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You may know this already, but I was born and raised in St. Louis. Growing up around these parts, there are a couple of things that are engrained in your head, one of course is that the St. Louis Cardinals mean everything to you. Another is the history of KMOX and all of the incredible broadcasters who have been behind the station’s microphones.
One of those names you learn a lot about is Bob Costas.
Costas started at KMOX out of Syracuse when he was 22 years old in 1974. He would call play-by-play for the St. Louis Spirits of the ABA as well as the Missouri Tigers, plus he would host the famous KMOX Sports Open Line show in the evenings. Costas was doing regional football games for CBS in the late 70’s and was calling Chicago Bulls games before he was 30. At that same time, he started with NBC and pretty much crushed it at everything they threw at him.
People are born with certain God-given abilities, and Bob Costas was given the gift of being a wordsmith unlike any who have ever graced the sports desk, play-by-play chair or any other position in sports broadcasting for that matter. His voice made games sound bigger, and he became one of those rare broadcasters who by their mere presence, signified the event was a big deal.
When I was in high school, a local TV sportscaster named Art Holiday had a sportscasting camp in the summer. He would bring in guest speakers each day as part of the curriculum and it was a great camp, gave a lot of hands-on experience. I really wanted to attend, but when I saw that Bob Costas was named one of the guest speakers, I had to attend. He was my idol.
His talk was like a lot of Bob Costas talks, full of wisdom. I was mesmerized by who he was and what he got to do for a living. While he spoke about the characteristics that make up a good broadcaster, he also talked real life. It was the first time anyone had ever talked about some of the realities of being a sports broadcaster, especially ones that did play-by-play and traveled with teams. He wanted to make sure he didn’t present the business as something that was just being at ballparks and socializing with superstars and all the great things you get to do. He said if you are someone who wants to have a big family and wants to always be there to see the big moments your kids have, you may want to rethink your career. It was the truth, and it was refreshing to hear.
Several years later, I would be calling a high school football game for a local television station. We were told Costas was going to be at the game and my broadcast partner knew him well, so he said he would probably come up and say hello. He did, and my partner took off his headset to talk with him when we went to commercial. When we came back, I started resetting and then realized that Costas was putting on the headsets. I sort of blacked out, but I am told we did a few minutes together.
I won’t be a fraud though. In recent years it’s been harder to be a big Bob Costas fan. I am not talking about the play-by-play so many seemed to have had a problem with during the Yankees-Royals series. I thought people went overboard with the criticism but a part of me thinks that it’s because we set such a high mark for Costas. He is after all, one of the absolute best to ever do it.
I wish he would have stayed away from political commentary, and I think Costas can come off as very ‘high and mighty’ and condescending. But, as best as I can, I really try and ignore anything that doesn’t involve sports when it comes to Bob Costas. I want to have that image and memory of him calling baseball games on NBC, the incredible NBA work he did and of course the Olympics.
From a sports perspective he is one of the voices in the soundtrack of my life and I find myself a bit sad that I won’t ever get to have that again, yet something else in sports that is now in the past.
Fortunately, we will still get to enjoy his work with MLB Network, and something tells me he will want to stay involved in some way with baseball as long as he can talk. And I, for one, am here for it all.
Cheers to Bob Costas for a truly remarkable play-by-play career of more than four decades and for never forgetting the city where it all started.
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The Best/Worst Thing I’ve Heard/Watched/Read Recently
Speaking of KMOX, the best thing I have seen recently is something new being done by Steve Moore and the team at the Mighty MOX. The station has incorporated more sports programming on YouTube and now has introduced a new daily show, The Gashouse Gang, which features station contributor Bernie Miklasz along with KMOX Sports personalities Kevin Wheeler, Matt Pauley, and Tom Ackerman.
The show will air live each weekday at noon on KMOX Sports’ YouTube, Facebook, and X accounts, and will replay in the evenings at 8pm on KMOX. The station says the show will cover everything from St. Louis Cardinals and MLB updates to college football, college basketball, and NFL action.
You can take a look at the KMOX YouTube page by clicking here.
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In Case You Missed It
Last week, Demetri Ravanos featured Radio One and Reach Media CEO David Kantor in our Meet the Leaders series presented by Point-to-Point Marketing. Kantor will retire at the end of the year and talked about the changes he has seen in the business over his career and what the future looks like.
In one part Kantor told Demetri, “Look, you can’t stop progress. I mean, the digital companies, the Internet companies clearly created, in some ways, a better entertainment distribution pipeline than we ever had, because ours was just one pipeline. And not just us. Television was that way, newspapers were that way, magazines. All old media was that way – one place to lots of people. You had a lot of control.”
It is a really good article from someone who has a great perspective on the business and is ready to hand the baton off to others. To read it in its entirety click here.
Dave Greene is the Chief Media Officer for Barrett Media. His background includes over 25 years in media and content creation. A former sports talk host and play-by-play broadcaster, Dave transitioned to station and sales management, co-founded and created a monthly sports publication and led an ownership group as the operating partner. He has managed stations and sales teams for Townsquare Media, Cumulus Media and Audacy. Upon leaving broadcast media he co-founded Podcast Heat, a sports and entertainment podcasting network specializing in pro wrestling nostalgia. To interact, find him on Twitter @mr_podcasting. You can also reach him by email at Dave@BarrettMedia.com.
