“I had a picture in my mind of an armchair quarterback who knows it all and he would just worship Stan and Guy. They would be bigger than God to him and they would call up and say, ‘Stan, Guy, love the show’  — Jimmy Krenn, aka the ‘Scorekeeper’ 

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And boy did Pittsburgh love the show.

They loved Stan. They loved Guy. They loved SportsBeat, and they enjoyed more than anything else calling the most popular sports talk show in the city’s long and storied history and talking Penguins, Pirates and Steelers.

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Or, if nothing else was on their mind, they’d simply say, ‘Stan, Guy, love the show.”

“It’s been 16 years since I’ve been fired and hardly a day goes by … I will be walking in the mall and somebody will come up to me and say, ‘love the show,’” Guy Junker said.

“It happened to me just the other day,” Stan Savran added as the two sat around the ESPN 970 studios, where they get together once a week to rekindle the sports talk relationship that captured Pittsburgh sports fans for an unprecedented 18 years and more than 4,500 shows.

It has been 10 years this month since FSN Pittsburgh canceled SportsBeat, an offshoot of the radical radio-on-television format that first aired on KBL on March 11, 1991.

“SportsBeat arrived before sports-talk radio became a 24-7, multi-station, constant harangue and ear irritant. So the pairing of personalities, the thirst for more sports talk and Pittsburgh sports being under-represented in broadcast media at the time, it was a perfect storm for a thunderclap,” said Chuck Finder, former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sportswriter as well as the author of The Big Picture media column for the paper. “They became a singular cultural icon, fused together in a memorable phrase.”

Stan, Guy, love the show.

Jimmy Krenn and the WDVE morning show dominated the radio waves in Pittsburgh at about the same time SportsBeat dominated local cable television. Krenn, a Pittsburgh native and a self-proclaimed huge sports fan, was known for his comedic skits on the morning show.

One day in 1993, the Scorekeeper was born.

“Pittsburgh knows their sports and in the talk show world, the regulars would always call in with a nickname and this goes back to when I was a kid listening to Myron Cope in the afternoons, so I came up with the Scorekeeper,” Krenn said. “And the Scorekeeper would always start the skit with, ‘Stan, Guy, love the show’ and end it with ‘I am going to hang up and listen.’ The spirit of the character came from me loving the show. I did it, and it instantly became huge.”

“That was the hook we needed,” Savran said. “People would then call the show and say, ‘Stan, Guy, love the show.’ Every caller would say that.”

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Before you knew it, there were commercials, there were promos, there were T-shirts and there were Stan and Guy’s face plastered all over Port Authority buses.

“That became an ad campaign,” Junker said. “It was an amazing time.”

While radio shows on television is as routine as it comes now (Dan Patrick Show, Rich Eisen Show, Gio and Boomer, Colin Cowherd, Jim Rome and many others), it wasn’t like that in the early 1990s.

Not only that, there wasn’t much in the way of local sports talk — about an hour or two per day on AM radio. No 24-hour sports talk radio stations. No internet. Certainly no podcasts or SiriusXM Radio. Local television newscasts — like today — didn’t have much time for sports to show more than daily highlights.

SportsCenter grew in popularity on ESPN, but that was for a national audience. There was no talk of who should start for the Steelers: Neil O’Donnell or Bubby Brister. Or who should the Pirates play at first base. Or, especially, how the Penguins’ Stanley Cup championship teams have turned the area into a hockey hotbed.

There was a huge appetite for sports talk, but not much of a place to find it.

Enter KBL, a regional sports network that reached six states but focused on Pennsylvania, West Virginia and eastern Ohio. The network, which originally broadcast out of KDKA’s studio, wanted to create a sports talk show for the booming cable business.

So, in early 1991, SportsBeat was born. The idea was to have a writer’s roundtable on Monday that featured the legendary Beano Cook and writers from the Post-Gazette and the Pittsburgh Press, followed by four days of an interview-heavy show with KDKA-TV’s Bob Pompeani and Junker. Pompeani worked as the leading man while Junker did a feature lead-in to the interview. It was a 30-minute show.

“They approached me out of the blue and asked me if I would be interested,” said Pompeani, already an established figure in the Pittsburgh market for a decade. “I said, ‘Absolutely.’ I thought it would be great to do. Guy Junker was the guy, and I’ve known him my entire life. We’ve done high school play-by-play together and everything else. I thought it would be fun to do.”

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Junker was tending bar at the time after SNN, the first 24-hour sports cable news channel based out of Washington, went bankrupt a week before Christmas in 1990. The founder of KBL, Gil Lucas, called Junker and asked if he would be interested in the job.

