Felger and Mazz - Creating False Naratives one day at a time

NortheasternPJ

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soxfan121 said:
 
Yup, the five o'clock hour was unmitigated praise of the Red Sox, Farrell and the players. Their Ellsbury commentary (in that hour) was restrained to comparing him to Hunter Pence & his recently signed contract and speculation that if the per year value is higher than Pence's then Ellsbury will be allowed to walk away. 
 
During a commercial, I flipped over to Salk & Holley who were arguing with a caller who thinks David Ortiz is lazy and then five minutes of them both dismissing that...instead of laughing at the caller and moving right along. Second flip over was their interview with Farrell (which was pretty good) and then recapping the replay of the interview. Their analysis was not compelling radio - it wasn't ballwashing, but it wasn't interesting either.
 
The Baseball Reporter(s???) was much of the same. Some ripping of Farrell over the Stephen Drew stuff one night, but changing it the next, but giving him credit for not being arrogant and being normal about changing his mind, whatever reason. It was really odd
 

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
I only listened to them for a little over an hour, but I thought that they were pretty good today. They gave the Sox a lot of props and didn't really go down the contrarian side of the street too much. 
 
I enjoyed them.
 
 
I see you're a Dope now.  
 
 
Will you act like one?
 
 
Please??????????
 

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Why would they want a short series or the Red Sox to exit the playoffs? They said on Friday they want the Sox to win, even though though Felger picked Tigers in 7.
 

soxfan121

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Nator said:
Is there any doubt that Felger and Mazz are both praying to the Sporting Gods that the Pats & Sox both lose tonight? 
 
And people wonder why negativity sells so well in this town...
 
If both lose, Nator gets to say 'I told you so!' If both win, Nator gets to say 'if both had lost, they'd be pleased as punch!'. And if one loses and another wins, Nator gets to carp about F&M focusing on the negativity. 
 
Either way, Nator gets what Nator wants...some good ol' fashioned negativity. 
 
(cue the "I don't even listen because they are negative" response)
 

NortheasternPJ

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It's also great they're off the air for their longest stretch (72 hours) and people are still posting about what they think/dont think they'll talk about on Monday, yet everyone hates them and doesn't listen.
 

richgedman'sghost

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NortheasternPJ said:
It's also great they're off the air for their longest stretch (72 hours) and people are still posting about what they think/dont think they'll talk about on Monday, yet everyone hates them and doesn't listen.
Technically, they are not even off, they just don't work together. Felger does the Pats postgame show while Mazz was on the Red Sox postgame show. So you do get a sense of what they will say on Monday.
 

Quiddity

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Both the Patriots and Red Sox are in big trouble. I'm happy that Felger and YARM are around to show me the light on a day such as this.
 

Haunted

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I don't know which I find more amusing: the predictability of the show or the fact that people listen just to get annoyed.
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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It was really fucking bad. Especially the Patriots stuff.
 
They only won because Payton/Brees gave them 3 chances to score. The Patriots deserve no credit for the win, and the team is in a ton of trouble.
 
Rinse. Repeat.
 

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RedOctober3829 said:
The best part of yesterday's show was when Felger asked everyone to take away every inning the Red Sox did well in.  How do you feel about the series now?  The Tigers apparently dominated 16 of the 18 innings.
 
So Felger is Eric Van's nemesis? It's the reverse SSS!
 

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The best part of yesterday's show was when Felger asked everyone to take away every inning the Red Sox did well in.  How do you feel about the series now?  The Tigers apparently dominated 16 of the 18 innings.
 
 
The Red Sox got two hits in 16 innings. The Tigers pitchers DID dominate the Red Sox and while I love the Ortiz slam and I'm hopeful that the Sox will be catapulted from there, I'm not sure how you can look at the two games over the weekend and not think that the Sox weren't lucky with a split.
 
I didn't listen to F&M all day yesterday, but I did hear a bit after the Bruins game and I didn't think that they were that bad. They seemed to heap a ton of praise on both the Sox and the Pats, but it can't be four hours of tongue baths, can it? Wouldn't that be just as bad as doomsday radio?
 

