The other day someone said my picture at the top had a resemblance to Les Keiter.
Now that’s interesting.

Anyone that knew “The General” loved him.
So that’s a good thing.

But Les was the first one to say he had a face “only radio would love”.
So I’m not too sure here.

For one thing I have more hair.
And I’m younger.

And I no way had the great career he did.

Sometimes I’m amazed at the difference we see when we look at a picture of ourselves and what we see in the mirror.

Delusion runs strong.

In case you have been living under a rock – Les was one of the greatest sportscasters in Hawaii history.

He worked national radio and TV for years and during the 1960s, he called some of the biggest fights in the history of boxing.

He also did play-by-play for the football Giants, Knicks and Rangers.

In 1970, Keiter and his wife moved to Hawaii.

He was hired as KHON’s sports director where he stayed for over 20 years.

I was lucky enough to be there at that time.

He was famous for walking through the newsroom and saying to people, “You’re doing great job kid. Everyone’s talking about you.”

When he said it to someone they just lit up.
Me included.

For a lot of years Keiter did baseball recreations on radio.

Back then, we didn’t get some baseball games live.

All we got came from the AP Wire were a couple of lines about each inning as the game was played.

Who was at bat, whether it was a strike or ball and if they made a hit, walked or struck out.
That’s it.

Les would sit in the studio with a wooden block and a drum stick to make the sound of a bat hitting a ball.

The engineer controlled a tape with crowd noise.

Les then filled in everything else, pulling from his many years of baseball knowledge.

You’d never know he wasn’t sitting in the press box at the game.
It was theater of the mind in the truest sense.

One time when I was at KGU radio we had a charity softball game with another team at Aloha Stadium.
It was just before a Hawaii Islanders game.

After we lost we sat in the stands with Les as he held court with a million baseball stories.
It was a magical time.

There are some good people in the media business.

The man didn’t have a grumpy bone in his body.