Nick and I talk about the goings on in sports this weekend. We talk about the perfect game and wonder if the reporters writing about it felt they had to write the perfect game story. Also, when do you start writing that game story, because on a normal day you’d be writing throughout the entire game. Is that the case, or at some point do you stop as not to jinx what you’re watching?
Also, Dallas Braden provided a great story on Mother’s Day, having lost his to cancer when he was younger. But is this the beginning of some great things for him, or will be be one of the few “who the heck is that guy” names on the list of 19 men to ever throw a perfect game.
We also touch on Jamie Moyer’s amazing two-hitter and have a conversation about how wins really mean absolutely nothing to indicate how well a pitcher threw.
We shift to golf to talk about Tim Clark finally becoming a PGA bride after all the years as a bridesmaid. Quite a tournament to get his first PGA win, too. Oh, and some guy named Tiger has a neck thing. That’ll dominate the headlines, eh?
We also touch on the English Premiership. Did you know Chelsea needed a win to bring home the championship and won 8-0 this weekend. Yikes. Can’t wait for the playoffs to start. Oh, that’s right, Bill Simmons reminded me last week that there aren’t playoffs.
Speaking of playoffs, lots of that kind of talk in NHL and NBA later in the week. Click to listen.
Everyone wants to talk to the draft guys before the draft. Who is my favorite/local team going to pick? Where will Tebow get drafted? I couldn’t care less about talking with someone like NFLN’s Mike Mayock about that kind of stuff because EVERYONE is talking with him about that kind of stuff.
No, I’m more fascinated with talking about the process after the process is over. So how did this year’s draft go for him, the teams, and the league?
We talk about when the draft evaluation process begins and how long it is for everyone involved. We also discuss the differences between a big board and a mock draft. Turns out, Mayock only does one mock draft a year…the day the draft starts. But his information does come from a balance of scouting reports, talking with teams and his own assessment of tape and workouts. And man alive does he watch a lot of tape and go to a lot of workouts.
He explains that he looks at his job like he’s a scout/GM for a team, but on top of that, he’s trying to look at every team and, during the draft, fit players he thinks will be good for their specific system. In essence, he’s playing GM for all 32 teams, PLUS his own evaluations. That’s a lot of work.
I ask about NFLN and the amount of interviews he did in advance of the draft. Does he feel like he has to be a pitchman for the network now that they’ve been doing the draft for a few years? Ultimately, the goal is to get more people watching, right? Well, not to Mayock. He makes it perfectly clear that his job is to evaluate football talent and not worry about TV. He’s a football guy, who happens to ply his trade on television. He’s rather specific about that.
What about Mel? Doesn’t he have a rivalry with Mel? It would make the rest of us so much happier if he had a rivalry…nah, hatred…with Mel. Get ready to be disappointed.
Will Leitch has a new book out. It’s about growing up, and our relationships with our fathers, through the game of baseball. You should buy it. Seriously. Go buy it. Here’s where you can buy it.
Still not convinced? Read an excerpt from the book on Deadspin where he (adeptly) tries to humanize Steve Bartman. Leitch thinks that Bartman is him…or any of us who love baseball.
STILL not convinced? Here is a review. And another.
Oh, right, or you could just listen to this conversation about the book, where we discuss the following topics (note: a transcription of some of this interview is featured on The Sporting Blog.)
• The marketing model of promoting a book now that he’s not Will Leitch, basement dweller and has become Will Leitch, BFD.
• The niche-specific nature of a baseball book, and if he feels the book is more a story of his life that uses the game as a conduit, or if it’s a book about baseball and he uses his personal experiences as the narrative to tell the story of the game? Or is it both…can it be both?
• The fact that Leitch hates stories about your kids and how great you think they are.
• I challenge the notion that he’s actually never told his dad that he loves him. Damn Midwest sensibilities.
• I ask why he wrote the book now — right before he’s about to get married and presumably start a family. Does he fear that he’ll look back on the book in 10 years and with he had waited until he was a father? He provides a wonderful answer to this question, by the way. And yes, I do use Mike Lupica as an example.
Kevin Kaduk of Yahoo’s Big League Stew joins the show to talk all about the current season in Major League Baseball. Of course we recorded the show yesterday afternoon, which was before news broke that the legendary Ernie Harwell had passed away.
Here’s my take at The Sporting Blog, with help from friend of the show and Tigers writer Ian Casselberry. Also, read Harwell’s amazing essay on baseball over at Sporting News. It’s worth it today.
Kaduk and I talk about a lot of things. Descriptive, I know. We discuss the amazing length of the Ryan Howard contract debate that, honestly, seemed about as long as the extension itself. This obviously leads to a little talk about the “stat heads” who I’m sure, by now, hate me even though I am really far more on board with advanced stats than they seem to think.
We talk about the attendance issues in baseball and if it’s a real legit concern for MLB. What can they do to get more people in the stadium? Why won’t cities with strong baseball traditions, like Houston, show up for a game between Roy Halladay and Roy Oswalt? Why do the Nationals fans care more about a AAA start for Strasburg than the fact that their current team is right in the NL East race at the start of May?
Hello faithful listeners. We’re back. We talk about some things today. Won’tcha come join us?
In today’s show, we talk about:
• The media horde during situations like the Virginia lacrosse murder
• Sports! Including hockey playoffs and the NBA. Well, it’s probably most about baseball, let’s be honest.
• TV! Namely a conversation using my Press Coverage column at TSB as a launching point about CNN asking viewers and readers to submit iReports, most egregiously during the investigation of the Times Square car bomb. How about this idea? Tell your fans to get the hell to Jersey, there’s a car that could explode.
• I forget to ask Nick if he has anything else and it turns out he has TWO things!
Good to be back. Click here to listen.
