I don’t really understand why anyone in their right mind would care about Halls of Fame. Sure, sports writers take them very seriously, but has anyone met a sportswriter who was in his right mind? The Baseball Hall of Fame gets the most press because the writers are trying to keep cheaters who used steroids out of their museum. Any museum that keeps Sammy Sosa out is not ok with me. Plus, haven’t these sportswriters heard the old adage (which I live by) that “if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin”? While I may not care about Halls of Fame in general, that does not stop me from producing my own Podcast Hall of Fame. None of these fine people will cheat you out of your time. This is my second annual Podcast Hall of Fame and I limited myself to 10-ish. If you’d like to look at last year’s group, here it is. We had to say good bye to some quality entertainment (cue sad music), including The Cheers podcast (“Hello!”), Real Talk with Jason Whitlock (“Welcome!” [I expect Whitlock will be back with an ESPN podcast when his personal Grantland site launches]), and the Fantasy Nomad Show (“inaudible”). The Trenches also came to an end as Ephraim Salaam moved to Fox Sports. He was replaced on the Grantland NFL Podcast by Bill Barnwell, but I am not sure if Barnwell and incumbent Robert Mays like each other that much. I listen, but it isn’t Hall-worthy. I’d also like to give an honorable mention to Chris Morgan’s Existential Parachute Pants: A 90’s Pop Culture Podcast, which replaced Cheers. It is slightly more focused than the previous iteration, but did not quite make this year’s nepotism wing. Here we go. Podcasts are listed in order that I listen to them each week.
The Sports Wing
The Starters – Last year, this podcast was called The Basketball Jones and was broadcast from Toronto. The fellows made the ambitious move to NBA TV/.com and are now coming out of Atlanta. The move has caused some changes in the show. Because the show is also broadcast on NBA TV, it has been streamlined to 45 minutes, which is generally a good thing (for example, no Rounders updates about Tas Melas’s softball team). On the downside, the podcast tends to focus on some video (which I can’t see), there is no more swearing, they have dropped the audio drops (they need one for “Wedgie!”), and they tend to trip over their words because time is limited. Nevertheless, the move was a good one and has given The Starters access to people like Brent Barry who adds a nice touch to the show on a weekly basis. I think they were named The Starters because there were five of them at the beginning. Now, I am not sure. Still, I listen to them every morning as I pound away at the elliptical machine and they keep me up-to-date on the silliness and big news in the NBA.
Fantasy Hoops Insider Podcast – This is easily my favorite fantasy-related podcast and is coming achingly close to hitting the nepotism wing. Per my usual, I tweet podcast reviews. Hosts Josh Hayes and “Fantasy Moses” Earl Exman are good enough to respond to my tweets, and mention me often on the show. Of late, I have become the Pronunciation Czar and critique their inability to pronounce NBA names, particularly Giannis Antetokounmpo (it’s not that hard, listen here.) The hosts work together in Las Vegas and have a very strong chemistry. They can joke and argue about basketball matters and stick to fantasy matters with a nicely formatted show. I also recommend their website, which has incoming articles from a host of (largely Australian, it seems) fantasy writers.
Slate’s Hang Up & Listen – Hang Up & Listen is another relatively new addition to my weekly listening and was not among last year’s class. I wasn’t quite sure if this was going to be a keeper at this time last year because it reminded me too much of NPR’s sports news coverage (which often includes Frank DeFord, who is not my favorite). However, NPR correspondents Mike Pesca and Stefan Fatsis (whose books about competitive Scrabble
and kicking with the Broncos
, I have read and enjoyed) are led by Slate’s Josh Levin into many excellent conversations about sports. They are very inclusive and talk about a number of sports I couldn’t give a fig about (team handball?), but they are also very intelligent and give in depth and often funny looks at sports. Pesca, in particular, makes me laugh and also often gets on his soap box to point out the hypocrisy of sports. In other words, he is my hero. I am not one to fast forward past sections, and use the team handball parts to learn about new things (or just zone out for a few minutes).
ESPN: The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons – Despite my occasional issues with Mr. Simmons, his podcasts are still enjoyable after all of these years. Simmons now devotes most of his time to basketball (and frequently has Grantland’s Zach Lowe on the podcast to discuss various matters), but the football podcasts are the best. He has Sal Iacono from the Jimmy Kimmel show to guess Las Vegas’s betting lines. The not so good podcasts include Simmons’s dad as a guest. After listening to the first few conversations with Bill Simmons Sr., I decided not to listen to them anymore. I simply found them too annoying, even more partisan to Boston sports, and too reminiscent of similar conversations in my own life to be worth listening to. I also don’t care for his pop culture podcasts for the most part, but I like listening to The Sports Guy on sports.
