The Press Box - A Stunning Non-Endorsement, World Series Walk-Off Calls, and a Visit to the Set of ‘Good Morning Football’

Episode Date: October 28, 2024

Hello, media consumers! Bryan kicks off the show by discussing the recent non-endorsements for the presidential candidates (0:40). Then he discusses the arena-show phase of the campaigns, including Kamala Harris’s visit to Houston with Beyoncé and Willie Nelson and Donald Trump’s rally in Madison Square Garden (19:16). Later, he gets into some of the best Dodgers walk-off World Series calls (31:54). To finish, Bryan recaps his visit to the set of 'Good Morning Football' with a few sound bites (37:20). Plus, the Overworked Twitter Joke of the Week, Only in Journalism, and David Shoemaker Guesses the Strained-Pun Headline. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Producer: Brian H. Waters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Tara Palmeri. I'm Puck Senior Political Correspondent and host of Somebody's Got to win. Brought to you by The Ringer and Spotify. The 2024 election has been upended with Joe Biden off the ticket and Donald Trump facing a new challenger, Kamala Harris. If you want to hear what the insiders are really saying about the race, join me Tuesdays and Thursdays as I break it all down with lawmakers, journalists, and political strategists.

We'll go deeper than the headlines to the anxieties at the highest levels of power. And of course, we'll chew over all. the hot political gossip as we head into this historic election. Be sure to follow. Somebody's got to win at Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. David? Yes. It was a big week for a newspaper to not endorse a candidate for president.

Yes, it was. The L.A. Times didn't endorse. The Washington Post didn't endorse. We can focus on the post because, well, the L.A. Times has got other problems. The Post Opinion section we learned last week had an endorsement of Kamala Harris ready to go in draft form. Papers endorsed a candidate for president nearly every year since 1976. And then the post owner, Jeff Bezos, decides 11 days before the election that he didn't want his paper to do endorsements anymore, at least for president. Now tell me, is this where media Twitter got to by Friday afternoon?

A presidential endorsement by a newspaper is a pretty useless gesture. Yes, completely. But, and this is an important but, deciding not to endorse this close to the election might say something scary about the newspaper's owner. Yeah. I think that's it. Although, I don't think there was any sort of like unified message about that. That might be where media Twitter landed.

The whole thing was a little bit uncertain to me, right? I mean, is the main, is the backbone of the argument, hey, you're not doing the proper journalistic thing or, hey, you're not endorsing my candidate? Because I know that's what you really want to do. like would it have been just as a hypothetical would there have been this sort of outcry if the Washington Post had announced even if it was even if Jeff Bezos was involved in the decision making if they had announced a year ago that they wouldn't be endorsing a candidate like would we've had a comparable sort of uproar is it just the meddling hands of the owners at the sort of like pivotal moment in American democratic history that is really really affecting people. There's a lot going on at the same time. And like with so many other arguments

online, it was a lot of people who didn't agree on the exact reason that they were aggrieved, but could all agree that they were aggrieved and sort of felt like they were in lockstep. And we're canceling their subscription immediately. Well, and that's another, I mean, like, obviously, that's probably the only material way to get the attention

of an owner is to directly, loudly, publicly affect the bottom line, although, you know, we all know the material effects is that it's going to, that sort of thing could really just affect the innocent members of the newsroom of the staff. I mean, there should be no doubt that the Washington Post, that Jeff Bezos's Washington Post will continue on and publish every day, even if at some point it's 99.9% AI, right? I mean, there's, the existence of the newsroom is sort of secondary to, I'm sure, whatever,

you know, perceived value it has for him. Yeah, I mean, it's a, so I want to go back to what you said about what if they did this a year ago. I think there would have been some uproar, especially because it would have looked like that there was a very good chance Donald Trump was going to be the Republican nominee. And then people would have said, wait a second, you're going to stop doing this when Donald Trump is on the ballot. But I think you would have been able to get a few, you know, wise men and wise women of journalism stepping forward and saying, this was always kind of. don't endorsing a candidate. Yeah. Not a surprise.

And yes. No one really cares about it anymore if they ever did. This whole newspaper, this endorsement. Like these are never good. You never read that and be like, wow, that is the definitive case against Donald Trump. Yeah. It's sort of like here is a thing written by five different people and pleasing five different people or pleasing 100 different people that makes the case.

And from a practical matter, there's a sort of like, this is, obviously the editorial board is separate from, you know, the news division. But in terms of like the argument that they're making, it's largely based on the reportage that has already appeared in the Washington Post, right? So just, I mean, I know this isn't helpful if you're upset about this and you should be. But, you know, you've already done the homework. This is just a sort of, this is the paragraph. at the end that wraps everything up. Yes, and if any journalism is going to actually move the election, it's journalism by post reporters,

like Josh Dossian company. I do think, though, the timing matters, 11 days before the election. Like if a rich person and an ultra-rich person like Jeff Bezos did anything that was perceived as either being Trump-friendly or going wobbly before Trump, 11 days before the election, even something that didn't have to do with a newspaper, that would be big news at a place like the Washington Post.

And I thought Marty Barron, who was, of course, as the former editor of the paper, really nailed it when he was talking to Isaac Chodner of the New Yorker. He said, I think that anybody who owns a media organization needs to be willing to stand up to intense pressure. And Bezos demonstrated that he was capable of that and willing to do that. Now I worry that there's a sign of weakness. If Trump sees a sign of weakness, he's going to pounce even harder in the future. Yeah.

