Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Scott Metcalfe Celebrates 30 Years of The Fan: Toronto Mike'd #1106

Episode Date: September 6, 2022

In this 1106th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by 45-year radio veteran Scott Metcalfe as they discuss his recent retirement from 680 News and the 30 year history of CJCL The Fan 1430 / 590. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1106 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com. free local home delivery in the GTA. StickerU.com.

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The lowest prices on cannabis. Guaranteed over 100 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. stores across the country. Learn more at canacabana.com. Today, making his Toronto Mic debut, coinciding with the fans' 30th anniversary is Scott Metcalf. Welcome, Scott. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm almost nervous to be here. Bob Weeks. Oh, yeah. So Bob did speak about you in his episode. I don't know if you caught that one. Yes, I did. He says he's a legend. He's a legend.

That's you. That's too much. Bob, that's too much. Bob's a very nice man. You're a legend. And then, I'm not done yet. FOTM Mike Wilner. He writes in,

Scott Metcalf is one of the kindest, most genuine human beings that I have ever met in this industry. An absolute prince. No exaggeration. Like, really. How nice is that? That's beautiful. Thank you, Mike.

Some of my favorite FOTMs, too. Wilner's been here several times. Yeah, I've listened. Jackie Delaney. Jackie Delaney. Jackie Delaney. I pretty much owe my career to Scott. He is truly one of the nicest people I have ever met in a fantastic newsman. I can't say enough kind things about him.

I've been very lucky to work with people like that. And we'll talk about that about um finding the right people because we had to do that at the fan in the beginning and uh it's it's crucial and those are some very nice folks and here's a gentleman who is not yet an fotm we have to rectify that but jamie pulfer oh yeah says scott mccaff is an incredible human being a wonderful boss and mentor like i'm telling you scott i get you know when i said jim cuddy was coming on i got inundated with all these questions but to a t everything i got about you was that you're like the uh like the greatest sweetheart uh in this forget the city in this

country so it's a it's an honor to have you here well that's very nice. That's very nice. And Jamie Pulver is one of the best. She is. I remember when she started at 680 News, she was nervous. She was coming from Kitchener and we were in the ground floor of the Rogers building and she was coming in and Paul Cook was just leaving. Paul Cook is like the best of the best. Cook was just leaving and I introduced him to Jamie and he said to Jamie, oh, I expect to hear you on the lead story this afternoon. Everybody laughed. And it turned out she was on the lead story. Yeah, it's his first day

and it was the best way for her to start. And she just jumped in and she's been terrific ever since. And Paul Cook, who by the way has eluded me at my grasps. We have to get Paul Cook in here. But married to FOTM Stephanie Smythe. Stephanie Smythe, one of the all-time greats. She was at the fan in the beginning and made a very wise move over to 680 and obviously had a fantastic career.

And she's one of the best news people we have in the city, in the country. Yeah, and she's at CP24 now. Absolutely been a fixture in this market. And you, my friend, are a fixture in this market. So before we get into it with the fan, and we're going way back. I'm looking now. You've given me a binder, and it says on the cover, the big logo,

which I'm going to photograph and use, because I couldn't find a high-resolution version of the logo for the Fan 1430. I literally couldn't find a good version of that logo. And then you presented me this binder. I'm going to take a photo of this, and then I'm going to use that. So we're going to dive into it, like going back to the origin of 30 years ago, this past week, I guess. and we're going to get into that. But first, I just want to just run through your resume real quick here, because you, my friend, recently retired from 45 years in radio. Is that correct? That's right. Yes. Last year,

retired last year. It started in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan in 1976. You know, I produce a show for Humble and Fred. Oh, yeah. You might have heard of those guys. I've heard of those guys. You know, I produce a show for Humble and Fred. Oh, yeah. You might have heard of those guys. I've heard of those guys. Howard, around that time, I believe Howard is like in Moose Jaw, I feel. Like, I feel like you guys might have been in the same place at the same time, but he was born and raised in Moose Jaw.

Yeah, yeah. You know what? And I was very lucky. Just to sort of lay the story of how I got there. I went to Fanshawe College in London. Jamie went there as well. And the course coordinator there was Warren Michaels, not Lauren Michaels, Warren Michaels. Some people get, what, really? The guy from SNL? No, but Warren was fantastic. And he was a terrific teacher. And a bunch of second years were sitting around the table. It was time to try to find work.

There wasn't a lot of jobs in Ontario. It was a tight market in 1976. Warren said, there's an opening in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Everybody at the table laughed. I laughed too. Then when everybody else left, I went into Warren and I said, I'm interested in that job in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan

because my father's actually grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan so it was comfortable for me. And he said, okay, here's the name of the news director and all the rest of it

and I followed through and there it was. I ended up in Moose Jaw. I mean, that's important that you were willing to relocate to get your reps in, right? You don't come out of the,

out of the box, a seasoned pro, right? You got to put in some reps. Well, it's kind of like you, right? You,

you passed a thousand, but no, it is real because what it comes down to is air miles. It's one thing to, to, to be in school and play with it, right? You got to get into the job and the work and you just build up the air miles. And the more

air miles you get, the better you get and the more you learn. And I hope, I don't know how long you've been listening, but I'm hoping I keep improving. Like I do work on things. Every 100 episodes, I step back and take an audit and just take a temperature and see where am I at? Am I still umming a lot? Am I still interrupting great guests like yourself and try to rectify some of those things? I think what I learned, if I learned anything, and this is all about you, not me, but if I learned anything,

let your guests have the spotlight and capture those stories and don't interrupt and make things about yourself all the time. I'm very much interested in the Scott Metcalf story. So, okay, so you're in Moose Jaw, and then what next? So then Moose Jaw was terrific. I met a lot of great people there.

And then I ended up at Ched in Edmonton. It was owned by the same company, Moffitt. Okay. And so I ended up at Ched in Edmonton around 78, 79. And it was the year that some skinny kid joined the Edmonton Oilers. I think his name was Gretzky. He came over from Indianapolis, as I recall.

The Pacers. No, the Racers. The Racers. I was there when he arrived in Edmonton. I remember him getting off the plane and knew some of his reputation. He was either Peter Pocklington's when he arrived in Edmonton, I remember him getting off the plane and knew some of his reputation. Yeah. And as he's getting off,

it was either Peter Pocklington's or Nelson Scalbain, his private jet that he flew into Edmonton on. And he's coming down the steps. And I thought, gee, that's a skinny kid to be playing in the NHL. Yeah. He did seem small.

Luckily he didn't have to take many hits. That's right. Yeah. So it all turned out well. And, uh, Chad at the time was, uh, gargantuan. right yeah so it all turned out well and uh chad at the time was gargantuan uh so it was a it was a very interesting um experience to be working at the number one

station in the city and the morning show uh host was named west montgomery and wes in terms of share of the market had had over 50%. Wow. That means more than half the radio audience was listening to him, and all the other stations just divvied up the rest. That sounds like a Wally Crowder type number. It was, yeah. And so Wes was fantastic, and what Wes used to do, I was just a kid,

and so I would work Sunday mornings doing the newscasts on Chet, and Wes would come in and he did a football show with Hugh Campbell. Because the Eskimos were obviously huge at the time. City of Champions. Yeah, exactly. And so Wes would come in, I think it was like nine o'clock, and he would come over to me in the newsroom, and he would put down an open bottle of beer.

Because he had a bottle of vodka and orange juice. That's what fueled him through the morning. So he knew if I took a sip of that beer, I was in on the... Yeah, that's right. You were in on the secret sauce, as they say. Yeah, so what I would do is I'd take a little sip, like hardly any at all, and I'd say, thanks, Wes, and I'd put the bottle away.

But just so he knew that I was onside and I wasn't going to tell anybody until now, many decades later. All right, now I'm going to rudely interrupt you to tell you you are taking home with you, much like that great tradition in Edmonton, you're taking home with you today, Scott, some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery.

Thank you very much. So make sure we get that load up. And since I'm telling you about the drink you're bringing home, I will tell you that in my freezer right now is a large lasagna for you from Palma Pasta. Excellent. So it was worth the drive, as they say. It was. I love Palma Pasta. They're in Oakville

and I've been there. And the other thing that they, one thing that they make, it's just, well, everything they do is great. But they make these large shells, pasta shells, filled with ricotta. Oh, they are a dream. Is that called tortellini? No, it's even bigger than that.

Bigger than that, okay. They're like almost the size of your fist. Oh, yeah. Listen, so we just, we're just coming off, you're just coming a bit late here, but on Thursday, the most recent Thursday, we had a big event at the, at Great Lakes Brewery, TMLXX.

So I do want to thank the 100 FOTMs who came out, and I do want to thank, quickly, and then we're getting back to your 45 years in radio, but I want to thank the musicians, because, you know, my budget for this event is precisely $0.00. So, like, when I look at this lineup,

Meredith Lazowski opened with a jam, but then we had Rob Pruse, who was with the Spoons in their heyday, and then we had Blair Packham, who, of course, was with the Jitters and is fantastic, and Blair, and then Danny Graves, lead singer of The Watchmen. At this point, it's dark. It's about 8.30 p.m. The event was till 9,

and we had the after party. But Danny Graves, he did four songs, and I got some great video of it, and I recorded the audio, of course. But magic, pure magic. And I just want to thank all these wonderful people and all the FOTMs. TMLXX was great.

And I want to thank Palma Pasta for feeding all 100 of us. We all got full bellies. We all got our first beer on the house and it was just a wonderful, wonderful night. And maybe at the next TMLX, which will be at Palma's kitchen. Maybe I'll see Scott Metcalf there.

That would be amazing. Amazing. Okay. So you're in Edmonton. Yes. Working there. And then what happened was they started a new station in London, Ontario, where Fanshawe was located.

And one of the guys who was hiring people for that station, BX93, a country station, had actually been a teacher at Fanshawe. So he was looking for a new supervisor for the FM station, and he called me up and, uh, came back and went to London at the X 93. And, uh, my dad was very happy because it was a country station and to my dad, there are, there's only two kinds of music country and Western. Bring on the Hank Williams. That's what I was saying. Exactly. So, and then, uh, met some people there and it was a

great experience. And, um, there was a fellow named Randy Wuerl who was working at another station in London and he found out that, um, CJCL was starting up in Toronto and I had covered some of the legislature in Edmonton and, uh, Larry Silver was the news director of the news station. He knew Randy and he was hiring Randy. And so he said, Randy, you know, anybody who might have some legislative experience? He said, yeah, I met this guy in London, Scott Metcalf. And why don't you talk to him? And so that's how I got to Toronto.

Okay. Now let me understand the CJCL history. Of course. Now as a, we'll get to all this, but but as a as a guy who would fall asleep listening to tom and jerry on 14 30 okay i will talk about music of your life and all this and i would wake up to it the next morning like i'd be like there's like tony bennett or something that's like oh okay let me switch this over to like q107 or something but let me uh understand what was the format of cjcl when you got there?

They were doing a lot of talk. They were still doing a bit of mix of music. They had Jim Brady in the morning. So they went big, and they had Andy Barry did a talk show. John Donabee was there. He's an FOTM. I know. I listened to John's episode.

