I usually don’t write posts where I completely bash people, but I have to stand up for a guy who kept me company on many late nights. I don’t mean in any homo-erotic way at all. I have the weirdest sleeping schedule of anyone I know. I spend many late nights awake trying to sleep with little or no success. I found an FM talk radio station here in Columbus, OH, 103.9FM. About 6 months ago, I started listening to programming there on a very regular basis. I found that they had the Dan Patrick Show and also Fox Sports Radio programming. I mostly listened to late nights with JT The Brick on air from post-primetime to 2am and Ben Maller and the Third Shift crew from 2am-6am. I ended up listening to Ben Maller’s Third Shift program the most and I really enjoyed it.

I read today that Ben Maller and the rest of the Third Shift crew (Karen Kay, Vlad, and Bergie) were all fired on January 20th of this year. Maller is still employed by Fox, he is in charge of the rumors section at Foxsports.com/rumors. I was stunned, he was very brazen, but loyal to his return callers. I know the economy is bad and advertising is hard to come by, but Maller and the rest of the Third Shift crew made my sleepless nights tolerable.

I have called the show 3-4 times, using the nicknames of “Pacer Bob” and “Bobby The Temp.” He put me on the air every time I called, ’cause I have a “hot sports opinion.” I would tease him about Manny Ramirez and say that the Dodgers owner would build new youth parks instead of signing him.

Some of Maller’s antics included letting the audience vote on an NFL team that he root for in the upcoming season, letting the listener’s call in unscreened at times to give advice to a sports figure who was in trouble, and even sabotaging Bergie’s wikipedia page with false information once he realized that Bergie had a page. He would call listeners a “jackass” on a constant basis, but it was because many of the callers would be drunk or buzzed when they called in. It was truly a must-listen if you are up from 2am-6am EST.

I wish Ben Maller, Karen Kay, Vlad, and the loverboy, Bergie all the luck in the world and would like to thank them for many hours of entertainment. I hope to hear them “in the air, everywhere,” very soon.