The Press Box - The Revenge of Omarosa, ESPN's Schedule Shake-up, and Voting for the Hall of Fame | The Press Box (Ep. 511)

Episode Date: August 14, 2018

The Ringer's Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker link up to discuss the release of Omarosa's new book, 'Unhinged' (03:45); ESPN reshuffling the network (24:15); and whether the media should be involved in Hall of Fame voting (36:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week's edition of the press box is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. David, I don't know about you, but I've been listening to a lot of Ringer podcast to get me ready for the NFL season. I listened to Jim Miller on the Bill Simmons podcast the other day getting ready. I'm going to cruise on over to Shackhouse to listen to the recap of Brooks Kepka, who is now like the best athlete in the freaking world at how he won the PGA championship. this weekend. There is so much stuff. What have you been listening to?

I'm biased not just by my Ringer employment, but by my time spent with him on the West World podcast. But Danny Hyfitz, along with Danny Kelly, are doing a great job on our,

I don't even play fantasy football, but they have the Dannasy football podcast, which is an incredibly, it's a really, really fun listen. The Ringer NBA show Against All Odds, the Recapables, binge mode. It's all out there.

The Ringer Podcast Network, now on the press books. David, the front page of Monday's New York Post featured an ad for the clothing and lifestyle brand Supreme. What I want to know is, what

cover ad would make you buy a publication you don't normally buy? Well, depositing that I don't normally buy the New York Post. Yeah, I, man, I'm an old school nerd.

I mean, my, my, you have a box full of magazines of like unlikely appearances of, you know, WWE or Marvel Comics in mainstream publications. I think, I mean, it's such a gimmy, but it's got to be, it's got to be WWU related, man. If there, if, you know, if the undertaker popped up on the cover of the post, I think I'd, I think I'd probably buy a few copies just for posterity. What about you? My, yeah, my idea was, what if the nation had like a McDonald's logo on the front?

What if, like a real no logo publication? What if in these times had like an Amazon logo on the front? Wouldn't you get that? Not, not treated ironically, right? Not with like Rahm McDonald's saying there with like a dripping blood red knife or something, but just like, you know, hey, we, they wanted it in. It wanted it in on our liberal takes. I think that would be amazing.

It would be great. It would also be great if there was just like, just a totally steal, just a wrestling storyline if you just picked up to New York Times and the front page was just a Fox News logo. You know, I mean, like, you would, that would just be an incredible moment that you would probably want to keep a copy of around just to show your kids. We put our ads after the overworked Twitter joke of the week where they belong. This is the press box on the Ringer podcast network. The Press Box is the media podcast where you're not allowed to interrupt an exciting golf major to talk about how CBS sports executives are high-fiving each other. We are Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of the Ringer.

Your ringer reading list today includes NFL writer extraordinaire Robert Mays on tight end extraordinaire, Zach Ertz, John Gonzalez on Philly in the wake of a Super Bowl championship, and all our coverage of the forthcoming changes to the Oscars. You can read Sean Fennesse's piece and you can listen to his conversation with Bill Simmons and Amanda Dobbins on the big picture. But David, I've got three topics for you today. First, we need to talk about the Amarosa book because what the hell is happening with that? second, what should we make of the shuffling of the ESPN lineup that happened last week? And finally, an interesting question raised by a Dan Wetzel column, should sportswriters stop voting for the Hall of Fame? Plus, as always, our overworked Twitter joke of the week.

We have to start with Amarosa, don't we? Isn't this the biggest, weirdest thing happening? If you haven't been following along, Ammarosa's book, do I need to say Ammarosa's full name? Is that required? This is one of the newspaper conventions I love, right? Yes. We have to put a Ms. No, no.

Her publisher disagrees. Her first name is much, much bigger than her last name on the cover of the book. Okay. So we're going to call her Amarosa. Amarosa's book Unhinged comes out on Tuesday. In the book, she makes a number of accusations which have been reported with pre-release copies. There is a tape, she says, from the Apprentice Days. I think she heard this.

where Trump is using the N-word. She said that Trump has used racial slurs to describe Kelly Ann Conway's husband, who is from Filipino ancestry. Then, of course, she had the big appearance on Meet the Press on Sunday, where she played a tape, a recording she had made of White House chief of staff, John Kelly, firing her in the situation room. And then we then heard a tape she had made of Donald Trump at least pretending to learn about the firing. after the fact, clearly he knew about the firing, right? There's just no way he didn't know about the firing. He was like, I can't believe this. I'm so disappointed.

What's going on? Amarosa, what's going on? I love the affected innocence. What was your first takeaway from this extraordinarily strange, even by Trump White House standards, story? Well, I mean, you know that my first reaction was an email last week, and we were tossing around ideas for today's episode of this show. very show in which I just sort of like shoulder shrugged it like maybe this will be a thing maybe it

won't and it seems like you know I don't want to go if if you know my first reaction is this very well maybe nothing hopefully it'll be nothing for it and and we won't you know need to cover it but here we but here we are and in some ways there's you know it's it's it's it's we talk it it reminds me of how we discussed you know the stormy daniel situation when that first came out and it's like there was a world not that long ago perhaps just a couple of years ago in which a book like this from a character like Amorosa would not be part of the, you know, polite discourse. But we are in a new world in which,

and the same rules that sort of, you know, saw Trump on, you know, leading every news broadcast for the year leading up to the election for all the wild stuff that he did. I mean, those rules are the reason why Amorosa is now anchoring, and not literally anchoring, but, you know, being featured on Meet the Press of all places.

