Courtesy Los Angeles Daily News

(October 16, 2009) Before the Dodgers hired Charley Steiner to do play-by-play starting with the 2005 season, the Brooklyn native called games for two seasons with the New York Yankees. Before that, his four-year run with ESPN as a "SportsCenter" anchor and boxing reporter was preceded by a play-by-play job with the New York Jets.

And before that, he called games for the United States Football League's New Jersey Generals - hired in 1983,

done like everyone else when the league prematurely crumbled in the summer of '85.

Before we go further with this, we admit everything written to this point was to create a timeline, to help Donald Trump's memory.

In next week's installment of the ESPN "30 in 30" documentary series, producer/ director/narrator Mike Tollin deftly crafts his presentation of "Small Potatoes: Who Killed The USFL?" Weaved between the recollections of fun-filled times this short-lived spring pro football league provided initially as a complement to the NFL and then a misguided challenger, Tollin's goal was simple: Allow those who participated to explain how the league worked, and why it came crashing down.

The death blow wasn't so much the $40 million contract given to Steve Young as a ground-breaking gesture for him to play quarterback during the last two seasons of the Los Angeles Express - although the league absorbed the deal (really, an annuity), as well as the franchise, when owner J. William Oldenburg disappeared.

Tollin has a better villain here: Trump, owner of a Generals team that he claimed was from "New York/New Jersey," whose ego from the start pushed the USFL into suing the NFL for monopoly money. And all they got was $3.
In turn, Trump has his own stable of scapegoats.

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A third of the way through the documentary, Tollin asks Steiner to explain the emergence of Trump, known then as the "Boy Builder" trying to make a name for himself.

Trump bought the Generals, led by Herschel Walker and eventually adding Doug Flutie, before the 1984 season from previous owner and Oklahoma oil baron J. Walter Duncan.

"Donald wanted to become a big shot," Steiner says. "And his entree into being a big shot was buying himself a football team. And he figured that he could buy his way onto the back page of the New York Post, he could move to Page 6, the gossip page, and then ultimately the front page.

"Donald Trump was no longer 'a' Donald, but 'The' Donald."

Trump listens to Steiner's assessment in the film, frowns, and responds:

"Charley Steiner was nobody. Charley Steiner couldn't get a job and we put him on the USFL. So I hope he said that in a friendly way, because if he didn't, I'd love to take him on just like I take everybody else on. So I hope he remains loyal and if he doesn't, let me know and I'll attack him."

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Again, not to rewrite history, but Steiner was hired by the Generals the year before Trump burst in. Steiner was the sports director at New York radio station WOR-AM, which owned the Generals' radio rights.

Over lunch this week, before running off to Dodger Stadium to prep for the start of the Dodgers-Phillies National League Championship Series, Steiner remains amused by Trump's reaction.

"I stand by everything I said," Steiner said. "And what I said from my point of view was completely factual. What (Trump) said in regards to me wasn't."

Steiner, with colormen Dave Herman and Bob Casciola, won an award for best broadcast team by the New York state broadcasters association in 1983.

"We were pretty good - before (Trump) made me," said Steiner.

Said Tollin: "Not only (are Steiner's comments) irrefutable, but it's not even inflammatory. Trump's reaction is completely inappropriate, but it's an opportunity presented to him. He's indiscriminately dismissive."

Concluded Steiner: "I think that based on (Trump's) history, he just likes a good fight."

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