This show is broken into two segments. First, we discuss the news that Teaneck, NJ-native Giuseppe Rossi was cut from the World Cup roster…for Italy. Yes, if you’ve been living under a soccer rock (or I suppose a rock that precludes you from seeing soccer, not one made out of soccer) you may not know that Rossi –  born and raised in New Jersey – decided as a teenager to pursue a spot on the Italian national team in hopes of World Cup glory. He spurned the United States as a boy, then rubbed salt in their eyes during the Confederations Cup by scoring twice.

ESPN The Magazine featured Rossi last month and called him “America’s Best Hope At The World Cup.” Whoops. It seems Rossi didn’t make the Italian roster. He was cut. No World Cup glory for him, this time around.

Listen to our take on the show, but read more about it at The Sporting Blog.

Print’s Not Dead:

If you’re an habitual reader of sports blogs, by now you’ve read the news that The Big Lead was officially purchased by longtime sponsor Fantasy Sports Ventures. Richard Sandomir of the New York Times had the story, and mentioned, “a buyer has established a value for the blog by acquiring it for a figure in the low seven figures.”

Low seven figures. This is great news for the burgeoning, and continuing, legitimacy of sports blogs. Of course, my biggest issue — and what we discuss on the show — is why it had to be THAT sport blog? We talk about this from a media perspective, and genuinely try to figure out how to write this story without letting personal feelings creep in.

Yes, there are person feelings. How can you not have personal feelings about someone who, when asked why he blocked you on Twitter, replied – in addition to likening himself to Bill Simmons with regard to people “swinging up” at him – with this:

My reply, in part, was:

Just a point of fact, blocking people who criticize you is, by definition, hiding from criticism. You are hiding your words from criticism.

sigh.

you do your thing. i’ll do mine.

continued success

jason

ps – the words aren’t hidden from criticism. they’re on the blog. criticize away if you feel compelled to do so. i put value in criticism from some, not from others. to borrow a word from one of your friends, i block the “gnats.”

I was never able to understand who one of my friends was (Kornheiser maybe?), but I finally posted these emails from late 2009 to illustrate why it’s hard for me to be happy for this guy and this blog. Then again, I’m just a gnat.

Sigh. I suppose I’ll just have to offer him continued success. It is, after all, good for the industry.

Housekeeping:

Nick mentions what I have been to angry to bring up: the finale of FlashForward was a disservice to those of us who stuck by the show the entire time. The show runners are a bunch of jerks for the way that show ended, giving a series of unanswerable teasers for a second season when the show had already been cancelled and they knew for a long time it was going to be. Thanks, jerks.

Oh, and thank you for listening.

Tags: Big Lead, Giuseppe Rossi, Jason McIntyre, Karma, Media