O'Donnell: No place to go but up for revamping AM-1000

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO, full-time sports talk radio in Chicago began with modest expectations.

They long ago were met.

Modestly.

Now, the brain-numbing niche is generally considered a cesspool of redundant banalities manned by one-schtick Babbitts whom more rounded individuals would dive out of garden apartment windows to get away from.

For close to two decades, since WSCR-AM (670) was moved down the dial by CBS/Infinity from AM-1160 in an attempt to make it a truly big-boy operation, it's been the same old dirge:

Waiting and waiting for The Next Big Thing.

The latest Next Big Thing is supposed to be new management and an anticipated massive overhaul of the perennially underachieving ESPN AM-1000.

AM-1000 as a sports talker has long been Chicago radio's answer to Touch of Yogurt Shampoo - a product best described as "a secondary and uncommon taste."

Last autumn, hope finally entered the station's doofus rooms when Craig Karmazin and his ambitious Good Karma Brands signed a local marketing agreement (LMA) to try and pump a pulse back into the languid signal.

The Milwaukee-based Karmazin oddly spent much of the intervening four months ducking and dodging Chicago media that was eager to lend him an open ear.

Finally, this week, Mike Thomas Voss, a very successful sports radio programming executive in Boston and GKB's Chicago market manager since Jan. 2, opened up a bit about his restart plans.

Some of MTV's proclamations sounded promising.

Others resonated with all the zing of the shelled Mr. Peanut funeral commercial.

In deed, Thomas - as he elects to be known professionally - put ex-Bear Kyle Long on-air for a fleeting first out alongside David Kaplan.

Some observers raved, as if it was the second coming of Gayle King.

Thomas also announced Brian Hanley - a bizarre man-overboard! during the claustrophobic lording of Jimmy de Castro over The Score - would get his foot in the door with a Saturday show focusing on the Blackhawks.

Thomas also revealed a very mixed bag of contractual statuses, acknowledging Kaplan and John Jurkovic have deals through next year and Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman are signed through 2022.

He also said that the station would actively chase play-by-play rights deals with the city's major teams. That goal could prove to be extremely intriguing, especially if Karmazin's GKB can close on a deal for listing WGN-AM (720).

On the serious self-immolating side, Thomas said AM-1000 would continue with ESPN's "Golic and Wingo Show" in morning drive.

That's like Rick Renteria sousing South Side hopes this season by saying his White Sox will play the first three innings of each game without bats or gloves.

"Golic and Wingo," as a national franchise floating against the streets-and-san current in Chicago, is a station killer.

The suspicion is Karmazin's LMA includes a clause that AM-1000 must continue to carry the dead weight for a specific length of time.

The few remaining listeners can only hope Thomas's true backstage theme is "We've Only Just Begun."

Because for fresh and innovative sports talk radio, Chicago is so underserved it's enough to make a peanut shell cry.

STREET-BEATIN': Hank Aaron didn't go far enough: The Houston Astros should be suspended from all MLB play for one full season. (Let them cheer lone-star trash can banging.) ...

Very little question viewership for Super Bowls has plateaued around 100 million, slightly more if Patrick Mahomes is in, slightly more enraged around the cable cars if Kyle Shanahan is coaching. (KC-SF drew 102 million.) ...

Fairly remarkable week for Phil Mickelson, traveling 8,300 miles from the Saudi International to defend his title at Pebble Beach. Grandfather Al Santos was one of the first caddies when Pebble Beach opened in 1919, earning 35 cents a loop - about what they used to tip a very bad and short-lived B-caddy at Rolling Green. (Final round Sunday, Golf Channel, 12-1:45 p.m.; CBS, 2-5 p.m.) ...

Credible swirl Jay Cutler may be hired as a network NFL analyst. Snarks may snap, but he's about as personable a millionaire ex-QB son of an Indiana state trooper as there is. ...

The Score's Julie DiCaro can certainly go toe-to-toe with just about anyone on current sports knowledge and opinions but she needs to be "coached down" in terms of her strident speaking cadence. Too many complete thoughts get rushed and lost. ...

Joey Meyer will miss some Northwestern men's broadcasts on WGN-AM (720) because of hip surgery. Pat Fitzgerald reportedly will fill in, but the big Q. is: Who's still listening? ...

Faces in the corn: Symmetrical week for Northern Illinois basketball - Eugene German swished his 2,000th point to pass T.J. Lux as the Huskies' all-time leading men's scorer while Courtney Woods netted her 2,000th to join Lisa Foss and Carol Owens as the only women in school history to reach that mark. ...

Palatine's Lyle Zikes - one of the most insightful bowling writers in the land - will be monitoring Sunday as Fox presents the finals of the PBA's Tournament of Champions back where it belongs, in suburban Akron (4 p.m.) ...

And Scott Thomson, noting that low-end, secondary market tickets for the NBA All-Star Game have dipped toward $900, deadpanned: "It must be because Zach LaVine isn't playing."

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports & Media column appears Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.