Radio

PEORIA, Ariz. -- Jaime Jarrin pioneered the radio broadcasting of major league baseball in Spanish with the Dodgers more than 50 years ago -- and he earned a place in the Hall of Fame as a result. On Thursday his son Jorge will make his radio play-by-play debut -- in English -- when the Dodgers meet the Texas Rangers at Camelback Ranch. Following a famous dad in the same profession has tripped up many a baseball player -- as well as a few broadcasters. But Jarrin said he's ready to take his lumps as he learns the ropes.

A comic powerhouse W.C. Fields was one of the top comedic stars of vaudeville, Broadway and film, starring in such classics as 1934's "It's a Gift" and 1940's "The Bank Dick. " Fields also found success on radio. Back in 1936, Fields was in the hospital after a bike accident and his battle with the bottle. When he was still too shaky to return to films, he went to work on radio in 1937 on "The Chase and Sanborn Hour" hosted by ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his puppet alter-ego, Charlie McCarthy.

Sarah Palin’s relationship with various Alaska reporters and talk show hosts was frequently rocky, but she seemed to have an especially hard time with Dan Fagan, a radio personality on KFQD who supported her early in her political career then became one of her biggest antagonists. “Fagan calls us, running the state, 'crack whores,'  plus other sexist and derogatory terms,” she wrote to some of her top aides, and husband Todd Palin on April 15, 2008 “ …perhaps he needs to be called out on the things he says on his show also …amazing what he gets away with.” A short time later, her deputy press secretary Sharon Leighow replied, “Did you hear John Tracy has given his notice?

The hosts of "Car Talk," brothers Ray and Tom Magliozzi, had a long, wildly successful run for 25 years on NPR. They're currently planning to hang up their mics later this year and get out of the radio business on a high note. But the talents that made them beloved (their attitudes and their voices) didn't necessarily make them multimedia stars. The brothers tried multiple times to branch out into TV, but with limited success. Their first attempt came in the 1995 sitcom "The George Wendt Show.

Air America went out of business last week and I'm ready to accept the significance of the radio network's demise -- the inevitable marginalization of those who support big government, illegal immigration and the homosexual agenda. Yet the Drudge Report has been dropping further behind the Huffington Post, the conservative aggregator attracting well under half the liberal website's audience. Even a dummy can see what that means -- that this country has no appetite for gun rights, private property, the value of the unborn or the sanctity of the American flag.

  Never did we expect to find another Andreas Cantor and his trademark futbol  call: " ¡GOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL! " But it was a unexpected and fun discovery to unearth the radio call of boxer Katie Taylor's gold medal victory in the lightweight final on Thursday. It was the first gold medal for Ireland at the London Games, and unleashed a delirious celebration of giddy glory.  Not only in the arena but in Ireland. If you want an example, listen to radio announcer Seán Bán Breathnach's call, a loud and lyrical outburst even if you don't understand anything besides the words "Katie Taylor.

Once upon a time, TV theme songs were top of the pop charts. Some, including "Welcome Back," even made it to No. 1. Take that, " Lost's" zoom-by sound effect. You wouldn't know it by listening to music on the radio, but the themes for " Desperate Housewives," "The Tudors," "Six Feet Under" and "The West Wing" have all won Emmys for original main title song in the last decade. As original theme songs continue to disappear, get replaced by existing songs ( " CSI" uses the Who's "Who Are You")

My mother doesn't like to talk to me on the phone when I'm driving, so she made her point that the world is in worse shape than she'd ever seen it in her 80-plus years, then hung up. I diluted her grim words with rock radio and was thoroughly enjoying an Eagles' song I'd hated in 1975 when a man in a Dodge Caravan honked and motioned for me to roll down my window. Actually, for the sake of accuracy, I didn't notice he drove a Caravan until later, when I was homicidally tailing him up and down side streets.