They had been inexperienced persons collectively. Fernando Valenzuela and Fred Rogen They every debuted in Los Angeles in September 1980.
Valenzuela threw his final pitch for the Dodgers in 33 years. After a profession overlaying Valenzuela, Kobe Bryant, Wayne Gretzky, Al Davis and numerous others Channel 4Rogen hangs up his microphone. His final day as a sportscaster there may be Thursday.
He says it is his alternative. He’ll nonetheless seem on his AM 570 radio present. He’ll discover alternatives in tv manufacturing, whether or not he’s internet hosting applications or inventing them for others. However after greater than 42 years As a neighborhood sportsmanHe is able to throw his final shot off the anchor desk.
“I have been realizing goals I did not know I used to be dreaming,” mentioned Rogen, 65. “I used to be the luckiest, most blessed man on the earth.”
Rogen’s farewell would not be acceptable with out acknowledging the vital position he is performed in revitalizing native nightly sports activities broadcasts right here and elsewhere.
Sport was a severe matter instructed by severe faces.
Rogen was not one in all them. A 1989 story on a brand new, lighter wave of sportscasters targeted on Rogen and had this headline: “enter the clowns.”
As Channel 4’s sportsman, Rogen has continued the legacy of distinguished alumni akin to Bryant Gumbel, Ross Porter and Stu Nahan. The station promoted Rogen closely along with his personal slogan: “Fred will present it to you!”
“You mentioned … that in an earthquake your possibilities had been 1 in 3 of being crushed by a Fred Rogen billboard,” Keith Olbermann mentioned in that 1989 story.
Olbermann was Channel 2’s sportsman then, earlier than he exploded to change into a family identify on ESPN. Rogen stayed in Los Angeles, realizing through the years that it did not matter if Fred may present it to you should you’d already seen it.
With apologies to older readers, a historical past lesson for youthful readers: For some time, you needed to anticipate the 11 p.m. information to see highlights from the Dodgers and Lakers, and Fred may present them to you first. Then ESPN got here alongside, and Fred can nonetheless present you it, however hours after ESPN does. Then got here the web and the smartphone, and you’ll see all of the highlights you need, everytime you need.
“If we sit there and inform individuals what they already know, they do not have to look at us,” Rogen mentioned.
This isn’t only a downside for Channel 4, or another tv station. That is an pressing dilemma for any media outlet, together with this one.
For some followers, the tip end result remains to be the 11 p.m. information, or the morning paper. Not everybody seems on the display screen at night time. However for individuals who do, how do you entice viewers or readers?
For a time, KNBC-TV 4 closely promoted Fred Rogen along with his personal catchphrase: “Fred will present it to you!” Rogen kind of ceded the hardcore sports activities viewers to ESPN and targeted on everybody else.
(Myung Jae-chun / Los Angeles Occasions)
Roggin kind of ceded the hardcore sports activities crowd to ESPN and targeted on everybody else, along with his “Corridor of Disgrace” and “Roggin’s Heroes” bug segments, TV’s “Going Roggin” sports activities discuss present, and “The Problem” as a post-game recreation present. .
And on a Friday night time, even in a market of 20 million individuals, he performed highschool soccer.
“I’ve at all times believed that that is the purpose the place we will deliver our flag to bear,” he mentioned. “Once you decide up the Los Angeles Occasions, or test it out on-line, the principle story is not a couple of highschool child or a highschool recreation.”
Some days, it’s. The Occasions has dedicated itself to the dynamic duo of Eric Sondheimer And Luca Evans in excessive faculties as a result of The Occasions sees, as Rogen did, a chance to domesticate a brand new viewers.
It’d work. Possibly not.
That, actually, was the gist of Rogen. Not every little thing labored out, however he tried. On this age when groups and leagues present scores, highlights, and interviews, should not your native Sports activities Report provide one thing totally different?
“That is not the best way native sports activities are handled throughout the nation,” Roggin mentioned. “It is dozens and highlights. With all due respect to everybody who does it – and does such an excellent job – it simply would not maintain the significance it used to.”
“That is why you see native sportscasters dying.”
There’ll nonetheless be native sports activities reveals in Los Angeles, on Channel 4 and past. After Thursday, they’ll not be broadcasting dwell from the Rogen neighborhood.