Radio: No Respect for Baseball

MLB - Never getting any love.

So, once in awhile I will go on 1310 sports radio/AM in the mornings to hear whatever they happen to be talking about that morning in Sports. I don't know why I continue to do so, when 98% of the time they are talking about the NFL (even during the off-season!).

I knew the moment I tuned the station to 1310, that it wouldn't take them 5 seconds to blast Baseball, and sure enough TA-DA! "Baseball is boring" coming out of Brandon Tierney's mouth, the show he co-hosts with former NFL Giants' running back Tiki Barber & Michigan's own Dana Jacobson for CBS Sports Radio. I have a lot of respect for Dana, Tiki makes great points, but Brandon Tierney just likes to hear himself talk!


I noticed this anti-Baseball stance, last playoff season for the MLB -- which was a great postseason, and it was the morning after the Oakland-Detroit game where Justin Verlander & A's rookie Sonny Gray put on a game for the recent ages.

So, I tuned in to hopefully here them talk about the great game... NO! They rather talk about...

SURPRISE! SURPRISE! The NFL!

Not only were they talking about the NFL, but they were talking about a pointless Week 5 or 6 or whatever game between the sorry-ass Tampa Bay Bucs & the sorry-ass Jacksonville Jaguars, and when they didn't talk about that pointless match-up, they talked about the most over-hyped team in all of sports, the New York Jets, you know? The same Jets that have not won zilch since Joe Namath's guaranteed victory in Super Bowl III! Who cares about Rex Ryan, who cares about yet another QB controversy for they over-hyped team, maybe they should stick with a QB than creating problems.

This morning they talked about the boredom that Baseball is, and talked about how kids don't care for the game, probably because you guys never talk about it, and when you actually DO talk about it -- you bash it!

Kids follow routines, if you told teenage girls that Justin Bieber is the hottest thing, they will buy it up! All teenage kids play Rap (what is Rock?) because it's the "cool" thing to do, kids will be influenced by what their friends are into, this is simple logic really. Everybody should buy the new Katy Perry album, because it's hot! When in all reality, it was an abomination set upon to kill off the human race... Nuclear Bombs are not looking so bad, when you consider that your eardrums are going to bleed to the sorry excuse called "singing" by Ms. Perry.

Prince on sports radio? WTF?!?!

Speaking of people that sound like star-crazed teenage girls, Seth Everett on Fox Sports Radio, always wanting to talk about Prince on every Saturday morning. He talks about Prince, as if it is circa 1984! He sounds like a teenage girl posting pics of One Direction all over her walls -- seriously, man... it's a sports show, no man, no real man is not going to tune into a sports show and want to hear about Prince performing in Amsterdam!

It would also not be a surprise to me that the NFL has a little something happening behind the scenes as well, it is the most successful American sport currently (of course) and Roger Goodell is trying to do everything possible to make the sport internationally, while he is also thinking of creating a communications company in which the NFL will put money into multi-media devices, own their own satellites, cellphone companies, etc etc... So who's to say they are not paying off sports television and sports radio, to show their product, and talk exclusively about their product -- these sports media companies, are certainly not going to say no to the money that the NFL has, NFL has the power to control a lot of things, so why not diminish possible competition from other sports. If Baseball bounces back, that means less viewers for Football. If you have not noticed both the NFL & NBA are the only ones that seem to televise every aspect of their off-season now; Baseball only shows Spring Training, and it's usually the second-half of March you really get to see your local team play, unless your team is named the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox or New York Mets even (who really wants to see them play though, right?)

I'm sure I'm not the only one that notices this on-going B.S. -- but at the same time, Baseball does not help itself out as well. There is the huge mistake of starting World Series games, too late, losing out to generations of possible fans. Then there is the horrible idea of "Hey, let's play in Australia, Ay Matie!" -- in which they destroyed some legendary cricket stadium's turf to make a baseball diamond on, and then played a regular season game in which 3 Americans at 4:00 am or whatever actually watched it. Then the Dodgers & Diamondbacks (the two teams that played in "Down Under") came back to the states, to finish Spring Training -- in all of this, where does that even make sense? Oh yeah I forgot, we have a sorry excuse of a Tampon in Bud Selig!

The game that 3 Americans watched in the wee-hours.

The only good thing Selig did was make the winner of the All-Star Game have home-field advantage in the World Series, and that all came together because of the Milwaukee All-Star Game that ended up in an embarrassing tie. I like it for many reasons, MLB players were starting to have that attitude that they rather stay home than play because it was considered a pointless exhibition, it avoids the disaster in Milwaukee, and it made the game even bigger & more important.

The NHL's version is a high-scoring shootout which should be renamed "Which Goalie will Look Less Foolish at the End?", the NFL should just fold it up all together, I rather see former NFL stars play Flag Football for a Charity or something, mix in some celebs maybe. Just name the NFL All-Pros, give them a plaque or whatever, have them chill out with the retirees & celebs. Plus the ladies can play too... I wouldn't mind watching Emma Stone going out for a Joe Montana pass. The NBA is a no-defense, show-off contest, instead of showing the players' season stats (when the player goes to the free-throw line),  list the name of the shoe that they are endorsing, in case for some odd reason that you didn't see the ones they endorse during their commercials EVERY single commercial break!

Baseball in recent years have got a little better at advertising the league through it's stars. The "Simon says" Mike Trout commercial is great, and who better to get to do for that commercial, because he certainly can do it all. The NFL has always done great commercials, and they do them so smoothly without feeling so forced.

Baseball still has a lot of it's own work to do, but sports radio is not helping with that. Which by the way, Hockey fans can probably agree with this, but Hockey got a lot of excitement in the playoffs the last couple years, this last year especially catching Sports Illustrated's attention -- but sports radio still took shots at it, go hate the commissioner in either sport (NHL or MLB's Selig), but both sports have made strides since their strike debacles and have been trying to recapture the old magic, that both leagues once owned without effort.

If anybody needs to change their game, maybe it's sports radio. Especially you, Brandon Tierney!