GIVEN that commercial radio the last 20-plus years has unapologetically aimed lower than it did the day before, a remarkable thing happened on Monday.
Let’s first back up to Thursday when, on Sirius XM’s all-sports Mad Dog Radio channel, Chris Russo, in a transparently bogus spew, claimed to have fired his program director/sidekick/old pal Steve Torre. Within that spew, Russo purposefully spoke an expletive that, while satellite-delivered Sirius XM is unregulated by the FCC, was out of character for Russo, thus underscored how strained this stunt was.
By Friday, the shows that preceded Russo’s were stuck advancing this Russo-fired-Torre angle; the recording of Russo mouthing a vulgarity was played over and over. In the afternoon, Russo, live, repeated the vulgarity, emphasis added. Oh, you naughty boys!
And by Friday’s end, Russo’s low language, played over and over, had served as a prompt for callers who were now casually using language never before regularly heard on those shows.
OK, most of us have spoken the s-word, and more than a few times. But to speak it over and over into a microphone nationally transmitting a sports station . . .
Thus, in two days, this Sirius XM sports channel seemed to have made a hard and very calculated downward turn. Everyone into the cesspool!
But Monday, first host Andy Gresh, and then host Bruce Murray, on the show that followed, apologized for having taken it too far and for leaving the wrong impression with listeners and callers. They wanted all to know that last week the station only momentarily was headed in a low direction.
Russo is off this week, but I suspect that when he returns on Monday, he, too, will apologize for what was, for him, crude public behavior. I also suspect that Steve Cohen, the ex-WFANer who is Sirius XM’s VP of sports (and a right-headed man, especially for radio), encouraged Monday’s apologies. Cohen was off last week when Sirius XM’s sports station went blue.
Regardless, Monday was a noteworthy day in modern media. A commercial radio station apologized; its hosts said they’ll bring it back up here and keep it up here. Nice. Unusual, too, no?
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Reggie Fleming, the short, crew-cutted tough guy/punching bag — and among the 50-cent high school G.O. card ticket-holders’ favorites (that’s right, half-a-buck to sit upstairs in the “old Garden,” and Fleming was a Ranger who made the shift to the “new Garden”) — died Saturday at age 73 in a Chicago hospital. What some will never forget about Fleming is the first time they heard him interviewed. From out of this Popeye-like tough guy came a high, choir-boy’s voice. Worst match since plaid met stripes.
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Quiz time: Bernie Madoff this week was shipped to the federal prison in Butner, N.C. What sports-attached New Yorker in 1991 was sentenced to two years in Butner? Answer below. . . . A retired NYPD detective who specialized in VIP security tells us the reason President Obama went to the mound with a White Sox jacket zipped to his neck on a hot summer evening in St. Louis was to conceal a bulletproof vest.
TNT yesterday abandoned live coverage of the British Open for a rambling 4½ minute interview with Stewart Cink, then went to a panoramic shot, next showed three live shots, then to more scenery, then to commercials. Geez! Much of the day TNT did whatever it took — interviews, old tape (mostly of Tiger Woods), British Open come-on promos (we’re already watching!), features, extended on-camera chats among commentators — to show as little live golf as possible. Why buy the rights?
Quiz answer: Howard Spira. . . . Don McNamara of Gorham, Maine, asks whether the Bank of America’s $1 million grant plus the $5,000-per-hit donation it pledged, as noted during the All-Star Game telecast, is TARP money. Let’s take it one question beyond: If Bank of America is alive because of a federal bailout, does it get a write-off for donating that money to a charity?
Based on e-mails, the greatest deterrent to watching Monday’s Home Run Derby was Chris Berman. People are sooo tired of his tired act. . . . HBO tonight at 9 shows all three Arturo Gatti–Micky Ward bouts from 2002-03. All ended the same way: Two punched-out men with energy left only to display mutual admiration and affection. No sports series has produced more determined opponents with a greater regard for each other.