Tag Archives: Bob Costas

Q/A with Bob Costas: The kid now is 60; his Olympics legacy

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Feel old everyone.

Bob Costas now is 60. Yes, the NBC broadcaster turned the big 6-0 in March.

How did this happen? Wasn’t it just yesterday that Costas was this hotshot kid working NBC’s Game of the Week with Tony Kubek?

I was taken off-guard that Costas had reached such a milestone birthday. And so were others, he said.

“Yes, they’re surprised,” Costas said. “It doesn’t seem that long ago to me that the word irreverent seemed affixed to my name. ‘Irreverant newcomer.’ I went from irreverent to venerable in what seems to me like the blink of an eye.”

Age, though, seems irrelevant since the ageless Costas continues to deliver on so many different platforms. He made national news with his masterful handling of the Jerry Sandusky interview; and he’s all over the place for NBC and MLB Network, ranging from football, baseball to golf and horse racing.

Perhaps Costas is evidence that 60 is the new 40.

Next week, Costas will return to his familar role as NBC’s primetime host for the Summer Olympics. It will be his 10th Games overall for NBC, and ninth as host.

It’s an incredible run. Think about it: Given the huge ratings for the Olympics, Costas is the most watched broadcaster of this generation.

On the eve of the Olympics, I had chance to visit with Costas during a media day session in NBC.

How does it feel to turn 60?

I don’t feel any different than I did either 10 or 20 years ago. I said this before to somebody, ‘When the miles go by on the right side of the odometer, you don’t take notice. When the number of the left side clicks from 5 to 6, you do take notice.’

Yeah, I’m aware of it. I don’t feel any different than I did when I was 40. But I realize mathematically, I’m equidistant between that and 80. So the facts are the facts. I’ll keep doing this for a while, but I’m not going to be one of these people who hang on just for the sake of being on the air.

There comes a time when everybody should transition. I hope when that time comes in my place, I’ll know it before they tell me.

Nobody will accuse you of slowing down. You have a full schedule with baseball on MLB Network, Football Night in America, shows on NBC Network, other assignments, not to mention the Olympics.

One of the things that has happened to me, because I’ve been around as long as I have, and have done reasonably well, I can do things more or less on my own terms. I’m not forced to present myself in a way where someone who’s younger and trying to break in would be forced to present themselves. To get attention. To jump out of the pack.

The tone and sensibility of what I do is not that much different than it was 10 years ago when I started working at HBO. I bring that same tone and sensibility to the NBC Sports Network. That’s who I am. There are lots of people who I watch and enjoy, where I say, ‘I really like that guy. Or I like that woman. But it would be foolish for me to do it that way, And it would be foolish for them to emulate me.’

Luckily I have enough standing where I can do what do in a way where it seems true to me.

You hear so much talk about the need to reach the younger demographic. Yet so many of the top sports broadcasters are in their 60s and 70s. How do you explain that dynamic?

You have people who are well-established. They have a certain standing. You hope as you continue, you do a good job. Al Michaels is in his 60s (67). It would be foolish to say, let’s get someone who is 35 for the sake of someone who is 35. He won’t be remotely as good as Al Michaels.

How do you view your career as being defined by the Olympics the same way Jim McKay career was defined.

Even to be in same sentence as Jim McKay is a compliment. The world has changed considerably. When Jim hosted Olympics, or for that matter, Wide World of Sports, people were utterly amazed that you were getting a television transmission from Munich or Sarajevo, or wherever. The total of hours were different, the sensibility and expectations of the audience was different. There was a great sense of wonder. He was in fact, he was spanning the globe to bring you a wide world of sports of which people were not familiar.

This is a different world in which we now live. Also, a lot of what Jim did, although he did horse racing and golf, a lot of stuff he did with Wide World seemed to be related to the Olympics. So the Olympics were even more at the center of the definition of him than they are from me.

They are big thing for me. People, though, also associate me with baseball, football, and to a certain extent, basketball (from calling games in the late 90s).

What is your approach as host?

You’re looking for personal stories. You’re also looking for quirkiness too. I think any good broadcast, not just an Olympic broadcast, a good broadcast of a baseball game should have texture to it. It should have information, should have some history, should have something that’s offbeat, quirky, humorous, and where called for it should have journalism and judiciously it should also have commentary. That’s my idea. That’s my ideal. Sometimes we exactly hit that, sometimes we don’t.

How has covering the Olympics changed since your first in 1988?

