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AIRWAVES
Mychael Urban Sits Down With Bruce Macgowan

By Bruce Macgowan

Mychael Urban is a former high school and college baseball pitcher who has worked for over 12 years as a baseball reporter for several outlets, including MLB.com, and now Comcast SportsNet Bay Area. Mychael is Comcast's "Baseball Insider" and he appears frequently on the network's daily TV shows. He also writes a daily column for CSN Bay Area's website, and on the weekends he does the pre- and postgame call-in talk shows for the Giants broadcasts on KNBR radio 680.

Mychael is a native of Redwood City and lives in Livermore with his wife and two daughters.

Mychael Urban has a vivid recollection of his favorite baseball memory.

"I was a swing man, a guy with a rubber arm," he explained.

"I was a hard-throwing lefty in high school, but I didn't take care of my arm back then and gradually saw my heater fall from high 80s to low 80s. Thankfully, Keith Comstock was my pitching coach in the fall of 1988 and taught be a split-fingered changeup that made me more of a complete pitcher — and made pitching a lot more fun."

Urban experienced enough success in youth leagues and high school that in the late 1980s, the 6-foot-7, 260-pound lefthander earned a spot on the pitching staff of the USF Dons. While he was no star, he was a serviceable and smart hurler who could be used in a number of situations.

The one he remembers most happened against the national champion Stanford Cardinal.

"I was pitching against one of the home run leaders in college ball, Paul Carey from Stanford."

For those who remember, Carey was one of the big heroes of a Cardinal team that won a pair of College World Series.

"Carey was an amazing hitter and he was going for the cycle that day against us. Stanford was blowing us out in the game and I came in to face him after he had already collected a triple, single and a double. All I'm thinking is: Don't let him complete the cycle, so I'm throwing the kitchen sink at him. I was working my spots, hitting the corners and had everything working, but he kept fouling pitches off," Urban says with a hint of a smile.

"I'm thinking that I'm not going to get this guy to swing and miss so I might as well drill him with a pitch and not give him the satisfaction of hitting a home run. Then our catcher comes out and asks me if there might be something that I haven't used yet. I had something I called the 'drop ball,' this rinky-dinky Little League pitch that I hadn't used yet, so he suggested I throw it. Well, it dropped off the table and he swung and missed at it for strike three. I'll never forget what Carey did next," Urban recalled as his smile began to spread.

"He threw his bat against the backstop and yelled out at me: 'You goddam 6-7 thumber! You're a waste of a body throwing that kind of pitch!' Everybody on the diamond heard it and cracked up because it was so funny. But he was right. A guy my size was supposed to throw gas and I didn't, but I won that confrontation," he remembers proudly.

The native of Redwood City, now married with two little girls, is becoming a familiar name to local baseball fans through his work with KNBR as a weekend talk-show host before and after Giants games. Since early winter, Urban has also been working as the "Baseball Insider" on the CSN Bay Area cable-TV station, for both its website and its local programs.

Like most devotees of the game, Urban remembers the first time he went to a major league ballgame. His dad was a single parent raising three boys, but he took the time to introduce his sons to baseball. One night in the late 1970s, Urban's father managed through some connections to get a pass to go into the Giants' dugout at Candlestick Park before the game.

"I believe it was the night shortstop Johnny LeMaster wore the word 'BOO' on his uniform. He was taking such abuse from the fans that instead of a number, he had 'BOO' on his back."

Urban has always prided himself on being fair-minded, and he felt no differently when he was a kid so, the incident made an impression upon him.

"I made a decision early on that I was going to try not to be a negative guy," he said. "I try to be a person who sees the glass half-full, not half-empty. But that's not to say I'll shy away from being critical if it's merited."

However, Urban has been taken to task by other media members for his friendship with ballplayers around the league, particularly Giants lefty Barry Zito. Zito was a central character in a book Urban wrote a few years ago, "The Three Aces," about the A's talented young starting pitchers of the early 2000s: Zito, Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder.

Now when he's covering a Giants game for KNBR, Urban sometimes finds he has to be careful what he says about his friend. But, he insists: "When Barry has a bad day or he stinks, I will say so on the air. We understand what each other's jobs are and we've had very open and honest talks about this. A lot of people say that being a friend of a player is a conflict of interest. But remember that back in the day, ballplayers and reporters used to be friends. And because of that the media got better stories and had better insights about the game."

Authors note: Having taken phone calls from baseball fans for over 17 years during my own stint at "The Sports Leader," I know how significant it is to build solid relationships with players. Astute fans and media who appreciate the game seem to recognize that.

The insights Urban gets from players such as Zito make it possible for him to deal with strongly opinionated hard-core Giants fans such as "Salty Balty" and "Bowler Bob of Brisbane" who are anxiously waiting their turn to get their two cents in on the talk show.

But Urban claims he never gets fazed by dealing with sometimes overcritical or grumpy fans who might want to rip the team when they're in the midst of a slump.

"You have to keep in mind that the fan is the king. They're the reason we all have jobs in this business," says Urban. "If it weren't for them we could all be digging ditches. My gift is writing and talking about the game, so I don't ever get frustrated with the fans.

"Baseball is all about opinions and the fans' opinions shouldn't be any less valued or legitimate than mine. So when they disagree with me it's actually good. I always enjoy engaging in conversation about the game."

And when it comes to talking about Northern California's two local MLB teams, Urban sees good things ahead for this 2010 season.

"Every team in the NL West is flawed," he says, "but to me the Giants are the favorites to win the division. They've got four front-line starters that every team is envious of and their bullpen is tremendous. Last year they came close to winning, even with a terrible offense, and now they've added some punch to the lineup in Mark DeRosa and Aubrey Huff."

Urban is also upbeat about the team across the bay, perhaps because he still has ties with the A's, having covered them for almost 10 years as a beat writer.

"But they're in a tough division that features the Angels, who are still one of the top programs in baseball, and Mike Scioscia is one of the best managers in the game. This is an important year for A's manager Bob Geren, because they haven't finished higher than third in his three years there. But they do have a lot of young talent and I see a super-bright future for them."

And as far as he's concerned, Urban feels fortunate to have been around the game so long, as both a player and now as a reporter.

"The game is a lifelong passion for the fans. It's passed down from fathers and mothers to sons and daughters. Football may always be the king of the TV ratings, but I think baseball has a special place in the heart of the American sports fan."

San Francisco native Bruce Macgowan has worked in radio/TV and was also a freelance sportswriter for over 35 years. He is best remembered here in Northern California for his 17-year stint at KNBR, during which time he worked as a talk-show host, reporter, backup play-by-play announcer and sideline reporter. Bruce also did sports updates in the mornings and afternoons during his many years at the "Sports Leader." He traveled extensively with both the Giants and the Oakland Raiders, and has covered over 4,000 major pro and college events, including 10 Super Bowls, five World Series, two NBA finals and all or part of 10 NCAA basketball tournaments.

Bruce lives in Fairfax, in Marin County, with his wife and daughter.