This is even better than I remembered.
By the date of this taping – March 8, 1995 – Mitch Garber and I were into our third and final season of The Sports Hot Seat on Cable 9. We had already featured some of our radio friends but decided to expand the concept to include most of the radio teams in English Montreal. So, to coincide with the 75th anniversary of CJAD, we start at the very top. The Mount Everest of Montreal radio.
In my lifetime there was no better radio team than George Balcan and Ted Blackman. Not much more needs to be said. But I’ll say it anyway.
The following 30 minutes will bring you back. You might laugh out loud, as I did, when George utters a word nobody ever heard him say on CJAD. You’ll hear a few examples of what made Ted the accomplished media star that he was while wearing several different hats (newspaper reporter/columnist/radio sportscaster/sports director/program director/musicologist) as he combined savvy street smarts with an unquenchable curiosity about almost everything, especially the bob and weave courtroom manoeuvres of a noted lawyer or two. George had an incredible sweetness about him that was impossible to hide. It’s why so many Montrealers tuned in for so many years. He was an accomplished artist, with a watercolour brush just as he was with a microphone. It was with this artistic bent that he came to appreciate and love the sport of baseball.
What also comes across is the undeniable love and respect they had for each other. Some radio teams called it quits at the end of the working day, barely uttering a word to each other outside of the studio. George and Ted were on air partners and off air brothers.
Enjoy. But you might also shed a few tears, as I did. A reminder of how much we miss their unique chemistry. And how much I miss them.
