My take on the wedding between The Ticket and the Cowboys has nothing to do with my status as a media member who is "bitter'' or "jealous.''
      (Though I am bitter!)
      (And I am jealous!)
      I fielded a tidal wave of passionate emails, posts and phone calls as a result of my previous expression of concern, including some from folks with intimate knowledge of the situation. From KLUV's Jody Dean to a couple of Ticket big guns to even a prominent member of the Cowboys family, folks thought I was a tad harsh. Flip, even. So I thought I'd take one more stab at explaining my concerns about this above-the-fold radio marriage. And more, why it signals a potential problem with sports coverage in this town.
      This view will be presented in a "no-sacred-cows'' style that The Ticket professes to celebrate. (so The Ticket and its admirers needn't take offense, right? It's all just in fun!):
      My concern: for observers of the way sports should be covered, The Ticket was a last bastion of hope. But now, it's been swallowed up, too. I'm concerned that it will become a McDonald's, a WalMart, a slice of processed cheese. No, a slice of processed cheese substitute.
      Speaking of foodstuff: On your dinner table, do you prefer lamb or turkey or chicken or pork or beef? On the grocery shelves, do you prefer products from Hunt's or La Choy or Armour or Reddi-Wip or Knott's Berry Farm or Swiss Miss or Orville Redenbacher's or Hebrew National or Country Pride or Healthy Choice? Or do you know that your preference really doesn't matter, because a company named ConAgra is the top provider of every one of those meats and the powerful manufacturer of every one of those products, at a profit of $25 billion a year, and that therefore no matter what you eat, you eat ConAgra?
      File away the station's "bold'' pledge if independence, promises that hosts will still speak their minds, and hope with me that it comes true. (Maybe the station will retain the control of everything except the actual Brad Sham play-by-play, stuff like pre- and post-game shows, which would be a good thing.) But file it away with Dan McGraw's three-year-old story in the Fort Worth Weekly about how the Texas Motor Speedway, livid from hearing The Ticket conjure up banjo noises every time NASCAR was referenced, finally agreed to pay the station $500,000 to stop it.
      Some specifics of that tale are disputed by members of the Ticket gang. But Hee Haw, do you hear banjo noises anymore?
      File it away with former employee "Big Dick Hunter'' saying that mangement once put a memo up on the studio door ordering employees to stop suggesting that Rangers tickets weren't worth the money. ... and noting that the Rangers were an important advertiser on the station.
      Maybe Hunter is simply a disgruntled ex-employee oddball. But doesn't it seem The Ticket is unnaturally cozy with one of the worst sports franchises in the world?
      File it away with how the station treated Barry Switzer like the Village Idiot and treated Michael Irvin like a leper -- until it realized that aligning with those two bad boys could lure advertisers. Switzer tells me The Ticket used to pay him $40,000 a year for his 20 phone-call interviews. Switzer was happy to play Village Idiot for a total of about 200 hours a year. ... in exchange for 40 grand.
      Of course, they never treated him like an idiot again. To do so would have been editorially honest. ... but it would have been unprofitable.
      And file it away with this undeniable fact: The better friends I become with Mike Modano or Michael Irvin or Don Nelson, the more benefit of the doubt they receive from me in my reviews of their work. I'm being honest. Objectivity is a fine concept, but we're all guinea pigs of human nature. Now, how favorably would I treat Nellie, Irvin or Modano on-air if they gave me 500,000 dollars? Or did a deal with me worth 5 million dollars, or 15 million dollars, or 50 million dollars?
      Human nature must be served. Home mortgages must get paid. Corporate logic must rule all.
      My take is not driven by "jealousy'' or "bitterness'' or some denial of the fact that my radio show has too many times over the last decade eaten 1310 The Ticket's ratings dust. (Humbly and for the record, I won my share of battles from 1995-2000, but haven't won any since. Five years of eating dust! Dammit!. ... and as I re-read that sentence, it strikes me that I might be suffering from Bob Sturm's very clever "Good Old Days Syndrome.'') Finishing second -- or 40th -- is a part of radio life. At least mine, anyway!
