Dear Julie,
I read today in John Jackson’s column about your departure from the Score that you have an out clause in your deal that allows you to go directly into TV, while there’s a waiting period before you’d be allowed to grace the Chicago radio waves.
I think we all know why they put that TV clause in your deal.
Because nobody homelier than Brad Palmer is allowed on TV.
Anyway, because the most important thing you need to do during your sabbatical from sports radio is keep your name out there, I have a proposition for you. You are invited to join the vast, and talented writing staff here at Desipio. We’d love to have you. In fact, we already have an idea for a regular column for you.
Every Thursday you could run an in-depth review of the recently released “Sports Weekly.” It’s pretty much what your radio show was anyway. Think of the Internet as silent radio. It’s like movies before the “talkies.”
Think about it. For the length of time that Infinity is allowed to keep you from appearing on Chicago radio, you can write for us. Then when your parole is served, you can get your next job, which is inevitable–you’ll be sitting in between Jim Memolo and Glen Kozlowski on the weekend SportsCentral playing home run derby and trying to pretend that you don’t hate the Cubs.
Drop me a line at andy@desipio.com and we’ll get you fixed up with an account so you can post here.
Best of luck,
Andy
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Speaking of the Score, I’d like to brag that I managed to miss every painful moment of Mike North’s radio marathon thing yesterday. I haven’t felt this good about missing something since the polio vaccine.
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John Tait, a massive Mormon offensive lineman from Kansas City, is in town today being wined and dined by Lovie, Jerry and Terry. The Bears have structured an offer to Tait that is frontloaded, so that the Chiefs won’t be able to fit it under the cap without dumping several high priced players to create some room. Tait spent yesterday being feted by Dave Wannstedt and Rick Spielman and Dan Marino in Miami. Oh, wait, I forgot, Marino quit before he ever actually started the job. So it was just Wanny and Rick. I’ve more enjoyable meals at Long John Silver’s than whatever Tait had to go through listening to Wanny “Aaaaaaappp” his way through a meal. Plus, can you imagine how much food gets stuck in that hairlip?
I shudder to think.
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The Cubs and Giants played in a chilly monsoon yesterday in Arizona and as painful as it was to listen to Rick Sutcliffe for two and a half hours, can you imagine how many “Can you believe they call this place the ‘Valley of the Sun’?” references Chip would have put us through.
The Cubs looked like they hopped in a time machine way back to 2002, with Matt Clement and Todd Walker not only refusing to catch an infield pop up, but then refusing to pick it up until the guy who hit it landed safely at second. Corey Patterson went yard in his first spring at bat and Sammy proved there were no steroid vials in his pants pockets with a diving catch of a flyball in the first.
A good time was had by all.
Today on ESPN at 1 p.m., the Yankees and Phillies. I can get used to televised weekday, daytime, spring training baseball.
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Last night we had to sit through the most unwatchable, overwrought, Survivor of all-time. If you remember from last week’s show, Dick Hatch got naked during the immunity challenge and there came a time when Sue Hawk had to choose to take a plank and go around Dick Hatch, or take the one he was on. She took the one he was on. Even Jeff “Anal” Probst wondered aloud why she was doing it. She said, “I want this one.” Apparently, obscured by the FCC blur, Dick rubbed…uh…little Dick…on Sue as he went by. That’s just disgusting period. Anyway, Sue gave one of her typically elegant “Ewww, gross!” wails and that was it.
Until last night. Sue became horribly depressed by the incident. She withdrew from her tribe. She lay motionless on the beach as if waiting for Greenpeace to drive by, throw a net on her and drag her to the safety of the ocean.
At the reward challenge she went off on Hatch (who was voted out last week–too bad because this confrontation could have been epic) and Probst and declared that she’d been “sexually assaulted”. In her rant she used the word “Jeff” at least 14 times. She then quit the game.
In the first six seasons of Survivor nobody quit. In the past two we’ve had three walk away.
