Mike Toth needs a message-polisher

Reading this line from Mike Toth in Bruce Dowbiggin's column calls to mind the time back in the day broadcasting Queen's football games when there was a analyst who, during his first game, had an unfortunate tendency of uttering a drawn-out, "Wow," after almost every play.

Really, wow is about all one can say:

"On The Fan 590, Rogers Sportsnet host Mike Toth suggested that young women including Sportsnet co-workers Martine Gaillard and Evanka Osmak get by with less than perfect knowledge of sports.

" 'This is going to sound harsh,' Toth said. 'But be that as it may, here it comes: There are no female sportscasters that I can think of that have more knowledge than their male counterparts.' "

One comes not to bury Toth. He is entertaining on The FAN 590's late-morning show The Bullpen, with Mike Hogan, and he was very accommodating to my good friend Tyler King when he hosted Kingston's most-listened-to hour-long sports show on CFRC 101.9 FM.

However, in the manner of that Weekend Update gag, "Really? I mean, really?"

Apparently our man never noticed Lesley Visser or Pam Oliver on NFL broadcasts. ESPN's Robin Roberts comes to mind. Former Score correspondent Patricia Boal, she always came across very well. Canadian Stacey Dales always got very good reviews when she was at ESPN. No doubt there are plenty of talented, intelligent women in broadcasting programs across Canada, who don't mind looking good for themselves but who also want to show they have the chops. Toth should spend one day job-shadowing Alison Sandor, the recent Carleton graduate whom this old cowboy

Visser's name would have immediately shot to mind even if she had not just been named the No. 1 female sportcasters and Jeff Pearlman had written about her for Sports Illustrated. As Pearlman pointed out, a decade ago she was replaced on Monday Night Football when the highers-up decided the show needed to get younger and hipper. They replaced her with Melissa Stark and put comedian Dennis Miller in the booth (Miller is older than Visser, how's that for irony). Visser is still going strong and Stark, quoth Pearlman, is "somewhere."

The other sticking point with that statement is that it assumes male sportscasters need a perfect knowledge of sports, which we know is not true.

There's no personal animus here toward Toth. He is heart-on-his-sleeve and he's willing to flip over a few rocks that the Canadian media usually stroll by, from the lack of widespread coverage for junior hockey, to the apparent lack of diversity in a CFL crowd. Sometimes he just makes a blanket statement that leaves some of us small-l liberals wincing.

The rub is that if you hear anything about it, it's usually from a male columnist such as Dowbiggin, not an interest group. That might say something about how people look at talk radio, as something that's for quote-unquote angry white males, not for anyone else. They're not listening. That should be of concern to programmers, since you can't kiss off a large portion of the potential audience.

Anyway, it just needed to be pointed out. Give Toth credit. Anyone who's ever thought The FAN 590 was sophomoric knows that still puts them several years ahead of their brethren in Ottawa and Vancouver. As far as we know, no one's stormed out of the studio in Toronto lately because someone had the nerve to disagree with them:

"Pratt had just finished airing an editorial shortly after 4 p.m. Monday about how a couple of gladiators like golfer Tom Watson and world champion poker player Doyle Brunson were able to continue to perform despite their age.

"Taylor made light of the comparison and chastised Pratt for even suggesting that poker was a sport.

"Game on. The high-pitched yelling and screaming maxed out the decibel levels of the station's control board. After a brief interlude of dead air, roughly 12 continuous minutes of taped commercials were followed by a repeat of a previous interview. Pratt eventually returned to finish the last hour of the show, making no reference to his spat with Taylor.

"When eager listeners tuned in Tuesday for round two they heard Rick Ball announcing he would be sitting in for Pratt with Matt Sekeres subbing for Taylor."

Some would say David Pratt should be chastised for even suggesting golf is a sport ... just kidding, not really.

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