One of the greatest broadcasters in sports history, in my opinion, is Al Michaels.
Michaels, 78, called play-by-play on ABC’s “Monday Night Football” from 1986 to 2005. From 2006 to 2021 he called NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” He was the announcer for the U.S. vs. USSR hockey match (“Miracle on Ice”) at the 1980 Winter Olympics, as well as the earthquake-interrupted third game of the 1989 World Series.
But did you know that his first, real broadcasting job was in Hawaii?
His 2014 autobiography, “You Can’t Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television,” by Al Michaels and Jon Wertheim, has some great stories about his three years in Hawaii.
Following a bachelor’s degree in broadcasting from Arizona State University, Michaels was hired as a radio announcer for the Hawaii Islanders AAA baseball team. He was 23.
Michaels knew nothing about the Hawaii Islanders. “Who are these guys? What’s the manager like? What are the team’s strengths and weaknesses? In 1968, you couldn’t exactly go on the Internet (which didn’t exist) and immerse yourself in them.”
Jack Quinn, the general manager, understood this and told him to take a couple of days to watch three or four games in the stands and familiarize himself with the team before he made his on-air debut.
Golden opportunity
“If I needed a reminder that this wasn’t quite the big time, all I had to do was look around Honolulu Stadium, which was separated from glamorous Waikiki by the fetid Ala Wai Canal. ‘Termite Palace,’ as it was called, was a ramshackle stadium that seated about 22,000 and had been jerry-built through the years.
“It was an all-purpose stadium,” Michaels found. “Baseball in the summer; University of Hawaii football in the fall. Tons of high school football games, too. Occasional concerts. It was in constant use.
“The broadcast booth was a wooden cubbyhole up behind home plate. But the conditions didn’t matter to me. It was thrilling — the golden opportunity.
“I was a lot like many of the players: hoping to get to the majors one day, but for the moment, happy just to be there, getting paid to do something I would have done for free.”
His Islanders salary was $15,000 a year, but shortly after he started, KHVH (now KITV) offered a second job on local television, where he made another $15,000.
Fabulous life in Hawaii
Michaels and his wife, Linda, met when they were 15. They rented an apartment at the foot of Diamond Head for $400 a month. “It was tiny, but it was on the eleventh floor and came with a wraparound lanai and a view of the Pacific Ocean and Waikiki. There was a swimming pool downstairs, and just beyond the pool you could climb down a ladder into the ocean. It was heaven.
“The air smelled like a flower garden. There were these perfect evening breezes. We were barely in our mid-twenties. I suggested to Linda that when we had children, we should give them Hawaiian middle names. We laughed when we thought that even if we would wind up in the majors, it might seem we’d be going downhill. Life was fabulous.”
Their son, Steven Scott Michaels, was born Feb. 13, 1970, at Kapiolani Hospital. “I wanted a Hawaiian middle name, Linda didn’t; as any husband knows, you pick your battles,” Michaels said.
Yacking for 10 hours
The Islanders were in the Pacific Coast League, with the seven other Triple-A clubs located on the mainland. Visiting teams would come to face the Islanders once or twice a season, and the series usually spanned seven games, lasting an entire week.
“The more you’re out there — under the lights, in real game situations — the more comfortable you get, the more nuances of the trade you learn, the more skilled you get at handling curveballs — literally for a ballplayer, and figuratively for a broadcaster,” Michaels believes.
“In Hawaii, I got plenty of reps on radio and television. The Islanders played 73 home games each season. Over 400,000 fans turned out in a season. It was a big deal.
“I did five high school and/or University of Hawaii football games a weekend for three months in each of my three years there. That’s around 180 games. If you were working for an NFL team, that’s a decade’s worth of work.
“There were times I would call four straight games during the Hawaii state high school basketball tournament. We would stay on the air between games and during halftimes, so when I was on my own, I would yack for ten straight hours.”
Woodpeckers’ headache
Invariably, Ephraim “Red” Rocha, the University of Hawaii head basketball coach, would be at the games, scouting local prospects. “He was a former NBA player whom I remembered watching when he was on the Syracuse Nationals (who in 1963 became the Philadelphia 76ers).
“He was also a nonstop talker who could give a woodpecker a headache. So, when I needed a bathroom break or wanted to get a hot dog, I would grab Red, have him put on a headset, and tell him to keep talking until I came back to the table. I couldn’t have done it without him.
“I was also working at a local television station, KHVH, the ABC affiliate in Honolulu, delivering the sports report on the six and ten o’clock news every night.
“I would do the six o’clock show, race to the stadium or arena, depending on the time of year, to do baseball, football, or basketball, and then head back to the studio for the late news.”
Saying local names
“One thing I did to win favor with locals: I went to great lengths to pronounce every name correctly. But lots of Samoan, Filipino or Hawaiian names aren’t that easy or obvious to pronounce correctly.
“So, I’d often call a parent of a high school player to have them pronounce the name for me. When you’re doing a McKinley High School basketball game, with turnovers galore and possessions changing every few seconds, and you can identify five Samoan players running a fast break — and get it right — it’s beautiful.
“What I learned was if you screwed it up, you’d often hear from the family. On the flip side, they would really appreciate that you took the extra effort to get it right.”
Michaels credits that effort with laying the ground work for pronouncing difficult Russian names during the 1980 Olympics.
“Looking back on my work schedule in Hawaii, it was crazy, and should have been exhausting. I was getting the equivalent of five years’ experience for every calendar year. But I loved every minute of it. I got reps. I got experience. I was getting a nice reputation. I got better.”
Tommy Lasorda
The Islanders’ big rival was the Los Angeles Dodgers’ farm team, the Spokane Indians. “In 1970, the Indians came over to Hawaii with a lineup that included Steve Garvey at third base, Bill Buckner at first base, and Bill Russell and Davey Lopes in the outfield. They all went to the major leagues and great careers.
“The team’s manager was a rotund, charismatic Italian by the name of Tommy Lasorda.”
The future Dodgers manager was ejected from several of the games and had to listen to the games on the radio. After every game, Lasorda would call Al Campanis, the Dodgers’ general manager in Los Angeles, to give him a status report.
“Well, six games into that series, Lasorda made his ritual postgame call to Campanis. ‘Garvey had three hits. Buckner had two.’ Then Tommy added something else:
“‘By the way, the Islanders have this kid who does a great job announcing the games. I know that Scully’s the best, but you might want to keep this kid in mind if there’s ever an opening. His name is Michaels — Al Michaels.’”
The young broadcaster knew nothing about it, but after three years in Honolulu, the Cincinnati Reds were looking for an announcer. Somebody at NBC recommended Michaels to them.
Michaels says he can’t really connect the dots, but Lasorda always took credit for his career advancement.
So, after three years in Honolulu, Michaels moved to Cincinnati. On the 1971 team at the time were Johnny Bench, Pete Rose and Tony Perez. Sparky Anderson was manager. In 1972 they won the National League pennant and Michaels got to call his first World Series game.
I’ll share more stories about Al Michaels’ career in a future column.
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Bob Sigall writes the Rearview Mirror column every Friday. Send your comments or suggestions to Sigall@Yahoo.com.
