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THE SOCIOLOGY
OF SPORTS-TALK
RADIO
Robert L. Kerr
The Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio
Robert L. Kerr
The Sociology
of Sports-Talk Radio
Robert L. Kerr
The University of Oklahoma
Norman
OK, USA
ISBN 978-3-319-67252-6 ISBN 978-3-319-67253-3 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952822
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
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Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
List of Previous Books by Robert Kerr
How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains

Postmodernism: The Billy Clyde Conundrum
The Corporate Free Speech Movement: Cognitive Feudalism and the
Endangered Marketplace of Ideas
The Rights of Corporate Speech: Mobil Oil and the Legal Development
of the Voice of Big Business
Half Luck and Half Brains: The Kemmons Wilson Story
Images of Texarkana
v
Contents
1 Introduction: Why the Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

Matters 1
2 The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio 19
3 More Intensity in Major Regional Talk 37
4 Small Talk - With a Big, Classic Clash of Narratives 59
5 Straight Talk from Beyond the Male Gaze 79
6 Conclusion: What Matters Most Sociologically 93
Index 97
vii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Why the Sociology

of Sports-Talk Radio Matters
Abstract The opening chapter introduces this study of the social struc-
tures and processes that make sports-talk radio today such a vibrant societal
milieu and seeks to identify the essential sociological dynamics that make all
that endless talking so vital to so many. Through a qualitatively descriptive
analytic focus on the sociological dynamics of the talk of sports-talk radio, a
remarkable world where so very many come together to interact frequently,
insistently, colorfully, emotionally, and quite often with stunning ferocity in
processes by which human communicators construct meaning.
Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Postmodernist theory
Talk radio… is about as accurate as a North Korean test missile.
When Oklahoma State University Head Football Coach Mike Gundy

used that analogy at a press conference in late 2016 to dismiss the valid-
ity of most of the talk on sports-talk radio, he was referencing the way so
many of the test-missile efforts by North Korea at that time were lucky
even to launch, much less accurately strike a target.
From our vantage point looking back now from the future, we can see
he did not consider the possibility of that failure rate declining enough
that the missiles could represent a potential threat to many nations, even
the United States. Nevertheless, Gundy did in a very few words did quite
© The Author(s) 2018 1

R.L. Kerr, The Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3_1
2 R.L. KERR
vividly express an essential sociological dynamic of commercial sports

media that has not—and will not—change.
I took quite a few more words to elaborate upon that dynamic in my
2015 book, How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains
Postmodernism. That work demonstrated how the fundamental assertion
of postmodernist theory—that narratives, or explanatory stories, most
often fail ultimately to reliably explain important social phenomena—
through analysis of media representations of football over the course of
the game’s existence.
Ever since American college students in the mid-nineteenth century
began playing a brutal game that contributed some element of mean-
ing to their lives that they felt their classes did not, its popularity spread
inexorably and proved so fascinating to audiences that one mediated rep-
resentation after another extended its reach still further. Over time, foot-
ball’s essential structure proved fundamentally ideal for both narrative
drama and commercial exploitation.
The appeal of the game enabled it to survive early challenges that
strove sincerely to banish it from civilized society. Reformers saw in the
game a serious undermining of Americans’ physical, intellectual, and
moral well being. But rule changes and its phenomenal popularity and
commercial viability allowed it to flourish—as did the rise of two com-
peting metanarratives.
First established was the Frank Merriwell model of a football player as
an honorable hero, “the picture of an honest, healthy straight-shooter,
always on the side of truth and honor,” inspired by a fictional charac-
ter whose proliferation in novels and magazine installments dominated
media tropes for decades. But eventually, the darker side of the game
gave rise to another model that championed the player as hedonist often
bordering on sociopath. In fiction and in fact, the Billy Clyde Puckett
model would prove so primally connected to football’s essential appeal
that it grew to rival and often muscle out Merriwellian themes in the
meaning-making efforts of popular media.
Yet it is in the ongoing demonstration of the game’s age-old inabil-
ity to resolve what I characterized as its “Billy Clyde conundrum” that
we can apprehend the even broader assertion of postmodernist theory—
that we are better off seeking a multiplicity of narratives than pretending
grand resolutions are possible in the first place.
I proposed this as the ultimate lesson from that study: We may want
grand answers, but we probably won’t get them—particularly when
1 INTRODUCTION: WHY THE SOCIOLOGY OF SPORTS-TALK … 3
it comes to our most prominent cultural institutions, like commercial

football.
But what football and mediated sport more generally do for us instead
is spawn the endless narratives that evidence suggests we actually need
even more than reliable answers. Indeed, that seems to be a much more
likely explanation for why both commercial football and the almost
incomprehensibly vast media cosmos that it inspires not only exist but
endure and mean so much to so many Americans.
So that, in a nutshell, was the scholarly contribution of How
Postmodernism Explains Football—arguably as close to a unified theory as
has been fully articulated for understanding the driving force that pow-
ers the sociological phenomenon represented by mediated commercial
football, and to a great extent mediated sport more broadly: What I con-
ceptualized in that study as the “hyper-mediated marketplace of com-
mercial-football narratives.”
Our innate, seemingly insatiable need for mediated narratives of that
sort—even if most of them are no more reliable than the malfunctioning
missiles of Coach Gundy’s analogy—provides insight into the sociology
not just of commercial football or even sport more generally but of so
much societal obsession as manifest in recent decades. Similarly, hyper-
mediated marketplaces of business, entertainment, politics, and so much
more thrive on a scale beyond anything that could have been imagined
a century before, or even just a few decades ago. Although many of the
underlying component dynamics are not that new, it has been only in the
late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries that technology has made
possible for such an unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement
and rejection to be experienced so commonly, so perpetually—because
of the way that the reach of media as we know it has been multiplied
exponentially. Almost overnight, it seems that reality has expanded
through a technological and sociological transformation that extends
galaxies beyond the traditional press and broadcast networks via endless
talk radio, social media, blogging, posting, texting, and tweeting—just to
attempt to capture the uncapturable in a manageable few words.
This study seeks to build upon the theoretical constructs established
in How Postmodernism Explains Football so as to provide a fuller body of
descriptive analysis of the social interaction transpiring so profusely in the
hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives.
It will consider that mass of narrative production and consumption at
a more fundamental level, specifically examining the social structures and
4 R.L. KERR
processes that make sports-talk radio today such a vibrant societal milieu
and seeking to identify the essential sociological dynamics that make all
that endless talking so vital to so many. It will analyze in narrative detail
just what it is that humans do in that communicative milieu that they
consider so deeply important—and make no mistake, the intensity of the
interactions among participants demonstrates with consistency and clar-
ity what a place of almost unequaled significance it represents in their
understanding of social life.
The study will so endeavor through a qualitatively descriptive analytic
focus on the sociological dynamics of the talk of sports-talk radio itself—
or in more formally methodological language, interrogating for social
significance this profusion of mediated representations of sport to con-
sider how they contribute to recurring themes and dominant frames and
encourage those involved to develop thematically consonant understand-
ings. In that remarkable world where so very many today come together
to interact frequently, insistently, colorfully, emotionally, and quite often
with stunning ferocity, the analysis of this study will place in sociological
context these significant bodies of media discourse and the role they play
in processes by which human communicators construct meaning.
The social process is “the dynamic component of sport in society,”
wrote sociologist Wilbert Marcellus Leonard in his classic A Sociological
Perspective of Sport, emphasizing the critical elements of that activity as
“the repetitive and reoccurring interactional patterns characterizing indi-
vidual and group transactions.” Sports-talk radio offers a remarkably rich
source for considering such interactional patterns. It has been found,
for example, to contrast with political talk radio in that it is “more tol-
erant of diverse perspectives,” as cultural studies scholar David Nylund
has discussed. The media venues where sports discourse flourishes in
many ways provide “a socially sanctioned gossip sheet,” as media-studies
scholar Lawrence A. Wenner has characterized it in discussing the quali-
ties of sport communication scholarship in his volume Media, Sports, and
Society, where “the legitimized gossip… is about sporting events rather
than social events, but it is socializing nonetheless.”
More broadly, this study contributes to greater understanding of what
sociologist David Rowe formulated as “the media sports cultural com-
plex,” which he said, “signifies both the primacy of the sports media and
the great cultural formation of which it is part.” That complex is driven
in significant part, as Wenner wrote in MediaSport (a title referencing
his concept of the “new genetic strain” produced via “cultural fusing of
sport with communication”) by the fact that sport is a source of “con-

tent that is more compelling to many than other artifacts and respon-
sibilities of daily living” and provides “a conduit or medium through
which feelings, values, and priorities are communicated.” Certainly, the
analysis in this study will show, all that is most vividly documented in the
socially interactive world of sports-talk radio.
The Vital Connection Between Postmodernist

