PITTSBURGH — Clear Channel Communications plans an on-air salute to retired radio commentator Myron Cope before the kickoff of Super Bowl XL.

Some Steelers fans want Cope back in the broadcast booth, but company officials and a close friend say Cope isn't healthy enough. Cope, a tiny man with a loud, scratchy voice that is equal parts Howard Cosell and Pee Wee Herman, retired last summer after 35 years doing color commentary for the Steelers.

"Due to his health, he's not going to be able to attend the Super Bowl," Gene Romano, senior vice president of programming for Clear Channel, told a Pittsburgh newspaper.

Joe Gordon, the Steelers former publicist and a close friend of Cope, said the 77-year-old sportscaster and writer was hospitalized with pneumonia recently and a comeback really wasn't possible.

More than 2,000 fans have signed two Internet petitions hoping to get Cope back on WDVE-FM for the Feb. 5 game.

"I'm sure everyone would love to hear Myron one more time," Davin Flateau, of Wichita, Kan., who started one of the petitions, told the newspaper.

The online petitions can be located at www.petitiononline.com/myronXL/petition.html or www.petitiononline.com/myronxl/petition.html.