Fred Toucher, a key member of Atlanta rock station 99X in the early 2000s era, is taking an extended leave of absence from his popular Boston sports talk show Toucher & Rich after an unspecified health issue that has been impacting his throat.
The 48-year-old Detroit native is part of a morning team for 98.5 The Sports Hub with fellow 99X alum Rich Shertenlieb. After 99X in 2006, they joined afternoons at a rock station in Boston before moving to mornings on the Hub in 2009.
Their ratings in Boston in recent years far exceed that of any sports talk show in Atlanta. The Boston Globe last fall noted that they had a whopping a 23.4 share among men in the 25-to-54 demographic.
While in Atlanta, Toucher started as a sardonic night personality in 1999 before moving to mornings in 2004 for two years.
Toucher, in a statement Shertenlieb read to listeners on Monday morning, said he had been suffering from voice problems for months. A Hub listener suggested a doctor and Toucher went in for a throat examination. Unfortunately, he said, “it didn’t go great. He found some things in my throat that concerned him. He told me not to worry because he could fix all of it.”
The doctor in question Dr. Steven Zeitels, he noted on Instagram, saved singer Adele’s voice.
In another post, he said he can’t talk for awhile and will soon have surgery. “That means I’ll be off the air for awhile,” he wrote. “I’ll keep you up to date.”
Toucher also wrote, “Never smoke. No matter how old you are. [Expletive] quit now. Trust me.”
In his statement, he went into semi-joke mode, noting that the doctor didn’t take insurance and “between this and my divorce, I’m [expletive] financially! Sorry kids ― Christmas is going to look a lot different this year.”
More seriously, he noted that “if you stick around long enough, there are going to be tough times. ... It has been my pleasure to share my journey over the last 17 years with you guys. I knew that if I let you in on enough of my crap, it would pay off one day.”
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