The Press Box - Lakers Announcer John Ireland on the Warriors Series, Anthony Davis’s Injury, and Memories of Shaq and Kobe

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

Bryan is joined by Lakers radio announcer John Ireland to discuss the team’s turnaround after the trade deadline, their style of play, and Anthony Davis’s injury (01:26). They talk about Ireland��s career path from local news to talk radio to being the Lakers’ play-by-play commentator (20:20). Also, they recount Kobe Bryant’s last game, power rank the L.A. sports teams, and recall memorable celebrity encounters (29:20). Host: Bryan Curtis Guest: John Ireland Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everyone, it's Ariel Hawani, and I wanted to let you know that each and every week, I'm part of a great program called The Ringer MMA Show. I hosted alongside two absolutely brilliant minds. Their names, Chuck Mindenhall and Pizzie Carroll, and every Thursday, a new episode drops where we preview the weekend in mixed martial arts and react to all the biggest news. Plus, after every UFC pay-per-view, we give you a post-fight show. So this is what you have to do. Just follow the Ringer M-M-M-A show on your Spotify app.

So you don't miss an episode. We'll talk to you then. Hello, media consumers. Welcome to Press Box final edition. Brian Curtis of the Ringer here, along with producer Eduardo Ocampo, who's sitting in for Erica. Our guest today is the broadcasting equivalent

of a two-way player. He is the Lakers radio play-by-play announcer who's calling Game 6 against the Warriors on Friday. And he is a sports radio host in Los Angeles who delivered Lakers reaction Thursday this afternoon. He is John Ireland. John, welcome to the press box. Brian, pleasure to be here.

How are you, my friend? I'm good. I'm good. I feel we got two playoff games every night. Can't beat it. Yeah, that's great. It's a happy time of year. All right.

When the playoffs started a bunch of media people realized, hey, wait, the Lakers could maybe make the finals. As someone who saw them night to night all year, when did you realize this team could be that good? Not until after the trade deadline, Brian, everything changed once we made those trade deadline deals. And normally if you blow up a roster, and we did. We sent out Patrick Beverly, we sent out Russell Westbrook, we sent out Thomas Bryant. We took five guys and brought in six new guys. And normally when you do that, it's a move out of desperation. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. You may be sending yourself up for the year after that. But we have LeBron.

And when you have LeBron, you know, they did this in Cleveland several years ago. They blew up the team at the trade deadline. I think they ran off to Wayne Wade, who was one of LeBron's best friends. And sure enough, LeBron ended up putting that team in the finals. So we haven't quite gotten, you know, you and I are taping this day before game six. You know, we may or may not get past the Warriors. But for them to even take the Warriors to seven, Brian, and to flirt with the Western Conference finals, to me is astounding. I thought we'd be better.

I didn't think we'd be this good. As we've seen in this series, the Lakers are a team that shoots lots of free throws. They don't shoot that many three-pointers. Does their style of play affect how much you enjoy calling a game? Not really. Calling games for LeBron and AD is pretty fun in itself. I mean, they're two of the most exciting play.

The Lakers are filled with every imaginable star. I have a running joke with some of the other broadcasters around the league that if you gave me the Lakers' all-time roster, and I gave you every other team, the other 29 teams, I could give you a game and probably win it. And, you know, LeBron and AD are just the latest iteration of that.

So it helps us to shoot free throws, obviously. It helps us to slow the game down because it lets AD kind of set up camp right in front of the rim and act like Shrek protecting the castle. But to me, the excitement is you get to cover LeBron, one of the most exciting players in the lead. You get to cover AD. And games, I know, Brian, you've been living out here for a while.

Games in Los Angeles are just fun in general. They're events where you look around and you never know who you're going to see. And they're often right in the middle of the game. Like Kim Kardashian has been sitting one seat away from Darwin Ham for the home games in this playoff series, which is just surreal to me. And, you know, she's dressed up and everybody. he's watching her. And then you walk to the other end of the scorers table,

and there's Steve Kerr and two seats away is Jack Nicholson, back where he should be. He's been missing a lot of games of Dustin Hoffman and Andy Garcia. And so we're back to kind of be in the Lakers that we were when we had Shaq and Kobe. So there's built-in excitement for any game at Crypto.com Arena, no matter how the actual game plays out, if that makes sense. How does calling a playoff game differ from calling one in the regular season? The fans are more into it. There's a more palpable buzz.

