The Kevin Sheehan Show - Ernie Baur

Episode Date: July 10, 2021

The podcast today was a conversation between Kevin and Ernie Baur. Ernie is a local broadcasting legend having directed and produced some of the greatest television news and sports talent in the history of DC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Cheehan Show. Here's Kevin. Podcast today brought to you by MyBooky. Go to MyBooky.orgie. Use my promo code Kevin, D.C.

And they will match your first deposit halfway all the way up to $1,000. You can bet on the NBA finals. You can bet on the tennis this weekend. You can bet early on NFL stuff. MyBooky at mybooky. So I didn't do a podcast yesterday, had the day off, and just got caught up on a lot of things. And I am in here on Saturday morning because I've been looking forward to doing this. And it's funny because I've had Ernie Bauer on my list of people to have on the podcast.

Ernie's been on the radio show many times. I don't know that you've actually been on the podcast, have you? I have not now. Yeah. I've called in to critique you about the podcast, but I haven't been on the podcast. Yeah, you've done a good job of critiquing the podcast many times, which, as you know, I take all of your advice very much to heart. Ernie Bauer, for those of you who don't know, and I know many of you know the name, many of you know Ernie's story. Some of you have heard the name and some of you haven't.

But Ernie really is a living local legend. I mean, and I say local in people all around the NFL and all around sports television, in particular sports broadcasting, no Ernie in every market, but he is D.C. born and raised, and Ernie became one of the most accomplished producers and directors in local television history, the most accomplished, a 14-time Emmy Award winner at Channel 9 at Channel 7 at Channel 5 at, you know, when it was home team sports, and then it became Compcast Sportsnet. You know, he essentially launched that many, many years ago.

And Ernie, along with Buck, were really my first bosses as a young Buck out of the University of Maryland working at Channel 5. I got the privilege, and it was a privilege to work with Ernie. And I told Ernie this many times before, but working for Ernie and Buck, it was the best first job for a 22-year-old you could ever ask for. Both of these guys were without ego. They were incredibly smart. They were incredibly encouraging.

And those memories still exist. In fact, we all got together recently and played golf. And in addition to solving all the world's problems told stories. until late into the night. How are you? I'm great. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks. Thanks for the buildup. That was terrific. Well, you know, it was, I actually had to go look some of the stuff up. I mean, I know how accomplished you are, but I didn't know that you were a 14-time Emmy Award winner. I know that many of those Emmy Award, television Emmy Awards, that you were always nominated for a lot of them and you won a lot of them.

But I got that right, correct, 14 times? Well, I think it's 17, but because there was some other awards. involved in their, I won the Glenn Brenner Award, which really was one of the highlights. You know, they dedicated a particular award after Glenn died, and I think I was the second person. Well, they gave it to Glenn posthumously the first year, then a guy, one other guy, not myself. So I was like a third person than win that award, and that was really something, because having work with Glenn and been a friend of Glenn, you know, that really was nice to have. There's so many things I've written down to talk about, and I don't know how many of them will get to.

But 17-time Emmy Award-winning Ernie Bauer is our guest. But I don't want to go back to, you know, Blessed Sacrament, or I'm sorry, Our Lady of Lords, and then BCC. I want to start with how you got into television. What was your first job in TV? Well, how I got started was a buddy of mine worked at Channel 9 as a copy boy, worked three days a week, a couple hours a day, and he decided to go to college down in Florida.

So he called me up and asked me if I'd be interested in taking that job. So I said, sure. So I made about a dollar quarter hour, and I ended up ripping, you know, wire machines. They had wire machines that, you know, you'll watch those old movies or things that, you know, type up the news and stuff. And I'd rip the wires and hang them on books, AP, UPI.

And I ran the mail down to the post office. the Tenley Post Office, and I typed teleprompter. Now, that was, and I typed it for Sam Donaldson. When I started, Julian Barber was the anchor, lead anchor there. Tony Sylvester, did the 11 o'clock news. Sam Donaldson was a reporter there. John Doesolson, whether Phil McCaulding did, do you see this? I date myself.

What year was this, Ernie? 1967. Okay. And so anyway, I typed telepropter for people. And then they had a little. little beer football team, you know, that they played on the weekends. And so they asked me if I wanted to play. I just turned about 19, probably 19 then, maybe just turned 20. Anyway, so I, you know, I played playground football a lot. So anyway, I played pretty well. And so they said, hey,

would you like to have a full-time job? You know, because I played so well in a little five-year football thing. So, yeah, so they had a training program. He made $65 a week to come about 52, and you started that as a floor director. And my first job, the first thing I did was take the toys out of this fake log pile for the Ranger House show. And then I ran puppets on the Ranger House show. I've led Oswald Rabbit, Marvin Monkey, Dr. Fox, you know, and you were a floor director. You're a stage manager. You know, I don't remember that show, but I think, if I recall, like, they had kids in the audience, right?

Well, on the weekend, yeah, they did, they did a, we taped on a Saturday morning for the birthday show. The rest of the time, it was just Ranger Howe and the puppets during the week. Okay. It was gone like eight or nine in the morning. Because I vaguely have a memory of like an older cousin being on the Ranger Hal show. So. Well, there was a Pick Temple show that preceded Ranger Hal where they had, you know, stuff. But then Ranger Hal had the birthday show on the weekend.

Got it. What was Sam Donaldson like? Well, he was a heart attack waiting to happen. Okay, I'll tell you a quick story. In those days, what would happen is the talent would type their script on five-copy paper, and I'd get a copy of it, and then I had to re-type it on these huge typewriters, you know, that put in the teleprompter that was typed onto these big yellow pages. And you had to take, you typed it on these pages,

and then you had to get it down to the floor director 10 minutes before the show, so he could thread it into a machine. So, you know, they would tell you that if you got to a point that you had to get it down, just write on the thing, go to tape. Or go to script. I'm sorry, go to script. That meant that the prompter had run out, and the town had to rely on their script. Well, Sam Donaldson was a last-minute guy, and I couldn't type.

You know, I was like a haunting peck. You know, gee, big. So every night for Sam Donaldson, this is what the prompter said. Good evening. Go to script. That was it. Yeah, because I couldn't keep up with him, you know. He was a wild man.

But you said he was a heart attack waiting to happen. What do you mean? Like he was always frantic? He was frenetic. Oh, yeah. You know, and he was, just like he was on the air as a reporter, you know. Right. He'd come up afterwards.

I'm surrounded by incompetent, you know, and he's, you know, all upset. He was like that 24 hours a day. Sam Donaldson, I mean, I'm assuming most people remember Sam Donaldson, many years at ABC News, always a part of the White House press corps and very self-important, as I always remembered watching him. You know, the one thing, didn't he, wasn't his wife, Jan, who was a reporter? What was her last name? Channel 5.

Smith. Jan Smith, right. And she was a reporter, Channel 5 when I worked there with. One of the nicest ladies that ever meet. Yeah, very nice. All right. So you're at Channel 9 in the late 60s. When do you become a director?

Well, I was a floor director and an assistant director, and this guy, Mick Colgan, who was a director, sort of took me under his wing, and I, you know, give him all the credit. And they would do shows like Math for Shut-in and Jewish Community Hour. These are sort of public service shows. In those days, you know, you had to, you know, designate certain amount of time on your air to public service. and spread a little sunshine, which was a gospel, you know, a bunch of gospel people singing, and I forgot in the other ones, a bunch of good vibrations and all these things. So those were sort of ancillary shows beyond the news and sports. So Mick every once in a while allowed me to sit in the chair and sort of direct portions of mass for shut it,

or portions of this. And then I was an AD on the news, and in 1971, there was a guy named Fred Schultz who was direct on the news. they had scoured the country, brought him in from Texas, and he surprised them by saying his wife was homesick, and he's going back to Texas. And he gave him no notice. I mean, he had two weeks notice. He's out.

And they were stuck. And so they go, well, what are we going to do? And they said, well, we're going to have to find somebody. We're going to have to scour the country. But in the meantime, this guy, Charlie Hork, said, well, why don't we just have Ernie do it until we find somebody? So I got a lot of the engineers and I were just great, great friends. And so the lead engineer, the chief engineer scheduled the best people in their position.

In other words, is there a technical director? He scheduled the best guy who was a technical director. The audio guy, the best guy was the audio guy. So the first show I did, I could have passed out in the show. Right. And it did go perfect. And I never got out of the chair. 1971, I started directing the news.

