Friday, June 13, 2014

Random Quick Hits That Have Nothing to Do with the Distant Second-Place Fan


Back from my Very Important Trip Further West.

(1) Little quirky, unimportant things one notices about hosts:  Gordon mispronounces "insurance."  He puts the emphasis on the first syllable.  Without exception.

WAIT:  I see some folks say that "INsurance," is an acceptable variation, especially in the South.  Oh dear, what will the language descriptivists and relativists be permitting next?

Well  .  .  .  that's just wrong and anyone who is pronouncing it that way should stop immediately.  Especially the erudite Gordon.

WAIT MORE:  I've heard two people say INsurance today out on the plains.

Okay, okay, Gordon, I apologize.

(2) I like The Shake Joint's "Sports 303" or whatever their sabremetrics segment is called.  I was an early adopter of Bill James's Baseball Abstract, back when you had to buy it in a book with pages and glued bindings and covers.  Fascinating.  And, of course, there's the Moneyball stuff.

But I was puzzled by something I heard on the segment a couple of weeks back.  Jake and especially Sean were talking about the meaninglessness of the "win" in baseball as applied to pitchers' records.  Noting, correctly, that sometimes pitchers get wins even if they pitch lousily.

But it got me thinking:  In the long run -- couple three seasons, let's say, or the average term of a pitcher with a single team -- what pitchers are incorrectly judged based on their W/L records?  Which ones overrated, which ones underrated?

Let's take a longer run, a career:  Are there pitchers out there in the Hall of Fame who don't belong, or those who aren't there who should be, based on a mistaken emphasis on W/L records?  Are there pitchers who are undervalued in trades or free-agent salaries for the same reason?  Do modern-day general managers overvalue that statistic in building their teams?

Isn't it the case that in the mid-to-long run, undeserved losses and undeserved wins, under the current way of scoring these things, will even out, and that the W/L record of a pitcher will give a reasonably accurate measure of a pitcher's merit against others measured the same way?

But, as I say, I like sabremetrics and I think they're valuable, and I like the segment.  Heck, I like pretty much all of the The Shake Joint except for the current events stuff, which I can generally take or leave.

(3)  And while we're on the subject:  Can anyone think of any presentation in any medium whatsoever whose name contains two separate drug references -- and a pun?  I'll take one with two separate drug references.  (Before you ask:  The pun is "joint," which can refer to a marijahooster cigarette, or a destination of some kind -- like Spike Lee referring to his movies as "a Spike Lee joint.")

(4)  I'm trying to figure out the deal with the Whiskey War.  I thought maybe Gentleman Jack and Woodford Reserve were manufactured by the same whiskey conglomerate, but can't find any evidence of that.  (At the end of one of their ads, Danny states the name of some entity -- maybe a distributor -- that might tie them together.  I'll try to pick it up next time I hear one of the ads.)  One of you smart Confessors knows the answer to why these apparent competitors have commissioned a joint advertising campaign.  What's strange is that I find no other such campaign referenced on the authoritative Internets, nor really any particular pairing of these two products.

EXCEPT that I do see promotions where you can get a bottle of either of these products personally engraved.  But I can't find any other connection between the two UNLESS it's that they're both in kinda flattish bottles that can be easily engraved.

Confessor calling Danny to find out whether Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey
counts as a volley favoring Gentleman Jack
I'll bet there's a Confessor out there in the liquor distribution business who can answer this question, possibly staving off a conflict at The Ticket that threatens to split the place right down the middle.

59 comments:

  1. Both are owned by Brown-Forman.

    GQ posted a "Bourbon Family Tree" in November 2013.

    http://www.gq.com/life/food/201311/bourbon-whiskey-family-tree

    I'll try to add other comments later this week, but since World cup is on during The Ticket hours, I'm out during BaDD Radio and THL since I can get everything on Univision and their app for free.

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  3. Reading is a skill, 726. As does Gordon, you have this site's permission to say INsurance.

    And I'll just go ahead and approve your use of JUly, TEEvee, UMbrella, THANKSgiving, and BEhind. Perfectly fine in these parts, and elsewhere, I reckon.

    I'm a late adopter of of Blogger's comment-erasure mechanics, but I'm getting the hang of it.

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  4. Thank you, DA. I knew one of our fine readers would find the connection.

    Anyone know of these products being paired in any other ads, print or otherwise? It would be interesting to know how the Whiskey War campaign came about.

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  5. Well well well…

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/more-sports/headlines/20140613-may-d-fw-sports-radio-ratings-the-ticket-leads-but-who-took-second.ece

    It looks like our FAN Fan ratings service subscriber likes to fudge his numbers a bit, hedging his bet that no one will check or no one reads the paper.

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  9. I was listening to the podcast and I heard Jake prank calling local businesses.

    Why does the Ticket steal Howard Stern bits?

