Talk about walking into a hornet’s nest:
City Attorney Mike Aguirre hosted the Roger Hedgecock Show on KOGO 600 Tuesday. Hedgecock lets guest hosts run the show when he goes on vacation. These hosts invite guests of their own and act like, well, talk-show hosts.
Jerry Sanders is doing it in a couple of hours, for example.
Aguirre, for whatever reason (I mean, this is not very well thought out), thought it would be a good idea to invite Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson to appear on the show.
The Chargers responded with the proverbial finger.
CEO Dean Spanos issued a statement and didn’t mince his words:
“There is no way in hell that anyone associated with the Chargers will have anything to do with Mike Aguirre,” Spanos said.
Chargers special counsel Mark Fabiani blasted Aguirre for thinking this was a good idea. He said the Chargers received a call from Maria Velasquez, Aguirre’s press officer, requesting that Tomlinson appear on the show with Aguirre.
“What in the world are Aguirre and Velazquez smoking to make them think that the Chargers or LT would do anything to allow Aguirre’s toxic, bilious personality to infect the Chargers’ exciting season in any way?” Fabiani said.
Velazquez said she wasn’t smoking anything. She called Chargers’ press officer Bill Johnston, whom she’s known for years, and he was more gracious. Velazquez said that Johnston told her simply that Tomlinson wouldn’t be available for the interview because it was his only day off. Velazquez reported that Johnston told her, in fact, that they were turning down interview requests from media across the country.
I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this, actually, because it’s very illustrative of something I’ve been thinking lately. But give me a minute, I’m starving.
Update: I have trouble with dates. I originally put that Aguirre was on the Hedgecock show Wednesday. I meant yesterday, Tuesday.