The Boston Globe finally has a feature article about the return of WBZ AM 1030’s previously laid off overnight man, Steve LeVeille.
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2009/02/08/this_time_the_listeners_were_heard/
Another departure from WBZ, but a permanent one, is longtime sports announcer Gil Santos, who retired at the end of January. Last week LeVeille, basking in the well-deserved glory of his triumphant return to Boston’s airwaves, saluted Santos.
[audio:http://www.dograt.com/Audio/2009/FEB/LeVeille.mp3]
I always liked Gil, and was surprised to read he had just NOW retired! For a non-sports person like me, the mark of a good sportscaster is one who anybody can enjoy listening to, like Gil Santos! As I’ve also mentioned before, I still miss Larry Glick reading the sports scores. I’d love to find a recording of that.
I was pretty sure he started in radio and then moved to TV, and wikipedia confirms it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Lobel
To me, last week Lobel sounded like he was doing his TV act (laid back and smarmy) on radio which just does not work in morning drive-time radio which needs to be fast-paced and upbeat.
Maybe there is hope for Perkins after all. His 7:45 AM sports report this morning was as good and complete as I could ask for.
I have to agree with you about Lobel! It was painful listening to him. Did he ever do radio work? Because he sounded off — sloppy and tired — every time I listened to him.
Nice Gil Santos story by Steve! I’m glad Steve’s back. I much prefer not hearing him while I’m sleeping rather than that syndicated guy.
Can we now start a Bring Back Gil Santos campaign? Bob Lobel was absolutely awful last week filling in and WBZ announced that Walt Perkins will be Gil’s replacement starting tomorrow morning. Walt’s been doing the sports part-time on BZ for a long time and was the logical replacement but I don’t particularly care for Walt’s sports “sense”. He and I are just not on the same wavelength when it comes to what’s important in sports on any given day.