The Ringer is Live

I chuckle a little at "I will never stop going in." Till now, I guess, big shooter.

 

Hey, I still listen to probably just over 50% of his personal podcasts... sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the season and what else is in my feed. That said, there are some things that really get old.

The two biggest things I find annoying:
1. The hilarious lengths he goes to turn anything into a conversation about the NBA, the Celtics, the Pats, whatever. (Less the Pats in this particular thing, but, still sometimes.) It's always like
Tom Hanks: Making Saving Private Ryan was very difficult. We had to practice a lot.
BS: Oh, yeah, I was thinking about how that's just like the 2016 Celtics, ya know? They had to practice a lot at the end of the season and they were like a band of brothers there, and they built up a lot of good karma, because you know *insert weird fan superstition here*, so it's a lot like Saving Private Ryan.
Tom Hanks: Um, ok?

I'm not sure I've heard a non-sports interview where at some point he didn't awkwardly steer it to sports, primarily the NBA.

2. It annoys me how hard the other Ringer staff tries to act like fans. (I may just be wrong on this one, FYI.) I feel like everyone in the office he has on has to have a passionate rooting interest, and they have to loudly proclaim that interest, it has to be a defining aspect of their personality. Mallory Rubin LOVES the Ravens and HAAAATTEES Joe Flacco, for instance. I mean, ok? Probably she does. But a lot of times with other guests it just feels forced. Like if on my first day, they were like, ok, what's your team? "Uh, the Royals?" Who, to be perfectly honest, I really only go real deep with when they're good. Average years, I might not watch 5 games. But, I feel like if I were at the Ringer I'd get pulled on the air and have to act like my whole summers revolved around them and that I really took some emotional abuse when they weren't good. Just feels like a put on.

 

Ya mean like a late 40s man acting like he's all into Road Rules and the WWE? Simmons is all about which way the wind blows and then trying to be the biggest fart in the wind. He cares -- or acts like he cares -- about so much shit that no sane person should care about.

 

There is a name on the list not totally dissimilar to mine that, on first scanning it, made my heart jump like I'd been electrocuted.

 

He has the power to talk about whatever he wants and he's using it. The more national he's become, the more local his focus has been.

Also, from 2005...

Note: I never mention her in columns only because I hate when people use sports columns to talk about their kids. Nobody cares. I'm well aware of this.

And yes, I promise not to mention my kid in this space again unless there's an exceptionally good and relevant reason ... although I've been fighting off the urge to rant about the "Teletubbies," "Elmo's Potty Time" and "Bert & Ernie" for nine months now. I'm going to snap at some point. Consider yourself warned.

I have yet to enjoy partaking in "The Parent Corner" portion of the podcast.

 

His podcast with Rusillo was at the 25 minute point of talking only about the Celtics before I tapped out. Brutal.

 

Because the Harvey Weinstein thread is closed and we were most recently discussing this here:

Stephen Elliott’s Lawsuit Just Got a Major Blow

Judge Rules ‘Sh*tty Media Men’ List Creator Can’t Be Sued for Emotional Distress. The judge also seemed skeptical of Stephen Elliott’s defamation claims.

 

I don't read much of the Ringer content, although I have bookmarked the piece that Lindbergh just published about old scouting reports. I enjoy their Press Box and MLB podcasts and I might get back into Wilmore's if I can ever find more time. I can only get through about a 1/3 of the Simmons podcasts, however. I won't listen to his celebrity interviews and his friends are hit (Sal, Jack-o) and miss (House, House and House). His "take me seriously but don't take anything I say seriously" schtick with Russillo is also getting tiresome.

 

I really like Mark Titus on the college basketball pod . I find Michael Lombardi's insights interesting on GM Street even though I know that he is frequently full of it. But it provides an insight the thinking of NFL front office executives, who are also frequently full of it.

But Tate Frazier is the co-host and frequently literally can not be comprehended at times. He tries to set the scene with long, incoherent paragraphs. A host of a national podcast should be able to avoid the use of the phrase "you know". And Frazier is from North Carolina and works in references all the time.

The NFL podcast is very good.

 

Tate Frazier's Coach K impression overcomes any faults he may have as a podcaster.

 

So apparently Ringer writers have to subscribe to Simmons's idiotic pet theories like the Ewing theory...

BTW, Norman Chad in his WaPo column yesterday said Simmons was a megalomaniacal knuckle-dragger on par with Portnoy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...7902b0-41ff-11e9-9361-301ffb5bd5e6_story.html

The money shot:

Portnoy is the latest in a long line of New England sports folk to morph into multimedia. They used to be kinder and gentler, like Bud Collins, Lesley Visser, Bob Ryan, Peter Gammons and Jackie MacMullan. But these young guns nowadays — actually, they’re not that young; the Boston sports guy is pushing 50 and Portnoy is almost 42 — are megalomaniacal knuckle-draggers.
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He doesn't even call Simmons by name. And he lowercased sports guy (or their copy desk did), which would be confusing to anyone who had never heard of him.