All this is happening last Friday. And at the same time, the Post's own news pages. And by the way, we should note the reporters of the Post, even the columnists and opinions who registered their unhappiness with its decision in print, continued to do their jobs and do their jobs quite well while all this was going on. but on Friday, the post's own news pages reported that Trump met with Bezos's blue origin executives. That's his space travel arm after the post non-endorsement. Yeah.

So not only are you changing the policy 11 days before the election, then your own executives who have federal contracts are meeting with Donald Trump. Yeah. And you and I know the phrase bad look is outlawed on this podcast forever. but I'm having trouble coming up with a synonym. When you say, we're not endorsing, oh, by the way, just a little grip and grin or a little wave from our executives who are going to rely on Donald Trump to some extent.

Yeah. For contracts. I mean, that does not make you happy if you are an employee of the post. No, not at all. something I didn't see gotten into all that much in the coverage here was the difference between having Marty Barron in the cockpit

while Jeff Bezos is making decisions about what to do or what not to do with the post and having Will Lewis in the cockpit at least as the publisher of the paper. Are we sure that Bezos hanging tough

didn't have something to do with the fact that you had an editor who was always hanging? hanging tough in that seat? I'm sure it did. Different leadership now, right? Murdoch guy. Someone who, you know, may not put up the kind of resistance to different kinds of decisions

that would happen possibly during Trump too. Yeah. I don't know, man. Sure does show the limits of the nice billionaire model of newspaper ownership. Yeah. Because the nice billionaire can keep most of the reporters employed if he wants to. but what happens when the nice billionaire, you know, has a little bit of a whim, 11 days before the election.

And again, it's worth noting owners of newspapers have always had a strong hand in the opinion section. Yeah. Right? There's who writes the columns, who runs opinion, endorsements, all that kind of stuff. That is far from unprecedented. That is as old as the history of newspapers. But again, when you're looking for clues about what the owner of the post-Mobile, might do during Trump too. Let's say, David, the decision not to endorse is cowardice on the part of Bezos.

Am I alone in thinking that this is not going to work, that Donald Trump is not going to get his enemy within list and cross out Bezos's name now? You made the point, I think you made it exactly correctly. This is not exempt you from Trump's potential future rat. it probably just makes it more likely, right? This is, it's bully 101. It's like, oh, I see that I can. They respond.

They respond as I want them. Now I will continue to bully further. Let's say the decision is partly cowardice and partly an attempt, along with the hiring of Will Lewis, to make the Washington Post more palatable to conservative readers. The New York Times hinted at this

in one of their stories about the decision. Doesn't that also seem like a stupid idea? yes I mean I guess it's more understandable but yes I mean stupid we've seen this a million times broadening the base even as like a journalistic exercise does not seem to be the way to go in the modern era we remember what happened right when CNN went on when underwent their public post-resistance deprogramming we're like we're not liberal anymore we're just right down the middle now. And nobody believed it. Yeah. If you looked at Twitter and looked at MAGA Twitter in particular after the post decision, people weren't like, hey, the Washington Post is now a newspaper I might

want to subscribe to. Yeah. They were like, Kamala screwed. She's lost even the Post. Yeah. They didn't know interest in this. And, you know, like the Post right now is not, is in a wildly competitive and wildly distressing news environment.

Mm-hmm. And by that, I don't mean just environment for gathering news. I mean for the economics of making news work. Yeah, that's right. We saw the reverse thing happen when the drudge report started coming out with anti-Trump headlines over the past

couple of weeks. Including the McDonald's one that had him as Ronald in the makeup. Yeah. And you know, I mean, but that's just like touchdown dances on Twitter, right? It's like nobody's actually interested to chart the ideological trajectory of the drudge report over the past eight years. It's just a matter of like, hey, this seems like a big win in the moment,

so let's screen grab it. There's definitely some Brooklyn Dad Defiant type tweets. Like, we got him. We got Drudge. Strange new respect for our conservative news aggregator. I mean, I just think, like, if you're the Washington Post, your economics have already been dismal despite Bezos's ownership. You notice that your biggest competitor, the sort of planet killer of newspapers in New York Times, had their own Kamala Harris endorsement

way up at the top of the homepage on Saturday. Here you've got journalists denouncing this coast to coast, your former editor, Marty Barron, Woodward and Bernstein denouncing the decision. Like, how many conservative readers are you going to get to erase all this just bad publicity, even at the end of the day,

if it just amounts to mostly bad publicity. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that the real objective here was broadening the base, though. I mean, I think this was just, listen, I asked all those rhetorical questions earlier. I just think this comes down. Obviously, it didn't happen a year ago. It happened now.

It happened on the eve of a big meeting or in the face of a likely Trump election or whatever. and this was, you know, this was, it might not have been a decision made out of fear. It might be a decision that was, you know, in the moment, made out of some practicality or whatever. But it, but this was a, you know, gut check moment for Bezos and it did not, he made the wrong call. I mean, it just seems like, listen, rich people have been owning newspapers forever and book publishers, and magazines and everything else. And all of them, I mean, there have been.

