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Introduction

A Brief History Of Sports Talk Radio

All About Rome

The Importance Of Being Jim Rome

The Long History Of Sports Talk Radio In Madison

How Madison Won A Tour Stop

Now The Real Work Begins: The Setup

The Big Day: Anatomy Of A Jim Rome Tour Stop

To The Winner Goes The Spoils

Click For Pix

At the press conference following the Madison Jim Rome Tour Stop, I asked Rome if he could put the event into historical perspective, adding that for Madison, it was a significant historical event.

Laughter is audible on my tape.

The guys who laughed at my question were hanging out in the back of the room. They were, as Rome would say, the local fishhacks, the local scrubs, probably not happy about having to cover the freakshow, waiting to grab that quote or that soundbite so they could get the hell out of there.

They don't get it.

They didn't understand how The Jungle reacted when, in the fall of 2002, Rome announced that he would come and do Tour Stop 29 in Madison, Wisconsin on December 7, 2002.

The Jungle was stunned after Rome made that announcement. Madison, Wisconsin? Are the roads paved? How could they get the cows off the runway so Rome's plane could land? And it would be December. How could Rome survive the subzero temperatures and the three-foot drifts of snow?

Besides, Madison was hardly a blip on The Jungle radar. It was a mid-sized market when Tour Stops were being held in places like Denver, Kansas City, Detroit and Sacramento. The days of the Green Bay and Des Moines Tour Stops were long gone as Rome ascended to superstardom.

And Madison was not particularly a presence on the show. A few e-mails, a few calls here and there, but hardly what anyone would notice.

Except recently. Perhaps not many listeners noticed, but a few months before, when Rome announced that Tour Stop 28 would be in Sacramento, he listed Madison among the finalists.

Tim Scott, Operations Manager of ESPN 1070 in Madison had been negotiating with Rome's people for several months. When he heard that, he knew he was getting close, so he issued a call to arms. After letting Rome's people know what he was planning, Scott urged his listeners on "The Bullpen," the station's local daily show, to let Jim Rome know they wanted him to come to Madison.

Rome's website, www.jimrome.com, has a page with affiliate power rankings. Various criteria is tabulated in the power ranking, but it all adds up to participating in the show. Quickly, Madison shot up to the top of the power ranking.

Following Rome's announcement of the Madison Tour Stop, clones from coast to coast began bashing Wisconsin's capitol city. The reason was clear; they were jealous, as they should be. Getting a Tour Stop in your town is a big deal. Obviously, it means you get to see The Man, but also, it means that Rome thinks enough of your town to go there. Rome has visited maybe a little more than 10 percent of his 200 or so affiliates. To be in that 10 percent is no small thing. What they did not understand is that sports talk radio is big in Madison and in fact, has a long history in Madison, dating back to 1976, the literal prehistoric era of sports talk radio.

Jim Rome has revolutionized sports talk radio and in so doing, he has transcended the genre. The Tour Stops are part of that and demonstrate how he not only transcended sports talk radio, but he has transcended talk radio in general and has to be considered a pop cultural phenomenon.

Rome came to Madison and about 10,000 people came to see him. In bigger markets, he's attracted upwards of 18,000. Rush Limbaugh could not do that, and he has the highest rated talk radio show in the country. Rome packs arenas. Normally, sports talk radio hosts, when they do appearances in affiliate cities attract maybe a couple dozen people in a bar.

There is nothing like a Jim Rome Tour Stop. It has the atmosphere of a rock concert, but it's really more like a pep rally because the events will feature guests with a strong local flavor. The Madison Tour Stop featured University of Wisconsin coaches Barry Alvarez and Bo Ryan, along with former Badger and current Badger offensive lineman Mark Tauscher, Madison golfer Jerry Kelly, Ned Yost and Ulice Payne of the Milwaukee Brewers front office and, of course, Packer legends Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston.

Rome fans flocked from all over the state, all over the region and even all over the country. There's a strong fannish aspect to a Tour Stop. In a way, it's part Grateful Dead show, part Star Trek convention, but what makes it distinct, is that it's all a cult of personality of one person. Admission is free, but the value of your ticket comes from scarcity. Rome only does four Tour Stops a year, and who knows how long he will continue to do them. I don't know if he'll do more than 50 in his career, so if one gets to go, it is a big deal.

