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This week's exchanges here left me more stoked for saloon keeping than I've been all year. I enjoyed it enormously. Bring on baseball season.
Kenny Williams, as BearDown insisted, possesses a "tough guy" image. However, I like KW as "my" club's GM and I always have liked him away from the game. His reluctance to join ALL SHOWS, not just MJH, has been misread. If Windsock's and Coztansa's accounts of Levine's report on the Carm, JD and Hoody show are correct, Bruce is way off the mark. He's around KW more than I am, but he was not present when I had a lengthy, spirited debate with KW about pulling up a chair Wednesday morning in the Sox CLUBHOUSE.
KW is correct when he says tiny chunks of interviews are played to twist context. To Dr. Ken's thought to KW: "grow a pair" regarding this practice, I agree and I attempted to explain to Williams ALL GMs and jockos risk the same treatment. I also suggested that his fanbase isn't entirely brain dead and thinking people know what was intended. Whatever I was selling, he wasn't buying. My show will go on with or without KW, but he was a good guest and, as a Sox fan, it's disappointing my conversations with him will be off-air. Time to move the drill, however.
Williams does not regard himself beyond reproach. He admitted to me Wednesday night he royally fucked up on the Josh Fogg-Kip Wells for Todd Ritchie trade. He called it his worst move ever. Underlying KW's reluctance, I believe, is his lack of trust in HIMSELF. He is as opinionated as everybody here and I think he knows himself too well to risk unloading opinions that may be detrimental to the club. He doesn't suffer laziness gladly and baseball's biggest stars even get lazy. He also has talked to openly about potential trades in the past and that's foolish. And so it goes.
Now for Bruuuuuce. Good Dolphins says "all you ever needed to know about Bruce was captured on the final Dusty interview." In case you missed it, it was one of the worst displays of ass lickage ever broadcast in Chicago. "Dusty, don't even read the Sun-Times today..." Are you kidding me? Absolutely embarrassing. I remember where I was (The Great Escape parking lot) at the time... so stunned I couldn't get out of my truck for 10 minutes until calling a few co-workers to discuss what I just consumed.
Having said that, I don't think you can take that singular event and dismiss Levine's assets. Suggesting he doesn't criticize enough is not a relevant point. He is a reporter and reporters report. He gives the info... the hosts sink their teeth into it. In newspaper, the beat guys are supposed to do the same while the columnists take guys to the woodshed.
I would submit it's part of Levine's job to be on good terms with the GMs. Buckeyejake was on the money when he said Bruce gets the story because he is cordial with Hendry and Williams. Trust must be established if one is to get information. Levine breaks more news on both baseball teams and there is a reason for it. He isn't always a smooth listen and he is challenged technically, but he gets info and has sources all over the country. Darkside's assessment of Levine as nothing more than a "below average beat reporter" is off the mark.
Calling Levine "the best in the business" as I do is partly a sales job on my end, but I do have trust in Bruce and respect for what he accomplishes. I'd like all the beat guys to giggle less in post-game news conferences and ask the questions that need to be asked, but I am glad Levine is on my team.
On Dan Bernsein "calling out" beat reporters for not asking tough questions as Good Dolphin suggested... I have several thoughts. First, MJH does not "reward" such actions. I'm the cat who slapped "LeVineline" on Bruce when he was not willing to even consider Dusty Baker was making a questionable decision a couple years ago.
Secondly, the best way to describe Bernstein when he was the Score's Bears reporter is he was a SNAKE. He managed to be cordial enough to gain the trust of Dave Wannstedt, assistants and PLAYERS, but he then had no problem betraying those trusts by making those he covered look foolish. I'm guessing (memory isn't all it used to be) he lost some access because of his underhanded, back-biting ways. Dan was a good reporter, but his methods were those of an untrustworthy cat. Maybe he knew before the rest of us he would be off the beat and stealing my radio wife so he didn't care... I don't know. He was the apple of Ron Gleason's eye long before the station foolishly blew it up in Aug. of '99.
STU-GOTZ... you're awesome. Everybody knows somebody like you. I see a guy like you on the barstool and I can't wait to go exchange insults with him for the next three hours. I then leave and hope I don't see him for another month.
Your penchant for misspelling words is exceeded only by your skill at trash talking. I didn't "fain" interest in the Cubs' playoff series with Diamondbacks. Playoff baseball, regardless of the participants, is exciting stuff, especially when you're at the yard. I feigned something only once in my career. It happened in Bristol... second day of hosting weekend stuff in the winter of '01. Dale Earnhardt died and the skies were falling on ESPN. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. And from everybody. I took one for the team (my family) as I was auditioning for a job. Felt badly about it, but I faked joining in the cast of pall. What I wanted to say, and I've said it since, is "you can't intimidate a concrete wall." For the uninitiated, Earnhardt's nickname was "The Intimidator."
That said, you make me laugh regularly. Keep it coming. As Hannibal said to Agent Starling after he escaped, "the world's much more interesting with you in it." Keep it coming, big boy. Maybe you and some of the guys here (Hawkeye comes to mind) who fancy themselves as pugilists can lace 'em up at the Sox-Cubs tailgate and we'll see who backs up the talk with fistic prowess. That would entertain me after I slave away over 200 lbs. of hot Kingsfords for four hours.
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