560 WQAM Radio

If you live in South Florida, and you listen to sports radio, then you have to hear either WQAM 560 AM, WIOD 610 AM, or 790 AM (The Ticket). All of those stations have some bright spots, but usually they suck. Sports radio in South Florida is pretty bad.

Orlando Alzugaray is on from 5:00 to 7:00 a.m. and on some other odd shifts. Orlando is very well informed about football, and he seems to be the only one who ever goes to the Dolphins facility to watch them practice. He also goes to the draft combines every year and reports on the draft picks. He is the most professional and most knowledgeable member of WQAM. Unfortunately, Jim Mandich had some kind of problem with Orlando, and so Orlando is never on the Dophins first team for broadcasts. Mandich did not want Orlando doing sideline commentary during the games. Orlando is usually doing the pre-game show and usually does not get any talking time with the actual Dolphins hosts. I guess Orlando is not an ass-kisser like Joe Rose and Jimmy Syphillis. The rest of the WQAM talk hosts basically sit on their ass and read stories from the online websites and newspapers. Most of the ex-jocks are also ex-drug-addicts and ex-alcoholics (or in some cases, raging alcoholics), so you get that lazy-ass vibe all the time when they are on the air.

Jason Jackson is the current guy working the morning drive with Joe Rose. Jackson is not very interesting, but compared to Joe Rose he sounds like a genius. Anybody who works with Joe Rose sounds better. Does anyone remember Rocky Pendola?? Even he sounded good next to Joe Rose. Perhaps the worst thing about the WQAM morning show is that they have Drew Rosenhaus on every day to talk about luxury cars and how he is the world's greatest sports agent. I wonder if Rosenhaus has to pay for his advertising segment? Update: Jackson got moved to a mid-day show.


Joe Rose likes to call himself "Bucket-Head" and he is an unfortunate fixture on local radio in South Florida. For years he was on WQAM, and then he went to 790 until they got Sid Rosenberg and let Rose go. Sadly, WQAM picked Rose up again. Rose makes every obvious remark that you can imagine. He asks guests the dumbest questions, like "Have you been to the mall?" He usually asks members of the local teams (Miami Dolphins, Miami Heat, Florida Marlins, Florida Panthers) questions like "Have you had sex yet? Have you met lots of girls down here? Are you finding it easy to hook up? How often do you have sex? Has your wife ever turned you down?"

He also likes to sing his commercials, and his annoying voice cannot carry a tune. Rose thinks it is funny that he is the world's biggest asshole. I guess it is funny, since he has been getting paid a lot of money for many years to do the same moronic schtick. Who can blame Rose for laughing all the way to the bank? I do not listen to Rose now that Sid Rosenberg is on 790 The Ticket. Unfortunately, Rose is now doing the Miami Dolphins radio broadcasts with Jim Mandich and Jimmy Cefalo. This means you will hear Rose say things like "He caught the ball. That was a good catch. He can really catch the ball. He knows how to catch the ball. He can hold on to the ball. He is a good ball-catcher. Nobody can catch the ball like he can." OVER AND OVER AND OVER every time someone catches a ball.

Joe Rose used to play for the Miami Dolphins, and he was a pretty bad tight end back in his day. You could always count on Joe to drop the ball. However, he did catch Dan Marino's first touchdown pass and that justifies Rose fawning about Marino endlessly as if they were best friends. It would not surprise me if Dan Marino has never spoken to Joe and crosses the street to avoid him. Whenever I hear the voice of Joe Rose, I turn to another station or listen to music. This is just my personal opinion, I have never met Joe Rose, and he may be a very nice person but on the radio he sounds like an obnoxious ass. Update: Now there is a new segment on this retard's show. It is called "Did you know, Joe?" and the lame co-producer will ask Joe really stupid questions and Joe will make his incredibly stupid remarks. I guess this show is all about self-parody, "look how dumb I am, making lots of money being a dumb jock."

Neil Rogers follows the morning show. Rogers is on from 10:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. I used to listen to Neil Rogers, but he is a bit boring and repetitive. He loves to refer to Jimmy Cefalo is Jimmy Syphillis. He also used to rag on Howard "Moe" David and Steve "Goldie" Goldstein, but they both left WQAM. Goldie went to 790 The Ticket. Unfortunately, the two sports stations recycle each other's trash, so there is no way to ever be rid of the most awful talk-show hosts.

Rogers has a great deal that allows him to take dozens of days off and during the summer he only works once or twice a week. His fill-in is Jorge Rodriguez who has a droning voice and no sense of humor. Rodriguez used to spend months at a time talking about wife-swapping at some local sex club which was advertising on his show. He kept claiming that his wife did not want to swap out, though he would visit the club with her and "watch." When his wife was pregnant, Rodriguez spent nine months talking about how much he did not want the baby. One has to wonder if Rodriguez was even the father. The other thing Rodriguez talks about endlessly is legalizing marijuana. Like most pot-heads, Rodriguez is incredibly boring to listen to. There is no way to know when Neil Rogers will be on his own show, since he has an endless amount of sick days and routinely uses them. I wonder if anyone keeps a tally of how many days a year Neil Rogers works? Probably "about 30," man.

Jim Mandich follows the Neil Rogers-Jorge Rodriguez show. Mandich is another guy that has a great contract and misses lots of days. His intern or producer, "Captain" Curtis Stevenson mumbles through the show whenever Mandich is visiting Michigan or has other things to do. About half of the Mandich show is spent talking about going to his bar. His guests have usually been to his bar and they mention the bar too. So the Mandich show ends up being a three hour commercial for his bar. He loves to talk about the drinkie-winkie, and I wonder if Mandich has ever been sloshed while on the air? Too bad none of these guys has ever written a tell-all book about their radio daze here in Miami.

