I came in here to see if someone else mentioned this. It'll be interesting to see if Felger addresses it today.
Felger and Mazz - Creating False Naratives one day at a time
- Thread starter HomeBrew1901
- Start date
For some reason that's the sense I get too Rocco, not that I know, but when the guy called in around 5:30 last night and was talking about his father committing suicide when he was 19 it was pretty uncomfortable and Felger was silent for a moment and then just kept going with his point. The only things we know about Felger personally is that he's married and has 2 kids and grew up in Milwaukee and went to BU, outside of that he doesn't really share, unlike Mazz who tells the listeners just about everything.
Now who knows, maybe nothing like this ever happened to him and he just feels the way he does.
If you notice though, Felger isn't the only one that thinks along these lines, outside of Wiggy there have been a number of guest hosts like McAdams and Gasper that either didn't want to get into it and challenge him or felt the same way he did. Also for every call he gets chastising him for his comments, he seems to get a lot more supporting him so he isn't going to lose many listeners over this.
Edit: I'm just hoping he lets the whole thing go and focuses on the Celtics and Sox for awhile and moves away from this issue. I tune in to be entertained on my ride home, not listen to people talk about depression and suicide.
Now who knows, maybe nothing like this ever happened to him and he just feels the way he does.
If you notice though, Felger isn't the only one that thinks along these lines, outside of Wiggy there have been a number of guest hosts like McAdams and Gasper that either didn't want to get into it and challenge him or felt the same way he did. Also for every call he gets chastising him for his comments, he seems to get a lot more supporting him so he isn't going to lose many listeners over this.
Edit: I'm just hoping he lets the whole thing go and focuses on the Celtics and Sox for awhile and moves away from this issue. I tune in to be entertained on my ride home, not listen to people talk about depression and suicide.
Ugh... more beating a dead horse shit then. He's getting tough to defend when he keeps going back to the same well over and over and over again. Hopefully he will have his one Beckett thought of the day and move on otherwise I'm switching to my ipod. At least Mazz will be back (never thought I would type that) to provide some comic relief with his foot and Gasper and Tanguay will be on.
Edit: And here we go... ugh. Felger couldn't be happier.
I really liked Tanguay on T&R this morning and he is on for the first hour so this could be fun today, Tanguay isn't going to take any of Felger's stuff.
Edit: And here we go... ugh. Felger couldn't be happier.
I really liked Tanguay on T&R this morning and he is on for the first hour so this could be fun today, Tanguay isn't going to take any of Felger's stuff.
I agree.
And Gasper and baseball is just not kosher.
Ugh. I hate having weird school hours.
And Tanguay is there too...
Felger has to have a pants-tent about tonight's outcome, especially Beckett's press conference stuff.
What happened last night was exactly what he was looking for, a poor Beckett start followed by getting pulled in the middle of an inning so the fans could boo him. Beckett's comments afterwards were just the icing on the cake for Felger.
Unfortunately won't be able to listen this afternoon... but some choice quotes would be much appreciated
I'm kinda glad I won't be able to watch this. I'm too damn exhausted.
And Felger and intelligent basketball conversation do not go together.If the Celtics are even mentioned in the midst of his glee.
And Felger and intelligent basketball conversation do not go together.
I usually have the show on in the background on tv while I'm working but I'll occasionally take a look as well. Does anybody find it disturbing that we have to look at Mazz toes while he's screaming on his couch with his middle school voice? I look over a minute ago and the dbag is screaming about how Beckett isn't tough while he's wiggling his toes. Creeps me out and makes me want to vomit. Change the fucking camera angle.
Ok, thanks. I haven't been listening too much this week. Glad to know I'm not alone. It's gross and annoying to look over and watch shithead wiggle his big toe while ranting about Boston athletes and how they're such pussies.
A caller last hour summed up my feelings on Felger's basketball talk perfectly.
The gist of his point was that what makes basketball discussion on "Felger and Mazz" so unbearable isn't that Felger doesn't root for the Celtics. It's perfectly fine for a sports talk radio host to have preconceived biases about teams, players, etc. Felger is an entertainer, not a journalist. Nobody is asking him to be unbiased when discussing the Celtics or anything else.
