It took some cajoling, but finally, for the first time since Jason Whitlock got fired for popping off to us, someone at ESPN agreed to an interview with our tiny website. (The deal was we’d send him incriminating photos of Barry Bonds and Pedro Gomez, but you’ll never see those.) And when you read Dan LeBatard’s interview, consider it an early Christmas present from us to you. (If you want to give us one, just click on a damn ad once in awhile!) LeBatard, our third favorite PTI host, is as candid as they come. The Cuban columnist tackles race, battling objectivity, and his buddy Whitlock. There’s not a lot of love for ESPN these days, but LeBatard seems like one of the good guys.

Q: You went to the University of Miami, a school that has produced many controversial athletes (Ray Lewis, Jeremy Shockey, Michael Irvin, Kellen Winslow to name a few). Do you think you can write objectively about a school you attended?

I don’t blindly rush to the support of this school or its players. I DO think athletes are multi-dimensional, like all of us, and that there is a tendency to turn them into stick figures. Athlete X may be a jerk in spots but that doesn’t mean that’s all he is. Miami is more than just Winslow but is still paying for Michael Irvin’s past. There is no one who can tell me that Ed Reed and Andre Johnson and Jonathan Vilma and a bunch of other guys aren’t exceptional people. I think I’m sympathetic to human beings and their flaws in general, which is why I get called an apologist for athlete misbehavior. Bias? I love the school, but I love my job more. I wrote those stories in the early 90s about the program being out of control with violations. I was a reporter then, not a columnist, but I wasn’t exactly covering for the school when uncovering the stuff that got Miami into trouble and had SI writing that the program should be abolished. I happened to like that style of play from sports teams — we’ll tell you we’ll kick your ass, then we’ll kick your ass, then we’ll remind you that we just kicked your ass — but I wasn’t a columnist then so I couldn’t be writing about what I thought of the avalanche of criticism. But I understand the perception of the program and of me. Can’t bitch about it too much. I went to the school and often write positive things about the school. Can’t object to allegations of conflict of interest when there appears to be conflict of interest, even if I don’t think it contaminates my work. But, in general, objectivity is a lie, an illusion. We all have our baggage. Being objective isn’t very human. Neither is journalism sometimes. Best a journalist can do is try to be self-aware and aspire to objectivity.

Q: One of your boys is/was Ricky Williams. For all the budding journalists in the house, how’d you get in with this guy? Do you two still have a relationship? Think you’ll be in his wedding party, assuming it’s not in a tent in Kathmandu?

Found him fascinating. Unusually introspective and honest and open. And he enjoyed questions. I ask a ton of them. So that’s how we became friends, which was safe enough until he somehow got traded to the town where I’m the columnist. I had begun to write a book about him while he was in New Orleans. He’s a really kind and complicated person. There was damage done to our friendship when he was going thru his retirement issues. In trying to be a friend, I failed in some spots as a journalist. And in trying to be a journalist, I failed in some spots as a friend. Hence what I was saying before about objectivity and conflict of interests. All you can do is try to navigate that stuff best you can. I stepped in it here and there. Once he arrived here as a Dolphin, am I supposed to recuse myself from writing about him? Even though I can give insight and access to a local sports star that is unusual and illuminating? That one is tricky. You have something that is valuable to your newspaper, and all you can do is try to remove as much of your bias as you can, respect your craft and your credibility and your integrity and try to write about him fairly and honestly as possible. I was critical of him in print. He never had any problem with that. But our friendship took a hit when the storm of shit blew in with his retirement. We’re still friends, though I haven’t talked to him much in the last year. We’ll always be friends. Our families will always be friends. And I’ll be in the wedding party ONLY if the wedding is in a tent in Kathmandu.

Q: To our knowledge, there aren’t any other Cuban columnists writing about sports, which is cool. Thanks to your heritage, you’re able to offer a unique perspective on sports. Did you grow up in Cuba? Are your parents from there?

Parents fled there late in the 1950s. I grew up here, in Miami, Americanized, but with grandparents who didn’t speak English. I got the best of both cultures, both languages, both experiences. Can’t thank my parents enough for having the strength to do something I wouldn’t have been brave enough to do.

Q: Big issue right now: Sports Illustrated selecting Dwyane Wade as the ‘Sportsman of the Year.’ We’ve got a theory that is has to do with SI possibly making a play for some street cred, or wanting to draw in urban readers. Wade’s selection has sparked quite a lively debate. Do you think Wade deserved it? Why or why not? Discuss.

He deserved it as much as Federer and Tiger Woods if all we’re talking about is individual greatness. I can’t remember a more flawed champion winning the entire thing in basketball, and that has everything to do with him. Federer and Woods aren’t weighed down with having to carry around Antoine Walker and a team that even in Game 6 against the Mavericks was 1 for 729 from three. But I usually think of that award as being transcendent, about more than just sports, about being a humanitarian and a Lance Armstrong symbol for things that resonate beyond the commercials. Wade is great in just about every way. Reporters still walk away from interviewing him with a God-i-hope-he-doesn’t-change attitude. And he hasn’t yet. So if he represents a new age for the NBA in terms of fundamental decency, I guess that makes sense. He has style and makes style. Marino is the biggest athlete in this town’s history and Wade now has two things he never got — this award and a championship. I think of that award as being bigger than that but maybe it wasn’t a banner crop of candidates this year.

Q: Steve Nash only won the MVP because he was white. Those are your words (or close to them). Still feel that way?