He's great. He's fantastic. Oh, my God. Speaking of sweethearts. The people he's met over the years and he was a real gem to work with too. And he was there when Scorsese's filming The Last Waltz with the band. He's there at the side of the stage.

That's amazing. Amazing. And so all of that was going on. It was a little bit of a mix. Now it had been CKFH. Right, for Foster Hewitt. That that's right foster hewitt had owned it and hebsey was there i believe that's funny story so i start and i think it's my first day and we're in this newsroom and and we were in the old uh ckfh studios and they were not good

they were very where where Where is this exactly? It's Young and Grenville, and the entrance for Foster Station was off Grenville. And the station was just pulled together with bits and pieces, and there was an engineer named Jack Lowe, who passed away not

that long ago, but he was a miracle worker. He kept things on the air with, you know, soldering things together. Like Schneider in One Day at a Time. He was amazing. And so I get there, and I'm in this newsroom, and I'm telling you, Mike, the newsroom's probably not much bigger than this.

Okay, I feel better now. There you go, right? And so I meet this guy, and they say this guy's doing sports. And so I go to one typewriter, because we were typewriters at that time, and he goes to the other one. And we both backed up at the same time and banged our chairs. And I remember turning around and saying, oh, really sorry. And he said, oh, hi, I'm Mark Hebscher.

Wow. I'm Scott Metcalf, and that was how I met Mark. Hebsey was at TMLXX on Thursday night. But I will let you know whenever the worlds collide here. But I've been co-hosting a show with that man for years, Hebsey on Sports, every Friday morning. And I knew he was at CKFH because he talked about taking over for, it's funny, this name's going to come up a few times in this episode,

but Bob McCowan. And he did the same thing at Sportsline. He was sort of the guy who would take over for Bob McCowan when Bob and he did the same thing at sportsline like he was sort of the guy who would take over for bob mccowan when bob moved on to his next uh next thing or whatever okay so ckfh becomes cjcl yep okay so do you want to know why it's called cjcl yes please okay so telemedia based in quebec owned by a fellow named philip de gas-Bobien. He was the mayor of Expo 67, and he was a big businessman in Quebec, and he had the number one station in Montreal, CKAC,

which was French, and it was news talk, like a CFRB. So he bought a bunch of stations in Ontario, and his vision was to have a national network of radio stations that would rival or compete with the CBC. So he bought, one of them was Toronto. And for some reason, I never really understood this and, you know, it was at higher levels and these discussions go on, but the theory was they didn't want to keep CKFH because they felt it was a tired brand so they wanted to freshen it up so they were going to change the call letters so telemedia was also a publishing company okay they

did tv guide uh bill brio worked there shout out to fotm bill brio and who also went to my high school ah there you go a little bit before me but that's's okay. Shout out to Michael Power. A hundred percent. And so then what happened was telemedia also published a bunch of magazines. And magazines were big then. Sure. In the 80s. Yeah. And one of the magazines they published was Canadian Living. Oh, the light's going on here.

So there's your CEO. Wow. Okay. That's a fun fact right there, if not a mind blow. Well done. Well done. Well done. I'm now remembering, because Hebsey introduced me to Rob Cowan. Oh, yeah, Rob.

And Rob came over, and Rob tells me, and I believe, why would he lie to me? Of course he'd tell me the truth, that he's the last guy to say CKFH on the radio, and the first guy to say CJCL on the radio. That's what he tells me. I believe him 100%. And the thing about, there is a super talented broadcaster. I love listening to Rob Cowan and hanging out with him. He was a funny guy.

He was just terrific. Well, he did stuff like literal comedy with Rick Moranis. Yeah. Like, think about that. I know. And his dad, of course, referred to as Bunny Cowan, but Bernard Cowan is like the legacy he's left behind. Unbelievable.

And his brother has even been over here, Elliot Cowan. The whole Cowan family, pretty damn talented, actually. They are. Okay, very nice. And he does a great Foster Hewitt impression as well. He does. It's perfect. Which you can hear.

Go dig up the Rob Cow cowan episode of uh toronto mic okay so cjcl is the new call letters for ckfh yeah the fh did for foster hewitt by the way and uh it's funny there's a lot of talk right now about the 72 summit series because it's the 50th anniversary so i had scott morrison on who you might know yep he wrote a book about it. He comes on. And I just got a note last week from Dave Bedini from the Real Statics, who is one of the people responsible for the new documentary series on CBC about the 72 Summit Series. So just to let the FOTMs know that Bedini is coming back. We're going to cover a lot of ground, but we'll talk about

his documentary on the Summit Series that's going to be airing on CBC and CBC Gem. Okay. Keep going here. So I love this. Uh, CJCL is, uh,

is it yet? It's not yet music of your life though. No. So we did, we started with the talk, uh, that was partly based on telemedia. Wanted it to model it a bit after CKC in Montreal,

where they had tremendous success. The problem is coming into a market where you already have a monster station like cfrb at the time right and the other thing and and we'll talk about the frequency switch but 1430 was a bad frequency it didn't go very far and so you're you know there's a handicap so we're going along and they have a lot of very talented people. John Oakley, I think, was doing overnights. Right. Just like a terrific lineup of people.

And I remember I came into work one day after the, and the ratings in those days is well before the internet. They used to get, they used to actually go and get books, like big binders of ratings. The program director or the general manager would drive to bbm at the time right and they would bring back these big binders of ratings so but nobody else could see them they didn't let us look at them but they would sort of dribble things out so i remember i was coming up the back stairs at cjcl just to check in before i went to queens park

to cover the legislature. And Larry Silver was there and Larry had his back to me and he was typing on the typewriter. And I said, Hey Larry, how were the ratings? And Larry turned around and he said, you can go home. Our listener went to the college because it was Friday. So the ratings were, we were like last place. It was not good. And after all that investment they'd made.

So what they did was, and you've heard this many times from people in the radio game, they had a big meeting and they said, we're sorry, everybody who's involved in a talk show, it's over. And thank you. Right. And so that was the end of that. And I was in news.

So fortunately, I was able to stay. And then we morphed into Music of Your Life because they were looking around for any format that would keep the station alive. Right. And that was the one that they, they touched on. And you know what, here's the thing about music for life. I was still relatively young then,

and I had to drive the van. There was this van that had the, this shadow band on the side of it, people playing trumpets and Ella Fitzgerald singing. That was not cool. Right. To the people who were like 20 and 30 oh no I mean I do

like I mentioned I would listen because back people forget we didn't get every game on television so yeah you had your CFTO game and you had I don't remember where you'd see the games I didn't even have TSN for a long time until that finally showed up in my home

and they would have a game now and then or whatever but most of these games are radio only only and tom cheek jerry howard who we'll talk about later would be like the soundtrack to my summers i'd fall asleep listening but because i'd fall asleep like when i woke up i would often wake up in the middle of the night or something like after the scott ferguson out of town scoreboard or whatever i'd wake up in the middle he's an fotm as well but i'd wake up in the middle of the night hearing like a Tony Bennett or something. And yeah, it was like, what is this? Oh yeah, the music of your life.

It wasn't. So here's a question. So Telemedia owns CJCL. Yep. At this time, Telemedia has the radio rights to Maple Leaf games and Blue Jay games? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, and that was what, they created that network so that they were networking these games across the country. Now that, I wasn't involved in that part of the business. That was like Nelson Millman and Alan Davis. Guys like that were involved in the networking. But yeah, that's what was happening is they were playing them across the country. So it was, that was kind of, I don't know why, I wouldn't call it a desperation move. It was a research move. They researched the market and they said, there's a spot for this. We can't do rock.

Q's already there. We can't really do news talk. We tried it and RB, you know, beat us. And so they said, this is the one. And it was, here's the thing to me. I don't know who said this exactly. I've heard it attributed to different people but there are two kinds of music good music and bad music and it doesn't matter what the genre is right right so there was a lot of great music from that era like maybe not our taste but still

the music was fantastic and i remember i don't know if this was one of those things that they told us to sort of encourage us, but I would tend to believe it. They said that somebody called the station after we first went to Music of Your Life. And they called, so this would have been in the 83 or something like that. Got a call from a woman who said, I heard a song on the radio today that I had not heard

since I dropped my husband off at the train station to go off to the Second World War, and he never came back. And that's how much that song meant to me. Thank you for playing it. So that kind of, you know, you'd think, okay, so it's not for my group of 20 and 30 year olds, but it matters to the, some listeners, it's important. And let's remember this, right? In the, in the eighties, we were, you know, the forties were to the eighties, right? As the eighties are to now. So essentially it's like, I mentioned Rob

Pruce from the spoons. Like it's that music would would be like if you heard, I don't know, what Boom plays now, right? Boom, you can hear Nova Heart. Like, every day they're going to play Spoons, Nova Heart, and it takes you back to the early 80s. Same time difference, right? Exactly. And one of the songs I still love, and I will play it from time to time, is Romantic Traffic. And the video for Romantic Traffic is genius. And you got the red rocket in

that one too and uh where else are you going to see footage of the red rocket love romantic i mean he just because i'm going back to tmlxx but rob had his keyboard there and he did uh areas and symphonies uh areas and symphonies it was beautiful and just just thank you again rob i know you're listening here okay so i want to talk about this like transition because uh you've already got you've got uh so cjcl already has leaf games did they have argo games who had argo games that's a good question i think the argo's bounced around a little bit literally um from place to place they although they were big in the 80s with john candy and and all those guys. Yeah, it was early nineties.

Uh, but I know 83, they won the great cup. Cause I remember, uh, I was not a big Argo fan at the time, but in school, our teacher letting us know that it had been a very big drought.

Like it had, you know, I had no appreciation for this, but we hadn't won in quite some time. And remember there was only like eight teams in this league. So you're bound to win here and there. But, uh,

I do know that the Argos were still, uh, Argos were still a fairly big deal in the 1980s, I believe. But okay, so you have Blue Jay Baseball, which we'll get into soon. And you have Maple Leaf Hockey. So there's already going to be blocks, like chunks of evening devoted to sports. And then I'm guessing, because I used to listen, that you'd wrap around like an out-of-town scoreboard or some kind of like shows would be wrapped around these live broadcasts like you'd have uh scott ferguson you know talking to us for like another hour or you'd have a jay's talk or whatever right like i know hevsey used to host host one but you'd have sort

of a phone-in show talking about the game that happened or whatever so you've got these sports but before it goes all sports there's like a there's like a hybrid model for a while, right? That's right. And they were playing more popular music. They are oldies, I guess. They tried a number of different things. And I remember, you know, behind the scenes with John Ray, who's mentioned in the news release when they started the fan 30 years ago.

He was, and I heard Alan Davis recently, Alan Davis was the program director on another podcast, and he was saying how important John Ray was to this. And he doesn't, he deserves more attention because he really was, if he didn't support it, it't happen he was the general manager and he pushed for it and he researched it and he studied it and he said you know he said uh i think this can work and all sports station can work and then he sold that concept to the owners now there was a fan in new york right yep wfan so i suppose that that these affirmations, it was Al Davis and what was John who? John Ray. John Ray. So John Ray is like the GM and then Al Davis is the program director? Yes. Okay. So road trips to New York to check it out? Is that? I didn't go, but I think those guys

went, yes, to look at the fan in New York and just to, you know, work on the formatics and just to get a feel for what they had done at the beginning to try to make it go. And the fan in New York wasn't an automatic success. It took them a while to work it out, too. Right. But, I mean, again, this is your show, Scott, honestly. And I do have all the audio you sent me. But, I mean, you were there.

