Face Wash
Registered User
Came to the board this morning to see if anyone had created a thread after Joe McDonnell passed last Friday and was a little bummed to see that no one had done it. We all think of Joe as more of a Lakers/Dodgers/Rams/WWE and more recently Angels guy (due to his close relationship with Mike Scioscia), but Joe liked hockey and had a lot of friends in hockey over the years with players, management and media alike. He was well-liked by many in the Kings organization/AEG from the Cooke era to the more successful Anschutz era. It was not a surprise at all that the Kings and FSW displayed a full-frame obit for Joe during the second period of the Nashville game Saturday, something teams only do as a tribute for long-time employees of their telecast or all-time great players. Joe was neither and he still merited that kind of respect.
Little known fact, Joe broke the most unthinkable trade in sports history nationally in 1988, the Gretzky trade to L.A. He did interviews for both Canadian and National stations all day that day. Joe prided himself on his journalistic chops that complimented his entertaining, brash, honest and always entertaining broadcast presence.
If the L.A. sports scene didn't have a guy like Joe McDonnell all these years, they would have had to invent him for sports radio to work in this town the way it works on the east coast. There will never be another guy like him. No one will ever have the journalistic connections and relationships he had, to go with his casual delivery, sharp wit and mind and the wink he gave the audience to let them know they were in on the joke. Joe's radio legacy will continue on through broadcasters and journalists he's worked with and mentored including David Vassegh, Beto Duran, Jeff Biggs, Arash Markazi, Tim Cates and even Kings P.A. announcer Dave Joseph.
I was lucky enough to meet him back in 1997. Joe and I were close friends for almost 18 years and we shared a lot of fun times both personally and professionally. Joe would do anything for his friends. An easy testament to that is in the last time I saw him about 3 weeks ago (one week before he went into the hospital for what would be his final illness). We lived about 40 miles from each other, but he stopped by my place to deliver Lakers/Clippers tickets as a donation for a silent auction benefiting my son's pre-school. That was the essence of Joe.
We shared a lot of laughs over the years. Typically if Joe made fun of you to your face, about ANYTHING, it showed how much he cared. He called me everything from "The Somonex Kid" (for my ability to put a radio audience to sleep whenever I call the show) to Colonel Tom Thumb (for my diminutive stature). Joe had a lot of fun at my expense over the years, once calling me from the car as I was breaking fast on Yom Kippur to show his appreciation for how the Jewish people were eating and not on the roads ruining his commute to Phil Trani's in Long Beach. Along the same lines, Joe lived for many years next to a temple near North Hollywood and threatened to get a pig from a farm and run it through the synagogue just for fun. He would always say it with a wink, the fact is, some of his favorite people were Jewish including his widow Elizabeth. But that was Joe.
If his friends (and some are rather famous) wanted to collect all the stories they could tell about Joe through, what in many cases was their 40-plus-year relationships with them, it would be a best selling multi-volume masterpiece. I have a few to tell myself, but the shame is he won't be there to hear them or tell any of them himself. It's the book each of us write but never publish.
I'll miss my friend Joe dearly, I think every sports fan in this town will miss him in some way. He made being a fan a little more fun than it already was. He changed the landscape and shook the foundation of sports radio and had a hell of a fun time doing it. Rest In Peace Joe.
Little known fact, Joe broke the most unthinkable trade in sports history nationally in 1988, the Gretzky trade to L.A. He did interviews for both Canadian and National stations all day that day. Joe prided himself on his journalistic chops that complimented his entertaining, brash, honest and always entertaining broadcast presence.
If the L.A. sports scene didn't have a guy like Joe McDonnell all these years, they would have had to invent him for sports radio to work in this town the way it works on the east coast. There will never be another guy like him. No one will ever have the journalistic connections and relationships he had, to go with his casual delivery, sharp wit and mind and the wink he gave the audience to let them know they were in on the joke. Joe's radio legacy will continue on through broadcasters and journalists he's worked with and mentored including David Vassegh, Beto Duran, Jeff Biggs, Arash Markazi, Tim Cates and even Kings P.A. announcer Dave Joseph.
I was lucky enough to meet him back in 1997. Joe and I were close friends for almost 18 years and we shared a lot of fun times both personally and professionally. Joe would do anything for his friends. An easy testament to that is in the last time I saw him about 3 weeks ago (one week before he went into the hospital for what would be his final illness). We lived about 40 miles from each other, but he stopped by my place to deliver Lakers/Clippers tickets as a donation for a silent auction benefiting my son's pre-school. That was the essence of Joe.
We shared a lot of laughs over the years. Typically if Joe made fun of you to your face, about ANYTHING, it showed how much he cared. He called me everything from "The Somonex Kid" (for my ability to put a radio audience to sleep whenever I call the show) to Colonel Tom Thumb (for my diminutive stature). Joe had a lot of fun at my expense over the years, once calling me from the car as I was breaking fast on Yom Kippur to show his appreciation for how the Jewish people were eating and not on the roads ruining his commute to Phil Trani's in Long Beach. Along the same lines, Joe lived for many years next to a temple near North Hollywood and threatened to get a pig from a farm and run it through the synagogue just for fun. He would always say it with a wink, the fact is, some of his favorite people were Jewish including his widow Elizabeth. But that was Joe.
If his friends (and some are rather famous) wanted to collect all the stories they could tell about Joe through, what in many cases was their 40-plus-year relationships with them, it would be a best selling multi-volume masterpiece. I have a few to tell myself, but the shame is he won't be there to hear them or tell any of them himself. It's the book each of us write but never publish.
I'll miss my friend Joe dearly, I think every sports fan in this town will miss him in some way. He made being a fan a little more fun than it already was. He changed the landscape and shook the foundation of sports radio and had a hell of a fun time doing it. Rest In Peace Joe.
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