Monday, June 17, 2013
Keidel: Bob Costas Blurs Line Between Illuminating And Illuminati
(newyork.cbslocal.com)
You killed them. You killed the Mets. You killed everything. You’re a monster.
Read More...Bob Costas is often evangelical at odd times. His recent ill-timed (if not illogical) remarks about gun control felt like something reserved for the Huffington Post — not the goal post — where he was broadcasting a football game. Now his increasingly throaty, theatrical bent led him to say that the Mets’ celebration after Sunday’s victory was a sign of the “end of Western Civilization.”
But this time ...
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1. Avoid running at all times.-S. Paige posted on February 14, 2013 at 07:23 AM # hit 0 | hit 0But there isn't much out there, from what I've been able to see.
Kruk has a face for podcasts.
The two best soccer podcasts are Football Weekly and the Football Ramble. Everything else is distinctly second-rate.
I think part of my frustration with baseball podcasts is I know the game well enough and follow it so closely that I find I'm not getting a lot of interesting insight. That's probably my failing more than others though. It's why I want Clubhouse Confidential as a podcast. I find it to be pretty interesting but rarely get to see it.
Add me to the group of people who loved Baseball Today, know of no other baseball podcast that's even close to as good, and is very disappointed about how they ESPNed this up.
There used to be two excellent baseball podcasts, Baseball Today and Up and In from BP. Now both are gone, there is a gap in the market.
For football I like Men in Blazers from Grantland.
I like (and listen to when it's on) Rany and Joe.
I truly miss Up and In, and am already starting to miss Baseball Today.
Baseball Tonight hasn't done it for me YET, but it's only 3 shows in. A little TOO early to disregard it.
I subscribe to the Baseball America podcasts (their most recent one had a healthy discussion on whether the Astros have gone too far in their teardown/rebuild - a subject of a recent thread here as well). They often focus on things many here won't care about (minors, college), but are worth a listen.
I tried to make it through a Fangraphs podcast but it was so unpolished it was unlistenable. Rany and Joe is good, but never updates. I have Baseball America queued but have yet to listen to it.
A BTF podcast needs to happen.
Frankly, I don't like listening to baseball talk on the radio. On subjects where I feel like I know a lot about the issue, I need to be able to engage in the conversation like this. Its hard for me to just sit back and passively listen about stuff I already kinda know about. Most of the podcasts I listen to are on subjects out of my depth like economics, TV/film, and science.
I'm not steagles, but I am a smark happily willing to vouch for AoW. It's one of the best podcasts going. Period.
Unrelated, but El Generico seems to have kept his gimmick.
EDIT: Oh, and Rany and Joe. They're very listenable as a team, although both of them individually annoy me (especially Sheehan), if that makes any sense.
*secret handshake*
*secret handshake = ROH handshake.*
I agree totally wrt Generico, but never put anything past WWE. However, since HHH took over developmental, things have improved mightily. I was still a bit worried he'd get semi-repackaged the way Mistico became Sin Cara.
I don't think he hosts anymore, but Jonah is a recurring guest (during baseball season) on the BS Report.
I really liked Baseball Today, but it was getting kind of tiresome. I never really cared for Simon, and Karaball/KLaw revisited the same points (there is no special talent to closing) really frequently. I'm a big fan of Keith's work and felt like Baseball Today left something on the table.
KLaw mentioned in his chat last week or on Twitter that there are plans for something to take the podcast's place. Hopefully it will be something more like Up & In that gives him more latitude to discuss both baseball and non-baseball topics.
My favorite soccer podcasts are The Bundesliga Show & the Yellow Wall podcast, though if you're not a fan of German soccer and/or Borussia Dortmund it might not be for you.
Favorite comedy podcasts are Comedy Bang Bang & How Did This Get Made.
In general, podcasts don't really hold my attention. My attention span sucks.
I've thought about this, actually. Most of us have day jobs that don't involve baseball, so finding the time to do one regularly would be a bit of a challenge, and it's not worth doing if you don't do it often. Wish I'd been able to record some of the debates between Dial and Kevin back in the day.