We have this expression we use on Toronto Mike that, you know, when we talk to people who were there it's always great to get their their perspective and everything and you were there so this is absolutely awesome but uh do you remember the internal notification that this was happening like we we have the press release that kind of went public but like like when were you told that you guys were switching to an all sports format well i was the sports director at the time now you know that's a different level that's looking after the sports casters you know guys like the 2020 updates yeah okay guys like scott ferguson and uh eventually dan shulman who uh you might have heard of him fotm dan shulman whatever became of him we'll talk about that but mike epple was one of the

sports casters in the beginning he was there there Thursday night at TMLXX. He got to reunite with his buddy, Peter Gross, who spent many years at 680 after his city TV career. Peter Gross is one of the most creative people I've ever met. Super talented. I'm with you. He produces a horse racing podcast. Yep.

And I help him with the technical side, but he's of course the man, the creative man behind that program. And I am always impressed by how he packages these stories together. He has a good sense for like, you know, when the narration comes in, when the background noise and the different layers of it, like he's just an absolute genius. Like he's just an absolute genius. Like he's just got a gift. So Peter, I got a text here from Peter. He says, can you talk more about how great I am? I believe that.

And he loves his palm up pasta. So shout out to Peter Gross. And so with Epel and the others, I was the sports director. So I think I was brought up to speed a little bit before it happened. So I knew it was happening like certainly days, maybe a few weeks before it actually happened because they had a big, uh, uh,

you know, a big celebration, a ceremony to open it. And you'd think you'd have a bigger heads up. No, no, no, it's,

uh, you know, the, these things happen at different levels right so so it happened at john ray's levels and the owner's level and then it goes down to john and alan and then it comes down to me so now here's the question so when kind of a famous toronto radio story is that when 680 went all uh you know 680 went from top 40 by the way the program director at 680 when it was top 40 at the end there when it flipped to all news,

her name is Sharon Taylor. She was also at TMLXX. And I think she was in, she went to Moose Jaw too. Yeah, yeah. She was working, yeah. What's the name of that?

Moffitt. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You're absolutely right. Yeah. And since I'm tying it all together, Larry Fedorek is a client in an FOTM

and he was at TMLXX and Larry got to reunite with his old program director from his 680 CFTR days, which was pretty damn cool to pay witness there. But okay, so when the famous story is when 680 went from top 40 to all news, it was like a race between six. So 680 did that.

I hope I said that. Okay. But 640 was contemplating it. Like there was an actual race because the first one in was going to win that race and the other was going to like, no, we're not doing it. And it was very close, this race,

from my understanding. Like 640 had all these wheels in motion to go all news and 680 just beat him to the punch. Like there was no, but there was no fear. I'm just curious at the time when you're, you know, preparing to go all sports, there was no fear but there was no fear. I'm just curious at the time when you're, you know, preparing to go all sports, there was no fear at 1430 CJCL that any other station would beat you to that punch.

No, we had the play by play. Right. And that was, that was the golden ticket, having a play by play. Cause then you, you build your sports around that. And there are stations and there was a time when we, we lost the Jays broadcasts. And, you know, those aren't easy. But you can still make a go of it

without having to play by play. But it 100% helps. But when you lost it, you had already established yourselves as the sports media station in the city. And then that's the team you're talking about, right? Yeah, and we had Bob McCallum. You had Bob McCallum, okay. And he's the best the best he's the best we're going to talk about that uh

not on fotm but he should be you let him know next time next time you're at his barbecue whatever you tell him i don't i don't have barbecues with bob i i know him and uh known him over the years uh but no we're not uh tight no okay well i'll have to find someone else to tell well you know it's up to bob i'm not to make him come over here. It's his loss. He doesn't get what you're going to get here, which is a Ridley Funeral Home flashlight, Scott. Oh, excellent. Bob's missing out. Oh, yeah, you've got to pull this little

part here. Okay, so that's for you. Thank you very much. Add it to the pile there. I'll use that for my notes. And real quick since I'm giving you things, a cozy for your beer. You know, I was at TMX. I was the only one of a cozy, but that cold, wet beer, it's like you got the cozy so this is courtesy of canna cabana so thank you very much your beer will feel comfortable in your hand here okay all right pick it up there so we are uh and again anytime you want to call for a piece of audio you just do

so but uh you are now notified you're going all sports yep and all i guess at this point it's it's creating the lineup like you're the the i. I know you're responsible for the sports updates or the news part of the sports or whatever, but I guess there's a whole flurry to get a new all-sports lineup. Give me a taste of that. Anything you can share from that perspective? One of the things, and I think you talk about this on some of the other podcasts, like how do you hire people?

I learned a few things over the years about hiring. And there's a book called Good to Great by Jim Collins. So if anybody's in the business of the business, any business, that's a great book to read. Good to Great. any business, uh, that's a great book to read. Good to great. And one of the things he talks about, and he, he lays out some very, um, uh, clear ways to help your business. And one of the, one of the, and it's simple and we all know it, but sometimes you don't really follow it unless it's clear. You, uh, you get the right people on the bus in the right seats and the wrong people off the bus right easier said than done but uh getting the right people is a hundred percent like at the beginning we had some terrific people we had mike epple we had stephanie smythe uh you know she did traffic and she also

did news she was a terrific news reporter obviously because that's what you went on to sure and uh scott ferguson like wow scott ferguson scott ferguson is one of the best sports broadcasters i've ever worked with and i owe him uh so many uh a credit data credit uh debt of gratitude but what what he did for me that was extra special yeah was he came into the newsroom one day around i think it was 1989 and he said i'm going to go to the paul mccartney concert at skydome do you want to go and i hadn't even thought of it right and he said i'm going to buy tickets i'm going to go down and stand in line so he said you want if you want to get the tickets for you and i said great so he went to the paul mccartney concert it was one of the best concerts I've ever been to. Wow. Yeah, and it was, I forget the name of the album,

but it was, you know, no songs that you're going to remember from that album. No, right, right, right. So he comes out on stage, and I'm sitting with Fergie, and he plays a song off the new album. You know what that's like. It's like, I don't really know that song. And then, and the crowd was kind of quiet, tepid.

And then he gets into the chords of Gotta Get You Into My Life. And the place just went. It was one of the best, most energetic. And he went on to, you know, Hey Jude, back in the USSR. So I owe that to Fergie just being there. I loved my chat with Fergie. You know, Fergie's left the industry because there was a lot of people. We'll talk about some other names

that have left the industry as they come up because Storm and Norman Rumack is another one that jumps into my mind and Howard Berger is another one that jumps into my mind, but we'll get to these guys. But that concert, Paul McCarty, I will say I know the Dome only opens in June. I think it's June

1989 is when that Dome opens. So that's got to be one of the first concerts. Yeah, this was, I think in dome only opens in June. I think it's June 1989 is when that dome opens. So that's got to be one of the first concerts. Yeah, this was, I think, in the fall. Might have been October or something. Okay. And around that time, I went to, I did personally saw Elton John at the dome as well, which was pretty good.

But I think there was some audio issues he wasn't happy with, but they were ironing out some of the wrinkles there. But, okay. Yeah, so we're... So Ferguson. Yeah, okay, Scott, I guess what I want to say about Scott is I love the cadence of his voice, partly because it reminds me of post...

You know, we won a lot of games, those Blue Jay teams. Your timing was great to go all sports, but those Jays teams won a lot of games. And post-game, having some kind of an out-of-town scoreboard where you were kind of in pennant races and you want to find out how the Orioles did or whatever. Like I, I loved the Scott Ferguson cadence and delivery.

It was just like the soundtrack of my summers. He was a magician. And one of the things back then, again, pre-internet, we had a, we had a machine called sports ticker and it would type off every half inning you'd get a readout on this rolling piece of paper and you'd tear it off and uh greg sansoni who's now a vice

president at the rogers sports media right uh he was an intern and uh he used to tear those things off for fergie and he would line them up on this big table we had in the newsroom for each game and he'd keep putting the newest piece of paper on top. And there was the odd time when somebody would open the door too hard and some of that paper would blow around and Scott would have a panic.

But he, Ferguson was, like when his time was coming up to go on the air, he would grab all those bits of paper, and he'd sort of go running into the booth with these pieces of paper, and he would make it, it was like magic. I don't know how he did it, but he would just ad-lib around it,

and he'd talk about it, and he was, he was the best. Okay, is this, is it, should we mention the, because I want to talk about the,

the opening day lineup when you go all sports, but there was this, like I mentioned the hybrid, right? Because CJCL goes all sports from like 5 PM to midnight. And this is in March, I suppose. And again,

if I'm treading on your, uh, no, you go, it's you let me know, but okay. So, uh,

they're still doing all these music when it's not, you know, 5 PM to midnight. But now they start with Bob McCowan, whose name will come up quite a bit here. But Bob McCowan's hosting from 5 to 8. And Dan Schulman comes in at 8 o'clock and he takes you from 8 to midnight. Do I have that right for the? Yeah, look, here's all.

Yeah. I was thinking about this ahead of time trying to remember all this stuff and and some of it changed and it didn't all you know it changed a few times so here's what i'd say you have you have guys like gort stellick and howard berger uh and mike wilner and guys like that who have fantastic memories. Okay. For them, looking back into the past is like looking through a telescope. Right. Okay. With my telescope, I bumped into Father Time colliding with him.

Mine's a kaleidoscope. So I can, there are little fractions where I'll be able to see. Well, I can bail you out. I've got some good notes here. I'm going to bail you out here. But I'm wondering, is this a good time? And you tell me, is this a good time? You tell me. Is this a good time to... I have some

Dan Shulman tape that is pretty rare and awesome. Maybe I should play it here. This is from 1989. Am I right? This is the Dan Shulman audition? Yes. Let me tell you.

Set it up a little bit yeah dan calls me at the fan and says hey i'm i'm really interested in sports i've done some play-by-play basketball i'm pretty sure he said it at university of western ontario but i do kind of remember this that that escaped me i thought oh here's a play-by-play guy so he comes in and he sits down and then he tells me he did it at University of Western Ontario. And I go, ooh, that's, that's okay. And then he says, I'm actually, I'm an actuary. Yes, that's right.

He says, I'm an actuary. Okay, well, let's go into the booth and, you know, you can show me, let's just read a newscast. He says TSN. Now that was before Rogers and all the rest of it. And TSN was the sports brand. And so I think he just wrote that just because TSN was such a big sports brand and the fan hadn't gone all sports yet.