a lot of, there's been a lot of meddling over the years, but the most successful of them seem to have found a way to just be able to shrug their shoulders and be like, I just signed the checks, you know, like, it's not that this, you can't blame me for what these people said. They're doing their journalism jobs. Um, and, you know, that's a art that, at least in this instance, Bezos hasn't really been able to master. Can we go over the canceling your subscription stuff before we leave this statement? Because we saw a lot of screen. screenshots on Friday. I have canceled my Washington Post subscription. And then we saw even more journalists jumping in to Twitter to say, no, no, no, you don't understand. If you do that,

they're just going to offer more buyouts to journalists. They're just going to lay off more journalists. That's not going to hurt Jeff Bezos in any measurable way, but it might hurt us. Yeah. So two observations on that. First of all, that puts the reporter in such a weird and bad position to say I am publicly criticizing my owner, but please, I encourage you to continue to subscribe to the newspaper and pay the owner money. It also puts readers in a terrible position because I would agree with those people jumping in and say, don't cancel your subscription. Like, I want to as, again, as somebody who's doing this podcast with you, as a lover of news,

as a lover of newspapers who wants them to continue to exist. I would say that. I would say, like, if you have to make a decision here, canceling your subscription is just going to hurt the journalists, mostly. It's not going to, that is going to be the effect. But just think of how powerless that makes a reader feel. If you're mad, you're not allowed to register your discontent in the most obvious way possible. Sure.

We heard this with all the newspapers that were owned by Alden. Like, oh, we don't cancel because that will hurt the journal. So I just pay the hedge fund? I just continue to do this? Yeah, I mean, it's true that this is the most, like I said before, the most, maybe the only way that you can communicate displeasure to the owners. But it also, it's not just that these are people whose jobs are on the line. I mean, this is their bargaining power too against the owners to say, look at how, look at how well we're doing. Look at all the money we're making.

You know, I mean, that's that, that would be the only way for them to exert any sort of influence over their owners. So, yeah, it's a, it's a very difficult situation. But you're right. I mean, you leave the reader feeling like, what am I supposed to do? Like, write a letter to the editor? You know? Exactly. I feel this year of news we're putting readers, especially readers were asking to pay for

stuff in such a terrible position. It's like, here's a newspaper that is a hundred times crappier than the one you could have subscribed to 20 years ago. It's more expensive, but you can't cancel. because you will end journalism if we know it, if you cancel. Yeah. I'm like, man, that is a lot to ask. There's a lot of stuff you're asking readers to fight through,

even if that is the right position. Mm-hmm. I have to get on our friends at Semaphore before we go. Okay. This is a little media navel gazer on media naval gaza crime. Uh-huh. So I was reading a semaphore headline about this very story, and Max Tandy did some excellent.

reporting on it. The headline said, editor resigns, subscribers cancel as Washington Post non-endorsement prompts crisis, excuse me, at Bezos paper. Editor resigns, David. That sounds like big news. Uh-huh. Well, the person who resigned is Robert Kagan, an editor at large. Oh, yeah. Of the Washington Post. Now, as someone who carries the title, proudly carries the title of editor at large. You're the man to ask. I would love to be consulted because that does not mean editor.

Right. This is like if the president emeritus of an organization resigns, you don't say president resigns. Yes. An editor at large means perhaps less so in my case, but definitely in Robert Kagan's case, grand old man of the Washington Post. Yeah. He doesn't edit anything. He doesn't run anything. He has written three pieces this year.

And would have written them regardless of his title. at the paper probably. Exactly right. He could have been a writer at large for all we know. But I do know that Ben Smith or whoever wrote that headline for said before,

editor sure sounded a lot better. Yeah. Than editor at large resides. Yes. Which would then cause 95% of your readership to be like, what the hell does that mean? Mm-hmm.

And I know this from personal experience because I still get pitches. Dear Mr. Editor, I would like to write this story for the ringer. and I'm like, ho, ho, ho. You're barking up the wrong tree here. You have been fooled by this unusual title because I am not your editor.

All right, coming up on the podcast, David, the 2024 campaign has reached its arena show phase. Fox News has a new favorite liberal. Get your major league baseball think pieces right here. And a report from the set of Good Morning Football. All that much more on the press box. A part of the ringer podcast network. Hello media consumers, Brian Curtis, David Shoemaker, and producer Brian Waters here. On Friday, David, Kamala Harris was in Houston with Willie Nelson and Beyonce.

Yeah. Estimated 30,000 people in attendance. Houston is not a typical democratic site for a stump speech this late in the campaign. But what Harris was trying to do was something interesting. And I saw, speaking of seven before, both Benji Sarlin and Dave Weigel making different versions of this point, which is she is trying to stage something big enough that it captures media attention. By media, I mean like cable news front page of the New York Times style attention. Yeah, mainstream attention. Sure.

Mainstream attention. And then focuses on an issue that she wants to talk about, which is abortion rights. So I can pose with one of the most famous entertainers in the world. And also Beyonce, just getting unwillingness there. I can get on stage with these famous people. I can talk about this thing and it can cut through. Yeah. And then all those people who say, well, why isn't she talking more about abortion?

No, no, no. Now you can just look at your New York Times and CNN headlines and see that they are talking about me talking about abortion. Yeah. Which brings up a really interesting point, which is there is no such thing as one unified media campaign these days. Yeah. Where you can watch the network news and be like,

here is what Harris is talking about this week. There's things they do to try to hijack headlines, get on television. And then there are all these commercials they're actually running in the swing states. This is the Weigel part of the argument that people are actually seeing. so if you're mad that Harris isn't talking enough about Donald Trump giving tax cuts to the rich that is the commercial that's running the people in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania

are seeing all the time on heavy rotation yeah if somebody is a watches local television on Philadelphia channels I can I can definitely co-sign that did the tri-state area get the Donald Trump MSG event from last night yep

world's most famous arena, David. It gives Maggie Haberman a chance to get a byline without even, or a date line, I should say, without even traveling. She and her co-authors described it in the Times as a carnival of grievances, misogyny, and racism. Yeah. The speaker list included Dr. Phil, Lee Greenwood, Vivek Ramoswamy, and Hulk Hogan,

who was struggling to tear off his shirt. trust me i've already done a wrestling podcast today i've been there can i ask you a wrestling question because it seemed that holkogan was coming out to a recut version of real american that was about trump uh oh geez somehow i totally missed this yeah it's like it was real american but it sounded slightly different and it had trump lyrics Rick Derringer's attorney's on the phone. Is there anybody that can answer for this?