Theory and Mediated Sport
The way I put it in originally making the case for the vital relevance of
this approach was to imagine that a top team of theorists of postmodern-
ism had set to work in research-and-development laboratories to identify
a textbook microcosm of human social activity that would vibrantly dem-
onstrate their essential ideas at work. In that hypothetical scenario, they
very well could come out with something along the lines of the mediated
game of commercial football.
So the proposition re-asserted and extended for this study is that
thinking about mediated sport and postmodernism in the manner put
forth here can suggest useful understandings of complex phenomena and
offer practical sociological insights into the human condition.
As I have noted before, some scholars of postmodernism will take
issue with that proposition—or any such assertion put forth in so tangi-
ble and linear of terms. It suggests too strongly a narrative of such grand
design—or metanarrative—that it presumes to offer explanatory power
that postmodernist thought insists can never be presumed. That said,
this study will press forward with drawing upon primal elements of post-
modernist thought that fashion an approximate template of analysis for
arriving at more essential meanings of concern in these pages.
Also as I have noted before, the rather unwieldy term approximate
template cannot be avoided because even suggesting that any more for-
mal method of analysis could conclusively be derived from postmodernist
premises would be—in the most orthodox interpretation of postmodern-
ist theory—truly a narrative too grand. That school of thought rejects
any mode of interpretation so clearly systematic.
The best articulations of postmodernist theory show us that so much
of what we pretend is consistently and clearly explainable actually is not.
The worst suggests that nothing is explainable. What might be charac-
terized as a fundamentalist school of postmodernist thought can seem
6 R.L. KERR
to suggest that anyone claiming to reliably explain postmodernism is

an unreliable authority by definition. And working in this vineyard, one
must concede the conceptual possibility that any attempt to explain post-
modernism must indeed fail—if the fallibility of metanarratives is con-
sidered an absolute, then any explanation of something as complex and
nuanced as postmodernism must indeed fail. But then, holding an abso-
lutist line on the fallibility of metanarratives would also mean that such
a line itself represents a metanarrative that also can only fail. And clearly,
not all scholars of postmodernism hold that any attempt to write acces-
sibly about postmodernism must on its face be rejected as another failed
metanarrative.
So, as in my previous work, this study embraces that line of scholar-
ship and considers postmodernist thought too valuable to only be dis-
cussed either incomprehensibly or not at all—and further, too valuable
to split hairs over narrow, technical definitions of key terms like metan-
arrative and narrative. The latter can be thought of here for everyday
working purposes simply as stories told to explain or give meaning, and
the former as a greater story told to explain many others. And then,
it follows that we may also consider relatively lesser stories in terms of
mini-narratives, micro-narratives, etc.
The postmodernist theory maintains that we accept all sorts of
explanations—including sometimes the really grand ones, the metanar-
ratives—that ultimately can’t actually tell us what we want to know, espe-
cially when we seek to reach practical insights into the most slippery and
consequential mysteries of the human condition. So part of this chapter
is devoted to laying out the case for asserting that what is perhaps the
most vital element of mediated sport, sociologically, is inherent in the
way it provides us as individuals and as a society remarkably compelling
sources for expressing and consuming endless, ever-competing narratives
in our primal quest to engage in the making of meaning.
Recognizing Mediated Sport’s Social Construction

Rather than providing any sort of “scientific reason or philosophi-
cal logic,” or even “common sense and accessibility,” literary scholar
Simon Malpas observed, postmodernist theory as more often articulated
“seeks to grasp what escapes these processes of definition and celebrates
what resists or disrupts them.” Discourse on postmodernism is “often
associated with philosophical writings and social and political theo-

ries that are complex, dense, esoterically sophisticated and all too often
replete with jargon and incomprehensible prose, which intimidate even
the most sophisticated readers,” said Michael Drolet, who writes on the
history of political thought.
Yet a persuasive body of related scholarship advances the assumption
that within the concept of postmodernism, there is something more than
“academic irresponsibility and ivory-tower indifference” that rejects “all
wisdom of the past” by “playfully appeal[ing] to our subjectivities” but
making “no genuine judgment of what is better or worse,” as philoso-
pher Harvey Cormier put it. As utilized here to assert proposed under-
standings of complex phenomena, it can prove useful in advancing
understanding of mediated sport as a phenomenon that has been soci-
etally constructed, even though it has grown so ubiquitous that it may
feel as if it just is something that has been with us always, perhaps almost
naturally. Linda Hutcheon, a literary theorist who has written extensively
on postmodernism, characterized its “initial concern” as an effort “to de-
naturalize some of the dominant features of our way of life; to point out
that those entities that we unthinkingly experience as ‘natural’… are in
fact ‘cultural’; made by us, not given to us.”
In part, advancing that understanding is enhanced through a deep
skepticism of the explanatory power of metanarratives, what sociolo-
gist Frank Webster characterized as an “opposition to what we may call
the Enlightenment’s tradition of thought which searches to identify
the rationalities… which govern change and behavior.” Postmodernist
theory argues that such efforts to articulate linear, explanatory narra-
tives are “disintegrating, losing their validity and legitimacy and increas-
ingly prone to criticism,” and that it is becoming ever more “difficult for
people to organize and interpret their lives in light of meta-narratives of
whatever kind,” declared Dominic Strinati, also a sociologist. Within the
social sciences, modernism “is generally understood to identify a clus-
ter of changes – in science, industry and ways of thought” commonly
referred to as the Enlightenment that “brought about the end of feudal
and agricultural societies in Europe and which has made its influence felt
pretty well everywhere in the world”—while postmodernism “announces
a fracture with this,” Webster said.
Most centrally, the school of postmodernism does that by challeng-
ing what are variously referred to as metanarratives, grand narratives,
8 R.L. KERR
rationalities, or totalities, striving “to demonstrate the fractures and

silences that have always been a part of the grand narratives,” in Malpas’s
summary. It represents a perspective “axiomatic to postmodern thought”
that “all the accounts of the making of the modern world, whether
Marxist or Whig, radical or conservative, that claim to perceive the main-
springs of development… are to be resisted” because they “have been
discredited by the course of history.” Political philosopher Jean-Francois
Lyotard described such resistance as the “antimythologizing manner in
which we must ‘work through’ the loss of the modern.” Sociologist Jean
Baudrillard characterized postmodernism as “the immense process of the
destruction of meaning” and declared that “he who strikes with mean-
ing is killed by meaning.” In rejecting “the claim of any theory to abso-
lute knowledge,” postmodernism proposes instead “more contingent
and probabilistic claims to the truth” that articulate it in terms of a more
“diverse, iconoclastic, referential and collage-like character,” in Strinati’s
phrasing. Thus, literary critic Fredric Jameson offered in his influential
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, that one way
to think of postmodernism quite arguably could be as “the narrative of
the end of narratives.”
When postmodernist theorists speak of the way modernist grand
narratives of earlier times have been shown to be flawed, they tend to
most generally refer to ideas such as Fascism, communism, capitalism,
Christianity, Marxism, and others that represent major, social-organizing
philosophies. All still have varying numbers of adherents, but all have
been shown to be objectively less reliable than once held to be as abso-
lute guides to truth. More broadly, the same line of reasoning is applied
to all sorts of theories, explanations, assertions, etc., that are shown to be
similarly unreliable—with postmodernist theory contending that much
or even all modernist/Enlightenment rationalities ultimately suffer such
a fate.
Therefore, for the purposes of this study, not only that which can for-
mally be called metanarratives can be thought of in this context but also
less expansive assertions that can be referenced simply as narratives. That
is, whenever any attempt to neatly explain the meaning of events, devel-
opments, or other subjects of societal interest proves fallible, it could—in
this context—be considered to further confirm essential postmodernist
tenets. As Webster summarized it, “Postmodern thought is characteristi-
cally suspicious of claims from whatever quarter, to be able to identify
‘truth’.”
The Hyper-mediated Narrative Marketplace

As introduced above, a veritable multitude of narrative advancement and
rejection can be seen so commonly today in the way that technological
developments have recently made it possible for virtually every individ-
ual on the planet who wishes—and mind-boggling numbers seemingly
hold that wish quite dearly indeed—to actively, aggressively participate
in what can be understood as a narrative marketplace hyper-mediated
through technological change. Mediated representations are so much
more profuse than ever before or even ever before imaginable. And it is a
highly contentious marketplace of narratives, one in which it often seems
that almost every comment is “characteristically suspicious” of the claims
of almost all others and is fiercely determined to advance its own version
of the truth.
Yet most of them must also be considered as failed narratives. For
most participants in such a narrative marketplace, quite simply, are wrong
most of the time—because actual developments in the sports world are
so completely random as to defy anyone’s ability to know most of the
time what will happen next, or even why past events really happened.
For example, given that only one team can win the championship in any
particular league, virtually each and every narrative concerning each and
every team, except one, in any given season that advances assertions of
success for any but that team is a narrative that failed. So too is any nar-
rative about the one team that did win the championship that advanced
assertions predicting anything except the championship. And even among
that small selection of narratives, one must consider that the narrators
almost always advanced other assertions contradictory in various ways of
the certainty of championship for the team in question—thereby in most
cases undermining to one degree or another the reliability of those few
narratives that theoretically could be argued as successful.
Still, relentlessly, the narrative blitz goes on—and on and on. Quite
simply, it almost never matters how off base or even absolutely wrong
any particular narrative is. This hyper-mediated narrative marketplace
never closes, so participants can effortlessly just move on to propagate
and interrogate ever more streams of narratives that quickly move far
beyond all the ones that failed as they recede more and more rapidly
into a mediated past that rarely matters to anyone. But that is consistent
with what literary critic Brian McHale has written of how postmodern-
ism is most concerned with raising a creative range of questions about
10 R.L. KERR
the nature of reality in any given world. That relevant consistency can be
identified in other key characteristics critical to understanding postmod-
ernist theory.
First, postmodernism “describes the emergence of a society in which
the mass media and popular culture are the most important and power-
ful institutions, and control and shape all other types of social relation-
ships,” as Strinati has emphasized. “Popular cultural signs and media
images increasingly dominate our sense of reality, and the way we define
ourselves and the world around us.” Second, as social theorist Geneviève
Rail focused upon in Sport and Postmodern Times, a collection of essays
she edited on the subject, crucial to postmodernist thought is “the idea
that the world is fragmented into many isolated worlds; it is a collage, a
pastiche of elements randomly grouped in a plurality of local, autono-
mous discourses that cannot be unified by any grand theory,” along with
a preoccupation with “the problem of meaning… as fundamentally slip-
pery and elusive.” Finally, the assertion that mediated sport may derive
its sociological significance more than anything else from serving as a
powerful source of narratives draws upon society’s great need for narra-
tives—in all sorts of matters, not just sport.
Functionally, narratives hardly exist only as stories, amusements, or
diversions. In plain language, narratives make things happen—because
human beings much more often than they realize act upon narratives
that explain what they believe to be transpiring—rather than only on
empirical knowledge of what may actually be happening. Peter Kramer,
a professor of clinical psychiatry, has written convincingly for example of
the role that narratives play in the practice of medicine. Ideally, he has
declared, doctors will “consider data, accompanying narrative, plausi-
bility and, yes, clinical anecdote in their decision making,” because “we
need storytelling, to set us in the clinical moment, remind us of the vari-
ety of human experience and enrich our judgment.” Or consider how
Robert Shiller, the Nobel Prize winning economist, has written of the
way narratives can move markets more dramatically than actual economic
developments—so much so that he states flatly: “Fundamentally, stock
markets are driven by popular narratives, which don’t need basis in solid
fact,” and “these narratives can affect people’s spending behavior, too, in
turn affecting corporate profit margins, and so on. Sometimes such feed-
back loops continue for years.”
So it is actually far from any wacky egghead notion to recognize
the way that commercial sport represents–more than anything else–a
compelling source of narratives that fulfill a deep sociological need.

