Stram’s Commitment Will Be to Raiders in Exhibition Games

Hank Stram has become a Raider announcer. Yes, the same Hank Stram who used to coach the Kansas City Chiefs, a team the Raiders despised.

Stram has been hired by Channel 9 to work as a commentator on three exhibition telecasts, which is sort of like Tom Lasorda someday announcing for the San Francisco Giants.

Stram, though, doesn’t think it’s so unusual.

“People don’t realize that even during the competitive years, when I was with the Chiefs, that I had friends in the Raider organization,” he said from Austin, Tex., where he spent time with the team this week.

Stram said he has been particularly close to Al Davis.

Rich Marotta, the Raiders’ former radio commentator, will work with Stram, handling the play-by-play.

Marotta said he is looking forward to working with Stram, and that the job was a godsend.

“It’s the one good thing that happened to me this summer,” said Marotta, who not only lost the radio commentating job after 11 seasons but also said he has been shaken by the recent breakup of his marriage.

Marotta will also serve as co-host with Jim Plunkett on the pre- and postgame radio shows. Randy Rosenbloom will fill in when Marotta is working an exhibition telecast.

Joel Meyers, who formerly did the television play-by-play during the exhibition season, was recently named the new radio voice of the Raiders, replacing Bill King. Meyers will be paired with new commentators Bob Chandler and Mike Haynes.

Al LoCasale, the team’s executive assistant who for years served as the commentator on the exhibition telecasts, was replaced by Stram at the behest of Channel 9.

The Raiders wanted LoCasale to remain on the telecasts, but the station, which has taken over production responsibilities from Bob Speck, preferred a former player or coach on the telecasts.

The Raiders acquiesced, and, through team attorney Amy Trask, recommended Stram.

Susan Stratton, Channel 9’s longtime producer-director of Laker telecasts, will produce the station’s Raider telecasts.

Channel 9 talked with King about doing the play-by-play, but King declined. Another candidate was Bob Miller, the voice of the Kings, but he told the station he likes taking summers off. Dick Stockton was also considered.

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The exhibition football season is here--yes, NFL football in July. On Saturday, ABC will televise the Raiders and Green Bay Packers in the Hall of Fame game from Canton, Ohio, at noon, and ESPN will carry the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles from Tokyo at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, NBC will televise the San Francisco 49ers and Pittsburgh Steelers from Barcelona at 10 a.m.

Channel 9 will carry four of the Raiders’ five exhibition games, beginning with the second one Sunday, Aug. 8, against the 49ers at Stanford at 1 p.m. That game had originally been scheduled for Aug. 7. The Raiders’ next game, at Dallas on Aug. 14, will be televised by ESPN, but Channel 9 will also carry the ESPN telecast.

Channel 9’s other Raider exhibition telecasts will be Aug. 20, when the team plays at Indianapolis at 5 p.m., and Aug. 28, when it plays the Rams at Anaheim Stadium at 6 p.m. All the Raider exhibition games are on the road because of the renovation at the Coliseum.

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Pictures of the little girl injured by the explosive device thrown by the New York Mets’ Vince Coleman in the Dodger Stadium parking lot were shown on television Wednesday.

But you heard nothing about the incident on KABC radio’s “Dodgertalk” that day.

One caller to the program, who was not put on the air, said he was told that topic did not fit “the confines of the program.”

Eric Tracy, who was filling in for Ross Porter as the host, said the decision not to talk about the Coleman incident was his and not the station’s.

“I had a lot of interviews and other things planned and didn’t want to scrap everything when there was nothing new,” Tracy said. “No charges had been filed. I just didn’t see the purpose of rehashing everything.”

Still, Tracy should have realized the magnitude of the Coleman incident and made some adjustments.

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Over at KMPC, there are indications that the hosts are being muzzled. Afternoon host Joe McDonnell was suspended for two days last week, and he said on the air this week he wasn’t sure why. Off the air, he declined comment.

A source said that Clipper owner Donald T. Sterling and Padre owner Tom Werner had complained to station owner Jackie Autry about all the criticism they were taking, and last Wednesday the station’s program hosts were told to cool it.

When McDonnell continued to talk about the Clippers in an unfavorable light, he was suspended, the source said.

But Bill Ward, the station’s general manager, denied that Sterling and Werner had complained. He said he didn’t even know who Werner was and that he simply didn’t like the way McDonnell was conducting his show.

McDonnell, who was paid during the suspension, had to come to the station and watch as Paola Boivin filled in.

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McDonnell was his old lively self this week, and did an outstanding job on the Reggie Lewis story on Tuesday.

McDonnell has fairly good job security because of his ratings. The afternoon slot had a 2.4 share in men 25-54 in the Arbitron spring book covering April, May and June, by far the highest at the station. By comparison, the morning slot during that time had a .6 share in men 25-54.

During most of that rating period, McDonnell was still paired with Doug Krikorian, whose contract was not renewed in a money-saving move. The show has lost much of its luster without Krikorian, but the “Big Joe” song now used to introduce the show is tremendous.

TV-Radio Notes

Now that NBC has bought the rights to the 1996 Summer Olympics at Atlanta, the next step is to find a cable partner. There is room for cable coverage on weekdays. The cable partner won’t necessarily be Ted Turner’s Atlanta-based company. There are reports that Turner has been told by shareholders to not let civic pride cloud his judgment and take unnecessary financial risks. Dick Ebersol, president of NBC sports, said cable negotiations will begin after Labor Day and there could be an announcement by Nov. 1.

A Chicago newspaper reported that XTRA’s Jim Rome is headed for WLUP, a Chicago station, as an afternoon drive-time host, but apparently that is not true. Rome declined comment, but Larry Wert, general manager of WLUP, said that Rome is under contract to XTRA and his station will honor that and not jeopardize a good relationship with Noble Broadcasting, which owns XTRA. WLUP, considering an all-sports format, is looking for someone to go up against rival WSCR’s highly successful Terry Boers. . . . NBC announced Thursday it will platoon its Notre Dame football announcers. Dick Enberg and Bob Trumpy will do two games in September, Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth will do two games in October and Charlie Jones and Todd Christensen will do two games in November.

Channel 2 will carry three of the Rams’ four exhibition games, with Jim Hill and Vince Ferragamo returning as announcers and Dan Noel heading the production staff. The first telecast will be Aug. 7, from Phoenix at 7 p.m., the second Aug. 14 when the Rams play host to San Diego at 7 p.m., and the third will be Aug. 21 from Cleveland at 4 p.m. The Rams’ game against the Raiders at Anaheim Stadium Aug. 28 will be carried only by Channel 9. . . . The Rams will scrimmage the San Diego Chargers at their training camp at Cal State Fullerton on Saturday, and XTRA will have Rick Schwartz and Steve Mason doing a special edition of “Too Much Show” there from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

ESPN will offer delayed coverage of the pro football Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremonies Saturday, beginning at 5:30 p.m., and will also televise, delayed, Reggie Jackson’s induction in the baseball Hall of Fame Sunday at 3 p.m. . . . In order to give television another night of prime-time programming, the International Olympic Committee expanded the 1996 Summer Olympics from 16 days to 17. This means that Bud Greenspan, whose “Barcelona: 16 Days of Glory” makes its debut on the Disney Channel Aug. 15, may have to start calling his Olympic films “17 Days of Glory.” Said Greenspan: “That just doesn’t sound right. Maybe we’ll use ’16 Days of Glory plus one.’ ”