And for everybody listening that doesn't know what the director does, Ernie's basically directing the local news. You know, when you watch the local news and back in the day at Channel 9, Gordon Peterson and Maureen Bunyan and Gordon Barnes and Warner Wolf, Ernie's directing the entire show from the booth. And so this was, you know, you became a producer and you got into sports, but this was really your first major game. That's why I made my nut, yeah. Yeah.

doing the news. And the same day that I started doing the news about two days before that, Gordon Peterson was named the anchor. He and I started at the same time, 1971. And it was Gordon and Matt, I mean, somebody wrote on Facebook the other day, and I kind of got into it a little bit. You know, they had a promo about Channel 4's news team at the time with George Michael and fans and all the stuff. And this guy said, the best newscast ever, best news team ever. And I said, I wrote, I respectfully. disagree because we had Max and Gordon and we had Warner and we had Glenn we had

Susan King we had Mike Buchanan and Pat Collins Henry Tenenbaum Davey Marlon Jones you know Gordon Barnes you know Frank Herzog you know I thought that that was and we dominated I mean we were the 27 Yankees during that time you know we killed everybody now Channel 4 did come along and they and they're really good and I don't disrespect that team but I I think what we had at that time was pretty special. Was Max Robinson one of the first black anchors, news anchors in television? I believe so. I can't tell you all around the country, but yes, I believe so.

He was a reporter channel. Actually, I think it was a reporter intern in Channel 4 when he first started, and then came over to nine. And like I said, when I started, it was Julian Barber and Hal Walker and Don Allen and these guys were that. And then the Post got the Washington Post owned the company time, and they got really aggressive about news, and they brought in some guys that used to work for Western House Corporation. And then they started doing some goofy things. They had a thing called Martin O'Dronsky's Washington,

would do, like, commentaries. And in between you'd have Max Robinson and a guy named Frank Kinson standing at these podium doing the news, Charles Crawford, doing the news in between McGransky doing his commentary. But then they brought Jim Snyder in, and he got back to what was supposed to be done in due news properly. I mean, I remember all those things, and we were definitely more of a Channel 9 family than we were a Channel 4 or Channel 7 family. So we were, you know, and I remember obviously Gordon Peterson, and Max Robinson became, I may be wrong about the local thing,

but I think he may have become the first African-American national news anchor because he anchored the ABC news. No, definitely he was nationally, and what they did there was when they brought him up. They had a threesome. It was Frank Reynolds in Washington, Peter Jennings in London, and Max in Chicago,

and there was a three-man anchor team on national news. Yeah. So as a director, we're going to get to the whole sports thing, and Ernie's got so many stories. But on the news side, what are some of the stories, what were some of the events that you remember during that time? Because this is the 70s now. We're into the 70s, and there's a lot going on. By the way, you know, you were obviously in Washington and working at Channel 9 for the 68 riots. You weren't directing at that point, right?

No, I was in the National Guard. I had to go to Baltimore for 10 days. I was in the Maryland National Guard. Oh, wow. But, yeah, yeah, because when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Right. So anyway, but, yes, I was there at that time. But in directing, the one that's successful, I don't know if people remember, was the Hanaki.

Oh, yeah. The Muslims. Three different places, the Neid Brith building, the D.C. building, the D.C. building. I can't remember what the third one is. Anyway. And this was sort of also. at the beginning of the birth of lodg shots. We had just sort of gotten into log shops and how we were going to do

them. And they took over these buildings and you know, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I owned the house that police took over and because of some assassinations inside the inside the Hennapi people. So anyway,

I got in the chair and I didn't get out of the chair for like 15 hours. I mean, you know, I there's nobody going to take over for me. I that. I never got out of it. So that was really quite an event, and that thing really sticks out of my mind. You know, I mean, just, you know, the Watergate.

You know, we, you know, we did local, but, you know, Watergate was going on at the time, so that was a big story. The Pope visiting, I remember doing stuff with the Pope visiting. So there was a lot of stuff going on then. Back to the Hanafi Muslim event in the early to mid-7. these. I forget what year it was, but I do remember the event.

Is my memory correct or not? Wasn't Marion Barry called in to try to end this thing? No, he was shot. He was shot in the thing. Yeah, he was in the D.C. building. A guy, a reporter was killed. I can't remember the reporter's

name. But Marion Barry got shot. He wasn't the mayor at the time. Right. No, it would have been Walter Washington, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the store, we had been on the air forever. And finally, Jim Snyder said, you know, the overtime's racking up and everything.

And it seemed as if that the Hanofi's had decided to go to bed, you know, to go to bed that night and come back, you know. So Snyder said, look, there's nothing going to happen now. So we're going to shut this down. And we're going to go off the air and we're going to come back in the morning. So after being on the air all this time, you know, Normally people, normal people would go home. Gordon and Glenn and I immediately went to the dancing crap.

And so we closed that. And Glenn had just got in the town, so he's not, he's staying at a place down in Georgetown. So I said, well, I'll give you a ride down there. He stayed at a holiday inn or something in Georgetown. And we get in the car, and I turn on the radio and WMA radio, I think it was Carol Presswood goes, and they're releasing the hostages. And Glenn looked at me and he goes, please, give me a ride home, please. I said, I can't do it.

And I went back in and put us back on the air. I called Gordon up, and he came in. But me and a guy named Crawford Cole put us back on the air. And we were behind on the story once WMA did it. But we did pretty good job. Yeah, I just pulled it up on Wikipedia. Seven deaths, two were injured. And that thing was in 1973.

It happened January 18, 1973. Right. And there were three places. The B'nai Bres, I remember, they took over three places. I remember that. Anyway. All right. News-wise, though, you know, you're at Channel 9.

How did you, and you continue to do news at Channel 9 until when? Right. Well, I did it all the way until I left. Well, I left for a short time to go to Channel 7. So 71, and then I left in 83 to go to Channel 5. In 83, you went to Channel 5 and then you spent, you know, 20-something years. 16 years there. I said 16 at 9, 16 at 5.

So I left in 99 to go to Home Team Sports. And so why did you leave Channel 9 to go to Channel 5? Was it money? No, well, a little bit and not. There's a guy named Kevin O'Brien, who was a general manager at Channel 5, and the lady named Betty Endicott. He was well-known around here. she had been the news director at 9

and she was the news director at 5 and they came after me hard and I didn't particularly one of the and you have to remember Channel 9 was a behemoth at this time and Channel 5 no disrespect but you know they ran panorama and the 10 o'clock news and then 400 I love Lucy's you know

so they were known with the 10 o'clock news but they weren't and I'm saying they weren't a factor but you know you've thought of news is 4, 7, and 9 and Channel 5 with the 10 o'clock news but anyway So they came after me, and I went to Channel 9's management, and I said, look, I've got this pretty good offer here, and I'm contemplating it. And the guy said, well, you know, I'll get back to you.

Well, that went for a while. And I said, well, look, I'll tell you what, two weeks I'm going to make a call, you know, and if I don't hear from you, you know, then that'll be fine. And if I do hear from you, that'll even be better. Well, two weeks go by nothing. So finally, I went back to Seattle on five and said I'm in. And so I gave my notice of Channel 9, and in fact, there was a big party plan at the crab for my last day. And the last day before I went to Direcad News, Channel 9 came to say, hey, we want you to stay. We want you to stay, and we'll just make this a big victory party.

And I said, well, no, I can't do that. But my work would be money. I promise these people that I'm coming over. I mean, you know, gave you plenty of time to say something. and now you're coming to me in an hour before, you know, I'm going to have a party. And so I said, no, and I went to five. Wow. And then when I went there was Mori Povich and Bernie Smilovitz, James, and that crowd, you know.

Yeah, yeah. And then you, you know, took on a weekend anchor named Steve Buchance at some point after you got there as well. You had the both of the Smilovitz's Bernie and Harvey. All right. Let's get to all of the sports stuff, and we'll do it right after this word from a few of our sponsors. You know, Ernie, one of the things that I've always thought about you is, you know, as a director and as a producer and as a leader in all of the places that you've been, I think anybody would say this about you that's worked with you before or worked for you, that you're always so easygoing, calm, never really really. rattled, always sort of upbeat and encouraging.

And yet, you know, you've had this job over the years for people that don't really understand it that's very much sort of a deadline has to be done now. We're live, you know, business. Is that how you view yourself? And why were you that way? And why are you that way? I don't know. I mean, look, I was cooking steaks at a bonanza when I got the job in TV.

You know, I had no background in TV. I didn't know anything. But, you know, people tell you that the Lord did something with me, you know, and decided to give me the ability to sort of take things in without going crazy. And but I also observed people. And I saw people that were just mean and egotistical as directors and producers, yelling at people and, you know, berating people. And then I saw this guy, Nick Colgan, who was just, you know, very easy and calm.

