Ben Youngerman, aka “The Utility Man”

A few years ago, my oldest and best friend from the Internet, Brian Youngerman, started bragging about his nephew, Ben Youngerman.

Hoping to follow in Bob's footsteps

Ben was in high school in Pennsylvania then. He acted in the school plays, sang in the glee club, played baseball and basketball, and got excellent grades as well.

Mind you, every uncle knows his duty is to brag unceasingly about how incredible his nephew or niece is compared with everyone else’s. I know because I brag about Megan, Mike, and Pete. However in my case, I’m right and everyone else is mistaken.

More than once, Brian told me that Ben’s ambition was to become a sports announcer. He attended that great sports broadcasting incubator, Syracuse University, alma mater of Bob Costas, Len Berman, and dozens of other household names.

(I knew a little bit about radio. Emphasis on the “little.” My BA is in Radio-TV-Film and I had a tiny bit of success creating and producing one of the first nationally syndicated technology radio programs for public radio. But I didn't have the fire in me that Ben did.)

During the academic year, he called Syracuse basketball, baseball, and football games. When he wasn't behind the mic, he was singing in the men’s acapella group or entertaining fans during the TV time-outs as Otto the Orange. My Instant Messenger window would pop up and the proud uncle would urge me: “Turn on ESPN NOW!”

AOL IM: “Turn on ESPN NOW!”

During the summers, he served internships to soak up as much experience as he could. Those internships gave way to paid gigs calling A-ball games in Pennsylvania and summer league games in Alaska, doing both the radio and TV play-by-play and pre- and post-game interviews. He even got to sing the National Anthem before some games!

This time the IM windows would have the link to the Internet radio stream from Alaska. He was a bit green, but I could hear the knowledge and passion he got from his father and uncle, and I knew with just a few seasons of polish, he'd be ready for the Show.

As he added lines to an already fat résumé, he learned to juggle, emcee events, and perform stand-up comedy. He's a natural entertainer, and his biggest dilemma is choosing which path to follow.

Along the way, Ben and Brian met Dave Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic. Inside that green pantomime character breathed the heart of a mensch, and several times over the years Dave gave Ben lots of encouragement and some very wise career advice.

In December, their paths crossed again at Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings. Ben was there trying to score a couple of minor league residencies and to schmooze. This time, he surprised Dave with a new persona: “The Utility Man”, a jack-of-all-trades shtick as a vendor, groundskeeper, usher, bat boy, umpire, and some unconventional personas including the “The Phantom of the Ballpark.” Dave was surprised and encouraged Ben to call him if he could help.

Dave’s most recent advice was to be confident in his talent and not to sell himself cheaply. It was great, because when you're his age and still unsure of yourself, to get a pat on the back from one of the giants in the field washes away a lot of doubt.

This young man is on the brink of a wonderful and rich career. What shape his nascent career will take is not yet clear, but what is clear that his combination of talent and passion and ambition will take him to the top.

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Talk to me: Kenn@KennFong.com.

The Death of a Legendary Radio Station

On Thursday, one of the faceless behemoths completed its desecration of a once-great giant of Bay Area radio, KGO-AM 810.

Ronn Owens

For the last few months, Northern California media maven Rich Lieberman warned us that Cumulus Broadcasting was preparing to repeat its usual decimation of a media market once it completed swallowing up a handful of Bay Area stations, including some nationally-known powerhouses, KGO and KNBR.

KGO-AM was an ABC (and later Disney) “O & O” (owned and operated affiliate), sharing the same address as KGO television, which Disney kept. Yes, ABC/Disney was also a big corporation, but it followed the time-honored management philosophy: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Following the wholesale butchery of many production and advertising staffers a few weeks earlier, the writing was on the wall. It wasn't unique to Cumulus (or broadcasting); whenever a big conglomerate devours a local company, the first order is mass firings as the new parent company employs the “economy of scale.”

