The Josh Innes Show - The Stupidity of Sports Fans On Social Media

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Jeremy Branham of ESPN 97.5 in Houston posted something on twitter yesterday about Jeremy Pena being a "star". I disputed this notion. We had a back and forth and it was fine. He's a good dude and I have no issue with him. Then the Astros fans got involved. What I've learned is that social media sports fans are truly the dumbest humans on the planet. They are void of logic and reason. They are cultists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The the White Sox fan like no one even knows what this guy said, but baseball player cried manager was pissed White guy did it so the whole world is like this is embarrassing and this is terrible and we need a whole referendum on fans at sporting events and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah right? I think that's one form of the internet. But one thing the internet has also done is it has really destroyed sports discourse or debate because what you learn, like this is the difference between professional people and this is going to sound holier than now, but this is the difference between people who've grown up doing this on public platforms and by

public platforms. I mean radio television, whatever old school media if you will, this is the difference between people who grew up doing that where there were certain standards and what you could do to a degree versus the Wild West of social media and podcasts and everything else. Now, a lot of people on podcasts are very fair in the way they analyze sports or they're good at debating like that. That's not to say that everyone is bad at it but social media has revealed just how infantile the minds are of so many people. Now let me play a couple commercials and we'll dig into this. The new BMO VI Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card. And then some.

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Uh, excuse me. Why are you walking so close behind me? Well, you're a tall guy. You throw a decent shadow when I'm walking in it to keep out of this bright sun. It hurts my eyes. Okay, well you know what, Specsavers, you can get two pairs of glasses from $149 and oh, you'll like this. One can be a pair of prescription sunglasses. Sounds great! Where's the nearest store?

Mmm, not far. Come on. Let's hurry then. To my count. One, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, one, two, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2 believe that fans should have a voice and all that shit, right? The problem you run into is that most people on social media have no concept of how to debate. And then once you have kind of cornered them, they fall into this this like defense mechanism where all they can do is deliver personal shots at you. And that's no fun because then the debates over right? So let me give you an example.

Yesterday I'm scrolling through social media, I'm on Twitter, whatever, and I see that Jeremy Branham who is currently on ESPN 97.5 in Houston, he works with Joel, my buddy. I don't know that I've ever met Jeremy Branham in person. Joel was like the first dude I met, one of the first two or three dudes I met in Houston. Like it's like, like I look back on that. That was late 2009. It was me, Ben Nance, Joel, who was a lot younger at the time. So he'd go out and about. So it was me and Ben who are both in our early 20s. Joel and Joel kind of introduced me to the city and

stuff. And we had a minor falling out a couple times due to the rocket shit because he worked for the Rockets. But like he and I are buddies and I really enjoy the guy and I consider him a good buddy so I like the guy. Not like we talk all the time, we don't text all the time, nothing like that. Like we can go years without talking. But I genuinely like the guy and I always have. So Joel does the show with Jeremy Branham. Jeremy is tweeting something yesterday about Jeremy Pena, the shortstop from the Houston Astros and what kind of deal he might get. And there was some headline about Jeremy Pena being a star, to which I said, Jeremy Pena a star? Right.

Like I don't think Jeremy Pena is a star. He's obviously a very good player, solid shortstop. I mean, he's had a nice career so far and he's having an amazing first half of the season. But but I don't think he's a star. I just I don't know why it's kind of like it's kind of like porn. Like you can't really describe it, but you know it when you see it, you know that type of deal. I don't know that like I look at Jeremy Pena and see star right and maybe that's not fair maybe he is a star that's just being unrecognized because he's not a big name guy or whatever to which Jeremy responds and I and I know Jeremy and that like he's a pro dude he does

the U of H games on the radio like he's a professional dude right so I'm not starting with a fan or somebody here and I'm not even arguing at this point yet or debating at this point yet, but he says something along the lines of World Series MVP, LCS MVP, and currently number two in war in Major League Baseball and he's got a bunch of commercials. I think he's a star to which I respond and say, well, David Fries had the greatest postseason ever almost and was out of the league and played for four different teams and eight years after that. And you just give examples, whatever. Well, he's won

