I first met Bob Dunn at the Texan restaurant. The Texan was a large family run diner on St. Catherine Street, just a few steps from the Forum. Any number of the Montreal Canadiens family would be there for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I often saw Toe Blake at breakfast time. It was also where I saw him for the last time after Alzheimer’s had taken a strong grip. His frequent dining partner was his former teammate and eventual Canadiens traveling secretary Floyd Curry. Floyd was gently guiding Toe out of the restaurant as the Hall of Famer shouted at a few unsuspecting patrons who’d later explain the sad scene to their co-workers and family members. Eventually word got out to the general public via a Red Fisher feature in The Gazette. Sadder still, it wasn’t long before Floyd himself succumbed to the same damn disease.
Bob Dunn had called me a few days earlier. He had been listening to CFCF Radio where I began my sports radio adventure in the late summer of 1981. (I started my radio career in 1977 at CKO 1470. The former CFOX station had gone all-news as part of a national network. It was former CFCF Radio staffer Rob Joyce who hired me, on the recommendation of Robert Vairo who I worked closely with after signing up for a radio school run by former CKGM host Steve Shannon. I ended up working alongside a couple of former CJAD vets – Bill Roberts (father of Leslie) and newsman Dick Varney. I wrote for news anchors John Baxter and Brahm Sand. I produced a talk show. I eventually ended up on air delivering the news. I did some reporting. I was part of a team that covered the ‘Oui’ side on referendum night at the Paul Sauve Arena. The first sports event I covered was the Roberto Duran-Sugar Ray Leonard fight at Olympic Stadium. It was a great training ground. How I ended up at CFCF was literally a long, strange trip. But I have Barry Wilson to thank for it. And then Jeff Rimer.)
Bob, who had been hired as CJAD’s sports director by Ted Blackman in 1978, asked if I’d be interested in jumping from CFCF. I didn’t know him but felt I did because I had read all of his work when he was the Expos beat writer for the Montreal Star through most of the 70s. Once I met him for breakfast at the Texan it felt right. So I said goodbye to the many friends I had made on Ogilvy Avenue. I remember the news director Steve Pownell saying “We finally have a sports guy we like and you’re leaving?” and Dick Irvin popping his head into the small sports office and saying, “What’s this I hear about you leaving for ‘AD? I was going to ask you to audition for TV.” Years later, Dick would go on to write several hockey books and he always inscribed the same message for me – “To Mitch, the one that got away…”
I first entered my new radio home at 1411 Fort Street in either late July or early August 1982. Bob showed me around the place but the only thing I remember after our conversation was him telling me that he was about to hire somebody else to work with us (Chris Cuthbert was already on board). A few weeks later, as I walked into the elevator that would take me to street level, a young guy with a head full of curls walked out. I wondered if he was the fellow twenty something Bob had just told me about. Sure enough it was. His name was Elliott Price.
Elliott and I had instant on air chemistry. But before we hooked up I was uncomfortable. The fact that I was late for my very first shift didn’t help matters. Bob Dunn wanted to introduce me on the air on the Sunday Morning Sports Page – a unique show that was a Blackman concept that began as the Monday Morning Sports Page on Sunday Night. Ted, Bob, Brodie Snyder and maybe one or two others would do the roundtable thing long before it became the norm in sports radio. It didn’t last long but morphed into Sunday mornings (10 AM to noon) and it gave all of us a chance to stretch out a bit following a week of reporting and sportscasts. I had just turned 23. I was single. I was living in a studio apartment downtown (3429 Drummond Street). I had good friends who managed bars on Crescent Street. I rarely slept. I don’t remember what I had done the previous night but when the phone rang on Sunday morning and it was a stern-voiced Dunn explaining that the show had already started and “..where are you?” I might have had my first panic attack. My heart was already in overdrive – my phone must have been ringing on and off for at least 30 minutes – after being forced to wake up from a deep sleep but there was the added tension and stupidity of realizing what I had done. I didn’t have time to shower and I sprinted from the corner of Sherbrooke and Drummond to Fort and Ste Catherine. I didn’t even have time to grab a quick coffee which I was slowly becoming addicted to. As I walked into the studio and sheepishly took my seat across from Bob while a pre-recorded conversation ran on the air, he said, “Not a good way to start a new job. Here – read the next sportscast.” He handed me his script for the 10:25 update. My hands were shaking. So was my voice. It was brutal. By 11 AM I had calmed down a bit but was still shaky. I don’t remember anything else about that day. But I do remember not improving much over the next week or so. Some long time staffers at CJAD were wondering who this kid was who sounded pretty good on CFCF but who now seemed to be out of his element. Eventually, after a few conversations with Bob and George Balcan and PD Vance Randolph and maybe even GM Ralph Lucas, I settled down, found my groove and kept growing until I left in 1986 (A long personal story with a happy ending) before returning eight months later to pick up where I had left off, before I jumped off, seemingly for good, in 1993 to go back to where I started in sports at CFCF 600, except by then the call letters were CIQC.
The first year at CJAD was an incredible amount of fun. Elliott and I were inseparable. We shared many of the same interests beyond sports – especially in music, movies, chasing women and having a good time. Occasionally we had too much of a good time.
