Steve Somers

Steve Somers born April 17 1947 nicknamed the Schmoozer is an American talk radio host best known for his work on the New York City sports radio station WFAN 660 AM He has been with the station since its inception in 1987 Somers is a native of San Francisco California and became a fan of the San Francisco Giants upon the teams arrival to the city in 1958 He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1969 He currently resides in Manhattan His nickname is The Schmoozer He roots for the New York Mets or Metropolitans as he refers to them the New York Knicks or Knickerbockers the New York Rangers and New York Jets sometimes he even calls them the Jetropolitans Somers began his career in the Bay Area Before graduating high school he worked at KYA radio in San Francisco delivering onair high school sports reports After college Somers began hosting a news talk show on KABL radio in San Francisco long before the talk radio format became popular To that effect Time Magazine ran a story naming him the youngest talk show host in the country at that period Somers also worked as a public address announcer for the NBAs San Francisco Warriors In 1970 Somers joined KPIX in San Francisco as a weekend sports anchor and won a San Francisco Press Club Award Over the next decade and a half he held other television sportscasting positions at KOVR in Sacramento WXIATV in Atlanta and KNBC in Los Angeles While in Los Angeles he also launched a sports talk program at KMPC radio Somers joined WFAN at the stations inception in July 1987 He spent his first few years with the station as the overnight host While he was on the overnight program he dubbed himself Captain Midnight During this time he conducted one of the lastever interviews with Mark Koenig who was the last living member of the 1927 New York Yankees He later spent a few years cohosting the 10 am1 pm slot with WWORTV sports anchor Russ Salzberg The program was titled The Sweater and the Schmoozer At that time Somers developed some of the quirks that have been hallmarks of his WFAN tenure dropping catchphrases such as schmoooooozing SPORTS spelling out the word sports giving time checks in minutes and seconds uniquely reading the end of the stations phone number as sixsixsixsix rather than the standard sixty sixsixty six joking at the expense of engineer Eddie Scozzare THE Eddie Scozzare No Eddie Maple who do you think were talking and reading the catalog numbers of live commercials LV242 for those of you scoring at home and I know you are He is also known to refer to the New York Mets by their official name The New York Metropolitans drawing out the parts as MetroPolitans and referring to the Islanders as the Icelanders In October 2021 Somers stated that WFANs owner Audacy had requested to move his show back into the overnight hours a request Somers declined as he was no longer willing to work a graveyard slot He stated that because of the request he was planning on retiring from his regular shift at WFAN sooner rather than later to remain at WFAN on a reduced schedule as a fillin host if Audacy allows Somers appeared in the 1979 film The Visitor