Teletype machines and background music and a precious collection of tapes of famous people saying clever or stupid things. Healy threw them all together in a bouillabaisse of sports fun.

It wasn't exactly journalism, but amid the sound tracks and sound bites were frequent tidbits of news that nobody else had. Healy had an army of correspondents. It was a badge of honor to get an item and feed it to Healy. You could read the nuances and elaborations in the paper later, after Healy had given you the tip of the iceberg.

In those days, The Times sports staff numbered close to 100 and half of them leaked to Healy, mostly about the other half.

There was no pretense about his likes or dislikes. Today, in the age of buttoned-up corporate lawyers and afraid-of-their-own-shadows news operations, Healy would have been toast after about two shows.

Maybe his defense against slander suits could have been that he didn't discriminate. He made fun of everybody.

His bonanza moment occurred in May 1978 when a young reporter named Paul Olden (now the public address announcer at Yankee Stadium) turned on his tape recorder just as Tom Lasorda was being asked what he thought of Dave Kingman's performance, after a Sunday game in which Kingman had destroyed the Dodgers with three home runs and eight RBIs. It remains a classic today, including all 20 or so bleeps.

He also got a tape of Lasorda's response in 1984 when Kurt Bevacqua accused Lasorda — Bevacqua called him "the fat little Italian" — of ordering Tom Niedenfuer to throw at one of Bevacqua's San Diego teammates.

A few minutes later, Lasorda was still foaming at the mouth about an accusation by "a .130 hitter" — a hitter whose name Lasorda repeatedly and derisively pronounced "be-VAC-qua." Among the highlights, he said Bevacqua "couldn't hit water if he fell out of a &##@*# boat." And, "When I pitched and I was going to pitch against a &##@*# team that had guys on it like be-VAC-qua, I'd send a &##@*# limousine to get the &##@*# to make sure he was in the &##@*# &##@*# lineup."

You kind of wonder if the baseball writers put Lasorda in the Hall of Fame, or Healy did.

Healy didn't just use the tapes once. He could make them relate to almost anything, and so the repetition became part of the joy of the show.

There was Victor Kiam, former Patriots owner, after one of his players had treated a woman reporter badly: "She's a lovely lady and my apologies to her."

Lawrence Welk: "A-wunnerful, a-wunnerful . . ."

Benoit Benjamin: "I don't give a #%$@ about the fans."

Sports people didn't just get old and infirm and babble uselessly, they "went the Leonard Tose route," that being Healy's perceived route of the former Philadelphia football owner, who had been known to, upon occasion, babble uselessly.

Nothing was sacred with Healy. He was an equal-opportunity ripper. Every mistake in The Times sports section, no matter how tiny, was subject to Healy's comment. He called the section "The World Champion," and shredded it like it was a world chump.

He called Chick Hearn "Chickieburger" and Stu Nahan "Silver-Tip Stu."

He was a fervent Bruin and never gave the Trojans a pass. Nothing thrilled him more than a USC football cheating scandal, and he referred to the rival school only as "The Brain Surgeons." Thousands of Trojans hated him and tuned in every night so they could hate him more.

There is just no telling what he would have made of the O.J. freeway chase. That happened five weeks before he died. By then, the liver cancer that would take his life had overtaken him.

The thought of a healthy Healy doing an O.J. show is worth a chuckle, even if it never happened. Or how about Healy on Frank McCourt? Or Donald Sterling?

Oh, what we have missed. And still do.

"Dateline: Los Angeles — IS IT TRUE that Jim Healy has been dead for 20 years?"

It is true.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com

[Elvis]

[kayfabe]

Good times. And anyone who remembers those broadcasts knows that Healy was
especially merciless towards Georgia Frontiere -- who he despised, I think --
playing the Victor Kiam "She's a lovely lady and my apologies to her" drop
anytime Georgia did anything at all, football-related or not (including when
Georgia would croon at clubs with her later-in-life torch singing/lounge act)

There's a taste of that 4:40 into this --

Interesting too that Dwyre penned this today: Dwyre was one of those at the
Times he liked (and probably fed scoops too, I'm guessing), respectively calling him
"Journalist Bill" and the late great Jim Murray "Gentleman Jim".