[It’s called “consolidation;” combining operations to make fewer people do the work of many, clear-cutting a wide swath of devastation as long-time employees are cast out like last week’s recycling into a shrinking job pool. Say you’ve got four people doing essentially the same job in four different offices. Fire two of them, close three of the offices, and split their duties among the remaining two under a single roof. At the top of the list: the most-experienced (and not coincidentally the highest paid) employees; leaving those behind scrambling to figure out how to handle the workload of the missing on top of their own. Can’t keep up? Too bad. In this market there are dozens who will gladly take your job if you complain. For those who do manage to find work, usually it’s a substantial cut in salary; often with drastically reduced (or non-existent) medical and retirement benefits.]

Michael Amatori

KGO’s entire weekday line-up of talent got pink-slipped, except for Ronn Owens. Even brandishing his Marconi Award like a cross wouldn’t have been enough to save him from these godless vampires; but years ago, Ronn’s good friend and protector, the former station manager/benevolent despot Mickey Luckoff, signed him to a “personal services” contract which was too expensive to buy out.

(The golden-throated Production Director, Bay Area Radio Hall of Famer Mike Amatori also held onto his 900 Front Street key card. Raising $200 grand for charity scores for something on the big Arbitron diary in the sky.)

It seems unfair to blame Ronn (and all the others who survived the chop); to look at them as corporate tools. But his gracelss defense of the format change might make the NAB regret giving Ronn his Marconi.

That’s the same kind of thinking as the 60s burn-outs (the anti-everything-about-America-except-our-freedoms crowd) who co-opted the Occupy movement (and punctuate every sentence with “like” as if it was a comma). An organism’s first duty is to itself. To survive. That’s true whether it’s a plant or an animal, an individual or a corporation.

Let’s put the blame where it belongs, on the politicians who gutted all the regulators like the FCC and FTC. Before “diversity” became a hot-button synonym for “minorities,” it meant freedom of choice. Nowadays the radio landscape in Dallas or San Francisco sounds just like it does in New York or Seattle, except maybe for the number of country stations.

As much as some of us disliked Ray Taliaferro and his mumbling recitation of today’s Democratic Party talking points or Dr. Bill Wattenburg’s patronizing pronouncements from Mount Olympus, at least they were different from the homogenized pap we got from the syndicated meat-grinder.

At one time, the FCC and the FTC kept corporations from swallowing up media outlets like that red gelatinous nightmare we saw in The Blob. By enervating those regulators, it became impossible for independents and small chains to fight off being absorbed by the aggregators like Cumulous.

There's lots of blame to go around on both sides of the political spectrum. The Democrats say they're on the side of the little man, and I agree, but he's the little man with the handlebar moustache on the Monopoly board.

We’ve got the best politicians money can buy.

Sixty years ago, Humphrey Bogart played a crusading newspaper editor in Deadline, U.S.A. He and his publisher, Ethel Barrymore, tried to fight off a take-over bid fueled by her greedy children who were anxious to cash in by selling off to conglomerate. “The Day” got sold and that city lost an independent voice. It was a different medium, but it's the same story.


I’ve been reading a lot about Facebook campaigns and proposed advertiser boycotts, but these seldom succeed. Outrage rarely lasts longer as it takes to type the screed.

Larry Ellison to the rescue?

As I see it, the only real chance is if some Bay Area millionaire(s) decide to buy the bankrupt 960-AM and persuade Mickey Luckoff out of retirement to helm a Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland Andy Hardy-esque revival. (“Dad’ll let us use the barn, and Mom’ll help us make the costumes. Let’s put on a radio station!”)

Who knows, maybe Larry Ellison might do it. He’s just egotistical enough to want expand his Oracle brand to broadcasting.

Talk to me: KennATKennFongDOTcom.

Racing’s Terrible Toll

No doubt you must have heard about and perhaps seen yesterday’s horrific accident at Las Vegas Motor Speedway which killed two-time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon. It was both horrifying and mesmerizing. Within a few minutes it must have been certain to the folks in the booth that Wheldon (a colleague who had worked with some of the producers and technical personnel earlier this season for 3 races), was dead. The producer and director wisely chose not to show replays after the first 15 minutes and they did not show the wrecked chassis of his car, which track officials wisely covered immediately.