And let's face it, there's just more at stake. You know, the stakes are higher. It's, you know, like in any other sport, if you're playing a playoff game, it just means more. So that's when, you know, I mentioned that list of stars come out. We'll get those people one or two of them for most regular season games. But for playoff games, Brian, we get them all. You know, the other day I looked down to my left and there was Rich Paul with a and, you know, sitting next to Diane Cannon, sitting next to Kim Kay, sitting next to Nicholson,

sitting next to Lou Adler, Andy Garcia, and Dustin Hoffman. And you just look around Snoop dogs at these games. You just, it's a slice of Los Angeles that you're not going to see really anywhere else. And the most interesting thing is the farther we go in the playoffs, the celebrity quotient goes up. You'll see more Laker flags on cars and you'll see more famous people at Laker games. So does this change your job in any way? Not really. You know, you've got to kind of meet the moment.

I'm lucky. I know you know this fame, but some of your listeners may not. I'm sitting in a chair that was Chick Hearn's seat for 40 years. And Chick for my money is the best basketball play-by-play announcer of all time. There's a statue of the guy outside the building. So the one thing you don't want to do is screw that up. You're never going to be the best Laker announcer ever. that job's taken.

So you just want to honor the chair and not mess it up. And Bill McDonald, our TV guy and I talk about it all the time. We steal lines from Chick and steal phrases from Chick that you'll hear. If you hear us do a game, you'll hear a lot of the things that we listened to when we were growing up. So for me, it's a really big honor. I try and remember that something Chick told me before he died and that in Los Angeles, and I know you've been living out here for a while. my job is to take care of the guy in his car. There's a guy in his car stuck on our elaborate freeway system, Brian, which I just got off of that's been stuck for 25 minutes. And all he wants to do is get to the TV. So if you hear me call a game, I'm overly descriptive. I mention what color the uniforms are. I mentioned those celebrities in the stands. I mention things that I see that would be obvious if you were a TV viewer. But on the radio, I try to be overly.

descriptive. So when you get home and turn the game on TV, you feel like you've already been watching. Hoping to just feed that little pellet to the guy stuck on the five or the 101. Literally, yeah, because you know there's somebody that just can't believe he's not moving and hasn't moved for 25 minutes. So if I can make that guy's day a little easier, that's a win for me. I want to ask you about this. On Monday night during Game 4, Draymond Green got hurt. You said this on the radio. Dremont may be hurt. He may also be faking it. I can't tell. In a time where players are always trying to sell fouls

and get the referees to run over and review every play for a flagrant one, how do you know when to be concerned and when to roll your eyes and move on? You don't. It came up again last night with Anthony Davis and you're watching the reaction play out in real time on TV and on podcast and radio today. Stephen Smith's already issued an apology for making fun of, you know, AD may be having a concussion. Now, the Lakers haven't used the word concussion, but it's a possibility

when you see a guy get hit like that and he's wobbling. So you never know, but you bring up a good point. It's a dance because half the league is trying to act like they just got fouping is a real thing in the NBA. Every team tries to sell calls. So that's why I said what I said. And I say it about our own guys. Austin Reeves got away with one last night. He clearly seemed to sell a lot. foul where he didn't get hit and it worked. So I try and be honest with the audience. I said, you know, I just saw the replay and I continue the games with Michael Thompson who, that's my favorite part of the job. He's just super witty and acerbic and, you know, great. And we try and do a game like we're watching it in your living room with you. And I'll say Michael Austin just got way with one there.

And Michael will criticize anybody that flops, even guys on our team, because he played in the 70s and 80s when flopping wasn't really fully formed yet. But it is, to answer your question, you don't know. So I just try and be honest by saying stuff like I did. I don't know if he's really hurt or I don't know if he's selling a foul, but he's in pain. At least it looks like it. So you just try and be as honest as you can. I think it'll be so funny in 10 years when somebody comes through all this footage for a 30 for 30. And they watch Mike Breeder and Ryan Eagle looking at a guy, one of the biggest stars in the NBA who's sprawled out on the ground, looks like he's never going to play another second of basketball, and they just sort of start talking about something else.

