When Steve Somers first began at WFAN in 1987, the beloved former sports activities speak host didn’t suppose he’d make it previous his first 12 months on the airwaves.
“I all the time thought I used to be going to get fired,” Somers informed The Publish in a cellphone dialog. “I keep in mind after the primary 12 months that I used to be there, speaking to my mom and father in San Francisco, the place I used to be crying on the cellphone, I used to be so completely satisfied I used to be renewed. I imply, I didn’t know whether or not my shtick was gonna work or not. The agent that I had on the time mentioned I’d do effectively in New York due to my humorousness. Being sarcastic, being considerably sardonic, a bit bit ironic and a bit bit iconic. So he thought I’d do okay in New York, however he was the one one.”
Secure to say 34 years at one of many nation’s best-known sports activities speak radio stations proved Somers’ agent proper, and that rise to changing into probably the most memorable voices at WFAN is a part of Somers’ new memoir popping out Nov. 18, “Me Right here, You There: My Three Many years In a single day, Underneath the Covers, Schmoozing S-P-O-R-T-S as Captain Midnight for WFAN.”
Somers, who grew up in San Francisco, grew to become a staple on New York sports activities speak radio earlier than he retired in 2021 — he nonetheless fills in every so often on WFAN and hosts a weekly podcast — making his Somer-isms onerous to neglect.
In a virtually hour-long dialog with The Publish, Somers weaved his tried and true sayings in, dropping “Sacratomato” right into a story about his mom’s concern over job safety in New York; “My mom thought if I wished to seek out safety, that I ought to be a shoe salesman, And I informed her, I don’t have a foot fetish,” he joked.
“The Fearless Forecaster” got here up when he was discussing his begin in radio in his teenagers, doing highschool sports activities within the Sixties, which is the place that exact Somer-ism was born.
And naturally, there was “Ice-Landers.”
“That was one thing that basically pissed off numerous Islander followers after I began utilizing forwards and backwards the rivalry between the 2 [hockey teams],” Somers mentioned. “The unsung rivalry that basically hit the guts of hockey followers was Rangers and Islanders and I like taking part in off city versus rural. Broadway versus Previous Nation Street. Madison Sq. Backyard versus the Nassau Mausoleum.”
Somers, as he recalled, would even play “The Surrey with the Fringe on High” from the film “Oklahoma” so as to add to the shtick and it led to an Islanders PR individual inviting him to lunch to attempt to persuade him to cease calling them the “Ice-Landers” because it had bothered the group and the followers.
Somers declined that request and Islanders followers ultimately caught on.
“I don’t imply any hurt. It’s not vile, it’s not damaging. It simply infuriates one fan base in opposition to the crew that I root for,” he mentioned.
The beloved sports activities speak host boiled down his thought course of along with his Somer-isms to 1 easy thought: “I didn’t wish to use cliches.”
“Metaphors, euphemisms, play on phrases. I believed there have been numerous issues that I did that I believed have been artistic and ingenious,” Somers mentioned earlier than admitting that typically cliches have been inevitable.
Somers referred to reaching the heights that he did at WFAN as attending to Broadway, discovering it onerous to consider, when requested to look again, at a number of the issues that he’s gotten to do through the course of his profession.
And a number of the mates he’s made alongside the way in which.
Amongst Somers’ devoted legion of followers is comic Jerry Seinfeld, who wrote the foreword for Somers’ upcoming guide, and famously known as into the present through the years as Jerry from Queens.
Actor/comic Robert Klein has additionally known as in.
“Once I began and even after I got here to WFAN, I’d have paid [the station] for that chance to lastly get to Broadway,” Somers mentioned about reaching the New York Sports activities speak station. “I used to say, in case you have been to take a flight from the West Coast to the East Coast, it’s about six hours. That flight took me 22 years and I lastly acquired right here and did okay.”
Somers mentioned he desires the message readers take away from the guide to be “don’t take no for a solution.”
“You possibly can survive and flourish and with some success and good luck, you possibly can understand a few of your targets, your goals, your locations,” he mentioned. “Now, that’s a cliche, however it resonates. And I feel everyone can establish with that.”