“I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Junker said.

Flying by the seat of their pants because of the newness of it all, SportsBeat struggled in the early days. The biggest problem was making the show part of the fan’s daily routine.

The Monday night roundtable lasted only a few shows; the ratings weren’t good. And there was a more significant issue ahead: KBL’s contract to use KDKA’s studio was expiring. The network decided to lease instead from rival station WPXI, which meant Pompeani was out.

“I understood when they called to tell me,” Pompeani said.

Poor ratings, an unknown concept and, now, the well-known host was gone. SportsBeat was hanging on, but barely.

There was one Hail Mary left in the Lucas’ arsenal: Savran, a well-established media personality in Pittsburgh for more than 15 years. Savran was the sports anchor on WTAE for a decade before getting fired in November 1991.

KDKA offered Savran the sports anchor job alongside John Steigerwald, but Savran’s non-compete clause with WTAE prevented him from returning to the air for a year. Savran’s contract said nothing about cable as part of the non-compete.

“I decided to take a gamble with KBL,” Savran said.

In February 1992, SportsBeat was rebranded with Savran and Junker (the two first came together in 1984 when Junker worked as a producer for Savran’s 11 p.m. sportscasts on WTAE). The network also used the SportsBeat format as a pregame and postgame show to help support the brand.

It still didn’t work that well.

“When Genesee Cream Ale dropped out after the first year, we had no sponsor, and Bill Craig, who was the general manager, came to us and said if we had any other offers that it wouldn’t upset him because he didn’t know how much longer we could go without a sponsor,” Junker said. “The first six to eight months we were together, financially, they weren’t doing well. Seven Springs became the title sponsor, and it took off after that.”

“The show gained a lot of steam, and I thought it was a very good show,” Pompeani said. “It was different and it was local. We didn’t have anything in Pittsburgh quite like that on a regular nightly basis.”

The pregame and postgame shows helped SportsBeat with its success, without question. But it was much more than that.

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There was a thirst for sports talk, and few choices. The Steelers won the division in 1992; the Pirates made three straight NLCS appearances, and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 1991 and 1992. Stan and Guy were the perfect pair to bring it all together.

“They were two guys you wanted to have a beer with,” Krenn said. “That had a lot of appeal to people.”

Savran and Junker became part of Pittsburgh’s rich history of TV duos.

“(They were) just a blast to welcome them into your home nightly, like a Paul Long and Don Cannon tandem or Patti and Daddy Bill Burns,” Finder said. “To me, they were the last of the serious, straightforward Pittsburgh sports-talkers. No edgy gabfests or guy talk or stir-the-pot-for-10-minutes planned discussions for these guys. They brought something of a topic or three, and threw it open to John Q. Zelienople for a live, impromptu chat. Granted, at its heart, the show was simply talk radio on TV, but it was fun to watch and listen to them.”

SportsBeat was considered a lifeline to Pittsburgh natives who had scattered throughout the country — a way to touch base and get the news and opinions regarding Pittsburgh sports. There was no DirecTV, but there were the big old satellite dishes that allowed ‘John from Montreal’ to call in often or a guy from Kansas City or Nicaragua, which frequently happened, to talk about the Penguins, Pirates, Steelers or whatever.

“It was a way for a fan to stay connected with Pittsburgh sports,” Savran said. “That was one of the services that we provided that they couldn’t get anywhere else.”

For SportsBeat, it was the Penguins that drove the show.

“Cope came on after he retired and said, ‘Gents, you guys are the same as me,’” Junker said. ‘”I hopped on with the Steelers right at the time they started to win Super Bowls, and you two did the same with the Penguins.’ I think we educated hockey fans at the time.

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“The timing was perfect for us.”

What made SportsBeat so entertaining is that you never knew what was going to happen next.

The format allowed the show to switch things up — one day, the show is a normal call-in episode. The next, there’s a mock NFL draft, with cut-out graphics pasted on the wall. Another might be taped from the porch of a fan’s ostrich farm. The 2,000th show featured Mister Rogers, Vin Scully, Sammy Sosa and others wishing the guys well.

But nothing much could match the guests who strolled into the studio, which included Chuck Noll not long after he retired in late 1991. Noll, a private man who could be just a tad intimidating, was a massive get for the show.

“I had his home number and called him,” Savran said. “I was scared to death and I even knew him a little bit. He was very intimidating.”