Right. They're betting that it's not real and usually betting correctly. Right. It's a byproduct of the flopping that we live with. And so many guys trying to sell it to see if they can get away with it. And frankly, they do that because it works. A lot of times the refs will fall for that and call a foul. And if you get two free throws, then you just did your team a big favor.

So I can understand why players do it. It's kind of left up to us to describe what's actually happening. And to answer your original question, I'm not sure. I can't really tell from where I am, a guy's really hurt if he's just selling it. So speaking of injuries, what did you see Wednesday night of AD's injury and the aftermath? It's interesting. I know you cover a lot of media in general. And we're living in this new media era, as Draymond would call it,

where players and their representatives often will issue a statement or an update quicker than the team will. I'm not necessarily part of the generation that I used to just wait for the Lakers to tell me what and be careful not to speculate. But now last night I was texting the Laker PR guy. Any update on AD at the and he's he sent back to me in real time. No, nothing yet. And exactly when he did that, Chris Haines came on TV and said, Anthony Davis is out for the rest of this game and he's being wheeled in a wheelchair for further observation. I used to get that stuff from the team. Now you'll get it from clutch.

You'll get it from his agent. You'll get it from reporters like Dave McBeneman and Chris Haynes, who are dialed in. So it's a whole new world trying to figure out what's real and what's spin. So what I found myself doing in the last couple of years more than I've ever done before is reporting other reporters reports. I know that's a lot of reports in that sentence. But like last night, I just said, well, the Lakers, officially don't have an update on Anthony Davis, but Chris Haynes is reporting on TNT that he's

done for the night and is being wheeled in for further observation. So the truth, I leave it up to the listener to determine what they want to believe and what they don't. But Chris isn't making that stuff up and either is Dave McBenam, they're just getting it either directly from the player or from their agent. And sometimes it's quicker than the team provides an update. So that's kind of the new world we're living in. Just so people know this, because I heard you say this last night, This is not in the hours after the game. This is you reading this tweet aloud on the air during the game. Right.

And a lot of times you just have to attribute it because if I say Anthony Davis is done for the night and the Lakers call me and say, why did you say that? We didn't tell you that. I have to attribute it to Chris Haynes because I have to say, hey, the Lakers are providing no update, but Chris on T&T is reporting this. and it doesn't appear we're going to see AD. We haven't seen them come out of the locker room. So I just take all the information that's available,

try and pass on what's ever been reported onto the listener, unless it'd be bordering on something that would be so serious that you wouldn't want to speculate. Like if it was a Hank Gathers situation or, God forbid, something more serious than that. You know, you, of course, would wait until the team issued a statement. But in the world we live in now where reporters are dealing directly with agents, in some cases directly with doctors, then I just tend to attribute the report and go that way.

You still fly home from a road game like Wednesday with the Lakers? We do. And the running joke is, Brian, that no matter what time the game starts, we get back at 1 o'clock in the morning no matter what. Game 2 tipped at 6. I got back at 1 last night, tipped at 7. I got back at 1. I'm sure on Sunday if there's a game 7 that tips at 2.30,

I will get back at one. It's one of the great mysteries in the world how no matter what time we play and no matter what time zone we're in, I get back at 1 o'clock in the morning, which is when I got back last night. But I'm having some fun with that. I'm lucky in that I'm a team broadcaster

and I get to fly home with the team. If I was a TNT broadcaster, ESPN, or if I was one of the beat guys, I'd be getting up flying home commercial and it's a whole new world. My life's easier because I work for a team. And so that's one of the perks of this job is that I get to travel with the team and get home earlier. If you see AD on the plane, can you walk up to him and be like, are you okay or is that just to stay away at that point?

