A Nice Quiet Ticket Friday Night at Home with Mrs. Plainsman

It was a very interesting Ticket day, I thought. 

Mrs. P is recovering from some surgery (she’s fine, thanks for asking) and we’re watching some March Mildness (although this Kansas-Michigan game is concluding in an interesting way).  I’m in the old rocker and thought I’d give you  a number of items to chew on.

 

A SOURCE!

A commenter to the last post chided me for not having “sources” that would have instantly alerted me to Alexis’s departure.  I was going to respond that when one has no sources at all, my ignorance might be excused.

And later that day, I heard from someone.

I never know how to evaluate the stuff that (quite rarely and unexpectedly) comes my way.  I kinda consider the content, figure out it makes sense in the context of other stuff we know or think we know.  I decided this communicant probably had good information.  He (?) was someone who has been listening to The Ticket for a long time, and also exhibited some inside knowledge.  And in this case, his stuff was not incendiary, no apparent axes to grind. 

Paring it down s/he said:  The Campout was a Muser-only thing for several years before the whole station went.   The Musers decided to invite the whole station and make it a Ticket event.  It was never popular with some of the hosts, but they soldiered through.   After last year’s campout, only three of the nine on-air hosts were interested in doing it this year.  Thus, no more Campout, at least not this year and maybe never.

S/he also reported that the end of the Compound had nothing to do with Greggo’s departure.  S/he did not identify any specific reason the Compound was shelved, but did suggest that the talent sometimes feels that some items get stale and resist improvement.

Thanks to the Source – tried to think of a funny name for this correspondent, but nothing comes to mind.

I will say, however, that in general this tends to support my fairly unremarkable thought that there is some extremely interesting stuff that goes on behind the scenes.  Not all the hosts are on board with all of the stuff all the time.  This isn’t a shocking conclusion, but it’s the kind of stuff that the P1 would love to know about.  But, just as people beyond your employer don’t know the politics at your workplace, I don’t reckon we’ll ever get the story behind, for example, the demise of The Great Game.  There were some ill feelings after the last one, as I recall, centering on Mike Bacsik’s team-switching.  (Am I remembering correctly that that was the last one?)  You know, it’s probably just as well we don’t know.

 

 Trademarking Fun Ticket Phrases and Names

Confessors!  How unseemly!  You should receive your gratification entirely from the adoption of your descriptors by Confessors and others.  (I ran into a guy the other day who told me that he was the author of the “Yuck Monkey” designation on The Ticket.  I actually believed him.)

 How Mike is Sounding

Faithful Confessor ausgang left a comment to the last post reporting that he thought he detected sadness in Mike’s voice, that he seemed a little depressed.  Seemed to start 3-4- months ago.  (ausgang stated that he had no knowledge of any issues in Mike’s life.)

Well.   ausgang, I was startled by your comment because I noticed something in his voice at about the same time.  I thought about writing about it, but decided I may have been hearing things, and, truth to tell, I only hear it once in awhile.  (And not at all today, see below.)

But I had a different thought.  I didn’t feel that what I heard reflected any attitudinal issues.

What I thought was that for the first time, I thought I heard age creeping into those incredible pipes.    As I say, I don’t hear it often, but just once in awhile, I’ll hear a little crack, or a little breathiness, that I don’t recall hearing before.  The man is what, 62?  I mean, jeez, he comes by it honestly, and he’s not a young 62.   And he’s a regular vocal performer with his bands, singing out of his range (my opinion).  Not easy, and maybe what I’m hearing is just a little vocal weariness from a recent performance. 

 

 

But yeah, ausgang, I noticed something, too.

Mike and Mark

I only heard bits and pieces of The Hardline today, but what I heard sounded pretty good.  Mike was fully engaged, sounded great, and there was some sports talk on both their parts that indicated either preparation, or just plain sportsy knowledge.  I think most of us would like to hear more of this Mike with Corby and Danny, not just when sports is on the table, but in segments across the board. 

I wish I had heard more of their talk about the genesis of The Ticket, specifically Mark’s hiring by Mike.

