You can be sure Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey’s reporting on the Manti Te’o story is being dissected at journalism schools throughout the country. They did a solid job putting together the pieces of this incredible puzzle. They set a new standard for reporting through social media.

Yet I have a quibble with their story, and it isn’t insignificant. The end of the post includes this passage:

A friend of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo told us he was “80 percent sure” that Manti Te’o was “in on it,” and that the two perpetrated Lennay Kekua’s death with publicity in mind. According to the friend, there were numerous photos of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and Te’o together on Tuiasosopo’s now-deleted Instagram account.

The “80 percent sure” was cited in most news accounts as possible evidence that Te’o was in on the hoax.

If I’m the editor, I don’t let that quote go through. Who was this friend of Tuiasosopo? Was this person also involved? Friends have a tendency to talk out of school. Maybe this person exaggerated the quote just to be part of the story?

Also, how can Deadspin be sure there were pictures of Te’o with Tuiasosopo?

Also, there’s the “80 percent” angle. What does that mean? Obviously, the person isn’t sure.

So now you’re running an incredibly damning quote from a single source who likely doesn’t know the complete story. 80 percent sure is long way from 100 percent sure in this instance.

And even if that friend was certain, most editors would require a corroborating source or two before running such an allegation. It is the only place in the story where Te’o is linked to being more than a victim of a hoax. The strong allegation is too much to hang on one person.

Clearly, there are plenty of questions for Te’o. However, using that “80 percent sure” quote wasn’t fair to him in this instance.

Mallary Jean Tenore of Poynter interviewed Deadspin editor Tommy Craggs about the Manti Te’o story. I’ll have further analysis of the piece, but my initial take was that Deadspin did a solid job.

From the post:

What sort of editing went into the piece?

Craggs: From the start, Tim Burke and Jack Dickey kept a running notes file in Google Docs that acted as a skeleton for both their reporting and for the story itself. They asked themselves the obvious questions, Socratically: Who is the person in the photos? Where was Lennay Kekua born? When was Lennay Kekua born? Where did Lennay Kekua live? Did Lennay Kekua attend Stanford? When was Lennay Kekua’s car accident? When did Lennay Kekua die? [Then they] set about answering them, through public records and media reports.

There was a fat pile of the latter, contradictions and all, and absolutely nothing of the former. From there, the story wrote itself. That’s all pretty obvious, and anyone who reports a story goes through at least a mental catechism like this. But putting it all on the page made the holes in the Lennay story plain to see.

What sorts of questions did the editor ask to make sure that this was a thoroughly reported story?

We began reporting on Friday. By Monday, Burke had found and contacted the woman in the Lennay photos. Once we had her on the record, we knew we had enough for a story. By Tuesday, we had a draft.

The only question, really: What lengths do we go to to try and prove a negative? Do we call funeral homes in Carson (we did)? Do we call funeral homes *near* Carson (we didn’t)? Once we got an answer from Stanford on the question of Lennay’s enrollment, I was satisfied.

All sorts of reaction this morning to the most incredible story I can recall. Many are blaming reporters like Sports Illustrated’s Pete Thamel and ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski, who did big high-profile reports on Manti Te’o, for not confirming that the girlfriend actually existed and that she actually died.

Writes Josh Levin at Slate:

If Thamel or anyone else at SI had used Nexis or Google, they would’ve discovered that Lennay Kekua (not to mention her brother and sister) didn’t exist. A reporter doesn’t expect to learn that his subject’s dead girlfriend is nothing but a fake Twitter avatar. But a reporter, especially at a fact-checked magazine like SI, also doesn’t generally put someone’s name into print and say that she smashed up her car on April 28 without confirming the spelling and the wreckage. That assumption of basic competence filters down to everyone else in the sports media ecosystem: If Manti Te’o’s story of woe is in Sports Illustrated, then it must be true.

Later, Levin writes:

Manti Te’o was a sports hero, and his standout play this year demanded the details to flesh out that storyline. There’s a journalistic cliché: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. For sports hagiographers, it’s more like: If he makes a lot of tackles, don’t you dare check anything. Stardom demands that feature writers color in the lines with off-field greatness. And Te’o’s character, it seemed, was unimpeachable. After all, there had been all these stories about how humble and religious he was, and how he’d been led to Notre Dame to do something.

Regarding Wojciechowski, he said he did try to find an obituary for the dead girlfriend and a newspaper account of her accident. However, I’m sure he did it to try to learn more details about the girl in effort to personalize the story. He wasn’t trying to confirm that she actually existed.

