The Poscast With Michael Schur (The Obsolete Things We Miss Draft).
Have I ever told you about the time I slept through a Shaquille O'Neal college game I was supposed to cover? I'm pretty sure I've told that story before. But I'll go ahead and tell it again briefly to get the point across. When I was a columnist in Augusta, Ga. -- this had to be 1992, I suppose -- LSU came to play at South Carolina, and I was going to Columbia to write about Shaq. Well, early that morning I went fishing with the Chronicle's outdoors writer Bill Babb. I did this for a column. I don't fish. I'm not opposed to fishing, but I just don't do it. To my best recollection, I've been fishing three times in my life, all for columns.
So I was up at some absurd hour, 3:30 in the morning or something, so I could go fishing and write about how I didn't catch anything. I made it back to my apartment by late morning and thought, "OK, I'll take a little nap here, be up by 2, head over to Columbia, it will be great." I set the alarm for 2. I did not realize that I had set it for 2 AM rather than 2 PM.
I did not realize it until 8:30 or so that evening when I actually woke up.
That was one horrendous feeling. I bring this up because last week, I did the Poscast with CBS' Jim Nantz. I've known Jim for a long time, going back to those days in Augusta. He's a great guy, and I also think he's a terrific broadcaster. It's hard for sports broadcasters to be loved these days the way Jim McKay was loved. We just live in a different time. I think Jim tries to broadcast games like the heroes of his childhood. I think that comes across.
In any case, Jim was great on all sorts of topics. He did the thing on his cell phone, and so I told my producer/wife* that before I gave her the recording.
*Or wife/producer ... not sure, which title gets first billing in such references.
And then we have this conversation:
Margo: "Um, there's a problem with the Poscast."
Me: "What happened?"
Margo: "Jim's voice is not picking up."
Me: "Yeah, I was worried about that. He was on a cell phone. But he sounded OK to me ..."
Margo: "No, I mean, his voice is not picking up at all. You didn't record him."
Ah. I didn't record him. Well, that's a horse of a different color!* And then I did one of those ridiculous Hollywood double takes and said, "Wait, WHAT?" And it's true. I'm a technological idiot, of course. I had completely messed up the wiring on the Poscast. I mean there was no other way to say it. And I felt like I had overslept for Shaq** all over again.
*I tweeted this the other day: "I'm so confused by all this Paul Revere stuff going around. I thought Paul Revere was the horse who can do if the weather's clear." I would say my favorite part of the new media is that it gives you an opportunity to make obscure Guys and Dolls jokes.
**Oversleeping For Shaq -- that could work as a band name. Kind of in the Death Cab For Cutie mold.
Two wonderful things came out of my moment of horror. The first is that Jim Nantz, being the great guy that he is, agreed to do the Poscast again. In fact, we just finished recording that. It will be up later in the week, and I have to say that I like this version even better. In it we get a bit into Jim's family, what drives him as a broadcaster and a brilliant sportsmanship scenario that he came up with and talked to NFL coaches about. More on that a bit later on.
The second great thing is that my dear friend Michael Schur -- though he is now gearing up for Season 4 of the wonderful Parks and Recreation -- swooped in for an emergency Poscast. We had our third EMD ("Entirely Meaningless Draft,"), an event we will have to patent. This one might be my favorite of the three. In the first, we drafted baseball books. In the second, we drafted athletes we would want to have over for dinner (Mike went off the board for Luke Scott, sending Mel Kiper Jr. into a flying rage).
Our third draft is: "Obsolete Things We Miss." I don't want to give anything away, but we do get into talk about baseball cards. And bullpen cars.
We also talk about the Arizona Diamondbacks, who are now one game out of first place but were in first place at recording time. Here's the one thing you can say about the Diamondbacks: If you ever find yourself wondering about any semi-recognizable baseball player you have not thought about in at least a year, go to the Diamondbacks page at Baseball Reference.
Melvin Mora? Yep, there he is.
Xavier Nady? Hey, lookie there.
Sean Burroughs? What happened to that guy? Oh, he's on the Diamondbacks too.
Willie Bloomquist? Check.
Armando Galarraga? Wow, he's on this team too?
Zach Duke? Aaron Heilman? Russell Branyan? Yes ... Yes ... Yes well, no, not anymore.
And then there's the amazing J.J. Putz. He is one of my favorite players, and not only because of his name. He didn't get to the big leagues until he was 26, and he didn't win his first game until he was 28. Then at 29, he was suddenly great, unhittable even. He had never been a strikeout pitcher -- not in the minors, not in his early big league years -- and all of a sudden he struck out 104 in 78 innings. Apparently, Eddie Guardado had taught him the splitter. In 2007, at age 30, the guy had an absurd season. He had a .698 WHIP.
I'm going to repeat that because WHIP numbers might not register easily the way a .400 on-base percentage or .600 slugging percentage does. He had a .698 WHIP. That is absurd. It's historic. For pitchers who have thrown at least 70 innings, it's the fourth lowest WHIP of all time behind only Dennis Eckersley in 1990, Mariano Rivera in 2008 and Eric Gagne in 2003. It's an obscenely great year.
The very next year? His WHIP was 1.597. He was traded to the Mets, he was let go and signed by the White Sox, where he had a good year. And now he's in Arizona, and he's dominant again at 34. Love the Putz.
