Ebjournal Revisited.

Nothing’s Right I’m Torn…

(Editor’s note: TK has been working on this post for a while, which is why it may seem choppy when you read it. And he can’t write.)

Dumb sports radio
I don’t who to choose now
The tuner is mad

Attempting to reestablish lighthearted conversation on Ye Olde Ebjournal has been tough lately. But one particular topic has been sticking in my craw, and I’ve meant to write about it for months now. So let’s abandon thoughtful conversation (HA!) and relegate the next 3.6 minutes of our lives thinking about the state of sports radio in the Windy City.

When I was in middle school, ( or as I like to call them “The Wonder Years”), I had a hard time falling asleep in my deep, dark, scary basement bedroom. This is mostly because I realized that if something were ever to happen to me, no one would know because I could blast my stereo to the point of dain bramage, and no one on the second floor would hear anything other than a gentle breeze emanating from my speakers. In other words, I was isolated. Because of the silence in the basement that was only occassionally punctured by the sounds of creaking footsteps (in reality, the furnace getting ready to kick in) I needed something to keep me company as I tried to keep my mind off my impending doom. (And you think I’m paranoid NOW…) I didn’t like watching TV late at night, so I turned to the radio to help me. For a long time, I listened to jazz. I loved WBEZ 91.5’s jazz program that started after 9:00pm, and still will listen to it when I’m looking for good working/background music. However, I discovered that the low jazz wailings tended to influence my dreams. A mournful trumpet would be a baby crying, and drums fills turned into things breaking and falling down on me. So, I needed something else. I turns out I liked hearing human voices, as it let me have some connection to the outside world.

I turned, my friends, to Sports Radio.

Back in the day, the WSCR was just starting, and ESPN radio didn’t come on at night. After a few twiddles of the tuner, I was able to find the Score on 820 am. I became hooked by people who wanted to talk about sports, ALL THE TIME. As a pseudo-geek growing up (and presently a super-pseudo geek) I sometimes found that it is/was hard to talk about sports with my less-than-enthused sports buddies (Sorry, Zigzag. )

And thus, the addiction was born. Throw in a recent discovery of fantasy league sports, and we find me wasting my subwoofer in my car on the banal discussions of who was the best Bears right tackle in history. (My money’s on Keith Van Horne, FWIW)

For a long time, I was a loyal Scorehead, Scoreguy, Scorewhore, whatever you want to call it. The signal boomed all the way down to Champaign, and made my cured my longing to hear discussion of something other than soy prices and the state of the Illini football team (both bad).

And then stuff happened.

I moved back to the Chicago area, and discovered that there was another sports radio station: WMVP, ESPN 1000. Initially, I didn’t like it because too much of it was national, and I liked my sports local. And, I knew the personalities, their schticks (Who you Crappin’? What’s your Beef? Tool of the Week! 5 Team Parlay, all the good stuff) and the schedule at 670 am. Yet, slowly, the people at es pin are turning me to the dark side.

The reason for the change is threefold:

1) Commercials.
I sit in my car a lot, as I drive between 1.5 and 2 hours per day to educmacate the minds of the NW suburbs. I haven’t proven this yet, but I can almost guarantee you that the Score’s commericials are longer. Even though 1000 has more updates, which take away from content, at least it’s sports-related, and not another advertisment for Heavenly Bodies. Annoyingly, because of these updates on both channels, most of the time both stations are on commercial together. But the Score crams at least one or two more in between segments. (Update: Boers and Bernstein are trying to go 25 minutes at a stretch now, which is great, but makes commercials 7-8 minutes, especially during peak times.)
2) Playing roulette with the schedule.
Who’s going to be on:

The Score has been fiddling with their schedule for about a year now. They finally seemed to have put Boers and Bernstein on during the afternoons to directly compete with Mac, Jurko, and Harry on WMVP. I also absolutely cannot stand Mike North any longer. His voice grates on me, and everything he does is all about him being this great guy. He does good things, but tells us about it all the time. Drives me bat shit. This, followed by Hanley and Mulligan, who are not the best radio people in the world (still very rough around the edges… they should stick to sports writing, which they’re both good at) and then Murph.

Oh, Murph. You’ve been put out to pasture. First, they tried you solo from 6-11 at night, because you should be better than Mongo McMichael. Then they put you solo from 10-12. Now they’ve got you on from 12-2, paired with Jesse Rogers, the best Bruce Weber I’ve ever heard, but one of the worst sports talk hosts. (I put him under North, and the ever-absent Dan Patrick) It may be time to hang the every day mic up, and be a guest host. So now, it’s painful radio on 670 from 6am-2pm. I still enjoy Boers and Bernstein, and the Me Show (Lawrence Holmes= Does HF proud, though I miss the “Me and Z Show”.)
3) It hurts.

6am-2pm is unbearable. However, 1000 hasn’t done much to convert me totally. Mike and mIke are good, and I’ve come to appreciate their ability to cover most of the major sports, instead of just baseball/football. Rosenbloom and Salisbury follow at 9-12, and they are working out the kinks– neither have a strong mainstream Chicago sports angle. And they bicker. Then comes The Dan Patrick Show, starring Dan Patrick 25% of the time. When he is on, he sticks to one topic, for about three hours. Also,
Finally, Mac, Jurko, and Harry. These guys are good, they cover a variety of sports, they’re funny, and they seem down to earth. They also continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

WMVP has done a good job of luring away talent (Rosenbloom, MacNeil, and J. Hood… why can’t people give J. Hood some more love. Dude knows his sports, but can’t get a regular slot to save his life!)

I sincerely hope that one of these radio stations gets their act together. Until then, I will continue to switch between the two and remain unsatisfied.

Any thoughts? Feel free to comment, and vote in the new poll!

RSS Trackback URL 27. June 2006 (08:00)
Filed under: General, Sports and Wine