Dr. Tim Kremchek laughs it up with Aaron Boone in the training room. (Jeff Swinger photo) | ZOOM |

        All right, let's get this out of the way now. Doc Hollywood's one-inning play-by-play stint on WLW-AM will be on Sunday of Labor Day weekend — Sept.3 if you have a calendar — vs. Montreal Expos.

        We know this because we were there when Reds radio broadcaster Marty Brennaman verbally pounded it out of him like a butcher with a meat mallet. There are few people Brennaman likes to abuse more than he likes to abuse Dr. Tim Kremchek, aka Doc Hollywood. He is the Reds team physician and orthopedic surgeon.

        What inning?

        “Sixth inning,” answers Brennaman, who then turns to Kremchek. “That all right with you?”

        “Yeah, that's all ri ... ” says Kremchek, who is interrupted by Brennaman.

        “How stupid of me to ask,” Brennaman says. “It doesn't matter what you think. You'll do it in the sixth inning because that's when I say you'll do it.”

        Kremchek grins. He's on the inside now.
        One thing you can say about the Reds franchise is that it's entertaining.

        Even as the team herks- and-jerks through the season there is rarely a dull moment.

        A huge part of it is the tell-it-like-it-is Brennaman and sidekick Joe Nuxhall. Flip on the TV and there's Reds general manager Jim Bowden giving ESPN an interview from his box seat in Wrigley Field. Flip on local TV, and there's TV color man Chris Welsh doing a car commercial. In Cooperstown, N.Y, there's TV play-by-play man George Grande emceeing the Hall of Fame Induction ceremony.

        And then there's Doc Hollywood, 41.

        On one recent weekend, we flip on WLW-AM (700) and in a two-day span we hear Kremchek on three different occasions: with Andy Furman, then the next night with his daily medical report before the game, then being interviewed on Sunday morning Sports Talk.

        And we weren't even looking for him. He was just there.

        Listen to some doctors when they have a notebook or TV camera in front of them and you'd swear there was something in the Hippocratic Oath that says, “Thou shalt not talk openly or with the slightest bit of animation when talking to a reporter.”

        Kremchek is just the opposite.

        He's never met a reporter he doesn't like.

        Actually, he's never met a person he doesn't like.

        There are precious few people who don't like him, either.

        Oh, there are medical colleagues who think Kremchek has gone over the top by getting to the ballpark an hour before every home game and not leaving until an hour after. And, of course, for giving those daily injury updates on radio. Some have even told him so.

        But what's he supposed to do? Stop immersing himself in the work that he also describes as his hobby and his passion?

        He was eight years old, and living at Westhover Air Force Base in Massachusetts, when the Boston Red Sox glorious season of 1967 came along. Carl Yastrzemski won the Triple Crown. Tim's father, Ed, who was an Air Force physician, took Tim to Fenway for his birthday. Tim followed the Red Sox religiously on radio via play-by-play man Ken Coleman.

        When Tim's father set up his orthopedic practice in Cincinnati in 1968, 10-year-old Tim would ride the bus back and forth from Mariemont Square to Crosley Field to watch Reds games.

        Twenty years later, when he was a young orthopedic resident at a Boston hospital, he regularly pedaled his bike over to Fenway Park.

        One day, while he was waiting outside the park, a taxicab pulled up. Out stepped New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner.

        “What are you doing here?” Kremchek asked.

        “I'm here to fire my manager,” Steinbrenner answered.

        And he did. The manager's name was Bucky Dent.

        One day, Mrs. Tom Yawkey, owner of the Red Sox, invited Kremchek to watch a game with her from her private box. He still remembers how she wore her sunglasses the entire game.

        Kremchek's Boston dentist was former Red Sox pitcher Jim Lonborg, ace of the 1967 staff. Kremchek drove an hour for his checkups. He changed dentists after he realized Lonborg didn't want to talk baseball.
        There was a time, not so long ago, when the Reds were going through team physicians like gauze. That's no reflection on the team's physicians. The club just didn't like anybody getting comfortable, whether they be team doctors or managers. So, they just kept hiring new ones.

        This is Kremchek's fourth season with the club.

        Six weeks ago, the club gave him a five-year contract.

        He heads an on-site medical team that includes head trainer Greg Lynn, assistant trainer Mark Mann, physical therapist Lonnie Soloff (who also travels with the team on the road; the only other team that has that is the Giants), chiropractor Mike Rohlfs and massage therapist Rick Knoffer. He has a network of 50 doctors in various specialties who give the Reds emergency service.

        Kremchek spends about 40 hours a week at Cinergy Field when the Reds are home. His wife and four children share his passion with him. We would say five children, but 2-year-old Jenna is too young to know.

