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It’s funny what you can learn about a sportscaster by spending some time in the radio booth with him.
49ers play-by-play man Greg Papa, for example, can’t sit down when calling a game. Ever. He’s too amped up. So he paces all over the place — flailing his hands, gesturing, pounding the counter and, occasionally, even grabbing anyone near him.
“I have to attack the field,” he explains. “… I try to be alive as I can be.”
As for that exuberant “Touchdown, San-FRAN-cis-co!” call? Papa emphatically punches the air with each syllable.
And then there’s his bizarre-looking research material — a “wacky cluster of notes,” as color analyst Tim Ryan describes it — spread out over an open manila folder and looking like the work of a mad scientist.
When a reporter dares to take a photo of this mesh of newspaper clips and color-coded doodles, Papa looks alarmed.
“Don’t do that!” he says. “Everyone is going to make fun of me.”
No worries. If anyone is having fun these days, it’s Papa. Shockingly fired by the Raiders in 2018 after 21 seasons as that team’s radio voice, he switched NFL allegiances a year ago this month. And in a fresh chapter that reads like a fairy tale, his maiden season with the 49ers has coincided with the team’s incredible resurgence.
On Saturday, Papa will be behind the mic once again when the 49ers take on the Minnesota Vikings in the first ever NFL playoff game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.
“It could not have worked out any better,” he says over lunch in Danville’s Locanda Ravello restaurant. “It almost seems like a dream.”
Getting hired by the 49ers’ was just one part of a highly eventful career year for Papa, 57, who grew up in Buffalo, New York, but whose Bay Area broadcasting presence stretches back to 1986. Last June, he was at the center of a major overhaul in local sports-talk radio as he jumped from KMGZ-FM 95.3 (“The Game”) to KNBR-AM 680, where he and former partner John Lund reunited for a new morning program. The move triggered changes at KNBR that included the departures of longtime fixtures Gary Radnich and Bob Fitzgerald.
Then during the fall, he welcomed Warriors legend and longtime pal Chris Mullin to NBC Sports Bay Area’s pre- and post-game coverage of the NBA team. Papa, who anchors the programs, claims the addition is working “fabulously.”
But the move to the 49ers clearly grabbed the most attention. And it didn’t come without controversy. To land Papa, the 49ers ousted Ted Robinson, the team’s play-by-play man of 10 years. Fans who had bonded with Robinson ripped the move — their outrage heightened by the fact that the new guy was someone so closely linked to the rival Raiders.
Bob Sargent, the 49ers director of broadcast partnerships, admits it was a decision he and team executives made with “considerable trepidation.”
“It made me sick to my stomach because personal feelings were involved,” he recalls. “I have great respect for Ted and he had a very good following. There was nothing he did that was wrong. We just had to do what was best for the franchise.”
Sargent, who was born and raised in San Francisco, sought the change because, in his mind, Papa belongs on the “Mount Rushmore of Bay Area sportscasters” — along with Bill King, Lon Simmons and Hank Greenwald. As for Papa’s long association with the Raiders, he reminds people that Chicago Cubs broadcast icon Harry Caray previously called games for the crosstown White Sox.
“I looked at it for the long haul,” Sargent says. “I’d be very disappointed if Greg isn’t doing 49ers football for 20-plus years. And I’d like to think that, someday, people will say, ‘Greg Papa did Raiders games? Really?’”
Papa, of course, has been affiliated with more than just the Raiders. In fact, he’s the only sportscaster to do play-by-play for five of the Bay Area’s professional teams — the A’s, Giants and Warriors included. To honor the achievement, the 49ers presented him with a personalized jersey emblazoned with the number “5.”
“The move was easier because I’ve been in the market for so long and doing different teams,” Papa says. “It wasn’t like I was solely identified as the voice of the Raiders coming to the 49ers.”
Sargent insists that the “only fear” he had in bringing Papa on board was how would he mesh with Ryan, the 49ers’ longtime radio analyst.
“They’re two big personalities and there’s only one microphone,” he says. “Would they fight over it?”
Indeed, there have been times during the broadcasts when the two men have “stepped on each other,” Papa admits. But he believes he and Ryan have made it work.
“I knew it would be an adjustment,” he says. “But relatively early in the season, we got into a good rhythm. To have a guy who has the same energy level that I have makes it great.”
Ryan agrees, insisting that the transition has been “seamless.” But he did have to cure the turbo-charged Papa of a certain form of unsportsmanlike conduct.
“His excitement level is contagious,” Ryan says. “But I always gotta remind him: ‘Don’t touch me.’ I don’t like people touching me during the game and he can get touchy-feely. Oh, yeah, he’s full of affection, that guy.”
The only bump in the broadcast road came in early December when Ryan was suspended by the 49ers for one game over comments he made on a KNBR program during which he said Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, who is black, is adept at faking handoffs because of his “dark skin color with a dark football.”
Ryan issued an apology and several 49ers players came to his defense, vouching for his character. Papa calls the incident “unfortunate.”
“I told Tim ‘I can’t defend you on this. You’re going to have to take your medicine,’ ” he recalls. “… Word choice is important in our business. Some people weren’t offended, but enough people were. Hopefully it’s behind us now. I hope people fully appreciate how great of an analyst he is and how much he loves this team, and how much he works at his job. … He’s not a racist. There was no malice in his voice. He looked at it strictly from a football-scouting sense.”
Looking forward, Papa is now doing his usual “maniacal” research for Saturday’s game against the Vikings, while also savoring a magical regular season.
“I’ve felt for a while now that the 49ers can get to the Super Bowl,” he says.”They’ve been able to win in a variety of ways. This is definitely the best (football) team I’ve been able to watch up close on a weekly basis. Now, let’s see how far they can take it.”
Contact Chuck Barney at cbarney@bayareanewsgroup.com. Follow him at Twitter.com/chuckbarney and Facebook.com/bayareanewsgroup.chuckbarney.
