The day after the MLB All Star game is usually among the slowest on the sports calendar. Today is no exception. It’s mainly filler, as we wait for the second half of the season to begin, and for the NFL lockout to finally lift.

A few thoughts and links for a Tuesday:

From the FOX broadcast last night, if you were wondering about Joe Buck’s voice, apparently he is recovering from a virus that weakened his vocal cords, and caused him to almost lose his voice permanently.

While I feel bad for Buck’s condition, (OK, not really) among the highlights of the night was Justin Timberlake heaping sarcastic praise on Buck during an interview with Mark Grace on the telecast.

No, Tim McCarver, the whole country would not have celebrated Derek Jeter with you last night…

Speaking of Jeter’s absence, I found it funny that in the past, Manny Ramirez and Pedro Martinez had skipped All Star games, and the furor from the media was fierce. In 2006 when Manny skipped, Buster Olney said that his name should never again appear on an All Star ballot.

Derek Jeter is “mentally exhausted” from his quest for 3000 hits, and that’s why he stayed home from last night’s game. No problem at all from anyone. He’s Derek Jeter. I’m not a Derek Jeter basher, and this is not a shot at him, it’s a shot at the double-standards employed by so many in the media toward their favorite sons.

Will the Chris Berman era ever end? – Kirk Minihane on WEEI.com thinks it’s time for Chris Berman to be eased off of ESPN.

These Sox may have fit – John Tomase looks at the mutual interest between the Red Sox and Matt Holliday in the winter of 2009, and how different things might be right now had they been able to work something out.

All-Star trip has special meaning – Gordon Edes looks at how the trip to Arizona held family significance for Jacoby Ellsbury.

If season is lost, C’s could make run at Howard – A. Sherrod Blakely explains why Celtics fan might want to root for a lost season, though he does says that his belief is “that Howard will never wear the Green and White.”

Mike Vrabel was the very personification of a football player – Jim Donaldson looks at the career of the former Patriots linebacker.

Published by Bruce Allen

Automattician.

21 thoughts on “Slow Day In The Sports Media World…”

  1. Mazz was killing Jeter yesterday, and he’s probably Jeter’s biggest fan….and I don’t care for Buck either, but the guy had a throat virus, that’s pretty serious stuff Bruce.

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  2. You know its a slow day when WEEI trots out Steve Buckley is gay talk in the 8:00 hour. There is nothing better than hearing how great Buck's family is and how accepting they are. Maybe some day an NFL locker room would be open and inviting like Cambridge. Buck's had a good life…we get it. No one cares that he's gay…we care that he is boring the crap out of us.

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    1. Gerry probably does know any gay people other than Buck so he has to pump him for information while he's got him one on one. (I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not those puns are intended).

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    2. I'll be very curious to see if Wolfie decides to keep these two paired together while Dennis is away. Topics like this to Callahan are like gasoline to a fire.

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  3. I tend to agree with you, Bruce, but there's still a big difference between the Jeter situation and the Pedro/Manny situations: Jeter did not deserve to be an All-Star this year in the least. His "exhaustion" meant that the guy who should have been the AL All-Star starting shortstop — Asdrubel Cabrera — was the AL All-Star starting shortstop. I think that explains a lot of the media ho-hummery over Jeter's absence.

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    1. He still could have not played –allowing Cabrera to play –and show up like Lester and a dozen other players who were selected and unable to play.

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  4. I think one thing that the Jeter situation proves is that despite its reputation as a "tough" ssports media market, New York (which sets the tone for the national press) can't hold a candle to the Boston when it comes to media negativity and agenda-driven spitefulness. Rick Pitino's rant, while self-serving, was basically accurate. Manny and Pedro were tough nuts for the local media to crack, and so any non-compliant behavior they exhibited was subjected to much scorn and ridicule. Again, as Bruce said, this isn't about Jeter-bashing, because the guy doesn't deserve it. It's about the media and how they treat certain players and situations differently. The NY sports media can be just as "cheerleading" as the supposedly "tame" media markets like Cleveland and St. Louis, and their non-stop fawning over Jeter is evidence of that.

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  6. New rating book comes out today. Some of the 98.5 hosts have been hinting they've crushed 'eei for the time in a book. I consider that pretty interesting, given D&C's infamous 15 minute show open proclaiming their big .3 of a point ratings win after the last ratings book numbers came in.