And I guess, you know, the various outlets are finding the newsy things to address in her book. I mean, it's going to be interesting to see if there's actually any, any, you know, real substance there when the book comes out. Can I refine something you just said? I think this kind of book would have been a big news story in any administration. It's just that Amorosa wouldn't have gotten the job in a previous administration, right? There's been a kind of a lot of cheap, cheap-o-hit job books written about presidencies, which of course immediately is that this is a cheap book filled with errors, blah, blah, blah. But this character never would have gotten a job.

This person would have never been hired. And of course, as many people, and this was kind of like the honorable mention overworked Twitter joke this week, which was when the Trump administration denounced Amorosa, did Trump call it? her wacky, wacky Amorosa, who got fired three times for The Apprentice, et cetera, et cetera, try to drive down her credibility. The natural place to go when a lot of people did on Twitter was, you hired her. You gave her a senior job in the White House. She's one of the best people.

And she was there for a long, you know, like a fairly good run, right? She outlasted some other, you know, famous administration official. So the idea that you can now turn around and go, well, she doesn't have a lot. credibility? Well, she obviously had enough credibility to get the job in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I mean, that's exactly right. The same thing is sort of, I mean, the sort of inverse works on her too, you know, I mean, for all of the, there's a degree to which it feels like she's limited to the dirt that she can dish because, by the very fact that she worked for him until she was no longer wanted there, right? I mean, there's, there's,

a, um, one would presume that there is a, that, that, you know, there is a limit to, um, I mean, I guess we see this with every presidency to some extent, but one would assume that there is a, you know, that she has a moral, that she would have a moral limit that if anything went absolutely, or at least that would have a limit to what she would admit to, to abiding by, um, while she was working at the white, it was working at the White House or, or, or what she, from what she knew about him before she took the job, you know, so, right, um, who knows, who knows. Yeah, her whole kind of thing about this is like, I didn't know he was racist until he became president, right, until I was in the White House. And I could understand.

Like that's when I began to just get a little concerned. You know, I'm not sure what the first point was, but I just began to get a little concerned that Trump had, you know, just something. There was something different about Trump. I do think, I do love your point, but about taking a White House job just to write a book. We always talk about how is the Trump administration different in degree? than previous administrations. Everybody lies. Trump lies more.

But this is another one, right? Lots of people take jobs in an administration to get public speeches later, to get a job in the media, to get a book deal. And, you know, sort of amorose in that sense is just kind of like a more extreme, you know, honestly, slightly less qualified version of lots of White House people that could become before. Used to work in book publishing, David. Yeah. This is true. Was there anything about how this deal came together that was interesting to you?

Yeah, I mean, I don't, it was always a little bit unclear what, what Amoros's day-to-day job was in the White House. She appeared at a lot of, you know, sitting at tables, various photo-ops. But most of the sort of behind-the-curtain-the-curtain stories that you would read didn't make it seem like she was particularly involved in the day-to-day operations at the White House. and clearly, I mean, you know, hiring her, I mean, just not like she had a long history of work in politics. I would prime her for, you know, a big role there. So when she left, you know, I mean, there was immediately talk about there being a book. Everybody that leaves theoretically has a book, and especially if you leave on bad terms, you know, that's an option. But my immediate reaction was that there might not be, she might not have anything to say, anything interesting to say.

Now, if you look at the timeline, I mean, she was fired in January of this year, but even before that, in December, there were articles, I'm looking at the Hill right now, which is, this piece is dated December 15th. Will Amarosa land a book deal in which they talk to the publicity director at Regnery Publishing, the, you know, notable conservative publishing house. And she says, you know, it doesn't seem like the public can get enough of it more than anything we've ever seen before. So obviously there's this kind of hypothetical thirst for it, but that all seems a little bit planted. Shortly after that, Life and Style magazine of all places floated the prospect of a $10 million price tag for this book, that is completely untrue. And if it's not planted by the Amorosa Camp, then shame on life and style. Not to be confused with publishers weekly, life and style, yes. Exactly. Days after that, their news came.

came out that publishers weren't biting on the book deal. There was very little interest and that sort of tracks with what I had heard. And then, okay, so fast forward to March, the Hollywood reporter, again, of all places, I mean, I guess they've been covering the Trump White House to some extent, but the Hollywood reporter is asking who wants to publish Amarosa's White House tell all book. This is again a little like behind the scenes, like what's going on. She wants to write the book her reps aren't really talking uh they talk some people you know who are who are possibly close to it um but there's nothing really there and then july 25th um you know after all after radio silence for for a couple of months the daily mail reports an exclusive that the book is