Cocaine had become the drug of choice for way too many people. Use was so widespread that you could purchase a quarter gram – with a credit card – from the dealer who parked himself on a stool at the end of a popular bar on Crescent Street. This was out in the open. Personally, like Elliott, I liked to smoke hash or weed. But because we often hung out past closing time, we were offered the white powder that was mixed with who knows what? I didn’t like it. I was jittery enough on coffee. Plus, I didn’t like what it was doing to so many people I knew, including successful relatives who thought that the recreational use of cocaine was cool and harmless. A popular necklace at the time featured a tiny spoon that many guys hung around their necks like a badge of honour. For many in the bar scene it wasn’t just Friday or Saturday nights. It was every night. It took a huge toll. One bartender Elliott and I lived with for awhile got so screwed up he ended up stealing from his own bar and friends to support his habit.
Now imagine those in the sports and entertainment business. As Robin Williams used to say, “Cocaine is God’s way of saying you’re making too much money”. It was all over. Not just Hollywood and not just baseball. But it was baseball that took the brunt of the fallout.
By the late summer of 1982 the promise of a trip back to the post season for the Montreal Expos seemed dim. Franchise President and GM John McHale had done such a good job in the late 70s building the franchise into a serious contender. But by ’82 he had lost his touch and everything was turning sour. He made a terrible decision to bring back Jim Fanning as manager after the Expos had been Rick Monday’d out of a potential World Series match up against the Yankees a year earlier. Fanning had no presence in the clubhouse. He was not respected by most of the players. He simply wasn’t a manager. But McHale deluded himself into thinking that because they had come so close in October the Expos were talented enough to win the NL East in 1982, even with the worst manager in baseball.
There were troubling signs early. Something was up with Tim Raines who was coming off a spectacular strike shortened rookie season. In May, McHale got rid of speedy second baseman Rodney Scott, whom he perceived to be a bad influence on Raines and others even though Scott spent a lot of his free time hanging out with outfielder Rowland Office (I’d see them together late nights at Grumpy’s on Bishop Street). Scott was no angel (“Good guys only win in the movies,” he told me on his way out.) and certainly enjoyed puffing, or as McHale said to him, “We have proof you’ve been smoking marijuana cigarettes.” McHale actually released Office three days before putting Scott on waivers. Most Montreal baseball fans know what happened next. Bill Lee, who loved Rodney – especially for his range; his ability to reach so many ground balls that Bill induced via his sinker – protested. He left the team during a game against the Dodgers to head down the street to a Brasserie to try to work the anger out of his system, or to shoot pool and drink beer. Besides, he had pitched three strong innings in relief the day before and wasn’t planning to get up in the bullpen. By the time he returned, in the late innings of a 10-8 loss, his Major League career was over.
A few of us who knew the downtown scene were hearing troubling news about Raines. That he was mixed up with the wrong crowd and wide awake at 5 AM on days when the Expos had a game scheduled. But what we were hearing wasn’t matching up on the field as Raines was making it look easy. While Rodney Scott wasn’t a threat at the plate, he frequently hit behind in the count, often taking two strikes to allow Raines to steal second. Then Scott would give himself up by slapping the ball to second, moving Raines to third with one out. The switch hitting Scott was a solid hitter from his natural right side (career .282) but mostly an easy out from the left side. But he believed that without learning to switch hit he would never have made it as a regular. It was manager Dick Williams who gave the second base job to Scott over veteran Dave Cash prior to the 1979 season. Cash had been a significant free agent signing by the Expos in the winter of 1976. He was an excellent contact hitter but misplaced as a leadoff man. Scott wasn’t the hitter that Cash was but had more range at second and a lot more speed. He was also a daring and effective base stealer. Though he barely hit above his weight, Scott was an integral part of an Expos team that became, in the pre-wild card era, one of the best in baseball from 1979-1981.
But then, there was that issue of “marijuana cigarettes”.
In their haste to get rid of Scott, the Expos tried to contend without an everyday second baseman. They tried Wallace Johnson but quickly realized he had trouble turning a double play. Then they turned to Raines, who had played the position in the low minors but whose hands were hardly as soft as his feet. By the time the 1982 season had ended, Jim Fanning had used six different players at second base before McHale purchased veteran Doug Flynn from the Texas Rangers. Flynn had a good glove but no speed at all nor an ability to draw walks. Overall, an inferior player to Scott. Bill Lee’s visceral gut reaction to Scott’s release still speaks volumes.
As the summer heated up, Raines’ bat began to cool. He ended up missing a key game because the team announced prior to the first pitch that he “wasn’t feeling well”. At our seats in the Olympic Stadium press box, Elliott and I exchanged knowing glances.
As it became obvious the Expos were going to under achieve, the tension around the team rose dramatically. Following a Saturday loss that featured Fanning lifting Bryn Smith after 5 innings – but only after he bizarrely allowed Smith to hit for himself in the bottom of the 5th, Fanning was asked by Elliott why he had taken a well rested Smith out of the game. Fanning said Smith had told him he was tired. Even though Smith was technically a rookie, it made no sense to me that any pitcher would claim he was too tired to continue. It’s not in their DNA – especially at the very beginning of a career. So, when I spotted Smith on his way to the showers I asked him if he had felt tired. He said “not at all” and that he was feeling “strong”.
