Ron Kantowski is a sports columnist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal, covering a variety of topics and the Las Vegas sports scene.
rkantowski@reviewjournal.com … @ronkantowski on Twitter. 702-383-0352
It was a little past 3 p.m. Saturday, and two women hoping to get bets down on the Kentucky Derby had talked their way into the VIP section at the Sunset Station race and sports book, the place where old guys with fat cigars pore over the Daily Racing Form and circle their choices at Golden Gate Fields and Prairie Meadows and Turf Paradise and Woodbine but not Ak-Sar-Ben, which is Nebraska spelled backward with hyphens.
I remember riding a Schwinn Stingray bicycle around my neighborhood on sultry summer evenings when I was young and hearing baseball coming from transistor radios on front porches. Many of those listening to ballgames were women — big women from eastern European countries wearing sleeveless house dresses, because that’s the kind of neighborhood I grew up in.
When longtime Las Vegan Armand “Papa Joe” Chevalier had his syndicated sports talk radio show on the Sporting News Radio network, he became known for “Bite Me Wednesday.” On this day, listeners were encouraged to call in on the 800 number and vent on somebody or something in sports, then finish their rant with that two-word interjection.
