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Wanted: An Indoors Voice of the Fan

WEEI is searching for a replacement for afternoon drive-time host Mike Salk. I can't comment on whether that's a good or bad thing, since I never once heard Salk. I evidently had company there, which is why WEEI is now looking for another host to recapture or at least lose less of its afternoon audience.

I have a suggestion for the number two and falling sports talk station. It's not the name of a specific candidate. That'd be presumptuous and I don't know any in the first place. No, my suggestion is about the TYPE of host the station should be seeking, or perhaps more accurately, the type of attitude said host should project on the air.

It's way past time Boston sports fans heard a daily oral reminder that "Please, everybody just calm the %$#! down out there!"

How about a talk show personality dedicated to the propositions that the sky remains firmly in place and that on roughly 363 days of the sports year, there is so too a tomorrow? How about a man or woman dedicated to the fundamental dull truths that it's a long season, the football takes funny bounces and that in a short series anything can happen.  How about a voice that doesn't use straight-line projection as their sole means of analysis, conflates winning and losing with human morality and above all, is willing to use the three dirtiest words in 21st century sports commentary "I don't know"?

This will never happen, but it should. WEEI is never, ever going to outhysteria its p.m. competition, so it might as well fail with an original approach as with the same old tepid radio copycatting. A niche audience for a cult eccentric is better than no audience at all. I myself might consider tuning in for an occasional dose of sports calm radio. That'd be more than WEEI got for its money from Mike Salk.

posted by Michael Gee @ 2:08 PM