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RedOctober3829 said:
The best part of yesterday's show was when Felger asked everyone to take away every inning the Red Sox did well in.  How do you feel about the series now?  The Tigers apparently dominated 16 of the 18 innings.
Fixed that for you.
 

RedOctober3829

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Buffalo Head said:
Fixed that for you.
So is that because Detroit's pitchers struck a bunch of people out? Let's look at the big picture here.  How did their offense do in Game 1?  They scored 1 run.  Both teams had chances to get big hits with men in scoring position and the Tigers were successful one more time than the Red Sox.  In Game 2, Buchholz gave up 1 run in one inning and 4 in another.  Tiger pitching gave up 1 run, 4 runs, and 1 run.
 
Despite the narrative that the Red Sox were dominated, you can make a case that the Tigers were lucky to get out of Boston with a split as Game 1 could have just as easily gone to the Red Sox.
 

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RedOctober3829 said:
So is that because Detroit's pitchers struck a bunch of people out? Let's look at the big picture here.  How did their offense do in Game 1?  They scored 1 run.  Both teams had chances to get big hits with men in scoring position and the Tigers were successful one more time than the Red Sox.  In Game 2, Buchholz gave up 1 run in one inning and 4 in another.  Tiger pitching gave up 1 run, 4 runs, and 1 run.
 
Despite the narrative that the Red Sox were dominated, you can make a case that the Tigers were lucky to get out of Boston with a split as Game 1 could have just as easily gone to the Red Sox.
 
Jesus dude. It's okay to say that the Sox weren't at their best during the weekend, no one is going to question your fandom.
 
The Sox pitchers did pretty well this weekend, but their hitters weren't great in 16 out of 18 innings. They were less than Mendozian.
 

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RedOctober3829 said:
So is that because Detroit's pitchers struck a bunch of people out? Let's look at the big picture here.  How did their offense do in Game 1?  They scored 1 run.  Both teams had chances to get big hits with men in scoring position and the Tigers were successful one more time than the Red Sox.  In Game 2, Buchholz gave up 1 run in one inning and 4 in another.  Tiger pitching gave up 1 run, 4 runs, and 1 run.
 
Despite the narrative that the Red Sox were dominated, you can make a case that the Tigers were lucky to get out of Boston with a split as Game 1 could have just as easily gone to the Red Sox.
I'm guessing you're a glass half-full kind of guy
 

RedOctober3829

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
 
Jesus dude. It's okay to say that the Sox weren't at their best during the weekend, no one is going to question your fandom.
 
The Sox pitchers did pretty well this weekend, but their hitters weren't great in 16 out of 18 innings. They were less than Mendozian.
I know they didn't do well, but let's not make it out to be like they had absolutely no chance to win in both those games.  It's fair to say that the Sox could have won both games because they actually did win one and lost 1-0 in the other(in which they had men in scoring position multiple times).
 

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RedOctober3829 said:
I know they didn't do well, but let's not make it out to be like they had absolutely no chance to win in both those games.  It's fair to say that the Sox could have won both games because they actually did win one and lost 1-0 in the other(in which they had men in scoring position multiple times).
 
But Felger wasn't saying that the Sox had "absolutely no chance to win" in either of these games. He said that the Sox bats were dominated by the Tigers pitching staff and they were. The only time the Sox had runners in scoring position is due to six walks on Saturday night, so it really had more to do with the Detroit pitches screwing rather than a Sox attack that fell flat. I mean, you do realize that the Sox struck out 17 times on Saturday night and were being no-hit until the eighth inning, right? We both watched the same game, correct? It was infuriating and I think that if there were 29 innings, the Sox probably wouldn't have scored.
 
And he and Massarotti both said that the Sox will probably win the series but that they both grossly underestimated the Tigers staff and that it was going to be more difficult to move on. Do you agree with that assessment? I don't see how this is some "hot sports take" used to rile up the blood of the Fenway Faithful. It's pretty damn obvious.
 
Sometimes the other team is simply better than you and simply pointing that out doesn't make you an asshole.
 