Afterwards, Rupert confided in the rest of the tribe that Sue had said she planned to sue Dick Hatch for “ten million dollars.” I doubt that being a pompous, fat, naked, gay man affords you $10 million, but rest assured Sue is going to…uh…sue, and only a jury of fat, toothless, Wisconsinites (her home state)would give her any cash. This isn’t exactly what happened to Dr. Melfi in the parking garage, here.
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Corey Patterson needed one at bat to return to his 2003 form.
Come see the amazing, travelling Cubs!
The Bears are wooing John Tait as we speak.
Illinois’ season hasn’t been easy, but it’s been memorable.
Notre Dame’s dim NCAA tournament hopes are still flickering.
Shirley? You must be joking.
Mariotti puts down the doughnut for more steroid crapola.
Stanford is still livin’ right.
John Donovan goes around Spring Training. This Pokey Reese stuff is drivel.
Intrepid reader Doug Selky sent this in. It shows what Howard Dean feels about kittens.
John Ashcroft is in the hospital. Let’s hope the nurses don’t flash any cleavage.
George Mitchell, the new head of Disney?
For no good reason, Elisha Cuthbert:
The world’s greatest newspaper with Five Signs That Your Kids Are Trying To Kill You.
Does this mean I can post pics of Paul Konerko?
There’sh one letter I can’t shay, and if I find out that letter is in deshipio.com, I’m walking.
I’ll shend you my firsht column about Terry Shea, who I love, but I never had a problem with Shoop.
Where’s the DePaul love? Good time last night at the Rosemont Hor-, er…, Allstate Arena…
I don’t think Julie could handle the "stress" of a hosting her own nightly show. Who can forget the night after the disputed fair/foul call in the Cardinals/Cubs game in early September? She went ballistic at callers who complained about the call. Unless a caller kisses her ass, she had paorblems. I also think she probably misses hanging out at the ballpark and doing about 20 minutes of work every day.
The Score is in trouble. There is only one tolerable show, but even Boers and Bernstein are becoming increasingly arrogant and rude to callers.
Yeah, I agree with you on that one Dave. I can hardly stand to listen to B & B because of the way they treat their callers.
Not sure what happened to B&B but their show is gradually becoming the "everyone is stupid but us" show. I just listened to them doing an interview with Skip Bayless about Dusty Baker. According to Skip and the boys Dusty is a lying prima donna, who thinks that he is still a player, is sometimes nice and then mean to the beat writers which makes him a jerk and a stratgic (actually tactical-Bakers actually not too bad a strategic manager) disaster as a manager who lost the World Series by flipping a baseball to Russ Ortiz after removing him from the game. They seemed especially concerned about how Baker is able to keep the beat writers in line, as if this was some sort of indictment of Dusty’s personality. I’d say that it’s a major part of Baker’s effectiveness as a manager. The writers job is to follow the team, and if possible, air any dirty laundry so they can sell more papers. Baker’s job is to keep the dirty laundry in house, and out of the public eye. But maybe Bayless is right, Dusty’s only 139 games over .500 as a manager, who’d want a guy like that?
Hey, remember when the Reds were trying to trade for Griffey and their GM refused absolutely refused to include me in any trade package? Those were the days.
If Julie Swieca has a face for radio, then I have a face for the telegraph. Or dirty phone calls with Andy.
Oh, Peg, your face ain’t much, but youse gots a nice body. Dat’s why I "let" you wear the pillow case when I bang you.
I agree, CT. B&B seem to hate everything about sports and feel that they are above the "masses" who listen to sports radio. They especially feel the need to trash those who are perceived as fan favorites, e.g., Jordan, Sosa, Baker. It all falls into the "we’re smart and you are too stupid to realize that your heros aren’t perfect" rationale (though 95% realize these guys’ flaws).
There’s also nothing like two supposedly intellectually superior adult males laughing like sixth graders at any sexual innuendo, especially if there is a homosexual connotation. Beavis and Butthead would be annoyed by their sophomoric senses of humor.
What happened Peggy? You used to be hot back when you worked for me in the early ’90s!
He’s so hot!
Here’s our 3-4-5 in the order this year! We’re loaded.