I didn’t write that. Those are not my words. What I wrote was a question asking whether race, not racism, played a factor in the fourth-closest MVP vote ever. This isn’t that complicated, tho it became that afterward. Did Steve Nash beat Shaq because he was 1) the novelty, 2) the underdog, 3) the guy with smaller expectations, 4) the new thing, 5) different? And if you believe that any one of those five contributed to the victory, a close one, where does him being white fit into him being 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5? It was posed as a question, not as an allegation. Race maybe playing a factor isn’t the same as saying racism may have played a factor. Its subtle, nuanced, but it gets drowned by the screaming that comes after anyone tries to talk about race in this country, so many people coming to the discussion with their fists up. The reaction was fascinating. I don’t know if Nash’s color had anything to do with it. Can’t. Have no empirical evidence. But I do know that this sort of thing would be subconscious, not conscious, after being enlightened about societal behavior and embedded prejudices and the human mind in the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. So I threw the question out there and hopefully some people thought about it and heard what I was asking above all the screaming.

Q: Any athletes despise you? Have you been sneezed on like TJ Simers, or nearly gotten jacked like Michael Silver? What’s your go-to athlete run-in at cocktail parties?

Oddly, I’ve been sneezed on by TJ Simers and nearly gotten jacked by Michael Silver. There’s a list of people who don’t like what I’ve written about them, but I don’t have any fearing-for-my-life stories for you, unfortunately. Don’t think Alonzo Mourning likes me. Was critical of him for being greedy. So I walk in one day thru the rain into the world’s tiniest Subway restaurant and sitting at a table by himself, the only one in the place, is Alonzo Mourning. Can you think of a smaller or worse restaurant or confined space to be in than a Subway sub shop? It was like walking into an airplane bathroom and having him sitting on the toilet. He did not punch me in the face, tho. He just threw a 12-inch Italian sub at my head and then pelted me with banana peppers. No, no fighting. I’ve had athletes yell at me in locker rooms. O.J. McDuffie. Barry Bonds. The aforementioned Lamar Thomas. But the first fight I’m going to get into will be when I provoke Bobby Knight or Bill Parcells.

Q: What’s your favorite medium at ESPN to work on - TV (Sports Reporters, PTI), .com, or radio? While you’re at it, do you miss hosting PTI with Whitlock? You guys did have chemistry. You still talk to the Overweight Lova?

Love Whitlock. Love how unafraid he is to take unpopular stances. We need more people like him that don’t fear consequences. Yeah, we still talk, I don’t know how much chemistry we had on that show, but I enjoyed doing it with him. Nobody has the chemistry that Mike and Tony have. You can’t recreate that. Every other combination pales. I enjoy doing radio more than anything. It is more fun than anything. It is everything I do on TV and in print condensed in one playground where we spend three hours a day laughing. The producer of the show is an old friend of mine from college, so all we’re doing is recreating the same conversations that we’ve giggled on the phone about for two decades. PTI was the most fun I’ve ever had in this business before radio, and they taught me things over there that have been invaluable in doing a radio show. The people behind the scenes at PTI are amazing and smart and groundbreaking and there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t succeed with them as the support group. Writing is hard. Writing hurts. Its rewarding but it isn’t painless. TV is important for credibility in my market — those four letters (ESPN) matter more in sports than any others — but flying all over the place to do it has gotten old. I love Miami and being here and this is the only place that matters to me in terms of reach and mattering. Everything I do professionally is because I care about imprinting this market, no other.

Q: You’ve found the ability to defend Ray Lewis … can you find it in your heart to defend the actions of former Hurricane Michael Irvin? While we don’t know whether or not Tony Romo’s great grandma approved of his recent comments, SI’s moral arbiter, Rick Reilly, certainly didn’t.

Didn’t see that. I’ve heard a lot of white people say what you have said Reilly wrote. Don’t agree with him. God, we’re so sensitive. Too sensitive. We’re so willing to end a broadcaster or executive’s entire career over a few words. We love firing people. I wonder how Rick would feel if he wrote one dumb sentence and got fired over it. We’re too willing to erase too much good work over a mistake. And I’m just as tired of hearing white people bitch about the double standard here as white people are of hearing cries of racism. Yes, black people can say things white people can’t. But Jimmy The Greek and Al Campanis don’t make up for slavery, OK? They don’t make up for the fact that just about every person in a position of power in sports is white and hiring other white people. They don’t make up for the fact that 6 of 1 million college-football coaches are black because all the people in power and making the decisions are white and they tend to hire other white people because if you looked around the room at their parties and galas and weddings, all you would see is white people. This isn’t racism. Its human nature. We gravitate toward those with similar interests, experiences, etc. But black people are in an unequal position because of it. So, yes, there’s a double standard. Black people can say things that white people can’t. But I’m OK with that double standard given what has to be endured to arrive at it. Life ain’t fair sometimes. If life were fair, Dane Cook wouldn’t be getting more play than Frank Caliendo and Dave Chapelle.

Do you read sports blogs?

Not really. I have the computer savvy of someone who is 112 years old. I have the Atari of cell phones and just recently learned how to text message. I don’t use the computer for much other than hunting down info and typing. And, of course, to download millions and millions of pounds of fetish porn. Joking. I do check out deadspin.com. That’s the wave of the future, i think, that kind of sports coverage. Its invaluable in terms of getting radio jump-off points in terms of topics.