Sports talk radio stations fight for listeners in Houston

So in Houston, idiot caller, you will be heard. And frequently are, unfortunately (see "Jock Radio: No-Call List").

"The whole dynamic is interesting," says Pallilo, "because I've never known any more impassioned sports fan than I was as a kid...[but] I called two shows in my lifetime." (One was as a 14-year-old, calling a national show famous for hanging up on kids. "I put on the greatest basso profundo I could come up with in the midst of puberty," he says. "It was a rite of passage — I made it through the Pete Franklin show without getting gassed.")

The rule of thumb in the industry is that anywhere from 90 to 98 percent of listeners will never call in to a show. But that group of callers can often, somehow, see themselves as key players.

"Guys will send you e-mails like, 'Hey man, I'm back in town, you remember me,' and I'm like, 'I have no idea who you are," Zierlein says. "To them, they've been a real big part of the show."

It's a tricky relationship between callers and hosts. The hosts, for the most part, are more or less experts who have to be patient with callers wondering why the Texans can't just beat the New England Patriots. And many of the listeners are convinced they could do as good a job as the hosts. After all, it's just sitting around talking about sports, right?

"They all think it's an easy job. I think there are times when we're doing it well where we can make it look easy," Zierlein says. "But try doing a show — if you think my job is easy, then walk into a studio on July 20 when the Astros are 15-and-a-half games out and do four hours with no football, no basketball, only Astros baseball to talk about, and see how many calls you get."

"A lot of people think they can do it, but with all due respect, they can't," says Pallilo. "Some people are more skilled than others with their knowledge, thinking ability — it's ostensibly four hours of ad-libbing, you have to be able to think on your feet...Plenty of people can do it, but not close to everybody can do it well."

Hi, love the show. I had a question and then I'll hang up and listen. Who's the best sports-talk host in Houston?

Not much of a debate there — it's Pallilo.

A legitimate brainiac who excelled in the cutthroat — but legendary — broadcast school at Syracuse University (other alumni: Marv Albert, Bob Costas and Ted Koppel), Pallilo has gigabytes of sports stats stored in his head, along with a passion for anything involving a bat, ball or stick.

The big question he's facing now is whether he can carry a show alone. Sports talk is pretty much a world involving cohosts playing off each other.

"Maybe that's because of the whole frat-boy, locker-room, sports-bar aspect of it," he says.

Other hosts say privately that a cohost would be a help, and that the sometimes prickly Pallilo is letting his ego get in the way. He doesn't see it that way, of course.

"As with anything, there's pluses and minuses," he says. "If it's a dead period, it can be good to have someone to play off to whatever the verbal equivalent of wincing is, like at a bad play on words. On the other hand if you're a good interviewer and have a guest on for ten minutes one-on-one, if you have someone else [cohosting] and even if they're skilled — you ask a question that provokes an obvious lead-in to another question, but there's the unwritten rule that if you ask three questions in a row you're mike-hogging."

Pallilo's life is pretty much sports, either going to events, watching them on TV, reading about them or playing them.

One of his best friends, Houston Chronicle columnist Ken Hoffman, plays tennis three times a week with him. "I don't know anything about his personal life," Hoffman says. "I think he still lives in the same apartment he moved into when he arrived in Houston 18 years ago. He's like Curly in City Slickers — 'one thing.'...If I had his work ethic I'd be publisher of the Chronicle now."