I will say this, that the essence of good storytelling, and the essence of good broadcasting remains the same.  You know, there, there are a lot of things that technology has brought us, and these additional, you know, tubes of communication have brought us that are wondrous, and a lot of it is just crap.  You know, the more you broaden anything out, it’s like American Idol auditions, you let everybody audition, and you’re going to find some diamonds in the rough.  You’re also going to find people who would be lousy singing in the shower.

The essence of what’s good hasn’t changed.  The essence of how you call a ball game well, you know, there may be different camera angles, there may be different graphics, there may be ways that you can interact with social media if you’re watching it, but the way Al Michaels calls a football game is not that much different, nor should it be, because it’s perfect, than it would have been in 1970.  You know, so some of the features may be shorter because of attention span, some of where we funnel the viewership may be different, but the way in which I anchor the games, based on what they ask me to do, is not much different.

My point I think it was pretty clear, is this: that our objective, at least from a broadcaster standpoint, hasn’t changed that much.  It’s to do a good broadcast, it’s to present things well.  Now, what these additional platforms have done, is that they’ve given us opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. This isn’t an Olympic example, but I think it’s a good example, I wouldn’t expect NBC as a network to do a show like the one they do each month with me on the NBC Sports Network.  HBO did that, they were well suited to do it.  Now we come close to replicating that idea here on, on the eighth floor, that well suits the NBC Sports Network. But my objective in doing that is just the same as it would have been 20 years ago, to do a good show with good content.

 

 

Remembering Jack Buck in St. Louis 10 years after his death

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Just caught up with this story by Dan Caesar of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the 10-year anniversary of the death of Jack Buck.

Not that anyone needed to be reminded, but Caesar does a nice job of reporting just how much the legendary broadcaster meant to the baseball-crazy town.

From Bob Costas:

“It’s hard to imagine a St. Louisan — Stan Musial might be someone who would  be in that category — whose life and whose passing would have as much an impact  on such a wide swath of the community,” recalls Bob Costas, who has become  perhaps America’s top sportscaster after having his start at KMOX in 1974 when  Buck was its sports director. “Just about everybody felt in some sense they knew  Jack Buck. Even people who weren’t avid baseball fans had some memories or  experiences surrounding the Cardinals. But also in truth a huge number of St.  Louisans actually did over the years have some personal encounter with Jack  Buck.

“He was a  fixture in the community for so long, and he did so many charity things, that a  huge percentage of St. Louisans are probably able to say, ‘Yeah, when I was in  high school he spoke to my class,’ or ‘I ran this charity auction and he did  this for us’ or ‘He came to this event,’ or ‘My father used to play cards with  him,’ or ‘I ran into him at the racetrack,’ or ‘I saw him at Al Baker’s  (restaurant).’ Wherever it was, he was a famous St. Louisan but he also was  person people actually felt like they knew.’’

Caesar writes about how entertainer Tony Orlando, a friend of Buck’s, went to great lengths to attend the funeral.

One was entertainer Tony Orlando, who knew Buck for many years and admired  him greatly. Orlando went to extraordinary lengths to be on hand. He had a  performance the night before in Las Vegas, then quickly headed to the airport to  fly to Los Angeles to connect to a red-eye flight to St. Louis. He attended the  service, then went straight to the airport to return to Vegas in time to be on  stage that night.

It made for a very long 24-hours.

“I just felt the need to be there,” Orlando recalls. “It was a worthy trip.  … I was tired, but mostly what tired me out was that it was draining to see  the hurt in everybody. … There was a solemnness, it was an amazing reaction  from a city. I know this may be a stretch for some people, but not for people in  St. Louis: It reminded me of when (President) John F. Kennedy died, the  tremendous weight that was on the common person on the street. Everybody was  feeling his loss. I could tell the people were hit hard by his passing. It was a  sad day, but an interesting lovefest of a funeral.

“It was a privilege to know him, it was an honor to be there at his funeral,”  Orlando says. “It’s a privilege to know his wife and son Joe, whom I adore.”

From his son, Joe:

“It was unbelievable,” says Joe Buck, the Fox network’s lead baseball and  football announcer. “To this day I’m still grateful to all those people who  called in to KMOX and shared stories about him, things that he had done that we  as a family didn’t even know about. I think that’s what made him so special, he  did so many things because they were right, so many things he did because they  felt good. He wasn’t the kind of guy to come home and say, ‘Hey guess what I did  today?’ He just did it, it gave him satisfaction and he knew it was something  that uplifted somebody else. That was good enough for him, he didn’t need to be  patted on the back.”