Is this one of the, like when Trump plays a song in one of his rallies, that he's something that the artist has explicitly told him he can't use? This is like, what are they going to do? We're just going to play it. It is kind of the Hulkster song, even if it belongs to somebody else. The speaker that got the most attention was Tony Hinchcliff, who hosts the podcast, Kill Tony. Yeah.

He was at the Tom Brady Roast as well. He called Puerto Rico a floating island of garbage. In addition to other stuff that I won't repeat here, it was very funny to see the coverage where he got most of the attention. Then you looked and actually there were 20 offensive things said by other speakers. Yeah. He was speaking at sort of a perfect time of the day to gather tons of attention and said,

and did manage to say like the most offensive stuff possible. But yes, there was a lot of a lot. As the time said, it was this veritable circus of this shit. He also got attention because Harris was in Pennsylvania, specifically courting Puerto Rican voters. In fact, went to a Puerto Rican restaurant yesterday. Yeah. Offering a very handy split screen, both for her campaign and for the media. Clearly, the Trump Madison Square Garden Show, and here we are nodding at our favorite how wrestling explains politics bit,

was about showing they could go into enemy territory and sell out a building. Yeah. Is that part of this? We've heard about Trump's crowds maybe going down in the swing states a little bit. Yeah. People leaving early. Hey, I can go into New York City. This should not be a surprise to anyone, by the way. I mean, just no matter how blue or red, liberal or otherwise a city the size of New York is, you can always fill out Madison Square Garden. That's because of population density, right? I mean, that's like one of the coolest things being in the city is that, you know, like so many big acts of all varieties are playing the big venues and small venues too.

But there's like always, you know, some band that you've just discovered online. will come to New York and they can sell out a bar because there's just enough people there to fill it out. No one thought just because we're voting because New York State will go to Kamala Harris. Does not mean there shouldn't have been any doubt that Trump could sell out Madison Square Garden. I mean, Jesus Christ, there's like hockey games that are near sellouts, you know? I mean, if you can do that, when people. Wait, that was the example. I thought you were going to say press box meet and greet.

Oh, yeah. You're like even the New York Rangers sell out. Yeah. Yeah, you do anything. I mean, come on. Come on. I mean, what do you think? I mean, like, you know, football games sell out across the river in New Jersey given, but like, you know, do we think that those audiences are 90% Democrat? Yeah, it's, it's, there's a whole lot of Republicans around here. It's interesting to think, too, of Donald Trump's two-tiered campaign. He's got commercials running in the swing states that are presumably being programmed by Susie Wiles and the team in Florida, the team that is running a quote-unquote. more professional Trump campaign than the last two. Yeah. And then you've got Donald Trump's part of the campaign,

which is let's have this incredibly offensive event at MSG that people can pull clips from. Yeah. And remind everybody why they don't want to like me present again. I was joking with Brian H. Waters before we started recording that every time I open YouTube now, it's either Trump or Barack Obama speaking to me. And I will say Obama is a lot more.

It just feels a lot more at home in the media. But Trump is not really discernibly different than Obama when it comes to just demeanor. You know, he's just very kind of like laid back and like, okay, well, we're coming up on the closing days here, guys. Let's all, you know, whatever. Very avuncular, sorry, you know, but, and like, yeah, but that's not the Trump that that organized the MSG rally for sure. Is that the one where he's on his plane? Talking to the camera. He seems kind of low energy for Trump.

Yeah. I think this is the same one. Breakout media stars, David, of the 2024 campaign. Oh, okay. Ezra Klein is going to be at the top of our list. Oh, okay. If you help knock Joe Biden off the ticket,

I think you get the number one spot. But somewhere on the list is Jessica Tarloff. Oh, yeah. The liberal voice. at Fox. She got the full New York Times profile treatment over the weekend from Michael Grinbaum. She is described with one of my favorite terms from cable TV, Democratic strategist. She always seems so vague.

They never tell you the campaigns this person worked on or anything. It's just democratic strategist. It used to be, I feel like the assumption was when you saw it like in the car, in the heyday of James Carville, it was the assumption was, we're not going to tell you, but you just know that he worked on all of the campaigns. Sure. Right. To some degree. This is the reverse. It's like, we're not going to say it because the actual, the reality is I'm not quite sure which one she's worked on at all. But yes. The Fox Liberal chair was always someone who is both ineffectual and not really a liberal. So you had Harold Ford Jr.

You had still do, I think. You had Bob Beckle, who I remember as the guy who wore the suspenders, but I might be confusing him with a different quasi-liberal voice from Fox News. Yeah, no, that's right. Now you have... Juan Williams sort of did that job for a while. Definitely Juan Williams. And still does on occasion. And then, of course, Alan Combs, but that was a more isolate.

That was a specific lane, I guess. And I guess Jessica Tarlov gets points because she's better than some of these, or just pithier or better at TV. She's better at the job, for sure. I'd also argue it's much easier to be a liberal star on Fox News now because Aaron Rupar and Aeson, am I saying his name right? Aeson Tarabi cut up those clips. Oh yeah. And just post them.

