Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [170]
So Tobin criticizes me for saying the Colts should have taken Trent Dilfer, and then Trent ends up coming to Baltimore and winning the Superbowl with the Ravens in 2000.
BILL CLEMENT, Hockey Analyst:
My job was to be objective and I prided myself on professionalism. In every city, local people are used to listening to their local broadcasters. They’re used to hearing their local call where there’s nothing objective, at least there wasn’t then. So in every city I was criticized for favoring the other team, but I would get it from both sides. If I was doing the Rangers-Flyers series, I would be accused by Rangers fans of favoring the Flyers and I would be accused by Flyers fans of favoring the Rangers. The truth is, I actually cheer for players more than I cheer for colors. As a former player, I’m not as invested emotionally as a fan is. I cheer for good people. Over the years as a broadcaster, you get to meet so many good people on so many teams that you’ve got a lot of different allegiances. I had friends on every team. It’s hard because you’re still part of the fraternity and you have to be able to separate yourself from the fraternity and still be able to be critical. You have to adjust to and get used to it.
I once got a call from the late Roger Nielson, who was a really classy guy, but he was upset because of something I had said on the air after he had been fired by the New York Rangers. Roger heard that I said he should have been fired. I said, “Roger, that’s not what I said at all.”
What I said was that it was widely understood that Mark Messier had a hand in his dismissal. I said if Roger Nielson was fired because of some things that Mark Messier wanted or Mark Messier said or because of the influence that Mark Messier had on that division, Mark Messier was just doing what they brought him to New York to do, which was be the consummate leader. And leaders, if something is not right, and they don’t think they’re going to be successful, status quo doesn’t do it. I said if Mark Messier had anything to do with it, then he was only doing what he was brought to New York to do. I wasn’t agreeing with the player’s right or the duty to do it. I was pointing out what leaders do. When we had the conversation, he said, “That’s not the way it was explained to me.” He understood it at that point.
JED DRAKE:
It was the 1994 World Cup. I was in charge of the project, and the short of it is that because it is soccer, you don’t run commercials and hence you have to have commercial sponsorship come off the miniboard, the scoreboard. The first game was at Soldier Field and we had all kinds of miniboard problems; graphics and logos would not get up there on the screen, and so I was screaming at people, “We’ve got to get this fixed now! It’s not right.” The next game, Italy versus Ireland, game two at Giants Stadium, I’m in the truck there, but now I’ve put backups in place. We have two systems working online in the truck, and we had two backups in Bristol. We get to the first quarter and we can’t get the scoreboard up. And I’m like, “Guys, this is impossible. It is incomprehensible that out of four machines we cannot get a scoreboard on the screen! What are we going do?” So at halftime I’m on the phone to Bristol. “Guys, I’m going to lose my mind.” They said, “No it’s working now, we’ve tested it. Everything will be fine.” The second half starts, and machines one and two in the truck go down. Then machines three and four in Bristol go down. I said, “Motherfucker!” and I took my hand to the side of the truck and I just punched it as hard as I could. And I felt it go. My hand went numb. And everybody in the truck was mortified. Then one of the guys says, “Oh, my God.” It was then that I realized I had broken my hand.
Now the game is still going on, but there was silence in the truck for, like, fifteen seconds. Then everybody got back into it and we did get the clock on about three minutes later. After that, they took me down