A little update regarding closing or selling the site.
Last night’s Dallas/San Antonio game was an abomination if you were/are a Mavs fan. Unfortunately, the game seemed to affect some more than others, including Mike Bacsik, producer for Norm’s show.
While perusing Twitter last night looking for some consolation to what was happening, the world was given many inappropriate tweets from Mr. Bacsik, including one with a noticeably racist tone towards San Antonians. There were also derogatory tweets aimed at David Stern and the officials of the game.
All of the tweets have been removed, and just a few minutes ago, this was tweeted by Mr. Bacsik himself:
I’m sorry for my horriblly [sic] insinsitive [sic] tweet last night about the hispanic comm. in San Antonio. I apoligize [sic]and I hope u can forgive me.
Lots of venom has been thrust forwards towards Mike and The Ticket this morning, and rightfully so. His comments were out of line no matter how you look at it.
I confess that I was upset too…sometimes we live vicariously through our sports teams, and I would be lying if I hadn’t screamed some off-color things at the television before, but those are in the privacy of my own home. The internet is forever, and you must always consider your audience. Probably best to keep those feelings to yourself in the future.
Probably the most interesting part of this whole situation is that as of this post, Mike is not on the air in his normal producing spot with Norm. The Ticket has not addressed the situation, and they are distancing themselves from it as of now. I can’t imagine how they feel about the situation, but they probably aren’t too happy about the negative attention this has received nationally.
UPDATE: Mike has deleted his original tweet and posted a new one, with corrected spelling:
I’m sorry for my horribly insensitive tweet last night about the Hispanic comm. in San Antonio. I apologize and I hope u can forgive me.
UPDATE 2: Here’s some other views of ChewBacsik
This guy is real pissed
Local Thoughts
Big Lead News
A Big Ole WTF
His Wiki Page Already Hit (probably get rejected quick)
And LOTS More!
UPDATE 3: After the last couple of days, there has been some new information in this situation. As most of you have probably already heard, Bacsik has been fired by Cumulus, the parent company of the Ticket. According to the information given this morning by Gordo and Norm, the decision came from very high up in the Cumulus chain, and was not made by anyone at the Ticket. There are some reports that Bacsik will be on the Ticket at noon today to talk about it, but as of this moment, that is unsubstantiated.
As we have maintained, this was an unfortunate mistake for Bacsik, and hopefully he will rebound. There has been lots of support, but just as much anti-Bacsik discussion has been spewed by lots of different people. A lot worse things have been said by a lot worse people and they have bounced back. Unfortunately, I think he is done in radio for this town, which is sad. Sure, he had his detractors, but he generally knew his sports, and it was truly great to get an insider’s view into the world of baseball. He will be missed, but I have a feeling the Ticket will only gain from this situation, as they seem to do with every negative thing that has happened to them in the past.
I replied to one of his tweets last night and suggested that he claim he’d lost his phone or something — it looked like he’d gone off the deep end.
Hopefully his absence is just him taking a personal day and not ticket management intervening.
That was my first thought…was someone at his house had logged onto his twitter account and was pranking him. His apology this morning killed that thought right away.
That guy deserves to be fired although we’ll see nepotism continues to play a role in his career.
And that whole “twitter account got stolen/someone else was on it” is one of the oldest tricks in the online book. No one would buy that nonsense.
I’ve just read that The Ticket has suspended him.
This blew up on the Spurstalk forums also…I bet that had something to do with how big this got.
Since I am a Spurs fan…Eff Bascik and eff the Mavs!
Where did you read that? On their webpage?
I doubt he’ll be around long either way, what with this and his family threatening The Ticket and the lil Unticket with lawsuits; oh ya and his terrible sense of humor :). This is why we should confine our social-networking to…networking. Emotions can get us in trouble in real life, why would it be different, in fact it’s worse, in our printed words…esp when what we say is confined to a sentence or two…ease of reading for the World to SEE and DOCUMENT.
Honestly, this can all be avoided if yall will just hop on The Thunder bandwagon. I won’t hold anything against you, there’s still room!
Maybe he’s looking to get in to politics in Arizona.
This was terribly unfortunate. Knowing Mike and his propensity for off-color comments and “jokes”, I can’t understand why someone wasn’t there to monitor his tweeting, or for f*ck’s sake, when things got outta hand, rip his phone out of his drunk, sweaty hands.
Damn it, Bacsik. I liked your shtick (no homo).
I like basick on air. As all p1’s know, it’s hard to actually “fit in” on 1310. I think he does. I hope he learns something and comes back. I really think he likes his gig…. Or maybe he should try throwing side arm and become the next Darren O’Day. Nip nip weiner.
