Mornings with A part two and more short takes
We
shared last week part one of our profile of A Martinez, who completed his work last Friday at KPCC to prepare
for his new gig as co-host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” program (read part one
here). We rejoin the story as we learn how A Martinez got his on-air moniker:
John Ireland, who
worked with Martinez at both XTRA Sports (KXTA) and 710 / ESPN (KSPN) explained
how George Martinez (his legal ID) became A Martinez. “Back when we started in
1994, whenever (Steve) Mason needed something, he would yell
across the room, ‘hey, Martinez!’ People
around the office kept asking why we kept calling him ‘A Martinez,’ and the name
just stuck.” Ireland added “even though A’s now a big star, this obviously
shows he still has his sense of humor, which was always my favorite thing about
working with him.”
Eventually Martinez transitioned to a more active on-air role. Among his notable roles was the host of post-game shows for the Dodgers and the Lakers. “I’d encourage fans to vent if they were unhappy. My reasoning was that your favorite team is like a family member. If you love them, you need to be honest about them and not try to sugarcoat things. They have PR staffs to do that.”
“Post game shows were for an honest evaluation and assessment of what happened and to hold the teams accountable, not to cheerlead and pretend everything is fine when it clearly isn’t. Lots of Lakers and Dodgers fans did not like it, arguing that I should be more encouraging. But since they weren’t lowering the prices when the product was bad, I felt it was all fair game,” said Martinez.
As a sports journalist, he covered a number of different stories about the local teams. “The most memorable LA sports thing I covered was being right in the middle of NewsCorp selling the Dodgers to Frank McCourt and all of the drama that came with it.” He was most impressed with Tommy Lasorda, “who thorough out it all served as an ambassador for the Dodger brand and baseball. Tommy was kind of amazing because of the energy he managed to maintain for it 24 / 7 / 365.”
You may think you know A Martinez because he'll tell you certain things on the radio — A is NOT his real name. He is scared of butterflies. He will not eat anything with his hands. The most important things are the ones he'd never say, but I will. A's compassion runs as wide and as deep as the ocean. He is not just into sports — he is a team player unlike any I've ever met in this business. A may not have been born a news man, but he has become one. And I'm so lucky I got to be here to watch and listen.— Alex Cohen
He
moved to the news / talk format of KPCC in 2012. The Los Angeles Times reported on his short-lived pairing with Madeline Brand before being teamed up
with Alex Cohen for “Take Two,” the
show Martinez continued to host when Cohen left for Spectrum News 1 (read the
story here). Martinez was hired as part
of a $6 million grant awarded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for KPCC’s
One Nation Media Project. He told the Times
“if the parameters of that initiative hadn’t been in place, they wouldn’t have
been looking for someone with my kind of Spanish last name. There’s no beating
around that bush. It (the grant) was done to diversify the newsroom, with a
more local radio goal of expanding the Latino audience.”
After nine years at KPCC, Martinez cleared his desk and is moving to the NPR studios in Culver City to join Steve Inskeep, Noel King, and Rachel Martin on the newsmagazine broadcast on 835 stations across the U.S. He fills the vacancy in the host lineup that was left after David Greene’s departure late last year. “I felt I was prepared to take on the national stage. And since they approached me, it seemed like they also felt I was ready for it too.”
“It
comes as zero surprise that A Martinez has earned this opportunity,” said
Ireland. “He’s smart, quick-witted,
curious and funny – all things that we're apparent right from the start when he
worked with us more than 25 years ago. The fact that he shares my love of
sports and bad movies gives me hope that I too might someday host a national
show.”
And a few short takes:
Ted Stryker, half
of the KROQ morning duo of Stryker and (Kevin) Klein, left the show last Friday.
Stryker, who adopted the name from the movie Airplane (Gary Ramón Sandorf is his given name), posted on his
Twitter account:
After more than 22 years at KROQ, I can proudly say with infinite gratitude that I will be leaving my full time position and stepping away from Stryker and Klein… What’s next for me? I’ve got a lot of things planned on the horizon (stay tuned). In the meantime, my Out of Order show will continue to air on weekends on KROQ and around the country. I’ll also be filling in on the station when needed. The love and support that I’ve gotten from this community over so many years have meant and continue to mean the world to me. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your world.”
The
duo were hosting afternoons at the alternate rock station, until Kevin Ryder – along with Allie Mac Kay and Jensen Karp – were dismissed, moving Stryker and Klein to the
morning shift in March 2020. Audacy, which owns KROQ, announced Klein would
continue mornings while they search for a replacement.
L.A.
radio veteran Nicole Sandler once
served as the producer for Mark (Thompson) and Brian (Phelps). Sandler
now hosts a daily podcast at www.nicolesandler.com,
generally discussing the national and international political scene. From time
to time she’ll offer something different, which happened last Friday when she
featured Thompson to congratulate him on his induction, with Phelps, to the
Radio Hall of Fame. Sandler was the producer of the KLOS morning duo, Thompson
credited her as a significant contributor to the show’s success:
I think that I do realize there were a lot of people who enjoyed what we were doing, primarily in the five years, the first five years. In fact, when I went into the Hall of Fame, I was talking to the director, the president of the Radio Hall of Fame and he confirmed to me that “when you were going into the Hall of Fame, you were not going in for the 27 years, but for the first five.” And you were there for that Nicole…We weren’t aware of what we were doing, we were creating a brand new kind of morning radio because no one had done before what we were doing.
We’ll share more from the interview next week. You’ll find the podcast here.
After a two month absence, Bill Handel returned to his KFI morning show. He said numerous times it was great to be back, while alluding to the challenges of his recovery from recent surgery. He did note, however, “I’d rather have back surgery than wait in line for four hours at Disneyland.”
Every
weekend (and Thursday evenings) you can hear classic editions of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem on Sirius XM’s “70s on 7.”
But if you want more Casey, you can hear non-stop countdowns featuring 70s and
80s hits here. I remember how polished Kasem was whenever I heard him, plus he
was a true gentleman when I met him at a LARadio.com day at the Museum of
Television and Radio in 2001. If I ever were to have become a disc jockey, Kasem
was my role model with his smooth and even elegant delivery. Of course, nobody’s
perfect. Listen to Casey trying to record a listener’s dedication to his late
pup, Snuggles. It didn’t go exactly according to the script (hear it here). Beware, much of the language can be classified as "expletive deleted."
Speaking of not going exactly according to the script (note the clumsy segue), I’ve been trying to update, sometimes unsuccessfully, the mailing list for those of you who’d like previews of upcoming posts. If I somehow didn’t fulfill your request, or you haven’t yet signed up for the email alerts, please send your email address to ayodaradio@gmail.com.
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