Boers and Bernstein ought to be titled, "The Misanthrope and the Nerd" because, simply, that’s what they are.
Terry Boers is criminally depressed, and it shows. It’s one thing to be cynical; quite another to completely abhor mankind.
Not only that, but Boers is lame. Whenever a caller takes him on, even constructively, he’ll react with something like, "No, no it’s not." and NOT EVEN FOLLOW UP WITH ANY RHETORIC. Geez, that settles THAT, Terry, thanks for your insight. Lardass.
It’s so obvious how insecure Boers is, seeing as how he always acts like a tough guy. Hey Terry, do you have anybody idea how obviouly SCARRED you are by being bullied by jocks all these years? Must be difficult being a 6’3" PUSSY.
It boggles my mind that such a human being would surround himself with an existence that pathologically makes him so damn miserable.
AND that advertisers actually pay for it.
Making fun of Bernstein is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Both of these guys, and Mariotti, prove how much worse off you are when your ambition is to be a sports journalist and you just happen to have enough fire to follow through on the ambition. Like most other young kids in America, they dreamed of covering sports. Unlike the rest of us, who realized early on what a long shot it was and pursued real vocations, these guys instead persisted and, in doing so, grew so shatteringly disillusioned in the process that the end product was nothing like they could have imagined when they were 17 years old. By eating so much crap, and taking so much shite from athletes as they worked their way up, their souls became blackened, and all they can do now is use this platform, which they sank their life into acheiving, to exact revenge on the jocks.
Hence, the self-regulated sense of authority these guys get when it comes to MVP and Hall of Fame voting and such. To the rest of us, with real lives, it seems ludicrous that a player’s inability to play nice with the media somehow counts against them as players but, in these hacks’ warped experience, that’s how they self-righteously see it.
Sorry for the rant.
One last thing, though–the SCORE jumped the shark years ago.
Mike D, after listening to the show lately, I’d have to say you’re right about Boers. He should have just packed it in for good when his last contract expired. I think part of his problem stems from Mike North. Boers spent his whole life covering sports for papers and then moved onto talk radio and hosts the highest rated show on the biggest sports station in Chicago, and they give a million dollar contract to…Mike North. A high school drop out who sold hotdogs until he lucked into his current job.
I think Bernstein is still a pretty decent host, especially when Boers is not there. My beef with him is often blows things out of proportion, and he often reads e-mails from listeners while stressing typos as if the accidental mispelling of a word should discredit any thought.
Sorry everyone but I have to disagree. I listen to B @ B every day and the one thing I love about their show is that they are not cheerleaders. I am a Chicago fan who has slowly but finally lost the romantic "I loved watching (insert Chicago team here) games with my dad" view of my teams and have woken up to the fact that the Bears, Cubs, Hawks and for the last 5 years, the Bulls are terrible failures. I like the fact that they demand callers who make idiotic statements to explain themselves, rather than just agree and go on. I’m getting to old and pissed off to listen to 4 hours of "I love Sammy" "I love Sammy". I’ll turn on WGN if I want that drivel. And if so many are unhappy or pissed at them: doesn’t your radio have a tuner knob?
I went to Duke. We can’t go 15 minutes without mentioning that fact.
MR, I don’t have a problem with B&B’s treatment of Chicago’s teams (or Sosa). My point is more that right now, their show is more about abusing their listeners than anything else. Boers does not appear to be enjoying himself, and that’s the main problem. When TB is happy, his interactions with stupid callers can be absolutely hilarious, but now he seems disinterested and offers the same arguement to everyone (that’s stupid, and anybody who thinks that is stupid) who disagrees with him. Part of the problem is that the only story for the last several weeks has been spring training and steroids. With no important jobs up for grabs with the Chicago teams, the steroid talk has taken front and center, and has been beaten into the ground. I’m hoping that once real games start, the show will improve.
Nobody was a bigger Score fan than I at one time, but they jumped the shark the first time they "reorganized".
I for one will miss Julie. She was the only person on the Score I could really stand to listen to anymore.
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition, and mutual envy of the living. by online poker