Jim Mckay

The Fleet Street spiritualist today remains as silent as the grave -- 50 years after she was strangled in one of the most bizarre murders of the century in Baltimore.Her colleagues in spiritualism certainly expected her to speak up soon after she had shaken off the initial trauma of her murder. The transition takes a period of adjustment, they agreed. Fifteen to 30 days, they suggested. But Emma A. Kefalos has not yet named her killer and the case remains unsolved. Apparently, it's not from lack of trying.

As you drive into Jim McKay's driveway off a narrow, winding road near Monkton and look at the horses in fields surrounded by white-painted board fences, you might wonder why he'd ever want to travel the wide world.But over the summer, McKay, at age 78, signed a new three-year contract with ABC that kicks in in February."I think this is my last contract," he said, his blue eyes sparkling. "But I've said that the last three times I've signed. I don't know how much longer I'll work."At the end of this contract, I'll be 81. I've never been 81 before, how do I know?

IT'S QUIET AT Pimlico Race Course this morning. If you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of cleanup crews sweeping losing parimutuel tickets from the ground. Sweep, sweep, sweep. Or you can wonder whatever happened to Parris Glendening. Wonder, wonder, wonder. Or you might recall the sound of Jim McKay, trying to laugh around the rough spots. Yuk, yuk, yuk.McKay, the old ABC-TV sportscaster and Maryland horseman, hosted last week's Alibi Breakfast at Pimlico, where racing types and various hangers-on gathered to drum up interest in yesterday's 124th running of the Preakness Stakes.

"The Real McKay: My Wide World of Sports," by Jim McKay. Dutton. 293 pages. $24.95. Outside of the president or Elvis, he is probably the most familiar figure on television. Each week, as if on some cruelly repetitive cue, he sweeps down the broad ski jump, makes an ill-advised right turn, and tumbles off the side and turns into a human snowball. Vinko Bogataj was an otherwise unremarkable Yugoslavian forklift operator and amateur ski jumper who had the misfortune in 1970 to not only crash spectacularly, but to do it on a live broadcast beamed into the hotel room of an ABC television producer who was in Yugoslavia to cover the World Gymnastics Championship.

Jim McKay has a theory about parenting that explains why he became so emotional four months ago when his son, Sean McManus, brokered a landmark deal in their family's business, sports television.McKay, a star of ABC Sports for more than 30 years, believes the success a child achieves says more about his parents than anything the parents achieve on their own.That's why when McManus, the president of CBS Sports, called McKay in January to tell him that CBS had beaten fairly long odds to get back into broadcasting NFL games, it meant more to the father than all the Emmy awards, the Peabody and all the other accolades that McKay, 76, has earned.

"HI. IT'S Jim McKay."He was returning a call seeking his insights into the state of the Olympics. The sound of his voice on the other end of the line was startling, nevertheless, partly because it's so familiar from his decades on the air, partly because it's like conversing with Zeus on Mount Olympus himself, so identifiable is the man with the world's greatest international sports festival. His work has won a closetful of Emmys, and his reportage of the fatal hostage-taking of Israeli athletes in Munich, West Germany, in 1972 -- "They're all gone" -- is a signature moment in sportscasting.

Jim McKay loves to tell stories. He's told stories about the wide world of sports for 50 years. Now he's telling his own.On Halloween, he finished the manuscript of the book-length story of his 50 years in television, just two days after the anniversary of his -- and Baltimore's -- first television broadcast. He's got a lot of stories to tell.For most of his half-century in television, he's been broadcasting big-time sports, from the Olympic Games to the great golf tournaments to the Triple Crown to the Indianapolis 500. And since the creation of ABC-TV's "Wide World of Sports" program in 1961, he's covered an amazing number of smaller, more obscure sports, from barrel jumping to Irish hurling.

Fifty years ago, as the clock ticked toward 3 p.m., a small band of men waited nervously for the moment when they would make history by airing the first television program in Baltimore.Gathered in a small room at a downtown office tower were Neil H. Swanson, executive editor of the Sunpapers; Philip S. Heisler, later editor of The Evening Sun; Charles Purcell, a photographer for The Sunday Sun Magazine; Charles Nopper, chief engineer; and Charlie Lau, his assistant.Reporters on cameraMiles away at Pimlico Race Track were two Sunpapers reporters who had been drafted to go in front of the cameras -- Jim McManus, later ABC's Jim McKay, and thoroughbred racing reporter Joseph B. Kelly.

It's fitting that "Wide World of Sports," which kicks off its 35th season Saturday (Channel 2, 4:30 p.m.) and is television's longest-running anthology series, presents a new host, Robin Roberts, who embodies the kind of variety "Wide World" is known for."Because I've done so many different things in 'SportsCenter' and in my career . . . they [the producers] can throw anything at me and I'll be able to handle it," said Roberts. "In all the conversations I've had with [producer] Curt [Gowdy Jr.]

