Now, I can tell you right now that nobody mourned the loss of K-Rock more than I did. I'm driving in to work now with literally no music to listen to on the radio. Add that to the fact that it's gone to a Top 40 station like Z-100, and it's adding insult to injury.
92.3 was the first station on my FM station on my dial, and my girlfriend will attest to the fact that I am adamant about how much Top 40 music sucks. So that was a huge loss.
But I have to admit, what 1050 ESPN radio did was even more unbearable.
A couple of years ago I worked a job that afforded me a lot of time to listen to radio over the summer. The only caveat was that it was online, so ESPN's national broadcast was all that was available at the time other than WFAN. So I'd connect and I started listening to Colin Cowherd talk sports on the radio. I got through about an hour before I wanted to stab myself through the temple.
Now, I am clearly not Cowherd's demographic when it comes to sports-talk radio. I love watching sports, going to games, talking about sports, and trying to solve the problems of how to make my team better. I know a lot more than I should about specifics in sports, and can have a solid debate with anybody you throw out there. In a sense, I'm not a complete retard.
I am not one of the people Cowherd associates himself with. The first time I listened to him that summer, he railed against OPS, lambasting it for being meaningless nonsense that geeks who've never played the sport in their life use to break down the game.
When you grow up playing baseball (like I did) you are taught that your job at the plate is to get on base anyway you can. If you get on base, you can score runs and ultimately win the game. Very simple concept, which leads to On Base Percentage.
As you play baseball getting older (like I did) you come to realize that the better players are the ones who can hit for extra bases. Those are the dangerous guys you pitch around in the lineup defensively. Those are the guys you try to get on base ahead of offensively, because they give you the greatest chance at knocking runs in. Because a double is better than a single, and a homerun is better than a double, that stat of Slugging Percentage was created as a means of tracking how many total bases a player accumulates.
Add the two together and you have On Base Plus Slugging, or OPS, which is a way to measure a hitter's rate of success.
Now I'm not a hardcore sabermetrician, but I'd be far too much of a 'stat nerd' for Cowherd's liking. I think OPS is one of the best ways to determine which hitters are the best in baseball, so I'm a geek.
After that, I never listened to him again.
I started listening to Max Kellerman on the radio about a year ago, and I'll admit I was already a fan of his. He was a brash, arrogant Yankee fan and New Yorker, but had all his opinions backed up with facts and statistics. As arrogant as Max was, he's rational in his arguments, which I pretty much all I ask for.
During August of last season, Max floated the idea that the Yankee lineup would look better if they batted Jeter leadoff, with Damon second, and Rodriguez third, and Abreu fourth. The logic was that your best hitters would get more at bats with Jeter and A-Rod moved up, Jeter would have fewer GIDPs, and Abreu's presence would afford A-Rod better pitches to hit.
It was brushed off as illogical by many- "you got Damon to be a leadoff hitter"- but I bought into it.
Low and behold, Jeter is going into this season as the Yankees leadoff hitter. Joe Girardi (who was hired because he was such a stat nerd) saw the benefits of toying with the lineup, and will flip flop Jeter and Damon. For what it's worth, Jeter is a significantly better leadoff hitter (and hitter in general) in his career when compared to Damon statistically.
So as of a couple of weeks ago Kellerman is out after a mutual agreement was reached with ESPN Radio, and he was replaced with Cowherd's during the midday show. I caught some of it today, and suffice to say that Cowherd is still a retard. Apparently fans are only true fans if they don't go to games when tickets are too expensive, or some shit. I don't know, I couldn't be bothered to continue to listen to his version of 'logic'.
I don't know if Kellerman has something better lined up or if he was pushed out by higher ups, but I do know that I won't listen to ESPN radio anymore because of it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Two quick things. First, I'll agree with you about Kellerman being brash and somewhat off the wall sometimes, but he always managed to keep it interesting. Even guys like my dad, who hate listening to too much sports radio (he says those guys are more full of themselves than some players) always liked listening in to Kellerman. Cowherd not only doesn't make smart points, at least Kellerman would be funny when he was off the wall. Cowherd is honestly a bore to listen to; if my choices are him or silence, I usually go with silence. As for why he's there? Kellerman left because the higher ups decided to give Cowherd a 2 hour show, which meant pulling an hour away from Max (since Tirico and Van Pelt only had one hour, to Max's 3...also, Michael Kay had just gotten up to 5, so they weren't gonna shift everyone). Kellerman was less than pleased but ok. Until they told him to promote Cowherd's upcoming show, to which he said 'no'. So they 'mutually agreed' to part. I'd be a bit surprised if he doesn't end up with another job somewhere. But that doesn't help much now.
Post a Comment