Intro

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Nick: Welcome in to the Chomp Pod, we have a very special show ahead. I’m your host Nick Mazzoni.

Jack: And I’m your co-host, Jack Davies. 

Nick: Make sure you follow us on Twitter @The Chomp Pod for updates and new episodes.

Preview

Nick: For our inaugural episode, we will be reviewing this past week in Bay Area Sports.

Nick:(With enthusiasm!!) Giants’ and A’s baseball is back!!!

Jack:  I will be talking about my latest story on SF State’s 3rd baseman, Richie Rios.

Nick: (With enthusiasm!) And we have a very special guest interview with Golden State Warriors  play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald, who spoke with The Chomp earlier this week about his broadcasting career and the warriors. 

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Current Events News (All Sports mini headlines) 

Nick:  Ok lets in SF State, how about the baseball player Richie Rios.

Jack: Richie helped lead the team to their best winning percentage since 2006, but unfortunately the season was cut short before any playoff action. Richie was an honorable mention for the All-Star team after having himself a really good season. 

Nick: What was it like talking with Richie? 

Jack: He is a great leader and teammate, and it was awesome to speak with him. He’s a very humble guy who really appreciated getting some recognition.

Nick: Here’s a quick clip from his baseball coach, Tony Schifano.

Schifano: I’ve known Richie for a year, I should say I recruited and coached him for one year so I’ve known him for two years. Richie is relatively a quiet young man, he keeps to himself, he is very humbled. Ke kind of earns the respect from his teammates in the way he plays the game. As opposed as being very talkative. He’s a leader by example more than anything.

Jack: I asked Richie what he loves about baseball. Here’s a clip of what he said: 

Rios: “I love how it’s not the same everyday, one day you can be four for four and the next day you can be humbled real quick and strike out four bats. It’s up in the air. It’s just the game that you have no control over. It’s hard to be consistent and when you do see consistent players, it makes you appreciate towards them. You know it’s not easy. It’s one of the hardest game. It definitely keeps you humble.”

Nick: There’s more where that came from! Check out the article at our website, goldengatexpress.org

Jack:(Excited) Fans will be back to watch the Giants and A’s in person!  March 4, the state updated its COVID Reopening Blueprint, which is now allowing outdoor venues to safely reopen.

Nick: Stadium attendance will be limited to the county’s current tier. Currently, we are in the Red Tier- which means attendance will be at 20%, with concessions sales in-seat only.

Jack: Still, with no end in sight, the SF State Gators will be sidelined until further notice. 

Nick: Let’s move on to our Baseball brief.

Baseball Brief

• Topic: SF Giants (Nick)  

After coming off a disappointing 2020 season, the Giants finished under .500 and hope to turn things around this year. With powerhouses in the division like the Dodgers and the Padres, it won’t be easy.

One player to watch for is outfielder Heliot Ramos.  So far this spring,  he is hitting. 450 and has 3 homers. I’m watching for him to develop as the Giants’ future star.

Tommy La Stella is a new addition for the orange and black (Giants). He’s a career .270 hitter, last year he played for both the Angels and the A’s.

Okay, let’s move on to Oakland, How are the A’s looking at Jack? 

• Topic: Oakland A’s (Jack) 

The A’s have had disappointing playoffs the last three seasons and followed that up with letting several key players go this Offseason. 

They lost three of their star players in SS Marcus Semien, closing pitcher Liam Hendriks, and traded DH Khris Davis for SS Elvis Andrus and $13.5 million cash. They signed closing pitcher Trevor Rosenthal and DH Mitch Moreland. 

In doing so, they freed up $32 million to spend on other spots of roster while downgrading a bit on talent. However, they did lose some fan favorites. 

I’m expecting the A’s to be a competitive team once again. 

Three things to look forward to: 

1. Seeing how the A’s continue to fill out the roster, 
2. continued growth of Matt brothers, 
3. and seeing if the A’s can beat the Astros for the division again!

Jack: Before we get into our basketball brief and main Interview today, the Chomp Podcast is starting a March Madness bracket.

Nick: Join “The Chomp” on ESPN’s Bracket Challenge app to compete against us. 

