Yeah, I used to really like that show. But he was asking to be paid like Rome and Patrick or something, he was a bit of a diva. Funny show. Andrew Sciclano has been insufferable since that show ended.


I am not a huge basketball fan, I enjoy the NBA, but I'm not super into it, and I found the book to be fascinating. But, I love debates like that.. who the best player is, is this player better than that one, who's team is better... He addressed basically every little dumb sports argument you can have about the NBA, exhaustively, with a bunch of funny stories and NBA history thrown in. I particularly liked his breakdown of the 96 best players of all time, I learned alot about players I was partially or completely unfamiliar with. That being said, Simmons is, as always, a titanic Celtics lover (and Lakers hater), and is very biased in his assessments of lakers and celtics (players and teams). So there are parts of it that I imagine would drive a lakers fan ( or a Celtic hater) absolutely bonkers reading, but I'm pretty neutral on the two teams, so I was able to identify the bias without having a visceral reaction to it.


There are things that Simmons says that knaw on my tits a bit, w/r/t statistical analysis of the game, but I think he did a good job of putting different players and teams in their historical contexts ( IE 50's teams played against 1 or 2 black players tops, the 70's were plagued by cocaine and talent diluted by two leagues, the 80's were able to have super teams due to no salary cap restrictions, etc)


Over all I enjoyed it... I could pick nits, but I won't. However, if you don't like basketball, and have no interest in it's history, then really don't get the book.. it's not funny enough on it's own to merit buying.

How a commentator weighs in on the miami 30 for 30 documentary is pretty much a litmus test of if I like you as a sports personality, and as a human being. Cowherd, for example, spent a ton of time apparently blasting the documentary and miami. I wouldn't know, 'cause I avoid him like the plague, but that's what I heard on LeBatard.

that sounds about right.

I can't imagine that you would like reading a book about the NBA, but you could just read this and decide for yourself.



Although I loved the documentary, I wouldn't call it a litmus test (for me anyway) just because I can almost sort of understand why you might not like it.

In other news, did anyone watch outside the lines the other day, when they talked about Athletes and education? THey were talking about FSU had a player who had a documented IQ of 60. That's retarded folks. 4 full deviations below the mean. Even of you account for... um.. cultural bias, this guy was a ****ing chimp. They interviewed several former employee's of FSU, and said several players were severely stupid, and many couldn't even read ( including Pro Bowler Antonio Cromardie)


They interviewed another FSU alumni, who was part of FSU's academic fraud scandal. He graduated from FSU with a social science degree. This poor bastard couldn't even speak. I don't mean that he used slang or "ebonics" or what ever ( though he certainly did) Like, he struggled to ( and failed to) speak in complete sentences. Like, he could only communicate in sentence fragments, that didn't make any sense. IT was sad.. This doesn't really have anything to do with sports personalities I hate, I just didn't want to make a new thread. But um.... I like Bob Ley?

My wife (who does IQ tests all the time) says it would not be all that surprising for a person with an IQ of 60 to play football. Her school system used to put kids with IQs between 60-69 in a special class but now they are considered good enough to be included with the regular remedial classes. However, anything below 70 is considered a clear indication of mental retardation.

The thing she had an issue with (and so do I) is that there is little to zero chance that anyone with a 60 IQ could pass the NCAA clearinghouse standards. You have to get a certain score on the SATs or ACTs (depending on your GPA) to play college ball. I cannot envision a scenario beyond the guessing day of a lifetime where a 60 IQ person can get 800 on the SATs.

Also, a note on "The U", did you notice how drunk Bernie Kosar was during his interviews? We could not stop laughing at his obvious drunkenness and then we started making bankruptcy jokes. Good times.

LeBatard said the slurring is due to concussions and painkillers.

Which was basically the whole point of the OTL episode, really.

Well, thats a little sad then. He looked and sounded like an overweight drunk guy.

He sounded like he should have been Jim Belushi's jovial drunken brother on according to jim.

...and to add to this: Le Batard said that Kosar gets really frustrated, because people think he's drunk all the time, when he's not.

Dammit. I was listening to a local San Diego show, and they had Cromartie coming on after the break to talk about players not knowing how to read at FSU. I wish I heard him skate through that interview.

They didn't interview cromartie, I'm sorry to give that impression. The guy they interviewed was some lineman who didn't make it in the nfl, and is employed at minimum wage as a care giver to the handicapped or something.

No, the San Diego station I was listening to in my car was going to interview Cromartie, but I arrived at my destination before he came on.

ah! They interviewed an old teammate of his from fsu, who left the team due to drug violations ( but seemed very bright), and said that Cromardie read once in class, and it was a horror show, it took like 2 minutes a sentence.

