Afternoon Pressbox RIP

In a radio landscape scarred with wannabe Cowherds, Romes, and Patricks, 560 AM's "Afternoon Pressbox", hosted by Bill King and Joe Biddle, was a rare sonic beacon of hope when it came to the sports talk scene. With a cast of call in regulars that rivaled the Andy Griffith show, listening to the Pressbox every afternoon was comfort food for my ears and brain. Bill King, while a native of Middle Tennessee, is one of the nation's top college recruiting gurus, a one man encyclopedia of decades worth of NCAA lore and statistics. His morning show on Rivals radio is reason enough to subscribe to Sirius. Joe Biddle meanwhile has been a fixture of the Nashville sports media for decades, and his columns for the Tennessean are a mixture of wry Southern humor and invaluable perspective. The best thing about the Pressbox was its avoidance of all the usual cliches and tired mechanics that seem to drive most contemporary sports talk programs, ie tabloid style gossip, sophomoric humor, sound bite props, and most importantly, antagonism to callers. Bill and Joe offered calm and humorous commentary on current sports happenings, always more concerned with anecdotes and statistics than the latest garbage about Tiger, Favre, the Jets, Lebron, ad nauseam. And they weren't SEC apologists, another thing that's pretty rare in these parts. Bill and Joe could put Vols and Wildcats fans in their place, sometimes give Commodore fans a little comfort, and they always had time to indulge a starved Big 10 or Big 12 fan. Oh, and they also didn't feel the need to wave Predators or Titans flags like the other corporate cheerleaders that seem to hold sway on Middle Tennessee's airwaves.
As refreshing a set of ship captains as Bill and Joe were, they always had an admirable set of call in contributors to their radio land "McHale's Navy". Preeminently was the Knoxville regular "Cosby", who called in every day from a pay phone to vent about something Vols related, usually sounding like he was halfway through a case of light beer and with a diction that recalled Goober. Or maybe he was a one man incarnation of the Fun Girls from Mount Pilot. Truth be told, none of us as loyal listeners really knew the score.
On Friday, Bill announced on air that he and Joe had mutually decided to call it a day. Bill has his plate full with Rivals, and Joe wants to have a bit of time away from radio to focus solely on the world of print. I would like to think that the fans of the Pressbox constitute a kind of "silent majority" (i was always a silent part of that group, having never called in to the show) who long for sanity, etiquette, and informed commentary when it comes to the world of sports media. Let's hope someone can pick up the torch.