BRW: Sarandis to leave WEEI

[John J. Francini]

I've always thought that Ted, even though he was popular, was 
jarringly different in his on-air style from the hosts on the rest of 
the day. For me at least he was far too earnest, too serious.  The 
other hosts all make a major attempt to leaven their shows with 
humor, with varying degrees of success. But Ted was so darn earnest, 
even when he was doing 5 action-packed hours of retractable roof talk.

He approached most every subject on the table with that same 
earnestness. It was as if he was talking about The Important Issues 
Of the Day(tm), but he was talking about sports -- the "toybox of 
life", as Dale Arnold so aptly puts it. The earnestness was hard to 
take.

And that's another thing -- he was beginning to get stereotyped for 
both that earnestness and for some of the positions he'd take. The 
'retractable roof talk' is just one of them. He'd get involved in 
discussing political or national issues that are not sports-talk 
fodder with the same earnestness that he approached sports.

It's bad enough that D&C do that. When Ted did it (as when D&C do 
it), the radio would get switched to ESPN 900 (I'm in Nashua) 
instantly. National sports-talk is light-years better than listening 
to sports personalities talk politics.

He was also becoming the butt of jokes and bits on D&C, Dale & Holley 
(and earlier, Dale and Neumy), and of course on the Big Show.  I 
can't count the times I'd hear Ted's "Wow!", "Eight!", or "I 
apologize to you a thousand times, I get on my hands and knees and 
apologize to you!" on those shows. And his exhortations to get people 
to go to BC basketball games bordered on insults to the listeners' 
intelligence (and got rightly ridiculed for weeks later on the Big 
Show).

My view: "Give Mike Adams His Own Show!" (But pair him with somebody. 
I think that sports talk works best when there's at least one other 
person in the studio to work with.)

Just my $0.02,

John (who's been listening to 'EEI since its inception as a sports-talker).