There's no one more ecstatic than I that Roy's Top Ten is back.

Top Ten Magic:

4. The white woman I sawed in half.

I love that this has turned into a Dan Lebatard appreciation thread.

I've only been listening two weeks, and I have a few questions.

I don't get the Roy's top ten thing. I especially must be missing something since stugatz about died laughing in the background.

Hoch doing Steven Segal is hilarious, that's right, hilarious.


I don't understand why every now and then a black caller will start talking and they will do all those black clips and then totally hang up on the guy and never even mention the caller again. Did the guy cuss or something? I'm confused.

The first 9 are always black related, pro-black. I don't know if pro-black is the right way to say it, but I think you know what I mean. #1 never has anything do with black people. For example:

Top Ten Places Roy wants to see the Olympics:
10) Watts
9) Blacksburg
3) Seoul (My all-time favorite)
2) Compton
1) The Hamptons

The caller getting hung up on, I think you're referring to people getting suey'd. Callers aren't allowed to exchange pleasantries like they do on other radio shows, "Hi, how are you Dan?" "Hey guys, how's it going?" They get hung up on when they do this, and the soundbite montage is a suey. I forget where the suey originated.

BigD can correct, confirm, or elaborate, as he's the one who turned us all on to the show.

Thanks. The show will be a more enjoyable for me. I know I'm hooked when I thought, "I wonder what Dan is going to say about this/that on Monday.", no less than 3 times this weekend.

LOL. I used to listen to DL when he had an early morning ESPN radio show on sunday mornings ( usually when I was going to bed after playing cards into the am on saturday night), and back then when someone would call in and say " how's it going" he would say " oh, my anus is prolapsed, and I have herpes.. how about you? " or osmething like that, because he thought pleasantries on the radio were stupid. ON his miami show it evolved into the "suey" montage ( Suey is a Luther Cambell phrase for " sewage" or "garbage". The montage starts with suey, wacka wacka, and then will have little cuts of other 1 or 2 words that reference things that happened on the show recently. It's done to discourage people from using pleasantries, to "speed" up the show, and cut out the useless talk time. They will also " suey" guests, that are rambling about something terrible, only when they do that, it's only the "suey" that they use, not the whole montage.


So anyway, if you call in dan don't say " hey, how's it going" or you'll get suey'd.

Nice. Thanks.

Hey Braves fans, guess who your new play-by-play man on Fox Sports South is.......any guesses?

THis guy: Chip Caray. Hahahhaaaaa. Line drive....base hit to left.....caught in left....throw home, double play. No wait.


Article

God I love it when they do that. I don't think there's nothing funnier on sports radio.

I actually like the thing they do to sports analysts better. Jeff Van Gundy called one day, and was breathing heavy into the phone, and they isolated it, so you hear a heavy breath... and now, whenever a mediocre sports analyst calls, and uses a cliche or other lame sports analysis, if you hear heavy breathing, it's hock giving him the Van Gundy Breath.

Matt Damon on the Dan Patrick Show:

Damon: I liked Belichik's decision to go for it on 4th down.

Patrick: No, it was a bad decision.

Damon: Did you read the article by so-and so? It was the statistically correct move.

Patrick: Don't go all Good Will Hunting on me! Nyuk nyuk nyuk

Damon: You don't care about facts?

Patrick: It doesn't factor in that Peyton Manning is getting the ball.

Me: ...

Phil Simms just said the Eagles won the toss and deferred so they can take 14 pts off the board for the Broncos, so they won't score a TD at the end of the half and the beginning of the 2nd half.

Thom Brennaman, who I like as a baseball announcer, get him out of booth for football games.

"This is the first time Aaron Rodgers will be in the playoffs." He's been in the league five years, and they were in playoffs two years ago! Plus if you heard his bizarre questioning of end of half clock management, you would want him away from a mic for good.

Why does he have to call the Cincy/Florida game too?

God I heard this too and was trying to comprehend what he meant.

OMG that had me on such tilt. Billick was shitting all over himself too, till he realized the down.

Don Banks from SI apparently wrote off the Broncos when it was a 27-10 lead by the Eagles. Game's tied right now. EDIT: He got away with it, thanks to David Akers.


"That leaves the Eagles, which beat Denver on Sunday for their sixth win in a row, improving to 11-4. But if the Cowboys win at Washington Sunday night, Philly would still have to win at Dallas next week in order to clinch the NFC East and launch a serious playoff run from one of the conference's top three seeds. I suppose the Eagles are the hottest team we've got in the NFC, and almost by default they're the conference's chic playoff pick."