Indeed, if we holistically consider the full social reality of a mediated
commercial sporting event, we can understand it to be nothing without
the narratives that sponsors, participants, media, fans, and others impose
upon it. For example, fans must embrace the notion that there is great
significance for them—an explanatory story of some sort—in deeply
bonding with one group of individual players wearing a particular uni-
form (rather than those wearing another), when in fact any player, in
theory, could potentially be wearing one uniform or another. How, for
example, would fans respond if the two teams in any given game decided
at halftime to swap uniforms? Would fans still maintain the same bond
with different players wearing “their” team’s uniforms? Or would the
supposedly deep union between the fans and “their” players wearing one
uniform endure when the players switched to the other team’s uniforms?
In essence, what actually happens in all games of football at even the
highest levels of play is no more than what happens when a bunch of kids
get together on a field, court, or street, choose up sides, and see which
can perform what is agreed upon to count as scores more often than
the other team can. To that end, the participants will run and jump and
throw and kick and swing and shove for some period of time—whatever
the particulars of the game at hand may encompass. And beyond that, all
meaning imposed upon those activities is narrative—an effort to develop
stories with explanatory power. It offers textbook examples of processes
that sociological scholars and others would call meaning-making, the
social construction of reality, or narrative creation.
And what happen at the most advanced, most commercialized lev-
els of the game is different only in degree, not really in essence, from
what happens in the most impromptu game at the most local neighbor-
hood level. Yes, at those highest levels, teams select the largest, fastest,
most talented players to practice and prepare with successful coaches in
advance of games against other teams who have selected the largest, fast-
est, most talented players to practice and prepare with other successful
coaches. Then, those teams meet on the same field and try to execute
what they have practiced and prepared to achieve. Certainly, on some
occasions, they do achieve those things—but just as often, indeed far
more often, the results are more random. The things that happen are not
at all what was planned so elaborately.
Regardless, the mediated narratives—and as noted, the possibilities
that term encompasses cast an unimaginably diverse swath today—never
12 R.L. KERR
cease. Before, during and after the games, such narratives seek to impose
meaning upon what will happen, what is happening, what has happened.
And the appetite for such narratives among consumers and producers of
every stripe seems to have no limit.
A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

Although print media have been instrumental in the development of
commercial sport since the nineteenth century, the hyper-mediation of
sports narratives increased with a staggering degree of magnitude when
electronic media began to enter the picture in the early and mid-twen-
tieth century, first with radio and much more so with television. Indeed,
with most sports today, the first time most people experienced any par-
ticular game was when television showed them one. Television alone
dramatically multiplied the number of people who take interest in sports
and expanded the role sports play in the lives of countless individuals and
families. For better or worse, that mushroomed the opportunities for
commercializing sports through media, synergizing explosively with that
escalation of interest and the development of more advanced television
technology.
But today, the teeming narrative pastiche generated through all of the
above comprises only a fraction of the hyper-mediated marketplace of
sports narratives. Today’s fans are conditioned to have access to multiple
games telecast at every level of competition, every day, year-round. But
even that now too exists as only a fraction of the picture in today’s media
cornucopia.
Take sports-talk radio alone. It has become an endless blitz of nar-
ratives spewed forth one after another just by the hosts of the shows—
never mind all the calls from listeners who light up the studio phones
and ignite the air waves. That is, for those who are participating via the
air waves, when so many more are doing so via Internet connections.
And even at that point, we still have touched on only a fraction of the
full, hyper-mediated picture because, yes, now try—just try—to consider
the mass of narrative generation and consumption made possible by a
digitally networked world. Whether there is a game of interest actually in
progress at any given moment has grown truly irrelevant in an age when
the vastly immeasurable flow of online highlights, previews, updates, and
discussion perpetually washes through the hyper-mediated marketplace
with narratives far beyond count.
In this raging maelstrom of exponentially ever more mediated sports

narratives spun out by infinitely more people than ever before, sports
organizations have dramatically expanded their participation in generat-
ing narratives to compete as aggressively as possible in the marketplace.
How Postmodernism Explains Football included, for example, analysis
of the way one of the most prominent college football programs in the
nation, the University of Oklahoma, has developed an in-house multi-
media operation that dwarfs the newsletter and press-release operations
of sports-information directors there and elsewhere of just a few decades
before, churning out an array of mediated football narratives for a vora-
cious market. Like almost anyone in the commercial-football business
today, the university regularly finds itself responding to counter-narra-
tives from the dark side of the game, such as violence and other off-the-
field criminal activity involving players. So it remains vital public relations
to push the Merriwell model as vigorously as ever and to continue push-
ing back against excesses of the Billy Clyde tide.
Coaches involved in commercial sports today frequently find them-
selves devoting as much if not more of their time and effort to all sorts
of media activity as to actual coaching. Quite simply, they are in the nar-
rative-advancing game every bit as much as they are in whatever athletic
games they are hired to manage. How Postmodernism Explains Football
highlighted that with revelatory analysis of the way then Oklahoma
Football Coach Bob Stoops had become so skilled at using his weekly
in-season press conferences to take on all the questions of a roomful of
sports reporters with narrative agendas of their own but vigorously reg-
ularly reframing them on his own terms, advancing his own narratives
and rejecting theirs. The way he pulled off that feat so consistently and
impressively indeed suggests—in the terms of this analysis—his method
can be understood as something of a postmodernist-grounded model for
coaches in the hyper-mediated age; whatever the reasoning or method
through which he may have arrived at it. In an age of such unimaginable
narrative profusion, it can hardly be surprising that a perceptive football
coach would come to grasp how vital it is to his and his program’s inter-
est to staunchly advance narratives that he finds more valid interpreta-
tions of relevant football realities. Clearly, the evidence does suggest
Stoops and other elite coaches are quite skilled at rejecting and counter-
ing narratives that fail to meet that standard.
Certainly, coaches at high-profile programs like Oklahoma’s are always
at risk of having competing narratives undermine their success, given
14 R.L. KERR
the discussion above on how human behavior can be shaped as much or

more by the power of narratives as by more objective realities. For exam-
ple, analysis in How Postmodernism Explains Football highlighted the syn-
drome through which participants in sporting contests who achieve less
success than popularly forecast—as all inevitably must, eventually—then
find that popular sports media virtually always represent it as a failure
on the part of the participants—rather than a failure of media to con-
struct more reliable narratives. But that is simply one fact of life in the
hyper-mediated marketplace of narratives in which big-time coaches in
commercial sports operate today. They must attempt not only to win
as many games as possible but also to advance the narratives they see as
most valid. Sports media, by contrast, have a relatively easier job of only
advancing narratives, with no requirement to also win games.
The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

The rest of this book provides more detailed, macro-level descriptive anal-
ysis of one of the most—arguably the most—vigorous and dynamically
generative venues for contesting sports narratives in all of today’s hyper-
mediated marketplace. This study will focus upon sociological analysis of
sports-talk radio as a mediated place where millions of participants gather to
actively interact–often with a shocking level of passion and indeed aggres-
sion–in a deliberative effort to socially make meaning of the games of sport
as played today and consumed most often through an endless array of media.
Although the first sports-talk-radio station was not launched until the
mid-1960s, more than a thousand stations in the United States today
focus on sports talk, with around two-thirds of those broadcasting noth-
ing but sports talk. While radio is often thought of as a pre-digital, early
twentieth-century medium, sports-talk radio has particularly flourished in
the twenty-first century, with approximately half of the current stations
operating in that format having been launched since 2000.
Sports-talk radio also has adapted remarkably well to the Internet age,
with virtually all stations now being available online as well as via tradi-
tional broadcast. And sports-talk-radio hosts and their listeners operate
interactively and almost seamlessly in today’s web of digital social media
as quite possibly the most prominent and extensively synergized compo-
nent of the hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives.
Methodologically, qualitative framing analysis will be employed
to structure this study’s analysis of the ways that media producers and
consumers construct representations of reality via this robustly interac-