The next morning, Elliott and I co-hosted the Sunday Morning Sports Page. I simply played the Fanning and Smith clips back to back. Every half hour. Four times. It was impossible for any plugged in Expos fan to miss the contradictory clips. Somebody was lying. Our educated guess pointed to the beleaguered manager who had already been so stressed out that he began experiencing migraines.
After the game later that day, as Elliott and I made our way into the Expos clubhouse we were told to stop by Fanning’s office before we left. Fanning was standing behind his desk when he laced into us.
“I’m told you made me look bad on the radio this morning,” he said. When I explained that we simply aired his comments and Smith’s comments back to back, that it was a perfectly legit question to ask following another costly loss, Fanning exploded.
“I’m the manager! You don’t ever do that to me! From now on you and your station will get nothing from me – NOTHING! And you! (He was now in Elliott’s face) Your father has been ragging me all year. Enough!” (Elliott’s dad was renowned leather lunged season ticket holder Gerry Price, much better known as ‘Manush’)
I was 23. Elliott was 25. Fanning was 55 but acting like a 15 year old. This was not “Gentleman Jim”.
When I got home I called Bob Dunn to tell him what happened. Dunn found it amusing. He thanked me for airing the clips the way we did and to not let what Fanning said bother us. He said “It’s falling apart and it’s going to get worse.”
Sure enough, during the next home stand, Raines was not in the starting line up for a game on a Sunday afternoon. The actual explanation was that he was sick after eating “bad Chinese food.” It was sadly comical. But in reality it was very serious.
The following game Bob himself was in the press box with a tape machine. It was a rare sight by then. Bob was hosting Early Morning Sports Page every weekday at 5:30 AM prior to the start of the George Balcan Breakfast Show. He was also the sports anchor for George (Ted Blackman was still hosting the Morning Show at CFCF Radio). Early morning radio types rarely went out at night. I asked Bob what was up. He said he was going to try to talk to Raines.
Following the game, as a bunch of us waited in the middle of the clubhouse for one of the stars of the game to come out to their stall, Bob walked by and nodded over to me so I stepped away from the other media people.
“Raines just admitted that he has used drugs,” is what Bob said.
“On mic?” I asked.
He patted his old Sony tape machine. “It’s in here. I’ll be breaking it in the morning.”
This was going to be a pivotal moment in the 13 year history of the franchise. But as I returned to the waiting media group (the biggest bunch of gossips on the planet) I had to keep my mouth shut. Competition between local media outlets in Montreal is now almost non-existent. But back then it was fierce. As we eventually herded into the press elevator to go back upstairs to the press box, I was already thinking how the next day would play out. But in the moment, I needed to send 20 minutes of post game tape to CJAD and was looking forward to unwinding at Grumpy’s where it was a lot quieter than on Crescent.
As we all walked into the press box I noticed John McHale standing outside his private suite talking with a couple of people. I hustled to my seat in the front row to call Bob Dunn (no cell phones). I told him McHale was still upstairs and wondered if I should try to get his reaction to the Raines comments. Bob thought about it and said it was a good idea but to make sure nobody else was around and to ask him about it before I turned on my tape machine.
I was about to ask the President of the Expos what he thought of one of his star players going on the record about his use of drugs, in a season that was already ending in acrimony. I took a deep breath and moved quickly back up the stairs to the back of the press box and there was McHale walking slowly through the back dining room area with the same people he was speaking with in front of his suite.
“Hey John – you gotta minute?”
McHale looked at me a little warily before telling his small group to wait for him in front of the elevator. “What’s up?”
“Tim Raines told Bob Dunn about an hour ago that he has used drugs..”
Before I could get another word out McHale exploded. I don’t think anybody in public had ever seen or heard McHale this angry.
“That is total bullshit!!! It’s nonsense. What the hell is wrong with you guys? You have no idea what you’re talking about!!! Get the hell out of here!”
But it was McHale who left as he walked through the door to meet up with his group.
I stood there in semi-shock. John McHale played first base for the Detroit Tigers in the 1940s. He was a few inches taller than I was and, in my pre-workout days, a lot thicker. At that volume he seemed even bigger. Slowly but surely everybody who had been at their seats walked towards me to see what was going on. It was impossible not to hear how loud McHale was. I don’t remember much other than saying that they’d find out in the morning.
The next day was a blur. The interview with Raines and subsequent clips ran all morning on the Balcan show. Raines did a good job tap dancing around the cocaine issue – he never actually admitted to using it – but when talking about marijuana and “experimenting” with other stuff it was quite clear to anybody who was paying attention what was up. It was a major tipping point.
The next day I arrived at the park just after batting practice had ended. The metro level press elevator opened and it was filled with people who were heading upstairs for the game. Towering over everybody in the very back of the elevator was John McHale. Our eyes met and I nodded, then turned around to face the elevator door. McHale spoke up.
“Mitch, I’m sorry for blowing up last night. It’s been stressful of late.”
