Today at lunchtime, a memorable pair of anecdotes were shared on 710 ESPN Radio by John Ireland and Steve Mason, chatting on the crossover with Mychal Thompson and Mark Willard.

First, Ireland recalled how he and Mason once owned a horse that started out well but then became a loss leader. They wanted to call the horse Pocket Personality, but the name was taken and they settled instead for Phone Abroad.

Mason meanwhile explained that when he worked on The Late, Late Radio Show with Tom Snyder and Steve Mason, he once asked an absolute knockout of a female guest why she was dating a certain celeb. She admitted it was because he had “pocket personality,” e.g. his wallet was the overriding attraction. Mason promised to share the details on Twitter, only, and did.

Read more

The tweet, sent out late this afternoon via @LAIreland, transcends the realm of professional sports:

And on this Good Friday, the news waiting at the above shortened link is indeed very Good for all those who, like us, didn’t in fact already know. Leasa Ireland, wife of ESPN AM 710 host and Lakers radio play-by-play man John, is cancer-free after an arduous, year-plus-long battle. She writes:

I was overwhelmed and blessed with amazing support from family and friends near and far. I am also extremely fortunate to have a good healthcare plan (well, pretty good), and to live in a city where great doctors and quality care are readily available.

Read more

At the conclusion of Wednesday night’s ESPN 710 broadcast of the Lakers’ 113-99 drubbing of the Boston Celtics, play-by-play man John Ireland uttered these golden words: “I guess you could say that was just what the doctor ordered…”

It was such a perfect way to close out the first Lakers match since the death of team owner Dr. Jerry Buss that on today’s edition of Mason & Ireland, colleague Mark Willard wondered if Ireland had prepared the line beforehand or come up with it on the spot. “Neither,” the broadcaster honestly replied.

Read more

For better or worse, this is the power of Twitter. Within seconds of hanging up the phone this afternoon with New Jersey guest The Amazing Kreskin, ESPN 710 AM host John Ireland was letting listeners know about receiving this tweet:

He also, in the same breath, apologized to the audience for having to suffer through the 20-minute Kreskin conversation. But truth be told, it wasn’t quite as bad as Ireland, colleague Steve Mason and the above fan from “The 818″ were making out.

Read more

The first two hours of today’s Mason & Ireland broadcast on 710 ESPN AM radio, beginning at noon with Max Kellerman sitting in for John Ireland (who is on the road traveling with the Lakers), was much like the rest of today’s tragically interrupted U.S. sports talk radio slate. The mass shooting of young children at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut was suddenly and deservedly the only topic of discussion.

Instead of people calling in to discuss Lakers losing streaks and Angels free agent signings, Steve Mason and Kellerman were fielding calls from people like a SoCal male registered nurse. The caller said that in his experience, it was not so much the quantity of mental health care available that was an issue as much as the quality of treatment. Much of what is available for people who need it, he explained, falls far below what it should be, mainly because of the higher expense of top-notch mental health treatment. This caller also chillingly suggested he has dealt with many perpetrators who were simply “pure evil.”

Ireland called in from Washington, where the Lakers play the Wizards tonight. He addressed the issue of how to talk to kids about what has happened today, and the idea that school security must become more of a consideration for parents when they select the place to send their kids.

Read more

The Los Angeles Lakers radio team of John Ireland and Mychal Thompson are returning for the 2012-13 NBA season as the duo signed contract extensions Monday.

After spending years as a sideline reporter, Ireland was handed the play-by-play gig when Spero Dedes left for a radio position with the New York Knicks. Thompson has been the color analyst since the 2003-04 season.

710 AM ESPN Radio has been the flagship home of the Lakers since 2009.

Chicago-based 411mania.com contributor Tony Farinella has posted a solid interview with 710 ESPN radio host and Lakers play-by-play man John Ireland.

It’s always a compliment when the person being interviewed notes that no one has asked them a particular question before. This happens twice to Farinella. When asked to grade his first season as a Lakers radio announcer, Ireland gives himself a B minus. The veteran journalist also says his favorite “third chair” celebrity guests on the broadcast so far have been Jamal Wilkes, David Hasselhoff, Andy Garcia and Jeannie Buss.

Ireland also revisits an infamous incident from earlier this year during which he could be seen on TV in the background of a Lakers-Raptors broadcast, applying makeup to his face. He says this was a particularly lazy version of dealing with the juxtaposition of his radio duties and a live post-game TV interview show:

“It was the sixth game of a six-game round trip. What I had done was I had always gone back to the bathroom at halftime to put my makeup on, so when the game ends, I can run right to TV.”

Read more

LA Weekly reporter Gene Maddaus starts off his crackerjack expose of con man Dodgers bidder Josh Macciello with a dozen or so paragraphs about the duped January 2012 reporting efforts of ESPN journalists Steve Mason, John Ireland and Ramona Shelburne. To make a long story short, all three stumped for a guy eight zeroes short of any real shot at the MLB team.

Surprisingly, at least to FishbowlLA, there was no addressing of this issue at the top of this afternoon’s “Mason & Ireland” broadcast on 710 ESPN Radio. Separately, our efforts to get comment from Bristol, CT HQ generated an email response that “the network and hosts will be making no statement about this matter.”

As Kevin Roderick noted in a blog post late last night, several other LA journalists got the Macciello story wrong. But it all started with the January introduction and recall on ESPN of this individual as a vetted entity.

Read more

It’s that time of the year when local sports personalities cringe as Daily News columnist Tom Hoffarth rolls out his annual “Best and Worst of the L.A. Sports Media.”

First up, the Top 10 anchors/reporters:

1. Curt Sandoval, KABC Channel 7 reporter/anchor

2. Jim Hill, KCBS Channel 2/KCAL Channel 9 anchor/reporter

3. Fred Roggin, KNBC Channel 4 anchor

4. Patrick O’Neal, FSW/Prime Ticket reporter/host

5. John Ireland, KCAL Channel 9/KCBS Channel 2 reporter/anchor

6. Gary Miller, KCAL Channel 9 anchor/reporter/ studio host

Read more

Last night on 710 ESPN Radio, Dave McMenamin (pictured) revisited with amazement a radio interview that former Lakers coach Phil Jackson gave to John Ireland a year ago, ahead of a team road game with the New Orleans Hornets. The Zen Master perfectly predicted the mess that is this week’s NBA veto of the Chris Paul trade.

McMenamin follows up last night’s broadcast today with an extended blog post. He tried to get in touch with Jackson for further comment, but the son of Jackson’s agent politely declined, on Phil’s behalf.

The other Lakers media voice today that really matters in the wake of Stern’s a-Paul-ing judgment call is that of the point guard in whose hallowed footsteps CP3 would have been stepping. Magic Johnson is all over the topic on Twitter, suggesting it was the wrong decision by the commish and owners involved.

Read more