And Now For Something Completely Different

Watch as fellow curmudgeon sports guy Tony Massarotti shocks the hell out of everyone and drops a beat on yesterday's Felger & Mazz show:

Big O just forfeited tomorrow’s rap battle. https://t.co/6liYGD5BBc

— Boston Radio Watch® (@bostonradio) September 15, 2020

Simply Unbelievable

(another in an occasional departure from Shank bashing)

There I was a little while ago, sitting around and watching old Star Trek reruns on BBC America, happy as a clam, when a commercial came on and I flipped the channels. For some reason I turned it to 'The "Best" of Felger and Mazz' and tuned in to a segment when Felger and (who I'm pretty sure was) Adam Jones, subbing on for the nearly equally loathsome Tony Massarotti (more on that in a minute). What a fucking monumental mistake that was.

Supposed tennis expert Michael Felger was talking about yesterday's men's Wimbeldon final between Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer, in what was instantly billed as an all-time classic match. Unfortunately, I didn't watch much of that match since it interfered with my Tour de France watching, but I don't believe for a millisecond that Felger watched any of it himself. Instead of doing what you might expect of a decent and normal person and giving Djokovic credit for an epic win, Felger instead trashed Federer and said 'he choked, CHOKED it away!' 'He hit that last ball off the side of his racket and it went way into the second stands!' or some such garbage. As the ensuing 'discussion' went on, the co-host corrected Felger on a number of points about the match, leaving this cat with the unmistakable impression that the only thing Felger watched was the last five minutes of the match, and to no one's surprise, focused entirely on the losing side and that massive choke artist Roger Federer, holder of 20 Grand Slam major titles in his career, better than any other men's tennis player.

For whatever reason, Felger needs to demonstrate a pathological need to point out any and all perceived shortcomings, real or imagined, in order to diminish the loser of a game or match in order to make some emotional, overcharged and hyperbolic point. After many years of watching / listening to this asshole, it is now clear he is wholly incapable of mentioning the good / right / correct things the winner did to win the game or match. It is a compulsive need to be an asshole, or does it help 98.5 FM's ratings during afternoon drive time to be an asshole? The world may never know.

And don't get me started about another asshole - ESPN's Tom Rinaldi, perhaps the worst combination of insincerity, fake praise, phony ass-kissing and general douchebag qualities ever assembled into the most useless of sports coverage, the sideline 'reporter'. I killed the feed just before Rinaldi finished his first sentence of fake praise at Novak, and I don't believe Novak was entirely thrilled with that interview himself.

On to Massarotti - a few weeks ago, they were talking about golf and mentioned three time major winner Brooks Koepka. Being the professional asshole he is, he outright dismissed two of his U.S. Open wins for no apparent reason whatsoever. I realize that this can be considered cherrypicking, but Mazz gave me no reason to consider his blithe dismissal of those accomplishments, nor did Felger acknowledge Djokovic's win in any respect.

Besides the Felger-infused rant here, the larger point is this - Bruce Allen was completely right about six years ago. While this particular bit of fake sports outrage from Felger set me off tonight for a reason, it's because the fake outrage is not reasoned. There is no pretense of reason with someone claiming in an unconvincing fashion that a 20 time Grand Slam winner 'choked, CHOKED!' away a Wimbledon final win. Did it ever occur to Michael Felger that that last shot of Federer's he loved to trash was... simply mishit, or missed?

Unfortunately, Bruce left the counter-criticism business a few years ago, in disgust. I now feel that disgust more than ever. However, I with my co-blogger Mike will soldier on, because the unrelenting 200% negative crap from the likes of Felger, Shaughnessy, et. al. needs to be continually countered and critiqued

A Brief Michael Felger Rant

I was checking out this post at fellow site Boston Media Sports Watch and, on a whim, decided to respond to this snippet with a mini-rant in their comments section. I know this goes against the grain of being a site devoted to the Red Jheri Curl, but it's like this - Shaughnessy, Felger, Borges & Massarotti are the Mount Rushmore of Boston Sports Media Assholes, so I'm using a mulligan here.

I generally like Michael Felger - he's entertaining, funny, very knowledgeable and, yes, a Grade A Asshole (and psychopath, from what I heard secondhand from one of his old neighbors in Framingham). This past Monday afternoon, however, marked a turning point for me where I just had to turn off his show as it grated on me so god damned bad. I'm not sure I view / listen to Felger & Mazz the same way anymore because of it. Boston radio in general has been a real shitshow the past five years, for me because of the losses of WBCN and WFNX and the quality of other radio stations is simply not there, in my opinion. I don't know if this Felger thing below is just another example of that continuing decline in quality, but I suspect it is. I suppose that remains to be seen / heard.

And no, I wasn't boozin' when I wrote this rant. That's the surprising part!

Now, onto the rant!

Michael Felger hates the NBA so much, he can simultaneously trash the Warriors, Steph Curry and LeBron James all at the same time. THAT’s talent.

I've had the displeasure of reading that f*n prick Shaughnessy from Day 1 in 1981. I stopped buying the Boston Globe in 1995 solely because of that f*n prick Shaughnessy, and the taking over primary blogging duties at DSW in September of 2009, so I thought all these years of exposure to unrelenting negativity and hostility would have left me prepared / inoculated for that full solar flare blast from Felger & Massarotti when I tuned in on Monday to get their take on that Game 2 of the NBA finals.

Nope - not even close! I might as well have been a test dummy on one of those islands in the Pacific when they tested the first hydrogen bomb - I was instantly vaporized by Felger's blast of unrelenting negativity and hostility, and Mazz chiming in was just getting thrown by the blast's shock wave. I turned it off in about four or five minutes.

I have managed to recover from that beating, and since I'm on the road at the time they kick off in about twelve hours from now, I'll see if my brain can withstand another dose of Michael Felger Grade A radiation. Should be fun!

Just had to get that off my chest - I picked the wrong week to give up booze...

(crossposted on Boston Sports Media Watch)

His Column on Who's 'Best' is Like a Pile of No. 2

Years ago, I offered up my hypothesis of how The CHB prepares a column: He listens to talk radio for four or five hours, writes down the best lines, then builds a piece around that, with the central position to be 1) whatever is opposite of what the group-think is or 2) to hone in on (and attempt to bully) anyone who might possibly know more about sports than he does (which, of course, could be just about everyone).

And in today's piece, Shank confirms my observation. He writes: "If you were driving your car and somebody flipped on the radio and you heard people debating the merits of Carl Yastrzemski and David Ortiz, regarding their relative contributions to the Red Sox, how would you feel?"

Now, understand that the question was posed to Yaz himself. But also understand that this is exactly the conversation (if we can call the perpetually hyperventilating Tony Massarotti capable of such a thing) that took place on Felger and Mazz last week. So thank you, CHB, for being so transparent and predictable.

As for the answer, The CHB just as predictably gets it all wrong. Yaz had a lifetime OPS+ of 130 and a lifetime WAR of 78.2. A terrific leftfielder the earlier part of his career, he was actually five games worse than replacement level from 1969 on. Big Papi's career OPS+ is 139. But as to who is/was the better player? There's no question. Ortiz's career offensive WAR (47.2) is one-third offset by a negative defensive WAR of -18.6. Papi is roughly the same player as Jim Rice. This if it's a race between Papi and Yaz, it's Yaz, hands down. But if we are to include all previous Red Sox players, Jimmie Foxx and Manny Ramirez would come take the No. 2 and 3 slots, with the stunningly underrated Wade Boggs in the mix for the top five as well. A wiser columnist would have known this.