Oh, I think you were going to say because people make, people do your research for you. You mean because they, they, they make, they, they send your stuff out there to the world. They send your stuff out there. So you don't have to watch, your audience doesn't have to watch Fox News. and you just get this clip that look at this woman who is shutting down Jesse Waters. Like, oh my God, this is incredible.

I always wondered to what degree the Fox execs love this stuff. Right? I mean, we all like to think of them as a ideological thing, but they could just like march her off the air if they wanted to. Oh, totally.

I think they do because I think for Fox, like, obviously it's not we report you decide. But as much window dressing as you can put on that, hey, Kamal Harris came to Fox. Jessica Tarlov is, you know, embarrassing Greg Gutfeld.

Yeah. And the fact that they don't win, I mean, they might win the argument, they might win the sound bite, but then they don't win the programming battle, obviously it gives the impression that they've lost, right?

Or this is just one, just a voice crying out in the wilderness. Yeah, and the Times piece pointed out that MSNBC doesn't have that character. all their conservatives are converts now. It's like Nicole Wallace. They don't have a conservative that fights back.

I think they would probably make the case that the conversions, that the party left the people. They didn't convert to the, they didn't change their ideology so much. I mean, I think it was four, I feel like the election four years ago was even crazier. They had Jennifer Rubin and Bill Crystal

and all these people were just like suddenly on like contributor deals because they had, you know, come loose of their other ones on Fox or whatever else. And everybody was like, wait, this is where all the MSNBC money is going? This is kind of crazy. But they were trying to make the point. Yeah, we can have, this is a big tent network. They're just all in agreement on the thing that really matters.

Yeah, they just all work for the bullwork now. That's not our fault. Yeah. All right. Coming up in 30 seconds, David, what are Peter Schrager and Kyle Brand like at 5 in the morning? But first, let's do the overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag. It was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it. at exactly at the same time,

senior nominees to at the press box pod, where they are always, always gratefully received. Friday in Houston, David, it was an appearance of many of us campaign watchers have been waiting for since the final night

of the Democratic Convention. Yes, as I mentioned, Beyonce joined Kamala Harris on stage. It was a very overworked Twitter joke to write, Leon Panetta must not have been available. Thanks to the journalist Tom Meneer for that one. If you're still getting flashbacks to Thursday at the United Center,

congrats. You made the overworked Twitter joke of the week. All right, in the notebook dump. Let's talk about baseball, David. Okay. Baseball. Baseball will always be America's thinkpiece. I mean, pastime.

We love to ask here. Is baseball dying, David? Is baseball back? Well, now we have the ultimate test. A World Series matchup between the Los Angeles Dodgers of the New York Yankees. Not just the two biggest cities, but the two best teams in baseball.

Shohei Otani, we think. Aaron Judge, we got Dodger Stadium beauty shots. This is fantastic. Yeah. Well, game one did the think people's a great favor by going into extra innings. Then the Yankees score in the top of the 10th, and in the bottom of the 10th,

here comes Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers. Two outs, bases loaded. The situation brings to mind. Kirk Gibson hitting a walk-off home run in game one of the World Series back in 1988. Mm-hmm. Here is Fox's Joe Davis calling Freddie Freeman. Cortez delivers. Freeman hits a ball to right field.

She is meat. So a couple of really cool things happening there. One, he's referencing Kirk Gibson. She is gone as a direct quote of Vin Scully. Yeah. who called Gibson's Homer for NBC back in 1988 and was also the guy that Joe Davis replaced in the Dodgers TV booth. I love announcers, quoting announcers.

It's so great. And it also always makes me wonder, is good preparation jinx proof in sports commentary? Like, is there ever a point where you're, like, going through the foot? What if there's a home run tonight? What are the great calls that I could reference it? Like, are you just, like, not, wouldn't you be so petrified that you'd be jinxing the, like, the possibility

of having a great moment that you just would have stopped doing the research? So I'm so glad you brought that up because if you watch this highlight, you know baseball announcers as soon as the ball goes off the bat, they know it's a home run or a deep fly ball. And they get their voice way up there right off, especially in a case like this where it's going to be a game winner. There's just a little pause for Joe Davis before he gets to that place. Yeah.

And the next time I talk to him, I want to ask him this because it's like, is that just like he wants to absolutely make sure that ball's going out because you do not want to get wrong-footed on a game-winning home run in the World Series? Yeah. Or to your point, is he just, is that the half second his brain is taking the process and go, oh, my God. This is not only a Kirk Gibson-like moment, that ball is going to right field just as Kurt Gibson's home run did. Mm-hmm. It's accessing that CPU, that broadcaster CPU, and it's like, oh, my God, I can actually say this. This is wonderful historical symmetry.

Yeah. So Freddie Freeman wins the game for the Dodgers. And then Fox's Kenny Rosenthal gets the questions with Freddie Freeman on the field. Listen to how the first one of those questions went. Freddie Grand Slam Walk off in a World Series game Yeah

Where does that moment rank for you? Oh, I don't know I can't I've stuff you are Five years old in the backyard right there And That's a dream come true But that's only one

We got three more So here I have to assert myself As the nation's foremost scrutinizer of postgame questions Oh This is a man A nice guy moment rank for you.

