Table Of ContentCopyright © 2016, 2018 by Eric Mirlis
First paperback edition 2018
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To Keri and David
You make it all worth it
CONTENTS
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Marv Albert
Introduction
Kenny Albert
Marv Albert
Greg Amsinger
John Anderson
Harvey Araton
Michelle Beadle
Mike Breen
Thom Brennaman
Ric Bucher
Joe Buck
Kevin Burkhardt
Jeffri Chadiha
Freddie Coleman
Bob Costas
Colin Cowherd
Frank Deford
Gregg Doyel
Ian Eagle
Mark Feinsand
Bruce Feldman
Scott Ferrall
Terry Gannon
Mike Garafolo
Jason Gay
Doug Gottlieb
Mike Greenberg
Mike Hill
E.J. Hradek
Jerry Izenberg
Kostya Kennedy
Dave Kindred
Andrea Kremer
Keith Law
Steve Levy
Bob Ley
Stewart Mandel
Hal McCoy
Jiggs McDonald
Liam McHugh
Chris McKendry
Bob Miller
Jon Morosi
Chris Myers
Jim Nantz
Ross Newhan
Rob Parker
Gary Parrish
Dave Pasch
Jeff Pearlman
Joe Posnanski
Ray Ratto
Karl Ravech
Dave Revsine
Chris Rose
Bob Ryan
Sam Ryan
Jeremy Schaap
Jon Sciambi
Charley Steiner
Dick Stockton
Rob Stone
Rick Telander
Charissa Thompson
Mike Vaccaro
Adnan Virk
Lesley Visser
Dan Wetzel
Trey Wingo
Tracy Wolfson
Matt Yallof
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
project like this warrants many thank-yous, but none of them are more
important than the ones I must say to all of the people who are featured in
Athe following pages. In some cases, it started with a blind email, in others
it was a connection through a friend or coworker. In all cases, it ended with me
being a royal pain in the behind, so my deepest and most sincere thank-you to
each and every one of you.
This book was a labor of love for me, and, frankly, wouldn’t have happened
without the continued support and encouragement from my friend Kenny Albert,
who has been bugging me to do this for the last few years. Not only did he push
me to get rolling on this, but his assistance throughout the process, from
enlisting people to participate to listening to all of my hairbrained ideas along
the way, was invaluable.
They say the hardest thing in the world when writing is proofreading your
own work. I can attest to that and owe Todd Behrendt a huge debt of gratitude
for all of his hard work handling the fact-checking, proofreading, and mistake-
saving.
Of course, it goes without saying that there were a lot of people involved in
helping me line up all of the participants. Many favors were called in, and for
those, I say thank you to Rich Ackerman, Chris Antonacci, Kent Camera, Stosh
Cienki, Jennifer Cingari, Steve Craddock, Andrew Crawford, Bill Dallman,
Jennifer Davis, Mark Feinsand, Lorraine Fisher, David Fried, Dave Goren and
the National Sports Media Association, Matt Gould, Dan Higgins, Tom
Hoffarth, Mike Hughes, Rick Jaffe, Dan Kaufman, Matt Ketaineck, Rick
Leonard, Melissa Miller, David Neal, Lou Oppenheim, Jeff Pearlman, Dan
Quinn, Alex Riethmiller, Alex Rozis, Dan Sabreen, Alan Sanders, Matt
Schnider, David Scott, Eric Spitz, Jacob Ullman, Brad Zager, and Adam Zucker.
When I set out on this project, there were going to be 100 people in the book.
I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge those people whom I interviewed but
whom I needed to place to the side for book length considerations: Hal Bodley,
Cindy Brunson, Jim Caple, Heather Cox, Howard David, Colleen Dominguez,
Amin Elhassan, Neil Everett, Travis Haney, Benjamin Hochman, Tom Hoffarth,
Michael Kim, David Lloyd, Alex Marvez, Tony Massarotti, Ryan McGee, Scott
Miller, Beth Mowins, Rob Neyer, Steve Physioc, Bill Pidto, Pete Prisco, Bill
Reiter, Peter Schrager, Dave Sims, Susan Slusser, Lyle Spencer, Bob
Wischusen, Van Earl Wright, and Adam Zucker. I wish I had the room to run
them all. Thank you all for your time and understanding.
Most important, a thank-you filled with love to my wife, Keri, and son, David.
There were quite a few ups and downs while I was writing this book, and some
spots along the way where I lost my focus. If it weren't for their love and
understanding, though, I’m not sure I would have gotten it back on the rails.
They are the ultimate definition of “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
FOREWORD
By Marv Albert
ports broadcasters and writers see so many events that it is easy for us to
take it all for granted. We know we are the conduit between the games and
Sthe fans, so it is our responsibility to relay the importance of the big events
or moments when we see them. At the same time, we often forget why we are all
in this business to begin with. We are all fans, too, and we are all fans because of
those great moments.
Whenever we get a chance to step back and reflect on the moments that stand
out the most to us, the memories come flooding back, and the stories start rolling
off our tongues. At heart, we are all storytellers … we just usually tell those
stories as they are unfolding, not as recollections. That is what makes it so much
fun to put together a list for this book. It gives all of us a chance to look back at
everything we have seen and done and tell stories about the moments in our
careers that have meant the most to us. Maybe they had personal meaning,
maybe it was something historic. Regardless of why it stands out, though, each
story resonates in some way.
As you read each of the stories in the book, try and remember where you were
for those moments you saw that are being shared by myself and my peers.
Compare your memories to ours. In most cases, you’ll realize that they don’t
differ very much, with the exception that some of us were lucky enough to be
there to provide the soundtrack for you to hear or postgame story for you to read.
And that is all it is … we were simply lucky enough to be there to see all of
these wonderful moments.
Marv Albert, a recipient of the Basketball Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award, is
currently a broadcaster for Turner Sports.