Do yourself a favor and read the entire piece.

 

Sherman Interview: High honors, challenging times for John Feinstein

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First of two parts:

You would think being inducted Monday to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in North Carolina would be the top thrill for John Feinstein this week. However, the noted author also has something else on his agenda:

A command performance from Robert Redford.

The actor invited Feinstein to Sundance in Utah Saturday to discuss books at one of his arts functions. It’s such a unique opportunity that the Golf Channel gave Feinstein permission to skip the third round of the U.S. Open in San Francisco to attend the event.

“He heard me on NPR promoting a book,” Feinstein said. “When I called the Golf Channel, they said, ‘Yeah, you’ve got to be there.’ It’s pretty cool.”

Feinstein, 56, has enjoyed plenty of cool moments in his long career. More than enough to merit a nod to the Hall, where he will go in with Bob Costas on the sportscasters side.

He is the greatest selling sports book author of all time; his 29th book, Rush for the Gold, aimed for kids, just hit the shelves. Nearly 30 years after he wrote it, Feinstein still is fielding compliments for his breakthrough, A Season on the Brink.

However, the changing publishing industry (much lower fees) has even affected bestselling authors like Feinstein. It has forced him to take on other duties to make up for the loss in revenue. While he says he enjoys his new gig as co-host with Bruce Murray on the Beyond the Brink show on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio, he frankly admits it is something he is doing out of “necessity rather than want.”

Several times during our interview, Feinstein talked about the need to find the time to exercise in the wake of having heart bypass surgery in 2009. It all makes for a compressed and hectic lifestyle for Feinstein.

I checked in with Feinstein last week. Here’s the first part of my Q/A where he talks about his career, past and present. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss his views on sports talk radio.

What does it mean to be inducted into the NSSA Hall?

It’s up there. You look at the names on the writing side: Red Smith, Jim Murray, Dave Kindred, heck, Damon Runyon. Bob Ryan got inducted last year. That what it means to me. When you get older, you get a lot of honors and you say, ‘OK, thank you.’ But this is one where you go, ‘Wow. This is cool.’

How does it feel to go with Bob Costas?

It’s thrilling for me because I will be the tallest inductee. He actually called to congratulate me. We both grew up in the business together. In the early 80s, he was calling college basketball games for NBC and I was covering college basketball for the Washington Post. It’ll be great to go in with him.

What does this award signify about your career?

It says I’m old. It’s the old cliche: It’s nice to be recognized by your peers. I’ve learned to take compliments from people in stages. To this day, I still have people who say they love watching me on Sports Reporters. I haven’t been on the show since 2007.

When they say, they enjoy me on the Golf Channel or that they loved Season on a Brink, I say, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ Now if they say they love A Civil War (Army vs. Navy), they’re my best friend. Civil War is my favorite book.

To have people understand what it means to write 29 books and work at the Post all these years, that’s more important to me than a fan poll about who’s your favorite sportswriter. Not that I’d win anyway.

Your last book, One on One, was personal, telling the back stories of people you covered in your books. Why did you go that route?

The great thing about doing that book was that I realized I developed some real relationships through the years. When you do a book, it isn’t just five minutes in front of a locker. You spend time with these people. To be able to go back to those people you haven’t seen in years, you realize there was some kind of relationship and trust that was built.

Any new books in the works?

I’m doing a book on Triple A baseball. The other day I watched the PawSox play the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

How have you been affected by the changes in the book business?

It doesn’t dim my desire to write books, but it’s harder because the money has gone down. It’s gone down for John Grisham too. I had a long period where I could focus on books and do other stuff that I chose to do. Now, I enjoy doing the radio show, but it takes four hours out of my day.

Because I’m not making as much as I need to on the books, because of (supporting a family), it forces me to take on more work where, frankly, I’d rather be focused on books. It’s not a matter of choice. It’s a matter of necessity.

You’ve done books for Little Brown for years. Now you’re next book will be with Doubleday. Why the change?

After One on One, we made a mutual decision to go in different directions. Little Brown has gotten much more into publishing fiction. I started to feel a little uncomfortable and less of a priority.

You’re also working as a contributor to the Golf Channel. How did that come about?

When they reached out to me, I said, I’ve never had good experiences with TV. I told them I used to do essays for CBS. They said, fine, let’s do that.

It’s great, and I enjoy everybody over there. But if it was up to me, instead of being on the set, I’d rather be walking the course or working the range. That’s no putdown to the Golf Channel. Writing is what I love. It’s what I do best.