Wojciechowski also said he asked Te’o for a picture of the girl. Te’o responded that the family wanted to remain private. Wojciechowski decided to respect that privacy.

I’ve known Wojciechowski for more than 20 years. He is at the top of his class when it comes to being a thorough and diligent reporter.

Really, who among us out there wouldn’t have done the same thing? Name me a reporter who says, “Sorry to hear about your loss, Manti. Can I see a copy of the death certificate?”

Michael Rosenberg on SI.com writes:

The question is: Who got duped?

Well, most of media, for one. This includes Sports Illustrated — we put Te’o on our cover in October, and the story includes Te’o talking about his girlfriend dying. I didn’t write the story, but I’m going to be honest here and say I could have written the story.

Other media outlets had already written about Te’o’s girlfriend dying, and Te’o talked about it … I mean, we’re all supposed to have b.s. detectors in this business, but mine would not have gone off there. Evidently, I’m not alone, because dozens of media outlets mentioned the girlfriend without wondering if she existed. In that situation, a reporter tries to talk to her family, other people who knew her — you fill in the edges of the story. But if you don’t get a hold of those people, would you really think “Hey, this is probably just a hoax, and this girlfriend doesn’t exist”? Be honest.

Exactly.

In this new world, if a player’s grandma dies, he/she better have a death certificate handy. Right? And a picture too.

Otherwise, we’re not running the story. Is that what it is going to come to?

My goodness.

Sally Jenkins, who wrote two books with Lance Armstrong and had been a staunch defender, appeared on the Charlie Rose Show Tuesday. Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post’s DC Sports Blog transcribed the interview.

Here are some excerpts:

Rose: Did he apologize to you?

Jenkins: He did. He did.

Rose: And what did he say?

Jenkins: He said he was sorry for misleading me. He said he was sorry — and this is a very small thing — but he expressed that he was sorry that my reputation had taken a hit because of my association with him, which I appreciated. And it wasn’t a very long conversation, but it was a meaningful one to me. I had hoped he was clean. He’s not. Am I angry about that? You know, I don’t rise to the level of anger that I think a lot of people want me to. I think that there’s a level of anger at Lance that is out of proportion to the offense of doping.

Rose: Why do you say that?

Jenkins: Because let’s face it, he’s a bicyclist. I don’t condone doping, I don’t condone breaking the rules. What I have said to him and what I’ve written is that I forgive him. I don’t condone it, but I forgive him. I think that doping is so endemic in cycling, apparently, that it was the price of competing in that era. Do I agree with it? Do I like it? No. I don’t have the heart to be full of rage at him. I just don’t. People are going to have to accept that I don’t feel that for him. I feel disappointment. But he’s my friend.

******

Rose: But there’s also this aspect of intimidation and threats…that is to many people believable.

Jenkins: Right. I think that that’s what he’s going to have to address with Oprah. I think it’s certainly equal to the doping, to be honest. Quite honestly, I thought that was the most damaging stuff in the USADA report. I think those are the toughest questions for him. You know, the Lance Armstrong that I know and that I have dealt with has never been threatening. He’s certainly complicated. He’s certainly flawed. He is certainly angry, at times, and combative. He’s never been menacing. Now, that’s my personal experience with him, and I’m a friend. I would not want to meet him as an adversary, I can say that. I think that he’s got some work to do to persuade people that that Lance Armstrong – the threatening, the intimidating Lance Armstrong that’s been portrayed – he’s got some work to do to convince people that that’s a mis-portrayal.

Oprah Winfrey did the marketing push for her interview with Lance Armstrong (OWN, Thursday, 9 p.m. ET).

Winfrey appeared on CBS This Morning, providing a tease of what’s in store for what now will be two shows with the disgraced biker. From USA Today:

“A couple of times he was emotional. ‘Emotional’ doesn’t begin to describe the intensity or difficulty (for Armstrong) in talking about these things. All these people wondering if he goes there and answers things … I think you will come away, too, that he brought it. He really did.”

And:

She told CBS she got to ask most of her “112” questions. “I would say he did not come clean in the manner I expected,” Winfrey said. “It was surprising to me … for myself, my team, all of us in the room, We were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers.”

Winfrey said in addressing her questions, Armstrong answered “in a way (that showed) he was ready. … I can only say I was satisfied by the answers.”

Winfrey called it her “biggest interview”, which just might be hype given the people she’s interviewed through the years.

