Bits & Pieces

Pure Comedy

“At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote.” ~ Emo Phillips

By Kim J. Harmon

Emo Phillips, a stand-up comic, used to say the funniest things I had ever heard come out of my car stereo (I played the cassette over and over until the tape finally got gobbled up one terrible summer afternoon).

But sports talk radio has filled that void. Sure, you can have your Bill Engvall or Larry the Cable Guy or even Robin Williams, but for pure comedy nothing beats sports talk radio – ESPN, WFAN or those two crazy guys up in Massachusetts.

“When I was a kid, I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord, in his wisdom, didn’t work that way. So I just stole one and asked him to forgive me.” ~ Emo Phillips

Chris Russo from the Mike & The Mad Dog Show on WFAN may be as funny an individual as there is on the radio (thanks to his manic style, bizarre take on sports, and occasional fractured English), but the guys who present the sports “news” and controversies of the day in total seriousness have my vote for the funniest guys on the radio.

Last week, Michael Strahan of the New York Giants was on a sports talk show and said, essentially, that Plaxico Burress was a great player and a great guy to have around, but when he quits on a pass route like he did (against the Tennessee Titans) he quits on the team. Well, beat reporters and radio personalities took to that like a school of sharks sensing blood in the water.

They swooped down on Burress to ask him about what Strahan said and then attacked Strahan for saying it and for getting testy with reporters (excuse me, ESPN Radio people, he wasn’t “screaming”; he was merely angry). Michael Kay goes on and on and on about how Strahan sounds like a fool for attacking the reporter verbally and how the whole thing is just another sign of a bad Giants locker room and a season on the brink of utter destruction.

I never laughed so hard.

What was so hilarious is that everyone – EVERYONE – seemed to overlook the fact that Strahan WAS RIGHT. Burress quit on the pass that turned into an interception (and it was not the first time) – Strahan knew it, the coaching staff knew it, anyone watching the game knew it, and the reporters frothing at the mouth to expose this “dissension” in the locker room knew it. The only person who apparently didn’t know it was Burress himself and there can’t be anything funnier than that.

“People always ask me, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ Well, I don’t have an alibi.” ~ Emo Phillips

You want more hilarity? How about all the moralistic hand-wringing over Bobby Knight popping one of his players on the chin on the sidelines? One yahoo emailed the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN and essentially likened the pop to a crime against humanity … except that same guy probably didn’t care when Knight urged one of his kids into the game with a swift swat on the butt (which, I guarantee you, was a lot harder than that pop on the chin).

“I was walking down fifth avenue today and I found a wallet, and I was gonna return it, rather than keep it, but I thought: well, if I lost a hundred and fifty dollars, how would I feel? And I realized I would want to be taught a lesson.” ~ Emo Phillips

Then there is that writer from Chicago (or wherever) trying to justify, on the Dan Patrick Show on ESPN, the way he voted for the American League MVP in baseball ... first off arguing it’s more than numbers that makes a player MVP and then saying he put Alex Rodriguez on the team even though A-Rod – with all the distractions he gave the New York Yankees with his dismal slumps – was probably the least valuable of any player in baseball.

Now there are sports guys across this nation debating whether or not Mark McGwire deserves to be voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and writers (ostensibly, voters) saying they won’t vote for him on the first ballot as (a sign of protest” or “to send a message.”

I laugh at all this moralistic hand-wringing (there’s that phrase again) about “cheating” in baseball since I have never seen, anywhere, definitive proof that steroids provides any benefit whatsoever to baseball players other than as a help in recovering from or preventing injuries (though I don’t doubt there is some benefit). Though I am not an expert in pharmaceuticals or nutrition (anyone who knows me will attest to that), I wager baseball players would receive a greater day-to-day benefit from amphetamines than they would steroids and amphetamines have supposedly been in the game for a very long time.

“It’s about cheating the game!” they scream and yet these are the same people who cheerfully ignored how gigantic McGwire had gotten before he broke the home run record or how massive Sammy Sosa’s head had become during the years he hit better than 60 home runs.

There seems to be a good laugh everywhere.

“When I was ten, my family moved to Downer’s Grove, Illinois. When I was twelve, I found them.” ~ Emo Phillips