Sportscasters Talent Agency of America

(by Ed Hooper) Since the mid 1980’s, Sports Talk Radio has grown into one of the most profitable forms of radio. I am joining the push and I am taking you with me.

Along with maintaining my duties here at The Valdosta Daily Times, I will now serve as the host of ‘The Ed Hooper Show’ on The Jock 1150 AM, 96.1 FM, which will air weekdays from 1-2 p.m. The first show launches today.

John Lanahan Jr. was spending Sunday afternoon at St. Agnes Hospital with his father, who was recovering from an allergic reaction. The two Orioles fans planned to watch the game against perennial favorite Boston Red Sox.

Then disaster struck. As the game went into extra innings — ultimately, 17 in all — WJZ interrupted the broadcast at 7 p.m. to show “60 Minutes.” The hospital did not offer the cable station MASN, which carried the remainder of the game.

With all the concussion-related news in the NFL recently, former Super Bowl winner Kurt Warner has been in high demand. The bounty-loving Saints knocked him out of a playoff game two years ago, ending his career.

So Dan Patrick interviewed Kurt Warner Thursday, the day after Junior Seau committed suicide. Warner said he wouldn’t want his kids playing football. He’s certainly not the first former player to say this, but the news was picked up by ESPN, which credited Patrick’s show. Later, Colin Cowherd interviewed Warner, and Warner said the same thing.

A long line has already formed to the right for the avail-able play-by-play position with the Vancouver Giants after the announcement Thursday they are returning to Team Radio. The Giants were part of the broadcast lineup at Team 1040 during their first year of existence and have since been radio orphans darting around the dial with a stream of play-by-play announcers that has included Rick Dhaliwal, Jim Mullin, Joey Kenward, Dave Sheldon, Morley Scott and Dan Elliott.

John Walton can tell you: Calling a hockey game on the radio is unlike any other play-by-play challenge. Whereas baseball gives you time to weave in homespun anecdotes between pitches, and football is eight seconds of violence punctuated by regularly scheduled committee meetings, hockey is like a rolling gang fight — frenetic and sprawling and savage for minutes on end, with the combatants rotating on the fly.

From the 1960s through the ’90s, Jack Whitaker specialized in reports and essays that brought elegance to CBS’s and ABC’s coverage of golf, horse racing and the Olympics. Among the few other similarly evocative commentators were two of his colleagues, Jim McKay and Heywood Hale Broun.

It’s like a 20-ring circus, controlled chaos in a space about the size of an average home bathroom.

And Fox Sports San Diego will repeat the process of broadcasting Padres games 157 times this season.

Fox Sports San Diego, which signed a lucrative 20-year deal to carry Padres game this season, has improved on the coverage provided the last 12 years by Cox Channel 4.

For the first time, the announcement of the Jim Nantz Award winner and the 2012 STAA-All American class will be revealed in a live online videocast.

The program will air this Friday, May 4th at 6:00 pm EDT. To watch, visit www.staatalent.com/all-america-program. Results will simultaneously be revealed on Twitter @staatalent.

Get your earplugs ready America. Those noisy Stephen A. Smith vs. Skip Bayless TV debates are about to become a permanent fixture on ESPN2′s First Take weekday morning show (10 a.m. ET).

ESPN, the CBS Sports Network, the NBC Sports Network and even CBS and ABC have a piece of a 25-game college football schedule involving the Mountain West, the conference has announced.