This Post Is Not About Politics (KTRB)

http://instantrimshot.com/

Anytime a retail business (the A’s, or AN for that matter) aligns itself with one divisive political side, it alienates the other. This results in a non-optimal audience participation in the business/media.

So I agree that it’s strange for the A’s to do something like this (broadcast on a radio station that is aligned with one particular philosophy), I also agree w/ where iglew may be going, that as a moderator to this site, you (loiusmg) are insinuating that AthleticsNation is aligned with another political philosophy. This would be just be retail politics, on the “other side” to which the A’s are supposedly aligning with.

Two wrongs don’t make a right?

I’m in no interest of arguing. It would be silly of me to say I didn’t disagree with the man, and I was careful not to condemn his views. Saying that his views are in alignment with the majority would be similarly spurious, so I was writing with a reality hat on.

PS – Game’s on. :)

But you are correct, the only question is whether or not that actually translates to more listeners for the A’s games.

Maybe you’re a bit older.

I’m slacker through and through. I’m all growed up, I’m overeducated, I’ve held jobs. I’d still rather do nothing to something seven days a week and twice on Friday.

Well, if Dr. Laura ever used some medicine on her show, then yes. But all she does is act like a 1950’s grandmother and talks in a catty abusive tone to her “patients”, so I don’t think she’s really taking advantage of that medicinal background of hers.

but alas, this strays far from the A’s-related content this site is supposed to talk about.

This is all my personal preference and opinion.

He doesn’t have the pipes for broadcasting sports. When there is an exciting play, his voice doesn’t gradually build to the action it just goes from conversational to what sounds like panic. Two big moments that he kind of sullied for me were Nick Swisher’s inside-the-park HR and Scutaro’s bases-loaded double in the ALDS.

He often describes plays in confusing sequences. Yesterday, for instance, there was a fly ball between Paterson and Davis. To paraphrase:

“Davis and Patterson both persuing, who is it going to be? Patterson or Davis? And it’s . . . Patterson! . . . giving way to Davis who makes the catch.” I actually think he has a hard time following the action sometimes. I don’t think he would have called that play that way on purpose.

I also didn’t like his constant hammering on Jack Cust to “swing the bat” because he was in an RBI slot in the order. I don’t find his analysis to veer at all from traditional baseball “conventional wisdom”. He’s pretty flippant towards the mention of non-traditional statistics, which is not uncommon, but he doesn’t bring anything else to the table so it’s magnified in my eyes.

I lived out of radio range for many years and didn’t have much exposure to his calls, but he is really terrible now. Shockingly bad for a big league announcer. His voice is too thin for the job, and he seems to try to compensate for this by just getting louder at key moments. His play-calling is horribly disjointed and confused, like he can’t keep up with what’s going on.

And even after a complicated play has ended and he has time to get his wits about him, he fails to fill in the blanks of what happened. As an example, whenever there is more than one runner on base, and there is a play involving one of the runners (he scores or gets thrown out or whatever), Cotroneo invariably fails to inform the listener what happened with the other runner. Did he move up? One base or two? We have to deduce it ourselves, because he just assumes we can see it somehow. It drives me crazy.

I’m sure he’s a decent guy, but he does not have the skills for his job, and the contrast with the excellent Korach makes it even more glaring.

We have had many discussions on AN about Cotroneo. Some fans don’t like him, while others think he’s fine or at least tolerable.

I mean this entirely without sarcasm: I had no idea that there was a moratorium on Controneo comments. If that was the case, then you could have just told me that, or deleted my comment.

louismg says having Savage on KTRB bothers him. I say having Vince Controneo on KTRB is much worse and harder to avoid. I don’t think I veered too far off the path with that one. A tangent maybe, but one degree of separation from the main post seems perfectly reasonable and not at all out-of-the-ordinary.

But we were discussing KTRB’s seemingly contradictory policy of switching from political talk to an all sports format because the first didn’t get enough rathings, and then turning around and allowing the chief sports programming they have to be interrupted and pre-empted at times by a political talk show.

Right, and I disagree for the following reasons:

He’s presenting the argument that the programming is not sports, and therefore is in some sort of conflict with the station’s claim to be a sports station. This is despite the fact 19 hours of most days are devoted to sports. Also, as others have mentioned above, that programming mix is not really a contradiction nor is it unique.

The other statement I find troubling, is the suggestion that he is somehow suffering because sometimes he leaves KTRB on in his car the night before and then has to suffer through agonizing seconds of Savage before he changes the channel. This is presented as something that KTRB should somehow rectify.

My original post was suggesting that he change the station. It’s a completely reasonable solution to his problem. Sometimes people don’t realize that it’s easier to take responsibility for what you can control rather expending more energy on asking others to conform to your preferences. Sometimes they do realize it, but would rather leverage that small problem into a platform for a politically motivated agenda. Which is it in this cased?

It’s not like this post couldn’t be reasonably interpreted as a call to remove someone from the air just because the poster believes that Savage’s politics conflict with the majority of A’s fans’. I find that assumption, while possibly true, predictably inflammatory.

It seemed that you were pretty dismissive of Louis’ fanpost and the discussion. So my suggestion was to ignore it and move on to one that interests you more.

You’re confusing disinterest with disagreement. If you’ve read everything preceding this, I’m sure that you’ll conclude that this topic is of considerable interest to me. Your statement would have made perfect sense if this had been a neutral thread like an AN Day photo thread and I had commented “yawn”. This post, however, was making an assertion and I happened to disagree with that assertion on several levels.

No one expects people here to be interested in every topic of discussion, but it’s not necessary for you to be so dismissive of fans who want to discuss this topic.

I’m not sure which “fans” your speaking of. The only thing remotely “dismissive” about my post regarding the notion that listening to 1050 or 680 instead of Savage was somehow more effort than posting this. Clearly I’m insinuating that this might not be the real problem he’s trying to solve here, but if it really was, then why not just change the station?

Also, this is reason enough to comment:

Please find another way to fill your airtime with something resembling sports. We would be very grateful.

We know that KTRB and A’s employees read this blog. I think it’s important that the dissenting opinions be voiced on these “open letters”, especially one’s like this which are worded as if it was written on behalf all A’s fans. I hope they keep Savage, it gives me a convenient excuse to hear creative arguments that mostly oppose my personal viewpoints. I like to understand everybody’s point-of-view.

The other big guy in TNA, Matt Morgan, doesn’t really have exactly the look in my opinion. Well, maybe it’s his speaking style more than his looks. If he kept his mouth shut and just kicked ass, he might be more fear-inducing.

Are you finding TNA to be way more interesting to watch than WWE these days? I sure am.