Sports fans in Chicago and around the suburbs — as well as beyond — who want the inside scoop on their favorite Chicago-area pro and college teams, along with candid assessments and opinions of those squads, likely have WSCR-670 AM The Score’s popular Mike North Morning Show pre-set on their radio dials.

North’s energetic, humorous and tell-it-like-it-is style each weekday from 6 to 10 a.m. is complemented by the show’s contributor, Fred Huebner, who resides in Downers Grove.

“Sports Update with Fred Huebner” features Huebner giving scores and Chicago sports news updates periodically throughout the hour with an opening line familiar to Mike North Morning Show listeners: “From the OwnACondo.com update studio ...”

But Huebner himself has two regular features on the program that listeners look forward to: Fred’s Movie Review, where Huebner rates and gives his own take on a particular movie every Tuesday either at 8:40 or 9:40 a.m.; and Fred’s Hip Hop Moment, a humorous segment during which Huebner reads lyrics of songs by rap and hip-hop artists.

In addition, Huebner is the play-by-play voice for the Chicago Fire on WPWR My 50 television.

Q. The Mike North Morning Show gave Morton High School head basketball coach Tony Martinucci its “kudos of the day” one time this past winter. You’re a big high school basketball fan, aren’t you?

A. I like watching high school basketball. I’m not a big fan of the NBA at all. College ball I like, but now with all the freshman rules and how they have to play only one year (before deciding to go pro), that’s kind of disheartening to me because once you get to like a guy, next year he’s in the pros. But with high school ball, it’s great because they’re out there playing for the love of the game.

I went to Morton East; I graduated in ’75. We were terrible in just about all sports. The baseball team won the state tournament in 1971 before I went to school there.

Basketball was always brutal; we were terrible all the time because back in the day, we were in the Suburban League, which was Proviso East, Waukegan, Oak Park, Evanston ... all these schools. So to have a nice team (referring to the 2007-08 Mustangs) which is pretty decent is great. I actually met him (Martinucci) when they played at Downers South and said hi.

My sister (Amy) still lives in Berwyn, and her daughter goes to Nazareth, but she knows one of the kids that plays on the team. Morton beat South (the night Huebner saw them), but it was nice to see Morton finally had team that was actually getting talked about.

Q. What is a typical morning at The Score like for you?

A. The alarm goes off at 2:40 in the morning. I usually hit the snooze until about 2:50. I leave the house at about 3:30, 3:35 ... I’m at the station (in Chicago) by about 4:15. I always stop and buy a big 44-ounce soda because I’m not a coffee drinker and I need some kind of caffeine to get me going. Right away I try to go over any of the sound audio we have from the night before — Cubs locker room, Sox locker room, Bears locker room, whatever it might be. Then I try to grab anything off the wires I need. For baseball right now, I print up the Cubs and Sox stats to date, major league standings and also the stats of how the Cubs and Sox pitchers and hitters stack up with the rest of the league in case someone asks, “Well, where are the Sox in hitting?” I have it right there handy.

Then at about 4:45, the papers get there, slowly but surely. Even though the Sun-Times and Tribune are right across the street, they don’t always get there on time. I start reading the papers, and by that time, Jen (Patterson, the show’s executive producer) is already putting the show together. Rock (Mamola) our (associate) producer is in the production room, putting the opening together, and Matt Weber (associate producer) is getting all the other stuff together. Mike (North) gets there around 5. We have a meeting at 5 for about 10 or 15 minutes. All we talk about is who the guests are on the show and anything else we have on the show ... giveaways and stuff like that. But we don’t really talk about content or what we’re going to talk about.

The show starts at 6 and we go from there. I have no idea usually what Mike’s opinion is on what happened the night before or anything.

Q. What’s the most memorable or confrontational interview Mike has done that you’ve been associated with the past few years?

A. The most confrontational was one that wasn’t even an interview to start with. Last year, Ozzie Guillen called and Mike was talking because (Sox catcher) Toby Hall just got called up after he was healthy enough to play. He (Guillen) puts him into the starting lineup for the first game of the Cubs-Sox series at Wrigley Field. A.J. (Pierzynski) was on with us because he was our contributor last year for the White Sox and he said it was the first game (of the series) and he’d like to play, but he understands what Ozzie is doing. Well, we didn’t understand what Ozzie was doing, playing Toby Hall and not Pierzynski in the first game. So we were talking about it and then Ozzie calls and he’s swearing up a storm. And Mike tried to calm him down. He said, “Ozzie, remember you’re on the air.” “Yeah, yeah, yeah I know.” But he kept going and Mike just went off (on Guillen).

