Comments on: Football on the Radio

By: Johnny

Johnny — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:49:13 +0000

Word to your Mother…

By: David in NYC

David in NYC — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:15:30 +0000

#3 — After Bruce says this, correctly described above as the intro to “War” on the Live 75-85 set, the audience applauds. To which Bruce responds, “Ain’t nothing to applaud about.” Beautiful.

#4 — After Woody/Alvy kills a spider “the size of a Buick” in Diane/Annie’s bathroom with a tennis racket.

#8 — Any quote re watches always makes me think of Christopher Walken in “Pulp Fiction”. BTW, Walken plays Annie’s rather disturbed brother in “Annie Hall”. After describing one of his more bizarre suicidal fantasies, Woody/Alvy replies, “Right. Well, I have to – I have to go now, Duane, because I, I’m due back on the planet Earth.” That last line is one of my friend-shortcut lines.

#15 — Yes, that’s Cosell from the Foreman-Frazier fight in Jamaica, calling (IIRC) Foreman’s 5th (of 6, in 2 rounds!!) knockdown of Frazier. In one of the most amazing feats I have ever seen, Foreman’s last punch (causing the last knockdown) literally lifted Frazier off the canvas, just like in a cartoon. BTW, that was HBO Boxing’s first broadcast.

Anybody with any clues on #2, #13, or #16?

By: Andrew T.

Andrew T. — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:39:19 +0000

Pretty much everything Joe writes is in the upper 1% of sportswriting. This is in the upper 1% of things Joe has written. I’m serious — it is pretty much the perfect column/blog post.

By: » Football on the Radio Joe Biden On Best Political Blogs: News And Info On Joe Biden

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:23:23 +0000

[...] on the Radio Posted in November 17th, 2008 by in Uncategorized Football on the Radio â€œBless his heart, heâ€™s got to be the sickest man in Americaâ€ could be the Joe Biden character [...]

By: JO'C

JO'C — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:11:32 +0000

“Down goes Frazier” is indeed Howard Cosell describing Frazier’s fight with George Foreman, not Ali as another poster stated. Ali never put Frazier down in any of their 3 fights.

By: per14

per14 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:03:04 +0000

Sports on the radio–with a good announcer, hard to find these days–is always better than on the TV. There is a lot more suspense. You can’t see things developing but have to hear about them after they develop. More dramatic. Good times.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 09:58:42 +0000

Legit LOL at the “Apparently on the radio they don’t mention that (all the high picks Joe mentioned) is out injured” post.

By: Richard Aronson

Richard Aronson — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:19:29 +0000

RE: women watching football versus baseball. My wife dislikes all sports, although she enjoys going to batting cages. But she’d rather watch football, because the tight uniforms give her more physiques to admire. Which brings me to a private line between my wife and I, whenever we decide a movie’s only redeeming feature is nudity. “Three times!” It happened on “Dave’s World” television show based on the writing of Dave Barry (and may well have been written by Dave Barry). Dave’s wife was going out to see a tender love story, so Dave had to stay home with the kids. Harry Anderson (who played Dave) asked her, “And how many times in this tender love story do they show Mel Gibson’s butt?” “Three times!” said with a gravely voice and a definite leer. We also start whistling “Jingle Bells” whenever we want to indicate that somebody is too stupid to be allowed to reproduce.

By: Travis Ploeger

Travis Ploeger — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:29:38 +0000

Great post… but one very important point of contention:

Stephen Sondheim (the guy who wrote SEND IN THE CLOWNS) is one of America’s most renowned and brilliant composers in the history of musical theater. You will not get anyone able to make a credible argument to the contrary.

Frank Sinatra, while also being one of the best voices to ever grace our planet, was never particularly great at taking songs from musicals and making them better “his way.” Some of the GUYS AND DOLLS songs are exceptions to this… but, remember, he actually was in the movie for that one, so they don’t really count.

My point it this: for your dislike of his rendition of SEND IN THE CLOWNS, blame the singer… not the song.

P.S. I don’t like his rendition either.

By: Farkus

Farkus — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:01:54 +0000

Joe,
Back in 93, I was driving cross country during the NFL playoffs and listened to a game on the radio to keep my mind off the endless Iowa cornfields. It had been a while since I’d listened to an NFL game on the radio, and I don’t think I’ve listened to one since. Pity…

The game I listened to was a classic: Buffalo’s Frank Reich leads a monster playoff comeback against the Oilers. To this day, I have never seen the video of the game, but the radio broadcast gave me goosebumps that afternoon. I’m not sure it would have left such an indelible impression on me had I been casually watching TV on my couch and trying to ignore the commercials. Not sure anymore who the radio announcers were, but they called an awesome game, and I don’t think I missed any of the excitement by not seeing the game on TV.

Maybe it’s time to break out a radio at home and try to take in another game that way.