Listen up, clones. The voice of sports reason now can be gleaned from the radio waves circulating throughout the city of St. Louis. Jim Rome (a.k.a Van Smack) tells it like it is every weekday on KFNS AM 590 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The rules of his nationally syndicated show are simple: “Have a take and do not suck or you will get run.”
Yes, Jim Rome is the guy whose name has become synonymous with the Chris Everett Incident-errrr.I mean the Jim Everett Incident. When ESPN2 was still learning how to walk, Rome worked for the network as a talk show host. In April of ’94, he had the L.A. Rams’ Everett on the show. Rome referred to him as “Chris” Everett. After the first or second reference, the injury-prone QB dared Rome to say it again. In response, Rome said, “OK.Chris.” The QB flipped the table, it was caught on tape and the rest is history. A year later the first annual Smack Off took place.
If Rome isn’t known for the ESPN2 incident, he’s associated with the FOX show The Last Word, which he’s emceed since January of ’98. The focus is on bringing in a couple of reputable names for a roundtable discussion. This show is pretty good; it’s gotten much better since its inception. In fact, I’d probably watch if my cable bill was paid, but it still wouldn’t compare to the three hours of free-radio smack.
Just as Rome warned potential St. Louis clones when his show reached the outposts of St. Louis over break, I will warn you: this show has its quirks. That’s what makes it great. For the impatient listener, though, it’s these idiosyncrasies that turn a lot of listeners away. Because I like the show, because the show is where a fan finally can hear a sports guy “tell it like it is,” I want to help potential listeners get acquainted with the oddities of The Jungle.
First, the format. This isn’t like the local radio shows where callers dial in and ramble on and on about how Tony La Russa should have Mark McGwire hitting cleanup. On Romey’s show, you will never hear two people talking at the same time.
The clones call in with their “takes.” If the take sucks, Rome will run the caller with the buzzer. It sounds like this: “EHHHHHHH.” If you hear that and if you couldn’t already tell, the caller sucked.
However, if the caller has a good take, he won’t get buzzed. If you make it through the call-and most callers do-you’re supposed to say, “I’m out.” Then, if Romey especially liked what you had to say, if you didn’t stumble through it, if you were accurate, salient and entertaining, Rome will say, “Nice job. Rack `em.” If you get racked, you’re entered into the pool of calls competing for the prize of the day, the “Huge Call.”
In fact, that brings up the second point. Every day, near the conclusion of the program, Rome presents that day’s “Huge Call.” Some of these are damn good. Usually, they’re belly-crunchers. The callers have used the takes to gain for themselves a certain notoriety. Even if that particular caller might suck at whatever sport they choose to talk about, they have realized a chance to become famous, if only for 30 seconds and among the clones.
Some clones are so popular that they’re referred to on a first name basis. Don’t expect to make it through one Jim Rome show without hearing a mention of Trapper from Dana Point or John from C-Town. When Rome had Eric Chenowith from Kansas on the program, Chenowith said that Trapper should no longer be allowed to call. Rome’s got to know that he’s doing something right when the athletes are talking about the callers.
That’s another thing. The athletes listen to the show. For them, being on the show is a privilege. People thank Rome for having them, and you can tell that they mean it. Comedian Jay Mohr is a regular caller and his takes are always solid. Rome of course, is the king of takes, and he provides them sparingly. Expect just one or two a day.
E-mail flows into the Rome show in mass volumes daily. He actually reads a lot of it on the air. With electronic takes, the point is to be brief, snappy, and end it by signing as a sports celebrity. Rome frequently gets e-mail from Orenthal, Nicole and Ron. Other frequent e-mail contributors include Wade Boggs, Mark Chmura, Ed Belfour, Rae-enthal.you get the picture. A lot of times Rome will say, “I don’t want any more e-mails from so and so.” Of course, this just encourages people to write in as if they were that person. And Rome, of course, goes ahead and reads them.
I wish I had more space, but I’ve got to end my take. Let me just say that The Jim Rome show rocks. I’m O-U-T, OOUUUTT!
(ed.-Nice job, rack `em)

Popularity: 1% [?]

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2001 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.