This racists prick should be FIRED not suspended. The fact that he deleted his comment’s tells me that he did say those things.
Fire this man, there will be a boycott.
Suspension announcement forthcoming, according to the Horn:
http://sportsmediablog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/04/tickets-mike-bacsik-tweets-him.html
there it is … official word coming down. It’s funny, though, you have the Hardline making fun of the Mexican people all the time and Bacsik says this and all hell breaks loose. (see: “Truck full of Mexicans” or “Mexicans Smoke” or any of the Plantation Corby series or the Mexican fart theme … )
And eff you dirty mexican
We’re gonna have a war on our hands on the Ticket facebook page. I’m ready to VSBB the shit out of some Spurs fans.
PS would this have been an issue if he would’ve inserted *Bascik Giggle* after “drity mexican?”
Don’t forget the drop of Jub taken horribly out of context saying “I heard the mexicans were kindof dirty ” (referring to a soccer match in which someone playing against mexico got najera’d). That drop was probably the inspiration for his ill-conceived tweet.
Speaking of which, does anyone else find it a tiny bit ironic that the dirtiest play of the game was in fact caused by Eduardo Najera, who hails from Mexico? (this fact was pointed out on a Spurs message board)
The man got drunk and was frustrated with his favorite team. How many of you guys have had too much to drink and said something stupid… I was always told those that live in glass houses should not throw bricks. No one is perfect…..
I’ve read some of the comments on the media DP posted at the end of his wrap up, and I have to say I’m disappointed in both sides of this little screw up. First off, I don’t condone what Mike did. He obviously had a very poor choice in judgment in his actions, and no one I can think would condone his statements last night. He’s apologized and Cumulus has suspended him for his actions. Nothing unexpected, and I don’t disagree with their choice of action at all. In fact I think it is the appropriate action, as I really don’t think he should be fired over this. He and Cumulus both are doing and saying the right things, and at this point that’s what we as listeners are to expect.
However, reading the comments I’ve seen on both the DMN blog post about this and the various articles written about this has really made me sick in a way. Someone over at the DMN said “Mike, you don’t have a savior. You are the saddest human begin god ever blew breath into!” The people in San Antonio, including that jackass Dominique Garcia who wrote an article over this situation, are showing no human feeling at all for this. Garcia claimed that Bascik has been riding the coat tails to make his career go, which I can’t really put together how exactly that relates to this incident. He attacks Bascik personally, and ends his article with the sentence “Does a basketball game justify a man making public hateful and racist comments?”
At this point unless Bascik has found a Delorian with a working flux capacitor, what is done is done. All he can do is exactly what he has done, apologize for his actions and take them down so as they can not offend anyone else from his page. Cumulus took their actions, so why do we continue to roast him? This is a society of forgiveness, yet we are just lambasting the guy because he got drunk and had a lapse in judgment. I’m betting 90% of the people that are nailing him to a cross have done the exact same thing, but since they are just common civilians they can get away with it. The fact of the matter is, he did this not even on the air but on Twitter. If Mike had said all of this on the air, then he should have packed his things and left twenty seconds after he said it. But he didn’t, he Tweeted it.
So for all the people that want to shoot holes in Bascik, and make him out to be some sort of demon straight from Hell and that he should be fired and executed go ahead. Let your hate for some off-hand comments while under the influence of alcohol just shroud you. As for me, I forgive Mike because I believe him to be genuine in his apologies. We all make mistakes, and he is no different. I hope that he has learned something from this experience, and with any luck he will come out from this a smarter and better person. Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m stupid, but in society as a whole people who have done much worse things than Mike did have been extended second chances. Here’s hoping that everyone else will do the same.
I emailed Cat and voiced my support for Bacsik. We all make mistakes. He F’ed up. He apologized. Move on.
Heck Corby or Gordo skits are worse that chewbascik’s tweets!
Of course, why are we surprised. We live in the US of FREAKIN PC!
We live in a nation where if you disagree with the current president you’re a racist. If you disagree with the former president, you’re a hero.
Oooooooh!
Look @ the internet muscles on this tough guy^
Relax.
1. He didn’t say those things on air.
2. As a person who’s father was Mexican, my family and friends threw around the term ‘dirty mexican’ all the time. George Durham, or Dooham or some such said the term ON AIR, referring to a whole of the Mexican population. Not only was he NOT disciplined, the quip was turned into a popular drop.
The entire station dabbles in the uncomfortable sport of racial humor. It would be HIGHLY inconsistent to laugh at racial humor, jokes and jabs made ON-AIR and then FIRE someone for being a drunken jackass on their OFF-AIR, PERSONAL Twitter account.
