Bob Collins
Everything that’s wrong with bro-talk radio can pretty much be summed up with a Boston sportscaster’s rant against Roy Halladay on the day after Halladay — about as decent a person as ever existed — crashed his plane into the Gulf of Mexico and died.
There’s certainly some criticism to make about Halladay the pilot; humans make mistakes.
But Michael Felger went far over the line on his radio diatribe in which he said Halladay got what he deserved.
“It just sort of angers me,” Felger said. “You care that little about your life? Or about the life of your family? Your little joyride is that important to you? . . . With your hand out the window: ‘Weeee! Weeee! Yeah, man, look at the G-force on this! I’m Maverick, pyew pyew! Yeah, man, look at this, this is so cool!’ And you die. Splat. And it’s over. So you’re that guy? You have to do that?
Nobody stepped in to stop him.
He also celebrated the death of Dale Earnhardt.
“Was it Dale Earnhardt who died? The race car driver who died? I root for the wall. I really do. That ain’t no tragedy,” he said.
The tirade has sparked calls for his radio station to fire Felger.
It probably won’t.
[Update 2:32 p.m.] The broadcaster “apologized” at the beginning of his show on Thursday.
“In a nutshell I would say that I feel bad about what happened on a lot of levels. I feel bad about what I said and how I conducted myself. To say it was over the top and insensitive is really stating the obvious. It was obviously those things.”
“I could come in and say ‘I apologize if I offended anyone,’ but that’s fake and hollow and everyone hates that, don’t you? Isn’t that the worst, when someone comes in and says that? Besides the only folks that I would really want to extend that to are the loved ones of Halladay. They’re the ones dealing with enough right now not to have to have me come over the top and do what I did yesterday. So, sorry doesn’t do that justice as it relates to them. That one’s going to stick with me for a while, as it relates to them.”
“I meant part of what I said yesterday, and there were parts I didn’t mean. It was just dumb hyperbole. The Earnhardt thing falls in that second category. That was just dumb hyperbole. I didn’t mean that. There is stuff that I did mean, but the presentation and the tone and the hyperbole was just low class, bad, not good. I don’t feel good about it.
“I regret my conduct yesterday. I believe what I believe, I do, but the tone and the hysterics were really uncalled for. To say ‘inappropriate and over the line’ is just stating the obvious, they’re clearly those things and it really goes without saying. I have no defense, I have no explanation. I’m not asking for any sympathy or a break or anything. … What I’ve gotten, I’ve deserved. I’ve deserved what I’ve gotten in the last day or so.”