coming out almost immediately on august 13th uh brian stettler has a little bit more information on the subject the next day um but it's you know that this is not it's not an unusual way to announce a newsy book like that. I think we saw the same thing with Fire and Fury that we found out it existed, you know, and it came out very quickly. Yeah, and the new Bob Woodward book too. Can I ask a dumb guy question about book publishing? There are a bunch of errors in this book that Trump White House is seizing on? It seems to me that that if you knew this book was going to be attacked, Simon and Schuster somebody would hire a fact checker to just go through it, you know, like, okay, we got a, you know, three, you got three days. Just make sure all the titles and departure dates and stuff

like that are correct. Is this just going from like a word processor into a hardback book or how does that work? It's totally feasible that the, um, as quickly as the publication schedule is working right now, that the, I don't know if the people, I don't know if the people who are reviewing the book or referencing the book actually have finished books. I would imagine that they exist right now, but it could be that they're working off of an earlier galley copy or probably more likely at this point, just a PDF of the pages that was unedited. But it's possible the book's going to come out with all these errors. I mean, it's, you know, it's very easy now to give them the benefit of the doubt.

It's very easy, right, you know, in 2018 to make a Microsoft Word document or a Google Doc or whatever look like a finished book page. You just flow it right in and, you know, we're just going to send that around and people take it more seriously because it looks like the book. But yeah, the problem there is that it's, is that the errors are perceived to be, you know, not just, I mean, the, the, they're perceived that they're not going to be fixed that they went undetected. But yeah, one would think that that would be, you know, something that they would try to do. I think that, I think that with, you know, I think that there's going to be some, I mean, to some extent, any book of this sort is a little, you know, is a, if not a cash grab, the publication is a little bit craven. And the, and that's, there's nothing wrong with that. But I think in this case, you know, it must have just been, it must have just been the case that they, that they, that they, that they, that they,

more value in, and, you know, the news, the PR bump, the, the, you know, the pre-sales on Amazon, then on, you know, then actually, obviously, than, then, then writing some sort of memorable history of the, of the first year of the Trump White House. There are two kinds of tapes that Amarosa has been talking about in her various media appearances. One are the tapes we have actually heard on Meet the Press on Sunday. As we said, she came out and played this tape. of John Kelly firing her in the White House situation room or telling her it's time to go. Let's listen to a little bit of that.

We've got to talk to you about leaving the White House. It's part of my attention over the last few months, but there's been some pretty, in my opinion, significant integrity issues related to you and use of government vehicles and some other issues. And they'll walk you through the legal aspects of this. but there is some for my view there's some money issues

and other things but for my view the integrity issues are very serious now the immediate question that that brought up of course David was how did this happen

and if she could so easily record somebody in the White House situation room and then later record Trump what as I saw this on Twitter a couple of times

what must actual spies be doing at this moment you know just other than salivated at the Trump White House that you could so easily bring recordings out from supposedly secure areas. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of stories early on in the Trump term that he was unwilling to put his iPhone down. I didn't realize that it was that the entire operation was just so, you know,

laissez-faire about those old-fashioned rule security measures. But yeah, I mean, a lot of people were tweeting about that, that, you know, if they, if she could, if she could be recording on her phone in the, in the situation room, I mean, just that's also anyone that bothered to try to hack her phone probably has access to all that stuff too. I mean, it's, it's just sort of mind-boggling. The second kind of tape she talked about was this alleged tape that exists, she says, from Trump's apprentice days. And we've heard various versions of this rumor since he's basically since he started running for president, that he was heard making racist. comments and that these tapes are out in the world and either because it's Mark Burnett or some kind of cover up that they've never come to light. The first thing, they very well may exist, first of all. I have no idea. But the thing that amazed me about this was, remember the Michelle

Obama tapes? And when I say tapes, I mean, I'm using giant air quotes here where she was allegedly on tape making disparaging racial comments. Is it just utterly wild or is it just the answer just this is the internet that we have had two let us say extremely different people here Michelle Obama on the one hand of Donald Trump on the other and the alleged racist tape that may or may not exist has been this like holy grail for conspiracy theorist for both that's just wild to me how did that happen yeah I mean you would think no I mean perhaps you would think and then in the internet era this sort of like game of telephone, you know,

would be less prevalent, but it's, you know, clearly become even more prevalent. Game of telephone, no pun intended, by the way. Yeah. That, yeah, I mean, all you have to do is say that you heard something. Someone has to say they heard something. I mean, really, the tapes that,

the Trump tapes are, are, you know, I mean, this is Tom Arnold's doing for the most part. I mean, other people have discussed the possibility of it, but he's the one that's out there publicizing this now. And it feels like Amorosa, I mean, who knows? It feels like Amorosa is referencing these things just to sort of piggyback off of whatever publicity and attention Tom Arnold has gotten. I mean, clearly she's going to be asked about it, but she's sort of putting herself into that story in a sort of, I don't know.

I mean, I'm not going to accuse her of lying, but it doesn't. It all feels like this, I mean, with the exception of the couple of newsbytes that have gotten out, and really the news so far from Amarosa's press tour is that she was. able to record in the White House, what we just discussed. Like, the fact of her ability to record is the biggest story that's come out of it. And everything else is this sort of thin rule

where she was talking about, you know, how much Donald Trump lies. And immediately her, her, she goes in, I think this was on, was this on the Today Show that I saw this? And immediately she goes to the CNN story about how much the president has been lying compared to other presidents.