I mean, that's a tough one. It's so obviously a fantastic moment. The ad bat was one pitch. So Rosenthal couldn't even ask him, like, take us to be as bad as they often do. It doesn't really matter. But, like, I think I would have just gone completely neutral there,

just a complete nothing burger. Like, what did that feel like coming off your bat? Give him a moment to just, you know, reflect, to enjoy it. but by asking him where does it rank, you're almost like you're asking him to do a power ranking in that moment. You can just see Freddie Freeman's eyes being like, wow,

how do I compare this to playing for the Braves? Like, where am I slotting this in? The birth of my children? You should just be like, we know the answer to the question I want to ask. So tell me, what's the second greatest moment of your career? Yeah.

Oh, my God. Just like, and I always think when questions after the game go wrong, it's because you're asking the athlete to do something. they just don't know how to do in that moment. You know, we'll see this, how big was this or how whatever, and you just see this flash of panic in the athlete's eyes because they want to help,

especially after like a great moment in their career or in their season. Yeah. They want to help the reporter out there, but they just don't know what to say. Yeah. You could just see it in Freddie Freeman's eyes. Like, holy shit, I don't know how to answer this question. Then he recovers and we move on.

All right, David, we got it. We got a visit to report it, a set visit here at the press box. Oh, big time. Last Monday morning, I went to the NFL network headquarters here in Los Angeles to the set of Good Morning Football. And I had just come back from Austin being at the Texas Georgia game. So my voice did not sound great, even worse than it sounds this morning. And I mean, they're bringing my microphones to the set.

And of course, Kyle Brandt and Peter Schrager, they're right here, man. They are like Joe Davis on the home run. I mean, they are up. They have been making television for an hour and a half by the time I got there, about 645. Now, you will know, you will remember that this is the rebooted Good Morning Football. Yeah. It was a New York-based show. Now it's an L.A. base show.

But Schrager and Brandt, who are kind of the Good Morning Football OGs, are beaming into L.A. from New York. Mm-hmm. But this was a day when the whole cast was in L.A. so I could go there with my microphone and get some sound from them. I asked Schrager this question, because you and I both like Good Morning Football. Oh, yeah. I'm interested in particularly why it works as a studio show.

So I asked him, I said, what existing show did you model Good Morning Football on back in 2016? Which shows that were on TV did you want a channel? Do you want to guess what his answer to that question might have been? in 2016 yeah I'm guessing that he went off the map right he went I mean he went off out of the playbook

I'm guessing that he probably said like see I feel like we share like I have similar thinking to him I'm guessing he said something wild like there's always it's always sunny in Philadelphia right right can we roll this and reveal

what did Peter Schrager say was a model that good morning football was based on I always look at the IFC show, Dinner for Five with John Favro where it was like, oh my God, we're just eavesdropping on five interesting people just having a dinner and anything that's what I think the ideal is on any of these shows, but especially ours, which is so loose and it's around the table and it's just people talking and it can go anywhere. Then, oh, wait, another guest has just dropped by. Oh, wait, we have a celebrity fan who's here. And oh, wait, we're going to pop in an NFL head coach who's going

to talk at our dinner table. Like, that to me is the ideal. I thought you were going to give me morning, Joe, and you gave me dinner for five. Do you remember that show? Fabro. Great. I deep cable cut. Yes, I go back and I watch old episodes of that show. It's that good. And you get like a young Colin Farrell and he's like the hottest thing in Hollywood and he's sitting there. But that's the stuff I love. Just talking and it's not scripted, you know. That was a great choice. Basically, I said, he said five interesting people. I went with five sociopaths. But we're in a similar ballpark there. Kyle Brandt talking to him also fastened out a thing that Good Morning Football does and inside the NBA.

does as well. Ease of conversation for sure, familiarity, that we're not really trying to win. Like, I tweeted all the time very sarcastically, we don't scream at each other. We just don't. And I also think you've watched inside the NBA, and it looks like they really like basketball. Like, they really enjoy watching the games. And I watch a lot of shows that may be very successful and very lucrative, where I don't get the impression that the people like watching the sports or the games. They don't seem happy. They're angry all the time. And it's like, I don't know, man. That Vikings Lions game was really fun. Like, we don't have to scream about it. Like, it was really enjoyable, especially in the morning. Like, first thing up, like my dad, who's 80 now, he's like,

there's some other good shows. Man, when I turn on TV the second I wake up in the morning, I just don't want to see people, like, having a screaming match with each other about the third down percentage. Like, it's, you guys are just, good morning. Let's talk about the jaguars. Why the hell not? And I think that's important. And they do that inside the NBA. They're not quite crossing the threshold as we did back in the old Grantland days of going from a critic to an enthusiast but that's sort of what's going on here right I mean I think he's totally right about the tone

this is I mean like and it goes back to what Trigger said about just interesting people having a conversation I mean we're all here because we love football right we're all here because we're like excited to wake up and start talking about it and and there's plenty of stuff that you would get you through like you know if you're sitting in breakfast with your kids talking about the games yesterday you're going to be like holy shit did you see that touchdown?

Maybe you won't say, holy shit. You'd say, holy, shoot. Young child. Dad you are, I guess. Remember that? Did you see this touchdown? Or like, yeah, you remember that big dunk? Remember that?