I have a modest background in media studies. I know enough to understand that we do study pop culture. People may want to laugh it off, but pop culture is a reflection of who we are. To study it, is to develop a better understanding of ourselves.

I also have a long, personal history with sports talk radio. When Rome made his big announcement, I was excited about the opportunity to learn the inner-workings of what I consider to be an significant event. I hope what I share in this site will answer a few questions about how affiliates win Tour Stops and how one of these events is put together. I also tried to add some context by writing about the history of sports talk radio, the history of sports talk radio in Madison, a bit of biographic information on Rome and the best explanation I could come up with of how and why Jim Rome is important.

I want to state for the record that I have not been paid to do this. This website is my own site. I wrote and researched this piece because I felt it was very important that someone do it—and I guess that someone had to be me. I do this for posterity.

During the research of this piece, I discovered an absolute dearth of material on Jim Rome and sports talk radio. Frankly, I find this amazing. Only one book has been written on the history of sports talk radio, Sports Talk, by Alan Eisenstock. I find the book disappointing because it lacks historical context and data. Mainly, it features profiles of the sports talk hosts Eisenstock considered important.

There is no biography or autobiography out there of Jim Rome. This needs to change. There were very few articles I could find about Rome and really nothing of any consequence about the Tour Stops. Regarding the history of sports talk radio, again, that was something I had to piece together. I hope my chapter on that topic will be useful and interesting to fans of sports talk radio.

To anybody who finds this piece and who is doing their own research on these topics, please feel free to quote me to your heart's delight. All I ask is that you attribute your quotes. A bibliography is included at the end of this section.

****

Like I said, I have a long history with sports talk radio. In 1977, I was a junior at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac, Maryland. Like Rome, I was not an athlete, but I was an absolute sports nut. I loved the Washington Redskins more than life itself. I was constantly either playing football or softball with the other guys in the neighborhood, or watching sports, or reading about sports. Much of my youth was also spent playing sports board games, like APBA baseball.

My barber's name was Buzz, but don't let the name fool you. Buzz had gone back to school and was a legitimate hair stylist. His shop was one of the first unisex salons in the Washington D.C. area.

I loved going to Buzz because my hair was fussy and he was the only stylist I could trust. Also, Buzz was a big sports fan. He'd owned Redskins season tickets for decades, though he refused to go while George Allen was still the coach.

During that fall of 1977, Buzz told me about a new guy on WMAL, Washington's venerable news and talk station. His name was Ken Beatrice and he had a show where he talked about sports, where people called him on the telephone to talk about sports.

"It sounds like he's just getting friends of his to call in to his show," Buzz said derisively. "Don't think he's gonna last."

Buzz would later change his mind about Beatrice. I wouldn't have to. I was hooked from the first time I tuned in.

A radio show talking about sports? It was like a wet dream come to life, which says a little too much about where my head was at back in those days. Still, I found it compelling. I could never get enough talking about sports and plus, Beatrice was smart and informative. He was the prototype expert sports talk radio host. He knew tons about recruiting. Name a high school kid and Beatrice could give you the lowdown.

He wasn't a cheerleader for the local teams. Of course, as soon as he opened his mouth and you heard that thick New England accent, you had to know he didn't bleed burgundy and gold. Beatrice was fair in his criticisms and seemed to be trying to teach us to not blindly follow our favorite teams.

I listened to Beatrice all the time and I was a frequent caller as well. I'd tune him in even while at work at the Congressional Carryout, a dingy little hole-in-the-wall eatery in the Congressional Plaza just off Rockville Pike in the part of Rockville that's almost Bethesda. It was the kind of place that they wouldn't allow in Rockville today, now that Rockville Pike is one long upscale strip mall.

I worked at the Carryout all through high school. My friend and neighbor Greg Haugan had worked there when he was in high school. He was the first. Other guys in the neighborhood worked there as well, like my best friend, Steve Long, Kurt Klein and Greg's younger brother, Chuck.