How do you balance everything?

It’s not easy. I try to write every morning before the show starts. But I also have to exercise. It’s something I must do. The radio show takes up a good portion of my day. When it’s over, I still need to have the energy to do the reporting and writing.

You’re 56. What frontiers are there left for you to conquer?

It’s interesting. Again, it comes down to necessity vs. want. Necessity keeps me doing radio and TV. I still love writing for the Post. That’s something I’ll always do. I love writing the books. I love doing the books for kids. You get those letters from kids or parents of kids, who say their kid never read a book until he read mine.

If there’s one thing I haven’t done is that I’d like to write a play. I’m 99.9 percent sure it never would leave the house. I love the theater. I’ve always thought Red Auerbach could be a great one-man play. I would like to write a play about men and their relationships in sports.

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I just haven’t had the time to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Costas interview with Leyland: Bonds, Tigers, retirement and being a singer

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On MLB Network Saturday:

Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland looks back on his 26-year career as a Major League Baseball manager in a new episode of MLB Network’s Studio 42 with Bob Costas this Saturday, June 9 at 2:00 p.m. ET.

Studio 42 with Bob Costas featuring Jim Leyland will re-air on Sunday, June 10 at 10:00 p.m. ET

And here are some excerpts:

On managing the Pittsburgh Pirates in their 1992 NLCS loss to the Atlanta Braves:

The ’92 loss was probably the toughest I’ve ever suffered and it was a very interesting scenario.  I said it at the time and I still think about it today, this whole picture flashed in my mind [of] a Little League World Series.  It was almost reduced to that, like a Little League game, where one side’s jumping up and down and one side’s crying.  It was unbelievable.

With all due respect to the media people [and] TV people, I asked them, “Can we have a couple of extra minutes?”  I said, “This is a tough one,” and they gave us that.  I always appreciated that…It was pretty much what you’d expect, some guys crying, some guys just really lost…I was in a total fog.  You know the old saying from Jack Buck, “I can’t believe what I just saw,” that’s kind of the way I felt.

On managing Barry Bonds while in Pittsburgh:

I saw a lot of good things in Barry…He’s not as tough as he lets on. I think he’s one of those guys that it was a motivational tool for him to upset people, to make them mad at him.

He was coachable and he was manageable.  A lot of people didn’t think so, but it depended on how you coached him.  Barry was one of those guys where he was very coachable, but you had to let him think it was his idea.

On managing the last inning of the 1997 World Series between the Florida Marlins and Cleveland Indians:

I thought “Devon [White] is going to hit a sacrifice fly, get a fly ball over somebody’s head, get a base hit, whatever it may be,” We were gonna win the World Series.  When he hit the ground ball to second and they forced the guy at home, I said, “Oh my God, I’m almost out of pitching.  I gotta look at what I’m doing.”…I was looking back down at my card and just before the pitch to Edgar [Renteria], I looked up again…Just as I looked up, Edgar hit it and I looked it and it was in center field.  I’m going, “Oh my God, it’s over, and what a relief.”  I was actually relieved more because I didn’t have to continue to work on my lineup card…It was an amazing feeling.

On Game Seven of the 1997 World Series being underrated:

It’s always stuck in my craw, it’s always bothered me a little bit…I really believe had that been the Yankees [and] the Dodgers, Yankees and the Mets, it might’ve gone down as the second greatest World Series game of all time. … It was truly a better game for me than the Arizona [Diamondbacks] and Yankees [Game Seven in 2001] …It’s one of the greatest games, I think, that was ever played…I think the fact that it was Cleveland and Florida, it just didn’t get the hype that it should’ve gotten.

On if he felt he was done in managing after one season in Colorado in 1999:

I didn’t think I would ever manage again.  I truly did not think that I would ever manage another Major League Baseball team. I left four million dollars on the table.  My wife wasn’t real happy about it.  I just felt like I didn’t want to go back there and try to fake my way through it.  It wasn’t the right thing to do.

On taking the managerial position in Detroit in 2006:

[Detroit] was probably really the only situation [I would go to]. I live in Pittsburgh so Philadelphia would’ve been a nice little ring.  I would’ve been interested.  They had a good team, a nice, new ballpark.  But [Detroit] had more to it than a lot of other things.  I didn’t think, at my age, I was ever going to get a chance to manage the Tigers.  All of a sudden, this kind of fell in my lap. Here it was and I said, “You know what, I’m reenergized.  This is what I thought I always might have a chance to do, get a shot to do. Here it is, a little late.” But, yeah, this worked out good.

