White Sox And Black Holes

Sunday May 17th, 2009 - Milwaukee, WI/Kenosha, WI

Here’s a nifty nugget of obscure baseball trivia knowledge even if you don’t like sports. Former Chicago White Sox outfielder Carlos May was born on this date in 1948 making him 61 years old today. He originally wore uniform number 29 but later changed it to 17.

What makes it so significant is he’s been the only professional athlete to wear his birth date on his uniform - ‘May 17’. That’s one of the coolest trivia questions I’ve ever heard and I was able to partially dazzle or at least temporarily perplex quite a few of the people who attended the sports card show up at Gonzaga Hall in Milwaukee today. It was fun.

Nothing gets a sports geek’s juices flowing like a skull buster trivia question and I’m a big one myself so I understand the concept fully. It’s fun to be stumped for at least a little while but then it gets to the point where a person just has to know. That’s how today was.

People were guessing former Brewers pitcher Don August but he was born in July. I’m not sure what his uniform number was but pitchers usually have higher numbers so if it’s higher than 31 that would take him out. People were fascinated by this question as was I.

I do love a good trivia question and I’ve been compiling a list of the best ones I’ve ever heard for as long as I can remember. When I was in radio I was smart enough to write the best ones down so I could use them over again and I’ve got a file that would choke a yak.

If I ever do land a full time radio gig again I’ll be able to hit the ground running but it’s not likely I’ll ever get the chance. However, every time I say I’m through with radio a job comes out of nowhere and I’m back in it again. I’ll just let it happen however it develops.

For now I’m having great fun on two radio fronts even though I’m not getting paid. The WGN experience yesterday was great and so was the Mothership Connection in Kenosha, WI tonight on WLIP. Talk about your polar opposites in every way. WGN is one of THE broadcast entities on the planet and WLIP is in a studio the size of a teenager’s bedroom.

WGN is a 50,000 watt blowtorch that reaches thirty some states and half of Canada. It’s the flagship station of the Chicago Cubs and it rakes in millions of dollars in revenue each year. WLIP is nowhere near a blowtorch. It’s more like a Bic lighter running low on fluid.

Still, it’s great fun to do the show there each week and I want it to continue and get a lot better. The content is pretty good I must say but it could use more flash like sound effects and music beds and stuff like that. That will improve in time but I’m dealing with a goose egg for a budget so I have very limited resources to draw from. At least we’re on the air.

Tonight’s show was very strong. We had two solid guests - one talked about UFOs and the other talked about ghost sightings in Illinois. They were interesting and I kept the flow going the whole time. I love hosting the show because it’s good practice and I feel totally at home with the topics, guests and my co-hosts. A few bucks would sure be nice though.