"If you put me in a cage with a real liberal, I will beat the living daylights out of them"

[Awsi Dooger]

37. I mentioned Root yesterday

Ranting moron who started out as a sports handicapper in Las Vegas. I would guess it was early '90s. He couldn't pick the games worth a damn so he turned to loud showboating antics, specifically on the Stardust Line radio program every Saturday and Sunday nights on KDWN. It was a seated panel but Root often stood up during his ludicrous proclamations -- "Lock of the Century!," and similar garbage.

He was a laughingstock among serious handicappers. But -- as I mentioned yesterday -- that Stardust program always had a large live audience in the race and sportsbook, generally 200-300 and overwhelmingly white uneducated males. I watched in dismay as many of them would dart to the podium during commercial breaks to congratulate Root and shake his hand. Likewise at the end of the program.

No doubt that's when Root sensed he could take his act and apply to a different pursuit, with even more of those Simplistic Angry Males eager to lap it up and consider him a hero. Heck, he didn't have to look far. The Review-Journal editorials every Sunday were essentially a print version of Root's schtick.

The photo in this thread is the first one I've seen of Root in years. When he first came upon the Las Vegas sportsbook scene he had longer darker wavy hair and a thinner face.

Yeah, always a pretty boy type. And there was another young pretty boy type in town in that era, also doing sports handicapping shows. His name was Jack Maxwell. I don't know his politics but he was always a good guy in person, willing to stop and talk. One time I saw him walking with his girlfriend outside Imperial Palace on the sidewalk. He gave a donation and had a long talk with a limbless older guy who was a fixture outside Imperial Palace for a long time, sitting in a small wheelchair with a donation bucket. I heard some of the conversation and it was quite sincere and impressive. Maxwell now does the Booze Traveler series on Travel Channel.