Media Monday: Kate Scott to call two preseason 49ers games
Kate Scott’s star keeps rising. The Olympics have created a musical chairs effect in Bay Area media, and Ted Robinson will be in Rio when the 49ers play their first two preseason games. As a result, Bob Fitzgerald moves over from the radio side to KPIX and Scott will handle play-by-play on the radio.
Scott went from anchoring on two shows (Murph and Mac, Gary Radnich with Larry Krueger) to one (M&M) on KNBR when she took a job with the Pac-12 Network, where she’s done play-by-play for women’s basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball. In the past she served as a play-by-play announcer for high school football games, too. However, as someone who has both covered dozens of football games while standing on the sidelines of high school fields throughout the Bay Area, and stood on the home sideline of Candlestick Park (R.I.P.) a handful of times (including NaVorro Bowman’s pick-6, which was the last truly great moment the 49ers have enjoyed), I know all too well that the speed isn’t even comparable.
However, you can’t get this far this quickly in sports media without working hard, and I’m sure Scott’s preparation will pay dividends when the 49ers starters play one or two quarters against the Texans and Broncos on Aug. 14 and 20. Now, there’s a local media blogger (hint: we share a last name, only his also includes a “Lie”) who recently found out about Scott getting to announce these next two games, and he had an absolute conniption.
Rich, you sound crazy going off on someone in your blog in such a personal way. Plus, what’s the big deal? These are PRESEASON games — one starts on Sunday at 4 pm against the Olympics and the other kicks off at 6 pm the following Saturday against a Giants game on 680.
BREAKING: a KNBR personality was going to announce these games. With Fitz on the TV side, who other than Scott or Ted Ramey would the 49ers have chosen? I guess Scott Reiss might have been an option, since he does play-by-play for Stanford on KTCT (KNBR 1050), but his KTVU duties may have gotten in the way.
— Speaking of those Stanford broadcasts … I haven’t heard who’ll do color commentary for the first two preseason games, but I’m assuming it’ll be like last year, with Tim Ryan on KPIX and Keena Turner on KNBR/KGO. Ryan knows his stuff, particularly in the trenches, but if I was the 49ers I’d consider replacing him once his contract expires with Todd Husak. This is all subjective, but Husak provides some of the best in-game football analysis I have ever heard on the radio.
— I’m probably not going to do a weekly media column. Media Monday just made sense in the headline because it happens to be Monday. Just wanted to set appropriate expectations here.
— I caught a little of Radnich hosting by himself last week, including an interview with Larry Baer that absolutely obliterated the clock in Radnich-and-Tony-Bruno-esque fashion. The Baer interview ended at like 11:04. After noting that the interview got some complimentary texts, Radnich talked about how “longform” interviews aren’t in style anymore, and that he loves the new format where Larry Krueger gets angry about things and Radnich talks him off the ledge. Gary almost sounded believable when he said that! C’mon, it’s clear he likes Larry, but he has to miss doing throwback radio, where he steers the ship he gets to play-one-on-one with interviewees.
— Aloha means hello. Larry Beil recently returned for a 3-day stint on SportsCenter.
— On Friday I was lucky enough to be on CSN Bay Area’s best show, SportsTalk Live. (Yes, I’m completely biased. As the kids say, don’t @ me.) The other panel member was one of my favorites, Marcus Thompson. The host, filling in for the great Jim Kozimor, was another favorite of mine, Guy Haberman. Hmmm, we might be on the verge of having too much berman in one column.
— Anyway, I swear there was a point to this … Oh, yeah. When Henry Wofford interviewed Rudy Ortiz, Drew Hoffar and Kevin Frandsen, the hosts of KNBR 1050’s new morning show “The Audible” (which premiered this morning), I realized CSNBA was promoting Entercom and Cumulus personalities in the same show. It wasn’t anything noticeably different from the norm — I’ve seen Rod Brooks and John Lund on the same show long before Lund left Greg Papa for Tom Tolbert. But it’s interesting how CSN is a melting pot for local media personalities from every station and newspaper (along with the occasional blog).
— Speaking of Mr. T … what do you, the listener, think of Tolbert and Lund? It’s kind of crazy to think Lund is only Tolbert’s third long-term partner at KNBR. Tolbert has been around so long, I remember driving through the City with my friends on a road trip when Tolbert hosted solo after Pete Franklin’s last show.
— I’m not sure who sounds older based on that last anecdote, me and my high school buddies or Tolbert. We were all young back then!
— Hard to believe: It’s been over four years since Ralph Barbieri was on KNBR.
— Also, KGMZ (95.7 the Game) had been a sports talk station for a year when KNBR fired him.
— 95.7’s program director, Don Kollins, has been there for well over a year, and other than Lund leaving, there haven’t been any major changes. He is truly the anti-Barrett. It sounds like Greg Papa’s show features a rotating set of co-hosts for now, led by Chris Townsend. Other than some different hosts during the weekends, everything has been largely the same for a while on the FM side.
— I was told by multiple sources that Damon Bruce told folks upon leaving KNBR 1050 for 95.7 that he was going to send Tolbert into retirement. Not only is Tolbert still going strong, he’s the undisputed king of Bay Area sports talk.