So that's, he called it a TSN sportscast. Okay, let's listen. The Oakland A's are World Series bound for the second consecutive year. Hello everyone, I'm Dan Shulman with this hour's TSN Sports Radio Update. Oakland came into Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, needing a win to knock out the Toronto Blue Jays

and claim their second consecutive pennant. The A's had built a three games to one lead, largely due to the heroics of Ricky Henderson, and the early stages of Game 5 featured more of the same. Henderson led off the game with a walk off starter and loser Dave Steeb, stole second, and scored the game's first run on a single by Jose Canseco. In the third inning, Henderson tripled in Walt Weiss with Oakland's second run. The score remained 2-0 until the seventh, when Oakland tallied two more runs to knock Steeb from the game. Lloyd Mosby and George Bell brought some life into the 50,000-plus spectators who jammed the Sky Dome, each blasting solo home runs off Oakland starter Dave Stewart, sending him to the showers and bringing on A's relief ace Dennis Eckersley.

A Tony Fernandez single, eventually cashed in on a long-sacrifice fly-by Kelly Gruber, narrowed the margin to one, but that was as close as the Jays could get. Eckersley struck out junior Felix to end the ballgame, giving Oakland a 4-3 victory and a 4-1 win in the series. as close as the Jays could get. Eckersley struck out Junior Felix to end the ball game, giving Oakland a 4-3 victory and a 4-1 win in the series. The A's now await the winner of the National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Chicago Cubs. The Giants currently lead the series two games to one. Turning to the NHL, some late results from last night. Sergei Makarov scored a goal and added three assists as the

Calgary Flames improved their record to 2-0 with a 6-3 win over the New York Islanders. Flames coach Terry Crisp is pleased with his team's good start but wants his players to remember that they are the defending Stanley Cup champions. I hope that it rubs off on our players that they're very confident maybe use the word cocky even, to be good, to repeat. Because if you don't believe you're going to do it, then what's the sense of even starting a season? If you don't believe in yourself, you're going to do it. So we obviously have to believe that we're going to defend the Stanley Cup.

In other late games from last night, Edmonton defeated Los Angeles 6-5 despite two goals from Wayne Gretzky to move him within eight points of Gordie Howe's all-time NHL scoring record, Vladimir Krutov scored twice to lead Vancouver over Detroit five to three this has been the TSN sports radio update Dan Schulman okay Scott I need to know so uh this is the audition from Dan Schulman to join your department at CJCL yeah 1989 and he wrote that uh obviously because he put a lot of time and effort into that and uh like what was your reaction at the time because it's you know it's interesting it's difficult to hear it through like 1989 ears because we know what happens to dan shulman

dan hates the fact that i have that tape we used to play it on the fan every once in a while and he says oh that metcalf so how so hey that Metcalf. So why did you keep it? You just kept tapes? You're an archivist? It's kind of random. Some things I kept. And I just had a feeling. Here's the thing.

I met Dan and talked to him. And even though that tape sounds a little stilted, just meeting Dan Shulman, just the aura that guy gives off i just thought oh we got to have this guy uh and so i i said to dan yeah i think we can do something and i remember we were going out of the hallway down the hallway and dan was feeling pretty good and so was i and john ray happened to be standing there the general manager and I said oh hey John uh here's Dan Schulman we're we're going to be working with Dan he's going to do some sportscasts for us

and John shook Dan's hand and said where are you working now and Dan said well I'm not working in radio at all and I just saw John Ray's face and he looked at me like, what? And so Dan left and John said, Scott, come into my office. He said, you can't hire a guy who hasn't been on the radio. I was always a little more class half full kind of a thing. Like, we can work with this guy. Let's give it a chance. Yeah, the raw materials are there. Yeah, let's go.

Let's nurture it a bit. He said, you can't. You can't do it. He said, no, that can't happen. And so I had to call dan and say now we're not going to be able to work with you but yeah you know pursue keep going and and uh when you get something or if you want to bring tapes in i will listen to them with you and we'll talk do air checks and talk and coach and all the rest of it and dan used used to do that. He got a job in Barrie and he would come home on the weekends to Toronto.

And back then the station was, I guess there was probably a tight budget because there were very few people in the news department and we were on a six and five schedule. So work six days a week, five days a week, six days a week. So sometimes I work Sundays. And Dan would call me and say, hey, I'm here. Can I come in and can you listen to a tape?

And so he'd come in on a Sunday, sometimes Friday afternoons too, he would come in. And we'd go and listen to a tape. You must have some great pride that even if you, a small role, like a small, at least some part of this Dan Schulman success belongs to you. A little bit. But here's what I say about that is that people are often quick to claim that they discovered someone. I didn't discover Dan Schulman. Thank God Dan Schulman discovered me.

Right. And the fan. Dan discovered us. He knocked on the door. We didn't find him. He found us. Thank you, Dan. Yeah, it's not like the Peter Mansbridge story where he's

in Churchill Airport or whatever announcing planes and stuff. But the Dan Schulman episode of Toronto Mic is one of my favorites. And when he tells the story of how he got the ESPN gig originally, like for ESPN Radio, it's outstanding. It's unbelievable story. Like it's an accident. They were

looking for 580 or something and they accidentally, from New York State or something, and they tune in 590 by mistake and they hear this guy. Like it's an accident. They were looking for 580 or something and they accidentally from New York state or something. And they tune in 590 by mistake. And they hear this guy, like it's a completely fluky random happenstance, but it all starts here with that audition tape. That's right.

And so Dan, then, um, you know, we, we finally got him in and he was doing some weekend sports and then he went on from there, of course,

because he's just so talented. See, it's not only, it's not only that he's he's talented it's that he has the passion and he had an incredible knowledge about of many sports but his baseball knowledge was phenomenal uh and he used he told me that when he was a kid when they go on long car trips. He used to have like the baseball stats book and he just studied them and memorized them. It's incredible.

So anyway, so we got to the second clip of Dan and so I'm driving in 2003. I'm I've moved over to 680 news. I'm driving into work, listening to 680 and they use a clip of 2003, calling an unassisted triple play. The 1-1 with the runners going, a swing, and a liner caught by Fercal. There's one, there's two, there's three, an unassisted triple play. Rafael Fercal leaped into the air, caught the ball,

ran to second base to step on second, and then put the tag on Palmeiro, who was just arriving at second base to step on second and then put the tag on Palmeiro, who was just arriving at second base. And it's one of the rarest of all plays in baseball, an unassisted triple play. Oh, yeah, listen to that progression, too. Same great timbre in the voice, but just far more polished and professional.

And it sounds amazing. Quick thing is that yesterday, Bo Bichette hit three homers. And I got about like because i know only the only blue jays hit four homers in a game ever is carlos delgado like in around 2003 or something and i start digging into like how rare is four homer games and super rare but even more rare than the unassisted triple play which is highly regarded as one of the rarest plays in baseball. And it's amazing to have that you bring a Dan Schulman call of an unassisted triple play. So recently, and just like a few years ago, just before I retired, Dan came into the station and sat down in the office. And so I played for him the audition tape. I said, hey, Dan,

I still have your audition tape. And I played it. And he goes, oh, come on. He's like, burn that. He just burned that. And I said, Dan, this is very, very important. Because what I do for students and young broadcasters is I play that. Then I play them your triple play.

So I played it for Dan. And Dan said, I haven't heard that since the day it happened. He said, thank you for playing that for me. That was pretty good. Yeah, you know, as much pride as you feel, imagine how he feels when he hears his audition tape and then that triple play call. Like, wow.

Yeah. But yeah, incredible. So Dan Schulman's incredible. So just to wrap up, put a bow on the Dan Schulman story here. He's part of that, like I mentioned, he's part of that transition period when CJCL is all sports 5 p.m. to midnight. But he's also a that like I mentioned he's part of that transition period when CJCL is all sports 5 p.m to midnight but he's also a day one-er so is this I know and you'll these what do we have

here we have six songs here you'll you'll tell me when they apply and then I'm gonna just click play and listen yeah we might as well do them here Okay. So the other thing I'd add about Dan, just before we leave Dan. Yeah, please. We can never have enough about Dan. So he got the top broadcaster in North America in 2013, I think. Again, my kaleidoscope's not tuned in. But anyway, he's going to get it. And people like Bob costas have gotten it

like the top of the top fin scully like just the top of the top so dan's getting the award like in the united states is one of the best broadcasters baseball sports broadcasters so dan calls me and says uh hey scott i'm getting this award in north carolina i want you to be there and i'm going to pay for your flight wow and i'm going to pay for your hotel amazing i I want you to be there and I'm going to pay for your flight. Wow. And I'm going to pay for your hotel. Amazing. I just want you to be in the room when I get that award. And he also had Alan Davis come down because Alan was his PD. Alan, he was much tighter with Alan because of the, Alan looked after the talk show host. Right. And so Alan was there too. And Alan spoke at the event and Alan was brilliant as usual. And so was Dan as usual.

But imagine that, right? That's what an honor. And you're worthy of that honor. That's fantastic too. It's all fantastic. So the little details I get stuck on real quick here is that, okay, so, you know, Dan Shulman's like eight to midnight during this period, but it is September 4th, 1992. So that's why we're here on September 6th,

celebrating 30 years of CJCL as an all-sports station. It debuts as the Fan 1430. And we're going to do the songs now, but I'll just let everybody know that, yes, Dan Schulman is a part of the Day 1 lineup. On Day 1, he's noon to 3 p.m. So he's the bridge. Well, we'll talk about this later,

but he's the bridge between a show with Steve Simmons and Mary Ormsby and then the Bob McCowan. He jumps on at 3 o'clock and then his primetime sports of Jim Hunt is at 5 p.m. So we'll get back to all this. But what would you like to say before song one? Yeah, so this stemmed from dan from from playing these for students and saying okay here's what dan started like at the beginning okay and here's what he sounded like after many years of airtime

and experience and hard work hard work okay yeah i'd have the hard work and so one day um i was uh yeah i'd have the hard work and so one day um i was uh painting uh a room and well you know you painted rooms right i painted rooms takes days because you do one taping and the whole thing and a friend of mine gave me a double cassette of an artist and so i had it right at the beginning and then near the end and i thought that's the same as dan shulman about how they start off a lot of you and you know and i the reason i brought this in is because you love music and i thought it was it would fit so you know a lot of artists start off as cover bands or copying other artists because you got to learn somewhere i mean the tragically hip were essentially like covering like van morrison's them and stuff at the very beginning with the yeah you're absolutely right you start off kind

of covering other bands get your stuff so then you yeah go into original yeah you play other music that you're you like and so i i took three artists and i broke it up so that i had songs at the beginning of their careers and then songs at the height of their careers and and i play those for students too with the purpose of you yes it's okay to start off and mimic someone or be a cover band on the air you know like cover somebody you like sure but at some point you have to find your own voice that's the goal okay so so try song one okay and and tell me if you know who this is okay it's only and i will tell you so scott i haven't played any of these six songs uh just So try song one. Okay. And tell me if you know who this is. Okay. And I will tell you. So, Scott, I haven't played any of these six songs.

I just loaded them up. Perfect. You have them very nicely organized for me, so I appreciate that. Okay, this is song one. So each one, yeah, just tell me if you, when it's over. It's only about 30 seconds if you know who it is. Okay. Okay. Don't you look at me so smugly And say I'm going bad

Who are you to judge me And the life that I live I know that I'm not that for the first time, and that voice sounds like the Honorable Robert Nesta Marley. Is that Bob Marley? Is that Bob Marley? It is Bob Marley. Wow. I know.

