This would be a good time to be a drive-time disc jockey in medium-sized city with a persecution complex. If I were, I’d be working under the radio name of Resentful in the Morning, and I’d stir up my listeners to join me in a natural disdain for our local baseball team’s archrivals, whom I would cleverly refer to as the Florida Morons. Actually, I would have started on Friday, in anticipation of their weekend visit, announcing the phone number of their hotel. Hey, I’d say, why don’t we give Fredi “GONER”-zalez a jingle and welcome him to our town where we know how to play baseball?
“Here’s the number,” I’d say. “Dial it and give that ol’ GONER a real Resentful wakeup call!”
Then you’d hear my sidekick ring a cowbell and echo my sentiments that “We’re gonna make Fredi a GONER by Sunday!” To punctuate the point, we’d play “Freddie’s Dead” by Curtis Mayfield three times before the next newscast.
Of course Friday night I’d be hosting a Florida Moron Fish Fry in the stadium parking lot. You bring a dead fish and we’ll gut it on the air, because that’s what we’re gonna do to those Florida Morons for the next three games. Every Resentful in the Morning listener wearing a t-shirt with the station logo would then be issued his or very own Resentful in the Morning set of Hanley Wipes because we are going to WIPE THE FLOOR WITH HANLEY RAMIREZ!
It would actually be a roll of toilet paper from Walmart because this is a mid-market station and we don’t have much of a promotional budget, but we make up for the lack of resources with community spirit. Thus, when Hanley Ramirez comes to bat, my sidekick would be sure to remind our Resentful listeners to unspool those limited-edition Hanley Wipes and LET HIM KNOW WHAT WE THINK OF THE BIGGEST MORON OF THEM ALL! [1]
Then we’d blare “Freddie’s Dead” three or four times as we fried more fish.
Come Monday, after we crowed about having swept the Morons, particularly the way they let a big lead get away on Sunday [2], we’d call that disc jockey in Miami with whom we’d made a big bet on Friday. He has to send us a hundred coconuts, not only because we in our medium-sized city think that’s all they’ve got in Florida but because, as my sidekick likes to say in between ringing his cowbell, MORONS DON’T HAVE NO BRAINS IN THEIR COCONUTS! We’d then laugh hysterically and play “Freddie’s Dead” as we kicked off our WHEN’S FREDI GONNA BE GONE? countdown.
After the traffic report, we’d give our third caller — third because we just won all three games against our archrivals — the honor of joining the Resentful in the Morning team at the biggest post office in town this afternoon as we mail all those fish guts from the Fish Fry to Hanley Ramirez, care of them dang stupid [3] Florida Morons.
Yeah, if I were a drive-time disc jockey in a medium-sized city with a persecution complex, that’s how I’d do it. But since I’m not, I think I’ll accept these three Mets wins over the Marlins with quiet dignity.