What makes basketball talk with Felger so intolerable is the fact that Felger has become a caricature of himself on the topic, and isn't interested in having a stimulating conversation about the sport. Everything comes back to one of these three points:
*The league is rotten and the referees are on the take, so these playoff outcomes are less than genuine (this is actually Felger's most coherent basketball talking point).
*Every player is faking an injury to draw attention to himself. There is no such thing as a legitimate basketball injury.
*Playoff hockey is more intense and unpredictable than playoff basketball. It is impossible to like both sports equally.
Last night on "Sports Sunday" Felger had Brian Scalabrine on with Cedric Maxwell to breakdown the Celtics/76ers series. Instead of attempting to draw insight from Scal, who just finished playing the 76ers a couple of days ago, Felger continually blabbered on about how every player in recent Celtics history has faked a playoff injury, and how predictable the NBA is. It was embarrassing, frankly, and I would be shocked if Scal agreed to come back to be a panel member on one of Felger's shows.
To reiterate, I don't care that Felger doesn't like the Celtics. I also don't care that he doesn't particularly like the NBA. In fact, I've found many of his "anti-NBA rants" to be amusing in the past. But the basketball team in town is on the verge of making a championship run, and Felger won't even pretend to be interested in having substantial discussions about these games. It might be a little different than what WEEI did with the Bruins several years ago, but it's of the same spirit (belittling the sport and the fans of the sport).
I loathe the pairing of Ordway and Holley, so I'm not going to switch to EEI over this next month. But I'm not sure how much longer I can stick with "Felger and Mazz." "The Sports Hub" has to do something here. You can't have the face of your radio station openly mock the Celtics for the next 4-6 weeks. It's bad for business.
The gist of his point was that what makes basketball discussion on "Felger and Mazz" so unbearable isn't that Felger doesn't root for the Celtics. It's perfectly fine for a sports talk radio host to have preconceived biases about teams, players, etc. Felger is an entertainer, not a journalist. Nobody is asking him to be unbiased when discussing the Celtics or anything else.
What makes basketball talk with Felger so intolerable is the fact that Felger has become a caricature of himself on the topic, and isn't interested in having a stimulating conversation about the sport. Everything comes back to one of these three points:
*The league is rotten and the referees are on the take, so these playoff outcomes are less than genuine (this is actually Felger's most coherent basketball talking point).
*Every player is faking an injury to draw attention to himself. There is no such thing as a legitimate basketball injury.
*Playoff hockey is more intense and unpredictable than playoff basketball. It is impossible to like both sports equally.
Last night on "Sports Sunday" Felger had Brian Scalabrine on with Cedric Maxwell to breakdown the Celtics/76ers series. Instead of attempting to draw insight from Scal, who just finished playing the 76ers a couple of days ago, Felger continually blabbered on about how every player in recent Celtics history has faked a playoff injury, and how predictable the NBA is. It was embarrassing, frankly, and I would be shocked if Scal agreed to come back to be a panel member on one of Felger's shows.
To reiterate, I don't care that Felger doesn't like the Celtics. I also don't care that he doesn't particularly like the NBA. In fact, I've found many of his "anti-NBA rants" to be amusing in the past. But the basketball team in town is on the verge of making a championship run, and Felger won't even pretend to be interested in having substantial discussions about these games. It might be a little different than what WEEI did with the Bruins several years ago, but it's of the same spirit (belittling the sport and the fans of the sport).
I loathe the pairing of Ordway and Holley, so I'm not going to switch to EEI over this next month. But I'm not sure how much longer I can stick with "Felger and Mazz." "The Sports Hub" has to do something here. You can't have the face of your radio station openly mock the Celtics for the next 4-6 weeks. It's bad for business.
I only listened for a bit, but I thought that Felger's take was that storyline around the Celtics is that they are injured and that is kind of turning the C's into a David, while the Sixers and the Hawks are playing the roles of Goliath. And his point was that even injured, the Celts should beat the crap out of both of these teams and that there doesn't need to be an added sense of drama.
His whining about injuries makes this point a bit hard to see and even harder to agree with, but I don't think that he's entirely wrong. Boston should roll over Philly and Atlanta and if they beat Miami THEN they will be a special story.