Whenever I think of John McHale I think of that moment. Apologizing in an elevator filled with media people. And he was stressed out. Everybody in baseball was playing catch up to the first wave of destructive cocaine use. At the end of the season the Expos announced that Raines would be entering a drug rehab facility. The 1982 Expos should have won over 90 games. They finished in third place in the National League East, 6 games behind the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals took the division with 92 wins (The Expos were 86-76).
It was much too easy to blame the lost season on what happened to Raines, something McHale and Jim Fanning did repeatedly in the ensuing years. But to his credit, McHale eventually backed away from that belief after uncovering just how widespread cocaine use had become. It had an adverse effect on every team in baseball. The Cardinals-Brewers 1982 World Series featured rosters that were littered with players who had issues with coke and several that were still using.
Tim Raines got his act together in plenty of time to straighten out his life. Rehab worked for most. But there were victims including Dodgers closer and former rookie of the year Steve Howe who was suspended seven times for his continued use of cocaine.
About a week after the Expos season ended Bob Dunn called me into the sports office to thank me for the work I had done. He said he had a bonus for me. It wasn’t money but he said I could cover the World Series if I didn’t mind flying. At that stage in my life I was an inexperienced and, frankly, terrified flyer. But I wasn’t about to allow Elliott to go instead of me. (It worked out perfectly for Elliott the following year when he got to cover his beloved Orioles winning their first title since 1970.)
So, as the 1982-83 NHL season was just starting (the final season for Irving Grundman as Canadiens GM), I flew to Chicago to connect to a flight to St. Louis for the Opener. There were no direct flights because my itinerary had been booked late but I went Chicago-St. Louis-Chicago-Milwaukee-Chicago-St. Louis-Chicago-Montreal for what turned about to be a classic 7 game series. By the time I arrived back home at the airport in Dorval I swaggered off the plane like Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners in a fleeting moment of triumph.
When I arrived at hotel headquarters in St. Louis I spotted Michael Farber in the lobby with a guy I got to know and like a lot – Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Coincidentally, on the flight I had read Michael’s Gazette piece on Raines checking into rehab and immediately spoke to him on tape to send back to CJAD. Michael had become a regular contributor on “Sports Digest”. He appeared via recorded commentary every Monday and Wednesday while we capped off the week on Friday with (usually) a live, longer segment we called “Farber’s Footnotes”. Nearly 40 years later Michael still enriches my radio show every Monday at 4:40 PM.
Our other editorialists, both of whom I requested after discussions with Bob Dunn and CJAD GM Ralph Lucas, were John Robertson on Tuesday and Ted Tevan on Thursday. Robertson had been a sports columnist for The Montreal Star and later a controversial talk show host on CJAD & CFCF Radio where he mounted a vigorous on and off air campaign against Bill 22, the Quebec government’s first attempt to squash English language rights. Robertson regularly received death threats. He eventually moved back home to Winnipeg before going to work for the Toronto Sun in 1982.
And Ted? What a treat. But instead of rasping his way through a couple of hours of mayhem (when he wasn’t talking to the biggest names in sports) while shooting people off the air (“You’re Gone!”) this was post Sports Rap Ted. He was trying to find a way back in. A 60-90 second blast of nothing but Ted was special. I always thought he could have parlayed that into something that Don Cherry later turned into “Grapeline” – a nationally syndicated three minute feature with Brian WIlliams that ran for over 30 years. (Little known fact: Don Cherry’s Grapeline had its dry run on CJAD. After Bon Dunn left the station in 1983 Chris Cuthbert became Sports Director. He started a regular feature with Canadiens coach Bob Berry called “Behind the Bench with Bob Berry”. Even though Berry had been fired by Ron Corey – along with GM Grundman and Assistant GM Ron “Prof” Caron – following a playoff loss the Sabres in the Spring of 1983, Berry was subsequently rehired by new GM Serge Savard after Savard failed to convince Dickie Moore to take the job. But 63 games into the ’83-84 season, with the Canadiens under .500, Berry was fired for good. And CJAD Sports had a big feature to fill. My suggestion was to call the segment ‘Behind the Bench Without Bob Berry’ but that didn’t go anywhere. Chris managed to convince Don Cherry to replace Berry. Cherry was a regular analyst on Hockey Night in Canada but still a couple of years away from Coach’s Corner fame. Still, I thought this was a major “get” for Chris. Don had come through the station earlier in the year to promote his new book (written by Stan Fischler) ‘Grapes: A Vintage View of Hockey’. We had a rollicking good time together in studio and it was quite obvious that Don’s future was not behind the bench. Unless it was for us. So Don Cherry became a regular feature on CJAD for the rest of the season. In late Spring I was asked if I could send some snippets of Don’s phone appearances with us or better yet, because of in-studio sound quality, his book tour stop on Fort Street, to a radio production house in Toronto. A short time later “Grapeline” with Don and Brian Williams was born.)
Now back to Ted Tevan.