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The line of thought that Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings is ludicrous.  Was anyone saying Detroit was dominating Boston after 5 in Game 1 when it was tied 0-0?  Of course not.  A run in the 6th doesn't somehow make the previous innings dominating after the fact.
 
Now, if you want to say Detroit's pitchers dominated in 16 of 18 innings, fine.  But you can't leave out the fact that Boston's pitchers "dominated" in 15 of 18 innings too.
 
Overall, Detroit has scored 1 run twice and 4 runs once.  Boston has scored 1 run twice and 4 runs once.  That's an exact match, aka the exact opposite of domination.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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You're right, the Boston pitchers dominated the Tigers hitters to the tune of giving up nine hits on Saturday night.
 
What a fun night for Red Sox fans!
 

Kenny F'ing Powers

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Loved the Felger strawman argument he's creating today. It's become typical of this repetitive and boring show.
 
"If the offense didn't score on 1 of the last 3 drives, we would rightly be able to criticize the receivers and Brady."
 
And then they proceed to shit on the offense because, you know, they did score, but, they could have not scored, so...they suck...or something...
 
For the foreseeable future, I think the typical radio honks will continue to listen to this show. At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, people will wake up and realize that the show is simply a troll and a dolt doing their best to bait the stupid into a frothing anger.
 

mandro ramtinez

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They seemed to heap a ton of praise on both the Sox and the Pats, but it can't be four hours of tongue baths, can it? Wouldn't that be just as bad as doomsday radio?


There would have been nothing wrong with letting those amazing Sunday wins marinate yesterday and unleashing their standard. negativity during the rest of the week. If ever there was a day where Felger and Mazz could have shelved the bile, yesterday was it, especially since they we only on the air for two hours.
 

RedOctober3829

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
 
But Felger wasn't saying that the Sox had "absolutely no chance to win" in either of these games. He said that the Sox bats were dominated by the Tigers pitching staff and they were. The only time the Sox had runners in scoring position is due to six walks on Saturday night, so it really had more to do with the Detroit pitches screwing rather than a Sox attack that fell flat. I mean, you do realize that the Sox struck out 17 times on Saturday night and were being no-hit until the eighth inning, right? We both watched the same game, correct? It was infuriating and I think that if there were 29 innings, the Sox probably wouldn't have scored.
 
And he and Massarotti both said that the Sox will probably win the series but that they both grossly underestimated the Tigers staff and that it was going to be more difficult to move on. Do you agree with that assessment? I don't see how this is some "hot sports take" used to rile up the blood of the Fenway Faithful. It's pretty damn obvious.
 
Sometimes the other team is simply better than you and simply pointing that out doesn't make you an asshole.
I said before the series that Detroit's starters would do a really good job and the Sox hitters' job was to work the count and get to the bullpen. Now, we both can agree that they've done that in 2 of the 3 games.

I don't think it matters how you get your runners in scoring position as long as you have them there. Game 1 was right there for the Sox to win despite being no-hit. 1 bleeder or bloop with RISP and they would have had the lead despite all their struggles.

This has been an evenly played series to this point and nobody can deny that.
 

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As someone who has listened only a little bit the last few days, some of you are way too thin skinned about your/our teams.  Felger and Mazz haven't been waving pom poms or anything, but they've given plenty of credit to the Sox and Patriots and have tried to also analyze what problems still exist or might exist.  This isn't negativity, it's just moving on to the next week/game/situation/etc.
 
A good example, since there are so few of them ever posted in this thread, has been Felger's very consistent take on tonight's hero, Mike Napoli.  He said before the playoffs and series started that he thinks Napoli has a role to play and will show up in a big spot.  While Napoli proceeded to shit himself over the last two weeks, Felger spoke openly about how it's scary and maybe he's wrong, but he still thinks that guy will show up.  Tonight he did, and he'll probably end up talking about it tomorrow, something POSITIVE about the Red Sox.  May all of you rest easy.
 