I was fascinated with Greg's stories about Gus, the grumpy owner and his father, Pops who had immigrated from Greece.

The Carryout featured no Greek food. The food was all-American, homemade and delicious. Pops would come in on Saturdays and make the week's daily specials, like meatloaf, chili, Salisbury steaks and various soups. Mostly, it was a sub and sandwich shop. The meat was fresh-sliced daily and all the food was cooked to order. Gus did not own a microwave.

The Carryout had limited seating, in fact seating for 31, until one of the chairs broke. There was a counter and several tables. Gus sold sandwiches to go, but the biggest seller was beer. Every night, as the closer, I had to restock the three-door beer cooler at the front of the restaurant.

The place was clean, but not matter how clean it ever was, it never really looked clean.

I remember one time a guy from my school saw me sweeping the floors. Next day at school, I gave me crap about working a shitty job.

He didn't get it. I loved the place. I didn't mind waiting tables, washing dishes. I didn't mind sweeping and mopping the floors. Hell, these are all valuable skills everybody should know anyway. I actually once had a roommate who did not know how to wash dishes. I was appalled watching him. He would try, but he literally did not know how. How can that be possible.

But more importantly, having grown up in one of the nation's more affluent communities, I got exposed to people who were not the sons and daughters of doctors, dentists, corporate executives and high-ranked government workers.

For the first time, I met shopkeepers and laborers. I met people who perhaps were a bit more coarse than I was accustomed to, but they were real people, with real lives who were no less significant as people as anybody I had previously known.

I quickly discovered that I could talk about sports with Gus and my customers. And I also discovered that if I could talk with them about sports, I could talk with them about pretty much anything.

But mostly, we talked about sports, so no one objected when I'd turn on Ken Beatrice each evening when I was at work.

Beatrice and I eventually became friends. In the spring of 1978, I interviewed him for my high school newspaper. Ken and I often spoke off the air. He was supportive of my intention to study journalism in college, though that led to a disagreement between the two of us.

Beatrice felt I should go to the University of Missouri. I was in love with the University of Wisconsin and really wanted to go there.

"Why do you want to go there," Beatrice asked. "To this day, they're still blowing up buildings."

I felt a strange need to justify my decision to Beatrice. "I'll get a better all-around education," I replied.

Beatrice accepted that rationale and I enrolled at Wisconsin with his blessings.

A strange thing happened when I entered college, however. I lost interest in sports. I discovered drugs, booze and, most importantly, activist politics. With civil war in El Salvador and U. S. sponsored counterrevolution in Nicaragua, sports didn't seem very important.

But they say we come full circle and that's what I did. Some years later, I was a full-blown sports fan once again. I started going to Badger football games, which I hadn't done since I was a freshman, when my whole dorm floor would go and we would often leave Camp Randall not even remembering who won the game.

Except it is somewhat misleading to say I came back to where I started from. You see, our lives are like the lives of glaciers. When glaciers finally stop and melt, they leave behind erratics, betraying a journey of 1000s of miles before finally coming to rest.

In 1994, I rediscovered sports talk radio. I was working as a cab driver (still do, in fact) and I had been getting bored with what I was hearing on the radio. I worked nights, so there was always plenty of deadtime to fill.

In 1994, Madison's first all-sports radio station hit the airwaves. WHIT The Team was heard on a frequency which was only allowed it to broadcast during daylight hours, as per FCC regulations.

I loved it. I loved the ESPN Radio programming the station carried. I loved hearing Chuck Wilson, Tony Bruno and Peter Brown yell at each other every Sunday night. I loved it a couple years later when The Team introduced a local sports talk show on Friday afternoons.

By 1999, the scene was blowing up, as Rome would say. The Team was broadcasting 24 hours a day. ESPN 1070 had hit the air. An FM radio station ran sports talk 18 hours a day. That meant 66 hours of sports talk programming aired every day in Madison. We had Jim Rome. We had ESPN Radio, One On One Sports and even Sportsfan Radio Network.

I got the brilliant idea to start a free monthly newspaper to cover this burgeoning sports talk radio scene. In February, 2000, the first issue of The Mike hit the streets. (Some of the material in this piece is taken from interviews I published in The Mike.)

