Before getting his shot at the network level, Jim Nantz worked as the analyst on Utah Jazz local telecasts for a few seasons. His play-by-play partner on those games was Hot Rod Hundley.Here is a Jazz game from March 1985 called by this tandem. The game against the Chicago Bulls was televised by KSL-TV in Salt Lake City as part of a radio simulcast. Considering that he has been one of the preeminent play-by-play voices for the past few decades, I found it intriguing to hear a young Nantz as an analyst (essentially filling the old-fashioned color commentator role).
A season later, Nantz was serving as a play-by-play announcer on some regional NBA playoff telecasts on CBS.
Thanks for posting that. That is really interesting, especially considering that the ex-player was doing the play-by-play. Two things:
ReplyDelete1. Remember that we don't really see ex-players doing much color on radio or television broadcasts until the 1950s. Before then, the main pbp guys would have "color" commentators pop in, but not do too much.
2. I wonder how many other examples there are of this. I can think of when DeWayne Staats came to the Cubs in 1985, Steve Stone did the play-by-play of the middle three innings and Staats did the color, at least for a while until the audience became more familiar with Staats.
Usually in local teams baseball coverage, the pxp and analyst would often alternate roles during the course of the game.
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