Two radio sportscasters are calmly discussing the judge'sruling to allow disputed evidence in the O.J. Simpson pretrialhearings.
'If there was evidence in my house that I did it, then Ideserve to get whatever's comin' to me, baby!' declares 'the Coach,'Rich Gilgallon, on Washington's WTEM.
Chuck Dickerson of Buffalo's WGR begs to differ with theruling. 'That was the most cowardly thing I've ever seen!' heshouts.
'It was good!' Gilgallon insists.
'The Fourth Amendment is dead!' Dickerson shoots back. 'Onedrop of blood? I want more than that before you bust my door down.'
'Whaddaya want, a gallon of blood out there?' Gilgallon says.
Hour after hour, programs normally devoted to rambunctiousdebates over World Cup soccer or NBA draft picks are exploring thefiner points of search warrants and DNA testing as the Simpson dramadominates the world of sports radio.
Sports columnists, many of whom have known the Juice for years,are also grappling with the case. Sports Illustrated ran a coverstory on the murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Goldman - andreprinted a 1973 piece on No. 32 breaking the 2,000-yard barrier.On TV, all-sports network ESPN serves up regular updates with itsown legal analysts, and ESPN-2 carried the Los Angeles hearingslive.
But it is on the radio, where everyone's an expert, that thecase really reverberates with 24-hour intensity.
'There are certain times when we probably delve into stuffwhere we don't belong,' says Mike Francesa, a popular host on NewYork's WFAN radio. 'What we have is an expertise in sports, and reallife kind of bumps into sports. I feel more comfortable with thelegal stuff than the medical stuff, where I really feel out of myelement. You're talking about words a mile and a half long.'
Says Tony Kornheiser, a Washington Post columnist who hosts amorning show on WTEM: 'Every Podunk in America has an all-sportsstation, and many of them are doing it very irresponsibly: `Is heguilty, is he innocent, let us know what you think.' We're all atthe bottom of the barrel on this one.'
This is a game that anyone can play, for the Simpson saga hasbecome a national obsession, the ultimate coffee shop debate. TheNew York Post even runs a daily 'O.J.-OMETER,' with a dial thatkeeps inching toward guilty. For sports stations, the case hasbrought an influx of listeners who wouldn't know Joe Gibbs from JoeMontana.
'Everyone is becoming either a prosecutor or a defenseattorney,' says Bennett Zier, general manager of 'the Team,' as WTEMbills itself. 'Whether you walk into Neiman Marcus or the bar atHouston's, someone's asking the question: Do you think he did it?'
In this environment, nothing is out of bounds on jock radio.The airwaves are crackling with talk of Simpson as a black man whomarried a white woman, of the groupies that hang around starathletes, of reports that Simpson used cocaine in the '70s. And muchof this talk is couched in the lingo of the medium.
'I'm not going to Monday-morning-quarterback what the policedid,' says a caller named Ronnie. 'Right now the only defense is astrong offense,' says attorney Abbe Lowell.
Sue from Rockville is on the line.
She heard on the news - she's not sure where - that anotherformer Buffalo Bills player had been mysteriously slashed in thethroat.
'They hushed it up right away,' she confides.
'They hushed it up?' says WTEM's Kevin Kiley.
'You haven't heard any more about it!' Sue responds.
She begins weaving a complicated scenario: What if it wasNicole Simpson's dog that deposited the now-famous bloody glove atthe murder scene?
Kiley plays along: 'So let me get this straight: The dog pickedup the glove, hopped in the Bronco. ... At least it's a newtheory.'
There's no shortage of speculation in radio land, where somecallers insist O.J. is covering up for a friend. 'How could oneperson kill those two people?' asks Ron. 'Assume for a minute thathe was under the influence of a drug. ...'
So why are sports stations putting this conspiratorial blatheron the air?
'People are not claiming to be experts about it,' says Zier.'Everyone's just speculating and giving their opinion. That's whattalk radio is.
'When someone calls up and tells Johnny Oates {the Oriolesmanager} who to pitch that night, how is it any different? Are theyqualified? Have they played baseball? Sadly enough, O.J.'s trialhas become a spectator sport.'
'Coach' Gilgallon, a former bartender at Chadwicks and onetimegarbage dump worker, defends his rough-edged commentary.
'I don't think you need to be a constitutional lawyer to beable to read the Fourth Amendment,' he says. 'Everyone has the rightto their opinion on this thing. We give people an opportunity to beKojak or Columbo and let them vent their spleen. We must have had 50lawyers call us this week with their two cents.'
Francesa concedes that live radio can get out of hand.'Sometimes you get a little frivolous,' he says. 'When you look atall the evidence, there's a tendency to say, `Jeez, this guy didit,' just like if you were sitting in a bar somewhere. You try toguard against it.'
Howard from Brooklyn is on the line.
'Personally, I do think his son did it,' he says.
'What have you seen in this whole thing in three weeks thatindicts his son in any way?' asks WFAN's 'Mad Dog' ChristopherRusso.
'Several people have access to his cars and his house, and hisson was one of them. ... You have a father who has been torn awayfrom his son and has married another woman. I came by the samesituation where the father has married another woman and that son isblaming the other woman.'
'Boy, that's an amateur psychiatrist,' Mad Dog says.
With growing frequency, sports journalism has had to cope withdisturbing stories - Magic Johnson and AIDS, the Monica Selesstabbing, Mike Tyson's rape conviction, the Nancy Kerrigankneecapping, Jennifer Capriati's drug arrest, the murder of aColombian soccer player - that seem to dwarf what transpires betweenthe white lines.
'I enjoy covering the games, but it's also interesting to beable to do `real news' for a change, and not just the toy departmentstuff we're always being accused of,' says Rachel Shuster, a USAToday sports columnist.
But, says Shuster, many fans 'would like us to stick to theballs and strikes and are almost offended when we decide to touch onthe broader issues. There are still people who find refuge insports.'
For some, the Simpson story is all too personal. Manysportswriters and sportscasters, from ABC's Al Michaels to Postcolumnist Michael Wilbon, have tried to reconcile the sweet guy theyknew with the man accused of stabbing two people to death.
'We know O.J. Simpson personally from having been around him invarious circumstances having to do with football,' WGR's Dickerson,a former Bills line coach, says on his program. 'O.J. Simpson theman, nobody really knew. ... What we know is the game face.'
Not everyone is chasing the journalistic pack. Since itsinitial cover story, Sports Illustrated has steered clear of theSimpson case.
'I don't think it's a story for us,' says Managing Editor MarkMulvoy. 'You don't want to make Sports Illustrated into CrimeIllustrated. I don't know that the sports-reading public is all thatinfatuated with this stuff. I wonder if it would be all over sportsradio if the hockey and basketball playoffs were still going on.'
Jack from Washington is on the line with a theory about Brian'Kato' Kaelin, the aspiring actor who was staying in Simpson's guesthouse.
'I don't know about this guy Kato,' Jack says. 'I was watching`American Journal,' and Kato and Nicole had a romantic session, asreported by Kato's ex-wife.'
'If one more person calls and says I saw it on `AmericanJournal' or `A Current Affair,' I'm hanging up on them,' snapsWFAN's Paul Nanos. 'Kato's ex-wife - now there's a reliablesource.'
Are we approaching a saturation point? Let's go to the phonesand ask Doc, a regular WTEM caller.
'I've got a prediction, man,' Doc says. 'Whether we think O.J.is guilty or innocent, before this is over we're all going to besick and tired of it.'