So it's not even a firsthand account. You know, it's, it is a, it is a personal, disbelief of someone else's account or belief in someone else's account in the case of the tape. She aggregated it. Yeah. Yeah. She her, I mean, and that's what, I mean, listen, when you, when you're trying to write a, I don't know, I did not check the page count of this book, but when you're trying to write a 300 page book and relatively quick deadline, there's going to be a lot of aggregation

that goes into that. But yeah, I mean, it, I'm not quite sure what, I mean, I'm not quite sure what to make of this, of, you know, the Trump, the Trump apprentice tapes and, you know, at this point, it just all seems like, is this really the conversation that we want to be having? If they exist, then yes. But, you know, this speculation about them is just, you know, just sort of, I'm having trouble believing it's more than just sort of spurious right now. 368 pages, according to Amazon, is the length of the book. 368, wow. 368. And to your earlier comment, I would hate for Amarosa to somehow spoil Tom Arnold's quote. for truth and justice. You know, it would be awful if that were, if that were in any way contaminated by someone

who was seeking fame by a former fading star seeking fame. I can't imagine such a thing. Before we go on this, we should bring up the writer Yashar Ali's tweet, which is truly unbelievable. Several current and former White House Trump campaign staffers, he writes, have told me they are concerned that Amorosa used a pen that has the capability of capturing audio to surreptitiously record meetings. So Amrosa may also be James Bond in addition to an estranged White House staffer.

I'll just leave it at that. All right, David, now it's time for our overworked Twitter joke of the week where we celebrate a gag that was so obvious that all of media Twitter made it at exactly the same time. Can I reserve a little space in this week's overwork Twitter joke just to further ride my hobby horse off into the sunset? set, which is the number of people during, and by number, I mean anybody. I mean, one person would be too many for me. Somebody on Twitter accused me of having to go look for these people. I'll go look. I'm not above looking.

I'm not above searching Tiger CBS executives. I'll go to the ends of the earth, baby. The number of people, I think getting back to my original point, who tweeted in the middle of a fantastic final round of the PGA championship where Tiger Woods was seeking to get back, to finally win another major. And so we, boy, live look at CBS executives right now. And then it's a photo of just somebody, you know, counting money or, or Leo DeCaprio and the Wolf of Wall Street or whatever. Why are you thinking about this?

And again, I write about the sports media. And that thought never occurs to me during an exciting sporting event. Oh, I hope the guys in the CBS front office are happy right now. I know network executives. I interviewed network executives. I don't think about those people during a sporting event. I don't think a thing about them. But people, and I feel that all of sports media criticdom has done this horrible disservice to people by teaching them that these kinds of things are important.

As opposed to like a very, very mildly interesting Monday story. The ratings were way up for the PGA championship, which came out this morning. Great. Fantastic. there you go. That's great. But in the middle of the freaking tournament, are you kidding me? Anyway, that's it.

All right. David is nodding silently somewhere and sending an email to my wife concerned. All right, David, another overwork news. Preseason football action, Philadelphia Eagles rookie tied in Dallas Goddard scored a touchdown against the Steelers.

That's always good news when your rookie scores a touchdown in the first week of preseason action. It was an overwork Twitter joke to say the quote, the first time Eagles fans have cheered for Dallas. That is via Mike Rusek. I saw a couple of versions of that. And finally,

did you see that right-wing internet person, Ben Shapiro, that is his official title, offered House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, $10,000 to debate her? Oh, God. Did that feel a little Dr. Evil to you? $10,000?

Yes. Is she going to do that? This is a woman who, It's vaulted into political celebrities, about to be elected to the house. If nothing else, $10,000 seems a little low, doesn't it? Just like, just as a fake, as a fake offer. Yeah. Anyway, it was an overwork Twitter joke to say, credit to Ben Shapiro,

most guys would be too insecure to publicly offer $10,000 to a woman just to talk to them. Oh, man. Thanks to Justin for that one. All right, David, let's talk some ESPN because it wouldn't be a press box without some ESP. talk. I talk about the future of ESPN. Last week, ESPN, David, made some changes to the schedule, including moving high noon from noon. It's always a big deal when you are no longer, high noon always had the kind of hedge time slot think where it was high noon 9 a.m. 9 a.m. Pacific, which I loved. One of the honestly, and again, to people who don't know this, thank God, one of the dumber controversies about the six starring Michael and Jamel was that it was not on it.

six all over the country. Perhaps people in the mountain time zone would be offended. Because, hey, it's 4 o'clock here. I feel left out of this show. Anyway, that was the reason the parentheses occurred on high noon, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, high noon is now going

to move into the afternoon, 4 p.m. Eastern, where there's this whole block of Eric Ride Home produced shows. Sports Nation, which a lot of people liked, is going to be canceled and turned into a noon. version of SportsCenter, essentially.

So, nothing is really changing at ESPN. I'll double down on a comment I made on the BS podcast the other day, which is that I'm amazed that we've now gone from two years ago, it being a sort of knee-jerk take to say, SportsCenter is finished. We don't need this antiquated highlight show anymore in 2018. SportsCenter is the answer. Why don't they just bring SportsCenter back? but that's kind of what's happening here.