On when he will retire:

When the passion’s not there. When I start getting up in the morning and not wanting to go to work, I’ll go home. Tony [La Russa] and I are a little bit different in that I had a six-year sabbatical [from 1999-2006] and that really refreshed me. That got the battery going again.  I think that really helped me out. I think if I would’ve tried to do it like 33 straight years like Tony did, I probably would’ve stepped away too, maybe even before that.  But that six-year sabbatical, I spent some time at home and watched the kids grow up a bit.  It really refreshed me.

On what he would do if he wasn’t in baseball:

I’m embarrassed to say this, but I would’ve liked to have been in a band.  I love to sing.  I played the trumpet as a kid.  Our family sat around the piano. I never played a piano in my life, but my brother played the piano, my two sisters played.  I love it.  I still like to sing.  I’m not as good as I was at one time.  I was ok at one time…I can’t quite hit the high ones like I used to, but I was ok.  I sang weddings and I was in a choir and different things like that, and I loved it.  But this worked out a little better, I think.

I love soft rock.  I’m not into the rap too much, obviously.  I’m a little old for that….I love the oldies.  I saw “Jersey Boys” four times…I love musicals.  I saw a lot of the musicals.  I like those and participated in those in school, so that’s probably what I would’ve tried to do.  I doubt it would have worked out, but who knows?  That’s a tough business.  That’s probably tougher than our business to be successful in.

 

 

Costas Tonight addresses allegations with O’Neill interview

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NBC faces an unusual dynamic in covering the Belmont Stakes this week: A run for the Triple Crown with a trainer who some think is tainted.

The hoopla over I’ll Have Another’s bid for history comes with the large shadow of trainer Doug O’Neill facing a 45-day suspension in California for giving horses illegal performance enhancers.

Everyone will be watching to see how NBC handles these conflicting stories. We got a preview Monday when Bob Costas had an exclusive interview with O’Neill on Costas Tonight.

The first part of the interview focused on I’ll Have Another and O’Neill’s view of the race Saturday. Then after a break, Costas dealt with O’Neill about the controversy.

As expected, Costas asked some tough questions, which O’Neill handled. As the week goes along, the saga should evolve further with O’Neill facing tough scrutiny from the national media at Belmont. There could be a different story Saturday.

Here are some of the excerpts of the Costas interview:

Costas: We mentioned he was to have been with us in studio but today is the day that they’re inspecting the so-called “detention barn” and by the middle of the week, all the horses – not just I’ll Have Another – but all the horses competing in the Belmont will all be stabled together and the feed and all the medications will be closely monitored, the trainers, the vets who tend to the horses will all be closely watched. Now some say this is just about you, I think a fair appraisal though is that the racing industry, knowing what a Triple Crown can mean, wants to assure the public that all of this is on the up and up. True?


O’Neill: I agree, Bob. As much as it’s uncomfortable for a lot of horses to switch settings and have split staff and all that stuff, I think it’s a good move. It’s truly all about the horse and I think by doing what we’re doing, it’ll just show how brilliant these horses are cared for and there won’t be any rumors or speculations after the race.

Costas: Before we talk about specific allegations and violations from the past, let’s get this on the record. Speaking now only of I’ll Have Another, is he 100 percent clean, never been tampered with, never had elevated TCO2 levels artificially raised, never been given any improper medications or performance enhancers at any time?

O’Neill: Yes, Bob, I’ll Have Another is a pure horse. He’s clean. Every race he’s run in, he’s gone through physical examinations and blood work and he’s never been tampered with, never had any medications given to him by me or no one that I’ve ever requested to give him anything. So he’s clean and he’s been through every drug test and physical exam known to man and he’s just a natural champ.

Costas: Ok, you say that you run a clean operation, you’re an affable guy with an interesting life story and people want to like you and want to latch onto the story but these are at least part of the facts: You’ve had three warnings and four violations that you’ve been cited for – at least that many over the years and they have been, generally speaking, for elevated TCO2 levels. What’s the reason for that? If you haven’t done something that you shouldn’t have done, how did that occur?