In regards to the Pats, he's quite consistent on them, and I don't think he's saying anything particularly inflammatory.  Fundamentally, I think it's entirely possible to appreciate and applaud this team's immense success while questioning some of the avenues and specific decisions that have gotten us to this point.  They've repeatedly and consistently been on the team for how and where it chooses to spend its money, BB's treatment of the media, and how to win in the NFL.  Pretty much every game or situation is viewed through one or more of these lenses.  Some of their analysis has been hilariously wrong, but I don't see that as a huge problem, personally.  I do think they occasionally troll the Patriots audience, mostly because I'm pretty sure Felger finds some of the provincialism of Pats fans off putting.  A lot of the "they should have seen this coming!" in regards to hernandez seems this way to me, since Felger got a lot of mileage out of using Hernandez as an example of why he favors drafting the weed guys.  It sort of amuses me that nobody has credibly called him on this.
 
But maybe this is really the issue.  I don't listen to talk radio to hear nothing but pure, provable, indisputable fact.  I don't want a priest reading the holy scripture to me and teaching me the word of God, so to speak.  One of the most beautiful things about sports is that there is no answer key, no matter how much we wish there to be one, and there's all these wonderful shades of grey about strategy, team building, situations, and all the other things that go along with it.  I know it's sort of anathema to the mission of this site and as a result to the people who would value a site like this, but I genuinely take interest in hearing people explore these shades of grey even when I don't agree with it.  They take positions, seek out information related to their opinion, try to make a case.  In your head, you counter the argument or add onto it, depending on where you stand.  This is entertaining, it passes the time, and when callers aren't sucking you get all sorts of crazy different perspectives on the same situations, strategies, etc.  Personally, I find enough entertainment in this stuff to keep my radio tuned to sports radio for most of my far too lengthy commute.  So when I see people getting so mad about what Felger is saying or thinking, it seems so strange to me.  This is pretty much everything we love about sports, arguing about right and wrong with our friends and family, no matter how crazy and off the wall our friends and family's opinions might be.  I mean, don't we all have our own admittedly semi zany off the wall theories? Don't we all have an uncle or cousin or someone with an irrational hatred of someone random like Ryan Allen or Junichi Tazawa, and no matter what they somehow always end up finding fault? The radio show merely expands that platform, exposing you to more of these opinions and puts a host there to contribute and push his own particular idiosyncrasies.  To come back to Napoli, I think it's awesome that Felger had a "hunch" about Napoli, openly wavered a bit but held onto it, then got "rewarded" by being right at least for a night.  It doesn't mean he's always or even often right...hell, it doesn't mean he was even right for the right reasons, but this kind of spitballing about sports is just something I grew up with.
 

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
You're right, the Boston pitchers dominated the Tigers hitters to the tune of giving up nine hits on Saturday night.
 
What a fun night for Red Sox fans!
 
Aside from the "fun" straw man (I missed when that became a measure of inning-by-inning domination tallying, but I sleep occasionally, so it could have got past me), I'm not sure how the 12-7 baserunner advantage or 1-0 run advantage equates to dominating 9 out of 9 innings.  Because that's what I'm talking about.
 
If you want to go inning-by-inning and say Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings, then go inning-by-inning and show it.  Going back and just assigning domination across 16 of 18 innings was stupid, which was my entire point.  It's even right there in the first line of the post.
 
 
Hendu for Kutch said:
The line of thought that Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings is ludicrous.
 
Did Detroit dominate the 2nd inning of Game 1 when they went down 1-2-3 while allowing 2 BB's to the Red Sox?  Of course not.
 
The Tigers SPs have been unbelievable.  But the Tigers, as a team, did not dominate the Red Sox outside of 2 innings.  Far from it.
 

swyman18

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The Red Sox got two hits in 16 innings. The Tigers pitchers DID dominate the Red Sox and while I love the Ortiz slam and I'm hopeful that the Sox will be catapulted from there, I'm not sure how you can look at the two games over the weekend and not think that the Sox weren't lucky with a split.

I didn't listen to F&M all day yesterday, but I did hear a bit after the Bruins game and I didn't think that they were that bad. They seemed to heap a ton of praise on both the Sox and the Pats, but it can't be four hours of tongue baths, can it? Wouldn't that be just as bad as doomsday radio?