What was your take? That's sort of my wide view look at this whole shift that ESPN announced. It does feel like they're sort of going back to the glory days or retreating to the glory days of well, I mean, in this case, of like two years ago or 18 months ago.

I don't even remember when Sports Center coast to coast was originally canceled. But yeah, I mean, we've made the point. you know, back and forth about whether or not Sports Center is, you know, a dinosaur or the only way forward for a, you know, for it. When you were on Bill's podcast, you know, I think,

or I think this was when you were on, but Bill was talking about how so many of these ESPN shows are just sort of background music to them, you know? And that's, I think, or the way a lot of people live their lives, they want to catch up on the sports while they're like ironing their shirt, you know, or they're, you know, doing something else. And the sort of conventional style,

ESPN shows are more appropriate for that or people are more comfortable with those for those for that sort of passive viewing. As much as I enjoy high noon and as as as interesting as some of the you know camera and directorial choices

they've made on the show are and as and as you know actually like vibrant as the hosts of the show are. You know it's a very it is a very old school ESPN show. It's just pardon the interruption with you know for a younger set. And, you know, it's interesting that, you know, it's not like these moves were made with great fanfare.

This isn't some giant shift that they're announcing and their programming strategy, but you do sense a little bit of the, you know, let's fall back on what we're comfortable with. Oh, absolutely. And I think high noon was an interesting experiment because it was at noon. it was the first show from Eric Rydholm, who's a very talented producer, that was an hour instead of 30 minutes. And I think when I've watched it, I haven't been sure that they solve

the hour versus 30 minutes problem. That it wasn't like the, you know, it was bad or boring. But just why, the question of why is this an hour instead of 30 minutes? Uh-huh. And now it's 30 minutes. I thought the other issue with that show

in which I talked to the, guys who were involved in making it back when they, before they started it, which was, is noon. It's a tough slot because there's just nothing. You're sort of, you feel a little late to all of last night and this morning's takes, and you feel a little early to tonight's takes. And you're kind of in this no man's land zone, right? So it doesn't, it feels like, it feels like, it feels it more natural for those shows to occur sort of toward the end of the day, whereas you're talking about you're at the gym.

or you just got a home and you're just sort of watching, you have that sort of show on, you're kind of digesting the sports news of the day. But yeah, it does. It's funny. I mean, I think SportsCenter is, you know, at the end of the day, I just one thing that kept coming to mind when I was thinking about this news is that it's really hard to program ESPN during the day. And it's not a problem that ESPN used to have because remember in the old days when we were growing up, they would just run, rerun sports center all morning until noon. It just literally had to be something on ESPN. And now they've sort of tried a bunch of different strategies. A couple of them are like, let's come up with a signature program.

Let's do this. And what really, what they go back to in this case is let's go back to SportsCenter, which is just kind of like people know what this is, people know what the brand is. It's a digest of the news of the day. It's a less important digest than it was five, 10, 15 years ago. But it works. and we don't have to mess with it and it's kind of generic in a happy way

and there you go. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, for as many words as we've spoken talking about ESPN's programming, I mean, I feel this sort of feels like the right move or in the absence of, you know, a broader shift

or a more, you know, defiant move this seems like, you know, a smart way to go. I mean, sports center coast to coast, at least according to one of our sources, SportsCenter Coast to Coast was the only show, the only sports center that was trining upward before they canceled it and moved Kerry Champion to Sports Nation. And now they're sort of going to go and reclaim that. And I watched Coast to Coast, not really deliberately again. It's sort of passive, but that was on, that was what was on during that, you know,

during that phase of my life in which I was watching TV at that time. And, you know, it's a good little show. You know, it's fun and it's a nice little twist on the normal formula. But yeah, I mean, I think that it's, you know, sports nation, I certainly watched a lot of that over the years. But, you know, it's fine to say that that has run its course. I don't think that doesn't, that's not like, you know, an institution that we have to constantly keep.

reinventing. And I think that, you know, I'm like, I'm, I'm not sure that this is going to move the needle at all, but, but in so much as it feels like, you know, it feels like a decision, if not a very, like I said, defiant decision or large scale decision. It's, you know, I can support this. One of the, I saw some tears for Sports Nation, which I did not watch very much, full, full confession in my lifetime. I feel that the thing about sports. Sports Nation that will live on inside of us all is that it figured out fairly early in the life cycle of these things that you could you could squeeze content out of Twitter on sports television.

There was this thing you could do on sports TV, which is look at this funny thing on Twitter. And here are our professional people who will have maybe a slightly better joke than the one you already read on Twitter. Now, a couple of years ago, before. Or, you know, Twitter became this giant Sid Caesar's Writers' Room of joke writers. I feel it was a little fresher. And now I feel you've read like 10,000 jokes about that Clay Thompson dancing in the Chinese nightclub before you actually, before that actually gets to television.

Yeah. And so it's just kind of not. But if you look all around ESPN, and that includes high noon, includes almost all these argument shows, like, funny thing I saw on Twitter is like one of their biggest go-toes. It's like hot sports topic of the day. What LeVar Ball said is number two, and number three is funny thing on Twitter. So I think that sort of started it, right? Or put it more into the bloodstream of sports television? Yeah.

