Joe Starkey, please meet Joe Starkey

SAN FRANCISCO - I couldn't very well pass up a chance to interview Joe Starkey, now could I?

Especially not when this particular Joe Starkey (no relation) enabled one Mike Lange to become a Pittsburgh legend.

Joe Starkey (the one who's not me) is the radio voice of the San Francisco 49ers. He was the voice of the Penguins in 1973-74 (his signature goal call was, "What a bonanza!") and considered keeping that job.

He also had an offer to return home to take his old gig with the now-defunct California Golden Seals. As he wavered, a fledging young broadcaster from Sacramento pestered him like a third-line grinder.

Lange was broadcasting minor league hockey and indoor soccer at the time.

"He'd call asking 'What are you going to do• What are you going to do?'" Starkey recalled Monday at 3-Com Park.

Finally, Joe Starkey (the one who's not me) returned to California - and you could have scratched his back with a hacksaw when the Seals croaked two years later.

But he survived.

Did he ever.

Now 60, Joe Starkey (the one who's much older than me) is the voice of the Cal Golden Bears, as well as the 49ers, and has been the sports director at KGO AM-810 since 1979.

He talks to Lange occasionally.

"I'm glad it worked out for him," Starkey said. "He probably did a lot better than I'd ever have done there."

Starkey has some unforgettable calls on his resume, too, including Cal's incredible victory over John Elway's Stanford Cardinal in 1982.

That was the one where Cal's Kevin Moen, after a series of laterals on a kick return, ran through 15 members of the Stanford band at the final gun.

Starkey's call:

"THE BEARS HAVE WON! THE BEARS HAVE WON! Oh my God, the most amazing, sensational, traumatic, heart rending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football! California has won ... the big game ... over Stanford! Oh excuse me for my voice, but I have never, never seen anything like it. ... "

Believe it or not, that isn't the man's fondest sports memory. His impromptu call of the third period of the Miracle On Ice wins the distinction.

Starkey was working the 1980 Winter Olympics for ABC Radio but didn't have an assignment at the hockey game between the U.S. and the Soviets.

He was watching as a fan - sitting 10 feet from Al Michaels, kind of like last night - when he decided to spring into action after the second period. He called KGO and told his bosses he was willing to risk his job to call the final period over the telephone.

Unsure if it was authorized, the station agreed. Other stations along the West Coast picked up the transmission.

It was, Starkey believes, the only live broadcast of the Miracle On Ice (the TV broadcast was tape delayed).

Even though he wears a 49ers Super Bowl ring, Joe Starkey (the one who has way more money than me) says hockey was his favorite sport to cover. He has a special place in his heart for those '73-74 Penguins.

And he still says "What a bonanza!" every once in a while, too.

But only on special occasions.