Finally, thank you. It's getting tiring reading over and over basically the same premise in this thread:

Heaping massive amounts of praise on team = a good show
Second guessing and concern = brutal, unlistenable show
 

Quiddity

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mandro ramtinez said:
There would have been nothing wrong with letting those amazing Sunday wins marinate yesterday and unleashing their standard. negativity during the rest of the week. If ever there was a day where Felger and Mazz could have shelved the bile, yesterday was it, especially since they we only on the air for two hours.
 
This. Sunday was one of the most thrilling days in recent Boston sports history with the Pats getting a last minute win against the undefeated, best team in the NFC and the Red Sox coming back from a 5-0 deficit against dominant pitching through one of the most clutch hits in team history. And Felger & YARM couldn't even let there be positivity for a single day. Within 5 minutes of the show starting Felger moved the topic from celebrating the huge wins to instead looking forward so he could instead spew his negative "hot sportz takez" such as the fact that the Sox were dominated in 16 out of 18 innings, that the Patriots were largely lucky and the beneficiaries of blown calls, that the injuries in the game are going to doom the Pats and that the Gronkowski situation is a Jets-like disaster (complete with their season long quest at painting Brady as a terrible, selfish teammate). They couldn't even let it rest for a single day after a day in Boston sports in which we've had more to celebrate about than in a long time. Heck, they couldn't even let it rest for 10 minutes.
 

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swyman18 said:
Finally, thank you. It's getting tiring reading over and over basically the same premise in this thread:

Heaping massive amounts of praise on team = a good show
Second guessing and concern = brutal, unlistenable show
That's a complete straw man argument. Nobody wants undeserved praise. Nobody wants undeserved criticism, either. If Felger makes his points on "fact, not opinion", we wouldn't be having this discussion. The most recent batch of hate kicked up because the day after the Sox eliminated the Rays, he was talking Ellsbury juicing. I don't mind it when someone criticizes a team I like. If you want to talk about the Patriots and the drops and inconsistencies at the WR position, the potential trouble of the defense now that the injuries have ravaged them, and the curious playcalling of Josh McDaniels, I don't think anyone on this board would criticize them for that. But some of the schtick coming out about whether or not Brady takes ownership of certain issues or whether or not the Patriots are cheap because they're going to let Talib walk at the end of the season is pure trolling, and it's why I stopped listening regularly. 
 

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I don't think it matters how you get your runners in scoring position as long as you have them there. Game 1 was right there for the Sox to win despite being no-hit. 1 bleeder or bloop with RISP and they would have had the lead despite all their struggles.
 
 
You're right, with a bleeder or a bloop, the Sox win the game. But it didn't happen, did it? We can play that game all day, what if Drew doesn't make a spectacular catch in the ninth inning, the Tigs score two more runs and the Sox are really screwed.
 
 
Aside from the "fun" straw man (I missed when that became a measure of inning-by-inning domination tallying, but I sleep occasionally, so it could have got past me), I'm not sure how the 12-7 baserunner advantage or 1-0 run advantage equates to dominating 9 out of 9 innings.  Because that's what I'm talking about.
 
If you want to go inning-by-inning and say Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings, then go inning-by-inning and show it.  Going back and just assigning domination across 16 of 18 innings was stupid, which was my entire point.  It's even right there in the first line of the post.
 
 
Okay then, what is a dominating pitching performance against the Red Sox? How would that look like in your scorecard? Because to me: 17 Ks, one hit and zero runs is pretty damn dominating. In the second game, until the eighth, it was more of the same 12 Ks, one hit and zero runs. And the Tigers offense had hit three home runs off the Sox in those two games. So not only did they outhit the Red Sox by a fair amount, the Tigers out-homered their hits (3-2).
 
I think it's fair to say that most observers would have said that the Tigers were giving the Red Sox all that they could handle in a way that no team had done all season. It's not just Felger and Massarotti who are somehow "spinning" this into negativity. Hell, even David Ortiz used jock speak to essentially say that the Tigers were manhandling them when he was saying that the Sox batters had the wrong approach on Saturday night and were too anxious and not playing their game.
 