I published my monthly newspaper for six months before I realized I was hemorrhaging money and had to pull the plug. In retrospect, I realize I should've had my head examined when I came up with the idea, but to be fair, it seemed like a good idea and it didn't necessarily seem unreasonable that it could be a way to make a living. After all, if the sports talk radio stations can sell enough advertising to pay for somebody's bills, then why couldn't I do that as well?

It was fun, at least for awhile. I wrote news and features about the local sports talk radio scene. I interviewed hosts and sat in on shows. I was impressed by how much these guys seemed to love what they were doing.

I also did interviews with national figures as well. I interviewed Peter Brown, Nestor Aparicio and JT The Brick, who won the first "Smack Off" and parlayed his victory into his own sports talk radio career.

I interviewed Ted Davis, radio voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, Matt Vasgersian, television voice of the Milwaukee Brewers and, in what was the biggest highlight of this experience, I got to interview Bob Uecker. I don't think I've ever had a bigger thrill than when the phone rang at a prearranged time. I picked up the phone and a voice said, "Is Fred there? This is Bob Uecker."

But it was indescribable drudgery as well. The pressures of publishing a monthly newspaper quickly wore on me. I had my ad guy and one sports writer who wrote a monthly wrap up column about the area teams. Otherwise, I did everything myself: interviews, writing, layout, production supervision.

And while I had a good relationship with many of the local sports talk guys, there were certain difficulties involved with these relationships. People I dealt with tended to be overworked and they weren't always as polite as they should be. Some people were arrogant. Some were downright rude. Due to competition between the stations, I was often viewed with mistrust.

I was reminded of a comment made by Rob Reischel, co-host of The Team's local show, "Team Talk" during an interview we had done. Reischel commented that though he had worked as a sportswriter, he never wanted to cover the Packers because he's a huge Packers fan and didn't want to find out what kind of jerks his favorite players really were.

After awhile, I knew exactly was Reischel was talking about.

But really, to be fair, the main reason I ceased publication of The Mike was I just ran out of money. It was a valuable lesson, but it cost me $5000. I felt I did good work, but I was relieved when it was over.

I would not be out of the scene for long, however. Toward the end of 2000, I started looking into how I might reincarnate The Mike on the web. In early 2001, I launched a pair of sister websites, Sports Talk Madison and Sports Talk America.

There were various reasons why the electronic route was attractive. First and foremost, it did not cost me a dime. Granted, I was not bringing in any advertising revenue, but I thought perhaps if I did it for awhile, some other revenue streams might open up.

There were other nice things about doing the websites. Space is not an issue. Layout is not an issue, at least in terms of the jigsaw puzzle nature of newspaper layout. Deadlines are not an issue. There is no printing schedule, so I could post at will. I tried to maintain a schedule for certain features, but otherwise, I was able to post articles whenever I got around to writing them, which also allowed me to post breaking news while it was still fresh.

Unfortunately, despite the change in medium, Rob Reischel's statement was no less true.

The last straw came in April, 2001 when I had an anti-Semitic slur thrown at me, ON THE AIR.

Miller Park was about to open. I had managed to get a private tour and I posted an article and a ton of pictures on the website—just a few days before the Brewers home opener.

To promote the piece, I was a guest on all four local sports talk radio show. The last show I did was "Madcity Middays," on WTLX, hosted by Rich Reynolds and Sean Thompson.

I had had a contentious relationship with the duo pretty much from day one. They had never forgiven me for a profile I did in The Mike where they felt I had taken some shots at them. In fact, I had taken shots at them, but in jest. Apparently, they took themselves too seriously to get the joke.

Still, I had been trying to cultivate a relationship with them. When I went on their show I had saved an exclusive for them which I had not shared with any of the other locals shows I had been on. It wasn't a huge big deal, but when I toured Miller Park, I got to watch a curator from the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame install an exhibit of memorabilia. Top shelf stuff, like jerseys from Lou Gehrig, Cy Young and Joe Jackson. Babe Ruth's bat.

Again, this was no Earth-shattering scoop, but I gave it to them. They were the first people to report it in Madison.

