Through the years with Greg Gumbel

NEW YORK — An older generation remembers Greg Gumbel before he became a consistent presence on network sportscasts.

In the late 1980s Gumbel was at MSG, backing up Marv Albert on Knicks play-by-play and serving as studio host when the network got the Yankees rights away from SportsChannel.

Before that, he anchored and called NBA games in the early days of ESPN.

Except for a four-year stop at NBC, which had snagged CBS' NFL rights, Gumbel has been a major presence on the network.

In an interview Tuesday with Ken Fang (http;//fangsbites.com) and me, Gumbel covered a lot of ground, including why he doesn't watch "Real Sports," the HBO show hosted by his brother, Bryant.

What are your thoughts on the Ravens and Colts?

Just last week, watching the Colts play Houston, I asked Dan Dierdorf about the emotion (Colts coach) Chuck Pagano instilled in the team coming back.

What is the attitude when you come back after calling games all season long, you get a week off and have to go back out again?

(Ravens coach) John Harbaugh probably isn't going to tell us anything on Friday that we don't already know or haven't already heard.

The interesting thing about Peyton (Manning, Broncos quarterback) is that Peyton understands what we do and understands the information that we want and need.

The fact is I've been fortunate to work for some people who enjoyed my work, and it's a rarity in this business that I've been in it this long and I've never gotten fired.

Not that there's any shame in that, especially in this business, again because it's such a subjective approach.

Do you look back at your early days at ESPN and MSG as a more carefree time?

All of those guys who worked there, the originals when I got there — George Grande and Bob Ley and Lou Palmer and Tom Mees and Tom Pipines and Chris Berman — those were places...