How Gil Stratton got his start in local sports TV

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Longtime Southland sportscaster/actor/baseball umpire Gil Stratton died on Saturday at 86.

Here is an excerpt of an interview he gave KNBC/KFWB sports anchor Bill Seward in December 2007. The interview ran on Don Barrett’s LARadio.com. Beginning in 1954 and up until the late ‘90s, Stratton fulfilled the final third of an incredible three-career life.

‘I was a sports announcer, mostly at CBS,’’ he said. He also was doing ‘My Little Margie,’ when he went to visit a friend, Tom Harmon, who anchored a couple of local TV sportscasts. Tom mentioned that he was going to be leaving the late news at Channel 2. His wife had put her foot down and told Tom he had to choose between the two newscasts.

‘I told him that’s what I had wanted to do since I was 8 years old,’’ Stratton said. ‘He told me about an audition, and when I showed up, about half the guys on the Rams were auditioning along with most sportswriters in town. I got the job.’’

-- Jerry Green