Legendary Buffalo sports talk radio host Art Wander dies at 97


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Art Wander works his last radio show at 107.7 WNSA, on Thursday, March 28, 2002.
Harry Scull Jr./News file photo


Buffalo radio legend Art Wander died Wednesday night under hospice care. He was 97.

His longtime colleague Bob Koshinski reported on social media that Mr. Wander's daughter, Kelley Clem, wrote to him, "My Dad was discussing Mets baseball with me just the night before. He passed with a Buffalo Bills blanket on his bed, a Mets banner nearby and Frank Sinatra singing 'My Way' on his Alexa, which he always called Alaska.”

Inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2008, Mr. Wander was best known as the outspoken host of sports call-in shows, where he dubbed himself the "Tiny Tot of the Kilowatt" – he stood 5-foot 6 – and "Artie Baby Boo-Boo."

His notoriety spread in 1989 after Buffalo Bills general manager Bill Polian singled him out in a rant at a Quarterback Club meeting about people who should "get out of town."

Nobody would argue with him. Nobody would pick a fight or challenge his opinion. In fact, everyone was far too nice. “Let’s talk about sports,” Art Wander said. “This is starting to sound like a eulogy.” In a way, it was – a eulogy for Wander’s radio career. After 40-some years and one false retirement, the 74-year-old Wander did

"Wander's entertaining, enthusiastic, combative style is uniquely his own," Buffalo News TV-radio critic Alan Pergament wrote in 1992, when Mr. Wander was hosting an evening sports talk show on WGR. "Even if you think he is usually full of kielbasa, you might enjoy his emotional speeches, his insults of sports commissioners Paul Tagliabue ('Tagliabuebue' to Wander), Fay Vincent ('Fadeaway Fay'), John Ziegler ('That twit'), and his jokes about how attractive he is to women.

"Perhaps the truly unique thing about Wander's act is the way he treats callers. He lets some talk, hangs up on others, gives a trademark cackling laugh when he is at a brief loss for words, and interrupts many with the introduction of the longest word in his vocabulary.

" 'Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute,' he shouts when he wants to break into a conversation."

Mr. Wander went on to work with Koshinski as co-host of "Fan Forum," a talk show on the Empire Sports Network. He later had his own show on the network, "Don't Get Me Started," and hosted another call-in show on Empire's radio affiliate, WNSA-FM. In the early 2010s, he appeared regularly on Koshinski's "All Sports WNY" show on WBBZ-TV and added his insights to the program's website.

Born in Buffalo and proud of his Polish heritage, Mr. Wander was one of seven children of Carl and Cornelia Klos Wanderlich. He grew up in Corpus Christi Catholic Parish on the East Side and skipped classes to watch Foster Brooks and Buffalo Bob Smith do their radio shows live from the W. T. Grant department store downtown.

He left East High School in the closing days of World War II and enlisted in the Navy, where he played second base on a traveling baseball team. Returning from service, he shortened his name. He was a roller derby player and a professional boxer, then was radio director for the Buffalo Veterans Affairs Medical Center and a newsman at WXRL. He joined WKBW radio in 1956, where he wrote news copy for another local broadcasting legend, Irv Weinstein.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he worked in radio stations up and down the East Coast and across the Midwest. At WOR-FM in New York City, he interviewed the Beatles – he told Pergament that he sat on Paul McCartney's lap – and befriended their manager, Brian Epstein.

A return to Buffalo in 1963 teamed him with J. Tyler Dunn as the wacky co-hosts of the WYSL morning show. He went on to stations in Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Baltimore, Atlanta, Tampa and Memphis. As a program director, he fostered the careers of deejay Rick Dees and ESPN’s Dan Patrick. He returned to his hometown in the mid-1980s to join WGKT, 1400 AM.

When he retired from full-time broadcasting in 2002, News sports reporter Amy Moritz wrote, "Part of Wander's popularity came from the respect he granted callers. Agree or disagree with him, fans always felt they were treated fairly on Wander's shows and given a chance to speak their mind."

Then Mr. Wander added, "Though I am never wrong, of course."

In addition to his daughter, survivors include a son, Scott, and a granddaughter. His marriage to the former Joann M. Adams ended in divorce.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
 
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