tive world of sports-talk radio. The analysis will be focused selectively on
some of the most prominent sports-talk-radio shows from important but
different levels of markets in the United States , presenting in a relatively
lively scholarly format that seeks to illuminate understandings of a truly
phenomenal segment of American social life today. This study focused
on shows that aired over the course of the time frame of the 2016 col-
lege football season—which tends to be the most active time of the year
for sports-talk-radio shows generally—from late August of that year into
early 2017.
Selected sports-talk-radio shows that are focused upon in this study
were chosen for their prominence in their markets, to provide a degree
of variation and multiple perspectives from different types of audiences.
As noted, sports-talk radio today is a huge field, and there are many
other shows that could have been focused on if this were intended to be
a comprehensive survey of that field. It is not. The methodological focus
is on close and qualitatively descriptive analysis. So the shows chosen are
undeniably prominent in the field but are not intended to reflect a rank-
ing of that field’s “bests.”
The analysis was concentrated on considering the way mediated rep-
resentations of sport and its social significance are advanced and utilize
narrative elements in a manner that contributes to recurring themes and
dominant frames. Such analysis seeks to identify what political-commu-
nication scholar Robert Entman has described as “the specific properties
of the… narrative that encourage those perceiving and thinking about
events to develop particular understandings of them… and convey the-
matically consonant meanings across media and time.” This approach on
balance serves to “render one basic interpretation more readily discern-
ible, comprehensible, and memorable than others,” as he has character-
ized it.
Most centrally, this approach to framing analysis utilizes sociologist
David Altheide’s “document analysis” process to connect the media rep-
resentations that are the focus of the study to broader ideas in discourse
and ideology. Altheide’s approach defines the conceptual relationship of
discourse, themes, and frames in this manner: “The actual words and
direct messages of documents carry the discourse that reflects certain
themes, which in turn are held together and given meaning by a broad
frame…. Frames are a kind of ‘super theme’.” It is a method that relies
less on counting than on qualitative identification of prominent themes
16 R.L. KERR
through a multi-step process. As a methodological approach, it is not

without bias, but it does provide a systematic framework to guide the
critical evaluation of relevant media discourse.
As sociologists William Gamson and Andre Modigliani have discussed
it, “Media discourse is part of the process by which individuals construct
meaning.” Approaching the analysis of mediated sport in the manner of
this study places it in the context of considering how media texts—such
as those represented by the discourse of sports-talk radio—potentially
represent symbolic meaning relevant to both communicators and receiv-
ers. Both influence and are influenced by the times and culture in which
they live and thus provide enduring insights into their social significance.
Sources
David L. Altheide, Qualitative Media Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1996).
David Rowe, Sport, Culture, and the Media: The Unruly Trinity, 2nd ed.
(Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2004).
David Nylund, Beer, Babes, and Balls: Masculinity and Sports Talk Radio (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2007).
Dominic Strinati, An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, 2nd ed. (New
York: Routledge, 2004).
Entman, Robert M., “Framing U.S. Coverage of International News.” Journal of
Communication 41.4 (1991): 6–27.
Entman, Robert M., “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.”
Journal of Communication 43.4 (1993): 51–58.
Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
(Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1991), xii.
Frank Webster, Theories of the Information Society, 3d ed. (New York: Routledge,
2006).
Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. (1989). Media Discourse and Public Opinion
on Nuclear Power: A Constructionist Approach. American Journal of
Sociology, 95(1), 1–37.
Geneviève Rail, Sport and Postmodern Times (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1998).
Jean Baudrillard, “On Nihilism.” in: Sheila Faria Glaser (Translator) On the
Beach, Vol. 6, Spring 1984, pp. 38–39.
Jean-Francois Lyotard, Universal History and Cultural Differences, in The
Lyotard Reader, Andrew Benjamin, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell,
1989).
Kyle Fredrickson, “OSU Football Journal: Four Players Request NFL Draft
Evaluations,” The Oklahoman, 15 December 2016, accessed 22 May 2017 at:
http://newsok.com/article/5531089.
Lawrence A. Wenner, ed., Media, Sports, and Society (London: Sage, 1989).
Lawrence A. Wenner, ed., MediaSports (London: Routledge, 1998).
Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism, 2nd ed. (London: Routledge,
2002).
Michael Drolet, ed., The Postmodernist Reader: Foundational Texts (New York:
Routledge, 2003).
Robert L. Kerr, How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains
Postmodernism: The Billy Clyde Conundrum (Palgrave Macmillan: New York,
N.Y., 2015).
Simon Malpas, The Postmodern: The New Critical Idiom (New York: Routledge,
2005).
Wilbert Marcellus Leonard II, A Sociological Perspective of Sport, 3rd ed. (New
York: Macmillan, 1988).
CHAPTER 2
The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio
Abstract This chapter focuses on a prominent sports talk-radio show

with a large national market, The Dan Patrick Show. The narratives con-
tested on it over time tend to suggest themes that resonate with such a
broad listenership. Those narratives reflect a dominant tone of inclusive-
ness and generally restrained conflict of views, which can be read as con-
tributing to a metanarrative most compatible with a truly national and
relatively diverse audience.
Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Narrative analysis
When it comes to sports talk-radio shows with large national m arkets, The
Dan Patrick Show provides an example of one of the most prominent.
Its syndication on almost 300 stations across the nation and simulcast-
ing on the Fox Sports Radio Network and DIRECTV are all testament
to its major institutional status in the field and indeed the sports world
more broadly. The Dan Patrick Show consistently reaches and maintains
one of the largest national audiences in sports-talk radio, and the narra-
tives contested on it over time will tend to reflect themes that resonate
with such a broad listenership. That reflects what TDPS contributes to
the vast media cosmos, or what sociologist David Rowe characterized as
“the media sports cultural complex.”
In terms of this study’s concept of the hyper-mediated marketplace of
sports narratives, TDPS represents one of the more prolific participants

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3_2
20 R.L. KERR
in the unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement and rejec-

tion that so very recently has been established as the perpetual reality of
media as we know it, multiplied exponentially through watershed tech-
nological and sociological transformation.
The show’s Website describes Dan Patrick as the “legendary multi-
platform sports host” who “features the most extensive A-list interviews
from the world of sports.” Patrick became a household name in that
world as co-host of ESPN’s Sports Center with Keith Olbermann from
1989 to 2006, still considered by many the best host pairing in the his-
tory of that groundbreaking cable-television show. He has hosted this
version of his radio show since 2007 (an earlier version ran on ESPN
Radio 1999–2007), also hosts NBC Television’s showcase Football Night
in America just before each week’s Sunday Night Football matchup,
writes for Sports Illustrated, and has appeared in some seventeen mov-
ies such as The Longest Yard and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
and music videos with the likes of alternative rockers Hootie and the
Blowfish and country singer Brad Paisley. Talkers magazine ranked him
Number Five on its 2017 “Sports Talk Heavy Hundred,” in which it
annually lists its determination of the one hundred most important
sports-talk-radio hosts.
The Dan Patrick Show can also be heard on venues such as Sirius satel-
lite radio and PodcastOne podcasts. The show airs from a studio often
referenced as “the man cave” and featuring decor that includes sports
memorabilia, a basketball hoop, a pinball machine, and a bar with three
kegs. Patrick has a regular supporting cast of other commentators who
are known on the show as The Danettes.
Qualities of a Very High-Profile National Show

A typical show begins with an announcer who tells the audience, “Here
he is, joined by the Four Danettes, Dan Patrick.” Usually Patrick starts
off with various commentaries: Perhaps his view on how Cleveland quar-
terback Robert Griffin III needed to show “how smart he is more than
how tough he is” and slide to avoid hard tackles like the one that had
just left him unable to play for eight to ten weeks. Or which college
teams face “must win” games on the upcoming weekend. Complaining
about the Chicago Cubs clinching first place in their division in a game
played at an opponent’s stadium instead of in front of their home fans.
Castigating the Houston Texans for losing in a shutout in an NFL game
2 THE SMOOTH TALK OF NATIONAL SPORTS RADIO 21
Patrick and most other observers expected them to win. Retelling on a