They got Buster Douglass right after he beat Mike Tyson, Reggie Jackson pushing his Reggie candy bar, Evander Holyfield, Mario Lemieux, Jim Leyland, Bill Cowher, Armon Gilliam, Craig Patrick, Kevin McClatchy and others.

It became a show where the athlete sought SportsBeat out, not the other way around.

The show had a deal with Pittsburgh Limousine, where it would send a limo to pick up guests. They would offer use of the limo for the remainder of the evening, after taping the show.

“The limo would pick them up at the house, drive them to the studio and if they wanted to go to dinner, we had Ruth’s Chris certificates to give out,” Junker said. “We had a lot of schmoozing going on.”

One of the most memorable guests was Jim Baker, an insurance salesman from West Mifflin who swiped the ball from the turf at Three Rivers Stadium after Franco Harris’ Immaculate Reception in 1972. Harris was a guest on the show, talking about the 25th anniversary of the catch when, unbeknownst to Harris, Baker walked onto the set and tossed Harris the football.

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“Franco didn’t know who this guy was and Stan sets it up and the guy tosses the ball across the set and Franco, and he got a tear in his eye,” Junker said. “He kissed the football. To me, that was the best show we ever did.”

“The look on his face was priceless,” Savran added.

SportsBeat continued unaltered for 13 years while the network went through a variety of changes — from KBL to Prime Sports to Fox Sports Pittsburgh to FSN Pittsburgh. Ratings were steady, even as the Penguins and Pirates struggled in the early 2000s and as other TV outlets started their own competing sports shows.

That all changed in 2003. Fox executives in Los Angeles did not like the show and wanted to fire Savran.

“The show and Stan and Guy were too Pittsburgh and not Fox/LA slick enough,” Savran said. “Local management told them firing me would be a huge mistake. The guy who tried to fire me eventually got fired in LA. Then they turned their sights on Guy.”

At the time, both Savran and Junker were forced to do studio shows for the Fox affiliate in St. Louis. Junker bristled at that idea, and that was a convenient reason to let Junker go. Junker’s last show was May 16, 2003, the same week SportsBeat celebrated its 3,000th episode.

“Something didn’t feel right leading up to that, a lot of closed-door meetings,” Junker said. “They were talking about renting out the Byham (Theater) for the 3,000th show and then they were saying we didn’t have to do it on the exact date. It was strange.”

The show was rebranded as ‘Savran on SportsBeat’ with Savran hosting an hour-long show that basically served as a pregame show for both the Pirates and Penguins. That lasted six years before FSN pulled the plug altogether, now 10 years ago.

“Their excuse was that we were only going to do shows that revolved around their properties, meaning the Penguins and Pirates,” Savran said. “Since SportsBeat covered everything, that was their excuse, although it would live on without the name in the context of pregame shows.”

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It also afforded the station to reduced Savran to part-time and fire “at least three staffers” Savran worked with a daily basis, he said.

“They literally begged me to stay on with them, knowing the backlash they would get from canceling the show … and then having me leave altogether,” Savran said. “Guy’s firing and the cancellation of the show both broke my heart, literally. I had my open heart surgery three months after the final show.

“It was just two Pittsburgh guys talking sports, and they couldn’t comprehend that,” he added. “When they canceled SportsBeat, it was devastating to me. We were on longer than Gunsmoke. It just crushed me.”

Stan and Guy got back together for a midday radio gig at ESPN 1250 in late July 2008, but it lasted only 26 months before the station switched formats to Radio Disney.

Now, the two spend every Thursday together as part of Savran’s radio show to rekindle the relationship, even if it’s only for an hour. Savran has tried to get Junker on full time, but Junker’s weekend sports anchor responsibilities at WTAE have made that impossible.

“We just have this camaraderie and this feel for one another. It is amazing,” Savran said. “I said at the time that I would give up my TV gigs and finish my career (with Guy at ESPN 1250). I was really content.”

It’s just two friends talking sports. That was apparent the first time they were on the air, and it was still apparent this month as they sat for their regular hour together on the radio.

In studio a few weeks ago, Savran threw a couple of topics Junker’s way five minutes before they went on the air. They then had chat that sounded like a something you would hear in a bar.

“We got engaged the same year, we got married the same year,” Junker said. “We do all kind of stuff together now. He comes over to my house for Christmas, he came over for the Fourth for a cookout. He was there when I got the phone call that my mother died.”

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Two Pittsburghers talking sports and having fun doing it.

Stan, Guy, it’s easy to see why they love the show.

(Top photo of Stan Savran and Guy Junker: Mark Kaboly / The Athletic)