And he seemed to get more out of people doing it that way than he's people that were, you know, sort of egotistical monsters. So, I followed his lead. And somehow it all worked. I mean, you're right. Lucille, my wife, gets upset. They did an article, and the guy asked me,

do you like to do live TV or tape TV? And I said, I hated homework. I figured once you went to school, after you're done at 3 o'clock, you're done. You know, live TV, you do the show, you're done, you're out. So I come home, she says, great, the kids just read that. They don't want to do their home.

Well, you know, there is even in what I do, there is an immediate, you know, sort of report card, if you will. You get the results immediately and there is some satisfaction in that and not the long build.

Right. And, you know, sitting in edit rooms just, you know, just drove me crazy, you know, because it's so tedious. You know, but like you said, an hour news You're on it, six, your office seven. All right, let's go back to Channel 9. Warner Wolf is already there. You know, Warner Wolf is the star sports broadcaster of Washington, D.C. in the 60s

and through the, you know, much of the 70s before he went to New York, he was, he did, you know, the Senators games. He was, Channel 9 sports was the most watched sports in town, and you directed him. So give me, give me your, you know, give me your, you know, Give me a few minutes on Warner Wolf. Well, he, you know, had a radio show, a call-and-show, and TV were in the same building. The radio was on the third floor. The newsroom for TV was on the sixth floor.

So Warner did this call-in show, and then the people at Channel 9 decided to put him on the air. Now, you have to understand, he was unique. He was unique. Nobody had seen anything like him. him. And he, you know, he got a lot of crap from a lot of people inside the station and that side of station, so they weren't used to seeing anybody like that. And he and I bonded right away. And so we became really friends. It came to my wedding. You know, I talked to him periodically.

And he was as nice as could be, always gave people credit. It still does it, you know, and just was a fun, fun guy to watch, you know, and so I just enjoyed the hell of it. So the thing that happened was that they decided to parlay his popularity along with the Redskins. And this was 1971 when George Allen came in, and they went to the playoffs, I think, that year, and lost for the 49ers. Anyway, so they came up with this concept of the Warner Wolf Show. And a guy, and Rick Sharp and I were, you know, designated to be the producers or associate producer. I was associate producer on the Warner World Show. And we kind of started off doing sort of the, you know,

a regular kind of show, Warner talking to somebody. A guy named Joel Chasteman and a guy named Charlie Horowitz said, wait a minute, we're looking to get this guy's personality. So this is what you're going to do. You're going to have a live audience. You're going to do blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that's the genesis of the Warner Wolf shows, which then morphed in the Redskin's sideline.

Right. Well, so Warner early on was not beloved. You're saying that people didn't like his style because he was loud, he was brash, he was doing predictions, he was doing all of these different things. When did he become super popular? When did it dawn on people at Channel 9? Oh, my God, this guy's really got an audience. People love him.

Well, he was completely different. And by the way, you know, and Andy Poland and people tell you, and I believe it. He was, you know, he was, what's his name? Chris Berman before Chris Berman. Right. You know, all this genesis is the genesis of Warner Wool. Initially, he was popular with people, you know, but he wasn't popular with the purists. You know, the purists weren't, you know, they wanted their scores.

You know, they just give me the scores. Don't give me all this junk about foul poles and booze and things like that. But, yeah, he grew up. Yeah, he grew on people. And then he became, you know, he was terrific. He was the number one guy. In fact, Channel 4 used to, one of the stations, used to go to network news at 630.

And we would format our news, that Warner was off from 625 to 635 to bridge of that 630, so people wouldn't turn off and go to the network news. Right. Yeah. And he, it's so, I'm going to ask you at some point about, you know, just local news now versus then. It was so much more important.

then. People got their news from local news and then the evening national news, whether it was at 6.30 or 7 o'clock whenever it would air. And sports in particular, in terms of local, has really been diminished in recent years. Was Warner, what were the highest rated portions of a newscast back then? Like, was Warner a, you said, you kept them on 625 to 635 to bridge the game. gap so people didn't turn to the national news. Was he the star among what you had at Channel 9, which were a lot of stars? Yes. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, he was the biggest shining light of a bunch of shining lights. But yes, you know, and especially, you know, sports-wise, you know, as you said, there was no ESPNs and things like that. So you got your sports from the local sportscasters. Yeah. National news didn't really do it. So, you know, you got it from the local sports cases. I've done this before with you.

And again, I'm probably going to bother people. But here's a trivia question for you. Maybe the sportscasters here in Washington. You know, first of all, I don't think there is one on Channel 4. I don't think there is one on Channel 5. I know Scott Abraham at Channel 7. Seven, right. You know, but in those days.

Yeah, you knew everybody. And you knew the weekend guys. Right. And you knew the reporters. Right. And his sports department had how many people in it? A lot. Yes. And they got time. You know, I mean, you know, you've heard Buck complain, not complain, but talk about George and Glenn and all the time they got, you know, when they did it. You know, they got eight, ten minutes.

Right. So, you know, the story's legendary, but for those that haven't heard it, just tell everybody how Warner came up with one of his catchphrases. Let's go to the videotape. Well, I was director one night. And like I said, in those days, you know, the town used to Viper's script on five. copy paper and the director would get one, the producer, the town teleprompter guy, everybody gets one. Warner didn't do that. He didn't have scripts. He just wrote stuff down on a piece of paper and, you know, and gave you his lead in, basically,

handwritten. And so you didn't know when they were going to come up. And anyway, I was directing the 11 o'clock news one night, and as a director, you are doing a bunch of things. You know, you're worried about a thousand things, and you're calling a bunch of things. And he goes, hey, the Golden State Warriors are playing a Milwaukee

Buck tonight, and it was a heck of a game. And at that point he's waiting for the highlights to come up. Well, I don't hear him. So now he's looking around. He's not sure what's going on. He's not sure if there's something broken, but you guys, I'm going to tell you, there are two great big men here, Karim Abdul-Jabbar and Nate Germman. They really went at it, and nothing comes up. And finally he goes, hey, Ernie, wrote the Jabbar tape. And I hear that. And let me put it up. So afterwards, I went down, and I said, Warren, that's my fault. You know, I didn't hear you. I apologize. I'm sorry. He said, let's see if we can come up with something so that there's a trigger.

And so let's go to videotape came out of that. And he gives me credit all the time for me messing up, but that was great. Yeah, and he has given you credit because I've heard him on various things over the years where, you know, he'll always say, well, there was this director, a friend of mine, Ernie Bauer in D.C., and this is how it happened. So you mentioned the Warner Wolf Show, and eventually it morphed into Redskins sidelines, and this were people my age in particular and older, and maybe some who are younger. This was must-watch TV on Monday nights at 7.30 following a Sunday game. Channel 9 Redskinned Sidelines.

I mean, I certainly remember the shows with Glenn Brenner in particular. But that became a very popular show. And you're saying Warner was the first host of that. Yeah, the first year was Warner and they would alternate co-host. One week will be Dyrn Talbot. The next week would be Larry Brown, then Diron Towers and Larry Brown. The next year, they swapped out Larry Brown with Roy Jefferson, and it would be Talbert and Jefferson, Tavern, Jefferson.

And then Warner left to go to ABC. And we hired a guy, well, we, the station hired Mike Wolf, who took over. Was he the guy that had the shirt collar? He kept his shirt open and had all the gold chains on? Correct. It's the 70s look. Right. He apparently been on a broadcast on WWDC,

and Jim Snyder heard him on a radio and decided to hire him to TV. Anyway, that lasted about a year. But we couldn't call it the Warner Wolf Show, so we came up with the show Rescant Sideline. At this point, I'm the full-time producer-director of the show. The other guy, Rick Sharp, has moved on to CBS Sports. So anyway, so then it was Mike Wolf, and I guess we alternated again.

I don't think about it. I can't remember how we handle it with Mike Wolf as far as co-host. But then, of course, he left, and Sonny is now hired. Oh, I thought. I think Sonny was doing it now with Mike Wolf. And then, because Sonny's now hired full-time in Channel 9. Right. And then Mike Wolf left, and, of course, Glenn Brenner took over,

and that's when it really ballooned. I mean, it was real popular when Warner did it, not so much when Mike Wolf, but then really went off the charts when Glenn and Sonny got together. You know, the, when did it become obvious, Ernie, that more Redskins programming was good? And when was it obvious that this had become a true football, you know, or Redskins town?