I can ask him if he's okay. I wouldn't report what he says unless I cleared it with the team. It was funny that our team doctor, who's a great guy, was sitting behind me on the plane. And I didn't even ask him for an update. I just said, wow, long night for you, huh? and he goes, yeah, maybe a long couple of days too. And so I never, injuries because of the gambling element, Brian, they're very careful with what we report injury-wise. Like you don't want to come out and say, Anthony Davis is doubtful for the next game unless the team tells you he's doubtful

for the next game because we now live in a world where that could be construed as insider information. Somebody could take that, make a bet on a game, and then the next thing you know you're in a gambling situation. So injuries, I tend to either attribute to a reporter or wait until the team provides an update and say, this is from the team. Anthony Davis is out for tonight. He's day to day. He may be back tomorrow.

But you've got to be careful with stuff like that just because of the gambling element. Somebody who's covered Davis and interviewed him, do you think he cares about all the Stephen A. Smith style rhetoric about his injury? I don't. I can't imagine that he hasn't heard about it. but he told me once he's not on any social media. He has little, little kids, like kids under the age of five. So I think when he gets home, he plays with his kids, he takes care of his body, and then he goes back to work.

One of the things that Darwin Ham would tell you, Brian, if he was on this call with us, is the stuff we're talking about is great fodder for media. It's great for the ringer. It's great for he has been L.A. where I work. It's noise to them. They're constantly trying to filter. out that noise and just concentrate on the Warriors. And so I think AD is probably hearing some of this stuff, but he's not home scrolling through his phone watching video of Barclay and Kenny Smith

and Jack laughing at him or watching Stephen A. Unless Stephen A called him directly, he may not even have heard it the first time originally. So I think these guys, especially once I get into the playoffs, are trying to filter out as much noise as they can and just concentrate. And AD has never been a social media guy anyway. He's not on Twitter. I don't think he's on Instagram. I think he basically stays out of the way. LeBron is a little more social media savvy, but AD isn't. In this series, we've had a 27-point Warriors win, a 30-point Lakers win, and last night a 15-point Warriors win. What is your announcing strategy for garbage time? Lean on Michael a lot, because Michael was a former number one that I'm talking about Michael Thompson,

and Clay's dad, who I do the games with. Michael was a former number one overall draft pick in the whole draft. In the 1978 draft, he was the first overall pick. He went to the Blazers. And he was a star in Portland. He's still their all-time leader in block shots. And then he got traded to the Lakers and became a role player where he backed up Worthy and Kareem. So he's played as a starter. He's played in the garbage time you're asking me about. And so I tend to just ask him stories about what this is like. If you're a veteran player and you are the number one overall picking the draft, and the coach says, we're down 30. There's three minutes to go. Would you ever say to him, I don't want to go in?

Once you go in, what's your strategy? Are you trying not to foul so we can all get out of here? I lean on him a lot, and he's Bahamian, he's funny, he likes to tell goofy stories. So he's got a little Bill Walton in him. He'll take you on a left turn that a lot of times will cover that garbage time. But that's primarily what I do. I lean on him as an analyst to kind of take me through what that's like, since he's been in it. Did I see this right? You actually have a page of notes going into a game called Things I Can Ask Michael. You do.

It's called a TIECAM. I invented that in 2011 when I got the play-by-play job. It is a list, Brian, of everything I can collect from beat writers, game notes, stuff that comes up on my radio show, stuff that the teams might send us. And it's just a list of things that if the game gets slow, or if we have 50 free throws for each team, I have a list on that tie cam of maybe 25 things that I can bring up in case I don't have anything.

The best tip that Chick-Hurin ever gave me was, if you lose your place, if you can't think of anything to say, give the time and score. And if you listen to me call a game, I probably give it too much. I probably do it to a fault. I'm constantly giving the score.

I'm constantly giving the time. And Chick beat that into me. He said, But no one has ever criticized, he goes, you're going to get criticized. But no one has ever criticized an announcer for giving the score too much. So the two things you'll hear from me, if you listen to me to a game, is a lot of time given the score and a lot of time leaning on Michael asking him things that at the time might not seem like they made any sense, but it's something off that tie cam that I thought of earlier in the day. And I just lean on that if the game gets slow. What's Michael like when he's calling a high leverage game featuring his son?