They did not care. Instead, they just gave me crap about something totally unrelated. I remembered thinking that this was the last time I'd ever do anything for them.

When I hung up the phone, Reynolds and Thompson started to make fun of my interest in the memorabilia. They got vicious.

Reynolds said something like, "And over here we have Bud Selig's yarmulke."

Thompson piped in, "And here we have Sammy Davis's glass eye."

I was furious. I'd taken plenty of crap from those guys before. Always Reynolds would say that it was just radio, that all publicity is good publicity.

This was different. This was personal and it was highly offensive. And yes, it was anti-Semitic. I am Jewish. My Jewish heritage had previously been an issue on the show. I had never mentioned being Jewish on the show, but Reynolds had. He was the one who had made an issue of it. He was the one who used it as a slur against me.

I want to make it clear that the statements are not necessarily anti-Semitic on their face, but when one puts them in the above-mentioned context, they are.

I immediately called WTLX Executive Producer Lance Davis to complain. He seemed to take my words seriously and said he would look into it.

Apparently, his words were empty. Two weeks later, Reynolds and Thompson made my complaint an on-air subject. They actually talked about my complaint on the air. They made fun of me for pressing this claim, and they added just about every other hateful thing about me they could think of.

This time I called Craig Karmazin who owns WTLX. If his name seems familiar it's because his father has been in the news lately. Mel Karmazin is the CEO of Viacom and was recently called to the carpet over the Janet Jackson incident at the Super Bowl. Karmazin was also in the news throughout fall, 2003 during the FCC hearings about deregulation. Karmazin is a big-time advocate of media consolidation and conglomeration and he was trying to get the FCC to do his bidding by further eliminating those troublesome regulations.

It took the better part of an afternoon to get through to Karmazin. I left several messages. I called again and again and again until the secretary finally put me through.

Karmazin didn't want to hear any of it. He denied that the remarks were anti-Semitic and said he was offended that I would make such an accusation. He dismissed me as just having my feelings hurt. He repeatedly said I was wasting his time. And, of course, he said he would not reprimand Reynolds.

I felt about as low as a person could feel. I felt betrayed. I had thought that I had a friendly relationship with those people, that, in fact, some of them were people I could even consider friends.

In retrospect, I am stunned and embarrassed at how naive I was. Those people don't have friends. They only have acquaintances who get exploited as on-air content. Basically, and they admit this, if you don't like them talking about you on the air, you probably shouldn't be friends with them.

Craig Karmazin, during his local show, gives the impression that he's a good natured nitwit, with an idiot's savant knowledge of sports and very little knowledge of anything else. On the air, he never acknowledges that he owns the radio station, only that he manages it. Ownership is held by some vague group. And he never, ever mentions his father.

I took Karmazin at face value. This was a grave error.

In retrospect, I realize I should not have expected common decency from Karmazin, because, after all, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Why should I have expected Karmazin to discipline a racist and bigot like Reynolds (what he said about me wasn't the only bigoted remark to come flying out of his mouth on the air) when his father has paid voluntary fines for things Howard Stern has said on the air rather than try to correct his megastar's behavior?

And as we have seen, Mel Karmazin is a hypocrite. There was nothing wrong with Janet Jackson's act until Congress made a big stink of it. Then Karmazin comes down on every branch, every twig, every leaf in the Viacom empire with a draconian zero-tolerance obscenity policy which does nothing but pass the blame and restrict free speech.

To a certain extent, I could forgive Reynolds for being an ignoramus, but I could not and will not ever forgive Karmazin. He should have known better. It was his responsibility to know better, but he refused because to do anything else would mean he would have to stand up and say, "I selected this person to represent me and my radio station on the air. I am responsible for what he says and what he says is offensive and it is wrong."

Yeah, and pigs will fly. Sad to say, people who own media outlets are generally unwilling to be that forthright, to take responsibility for their on-air talent. Happens all the time. Remember the flap a couple years ago when the Minnesota Vikings had hired Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton to be their play-by-play person? The NAACP came down hard and quashed the hiring. It turns out Hacksaw had been making racist cracks on his radio show on XTRA in San Diego for years, for decades. Station management never saw fit to do anything about it and they still haven't done anything about it. Hacksaw is still on the air.

