The Nine Most Annoying Types of Sports Radio Callers

Send in the Clones.

​Hair Balls likes to listen to sports radio. We aren't exactly sure why, but we do. We've got a bunch of stations to choose from in Houston, which gives us lots of opportunities to hear interviews, analysis and banter, some good, some bad, about all things sports.

As syndicated host Jim Rome is fond of saying, "The show is always better when there is more of me and less of you." The "you" he is referring to are the callers. Callers drive sports radio, but they are, by and large, predictable at best and downright embarrassing at worst. Occasionally, someone who has a good take calls in and things go well. That is rare, however, and we should know. We've been annoying sports radio callers ourselves. We're not proud of it.

For all of us who enjoy sports radio but wish that the smart people who we assume are listening would call in and save us from the crazies, here is our list of the nine most annoying types of sports radio callers.

9. Interrupting Guy
Sports radio hosts can be boisterous, obnoxious and even downright stupid, but understanding the ebb and flow of how they handle calls saves all of us a lot of awkward wincing when the caller keeps trying to break into the host's response. The result is either a cacophony of random voices yelling wildly or a bunch of broken phrases like "and I..." "but..." and "uh, well..." in between every syllable of the host's chatter.

Every caller gets a chance to rant at the beginning of the call. Seize the moment, then let the host do his job.

8. Remember Me Guy
We aren't talking about the guy who calls in to gloat (more on that below). This is the guy that either met one of the hosts at an event three years ago or called in six months ago to talk about NBA trade scenarios and thinks that because of those two-minute interactions the host should be all, "Hey, Bob! Man, I haven't seen you in ages. How's the family?"

Hundreds of callers make their way onto the airwaves every week. More show up at events. The chances a host will remember you are slim, so just say your peace and save yourself the embarrassment.

7. I Told You So Guy
This is the worst of the "remember me" variety. This is the guy who calls in the day after his prediction, obnoxiously uttered on air the week before, comes true. He's a gloater. He's an asshole. What's worse, he's almost always a hypocrite because he would never call in and say, "Well, I guess I was wrong. I'm an idiot," when his prognostications turned out to be just the rantings of a moron.

There are very rare instances when guys call in to eat crow and we commend them for that, particularly if they were really smug on their previous call. But, normally, this is a jerk whose biggest moment in the last year came when he got the equivalent of one question right during the first round of Jeopardy. Congratulations, Nostradamus.

6. Conspiracy Guy
Teams lose. Most of the time they lose because the other team was better. They also lose because they don't execute or have things not go their way. We're confident that the officials don't set the outcome of most games, even in the NBA.

And despite the rampant east coast bias in the sports media and big market bias among television networks, there is no legitimate proof any league wants a specific franchise to win so badly, they will tilt the scales in their favor. If that were the case, the Knicks wouldn't be the shittiest team in the NBA and the Cowboys would have won more than one playoff game in the last decade.