Jack: I’m really excited March Madness is back. It was really a bummer to not have it last year. It will definitely be weird for there to not be fans, as the atmosphere is so exciting with them there. But I’m looking forward to it, and I hope the outcome is more predictable than Gonzaga winning it all. It is March Madness, so anything can happen. 

Warriors Brief

Nick: Heading into the second half the season, the Warriors are now 19-19 and in 9th place in the west. 

Jack: Personally, I’ve been disappointed with the Warriors so far. I thought this team had enough talent to be a 4-5 seed, and they’ve underperformed. Oubre has been playing well recently, and Wiseman is playing up to his draft position, so the future is definitely bright moving forward. 

Nick: Maybe, they should have drafted LaMelo! Ok Let’s get to our interview of the day with Bob Fitzgerald.

Interview with Golden State Warriors play-by-play announcer Bob Fitzgerald

Nick: I really appreciate it. It’s an honor. You’re the voice of the Warriors. Being a student publication, I wanted to talk a little bit about your career and the culmination of that. And you could start with being a Serra Padre, local guy. I was wondering if you broadcasted games when you were at Serra High School.

Bob: No, I didn’t do it in high school. My dad was an electrician at Comiskey Park in Chicago, where the White Sox played. So as a little kid, I got to go to the ballpark and see the players and this scenario, and Harry Kerry was actually the White Sox announcer with a guy named Jimmy Piersol. And so I saw those guys on the field and this and that, and, you know, they were drinking old style beer and eating hot dogs. And, you know, watching the game and as a kid, I was like, wow, they get into the game for free. That’s really fun. And then someone said, No, that’s their job. It’s like, wait a minute, like, talking about the game can be a job. That seems like a really neat job. So when we moved to the Bay Area, when I was nine, the Warriors played in the NBA championship against Washington and their announcer was Bill King, who I listened to on the radio and fell in love with, and they had a show on KNVR called sports phone 68 that Hank Greenwald, and the longtime giants announcer, you know, took phone calls from fans, and I said, Man, I want to be the warrior announcer and I want to have a show on cambiar that’d be great. They said that at my ninth birthday, and so 28 years with cambiar, and then 28 years now with the warriors and that’s led to the NFL and arena phone Follow the Olympics and just so many other good things. It’s been really fun.

Nick: What a dream come true, right? Yeah. And speaking of Bill King, I read about him as an idol of yours. And I also read that he was a prolific painter. So I had to ask, what’s your hobby? What’s they going to be talking about Bob Fitzgerald?

Bob: No, I have zero skills in terms of artistic or music or anything like that. I’m a big history guy. So I love history and politics. I was an accounting and finance major. So investments and other things are interesting to me. But I wish I could paint or play the piano or do one of those things. I’m relegated to playing golf and walking the dogs and raising my kids and doing that stuff. But my pursuits really are kind of history, politics and business and finance. I find all that stuff fascinating and pay pretty close attention to it.

Nick: Awesome. That’s great. Um, yeah, Bill King. I think he was also like in the Russian literature and all sorts of crazy stuff. So I want to do a little bit more research on him because he’s a character. Um, and then yeah, I guess moving forward. You’ve mentioned studying accounting and I believe, was you studying accounting when you were at Notre Dame?

Bob: Yeah, what Notre Dame I did accounting and finance and auditioned for the student radio station, their WVFi, the voice of the Fighting Irish and was fortunate enough to be able to call basketball games and football games for Notre Dame. And that was a good era because they won the national championship and football had guys like Rick Meyer and Jerome Bettis and Ricky waters, and Tony rice and, and so many great players, Tim Brown won the Heisman. He’s my classmate. And then in basketball, we beat Danny Manning and Kansas when they were number one and beat North Carolina when they were number one and went to the tournament all four years, and a number of our players went on to the NBA. So that really was, you know, a super great time, not only to be at Notre Dame, but to be involved in student radio. And that led to CBA basketball in the Columbus horizon and getting my master’s in sports management at Ohio State. And then came out to the Bay Area to work for a company called Bay Area hockey 91, which turned into the San Jose Sharks. And that kind of led me back to the Bay Area and into the sports world.

Break

 Nick: Support the Golden Gate Xpress’ work by signing up for our online newsletter, following us on Instagram or Twitter @ GGXnews and visiting the website: goldengatexpress.org

Jack: Interested in advertising with GGX? Check out our advertising page on goldengatexpress.org/advertising. 

