Skeets had to postpone his (heavily plugged) appearance for a trip to the ER, so rather than ask Nick about the Basketball Jones, we talk some Grapefruit League baseball.
And while we’re talking about Stephen Strasburg’s impact on the Nationals, our D.C. friend and resident GOPerative Phillip Stutts calls in to talk about the crazy insane Eric Massa media tour yesterday. Stutts is a pretty connected guy, so he shares some Inside the Beltway insight into how the White House feels about Congressmen and what the whole shakedown of Massa’s resignation really means.
Somehow this turns into a conversation about discussions in the shower which the leads to a HARD LEFT TURN back to baseball to discuss Bill Conlin’s claim that the Phillies have the best infield of the modern era. Is it better than the Yankees? Could the two best infields in the last 50 years both be playing right now?
We start with more on the spat between Keith Olbermann and Bill Simmons. For more on my thoughts, echoed in the conversation by Nick, read it at The Sporting Blog.
The news, of course, stems from this comment by Olbermann in response to Simmons calling him out on Twitter.
I am surprised, however, to be able to shed some light on something that has been a prominent topic of late around the internet: the prospect that Mr. Simmons is leaving ESPN. Admittedly I am something of an authority on this process. Nonetheless, I was stunned to receive several emails from some of Mr. Simmons’ bosses there, thanking me for pointing out the absurdity of, and the embarrassment to ESPN provided by, the Woods/Ali comparison.
About five years ago, I guess, somebody said Tony Kornheiser was the most uncontrollable, unmanageable talent in the history of ESPN. I was, of course, crushed (although I believe I got honorable mention). When ESPN bosses are writing me for helping them about somebody they claim has now lapped Tony and myself, I am left to conclude only that if Mr. Simmons does leave ESPN, it may not be entirely of his own choosing.
Not mentioned in my TSB piece is Nick’s assertion that Simmons has changed so much in the last ten years — to which I reply who hasn’t — mostly in his style of writing. Things are far more serious and authoritative than they used to be. The fun is gone from much of his style, and we wonder if it was sapped away from the prevalence of sports blogs. Namely, Drew Magary, who has either organically become the internet’s version of Simmons circa 1999 or made a calculated decision to model his entire online persona that way. Either way, we discuss how it has put Simmons into a bit more perspective that wasn’t there when he was the only sportscar in a lot full of sedans.
CURLING:
Rovitz, aka Ron Balaskovitz, winner of the first Blogs with Stones tournament, joins the show to talk about how great it is to curl online. But that’s not all! Rovitz not only admits he JOINED TWITTER just to play in Blogs with Stones, but also admits that he blew off friends from out of town to play in the tournament segment of the event. Also, and this is the better reason to have him on, Rovitz and friends travelled to the U.S. Curling Championships last weekend. We talk about the event, how it differed from the Olympic coverage and if he had any run-ins with John Shuster.
Turns out, the Olympians weren’t there, which makes me question how you have a national championship without the team that qualified for the Olympics. Nonetheless, we talk about the scene at the event, from the action on the ice to sitting in the stands and knowing when and when not to cheer.
Nick and I talk about Oscar night, from the standpoint of the telecast. What were some of the best and worst ideas of the night. I thought the show was just a weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee bit too long, and you could tell by the fact that they didn’t give an award away until 8:45. That, of course, did give Cablevision time to broker a deal with ABC, which had been dark to 3.1 million viewers all day.
Whose speech did we like and whose did we think was over-indulgent? And I cannot believe we didn’t get into the sad demise of Ben Stiller from someone who was actually funny at one point in his life to whatever he’s become now.
Oscars!
COURT REPORT:
We talk about the Ben Roethlisberger situation a little bit and spin it into the news that Allen Iverson is going through a divorce and, according to reports, a drunk. CLEARLY, the Big Ben story is coverable and enormous news, but is the Iverson stuff? If he’s no longer playing, does it matter what goes on with his wife? Or, did his domestic situation, including his reported drinking, lead to a premature end of his career? And, more with regard to Ben – and in reference to our conversation about sports and politics last week – at what point do we stop rooting for a player just because of the jersey he wears? Will Pittsburgh fans revolt, if the allegations are true? Will they revolt anyway. How important is winning to fans? Enough to root for a guy like (allegedly) this?
No show today. We were going to have Skeets on, but it makes more sense to have him on next week once they have some Score things to promote. Nick is off being an international man of mystery. Or at work. One of those.
If you haven’t please take the time to listen to yesterday’s show.
If you listen to this show you know how much I’m into curling these days. It went from a campy fun sport in the Olympics that you’ll watch because it’s the only thing on, to something we all really seemed to care about, learn about and embrace. The man heading the television coverage — calling every match on the NBC family of networks — was Andrew Catalon, and I am very happy to have him on the show.
If you haven’t heard of Catalon, you’re not alone. In fact, this is part of his bio from WNYT, NewsChannel 13 in Albany:
Andrew Catalon is the weekend sports anchor at NewsChannel 13. He joined WNYT in November 2003. Andrew hosts “Big Board Sports with Andrew Catalon,” the Capital Region’s only Sunday night sports wrap-up show. When he is not on the anchor desk, you can usually find Andrew at a local high school. Each and every Tuesday, Andrew honors the top student-athletes in the area for the “Dunkin’ Donuts High School Player of the Week” segment.