No, I think that that's definitely true. And it also has to be said that when it launched, it was much like High Noon is, if in a different way. It was a stage for exciting talent. Right? I mean, it started off with Colin Coward and Michelle Beatle. I mean, these are people that you were like, oh, I get to see these people on TV. If that was your thing, you know, those are two, those, that it was an interesting pairing. And, you know, that was sort of the crest of the first coward wave, you know, I mean, when he, when he made it onto that show. Such a wild pairing now in retrospect, too.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, for sure. And for, and, and they're not the only talent. I mean, Trista Thompson. Chrisa Thompson, sorry, came out of that. Max Kellerman, I think, you know, cut his teeth for eventually doing first take on that show. And I love, you know, Carrie Champion and Elsie Granderson, who were the hosts at the end. And I have a, when I was in L.A. had a, had, you know, a minor love affair with Grandersen's ESPN, L.A. radio show. is the most bizarre little low-key ESPN radio show you can imagine but

you know there comes a point where you're not constantly introducing new talent and you're just sort of trying to prop up the show by putting on sort of existing talent and you know I mean that's probably time for the show to say farewell for a while now listen we're going to be recording this if if the press box lasts

you know another 12 months I'm sure we'll be commenting at some point on the return of Sports Nation and having just like the Fun House Mirror version of this same segment. But, you know, it's okay, it's okay for shows that go every day to take a little, you know, take a year off. It work for coast to coast. I thought you were going to say if people would ever talk about the legacy of the press box, you know, what a miracle that would be. I do like that they're moving high noon into this block because I feel one thing ESPN has done effectively. It's like we always talk about it. How do you get attention now when people sort of

are unplugging and not watching television anymore. One is to create this Marvel universe of Eric Rideholm-produced shows that all kind of feed into each other. So Tony Kornheiser is one of the stars of PTI was doing, at least the last time I watched, doing the ad reads for High Noon. This episode of High Noon is brought to you by Heineken. It was his voice. He has nothing to do with the show other than he is kind of the spiritual godfather of

Pablo and Bommani, both of who have been on PTI. So now you put all these things in and all these people kind of feed into each other. High noon always felt like it was a little, to me, it felt, well, it was quite interesting and Auturi. It also felt a little bit sealed off from the rest of the ESPN lineup. I don't think they were throwing it to another show at the end of that show. They were just, they felt like their own little island. So now I think, and partly that was because of the schedule. Now they're all together.

And I think that just sort of feeds into one. It's high noon, highly questionable around the horn PTI. All those feel of a piece. All those feel like, you know, shows that ESPN sort of hangs their hat on in a way. And that gets to 6 o'clock. And then it's, guess what? Sports Center again, because that is literally the only thing that works. All right, David, should we talk about our final topic?

This you and I emailed about. And I wanted to talk about it because I have thoughts on it. But I think it's a topic that doesn't get raised enough. Dan Wetzel, fine sports columnist, wrote a column in Yahoo about whether sports writers should vote for MVP's and other things. This was peg to the whole Torell Owens' Hall of Fame stuff where Owens got elected to the Hall of Fame. He did not want to come to the ceremony. In fact, at his own ceremony at his alma mater. Lots of sports writers got mad, et cetera, et cetera. Here's what Wetzel writes. Sportswriters and broadcaster shouldn't be involved

in pro football Hall of Fame enshrinement voting process. They shouldn't vote for MVP's, rookies of the year, coach of the years, all stars are pretty much anything else in any sport. Football, baseball, basketball, whatever, don't vote ever. I will add the one bit of historical context to this, which is that the New York Times, I believe, has never allowed it sports writers to vote for this stuff, finding it corrupting. We'll go into Wetzel's reasoning here in just a second. What did you, what do you make of not letting sports writers vote for all this stuff? I mean, at, God, at first blush, when I first dove into this piece, I was very interested

into who he thought should be, who it turned out he thought should be voting for this stuff, if not the sports writers. When he actually got to the, you know, like you've never laced up the boots, you've never put on the pads, that argument. He totally lost me. That was his weakest argument by far. I mean, I don't know how you don't just avoid that deliberately when you're trying to make this case because, like, I could not, I mean, I could not read this because my eyes were rolled too far back in my head. Should we actually start with his strongest argument?

Because I think this is the most interesting part of this. Yeah, yeah. Go for the strong one. It's a good calm. Everybody should read. But I think this is actually the strongest argument, which is so the Hall of Fame got so mad or some of the older voters, I should say, got so mad that they were thinking about coming up with this rule called the Terrell Owens rule, which says, If you get voted into the Hall of Fame, you must commit to attending the ceremony, which means, and what Wetzel says, I think correctly, is sports writers shouldn't be involved in basically conscripting somebody to be on an NFL network television show because they came to the Hall of Fame so that these TV networks can squeeze content out of them. That's not our problem, and it shouldn't be our problem.