Just as ABC producer Curt Gowdy Jr. was being asked the other day what it was like to have Jim McKay back on this year's Preakness telecast, McKay strolled up.When Gowdy relayed the question to McKay, the two men paused a second and nearly simultaneously said, "Normal."McKay, who missed last year's Preakness and the Belmont while recuperating from heart bypass surgery performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital, is as much a given around Pimlico as the horses.And as you watch McKay scamper between ABC's production trailers just outside the track, preparing to do voice-overs for the opening of today's coverage (Channel 2, 4: 30 p.m.)

Margaret Dempsey McManus, a former Evening Sun reporter and syndicated columnist who was the widow of sports broadcasting legend Jim McKay, died Thursday in her sleep of congestive heart failure at her Monkton home. She was 89. Born Margaret Mary Dempsey in Baltimore and raised on Park Avenue in Towson, she was a Towson Catholic High School graduate and basketball team captain. She earned a degree in 1942 from the College of Notre Dame of Maryland, where she was editor of the school newspaper.

Broadway Producer, at 9-5, has been established as the early-line favorite for Saturday's $200,000 Maryland Million Classic, the showcase race in the 24th running of the Jim McKay Maryland Million. The 2008 Turf winner is trying to become the second horse in Maryland Million history to win the Classic the next year, joining Master Speaker who did it in 1988-1989. Broadway Producer, trained by John Terranova, hasn't tasted victory this year. But he'll be ridden by jockey Ramon Dominguez, the nation's leading rider this year with more than $13 million in earnings.

A lineup of athletes - including Sugar Ray Leonard, Dorothy Hamill, Katie Hoff, Kimmie Meissner, Vicky Bullett, Charles Jenkins, Jessica Long and Tom McMillen - is impressive enough. Mingling with them and other sports stars and reporters at a Baltimore party can make you downright giddy. That was certainly the mood inside the Sports Legends Museum, where a couple hundred folks gathered for a VIP reception benefiting the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation. That soiree was just the warm-up for the evening's big bash.

Jim McKay probably would have been a little embarrassed that an entire ballroom of people made such a fuss in his honor last night at the Hilton Baltimore. Throughout his broadcasting career, he always strived to make the story about his subjects, not him. But nearly 1,000 people turned out to honor McKay - who passed away in June at age 86 - and celebrate his unique and graceful career for the Babe Ruth Museum's "Champions' Tribute to Jim McKay." Among them were some of Maryland's most famous Olympians: Michael Phelps, Dorothy Hamill, Sugar Ray Leonard, Ronaldo Nehemiah and Katie Hoff.

Jim McKay saw so much of the world during his lengthy and legendary broadcasting career. His syrupy voice, endearing charm and calming presence always made viewers of ABC's Wide World of Sports feel at home, whether he was profiling cliff divers in Acapulco or ice boat racers in Wisconsin. Home, however, always had a specific meaning to McKay. Though he was born in Philadelphia, worked in New York City for much of his career, and raised his children in Connecticut, he was always, in his heart, a true Maryland man. The state, and especially the city of Baltimore, meant a great deal to him, even at the height of his fame.

This year marks the first time the Maryland Million will be run without legendary broadcaster Jim McKay, the man who was raised in Baltimore and dreamed up the event that started in 1986. But in all likelihood, the event will bear his name starting next year, making certain his contributions to horse racing - and his love of the Sport of Kings - will not be forgotten. Del. Sandy Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat, said yesterday he plans to propose a resolution in the state Legislature during the 2009 session that renames the event the Jim McKay Maryland Million and the trophy awarded to the winner of the Classic Race the Jim McKay trophy.

The tributes have flowed since the news of his passing, but perhaps none will sum up the legacy of Jim McKay better than the description by former colleague Al Michaels that Mr. McKay "was like a favorite teacher." As someone who grew up learning from Mr. McKay, I have lost that favorite teacher, and for me and millions of others in my generation, we are all the poorer that his voice has been silenced. Jim McKay was more than the most significant sports broadcaster of the second half of the 20th century; he was the most significant teacher of sports the world has known.

Heads turned when CBS anchorwoman Katie Couric, Orioles owner Peter Angelos and network sportscasters Bob Costas and Jim Nantz walked to their seats yesterday at the funeral service for Jim McKay. Also there, melting into a back pew, was Jeff Jerome. Who? "I'm nobody. I just wanted to pay my respects," said Jerome, of Annapolis, as he left the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. "There are a lot of big names here; I'm just part of the common folk who never met Jim McKay but who grew up watching him on TV. "I always felt like he was talking to me. He was a friend, and I wanted to be part of his going away.

A funeral Mass for Jim McKay is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. A memorial tribute will begin 30 minutes before the service. WMAR will broadcast a news special, including funeral coverage, starting at 10:25 a.m.

Sportscasting great Jim McKay, who will be buried today, was passionate about horses and the racing industry. He was a man who could tell you the name of the first horse he bet on as a 14-year-old - Bay Dean - at Laurel Park and how much it paid - $151.20. And he would tell you straight out: That day at Laurel with his dad was the day he fell in love with the sport. And without him, the Maryland Million, which many believe will be his greatest legacy to thoroughbred racing, might not exist.