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  10. And Stern stole it from Don Imus.

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  11. And Imus stole it from me when I was 9 with my tape recorder and suction cup listening device.

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  12. There was one comment on the last thread that I think bears some more sports talk. Going to break on time. I'd be willing to bet the two worst offenders are Dan and Corby. Neither of them seem to give a damn about the clock and the content they are offering in Dan's World or E-News warrants extending the bog. An epic WTDS confrontation with the ESPN chick working the phone, that is worth plowing through the stop sign. Some E-News pontification declaring Nirvana or (insert lame band here) is only important to Corby. Norm is by far the best at it. He might gnaw on a bone bereft of meat but he goes to break on time. I don't mind long commercial breaks. I have them timed out to avoid the umpteen zillionth round of car, insurance and whiskey commercials.
    I do flip over sometimes to the other sports stations and I am thoroughly unimpressed. More often than not it is KXT that gets my ears than the Fan. Oh has anybody noticed that the word Fail is accentuated in their station promos now?
    It has been a pet peeve of mine for years about Corby and Dan. So this is right in my wheelhouse. If the content is good enough to mess up the clock, that's fine, but if there is a mandate to get a spot on at a certain time frame, you damn well better do it. Dan talking about his style of parenting or Corby talking about some band I could not possibly care less about does not qualify as 'good content'.

    I don't care if there are trolls hanging around. I ignore them. Sometimes they let some info slip and sometimes they show their raging insecurity. The fact that the Pman has no qualms about riding herd over the comments keeps the place from devolving.

    And happy Father's Day to all the other dads out there. Enjoying mine so far. mmmm coffee and sports in the morning.

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  13. I made the Stern/Imus reference because Stern has always insisted that Imus stole all of Stern's bits. Stern may have taken some bits to another level, but that doesn't mean he originated them.

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  14. Fleming and Gourley doing Ticket Sports Sunday, tahking gahf and sahccer. Didn't hear much of it, maybe a half-hour. Be civil.

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  15. I've been pretty hard on TC lately, so I gave his Sports Sunday a shot. Thoroughly unlistenable. The guy should not host any show of any kind. A giant ego and blatant insecurity coupled with awful radio talking skills does not make for good sports talk.

    Gourley? Not bad.

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  16. Brogan wasn't bad. TC was awkward. I can see why after 2 months he was let go. There's reality, and then there's TC's reality.

    I've officially grown weary of Dan's I'm Gonna Lift The Veil On X, Y, or Z bit. Nothing can be claimed, no opinion expressed, where Dan interjects with his Oh Cuz The Man Didn't Get His Way b.s. He's like the kid who just took a first year logic course and sees fallacies in every utterance, and enjoys pointing them out. No matter if said fallacy actually exists. What's funnier is that often times he's guilty of his own charges against others by virtue of his "critical thinking." Dan is a buffoon.

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  18. Plainsman,
    Gordon also mispronounces along with 97% of all Texans the name of the Silver State. Nevada is NOT pronounced Ne Vod a. The Vad part rhymes with mad, dad and sad. Ne Vad a.

    Plainsman,
    things dont always even out with regard to win-loss. Over the past 5 years Felix Hernandez has far fewer wins than what he should have due to poor team offense. Also, Nolan Ryan over a 25 year career has fewer wins than what his career ERA would suggest again because of the preponderance of poor teams he played for.

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  19. On breaking on time: As a listener, I don't care. I'm on Ticket time, so if they go to break 10 minutes late, it's irrelevant. I'll still punch out as soon as I hear the beginning of the Summer Bash promo, we'll still get the standard (too long, IMO) commercial break and my Ticket senses will start tingling and I'll punch back over right as the Ticker starts. Along Cactus' lines, though, 10 extra minutes of the College Football Blowhard or Neil Young talk is not a good thing. If the segment is interesting and worthy of extending, I'm all for it, though.

    I caught about 30 minutes of Brogan and TC's work on Sunday. I've always been a TC supporter -- not that I think he's a great broadcaster, I think he has potential -- but Sunday didn't do a lot to bolster my position. He seemed like he was pressing too hard, not letting the game come to him. There was a cockiness and blowhardness that I haven't heard too much from him, even in IJB. I'm still pulling for him, but I'm thinking now that the Top 10 was probably his perfect gig on the Ticket.

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  20. Here's a quick hit: Anyone else wonder why the guy on Norm's Sante Center for Healing spots says that they take a "holistic - and that's 'wholistic' with a 'w' - approach..."?

    Does he not realize that the application is correct without the "w"? Or does he not want the listener to mistake the word "holistic" for something having to do with the spiritual ("holy") which is also wrong?

    Whatever the case, that there spot needs correction. Just say "we take a holistic approach" and leave it at that, dummy.

    At work right now, so let me get to CAPTCHA refreshin'.