And if somebody said, if a sports writer said, oh, wait, my vote now means that, you know, in the future, Aaron Rogers is going to have to come be a part of a TV show, I'm out. That to me is completely legitimate. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Although that seems like a really minor problem. I mean, I think that it's a dumb rule. I mean, the Terrell Owens rule as proposed. I don't know if it was actually proposed, but that's it's dumb on its face and should not be, I mean, no one should have that rule.

regardless of who the voters are. I don't think that this is going to be a recurring problem, and if it is, that is certainly not the way to solve the situation. If everyone you put in the Hall of Fame finds better things to do than show up, then that's a bigger issue than, you know, whatever Terrell Owens' headspace was at the time when he made that decision. But that's it. I mean, that is a strong argument in the sense that there are conflicts of interest there.

I just I don't know what the solution is I don't know if this is a problem in need of a solution but I I guess if you want to if you if you made the case that you're going to split the hair between

a beat reporter and a columnist and then everything in between you'd have to put on one side of the line or the other then maybe I can understand this point of view But, I mean, there are, and all of this is to, is to, you know, completely fail to acknowledge how sports writing has changed over the past 10 or 20 years and that there's not that, there's very little distinction between those two things and that our most prominent sports writers are, you know, biased almost by definition. But I think that, that if you want to say the beat reporters can't vote or whatever, you have to reach a certain level, you have a certain number of years, maybe only the former writers. But, I mean, I just don't, I guess I can't quite wrap my mind around the inherent corruption of, you know, these guys.

No one's making millions of dollars except for Rick Riley, you know. And it's, it's, it just seems like. Yeah, exactly. But, I mean, there's very few people who are like, who stand to gain anything of real value by hyping up an athlete over a number of years so that they will make it into the Hall of Fame. And maybe I'm misreading the argument. But I think just it misses the historical, the historical element of, you know, the legends of the field, guys like Red Smith and Grantland Rice, who literally wrote people into the Hall of Fame and we love them for it. You know, I mean, these are our sports icons. And the icons exist because of the way that they were covered in some part.

Okay. So you've hit on the tension here. I think exactly right, which is that when people have talked about this in the past, they've said that somehow this voting. process is corrupting. So if I vote for, I'm going to stick with Aaron Rogers, because why not? If I vote for Aaron Rogers for the MVP and I cover pro football or cover the Packers, I am somehow doing him a solid that then he may turn around and help me out somehow, right? That like I'm, I'm, you know, I am now sort of engaging in this kind of trading process where I'm giving him a vote and something's going to come back to me. And it's true that he may have a clause in his

contract where if he wins the MVP, he gets a bonus. Or he, if he gets, you know, finishes second the MVP, he can use that to negotiate a bigger contract, right? There's all kinds of hypothetical things you could do it. I just don't see. I actually don't really see the difference in that than me writing a column that says, Aaron Rogers is the best player in the NFL, or Aaron Rogers should make a lot of money. The Packer should right now tear up Aaron Rogers' contract and give him $30 million, give him Kirk Cousins money, all of it guaranteed. Because doesn't that, if I'm a good enough columnist, doesn't that also redound to Aaron Rogers in Aaron Rogers' favor?

And I don't, and I understand that one of them is like a more tangible good. And again, maybe it kicks in, like, as I said, like something in the contract. If he wins, actually wins an MVP. But I just don't actually see the difference between those things all that much. I think if somebody wants to be a bad, corrupt sports writer who kisses up to the players in exchange for the players giving them many reasons, They can just do, they don't need a Hall of Fame vote. They don't need an MVP vote.

They can just do that all the time. And lots of them do, by the way. Yeah. The Hall of Fame seems like, seems like the most insignificant part of this argument, which is not to say the argument doesn't have merit, but it's just basing it on the TV. He's a peg to talk about all these kinds of things. Like MVP's, Rookies of the Year, all that stuff.

Yeah. I mean, I just think it's, I mean, I think that it's, that the, you know, the good, mean, the MVP awards exist to be yelled about and argued about, right? I mean, so, I mean, and, and if people blame journalists, if people blame, you know, whoever, whatever the voting committee is, I think that in some way, you know, I think that's a, that's a net positive for the Hall of Fame and for the sport, you know, I mean, if there's, if there's, if someone's going to be blamed, then at least people are talking about it, right? And that's another one of his points is that it's a way for these halls of fame to kind of hold themselves a remove. So if Barry

Bonds doesn't get into the baseball hall of fame. He's just the media. You know, we don't make the decision. We're just, we're just, we're just a museum. It's the media that didn't vote him in. So you should be mad at the sports writers. And he's right that it's, it is holding themselves, you know, one step. There's a great Bill James line when people get mad about the baseball Hall of Fame.

He said it's a museum run by an accountant, which is a great, which is the only way to properly think about halls of fame. But, you know, to me, again, I just go back to think, I can. I am, and if it were something that we're corrupting, I would hope I would be at the barricades yelling about it, but I can't figure out what about this is inherently corrupting. Yeah, I think it's hard. It isn't more corrupting than just being a sports writer and having to interview people and, you know, criticize people that you see in the locker room the next day. Sure. I mean, listen, a lot of, a lot of, you know, these sorts of rules about integrity are, you know, they exist so that a problem. doesn't arise they're not necessarily a reaction to a problem that exists right i mean it's like

if a if a you know you work for an outlet that says you know you can't take the free hotel room at the junket you're going to or whatever because that will that that will compromise your integrity it doesn't matter whether or not anyone's ever actually been compromised it's just it's a it's a good by i mean it's a good rule right i mean it's just just a just but but i do think that in the in the when we're talking about the Hall of Fame where we're talking about, you know, if we're taking Wetzel's argument at face value, some corruption needs to exist if we're going to change, if we're going to like, you know, change the structure of the voting process because of this, this specter of corruption, right?