In any case, we discuss the Diamondbacks -- if you consider Mike and I trying to name as many Diamondbacks as we can without looking a "discussion." We also ask if Albert Pujols is back, discuss the intimidation of Rafa Nadal and I try to get him to say "A tradition unlike any other," so that he can truly fill in for Jim Nantz.
Circle me, Peter Gallagher. Russell Branyan is now in the OC.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for the Nantz Poscast - he was surprisingly terrific on the BSR a few years ago.
One time, back when this would have mattered a bit more, I 'recorded' an hour-long interview with the singer of the rock band The Offspring, at his home studio, and immediately afterward realized I had been in 'record/pause' mode the whole time.
ReplyDeleteI knew it right then and there, but didn't have the guts to tell him. I just thanked him for his time and left, to go face my boss.
I think everyone who works with audio will eventually have one of these stories. The trick is to make sure you ONLY have one.
RE: POscast & Pujols - no. Pujols has never had a 200 AB stratch like he's had to start this year. Here are his worst calender months since entering the majors:
ReplyDelete715 June 2006 (injured & missed time, only 45 PA)
752 May 2011
758 April 2011
793 July 2001 (rookie year)
804 May 2002
832 April 2007
848 July 2010
Frank Thomas is a great call by Michael.
When I was in college, I was part of a public access show where we played music videos for a couple hours per week. One of the guys that participated worked for a record label, so we occasionally got interviews with people we probably didn't deserve to and aired those. Once, on a tour bus outside of the Granada in Lawrence, we interviewed an up and coming hip hop group that had bust onto the scene with a terrific (and different) debut album. Great interview. We asked them for a station ID at the end, and they busted out perhaps the greatest freestyle rap incorporating the name of the public access show throughout about 90 seconds of awesomeness.
ReplyDeleteBattery dead in the camera for every second of what would have been the footage introducing the world (at least the world within the reach of Sunflower Cable) to the Black Eyed Peas.
I am a little disappointed you guys made it through the discussion of bullpen cars without mentioning Jake Taylor taking the Indians' car in Major League to pursue Lynn after a ballgame.
ReplyDeleteIf you youtube "Turk Wendell Act", you get the following AMAZING video, along with an hilarious host of others:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1UPFxe_PuQ
@Robert - clearly your camera could see into the future and shut down out of self-preservation.
ReplyDeleteLove the Poscasts and Michael Schur is great. But just to correct one thing he said about the Oilers name being available for the Houston expansion franchise (i.e., the Texans). When Bud Adams took the team to Tennessee, the NFL let him retain the rights to the Oilers name and he would not relinquish them to the city. He officially "retired" the name in 1999. As a result, when the owners of the new Houston team were searching for a team name, "Oilers" was never considered. Informal polls in Houston showed that the name "Oilers" would have won in a landslide, but, alas, the choices were: Apollos, Bobcats, Stallions, Texans, Toros and Wildcatters.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the name was chosen to appeal to Texas residents who don't live in Houston (the same reason that the Marlins are "Florida" versus "Miami"). There are many Houstonians who grew up during the Luv Ya Blue years who are nostalgic for the name, the color scheme, Earl Campbell, etc. who despise the name "Texans" (for all the reasons Michael mentions in the Poscast and then some), and would love nothing more than to rebrand the team the "Oilers". It's a wound that will not heal.
Re relief acts - what about Brian Wilson?
ReplyDeleteYou could make two-thirds of an All-Star lineup out of the Diamondbacks' coaching staff.
ReplyDeleteP: Charles Nagy (pitching coach)
2B: Eric Young (first base coach)
SS: Alan Trammell (bench coach)
3B: Matt Williams (third base coach)
LF: Don Baylor (hitting coach)
RF: Kirk Gibson (manager)
Although Gibson never made an All-Star team (despite being an MVP and well known to boot). He was picked as one of the coaches this year, since the game is in Phoenix.
ReplyDeleteA nine hour nap might be the all time nap record
ReplyDeleteThe Minnesota Twins bullpen has been doing some acts: http://www.foxsportsnorth.com/pages/video?PID=gVs72R45H6CvVE53p8YGG9DULYch2blv#
ReplyDeleteThought you might like it since you were reminiscing about reliever acts.
The Twins need it. They had a 5 game winning streak, the Indians lost 5 and the Twins are still 11 games behind. Blech.
Joe, you're too polite to correct your guests, but if anyone's curious, "Nationals" refers not to anything political, but is the old name of the Washington teams of the late 19th and early 20th century. The 19th Century team was in the National League and was called the Nationals, like many teams in the league were before nicknames became fixed . . .
ReplyDeleteAnd outside chest protectors were exclusive to the American League (No ump starting after 1977 could use one). When one chose an umpire school, one essentially chose the major league for which one was aiming. The Kinneman/Brinkman school used the outside protector and fed the AL, the Wendelstedt school used the inside protector and fed the NL.
With outside protectors AL umps had to stand further behind catchers rather than looming directly over their shoulders. The difference in positioning likely led to the oft-cited distinction between pitching in the leagues. Players traded from the AL to NL in the 50s and 60s would often say pitchers "won't challenge you" on 3-2, ie. they might throw a breaking pitch. The difference had evolved because the NL umps, being right up on the catcher, were more likely to call the low strike of a curve ball.