A Fun Guy, No Kidding

You begin to understand the Costas boomlet by studying other sportscasters. He's the one not like the others; a natural who is somewhat embarrassed to admit that he didn't have to work his way up from the bushes as so many TV sports personalities did. "I would have been more than willing to pay my dues," he says, "but nobody ever made me." Costas merely relied on instincts developed from a youth abounding in sports, TV and rock-'n'-roll. Now, whether he's working in the studio or the broadcast booth, Costas is able to keep his viewers satisfied because he knows that most of them want some fun mixed in with their drama.

Men like Keith Jackson and Brent Musburger tend to take their assignments—and themselves—too seriously. Others, like John Madden and Al McGuire, are cast as comics, and their humor sometimes upstages the game. Costas usually plays it just right. He is expert enough to enhance any on-field action, but he's secure enough—and quick enough—to go for the laugh. Name another play-by-play man who would appear on the Letterman show in his NBC blazer to call an elevator race as if it were the Indy 500. Says Costas to a security guard serving as his expert analyst: "Harrison, I don't know about you, but it seems to me these elevators are running in tip-top shape."

NBC reportedly is paying Costas $550,000 a year (his salary will rise to $700,000 by 1988), partly because he's able to pull together an audience. He appeals to the Tommy Dorsey crowd because he can talk about the DiMaggios, worships the old ballparks and knows when to be reverent. On his first visit to Stan Musial's restaurant in St. Louis he left a tip of $3.31—after having a hamburger—in honor of The Man's lifetime batting average.

But he also pulls in the baby-boomers because he's one of them, and he knows when to be irreverent. After Ahmad Rashad made his now famous marriage proposal on NFL '85, for example, Costas cracked, "And now that it's become obvious we'll do anything to improve our ratings, Pete Axthelm will be seen in a secluded grotto with Dr. Ruth Westheimer." And Costas is a favorite of the MTV crowd. He may wear loafers, but he's no square. After all, how many genuine sportscasters can tick off the evil tendencies of Rowdy Roddy Piper and Brutus Beefcake?

"The people I admire," Costas says, "are those who have crafted careers and on-air personas on their own terms, not according to what the Great Broadcasters Handbook says or what the trend of the moment is. You know a guy I love? Charles Kuralt. He invented himself. No one sitting in a network executive's office said, 'Get me a rumpled guy who's bald and has a kind of avuncular demeanor.' He did what he did, which was something out of the ordinary. He didn't say, 'All right, this is what a broadcaster does; now how can I make myself like that?' He is himself, and that's what he sells."

In a promo for NFL '85 last year, Costas wore a baseball glove and tossed a ball in the air while saying, "Hi, I'm Bob Costas, former utility infielder for the Toledo Mud Hens and pitching coach for the 1962 New York Mets." Thousands of viewers thought he was serious, but Costas could care less. "I would much rather have 70 percent of the audience be delighted and 30 percent either not like it or not get it, than 100 percent of the audience say, 'Oh, he's all right, he's an O.K.-looking guy.' If you don't take a risk, you'll never be any good."

Costas is a perfectionist when it comes to both his work and the public's perception of him. "He probably wants to be an announcer for a living more than anybody I've ever met," says one of his friends, CBS producer Kevin O'Malley. Randy says that if her husband is misquoted or misrepresented, it drives him to despair. For example, Costas was miffed for a week when USA Today portrayed the sportscasters' awards banquet, a gracious affair at which he spoke, as a kind of heel-stomping, barnyard jokefest.

The son of a Greek-American father and an Irish-American mother, Costas developed his love of baseball growing up mostly in Commack, Long Island. This was just after the Dodgers and Giants left New York and when Mickey Mantle reigned triumphant. Baseball served as a significant bond between Costas and his father, who died of a heart attack in 1970 at age 42. Costas still has in his wallet a 1958 bubble gum card of Mantle ("AH right-thinking Americans should carry a religious artifact on their person at all times," he says), and it was the Mick whom Costas chose to introduce him at the awards banquet.

During his senior year at Commack High South, Costas and his friends amused themselves, if not always others, by bestowing "Pervert and Moron Awards" on classmates, designating them as "Greaser of the Year" and the like. "Bobby had a sort of lovable arrogance," says an old school pal, Lloyd Berkowitz. "He was always making jokes about other people—his friends mostly. But he could take it as well as he dished it out."

He refined his mock-serious approach first at Syracuse, cradle of sportscasters ( Marv Albert, Dick Stockton, Len Berman, Marty Glickman), and then, beginning in 1974, at KMOX radio in St. Louis. Costas, who lives in New York City, calls about 20 weekday Cardinal games, does a syndicated KMOX sport flashback series and hosts an occasional call-in show.