Nothing moves the sports talk radio meter like a heavy dose of controversy. KNBR in San Francisco has a good one within its own walls.
Ralph Barbieri had been a fixture at KNBR for 28 years before he was fired last week. The veteran sports talk host worked an afternoon shift with former NBA player Tom Tolbert.
Barbieri is 66 and suffers from Parkinson’s disease. His attorney, Angela Alioto claims he was unfairly terminated.
A San Francisco Examiner story reports:
While station managers reportedly told Barbieri he was being fired for tardiness, Alioto said that the termination was motivated by age and disability discrimination, because Barbieri, 66, suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Though the condition is apparently slow-developing, Alioto said he takes dozens of pills a day to control it.
“They told him he’s not peppy and energetic,” she said. “He goes to work every day, it’s just that he’s not as perky as he used to be.”
Alioto told the San Jose Mercury-News:
“The whole tardiness issue is just a cover-up to get rid of someone who is sick,” Alioto said by phone, noting that Barbieri was likely to rack up huge medical bills in future years.
KNBR VP Bill Bungeroth refuted the claims.
“It is disappointing that Ralph’s lawyers have issued a press release filled with inaccurate statements and baseless accusations,” Bungeroth said. “The simple fact is that Ralph refused to honor some of the most basic terms of his contract.”
Looks like this one will land in the courts, and not a basketball court.
Cumulus has a reputation out here that is as despised as it is notorious. They are the one-percenters, of local media. The cardboard worded press release by Bungeroth is all you need to know about the blatancy of their unaccountability to anything other than stepping over people. Cold blooded little snakes from Atlanta GA.
I never could stand Ralph’s schtick, but he was popular and self-honest as he can be. Angela Alioto is as tenacious as her old man former SF mayor Joe was. If you recall Joe and Al Davis beat Pete Rozelle and the other NFL owners senseless over their anti-trust suit, when they attempted to prevent the Raiders going south to LA.
One last bleat here. Nationally SF reputation is as kind of a loose, nihilistic, semi- transient populace, with a few inner-city neighborhoods scattered here and about. Which is true. What is also true is that the provincialism is still very strong. The first thing out of any native-born’s mouth to another is “Wheredija goto highschool”. We’re all about 3 degrees of seperation regardless of age it has seemed through the years. I only bring this up because there is a very strong resistance to outsiders when the boat is rocked.
Kids and perceived underdogs are allowed to rock the boat. Suits are not. It has been this way since the gold-rush. Just ask John York and Willie Mays. Mays was never accepted the same way Dimaggio was, and nobody that followed Mays in centerfied for the Giants was cut slack either. Its still that way.
I think all the parties know that. I think Ralph wants to get his side of the story in front of a San Francisco jury. If he does, I don’t think Cumulus stands much of a chance. Just look at the joke a FEDERAL jury made out of the prosecution’s case in the Barry Bonds trial. “He mislead the grand jury on some of his activities when friends were at his house” 30 days house arrest and that is 50/50 to get overturned.
If I was betting, I would bet a lot on Ralph and Angela. She doesn’t need the publicity anymore. Her political career is over. She is on a mission and an Alioto attorney on a mission with home field advantage is somebody you shouldn’t be messing with.