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Hacksawed

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LAist was dismayed to read the paper today and find out that Lee "Hacksaw" Hamilton's afternoon radio show has been cancelled by XTRA. Hacksaw will now host four shows on both Saturday and Sunday, provide his self-proclaimed "best 15 minutes in radio" AKA "Hacksaw's Headlines" to start the XTRA afternoon replacement show, and provide other commentaries and reports throughout the day.

Still, this amounts to a demotion for a guy who hosted the same high-quality show for 19 years. We've expressed our love for Hacksaw in the past. Few sports talk radio hosts do their homework as thoroughly as Hacksaw, and his passion is evident in every word he speaks. But it appears that XTRA wants to try to be young and hip, so they've hired Matt Smith of KROQ and Joe Grande of Power 106 to takeover the drive home time slot.

Hacksaw has told Jay Posner of the San Diego Tribune that he'd like to go back to doing more play-by-play. We can only hope. Hacksaw is one of the best and most underrated football play-by-play announcers out there, and it's a shame he's not employed by any team right now. Whichever team hires him will be very fortunate.

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Now our only question is if we'll hear Jim Rome cry out "SHOW ME YOUR LIGHTNING BOLT" while mocking his former colleague.

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