Category Archives: Podcast

Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports columnist, co-writer of ‘Life of a King’

Posted on May 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

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If we’re talking about the best sports writers in the business today, Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel is probably among the top-3. But did you know that he’s also a movie script-writer and that one of those movies actually got made and that the movie stars an Academy Award winner and, more importantly, Pedro Cerrano? No? Well, then, listen to this week’s podcast. During our chat, we talk about the movie he co-wrote, Life of a King; his coverage of the Jerry Sandusky and the Steubenville, Ohio rape cases; and why he thought making the move to the Internet in the early 2000s was such a good idea.

Plus, Wetzel details his time at Greektown Casino College and chats about why it’s so important for a national columnist to travel so frequently.


Interviewed on 5-15-14

Here’s something similar:

From Episode 35, ESPN.com’s Travis Haney talked about why Wetzel is his favorite current writer.

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Our Favorite Stories

Posted on May 14, 2014 | 2 comments

We’re trying something a little different on the podcast this week. Instead of one guest for an hour, I talked to four guests and asked them the same five questions. 1) Who is your favorite person/manager/coach to have covered? 2) Who is your least favorite? 3) What’s your favorite story/moment from the road/from the beat? 4) Who’s your favorite current writer, sports or otherwise? 5) Who’s your all-time favorite writer, sports or otherwise?

I gathered some buddies — the Augusta Chronicle’s Scott Michaux, the Cincinnati Enquirer’s C. Trent Rosecrans, ESPN.com’s Travis Haney and the Washington Times’ Marc Lancaster — and basically, we just told stories.

Michaux (originally interviewed for Episode No. 33) tells the story about how Alice Cooper once stole his golf ball. Rosecrans (originally interviewed for Episode No. 1), who was sitting through a rain delay at the time of our second interview, talks about how helpful and sympathetic Ken Griffey Jr. was when Rosecrans’ mom was diagnosed with cancer. Haney reminisces about a long-ago steak dinner with Bobby Cox and why that was so important to him. And Lancaster remembers a particularly brutal road trip to Philadelphia.

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Linda McCoy-Murray, former wife of Jim Murray/founder of Jim Murray Memorial Foundation

Posted on April 23, 2014 | 1 comment

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Linda McCoy-Murray has been described in past feature articles as a “pint-sized dynamo,” and she certainly displays that energy on this week’s episode. McCoy-Murray, who was married to one of the best sports writers of all time, is the founder and CEO of the Jim Murray Memorial Foundation — which does so much to support current-day sports writing and to preserve Murray’s legacy. In our chat, we discuss Jim Murray and why so many of us are still so fascinated by his career, if Murray (who died in 1998) could have predicted the demise of newspapers, and why Murray really thought he wouldn’t be remembered after he died.

We also talk about the JMMF and how McCoy-Murray got it started following Murray’s death, and she details their decades-long courtship.

Interviewed on 4-9-14

In case you don’t know Jim Murray — and if that’s the case, FOR SHAME — here’s a recent story put out by the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism, and the Washington Post’s Mike Wise wrote earlier this month about the inspiration that was Murray.

And if you want to receive the Monday With Murray e-mails — which I highly recommend — email murrayscholars@aol.com

Here’s something similar:

T.J. Simers was a big fan of Murray when they worked together in L.A. In Episode 15, Simers and I talk about Murray and the impact he made on Simers. Which you can listen to right here.

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Scott Michaux, Augusta Chronicle columnist/golf writer

Posted on April 9, 2014 | 1 comment

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Scott Michaux is a former Augusta Chronicle colleague of mine, and for my money, he’s one of the best golf writers in the country. He knows so much about golf, and since we’re midway through Masters week with the tournament about to begin, it’s entirely appropriate that we welcome Michaux to the #MTTS podcast.

In our chat, we talk about whether coverage of golf — and the interest in it shown by the public — will noticeably shift when Tiger Woods is done with the game, what it’s like to work for the Augusta Chronicle during Masters week and how a newspaper with a circulation of less than 60,000 per day becomes the paper of record for those seven days, and what it’s like for a sports writer to play the Augusta National course.

Plus, he tells a great story about how he got Tiger Woods one-on-one at a tournament in San Diego in 2006, why Michaux is terrified that Bubba Watson will win the Masters again, and if the fact his boss is a member of Augusta National affects the way he has to write about the tournament.

Interviewed on 3-19-14

Here’s something similar:

Michaux and Steve Elling are good buddies and former golf writing colleagues. Elling, of course, was our guest on Episode 19. Which you can find right here.

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Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated media reporter

Posted on April 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

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Richard Deitsch is one of the preeminent media reporters in the country, and he’s actually one of my most important follows on Twitter. His Monday column for SI.com is a must-read, both for the news he reports and for the standout stories he aggregates from the week before. In our chat, we talk about what it’s like to cover an Olympic Games, how difficult it used to be to get a byline in Sports Illustrated when he was coming up the ranks, and whether he worries about burning bridges as a media reporter/critic.

Plus, we get into the Twitter wars he’s had with such luminaries as ESPN’s Darren Rovell, Outkick the Coverage’s Clay Travis, and Jason Whitlock. Basically: other than entertainment — and my god, it is entertaining — what’s the point? Also, Deitsch explains why he hopes never, ever to write a screed.



