Today marks 30 years of the loss of University of Wisconsin–Madison Baseball after the program was officially ended over a $1.9 million athletic department debt. As a Milwaukee Brewers author and historian, I immediately think of successful former UW players who went on to play in the major leagues such as Brewers manager Harvey Kuenn,…
The screen captures at the end of this post are from a video filmed at 94.1 FM WJJO in May, 1997. A friend’s daughter needed to interview someone about their job and decided to film me rather than simply writing down my answers. I talked a lot about the music format. A month earlier WJJO…
Outfielder Robert (Bob) Collucio is among 626 former players not receiving adequate pensions due to an agreement between MLB and the players’ association. Players between 1947 – 1979 needed to accrue four years of service credit. Collucio was born in Centralia, Washington on October 2, 1951. He started playing organized ball when he was 5…
I took an announcing job at WJJO for the second time in March, 1996. The first stint ended after five weeks in 1993 when Midwest Families Broadcasting bought the station. They changed the format and fired all the announcers but one or two. My second time around with WJJO was much sweeter for several reasons.…
My Sunday evening was originally 5:00-10:00 pm and then I’d play Robert Goulet singing the Star Spangled Banner. Then I’d power off the station until the next morning – the only overnight that wasn’t covered. Later we had automated overnight programming so I worked 5:00-midnight and the station stayed on. I usually played a couple…
I graduated from Trans American School of Broadcasting in September 1991 and went right to work at WRDB/WNFM in Reedsburg. I sent demo tapes and resumes to several stations in southern Wisconsin but most didn’t have openings. AM 1400 WRDB needed a weekend part timer but there was a chance to get more hours and…
One of the assignments in the TV section at Trans American School was our class teaming up to create a 10-15 minute movie. Kate Jackson had recently married the owner of Joe Hart’s bar in Madison and moved here. Our movie idea was to have an obsessive reporter sit outside the bar in hopes of…
My class in broadcasting school got confirmation of what we already suspected – a lot of radio announcers use fake names. Most of time it’s the last name, but I met a few announcers in my travels that ditched their entire name for something different. There were a few unwritten rules with names. Too many…
I found an article in my box of radio memories about the instability of Madison radio. I think I kept it because I was part of a radio staff housecleaning a couple months earlier. I graduated from Trans American School of Broadcasting in September 1991 and started working at WRDB/WNFM in Reedsburg. I stayed until…
It could have been a great match. The 1970 Milwaukee Brewers had a serious lack of lineup power. The Washington Senators, led by manager Ted Williams, sought to trade either Frank Howard or newcomer Mike Epstein for a big return. Frank Howard to the Brewers? It certainly was talked about in 1970, but ultimately a…
Since the last time I posted an update I have been told I have stage 4 prostate cancer. My cancer has spread from my prostate to my lymph nodes and my bones. At this time the treatment I’m being provided is a three month Lupron shot and a daily dose of cancer meds. I also…
Not surprisingly, the top 5 most visited posts of 2019 on my site have Milwaukee Brewers content. Here they are from #5 to #1, with a little background on each: #5 – Building the Brewers: Bud Selig and the Return of Major League Baseball to Milwaukee – Chapter Breakdown In April of this year I…
I have some tough news to share and I can’t possibly reach out to everyone individually. I was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just before Thanksgiving I wound up in the ER because I had a blockage that caused me to retain about a liter of fluid. My kidneys started to shut down because they…
Building the Brewers: Bud Selig and the Return of Major League Baseball to Milwaukee was published by McFarland & Company on October 31, 2019. Readers of the book will discover: The owners, teams, and ballparks behind decades of minor league baseball in Milwaukee and Seattle The rise and fall of the Milwaukee Braves, leading to…
It took nearly seven full seasons until the Milwaukee Brewers had a player hit for the cycle, and it came from an unexpected member of the team on September 3, 1976. Light hitting first baseman/outfielder Mike Hegan had 10 seasons behind him in the majors with just a .244 batting average. He made a career…
