Steve Somers

Steve Somers (born April 17, 1947) is an American talk radio host best known for his work on the New York City sports radio station WFAN (660 AM). He has been with the station since its inception in 1987.^[1]

Personal life

Somers is a native of the Bay Area, and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969. He currently resides in Manhattan.^[1] His nickname is "The Schmoozer." He is a New York Mets and New York Rangers fan.

Career

Somers began his career in the Bay Area. Before graduating high school, he worked at KYA radio in San Francisco delivering on air high school sports reports. After college, Somers began hosting a news talk show on KNEW in San Francisco long before the talk radio format became popular. To that effect, Time Magazine ran a story naming him the youngest talk show host in the country at that period of time.^[1]

In 1970, Somers joined KPIX-TV in San Francisco as a weekend sports anchor and won a San Francisco Press Club Award.^[1]

For WFAN, Somers has been a part of the station since its inception in 1987. He spent his first few years with the station as the overnight host. During this time he conducted one of the last ever interviews with Mark Koenig who was the last living member of the 1927 New York Yankees. He later spent a few years co-hosting the 10am-1pm slot with WWOR-TV sports anchor Russ Salzberg. The program was titled "The Sweater and the Schmoozer."^[2] At that time, Somers developed some of the quirks that have been hallmarks of his WFAN tenure, dropping catchphrases such as "schmoooooozing S-P-O-R-T-S" (spelling out the word "sports"), giving time checks in minutes and seconds, uniquely reading the end of the station's phone number as "six-six-six-six" rather than the standard "sixty six-sixty six", joking at the expense of engineer Eddie Scozzare ("THE Eddie Scozzare?" "No, Eddie Maple, who do you think we're talking?"), and reading the catalogue numbers of live commercials ("LV-242, for those of you scoring at home...").

Currently, Somers usually works during the evening on weekdays. His program can be heard anywhere from 6:30pm to 2am, depending on whether WFAN airs a sporting event that night. He is also sometimes heard on weekends. He is colloquially known as "The Schmoozer."^[1] Somers has said of the infrequent scheduling, "Sometimes, just sometimes, I forget what time zone I live in."

Film

Somers appeared in the 1979 film The Visitor.^[3]

References