PITTSBURGH - Lanny Frattare has been a Pirates broadcaster longer than anyone in the team's history but insiders say he's never felt beloved. Frattare sought to change that as soon as the 2007 baseball season ended, so he checked himself into a clinic in Bavaria where he underwent radical plastic surgery. "Let me be blunt," said Frattare's broadcast partner Greg Brown. "He came out looking like Bob Prince." Prince, the revered hall-of-fame Pirates broadcaster, is widely regarded as the most colorful sportscaster in the city's history.
Frattare asked to meet Brown for dinner at the Carlton. "Lanny told me he wants to be referred to as 'the old Gunner' from now on," Brown said. "He was wearing a loud sports jacket and he was even talking out of one side of his mouth, like Prince did. It really creeped me out," Brown confided to a reporter. "Lanny kept saying things like, 'Kiss it goodbye,' and 'Spread some chicken on the hill with Will.' Then he said he planned to publicly ridicule KDKA on the air, the way Prince used to. I thought that was kind of odd, given that KDKA no longer broadcasts our games. Then he pulled out a green weenie, believe it or not, and began shaking it in my face. I asked the waitress to call security."
Frattare denies he's trying to turn himself into Prince. "That's totally wrong," said Frattare. "Did I ever tell you about how I missed Maz's homerun in 1960 because I was on my way to the clubhouse?"
