After initially looking outside for Chris Wragge’s replacement, WCBS-2 executives are leaning toward elevating either Sam Ryan or Ducis Rogers to the station’s No. 1 sportscaster position, NYP TV Sports has learned.
WCBS-2 created the opening on its sports desk when it promoted Wragge to lead news anchor toward the end of last year. The station had talks with ESPN anchors Jay Crawford, Matt Winer and Trey Wingo, but all three will stay at ESPN.
Ryan left ESPN to join WCBS-2 in part because she wanted to be home more to raise her children. At ESPN, Ryan spent much of her time on the road covering baseball and football.
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Fox’s Tim McCarver joined a small group of baseball people for a three-hour cocktail and dinner party with President Bush at the White House on Monday. While David Wright was there, 48-year-old Julio Franco, who played under the President when he owned the Rangers, didn’t show.
“The President came in and said, ‘We invited Julio, but he must have forgotten,”’ McCarver, 65, said. “I’m thinking there are some things that you can forget, but this is not one of them. I know Julio is the oldest player in the world, but he is not that old. He is not in my age bracket where we have a little memory loss.”
A Mets spokesman said Franco couldn’t make it because of a personal issue. There apparently are no hard feelings, because Franco and the President have a long relationship, which even included the President attending Franco’s wedding years ago.
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Sean McManus, CBS News and Sports president, thought his network’s Super Bowl telecast was super.
“I was very satisfied from every standpoint,” McManus said. “From the creative standpoint, I thought we had a great day under really tough circumstances during the game. From a ratings standpoint [nearly 140 million people watched some or all of the game] to have the third-most watched show in history, the highest rated Super Bowl in seven years.”
Any regrets?
“I would have bought a few more towels to wipe off the lenses,” McManus said.
When asked again about possibly adding Bill Parcells to his lead NFL play-by-play team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, McManus maintained that, “Right now, we don’t plan on making changes.”
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When Steve Levy left WFAN for ESPN nearly 14 years ago, he tried to be funny – too funny, he says now.
“At the beginning, everyone made the mistake of trying to be Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann,” said Levy, 41, who grew up in Merrick, L.I.
“I think that is the mistake that most people made when I came to ESPN around ’93, ’94. I tried to be funny because you know what, they were funny. They were funny and smart. I knew I wasn’t funny, so I just tried to be smart. I think it took me six or eight months to calm down and let me focus on what my skill sets are. From time to time, I try to be smart and occasionally even clever. Very rarely am I funny. I think I’m the straight guy.”
It has worked for Levy because now he is one of SportsCenter’s lead anchors.