And so he starts off playing songs that he's heard around Kingston. Yeah. Play the next one, number two. Okay. I love this, by the way, Scott. This is the best. Everybody should be doing this when they come over. Here we go.

Emancipate yourself from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind Have no fear for atomic energy Cause none of them can stop the time How long shall they kill our profits While we stand aside and look Some say it's just a part of it we've got to fulfill the book won't you help the sin oh another song of freedom

All I ever had, did you know? Redemption songs. Sing it, Harmon. Redemption songs. Come on with me, children. So there's hope for me. Yeah, Scott, it's what you're telling me here. Here's the other thing that I'll add just before we play the next one. Yeah, that's powerful.

That is powerful. And he's found his voice. And in some ways, it's, yes, the quality of voice matters, but what matters more is being the voice of quality. And you've done that. Hey, listen. Toronto Mike has done that.

Thank you. Thank you. No, I mean, coming from you, you're not just some schlub off the street here. I feel like there's a lot of weight in those words. Okay, so song three, see if you can figure out who it is. It's about 30 seconds or so. Whoever thought I'd be holding you close to me whispering

It's you I adore Yes, oh dearest one If you should leave me, then each little dream would take wings and my life would be through. Oh, so best of me. I'm having trouble with this one. Should I be getting this?

Is this obvious? I'm not sure. He's a fairly well-known singer. Okay. I'm listening. Okay. So let me do it again here. So, and this is a male's voice I'm hearing there?

Sounds like a dude? Okay. Okay. spring it's you i adore yes so dearest one if you should leave me then each little dream would take wings and my life would be through all right scott you got me here you have to tell me because i don't know. I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing. Play a song for me. Here we go. Yes. I swung and missed. And we talked about him earlier. And I will sing a lullaby.

Yeah, Paul McCartney. I don't know how I missed that one. And the range on that, right? That's a guy who knows his voice. That's from Abbey Road. And he's growling. He's singing softly. He's using his whole spectrum in that one little section.

I'm playing a little more of three now that I know who it is. I just want to... Whoever thought I'd be holding you close to me whispering It's you I adore No, tough, tough. Even knowing it's Paul McCartney, it's tough to place that one. Okay, I don't feel so bad now. But that's how he started, right?

You've got to start somewhere. Everyone's got to start somewhere. And I really do love what you said earlier, which I've been preaching. Every once in a while, a college will invite me to speak to their class, like their media class about podcasting because they're like,

oh, we need a podcasting person to talk. And I really sincerely believe that I couldn't do this episode at the beginning. I just simply couldn't start with Scott Metcalf coming over and talking for 90 minutes and exploring the history of CJCL. I mean, the fan 1430 and fan 590. Like I could not have done this. I had to put in reps and get comfortable

and figure out my rhythm and my voice and stuff before I could get here. So it's like you can't get there from here. You have to kind of go through about 100 reps or whatever. So song five, any words before that? Okay, now that I'm batting 500 here, I'm a little, okay. Okay, who is that? Is that a male or female voice? It's a female.

Yeah, Janis Joplin. Yes. Okay, you can kind of hear that Janis Joplin, but my goodness, I can't wait to play number six. Okay, and this one's a little longer because it's one of my favorite pieces. Listen, for Janis, I've got all the time in the world. Shout out to FOTM Bill King,

who would play keyboards for Janis Joplin back in the day. So, early 70s. Here we go. I'm a bad man Maybe not quite all the time But each time I tell myself That I, well, I can't stand the pain But when you hold me in your arms I say it once again I said come on, come on, come on Come on, yeah, take it Take another little piece of my heart now, baby Oh, baby Amazing. The reason I asked male or female, because I thought it was Janis Joplin, and then I thought, Well, you know you got it, trying to fit makes you feel good.

Amazing. The reason I asked male, female, because I thought it was Janis Joplin, and then I thought, unless it's Robert Plant. It's one of the two. But yeah, that was Big Brother and The Holding Company, right? Yes. And this goes back to Dan Schulman

and learning your craft, starting somewhere, being okay to copy. It's okay to to be some to try out other styles and somebody once said um good artists borrow great artists steal make it part of you like but it's you and it's your voice right well said and uh one of the things she does here and and and the other thing too i think, and this applies to broadcasting, all walks of life, sports as well. That beautiful combination where you get talent and confidence. Right. And that's not easy to attain because not everybody's got the talent. Let's face it. Right. That's for sure.

But if you find your talent and gain the confidence to use it, like in that song, Janis Joplin says never six times. Wow. Like nobody told her to do that. You know, there was, she just,

this is me. This is how I do it. I'm going to say never six times. Wow. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Now, is it okay again, and we'll get back to your

notes there but can i can i walk through the opening day lineup uh so this is again we're about 30 years removed here it was september 4th 1992 the fan 1430 debuts yes and uh here's the lineup okay so the morning show which which was 5.30 to 10, Joe Bowen and Mike Inglis. And then I pause, and then any thoughts on those two gentlemen working with those two guys? Yeah, and Mike Inglis they brought in, and Alan Davis talked about this, that Joe Cannon had been on the air,

and Joe was a good sports guy and probably could have carried it, but they wanted to, again with with changing call letters and you know the higher higher level says no we gotta have a fresh sound so they brought in mike and listen mike mike was uh not as comfortable as a talk show host as he was as a play-by-play guy he does a play-by-play for the miami heat oh he's got yeah he's got under great things yeah he's fantastic but it was um you throw these things together and cross your fingers and like bowen is fantastic yeah everything he does holy mackinac we love joe bowen here okay then right after that here's a uh these are both fotms uh steve simmons and mary ormsby uh 10 o'clock to noon yeah talk about um quality right like

mary and steve they knew their sports and not only that like they were just great entertainers they just knew how to tell stories they were the great storytellers and in rival papers too which i thought was always cool that was a very good move by by the fan yeah but i mean damien cox was over here recently with Gord Stelic, who we'll talk about in a moment. But he was telling me that like the newspapers, at some point, the newspapers didn't want that anymore. Like, which is when you look at it now, it's bizarre.

But it was parochial thinking. But you know what? That was a bit of a holdover from bygone days. Right, right, right. Dan Schulman, we mentioned, was noon to three. And then maybe we can spend a little more time talking about this gentleman

since he was so instrumental in the success of the fan. Bob McCowan, who would hit the airwaves from three to five solo. And then speaking of the Toronto Sun, Jim Hunt would join him from five to seven.

Shaky. I love Jim. Jim, he was fantastic. And I always thought that it was a... There's a there's a consultant in radio uh named valerie giller and she's done work with aaron davis and all kinds of people like high level stuff and i remember she came in and she did a seminar for us once and she

was talking about when you're pairing people pairing hosts right look for one of them to be a generator and one of them to be a reactor uh because if you get two generators or two reactors it's not going to fly as well but mccowan was the brilliant actually everybody's on a different scale like mccowan can do both because he can generate on his own sure but uh shaky was the generator he'd go in there and he just talked and just say stuff right and mccallan would react beautifully and so they were a great combo and also i love the fact and i think this also works uh with the generation difference right jim being older and having experienced all kinds of things that bob hadn't and then bob being the younger guy who had you know more of a look at the uh current world view, you know, more of a look at the current world view.

And they were great. And when we look at the larger, you know, picture, because for most of those 30 years, Bob McCowan was at the fan. I'm trying to remember. Now, you're here. I'm an expert here. I won't make you tell me specific dates or whatnot. But Bob, there's a short piece.

I know Dan Schulman is the only other host of Primetime Sports. I mean, until Primetime Sports says goodbye. Because it's no longer called Primetime Sports. But, okay. So, Bob McCowan, did he go to mornings or did he get fired? Was there a period of time, maybe his Vegas years? At some point, was Bob McCowan... I have memories of him being off the station for a short period of time.

He was off in 1993. He moved to the morning show and Alan Davis talked about that. Alan didn't want Bob in the morning. It's it's, he knew Bob could do the job, but he just liked him on the afternoon. Cause he just thought Bob was more suited to that. But there was a lot of pressure to make that morning show go.

They needed it to be a strong show. And so he went there in 1993, but it was just one of those things that it just, it just be a strong show. And so he went there in 1993. But it was just one of those things that it just didn't work out. And they gave it a shot. Didn't really connect. And that's another thing, like having the right co-host, the right support, the right whatever. And it just, the magic wasn't there like it was in the afternoon. Okay.

So then if I'm walking through, so Bob McCowan leaves primetime sports for the morning show. This is when Dan Schulman takes the reins of primetime sports. As he reminds me, the only other host of that show ever had. And then Bob's, so it doesn't work out for Bob in mornings. And then does,

does telemedia fire Bob McCowan? There was a time when he was let go. And again, I don't have the great memory that a guy like Stelic has. Stelic could probably tell you. He's amazing, isn't he? It's unbelievable. And Howard Berger. Howard Berger's another guy.

Not only will he tell you about a game from 1977, but he'll tell you the weather, what the weather was as they drove down to the game. Just incredible recall. But anyway, Bob was let go, and I remember, I believe, that the executive at Telemedia who decided to release Bob

was eventually gone, and Bob came back. And I'm sure Bob negotiated a very nice deal for himself to return to primetime sports. Yeah, in 1995 he returned in the afternoon because that's when I think Dan left. Probably for TSN maybe?

Yeah, him and Buck were still my favorite television play-by-play. We get to hear them quite often now so fantastic still. And then just to wrap this up here, FOTM Mike Hogan would be there from 7 to midnight. Mike's with the, I believe he's still working

with the Argonauts, but he's a good FOTM. He went to high school of the Tragically Hip. Yeah. Yeah, I listened to his episode with you and he had some great stories about, and again, cover band, right? He talked about how they were a cover band at the beginning. Right, yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, and even whenever, to this day, which by the way,

I think that song, Baby Please Don't Go, which was a big hit for them, which was Van Morrison's band. It's a Muddy Waters song, I believe. Like, that's how, this is an old blues track by Muddy Waters, Baby Please Don't Go. But in, The Hip did a great cover of it as well. Okay, and then, so Mike Hogan, and then Storm and Norman Rumack at midnight to 5.30 in the morning. a great cover as well okay and then uh so mike hogan and then uh storm and norman rumak at midnight to 5 30 in the morning what a shift that is well there was also jim richards

was there for a while too uh and he kind of worked with norm and again those things kept changing because i think at one point they were on till two o'clock and then alan davis the pd moved norm to full overnight so he did the whole overnight shift, but that, that Richard's in room, Mac, as I recall, Richard's in room, Mac and Jim Richards is one of the funniest people I've ever met. I used to listen.

Sometimes it'd be there late for whatever, after a game or whatever. And Jim would start a show. And by the time I was leaving the newsroom, I'd be in tears. He was so fun. I remember this. And I do remember being very,

very, very funny. Uh, have you talked to Jim any time recently? I have not. He's been very radio silent as they say on his current job status, but he's not on the air right now at 1010 where he was for 10 years. It's a shame, and

Jim should be doing something somewhere, but let's hope that happens. And what about Stormy Norman? You know, now he's working in security, and we mentioned Howard Berger, who now works for a funeral home. Not Ridley Funeral Home, though, but shout out regardless. And we talked about Ferguson, Scott Ferguson, also now working in security as well.