These guys should have been included in my opening post for this topic:

The NBC Hockey (also Olympic) crew. Doc Emerick, Ed Olcyk, that pussy Pierre Mcguire. I like Roenick, mainly because it always looks as if he wants to knock that "Don Cherry wannabe" Mike Milburys teeth down his throat.

I really liked the curling announcers. No nonsense, not afraid to criticize teams when they took bad shots ( from both a planning and execution standpoint). The sport doesn't have the culture of decades of cliches, so the coverage was really liberated by it. I wish they could do this with football.

hate: x players who are annalists or color commentators, tim mccarver, chris berman, that sportscenter anchor who calls himself "the coach" every time he hosts a show, its unwatchable when he is on. colin cowheard is meh, mike and mike are horrible, bob ryan, most of the around the horn cast.

like: scott van pelt and his friend/co host ryen, PTI guys mike and tony (they are awesome), dan lebatard, dan buchagross, steve levy, dan patrick, that funny guy who makes fun of sportscenters stupid voices, i think his name is ryan florez or something, kenny mayne. linda cohen, chris mckendry.

This douche's name is Jonathan Coachman, he used to do be a WWE announcer, he is annoying. I used to like Buccigross, but it seems lately that he is trying waaay to hard to be funny.

Buccigross is awesome. He's been him the entire time and I LOVE watching SC whenever he's on. SVP, Lebatard, Kornheiser, Wilbon are all great.

But the show I love most is Around the Horn. Seriously, seeing Paige, Mariotti, Adande, Cowlishaw, and more go at it along with Reali.. it's the best talk show on ESPN to me.

I said this before earlier, but I liked it so much more when Max Kellerman was the host and would just abuse Jay Marrioti and Paige. I like reali, but Kellerman is more combative, and is openly hostile to "write-tards"

I love me some Gus Johnson

I hate the Versus announcers from Doc Emerick's whiny voice to that tool Pierre McGuire. These guys don't compare in suckitude to the clowns that did game 1 & 2 of the Sharks v Wings series.

I mean what is a "sassy" goal or a "mastadontic" save? At one point Holmstrom scores, and one of the announcers says, "oh, that goal had Holmstroms DNA all over it." There are more phrases they said but I can't recall them.

I mean come bring back Gary Thorne and Bill Clement.

There's a big save, there's a huge save, and then there's the mastodontic save. Saying a goal has someone's DNA all over it means it's the type of goal that this particular player usually scores. I like the above calls; they're very descriptive.

I know what they were trying to say. I just mean they are trying a little to hard to be cute. Also my all time favorite announcer Ernie Harwell passed away today, after a battle with inoperable cancer. Great broadcaster and a great man.

I don't know where I should put this, actually... maybe in random entertainment observations, the music thread or the baseball thread, but I settled on this thread...


I was momentarily watching the Detroit/Yankees game while making some perogis, and Rick Suttcliffe and some other faceless, souless baseball play by play guy that's like every other play by play guy were calling the game. All of a sudden, in the booth, were Jay Z and Emenem, promoting an upcoming home and home duet concert that they were doing later in the season, at detroit and NYC after a tigers and yankee's game ( I think).


Anyway, it was so surreal to listen to Rick Suttcliffe ( who has just like no idea who these guys are, I'm sure) and this play by play guy ( who are, pretty much by definition, the whitest, squarest possible humans on the planet) talk to Jay Z and Em, and asking them question that they were obviously being fed. It was one of the strangest things I've seen.

So, I'm changing the theme of this thread officially to " random sports commentator observations" there I did it.

So Bill Simmions has this idea of making a twitter account called "celtics chants" where he tweets out different chants in the game, in real time, for the crowd to do, and they will do them. His idea is to change the game when it comes to chants, using technology or w/e. But it's also a big power play/ego boost, to see if he really has the juice to pull it off. I hope someone hacks the account, and has they chant to Lebron "You're a Nigger CLAP CLAP CLAPCLAPCLAP" and BS gets fired.

Haha. How does Duke choreograph all their stuff?

I'm sure it starts in the student section, probably a fraternity or a couple of them get the chant started, and people follow.

I did some googling.

"A group of about 30 students form the line-monitor committee, which, in addition to regulating K-ville and the admission of the 1,200 or so students into Cameron, creates a "cheer sheet" for the students that adds an element of choreography."

jesus

I have seen this a few times. When I was in college, the other team (Princeton) had a Walton brother on it so we spent the game chanting at him "Luke is better". A few overeager band members would pass out cheer sheets with stuff like that sometimes. It's a thriving practice at Duke obviously.

Ivy league brag post imo

Let's keep it within the millennium.