show airing just after the weekend death of professional golfer Arnold
Palmer how Patrick once walked with Palmer and fellow great Jack
Nicklaus at the Master’s as they finished their round—“Still one of my
all-time favorite moments.” How younger fans like the antics of flamboy-
ant New York Giants receiver Odell Beckham—such as taunting and tus-
sling with other players and parading around on the field with his shirt
off—but older fans are offended by it. How he finds it difficult to explain
to his children why Cialis commercials (which air frequently during tel-
evised sports programing) feature couples sitting in adjacent bathtubs.
Significant portions of TDPS are always devoted to Patrick’s inter-
views with all sorts of sports and sports-related figures, such as: Star
ESPN college football commentator Kirk Herbstreit. Comedian and
impressionist Frank Caliendo, who often does impressions of sports
figures such as former NFL coach and commentator John Madden
and regularly appeared in sports-related sketches for several years on
Fox Television’s NFL Sunday (and who tells Patrick the key to popu-
lar impressions is less sounding exactly like the actual person than mak-
ing some feature of their personality connect with audiences—such as
the facial expression of someone who just ate a lemon as central to his
impressions of the boisterous, intense, idiosyncratic Madden). Three-
time triple-Olympic-gold-medalist and multiple-world-record holding
sprinter Usain Bolt (who responds to Patrick’s question about how big a
head start Usain could give him and still win a 100-yard dash by estimat-
ing at least forty yards). Keith Jackson, perhaps the best known broad-
caster in the history of college football (who tells Patrick he decided to
retire in 2006 after “it became more and more difficult trying to assume
that someone was right or wrong, and it became more difficult to chase
it down and get a declaration that you could believe in. I got tired of
doing that, and I figured I wasn’t qualified to be what I was trying to
be, so I quit. Fifty-six years is long enough.” And: “The game of football
involves every emotion that is possible to a human being. In sixty min-
utes, I think you can probably be touched by any emotion you can think
of, short of childbirth, and I think they’re working on that.” Continuing
with that line of insight, Jackson declared: “To this day, you can tell on
the playground which one of the little fellas has squared his shoulders
and bowed his neck and will go to express himself over the opponent.
And that’s life. It’s competitive. It has all of the competitive elements of
making a living and raising a family, and you know, all that.”).
22 R.L. KERR
The show has such a high profile nationally that interviews with
governors and former governors are not unusual. In an interview with
Ohio Governor John Kasich, he tells Patrick how worried he is about
Major League Baseball because there is no revenue sharing as is com-
mon in other professional leagues, meaning the richest teams in the larg-
est markets tend to dominate excessively. “I think baseball is going to
die. I think in the NBA and NFL they have figured out a way if you’re
not a giant you can still be competitive.” He says, noting that he has
analysis of comparing the teams with the largest player-salary payrolls to
those with the smallest that shows clearly how the teams that are able
to pay their rosters of players the most are consistently the teams that
win most often. Ohio has two of those relatively smaller market teams
in Cincinnati and Cleveland. “I’m worried with America’s pastime it’s
going to fade away because the smaller markets don’t have anyone to
root for. This is not good for us. Baseball is great. I’m afraid it’s going
to dwindle,” he says, observing that when the smaller-market teams (like
the Kansas City Royals’ recent World Series champions) get good play-
ers, they leave as soon as they can get more money with a larger market
team.
In an interview with former Mississippi governor and then Secretary
of the US Navy Ray Mabus (before the annual game between the Army
and Navy military academies), there is considerable focus on that long-
running rivalry, about how the athletes involved face a choice top play-
ers at other colleges don’t—“After their second year, everyone at Naval
Academy has to decide [whether to continue their military commit-
ment], and if they sign up for two more years, they are signing up for
five more [including their active service after graduation].” But somehow
they also get into a discussion, at the instigation of Patrick, as to how
many names Mabus has in his Rolodex. “I was governor of Mississippi
so I have a lot of names in my phone – probably eight or ten thousand,”
Mabus replies.
“Who would I be surprised at?” Patrick asks. “Archie Manning?”
(Manning was an All-American at the University of Mississippi, had a
long NFL career, and is the father of two Super Bowl winning quarter-
backs, Peyton Manning with the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos,
and Eli Manning twice with the New York Giants.)
“Yes,” Mabus says, seeming to astonish Patrick. “But we were at Ole
Miss together,” Mabus adds casually.
“Well, who would surprise me?” Patrick presses.
After a slight pause, Mabus says, “Brooklyn Decker [the actress and
former Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover model].”
“Really?” asks an even more astonished Patrick.
“Well, we were in the movie Battleship together.” (Decker played a
Navy physical therapist who helps defeat aliens who attack Earth. Mabus
played the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier involved in the bat-
tle.) Mabus goes on to discuss with Patrick how he has encouraged film-
makers to develop movies that raise the profile of the US Navy.
Neither of those interviews got deeply political, but others occa-
sionally do, such as a November discussion between Patrick and Mike
Freeman, lead professional-football sports writer for Bleacher Report
(whose Website describes it as “the leading digital destination for team-
specific sports content and real-time event coverage”). Their focus was
on a recent article by Freeman in which he reported on NFL locker
rooms that had grown divided between players who voted for Donald
J. Trump for president and those who didn’t. When they start talking,
Patrick says he was aware of how sports locker rooms could often be
divided by women or money, but not by politics. “Locker rooms are just
like the rest of America,” Freeman tells him. “This election has been dif-
ferent, as you know, as everyone knows. It’s a whole different ball game.
And politics has always been a part of every locker room I have covered,
but it’s in sort of a minor way. This has moved to the forefront.” He
says he isn’t contending that has happened in every NFL locker room
but “I think it’s a pretty good representation. There’s a lot of heated
discussions, or in some cases, no discussions, which is almost the same
thing. And people and players just feel very strongly.” He emphasizes,
“When I talk about division, I don’t mean someone is not going to
block for someone,” and “It’s not going to cause fist fights and people
aren’t going to be throwing chairs at each other,” however “when you
look at how black people in general view Trump, it’s not very favorable.
But many white people view Trump favorably, and those things clash, the
same way they clash outside of locker rooms.”
Most of the time on TDPS, the tone is kept much lighter. When
Patrick interviews University of Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield,
much of the conversation focuses on the way Mayfield often dances
to celebrate, and he says he has more moves he hasn’t yet shown.
When Patrick asks if Mayfield despises rival opponent Oklahoma State
University, Mayfield says he doesn’t hate them, but “I don’t like’em,
that’s for sure.” Patrick asks then, “What would happen if you wore
24 R.L. KERR
your jersey and walked in downtown Stillwater?” Mayfield replies, “I

don’t think very many good things could happen if I did that.” After
that interview, Patrick says that Mayfield is the “new crush” of Danette
“Paulie” (Paul Pabst, who in addition to participating in the show’s on-
air banter also serves as executive producer). “Paulie falls in love with
a new quarterback usually about once a year. Like you sometimes have
multiple quarterback boyfriends,” Patrick jests. “They don’t all work
out,” Pabst says. “You never know.”
Time is devoted regularly to Patrick and the Danettes debating and
joking about topics such as those above and others, often subjects that
callers for the day are encouraged to comment upon as well. A good deal
of each show is also devoted to commercials. In testament to the market
reach of TDPS, it always features a cavalcade of spots for major advertis-
ers such as American Express, Lowe’s, Geico, Sony, Subaru, Macy’s, J.C.
Penney, NAPA Auto Parts, AutoZone, O’Reilly Auto Parts, Advanced
Auto Parts, Quicken Loans, Buffalo Wild Wings, LifeLock, Draft Kings,
Great Clips, Sleep Number, and Dollar Shave Club. Frequently, Patrick
does the pitches himself. For Omaha Steaks: “Are you looking for the
perfect gift this holiday season? Wanting to avoid the long lines at the
mall? How about Omaha Steaks? For only forty-nine ninety-nine you
can get my family gift pack when you to to OmahaSteaks.com, enter my
promo code DANP in the search bar and get seventy-seven percent off.”
For Dodge Ram pickup trucks: “Ram 1500 is what I drive, check the
full lineup at ramtrucks.com. Remember, it’s guts, it’s glory, it’s Ram.”
For Rocket Mortgage: “It brings the mortgage process into the twenti-
eth century. You can share your files with the touch of a button. A quick
online process you can manage from the comfort of your couch.” For
LegalZoom: “Don’t let things like legal matters become a distraction.
Use LegalZoom instead. You never have to worry about an attorney’s
billable hours piling up and costing you a fortune. You can have the
peace of mind of working with an independent network of independ-
ent attorneys, all at a reasonable flat rate. Need to make it legal? Make
it LegalZoom.” And even with so much time devoted to all the sorts
of activities highlighted above, TDPS still regularly includes call-in seg-
ments in which listeners can offer their own comments. A promotional
spot on the show pays tribute to the vital role of the audience, declar-
ing (with profuse related sound effects): “Two simple words that go a
long way—thank you. We want to thank you for putting up with our
yelling, our stuttering, our egos. But most of all we want to thank you
for allowing us into your car, home smart phone, or office. To the best
sports fans out there.” And the diverse originations of the calls illustrate
how the show’s nationwide sweep brings in such fans from every corner
of the country, such as, to note just a few: Greg in North Carolina, Matt
in Iowa, Josh in Oregon, Jeff in Detroit, Jeffrey in Memphis, Corey in
California, and Will in Arkansas.
A Venue Generally Chummy and a Bit Wonky

Although, as will be evident in later chapters, some sports-talk radio
encourages and even instigates high levels of interpersonal intensity in
its discourse, TDPS generally maintains a relatively mellow vibe, engaged
intellectually but rarely at more than a mildly emotional level. It encour-
ages narratives that tend to be expressed relatively less than argued. A
great many exchanges with callers tend to be polite and highly straight-
forward, even rather wonkish. In a September exchange, for example, a
caller from the West Coast says, “I just had two points from last night
that I wanted to talk about. The first would be [Denver Broncos quar-
terback] Trevor Simian’s performance [compared to Carolina Panther’s
Cam Newton in the game between those two teams]. First off, Simian
had a higher completion percentage and he had only sixteen yards less
passing on seven less attempts. The one thing he doesn’t have obviously
is the running.”
Patrick: “Yeah, I don’t want to compare him to Cam. That’s not a fair
comparison because Cam is great. When you see him in person, watch-
ing him do what he does, the other guy who comes to mind is [Seattle
Seahawks quarterback] Russell Wilson – that ability to keep something
alive and make a play, to do something a little more special.” But then
Patrick softens that narrative: “Trevor Simian did well. And if I’m a
Bronco fan, I would feel a whole lot better after what I saw with Trevor
Simian last night.”
A caller from North Carolina a little later in that show seeks to
counter what he considers an overly positive narrative on Simian’s per-
formance: “Number one, let’s pump the brakes on this Trevor Simian
worship festival. He threw for a buck and a half on a bunch of rookie
defensive backs. He missed a receiver in the end zone who was wide
open. His one touchdown pass was a one-yard pass.” He also complains
about excessive hits on Newton not being called for penalties by the offi-
cials, which he declares to be “reee-dic-ulous.”
26 R.L. KERR
Patrick finesses the matter diplomatically: “Absolutely, great call.