nervous. He would tell you that his dream is Clay scores 50 and the Lakers win by two. But I'm convinced, Brian, if we put him on a lie detector and the Lakers were up to, and there was a shot in the air from Clay that's a three that would win the game from the Warriors, there is absolutely no way because I've known him too long that he's not rooting for that shot to go in. He's a dad first. I've actually learned that he has three kids. He raised three professional athletes. Sometimes when people meet Michael at games, they say to him and his wife, Julie, have more kids because they know that some of these kids can turn out to be Lakers. But these games, I think he's, because he's, because he's an optimist, he'll say, well, I win either way. I either get to keep broadcasting games

with the Lakers, if the Lakers win, or I keep get to rooting for Clay if the Warriors win. But the flip side of that is somebody's got to lose, and he doesn't want either side to lose. So he's pretty tortured at least for another three or four days he'll be glad when this is over and and when it has some resolution because i think it's hard for him to root against the lakers and it's impossible for him to root against clay so he's a little bit tortured in this series let me ask you a few questions about your career you were a local news guy earlier in your career what kind of local news guy were you um one that tended not to take sports very seriously i um I always felt like a sportscaster on TV was going to get two or three minutes.

And if you couldn't make the audience smile, you weren't doing your job. You know, they had just got done hearing about car wrecks and politics and how it's going to rain for the next four days. And you have an opportunity to bring levity to them. So I would tend to try and keep it light, try and find video or something to make you laugh or smile, and not take it too seriously. I think the best TV sports guys do that. But as you've written about it, and you've done a really good job of this,

I mentioned the street when we met, the role of a local sports guy is kind of ending. I mean, there's maybe three or four guys who are still making a lot of money doing it. But the guys like Ted Leitner in San Diego, I was in San Diego for five years. I thought Ted was great. And Fred Rogan in L.A.,

Fred was a role model for me. And I used to, when I worked in Monroe, Louisiana, Beaumont, Texas, San Diego, and then I got here to L.A., which is my hometown in 1995. And so I worked in four different places. And everywhere I go, I used to steal stuff from Fred and steal stuff from Ted Lightner. And now those guys are being phased out. I mean, a lot of, there's a couple of stations in L.A. that don't even do local sports anymore. So I consider myself fortunate that I ended up in sports track radio and then I ended up doing play-by-play

because I think a lot of my friends in the local TV sports business are going to find themselves out of work if they're not already. Lakers sidelines, you started doing them in 2002, do I have that correct? You do. I was the Clippers Radio play-by-play guy for about three years. And then after that, the Lakers asked me, when Chick died, Chick died in 2002. they didn't want to add a sideline reporter because they didn't want to take away from Chick. But when he passed away and they decided to end the simulcast, in the old days, in the 60s, 70s, and 80s in L.A.

If you turn on the TV or the radio, you'd hear Chick. He did both. When he died, radio and TV split up because they can make more money that way. And they added me, I was working for K-Cal. I was a local sports guy at K-Kal. And they added me to those broadcasts. And I learned a lot because I had Joel Myers in my year and I had Paul Sunderland in my year who were two really good play-by-play guys. And I think it kind of prepared me to be a better play-by-play guy when it opened up in 2011.

But my timing was good, Brian. In 2002, the Lakers had just gotten off of their three straight championship runs with Shaq and Kobe. And so I got Shaq and Kobe the end. And then I got Kobe's entire run after Shaq. and there was never any shortage of drama, never any shortage of fun. And then in 2011, when the Lakers decided to make a change, and they brought in Bill McDonald to do TV, they offered me the radio job, and I jumped at it.

And I consider myself very lucky. I got 10 years of the sideline guy. I think this is my 11th year of doing play-by-play, and I got here at the same time as Shaq and Kobe. So I refer to that as my Irish luck in full effect. I just got here right place, right time. In 2004, you were doing a sideline interview with Shaq after a game against Toronto, and he cussed on the air. What happened there?

Cuts twice. So I think most people know this, but at the end of a game, if you're the sideline guy for the winning team, you get to take a player. You don't get one if your team loses. They go to the locker room and after a 10, 15 minute cooling off period, they let the media in. but if your team wins, you get somebody on the court. So I had arranged with the Lakers to take Shaq, but the end of that game was weird. The refs swallowed their whistle for the final two minutes.