Well, okay, I've done this before. I think the beginning of Redskins Nation, for lack of a better term, of fanaticism, to me, was when Sonny came here. You know, when I was a kid, I used to watch Eddie LeBaron and Norman Sneed. I remember sitting in the living room and the Giants beating of 49 and nothing

with Norman Sneed and White. Tittles, you know, and just brutal. And then Sunny came to town and, you know, the place lit up. I mean, you know, you couldn't, it was must-see TV. They might have lost, but boy, that was great watching them, you know, play.

And I thought that's when the fanaticism started when Sonny came to town and was throwing to Mitchell and then Charlie Taylor. But when George Allen came in 71 and they went to the playoffs that first year and he brought in the over the hill gang and all these characters and things like that, that's when

And, you know, we just happened to be there at that time. And we start, you know, and Redskins, you know, fanaticism really went off the charts. And I think that's when it was when George Allen bought all those guys in it. And you were obviously at the forefront of creating a lot of Redskins-related programming. Were news directors, were, you know, stations just, did they realize the value of trying to create shows around the most popular team in town? Yes, absolutely. And Glenn said, you can't do enough risk, can't do enough riskans. And so, you know, we didn't, you know.

And the popularity of Warner, the popularity of Glenn, having funny on our air, the team, you know, came to us. You know, when I say came to us, the players really enjoyed being on our air because of the relationships they had with Glenn and Sonny and Warner and Frank. Tell us, give us some of the memories of that show. I remember one night when, you know, Gila Gee. Gila Gee. Gordon Peterson, you tell that story to everybody. People still tell me, you know, come out to me.

I'm at a church thing, and this lady's got to be 78 years old going, I remember the time. Anyway, the show Rescans Sinalines was so popular that the station decided to extend it beyond football season and just plain call it sidelines. And we would do shows with the bullets at the time or the caps or whoever, you know, so every money we have some difference. So this is in January, I guess, and we're going to have the caps on. And live, 730, live audience, live guests, everything's live.

It starts snowing around 10. And so now, you know, and it's one of these big ones. And, you know, around two, I call the caps and I go, you guys going to be able to make it. Oh, yeah, we're hockey players. pretty crazy, we'll be there. 7 o'clock, we got no, and plus we have no audience, because the audience can't get in. The streets are shut down and everything.

So we glommed everybody that was in the station to sit and be in the audience. And so you'll see Chris Gordon and Mike Buchanan and Pat Collins and, you know, Gordon Barnes and that's our, and Susan King, and that's our audience. All the people that work in the station are the audience. And no caps, we have nobody. So Glenn sits down and says, welcome to the show. we got no guests. And so they start talking.

And finally we bring Gordon Barnes out to talk about the weather. And somebody's taking a snowball and they throw a snowball and they throw a snowball and hear him right in his crotch on the air, you know. And you hear Peterson off the mic going out. Got them right there's balls.

Anyway, so then we bring Gordon, we get Gordon Peterson. He comes out as Gila Ghee, a Swedish hockey player from Venezuela. And he sits down and, you know, Glenn, and he's doing this whole accent, and, you know, Glenn's going,

well, you know, how's it playing hockey in Venezuela? Well, you know, the ice is always melting, you know, it's always very difficult to play. And so, you know, they go through this whole thing, and Gordon is great. And finally, they've got any questions from the audience, and Chris Gordon, you know, have a question. How long have you been ghee?

And so, Gila Ghee, that thing was, that still talked about. Chris Gordon, you said, asked the question. Yeah, he was in the audience. Yeah, that's funny. You know, as you're going through it, everybody at Channel 9 had an incredible sense of humor, because Gordon Peterson had a great sense humor. You know, he was a great straight man for Brenner, right?

And then, you know, you mentioned, like, I remember J.C. Hayward and some of the other people, but was Glenn pretty much the guy that started that? Because I always felt like there was a big difference between Channel 4 and Channel 9 when Glenn was there and George was at 4. You know, George was the head of the big sports machine. And the relationship, obviously, that he developed with Jim Vance and Doreen and Bob Ryan over the years was one that included a lot of laughter. But they were so different. What was Glenn? First of all, how did Glenn get to?

Because you said he was there when Warner Wolf was there and didn't get his gig. until what, after Mike Wolf left? No, what happened was that we had Mike Wolf did weekdays and Klaus Wagner. Yeah, I remember him. And Klaus Wagner decided to go to Baltimore. And Glenn had been fired in Philadelphia. He was on the beach. He didn't have a job.

And a guy named Ken Tiven was a producer. And he said, well, I mean, it's Jim Snyder. Well, I know this guy who's been, you know, on the beach, you know, that doesn't have a job. You might want to bring him in. So Glenn was actually hired to replace Klaus Wagner, and Glenn did weekends. Glenn and Gordon were never in the building at the same time. But so then Mike, they fired Mike Wolf. In fact, I was the one to tell Glenn.

I said, Glenn, you're doing the sixth tonight. They just told Mike Wolf, he's not doing the sixth. And then Glenn went on the air, and that's how he got there. The back to the other thing, I didn't work at Channel 4, so I can't really speak to them. But we grew up together at Channel 9. We went out together at Channel 9. We didn't just do the news and everybody went there. separate ways. We, you know, we party together. We had family stuff together. Gordon Bart, Gordon

Peterson and I, I had, I had his mother over here in my house, and he knew my parents, and, you know, so we were really, you know, in a trite and quaint and all that stuff, but we were a family. We literally grew up together. My kids, the kids know, you know, had pictures of my daughter, but two months old in my house with Gordon Peterson and Sonny. I mean, so we had a great, friendship of all the people there, and I think that came across on the air. Tell me more about Glenn. How quickly did people realize that he was a star? Almost immediately.

You know, I mean, he was the funniest guy in the room. The biggest audience, the bigger the audience, the funnier he got. He did his best stuff when everything went wrong. You know, he did, you know, script his adlibs. You know, he would sit with a yellow pad and sweat over stuff to put down. but he just had this great sense of humor just innate from his grown up, and, you know, people loved them. People used to hang around the sports department just to hear him make them laugh.

But, you know, he wasn't a taskmaster, but he was demanding, you know, in a lot of ways. It wasn't just, you know, all fun and giggles all the time. You know, he was demanding of the people that work for him in a good way. And so, you know, but Gorson, you know, but Gorgeous, Gordon Peterson to me was the focal point, fulcum of this newsroom, you know, when we first started. I mean, he was there for so long and obviously Channel 7. By the way, Gordon Peterson, I mean, he's still alive. Yeah.

Yeah, and I would live down in Georgetown. But he's, you know, he and Maureen Bunyan, you know, sort of reconvened to Channel 7 for many of those years. Back to Brenner for a moment because Ernie, he's my all-time favorite of local sportscasters. And obviously I had an incredible time and it was an incredible experience working for Buck. And I think Buck's always been incredibly underrated, you know, in the larger scheme of things because he was part of that era of George at four, Frank Herzog at 7 and Glenn at 9 and Buck was at Channel 5. And Buck was great too, as you and I both know. but Brenner was always my favorite. You got to watch all of these guys.

You got to work with many of them, including, obviously, the great Warner Wolf. Where is he on your list? Oh, Glenn? Yeah. Oh, yeah, Glenn was number one. I mean, you know, well, as far as working with people, you know, that's hard to say, because, you know, Buck and I had a great relationship. Bernie and I had a great relationship.

I mean, Glenn and I, you know, did. but I, you know, I can't remember what year Glenn came in. What year did you say the Hanopi was 73? 73. I would imagine Glenn got there in like 70, 77, 78, something like that, maybe, 79. Well, again, I remember him, you know, with the Sanofi story. I thought I remember him, you know, being in my car. Anyway, so I work with Glenn from seven.

Well, I worked with him for quite a while, I guess, you know. But, you know, he was as good a guy. You know, he was the best. He was the best. I mean, he, there's a Glenn Brenner tree. You're one of them. Scott Van Pelt's one of them. Buck.

Steve, Steve Buckhampton is one of them. No, I'm talking about people that grew up on him. Yeah, grew up on him. And, you know, I mean, Scott out here talk about, he talks about Glenn. Yeah. You know, that's who he, you know, watched and wanted to be, you know. So this is sort of, to me, a tree of people that, you know, saw Glenn and said, man.

I like what this guy is doing, and this is what I want to do. But, you know, he was the best, you know, and no question about it. I mean, I tell this story. My father was dying of emphysema, and I'd go over, you know, and if you've ever had, if you'd know anything about it, you're guessing for breath from the moment you'd wake up to the moment you get a bed. And so I'd go and visit him every day, and literally every time he'd say, man, did you see Gordon and Glenn last night?

