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Royals hope irritating sports talk radio host doesn’t show
By JEFFREY FLANAGANThe Kansas City Star
T he Royals will be keeping a watchful eye on who’s hanging around Alex Gordon over the next few days.
The Royals are hoping that a spring-training incident involving Dallas sports-talk station KTCK and Gordon’s wife, Jamie, won’t escalate during the Royals’ three-game series with the Texas Rangers, which starts tonight.
The incident occurred toward the end of spring training when an afternoon sports talker at the station interviewed Jamie and Luke Hochevar’s wife, Ashley, in the stands at Surprise Stadium, where the Royals and Rangers share the campus. As the sport talker did his interview from the stands, the show’s other co-hosts listened and commented on the interview from the press box — Jamie and Ashley could not hear those comments.
The seemingly harmless interview took a nasty turn when Jamie was asked whether she knew who Yoko Ono was. When she said she did not, someone back in the booth or at the station hit a “drop” button that spewed the words “stupid b....” over the air. The same drop button was hit again moments later after Jamie answered another question.
Then later in the interview, one of the show’s hosts made crude innuendos about Jamie and Ashley, urging his interviewer to “try and get them to kiss.”
Royals upper management got wind of the interview and was furious, as was Gordon. Royals vice president of communications Mike Swanson demanded an apology from the station and the hosts.
“Having to play the interview for Alex was not an enviable task,” Swanson said. “Then one of the show’s hosts told me he wouldn’t apologize directly to Alex because that was my job as a liaison. That really got me upset.”
Gordon admitted last week that a face-to-face meeting at the time of the incident probably wasn’t wise anyway.
“I guess everyone thought a fight might happen,” Gordon said.
Gordon said neither he nor Jamie, whom he married last fall, got an apology from the station.
“But she’s OK,” Gordon said.
Swanson said he did get an apology from KTCK program director Jeff Catlin, though Swanson added that the show’s hosts would not be permitted to air a show from Surprise Stadium next spring when the Royals are the designated home team.
“My main concern now is that no one tries to start anything with Alex while we’re in Texas,” Swanson said. “If those guys have credentials they can obviously enter the clubhouse. But we just don’t want any more incidents.”
Catlin did not return a call Monday afternoon.
The ‘A’ list
ESPN draft guru Mel Kiper Jr. issued his post-draft grades, and the Chiefs were the only team to get an “A” from the professor.
By the way, Kiper believes Tennessee tight end Brad Cottam could be a diamond in the rough and cornerback Brandon Carr could be a sleeper.