THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 30, 1995 TAG: 9511300517
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
If all isn't exactly perfect in Bob Rathbun's world of professional play-by-play, it at least just got a bit better. Rathbun this week returned to a comfortable haunt, the college basketball beat, calling the first of nearly 50 games he'll do on TV during the regular season.
He loves college basketball, and for my money is easier to listen to describing that sport than any other. Baseball, though, is what has given Rathbun his longest, most lucrative drink at the big league trough.
Baseball also is the reason Rathbun is back in Newport News looking for steady spring-and-summer work, and in the interim diving into his busiest college schedule ever, largely ACC contests as usual.
You might have lost track of Rathbun, formerly ubiquitous around here as a WTAR radio voice and sports anchor at WTKR-TV, since last December. That was when, after three seasons with the Detroit Tigers, Rathbun and partner Rick Rizzs, the duo with the temerity to replace Tigers legend Ernie Harwell, were relieved of their microphones during a pre-Christmas axing.
Stunned by the move - he recalls being commended at a radio gathering just the night before - Rathbun completed his basketball chores and came back to Hampton Roads with his wife, Mary Beth, and son, Court, now 16 months.
Rizzs landed with the Seattle Mariners, his former club. But Rathbun is right where he was throughout the '80s, sending tapes here, applying for jobs there, calling on contacts everywhere.
His resume is richer than ever, and his name is in the mix with the Chicago Cubs and Yankees, among others. Until a new club calls, however, he's just another ex-baseball announcer in search of a team.
``I just keep sending out tapes, putting my name out there,'' Rathbun said.
His Detroit debacle did not sour him on baseball, Rathbun said. Everybody knew following the beloved Harwell, who was forced out, had ``no-win'' written all over it, though Rathbun said he could have persevered but for two things.
First, columnists started negatively influencing public opinion almost immediately and never let up. Then when Harwell was reinstated for the '93 season, doing three innings of each game, every hard feeling in the market was rekindled.
``Once Ernie came back, there were the constant comparisons and the constant media upheaval never died down,'' Rathbun said. ``It turned public perception. If Ernie had not come back, I think we'd have weathered the storm fine.
``And guys wrote stuff about me, I ain't met them yet, but they were talking about me like they were in the bathroom with me. Critiques would have been easy to handle. But they wrote how Rick and I mistreated Ernie, that we wouldn't talk to him in the booth, which was just a blatant lie.''
Rathbun is a noted positive thinker, and the anger that brews beneath his words seems out of character. Still, he doesn't question himself or his pursuit of a second chance. Nor does he call his Detroit experience anything but ``invaluable'' on the whole.
``I wouldn't trade it,'' Rathbun said. ``I'm friends for life with a lot of great people around the league. I'm scarred no doubt. Personally, I felt I deserved better. But that's just the business. The higher you go up the ladder in this business, there's a lot of people shooting at you for a lot of reasons.
``You roll with the punches, make a lot of friends, something good will turn up. I'll get back. There's no doubt in my mind.'' by CNB