But what would say you about Stormy Norman? He was fantastic. He lit up the city. He was electric. And Norm was smart enough that he knew he had to invent a character. And he invented a beauty. Hammer, head alert. Hammer, head alert.

Yeah, it was quite a time. And again, the Storm was pretty perfect because, you know, the Jays were going to win back-to-back World Series and the Leafs had that back-to-back Final Four appearances. We don't get to finals here in Toronto for the hockey team. But they did

win 10 in a row to start 94. So it's like, you're winning a World Series, you got 10 in a row. It was a really great time for Toronto sports. It was. It was a perfect time for sports. Okay. A few names, random names, and then I'm going to pass the baton back to you. But Barb DiGiulio, not a day-oner, but definitely a longtime fan voice that we love.

Yes. Barb, one of my all-time favorites. So, so talented. And I think she might have started in traffic, but that bright light was not going to be held back. And she and Dan together were just dynamite. Yeah, yeah, Barb's great. Yeah, and I want to shout out this show called,

so I'm trying to remember, so who was the program director after Al Davis? I think it was Nelson Millman. Yeah, was it Nelson? Okay. Davis? I think it was Nelson Millman. Yeah. Was it Nelson? Okay. And I owe a lot to Nelson Millman because when we get to the sale to Rogers, Nelson was steady as a rock.

He was my captain. Okay. He led me through that. Well, I'm going to pass this baton back to you in just a moment, but I'm trying to remember, what about Bob McElwitt's senior? Oh, yeah, yeah. Bob was one of the most interesting people because when I first got to Toronto, I used to listen to the 6 o'clock rock report all the time. And Bob Makowitz

and John Derringer were fantastic. Oh, another name we're going to talk about here in a minute. What a program. Well, I remember when he was program director, there was The Game, an overnight show, and some of the names that came out of that show, in addition to his son, Mako Jr., who people have heard on TSN and 1050,

but all FOTMs, by the way, but some guy named Jeff Merrick and some guy named George Straubelopoulos. Yeah, I love George and Jeff and Barry Davis was there too, those overnight guys. And I used to do the golf show. With Bob Weeks? Yes, yes, before Bob went to Tsn because tsn had all the golf so that

was a good move by bob but it was painful that he left because i loved working with bob yeah but anyway i used to do the golf show so i would get in at like um five o'clock in the morning and on saturday morning and the golf show was at seven and i always like to go early to prepare and get some audio and i remember one day i i came up on the elevator seventh floor the doors open and ding and there's this guy sleeping on the couch and i wake him up and it's george strompe lopolis and i go oh i'm sorry george he said yeah yeah he said i'm just catching a few winks because he would work overnights and then he would produce jim richards show from nine till noon wow so he would work like i guess from midnight to five four ish or five ish catch

a nap and then go with jim so after that what i used to do was i'd go up to the sixth floor get off the elevator and go up the stairwell so that i wouldn't wake George up. Oh, look at you. No wonder people like you. You go above and beyond. But man, man, you know, look where Merrick is today. Look where Strombo is today. It's quite remarkable. And you know, we all know where Dan Schulman is today. And this is quite a legacy.

Now, you take us for the rest of the way here because I don't want to pollute this process. Please continue, Scott Metcalf. All right. So I guess, um, you know, I guess in terms of timing, I guess, should we talk about Derringer and, uh,

Marston? Because that was a big one. Uh, so John had, Derringer had worked with Mike Richards for a while on the morning show and it was a good show. Derringer was good. And I think that was the Macko connection,

right? Bob Macko was having worked with them. And so, so they got along very well and then um marston joined derringer in 1996 and uh that was very good stuff uh now i know the derringer uh situation and you know oh yeah i wanted to say something about that yeah please, please. So this goes to hiring the right people. Okay, so we had early on, we had, Telemedia was very good. Philip de Gaspe Bobien, the owner, who actually would go on to co-found Cantel

with a guy named Ted Rogers and another partner. And then Ted, Ted took it all over. And so, um, uh, Philip Gaspi, when we got out of the telecom business, but they used to bring people in to, uh, to management meetings to give us pointers about how to deal with things. And we had this professor from York university come in and he said, he said, there are two things when said, he said, there are two things when you're hiring somebody, there are two things that you have to have that you can't really do much if you don't have them or both. He said, attitude and intelligence. So those two factors are huge when you're hiring somebody. And then, so he left. And then Nelson

Millman, who's one of the brightest guys I've ever worked with, we're sitting around talking about it. And Nelson said, I don't know, I think talent has to, you got to, talent's got to be in there somewhere, right? And so I sort of developed this other thing where for attitude and intelligence, I called it brilliant and resilient. So you're looking for brilliance, and sometimes brilliance doesn't have to be intellectual. Sometimes it can be a spark that comes from inside, and it's just there.

So that's okay. Resilient, I think everybody who has any success understands resilient. Look at you. Over a thousand shows. How resilient did you have to be from the beginning to now? Right? Right. That's key.

The other one, talent that Nelson threw in. The other one that I have, I made five, five things. Okay. The fourth one is passion. You've got to have the passion. Dan Schulman, Elliot Friedman. Forgot Elliot. You know what? We did. You know what? Of all these big, yeah, Elliot Friedman, forgot Elliot. You know what?

We did. You know what? Of all these big, yeah, well, we should have mentioned him alongside Jeff Merrick. Yeah, Elliot,

of course. So Elliot Friedman, passion, passion. Brilliant too. Brilliant. Resilient. The fifth one for me is respect.

Okay. Don't mind. You continue. I didn't respect my great legs can here, but I'll pick that up while you keep going. Respect. And, you know, I go back to your Molly Johnson and respect, right? R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

So you listen to that. Oh, yeah. Okay. Now I'm. No, I thought you handled it beautifully. Okay. Because what you did was you handled it honestly and directly, and it was real talk.

So there might have been one word out of the whole thing that you might have thought, ah, maybe shouldn't have said that. But otherwise, I thought it was handled beautifully. Okay, thank you. Because, you know, you'd be shocked. Maybe you wouldn't be, but it's like I've done 1,100 in whatever this is, and the MOLLE app is the most frequently cited.

Of course, because that's when things went off the rails. Those are the most... I guess people do when you're on the highway and there's a big car accident, you slow down and people gawk at it or whatever. And this was a bit of that, but I unedited. So, I mean, I added that part of the beginning because I felt it needed a little context. I can't just throw it. And it was the first time I encountered anything like that.

I think I'd be better today at that. But thank you for the feedback. I thought you handled it beautifully. And here's the thing about that. And I tell this to students and young broadcasters as well. Being a great broadcaster is not being good when everything's going right. Being a great broadcaster is doing well when everything's going wrong that's when that's when you shine oh yeah and you you r-e-s-p-c-t i'll never forget the day molly visited because

i know that's the day we lost uh yeah yeah that's the god god mother of soul i suppose yeah absolutely okay so so there's that so. And that is where that was missing with John after he went to Q107. And I've talked to guys and I read some of the stuff that Howard Berger posted. And I talked to other guys who were there at the time when Derringer was at the fan. We didn't see any of this. Well, I was going to ask because, okay, here's the following. Again, so I've talked to Craig Venn. I've talked to Mike Richards, Jim Lang.

These are all FLCMs. They worked really closely. Super closely. Because a lot of times you'll hear today, you'll hear the people will say, oh, Derringer has a woman problem. Women. I just learned how to say that word.

I've got to show off now. I couldn't use some help with that. But he's got a woman problem. And my research, if you will, having these conversations for 10 years, is no, it's not a women problem. It's like a human being. It's a problem of people. Like, it's not women.

And also, I produce Humble and Fred, so there's a line of information I've been fed for 15, 20 years now. But it's not just women that would be disrespected by John Derringer when the red light was

not on it's not just women it's men too yeah and so here yes and so here's what i'd say about that is that at the time derringer was probably in a different space at the fan and the other thing was he was working with pat marsden now pat marsden was brilliant oh my gosh like he was a brilliant broadcaster and he was not always easy. I didn't have to, I didn't have to, uh, manage him. That was Alan and Nelson who did a beautiful job with him. Um, but the thing about Pat is, yeah, he could, he could be difficult in his moments, but he was kind of that old fashioned respectful, right? Like, okay, we're all on the same team. We're all working in the same radio station.

We're all trying to be as good as we can be. So let's go forward together. And I think that influenced Derringer. That's my impression. I don't know. But after Derringer left to go to Q107. Well, actually he didn't leave to go to Q, right? Didn't he?

Am I wrong? Didn't he go to Montreal? I think, I think he came from Montreal. Oh, he, yeah. Okay. So Montreal was before the fan. And yeah, he left. You to go to Q, right? Didn't he? Am I wrong? Didn't he go to Montreal? I think he came from Montreal. Oh, yeah. Okay. So Montreal was before the fan. Yeah. He left.

You're right. You're absolutely right. In 2000, I think is what I had. Right. And he takes over mornings when Howard Stern is kicked off the airwaves. And so what happened after 2000, I have no idea. Right. But when I was working with John, it was okay.

Anyway, so we have one more piece of clip with the Derringer Marsden thing, because this is a little bit of history yeah uh radio history there was a guy in uh moose jaw uh who was in the 1960s his name was pally pascoe and apparently the story i heard and i looked online i couldn't find anything but i was in moose jaw and i said and people would play this tape for me and i'd said wow like how did that guy get on the air? And apparently he was a mail carrier or something. And he was extremely popular in the city. Everybody loved the guy because he was just a chatty guy.

And so this relates to, you know, Derringer and Marsden using, calling each other pally all the time. Right. Because I played this tape for them just for fun in the newsroom and they went and used it on the air and then after that they had a laugh about it so this is the origin of all that and after that Craig still does that they call each other Pally because of Pally Pascoe and um but the other thing that applies to now, Mike, is Pally got the job because of a car dealer. The owner of a car dealership wanted Pally to do the sports.

So he said, look, I'll pay as part of my commercial. I want Pally to do the sports and read my commercial for me. Wow. So that goes to modern day podcasting, right? Right. So nothing's changed all that much. It's a little different. No, I mean, I would say the live reads I do, which on that note, by the way, stickeru.com has a Toronto Mic sticker for you. Oh, thank you very much. That is yours, of course. But I would say that

the live reads come from back in the day, like the early days of television, like when they would do the live reads. It's really old school, to be honest.

Okay, so this is Pally. He's not a professional broadcaster, which you will find out immediately. This is about two and a half minutes long. It's a little bit long, but it's worth listening to. Oh, it's history.

I'm happy to play it on. Because it's a piece of history. It includes the commercial. Okay, here we go. Well, thank you, Jay, and a very good morning to you, and a good morning to all CHAB listeners. This is Friday, August the 10th, and it gets going like this. Right now, the skies are overcast in the city,

lightly overcast, we might say, and we have a wind coming in. It's a very light one, too, just a few miles an hour. And the temper stands at some 61. And the high today is going to be 80. So that's not a bad day. We're cooked up for you this morning. Now, here are the sports scores as we have them.

