Author: David Shama

The Upper Midwest had a similar color man awhile back.  To protect his name, I call him Lars.  Like Kellogg, Lars was a master of the obvious.  With the home team behind by a point late in the game, he told the broadcast audience the local boys needed a basket. That was the tactical insight for viewers.  Ugh.

“Oh my!”  Dick Enberg, 75, has made this his last year calling NCAA tournament games.  Back in the 1980s he offered play-by-play with color guys Billy Packer and Al McGuire.  There’s never been a better broadcast trio on college basketball, with Packer’s smarts and McGuire’s charm carrying the team.  Their arguments are long remembered.

Our basketball intelligence was insulted a few years ago during the collapse of the Dan Monson coaching era.  The Gophers were playing in a place called the Milk House on the Disney campus in Florida.  Public complaints about Monson had been fast and furious for a long while but Monson was still employed by the Gophers.  It was at the Milk House that ESPN’s Jimmy Dykes, a southern lad who might not even be able to find Williams Arena on a map, pronounced that perhaps Gophers fans should have less than high expectations because he deemed Minnesota to have limited basketball resources.

Kevin Harlan got his start here as the Timberwolves first radio play-by-play man.  I loved him then and still do.  Guys who are exuberant can cause me to switch channels but Harlan knows how far to push the enthusiasm.  The result is he can make the most ordinary games and individual plays sound interesting.

Harlan, with his color guy Dan Bonner, could even do a play-by-play on me in the kitchen making breakfast that might hold the attention of a national audience.  “Dan, there’s something special about the way Shama pulls back on that refrigerator door and reaches inside!  He does it in a way that sets him apart from others.  Your thoughts?”

Mention the Big Ten Conference and the first play-by-play guy to write about is Brent Musburger. He’s 70 now and been doing Big Ten football and basketball on ABC and ESPN for many years.  His voice is still filled with genuine enthusiasm.

Musburger offers up a mix of comfy dialogue like that found in a Wyoming cowboy with the intellectualism that represents his Northwestern University journalism degree.  He is passionate about the Big Ten without being biased toward individual teams.  He’ll refer to something that’s going on “up in Madison or over in Columbus” and it makes a listener want to jump in the car and head in those directions.

Musburger’s extensive knowledge of the Big Ten is no doubt one of the reasons his color man, Bob Knight, seems comfortable working with him.  “The General,” 69, left the coaching bench in 2008 but he performs like he’s been working games at the broadcast table his whole life.

Knight explains both basketball subtleties and strategies more effectively than perhaps any color man today.  The guy knows what he’s talking about and how to impart that information to listeners in ways they can understand.  The result is a much more informative and enjoyable broadcast.

What distinguishes Knight too is that he tells the truth.  Too many coaches turned broadcasters practice political correctness better than they do reporting.  And to the dismay of critics, Knight hasn’t dropped any f-bombs on the air.

Way back when Knight was winning championships at Indiana, Bill Raftery was doing color commentary on national broadcasts.   He seems like the same Raf to me now as he was then.  Gushing too much about too little, and offering that cliché about a shot that sends me scrambling for the mute button: “A kiss off the glass.”

No list of color guys is complete without Dick Vitale.  Vitale, 70, is the Jack LaLanne of college hoops.  Vitale is an energized, fun loving, wordsmithing, non-stop pitch man for the collegiate game.  He’s multi-generational, welcome at a frat party or a nursing home.  Love Dickie V, or hate him, we all know of him.

Some folks think the fastest rising profile in college basketball broadcasting belongs to Gus Johnson.  He’s smooth, articulate, prepared and passionate about the game.

What grabs me, too, is the guy looks like Mike Jordan’s pal, Mars Blackmon.  Check out Gus on camera and see that face covered by big glasses.  Looks like Mars to me. Ya think?

When Forbes magazine releases its annual valuations of major league baseball teams next month the Twins will make a big jump from their $356 million figure for 2009.  A local sports marketing authority who has followed the franchise for many years and spoke to Sports Headliners on condition of anonymity predicted that Forbes will highlight the Twins in its article.

“My guess is that with the team the Twins will put on the field and the new (fan) interest, the franchise will be valued at a half billion dollars,” the source said.  “It will be the single biggest jump in baseball.”

Except for the team name and playing in a downtown stadium, the 2010 franchise is dramatically different from the one that almost went out of business following the 2001 season.  Back then major league baseball considered the Twins prime pickings for contraction.  The franchise had been slumping on the field (eight consecutive losing seasons had ended in 2001) and at the gate (attendance almost didn’t make one million in 2000).  The element that seemed likely to push the franchise into oblivion was minimal legislative support for a new stadium to replace the Metrodome.

But what a difference nine years can make.  The franchise that was once among baseball’s bottom feeders is now probably the envy of some owners and mentioned in the same breath with baseball’s better markets.

The Twins stopped selling season tickets on Monday, a gesture that will help preserve some seating at home games for single game purchasers.  The total of over 24,000 season tickets more than doubles the franchise record.  Club officials believe the total figure places the Twins among the top half dozen or so franchises for season tickets.

The Twins sold approximately 6,000 season tickets in 2001.  Total attendance was 1,782,926, with the count at 1,924,473 in 2002 as the Twins made a dramatic improvement on the field both years including a Central Division championship.

The Twins don’t open their regular season home schedule until April 12 at their new Target Field ballpark, but have already sold out more than half of their 81 home dates. Tickets sold are approaching three million and the franchise will eclipse its 1988 franchise record attendance of 3,030,672.

“There’s almost a panic mentality for tickets,” the sports marketing source said. “The secondary market for tickets has never been higher.”

For the unfamiliar, “secondary market” means those who procure tickets for resale.  Certainly that group includes professional ticket scalpers and maybe even a neighbor who thinks he can make an extra buck reselling his tickets.

The demand is being driven by a 21^st century ballpark that will take its place this season on any list of America’s best baseball stadiums, and by a team likely to win a sixth Central Division title in nine years, and possibly be in contention for the franchise’s first World Series since 1991.