Like, those are it. That's the, that's the, that's, that's, that's, that's great morning fair. And, you know, while modern media and just our modern mindsets often drag us immediately into, you know, how many weeks is Aaron Rogers I've left on his career or something, you know, you'll get there. But at the beginning, it's. I think tone matters. I think that that positive tone has really helped them,

if nothing else, stand out from the pack, right? Get people to pay attention to the show and then you realize how entertaining it is. This is something I always emphasize to podcasters, most notably myself. The persona you want to have is you want to know everything you're supposed to know coming into the show. You want to have read everything, watched everything, have every fact in your mind. but you don't have to win. You don't have to show off how smart you are. You don't have to beat the person,

be smarter than the person you're sitting across from. And that's, you know, part of what he's articulated there, right? Yeah. We all have opinions about this, we don't have to win in a weird, not only like a,

and I'm just talking about a first takeaway, but just an insecure journalist way. Mm-hmm. We all be so smart and have the right take. And sometimes just have to let that go. for something greater, which is the show, the conversation. Jamie Erdall, David, is the host of Good Morning Football. There's a lot of cliches out there about what a host of a studio show does.

I asked her which of those cliches she thought was most appropriate. Now, when you set up Kyle with the 90s album, do you tell him in advance or is he just go? No. He actually does better if he doesn't know. He really does. And like that it used to alarm me, but he used to do this thing. we'd be on production calls and the producer, their job

to equip us with what is going to be done or said or prepare us for a segment. If there's a segment that Kyle is involved in or in charge of... Did you feed her those options, the train conductor, point card? I did. I did. I don't need that part. No, that's great. I just wanted to make sure

that wasn't just her just reciting out of the top of her head. Either way, it's impressive stuff. I think point card. I think that's the right... I mean, this was a really hard seat to fill. You could tell when K. Adams left the show. I think Jamie Erdall has been a sort of inspired choice. But inspiration maybe gives it,

gives it not enough and too much credit at the same time. It was just finding the person who could sit at that table and just kind of relate in the real time to the people to sort of really point guard their way through the situation to understand, I don't know what the other team's game plan is going to be, but I know that, you know,

how this team likes to operate. relationships may be too simple. It's really just the connectivity between the people who are on the set that really makes it, that makes a show go. And that's, I mean, she's hugely responsible for that. She told me that like the one mistake she made earlier in hosting tenure was, I think Peter and Kyle were kind of getting, you know, into a discussion that was different from whatever was on the rundown, whatever they were going to next.

and she interrupted it to set up somebody else. Because again, your point guard instincts, your TV instincts, right? We got to get from point B to point C right here. And she's like, I felt so bad at that because I like, it was going someplace interesting. Yeah. So on the one hand, you're keeping the train on the tracks, the plane's landing, the pass is going into the post, whatever cliche you want to use. But you're also fighting those instincts.

And just being like, you know what? This is great. Let it go. We'll get to where we. need to go later. Yeah. And that's one of the things that makes the show really good. I asked Akbar Gabhaja Bia Mila, how do you prepare to talk about everything that

happened on an NFL Sunday? Do you ever feel like you missed a big play when there were 10 games going on at once that you'll have to talk about? That hasn't happened to me yet. That hasn't happened. You know, usually I thought Jamie gave me probably the best advice. She's like, just stick to Redzo. my very first week here, I actually came here to studio and we have a viewing room and you have

all of the games on at the same time. And I'm thinking, no problem. I'm watching it with Steve Smith. It got Chris Rose. I got, you know, other guys. And I'm like, okay, cool. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, my head is bouncing. Oh, shit. Okay. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And after about three hours of doing that, I'm like, I don't know what I watched. because it was like overload and at least there is a pattern and a sequence in Red Zone that gives you a really good feel

of the game. It's kind of reassuring that TV professionals also watch Red Zone. Yeah. I just assume that they were processing football in some different and more sophisticated way than I am. Some esoteric or something like Zen like we can just

absorb it all into the, yeah. Good. Yeah, it is sort of reaffirming. That's exactly the way that I feel when I spend more than like 15 minutes watching Red Zone. Yeah, same here. Again, I thought they were just subscribing to a service that I hadn't quite figured out yet. But good to know. Sherry Burris is also new to the rebooted Good Morning Football.

She did a lot of work in Washington, D.C., and I asked her, how do you parachute into a show that already has an established chemistry? I feel like ever since I filled in a time or two even last year, they have just been so wonderful and so welcoming. I guess the only thing I could probably draw, now that you mentioned it, I moved around a lot as a kid. Like I've, this is the 10th state I've lived in in California, actually growing up. I'm just moving around for work. So kind of like being the new person and like having to just kind of acclimate is just kind of, I guess, what I'm used to. So this came to mind, brought to mind, I should say, when I was with the interview I did with the Politico's Eugene

Daniels a couple weeks ago. He had been a military kid growing up. And I'm like, if we looked at successful reporters and successful journalists, I bet we'd find a lot of people that moved around his kids. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. David Shoemaker, by the way, moved to Fort Worth, Texas right before high school. So he probably fits into this mold as well. Yeah, I mean, but as far as like most preachers kids go, I had a pretty sedentary lifestyle.

I don't want to give myself too much credit there. But you still like, you're asking kids to walk into an environment, Like, hey, make friends again. It's true. Come in where there's established friendships to do that. I just think that's a skill and it's a great reporter skill. You're constantly going up to people and being like, hello, talk to me, reveal things to me like you've known me for years. Yeah, it's true.

Hi, Brian. So do you like wrestling? Yeah. That was our meet you back in the day. Kyle Brandt and Peter Stregor have a very cool TV relationship. As I mentioned, they're on the same set in New York City, even though they're beaming into the larger set in Los Angeles. And I asked Kyle Brand for a few of the small things that make that relationship work. And it's like, they were like, how are you going to do that?

If you guys are on different coast, I'm like, turn on any ESPN show and find one show that doesn't have a box or two or three or eight. And we know how to talk to each other now through Zoom. I mean, by we, I mean people. And so we can talk about the bears through Zoom it works. That's a huge difference. But it is critical that like it's Peter and me sitting in our little lower west side like condo that we have. And then there's this glamorous palatial Los Angeles spread.