Man, that made me laugh. And I thought about that. I said, here we have a guy that will take 10 minutes, you know, no matter what's going on your life, and for five or 10 minutes to make you lay. and make you forget all the other things that are going wrong in your life. And I said, how fortunate it is because I said intro to him at a fundraiser. And that's where I told that's right.

How lucky are we to have a guy that can take 10 minutes out of our life and make us laugh? Why didn't, you know, so many people who, I think one of the interesting things about Washington local news, it was such a springboard to national broadcasts and the national fame. You know, we've already talked about Warner Wolf. We've already talked about Max Robinson. But there are lots of people that came through here. They were noticed. I mean, these local newscasts were watched.

I mean, we're in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital. Presidents watched, and political people did. Did Glenn ever have a chance to go national? I'm pretty sure I could tell you this story that I heard and remembered. Channel 4 took a run at him. Now, this is my interpretation of this, and people can get mad at me. But George couldn't beat him. Glenn was more popular.

Glenn got there the ratings. Channel 4 was an owned and operated station, meaning it was owned and operated by the NBC network. So Channel 4 went over instead of trying to get Glenn to come to Channel 4, they tried to get him to work at another owned and operated station out of the market in L.A. or New York or something like that. So they came after him to see if they could convince him to leave Channel 9, go to an owner-operator station that NBC owned, and then he would be popular there, and he turned him down. So, you know, there was an opportunity for him to leave to go to a bigger market and to go to a bigger corporation, and he turned it down to stay here. What was the dynamic between these big-named, by the way, high-priced. Back then, correct me if I'm wrong.

But, you know, guys like Glenn Brenner and Frank Herzog and George Michael, probably Glenn and George, obviously at the top of the list. But while, you know, news anchors and sports anchors probably don't make, you know, they make a fraction of what was made, you know, 30, 40 years ago. These guys were making like a million bucks a year, right? Yeah, they were, yeah, I mean, Greene and George were, you know, we're going head to head, yeah. I mean, it's really incredible because nobody in local news makes anywhere near that anymore. And it's 40 years later. Right. But you didn't have cable.

You didn't have, you know, you weren't the only place to watch things. Right. So what was the dynamic back then between these guys, these massive personalities in town? Okay, this is my side. Glenn, you know, knew that he, you know, he was the number one guy. So he would tweak George, you know, he would tweet George. George didn't like Frank. There was a story that happened that George didn't like Frank. Well, I'll tell you this story. Bernie and I did the show Redskins Playbook, you know, that was sitting around the newsroom, you know.

I've got that on my list, yeah. Okay. And so, you know, Glenn and I, Bernie and Glenn were friends. Glenn and I were friends. Frank and I were great friends. So I said, well, why don't we see if we get all these guys to sit and be on Playbook? So I called Glenn up, no problem. I'm not surprised the man at the other station said, okay, that's probably what they thought about Channel 5.

Don't worry, nobody's going to watch this thing anyway. Right. So, Glenn, no problem. Frank and I close. No problem. Frank and Bernie. You know, we were all close. George is not going to do it.

I'm not going on with Frank Herzog. So, I won't go into how this happened. So what I did is we had Frank, Glenn, Bernie, and an empty chair. And so we go on the air and Glenn would go, well, where's George? And then I take a shot of this empty chair, you know. And so what does George have to say that? I take a shot of the empty chair. So now we're, you know, fast forward a couple years later in San Diego for the Super Bowl

with Doug Williams. and we call them all in again and George says I caught so much crap from not going on that last time that I'm going to go on this time but I'm not happy about it and then we had them on and buck asked the picture of the four of them sitting around

Yeah it was a great I remember it I mean I was working for the station at the time and that was an incredible broadcast from San Diego with all four of them there with you know and so Glenn had the great line

because they were all there and Harvey Smiley's Milovic was doing, you know, going in back to Channel 5, and Glenn said something like that. You know, one grenade, and Harvey Smilovich is the number one sports catch. Yeah. So was George upset when you did the empty chair thing? Yeah, yeah.

Did you hear from him? Oh, yeah. And what did he say? He said, you know, you made me look bad. I said, well, you know, we asked him to climb to come on. So it goes back because Warner when I was Warner was there, he asked

Pat Fisher to come on the news. And Pat didn't show up, so he said, look, just put it up the chair until he did a fake interview. You know, where we'd ask him to share. Pat, what do you think about this? And I take a shot of the chair. So nothing's new. So I just regurgitated that six years later.

What was the, can you tell us what the issue was with George and Frank? Yeah. In the NCAA tournament, and you probably know this, when like Maryland or Georgetown get in, you can't decide to cover them on the second round. You've got to be there for the first round. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, in other words, you know. It's a dumb thing, but yes.

It's an NCAA rule. It's not Georgetown's law. It's not Maryland rule. But if you're going to cover them, you've got to cover them from the beginning. You can't decide, well, they get it to the second round. Now we're going to get in. Right. So Georgetown got through the first round, Channel 40 and go to the first round.

So they go to the second round from Seattle, and they sent Scott Clark, who was the weekend guy, you know, for George, and Frank turned him in. So wait a minute, they weren't here for the first round. So they sent Scott Clark back, and not from that point on, George A. Oh, you said Frank turned him in? Yeah, it turned Scott Clark. Ah, got it. Got it.

He gets out there, and Frank tells the NCAA, wait a minute, they weren't here for the first round. Right. Wow. We're, of course, talking to Ernie Bauer, and there's so many stories, and we could do four hours with Ernie. But you mentioned Redskins Playbook, which to me was very innovative, as was sidelines. But Playbook was your baby as much as it was anybody else's. So I want to get to that. I want to get to the story about how Rigo nearly missed the parade after they won Super Bowl 17. and we'll do that and more right after these words from a few of our sponsors. Ernie and I were just discussing as those commercials were running. I said to Ernie, God, Glenn died so young.

He was 44 years old when he passed away, and it was right before the last Washington Super Bowl, 30 years ago. Wow, 1991 when Washington beat Buffalo and Minneapolis, and you said that he had passed away right after the championship game win over the Vikings. Right. I went to the hospital to visit him on that Sunday,

and he was, you know, I cried, I broke down because, you know, he was out, he was done. Yeah. And, you know, he's just laying there,

you know, and it was awful. So anyway, I went to did the game as a orange sleeve as a red hat guy on the sidelines. And then I went in the locker room, and I,

Gibbs had gotten a trophy, and then I said, you know, don't forget Glenn. And he got back up and said that they dedicated the game to, Glenn. And then he died on Tuesday.

Ernie was orange sleeves or orange gloves, whatever that job was called. Was it orange gloves or orange gloves? It was called Red Hat. It was Red Hat when I first started. Tell everybody what that means and what you did for years for CBS's NFL coverage. Right. I mean, and Foxx, a motored guy in the stadium. I was a guy that signaled

the timeouts to go to commercial. People used, you know. But it was great job. I mean, you know, you're on the 25 or 30-yard line, and they put security around you because you had to have visuals with the referee. And so you had the best seat in the house. The producers, say we're looking for commercial, and you'd give the signal

of the referee, we're looking for commercial. He points back at you. You got it. I got it. That was it. It paid $150 bucks, best seat in a half. And then they, I don't want to go, they asked me to do one year from Thanksgiving on to do every game that Madden somehow

did up to two, including the Super Bowl. was the Super Bowl The first 49er Super Bowl They beat Cincinnati In Detroit Yeah How many Super Bowls did you do? I did six

Wow But that particular run That included the catch I also was the sidelines of San Francisco For the Dwight Clark catch Yeah So Ernie was the guy that would say And you see this even today

Sometimes you'll see a guy with like orange gloves Step out into the field and say We need to get to a timeout And you see the referee blow the whistle and say we're going to commercials. Did you do that for every Skins' home game? Every CBS Skins' home game. Every CBS skins home game.

Right. For a lot of years, and I haven't done it for a number of years. I've done a couple of preseason games. But yeah, and tells a story when Fox got CBS football, or got football, that Sunday I come in and I'm telling you, all these guys, you know, I was the most sought-after Red Hat. These guys came up, gave me a chair, because they thought I was going to be part of the Fox, you know, hierarchy to hire people. So here's this little low red hat.

These guys are, you know, can I get you anything? Ernie, what do you need, Ronnie? Ernie, can't put it. So. That was, Fox took over the NFC package from CBS in 1994, I think it was, or 95, whatever the first year was. And we're working at Channel 5, which is a Fox facility. Right. And so you became a, I mean, you became a, I mean, you became a, you became a, you became a,

a big dude in that because they had a bunch of people that didn't know what they were doing? Right. Well, they, yeah, they have, I mean, you know, there was a guy that worked at Channel 5 that was the lawyer for Rupert Murdoch, and he, he went to Walter Johnson's guy, you know, and he, he, he liked me, and he was touting me to Fox hierarchies that they should hire me, to, they actually wanted me to be the executive producer, which I got a call for David Hill, the way up for about four minutes, and he knew that I couldn't do it. it, and I knew that I couldn't do it, but he, you know, was polite to call me and ask me.

