Much Les of the Greats

It's a week of losses for the sports media, topped off by the passing of Chicago sportscasting legend Les Grobstein on Sunday (1/16). He was a walking encyclopedia of Chicago sports over the past 50 years, most recently the overnight host on WSCR The Score 670. He was 69 years of age and showed no signs of letting up.

After a few years of doing play-by-play for high school basketball, Chicago Sting soccer, the Chicago Hustle (women's pro basketball in the late 70's), and later UIC (University of Illinois Chicago) Flames basketball, his first big break came when he joined WLS 890 in 1979. 

It was my personal pleasure to have worked on the air with Les (high school games and some Chicago Sting broadcasts) and off the air during his early days. We both had the "work as hard as you can" work ethic, but Les took that to max, being at seemingly every game in town and taking whatever work he could get. Although he made no secret of being a fan of certain teams, he maintained his composure on air and always knew to respect callers and reporters supporting "other" teams. 

Working overnights brought him certain advantages, such as being able to keep a "good" caller on with him for upwards of 15 minutes or more if the discussion was going well. Yet, one of the many things I will remember about him is how he always kept the games in front of the mix.

Unfortunately, too many sports stations and hosts are far too concerned with opinions and not enough about the games in progress. In many cases, it's because of the station philosophy. Grobstein never let this get to him, as west coast games would still be going into the first hour or two of his shows on many nights. 

While some other hosts on WSCR don't give "out of town" scores on the updates any more, Les never stopped, going through the scoreboard throughout the overnight. He kept that "secret" that giving score updates could keep some fans involved with the show.

He would be between calls or thoughts at 1:15 AM, and mention that "Cleveland just scored 3 in the 8th at Anaheim....." and go back to the topic. Unfortunately, this is a long lost art on too many sports stations, as well as some play-by-play broadcasts. Les knew that his audience shouldn't have to "go to their phone" to get other scores and info, because they might wind up finding something else there which would take them away from listening to his show or the station. Exactly.

His amazing work ethic should inspire others, no matter what we do. He will be missed.

Meanwhile, the sports media world also lost Ron Franklin earlier this week (1/18) at the age of 79. Franlin was known nationally for his work on ESPN. He co-hosted "College Football Prime Time" from 1987 to 2005, and did a ton of football and basketball play-by-play. In Houston, Franklin was Sports Director with KHOU-TV and KPRC-TV over a 16 year period, as well as doing play-by-play for the Houston Oilers.

In addition we also lost Tim Rosaforte, the long time golf reporter at the age of 66. Rosaforte wrote for Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest, also appearing on The Golf Channel in his later years. He covered every Masters Tournament from 1983 through 2019. 

PITTSBURGH: This "loss" is a semi-retirement, as market staple Jim Colony announced that he has left his co-host role on the morning show of 93.7 The Fan. Colony had been with the station since it began in 2010, but his time goes back to WTAE and its sports programming going back more than 30 years. He promised his audience that he will be around and fill in "from time to time" while enjoying having free time.