“It’s YOUR show … TAKE IT OVER!”

Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton returns to the SoCal airwaves this week on XX 1090 AM

(Ed. note: Our first installment of the Entertainer Time Capsule featured a 1997 interview with Hamilton, which you can read here.)

Sports radio in San Diego has gone through quite a few changes in the past year. Last Fall, the Clear Channel crowd over at Xtra Sports 1360 AM decided that the tenure of the prominent, longtime San Diego sports talk personality Lee “Hacksaw” Hamilton had come to an end (although we’re guessing this had to do with budget restraints more than anything). Then, in an unprecedented move, Xtra decided to simply eliminate their entire lineup, aside from the afternoon drive time show – rendering them, for all intensive purposes, useless for local analysis.

Then, in an amazingly awful decision by the brass at XX 1090 AM, “Philly” Billy Werndl was fired, Darren Smith was switched to the afternoons, and the evening drive time show – now called “The Bleacher Bums” – was taken over by ATL Earl and Jordan “Downtown” – two out-of-towner hacks who had no prior experience in radio except as loudmouthed callers.

The show had good intentions, trying to give preference to the callers over constant monologues from the hosts. But it quickly devolved into name calling, with the pinnacle coming when Jordan said on the air that all-time San Diego favorite Ladanian Tomlinson shoud shove the turkeys from his popular Thanksgiving Turkey Drive up his @$$. The angry calls flooded in and Jordan sealed his fate. Not surprisingly, the show bombed and the two were phased out as Padres season kicked into gear.

But with XX’s morning show team – featuring former field goal kicker tryout Scott Kaplan and longtime Chargers linebacker Billy Ray Smith – off for the week, station honchos chose”Hacksaw” to return to the San Diego airwaves for the first time in nearly a year.

Listening to Hacksaw on the way to work this morning, he seemed a bit more subdued than his usual self (probably due to waking up at the ungodly hour of 4 am), but his show was quite an improvement from the usual antics of the regular morning show (i.e. talking about reality television, repeating tired sound effects, doing their best to avoid discussing the hot topics of the day). Hamilton had substance, intrigue and his knowledge about sports across the board (not just NFL, MLB and NBA like most other sports radio hosts) was phenomenal and as sharp as ever. “Hacksaw’s Headlines” at the top of every hour covered more sports than I think I’ve ever heard covered in listening to XX for an entire two years. He even talked … hockey (gasp!). If you need further proof of Hacksaw’s abilities, listen to this morning’s interview with Padres skipper Buddy Black, where Hamilton covers topics and intricacies Scott & BR often never touch on.

But Hacksaw will only be on the air for this week, so, San Diegans, tune in to XX from 5-9 am to hear some intelligent discussion on the Padres, the Chargers and other happenings in the world of sports. And no Hacksaw posting could end without a … GOOD NIGHT NOW!