Dale Arnold's Band of Dummies

Yea, how I long for the days when sportswriters were sportswriters, when sports columnists were sports columnists, and sports broadcasters were sports broadcasters. Now you have this mismash of legitimate journalists, a few qualified ex-athletes, and a slew of knuckleheads. A few of the journalists, about half of the athletes and a large majority of the knuckleheads feel that it's their obligation to infuse their otherwise objective comments with witty and stinging commentary, thinking that if they say something louder and more clever than the other guy that it proves their point.

Now the airwaves, both radio and television (and rapidly growing on the Internet), are filled with guys just trying to talk louder than the other guys, trying to make their cute and clever comments to substitute for their intelligence. Some guys (I have to call them guys, because they can't be called "journalists" or "broadcasters" and "commentator" seems to allow them too much credit), like Shannon Sharpe and Deion Sanders, you can hardly even understand. Guys like Stuart Scott aren't even using English words. And yet everyone plays along because somehow that's what people want to see.

And then you have Dale Arnold, the lead of WEEI's Dale and Holley show broadcast from 10 am to 2 pm. Arnold, who formerly was paired with the old king of the sports talk airwaves Eddie Andelman, a man who was clown prince and now mostly just clown. After a bitter breakup between Andelman and WEEI, the station held a highly publicized contest to find the next co-host, and while many, many hopefuls gave it their best shot, the result was only what I expected from the beginning: A guy got the job because of who he knows, not necessarily because who he is. Don't get me wrong, I liked Bob Neumeier if only from his objective broadcasting days on Channel 4. As soon as he started opining, it was clear that his forte was horse-racing, and that's pretty much where it ended. Ultimately, he was flighty at best. At least he was articulate. Another contract dispute later, Arnold has his third co-host. Finally, a guy that actually seems to deserve the job because, well, he just might be the best guy for the job. Michael Holley's done far better than (I) expected so far.

Arnold took a mild beating today during his show. After early in the show calling a caller a "dummy" (later recapped by other callers, Arnold allegedly said "I don't have time for dummies like you") several callers called out Arnold, said he was rude, unprofessional, pompous.

It's about time someone said it. This isn't exactly breaking news. Arnold has been that way since he became the lead.

Usually, like most people apparently, I listened to Dale and Whomever because that's what WEEI broadcast between Dennis and Callahan ending at 10 am, and the Big Show starting at 2 pm. There are people loyal enough to WEEI who would listen to static from 10 to 2 if that's all there was to hear. But Arnold is on, and they listen to him pretty much by default. The people I know who listen to him do so to hear what he has to say now, and to hear him take the exact opposite position a week or two later. Heck, he changes sides during the same show sometimes, just because a caller who agrees with him will call to agree, and Arnold will jump down the guy's throat just to disagree with him. I guess the station managers call that "good radio."

So today Arnold calls a guy a dummy and doesn't see anything wrong with it. He says, "I get paid to give my opinion." What he really gets paid to do is give his opinion on sports, sporting events, sports figures, etc. He gets paid to give his opinion on caller's opinions. He does not get paid to give his opinion of callers or their intelligence. (Really, he gets paid because he's the Bruins play-by-play broadcaster, and they put him on a show to justify his paycheck. But that's another story.)

When the handful of callers called to critique Arnold, and they all did it very politely, Arnold at first got defensive, then shrugged one off, and finally became patronizing to the last couple I heard. Not sure I heard all the calls. I don't get to listen all day. I have a job and a business to run. But I bet Arnold would have a good name to call me because of that.

Arnold is the kind of guy that would call Einstein an idiot because Einstein questioned whether it was proper for the manager to call for a right-hander to bunt with a man on first and one out in the bottom of the ninth trailing by a run against a lefty. He's the kind of guy who would call Neil Armstrong a moron for saying the Patriots should take a knee at the end of regulation of Super Bowl XXXVI. A nuclear physicist and a rocket scientist are nincompoops to Arnold because they're not experts in sports even though they're super-geniuses in their respective fields. No, that's not right. They're dummies because they don't agree with the Great and Powerful Dale.

I can only think of one word to describe a guy who can't tell the difference between passing judgment on a person's opinion and passing judgment on a person: Dummy.

And that's being nice.