Life Around The Seams

Episode 34 -- Dale Tafoya

Author's week begins with Dale Tafoya, a lifelong Oakland Athletics fan who just released his second book on his hometown team, "Billy Ball: Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A's."

In the early 1980s, the Oakland A’s went from on their way to Denver, to remaining in Oakland and becoming the toast of baseball, and then crashing back down to mediocrity. In the middle of it all was flamboyant manager Billy Martin, who brought, as the commercials famously told us, "a different brand of baseball."

Tafoya's detailed research reveals how close the A's came to leaving for Denver, why they stayed in Oakland, how many times Martin was almost the A's manager before starting in 1980, and how Billy Ball put the A's on the covers of the biggest magazines. 

 

Episode 33 -- Curt Bloom

Curt Bloom was the play-by-play announcer for the Birmingham Barons, the Double-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, in 1994 for the one (and only) season that Michael Jordan played professional baseball. It's a season he'll never forget and a season that forever bonds those who experienced it.

On Episode 33 of the Life Around the Seams, hardwood meats hardball. Bloom was there for every game, every at-bat, every bus ride, every visiting hotel, every mob scene as fans wanted a glimpse of the greatest basketball player alive trying to play professional baseball.

We discussed how the Barons front office scrambled to get ready for Jordan, the facts and fiction about the famous bus the Barons used, pickup basketball games, MJ rubbing his wife's pregnant belly for good luck, Jordan's work ethic and improvement as the season progressed, and much more. Bloom's memory is fabulous, and if you want original audio from 1994, we recommend his personal website for clips and interviews: https://curtbloom.com/?page_id=1323

 

Episode 32 — Ted Robinson

If you divided Ted Robinson’s broadcasting career into four parts, each of those individual sections would be impressive alone. Over 20+ years of Major League Baseball, tennis grand slams and NCAA Tournament broadcasts, plus 11 different Olympics, the 49ers, Warriors and much more. Add them all together and it’s legendary.

On Episode 32 of the Life Around the Seams, I get the pleasure of interviewing one of the broadcasters who I grew up listening and idolizing as a kid. You could spend hours talking to Ted on any sport, but we stuck primarily with baseball, with a decided emphasis on his work with the A's and Giants. You won't believe how Robinson got his start with the A's by former owner Charley Finley.

We also discussed how his voice ended up in the background of the movie "A Few Good Men," why he never got on the air for his first NBC network assignment, calling the gold medal for Team USA in the 2000 Olympics, his approach on legendary home runs, and our collective memories from Barry Bonds' single-season home run chase wrapped around the 9/11 terrorist attack.

Episode 31 -- Ken Korach

Ken Korach spent 10 years in the minor leagues, before finally getting his first full-time Major League job with the Oakland Athletics in 1996. He replaced one legend, Lon Simmons, and worked alongside another legend in Bill King, then took over as the A’s lead announcer after the death of King. Korach has kept the memory of King alive on the air, in a book, and his tireless stumping that helped King get immortalized in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Along the way, Korach has become a legend himself for a new generation of A’s fans.

On Episode 31 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, we detail Korach's late start into broadcasting, buying tickets at Bay Area stadium to practice broadcasting into a microphone, plus his memories of minor league stops in Redwood City, Phoenix and Las Vegas. We discuss his four years as a fill-in with the Chicago White Sox, then the daunting task of taking over for Simmons and blending into the booth with King, two of his broadcasting idols.

 

Episode 30 — Jim Watson

Jim Watson is arguably the most versatile sportscaster in America. He's done play-by-play for an astounding 39 different sports in his career, including six sports in five different Olympics. He's also a studio host, sideline reporter, emcee, and won five Emmy's in the process.

On Episode 30 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, get ready to laugh because Watty is hilarious and a fabulous storyteller. This seems ridiculous, but Watson's decade as a college student led to being a bartender, which led to being a Page on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which led to getting sportscasting jobs. Being a bartender also started his play-by-play career by doing turtle races -- yes, turtle races -- which paved the way for him to do any sport imaginable.

Within all the laughs, and we laugh a ton, I'm pretty sure there's a bunch of broadcasting advice and life advice in this podcast. But mostly, we just giggled like crazy for over an hour. 

Episode 29 -- Patrick O'Neal

Patrick O’Neal comes from a family of famous actors. Initially, he followed the family business, before switching gears and carving out his own niche as a sportscaster in Southern California.