His whining about injuries makes this point a bit hard to see and even harder to agree with, but I don't think that he's entirely wrong. Boston should roll over Philly and Atlanta and if they beat Miami THEN they will be a special story.
Between that and bitching about Beckett yet again made me turn the show off for the day. I don't really care about the Celtics and fucking can't stand Beckett so this stuff should be right in my wheelhouse, but it is the same regurgitated shit every single day and it has become beyond tiresome.
Bingo. I heard the call and couldn't agree more with you. I'm a big Felger fan and get a kick out of most of his NBA rants. They're usually funny and fairly accurate. But the last couple of weeks he's only making a fool of himself. And Mazz is just as bad for simply laughing and smiling and not challenging Felger on some of his bullshit.
What I find funny/sad is that for years guys like Felger have ridiculed Eddie Andleman and Eddie invented this schtick (regarding the Bruins and the NHL) in the 80s. Felger's unthinking take is no different, except that it is less funny - I still use Eddie's "hockey-krishna" line.
You make it sound as though he has more than three. The first being the refs are corrupt and the league does not care, the second being KG/PP is a fake tough guy, and the third being that all NBA players are pussies who continually fake injuries. What am I missing? Maybe something about how Perk/Sheed whine too much?
I get that he hates the NBA. But he does his listeners a disservice by being unable to talk about the game intelligently. His attacks are generally on character: of the league vis-a-vis the refs (which I get) and on the players (which annoys the hell out of me given that it detracts from whatever real story exists). It is unfortunate, because I think if he could curb his bias he would genuinely appreciate what the Celtics have done this season.
Felger has been talking NBA for the last 3-4 weeks. I don't really know what show you guys are listening to. Just yesterday or the day before he had Pierce in his top 5 playoff active clutch performers. He's backpeddaled a bit on Garnett. He's still taking shots at basketball players being babies--and he's probably more right than wrong on that front and it's more or less funny anyway, so who cares?
Believe me, he's not my go to guy on breaking down basketball plays, but he's hardly giving it WEEI on Hockey treatment. There's been a surprising amount of Celtics talk over the last few weeks, and not all of it bad.
Believe me, he's not my go to guy on breaking down basketball plays, but he's hardly giving it WEEI on Hockey treatment. There's been a surprising amount of Celtics talk over the last few weeks, and not all of it bad.
I enjoy these frequent rants he uses all the time:
1. Michael Jordan really left the NBA due to gambling issues
2. Rasheed Wallace and Shaq O'Neal were a couple of fraudulent fat bums
3. Generally speaking only four or five teams can win the NBA title each year and the league needs more parity
4. Entitled NBA stars don't want to sign as free agents with cold weather cities and would always prefer the "Miami or LA based reality show"
5. LeBron sucks
6. The "Green Teamers" on Comcast are the biggest homers in the town and embarrass themselves nightly
And those are just a few that I thought of in about two minutes. Felger's takes on basketball is pretty pedestrian but I usually find them amusing and somewhat truthful. However the past few weeks he's really amped up the vitriol, to the point where half of what he's saying is absurd.
I thought for sure we were going to have a "Mr. Baseball" type situation with Gammons today. Peter started off the interview in a pissy mood and there was some uncomfortable silence when Felger was talking about Beckett's comments and Gammons said something like "How much did you talk to him about his attitude?". It was one whisker away from a great Boston sports radio moment.
after the segment, Felger bashes Gammons
and now Mazz is back in studio with his foot on the table...at least no wiggling toes
and now Mazz is back in studio with his foot on the table...at least no wiggling toes
Ah, podcast is already up on itunes! I admit that I think Beckett is a dbag, but I don't know why Gammons got his panties in a bunch by what Felger said after re-listening to it. This weekly interview may end up being in Keith Foulke territory as the season progresses. My feeble attempt at a transcript:
F = Felger, M = Mazz, G = Gammons
F: What happened to that guy (who threw 98 mph)?
M: Exactly
F: What happened to that guy and how can we get this slug right now who obviously has just one of the worst attitudes I’ve ever seen in pro sports?
G: So when did you talk to him about the attitude?
F: I’m sorry?
G: How much did you talk to him about the attitude?
