Saturday Night Radio Comfort Food: Marty Lurie and Bruce Jenkins Schmooze Baseball on KNBR --When We Really Need It

Marty Lurie

YOU KNOW I LIKE MARTY LURIE, the Bay Area's "Mr. Baseball", here's proof.

Baseball is a joy, much like it's a joy for some of you. Many of you in fact and now that baseball is MIA, due to the Coronavirus pandemic,  it's a lonely summer --among other things.

Which brings me back to Lurie and his fantastic show on Saturday night on KNBR; you don't have to love baseball to love this program. It's more than just baseball but yeah, baseball is its zeitgeist --and that's more than OK with me.

Lurie loves to schmooze. He has a virtual rolodex of friends and celebrities on his show which usually runs pre-game but since there's no baseball, Lurie's been broadcasting a five-hour marathon from 6-11 PM. His interviews are stellar. He can walk the walk and talk the talk. He's buddy, buddy with Willie Mays. That's pretty cool. He gets good interviews and knows how to ask great questions.

One of my favorite segments involves Marty's weekly schmooze with Chronicle Sports columnist, Bruce Jenkins. It's usually about a half hour long, and 99 percent of the time, a half-hour too short. Jenkins, who does a master job writing about baseball and NBA basketball, is a great storyteller; moreover, he's terrific interacting with Lurie. Two guys in a bar talking sports devoid of artificial sound; just intelligent conversation and a good vibe sounds almost like a cliché but it absolutely fits Jenkins and Lurie.

It's just the right ingredient to an old-fashioned virtue: sincerity and genuine laughter on a Saturday night works well. And it especially works well when the two men sound like they're having fun.Like Jenkins and Mr. Baseball.

Checkmate.

Bruce Jenkins/SF Chronicle photo

Get out the pizza and beer and listen up because if you don't, you're wasting an otherwise boring weekend night.