Beyond that, she said she chooses not to “categorize” how Armstrong comes off: “I would rather people make their own decisions. I felt he was thoughtful, he was serious, that he certainly had prepared himself for this moment. I would say he met the moment. At the end of it, we both were pretty exhausted.”

Why did she think Armstrong chose now to talk? “I just think the velocity of everything coming at him in the past couple of weeks, he was just ready.”

Here’s a link with a short clip of Armstrong with Winfrey.

A big start of the year for athletes on PEDs. Last week, the focus was on the Baseball Hall of Fame. This week, cheater Lance Armstrong takes the stage.

Today, Armstrong sits down with Oprah Winfrey to do an interview that will air Thursday at 9 p.m. ET on OWN. Expect to see plenty of sneak peaks prior to the actual program.

Apparently, The Sunday Times doesn’t have much faith that Oprah will ask the hard-hitting questions. The London-based paper took out a 2/3s page ad Sunday in the Chicago Tribune. The headline read: “An Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey.”

The letter was from David Walsh, who has spent 13 years investigating Armstrong. The ad has 10 questions that Walsh would like Oprah to ask Armstrong. Among the questions:

After returning from cancer, how did you justify putting banned drugs in your body?

Did you have any sympathy for those rivals determined to race clean?

Do you admit that your friend Dr. Michele Ferrari fully supported your team’s doping?

Was the failure to understand Floyd Landis the key to your downfall?

Did you sue The Sunday Times to shut us up?

Ah yes, the ad includes this PS: “The Sunday Times is seeking to recover about $1.5 m it claims he got by fraud. He used Britain’s draconian libel laws against us.”

Clearly, Walsh and The Times want their money back, and even more, an apology from Armstrong. As for the ad appearing in the Chicago Tribune, well, Oprah and her crew are based in Chicago. Perhaps they viewed it as the quickest way to get her attention.

I don’t think Walsh and The Times have great confidence Oprah will do a strong interview. Neither does the Tribune’s Phil Hersh. The ad ran below his column on Armstrong.

Hersh wrote:

When sprinter Marion Jones did her Winfrey confessional about doping, the longtime talk show host acted as credulous as a star-struck fan. Winfrey took at face value Jones’ statements about thinking she was only using flaxseed oil and insisting she had doped only for a short period around the 2000 Sydney Olympics, even after the federal judge who had sentenced Jones to prison said he had doubts about the extent of her revelations.

Indeed, Armstrong is looking for a soft landing couch here. It would have been much different if he was interviewed by someone like Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes.

Maybe Oprah will surprise us. If nothing else, all she has to do is use the Times’ questions.

In addition to chatting with Deadspin’s John Koblin, Gelf Magazine also conducted interviews with two King Richards of the sports media beat: Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated and Richard Sandomir of the New York Times.

From the Deitsch interview:

Gelf Magazine: What is the best thing ESPN produces, in any medium? What’s the worst thing?

Richard Deitsch: The one thing I’ve always tried to keep in mind when I report and write on ESPN is to be specific to the person, programming, and thesis of what I’m writing about. ESPN does great work every single day of the year. ESPN.com has an exceptional writing and reporting base. Same with Grantland. The network’s 30 for 30 programming has been high-end. Outside The Lines, especially its Sunday programming, provides important journalism. (We’ve seen it recently with its role in investigating gambling in South Florida youth football.) There are a multitude of talented producers, directors and behind-the-scenes people in Bristol. Same with on-air talent. But what bothers me, and I think bothers intelligent viewers as well as many ESPN staffers, is the Baylesization of some of its programming. The oleaginous First Take is the worst thing ESPN does because it is reflective of the network’s worst tendency: a lust for cheap debate, social media buzz, and a look-at-me ethos that leads to the kind of nonsense we saw from Rob Parker or when Skip Bayless race-baits or makes of fun of athletes by referring to them with names such as Bosh Spice. The company’s thirst for owning a story has prompted sourcing controversies, and other reporters and media entities are right to call ESPN out on it when it happens. And it happens too often.

Gelf Magazine:Would you want at some point to have a more traditional sportswriting job, rather than covering the sports media?

Richard Deitsch: I’m a writer and reporter who happens to cover sports media. That’s how I look at myself—it’s amusing and incorrect when people call me a critic—and it’s just one job at SI for me. I write and help conceive special projects, I’m one of our principal writers on women’s basketball, and I’ve been to the last six Olympics, where I write our daily previews for SI.com. I’ve also covered Super Bowls, NCAA Final Fours, tons of college basketball games, the NHL, and the NBA. It keeps me sane. I could not simply do sports media: I need to work on beats with smaller egos.