a gold glove. Well, there's blank player that's won a couple of gold gloves and I wouldn't have considered him a star either. Just a back and forth about it, right? Like an actual debate, a fair, you know, just a back and forth, just a conversation about it when you're chopping shit up, right? But then what happens is fans of the Astro start to see this and they start to kind of creep in and argue. And like, what you learn the difference between people that are in media and media people and fans is fans have no concept of how to debate because fans are in many cases on social media in the anderthals and they are very cultist and they are very

tribal and they are out there to make sure that they are in defense of their team. They put their player whatever and it doesn't matter like it is wild the way people get tribal about like not even just the teams but like the other day when I was making fun of WIP for their their their thing about how they didn't have Jalen hurts one of their hosts didn't have Jalen hurts is one of the 11 best players currently in Philadelphia to which I said they're basically just doing troll clickbait radio shit and people will buy it because a lot of Philly people are dipshits and they'll buy it and get angry about it and it will give them plenty of fine

content for you know for the summer and blah blah blah, right and I start making fun of WIP. Now there are people who don't even think WIP is good in Philly that will go at me on social media just to let me know that I suck and I didn't make it there. Like they're defending shitty Philadelphia Sports Talk Radio as if it's the Philadelphia Eagles. Like it's a very weird thing. Like fans get super defensive of shit. And it's crazy. So and look, you already know this. But so I'm talking like this one guy just starts

getting really angry. And and like there's a couple points that they repeat. Like here's what fans do. Fans find a couple of things to keep harping on and then they go, Jeremy Pena is number two in war this year. So over 80 games over half of a season, he's been dynamic and he's only behind Aaron Judd. What about the fucking other four years he's played like somehow these 70 something games are the only games of his career that matter? Like, oh, he won the World Series

MVP. Yeah, he did that four years ago. My point being in all of this is that people get real worked up and they don't know how to handle debate when you go back at them. So what happens is they revert to just saying insulting shit, which is like that's where social media I think is bullshit. You want to bust balls with people, bust balls with people. But if the point is to debate with someone and your debate goes from Jeremy Paine or whatever and then you come back with something and then they come back with that's why you couldn't hack it and fucking Houston you fucking loser and like really that's where we're going to go with that? That's the route we take on this. We go from debating whether or not Jeremy Pena is a star, which is a fair

debate. If you want to say if he's going to get paid like a star because his agent is Scott Boras, that's a different thing. But to debate whether or not Jeremy Pena is a legitimate Major League Baseball star. To me, doing some local television commercials does not make you a baseball star. It might make you a local celebrity, but I mean, someone has to do the commercials and he's a good...my argument would have been to that, well, he does local commercials. Yeah, he's a good looking dude. The chicks horn out over him. These baseball-at chasing skanks that have all of these like I've never seen anything like the number of people like Hispanic and hot and blonde and everybody

else chicks that have Houston Astros fan Twitters and Instagrams and I'm sure they exist for every team but since I follow Houston stuff like I constantly see like Instagram recommended accounts that are like hot Latino chicks that just go to Astros games in short shorts and jerseys and horn out over the players or like whatever. It's wild right? Of course they like Jeremy Pena he's fucking adorable. He's a good looking dude but just because he's in the HB commercial doesn't make him a star. Nolan Gorman does commercials in, in, in, but Mason

Nguyen does commercials in St. Louis. Mason Nguyen is a future baller at shortstop. Great glove, amazing arm. If he can get the bat to follow, he'd be an amazing player, right? But outside of St. Louis, who the fuck knows or cares about Mason Nguyen at this point? He's not a star. And neither is Jeremy Pena. So you can tell me about his H-E-B commercials and you can tell me that he that he was the World Series MVP three seasons ago and you can tell me that he's won a gold glove four seasons ago and you can tell me that he's number two in war this year. That's all well and good. I'm with you. That's fine,

but I don't view him as a star. But then you just get all these rapid-fire insults about your looks and like it's just like how do people get to that point and look this is going to sound elitist about media. But there is something to say about if you are someone who's been in the industry and you've done it in a platform that is not just the Wild West where there's expectations or if you came into it when there were people who were actually fucking good at it and there were expectations to

