Costas Wants NBC to Get Back Baseball Sooner, Not Later

Bob Costas can remember as a child in Queens, N.Y., listening to Vin Scully, Red Barber and Mel Allen and dreaming someday of being a baseball announcer.

In 1960, when Costas was 8, he moved to Redondo Beach with his family, and the desire grew as he listened to the golden prose of Scully, calling Dodger games from the Coliseum. And the urge didn’t wane when the Costas family moved back to New York two years later.

Costas’ father, an engineer for a plastics company, died of a heart attack when Costas was a senior in high school, but Bob was able to get enough financial aid to attend Syracuse and study broadcasting.

What followed was the textbook development of a career.

By his senior year at Syracuse, he was doing play-by-play for the Syracuse Blazers of the Eastern Hockey League. He had to quit school a few credits shy of graduation, but he later returned to get his degree.

By the time he was 22, he was working at powerful radio station KMOX in St. Louis, where, among other things, he did play-by-play for the Spirits of St. Louis in the old American Basketball Assn.

In 1980, when Costas was 28 and still looked like a kid, he was hired by NBC. He went on to be named sportscaster of the year three times and twice won the Emmy Award as outstanding sports personality.

Along the way, his assignments included baseball play-by-play, his dream job, plus Olympic host, NFL studio host, and his current role as co-host of NBC’s NBA playoff coverage. He also has his own late-night interview show, “Later, With Bob Costas.”

You could say, this little guy is on top of the world.

“I’ve had a pretty good run,” he said recently while in Burbank taping two weeks worth of “Later” segments, including one on Scully, which is scheduled for Monday night.

But Costas does have a complaint, one that would seem minor to most, but is major to him.

He is not doing what he wants to do most--baseball play-by-play. The voices of Barber, Allen and Scully linger, beckoning him back to the game he loves.

Whatever the future holds, Costas is certain of one thing: “I will again be doing baseball.”

He mourns the day two years ago when NBC lost baseball to CBS and is counting on NBC getting it back. If not, he vows to find a way to get back into baseball.

Costas is a sports fan in general, but baseball is his passion.

Each year he rents a condo in St. Petersburg, Fla., where the St. Louis Cardinals train, to absorb the atmosphere of spring training and pay daily visits to various camps.

This year, Costas and his family spent March in St. Petersburg.

The Costas family, which lives in St. Louis, consists of wife Randy, son Keith, 5, and daughter Taylor, 2, named after sportswriter Mike Lupica’s wife. Taylor Lupica and Randy Costas are close friends.

Costas used to spend February and March in Florida, but his schedule has forced him to reduce the stay. He hopes that someday he is back to a schedule that includes two-month stays in Florida and season-long stays in baseball broadcast booths.

How much does he want it?

“If I could be guaranteed that I would be doing baseball in perpetuity, I’d be willing to have my salary cut in half,” he said, which is no small statement.

Costas reportedly makes about $2 million a year, counting the $600,000 or so he gets for “Later.”

Too bad he was under contract to NBC when CBS acquired baseball. Costas would have been a bargain, and that whole mess of putting Brent Musburger on baseball, then firing him a few weeks before the season, could have been avoided.

7-10 split: Some stunning news regarding longtime KMPC (710) employee Steve Bailey came out recently--that after 35 years at KMPC he was fired as the station’s executive sports producer.

His position was eliminated.

“After 35 years, they threw me out on the street,” he said.

Apparently, there were differences between Bailey and KMPC General Manager Bill Ward, although Ward declined comment.

Said Bailey: “Bill Ward tried to get me to retire a year ago. I wasn’t ready to retire, and I’m still not.”

Bailey, 66, respected and popular among his Southern California broadcasting colleagues, says is seeking employment elsewhere.

“I think I still have a lot to offer,” he said.

Honest appraisal: Usually, announcers don’t take kindly to criticism, but King commentator Jim Fox seems to be an exception.

It was pointed out in this space last week that he was too soft while interviewing Edmonton bad boy Craig Muni, but he is unusually hard on officials when they make calls against the Kings.

Fox sent along this note: “I appreciate your constructive remarks about my on-air performance. Your criticism was right on the nose and will be taken to help me improve as a broadcaster.

“As a player, one of my biggest weaknesses was my treatment of officials and it continues to follow me into the booth. Hopefully, with more experience, I will learn to concentrate on the players and be more objective about the officiating.”

TV-Radio Notes

ESPN, which showed the top of the eighth and the ninth inning of Nolan Ryan’s seventh no-hitter Wednesday night, almost had the whole game on its schedule. Loren Matthews, ESPN’s senior vice president in charge of programming, was going to schedule it last week, but Texas Manager Bobby Valentine said he didn’t think Ryan would be pitching that night. So Matthews scheduled Kansas City-Detroit instead. Still, ESPN deserves credit for being there at the end.

ESPN also broke into wrestling to show Rickey Henderson’s record-breaking steal earlier in the day. . . . Then there is Home Sports Entertainment, a Texas-based regional sports network, which showed a college baseball game instead of the Rangers. Wednesday night’s game simply wasn’t on HSE’s 50-game Ranger schedule. Talk about bad timing.

ABC’s Kentucky Derby coverage Saturday begins at 1:30, with post time about 2:35. There will be the usual cast of announcers: Jim McKay, Al Michaels, Charlsie Cantey, and Dave Johnson, who will also call the race. . . . Gabe Kaplan will preview the Derby on his “Sportsnuts” show on KLAC tonight, with Jack Klugman serving as the co-host. The show will originate from the sports book at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Kaplan correctly tabbed Unbridled as last year’s winner.

ESPN’s Chris Myers did a nice job filling in for Roy Firestone on “Up Close” this week. . . . New CNN Sports anchor Bob Lorenz, who got his start at a cable company in Torrance and most recently was working in West Palm Beach, Fla., is a 1985 graduate of USC. . . . Prime Ticket is carrying Hollywood Park replays, although not until 12:30 a.m. or later. . . . For those who miss Howard Cosell, he will be interviewed by Dick Schaap on ESPN Sunday at 8:30 a.m., and Jim Hill will have a taped interview with Cosell on his Sunday night sports wrapup show on Channel 7. Cosell has a new book out, “What’s Wrong With Sports,” in which he lets his bitterness all hang out.