“We get in there, Elia sees us, and he says: ‘Hi fellas, come on in,’ ” recalled Les Grobstein. “He seemed very calm.”
Grobstein, the omnipresent Chicago radio reporter with a memory to rival “Rain Man”, said he and three writers—the Tribune’s Robert Markus, the Sun-Times’ Joel Bierig and the Daily Herald’s Don Friske—were there for the start of the interview.
Grobstein said he asked the question that sent Elia into a rage: “Tough way to lose a game, huh?”
Elia told the Tribune’s Fred Mitchell the tipping point actually came when a Los Angeles reporter asked about how Cubs fans were reacting to the team’s 5-14 start.
Whatever the case, the crowd around Elia grew quickly.
David Schuster, now a WSCR-AM 670 reporter then working for Sportsphone, put his microphone near Elia but looked the other way.
“I had to turn my back to him so I wouldn’t laugh,” Schuster said. “I was thinking: What am I going to do with this tape? How am I going to edit it?”
Giangreco and his cameraman joined the festivities just in time to hear Elia say: “85 percent of the [bleeping] world is working; the other 15 come out here.”
“Les and I are looking at each other like: This is gold!” recalled Giangreco, now WLS-Ch. 7’s top sports anchor. “At the end of the rant, we both said in unison: ‘Thanks, Lee.’ And we ran out of there.”
For those who don’t remember, it’s NSFW, but damn funny.
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