Why couldn't you have done that job? Why couldn't you have done that job? I wasn't caught by to do that. That's too much, you know. I never liked management anyway. You were always sort of... I was out of my element doing management stuff. Directing I loved. So you mentioned that Vikings' NFC championship game, the 17 to 10 game before they went on to beat Denver in the Super Bowl in 88 in January of 88. You got me several gigs that year because that was my first year at Channel 5. And you got me a bunch of gigs like you did for a lot of us.

You would say, hey, CBS Sports Radio is looking for somebody to produce the Monday night game here. Or they're looking, well, I was on the sidelines producing the CBS Sports Radio broadcast of that NFC Championship game, Jack Buck and Hank Stram, the legendary CBS sports radio, Monday night, you know, big game. But the first gig you got me that year, I think it was that year. It may have been the following year, but I think it was that year. Washington played the L.A. Rams on Monday night football. And so I had one responsibility. The responsibility was to make sure that we had a post-game guest, whoever the MVP of the game was, that I was able to connect and hook up the post-game guest for Jack Buck and Hank Stram to interview in the post-game.

Well, the skins were big favorites that particular night on Monday night football against the Rams. And this was a Rams team with Jim Everett, but the skins were good. They were big favorites. And the Ron Brown, I'll never forget, had a 100-yard kickoff return in the game. and the Rams upset. The Skins, well, before the game, I got into the Washington locker room to find out where the connection point was to put the headset on whoever the MVP of the game was.

And I just figured, you know, the Skins would win. I went into the Rams locker room. I couldn't find where it was. And so I just blew it off thinking, well, they're not going to win anyway. Well, not only was I wrong, they won the game, but I'll never forget this. I go into their locker room. and they're all fired up, and then John Robinson, who was the head coach, says, all right, men, bow your heads.

And, you know, they, he said a few words, and then they were in the middle of saying a prayer. And I think it was the Our Father. And I'm back there shuffling shoulder pads and stuff in some corner of the locker room. And he stops in the middle and goes, son, can I help you? And I said, I'm really sorry, coach. I'm trying to find the hookup because Ron Brown. is going to be, you know, he was the MVP of the game, and we got to get him over here. And he was angry.

And then so to make a long story short, I never found where it was I was supposed to connect Ron Brown to. And so I go up to the booth at the end of that game, and Hank Stram, son, why didn't we get Ron Brown? And he was pissed. But Jack Buck was like, ah, don't worry about it. Exactly. It's fine.

And you said to me. Jack Buck was one of the greatest guys around it, because I worked in the booth for a number of years, and he would always give you money, even if you were getting paid. But he and Stram, they were like a merry couple. And, you know, I worked, well, I worked six, I worked as an associate director for CBS football for a year, for football season. And the first half it was myself and the producer, Chuck Milton, and a guy named Bob Dumpty, who was Don Dumpy, son. He was the director. And we worked with Frank Lieber and Dick

Vermil. And then the second half of the season, we worked with Jack Buck and Hank Graham. And I, you know, Buck just really was always bitching about Hank Hank Stram. You know, because they were like a married couple. They were there together all the time. Yeah. But Stram was in there. You know, he was a kleptomaniac. He was going around. You know, take him playbooks and, you know,

take everything free he could get. Matriculating the ball down the field, boys. That's right. Great guy. Great guy. Right. All right. So Redskins' playbook, which was a Monday night studio show, which Ernie created, Ernie directed and produced for years at Channel 5. You know, what was the inspiration for that? Let's start with that. Because a lot of people will say, you know, that was one of the shows that inspired shows like PTI. And, you know, like I remember politically the McLaughlin group and how popular that was.

So tell us how all of that came about because that ended up being a huge success for Channel 5 for many years. Well, I was working at Channel 9. I directed the Groskin Company, which is a great show with George Will. But we did a show on Friday nights called After Hour, and it was with Gordon Peterson and Pat Buchanan and Tom Brate. And they would sit in the newsroom and they would loosen their ties and they would talk politics and they would have guests. We have little guys with minicams rolling around the newsroom, and that's how we shot it. So now I go over to Channel 5, and we get the Redskins' preseason contract. But part of this contract is to do shows just not the preseason games, but shows around it.

So I had done the Joe Gibbs show, and Joe Gibbs and I had become friends. So I called Coach Gibbs, and I asked him if he would come over and do the Joe Gibbs show on Channel 5. And he called me back, said, Ernie, I like you and everything, but I don't know Bernie that well. And I know Glenn is funny, and I'm comfortable here, so I'm going to be. States. So now I've got to come up with some. So this concept that we had done with after hours, I said, well, why don't we do it in the newsroom, loosen the ties,

and have sports riders on? And that's where it came from. And I believe that that was the first time anybody had ever done that. In 1984, you know, Tony talks about sports reporters on, you know, on ESPN. Right. I don't think that came until about two or three years later.

Right. Anyway, that's where the concept of it came from. So who were the people you were originally thinking about in terms of people who would be sitting around doing this? Well, you know, the sports writers that I had read when I was, you know, you know, sitting and, you know, you know, growing up here. So we had, you know, Tony, Tony doesn't remember, but we had Tony. Yeah.

We had Christine Brennan. Christine always called me about it. I had a guy named Gerald Strine. Yeah, sure. Who wrote for the post, but he wrote odd. He was a gambling guy. He's a gamma guy. Gamma guys have no heart.

They don't care. You know, they're not homers. They're not worried about, you know, what they're going to say about the local. So I thought, well, this will be perfect because he's just, he'll give you insights of, you know, why he thinks this is better or not based on, you know, gambler. Right. So we had him on and we rotated, you know, we had Marty Herney on. And now, you know, he was writing for the daily news or times or whatever. You know, David Alder, we had all these guys on.

and women, you know, and it looked really well. And then after Bernie left, the station decided not to do it after a while. And we still call it a show Redskins Playbook, but it was really our pregame show, you know, that you helped out with. Yeah, yeah, the, which Buck did. But it would also, you'd also have a player on. You'd take, you know, a player from the game the day before, and a player would be there. Right, Dexter. We used to have Dexter. with limo guys in it.

Yeah. So, you know, when Channel 5 got sort of the preseason games, was it your idea to televise scrimmages? It was actually Duffy Dyer, who was his assistant general manager, but he came to me and said, we want to do this. And I'm going, you know, you've got to be kidding. And, you know, even when I talk to people on the rescues, like, what are you going to do that?

Well, I had seen, you know, when CBS did the, Kentucky Derby or the horse races, you know, after the race, you know, the guy, the jockey would still be on the horse and they'd have somebody talking to them. So I said, well, why can't we do that during the scrimmages? And thankfully, it was Joe Gibbs who was sort of progressive about these things that allowed me to do them. So we decided to put earpieces and mics on coaches and have conversations during the scrimmage. And we also put mics on the middle linebacker and we put it on the safety. I think we've gone on the. center or two. Anyway, not mics, but yeah, mics, and so that we could hear what they were saying.

And in fact, CBS called me and wanted tapes of it because they've been trying like crazy to do stuff like that, but they weren't able to the league wouldn't allow them to do it. But anyway, yeah, so we, you know, Wayne Severe, Dan Henning, Google, Richie, Petabone, you know, we would put earpieces and have mics on and we would have conversations with them while the scrimmages come on, which is great. Yeah, it was very innovative. No live broadcast of sporting events had miced people up in the middle of the events, and they were scrimmages, and they were in places like Altoona, Pennsylvania against the Steelers. We were in Carlisle.

Carlisle. Carlisle. Yeah. But then they allowed me to do it during a preseason game. We put on Wayne Severe. So this was actually during an actual game, preseason, but still a game. And we miced up Wayne Severe, who was just the funniest guy and a girl. great guy. And it was interesting. For instance, a guy for the Redskins, I don't know,

who ran a kickoff back, you know, for a 90-yard kickoff back for a touchdown. So now they're kicking off. And Wayne Severeux says, we're going to see how good this guy is because he's a gunner. You know, he's on the outside. We're kicking it to his side. We're kicking it to his side, specifically to see how he reacts after running his touchdown back. So we isolated the guy, and it was pretty cool. Yeah. People watched him. I mean, That's back when the team was really popular and really good. And you couldn't wait. Yeah, you couldn't wait.