We’re not saying Simian is going into the Hall of Fame. I’m just saying
composure-wise – that’s a big stage [for a young quarterback]! Against a
good defense.”
Often the callers and Patrick frame their comments in chummy tones
of familiarity, of guys at the office catching up Monday morning on
sports developments from over the weekend. A caller from the South
begins: “Good morning, Mr. Patrick. I’m doing great. I’ve got a best
of the best for you. First, just got back from Nashville. Got to watch
my Minnesota Vikings win on defense alone, oh yeah. Second best, how
about those hometown Razorbacks, winning over TCU, upset, double
overtime, Thanks for taking my call.” A caller from the West Coast says
the best of his weekend was the Raiders winning again, and the second
best was making his girlfriend watch the Terminator trilogy with him.
A caller from the Midwest cheerily begins, “Hey, Dan, birthday morn-
ing, talking to my favorite guy on the radio, having a wonderful day.
Best of the weekend is going to be Central Michigan University beating
Oklahoma State. Man, that game was wild. Loved it.”
Patrick wishes the caller a happy birthday and talks about the game
he referenced, one of the most bizarre of the 2016 season, in which an
incorrect rule interpretation by the officials allowed Central Michigan
an extra play it should not have had, on which it scored a touchdown
that gave it a major upset of a more major football program. Patrick and
the Danettes discuss whether, given the circumstances, Central Michigan
should forfeit the game back to Oklahoma State. “Don’t think it’s going
to happen,” he says. “But hey, they could win an Espy for doing that
[referencing the awards ESPN hands out in a glitzy annual televised cere-
mony on the lines of the Oscars at the Academy Awards].” (For narrative
construction of the same game in harsh contrast to that, see the analysis
in Chap. 4.)
An Ohio caller says he made an eight-hour drive with his 13-year-
old son to a game weekend at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.
“I took your advice, Dan. Bucket-list item, for sure. Great experience.
Definitely best of weekend. And the worst was spilling coffee at a gas
station between Louisville and Bowling Green on the way back.” A
Los Angeles caller pleads with Dan to change the sound effect from the
loud siren they have been using for the show’s frequent “Hot Takes”
segment, in which TDPS cast members make bold predictions about
upcoming games. “I was driving down the street, dropping my son off at
school and you guys played the siren for about fifteen seconds and I liter-
ally stopped in the middle of the street and started pulling over. The guy
behind me is honking. I was looking in my rear-view mirror like, What’s
this guy’s problem? Where’s the fire truck?” He continues: “And then you
guys started talking over the sound effect and I was like, I’ve got to do
the obligatory wave to the guy, like Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m an idiot.”
Patrick suggests: “OK, maybe we just do the campfire sound there.”
Then he and the Danettes discuss what might happen if someone thinks
there is a campfire behind them on I-95 or in their back seat.
In early November, at a time when the Green Bay Packers have been
playing poorly, a caller Patrick announces as Jake in Wisconsin seeks
commiseration: “Man, what a brutal weekend. Last night just was not
fun, going to Lambeau [Field, where the Packers play]. Obviously I was
there. Tough right of the bat. Special teams blowing up completely took
the wind out of the sails.”
Patrick sympathizes: “Yeah, they looked lethargic. It’s almost as if they
said, all right, they scored a touchdown, no big deal. We’re at home,
they’re the Colts, we’re going to win this game. And then it’s 14–3 and I
went, ‘Green Bay’s in trouble here, folks.’”
The caller continues: “Yeah, it’s just not good right now. The defense
couldn’t get off the field on third-down conversions. The most enter-
tainment the entire game until the last seven minutes was that stupid
squirrel running around on the field.” He was referencing a game delay
to clear the animal from the field. “Can you imagine when the Packers,
were like, ‘Hey, does anybody know where a fishnet is? We need to get
this squirrel.’ It was just nuts. No lie, that was the most entertainment
the entire time for a fan in the stands.”
Patrick: “Yeah, they tried to put him in uniform but they couldn’t find
one for him and they could have used him.”
Later, a caller from Florida jests darkly about his concern for the
Packer fan, who is something of a regular caller. “My worst of the week-
end—I was going to go with the Packers’ defense, but you know, Dan,
you worried about Jake in Wisconsin now. He’s in a blind right now
out in the woods with a firearm. I’m sure there is alcohol somewhere
involved. And cheese.”
Such calls and the rarely more than gently assertive narratives they
introduce reflect overall the most representative of TDPS. That domi-
nant tone of inclusiveness and generally restrained conflict of views can
be read as contributing to a metanarrative most compatible with a truly
28 R.L. KERR
national and relatively diverse audience. As will be evident in the follow-

ing chapters that level of restraint and collegiality tends to be less pro-
nounced in the less-than-national markets, sometimes drastically less.
The Salience of the Errant but Most Ferocious

Narrative
When a particular narrative is promoting in ways that disregard the over-
all modicum of TDPS, it stands out in stark relief. Commenting on the
Florida caller’s concern noted above, Patrick says, “It’s sort of weird.
Shea has become the old Jake, and Jake has become the old Shea. They
sort of switched bodies there.” He was referencing a caller who over
the course of the 2016 football season by sheer force of will (more than
accuracy) made the narrative he asserted relentlessly one of TDPS’s most
salient. Announced by Patrick as “Shea from Irving,” the caller probably
wound up with more cumulative air time than any other caller for that
season. And the consistency of the framing he advanced regarding the
Dallas Cowboys was rivaled only by its ferocity. (Irving, Texas, is a large
Dallas suburb.)
By early in September the narrative he would maintain doggedly was
already clear: The Cowboys were severely handicapped by an “awful”
head coach who did not understand—as Shea in Irving made over-
whelmingly clear he did—that the team erred egregiously when it failed
to rely much more heavily on its running game than on passing. And
even though the Cowboys began a run of remarkable and unexpected
success about that time—despite being forced to rely on a rookie quar-
terback in Dak Prescott after the team’s all-time leading passer, Tony
Romo, was injured for an extended period—that narrative would never
waver. Indeed, it would build to ever greater levels of intensity in the
months ahead, advanced with such raw, unpolished aggression that
it eventually seemed to unnerve to some extent Patrick, as well as the
Danettes. But more and more time would be devoted to his calls as the
weeks went by.
In a mid-October call, after Dallas had upset favored Green Bay on
the road, Shea in Irving (hereafter SII) told Patrick: “I don’t know
what I did to deserve this, but they ran the ball thirty-two damn times
last night, yesterday, whatever the hell you want to call it. I’m living in
tomorrow world, Danny. I don’t know which way is up. All I know is
the Cowboys keep winning by running the damn ball.” In such com-
ments, SII asserts the validity of his overriding narrative that “running
the damn ball” is what Dallas must do to succeed: “It’s like my lips to
God’s ears. I don’t know how it happened, but it’s happening.” He con-
demns any deviations: “I will say, some of the play calls in the fourth
quarter, Danny, when they were making the rookie, Dak Prescott, throw
out of his own damn end zone when they could have just run the ball
and iced the game had me worried that they were getting way too com-
fortable with the arm of that rookie.”
Patrick: “Yeah, but it did say something about their confidence level
in him, though I understand what you are saying, Shea, at the end of the
first half with about fifty-five seconds to go, they were trying to score
and they eventually scored a touchdown. That’s a confidence level I was
not expecting to see with Dak Prescott.”
SII: “That was goofy. That was so crazy. I did not see that coming.
But I gotta say at this point, Danny, Tony Who? And I think everybody
is saying the same damn thing. If Mr. Botox [apparently a reference
to alleged cosmetic treatments on the part of Dallas Cowboys Owner
Jerry Jones] comes in and screws this up bringing in Romo, I am going
to lose my damn mind.”
Given the regularity of their conversations, Patrick at times tries to fol-
low up on other matters in the caller’s life, a social gesture made perhaps
in hopes of eliciting other themes that might be among his priorities, ask-
ing: “How’s the baby front?” [It had been established in earlier calls that
SII’s wife was expecting their second child soon.] But in that regard, the
caller firmly maintains a related narrative that all else in his life is relatively
minor in relation to his focus on the Cowboys and other football interests.
For example, when SII responds to that question with only, “Oh,
I had the kid,” Patrick suggests the caller’s priorities might be a little
skewed, noting, “So that wasn’t the lead, it was the Cowboys winning?”
When SII brushes that aside—“Oh yeah, of course, duh.”—Patrick tries
to draw out more of what might be the caller’s family interests beyond
football: “How do you tell your significant other that you love her?”
SII asks if Patrick is asking about “the roommate,” as the caller often
refers to his wife. When Patrick affirms that, SII notes offhandedly,
“Usually by coming home.” Patrick tries to press the point, asking, “No,
I’m talking about saying it. Do you have a sensitive side, or do you just
yell, ‘I love you!’?”
30 R.L. KERR
Finally, the caller takes enough interest in the subject to elaborate rel-
atively more: “Yeah, usually in an argument, I will apologize, say, ‘Put
the knife down, I won’t do it again, I love you. We don’t need to do this
again.’ That’s what I usually say, as I put the phone down with my hand
on 9-1-1 speed dial.”
Patrick: “There you go – Shea in Irving.”
A couple of weeks later, on a morning after Dallas has beaten
Philadelphia, a top division rival and a good team, in overtime, high-
lights the caller’s tenacious advancement of his core narrative (indeed a
metanarrative for him) despite contradictions. “Let me bring in Shea so
he can move on with the rest of his day,” Patrick announces during that
show. “Shea in Irving. Shea, good morning, how are you?”
SII: “Good morning, Danny. You know how I am.”
Patrick: “No, I don’t.”
SII: “You freaking do, Danny. I don’t give a damn that it was over-
time. You let Dak Prescott, the rookie, throw the ball thirty-nine times,
and that running back that you spent a Number Four [draft] pick on,
you should get slapped in the mouth. Thank God they won, thank God
they pulled it out.” So, to emphasize, Dallas won, despite contradicting
the fundamental dictum of SII’s narrative that in order to win the team
must run more and pass less. Yet the caller ever more fiercely insists his
narrative must prevail. “Explain to me, why the hell they keep refusing
to run the ball in the Red Zone? Explain it to me. This team was built to
run aggressively. Why? Tell me why?” [As is often the case, his comments
tend to get louder and louder as his calls proceed, and his tone reflects
more and more anger.]
Patrick basically agrees, but that does not calm SII in the least: “You
got six minutes left, and you’re like, hey, Dak Prescott might as well be
Tony Romo. Let’s air it out, throw it deep. This is stupid, Danny. This
is why I get so frustrated. Cause I ain’t smart, and I can figure this crap
out.” In his tirades, the caller often derogatorily references Dallas Head
Coach Jason Garrett as “Ginger” or “the Ginger”—perhaps because of
his red hair—and often Garrett’s Princeton University education as well.
Garrett played quarterback there and later for Dallas and other NFL
teams before moving into coaching. “This idiot, this Ivy League Ginger,
went and got a $200,000 education, thinks he’s smarter than everybody
else on the football field – he ain’t! You don’t have to be that smart.
Look at the O-Line you have. Why are you throwing the ball in the
red zone with a rookie quarterback?” Week after week, SII reasserts his
metanarrative: “So just run the damn ball. Who do you think you are?
Thank God they pulled it out, because you play like this against a bet-
ter team, the Vikings, or heaven forbid, the playoffs, something weird
happens, they’re losing that damn game…. The play calling was crap,
Danny.”
Patrick: “Well, it’s going to be one of those games the Eagles look
back on and say, we weren’t aggressive enough. We had them. You’re
up by ten, and you had the fumble, and you made some mistakes where
you could have put the game out of reach.” Still, he only pushes that
relatively mild counter-narrative gently and then qualifies it: “But you’re
right, we go through this a couple of times every year where we go, why
are they throwing the ball more than twenty times, even with Romo in
there? I got a great running back and a great offensive line, and I don’t
want to have Dak Prescott throw the ball thirty-five times.”
SII: “Why would you put him in that position, to have him ruin his
confidence? Unless The Ginger is sabotaging Dak Prescott – hear me
out, Danny – sabotaging the rookie quarterback to get his boy back in
the game, just like he sabotaged Wade Phillips, when he was the head
coach [and Garrett was offensive coordinator], to get his own job in that
seat.” It may be a purely subjective conspiracy theory, but it serves to
provide support for the caller’s metanarrative. “See, people forget that,
Danny. The only reason that Ginger is the head coach is because he sab-
otaged poor Wade, put a knife in his back with the play-calling duties.
And all of a sudden, Wade is gone and the Cowboys go on a tear. Funny
how that works, ain’t it?”
In addition to its single-minded consistency, expressed with simi-
lar vehemence regardless whether Dallas wins or loses, SII’s narrative
includes such startling supporting mini-narratives—such as that asser-
tion that the coach he considers unqualified only got his job by somehow
coaching badly as offensive coordinator in order to achieve his goal of
being promoted to head coach—that are always expressed with an une-
quivocal belief in their certainty.
After SII has gone on for some time in that vein on that occasion,
Patrick reminds him: “You got a win.”
SII: “Damn right.”
Patrick: “Be happy.”
Instead, SII expresses another grievance, asserting that Danette Paulie
should have contacted him so they could get together when both were
recently in Chicago for the Cubs’ World Series games with Cleveland:
32 R.L. KERR
“Unless you’re a Quaker or a Mennonite, Paulie, you should have picked

