My First Sports Talk Radio Call

I've been listening to sports talk radio for, oh, about two years now, but only really seriously for the last few months or so. I enjoy listening to Jim Rome, Petros and Money, Andrew Siciliano, and the best one, Mike and Mike in the Morning.

A new one I've sort of become a fan of lately is a local program on our AM 1260 The Score station, called Chico and Company. Chico Bormann hosts it, and its pretty much open lines the entire time, at least as long as I've been listening to it.

I've listened pretty intently this week and he has talked a lot about Alex Rodriguez and the steroid scandal and people have some good input. I almost called on Monday to talk about the previous note I wrote ("Don't Wait Until You Get Caught"), but I chickened out.

Now to the point of the story.

Yesterday, Chico came on and was talking about a story he'd read on CBS Sportsline about former Cleveland Indians shortstop Roberto Alomar, who has been out of baseball since 2003. Apparently, the story is about a former ex-girlfriend who is suing Alomar over the fact he had unprotected sex with her for the four years they were living together (2002-2006) during which time Alomar knew he had HIV, and if I remember correctly, she was unaware he had it, hence the lawsuit.

I decided it was time to finally make that call.

If you are a sports fan and remember the name, thats because Alomar was busted back in 1995 or 96 for spitting in an umpires face after a controversial call at home plate. John Hirschbeck also claimed that Alomar said some comments about his recently deceased son in the ensuing tirade after the call. Hirschbeck later forgave Alomar for the incident, but not after the media dragged Alomar through the mud, and probably fragmented his chances of making the Hall of Fame. And while it is tragic that Alomar has HIV and its not really a laughing matter, I am a firm believer in karma and people getting what they deserve. You spit in a man's face and make derogatory remarks about another man's dead kid, thats pretty low.

So I made the call into Chico's show because I felt that there was 'another side' to the story there.

I called and got in pretty quickly, next in queue. He says "Caller go ahead" and i said, "I wanted to make a few comments about the Alomar thing. First off, I wonder what John Hirschbeck has to say?"

Chico immediately hung up on me and I remember hearing him say that it wasn't even funny to joke like that and that if I had spent a half hour trying to come up with something like that I should never call his show again and that I should "go back to my cubicle."

I felt sort of bad because I probably should not have started out what I was going to say like that, but I did have a point. We're so quick to throw these athletes under the bus for the steroids issue, but this man made a very public fool of himself and did something morally disgusting to that umpire, and I lost a lot of respect for him. Yeah, it sucks the guy has HIV but looking at what type of guy Alomar was, sort of makes you wonder what kind of guy he was off the field, and somehow, him having HIV doesn't really surprise me.

I wrote an email on the AM 1260 website to Chico's show, which I have yet to hear a response from, although not expecting one, but I feel that I had somewhat of a point that should have at least had the light of day.