KABC’s Eric Tracy Gets the Final Word: Goodbye

“I won’t beat around the bush. We’ve decided your style just won’t fit our new morning show so we’re letting you go.”

And with that two weeks ago my 14-year broadcasting association with KABC Talkradio suddenly ended moments after what turned out to be my final sportscast for “the Ken and Barkley Company.” I didn’t like it, but I accepted it, knowing that Roger Barkley faced the same fate a week earlier. That’s show biz.

What really disappoints me, however, is that they never let me say goodbye. I bid farewell to many of my KABC colleagues in the couple of hours it took to clean out my locker, but I didn’t get to sign off with the listeners. You see that just isn’t done. Not at KABC and not in radio anywhere. In radio when they fire you, poof!, you just disappear. I didn’t even get the polite press release saying “Eric Tracy left KABC today to pursue other opportunities.” Why not? When a television series comes to an end they write a final episode. When a columnist leaves a newspaper he writes a wrap-up column. But not in radio. You just vanish without any explanation to the thousands of listeners who have come to know you. Inquiring minds want to know! It reminds me of when you call up a friend and his number’s been changed with no forwarding number. I hate that!

I know the new KABC management has a tough job trying to update the station’s image. And if they believe my “style” won’t fit with the “style” of the new “[Ken] Minyard & Tilden” morning show, so be it. Maybe they’re right. But, I still want to say goodbye. So here goes.

First, I want to thank KABC for the opportunity to wear a hundred broadcast hats over 14 years. I was never just “the sports guy” who only did Dodger shows for 13 baseball seasons. At various times I got to be the fill-in host first for Ken and Bob and then for Ken and Barkley. I hosted dozens of talk shows, filling in for Michael Jackson, Ira Fistel, even “Wink & Bill.” I was the news guy, the traffic guy, the weather guy and the on-the-scene disaster guy for the L.A. riots, the Topanga fires and the 1989 San Francisco earthquake.

Fortuitously assigned to cover the World Series at Candlestick Park, I ended up painting word pictures of the quake devastation for the next 36 hours. I’ll never forget the fear I experienced while reporting live from the Oakland Bay Bridge the morning after the earthquake. While phoning in a report to the Jackson program, I remember saying, “Michael, it just dawned on me as I’m leaning over this gaping hole, one slight tremor and I’m shark bait. I’ll call you back from terra firma.”

And thanks for the opportunity to co-host “Sportstalk” with Steve Edwards during and after the last baseball strike. It was the happiest 15 months of my broadcasting career. Remember Steve’s “Two on the Town”? We were “Two on Each Other’s Nerves” and I mean that in the best of ways as our on-air bickering was always in fun--for us and the audience.

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More importantly, I want to thank the KABC listeners. KABC refers to itself as a “heritage station,” a successful station that has become an integral part of the community. And that “heritage” was built on the special connection between the on-the-air personalities and the listeners, a connection encouraged by management as the key to a successful radio station.

So to those of you out there who have listened to me entertain, inform, inflame, encourage and grow up before your ears, thank you and for the time being, goodbye. Thanks for hanging in there with me even during the times I was trying on those different hats for the first time. Thanks for the letters. I tried to respond to every one, even the ones with “constructive criticism.” You reminded me there were real people out there. Rarely in this business does someone last as long as I did at one radio station, thanks to you. I’ll talk to you later.

What am I going to do now? Heck, I don’t know, it’s been a long time since I’ve been unemployed. I’m not planning to go anywhere. I love L.A. Maybe a TV game show? You got any other ideas?