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  21. "Wholistic?" There's no way that's a word...

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  22. deezy, whe's making a very serious pun - a portmenteau even - on the words "holistic" and "whole." The idea being that their program makes a person "whole" again.

    And for what it's worth "holism" or "holistic medicine" has nothing to do with the word "holy."

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  23. Distributors pay for the ads...that is your plain and simple on the liquor war questions PMan...

    and I didn't fudge the numbers...Horn gets his data directly from the PD's and they are off by a decimal or two depending on which service you use. The numbers i posted here come straight from the nielsen website...i think his are from a system called XTrends.

    learn more about radio

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  24. 301, actually, your numbers weren't off a decimal or two but rather 2 whole points.

    Learn how to cover your tracks better. Better yet, learn how not to be such a b.s.er.

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  25. Does it matter to any of you out there that our hosts are watching TV while doing a show? I guess I don't, really. They usually tell us what's going on. Leads to some funny moments and commentary, sometimes. Not just World Cup, but Rangers games sometimes, too. Usually not much on while the shows are airing.

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  26. Some horrible news from the ESPN side of the Dial going to copy and past Tim McMahon's tweet:

    We lost a great man today. My ESPN Dallas colleague Richard Durrett collapsed and died suddenly. He leaves behind a wife and 2 little kids.

    https://twitter.com/espn_macmahon/status/479094725660909568

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  27. Wow...that's shocking! Sad news indeed.

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  28. This site's condolences to all of his loved ones and friends.

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  29. Two passages from Steven Millhauser's short story "Cat 'N' Mouse." Consider how they relate to The Ticket and The Fan:

    The cat…is filled with rage at the thought of the mouse, who he knows despises him. He would like to tear the mouse to pieces, to roast him over a fire, to plunge him into a pan of burning butter. He understands that his rage is not the rage of hunger and he wonders whether the mouse himself is responsible for evoking this savagery, which burns in his chest like indigestion…In a sense, the mouse intimidates the cat: in his presence, the cat feels clumsy and foolish. He thinks obsessively about the mouse and suspects with rage that the mouse frequently does not think about him at all, there in his brown room. If the mouse was less indifferent, would he burn with such hatred?

    The mouse understands that the clownishly inept cat has the freedom to fail over and over again, during the long course of an inglorious lifetime, while he himself is denied the liberty of a single mistake. It is highly unlikely, of course, that he will ever be guilty of an error, since he is much cleverer than the cat and immediately sees through every one of his risible stratagems. Still, might not the very knowledge of his superiority lead to a relaxation of vigilance that will prove fatal, in the end? After all, he is not invulnerable; he is invulnerable only insofar as he is vigilant. The mouse is bored, deeply bored, by the ease with which he outwits the cat; there are times when he longs for a more worthy enemy, someone more like himself. He understands that his boredom is a dangerous weakness against which he must perpetually be on his guard.

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  30. The Ticket Mouse suddenly makes so much more sense...

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  31. @324...how do you figure 3 whole points?...go read everything again...I'm not running from anything, I don't flippantly throw numbers up on the internet, i check my stuff. No reason to get agressniff

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  32. **2 whole points

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  33. I love when Corby contradicts his own narrative in a single sitting.

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  34. A fact that cannot be argued is that 105.3 The Fan broke the news of Richard Durrett' passing, NOT the ticket. Why? Because 105.3 The Fan has live and local programing nightly from 7-midnite. The prima donnas at the ticket refuse to broadcast after 7pm. That is how much they care about their audience.

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  35. Sometimes it's hard to know if a comment is a bit. I'm thinking InTheKnow might be one. (1) My understanding is that the news of Durrett's passing broke on Twitter, but even if it didn't, it is a dead certainty that The Fan got it second-hand from an actual news source. (2) The Ticket (and for that matter, The Fan) are not primarily sports-news outlets. They do zero original sports reporting. (3) Which station cares more about its fans: a station that packages the best parts of the broadcast day so that people who can't listen (jobs, maybe) can still enjoy the work of the Marconi-award-winning hosts, or one that throws up live programming that is mostly unlistenable? No, I think InTheKnow is a bit, because a praise-singing of The Fan that anemic can't possibly be sincere.

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  36. Sorry, Pman, I have to disagree. InTheKnow is typical of the FAN Fans and/or operatives who seem to love this site more than their "beloved" station or place of employment. Yes, Virginia, they are that inane.

    Then again, I thought the game was for us to (per your prescription) ignore the ignoramuses (?).

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  37. OK, the FAN broke the story live.

    And then they discussed who he would share a three-room apartment with.

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  38. This blog is brought to you by Delta Airlines.

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  40. Did anyone catch the Musers this morning mention Summer Bash at Sneaky Pete's and passive aggressively poke fun at The Fan for changing their summer outing?