Words cannot describe how violated I felt. I was so ashamed, I didn't tell my parents for several months. When I finally did, they were furious. They wanted blood, but sad to say, it was too late. Reynolds and Thompson were off the air. Their show had been replaced with syndicated programming. The move had nothing to do with anyone's behavior. It was a "business decision."

I learned many things from this horrible experience. Maybe the most important lesson is that Jews often don't know what it's really like to be hated. You can't really know until you are genuinely slurred. Obviously, it is a good thing that we live in a society that doesn't want to smear our blood on their doorposts every Easter, but to a certain extent, I think there is the danger that in a relatively friendly environment, we lose our vigilance.

Prior to this incident, I had never really experienced anti-Semitism. Sure there was the occasional comment made out of jest, but there was never anything hateful about it. In the wake of this experience, I have come to realize that until you are a victim of anti-Semitism, it is all too easy to be blind to it.

I decided I was never going to write about sports talk radio ever again. In the final analysis, I felt that I was being degraded, and it was not just the above experience. I was writing about people who talk about what other people do. I've always been struck by the absurdity of this notion. Finally, I decided it was time to stop doing that.

I realized it was time to dedicate myself to my own work, my fiction writing and my literary magazine, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, a left-oriented literary magazine I have published and edited since 1989.

September 11, 2001 reinforced this belief. The world is a more dangerous place. We are under attack from without and within, by foreign enemies and by our own government which seeks to militarize through imperialist adventurism, lower our standard of living and restrict the rights and freedoms we've enjoyed for 200 years.

Somehow sports talk radio just did not seem very important anymore.

Yet, here I am, writing about sports talk radio once again. When Jim Rome announced he would come to Madison, I realized it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I had always felt that an interview with Rome was my personal Holy Grail; I knew it was the one interview I would never be able to get.

But here was an opportunity for the next best thing. I could get an inside look at a Jim Rome Tour Stop. And I could go to his press conference and ask him a question or two. I could have quotes from him on my tape, in my notebook that were all mine.

Now it is done. I hope what I have provided here will prove useful. I had hoped to provide as in-depth a look at a Tour Stop as has ever been written. I believe I have succeeded, but I will let you, the reader, be the judge.

Now that this project is complete, I will not write about sports talk radio ever again, that is unless there's a book deal with a decent advance. I can only afford so much writing for posterity, though I can imagine a really nice three-book deal which would include an expansion of this project, a true history of sports talk radio and Jim Rome's autobiography. I'm not holding my breath.

One other task I will complete, however, is the completion of the Sports Talk America archive. I've posted some of the interviews I did with The Mike, but not all of them. Keep checking out the archive page. Eventually, the archive will be complete.

I apologize for being so long-winded and self-indulgent in my personal recollections. I gave a great deal of consideration of how much I would tell or if I would even go in this direction, but in the end, I realized I had to do it. I had to tell, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story." There's loose-ends to tie, wrongs to right and axes to grind.

Cheers!

—Fred Schepartz, March, 2003, Madison, Wisconsin

****

Notes, Acknowledgments And Bibliography

I have to apologize that I was unable to secure cooperation from Jim Rome's people at Premier Radio. I know that would have made for a far superior piece than what I offer here. I am truly sorry.

It was not for lack of trying. I spent the better part of nine months going back and forth with Premier and Rome's publicist, which is why I am posting this 16 months after the event. I made phone calls. I wrote letters. I jumped through every hoop imaginable, but in the end the answer was no.

I was told that it ultimately came down to credibility. I guess I can understand where they are coming from. After all, I am nobody. Still, that didn't make that any less of a kick in the teeth.

Obviously, I disagree with them. My argument was and still is that they owe it to posterity to cooperate with me. Rome is an important figure in media and pop culture. This needs to be studied and recorded for future generations to note and understand.

Ultimately, I don't really know why they were so intransigent. Over the last year, I have discussed this frequently with my good friend, Harry, who is working on a biography of the movie director, Henry Hathaway. Harry has also been stonewalled by many people who could have helped him.

Harry believes that people are reticent to talk because of fear of litigation. I would agree. I would also add that information has monetary value. Why give it away when you can cash it in later?

