When I first heard of a radio guy called Bloomdaddy, my mind immediately made me think of outrageous radio personalities like Bubba the Love Sponge, Mancow Muller, and DJ Sourmilk. However, David Blomquist (a.k.a. Bloomdaddy) was nothing like them. Instead, he’s intelligent, down-to-earth, and can still hit a fastball.
I asked him what I should call him. He told me David or Bloomdaddy. (There was no way I would call a grown man Bloomdaddy. Not at this stage of my life.) So, I called him David.
“They called me Bloomer forever,” Blomquist said. “But it became Bloomdaddy when I had kids. Pretty snazzy nickname when you think about it,” he joked. “I figured I’d use it because it was memorable.”
Blomquist went to Union Local High School in Belmont County, Ohio. Just one of many little towns that make up the large school district that is miles wide.
“It’s amazing how far buses go to bring kids in. There were only 150 kids in my graduating class, with all the areas consolidated.
Blomquist said he’d always lived in Lafferty, Ohio. It’s a coal mining town that boasted 300 residents when he was there. He said growing up in Ohio was awesome.
“All I did was hunt, fish, ride our four-wheelers and dirt bikes. I like the city, but at heart, I’m a gravel road and cornfield kind of guy.”
I’m a gravel road and cornfield kind of guy. That has got to be the title of a country song.
He loves gravel roads and baseball.
“I walked on to the Kent State baseball team; then I quit,” Blomquist said. “It’s still the biggest regret of my life. I was a junior in broadcasting when I made the team. I realized I was going to miss a ton of broadcasting classes, including the first few each semester. At that point in my life, I just didn’t see it making sense. Part of me figured I could reschedule some classes, but it was just something I felt I had to do. It was hard to walk away, but I was overwhelmed. But it all worked out.”
Pretty mature thinking for a young man of 19 years. “I played sandlot ball from 19 until I was 37, so I got in my fair share of ball.”
He was very good at baseball but didn’t think he would have been signed as a professional. “Even the worst guy on a professional team is one of the best players in the world. It’s hard to wrap your mind around that.”
Almost every guy I’ve spoken to for these pieces had a dream of being a professional ballplayer. Blomquist is the only one who might have come close.
He worked as a sportscaster on television for 15 years. He also anchored a morning show. Blomquist was hired at WTAM in February after host Mike Trivisonno died last October. Since he began the gig, he has kept an apartment in the city, just two blocks from Progressive Field and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
For 18 years, his radio home was WWVA-AM 1700 in Wheeling, WV. His popular morning show grew into syndication to affiliates in Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Akron, and Parkersburg, WV.
He spends most of the week in Cleveland, then goes home to his boys.
The paint on the new job is still wet. Before he took it, Blomquist said he needed to talk with his sons, and get their approval.
“I wasn’t going to take the job in Cleveland unless I got the go-ahead and okay from them,” Blomquist said.
They told him to take the job.
“That either meant they wanted me to take a great opportunity or to go away,” he jokes. “I turned down a job when iHeart asked me to go to Columbus and another time to Miami. Then the Cleveland job opened up. If the job opened up ten years ago, I couldn’t have taken it. I have a baseball family; I coach baseball. It just wouldn’t have been fair to my boys.”
WTAM 1100 is the radio home of the Cleveland Guardians, formerly the Cleveland Indians. Blomquist wasn’t even in town when they changed the name of the MLB team.
“I’m sorry they had to change the name of the team,” he said. “I know for fact 90 percent of fans can’t stand it. But they have a great young team. I’m not holding anything against the owners, but they did give into the ‘woke’ culture. You’d go to games and only see about 25 people protesting the previous name. At the time, it seemed everybody was changing names, knocking down statues.”
You’d think something like that would be great fodder for a radio show.
“Not for me,” Blomquist said. “We’re the flagship station of the team, so we don’t talk about that. I know my parameters. The team still let fans wear the Indians gear. They aren’t required to take anything off with the name or logo.”
Blomquist said the crazy thing about the change was the fact it was named in honor of a former Cleveland player.
“The team was named Indians after Louis Sockalexis, a former player and a Penobscot Native American from Maine,” Blomquist explained. “Apparently, a lot of people couldn’t accept the name despite it being named in honor of a Native American. The name was literally chosen to honor the man.”
In rural Ohio, Blomquist said he had a good childhood.
