Mike Claiborne, a veteran of 25 years of sports talk radio, had one of his finest moments last week when he refused to let 86-year-old Bob Feller slip several racist comments into an interview on KFNS.
Claiborne and Kevin Slaten had Feller on as a guest on their show “The Bottom Line” last Thursday when Feller inexcusably let loose of several racist comments directed at Carribbean players, including this gem: “A lot of the players coming from the Caribbean, they don’t even know the rules.” Claiborne asked him to explain which rules the players do not undertand, and Feller uttered some nonsense about the umpires needing to tell them what to do. Claiborne, rightly, continued to ask Feller what he meant by the remarks, and Feller became agitated and threatened to end the interview. “If you don’t be quiet, I’m going to cut this off,” Feller snapped.
“You can cut it off right now, as far as I’m concerned, you racist,” Claiborne said as Feller hung up.
Claiborne later called Feller out of his name during the show, but stuck by the fact he labeled Feller a racist on live radio.
Claiborne told Post-Dispatch media columnist Dan Caesar, “For the most part, I understood where he was coming from regarding how the game is being marketed and things of that nature. But when he says the Caribbean players don’t even know the rules, that raises a flag. So I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He didn’t want to address it. I tried to politely ask him; I wasn’t trying to hang him out to dry. He got offended by it, but I said what I said and I stand by it.”
And the SportsEye stands by you, Mike.