Vince Carter was attacking the rim and getting fouled, no whistle. Shaq and Kobe were attacking the rim, no whistle. The refs just let it play out. So Shaq walks off the court. It's 84, 83. It was low scoring because they weren't calling any fouls. And Shaq walks off the court, and I think I asked him, If you just go on YouTube and you Google Shaq

swears, this whole interview comes up. It's one of the parts of my legacy and I said, Shaq, this was a dog fight down at the end but you guys found a way to get the win. How did you do it? He completely ignored the question. Didn't.

And he just says, if David Stern wants to ruin this effing game, he'll keep bringing in effing refs like this who will ruin the effing game. And Sue Stratton are legendary, producer who at her time was in her 70s and had been producing Laker against those 35 years screamed in my ear, Brian. And I'm like, I'm like, should I take my earpiece out?

I'm counting the fines because we didn't have a delay back then. And I grabbed Shaq by the elbow and I say Shaq were on live. And he says, I don't give a blank and swears again. And so I thought, and they suspended him for the next game. I thought I was going to be in trouble and tried taking off that sideline job. And Chuck didn't care. He felt like he said what he had to say and he wasn't mad at me. And I kind of survived it.

Now, the strange thing about that is my station, which was a CBS affiliate, we did not get fined for that, which was shocking. And there was a reason for it. Do you remember why? it's something that happened later that day. I'm going to say Super Bowl halftime show. Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction. Saved me because it happened on our air.

Channel in Los Angeles, you know this, but maybe some of your listeners don't. CBS owns two television stations. They own Channel 2 and Channel 9. Back then, the Laker Games were on Channel 9, but I also worked for Channel 2. Our Mike Flags actually had a two on one side and a nine on the other.

And so I guess the FCC decided, well, we're going to hit every CBS affiliate with a big fine for the wardrobe malfunction. We'll let the Laker thing slide. So I got in less trouble than I would have gotten in. And Shaq did get suspended for the next game. He was making so much money back then. I think it cost him like $250,000. So I went back to apologize and say, hey, man, I'm sorry for dragging you into that and costing that money. And he goes, wasn't your fault.

I don't care. He was nice about it and I got lucky. I heard you once compare announcing a game to taking an open note test. What did you mean by that? That when I do a game, I have, and any play-by-play announcer in the NBA worth as salt has this. I have basically a giant cheat sheet in front of me. I have a list that includes every player on our team, every player on the other team,

five or six facts about that player that don't necessarily have to do with basketball. You know, this guy plays six instruments. This guy speaks seven languages. This guy's mom and dad are both in the military. You know, this guy once stayed up for four days to study for a test and then failed it. You know, all the things that you find if you do deep dives on the internet. And then I have statistics and notes about the last time these teams played. And so I have in front of me at my.

disposal more notes than I'll ever use in a game. And so if you ever get stuck, or if you ever are feeling like the game is getting into a slog, you can go to these stories. And when I go to them for the most part, Brian, is when guys are at the free throw line. Hey, Michael, like you, this guy speaks four different languages. And, you know, Michael will say, well, he doesn't speak jive. I speak jive. I speak jai. You know, it's just a, it's a springboard. to get Michael going. And so that's what I mean by an open note test. I have all that at my fingertips. And I also have a statistician, a guy named Doug Mann, sitting to my right, who did stats for Vince Scully, Chick-Hern, and Bob Miller. He's been doing it for 50 years.

And he's the best, literally the best in the business. So he's constantly slipping notes. So not only Brian, do I have an open note test. I got the guy at the desk next to me slipping me cheat-sheet notes. So I have more information than I'll ever use before I even sit down to do a game, which is ridiculously helpful. April 2016, what do you remember about calling Kobe Bryant's last game? It is my favorite game that I have ever called. And if you want to see and hear what we did, one of our radio listeners did a really cool thing. He went on YouTube and matched our radio call with E.S. ESPN's video. So if you're just going to YouTube and type into the search, John Ireland,