When Mandich is on the ball, he often has some interesting things to say about football. Mandich used to play for the Miami Dolphins. He is also one of those rich guys who became a Republican after he stopped working for a living. Mandich thinks that poor kids should not get any government sponsored health care but he is very compassionate about athletes getting compensated for their loss of income when they are injured. Perhaps the funniest Mandich moments happen after every football game when Mandich tries to interview the players. The first week, Joey Porter wanted to bitch-slap Mandich because Porter claimed that Mandich had disrespected him. When Mandich walks around the locker room begging the players to say a few words, half of them just say no. It is pretty funny to hear how so many current players blow off the great Jim Mandich. Mandich was on the Miami Dolphins 1972 undefeated team, and that is his claim to fame. Of all the sports talk show hosts at WQAM, Jim Mandich is the best one after Orlando Alzugaray. Too bad Mandich is on the Neil Rogers schedule (half-on, half-off).

Hank Goldberg is on the station from 4:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m. Hank and Mandich do the power hour from four to five in the afternoon. Hank knows a lot of people in sports, mostly football and horse-racing. When he gets to talking about horses, it is pretty boring (for a non-fan). On football he is very knowledgeable. Sadly, Hank is getting pretty old and he seems to be slipping. Sometimes he starts reading some notes and he sounds like he is lost. Most days, he is pretty good though.

On the days when he sounds off, it is kind of sad to listen. I have been hearing Hank for about 25 years, and I will miss him when he retires. Even though he tends to argue with some listeners, his show is usually entertaining and informative. After first writing this, Hank Goldberg's contract was not renewed, so at the age of 67, fat, bitter Hank is now unemployed from radio. Like Neil Rogers and Ed Kaplan, Hank never had any kids. Update: Fat Hank got fired. WQAM did not want to pay this bitter old guy to hear him be cranky on the radio. Even though most of the other talent is pretty bad, I cannot say that I miss hearing Hank complaining on the radio. No one will miss Hank.

Fill-ins: After 7:00 p.m. the station often puts in who ever they are trying out as fill in talk hosts. It is often people who can barely speak English. These substitute hosts speak Spanglish, Ebonics, or else some kind of slang gangsta jive and I just turn it off. Sometimes WQAM will use former Dolphins players as talk show hosts. Kim Bokamper is very good, and he used to be the morning co-host. Unfortunately, they replaced him with Joe Rose. The picture above is of Kim Bokamper with Don Shula. It is kind of sad to see those guys getting old. I guess we are all getting older.

Ed Kaplan used to host a show at WQAM from 10:oo p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Sometimes he would stay past two when there were games still going on the West Coast. Kaplan is heavy into gambling, and he will talk about the odds on almost anything. When he talks about boxing or baseball, he is very good. Those seem to be his favorite sports. Kaplan is very entertaining on boxing and baseball. He knows some great boxing stories. However, Kaplan is pretty aloof to callers and often no matter what a caller says, Kaplan often ends up disagreeing.

On football, Kaplan is a pain to listen to. He will not discuss draft picks, injured players, or anything that involves any kind of speculation regarding coaching. During the baseball season, WQAM was using Kaplan to do a pre-game show which was much better than the usual pre-game crap that the station does for the Marlins games. I never listen to the Marlins baseball broadcasts because they are so boring. I listen to Kaplan's entertaining pre-game show. Update: Kaplan got canned too. Apparently WQAM is getting rid of all their old people. I wonder from what nursing home he is broadcasting now? Old cranky dudes are not fun to listen too! Update: Ed Kaplan is gone too. Too bad, as he was very good when he did Baseball pre-game shows.

Jimmy Cefalo does the play-by-play for the Miami Dolphins radio broadcasts. He is pretty dull, but at least he usually gets the names of the players right. The TV broadcasts usually has Dan Dierdorff who never seems to know any of the players and often gives wrong information. Cefalo also has a Dolphins show during some week nights. I have heard it a couple of times by accident, and it is pretty dull. Cefalo is not a very exciting person to listen to, but at least he is competent when it comes to football information. He also has some kind of expensive wine store which he advertises during his broadcasts. Interesting that so many of these ex-jocks own bars and/or liquor stores.

The Post-Game Show: Troy Stradford, O.J. McDuffie, and some other former Dolphins' scrubs often host the post-game show. For some reason, it seems like really bad players like Rose, Cefalo, Mandich, Stradford, and McDuffie end up doing radio shows? I guess the good players go to ESPN! McDuffie is famous because he stubbed his toe and couldn't play for two years and then retired. Stradford is basically a bench-warmer who made no impact in pro football. Now they are the football experts on WQAM.

WQAM news updates: WQAM has an endless amount of boring new breaks during which the same news, sports scores, weather information, and traffic updates get repeated for about ten minues every twenty minutes. When you add in the commercials, it seems like the actual talk show hosts are only on for about five minutes every segment. WQAM relies on interns who are trying to become talk hosts. These interns read sports news and other important news. Half the time they mis-pronounce the words and then try to turn the goof into some kind of comedy segment. Hey, it's not funny. Get over it and finish up.


Beano Cook: Perhaps the best thing WQAM has done in years is that they got rid of Beano Cook. Beano Cook used to spend an hour with Hank Goldberg during the football season, and every time I hear his voice I think of a talking lump of shit. Beano Cook will drone on and on about what Notre Dame did during World War II, and then he will have no clue about anything that happened in the past ten years. I have nothing against old guys who look like fat drunks making money, but Beano has been involved with pro sports for his whole life, and he must have some coin by now. So spare the world Beano, and retire. Beano usually sounds like he is talking with a load of gum or marbles in his mouth, and listening to Beano is torture. Thank heavens for 790 The Ticket, and thank heavens WQAM got rid of Beano. Talk about bad gas!