In the days leading up to its October debut, Dallas’ talk-radio channel The Freak generated buzz galore due to its headlining talent, including Mike Rhyner, erstwhile voice of The Hardline on sports radio stalwart KTCK, The Ticket. Rhyner’s likeness and the words, “I’m back” popped up on billboards around town. His fans tuned in.
A few minutes into that first broadcast day, Rhyner surprised listeners when he introduced his producer, Michael Gruber, who operated the soundboard at The Ticket for about a decade. Known widely as Grubes, Gruber is a cult hero among local sports fans.
Gruber’s face appeared on several of the billboards post reveal. His inclusion in The Freak’s cast, which features several KTCK exes, had been a guarded secret.
“Some people might have known. I had some texts asking about it,” Gruber says. “I did not feel good about not responding to people, but we were trying to keep it under wraps.”
While contemplating his comeback, Rhyner thought of Gruber, the Preston Hollow native whose radio career started at The Ticket when he was 16 and still a Jesuit College Preparatory student. But Rhyner says he dismissed the idea because Gruber had moved on and was enjoying success running audio for the Texas Rangers.
“I thought he was just as happy as he could be doing that,” Rhyner says.
When he realized The Freak management team was serious about getting Gruber, he says, “that’s when I really started to get a grasp on the possibilities here and figured that they were going to do things right.”
Rhyner did not know that Gruber was poised to leave the Rangers to take a position with Bally Sports Southwest.
“I was already planning a move when he called me,” Gruber says. “I knew I wanted to do it. There were some formalities to work through, but there wasn’t much doubt on my end.”
Gruber — who at 97.1 operates the soundboard for the Ben and Skin show and is the board op/producer on The Downbeat — is the best at what he does, says Rhyner, who’s been in radio since the 1970s and knows whereof he speaks.
Board operators control music, sound effects and other audio throughout the broadcast.
“But no one does it like Grubes,” Rhyner says.
Being Grubes-esque requires a rare combination of technical expertise, razor-sharp observational skills, pitch-perfect comedic timing, a grasp of human psychology and a gift for provoking your peers in a way that is hilarious but not cruel, Rhyner says.
Gruber landed an internship on The Ticket’s Norm Hitzges’ show in 2002, when he was a junior playing baseball at the all-boys Catholic high school.
“I was just a huge P1 (one who listens primarily to The Ticket), and I wanted to do anything that they would have me do there,” Gruber says. “I would have cleaned the toilets if that’s what they needed. I just wanted to be a part of it.”
Grubes mastered the sound board and climbed rank to The Ticket’s afternoon show, The Hardline, with Rhyner and co-host Corby Davidson. The Ticket’s guy-talk, pull-back-the-curtain style, pioneered by Rhyner, meant everyone involved in the show production, including the technical crew, has an on-air presence. Fans started to recognize Gruber. Unlike some of the other polarizing personalities, everyone loved Grubes.
“There might be figures around here who have more supporters,” wrote Levi Weaver for The Athletic, but as far as approval rating? There are only a few legends that rank higher than Grubes.”
During his Ticket tenure, Gruber perfected the fine art of the audio drop.
He launched and skillfully landed recorded clips of hosts hollering at callers, transformed vulgar slip-ups into multi-part auto-tuned harmonies and made benign phrases such as “I like steak” part of the regional vernacular.
“He just paid so much attention to the show,” Rhyner says. “He got to a place where he could predict what we were going to do next. It’s uncanny.”
Ten years ago, Gruber left The Ticket and went back to school. He didn’t stick around for the degree, but enjoyed myriad, arguably cooler, adventures.
An incomplete list of Gruber’s accomplishments includes DJing for the Dallas Stars, the Mavericks, and baseball’s minor league Frisco RoughRiders. The latter resulted in a series of Grubes bobbleheads.
Texas Monthly featured Gruber performing a “weird” job for the Texas Rangers that involved “entertaining a crowd that wasn’t there—and also simulating that crowd with sound effects,” during the pandemic.
The Athletic called him the Forrest Gump of DFW, due his perpetual adjacency to the metro’s biggest sports stories.
His father, a prominent Dallas attorney, once acknowledged while accepting an award that he is best known as “Grubes’ dad.”
Gruber says his parents, Mike and Diane, are incredibly supportive and loving. “Frankly, I couldn’t have done most of what I’ve done without them,” he says.
NBA star Dirk Nowitzki bought his home in Preston Hollow from the Grubers.
During one interview on The Ticket, Nowitzki asked: “Where’s Grubes at?” And the Big German’s first-ever Tweet in 2010? “I don’t know where Grubes at.”
[Related: The 2017 Advocate interview with Dirk Nowitzki, wherein we asked Dirk about Grubes]
The Ticket versus The Freak rivalry has stirred emotions among radio listeners. On the news and discussion site Reddit, some say Mike Rhyner’s presence at the new station is a betrayal. Others welcome the expansion of talk-radio choices and opportunity for emerging audio talent. But there is common ground in a fondness for Grubes.
“I hope the man has never had a bad day in his life, and if he has, I’d like to give a strong middle finger to whoever caused it,” wrote one user.
Others praised The Ticket for keeping Grubes’ spirit alive during his absence from the airwaves.
One commenter shared that Gruber helped him during one of the darkest times in his life by sitting and talking with him at a neighborhood bar.
Fellow radio personality Jeff Cavanaugh noted that his talent at his particular job, at which he is “the best to ever do,” pales in comparison to what an amazing person he is.
“No one anywhere makes people feel better for just having been around them.”
Gruber says he feels lucky to be back on air with his buddies and that, thus far, being at The Freak has been a blast, which he will enjoy as long as he can.
“I’m just going to keep doing stuff that people enjoy, making more connections with fans and listeners,” he says. “It’s all been a really awesome wave that I’ ll be riding until it crashes.”