More notably for this board though...Healy was also involved in scooping argubly
the biggest LA Rams non-story ever: the non-hire of Bill Walsh in 1978 (instead
going with Ray Malavasi). Healy was the one to break the story, background is here --

http://www.ninersnation.com/2015/1/5/74 ... eport-1978

And here's the AP wire report from Jan 13, 1978 ==

Stanford football coach Bill Walsh has told friends he has decided to accept the head coaching
job of the Los Angeles Rams of the National Football League it was reported yesterday
by sports director Jim Healy of radio station KLAC.

Healy said he was told the Rams would announce the hiring of Walsh next Tuesday (Ed note:
Healy's announcement was five days earlier, the previous Thursday). The sportscaster
also said Walsh also had told friends he had been in contact with the Rams about the
coaching job for five weeks.

That would mean talks about replacing Chuck Knox as Rams' coach began well before
the Los Angeles loss to the Minnesota Vikings in a first round NFL playoff game
(Ed note: that loss was on December 26, 1977, or only three weeks prior; the Rams
also lost their last game of the regular season that year four weeks prior to
finish the year 12-4).

Knox coached the Rams to five division championships in his five years, but was
unable to get the club to a Super Bowl. He became head coach of the Buffalo
Bills this week.

Walsh, 45, was offensive coordinator the Cincinatti Bengals of the NFL for eight
seasons and was offensive coordinator of the San Diego Chargers of the NFL in 1976.

[Gareth]

I consider myself to be a big Rams fan since the early 70's and I also consider myself pretty knowledgeable. Yet, I don't recall ever hearing this story about Bill Walsh almost coaching our Rams - this is the first time I've ever heard about. Hard for me to believe.

Oh what might have been....

[Elvis]

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/20 ... emembrance

Column: Remembering sports radio’s freewheeling Jim Healy, who never let listeners get bored


Jim Healy, who was the sports director at KLAC-AM (570) radio in Los Angeles until his death in 1994, didn’t practice textbook journalism, but he had a knack for digging up bits of news no one else had.(KLAC)

By TOM HOFFARTH
JULY 21, 2019 9:58 AM

Actually, it is true: Twenty-five years ago Monday, Jim Healy signed off from his earthly existence, becoming a voice that lives on in museum archives and on YouTube.

From the Los Angeles Times files, an obituary Larry Stewart wrote for Healy’s death on July 22, 1994, followed by a report on a tribute ceremony weeks later, chronicle the historic importance.

In an appreciation piece by former Times columnist and sports editor Bill Dwyre on the 20th anniversary of Healy’s death, “Journalist Bill” noted that Healy’s freewheeling, one-man sports radio show “was like nothing before and certainly nothing since.” That remains a fact.

It started at 5:30 p.m. sharp, and was supposed to end at 5:45. It rarely did, thankfully. The 20-year-run on KLAC-AM (570) and KMPC-AM (710) ended shortly before his death, as he never really retired.

“Some sports people call me Dr. Heckle and Mr. Snide,” Healy said in a Sports Illustrated profile in 1978. “And some call me a lot of other things as well. But I do the kind of stuff that isn’t pap.”

Today, Healy would be a supersonic TMZ sports media feed. A podcast might not contain his immediacy.

He was a UCLA-educated Daily Bruin reporter who started in the newspaper world, married a serious journalist and fellow Bruin alum, and produced a son who continues a decades-long run as a resourceful and trustworthy news reporter for KNBC-TV Channel 4.

Patrick Healy says at least once or twice a week, someone will ask him about his father. It happened recently at a family retreat at Lake Arrowhead, as former Dodgers scout Artie Harris wanted to reminisce about the famous Tommy Lasorda-Dave Kingman clip captured more than 40 years ago.

“It astounds me that 25 years later [so many people] — not just older people, but those who listened as kids and teenagers and are now in the 40s — have a vivid memory of the show,” said Patrick Healy, who acknowledges his career choice was to avoid comparisons to his dad.

