BAM!
If you’re a South Florida sports fan, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Dan Le Batard. He’s a polarizing figure. A lot of people love to hate him, but I love to love him.
Le Batard, a now-infrequent columnist for The Miami Herald, the host of The Dan Le Batard Show on 790 The Ticket and a frequent guest on ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, is one of the newest big names in sports writing.
I consider him to be the best sports columnist out there today, trailed closely by Greg Cote, another sports columnist at The Miami Herald.
I enjoy Le Batard’s view of sports as just another entertainment fixture. He’s willing to take an unpopular view on different subjects and admits when he’s wrong. But more than anything, he’s funny as hell.
Le Batard is an interesting twist on the mutli-platform journalist. He started as a writer in 1991 with The Miami Herald, though his impact in writing has gone back to his days at the University of Miami where he once published then-Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz’s phone number in The Miami Hurricane and encouraged readers to call all week leading up to the game to distract the coach.
In 2004 Le Batard, along with co-host John “Stugotz” Weiner, started The Dan Le Batard Show. It was an instant success. Le Batard’s quick-witted sense of humor and the quirkiness prevalent in his columns translated well to radio, winning him accolades along the way. The Le Batard show also gives long-time readers insight into his thought process while writing a column. Though he won’t say it, a prevalent sports theme in a week’s worth of shows will most likely make his almost-weekly columns. I must add though, Le Batard is known for not talking about sports just as much as talking about them.
Le Batard has most recently expanded his skills to television broadcast as a frequent guest host on ESPN’s ever-popular Pardon the Interruption.
All of the love I have for Lebby leads me to ask, why not go online? I’ve seen a slide show or two with his name buried in the credits but not much else. Why not blog? I wouldn’t mind pulling up a fake sports blog a couple of times a week. But alas, you can’t do it all.
Columns:
Radio:
- Retired guest, Fake Pavarotti, singing about Dolphins QB Trent Green
- Dan Le Batard interviews Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe one day after Marlins president David Samson remarked that Ichiro Suziki’s new contract would ruin baseball