Michael Thompson, Kobe's last game, this will all come up. And you can hear us call the last five or six minutes of it. I think if I would have submitted this as a movie, you would have kicked it back to me and said, this is too sappy and unrealistic. First of all, no player is going to score 60 points in his final game. He's not going to come back from a 15 point deficit. he's not going to have all these people that you claim were there, there. Brian, for that game, we had a guy roaming around with a wireless microphone, just getting reaction from people, from Jack Nicholson, from Snoop Dogg, from George Lopez, from Derek Fisher, from Shaq,

we're just dropping into the game. We had a 19-win team that year. And so for the first three-quarters, we were getting all sorts of reaction, people talking about Kobe and what their best Kobe memories are. And in the fourth quarter, the game took over. And Kobe just started making these unbelievable shots. And for me, if you said, all right, we're going to put one of your games in a time capsule. And we're not going to open the time capsule for 200 years.

That's the game. I've called NBA finals games. I've called games with much more consequence than that. That was a ridiculous event. And if you still go back and look at the pictures outside the arena that day, Brian, there are thousands and thousands of people in the street who couldn't get in, who just wanted to be down there to be a part of that. And it is the most surreal game I have ever called and the most fun I've ever had calling a game.

You gave listeners a little jack buck at the end. I don't believe what I just saw. And it was funny. I had seen earlier that week, I had watched in Los Angeles, there is a Dodger network and there is a Laker network. They're 24-hour networks. They work out of the same building. Time Warner owns both networks.

And I had watched a story about a half-hour special on the greatest moments in Dodgers history, like three or four days before. And Jack Buck's call was in there. And it said, I heard him called Kurt Gibson's home run in 1988, came one of the World Series. And he said, I don't believe what I just saw. And I thought, wow, what a great turn of a phrase. What I, you know, I'd love to be able to use that if it ever met the moment. And then little did I know a week later, Kobe was going to go off the reservation and do this. and I was running, like, you'll hear me in that fourth quarter if you go back and listen to it. I said, this is like out of a movie.

If we, like I said to you, if we submitted this to a Hollywood script, nobody would believe it. And it just kept coming and coming and he kept shooting and shooting. And the other team knew he was going to get the ball and they couldn't stop them. And when it ended, I just, that's the thought that popped into my head. So I felt a little guilty for a second stealing Jack's line, but I thought it was appropriate. and I steal chicks lines all the time. And so I thought for younger listeners, you know, that was 1988. It would have been 28 years before my call that had never heard that.

If people like you ask me about it moving forward, I could say, that's where I got it. You should go back and listen to it. It's one of the great sports calls of all time. I know we're all supposed to love Scully's call of Gibson's home run. It is really, really good. But Jacks has a certain simplicity. It's just. I love that one line.

I don't believe what I just saw. It's a perfect line for a sports fan. Because there's been so many games we've been to when you're like, did that just happen? Did I just see what your eyes are telling you one thing in your brain saying, I just don't process that this is possible. And that's how I felt calling that Kobe game. Because it was, again, we had a terrible team that year.

The fact that that team would produce a great memory is shocking. but they did. Mention you host a sports talk show every day in Los Angeles. Can you give me the power rankings of L.A. Sports Talk? Which teams do people most want to hear about on down? It is a Laker and Dodger town, Brian. Those two teams are the 800-pound guerrillas here. Everybody else, it's Lakers, Dodgers, and then USC football is kind of third,

and then everybody else gets in line behind that. but if you have the Lakers or the Dodgers, and you have a sports talk show like I do, you literally can just open the phones and talk Lakers and Dodgers and you would get ratings. That's how this town works. Because of their history, because of their legacy, it's a Laker and Dodger town.

So if you're going to make a pecking order, I would do Lakers 1, Dodgers 2, then a huge gap, USC football 3, and then everybody else. You want to do Rams, you want to do chargers, you want to do clippers, you want to do kings, you want to do ducks. they're all grouped into the group below that.

And when they go on a run and make a Stanley Cup finals run or a, you know, if the Rams one year went to the Super Bowl fairly recently, then they catch lightning in a bottle for a couple of weeks. But you could go Lakers, Dodgers every day and you'd be fine and your audience would respond to it. They're the, they're the two, to use Ritchie Jackson's old phrase, they're the two straws that stir the drink. Does doing one job help you do the other job? If they're on the same station, which is the case with me, it helps a lot because you're talking about the games that you're leading up to. So you're basically teeing the audience up. Like tomorrow I'll do my show from one to four.

