Watching Bill McCaffrey’s “Inside Sports” is like walking into a roadside oddities museum — you never know what you’re going to see.
A heavyweight champion boxer might be followed by a 10-year-old drag racer or a fencer. A college basketball coach, high school baseball players and sports writers have shared stages.
McCaffrey’s weekly grass roots sports cable TV show mixes amateurs with pros, mainstream and X-treme sports. Friday nights on Prince George’s County cable channel 76 (CTV) means 30 minutes of frank interviews with prominent and obscure sports figures deflecting McCaffrey’s sometimes cornball humor.
Think of the last remaining member of the Junkies doing a TV show 40 years from now as a glimpse of McCaffrey’s program. Maybe a hairless Garth still partying on as a grandfather on Wayne’s (Sports) World. There’s lot of history, plenty of humor and quite a few pleasant surprises.
“We touch a lot of people the daily TV shows don’t,” McCaffrey said. “We’re pretty candid on what we talk about. I can’t say viewers like all the shows, but we appeal to folks that don’t normally see this type of show. You have some big guests and some others people don’t recognize.”
McCaffrey seemingly knows everybody from his days as either a Maryland state delegate (1975-90) or coaching amateur sports. He led a women’s softball team — Encore — comprised of Prince George’s County stars to the 1980 national ASA championship. McCaffrey has written a local sports column for weekly papers since 1964 where anyone is fair game and now has his own Web site — mccaffreysworld.com.
“[Maryland senate president Mike] Miller says I’m more popular today than when I was in [elective] office,” McCaffrey said. “That might be true. I’m recognized more. I was on a cruise about eight years ago in Jamaica and when we were getting off they were forming groups and someone said, ‘Don’t you do a sports show?’ ”
Actually, McCaffrey has hosted more than 1,300 shows. After 400 programs at Prince George’s Community College, he started a new show at the nearby CTV offices in Largo where No. 900 ran March 17.
“I’m affordable,” joked McCaffrey, who volunteers his time for the show. “You have to have the desire to keep doing it. I feel at this time in my life the more I give back the better off I am. I’m thankful to the Lord I’m still here and I just want to give back something to the people. [Doing the show is a luck thing. I was lucky in politics.”
McCaffrey, 72, still works for the Maryland Transportation Administration handling trouble spots with the MARC trains, Baltimore rail and bus systems. He’s also a member of the state athletic commission, Washington Slo-Pitch Softball Hall of Fame and Greater Washington Boxing Hall of Fame.
And while McCaffrey ruminates over retirement, the lure of show No. 1,000 in 2008 is enough for supporters to push the former student at Anacostia, Roosevelt and Bell high schools to keep going.
“When I did No. 800, I thought about quitting,” said McCaffrey. “One-thousand means two more years. Can I do it — who knows? I feel better. Who knows, by 1,000 I’ll be a loony old man.”
But still fun to watch.
Rick Snider has covered local sports for 28 years. Contact him at [email protected].