up the damn phone and got weird with Shea when he was in Chicago
this whole weekend. I don’t know what your problem was, brother.”
Patrick (to Paulie): “Did Shea reach out to you?”
Paulie: “No, I didn’t hear from Shea. But I was worried if I hung out
with Shea before Game Three that I may not see Game Three.”
SII: “There’s no way we would have made it to Wrigleyville [a refer-
ence to the Cubs’ ballpark] – absolutely not.”
Paulie: “I want to live.”
SII: “Loser!”
Patrick: “Thank you, Shea.”
SII: “Whatever.”
After the call ends, Patrick asks Paulie again, “So you didn’t reach out
to Shea?”
Paulie: “No, I am a little scared.”
Patrick: “Oh, I would be too.”
One of the other Danettes adds, “That’s not the worst call by Paulie
ever, not reaching out to Shea. That’s a pretty solid choice.”
A few weeks later, on a morning after Dallas has beaten Minnesota in
a close Thursday night game, Patrick begins the call, “Shea, how are you
today?”
SII: “Arrrggh. Not good, Danny.”
Patrick: “Well, it was a win last night.”
SII: “Crap! First off, cancel Thursday night. The product sucks. It’s
never been good. It’s always trash. Secondly, the Ivy League Ginger got
outcoached by a temporary coach. He put an awful team on the field,
Danny.” So once again, even though Dallas has at least partially contra-
dicted the caller’s metanarrative and still won, the caller only doubles
down further on it. “How many penalties did they have? How many
holding calls? How many false starts? How many turnovers? Yeah, they
snuck out a win. Here’s my question.” And then he brings forth an evi-
dentiary basis of support for his metanarrative: “So they had twenty-two
designed runs against twenty designed passes. Good. That’s where we
want to be. Except for the turnovers! How many turnovers are going
to happen? That’s my fear with a team this young. You go on the road
and you forget how to hold on to the damn ball.” And that brings him
back to a recurring supporting narrative that those running the team do
not understand football as he does: “Because there is a failure of leader-
ship at the top of this organization…. and it goes right back down to Ivy
League Ginger. That’s the issue…. All they had to do was get him away
from that [head coach’s sideline] headset and the Cowboys would have
won by fifteen. Could have distracted him with an algebra equation or
anything else.”
At a point when the caller’s volume and apparent anger has been ris-
ing throughout the call, Patrick asks: “You done?”
SII: “Hell yeah, I’m done. I’m fixing to go to the bar and start
drinking.”
Patrick: “Yeah, maybe not.”
SII: “No, I’m doing it. I’m gonna eat some tacos and have some
bloody mary’s and then I’m gonna have me about three-hundred-and-
nineteen cervezas because the roommate is out of town, Danny. Yeah,
it’s about to get weird.”
Patrick: “Hey, you got a new coach at [the University of] Texas.”
SII: “Praise the Lord. I might go to church for the first time in a dec-
ade after that. I didn’t start talking to God until Charlie [Strong, there-
tofore the head coach at Texas] got fired. And then all my prayers got
answered.”
After the call ends, Patrick says to the Danettes, “I don’t know if he is
ever going to be happy. No matter what the Cowboys do.”
“There are some people, Dan, who are happy when they are
unhappy,” says Todd Fritz, also both a Danette and an executive pro-
ducer. “And I think Shea might be one of those. Things are working bet-
ter when it’s a little bit chaotic for him.”
Patrick’s concern seems genuine: “Cowboys are playing well. He’s got
two babies. You would think that things would be good.”
But they aren’t for SII, even after the Cowboys defeat Tampa Bay
later in December in another close game and clinch a spot in the NFL
playoffs. When Patrick takes his call the morning after that victory and
asks SII how he is doing, he responds: “Awful. Another Sunday the
Ivy League Ginger does everything in his freaking power to lose in
December. Dak had thirty-six pass attempts, three sacks, and he took off
running on a couple of’em. Forty pass attempts!” It does not matter that
despite passing much more than the caller’s metanarrative holds as via-
ble, the team won against a good team: “We got a quarterback passing
forty times in a game, with the best running back in the league, with the
best O-Line in the league, and you barely beat the Bucs at home. Danny,
the Cowboys held the Bucs to two-hundred-seventy-five total yards. And
they still had a chance to win at the end of the game!” He continues
34 R.L. KERR
with the tirade until finally declaring, “This is a joke. This is a failure of
leadership. What next? What are they doing running a reverse on third
and two? That’s like me bringing nunchucks [a martial-arts weapon]
to a gunfight because I want to be different. Well, bang, you are dead,
dummy.”
Patrick: “Well, you did clinch a playoff spot.”
SII: “This team is not built to throw the ball that much. This team
is built to run the ball.” He goes off again, blaming Garrett because he
“thinks he is smarter than anyone in the room,” and insisting, “If they
would just run the ball and lose, you wouldn’t hear me calling this much
and getting this mad.” In that assertion, SII finds a creative metric for
asserting that his metanarrative cannot be proven invalid by Dallas win-
ning while contradicting it, but rather only by not contradicting it and
losing.
Andrew Perloff, who blogs for TDPS and is also a Danette, notes that
statistically the Cowboys have been running the ball more than anyone
in the league that season.
SII: “They should! Shut up, Bayless Junior [a derogatory reference to
controversial sports commentator Skip Bayless]! You don’t know what
you are talking about. Enough! They are supposed to run it more than
anyone. They should be running it even more than they are now!”
In those bodies of discourse and others, SII relentlessly advanced his
unequivocal metanarrative over the course of what was actually one of
the Cowboys most successful recent years, with thirteen wins and four
losses for the season, including an NFL-best eleven-game winning streak.
And still, it must be noted, despite Dallas achieving an overall record
better than all of the other fifteen teams in its conference while so fre-
quently contradicting SII’s metanarrative, after the season he could still
maintain that it was proven correct after all—because the Cowboys lost
their first playoff game.
However, as the chapters that follow will document further, with
many of the most engaged participants in sports-talk radio, contradictory
evidence almost invariably has little effect on the insistence with which
they hold and continue to advance their dearest narratives. As those
chapters also will show in contrast, Shea in Irving’s contributions not-
withstanding, overall The Dan Patrick Show features a considerably lower
level of raw intensity than other sports-talk radio shows examined in this
study. For the other shows in the chapters ahead, being able to focus on
a regional audience rather than a national audience like TDPS’s, seems to
allow for more of that rawness in the generating and contesting of narra-
tives in such social arenas.
Sources
“The Dan Patrick Show,” Radio Broadcast, Syndicated, 6 September 2016.
“The Dan Patrick Show,” Radio Broadcast, Syndicated, 7 October 2016.
“The Dan Patrick Show,” Radio Broadcast, Syndicated, 4 November 2016.
“The Dan Patrick Show,” Radio Broadcast, Syndicated, 2 December 2016.
David Rowe, Sport, Culture, and the Media: The Unruly Trinity, 2d ed.
(Berkshire, England: Open University Press, 2004).
CHAPTER 3
More Intensity in Major Regional Talk
Abstract This chapter focuses on prominent sports talk-radio shows

with large regional markets, Mike’s On: Francesa on the FAN and The
Paul Finebaum Show. Both provide significant subjects for this study’s
qualitatively descriptive examination of some of the most exemplary par-
ticipants in the hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives, advanc-
ing their own considerable narratives as well as providing prominent
venues for a remarkable array of their listeners’ call-in narrative contri-
butions. It offers contrasting perspectives for analysis of the sociological
dynamics that offer insight into what makes all the endless talking to this
end so vital to so many.
Keyword  Sports-talk radio
Moving on to sports talk-radio shows with large regional markets, Mike’s