But as soon as the show was over, Mike went over to Wrigley Field because we were right across the street at the bar, which was High Tops — now it’s actually another Harry Caray’s. He walked across the street and went into the locker room and everything was fine. But Ozzie and him just got into it. People (media interviewers) won’t ask stuff. That’s one of the reasons he’s such a good interviewer. Mike will ask anything, no matter if it’s pro or con or what it is. Sometimes he’ll embarrass guests with things he says because they didn’t need something to be known. Other times he’ll just confront them. He’s not a big Frank Thomas fan. He (once) criticized Thomas, and Thomas wouldn’t come on (the program). But he’s (North) done that with everybody.

Mike and Jesse Jackson were a big part of getting that Ernie Banks’ statue (at Wrigley Field) together. Jesse had come into the studio two months earlier, and Mike was beating Jesse up about the whole Duke situation with all the lacrosse players. Most of the people that actually know Mike, they know that (if) you’re friends with him, but if you screw up, he’s going to ask you questions. He’s not going to hold back. They respect him. They either love him or hate him, and that’s the kind of relationship that in radio most people want. It’s either love-hate because people will listen.

Q. You’ve started doing play-by-play for the Chicago Fire on WPWR My50 (TV). What’s the most challenging aspect of doing play-by-play for soccer?

A. For years and years on TV, they (announcers) would always say, “You know, we’ve got a show to do; we’ve got this to do.” And I never understood why they just didn’t say, “We’ve got a game to do.” Well after doing the first one (soccer play-by-play) last year — I did two last year, and we’ve done two so far this year — now I understand. Because the game is almost the easiest part of the whole thing. We get there two hours before the game, and try to talk to the head coach and get some other things ready.

And the whole week is spent preparing — preparing for who the players are going to be, what little tidbits I can throw in during the course of the broadcast. But it’s (me) coming from radio, where everything is real easy. You prepare on your own, you turn the microphones on and the show’s on. TV is so different. I voice-over record the sponsorships about an hour and 15 minutes before, and we also try to do the opening and some of the halftime stuff; if we have a halftime feature, we try to do some of that ahead of time. It’s weird that it’s that much production stuff.

And you don’t even think about it because you see, for example, Hawk (Harrelson) and D.J. (Darrin Jackson, Sox’s TV announcers) sitting there saying “hi” and talking. But that stuff is all pre-done, for the most part. They never do any of those things live because they have a set amount of time to get everything done.

The NFL is usually done the same way. The only thing that’s usually “live” for the live broadcast is halftime when we come back and go over stats and things like that.

Q. How did you get hooked on soccer?

A. I was one of those guys that hated soccer. Growing up in Cicero, I was not a soccer fan. I didn’t play soccer, they didn’t have soccer leagues when we were kids. It was one of those things where I would criticize it all the time, and I knew two or three guys I worked with at Sports Phone back in the day that were big soccer fans.

In 1990, the World Cup was in Italy, I think. And what I did was I actually gave it a chance. TNT and TBS did the games, and Bob Neal, who was the play-by-play guy for basketball on TNT, and Mick Luckhurst, the former kicker for the (Atlanta) Falcons, actually did the play-by-play and the color.

So what I did was watch the games and I actually learned what was going on, what I didn’t know, learned all the rules — not that there’s a ton of rules.

There’s 17 laws of the game of soccer ... I found that out over the last year or so. After that I just hooked on to the game. People that are big soccer fans and people that have played the sport, they said, “How did you get hooked on the 1990 World Cup? — it was really boring, it was defensive, there wasn’t a lot of action going on?” And I said, “But they explained it to me. The announcers I knew were explaining the sport to me. And I got to know the game.”

So when the World Cup came here (to Chicago) in ’94, I didn’t get a chance to go to the games because I was working. But I was a big fan; I knew players from all the teams. I knew the star players from each team. So it was great. In 2006, I actually had a chance to go to Germany and see the World Cup. So I told my wife (Pat) in 2000 — it was between South Africa and Germany — I said, “Listen, if Germany gets the World Cup, I’m going — you want to come with me?” She said, “No, take your nephew” who at the time was 16. So I said, “Let’s see what happens.” So it was Germany. I called her at work, and I said, “Germany’s got the World Cup in ’06. I’m going to the bank.” She said, “What are you going to the bank for?” I said, “I’m going to open up a new account so I can start saving money because I’m going in ’06?” She goes, “Well, that’s six years.” I said, “I know, but I don’t want to take any money from our regular stuff.”