We sound like Supreme Court justices here. Show us the corruption. Show us the corruption. And in the case of the movie thing, it's like you're just taking, you're taking a gift from the movie studio. The sports writer is not getting a gift here. They're getting as far as I can tell. And again, I don't want to mischaracterize his argument, but they're getting like a hypothetical gift of more access

or something like that potentially down the road, which again, I just don't, again, I just think you can do that in your column. He, I think the one thing, too, that I'd like to add, you talk about how the whole dividing line between columnist and Beat writer has changed. And, you know, we've kind of gotten into this modern incarnation where lots of people are both.

I'd also say the way we pick Hall of Famers has really changed over the years so that it's not just a bunch of old guys getting around and go, man, wasn't that guy good? Boy, he was the best, wasn't he? I remember him being fantastic. Put him in the Hall of Fame. And now there are mathematical proofs for every single Hall of Fame. One of the guys in football Hall of Fame this year, Jerry Kramer was so funny

because he was a play guard for the Packers in the 60s. And it was like, everybody's looking at each other going, how good was Jerry Kramer? because we just don't know in a way. But if that were Zach Martin of the Cowboys, we would have a lot better chance of knowing. Bill Barnwell could probably tell us with some certainty if Zach Martin should be in the Hall of Fame.

So I think when we talk about like our sports writers qualified to figure this stuff out, one, what you said earlier, if we're not qualified who is, and second, I just think there's so much more information. information out there now that if you want to figure this stuff out, if you want to just read about this and say, okay, that guy's a Hall of Famer, that guy's not a Hall of Famer. Again, an argument I don't get any, have any interest in. But if you wanted to do that, you could do it pretty easily. Yeah. I mean, I think the point you make about Barnwell is smart too, and that it's, is that, you know, in a lot of ways, he's a great example of a sports writer that is more, more capable

than anyone else in the world of deciding who should be in the Hall of Fame. You know, I mean, the people, the people who are writing about sports are some of them are you know the perfect people to make these decisions another argument to wets omeggs and this is again just like an unbelievably sort of condescending way of phrasing this vote on i'm quote i'm reading directly from the piece uh it's not the media sport it's not the media's business it's the media's job to cover the sport and the business big difference vote on a hall of fame great interview subjects sure actually believing that being a writer or broadcaster makes them qualified to make the razor-thin

determinations in the hall or out of the hall is complete folly. Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. But I will say, number one, razor-thin determinations are part of the problem of the Hall of Fame that keeps coming up in every sport every year where all these borderline people get voted in and everybody's, you know, low-key outraged about it if they can bring themselves to fire off a tweet.

You know, maybe we should just reevaluate the voting processes so that it's only the surefire, you know, the near unanimous subjects they get in, although that would come with its own, you know, its own problems without, you know, without a doubt. But, you know, it's not the media sport. It's not the media, I mean, it's not the media's business. I mean, I just think it's,

I think that that's impossible to just state that as a fact, you know? I mean, I understand what the point is he's trying to say, but, you know, I mean, it's, it's really hard. to look around the sports media landscape and not see that this is, you know, we've talked about the NBA Twitter a couple weeks ago. We've talked about the, we talked about training camps last week. It's really impossible not to think, not to look at this as some sort of, you know, all-encompassing organism. And that is, that is actually where I begin to be sympathetic to the Wetzel argument, because I, if I never heard an argument about who is in the Hall of Fame ever again

in my life, I'd be the happiest man. And, oh, yeah. Wanting, hearing, you know, this guy's in, this guy's out makes me want to move to the Himalayas. So where I have sympathy with this argument is, I just don't care. And I don't, and I have participated in these arguments and this is my, the great shame of my career that I ever cared about who was in or out of the baseball Hall of Fame or how you should fix it or whatever. I don't want to know anymore. I don't, I don't care. I wish, I wish, I hope all the people, everybody ever played baseball and football will be in the Hall of Fame. Let's just get them all in.

It's going to just be the Hall of Everybody. because this is like the worst sports argument ever. So anyway, I encourage people to read Wetzel's column, have an argument about it because it will be better than the argument about whether T.O. should be in the Hall of Fame. It will be much better than the argument about whether T.O. should show up at the ceremony, like infinitely better. Yeah. Please go do that.

All right, that's the press box for this week. Thanks for listening to the show. To our producer, Jim Cunningham, to our friend, compadre and researcher, Chris Almeida. David, how about some more hot takes about the media next week? What do you think? I cannot wait. We'll be back. See ya. If the press box lasts, you know, another 12 months.

Show us the corruption. The press box, it's just pardon the interruption with, you know, for a younger set. Can I ask a dumb guy question about book publishing? Yes. Why don't they just bring SportsCenter back? SportsCenter is the answer. Yes. The press box is going to be canceled.

and turned into a noon version of SportsCenter, essentially. I mean, this is Tom Arnold's doing for the most part.