So I think it kind of works. There's like a L.A., New York thing. There's a light. There's a dark. If I was by myself without Shragues, like he and I try to be each other's Robin Quivers, like it's, it wouldn't work. But we still connect at the hip after nine years. Each other's Robin Quivers.

I love that. Yeah. We laugh, we support, we provide news, we, we laugh. We, that's what we do for each other. You and I, I think, on this show, try to be each other's Jackie Martling more than Robin Quibbittles, but I did appreciate the shout out. You're not the fa-fafooly of this relationship, right? Here's a Shrager's take on his relationship with Kyle Brand. Yes, look, I'm not knocking any of the other shows I've worked on and I work on Fox and I'm, I love the Fox NFL kickoff show,

We do a rehearsal an hour beforehand just to make sure that all the bills and whistles are right. We see each other once a week. Like, all right, are you going to hit that? And we kind of know where we're going. And you can always color outside the lines. This show, we sit down in that chair. It's three minutes before we go on air. We've done, Kyle and I have done, you know, they talk about the Gladwell 10,000 hours.

We've done 100,000 hours together. I purposely tell producers, do not tell me what Kyle's got today. Do not tell me where he's going with this. because A, I like reacting naturally, but I also, I want to be surprised, and I think that adds to it. It's really part of the magic of Good Morning Football, because I cannot emphasize to you, David, and you don't need any inside TV knowledge to know this. How scripted other studio shows are? It's like, oh, I happen to have a statistic about that point you just made right here at my fingertips. Yeah.

And I'm not really even going to listen to what you just said. I'm just going to read my talking point and then the person who goes after me is going to read a completely unrelated talking point. Yep. And it just feels like so unnatural. It does not feel like a conversation you have with your friends.

Yeah. It's more dangerous to do what Shraggs is talking about there. But if you get it right, it is a much, much more fulfilling television experience. Yeah. It's like when you were doing an interview with somebody, it's like if you're reading your questions, you might get everything you kind of set out to get.

But you're not going to get anything magical unless you just like kind of water them up and throw them away and just kind of exist there with, you know. And listen to what they say, right? Yeah. That's more interesting than what I was going to ask you. Let's follow that tangent. All right. Last one for you.

Remember, we're seven weeks into the NFL season when I am appearing on the set of Good Morning Football. So I ask Kyle Brandt is, what is your favorite team to do a segment about right now? and what is your least favorite team to do a segment about? Here's what he said. Right now, at least look forward to the Jets. I can't even speak their name anymore. It's disgusting.

I hate it. They're two and five. They have like the same record as some really terrible teams that we would never even consider talking about, and yet we open the show with them. It's really, really lame. So I was in on it. I was sitting with Rogers like a month ago and I'm like, this is cool. The Jets.

This is going to work. He's going to get carried off from the sunset. And now I can't stomach them. They just represent a lot of what I don't like about it, talking about teams that aren't good, but we do because allegedly it spikes ratings or something like that. We've never run the show like that ever. And I feel like we're doing it now with the Jets, and I don't want to be part of it. So that's a very mild Jets answer. And the team that I look forward to talking about, I'm highly amused by Nick Siriani. So I like the Eagles. Everyone's so mad about

him. I've never, this past week was the weirdest week because I've never seen a fan base hate their coach so much after a win. It's like almost unprecedented. It's also really funny because the Eagles fans are like, hey, you're belligerent and crude and you talk a lot of shit. That's what we do. Here you see the magic of TV professionals. He did not know what I was going to ask him, David, and could just give you a minute 20. Yeah. With the relationship metaphor with everything. Anyway, that is my visit to the set of Good Morning Football. All right, it's time to talk to my buddy in a box remotely here. It's time for David's shooting. Make her guess is a strain putt headline.

Yeah. Last Thursday's headline about a big season for body horror movies was Anatomy of the Fall. Today's headline comes to us from alert listener Ben Cockrell. It's from The Guardian. Al Pacino, David, has a new memoir out. Oh, my God. Saw it the other day of Romans up here in Pasadena. Maybe I'll buy that someday.

I want you to think of famous Al Pacino movie lines. as you ponder. What was the Guardians' strained pun headline? Say hello to my little friend. So you're right there. Say hello to my literary friend? He wrote the book. Maybe he didn't use a typewriter even.

He wrote the book. So say hello. To my little pen? Say hello to my little pen. That's great. That was quick. Yeah, that's the best one for puns, though. Real basic rhyme scheme there.

he is David Shoemaker on Brian Curtis by Brian Waters coming up Thursday Asted Herndon of the New York Times returns to this podcast Cannot wait to talk to him and then guess what Next week Shoeemaker and I are going to record our pot on Sunday night pending David's approval So Brian's going to have it up Sunday night It's going to be all day Monday the day before election day

Make sure you get plenty of lukewarm takes As you get ready to spend a crazy week with us And I think, dude, we should just podcast all week on election week if we don't have a winner. Or maybe even if we do. Are you ready? We're going to stay live until we're going to be live on YouTube until a winner is announced. Well, we would have to be on YouTube first to be live on YouTube. But sure, that sounds great.

Pending. Listen, we're calling our shot. We're going to start on election day. We're going to end sometime in January. It's just going to be just nonstop. Just peeing in Gatorade bottles. Hell yeah. I know we'll have more lukewarm takes about the media.

See you then, David. See you later, Brian.