Paul Finebaum explains how Harvey Updyke call got on-air, expresses regret
A controversial call on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Friday has drawn plenty of attention in recent days, and on Monday, Finebaum explained how it unfolded.
Harvey Updyke, the Alabama fan who poisoned the Toomer’s Corners trees at Auburn following the 2010 Iron Bowl, and later called in under the name “Al from Dadeville” to discuss the incident, called back. He was ultimately sentenced to just over 75 days in prison and ordered to pay $800,000 in restitution. Since then, he’s paid little back to Lee County, Alabama.
On Friday, ahead of No. 2 Alabama’s huge battle against No. 1 LSU in Tuscaloosa, he called back into the show to once again answer for his actions, saying that he didn’t mean to poison the trees.
“Paul, they’re only trees,” Updyke replied to some cheers from the Alabama fans attending the live taping of the show in Tuscaloosa. “I didn’t try to kill those crows that fly around. I didn’t try to kill LSU’s tiger.”
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On Monday, Finebaum responded to how the call happened during an exchange with “Coach from Morristown.”
“Interesting Friday for you, I know,” Coach said. “Is Mike the Tiger in jeopardy?”
Finebaum replied, “I just want to address that and then we’ll move on. Listen, we take phone calls here, we don’t often know what’s going on. When the tree poisoner called in, we didn’t know it was him until we were talking to him. I think if we had to do this over again, we probably would have moved on without any rancor. But he was on the air, he said some idiotic things, which I tried to point out and I personally regret having to subject some of our friends out there to listening to this raving idiot.”
Idiot…is only response I have for someone like that…the team you root for blows a huge lead so you get mad and poison a tree… like I said…Idiot
Finebaum knew what he was doing. He is a suckup to ESPN, COACHES. He will say what ESPN tells him to say. He is a puppet.
Updyke needs to pay his fine, who cares about his health. Pay up you dirt bag.
Total BS from Pawl. They knew it was him and he had the opportunity to end the call within 3 seconds. He wanted the attention. He’s as classless as the fans that were cheering behind him.
Yup
If you believe they didn’t know who the caller was, you probably still believe in the tooth fairy.
This is a show that has custom graphics, including photos and nicknames for different regular callers, and uses them like unpaid cast members.
You are more likely to show up at Augusta National and get a tee time than you are to call in to Finebaum’s show and get put on the air.
Finebaum is a liar.