Aaron Gleeman and John Bonnes do a good one, albeit Twins-centric. It's very much like a BTF one would be, IMO.
Baseball Tonight is worse than useless. It's just like every other ESPN roundtable - a bunch of ESPN guys patting each other on the back about how much they know.
-- MWE
But there's enough of us that you could rotate guests. I don't think you need more than 2-3 people at a time.
I don't know how interesting we would be. Podcasts where its just the two hosts cracking jokes is kinda boring. And I know I am far less articulate in person than I am online, and I'm not particularly artikulate on the interrnet thingy.
NPR has a podcast where a female host made the astute observation that sports roundtables (and political pundit roundtables) = "The View."
Besides, even from questions like having decent equipment (listening to Skype calls is kind of not so great), vocal quality, having something to say over repeated sessions - what's the compelling reason for that content to take that form, why not write articles?
To that end, I'd like to see more original content housed on this site. (Beyond the comments of course - it's not just the sense of community that keeps me here.)
**
Heh. Who said that?
**
I've said it here before more than once, but - if you like comedy podcasts, you ought to check out Superego.
I made a baseball podcast a few weeks ago. It might be boring, hard to really listen to yourself talk and judge the quality, ya know? Don't know if I'm going to continue, Podcast hosting is just hard for me to figure out. I do have solid recording equipment, but the server/hosting business seems so cryptic, and I don't want to screw up my computer with massive file storage. Anyway, here's the episode: I talk about the offseasons had by Cleveland, Toronto, Washington, and the Dodgers, along with some other stuff.
Seams and Soul podcast
I could rant about how to connect the spymaster Wild Bill Donovan and the pitcher Wild Bill Donovan in a few easy steps.
It would allow a narrowing of the voices. As BTF lives now, all kinds of people can and do post all kinds of stuff, from the extremely partisan (the Youkilis thread today features an example) to the numbers-driven. The mere fact of someone intentionally choosing the voices that would be featured and the topics they'd discuss would make it leaner than the website, and more directed as well.
"Oh, my God! Angel Berroa's podcast is over 20 GB! It must be a movie thread."
33 - I listen, sure. That said, the audience going nuts everytime he says 'Satchel Paige' annoys me, which is neither a knock on Proops or, of course, Paige.
34 - In all seriousness, if it were my project - you might having something like that.
35 - Those topics, I think, would be a solid fit. For that matter, you don't need Mike and Dan (though I respect both deeply) to pull that off.
Matt, I'll check yours out sometimes this weekend...
Yes, but we don't need a podcast to talk to ourselves.
Proops was doing a show in Minneapolis last year when SABR was there (it's the July 6 episode of the podcast), and Paula and I went to see it (Will Young and his lady were there as well, if memory serves). We ended up walking out of it; it just got too overbearing for us. I can deal with it in small doses, but as an entire podcast it becomes too much to take.
-- MWE
I have really liked a couple of recent Comedy Bang Bangs - basically anything with Paul F Tompkins is a winner, and the two episode set with interactions between Gillian Jacobs and his Garry Marshall impression are tremendously funny.
Not a fan of Proops.
I think Proops works better in large doses, immersion, but I can totally get it being too much (or not being a fan).
The notion of a celebrity crush is mostly foreign to me, but Jacobs' rapport with Aukerman and PFT was, um, exceedingly charming. (As for PFT, I think the Fourvel ep was the best one they put out last year.) This week's Aukerman/Mantzoukas/A.Daly combo works really well too.
And if it's possible to identify a niche that is about more than just being "one of the cool kids with a podcast" (which is, essentially, why Olney decided to do Baseball Tonight), then what voices does the site need to make it work? (And it can't happen without Jim's permission, needless to say.)
-- MWE
Frequent PSAs by Smitty* noting that he isn't wearing pants would be, I think, obligatory.
Yeah, that was great. Brooks is up there on the list of My Favorite Humans Ever.
I am looking forward to hearing this podcast.
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