I want to make it clear that I don't bear Rome or his people any ill will. I promise you won't find any sour grapes here, unlike Alan Eisenstock in his book Sports Talk. Rome refused to be profiled by Eisenstock and the writer responded with occasionally sniping and crabbing at Rome throughout the book.

Frankly, I don't blame Rome for refusing to be profiled by Eisenstock. My interview might have taken as long as 30 minutes. Eisenstock spent a day or two or three with his subjects. Reading his book, the guy comes off as quite the freeloader, constantly soaping off free meals from his subjects, staying in their homes. Rome is very protective of his and his family's privacy. No wonder he declined when Eisenstock came calling.

I was more than happy to I.F. Stone it. (I.F. Stone was a journalist who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Government officials wouldn't talk to him, so he relied on pubic records and documents and was actually more effective because his reporting was not affected by spin.)

Sad to say, there's not much written about Rome. There's nothing written about the Tour Stops. In general, there's not much written about the history of sports talk radio.

Still, with what I was able to garner, along with a terrific and lengthy interview with ESPN 1070-Madison Operations Manager Tim Scott, I think I am able to answer most questions raised by this topic. The one thing I think I'm missing is an answer to one of the more crucial questions: ultimately, how are Tour Stop selection decisions made? Is there a competitive bidding process or are prospective hosts required to submit bids as proof of having sufficient resources to adequately produce the event? Until Premier is willing to go on the record on this topic, we will never know.

There is a bit of redundancy throughout the various chapters of this piece. This was intentional. A website is structurally different from a book. Books are linear; websites are three-dimensional. If I had written this as a book, I would assume that most people would read every chapter, in chronological order. Because this is a website, I cannot make that assumption. Therefore, certain topics may overlap from chapter to chapter, and, in some cases, I may reuse certain quotations.

I have a modest background in mass communication research and studies. This has affected my approach to this subject which I would say is somewhere between that of a fan, a journalist and a social scientist.

I have tried to attribute thoroughly throughout this piece. Much of the quotes from Madison people were from interviews I had done when I was publishing The Mike back in 2000. I tried to identify those as best as I could.

****

First and foremost, I want to give sincere and heartfelt thanks to my wife, Georgia, for being supportive of me despite all my various fool's errands.

Regarding this project, Anatomy of a Jim Rome Tour Stop, I have to give major thanks to Tim Scott at ESPN 1070 for consenting to a lengthy interview, as well as for pushing through my request for press credentials, which was granted and allowed me to attend the post-event press conference and ask Jim Rome a couple of questions. I want to further acknowledge that I am particularly grateful for Scott's cooperation despite the fact that I am certain he was pissed off at me for a couple of things I had done.

I also want to thank Bill DiCarlo and Ted Ballweg of the Alliant Energy Center for their time and interest in the matter of a post-Tour Stop ripple effect on Madison.

Due to the abrupt demise of The Mike, I never had the chance to offer thanks to several people who deserve my gratitude. Thank you to Larry Gebhardt, my ad manager, who brought in the bucks to make Buck Rogers fly; to Tim Scott, again, for his cooperation; to Mark Grantin, Mike Heller, Brian Posick and Rob Reischel for the same reasons; to Kurt Kretschmar at One On One Sports for his interest and willingness to set me up with interviews; to the media relations people with the Brewers, Bucks and Packers for a similar generosity; and to JT The Brick for several interviews and for actually promoting me and what I was doing on his national radio show.

I want to thank Harry and Don, my compatriots at the Crystal Corner Celebrity Drunk Table and the bartenders at the Crystal for seeing that my thirst does not go unquenched.

Lastly, I want to thank Jim Rome for his generosity and graciousness at the Madison Tour Stop. He gave us a show, but he gave us much more. He didn't have to do a press conference after the Tour Stop, but he did and he was gracious and patient with each question he was asked. After the press conference, Rome lingered at the dais. I was able to get his autograph and shake his hand. We chatted for a brief moment. I will forever kick myself for not thinking of something cooler to say to him, but I never dreamed I would be talking to him one on one.

