Although most people are more likely to remember Terry McDermott as a sportscaster on KOAT-TV, there are times when he runs into people who remember him as an Albuquerque Dodger (1969) or as an Albuquerque Duke (1974-76).

McDermott, 56, is proud of the time he spent playing in the Duke City, and happy to have been asked by the Albuquerque Isotopes to participate in next month's Fan Fest, being held in conjunction with the Triple-A All-Star festivities.

Of the former Albuquerque players participating and signing autographs at the Albuquerque Convention Center July 8-9, "Mac" may be the least known ... but he doesn't mind. He'll happily sit with former Dodgers greats Bill Russell, Steve Garvey and Ron Cey, former infielders Jerry Royster and Jack Perconte, plus Mike Marshall, the 1981 Minor League Player of the Year.

"I'm a fan of those guys too," he said. "I haven't seen 'em in 30 years."

McDermott has been a teammate of Cey and Royster, and covered Perconte and Marshall in the 1980s when he was working for channel 7.

There's an interesting baseball twist to this story: McDermott's son Michael, a Rio Rancho High School Class of 2006 graduate, will be playing ball next season at El Paso Community College, where Marshall is a member of the coaching staff.

McDermott said he started playing with Royster at Class AA El Paso in 1972. "He had the tools," "Mac" said. "He was a good hitter. He improved a heck of a lot: he was a free swinger, had a good arm, good range, and was a good guy to play with."

Married at the time, McDermott probably didn't get to have as much "fun" away from the ballpark as some of his teammates, although he enjoyed his time with his roommate, pitcher Greg Shanahan, on the road.

Because the Dodgers' plans were pretty well mapped out, a lot of McDermott's teammates were mired in the minors, along with him. McDermott was probably born a year too late; the Dodgers had a great draft in 1968 and he was drafted in 1969.

"This was before free agency," he said; players were bound to one team. The minor league system was so deep with talent, he said, that in 1972 every Dodgers farm team won its league championship. 1972 also provided Mac's "cup of coffee" with the Dodgers: nine games, 23 at-bats, three singles and two runs scored.

"In '74, we came up here and won the Eastern Division of the PCL," he said. But the Dodgers, he said, called up most of the triple-A talent for the N.L. West pennant race and "We had to bring up AA guys for the stretch run."

It's funny, sometimes, how baseball works - or doesn't work - out for some players.

Take second baseman Bobby Randall, who put in big-league time with the Twins after his Dodgers days. McDermott said Randall "had the fastest pivot I ever saw (turning a double play)."

Al Campanis, then overseeing the Dodgers' minor leaguers, wasn't impressed after watching Randall, who McDermott said was hobbled at the time with a sprained ankle. That left the door open for Minnesota to acquire him, because manager Gene Mauch wanted to move future Hall-of-Famer Rod Carew from second base to first base.

"Most of the pitchers I thought would make it did," McDermott said.

In 1977, McDermott said, his road through baseball ended here. He expected to be playing with the Dukes again, but the Dodgers acquired former Orioles slugger John "Boog" Powell and sent outfielder Joe Simpson back to AAA.

"They wanted to send me to Mexico and I said, 'No, I'm done.'"

He helped coach the late Vince Cappelli at the University of New Mexico, then wound up in TV, again frequenting the Sports Stadium, this time with a camera or mic in hand instead of a mitt and bat.

That gave him the opportunity to see a lot more Dodgers prospects from a different angle. In fact, McDermott said the 1981 PCL-winning team from Albuquerque probably rivaled that Tommy Lasorda-led club that won it all in '72.

Perconte, out of Joilet, Ill., was one guy McDermott thought could be a big star and turned out to be "one guy I thought got the short end of the stick. He was a good No. 2 hitter," McDermott said. "Sometimes guys get labels."

Perconte's better days were with Seattle, it turned out.

One of McDermott's acquaintances - son Michael - is looking ahead to better days: Following two years at El Paso CC, there could be some Division 1 schools calling and, after that, perhaps a pro career.

Who better to guide him than his dad, with his funny tales of spring training in Vero beach, playing in El Paso and Albuquerque, and even a short stint in "The Show," an 11 at-bat stint with the Dodgers.

Among McDermott's cherished Albuquerque memories:

• Pitcher Dick Selma arranging to have all the players' cleats painted red. With the gaudy yellow (gold?) uniforms the players wore, McDermott said, "We looked like pencils. ... Dick wasn't thought highly of after that."

• Selma "discovering" 110 New York strip steaks in an elevator at a Salt Lake City hotel. "Mac, we're going to have a heckuva party," McDermott remembered the goofy hurler telling him. The trick was keeping the steaks from spoiling before they could be flown with the players back to Albuquerque; McDermott said the players' wives and girlfriends were incredulous to see their guys all carrying Styrofoam coolers off the tarmac. Yes, the players did have a "heckuva a party," McDermott remembered: "We called it Dick Selma's big steak caper."

• Being charged with "finding the churches" on the road for manager Wasiak and himself, apparently the few practicing Catholics. And how the late Wasiak would always light up a cigar for the walk to Mass, douse it at the church, then re-light it for the walk back to the hotel. "He was good with the young guys; he had problems with the older guys," McDermott recalled.

• A huge fight at the Sports Stadium, in which McDermott hadn't been involved in the altercation - Randall was involved - that set it off but found himself on the bottom of the pile nonetheless, along with Shanahan, who had been in street clothes in the clubhouse but told Mac he'd heard about it on the radio.

Ah, those were the days: Not much money but a lot of fun.

"It's one of those things you look back on, something really good, and you don't appreciate it at the time," he said.

"The gift I had and the opportunity to play, but not only with some of the guys in the game but managed by (Hall of Fame manager Walt) Alston, Lasorda, Wasiak, but staying here, becoming a New Mexican, an 'oldtimer;' and part of the history - it's neat.

"People remember me, some when I was playing, some on TV," said McDermott, now the government relations person for Intel here. "It's always nice but it doesn't seem that long ago, but a lot of things don't seem that long ago."

More minor-league stories will be told at the Fan Fest.

Besides McDermott's seasons here, the stories range from Garvey, who played with the Albuquerque Dodgers in 1969, to Perconte (1987).