Are F&M perfect? Far from it, and I'm one of the first to say when they suck (usually because Beetle or Tony let Felger bulldoze them) but the amount of criticism this show gets shows me that a vast majority of people in this forum don't understand sports talk radio. They aren't there to make you feel better about your team, in fact, it's probably the opposite. Do you want every show on both EEI and TSH to be "The Chris Farley Show"? I mean how many times can you say, "David Ortiz' home run was awesome!!" or "Tom Brady is just so good!!"? You can't sustain a show like that for long because you get people calling in to agree with you or lunatics (like last week on Salk and Holley) who say that Ortiz sucks and is overrated.
 
From what I heard on Monday, Felger and Massarotti were pretty balanced in how they analyzed both games. They said both were unbelievable and a lot of fun, but it has to go beyond that. The Sox have had trouble scoring runs (and so have the Tigers, but I don't give a shit about the Tigers' run scoring problems) and that's a real concern, don't you think? The Tigs and the Sox are the two highest scoring teams in the league, one of them is going to snap out of its slump. I hope it's Boston.
 

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
 
You're right, with a bleeder or a bloop, the Sox win the game. But it didn't happen, did it? We can play that game all day, what if Drew doesn't make a spectacular catch in the ninth inning, the Tigs score two more runs and the Sox are really screwed.
 
 
Okay then, what is a dominating pitching performance against the Red Sox? How would that look like in your scorecard?
 
You're not reading what I'm writing.
 
Hendu for Kutch said:
The line of thought that Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings is ludicrous.  Was anyone saying Detroit was dominating Boston after 5 in Game 1 when it was tied 0-0?  Of course not.  A run in the 6th doesn't somehow make the previous innings dominating after the fact.
 
Now, if you want to say Detroit's pitchers dominated in 16 of 18 innings, fine.  But you can't leave out the fact that Boston's pitchers "dominated" in 15 of 18 innings too.
 
Overall, Detroit has scored 1 run twice and 4 runs once.  Boston has scored 1 run twice and 4 runs once.  That's an exact match, aka the exact opposite of domination.
 
 
Hendu for Kutch said:
 
Aside from the "fun" straw man (I missed when that became a measure of inning-by-inning domination tallying, but I sleep occasionally, so it could have got past me), I'm not sure how the 12-7 baserunner advantage or 1-0 run advantage equates to dominating 9 out of 9 innings.  Because that's what I'm talking about.
 
If you want to go inning-by-inning and say Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings, then go inning-by-inning and show it.  Going back and just assigning domination across 16 of 18 innings was stupid, which was my entire point.  It's even right there in the first line of the post.
 
 
 
Did Detroit dominate the 2nd inning of Game 1 when they went down 1-2-3 while allowing 2 BB's to the Red Sox?  Of course not.
 
The Tigers SPs have been unbelievable.  But the Tigers, as a team, did not dominate the Red Sox outside of 2 innings.  Far from it.
 
Once again, my point is regarding Detroit dominating 16 of 18 innings.  That you can't simply go back and say every inning was dominated by Detroit because they won the game.  My 2nd inning of Game 1 example should have made that crystal clear.  You keep arguing something else, and I'm not sure why.
 
We agree that Detroit's pitching has been dominating for the most part.  But Detroit's pitching is not the entirety of Detroit's performance.  At no point has Detroit, as a full team, dominated Boston.  And in no way, shape, or form had Detroit dominated 16 of 18 innings.  That makes it sound as if Detroit was cruising along firing on all cylinders, which was far from the case.  The Tigers have now scored runs in 3 of 27 innings (3 of 18 at the time).  Not a dominating team performance, regardless of how dominating the pitching was.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Once again, my point is regarding Detroit dominating 16 of 18 innings.  That you can't simply go back and say every inning was dominated by Detroit because they won the game.  My 2nd inning of Game 1 example should have made that crystal clear.  You keep arguing something else, and I'm not sure why.
 
 
Because it's an obvious point on your part and I assume you're trying to make a bigger point. If your point is that a baseball game isn't scored like a boxing match, where inning wins are given to individual teams, then well done.
 
