We talk about my wife’s grandfather’s funeral. Have you ever heard Taps played by a uniformed man with a horn at a funeral, then watched two other soldiers fold up an American flag and hand it to someone you care about? It’s an amazingly powerful moment.
We ask two questions about sports today: would you rather see a short series with close games or a long series with blowouts that lead up to a competitive culmination? How much power does “game seven” have? Plus, if you’re a fan of a team, do you embrace bandwagon jumpers, especially if your sport is looking for fans?
Last, we tackle the Deadspin rumor about Bill Simmons new contract.
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.
We plug the baby pool again — folks, I’m telling you, SKEW EARLY. Like, the countdown is on now.
Next, Nick and I talk about the Santonio Holmes situation in the context of trying to figure out how the media is supposed to talk about the Santonio Holmes situation. Can’t anyone sue anyone for anything? If Nick and I file a lawsuit against Donovan McNabb for pain and suffering, it’ll be news. But is it fair? And our kneejerk reaction is always to assume the worst of the athletes, yet sometimes when there is smoke it’s just smoke, not fire. People can’t have an opinion on this, right? It’s more just ‘um…here’s news that may or may not be true.’ The lawsuit, in this case, is the news. The accusations, in Ben Roethlisberger’s case, is the news. But only a few people know what actually happened. So are we covering the news, or covering the news that there’s news?
You know who can fix this? Holmes. Not Santonio Holmes. Mike Holmes. That dude can fix anything. We need to get a show called Holmes on Holmes, where Holmes spends each episode giving us his opinion of what’s wrong with Holmes.
Our good friend Zach Harper from Talkhoops.net joins the show, at 4am eastern time, to talk about the All-Star Weekend in the NBA. But first…
Nick and I talk about the Olympics coverage thus far. First, we put on our Al Roker costumes (yes, I totally wish I had an Al Roker costume) to discuss the weather in Vancouver and how it’s really starting to screw with the quality of the events. But then, our ire is shifted toward NBC. How in the world can a media company spend more than $800 million and not show all the events when they happen? And how in the world do they think that we’d rather see a human interest story by Mary Carillo — who I like, by the way — interviewing Polar Bears more than 1,000 miles away from Vancouver. Just because it’s “CANADA” doesn’t mean it has anything to do with the Games going on in VANCOUVER.