In the American League, Chicago 6. Los Angeles no score, Minnesota 12, Kansas City 10, Boston down, Cleveland 4-0, Baltimore and New York was postponed on account of rain, Detroit 8 and Washington 3, National League, Milwaukee 1, Chicago no score, San Francisco seven, New York one, and Cincinnati seven, Houston three, and Philadelphia three, and Los Angeles eight. Now, out of all those games that were played, the home team won in every instance except Philadelphia at, or rather, Philadelphia at Los Angeles. That was a three-to-eight affair. It's kind of funny. Well, yeah.

If you drop in at Patterson Motors' used car lot in the middle of our 600-block west on Main Street today or any other day, if you are in the market for a used car, you'll have to agree that we have a real bunch of bargain buys on our lot. One thing, you don't need any pay to... Excuse me. You don't have to need...

You don't need any X-ray to find the value of a goodwill car. We have just one 1962 car, and it's a Chevy Biscayne sedan with radio, undercoated, minor mirrors, a gold paint job, and after you drive it, you'll say, no fooling, it's a dandy.

And now for Patterson Motors, may we shade you until tomorrow morning at this very same time. So long and thanks for listening. Listen Monday through Saturday at 8.15 for Patterson Motors Sport Report with Pally Pascoe. And now you know the rest of the story. I love it. You're the reason that they were calling each other Pally all the time. You played that clip.

That's great audio. Okay. There's some real quick context to these names that we haven't talked too much about, but we are going to talk about right now. When I saw the 1992 mini reunion they had at the Dome not too long ago, they said Jerry Haworth was invited. They said his name and they said that he couldn't be there today. I was concerned for a little bit because, you know,

he's had some health issues in the past and I was worried. Like, FOTM Jerry Howarth, like, is he okay? Like, why isn't he there? And I actually had a chat with him that day and he was actually moving and he felt great and lovely man, Jerry Howarth. But let's talk a little about Tom and Jerry. Yeah, because we have that one clip, uh, it goes back to, uh, 1990. So I want to get, I don't know how much time you have.

Well, it's you I'm worried about. Uh, for this episode, I cleared several hours, you know, but I do, I do love hearing the audio because it's just, it's what it's all about. Right. Um, so this is a tom and jerry and so they cracked up on the air during a broadcast in 1990 and uh the next morning on the morning show with keith rich and joe bowen was on keith was the host of the morning show they were still playing music then in 1990 and bowen was the um sportscaster but he would join keith every once in a while they just have some fun. So it's one of the rare times that you really hear Tom and Jerry have a good laugh,

and the audio is taken from the morning show, so Joel Bowen is introducing some of the segments with Keith Rich, so let her rip. Right here. I know you get some. I just double as more. Triple is great. Yeah.

Home run is fantastic. Yeah. A grand slam. Yeah. And you're in the money. Okay. So that's the scene. So we'll tune in the broadcast on Saturday night.

Saturday night. And listen to Tom and Jerry right here. There's a drive. Hit deep right field. Here it is again. It's gone. Upper deck. Grand slam home run.

A grand slam home run for Lloyd Mosby. $50,000 worth for Don Pogue of Scarborough, Ontario. Can you believe it? Now, that was the good news. Yeah, it was the good news. Don won himself $50,000. Now, the guy who was also listening to the game at the other end of the radio was a fellow by the name of Bill Shine.

He's the vice president. A miracle food mart. Now, you see, that's great if it happened once. It's a little touchy if it happens twice. This is the third time. Tom, what we should do, instead of calling the winner, we should call Bill Shine, the Vice President of Miracle Food Mart, and get his reaction. I think you might talk to his recording right about now. There's a swing and a foul.

Back out of play. Mr. Shine is not available at this time. Ken might never be again. I'm just kidding, Bill. 2-2 pitch. Outside, 3-2. We're not laughing at you, Bill. We're laughing with you, I hope. Oh, my goodness.

3-2 pitch is low. Ball four. Liriano will draw the walk. Do you realize if the Blue Jays reload the bases, we might have another one. You can send Mr. Shine's mail and phone calls to a dead letter drop in Colorado someplace. Oh, golly. Anyway, Bill's no longer with Miracle Food.

Not true. He's now shining shoes. And we're calling it the Bill Shine Shine. Dear me. Oh, boy. Well, we're all going out to get $50,000 for that crossface anyway. The interesting thing is to see if they're back with us next year. Well, certainly if Bill's back anyway.

So that was it. It was a few giggles at the ballpark on Saturday night. I heard that on Sunday morning. Hey, that's actually the board meeting at Miracle Food Market. Is there something we can do here? Help. They're going to the bathroom. They're going to come with you.

Speaking of Paul McCartney, he's everywhere in this episode. By the way, fantastic audio. That's awesome. I've never heard that before. That is amazing. Yeah, so Miracle Food Mart had $50,000 for a Grand Slam, and they had three of them. Wow. So that was spectacular. Yeah, and they had three of them. Wow. So that was spectacular.

Yeah, and I just love hearing those calls. Yeah, it was brilliant. Beautiful. Cheeks home run call. All right, you want to load up the second? Yeah, we'll do this other one. This is Greg Sansoni's son in 1996. Jumping around a little bit, but it's one of the things that uh tom was just such a genuine person like he really was like uh you know you felt you felt like he was your buddy telling you the game on the radio

and he was can i ask you the the difficult question i ask some people who work with these two gentlemen because we are told that they weren't particularly close when they were off the air jerry and tom like what was their relationship like? I wasn't there around the booth. I heard about that too. But the, but the thing is, you know,

when Jerry told this story about, he gave Tom the call in the world series. 92. Come on. I mean, so, so they might've been. Mad respect.

But here's the other thing too, about those guys. You talk about, you know, generators and reactors. Yeah. Tom was the generator yeah jerry was the reactor and they were a beautiful team oh man so absolutely it made beautiful music

to get music of our lives it was yes in sports uh so in 96 greg sansoni who was uh just a kid working behind the scenes on the blue jays with scott fergus, tearing the little bits of paper off to give to Scott to do the scores. His wife had a baby. And so Greg now is a vice president at Rogers. He went to the score and worked at the score. And then Rogers bought the score and Tim and Sid and all that. Greg came over in that group. And Friedman was big on the score too.

Yeah, yeah. Friedman was there. So that was a great move. And my buddy Hebsey was there too. 100%. And that was a great move by Rogers to do that. That was really smart. And so Greg's now a vice president. Big shot.

Doesn't ever call me, but that's okay. Anyway, so. Well, you did retire. And you retired, right? This isn't one of those, I've heard from many a broadcaster who retires and then they tell you, actually, I was told my time was up.

But you, maybe for the record now, definitively before I play this Tom Cheek clip, did you retire or were you retired? I retired and I had told them ahead of time. And I said to Julie Adam, there's somebody who just stepped down. Another one though, but she was retired. I will just tell you. Probably, yeah. I was shocked by Another one though, but she was retired. I will just tell you. She probably, yeah.

I was shocked by that because she's so dynamic. Right. She was so great to work with. And she was a terrific supporter of news. And by the way, champion for 680. Champion for Humble and Fred too. Really helpful when they started. We started that podcast back in 2011.

Super decent person. So I said to Julie, I'd like to make 40 years in Toronto and 45 years in the business. And that would be... Nice round numbers. Nice round numbers. That's 2021. And so that's when I retired. And how has retirement been treating you?

How do you, any regrets? Like you went, you stepped away too soon? Yeah, listen, it was, here's the thing though. And I thought, I thought that might come up. So. Well, of course it's just, you know, at this point, I've heard so many stories of people and farewell tours and even the general. I know, you know, Ian MacArthur,

for example, like these are all people were told to get their, you know, there's cake and keg gift cards and a whole thing. But meanwhile, they're like kicking and screaming. Like I would like to stay. No,

no, no. I wasn't that. No, it was difficult to leave because I loved the people just love going into work, hanging out with Paul cook, Paul cooks,

one of Paul cook is world-class. Like you're not going to find a better broadcaster anywhere. And Catherine Jette and Marlene Oliver. And, but we found, uh, Paul and I, and no,

she found us, uh, a future news director, Amber LeBlanc, who's the news director now. Right. So Paul and I both, we talked about this. Paul worked with her. She, she was his editor for a while and he said,

best editor ever, like fantastic. And so then we said to Amber, would you ever be interested in being a news director? And she said, she hadn't really thought about it in a great way. She said, yeah, yeah. Okay. So we, we, we that was that was the progression so i told julie adam that i said 2021 and amber is the one to take over she's going to be the best news director 680 ever had uh hope stephanie smith doesn't hear that stephanie's right up there too right um so as is the present company yeah but it was really difficult to leave and so again music i always go to music you know the song closing time of course semi-sonic oh i'm talking about the one by leonard cohen but you know what that's funny that's a generational

thing of course closing time by leonard cohen semi-sonic also applies uh so i so with closing time leonard cohen says yeah it looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between i guess it's closing time it's tough to say goodbye but semi-sonic you brought that up and that's a good one too, because the other one, their line in that song is every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end. Right. So that was Amber's new beginning and that was my end of it. It was time and it's around 45 years of excellent service. Great. Here's, here's how I felt about it at the sort of after and at the time. Yeah. I wasn't sure if it was time to get out.

I was 100% sure it was time to get out of the way. Oh, man. You know, and tell me though, did the pandemic play any role in your decision? No, no, it didn't. It just, that's just coincidence. And I feel like you and I, and you're here now, and this is wonderful, but didn't, I think we had a plan at some point for you to drop by like yeah shortly after your last uh i guess the the thing is i um yeah i i didn't feel comfortable doing it when i was still working

because uh i don't know why although you only talk uh you don't actually throw anyone under and i haven't heard any trash talk in here. You could have done this. I had one general manager who wanted to fire me. I won't mention him by name, but it was Larry Silver was my news director. And Larry came to me one day and he said, you know, the GM wanted to fire you. And he was planning to do that. He said, but he changed his mind.

And I said, well, what happened? I was thinking Larry was going to say, I stood up for you. Larry said, well, he changed his mind. And I said, well, what happened? I was thinking Larry was going to say, I stood up for you. Larry said, well, he told his wife he was going to let you go. And his wife said, no, I like him on the air. Don't get rid of him. So it's a silly business, and that's how close I came. Okay, my goodness.

I'm glad you survived that one. Thankfully, she was a fan. All right, now we have a couple more Tom Cheek clips here. I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving. I know, you know, these eps go a little long sometimes, but this is all killer, no filler. My mom will listen to this, but not many others.