In fact, I actually had a tape cued up of Matt Vasgersian doing a Hacksaw impersonation. I didn't remember the tape until I left the building.

Instead, all I could think of to say was, "I'm the 'Fred from Madison' who e-mails the show." (As if he would remember) "I've been a finalist for the Huge E-mail three times. Oh, well, three times a bridesmaid, never a bride."

As the words flew out of my mouth, I expected Rome to recoil in horror. "MY GOD! CORNERED BY A CLONE," but he didn't. He calmly replied, "Maybe someday you'll win." I truly believe he was sincere.

****

Benford, Gregory, "The Internet is Recapitulating Science Fiction Fandom," Reason, January, 1996, p. 43.

Berger, Phil, "Rome's Burning," Sport, August, 1999, pp. 32-33.

Eisenstock, Alan, Sports Talk: A Journey Inside the World of Sports Talk Radio, Pocket Books, 2001.

Gesell-Streeter, Carla, "Talk Radio History," WWW.radiotalk.org/history/html.

Haag, Pamela, "The 50,000-Watt Sports Bar: Talk Radio and the Ethic of the Fan," The South Atlantic Quarterly, Spring, 1996, pp. 453-470.

Jenkins, Chris, "Rack Him! Our Take on Shock-Jock Jim Rome," USA Today.

Kirkpatrick, Curry, "The Babe of Talk Radio," Newsweek, January 8, 1996, p. 56.

Libit, Daniel, "For One Saturday, No Place Like Rome," Wisconsin State Journal, December 8, 2002.

Makela, Bob, "The Jerk," Los Angeles, November, 1994, p. 54.

Millman, Chad, "The Fall of Rome," Sports Illustrated, April 18, 1994, p. 14.

Murphy, A, "Calls of the Wild," Sports Illustrated, September 16, 1996, pp. 72-76.

Premier Radio Networks, "Jim Rome World Tour 2002," Jim Rome Bio.

Reilly, Rick, "Look Out for the Bull!" Sports Illustrated, March 14, 1994, p. 76.

Smith, Shelley, "Sports People: Nancy Donnellan," Sports Illustrated, August 1, 1994, p. 48.

Sporting News, "Let Rome Have the Last Word," December 3, 2001, p. 4.

Stark, Phyllis, "Sports Talk Muscles in on Airwaves as Ninth Most Programmed AM Format," Billboard, January 14, 1995, p. 64.

Stewart, Larry, "Famous Last Words: Rome Picks Radio," Los Angeles Times, February 22, 2002.

Wendel, Tim, "Guy Talk," MediaWeek, October 18, 1999, p. 48.

Wolfley, Bob, "Rome Has a Take on Many Issues," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, December 6, 2002.

WWW.fiawol.demon.co.uk/who/, "Who's Who in SF Fandom."

****

About The Author

My story is a common one in Madison, Wisconsin where I've lived for the last quarter century. I came here to go to school, got my degree (BA Journalism) and never left. I drive a cab for a living because my writing doesn't pay the bills. No, it's not so bad. The money as a cabbie in Madison isn't bad and the cab company, Union Cab, is a worker-owned-and-operated cooperative. It's the best place I've ever worked.

Once upon a time, I dreamed of being a sportswriter. Somehow, as I learned more about the world when I was in college, I no longer wanted to do that. By the time I got my journalism degree, I didn't really want to be a journalist either. I had started writing fiction. I decided against journalism because I felt if I was going to be writing fiction either way, I may as well be honest about it.

I write science fiction, fantasy and horror. I've sold several shorts stories, but none of my three novels. I have another fantasy novel on the back burner, but I think I'll turn off the heat and put it in the freezer while I work on a screenplay based on a woman's true story of living as a hobo at the turn of the 20th Century. I also am trying to peddle a treatment for an episode of Enterprise.

I've published and edited a left-oriented literary magazine, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, since 1989. As stated above, I published a newspaper about sports talk radio, The Mike, in 2000 and a pair of websites, "Sports Talk Madison" and "Sports Talk America," in 2001.

My wife, Georgia, and I have three children—of the four-legged variety, two pugs, Vito and Strega, and a brand new Bullmastiff puppy named Boudika.