Since the end of Sunday night's game, what has the general message been (not just in the media, but in daily baseball conversations with friends and family)? I'll tell you what it is, in the eighth inning the Boston Red Sox turned this series around with Papi's slam. Assuming that the Sox win the ALCS, it's kind of like the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. The eighth inning in Sunday's game is the turning point. Therefore when Felger says that the Tigers dominated Boston for 16 out of 18 innings, he doesn't mean that literally; it's another way of saying that the worm turned, the tide changed, the Red Sox woke up, pick a cliche and started playing better.
 

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
 
Because it's an obvious point on your part and I assume you're trying to make a bigger point. If your point is that a baseball game isn't scored like a boxing match, where inning wins are given to individual teams, then well done.
 
Since the end of Sunday night's game, what has the general message been (not just in the media, but in daily baseball conversations with friends and family)? I'll tell you what it is, in the eighth inning the Boston Red Sox turned this series around with Papi's slam. Assuming that the Sox win the ALCS, it's kind of like the ninth inning of Game 4 of the 2004 ALCS. The eighth inning in Sunday's game is the turning point. Therefore when Felger says that the Tigers dominated Boston for 16 out of 18 innings, he doesn't mean that literally; it's another way of saying that the worm turned, the tide changed, the Red Sox woke up, pick a cliche and started playing better.
 
My point is indeed bigger, that the idea that Detroit dominated Boston is a completely false narrative.  Using 16 of 18 is specifically intended to make the gap between the two teams seem larger than it is.  Using "dominated" is specifically intended to make the gap between the two teams seem larger than it is.
 
Game 1 was 1-0.  No team dominates a 1-run game.  One team can play better, yes.  The pitching can absolutely dominate.  But there's two halves to the game and saying Detroit dominated completely ignores that.  It was a tight, tense game.  The 16 of 18 line makes it seem as if they were beating Boston up.  7-0 is domination.  12-2 is domination.  1-0 is not.
 
The statement also ignores the fact that if we turned around and ignored Detroit's 2 best innings (how convenient - also a 4-run inning and a 1-run inning), we can make it look like Boston is the far better team.
 
The general message that the grand slam was a series-changer is indeed correct.  No doubt about it.  But not because of some abstract notion of domination, but simply because Detroit was on the verge of a 2-0 series lead heading home with Verlander on tap.  But that doesn't really have anything to do with the point I'm making.
 
Would anyone say that Boston dominated Detroit in Game 3?  Of course not, it was a tight game that could have gone either way at the end.  Ditto for Game 1 and, aside for a 2-inning stretch where Detroid had a 4 run lead, Game 2.
 

SoxScout

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Sounds like Mazz has some serious pent-up issues with Gammons, as they discuss his interview with T&R, they are destroying Gammons and Abraham.
 

BoSoxFink

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SoxScout said:
Sounds like Mazz has some serious pent-up issues with Gammons, as they discuss his interview with T&R, they are destroying Gammons and Abraham.
Well Gammons was an asshole to Fred Toucher in that interview today.
 

Billy Jo Robidoux

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For the last ten years or so, Gammons has been an insufferable asshole to anyone he deems not to be a baseball genius.  It's really annoying, and I'm glad to see that F&M are hammering him for it.  The sooner Old Hickory rides into retirement, the better.
 

Hendu for Kutch

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
This is getting really stupid and at this point we're just splitting hairs.
 
Agree to disagree.
 
Fair enough, I was thinking the same thing actually.
 
Gammons is a positive guy.  Often way too positive, but if you ever think he's going to agree that a player is a "disgrace" for striking out, you're going to walk away disappointed.  He's always had issues with that sort of language, which is why he always butted heads with a guy like Felger who deals almost exclusively in labels like that.
 

swyman18

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Fair enough, I was thinking the same thing actually.

Gammons is a positive guy. Often way too positive, but if you ever think he's going to agree that a player is a "disgrace" for striking out, you're going to walk away disappointed. He's always had issues with that sort of language, which is why he always butted heads with a guy like Felger who deals almost exclusively in labels like that.


Yeah, as much as I am a Felger fan, I used to roll my eyes when he would try to get Peter to admit that Beckett had an attitude problem. It was so uncomfortable to listen to.
 

