I was listening to Steve Czaban this morning on the “magic radio” (i.e. XM), which by the way, is about to get even more magical with the news of a Sirius and XM merger! That’s a blog entry for another day, though. Back to Czaban’s morning radio show on Fox Sports Radio, he was talking about Major League Baseball and his regular guest, Seth Everett from MLB.com, and vowed that neither he, nor Seth, would talk about the Yankees, Red Sox, steroids in baseball, or Barry Bonds. What a refreshing respite from the status quo of talk radio and even the television sports channels where those are the top four topics every day when it comes to covering MLB.
Unless you are a Yankees’ or Red Sox fan, you’re probably sick of hearing about the media-perpetuated feud between A-rod (Alex Rodriguez) and Derek Jeter. Who cares? They’re both overpaid. And what about this new Japanese import, Daisuke Matsuzaka? What about him? He hasn’t pitched an inning in the big leagues and already he’s overhyped and overpaid. Who cares? Let’s talk about it at the end of the year when he’s either 1) proved he’s worthy of the attention and had a record of 22-4, or 2) he flops and gets blasted every other outing. Then, and only then, do I want to hear about him.
As for Bonds and the steroids issue, they’re almost inseparable. You can’t talk about one without mentioning the other. Bonds is 22 home runs shy of Hank Aaron’s all-time record and barring a serious injury, Barry should break the record this season. How much fan fare he’ll get, who knows, but the initial feedback is that the general baseball public will give a collective polite golf clap, but won’t accept Barry as the legitimate home run champ. But again, this topic has been talked about ad nauseum and there’s not much new to add, so let’s put it to rest until he breaks the record … if he breaks the record.
For those that have never listened to Steve Czaban, I encourage you to give him a try. He’s not one of these ex-jocks trying to change careers, or a name-dropping Jim Gray, or even a self promoting ego maniac like Bob Costas. (Have you heard his XM radio promos? Dear God!) No, “The Czabe” is jut like me and you; the casual sports fan who knows a little about each sports, but is an expert in non. Obviously he knows a little more than the average fan because that’s his job, unlike most of us who have other jobs and we can only read one or two articles a day and maybe catch the evening sportscast. Otherwise, he’s a down-to-earth host who is not above making fun of himself and pointing out his own mistakes and he certainly tells it like it is.
For example: when a guest (Shannon Sharpe, I think) failed to call into the show at the arranged time, Czaban ripped into him right then and there instead of apologizing on Sharpe’s behalf. Good for him! He took to task a guy who made a commitment to be on the show, but then failed to hold up his end of the bargain.
Czabe has a local show in Washington, D.C., and is a lifelong Redskins fan. His local station WTEM, had Redskins’ coach Joe Gibbs on the show the mornings after games during Gibbs’ first season back, but the coach refused to return to the network the following year because of Czaban’s, and his host, Andy Pollin’s criticism of the coach – particularly to keep Mark Brunnell as the starting quarterback. This upset the coach, who moved his coach’s show to a competing network. But Czabe never backed down – he is Redskins fan and was simply voicing the concern of the majority of the Redskins nation.
So, all that being said, it’s refreshing to see a nationally syndicated radio show host buck the trend and avoid running off the cliff with the rest of the radio show host lemmings. That’s why he will continue to be featured on my magic radio during the morning drive.