The Non-Sports Wing
It’s That Episode – Another new entry to the Hall of Fame. The premise of the podcast is simple: a guest comes to host Craig Rowin’s apartment and they watch an episode of any show the guest chooses. By the way, they watch the show off-air. Rowin is a member of the Upright Citizens Brigade (a comedy troop) and almost all of his guests are comedians, so the podcast is generally entertaining, even if the show the guest chooses is not. The conversation often veers off of the intended show (aka, talking about “other crap”) and gets into all kinds of pop culture and current comedy scene topics. I particularly like Rowin’s Ah-nold impersonation. I was introduced to It’s That Episode by…
The Jeff Rubin Jeff Rubin Show – Rubin was a guest on Rowin’s show when the two discussed Saved by the Bell. From there, I was hooked. Jeff has since moved from New York, where he worked on CollegeHumor.com, to Los Angeles, where he produces videos for BuzzFeed. The show of “interviews you didn’t know you wanted to hear” comes on every other week and continues to amaze me by making the most of his tag line. Rubin delves deeply into “nerd culture,” and continues to be an excellent interviewer. He really listens to his guests and asks excellent, in depth questions. Recent episodes have featured Chuck Klosterman talking about Breaking Bad, a cleaner from Hoarders, the history of Nickelodeon, and even his mom. He even had an entire show about pizza boxes (which didn’t quite measure up, but even Michael Jordan didn’t hit all of his shots … or did he?). Consistently enjoyable and actually educational.
Grantland Pop Culture (Hollywood Prospectus/Do You Like Prince Movies?) – I am a big fan of Grantland, but I find the podcasts are rather hit-and-miss. I mentioned the football podcast above and there are a number that I don’t listen to. However, this pair of pop culture podcasts are very good, even though they sometimes overlap. Hollywood Prospectus is the more TV-focused of the two. Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald appear to have been friends for a long time, so their chemistry is very good. When a good television show is on (Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones), they discuss the show in depth and from many angles. The show loses its focus a bit when there are no top shows. They also used to discuss books on occasion, but haven’t done so in awhile. Do You Like Prince Movies? is the movie-oriented show with Alex Pappademas and Wesley Morris, who were also friends prior to being broadcast together over the internet. As movie reviewers, they like movies more than I do, but I enjoy hearing about all of the movies that will not come to southern Louisiana.
NPR: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!/NPR: All Songs Considered: While these are two separate entities, they are both on NPR, and I don’t have much to add to what I wrote last year. All Songs Considered is still my connection to new music and I discovered excellent songs like “Don’t Wait” by Mapei and “The Wire” by Haim (although the video is not good). All I ask is that they end the Christmas skits. Ugh. Wait Wait is a news-based quiz show that just makes me smile every week. Host Peter Sagal is sly and his panelists are always on top of their game. Here are special kudos to Paula Poundstone, who is very, very funny.
The Nepotism Wing
Prospect 361 Podcast: Rich Wilson’s excellent weekly fantasy baseball podcast has moved from the sports to nepotism wing because I have been a guest on the show a handful of times in the past year. Rich and Tim McLeod have strong chemistry forged over three years’ worth of shows and they sometimes dig to the bottom of the fantasy baseball barrel to have me on. Usually, they have better, more knowledgeable guests to fill out the roster including Markus Potter and Ian Kahn. The show is very inclusive and has an active chat room (in which I often participate on Sunday nights under my pseudonym). If a person likes fantasy baseball and wants to be part of a burgeoning community, then this is the place to go.
Fantasy Flash Point: The final entrant in this year’s Hall of Fame is another fantasy baseball podcast. As it turns out, Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the epicenter of fantasy baseball and a high school classmate of mine, Chuck Anderson, has started his own podcast. The show has been on for 15 weeks and Chuck has been good enough to have me on a couple of times when my schedule allows. He is often complemented by Jim Sitzberger, and the two are very knowledgeable fantasy baseball owners. To his vast credit, Chuck wants to focus on the game of fantasy baseball, so there isn’t any extraneous talk (for example, no nonsense about the Hall of Fame). In addition to knowing his stuff, Chuck comes up with interesting angles on the game. If you are preparing for a fantasy baseball draft over the next few weeks, take a listen.
Perry Missner is a college basketball enthusiast who writes for RotoWire along with several other outlets. He welcomes your comments on Twitter at @PerryMissner or via email at [email protected]
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