Nick: Tell us on our twitter page @ TheChompPod how your favorite team will play in the regular season! 

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Main Story 2

Nick: How did you go from studying accounting to broadcasting?

Bob: The thing was, is, you know, they’re accounting and finance, you get a degree to get a job, and I was hired by Price Waterhouse to be an accountant, but then you have your dream of what you’d like to do. And that was always for me to be broadcasting and so I think that the Notre Dame stuff whether it was hockey or basketball, or football, was the first taste to try to do it. And really realize how much I enjoyed it and how much fun I had with it, and then figured out you know, what, I might be okay with this and if I work at it, maybe I could, I could make it to be really good at this. And so I think there’s always those two tracks particularly for young people is you’re getting your education which is going to be necessary no matter what job you end up having, but then you should also have something that you love that you’re trying to pursue it to see if that can be your profession and sometimes that works out for people and and sometimes it doesn’t in the broadcasting business. It can be really competitive and you need some good fortune and then when opportunity presents itself you know you’ve got to be ready to go

Nick: Do you feel like that your time at Notre Dame, like being around all you know just it’s like a sports machine over there, do you feel like that that really brought you to rise to the occasion and get the confidence you needed to continue on?

Bob: I’ll tell you what, I mean, I’ve been fortunate, you know, the United States wanting a gold medal. You know, in men’s and women’s basketball in London. The United States men and women both made the gold medal games and water polo and in Beijing, you know, it was those were really fun. National NBC Sports, you know, big time broadcast. Coby Bryan and Anton Jamison each had 51 points in a game. That was in 2000. So that was 21 years ago, but NBA TV re ran that a couple times, I got to see that. The warrior parades getting the MC you know, three championship parades on the first one with 1.5 million people out there. And you’re kind of doing the emcee of that. Steph Curry this year is 62 point game is his career-high. I called Klay Thompson’s 37 point quarter, which is an NBA record and, you know, clays, 14 threes in a game, which is an NBA record and numerous Steph Curry 50 point games, and I got to be on the mic for the Warriors 73rd victory, which was, you know, the NBA record for wins in a season. So I’ve been really lucky. I’ve had some great individual performances and a great team things. I got to call the Notre Dame West Virginia national championship in the Fiesta Bowl when Notre Dame won the title. So that was, you know, that was a stupid radio, but it still was a lot of fun. So I’ve just been really, really lucky in terms of the events I’ve had, and the opportunities I’ve had, and just the ability to do those things for a living.

Nick: Going forward with the rest of the season, what adjustments do you think that the Warriors will need to make to make the deep playoff-like push that they may want to make?

Bob: Well, I think the absence of Klay Thompson takes away a huge component of what has made the Warriors a title contender. I think they can be in the playoffs for sure. And then in the playoffs kind of anything can happen. But for them, they’re also developing James Wiseman and Eric Paschall, and hopefully Jordan pool. And so they’re a little bit of both you’re trying to win, because you have Steph Curry and Raimon. And Andrew Wiggins and Kelly Oubre are fitting in and but this is more, be a quality team, a competitive team, be an interesting team, and then also develop players. So when you add potentially draft picks, as well as Klay, Thompson’s return, then you can get back to that ultimate pursuit of being an elite team, you know that they had such a great run seven straight years in the playoffs and five straight trips to the finals. And I think that Steph and Draymond and Klay probably have at least one more run in them. So that’s gonna be a lot of fun to see.

Nick: Absolutely. Do you think that with Klay out that that leads to some of the challenges that they’re facing right now for the trade deadline, in terms of what they want the moves that they may want to make?

Bob: Yeah, I don’t know. I think that, you know, if you are right on the cusp of pursuing a championship, then you know, the trade deadline has a certain meaning. I think for the Warriors, if they were to make any transactions, they would be for the short term. But more importantly, for the long term. You know, this is not a team that is right next to winning a title. They’re 19 and 18 at the break, and so I don’t think that they’ll be involved in any transaction that wouldn’t have good long-term random ramifications. Whereas you have a team like maybe the Lakers that are right in that championship window, if they were going to make a transaction. It would be to help LeBron win right now,

End 

And that was the episode.
This is Nick and Jack. We’re campus news reporters and your hosts for the Chomp.

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And with that, we’re signing off.

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