Go ahead and do your cute little boycott, sissy. This Juan’s gonna be tuning the dial to America’s 1st and best All-Sports station & all that implies!
“Tell me, mang!”
**NOTE** this post was not the views of myself, DP, Doanwanna Poopoo. This was one of our other guys who posted it. I just added the picture and links. I think it was less than most shit on the ticket during any given day. Maybe that’s why…it didn’t happen on air where people expect it??
It’s just a no news kinda day so this is what people are running with.
“How ’bout another marlboro red, bitch!”
You are an idiot.
Juan,
The morning co-host’s name is Joyce Durham. Glad I could clear that up. And I support Basick!
I agree with many of the other comments…the Ticket makes these same jokes every day…about many different groups, and they don’t get in trouble.
I think the difference is this is very public, from a former MLBer, on Twitter, from a person that doesn’t doesn’t garner the ratings of the Musers and Hardline.
Consider the case of Rick Pitino. He wins. Were he a Bascik in the sports talk world, he’d be gone. Since he wins, like the rest of the Ticket, it’s swept under the rug. Is it fair? Probably not.
Is the difference that when guys do it on the air they’re joking around, and what Basick did was in anger? In other words, he could’ve been revealing his racism in that drunken moment? Whatever the reason, I don’t care, because Basick is not funny. Ever. He’s a boring, stupid ex-jock, and the only reason he hasn’t been kicked off to ESPN radio already is because he’s an ex-jock. Get rid of him, Cat! Because he sucks, on-air.
This episode is interesting in light of his banning from The Great Game. I had speculated in a recent post that his blackballing seemed pretty severe, and I wondered whether maybe he had some other issues at the station that was causing him some intraoffice political trouble there. This maladroit Twittering may suggest that the guy indeed may have some issues with his colleagues. Too bad, he’s got some talent as a broadcaster. Thanks. Plainsman
Why did he get banned from The Great Game?
Word just came down. Norm announced it. Suspended without pay indefinitely. Sounds like Cumulus are backing off this as fast as they can.
No doubt ChewBascik was an idiot, but this seems harsh to me. As someone said above, Gordo gets away with it nearly every day at 8:40.
Norm’s show is always better with a strong producer. Maybe we can get Frido back now
Gordo does this stuff but in jest and in humor. He makes fun of everyone not any one group. Bacsik had some pretty strong hate tones in his message and besides, he’s a joke on air.
Fire him and move on.
DP, any chance you have the audio from Norm announcing the suspension earlier?
POW POW – unfortunately I missed it, and I don’t record Norm. Usually if he does something funny, it’s replayed a million times. I did hear about the statement and just missed it.
So if anyone else has the audio, let me know…if you’re an unticket author, post it
A ‘Boycott”??? Whatever dude. No one cares about your boycots.
Learn to live like the duck. Let it roll off your back.
Boycott this.
Ask, and ye shall receive:
https://www.theunticket.com/norm-addresses-tweetgate/
I wonder if Diamond talk mentioned it yesterday night. I’ll give a listen to that audio tonight if I still have it. Bass and Newbury both work with Mike outside of regular ticket hours and may have touched on it.
I can’t say I expected a suspension when I read about the tweet on deadspin, but then i forgot Mike is “nationally known” due to his Bonds HR. I personally did not like him on air at all when he started. I remember a long diatribe he gave one day to bob and dan about how every team he ever played for had some coach who hated him and didn’t let him play. It was the same story with every team, “this guy was a prick and didn’t want to help me.” After about 3 teams you start to think the guy telling the story has it backwards. I grew to like Mike a little, mainly because of the Chewbacca stuff. I still could not stand how he would say “Pickthburgh” and other unintelligent mistakes. He sometimes comes across as spoiled and arrogant, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he rubbed some people the wrong way. I don’t think this should be a fireable offense, but in all honesty I could see it happening since one of his tweets was also about being done with the ticket, his ranting about his paycheck a while back, maybe a mutual decision to move on will be made. I would vote for an in house replacement producer, i don’t mind ciroy but am not too familiar with his work.
ESPN Dallas is reporting that Mike Bacsik has been fired. I hope this was a Cumulus decision and not a decision by Mr. Bennett or Mr. Catlin.
http://sportsmediablog.dallasnews.com/archives/2010/04/the-ticket-fires-mike-bacsik.html
The Ticket fired him. It sucks, but he put himself in this situation.
Its unfortunate that mike got fired for all this. As a hardcore Mavs fan I say things in anger when we lose. He made a mistake and i understand why a major company would rid themselves of him. Good luck mike. (chewbasik giggle)