be on the level of those people that it doesn't exist anymore. Like who do people say God you got to be like this guy Stephen A Smith trolls like Stephen A Smith Kendrick fucking Perkins Pat McAfee like like no offense to Pat McAfee, but like a lot of people can go on a podcast and say dumb shit. I do it every day, right? Like there was a different level that you had to achieve. There was a different thing you had to accomplish. There was a different vibe you had to have to be someone that got a job on the fucking radio. It's one thing to start your own podcast, build it, and that's commendable and it's fucking awesome, and I wish this podcast were

bigger than it is. I commend you for that. But to be someone who has to have some level of talent that some dipshit in a suit has to look at and go, I think that guy is good enough to put on my radio station for my company, that's a different skill set than you have to possess to start a blog or a podcast. It just is. There was a different standard that you kind of had to abide by, right? There were different sets of rules and you could break those rules and those rules are ever changing. But now it's just like you debate with some dipshit on the internet and it goes from a

debate about Jeremy paying you to, oh, they've run out of gas because all they have is the tired regurgitated talking points that they've heard out of gas because all they have is the retired, regurgitated talking points that they've heard the dipshits on the radio have. So then they run out of it and it's, boy, this is a dumb take. I can see why you didn't make it in Houston. Well, motherfucker, I at least did. And I did it for 10 fucking years. And I've done, like where I get worked up and I really want to shit on people is I love

knowing that I've done so many things they give their left nut to do and I didn't even give a shit that I was doing them. Like there's these guys that have like Jeremy Pena's fucking pictures, their profile picture or like them and their favorite Astros jersey and they're talking shit to me about how I've failed and whatever. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but guess what motherfucker? I had Astro season tickets. I went to every World Series game in 2017, I got to travel on a private plane to game 6 of the fucking World Series. I was in clubhouses watching teams celebrate championships. I've sat in a studio

with Lance Berkman when he brought his fucking possum in. I've interviewed everybody associated with the baseball team. I've gotten to do so many cool fucking things that you would just your fucking pants to do. And I didn't even give a shit. That's what I enjoy about that. Like, it's like, I like I got to do shit that would have made your life that you would have cried if you got the opportunity to do if you got to be on a plane flying to Game Six of the World Series in LA against the Dodgers, you would have sobbed and trust me, I'm saying this in somewhat asshole fashion,

but like I enjoyed it. It was really fucking cool. Don't think it's lost on me that I got to go to game six of the World Series and travel and go to Dodger Stadium for that. That's fucking cool. Don't get me wrong, but this person, it would have made their life to get to fucking do that. I got to do it. I got to go to the Super Bowl and sit in a club in a suite and whatever. I've gotten to go to Epic Playoff games. I've got to do a lot of cool fucking shit. I've gotten to talk to Bernie Perrott, one of the greatest goaltenders ever, and when I talked to him, he's like, I like you. You're kind of like Trump. Like, I've had these things. These things have happened to me. I've gotten to be around huge stars. I've got to do all this shit. So do you really think

that coming back at me with, oh that's why you got fired while you have 130 fucking followers and you give your left nut to do any of the shit I do or have the ability to do what I do? Fuck you. Now the old me would have sat around and argued with these people for hours at a time and now I just don't do that because I think once you hit about 38 years old, almost 39 years old, you have a different viewpoint on these things. This is not worth your time. Maturity, I think, plays into that. Whatever.

But that's the shit you want to tell people. The hard part about arguing with idiots is an idiot will never give up, so you're never going to be right or wrong. you're never going to be right. They're going to be right. So you have to just end it. You just have to accept that this person is so stupid and they don't understand what they're arguing and they're morons and you can't you can you it's like that's virtually nine and a half out of ten people in Philly, right?

Like no offense. I love them. You can't are they cannot be reasoned with they are monsters.. They cannot be reasoned with. Once they've decided their viewpoint on something, you're a motherfucker if you disagree with it and they fucking hate you. In turn, if they agree with you, like if I go to Twitter today and say, oh, I don't know if you guys saw this video of this LSU fan trying to fight this person at the College World Series. Um, I thought that only happened in Philly. I think you get a billion likes and they love you. I guess just people are dipshits. Anywho, more to

come.