There were important lessons to instill from one generation to the next. Jim Healy started at KLAC in 1961 after writing shows for sportscaster Bob Kelley for more than a decade. Healy spent 15 years as a TV sportscaster at KABC-TV Channel 7, perfectly balanced between Baxter Ward as the trusted news anchor and Rona Barrett as the entertainment gossip columnist.

Developing reliable sources, some of whom called themselves out anonymously on embarrassing capers, was a must. At the top of Healy’s Rolodex were NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle (known since his days as the Rams’ PR man) and former Dodgers and Angels general manager Buzzie Bavasi.

“He managed to get the news in between the gossip and the joke,” Patrick Healy reminds us. “And the core of the Jim Healy philosophy that he beat into my head: You can’t let people get bored. You need to get their attention, keep them entertained, keep people in suspense for updates. To him sports was much more about the personalities, what they’re thinking, the characters they are, as much as it is athletic performance.”

So, would it, or could it, work today? Do you find hints of it anywhere?

“If someone tried to recreate it now, even as a podcast, it might not be current or topical enough,” Healy said. “A show like his has to be entertaining and fast paced, like Petros Papadakis.

“He is the perfect example of someone who’s bombastic one moment and inquisitive the next, and you’re riveted by what you’re hearing. He’s thoughtful and knows his stuff and is such a fun listen.”

Papadakis has teamed with Matt “Money” Smith since 2007 for the weekday “The Petros and Money Show” on Jim Healy’s former home base of KLAC — without a pause for the dreaded 6 o’clock tone. A notable thread running through it is an array of Healy sound bites inserted by Smith, producer Tim Cates or engineer Ronnie Fasio at timely moments, such as “My wife!” and “That’s the truth!” and “Not much!”

The 42-year-old Papadakis remembers when his father, John, drove him and his older brother home from football practices and had to wait in the car until Healy’s show ran its course. When his relatives gathered over drinks, Healy sound bites were recited as ritualistic touchstones.

“When you’re young and something is funny to your parents, you think it’s the greatest thing ever,” Papadakis said. “That was the only real context I had to sports radio at the time. When I really got started [in 2001], I had no structure, and I struggled. But the more I tried to channel Jim Healy and just entertain and inform, the more success I started to have.

“I still talk openly about how much I loved him. It’s crazy to think we’re living in L.A. now and 25 years after he’s gone, he still feels present.”

Ted Sobel, a radio reporter in L.A. starting at KNX-AM (1070) in the mid-'80s, helped procure Healy audio, working with him at KMPC when the Gene Autry-owned station launched an all-sports format try in 1992.

“His timing was impeccable hitting the cart machine [for sound effects],” said Sobel, finishing a book about his career, titled “Touching Greatness,” that devotes an entire chapter to Healy. “Maybe it would work today if it’s on SiriusXM, where you could do more cursing and goofing around. I don’t know if anyone would have the patience today to stay still through a 30-minute show.”

Paul Olden, like Sobel, at one time was a Los Angeles City College student trying to get into the business. He landed at KLAC as a paid news intern when he started feeding sound to Healy. Olden had a run as the Rams and UCLA play-by-play man in the 1980s for KMPC, but his past 11 years as the New York Yankees public address announcer haven’t given him a chance to be recognized as the reporter who asked famed Dodgers manager Lasorda the question, “What did you think of Kingman’s performance?” — and then navigate the bleep-filled response.

What Olden thinks about a Healy-type performance today: “That’s an easy ‘no’ for me. Healy had inside information. With social media now, athletes can bypass any standard outlet and either deny or corroborate any information related to them. The mystery has been taken out of gossip. We find the truth too soon after we hear something.”

You may stumble on a link in the Internet black hole to find Healy preserved cracks, quips and backhanded compliments.

The family donated recordings to the Museum of Radio and Television in Beverly Hills, yet more boxes of his shows sit in Patrick Healy’s garage. His father taped every one, then went back to critique himself each night.

“When people ask about him, sometimes I’ll dip into the well, scoop up a half-dozen cassettes and give them out,” Patrick Healy said. “I figure at this rate, I’ll give away all the cassettes, if anyone can still play them, by 2185.”

There was no hint Healy in any way was being “bragiocous.”