Let's first back up to Thursday when, on Sirius XM's all-sports Mad Dog Radio channel, Chris Russo, in a transparently bogus spew, claimed to have fired his program director/sidekick/old pal Steve Torre. Within that spew, Russo purposefully spoke an expletive that, while satellite-delivered Sirius XM is unregulated by the FCC, was out of character for Russo, thus underscored how strained this stunt was.

By Friday, the shows that preceded Russo's were stuck advancing this Russo-fired-Torre angle; the recording of Russo mouthing a vulgarity was played over and over. In the afternoon, Russo, live, repeated the vulgarity, emphasis added. Oh, you naughty boys!

And by Friday's end, Russo's low language, played over and over, had served as a prompt for callers who were now casually using language never before regularly heard on those shows.

OK, most of us have spoken the s-word, and more than a few times. But to speak it over and over into a microphone nationally transmitting a sports station . . .

Thus, in two days, this Sirius XM sports channel seemed to have made a hard and very calculated downward turn. Everyone into the cesspool!

But Monday, first host Andy Gresh, and then host Bruce Murray, on the show that followed, apologized for having taken it too far and for leaving the wrong impression with listeners and callers. They wanted all to know that last week the station only momentarily was headed in a low direction.

Russo is off this week, but I suspect that when he returns on Monday, he, too, will apologize for what was, for him, crude public behavior. I also suspect that Steve Cohen, the ex-WFANer who is Sirius XM's VP of sports (and a right-headed man, especially for radio), encouraged Monday's apologies. Cohen was off last week when Sirius XM's sports station went blue.

Regardless, Monday was a noteworthy day in modern media. A commercial radio station apologized; its hosts said they'll bring it back up here and keep it up here. Nice. Unusual, too, no?