RIP Les Grobstein

Recorded the famous Lee Elia rant. If you’ve listened to Chicago sports radio, you’ve heard Les. RIP, Grobber.

 

Never good to be "found" dead. RIP.

 

Planned a college spring break trip to Chicago and wrote Grobber at WLS to see about a station tour. He responded with a kind letter. Ended up watching Larry Lujack's show and actually got on the air, albeit briefly. Told that story to Les when I called into his overnight show, oh, probably a month ago.

Amazing storyteller and, man, did the guy know his sports history.

RIP, Les

 

This sucks. RIP to a longtime voice of Chicago.

People who are 30 or younger have no idea how popular morning radio DJs, news guys and sportscasters were back in the day. They were part of the wake-up, breakfast and morning commute of hundreds of thousands of people, simultaneously, in a way that the personalized world of podcasts and Spotify can never be.

 

The (partial) print version*, which oughta be engraved on a marble wall somewhere ...

“I'll tell you one fuckin' thing – I hope we get fuckin' hotter than shit just to stuff it up them three thousand fuckin' people that show up every fuckin' day. Because if they're the real Chicago fuckin' fans, they can kiss my fuckin' ass, right downtown, and print it! They're really, really behind you around here. My fuckin' ass! What ... what the fuck am I supposed to do? Go out there and let my fuckin' players get destroyed every day, and be quiet about it? For the fuckin' nickel/dime people that show up? The motherfuckers don't even work! That's why they're out at the fuckin' game! They oughta go out and get a fuckin' job and find out what it's like to go out and earn a fuckin' living. Eighty-five percent of the fuckin' world is working. The other fifteen come out here. A fuckin' playground for the cocksuckers. Rip them motherfuckers! Rip them country cocksuckers, like the fuckin' players! We've got guys bustin' their fuckin' asses, and those fuckin' people boo ... and that's the Cubs? My fuckin' ass! They talk about the great fuckin' support that the players get around here, I haven't seen it this fuckin' year!”

* FULL DISCLOSURE: THE PRINT VERSION IS NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.

 

I covered the Phillies when Elia was a coach
Great guy

 

This dredges up a horrible memory for me. I covered that game as a Dodgers beat writer. The Dodgers won, the Cubs sucked. I got more than enough for my story in the Dodgers clubhouse. The clubhouses are far apart at Wrigley, the visitors' upstairs behind first base, the Cubs' nearly all the way down the left field foul line. I didn't go to the Cubs clubhouse and I took the bus back to the hotel to write. I had no idea this happened. All I could do when it came out was tell the desk that I don't have this, there's no way I could get it, use wire as a sidebar. Not my finest hour.
It's a lesson on why you need to be there, why you can't cover games off TV, why it is difficult to rely on a phone call.

 

Who could expect you to be in the Cubs clubhouse at that moment?
Your priority was the Dodgers' room, and who knew Elia, or anyone, would go off like that?
But, of course, Lasorda would. Elia sounded pretty much like Daily Lasorda on that rant.

 

You pretty much explained my rationale. Thank you. But I still had trouble accepting that major news happened at a game I "covered" and I didn't get it.
Years later when I covered UCLA, I had a boss who said I didn't need to go to Terry Donahue's weekly press luncheon because you get what they give you and everybody gets the same thing. I said that I DID need to go because he goes off the record sometimes and what if he calls the opposing coach a war-monger, or something like that. He wouldn't but what if he did. You need to be there.
Thanks again.

 

Maybe the greatest rant of all-time. Today, the whole world would have it in 15 seconds (of course, that's precisely why it wouldn't happen today, but work with me people). Without Les, this never would have made it out of the room. RIP.