“I’d say we were lower middle class and a loving family,” he said. “The loving part has always been important to me. You learn certain things from your parents, who give you an idea of who you want to be. We didn’t have any macho images around the house. We could hug, tell each other we loved them.”
While he’s enjoyed his career, there have been a couple of speed bumps.
About ten years ago, Blomquist commented on the air about coal miners in an area with many coal miners. He then wrote a blog on the same comment. By today’s standards, it was tame. The people that took exception were mostly the families of coal miners. He apologized to families who were upset, but it could be seen as much ado about nothing.
“It was total sarcasm. Anybody that knows me is aware of my background. My grandfather saw his brother get crushed in a coal mine. I come from a family of coal miners.”
“It started a tirade, even though it was all tongue-in-cheek.”
How anybody could see Blomquist as anything but a supporter of miners, considering his background, is ludicrous. He couldn’t be disconnected from coal miners if he tried. Blomquist’s comments would be cleared by the censor on Sesame Street when compared to things that appear on bumper stickers focused on coal miners.
“Tons of people have a sticker on their bumper reading, ‘My husband is a coal miner. There’s another sticker that depicts a guy on all fours with his head in a woman’s crotch and reads, ‘a coal miner’s job is never done.’ My comments weren’t crass.”
When Blomquist made the comments on the air, nobody complained because they could hear the inflection in his voice. “It was when I put it on my blog in print form; that’s when everyone thought I was serious.”
Blomquist is a Cleveland-centric host dealing with issues-based topics in his new role. “From the minute I turned the mic on at WTAM, it felt like home.”
To form his daily show, Blomquist picks the four most important topics of the day.
“They could range from Bill Cosby doping chicks, Colin Kaepernick not kneeling, something about Deshuwn Watson, or the price of soup. I kind of mold the show around those four topics. I like to get a different mix.”
It’s somewhat surprising he ended up on the radio at all. When he was young, Blomquist looked at talk radio as dull. He was listening to heavy metal instead of Limbaugh. He wasn’t even aware of some of the big names in the business.
“I was filling in for a talker in San Antonio. The engineer asked who it was, and I said Joe Pags. He looked at me like he’d just seen Bigfoot. He said, ‘dude, you’re going to be on national radio. That guy is huge.’”
Blomquist wasn’t star-struck.
“We all have egos in this business, but mine is in control. I want to have good shows, to entertain. I’m allergic to manual labor. If I didn’t have this job, I’d find something else.”
He enjoys what he does. He’s been in the media business since he was 22 and said if something happened and he was no longer on the air, he’d be okay with that.
“If this ends, I’ll be working at Dick’s saying, ‘The kayaks are over there, baseball gloves are over there.’ My job doesn’t define my life. I know I’m not that good, but I work my ass off. I’ve got a three-hour show, and I’ll prepare as though it’s five hours long. I may not be that good, but I’m prepared. The way I talk about things some people aren’t going to like. That’s the way it is. I’m not going in with false information. I’m sure some guys in my position may not believe what they say, but I’m genuine. I’m not going to say something I don’t feel.”
Blomquist said he’s liberal with some things but certainly a conservative. That doesn’t mean he carries water for anyone.
“The Trump days are over. I know that pisses off probably 90 percent of my audience, but so be it. I feel the way I feel.”
One personality he respects is Bill Maher. Blomquist said Maher will call out the Left as quickly as he calls out the Right.
“I think he gets more respect because he doesn’t go with the flow. I’m not going to fluff Trump 24-7. Policy-wise, I agree with him. He’s also abrasive, has a huge ego, and is an ass. Both Trump and Hilary are up there as hated politicians. Trump is number one.”
Blomquist said his job isn’t to change minds but to put information out there.
“I say this all the time—I’m not saying I’m right, I’m saying how I feel. I think part of that comes from growing up in a small town with bikers, farmers, white-collar workers. Even when I was on television, I hung out with the guys behind the camera.”
What’s going to define him is what kind of adults his boys will become. Blomquist said his relationships with his sons are varied, but they’re all solid.
“I have conversations with my eldest son, and they often turn to politics. I tell him I’ve been talking about politics all day and try to find a different topic. The middle one is like Stifler from American Pie and is going to be living with me all his life. I don’t know about the younger one.”
Blomquist made a rule a long time ago. Brothers can and will have fights, but not in his house.
“I’m not a browbeater, but I am a disciplinarian. If you lay down the laws early, that’s good. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to give them a whack on the ass every once in a while.”