PBDWake

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In the interest of fairness, I'll compliment Felger on what I thought was a nuanced, but totally correct take on the Red Sox series so far. His viewpoint was that the Tigers have outplayed the Red Sox thus far, outside of the handful of critical moments that have arisen, which have gone the Sox way the last two games. Also, if the series continues as it has to date, the Sox can't expect to keep it up. That being said, he also admitted that both Detroit's pitching performance and the Red Sox hitting were not sustainable at the current clip, and he expected a bigger return to form, which benefits the Sox. He pointed out the weaknesses of the Sox and balanced it with a listing of ways he expected Detroit to regress. I thought it was a fantastic 15 minutes I heard during my drive.
My drive was capped off with a caller gloatingly calling them on their criticism of the Peavy trade, and asked them if they'd publicly recant their criticism tomorrow if he pitched well and they won the game tonight. Felger immediately promised he would, and after a little meandering, Mazz did as well.
 

PC Drunken Friar

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Gammons was a douche to FT, but why are they beating this horn that Miggy was a disgrace at bat yesterday?  Baseball players fail ALL the time.  Maybe thats why I hate their show.  They really do expect perfection. Like the Pats winning 11-14 games every year guaranteed isn't enough.
 
I listened a little, hoping to get some feel goody stuff for tonight, and i heard Felger say IF leaving Tazawa in, and IF Miggy hit a sac fly IF IF IF...then the Sox and Farrell would "have a lot of questions" to answer...let it go already.
 

Vandalman

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PBDWake said:
My drive was capped off with a caller gloatingly calling them on their criticism of the Peavy trade, and asked them if they'd publicly recant their criticism tomorrow if he pitched well and they won the game tonight. Felger immediately promised he would, and after a little meandering, Mazz did as well.
Moot point! Unfortunately.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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Did anyone listen in the 5:00 hour, did Felger really call Gammons a "dick" because of the T&R interview earlier that morning? It sounded like he did and I was a bit surprised at that.
 
Not surprised that Felger thinks Gammons is a dick, I don't think that Felger ever got over the verbal beatdown that Gammons gave him on EEI (and BTW, I think Felger was actually right in that argument) but what I was surprised about was the media-on-media crime and how he called him a straight-up dick.
 
I always thought that Gammons was beloved, it's interesting to see that maybe that's not the case.
 

HomeBrew1901

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
Did anyone listen in the 5:00 hour, did Felger really call Gammons a "dick" because of the T&R interview earlier that morning? It sounded like he did and I was a bit surprised at that.
 
Not surprised that Felger thinks Gammons is a dick, I don't think that Felger ever got over the verbal beatdown that Gammons gave him on EEI (and BTW, I think Felger was actually right in that argument) but what I was surprised about was the media-on-media crime and how he called him a straight-up dick.
 
I always thought that Gammons was beloved, it's interesting to see that maybe that's not the case.
I think "was" is the key word there.  I used to absolutely love Gammons and was listening live when Felger got that beatdown (you are correct Felger was right), but I think as Gammons has gotten older his ego has grown and like BJR said above has no tolerance now for those who question him or he feels are below him.  I'm not surprised that the new younger crowd has no patience for him or that the current media members don't want to put up with his shit.
 
I think what we're seeing now is the shift where folks like Felger can call Gammons a dick and instead of people criticizing him for it they just nod in agreement or approval.
 

riboflav

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John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
Did anyone listen in the 5:00 hour, did Felger really call Gammons a "dick" because of the T&R interview earlier that morning? It sounded like he did and I was a bit surprised at that.
 
Not surprised that Felger thinks Gammons is a dick, I don't think that Felger ever got over the verbal beatdown that Gammons gave him on EEI (and BTW, I think Felger was actually right in that argument) but what I was surprised about was the media-on-media crime and how he called him a straight-up dick.
 
I always thought that Gammons was beloved, it's interesting to see that maybe that's not the case.
 
They've had many, many battles. The last one I remember Gammons actually won, big time. He called Felger wanting to get rid of Lackey in Aug. 2012 "stupid." Gammons called Lackey a great teammate and totally accepted and liked by everyone in the clubhouse.