The Parking Ticket

WIP’s Brain Haddad – aka Sludge – was doing the crossover Thursday afternoon with Rob Charry and Jody McDonald. He was coming on the air and they were going off.

Sludge mentioned that he was keyed up because – for the first time ever – he was going to be working with Jody the next afternoon – on Friday. At which point, Jody asked Sludge if he ever paid his parking ticket.

Backstory

Sludge got a parking ticket in Philly a couple months back. He claimed that the meter was broken and, thus, he should’ve never gotten the ticket in the first place.

According to the law-breaker, he took a video of the broken meter with his iPhone and notified Traffic Court of his intent to receive a hearing to plead his case.

Traffic Court subsequently informed the defendant of his hearing date, but the accused failed to show up for the hearing. The scofflaw’s alibi was that he forgot about the hearing.

The perpetrator then pled his case over the airwaves about how he’d been wrongfully accused and, therefore, shouldn’t have to pay the fine. Couldn’t he just reschedule the hearing?

Well, let’s see. You scheduled a hearing but ignored showing up because you forgot about it. Uh – no – you can’t reschedule.

I remember sending a tweet to the guilty party and advising him to pay the fine and be done with it. But as it looks now, the perp didn’t do it because, once again, the forgetful violator – uh – forgot about it.

Now my advice to the culprit is to contact Traffic Court ASAP, find out how much he now owes, and pay the – pardon my French – pay the goddam fine.

Back to Speed

On yesterday’s show, over and over, the criminal told the listeners that he never paid his fine. By doing so, the malefactor was, in effect, playing a game called “Kick Me.” But in this version, the delinquent was informing any authorities who might be listening to his show that he was derelict in paying his fine and pinpointing his location should law enforcement decide to pursue him.

Oh, that could never happen, the outlaw might be saying to delude himself into thinking something like that could never happen – not to him. But I can offer this example of when something similar did, in fact, happen.

Gator Bowl

On December 27, 1976, I was watching the Gator Bowl on ABC-TV – Penn State versus Notre Dame. The broadcast featured a new wrinkle I’d never seen before. Called sideline reporters, two young guys were working the sidelines in the vicinity of each team’s bench. Whenever the camera went to them, they were pumping the players for information and passing along the tidbits they gleaned.

The two sideline reporters were Don Tollefson and  Jim Lampley.

Lampley didn’t realize it, but he was playing a game of “Kick Me” on national TV.

Lampley went to high school in Miami with a man named Tim Judge. Lampley’s former classmate was watching the game on TV and he recognized Lampley. In addition to being Lampley’s former classmate, Tim Judge also worked in the Warrants Division of the Dade County Sheriff’s Department.

Tim Judge later recalled:

“I didn’t think too much of it when I spotted him. I knew there was a warrant out on him, but we couldn’t extradite him from another state.”

On a Street Corner in Miami

More than seven years earlier, Jim Lampley was arrested on a Miami street corner shortly after one o’clock in the morning and charged with possession of marijuana. The date was September 20, 1969.

At that time, Jim Lampley was employed by a Miami bank. He posted bail at the time of his arrest, but he never showed up for his hearing. Moreover, he fled the state and hadn’t returned since.

Chris Schenkel was one of the sportscasters working the Gator Bowl game for ABC. At one point during the telecast, Schenkel informed the audience that it was “a pleasant night in Jacksonville.”

That’s when Tim Judge put two and two together and realized that Jim Lampley was present in the state of Florida. Tim Judge picked up the phone and contacted Jacksonville PD.

As the Gator Bowl game was coming to an end – a 20-9 victory for the Fighting Irish over the Nittany Lions – police officers were on the football field approaching Lampley with a pair of handcuffs.

“There I was – a fugitive from justice in front of forty-million people.” – Jim Lampley

Sludge, habitual criminal though you may be, please don’t get arrested on the air. But, then again, it may be good for ratings.

The header photo is ABC-TV‘s sideline reporter Jim Lampley interviewing WVU’s head coach Bobby Bowden back in 1975.

Barry Bowe is the author of:

• Born to Be Wild
• 1964 – The Year the Phillies Blew the Pennant
• 12 Best Eagles QBs
• Soon-to-be-published Caribbean Queen