From the Sandomir interview:

Gelf Magazine: You’ve been covering TV sports business since 1991. What’s changed the most about the industry during your career?

Richard Sandomir: One thing that comes to mind is that the broadcast network executive producers don’t trash each other in public, nor do the network P.R. people. It used to be a free-for-all that could fill a lot of column inches. The folks are much tamer now. It’s too bad. More broadly, it’s the breadth of sports TV now that’s changed. Back in 1991, it was pre-internet and there was only one ESPN. Nobody talked about platforms, except if they were discussing disco-era shoes. There were no CBS Sports Networks or NBC Sports Networks, or their antecedents.

Gelf Magazine:Outside of covering it, do you consume a lot of sports media? Which are your favorite?

Richard Sandomir: Well, I watch far less than I used to because of my evolving job at the Times. From early 2011 to March 2012, I covered two primary stories: the Mets’ legal fight against the trustee for the Madoff estate, and the sale of the Dodgers. Neither was a story that required that I watch much sports TV, so I didn’t; you gotta have a life! Since then, I’ve been engaged in a series that I’m still in the midst of reporting. So I don’t watch as much as I used to from 1991 until about 2005, I watched nearly everything on weekends and a lot of stuff on weeknights. The idea was to keep finding out what was really good and really bad; that turned into a job with diminishing returns. Generally, sports TV is pretty good and as long as announcers and producers and directors generally do what they’re supposed to do—and you have to realize that they’re not all Al Michaels or Roone Arledge or Fred Gaudelli—then there’s little to write about. My favorite viewing now is probably Mets games, with Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling. Follow that with Marv Albert’s basketball calls and Sunday Night Football.

Gelf Magazine: Do you ever wish you were free to rant like Phil Mushnick?

Richard Sandomir: I used to rant more than I do now; but, no, I’ve never wished to fulminate like Phil. It’s tough on your innards. Phil has his shtick, and it works for him. Anybody else in New York sports journalism who tried to do that consistently would be accused of imitating him.

 

Congratulations to all. With Dickie V., you can be sure the induction ceremony won’t be dull.

From the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association:

Hall of Fame inductees Dick Vitale and Mitch Albom lead the list of winners of the 2012 National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Awards, announced by executive director Dave Goren.  National Sportscaster of the Year Dan Patrick and National Sportswriter of the Year Peter King will join Vitale, Albom and 106 State Sportscaster and Sportswriter of the Year Awards.  They’ll be honored as part of the 54th Annual NSSA Awards Weekend in Salisbury, NC, June 8-10, 2013.

After many years of coaching on the scholastic, collegiate and NBA levels, Vitale joined ESPN in December 1979.  He did their very first televised college basketball game, DePaul vs. Wisconsin.  Everyone knows him as “Dickie V” for his enthusiasm and passion for the game.  Vitale was elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008.  In addition to his television work, Vitale is also a fervent supporter of several charities.  His Dick Vitale Gala, held in Sarasota, Florida, has helped to raise more than $10 million for the V Foundation for Cancer Research.

Albom is a longtime sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press, who has enjoyed crossover success as a best-selling author.  His books – Tuesdays with Morrie, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day and Have A Little Faith – have sold more than 33 million copies.  Albom hosts his own radio show on WJR in Detroit and is an accomplished playwright, screenplay writer and musician.  He has also founded seven charities.  One of those —  A Hole in the Roof Foundation — operates the Have Faith Haiti Mission, which cares for Haiti’s impoverished and orphaned youth.  Albom previously won the NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year Award in 1998.

Patrick is one of the most versatile sportscasters working today.  Host of The Dan Patrick Show on radio (distributed on television through DirecTV Sports Networks), Patrick has also hosted several events on NBC TV and NBC Sports Network, including Football Night in America, the London Olympics and the Stanley Cup playoffs.  Patrick’s first network tv job was as a CNN Sports reporter and anchor.  He moved to ESPN in 1989 and paired with Keith Olberman on the network’s highly-successful sports news flagship, Sportscenter.  Patrick also won the NSSA National Sportscaster of the Year Award in 1999.

A former sports reporter at the Cincinnati Enquirer and Newsday, King is widely regarded as one of today’s most-respected NFL writers.  King joined Sports Illustrated in 1989 and has earned legendary status for his 8,000-plus word Monday Morning Quarterback posts on SI.com.  In addition to his SI work, King appears on NBC’s Football Night in America show during the NFL season.  He also won the NSSA National Sportswriter of the Year Award in 2010.