I had never been to Europe before, and it was the greatest experience. Plus I was such a great fan by then. It was great to be able to go over there, and checking out all the things that they did.

Q. Do you ever get an opportunity to ask questions when Mike is interviewing someone?

A. It’s called The Mike North Morning Show for a reason. It’s Mike’s show. Mike has been told by a lot of people that he’s one of the best interviewers on radio, if not the best. It’s his show; he does all the interviews, unless there’s someone in the studio, or if I really have a question that I think has to be asked and Mike hasn’t gotten to it, I’ll make eye contact with him and he’ll say, “Fred has something to ask you.” But the thing with that is, if there’s someone in the studio, it’s a little more open.

But usually if Mike has a guy in, he wants to make sure he asks his questions. It’s his gig; it’s his thing. People will ask me sometimes, “What’s your title for the show? Are you a co-host? Are you a sidekick?” I said, “One time Mike said it, and it sticks. I’m a contributor to the Mike North Morning Show.”

I don’t want to be called just the update guy because we’re going back and forth; it’s much more than that. If the show does well, he gets the credit and then distributes the credit. If the show doesn’t do well, he takes the blame. He makes the decisions. It’s pretty much like he’s the manager of the show and we’re his players.

Q. You and Mike are good friends. What is he like outside the studio?

A. We talk about this on the air a lot, but he’s a different guy actually since he stopped drinking. We used to have a time where we’d go out quite a bit after the show and hang around. He’s your neighborhood guy. He’s the kind of guy when you’re growing up, there’s always the one guy that knows the stats and knows all the sports and that’s the kind of guy he is. He’s that one guy you hung around with as a kid who you’d always argue sports with.

A lot of times I wouldn’t argue sports (as a kid) because all my buddies were athletes in high school. I would just sit and listen to their stories, but I would always watch the games and learn a lot from them. Mike is the same kind of guy. He knows the rules, he knows the players and the history of the game. He’s just a fun guy to be around, and we have a good time because he actually knows a lot more than people think when it comes to politics, and when it comes to music. He’s a huge music fan. He’ll hear a song from the ’50s or the ’60s, and know the year and know the artist immediately — kind of like Name that Tune.

Q. How did you come up with your Hip Hop Moment segment?

A. Our guy Rock Mamola, who’s a big heavy metal guy, we would talk about hip hop and rap. I’m not a huge fan, and what he said one day was, “Hey, it would be great for a guy who’s not a fan of hip hop and rap to actually read the lyrics.” I said, “Well, do you want me to do it with a beat or rhythm?” He said, “No, do them like you do the commercials because that will make it more fun.” It’s turned out to be a riot. We do a recording session about every week or two just to put about 14 of them in the can. It’s great. People love them.

Q. What is your favorite sport to talk about on the air?

A. I know more about the insides and the outsides of baseball than any other sport. I played it; I got cut every year — three years at Morton East ... freshman, sophomore and senior year. I was the last cut sophomore and senior year; it was aggravating because my buddies all played. But I know that sport because I played it. Football I love talking about. It’s only a 17-week start to finish of the season. Probably those two, but baseball it’s an every day thing. So if didn’t like what your team did one day, you can talk about that. The next day it changes.

I like talking about soccer, but the problem is with soccer I don’t have anybody to talk about it with. That’s the toughest thing. When I’m around soccer guys I talk about soccer all the time. Soccer fans don’t want to believe this, but what happens is once you have a caller or once you have a listener and they’re talking baseball, or football or basketball, and you start talking soccer — because there’s competition in the market and not only with ESPN but with all the other stations that are on in the morning — if people don’t want to talk about soccer, they can go somewhere else.

If you’re a sports fan in Chicago and you’re talking basketball, football or baseball, there’s a pretty good chance that if you’re talking about any of those three, they’ll keep listening. But if you start talking about soccer, there a thing, “Soccer? Who wants to talk about soccer?” And they’ll go somewhere else.

So once you get a listener, they (the station) don’t want people to go away. And I tell the soccer people that and the say, “Yeah, but there’s a lot of soccer listeners.” And I say, “Yeah, but there’s a lot of NASCAR people, too, but we don’t talk NASCAR. There’s a lot of golf fans, but we don’t talk golf.” Some of those sports on our station have their own show. They have a big thing in (radio) ratings called “time spent listening.” They want people to listen as long as they can.