Yeah, you couldn't wait for to start. You know, here we are, by the way, a month away from, well, three weeks now, away from training camp. Ernie was, how many training camps did you, were you at over the years? Well, the first training camp, I'll ask you, and I may have done it. I think, tell me who the coach was in 1967, that I went. to the first training camp in Carlisle. Was it Bill McPeek? Nope.

That's late. Autogram? Autogram. Otto Graham. Yeah. Otto Graham. He was the coach. So, yeah, we went up every year.

We went there and we went to Frostburg. I never did any, you know, then I, you know, left. But anyway, yeah, from 67 on, we would go up to Carlisle. And it was great. We had such a great time. Did you go up with it? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, I, uh, I, I, for the two, two, two, two, three summers I was there. I mean, they, they were, there were, there were late nights. But you, what was the, uh, what was the name of the Italian place? Rillows. Yeah, right, Rillows. And then, um, there was the bar in downtown Carlisle, um, gingerbread man. Gingerbread, the Jim, not that I know any. And then, and then Massey's for ice cream. Right. Uh, and then, and then Massey's for ice cream. Massey's had the, it was the frozen custard place right next to the field, right next to Dickinson College there in Carlisle. One story, one story up in Carlisle. See, funny birthday is August 23rd. When he played, he always celebrated his birthday in Carlisle.

Well, now he's, you know, he's working for us at Channel 9, and, you know, still Billy and everybody's still on the thing. So they decide that they're going to celebrate his birthday. Now, they had a rule. you know, these guys had to show, but they had to, they were still on the team, so they had to beat back at the dorms by 8 o'clock or whatever. So we meet at Rillows, and it's Billy, and it's Muldol, and it's Talbert, and it's Jake Scott and, you know, it's me and all these people. No Sunny.

So Joey Rillow, who ran up places just picking food out, it's just too much. In fact, you know, these guys who eat a lot, because that's it, I can't even stop it, Joey. No, Sonny. And finally near the end, as they're getting ready to leave, Sunny pulls in, and his designated driver is Bruce Allen. And they come in, and of course, they've been out for a while. So they sit down, and the guys go, Sonny, happy birthday, we got to go. How much do we owe? And so he goes, I got it.

It's on me. And they go, what a guy. Thanks, Sonny. They shake hands in. And they all walk out, and Sonny takes the bill and hands it to me and leave. I think that probably happened to you a lot. What was the bill? Do you remember how much it was?

No, and I don't remember how much. Another time we went to, they used to go to a place when this is in the Bostic and Jacoby days. Yeah. And the local way, they used to go to a little place called the Fire Side. Not a lot of people knew that they went there. I knew that they went there, so I'd go there with them. And so, you know, it was worth it worth it to pick up the tab. So I had this bill afterwards, and this is what it said.

Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer. Bair, Bair, Bair, Bair. And I put it in the channel of five as a meal to you. Well, hopefully, Betty and others paid for it. You know, it really is, and I want you to tell this story about Rigo and getting Rigo to the parade after Super Bowl 17 here in a moment. But this is the thing that, you know, people who know you a little bit, know your name, you know, from being a D.C. sports fan,

and they don't know how close you were to players and coaches and how trusted you were. Don't you feel that way? Like I always feel that way in the couple of years that I worked for you and Buck and for as long as I've known you, I think that there was always this trust that everybody in town, all the athletes and coaches had in you. You agree with that, right?

Yeah, I mean, I got along, you know, yeah, I mean, Jeff Bostic and I were good friends, John Riggins. you know, was good friends. But what happened was with Sonny. Sonny was the key. He and I became friends. And so if I was a friend of his, then I couldn't be a bad guy.

Right. And he helped me so much with working with the networks. I mean, you know, because, you know, we can go in all that later about how, you know, the networks came in and used to use people here. And that's how you got stuff because I would know the people at the network and they'd say we need somebody and then I'd talk to you. But, you know, because I was a friend of Sonny's,

then if I was a friend of Sonny's, and the players felt comfortable with me. And I was a friend of Billy's and those guys. And so, you know, the movement from, you know, that genre to the next one, you know, I kind of morphed to it. And so, yeah, I got along with all those guys. And I never, I never screwed them, you know, to see. And I wasn't, we weren't that ambitious to try to break stories that much.

Right. To try to, you know, catch somebody. And we could have caught a lot of people. Let me say. Yeah. The malt shop by itself is an story. And that would be the upstairs of the dancing crab on Wisconsin Avenue and Upper Northwest. Was there anybody, because I think, honestly, in local sports broadcasting history, Ernie really is,

and I'm not sitting here propping him up because he's a friend of mine or he's on the podcast. You can ask anybody that's ever been in sports broadcasting in this town, and you would be hard-pressed to find anybody that would ever be hard-pressed to find anybody that would ever ever say anything other than Ernie's the greatest guy of all time, which you, which is exactly what I would say, and I'd say a lot more, because I think you were so much more, and I think you were incredibly great with young people as a mentor. But did you ever have beef? Did you ever have issues with anybody? Like, were there, were, do you remember ever having sort of an antagonistic relationship with broadcasters or other media? people or anybody in town players, coaches?

Not really. Maybe management. You know, management sometimes we would have, you know, some issues with because we didn't, we disagreed with what they were doing. And as you remember, I think you were there. You know, at one point the news director, you know, blamed the sports department for loss of revenue. And they wanted to, you know, they wanted to stop the polling of the ratings of the 10

clock news and just cut, get off at 945 or 1045 and do sports the last 50 minutes but don't have a part of the sports of newscast because they just didn't invite. They hated sports. You know, this guy hated sports. So, you know, those kinds of things that you used to drive to crazy. And but no, I, you know, I never had any, any run-ins with any players at all. Tell everybody about Super Bowl 17, the parade following that. And Rigo, um, is about to miss the parade as the Super Bowl MVP? Yeah, that was the great, you know, the parade, you know, we came back from California, and now the parade's going on, and I'm back at Channel 5 in the control room,

directing our parade coverage from the control room of all the live shots and everything that's going on. And while I'm directing, I get a call in the control room from the assignment desk, and they go, there's a guy on the front of the guy, he's John Riggins. He wants to talk to you. you know, and it's one of those, yeah, and you know, President Reagan's on the other line. You know, what are he talking about? So anyway, and sure enough, it's Reagan's his job,

and he apparently overslept and had his watch, according to him, on California time, and he got up, kind of bleary eye turned on TV, and there's the parade. So he doesn't know what to do, so he calls me, and he said, can you help me get to the parade? He said, I've overslept. I said, yeah, you know, we'll help you.

I said, but let me tell you, you know, we want an exclusive with you. He said, no problem. So what we had to do, and then the assignment just took over. I called him up and said, look, here's John. Phone number, here's his address. You need to get somebody to go down there. We have the exclusive so you can send a cameraman and you can send a reporter.

The reporter was a guy named Ron Stero. And we sent a limousine to pick him up and they got a police escort. He was in Virginia to escort him to the district line. And then they got another police escort from the district to escort him down to the parade. Now, he didn't get there until after they, I don't know where they, they went to the white half, but then they went somewhere else,

like to a convention center or something. That's where he caught up to it. But he called, yeah, he called me up of all people. Yeah. But, you know, I got into the 5 o'clock club one. That was one of my favorite thing, too. They allowed me in for not long, but they did allow me in to come in to have a beer with him.

When was this? Oh, I don't remember. You know, he was dead. It was an old Redskins part. The old part. The five o'clock club being, you know, Rigo El Presente of the five o'clock club with all the offensive, with the hogs and no thysman. Thysman was not allowed.

I'll tell you that story. We're doing a preseason game, Redskins' Rams, the last preseason game of that year, and the Redskins are killing the Rams. Joe apparently had written a book, and in the book said that he had his times at the 5 o'clock club. Okay, so now we're at the end of the game. 42 to 7, really nothing's going on. And John says, look, I have to make a statement here.

A quarterback that I used to play with has written a book and indicated that he had spent time in the 5 o'clock club. And John goes, a lot of people say, I have a drinking problem. He says, apparently I do, because I never remember seeing him. You know, we are, it's 30 years. We're coming up on the 30-year anniversary of the last time this organization was really relevant. It's really amazing because I think all. of us would say if somebody had told us in 1991 that 30 years from now you will you you will have only won four total playoff games since then um actually three no four three three total

playoff games since then um that we'd be nuts um but you know here we are 30 years later but a couple of things about 30 years ago probably 30 years ago to almost the day ernie is when buck did that famous interview with Gibbs where Buck said you're the favorite to win the Super Bowl and Gibbs went off and it was the Playboy magazine who picked them. Do you remember that? Oh yeah, Buck said, you know,

everybody's saying, and Gibbs goes, who's everybody? And Buck is stammered now. Playboy. Playboy! Hey, man, about that? Playboy picking games. And of course, to Joe Gibbs of all people, you know, the born-again Christian, you know, Playboy.