O’Neill: Well through our vigorous contesting of these allegations, we’ve learned that there are numerous issues that can raise a horse’s TCO2 levels be it the weather that day, be it the gender of the horse, be it the sweat, if the horse sweats too much. It’s not a drug and that’s something that gets tossed around a lot in the media that high TCO2 is that a horse has a drug in it but it’s all a natural reading that every horse has. California put in a rule four or five years ago that if a horse had a high TCO2 he’s was deemed to have been milkshaked and then some of the other parts of the country followed suit and just through running a lot of horses, we’ve kind of fallen into a couple pickles but we run a clean barn and through all this extra examination we’ve been able to show how much we love the horses, what a great staff we have, what a great owner we have of I’ll Have Another; and though it’s been uncomfortable and difficult at times, it’s been kind of nice to show people backstage and be transparent and show people how well all of our horses are cared for.

Costas: The process of milkshaking as I understand it is a combination of bicarbonate of soda, sugar, and electrolytes that reduces the buildup of lactic acid in a horse which can lead to fatigue. Now some people who are very close to the horse racing industry and understand it much better than I do, have told me that there is a suspicion that you and the people you work with have developed a process by which you can raise the TCO2 levels of a horse without resorting to milkshaking. And that a lot of your horses have been taken right up to the legal limit and only a few have tripped the test but many of them are right on the border line. In fact, on one occasion in Del Mar when you were cited for having a horse over the level, the next two highest readings that day of all the horses that ran in all the races that day in Del Mar were also Doug O’Neill horses. So the top three all belonged to you and according to one member of the California Racing Board, the odds against that were astronomical unless something nefarious was going on.

O’Neill: Yeah, Bob, you’re right. It definitely needs to be addressed and one of the things we found out and we weren’t told is that Lasix can affect a horse’s TCO2 levels and prior to finding that out, we had all the horses at the highest level of permitted Lasix and we found out that this is a serious issue. We’re playing with fire by doing that. We have scaled back on the use of Lasix pre-race. 

Costas: Last thing, we can’t possibly get into all the ills of horse racing but there are medications that are legal here in the United States that are banned in much of the rest of the world. The fatality rates are much lower in Europe – a lot of this has to do with how they regulate medications and some of it has to do with racing on more forgiving surfaces. There are a lot of things that could be done to reform the racing industry. In fact, the Belmont is run in a state where the governor, Andrew Cuomo, has basically disbanded the governing body and appointed his own panel to oversee it because there’s been too much going on that’s troubling including a disproportionate number of deaths of race horses at Aqueduct and other tracks. If in fact, you win the Belmont on Saturday and you’re the reigning Triple Crown trainer, you’ll be in a unique position to advocate for reform of the sport, would you do it?

O’Neill: I would love to. I would love to be part of that. It’s such a great sport and I think we’re such in dire need of having a commissioner to kind of nationalize and to get all the medications uniform so everyone knows what the therapeutic medications you can use and when to stop. I’d love to have pre-race testing. I mean every time these horses walk in a paddock, every vet or every owner, every jockey knows that all these horses have passed a strict pre-race test so any way I can help a sport that I absolutely love, I’m in. You know one thing too, Bob, I forgot to mention that people talk about all my drug violations and I never had an illegal medication violation. My violations have been therapeutic medications that have been in excess; and that doesn’t make them right but I’ve never had an illegal drug found in any of my horses and that’s something that I’d like to make clear.

Costas: Fair enough and in summation here, you would like to see a national commission and, in effect, a commissioner like other sports have, with uniform rules and regulations instead of a hodge podge from state to state.

O’Neill: Correct. And pre-race testing.

 

John McEnroe, Olympics correspondent? Yep

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NBC disclosed its lineup for hosts and correspondents for the Olympics. In the no-surprise department, Bob Costas will be the prime-time host for the millionth time (actually his ninth); Al Michaels and Dan Patrick will share weekday and weekend duties; and Mary Carillo will handle the late-night duties.

However, on the list of correspondents, one name stuck out, and it wasn’t Ryan Seacrest. Rather it was John McEnroe.

The three-time Wimbledon champion as an Olympics correspondent? Now that’s interesting.

According to NBC, McEnroe will appear during NBC’s primetime show, serving as a roving reporter/analyst. He will be doing features, maybe even off-beat stuff.

Clearly, McEnroe has media ambitions beyond talking about tennis. When it was announced last week that he will be ESPN’s lead analyst for Wimbledon, he was asked if he wanted to do something else at the network. He said:

“There’s been talk about that in the past. That’s intriguing. … I’m open to suggestions.”

Obviously, McEnroe jumped at the idea of being an Olympic correspondent. If NBC can make his segments edgy and unpredictable, in keeping with the man himself, it will be a great move.