Courtesy Houston Chronicle

(May 7, 2010) With the Rockets done and the Dynamo struggling and the Astros in freefall, this was one of those weeks where sports-talk hosts were looking for material. And into their laps, fortunately or not, fell the Arizona immigration issue.

The trick, for hosts and producers, was to keep the discussion about the nexus of politics and sports, particularly with the Arizona Diamondbacks in town, while avoiding the type of discussion better suited, if even then, to talk radio and prime time cable TV.

“Our job is to talk about it from a sports point of view,” said Gavin Spittle, program director at KILT (610 AM). “We talked about should the Suns wear their Los Suns jerseys, should sports get involved in government issues.

“When we do that, people want to relate it to the law. But whether you agree or disagree (with the Arizona statute) is not the question. The question is should sports and politics mix?”

At KBME (790 AM), midday host Matt Thomas had his own answer to the question.

“My stance was that I don’t’ know how much good comes out of any type of protests,” he said. “I don’t think that putting 50 people in front of a sports venue in Houston will change peoples’ minds.

“We didn’t want to exclude the topic, but because I’m a sports-talk host, I did want to keep it to a certain angle. We talked about what baseball should do, whether the (2011) All-Star Game should be pulled from Arizona. But I didn’t want to go Rush Limbaugh. It was how do we talk about it while talking sports.”

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