VOTING PROCESS

NSSA members in each state nominate up to three people for state and national awards from mid-October through mid-November.  The names of the top two vote-getters (plus ties) appear on the final ballot.  If a minimum of two candidates fail to earn a minimum number of nomination votes, that category requires a write-in vote on the final ballot.

Final ballot voting is conducted throughout the month of December.  In the event of ties, a tiebreaker vote is conducted.  If there is still a tie after the tiebreaker vote, that contest is declared a tie and the candidates are declared co-winners.

Note: I’m going to be out for a couple of weeks. However, I’m leaving behind some gifts for the holidays: The best of my Q/As. I’ll feature a new one each day through Jan. 2. Please check in. Happy Holidays to all.

*********

Posted in two parts on June 11, 12

Note: Feinstein makes his debut today for the CBS Sports Radio Network, handling the 9 a.m.-noon (ET) slot. At the time of our interview, he was working for Mad Dog Radio.

You would think being inducted Monday to the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame in North Carolina would be the top thrill for John Feinstein this week. However, the noted author also has something else on his agenda:

A command performance from Robert Redford.

The actor invited Feinstein to Sundance in Utah Saturday to discuss books at one of his arts functions. It’s such a unique opportunity that the Golf Channel gave Feinstein permission to skip the third round of the U.S. Open in San Francisco to attend the event.

“He heard me on NPR promoting a book,” Feinstein said. “When I called the Golf Channel, they said, ‘Yeah, you’ve got to be there.’ It’s pretty cool.”

Feinstein, 56, has enjoyed plenty of cool moments in his long career. More than enough to merit a nod to the Hall, where he will go in with Bob Costas on the sportscasters side.

He is the greatest selling sports book author of all time; his 29th book, Rush for the Gold, aimed for kids, just hit the shelves. Nearly 30 years after he wrote it, Feinstein still is fielding compliments for his breakthrough, A Season on the Brink.

However, the changing publishing industry (much lower fees) has even affected bestselling authors like Feinstein. It has forced him to take on other duties to make up for the loss in revenue. While he says he enjoys his new gig as co-host with Bruce Murray on the Beyond the Brink show on SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Radio, he frankly admits it is something he is doing out of “necessity rather than want.”

Several times during our interview, Feinstein talked about the need to find the time to exercise in the wake of having heart bypass surgery in 2009. It all makes for a compressed and hectic lifestyle for Feinstein.

I checked in with Feinstein last week. Here’s the first part of my Q/A where he talks about his career, past and present. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss his views on sports talk radio.

What does it mean to be inducted into the NSSA Hall?

It’s up there. You look at the names on the writing side: Red Smith, Jim Murray, Dave Kindred, heck, Damon Runyon. Bob Ryan got inducted last year. That what it means to me. When you get older, you get a lot of honors and you say, ‘OK, thank you.’ But this is one where you go, ‘Wow. This is cool.’

How does it feel to go with Bob Costas?

It’s thrilling for me because I will be the tallest inductee. He actually called to congratulate me. We both grew up in the business together. In the early 80s, he was calling college basketball games for NBC and I was covering college basketball for the Washington Post. It’ll be great to go in with him.

What does this award signify about your career?

It says I’m old. It’s the old cliche: It’s nice to be recognized by your peers. I’ve learned to take compliments from people in stages. To this day, I still have people who say they love watching me on Sports Reporters. I haven’t been on the show since 2007.

When they say, they enjoy me on the Golf Channel or that they loved Season on a Brink, I say, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ Now if they say they love A Civil War (Army vs. Navy), they’re my best friend. Civil War is my favorite book.

To have people understand what it means to write 29 books and work at the Post all these years, that’s more important to me than a fan poll about who’s your favorite sportswriter. Not that I’d win anyway.

Your last book, One on One, was personal, telling the back stories of people you covered in your books. Why did you go that route?

The great thing about doing that book was that I realized I developed some real relationships through the years. When you do a book, it isn’t just five minutes in front of a locker. You spend time with these people. To be able to go back to those people you haven’t seen in years, you realize there was some kind of relationship and trust that was built.

Any new books in the works?

I’m doing a book on Triple A baseball. The other day I watched the PawSox play the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

How have you been affected by the changes in the book business?

It doesn’t dim my desire to write books, but it’s harder because the money has gone down. It’s gone down for John Grisham too. I had a long period where I could focus on books and do other stuff that I chose to do. Now, I enjoy doing the radio show, but it takes four hours out of my day.