On Episode 29 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, a very candid O’Neal admits the pressure he felt to act, then the relief and joy that he found following his lifelong passion for sports. Over the last two decades, O’Neal has covered every major team in Southern California for Prime Ticket and Fox Sports Net, along with numerous national gigs well. 

We talked about out how often O’Neal found himself in the first row of sporting events, like when Barry Bonds homered into McCovey Cove and then gave a bat to his brother-in-law John McEnroe. Or the time Shaquille O’Neal went flying into the stands and left a bruise on O’Neal leg.

We dished about real and fake celebrity sports fans, all the different athletes that O’Neal has interviewed (Kobe, Manny, Gretzky, Trout) and ended with stories about Farrah Fawcett that you can't miss.

 

Episode 28 -- Ken Levine

We're getting the band back together over the next few episodes of this podcast. On Episode 28, we start with Ken Levine, my co-host on Post Game Dodger Talk from 2008-10 on 790 KABC in Los Angeles.

Levine's career shows his immense versatility. He's written, created, produced and directed various TV shows, movies and plays. He's performed baseball play-by-play in the minors and majors. He's blogged for over a decade and now has a podcast as well.

We focused on the Cheers TV episodes that had a baseball theme, how an idea for a TV show about the press box turned into a play, how he juggled play-by-play and screenwriting on opposite coasts, memories from each of the teams he's worked, and of course, some of our favorite memories of working on Dodger Talk together.

Episode 27 -- Tim Hagerty, 3.0

Tim Hagerty returns for a record third appearance on the “Life Around the Seams” podcast and the very loose theme for this episode is irregularities in the length of baseball due to unforeseen factors.

Hagerty tells us about the two minor leagues that played a 19-game championship series, the pitcher struck by lightning, the kid-turned-adult who insisted on knowing why two minor league teams accidentally played one extra game, the town that built a grandstand in eight days to ensure an exhibition game against the Yankees was played, and the man listed in the official records of Major League players despite never actually playing in a game.

I told stories about lost opportunities and the split-season format from 1981, how the 1994-95 work stoppage nearly ended Cal Ripken’s consecutive games played streak, Ernie Banks’ track record in double headers, how the femme fatale from The Natural was based on a true story, and how baseball reacted to World War I in 1918.

Please pardon the audio that’s not up to our usual standards. When you’re recording over an internet, sometimes the connection buffers a little mid-sentence. But as we stay #SafeAtHome waiting for baseball to return, enjoy these colorful stories from baseball’s past.

Episode 26 -- Mike Petriello

Mike Petriello worked for a now-defunct video on demand company that was ahead of its time, a public relations firm that built websites for pharmaceutical companies, and the website of a bowling company. Those jobs paid the bills and provided health benefits, but it was not what he really wanted to do.

On episode 26 of the Life Around the Seams podcast, we explore why a native New Yorker liked the Dodgers, started a blog about the Dodgers with a unique name based on a Simpsons episode, how he found a voice in the blossoming world of baseball analytics, and how roughly a decade later, that led Petriello to a full-time job writing about Major League Baseball.

While staying socially distant amidst the coronavirus pandemic, we Skype’d to discuss his journey, how to convince people that RBIs are not the greatest stat, the next generation of technology that will help us understand baseball more … and what it was like when he joined the StatCast alternative broadcast for a MLB playoff games on ESPN2.

Episode 25 -- Tyler Maun

Tyler Maun wears a lot of hats, literally and figuratively. He's a broadcaster, writer, host of two podcasts, Denver sports historian, and has a collection of baseball hats that is both impressive and troubling. What makes Tyler's story so intriguing is that he was in a career funk in the middle of the 2010s, after the end of relationship, and those hard times laid the foundation for his career renaissance.

On episode 25 of the "Life Around the Seams" podcast, we get philosophical about life and work. We discuss how moving to Australia re-ignited his career and launched his impressive international portfolio, what it means to hustle for work, taking chances, betting on yourself, and getting out of your comfort zone with sports that you might not know very well.

You see, even though baseball is his first love, Tyler has performed play-by-play for 8 (or maybe 9) different sports (he's lost track), and is the envy of his peers because he's done baseball play-by-play in 10 different countries. Plus, we talk about forgotten Denver baseball history, Tim Raines, Larry Walker, and hashtag Coors.