At some point late in ’82 or early 1983 Ted was going on about spying in the America’s Cup sailing competition. Somebody had been caught spying in the water while checking out the design of one of those beautiful sail boats. Ted was barking, quietly at first, but eventually built to a rousing crescendo by proclaiming “They’re spies! He’s a spy! You’re a spy! We’re all spies!!! (beat) I’m Ted Tevan.”
I don’t know what set us off. But Elliott and I started giggling well before Ted signed off. And then we couldn’t stop. Even after we were back live. And then it just got worse. Each time we tried to move on we’d explode with laughter. Anybody listening must have thought we were stoned. We weren’t. Perhaps we were the night before but at that moment in the studio, with just a few minutes to go before sign-off at 7 PM, we had the greatest on air laughing fit of our careers. We both tried on separate occasions to re-start the next segment. It didn’t work. I tried covering my eyes. It didn’t work. Elliott tried again but when I literally got out of my chair to try to hide under the table that just forced him into a different tone of mad laughter. Finally I said we’d take a break. Surely a 60 second or two minute commercial break would straighten us out. Not a chance. As soon as I started to reset we broke up again. Back to another commercial. During the break the private line rang. Not a good sign. I picked up the phone to my left. It was our General Manager Ralph Lucas. And he got right to the point.
“This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard on CJAD. It’s the amateur hour. I’ve never heard anything like this. It’s worse than what you’d hear on high school radio. Get it together!”
Click.
Just by looking at me Elliott could tell how serious Lucas was. I think he might have decided to leave the studio for the rest of the show.
Nearly 40 years later the only regret I have is that I don’t have that show on cassette. And I kept almost everything. We couldn’t stop laughing during a sports show. Big crime. I’m guessing most of the listeners enjoyed it and laughed with and/or at us.
Fast forward a few months. The station had a major event. I don’t remember what it was but it was kind of a big deal because everybody was there and well dressed. What I do remember is that late at night I got a phone call from Elliott. He told me to turn on the station because Ralph was on the air and Elliott was pretty sure he was drunk. So I did. Ralph was in studio with host Jim McGraw. Jim, who passed away a couple of years ago, was a wonderful, very tall man who loved trains, lived near the tracks and hosted a few get togethers that I fondly remember, almost as much for the fact that he’d put away six beers before I’d finish one as for the lively conversation and fun vibe. Both men were clearly loose. Ralph was occasionally slurring his words. Jim was taking calls from listeners. It was like an ‘Ask the PD’ segment only it was the GM. At one point, both men broke up and had difficulty continuing. How sweet, I thought. A few minutes later one of the callers turned out to be none other than Elliott! He didn’t try to hide who he was. And his question was a good one. He asked Ralph for a raise. Live on the air. The laughter stopped.
In a late 2020 conversation with Ken Connors, as part of CJAD’s look back at its 75th anniversary, I mentioned how close together Elliott and I had been hired. Ken referred to us as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. I liked that. I only wish we could have held the station up for more money.
In a moment that might have been noble but in reality terribly ill-conceived, I decided that since we were both making less than twenty thousand dollars a year, a show of strength in numbers would help. Totally influenced by the 1966 spring training hold out by future Hall of Fame Dodgers pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale (who asked for the same deal – three years at close to 170 thousand dollars per year, or more than double what they earned in 1965 when Koufax made 85 thousand to Drysdale’s 80 grand), Elliott and I marched into Ralph’s office to ask for the double grand salary of twenty five thousand dollars per year. Needless to say Mr. Lucas was not amused. The conversation didn’t last long. Almost as quickly as we left, Ralph called me back into his office.
“Don’t you ever do that again. You’ll soon find out that socialism does not work in this business.”
It didn’t work in Major League Baseball either. In what turned out to be the final year of his brilliant but short career, Koufax earned 125 thousand dollars. Drysdale settled for 110 thousand.
The 1982 World Series was the second major sports event I covered after working the Leonard-Duran fight in June of 1980 at Olympic Stadium. I was the proverbial kid in the candy store. I still haven’t had ballpark sausages like I enjoyed from the stands in Milwaukee. An auxiliary press box was set up in a section behind home plate. I couldn’t have asked for more. My seat mates through the seven games at Busch Stadium and County Stadium were some of my favourite writers and broadcasters at the time. They were old school but had a grace about them. All were friendly. There was the Southern gentleman Furman Bisher of The Atlanta Journal Constitution and The Sporting News; Pete Axthelm of Newsweek; Jack Whitaker of CBS Sports. I even got to hang out for a night on the outside of an insider’s gathering in a Milwaukee bar that featured the legendary Bill Veeck who was covering the series for CBS Radio. I had heard stories about the maverick owner removing his wooden leg and tapping the ashes of his cigarette into a cutout section that he used as an ashtray. Now, I was actually seeing it. My running mate for much of the series was John Hancock of CBC Sports. I always enjoyed road trips with John, starting with the check-in process in the hotel lobby, especially in Boston. On the night of Game 5 in Milwaukee (it was played on a Sunday afternoon), John and I enjoyed a great meal at the legendary German landmark Karl Ratzsch’s, a restaurant that first opened in 1904 (it closed in 2017). We were at a table in the main dining room surrounded by baseball royalty. Everywhere we looked there was a table featuring at least one Hall of Famer. It was like my Strat-O-Matic cards had come to life. At the end of the night, when it was time to split the bill I realized I was short of cash. The Brewers led the series three games to two with a day off in St. Louis prior to Game 6 and possibly Game 7. I couldn’t cover my portion of the bill and still had possibly three full days and a portion of another before getting on a plane to return home. I was given a one thousand dollar cheque by CJAD’s accountant Rudi Tesar before I left for St. Louis. But I clearly needed a little more. Or, a lesson on how to stretch a tight budget. Not to worry, said John. Back at the hotel he gave me 300 dollars cash and said, “You can pay me back the next time we’re at the Forum.” Part of the problem was sitting in the seats in Milwaukee with access to all that great food and yeah, maybe a beer or two in the late innings. It’s not like I had a radio show to host. Media received free box lunches but who’d want a ham and cheese instead of a genuine knackwurst or bratwurst?
