R.I.P., Jerry Girard

If you grew up in the Greater New York area in the 1980s, you probably remember two things about Channel 11.

The first was this mini-TV show, really a long station promo, where kids would call in to play a live on-screen video game (kind of like Atari's Star Wars, or maybe it was Star Wars), where the kid would say "Pix!" to fire. (Since there was a lag, usually the kid wouldn't do so good. At least half the kids just repeatedly screamed "PIX PIX PIX PIX PIX" regardless of what was happening on the screen.)

The second thing was Jerry Girard, the wise-cracking sports anchor with a hair-do like a steel helmet. For most of his career -- from 1974 to 1995 -- there was no ESPN, WFAN or the Internet. If you wanted to find out what happened in sports, you either had to wait for the morning paper or tune in to the nightly news. Jerry Girard was the guy I always watched.

Girard was smart, funny and always different. He would do this thing on Monday nights when he would show the little-noticed plays from Sunday's games. Instead of showing the clip of Dave Meggett diving over the pile into the end zone -- which by Monday night everyone had already seen more than once -- Girard would show the play just before that one, where Chris Calloway made a huge catch for a key third down conversion. He had the insight to know which was the true key play and trusted his audience would care about that too.

He also was funny, and I don't mean like the asshats on Best Damn Sports Show or Fox football pre-game. This little clip of Girard has some of his wry humor. You would always hear the other people on the set cracking up as he dead-panned a classic line.

Girard died Sunday from cancer. He was 74, born in Chicago but raised in the Bronx, and was always a Yankee fan. (For some reason, a few of the obits say he was 75 and born in the Bronx, but I'm going by the "official" obit from Channel 11.) In one obit, he was quoted in a 1984 interview saying, "I made a pledge to myself when I first went on the air that I was going to be myself, sink or swim." He maintained that attitude right 'til the end, resigning in 1995 after more than 20 years rather than accepting a demotion as sports anchor. He hasn't been seen on TV since.

Rest in peace Jerry. Thanks for some great work.