Boston sports talk radio host Michael Felger found himself in the news for being incredibly insensitive to the death of former Phillies ace Roy Halladay in an airplane crash on Tuesday.
Felger said insensitive thing after insensitive thing on 98.5 The Sports Hub yesterday and even included sound effects for some odd attempt at ... I really have no idea what.
It's hard to listen to.
Both Deadspin and Awful Announcing transcribed much of his ramblings, which included Felger calling Halladay a "moron" as well as adding he had "no sympathy" for the deceased baseball star.
"He got what he deserved," Felger said at one point.
His comments received incredible backlash from all humans with a sense of decency.
I'm not against people having legitimate, thoughtful debate about the safety of flying personal aircrafts or even asking if it's a responsible thing for a parent to do, but mocking a man who died within the last few hours and calling him names — let alone saying he "got what he deserved" — is pure evil.
MLB
The cause of Halladay's crash isn't even known yet. The NTSB announced on Wednesday that a full investigation of the incident is underway.
Felger opened his 2 p.m. show today by commenting on his behavior from yesterday.
"In a nutshell, I would say I feel bad about what happened on a lot of levels. I feel bad about what I said and how I conducted myself," Felger said. "To say it was insensitive or over the top is stating the obvious."
"I could come in and say, 'I apologize if I offended anyone,' but that's fake and hollow everyone hates that. The only folks I really want to extend that to are the loved ones of Halladay. They're the ones who are dealing with enough right now not to have me come over the top and do what I did yesterday. Sorry doesn't do it justice as it relates to them. That's going to stick with me a while as it relates to them.
"I meant part of what I said yesterday and a lot of what I said was just dumb hyperbole. There was stuff I did mean, but the presentation, the tone, and the hyperbole was just low-class, bad, not good. I don't feel good about it. I regret my conduct yesterday."
"The tone and the hysterics were really uncalled for."
Felger also attempted to clarify that the "he got what he deserved" line that drew such outrage was not actually in reference to Halladay, but instead to a hypothetical about if Felger himself were to die in a helicopter accident. You can take him at his word or listen to the audio and judge for yourself.