Naturally, the Cardinals did manage to force a Game 7 and then won it to capture their first championship since 1967. As I waited in line with a flock of journalists to enter the victorious Cardinals clubhouse I was literally pushed from behind and into Dick Young, the abrasive longtime columnist for the New York Post. I had read him for years. He was nasty and reactionary but a must read. At this moment, as my thin body came into contact with his back I felt the wrath of Dick Young. His eyes were wide. His face red. His hair thick and white. He looked like a guy who could have been best friends with Al Capone.
“Sorry,” I squeaked. “I was pushed,” as I motioned with my right hand to the crush of reporters and cameras behind me.
“Get out of my fucking way!” was his response. Then, catching a glimpse of my CJAD microphone he bellowed, “Where the fuck are you from, Newfoundland?”
I spit back, “It’s Montreal, Dick!”
“Fuck you!” He now sounded like so many angry Americans do today.
I didn’t let it go. “Fuck off. Ever had a microphone stuck up your ass?”
A few people behind me told me to calm down but I could also hear some laughter. At that moment the clubhouse door flung open and in we went. I don’t know what might have happened if the door didn’t open. Dick Young was 65 at the time but looked fit enough to throw a punch or two at some skinny 23 year old doofus from Montreal.
Later, several sportswriters and radio dudes thanked me for responding the way I did. Dick Young might have been a Hall of Fame writer but he had a well earned reputation for being a gigantic asshole.
Back in Montreal I filled out what had to be my first expense account. The per diem wasn’t much. I had receipts for some taxis and maybe a baseball book or two I purchased in St. Louis. At the bottom of the report I drew a large asterisk with the note “Loan – $300”. I left the report on Bob Dunn’s desk. After a few days off to recover I arrived back at CJAD and there was an envelope in my mail slot with my name on it. I opened it up. It was my expense report. Underneath my signature Bob had scrawled, “I’ve seen guys claim for a Japanese massage but what the heck is loan???”
Thank you John Hancock. (How cool is John? Just before he left Montreal to work for the CBC in Halifax, he had a going away party in Old Montreal. Among the guests to salute him and send him on his way was his good friend, the famed jazz pianist Oliver Jones.)
While I was busy shuttling back and forth between St. Louis and Milwaukee, the Canadiens got off to a good start, winning five of their first six games to grab an early lead atop the Adams Division. A little spark plug named Mats Naslund was one of the prime reasons for the strong opening. I watched Naslund score his first NHL goal, in his second game, via a late night sports highlight show from my hotel room in Milwaukee. In his first six NHL games, Naslund racked up eight points. I don’t remember if it was the first Sunday back in studio but it was certainly within a week or two of me returning from the World Series that I decided it was a good idea to have Mats on our Sunday Morning Show. But because we were on live 10 AM to Noon and it was a game day, the Canadiens would be on the ice skating so Elliott arranged to pre-tape the conversation in our production studio before Mats left his hotel room in wherever the Habs were shortly after 9 AM.
Now remember, this was Mats’ rookie season. He was in North America for the first time. Elliott reached Mats on the phone and put him on hold. He pressed ‘record’ on the reel to reel machine then walked out to join me in the announcers booth.
After our intro and welcome, we knew we were in trouble.
I asked Mats if his early NHL experience was what he thought it would be.
In a thick Swedish accent he replied, “Yes”. Then silence. Across the microphone from me, Elliott snorted.
I asked what it was like playing with his line mates (Pierre Mondou & Mario Tremblay?).
After a long pause, he said, “Fun.” But nothing else.
I looked at Elliott and started to giggle. Uh-oh.
I tried one more time. I asked him what it was like living with Bob Gainey and the Gainey family while he got used to life in Montreal.
“It’s…nice.”
At that point I put my head down and heard Elliott try to rescue the conversation – and prolong it – by asking a very long winded question. But it just resulted in another one word answer. All I could think of was “We’re all spies!” and a phone call from Ralph Lucas. We were again off and running on laughing gas. Turning our microphones off only confused poor Mats at the other end. Still laughing, Elliott turned his mic back on to ask Naslund to be patient because we were having a bit of an issue. Not wanting to totally replay what had happened on Sports Digest, I bailed on Elliott. As I pushed the door to the booth open I heard Elliott begin his next question. I don’t know how he finished the interview and I don’t even know if we ran it during the show.