      Nor is my ominous prediction meant as a personal attack on any of the hosts. This concern isn't about bashing The Ticket. (However, as an aside, I realize my 800-pound-gorillas-having-intercourse-and-producing-a-bastard-child visual was a bit unsavory. And instead of labeling the station a "whorehouse,'' "frat house'' would've been a superior analogy) Those boys have created a big, funny monster, and good for them. As I've said before (to their faces, even), Gordon Keith is brilliant, George Dunham is a nice guy, Bob Sturm is a nice guy, Dan McDowell is a nice guy, Mickey Spagnola is a workhorse, Greg Williams is (secretly) a helluva guy, Mike Rhyner is sharp enough to have envisioned the whole thing, and Norm Hitzges remains my long lost uncle. I've known most of those fellas for 16 years, and while some of them profess to no longer liking me, I like 'em all just fine.
      No, it's not about what The Ticket is.
      It's about what The Ticket might become. What all mainstream sports media might become: Another package on the shelf containing ConAgra-like canned mush.
      I fear the radio station will inevitably and inexorably become part of the homogenous and incestuous dog-pile orgy of sports media, or what now passes for sports coverage in Dallas: news conferences where no news is released, op-ed pieces that offer no "ops,'' beat writers who lunch together and share notes, corporate suits instructing, i.e, ordering, hosts to think and say what the suits need them to think and say.
      Don't believe me? Come jump into the Byzantine dogpile with me!
      The Dallas Morning News sports section rarely has an opinion on anything anymore -- and in many cases, that's probably a good thing inasmuch as some of the writers are not qualified to have opinions. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram boasts a host of talented employees -- and just as many scared or lazy ones, all led by nincompoop bosses who ought to stick with cutting horses and sewing bees. Channel 8, one of the rare TV stations with resources, could really push the Morning News, but won't, because they're actually the same company and how do you compete with yourself? Channel 5 is partnered up with the Star-Telegram. Writers at the Star-Telegram work for ESPN Radio. Which is owned by ABC. Which is owned by Disney. Channel 11 is CBS, as are a bunch of radio stations in town. Newspapers that used to vie for design awards now feature websites that all look exactly the same. And the same. And the same. All the FM stations play the identical audio-air-brushed Jessica Simpson yodels and virtually every radio station in D/FW is part of a chain, its employees no more important to the parent company than this conglomerate's Clear Channel billboards or that conglomerate's Susquehanna pottery.
      (And to think, just six years ago, I was nudged out of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram -- given just enough time to clean out of my office all my "Employee of the Year'' awards -- because conflict-of-interest-minded management ordered me to choose between newpaper and radio!)
      And how, in the near future, will sports information be handled and distributed?
      A sensible guess: The same way Clear Channel handles billboards and Susquehanna distributes pottery and McDonald's handles and distributes hamburgers.
      Ah, for some good old-fashioned American competition. ...
      Hey, my old station, 570 KLIF, now they could give The Ticket a run for their mon. ... oh. That's right. The same company owns both stations.
      How about WBAP vs. ESPN? Now that'd be. ... oh. That's right. The same conglomerate owns both those stations, too.
      Why didn't the Cowboys move back to good 'ol KRLD? ... oh. That's right. KRLD is owned by the same conglomerate that owns KLUV, which just parted ways with the Cowboys.
      How about competition from another newspaper! The Dallas Times-He. ... oh. That's right. The Morning News gobbled them up whole a decade ago.
      Hey, didn't the Star-Telegram used to. .. oh. That's right. Cutting horses and sewing bees.
      Nothing personal against The Ticket. I mean it. I listen to it. And nothing here meant to deny that there remains a pocket of DFW media types who do it their way and do it well. (You know who you are.) And I also try to support my own radio show (which we're trying to crank up on Texas Progressive Radio on 910AM in Dallas, 1600 AM in Austin and 103.1 FM in San Antonio), and I try to support the Dallas Observer, and I slave over a hot computer and provide a forum at DallasBasketball.com and DallasBlog.com.

     Heck, you must agree a little bit with my concern. ... or you wouldn't have searched out an alternative like DallasBlog.com!
      So no, nothing personal against the people. Just something personal about. .. what did I call it?
      "The homogenous and incestuous dog-pile orgy of sports media.'' Where popcorn and hamburger and pie filling and chicken nuggets and jelly and hotdogs and ice cream and pork chops and soy sauce and french fries and radio programming can all be canned together.
      I hereby apologize for seeming flippant, for seeming bitter, for seeming jealous, and for the nasty imagery of the humping gorillas. Erase that from the files of your mind.
      Replace it with "The homogenous and incestuous dog-pile orgy of sports media.''
      Until then, Stay Hard. While you still can.

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