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    1. Just, WBZ may have every reason to crow. The April and May books had 98.5 crushing WEEI in the important demographics, which I believe are 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. Those two months were around a 5:1 ratio in favor of 98.5. With a combination of the Bruins and increase in younger listeners, the Spring books may be a blowout victory for 98.5.

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  7. Anyone notice that Mike Barnicle is now writing for Bill Simmons over at Grantland? It surprises me that Simmons would employ a fraud like that.

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  8. I'm not particularly a Joe Buck fan, though, I don't dislike him either. Is there a history between that air-head Timberlake and Buck? Why was he interviewed in the first place? He doesn't seem to know anything about baseball. If I were Joe Buck, I'd be raising hell with somebody at FOX today.

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    1. Because Fox interview celebs at the games. Remember the kerfuffle the had when Sarah Silverman was on talking about players on LSD a month ago (thereabouts)?

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  9. Bruce mentioned in his SBN article about WEEI saying they have fewer ads then 98.5. One of the theories Bruce mentioned maybe there are fewer advertisers on WEEI. Business may not be getting a good bang for the buck. I would agree with this theory. Today, I was listening to Mut and Merloni. Every block of ads during the show had a WEEI business advertising ad. I might be wrong, but it seems like before 98.5 started to control the ratings, WEEI may have one to two of these ads per hour. I would have to imagine that ad revenue at WEEI is sinking like a stone.

    WEEI has also decided to take a defiant tone in some of their show advertising. An ad for D&C had a caller talk about how good it was to be able to talk about Whitey Bulger on the air. The caller felt it was great for the show to just not talk sports. Callahan then says that D&C will continue to be that way. My question is once the numbers come out will Entercom believe this is a good idea?

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    1. About 3 months ago very quietly Entercom brought in a senior manager (I went looking for his name but can't find the article) to help Kahn and Wolfe. I have no idea how everyone is co-existing. I think Entercom expected something but certainly not the hurricane that was the Bruins and the resulting bump it gave 98.5. I think it is clear the Mutt and Merloni experiment has been a dismal failure. I also think it is clear moving Holley to team with Ordway has been a dismal failure. Who knows what they are planning. If it was me….

      – I would make a september announcement that WEEI was moving to FM 93.7 starting Sept 15.
      – I would replace Mutt and Merloni with Bob Ryan and Dale Arnold. My plan would be for it to be a two year bridge show as I looked for a permanent long term pairing probably from outside the market. Give Dale an extra year on his current contract (thereby admitting they were wrong in moving him off the air) but not tying him up long term. I would also tell Dale that you supported his move back into TV and make sure he can meet all of those commitments.
      – I think you are stuck with the Big – O. I would fire Mike adams and move Mike Holley to the night time gig where I think he would do better because he could explore topics in more detail. If you are going to leave the Big – O where he is I would go back to the rotating co-hosts. However I would try hard to make one of the two co-hosts every few days (two times a week) someone of national stature…either someone at ESPN, FOXSports, NFLNet, NBAnet, MLBNet, NHLnet or opposing teams play by play guys. This would give an outside the market perspective on the conversation on a regular basis. I would also try and get away from the clown stuff (Fred, the Mayor, Burton and his eating) and get back to more thoughtful talk where Big O s more an interviewer/fence sitter than he is opinion setter/maker.
      – I don't think I would do anything with Dennis and Callahan. I think they have their issues but as we get farther away from the Bruins I am willing to bet the numbers even out. I don't think either morning show talks sports…so the Whitey talk is just as deaf to me as listening to Rich explain that he would be the last player taken on the radio station softball team.

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    2. Speaking of D&C ads/promos, I heard one this morning from Senator Scott Brown talking about how he listens to D&C because they're funny. Really? Those two are a lot of things, but funny is not among them.

      LTD – Entercom's new VP/Market Manager is Jeff Brown, who arrived from Portland, OR last month to replace Tim Murphy, who I believe was heavily involved in the early formation of EEI's website.

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    1. I only referenced Olney in regards to him saying in 2006 that Manny should never be allowed to appear on an All Star ballot again. Not in regards to anything he said about Jeter.

      So no, I wasn’t saying that Buster Olney was hard on Manny and Pedro but not on Jeter.

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  11. I think you're overstating the issue here. There was plenty of Jeter bashing in the media. He practically caught more flak than some of my victims.

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  12. I think you're overstating the issue here. There was plenty of Jeter bashing in the media. He practically caught more flak than some of my victims.

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