Wrong again, my man. You'll be surprised how many of your former colleagues and people who love the fan. You're 100% right. I listened to the 1,000th episode. And how long was that? Five hours and 40 minutes. I listened to it all. The best comment was somebody

who knows you the best was Rosie. Yeah, right off the top. Yeah, it said, you're not everybody's cup of tea, but you're a bottomless cup of tea. I thought that was brilliant. Oh, no, I'm glad you mentioned Rosie, because 10 years ago this week, so we're celebrating 30 years of you mentioned Rosie because 10 years ago this week we're celebrating 30 years of the fan

but 10 years ago Rosie and I got together at Humble and Fred Studio and I pressed record and I didn't know what the heck this was going to be, I had no idea what I was doing I had less experience than Dan Shulman at least he called some games at Western I had nothing so shout out to Rosie who I've known since grade 10

so shout out to Rosie okay I've known since grade 10. So shout out to Rosie. Okay. Yeah. Set up these clips. This has been absolutely amazing. I don't even look at the time when I'm having a conversation like this. But so Greg Sansoni has a baby. Yes. His wife has a baby.

Is that how that works? You'd think I'd figure that out by now. Yeah, you would know. So anyway, so this is what Tom said. So I'm sitting in the newsroom because what I would often do is, I don't know, we changed so many shifts over the years, I can't remember what shift I was working, but I would often record at least the start of the baseball game and interviews with Pat Henkin, and I'd cut up clips so that they could

be used in sportscast and i heard this and i thought oh i gotta save this so i i took it off and i put it on a cassette right and i gave it to greg um we'll be talking oh okay go into it okay sorry yeah and i won't even fix that in post. That's going to be saved for all eternity. Here we go. We'll be talking with 19-game winner Pat Henkin here in just a couple of minutes. But before that, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Sansonis. The duo is now a trio. Now that Greg Sansoni, one of our contemporaries back at the Fan 590, and his wife, Raffaella, have welcomed aboard Stephen Gregory. Nine pounds and ten ounces.

Just get Stephen some shoes, he can walk home from the hospital. Everybody's A-OK, we're told, and we couldn't be happier for Greg and Raffaella. All the best to the Sansonis. That house is now a home. And we'll be back with Pat Hentgen right after this. Well, changing my wardrobe changed my life. And Stephen Sansoni would now be, if my math is correct, he's like 20, what is he, 24 years old or something? Yeah, 25.

Yeah. Anyway, he, I don't know if Tom wrote this stuff down. Yeah. But wasn't that beautiful? Yeah, no, yeah. And the gravitas, is that a word? Okay, gravitas, thank you. Women, woman, I'll get it all right one day.

I'm still working on it. Okay, yeah, just the timber and the gravitas, and it's so eloquent and classy. This guy just reeked of class. We're lucky to have him. He was a beauty. Anyway, so the last one with Tom, I mean, you've played, you've done a lot with the home run calls and the final calls,

Timlin to Carter, touch them all, Joe. But this for me, I was in the newsroom, and they were playing Atlanta, and they lost the first game in Atlanta. So it's the second game in Atlanta, and I'm in the newsroom cutting off clips from the game off a reel-to-reel machine. So we're recording on reel-to-reel and then you'd go to another machine, you'd stop the one you were working on, you'd go to another machine and turn it on to record and then go, so you'd have like two or three machines going and go back and take the clips off. And then it was a little, yeah, it was like uh it was busy uh so i was sitting

there and i felt like everybody in toronto was like oh man are we going to be able to beat the braves like they're so good and clever and come on like are they going to be able to beat these guys they did so well and they they were great hitters and wamco and all that stuff but can they beat the braves and and the first game was not good for the jays and then so we're in the second game they're tied and tom was low-key and and i knew from knowing tom that he was feeling a little bit like oh are they gonna be able to pull this off and i would have been, if I'd been thinking at the time, I would have taken a longer section at the start of this because Tom is really lucky.

And then this turning point moment. And when it happened, you'll hear it in Tom's voice. And I felt it too. And I think all the fans felt it was, this Wow. Yes, this is what they can do. So play the clip. The pitch to Sprague. It's a drive. It's deep left field.

It's way back. It's gone. Home run at Sprague on the first pitch that he sees from Jeff Reardon. And this game has been turned right around. As the Blue Jays will take the lead sprague hitting the plate and the blue jays lead at five to four in atlanta and sprague coming off the bench to pull the trigger on the first offering from jeff reardon and he goes deep over the left field wall sprague oh just play that just play the first few seconds where he says pitch to sprague from Jeff Reardon, and he goes deep over the left field wall.

Sprague! Yeah, just play that. Just play the first few seconds where he says, The pitch to Sprague! It's a drive! Isn't that brilliant? It's deep left field! Love it.

And you're right. That was a key moment, sort of like the Alomar-Homer-Off-Eckersley in the previous series. One little correction, though. WAMCO isn't in existence until 93, because we have the great Dave Winfield. And Winfield wants noise. That was beautiful. Yes.

Yes. You're right. All right, Scott, I don't want you driving home and saying, Oh, I wish I shared this, that,

and the other is there. This is your opportunity to make sure there's no regrets on your ride home. This has been amazing for me though. I just want to say, uh, I mentioned, uh,

I, one of the reasons why I wanted to come on was so that I could mention, say thank you to people. Uh, I mentioned Warren one of the reasons why I wanted to come on was so that I could mention, say thank you to people. I mentioned Warren Michaels, Larry Silver. Larry was terrific. Doug Ackerst, who died recently, was the general manager. Doug Ackerst was a beautiful guy. He was a bit gruff.

And he had the, he would come across as being kind of a gruff guy. And you'd hear him, if he wanted Nelson, who was the program director you'd hear him go down the hallway and he was but he was terrific and and so one day um i was in the newsroom and it's at the typewriter and doug ackers comes into the to the newsroom and he knew i was getting married and he, he put a travel brochure on my desk. And he said, Miss McCaff, as you used to call me that, Miss McCaff. And he said, pick a vacation. And it's free, covered.

Wait, whoa. Because back in the, those were the Contra days. Those are blown gone. Like you had an advertiser who put. That's right. And they had, they had room to maneuver before the federal government came in and said, all of that is a tax benefit. But before that,

yeah. And he said, pick a, pick a vacation. Well, what did he pick? I went to Greece. Amazing.

It was one of the best vacations ever. It was a, it was a honeymoon and it was fantastic. And that was Doug. So I just, I didn't want to forget doug because he was fantastic nelson millman fotm nelson millman so when oh yeah this is part of the story too let's hear it so standard buys all the telemedia stations in 2002.

Right. Including the fan. So I get a call. I'm on vacation. I get a call from Mario Cecchini, who was the general manager or vice president for telemedia. And he said, Scott, just want to let you know, stations have been sold, all the stations.

You've been sold to Standard. So you should call gary slate uh on monday i think he called me on a friday he said you call him on a monday and set up an appointment to talk to him about uh you know what's going to happen next right and i was nervous then like that was oh my god what are we going to do and um and then i never got to call gary slate or talk to him because almost immediately the fam was sold to rogers so within i don't know a day or two or three i worked for three different companies telemedia standard and then rogers and because rogers bought the fan that enabled you to make the uh the internal move to 680 because of course

that's a rogers property yes but nelson millman was the program director at the time we were all very very nervous and we moved down to uh the rogers building at uh one one ted rogers way in blur street it's like jarvis and jarvis and blur i said shout out to my uh third born jarvis the Rogers building at, uh, one, one Ted Rogers way in Bloor street. It's like Jarvis and Jarvis and Bloor. I said, shout out to my, uh, third born Jarvis. Oh yes. And, uh, so we were all very nervous and it was tough. And Nelson gave me a book and the book is who moved my cheese.

And that's when there's big management shuffles and it was brilliant and nelson was uh he was my captain he led us through that very difficult time that book was a big help and we came out the other side very nicely unless we lest we forget that uh following the touch them all joe was the the lost season right because 90 so i And I think, I hope I'm not misquoting him, but he comes on this show, Nelson Millman, and credits help. Yeah, Pat Marsden, he gives credit to Pat Marsden for helping to save the station because it was tough times without the sport.

That's right. So in 94, there was the hockey lockout. Right. It went from October 94 to January, total of 104 days. So that was pretty brutal for an all sports station yeah the baseball strike in 94 began in august wiped out the world series right uh and then it went all the way till april they started up in 95 and that lasted 232 days and but they weren't gonna be playing in the winter but anyway that was part of that and uh yeah nelson was there and helped us guided us through all of

that and he's a nice man i get the dms all the time from nelson he's fantastic he's fantastic and the other guy i gotta mention is john hinnon who was he started 680 News. So next year is the 30th year for 680 in June. Hinnan's a guy that you should talk to because he put that together. He got that thing started and he's a brilliant broadcaster. Oh, I'm sold. Yeah, introduce me to this gentleman

and we'll make that happen here. I thought you were going to offer to come back and do the same thing for 68080 i gotta get very excited there i said this man's gonna earn another uh lasagna but uh scott what can i say except i was warned you were a nice guy and i would enjoy this and it turns out that was absolutely correct uh thoroughly enjoyed this i'm actually uh me and the v VP of sales are working on a Mikeumentary on the 30th anniversary of the fan.

And this, so much content in this it's like, so much of this is going to appear in another episode. Let's put it that way. Great history and you were there and thanks again for doing this, buddy. And this song has become one of my favorite songs. And if I could make a

small request and if it doesn't cause you any issues play it till the end lately i've been doing that you know i know because i love that it's a terrific song listen your wish is my command this guy's this sucker from lowest of the low is you can find it on shakespeare my butt uh it's funny because when danny graves was singing it was i think he did four great songs uh thursday night at great lakes brewery but one of the songs he was singing was sweet baby james and like i was one of the reasons my first born's name is james is because how much i love that song so i was having this moment of like this is this happening like my my event and danny graves is singing. And then I remember TMLX3 when Lawrence and Ron Hawkins from Most of the Low, same circumstance, end of the night, they're singing Rosie and Gray and they changed the lyrics to Rosie and Gray. So instead of drinking Guinness from a tin, you were drinking Great Lakes beer from a tin.

And instead of reading Henry Miller, going on a streetcar reading Henry Miller, You were on a streetcar listening to Toronto Mike and it was magic and love those guys from lowest to the low. In fact, the future episode is Ron Hawkins, Stephen Stanley. They're both original members of lowest to low and Chris Brown from the bourbon tabernacle choir. They're going to come in together later this month.

So that should be pretty damn cool. Anyways, I should better stop talking or we're going to get to the end before you know it. But you know what pretty damn cool. Anyways, I should better stop talking or we're going to get to the end before you know it. But you know what I say next, Scott? I say, and that brings us to the end of our 1,106th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike Scott.

Are you at Scott Metcalf? What is your Twitter handle? Metcalf680. Metcalf680. Okay, hold on to that. That's cool. Follow Scott on mic. Scott, are you at Scott Metcalf? What is your Twitter handle? Metcalf680. Metcalf680. Okay. Hold on to that. That's cool. Follow Scott on Twitter. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palmapasta is at Palmapasta. StickerU is at StickerU. Electronic Products Recycling Association are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you all Thursday when my special guest is Mark Weisblot from 1236. Six. And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can

Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn Because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine, it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray

Well, I've kissed you in France and I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name And I've seen the sun go down on Shakhtar Khor But I like it much better going down on you Yeah, you know that's true Because everything is coming up Rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

But the smell of snow Warms us today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Because everything is rosy now Everything is rosy now Everything is rosy Yeah, everything is rosy and gray

Yeah, yeah, yeah