By A.J. Hayes
Carbon dioxide, deforestation, and nitrous oxide all shoulder their share of the blame for Global Warming. But what about Lee Elia?
Now, you won’t find Elia’s name mentioned in any Al Gore lecture. He’s not a greedy corporate bigwig, an eco terrorist, or a clueless oil tanker captain – just a curmudgeonly baseball lifer.
But 25 years ago this week, during a highly unsuccessful two-season stint managing the Chicago Cubs, Elia emitted the most extreme, paint-peeling meltdowns in the history of sports.
When he was done blasting away at Cubs fans with an obscenity-laced rant that included a jaw-dropping 36 F-bombs over the first three minutes, Elia surely had released enough green house gasses to liquidate massive mountain glaciers and multiply the thermal expansion of upper ocean layers from Pacifica to Antarctica. .
A quarter century later, Elia’s diatribe still ranks as the No. 1 outburst in the history of sports – eclipsing Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy (I’m a man! I’m 40!”); Indianapolis Colts coach Jim Mora (Playoffs?! Are you kidding?! Playoffs?!) and any number of profanity laced diatribes by former Dodgers skipper Tommy Lasorda.
The Legend of Elia rant has grown so much over the years, that every April 29, sports radio broadcasters from coast- to- coast gather for a moment to celebrate “Lee Elia Day” – popping multi-generational copies of the tirade into their Monrantz tape decks and laughing hysterically.
After dealing with mounds of monotone sports clichés on a daily basis, Elia’s rant allows beleaguered sound bite gathers a moment to smile. Obviously, because of Elia’s unrestrained profanity, only carefully edited versions of Elia’s adult content diatribe have ever made it to the public airwaves.
Now, thanks to the internet of course, Elia’s diatribe can be heard in all its profane glory.
The hapless Cubs were off to a typical dreary start to their ’83, settling into last place in the National League East place after a 4-3 loss to the Dodgers at Wrigley Field that afternoon.
As the Cubs exited the field and the 9,391 fans in attendance filed out of the grand stand, a couple of jerks pelted Chicago’s Keith Moreland and Larry Bowa with stadium trash.
“About 85 percent of the (f-ing) world is working,” Elia growled into the microphone of Chicago radio man Les Grobstein, one of a half dozen reporters to witness the rant first hand. “The other 15 come out here.”
He was far from finished.
Moments later, Elia’s season-long slow burn escalated into an inferno. He lit not only into the debris flinging morons, but each and every Cubs fan that had ever skipped school or work to take in a mid-week day game at the “Friendly Confines.”