It didn’t take Naslund’s English long to catch up to his on ice performance. For the rest of the decade he became one of the top left wingers in the NHL. He’s the last member of the Canadiens to score over 100 points in a season (110 in the Stanley Cup winning year of 1986). And one of the easiest players to talk to before or after every game.
Yeah we had a lot of fun. I’m proud of the work we did. We made a name for ourselves in a hurry. John McHale and Jim Fanning were hardly the last high profile Montreal sports figures we had issues with. But it was never personal (Well, I don’t want to speak for Elliott on this, especially on the post Bronfman era). I actually felt bad for McHale a couple of years later when he was replaced as GM by Murray Cook. The window for what appeared to be the Team of the 80s was closing rapidly. And once Fanning had moved to a scouting and then broadcasting position we got along very well.
As the year 1982 was coming to a close, Michael Farber blew the lid off the entire Raines story. He won a well deserved National Newspaper Award for his pieces on just how fucked up Raines had been, but also pointing out that McHale and the Expos knew that Raines was struggling with substance abuse. They tried, along with team doctor Bob Broderick, to gently guide him through the rest of the season. So I understood a lot better why McHale had blown up at me when I asked him about what Raines had told Bob Dunn.
I soaked up so much in my first year at CJAD. I pulled more than a couple of all-nighters at the Montreal Press Club where Gordon Atkinson was Bill Veeck at the World Series but without the wooden leg. Both, however, were genuine war heroes. I felt a special kinship with Gordon, as I did with some other iconoclastic types I got to know through the years, especially Dave Patrick. I spent some all nighters in the newsroom too after getting into a torrid and intense relationship with a beautiful member of the news department. Sometimes I just stayed in the newsroom prior to working the morning shift, especially on weekends with Dave Fisher. That’s probably how I first met Bill Brownstein, who remains a good media friend. I got a kick out of working with longtime news anchor Derek Lind who barked a lot but I loved his old school approach and we shared a strong love for music. I saw too many Montreal radio legends who were on their way down or out but took the time to talk to me and share their knowledge, including Ralph Lockwood and Dave Boxer. Even though he’d play gruff I always saw a twinkle in the eyes of Ralph Lucas. We had no issues. And, before he left, he helped get me a better deal. With some help, although Ralph didn’t know it at the time, from Rudi Tesar. One late night when I was keeping my girlfriend company, I went to use the photo copy machine off the main hallway. I saw a spread sheet I wasn’t supposed to see. Or maybe it was left there on purpose. It featured all the freelancers at the station and their weekly fees. What most stood out to me was the 300 dollars a week Red Fisher was getting for his daily 60 second hits. It was, on the surface, no big deal. He was Red Fisher. People tuned in to hear him. But after doing some quick math I realized that Red was clearing more money per week than I was. And that meant more than Elliott too. We loved what we were doing. We were carefree. But, we worked our asses off. We were getting ripped off. The next time I talked money with Ralph Lucas I had some ammunition. And I was alone.
There are a few other people that I remember fondly from that first year including executive secretary Pat Burke who probably knows more about the history of CJAD than anybody. Vance Randolph was the Program Director so we didn’t really deal with him. Except for a brief period when a new overnight host had been hired from Toronto. But John Oakley wasn’t able to arrive in Montreal for another few weeks. So for a one month period Elliott and I, in desperate need of some extra cash and with an addiction to subversiveness, hosted the show prior to Oakley’s arrival. Poor Vance told both of us to “stick to the play list” but we had no intention of not working in some of our favourite artists. There was one hour when I played nothing but Bob Dylan and Joan Baez songs back to back that chronicled their relationship. In the traditional comedy hour of 3-4 AM I played the entire Lenny Bruce Live at Berkeley album from 1966. Nobody complained – until after it ended. During one of Elliott’s shifts he played Dylan’s “Chimes of Freedom” – all seven minutes and ten seconds. This was hardly CJAD territory. But, in retrospect, it was the perfect warm up for Oakley who was incredibly talented, very smart, funny and probably spent more time show prepping than anybody I’ve worked with. Come to think of it maybe that’s why Elliott and I cracked up so often. We were sleep deprived. (The only comparable laughing fit to the one in CJAD’s studio occurred in Aaron Rand’s hotel room at the first Expos Fantasy Camp in West Palm Beach in 1993. We were with Bill Lee, Bill’s second wife Pam, and a friend of Aaron’s who had dealer-quality grass. Oliver Stone’s “The Doors” was on TV. Bill was doing Tai-Chi in sync with Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison. Aaron and I started laughing hysterically and could not stop for several minutes. It was the kind of prolonged state of bliss that we could all use right about now.)
In addition to Derek Lind, Gord Sinclair’s newsroom featured Malcolm Bernard and Victor Nerenberg and Doug Williamson, who must have been the last radio news writer in Canada, puffing away while he typed out copy. Then there was Bob MacGregor who was listed in the Montreal phone book as Rover The Dog. And my fellow Elvis freak-in-arms Stu McIsaac.
