Six stories above the Del Mar race track, a telephone rang that would change the way America hears the Breeders' Cup.
Only Trevor Denman didn't know it at the time.
All the best race caller in America knew this summer was that the third race was about to begin and it wasn't a good time to talk with someone who said he was an ESPN employee.
“It was the week of the Pacific Classic,” Denman recalled, “so I thought, 'This guy is going to go on about the Pacific Classic, and I've done it 1,000 times.' So I told him, 'They're coming to the gate, you're going to have to call me back.' I wasn't rude, but I was short.
“He called me back and said, 'Would you be interested in the Breeders' Cup?' ”
Who wouldn't? Denman has been to several runnings of horse racing's championship day, but only in a supporting role. Tom Durkin called every race from the event's inception in 1984 until 2005 for NBC.
Denman's lone experience came in 1986 when he was on Santa Anita's own low-low-low-power radio station. “So you could say I have called it before,” he said recently, “even if only 100 people heard it. Maybe a couple of guys in the 101 (Sports) Bar around the corner.”
But ESPN agreed last year to televise the Breeders' Cup from 2006-2013, and the network wanted its own voice. It couldn't have come up with a better one than Denman, 54, who brought his distinctive commentator style to Santa Anita in 1983 and to Del Mar the following summer.
“It's one of the last few challenges left in racing at this stage of my career,” said Denman, who began his career 35 years ago in his native South Africa. “If it was ever going to happen, it would happen when they changed networks. As long as they were with NBC, there was no chance. But when it went to ESPN, the thought crossed my mind.”
Denman said his biggest challenge during the eight races he will call tomorrow is “trying not to overdo it. It's only a horse race. Do it the way you've been doing it the last 35 years.”
Of course, as Denman also said, “It's not the third race on a Thursday. It's like eight Santa Anita Handicaps or eight Pacific Classics. With any sport, you get up for the big ones, and they get you up.”
Denman is thankful that ESPN is asking him just to call the races. There will be plenty of other folks on hand to fill time between the start of the broadcast at 9 a.m. and when “SportsCenter at the Breeders' Cup” ends at 4 p.m. (The first Cup race is at 9:30, the last at 2:20.)
Chris Fowler – missing his first “College GameDay” since 1990 – is the main host. He will work with a pair of analysts: Hall of Fame jockey Jerry Bailey, who leads all riders with 15 Breeders' Cup wins, and Randy Moss. Kenny Mayne and handicapper Hank Goldberg will form another broadcast team, and there will be four reporters, none of whom (thankfully) is named Mike Battaglia.
ESPN2 will carry a one-hour selection show at 2 p.m. today that includes North County resident Jay Privman of the Daily Racing Form.
New voice wanted
If only Tim Flannery could be cloned . . .
That was how Bill Pugh, VP of programming at XX Sports Radio, responded when asked what kind of announcer he'd like to see replace Flannery, who is leaving after two seasons to become the Giants' third-base coach.
“In a perfect world, he'd be the perfect guy,” Pugh said. “Where he's been, what he's done, how he's made up. It'd be great if we'd be able to clone him.”
Barring that, Pugh said he'll “wait and see” before the flagship radio station and Padres hire a replacement. Jeff Overton, Padres executive VP of business operations, said something similar.
“We do have the benefit of time,” Overton said, “but we're going to focus on that. It's a very important opportunity, a very important role.”
Flannery filled three roles, actually: game broadcasts, TV pregame show and radio pre-pregame show.
One name sure to be discussed is Bob Scanlan, who co-hosted XX's postgame show with John Kentera. Scanlan also has done some fill-in analyst work on Channel 4 San Diego and worked as a broadcaster for the Lake Elsinore Storm and UC Irvine. He said yesterday he was definitely interested.
Flipping channels
It's a non-HD NFL doubleheader Sunday on KFMB Channel 8, with Chargers-Browns (Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker announcing) at 1:15 p.m., following Chiefs-Rams. The other two games Sunday are in HD, Cowboys-Redskins at 10 a.m. on Fox and Colts-Patriots at 5:15 p.m. on NBC.
The World Series finished with the lowest average rating (10.1) ever for the fourth time in the past six years, 9 percent lower than last year (11.1). The average in San Diego was even worse at 9.9, a whopping 23.3 percent decrease from last year (12.9). Unlike the NFL, baseball has become mostly a regional game. If a team from your region isn't playing, you probably aren't watching.
Watching the end of the USC-Oregon State game last week – not having Cox Cable I was one of the lucky ones – I couldn't help but think of a famous play in Chargers history when the Beavers spoiled the Trojans' final two-point conversion. “It's knocked down! It's knocked down and the Beavers are going to win it!” said Barry Tompkins, declining to name the player who deflected the pass.
It was reminiscent of Lee Hamilton's famous “Batted down! Batted down by San Diego!” call in the Chargers' AFC Championship Game win over Pittsburgh. Jeff Van Orso, meet Dennis Gibson.
Jay Posner: (619) 293-1834; jay.posner@uniontrib.com