        “I've told my wife, "When I get tired of doing this, we're going to move somewhere that has a Double-A or Triple-A team and I'm going to do play-by-play on radio,'” Kremchek said.

        He has excellent rapport with the Reds' front office and the players.

        Doc Hollywood has taken cream pies in the face during a spring training injury-report on TV, had his gym-shoe laces break off in his hands, had his gym-short strings come all the way out when he tugged on them. He no longer gives a secretary a dictaphone recording to be typed, or a patient a videotape to be watched, if those things have been left unattended in the Reds clubhouse.
        Last year, during Kremchek's radio call of Aaron Boone's home run, he leaned so far out over the half-wall in the front of the booth that Joe Nuxhall was afraid he was going to tumble over it and into the green seats.

        Nuxhall grabbed Kremchek's belt to hold him back.

        “That would have been the story of the year,” Brennaman tells him. “Joe was pulling him back and I was trying to push him out.”
        Kremchek has come a long way in only 11 years.

        In 1989, he was sitting at a game in Fenway Park when the chairman of the orthopedic department at his Boston hospital told him there was nobody who could teach him the intricacies of shoulder and elbow surgeries like Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham.

        Kremchek applied for a fellowship there, got it, and the next thing he knows he was the team physician for the Birmingham Barons baseball team. He'd sit in the office of Birmingham Barons' manager Terry Francona and eat peanuts and talk Reds baseball.

        In Birmingham, he met Doug Kirchhofer, who was then co-owner of the Cincinnati Cyclones. Kirchhofer had come to town to see the Birmingham Bulls, of the Eastern Hockey League, where Kremchek was also working.

        In 1993, when Kremchek arrived in Cincinnati to set up his practice, Kirchhofer gave him the job as Cyclones team physician.

        Kremchek also became the physician at the Coliseum for monster trucks, tractor pulls and concerts. He checked out Pavarotti's knee, the aches and pains of Fleetwood Mac and had dinner with Eric Clapton.

        The Cyclones players who visited his office noticed, on various occasions, celebrity patients such as Michael Bolton, Reba McIntire, Katarina Witt and Kristi Yamaguchi.

        They started calling him Doc Hollywood.

        One night, Doc Hollywood was in the operating room when he got a call that one of the promoters of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour had a musician who needed some care. Doc Hollywood brought along an ear, nose & throat man. Turned out it was Mick Jagger, who needed something for his throat. Mick invited them to dinner after the show.

        Mick wanted to talk about orthopedic surgery and his injuries playing soccer. The docs wanted to talk music.

        “Unbelievable,” said Doc Hollywood.
        “You tell him the story about last year?” Brennaman asks Kremchek.

        “I, ah, I, ah, I told him a little bit of it,” Kremchek answers.

        Brennaman cracks up.

        Kremchek has provided another opening.

        “During his inning on the air,” Brennaman begins, “Doc Hollywood starts talking about how it's important for the Reds to get into the Astros' bullpen because they're struggling.

        “Well, the next day he goes down to the Astros clubhouse to see one of the Astros' players who is hurt. Who does he run into? Astros ace reliever Billy Wagner. Wagner asks him, "Hey, Doc, who's the guy who said on the radio yesterday we had a weak bullpen?'

        “You know what Doc tells him? And this is the god's honest truth. He says, "I don't know!' He couldn't wait to get out of there.”

        Doc Hollywood grins.

        Brennaman has gotten him again.

        And Doc Hollywood couldn't be happier.

        He's on the inside.

        Right where he always wanted to be.

Participate in our e-mail poll

Reds 7, Pirates 1 Box, runs Bichette sheds goat horns Five outs no sweat for Reyes Reds' 'Doc Hollywood' likes inside view

Grand opening for Paul Brown Stadium
Bengals 24, Bears 20
Warrick promises more leaps into crowd
Warrick familiar with reverse
Bengals finally capitalize in red zone
Players: Opening night 'electrifying'
Bears-Bengals Stats
Stadium chow gets standing ovation
SULLIVAN: Bengals give fans hope
DAUGHERTY: The Man focuses on The Game
BRONSON: Thank you, Mike Brown
List of 'firsts' at Paul Brown Stadium
Opening Game Notebook
UC defense dominates scrimmage
Steady day will put White on Olympic team
Five Questions with: TIM AUSTIN
IRL big draw for Kentucky Speedway
HOMER lineup could be better with Amazon
West Hi loses baseball coach
Glen Este trying to change image after ejections
Highlands survives scare from Trinity
Bellevue 60, Pike County 0
Kentucky football scores
Indiana football scores
Cincinnati prep results
N.Ky. prep results

• Return to Reds front page...