It was because of CJAD that I discovered a terrific little Italian self-serve spot down the street called the Rotisserie Italian. It was the perfect pre-Forum concert stop for a quick plate of pasta and wine that would be chased in Cabot Square (aka Pigeon Park) by the hash that Elliott always had on him. Also close by was the legendary Da Vinci restaurant when it was still a small hole-in-the-wall where the Habs would often take over the dining room following a game. I first met our current GM at Bell Media, Martin Spalding, when he was an underage DJ at DJ’s Pub on Crescent Street. After becoming tight with the pub’s manager Rick Chapman and bartenders Skip Snair and the late Paul Langan, DJ’s became our spot. But it soon became everybody’s spot, including visiting players and even the soon-to-be-fired coach of the Canadiens Bob Berry. So I often ventured one block west to Grumpy’s where I was friendly with their bartender Doug Muncey. Grumpy’s is also where I got to know Nick Auf der Mauer. Nick used to stagger into CJAD late Saturday mornings from his home down the street on Tupper. He’d usually walk in with an unlit cigarette, his hands shaking from the night before, looking for a script that he might have completed the previous day, while prepping to offer live commentaries following the noon news update. By then, that cigarette had usually been lit by me. Nick was fun. Deep into his vodka cranberries he’d get loud but never belligerent. And he could talk about anything. And he’d invariably introduce me to somebody. One night it would be Conrad Black. The next a stripper who was working to put her daughter through school. But he’d also introduce me to people I had already met, like the night he told me to say hello to Rodney Scott. To Nick, Rodney wasn’t a member of the Expos but a street smart guy from the inner city of Indianapolis. Just a few years later, I’d get to know Nick even more when my wife and I bought the street level portion of the old triplex he owned.
Often the morning after the night before would begin sitting at the counter at Cosmo. Thank goodness for Tony and his son Niko for feeding us as often as they did since, as the song goes, we could barely even feed ourselves.
I worked steadily at CJAD until 1986 when I took an eight month sabbatical. When I returned I did so knowing that in addition to sports anchoring and reporting I needed to host my own phone-in show. I bugged the new GM Rob Braide and eventually, with the help of strong allies Ted Blackman, who had returned to the station in the mid-80s, George Balcan and Gord Sinclair I ended up hosting ‘Sports Phone’. Following a successful trial run from 6:10-7, it was moved to the more traditional late night slot of 11:15 to 1 AM. I struck up a friendship with Len Dobbin who hosted a Sunday night Jazz show down the hall at CJFM. Len took a liking to me because my nightly theme song intro was ‘Miles’ from the Milestones album by Miles Davis that also featured John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderly, Red Garland, Paul Chambers and Philly Joe Jones, or, the first real Dream Team. Len was yet another older, experienced broadcaster who had an air of knowledge and sophistication about him but also a strong independent streak that I fed off. Rod Dewar had the same vibe. Needless to say, so did the man I shared a studio with more often than any other non-sports broadcaster – Jack Finnegan. You see, my CJAD experience not only allowed me to grow as a broadcaster, it taught me so much about the history of the business but, more importantly, about history itself.
But in 1993, with a two year old daughter at home, it was time to get off late nights. A difficult phone call with Ted Blackman was followed by a brief note, for accounting purposes.
As CJAD celebrated its 75th Anniversary in December I wanted to share a more personal view of how deeply important the station was in my development. In many ways this exercise was therapeutic. I was reminded of good people I hadn’t thought of in far too long. I’ve since reconnected with a couple of them. But I’m especially grateful and proud to have been part of a radio sports department that might have been the deepest and best in the country, maybe ever. Chris Cuthbert was a class act who was clearly on the fast track to something bigger. He juggled the high of calling a Montreal Manic soccer game in front of close to 60,000 fans at Olympic Stadium with the low of the birth of the 2-14 Montreal Concordes following the sad demise of the Alouettes. Chris became one of the greatest hockey and CFL voices the country has ever had. Elliott Price was a hoot and a holler. For five years we played on the same line, eventually even lived together (2075 Marlowe in NDG followed by 5010 Sherbrooke corner Claremont) and chased the same older woman. But Elliott too had tunnel vision for his dream job of becoming the voice of the Montreal Expos. His own story on this site is a real eye opener. Thankfully we were able to work together again at CIQC and then at The Team 990/TSN 690 but the closest we came to capturing the spirit of the early 80s at CJAD was when we worked Expos broadcasts in 2003 (a blast) and 2004 (like a year long funeral). In a seemingly quick blink of an eye, the 25 year old stoner with a head full of curls is now 64 years old. The curls are long gone but at least he still has his hair. Now that he’s retired maybe he’ll grow it out again. Me? I’d like to say I’m still on the road heading for another joint but that would just be a gratuitous Dylan reference. Thinking about a radio career that is closing in on 45 years is just nuts. But, I still like doing it, even during a pandemic when you’re forced to work harder. And, even though it took awhile to settle into my new surroundings at 1717 Rene Levesque E., there is something comforting about heading into work each day, after all of these years, where we share space and some personnel with CJAD.
Thank you Bob Dunn. I owe you breakfast. And so much more.