Interviewed on 3-9-14

Here’s something similar:

Deitsch and I talked about his path from SI fact-checker to SI media star, and in, some ways, it’s a similar journey to that of John Walters. Who happened to be the guest of MTTS episode No. 25. Which you can listen to right here.

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Sam Monson, Pro Football Focus

Posted on March 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

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Pro Football Focus is one of my favorite (and most important) NFL-related websites, mostly because of the way it measures and rates football players and because, well, it just makes you feel smarter. And though Monson, a senior analyst for the website, and I have been Twitter friends for about four years, this is the first time we’ve had an in-depth conversation.

In our chat, we talk about how NFL teams have begun hiring PFF in order to glean all of its information and why organizations don’t just do that work themselves, what’s a typical weekend like for a PFF analyst when he’s breaking down NFL games and how he does his job, and if coach’s film really makes a difference in the way the site works these games.

Plus, we recount Monson’s continued career as a defensive back in an Irish football league and how he got started on his NFL fandom.

Interviewed on 3-7-14

Here’s something similar:

One of the most interesting things Monson said was that his belief is that football isn’t rocket science. Which is essentially the same thing theMMQB.com’s Greg Bedard said in Episode 4. Which you can find right here.

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Stephen Jackson, lead singer of The Pietasters

Posted on March 19, 2014 | Leave a comment

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The first time I ever saw The Pietasters, a ska band out of Washington DC, opening for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones in 1997, I was hooked. The band straddles the line behind the two-tone sounds of ska’s second wave and the more punk elements of the third wave. And after seeing The Pietasters four times in concert, it’s one my favorite ska bands of all time. That’s why it was such a pleasure to have lead singer Stephen Jackson on the podcast.

During our chat, we discuss the rise and fall of ska’s popularity and how The Pietasters factored into it, how Jackson marries singing in a touring band with fatherhood, Jackson’s goal when he’s writing song lyrics, and if ska is too juvenile for a middle-age listener to appreciate.

Plus, we talk about the last time I saw The Pietasters when half the band was drunk and the bassist jumped into the crowd and disappeared for the rest of the night and how The Pietasters got a one-night gig as James Brown’s backing band.

Interviewed on 3-12-14

A few examples of the Pietaster’s work.

(To hear Drinking and Driving, skip to 44:37)

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Rob Carr, Getty Images sports photographer

Posted on March 12, 2014 | Leave a comment

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I see Rob Carr every year at the Super Bowl. We only see each other for maybe five minutes in the media center before we go our separate ways until the next year at the Super Bowl, but that’s better than nothing. So for the first time in probably 10 years, my former colleague at the Augusta Chronicle who’s now a staff photographer at Getty Images, and I have an extended chat. We get into what it’s like to be sports photographer hopping cross-country for a big wire service, all the preparations (and the pressure) these photogs have to go through to get ready for a big event like a Super Bowl, and how that compares to running the hometown photo department during the Masters golf tournament.

We also talk about why photographers across the country feel such a sense of camaraderie with each other, how much of a problem it is for wire services when their online images are stolen, and how Carr wrestled with journalistic ethics when he was covering Hurricane Katrina for the AP.

Interviewed on 2-12-14

FYI, here’s the photo shot by Kevin Carter that Carr and I talked about.

And here’s the Snopes.com explanation of the Carter photo and what happened to him in the aftermath.

Plus, here’s a link to some of the photos Carr shot at the Super Bowl. One of Seahawks coach Pete Carroll being doused with Gatorade. One of Flea making an awesome face. And one of Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the halftime show.

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Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of Outsports.com

Posted on March 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

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Cyd Zeigler and Outsports.com have made it their mission lately to record as many coming-out stories as they possibly can. And with Jason Collins and Michael Sam and a college baseball player and a college tennis player announcing recently that they’re gay, Outsports.com and Zeigler have had plenty to write about lately.

In our podcast chat, we talk about how so many gay athletes are coming forward and how that might be helping to cause a paradigm shift throughout the nation, why straight people think about Outsports.com as a gay website while gay people think about Outsports.com as a sports website, and what it was like to be around Sam in the hours before he announced he was gay.

Plus, I tell him my own personal tale about covering the Michael Sam press conference at the NFL combine and about how I had to amend my own story because I was worried about a double entendre.

And by the way, regarding our banter about Cyd’s name and how it sounds like he should have been working as an L.A. Times sports writer in the 1950s, here’s who I was talking about: Sid Ziff.

Interviewed on 2-26-14

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Ana Marie Cox, Wonkette/Guardian columnist/MSNBC contributor, part II

Posted on February 26, 2014 | Leave a comment

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We continue our conversation with Ana Marie Cox, a founding editor at Wonkette who’s now a political columnist at The Guardian, in the second-part of this two-part episode (check out the first part here). In this edition, we talk about whether she had to maintain the persona she originally brought to Wonkette once she moved on from the website, if and when male and female journalists will ever be on equal ground when it comes to how readers view them in social media, and how the divisiveness in sports compares to the divisiveness in politics.

Plus, we talk about whether covering politics is akin to covering pro wrestling, and just how in the hell does Cox have more than 1.3 million Twitter followers?



Interviewed on 1-21-14

A quick note: The audio isn’t so good in the first couple minutes of the podcast. Stay with me, it gets better.

Another quick note: This was recorded before former Missouri defensive end Michael Sam announced that he’s gay.

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