 

Intra-Show Sniping

(1)  Corby won the E-Brake this morning for his show stop-down with a bad pun (that is, a pretty good pun).   George took the opportunity to take on The Hardline, who had been sniping at The Musers for not selecting enough of THL gaffes for the Friday contest.   George made some rather cutting comments about The Hardline, and concluded by recalling Corby’s suggestion that THL should do an internal blooper competition of its own.  George rather pointedly invited THL to do exactly that.   (I think that THL has won the last three E-Brakes.)

Of course, there is frequently some jabbing between the shows and it’s usually pretty-obviously good-natured.   George’s remarks did not have that flavor.  Anyone else thing George was just the tiniest bit hot under the collar?

 

 

(2)  I believe this one took place when Jake was doing E-News.  He made reference to a former Ticket guy, I believe it was Psycho Dave, who had stated somewhere along the line that he quit The Ticket because of Bob Sturm, although it could have BaD generally.  Mark said that he had left The Ticket way back when because of some friction with the cadre of BaD interns.  And there was talk directed generally against BaD interns (this may have been a reference to times past, hard to tell).   I forget who said that Bob was also amazed when learning that his management style did not get good reviews from his minions, but Mike jumped in at the end to support this piling on Bob.

(Attention UnTicket – that would be a nice clip to hear again.)

*     *     *

As I said – an interesting Ticket day.

And now, I'm going to sit back and watch Perry Mason on Channel 24. 

Twitter: @Plainsman1310

Email:  ThePlainsman1310@gmail.com

 

How . . . Great . . . Was It?

I heard most but not all of The Great Game.  Hoping one of  you Confessors will give us a report on what it looked like in 3-D.

I got the strong impression that this game wasn't a whole lot of fun for the participants.  There wasn't much horsing around.  Nothing that made it onto the radio, anyway.  Bad feelings from last year?   All of the gags used up in the prior games? 

Now let me say that broadcasts like this remind me of what a gift Norm Hitzges is to the metroplex.  The raw play-by-play sounded like a complete drag to be watching, but Norm worked very hard to make the thing entertaining.  After awhile I realized that there wasn't much going on on the field of much interest, and Norm was keeping the thing alive with Ralphie as best he could.

But the fact that Norm was the main attraction is the same as saying that the game sort of came and went, the guys went through the motions, Mike came out to argue once, and then it was over. 

The event seems like it should be a good time -- maybe a Confessor has some idea about how the thing could be livened up without destroying its essential baseball-y nature.  And, as I say, perhaps a first-hand report from one of y'all could bring a little perspective, for which I thank you in advance.

Junior Blackballed Bacsik

I caught the beginning of the Bacsik/Newberry showgram today.

Mike confirmed that Junior vetoed his participation in The Great Game this year.  Guess he'll be calling the game with Norm.

Junior is one of my favorites so it pains me to think that he was responsible for what seems to me rather smallish behavior.  Now, I'll admit that Bacsik's departure from the dugout as coach of [Sponsor] Team Musers to pitch for [Sponsor] Team Hardline was an unorthodox strategy.  But apparently everyone but Junior thought the game was being played for yuks.  You know, like for the fans.  Who expect the wacky and wheels-off from The Little One.  Who in that stadium didn't want to see Mike pitch to Rusty Greer?

So:  Since Junior's attitude seems so out of character for something so minor (and, I would argue, positive for the fans), I am inspired to wonder if there isn't something else going on with Bacsik at The Little One.

Has Bacsik's Name Even Come Up In Connection with The Great Game?

This is a serious question.  I didn't hear the entire draft and I didn't hear the Musers' entire conversation about the draft this morning.  At no time did I hear Mike Bacsik's name even mentioned.  Did anyone bring up his participation (or non-participation)?

It would be understandable if they excluded him as a former professional major league pitcher, even though he coached a team last year and (notoriously) entered the game to pitch on behalf of the other team.

Junior, of course, was genuinely hot about this.  He probably wasn't the only one.

But even if there was some decision to exclude this ringer of all ringers from the draft, you would think that they would at least say something about it.    Did anyone mention his situation at any time?

If not  .  .  .  then I wonder if Bacsik is persona non grata at the station for some other reason.  Which would be too bad, I think.