The clip begins onboard Wheldon’s car. “GO LOW! GO LOW! GO LOW!” Wheldon’s spotter screamed. The car takes flight at the bottom of the track (0:15) and bursts into flame as it hits the catch-fence in front of the O'Reilly Auto Parts sign. At 0:26 a barely audible gasp, "He's dead."

It must have been the hardest two hours of their careers for Marty Reid, Eddie Cheever, and Scott Goodyear, the men in the ABC/ESPN booth. They knew the obvious had occurred and any doubts they might have had evaporated as the minutes interminably crawled by and Indy officials were not forthcoming with details of his treatment. Normally, when a driver gets injured, within a few minutes there’ll be either a full rundown of his injuries if they're minor or they'll at least say if he's awake and talking. The silence must have echoed in their ears.

NASCAR tribute decal for Talladega 10/22

Still, they could not speculate or allow their emotions to get the best of them. The official news would not come until someone reached Wheldon’s parents in England to gently break the news.

The cars were driving on a 1.5 mile high-banked oval track in Las Vegas, built for NASCAR. Stock cars have fenders and quarter-panels covering the wheels. If you graze another car, usually you don’t send him out of control. But open wheel cars are very different. When wheels touch or one wheel is grazed by the front wing of another, it’s disastrous. Las Vegas was known as one of the smoothest, best paved tracks, which lulled the drivers into driving “flat,” meaning they never lifted off the accelerator.

The initial crash occurred about a quarter mile ahead of him, but when you’re travelling at 220 MPH, that means your car moves forward 321 feet per second. That’s more than a whole football field and one end zone. “GO LOW! GO LOW! GO LOW!” his spotter screamed, but it was too late. Wheldon could not take evasive action. Another car came down in front of him and that’s when his left front wheel went over the back of that car, launching Wheldon’s car airborne, tumbling like a child’s toy into what’s called the “catch-fence,” which is nothing more than normal chain-link fencing three feet off the ground meant to keep flying debris from injuring spectators, above the SAFER barriers, which are engineered to absorb shock.

Wheldon’s cockpit hit the bottom of the SAFER (Steel And Foam Energy Reduction) barrier and continued into the catch-fence, erupting in flames as it happened. It's unlikely he survived the impact.

Wheldon was universally loved and respected in the garage. He was always known as the fellow who had an extra moment to talk to a fan, pose for apicture, sign an autograph. Countless anecdotes were repeated yesterday from fans who said he knelt down to talk with their child and didn’t just talk, he asked questions and listened. Just two weeks ago, a young friend, Matt Weaver, who writes about NASCAR and Formula 1, covered his first Indy race. He walked through the paddock area and chatted with Wheldon, who was warm, kind, and gracious. They weren't “the big shot series champion” and “the newly-minted journalist;” they were two guys who loved racing.



The race was red-flagged for nearly two hours. After the parade of tear-filled and ashen faces left the driver's meeting, the inevitable announcement was made. Wheldon’s fellow drivers chose to drive a five-lap tribute to him, during which his number 77 was the only number displayed atop the scoring pylon.

Perhaps the saddest ironies are that even though Wheldon had won an Indy Championship and had twice won the crown jewel, the Indy 500, first in 2005 and then again this May, he still had no full-time sponsor going into this, the season's finale. Because he was such a good driver, he was asked to test the new, safer 2012 Indy cars.

The adoption of that car will come one season too late for Dan Wheldon.

On Sunday morning, just hours before his death, he signed a contract to drive next season for Andretti-Greene racing, run by Mario’s son, Michael, who was his team owner when Wheldon won his first Indy 500.

He was going to take Danica Patrick’s vacated seat.

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Talk to me: KennATKennFong.com.