F: How much did _I_ talk to him about the attitude?
G: No, you make a statement about somebody’s character and then if you don’t know him that’s kind of tough to do.
F: Yeah, you know what. Ah, to me I have a pretty good read on him. I don’t know, how does a guy with good professional character do what he did last year? How does a guy with good professional character carry himself the way he’s carried himself the last week? It’s sort of obvious.
<Awkward silence>
F: Hello?
G: I’m just... OK, that’s fine.
~fin~
F = Felger, M = Mazz, G = Gammons
F: What happened to that guy (who threw 98 mph)?
M: Exactly
F: What happened to that guy and how can we get this slug right now who obviously has just one of the worst attitudes I’ve ever seen in pro sports?
G: So when did you talk to him about the attitude?
F: I’m sorry?
G: How much did you talk to him about the attitude?
F: How much did _I_ talk to him about the attitude?
G: No, you make a statement about somebody’s character and then if you don’t know him that’s kind of tough to do.
F: Yeah, you know what. Ah, to me I have a pretty good read on him. I don’t know, how does a guy with good professional character do what he did last year? How does a guy with good professional character carry himself the way he’s carried himself the last week? It’s sort of obvious.
<Awkward silence>
F: Hello?
G: I’m just... OK, that’s fine.
~fin~
Mazz should probably ask the questions to Gammons. Felger can tell Mazz what he wants to get out of it beforehand or something but when Felger asks someone like Gammons, who's close to the team, an unfocused question personally insulting a player it shouldn't surprise him to get silence or an uninformative response. Mazz, even though he's intellectually lazy and doesn't really pay attention much, still seems able to phrase things in a more specific and meaningful way when it comes to baseball.
Mazz - and I'm sorry for cutting you off, erfus - it's just that he knows how to phrase things specifically - and when I say he knows how to phrase things specifically, I'm not saying that he uses the right words when he asks questions or that he knows how to communicate what he means. Look, he just knows how to ask a question about what he wants; and what this all goes back to, and I'm sorry to keep harping on this, is that he can ask a question. And what I mean by that is that he can inquire about something - and I'm not saying that there aren't any other contributing factors here - but some people can't ask questions - and I'm not saying that one hundred percent of the people can't, but independent of that - those people are stupid. They're absolutely asinine!
:bravo:
I've never seen someone so perfectly capture all that is a Tony Mazz question.
Yep. And he banged on "I was right and the green-teamers are idiots" drum. I only suffered through it because I was looking for Scal.
He probably is right. That everyone decided Pierce was obviously hurt and in trouble because one announcer declared he had no "lift" on a fade away jump shot was really, really dumb. He just missed the shot short, which is what happens when you miss a fade away turnaround shot.
I don't know, can you really play 40 minutes a night on an MCL strain? According to Zo you can't so I can certainly see his point.
Edit: Doesn't mean I want to hear him beating this horse anymore.
Only a complete water carrying fraud could make Felger the sympathetic figure. From the guy we all grew up adoring . . .
The narrative is that every time an athlete doesn't perform to the levels we want, a story is quickly pulled together that said athlete is injured. Sometimes these guys just fail. It's no different for Pierce than it is for Lucic, Brady, and a host of Sox players. I have no doubt that Pierce's knee doesn't feel as good as it could, but every time one of these players plays poorly our media members fall over themselves to find a story where they end up with a key injury that explains away all of said athlete's poor performance. Pierce almost assuredly is injured to some extent, but he's moving far too well for there to be serious, game altering damage there right now. The guy got up and dunked on a drive last night for God's sakes.
shhhhh don't ruin the narrative. Felger's a douchebag and anything he says about the Celtics that is counter to the narrative is wrong and dumb.
I will not argue that point with you.
No but seriously, we can argue about how hurt Pierce is all we want; my issue is more about Felger being deliberately obtuse on anything that counters his point. A point that he will repeat forever and forever. Pierce isn't hurt, KG wants a contract, etc.
This is why I only ever listen to him talk basketball with Maxwell. Because Mazz and Gasper or whoever they have on never bother to refute his points.
I'm with you Yoko. I don't have a problem with most of his points and agree with most of them but his points have been getting stale the last few weeks.