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  41. I didn't hear The Musers do it, but I heard BaD Radio do it this afternoon (Bob said something like "because Sneaky Pete's is PLENTY big enough for all of your party needs")

    The FAN annoyeth - and the harder the trolls try, the less leash I give the station. Funny how that works.

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  42. I heard The Musers talk about it. They also mentioned that there were expected to be 100k P1's there and I wasn't sure if that was part of the bit or if they really do expect that many out there. I can imagine, regardless, parking might be a nightmare. I had planned to go but some others I was planning on going with had plans fall through and I don't think I want to be there by my lonesome so I guess I'll be skipping this one.

    "200"

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  43. Did anyone hear classic corky yesterday? Having done no research, corky starts out one of his segments (they all generically sound the same) assuming Mike Meyers is going to ACT in a soon-to-be-released MOVIE about Alice Cooper's manager, Shep Gordon. Danny gets on the computer to discover Mike Meyers DIRECTED a DOCUMENTARY that was released a week ago and is currently playing in theaters. By the time he was done screwing it all up, he's managed to name-drop a few people and talk about how he knows a bunch of celebrities or something. Just horrible radio and failure all over the place.

    Somewhere else in the broadcast (I don't care if it was before or after) THL has Kenny Loggins on air. Having done no research corky asks him how many Grammy's he won, and then Mike asks him if he'll ever tour with Jim Messina again. Loggins proceeds to inform Mike that they toured twice in the last 10 years. Just utter failure all over that show. It may be the best comedy on DFW radio right now.

    The real gratification in listening to THL is hearing corky pepper his failed, generic segments with reminders of his sexless marriage. I mean, with all his awesomeness, celebrity socializing and full-fledged delving in to the world of gourmet cannabis, his wife will not have sex with him. I love it.

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  44. Mike's faux pas with Kenny Loggins won the E-Brake this week. It could have been avoided with a couple of mouse clicks, but in his defense if the tours did not come through this area he wouldn't necessarily have known about them. And how many shows did they play? Five? Fifty?

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  45. Regarding the Loggins and Messina reunion tours of which Mike was so blissfully unaware, they appeared in Dallas at Nokia on their 2005 tour (48 dates). Houston was the only Texas stop in 2009 (55 dates).

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  46. I had intended to write that if you want your local sports radio commentary enlivened with quotations from celebrated but little-read fiction writers from the 70's through the Aughts like Steven Millhauser, you have got, I mean just got, to come to My Ticket Confession. (I read In the Penny Arcade some years back, still sitting on my short story collection shelf.) My thanks to Lucky Jim for elevating the tone of the back-and-forth around here.

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  47. The Fan definitely still breaks stories. So does the Ticket...not hardly ever...but "absolutely zero" is a gravely erroneous characterization.

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  48. Do you think The Fan is still pushing for votes in the DFW Sportsday Broadcaster poll?

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  49. @Brad Gilbert

    From what I have seen, the Fail people that have been thru a vote pretty much got their behinds kicked other than one of the night time spares.

    He was up against Hansen which may have been more a vote against Hansen than a vote for the night time spare.

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  50. Anonymous Ron: Gordon Keith and Brad Sham are currently tied in their bracket.

    I'm sure when the P1 hears of this it won't last much longer.

    Gordon won this last year. A bit is a bit is a bit.

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  51. BTW: Bad radio's 15 for 15 segment on the end of Rocko Mendola at the Ticket today was brilliant.

    That was my dark period for the Ticket and it was a nice rehash of the events leading up to the end of Rocko and the rise of Bob Sturm and his pairing with Dan.

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  52. Pendola

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocco_Pendola

    Never used any Ticket related info for a product except something like Pro Flowers.

    "1018"

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  53. No worries. Just wanted to give some info for those that didn't know who he is.

    How was Summer Bash for those that went?

    "161"

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  54. I didn't realize Rocco was only 22when that happened.

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  55. @blergoyen
    I heard those segments, usually any segment of e-news or community quick hits has an inaccuracy or five. Makes me wonder, I mean, I know these guys just look on the news wires and print out stories, but is the first time they read them(Corky and Gordon) when they're telling them on air? I like it when Jer plays the "Muse & the news--more questions than answers"
    I know some ticket hosts will glance at their twitter or have friends that will text them, but one of the kind of nice things about the Fail is the texting option. If you're majorly screwing up a story, someone is probably texting in to help you right the ship.
    As far as Loggins goes, how does Rhynes not check his wiki or any info on him? Are these guys that busy to prep for interviews?

    I've read post after post slamming THL for all the giveup but I'm jumping on that bandwagon for sure. Not sure why these guys(Kirby especially) have so giveup in doing a job that makes them 6 figs. Cat will always have a place for Kirby, so I guess that's where his complacency comes from.

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  56. Was it something we said?

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