Yeah. That was probably Probably 30 years ago right before the season started. This is where we were. What about when Buck was the one that broke the Gibbs' retiring story? What do you remember about that? Well, I was in bed. I mean, you know, that's because he went on the air early, you know, and that's great. You know, he ran in this guy, Jimmy Sparrow.

And then he verified it with Capulet. And, I mean, that was a stunner, and it was a stunner. not only to a lot of people, it was a complete stunner to Joe George Michaels and those guys. Now, George Michaels apparently said he had that story, but at deference to Gibbs, he didn't break it, sort of supposedly. Yeah, Buck was the one that broke the story that Gibbs in March of 93 was retiring. Right. So, you know, look, we could spend a lot of time on the demise of local news, the demise of sports, etc. I think everybody understands the reasons why you can get news and you can get this information

everywhere. By the time, you know, 6 o'clock rolls around, it's not nearly as important. I'm curious, you know, and I'm sure we've talked about this at times over the years. You know, I get into these conversations, you know, on the shows that I'm involved in, you know, occasionally. And, you know, we've had a couple of football coaches here in recent years. Gruden was one. Mike Shanahan was one. They thought it was a very, very. very, very tough market. Now, Mike had come from Denver and Gruden had come from Cincinnati. You know this market as a sports market better than anybody. You know, on a scale of New York, Philly, you know, harsh, or this being a total cheerleader market, where is it?

Well, you know, having not lived in any of these other cities, you know, I get upset, you know, with people here because they go, you know, that, you know, too much redskins and, you know, too much Washington, but the problem is that people that come here didn't grow up here. You know, they came from Cleveland or Cincinnati or Detroit, and I said, you're living in Washington. So when you pick up the sports section, you're going to read about Washington. Right. So, you know, I could go back to Cincinnati or Detroit, you know. But the other thing that would happen is if the Cincinnati team was coming into town,

you know, all the Cincinnati people would show up, and then they would leave in Cleveland. So I put this sport, I'm not sure that this is one of the great sports town. of all time. You know, again, I don't have lived in Cleveland or Philly or New York, but, you know, it's a pretty good sports town. And winning helps to make everything a better sport town. And we have had a, well, it's got a little better, but pretty much a dirt of winning in this town.

From a media, though, standpoint, do you think it's more of a cheerleader market or it's tough on the teams? I think it's more of a cheerleader market in some respect. Now, I think you guys on the radio do a better job of calling it to task. So I think it's gotten tougher. On the TV side, I think it's more of a cheerleader. What's the one thing you didn't get to do in your career that you wish you would have had the chance to do? Probably didn't get in golf too much.

And I love playing golf. I stink playing golf, but I love playing golf. So I didn't do a lot of golf. I had an opportunity to go to CBS sports. and I'm glad I didn't. But, you know, if you think about it, and I'll tell you why, when my daughter was born, Kaleen, the guy named Rick Sharp who preceded, I worked with at 9,

and he went to CBS Sports, and he became the head college basketball producer. But the CBS called me up and asked me if I would want to come up and be full-time with CBS Sports. And I talked to Rick, and he said that he traveled 260 days, the first year. And I went, what? That's nine months on the road. I got a daughter. Six months old.

I've never seen her. So I decided to stay local. So, and I'm glad I did it because, you know, I was able to, it's better to become, you know, I'm glad I stayed local. It was great. But, you know, you think about having, if you had gone national, where would you have gone with that? You know, how many Super Bowls, how many final fours, how many other things that you might

have been involved in. That's the only thing, you know, that sits in the beach in the best of it. back my mind a little bit, but I never regretted that decision. Right. What else? What did I miss? I don't know. I mean, you know, again, we can go back in the history. You know, you were talking about how you got gigs, you know, doing this stuff.

You know, when I, Channel 9, you know, in the old days when CBS were coming to do a football game, they would use production people, you know, from the local affiliates. So before the NFL today, one of my first jobs is there was a room underneath a stadium that had these triangular boards that you put the slide in the name of the team, Chicago, Detroit. And then during halftime and certain times they'd go down and there'd be a reporter down there, guys like Bill Major, Doc Ricky, Dick Stockton. They would be down in this bowels of the thing doing the score. This is before the NFL today. So from that point on, once I got into that and again with Sunny's connection, I ended up, freelancing for CBS sports on the weekends, going to games,

working as an AD assistant director all over the country, you know, plus doing the stuff of Channel 5 and Channel 9. So that was a lot of fun, and I got to have some of all became good friends and people like that that I got to meet. Yeah, I mean, you were in a lot of booths, right, with a lot of great, you know, all-time national broadcasters. Well, I mean, you know, think about, people that we had to play by play guys

for preseason games. Yeah. We had Vern Runnquist, Dick Stockton, Chick Hearn, Kurt Gowdy. Kurt Gowdy. Yeah, I mean, you had some of the legends of all time. Tommy and I got into this argument the other day on the podcast. You know, Mark Valbert retired

and I, you know, there were a lot of segments sort of dedicated throughout the postseason to Marv's career, and I said to Tommy, I recognize how great Marv has been, but for me, I think New Yorkers feel differently about Marv Albert than somebody like me. Like, to me, he's not in the same class of Summerall and Gowdy and Enberg and, you know,

some of the all-time great now. And he's been mostly, mostly sort of affiliated and recognized for his work in the NBA. And Tommy had a conurb. I mean, he basically stopped breathing for a few seconds. He thought it was just complete and utter nonsense. What do you think? Well, I agree with you because, you know, there's people that are, you know, Chick-Hern.

You know, now, you know, I don't know that much about Chick-Hurne, but he's well-known nationally, but he was in L.A. Yeah. And, you know, people in L.A., you know, Revere Chick-Hern. You know, and the same thing, like with Marve Albert, there are certain people that resonate more in their local, local places, than they do here. I mean, Frank Herzog

was one of the great play-by-play guys. You know, I mean, you would know him from Adam if you were in Omaha. Right. So, I mean, you know, that Tommy's talking about somebody he grew up with and saw all the time. And plus he's from New York where Tommy comes from and everything. So,

I think he comes from New York, don't he? Yeah, you know, he's comes, yeah, he grew up in Brooklyn and then, you know, in East Rowsburg, Pennsylvania. Right. This was fun. You know, we'll do it again. some point, certainly when things come up from time to time, I always call Ernie, certainly to be on the radio

show. But Ernie's career has been amazing. And he's out, where can people, I mean, you're not working these days. You are retired. Even though you look, you know, you look great, you look fit. I saw you recently. We played golf. You, Me, Buck, and Joe had a chance to get out and play golf together. You're playing a lot of golf. You're not still, you know, the starter at Worthington Manor, are you?

No, I stopped that a couple years ago. Right. Yeah, I enjoyed that advocate. Ken Meese and I did it. Right. Ken Meese was out there with me, yeah. Well, his son's a hell of a golfer. Bart.

Real good, Bart. Bart, good guy, too. Yeah. Yeah, but I haven't done that a while. So, yeah, I just got grandkids, and fortunately, and Lucille, and so we have our lives and then play golf, but Blue Mash more than places and others. and yeah, things are great. Things are good.

All right. I'll talk to you soon. I mean, in fact, I just, a couple of, Scott. My son Ernest is a technical director for CBS sports and Fox. So he's doing real well. He's got two kids. And my daughter, Kaleen, lives out of Vienna, Virginia. Married and their husband, Sean.

They got two grandkids. So, yeah, we're, you know, everybody's here. So I'm fortunate in that, you know, having all my family right with. Your son was a baby when I first started to work at Channel 5. Exactly. And now he's following in the old. old man's footsteps. Thanks, Ernie for doing this.

I really appreciate it. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you for everything. Thank you. Ernie Bauer. Nobody has seen as much or been around as much media-wise in this town than he has during the course of his career. It was great to catch up with him.

And as I said to him, and I've said this behind his back on shows many times, I'm not sure that anybody in media locally has ever been more respected or well-liked than Ernie. He is a ton of fun to be around. All right. Enjoy the rest of the weekend back on Monday. I think Tommy's going to do Monday with me because he needed Tuesday to do something else. So we will reconvene on Monday. Have a great rest of the weekend.