And then the Laker pregame show will start at 5.30. So I'm basically doing a pre pregame show and I'm getting everybody ready to do it. You've got to be a little lucky. You've got to make sure all your bosses are allowing you to do it. If the Lakers were on a different radio station, I don't know if I could get away with it. I don't know if I could do a talk show on ESPN and call the Laker games on KLAC, which is our competitor in town, 570, who has the Dodgers. I doubt I could thread that needle.

But if you can get a talk show on the station where you are calling the games, there's a symmetry to that and it all kind of works. So I've been fortunate to be able to do that. you are your own pregame show in a sense correct yeah all right last one for you john everybody i've talked to who has ever called games in los angeles or done the news in los angeles done sports has had some story where a celebrity has come up to them and said i listen to you every night i watch you every night i believe keith olbermans was joseph cotton from the third man so you've got to tell me what is your best celebrity encounter i um the guy who owns the

is a guy named Stan Cronky, and he's a multi-multi billionaire. He's a billionaire married to a Walmart heiress. So he's one of the richest people in the world. And so one day I'm at a Laker game, and I'm walking down the hallway. And I was like trying to get to a live shot and I had a lot of things on my mind and I turn a corner and I physically run into Stan Cronkey. And I say, oh, I'm sorry, Stan. I wasn't paying attention. I apologize. He goes, hey, John, good to see you. Have a good game. And the fact that Stan Cronky knew who I was blew me away. I couldn't figure it out. Like, this guy's listening to the radio. He's watching TV. He may have had one of those political situations where I had a guy behind him go,

this is John Igerland. He's the Laker announcer. But I didn't see that, so I'm going to take it and run with it. I've got two more quick ones for you. One time I go back to the press room, and Jack Nicholson's in there. And it was near one of Kobe's last,

games of a season in which the Lakers were going to make a run to the title. They were having a really good year. And I go, hey, Jack, I'm doing sidelines tonight. Would you mind if I did one minute, with you just to ask you about Kobe and what he spent to you. And Jack looked at me and he goes, John, and I had no idea he knew who I was. He goes, if I do it for you, you got to do it for everybody else. Sorry, pal. And we walked away and I somehow was comforted by the fact that he called me John. And then the third one is there used to be a terrible restaurant, Brian, in Century

City called Dive. It was a submarine themed restaurant owned by Jeff. Jeff, Katzenberg and Stephen Spielberg. And I'm waiting for my wife one day outside the restaurant. And I walked out and I bump in to Stephen Spielberg. And I said, I'm so sorry, Stephen. And he goes, hey, John Ireland. He goes, I'm a Laker fan. And I went, this is the greatest film guy ever. And I look at him. I go, well, I really like your restaurant. And it was a terrible restaurant. And he just goes, he goes, thanks. And it walks away. My one moment was Steven Spielberg and I said, I really like your restaurant.

By the way, it's long since gone out of business because the food was lousy. But I botched my one moment with Spielberg. If that was an audition, I would have failed miserably. You didn't come up with Jaws, Raiders the Lost Dark. You came up with him. Could I ask him anything. He said, wow, really like your restaurant. John Ireland, he is ready for game six.

and he's even doing his own pregame show beforehand. John, thanks for coming on the press box. Brian, really enjoy it. And anytime. Thanks for having me on. That is The Press Box. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic by Eduardo Ocampo.

Thank you, Eduardo. This week's recommendation, you may know the name Ben Terrace. He's a Washington Post style section reporter, one of the many talented people keeping the journalistic lights on it, that famed newspaper section. He writes very well, writes very, very cleverly too. He's got a new book coming out,

which is called The Big Break, The Gamblers, Party Animals and True Believers trying to win in Washington while America loses its mind. That's a little ways off, but there's an excerpt in Politico today that I encourage you to seek out. The headline is,

the drug-fueled protest in Diane Feinstein's office you haven't heard about. I was sold when I read that. In the meantime, read, relax, revise your nut graphs, and let's meet back here. Monday, shall we, for more lukewarm takes about the media. See you then.