In other words, he was plucked from the middle of nowhere (no disrespect to Albany). So how did he go from his local NBC affiliate to covering the cult-favorite sport of the Olympics? We discuss his affiliation with the network, from doing a few local productions on the sport to calling a promotional event on the ice at Rockafeller Center for NBC, eventually leading to a gig calling Handball during the Beijing Games, which carried over to Vancouver.
We talk a lot about soccer today. The latest FIFA World Rankings came out today and the US is ranked 18th. At the Sporting Blog, I write about how this can be a good thing for the USMNT. Nick and I discuss that, and the expectations of a team that is lower in the rankings, compared to what the USMNT had to face going into the 2006 World Cup with a top-five ranking. This team is better than that, so has the world gotten better? Likely, the ranking is low because of the mediocre play of the B and C squads, but will the lowered ranking hurt the interest in America? Will it maybe give a little boost if the team does well? Or does it matter at all?
We also talk about the report from BigSoccer.com that has JP Dellacamera out of the booth for ESPN and headed to radio in lieu of a slew of European imports, most notably Martin Tyler. Some at Big Soccer are upset, suggesting if ESPN wants to prove they take soccer in America seriously, they should have an American in the booth. But wouldn’t you rather have Marv Albert calling a game than, say, Kevin Harlan? And isn’t Tyler the soccer equivalent of Albert? Besides, doesn’t everything just sound better with a British accent?
We turn the show upside-down today and lead off with some Housekeeping.
A heartfelt congratulations to the fine folks at The Basketball Jones, who will now be doing the show on a full-time basis for The Score. There have been only a few times I can remember where I was as genuinely happy to hear news like this…for someone else. We wouldn’t be doing a daily show if they didn’t show me it’s possible…even if it does make you insane…and we congratulate and salute those Canadian bastards for not only doing things the “right” way, but also for doing it their way. They earned this by doing their show the way they wanted to do it, and that deserves the most applause.
While we’re patting friends on the back, a hearty congratulations to John Gonzalez of the Philadelphia Inquirer and a contestant in Blogs with Stones. He’s joining Vai Sikahema every weekday from 10-2 on 97.5 The Fanatic in Philadelphia. I had issues with that time slot in the past, but not anymore. Good for them.
Also, last bit of housekeeping…JOIN OUR BABY POOL. We’re turning it into a show contest, with the winner getting half the pot and the other half going to charity. Sign up at http://babylevy2.babypool.com and tell your friends.
If you get the chance today, please read my Press Coverage column at The Sporting Blog. It’s about 2,500 words and much of it would be stuff I’d put in the space below. So read it there, please.
Today’s show talks about the return of the American sportswriter after a long fortnight in Canada. We also talk about the hockey finale as well as Gander, Newfoundland…the new symbol for NBC’s complete lack of respect for the American sports fan.
On non-sports topics, we discuss more about the spying on your kids story from last week — I think I dug my hole deeper here — and the news that Anderson Cooper may be in line for Katie Couric’s job, which leads to my point that cable news people have no souls.
Snow today has everything a bit behind, so to make up time, this is what we discuss today.
• The MLS Labor situation. Read more about that here.
• Whitlock vs. Daulerio. We talk about how many of us try to make a story about us. Self-promotion is how we survive in this business. But Whitlock has seemed to take it to a whole new level. We talk about that, his decision to use the blog world as puppets to do his bidding, and how Daulerio really doesn’t seem to care what people think of him. Which, frankly, makes it hard to get over on the guy. Whitlock clearly cares what people think of him, no matter what he says or writes.
But mostly, Whitlock’s job is to get you to pay attention to Whitlock. He always succeeds, but it doesn’t make it right that he does it or how he does it.
• The Olympics are coming to a close. Will you miss them, or will you be happy to get back to normal viewing habits? What will NBC’s fallout be? Will ESPN really get the Olympics and put things on live? And will we care about curling next week?
If ESPN really wants the Olympics, and wants to prove it’s about the sports, they should buy up the American TV rights to all these events — handball, curling, archery, etc — and put them on a specific Olympic-themed ESPN360 channel, giving us maybe 3-4 hours a week on one of their networks for a “Wide World of Sports” themed show. Let’s hope it happens.
• Congrats to Rovitz for winning the Blogs with Stones Curling Championship. Matt Suss– got the silver and cknoblockhead got the bronze. Great even, and we’ll do it again soon.
Let’s have a short recap today, shall we? Nick and I talk about the Canada-Russia hockey game last night. It seems Canada woke up from whatever US-induced haze they were in and seem like, literal, world beaters again. And we link to a report that Mike Milbury used the term “Eurotrash” to describe the way the Russians played. Bill Patrick and Jeremy Roenick seemed very taken aback by that. Is it that derogatory? Where does that term rank on the epithet list? Or was it more a shot at European HOCKEY player?
Soapbox:
Stephen A. Smith wrote a column about Brian Westbrook getting released, and turned it into yet another shot at the Eagles front office. So, if for no other reason than it’s fun to point out how ridiculous his words can be, we turn it into another shot at him. This could be a recurring show theme, so buckle up.
Housekeeping:
The big Blogs with Stones curling tournament is tonight. Here’s a bracket…vote to see who you think will win. Follow #blogswithstones on Twitter to stay on top of all the action. Even more Olympic conspiracies last night, making the IOC the only sports organization worse than the NCAA at this point. It has to be close, right?
Click here to listen. Oh, and be careful in the snow.