Because I’m not making as much as I need to on the books, because of (supporting a family), it forces me to take on more work where, frankly, I’d rather be focused on books. It’s not a matter of choice. It’s a matter of necessity.

You’ve done books for Little Brown for years. Now you’re next book will be with Doubleday. Why the change?

After One on One, we made a mutual decision to go in different directions. Little Brown has gotten much more into publishing fiction. I started to feel a little uncomfortable and less of a priority.

You’re also working as a contributor to the Golf Channel. How did that come about?

When they reached out to me, I said, I’ve never had good experiences with TV. I told them I used to do essays for CBS. They said, fine, let’s do that.

It’s great, and I enjoy everybody over there. But if it was up to me, instead of being on the set, I’d rather be walking the course or working the range. That’s no putdown to the Golf Channel. Writing is what I love. It’s what I do best.

How do you balance everything?

It’s not easy. I try to write every morning before the show starts. But I also have to exercise. It’s something I must do. The radio show takes up a good portion of my day. When it’s over, I still need to have the energy to do the reporting and writing.

You’re 56. What frontiers are there left for you to conquer?

It’s interesting. Again, it comes down to necessity vs. want. Necessity keeps me doing radio and TV. I still love writing for the Post. That’s something I’ll always do. I love writing the books. I love doing the books for kids. You get those letters from kids or parents of kids, who say their kid never read a book until he read mine.

If there’s one thing I haven’t done is that I’d like to write a play. I’m 99.9 percent sure it never would leave the house. I love the theater. I’ve always thought Red Auerbach could be a great one-man play. I would like to write a play about men and their relationships in sports.

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I just haven’t had the time to do it.

What has it been like doing a daily radio show?

I haven’t found it that hard. I can talk for four hours with taking a breath.

It took a while for Bruce and I to adjust. He had been doing it alone. We have different ideas for what makes good sports talk radio. Bruce is more traditional. He focuses on games, NFL, NBA, baseball. We had an argument on a Monday about what was the big story: Tiger Woods winning the Memorial or Celtics-Heat. I thought it was Tiger. He thought it was Celtics-Heat.

Tiger Woods, for better or worse, is the best-known athlete in the world. I tend to talk about people, tell stories about people. Bruce likes to break down the games. It’s OK to get two different guys. Over the course of four hours, you don’t want to sound the same.

Is it possible to do a successful sports talk show without a lot of bluster?

Tony Kornheiser has shown you can be successful by doing a smart show. A lot of what I do comes from him. His philosophy is that you don’t have people on just because they are big names. A couple of times, they came to me and said, ‘We can get so and so.’ I said, ‘He’s terrible.’ Tony has a no athletes rule. I don’t think I can get away with that, but I’d rather have on a smart TV commentator or journalist or a coach willing to talk.

They booked (Baltimore GM) Dan Duquette. The Orioles have had a lot of success. Dan came on for 15 minutes and it was physically painful. Then I booked (Baltimore baseball writer) Peter Schmuck. He was great. Peter’s going to be honest, while GMs are paid to hide stuff.

Whether or not we can succeed this way, I don’t know. I’m going to try to do it.

What is your view on callers?

If you get a smart caller, that’s fine. Let him make a few points. But if you get someone who is screaming, get him off. Bruce said, ‘Oh no, you can’t do that.’ I said, ’Not only can you do that, but you should.’

We had a cadre of callers who were pissed when I first got here. Part of it was people reacting negatively to change and part of it was people who felt it was their show. One day, we had a guy who was screaming because he was put on hold. I said, ‘Fine, don’t call.’

Some of those callers have gone away, and we’ve replaced them with some quality callers. We have 6-8 regular callers where I’m kind of interested in what they have to say.

What do you bring to the show?

I think I’m able to add some things because of my background. Because of what and who I’ve covered through the years. Sometimes I tell stories about people I know. Like when Casey Martin qualified for the U.S. Open. I talked about being in the Supreme Court when they heard his case, and then talking about it to Casey later. I talked about some of the arguments I witnessed in the locker room. I told the story of Fred Couples arguing with Payne Stewart. Fred thought he should get a cart because he had a bad back. Your typical sports talk host doesn’t know this.

What kind of feedback have you gotten thus far?

It’s been positive. But you know in TV and radio, you’re great until the day they fire you.

Note: I’m going to be out for a couple of weeks. However, I’m leaving behind some gifts for the holidays: The best of my Q/As. I’ll feature a new one each day through Jan. 2. Please check in. Happy Holidays to all.