On: Francesa on the FAN and The Paul Finebaum Show provide two of
the most followed and most diverse in terms of their tone, focus, and
interaction with their audiences. Despite the distinct regional emphasis
of their content, both shows boast a reach that rivals more nationally
oriented shows, given their shows’ accessibility via live broadcasts and
online streamcasts, and also via podcast archives.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67253-3_3
38 R.L. KERR
Mike Francesa has been a fixture on New York City sports-radio jug-
gernaut WFAN for more than a quarter-century, for many years as part
of a team with Chris “Mad Dog” Russo. The two of them were the
first sports-talk hosts ever to win the Marconi Award for Major Market
Personality in 2000, and Francesa won it alone in 2012. Talkers maga-
zine has repeatedly ranked him Number One on the “Sports Talk Heavy
Hundred,” the annual list of its one hundred most important sports-talk-
radio hosts, including in 2017.
And just as Francesa is inextricably identified with New York City
sports, Paul Finebaum is just as synonymously associated with the
American South, particularly Southeastern Conference football. A long-
time newspaper columnist turned sports-talk-radio host, he has become
one of the best known in the business. CNBC (the cable-television busi-
ness-news network) called him “the most powerful small-market sports
media member in the nation”; The New Yorker titled a major profile
of him “King of the South;” The Wall Street Journal dubbed him “the
Oprah Winfrey of college football;” and a recent caller to his show told
Finebaum, “When you have a conundrum in football, you always call the
Dalai Lama of football. And that of course is you.”
Thus, both provide significant subjects for this study’s qualitatively
descriptive examination of some of sports talk radio’s most exemplary
participants in the hyper-mediated marketplace of sports narratives,
advancing their own considerable narratives as well as providing promi-
nent venues for a remarkable array of their listeners’ call-in narrative
contributions. The interaction in those arenas of contested narrative
trafficking reflects a markedly greater degree of intensity and personal
engagement than has been reflected in this study so far. It offers con-
trasting perspectives for analysis of the sociological dynamics that offer
insight into what makes all the endless talking to this end so vital to so
many.
Qualities of a High-Profile New York City Regional

Show
Francesa’s afternoon show typically opens with a theme song, delivered
by a chorus of singers as a snappy paean to its host: “Mike’s On, he’s
ready to go; On the FAN, New York sports radio; Mike’s On, Mike’s
On…. It’s Mike Francesca on the FAN!” His opening comments almost
3 MORE INTENSITY IN MAJOR REGIONAL TALK 39
always focus on the latest action involving New York City’s profes-
sional teams. During football season that means a detailed analysis of the
most recent New York Giants game or their upcoming game, or both,
along with a variety of team-related matters. The New York Yankees
are another prime topic for him, especially during and in proximity to
baseball season, which in the fall months on which this study focuses,
overlaps football season. He also devotes regular time to current topics
involving other NFL and Major League Baseball teams and players and
the top teams and players in major-college football. Given Francesa’s
background as a researcher for CBS Sports for many years early in his
career (so immersed in gleaning statistical insights that The New Yorker
once called him [CBS game announcer] “Brent Musberger’s brain”);
his analysis consistently goes beyond the random commentary that typi-
fies much sports-talk radio. His comments are also well grounded in
the long-term perspective of his decades of experience. His tone almost
always reflects a level of all-business seriousness similar to that of a Wall
Street analyst dissecting financial developments and trends, but also with
a strong sense of how much he cares about sports and about getting the
narratives right, in his view.
Francesa’s interviews are often lengthy and many are regular weekly
features such as his talks with quarterback Eli Manning and other Giants
players. They also include other big names in sports, often with a focus
on individuals who bring similarly rich analytic perspectives, such as for-
mer NFL quarterback turned television announcer Gary Danielson,
retired basketball coach George Carl, NFL Network analyst Sean
O’Hara, retired NFL coach Brian Billick, and longtime CBS announcer
Jim Nance.
Francesa also draws a lucrative array of commercial sponsors, such as
Chevrolet, PetSmart, Walgreens, Amtrak, Mohican Sun Casino, M.D.
Anderson Hospital, Angry Orchard Hard Cider, AutoZone, and the
State of New Mexico Tourism Department. He often delivers commer-
cial pitches himself, such as ones for Sony PlayStation Vue (“You need a
broadband Internet connection, but hey, who doesn’t have the Internet?
Of course you have the Internet”); Ray Catina Mercedes dealerships in
New Jersey (“when you are looking for luxury that’s affordable and cus-
tomer service that is unmatched”); First National Bank of Long Island
(“the bank where everyone knows your name”); P.C. Richard & Son
(“the largest selection of televisions and mattresses and appliances. No
fly-by-night organization, they’ve been there 107 years. Family owned
40 R.L. KERR
and operated”); and Platinum Tax Defenders. (“Call now… before the
IRS seizes your assets”).
But the greatest part of Mike’s On is consistently devoted to
Francesa’s interaction with callers to the show. Sometimes he commis-
erates with them sympathetically, but more often he applies his analytic
resources and deeply grounded long-term perspectives on sports to
firmly contest the narratives that callers seek to assert.
A Cordial but Rigorous Venue

When a caller to Mike’s On from New Jersey says, for example, “Let me
say first of all, I think of you like an uncle, man. I’m thirty-eight now,
and I’ve been listening to you since I was a sixth grader doing my home-
work. And now I sit at the table listening to you and helping my son do
his homework,” Francesa responds with genuine gratitude: “Thank you.
I appreciate that.” But when the caller seeks to revive a narrative about
the level of greatness a current Denver Bronco’s star linebacker has
achieved—“Two years ago, you laughed me off the station, for saying
Von Miller could be L.T. [a reference to Lawrence Taylor, the Giants’
ten-time All-Pro linebacker of the Nineteen Eighties and Nineties, con-
sidered by many to be the best ever at the position). But look at what
Von has done now”—Francesa concedes nothing. “Von Miller is a great
player but he’s not L.T.,” he declares bluntly. “L.T.’s come along once
every fifty years.” Ultimately, the caller yields: “I can’t argue with that.”
The exchange captured both Francesa’s effort to respectfully welcome
his callers and the respect they often hold for him whether or not he
reinforces their narratives, but also his even greater priority on maintain-
ing narrative consistency with what his long study of sports tells him is
closest to reality.
That approach consistently characterizes Francesa’s approach to
his role in the ongoing narrative negotiation on Mike’s On. Callers are
welcomed to advance their understandings and explanations that they
believe appropriately impose meaning on their particular topic of con-
cern, sometimes at considerable length. But ultimately, they will find
Francesa offers little in the way of diplomatic compromise and will always
be prepared to dismantle and reconstruct narratives he assesses as mis-
guided. For example, an October caller from Brooklyn says, “I love Eli
[Manning] but I feel… he is as culpable as anybody over the past few
years. From a fantasy football perspective, his numbers are good. But I
3 MORE INTENSITY IN MAJOR REGIONAL TALK 41
feel when it comes to the big moments, compared to earlier in his career,
he was better in the big moments of the game.” The caller is allowed to
elaborate upon that thesis for a few minutes before Francesa points out
that in less than half a season at that point in 2016, Giant receivers have
dropped five wide-open touchdown passes from Manning, which would
dramatically have changed the quality of his performance during that
period if they had just caught those alone. The caller agrees that is a cru-
cial point, but continues to press his broader point in various ways, until
finally Francesa steps back and reframes it all most broadly on the ques-
tion of whether the Giants’ real problem the past two seasons has been
the quarterback who is the team’s all-time leading passer (in yardage,
completions, and touchdowns) and has been voted the Most Valuable
Player in the team’s two Super Bowl victories with him: “You watched
them play last season when they didn’t have a defense and you are going
to tell me that’s the reason they lost those games last year?”
A caller from Long Island proposes that it is time to put New York
Mets outfielder Jay Bruce “on the bench and leave him on it.” Francesa
responds that the point is moot: “Well, he’s not playing anyway, so
what’s the point?” So the caller shifts to another area as the team’s prob-
lem: “In terms of the Mets’ pitching, what do you see if they make the
playoffs?” Francesa explains that it is futile to even attempt answering
such a question until later: “I don’t see anything right now. I don’t think
you can say anything right now. Just make the playoffs and pitch the guy
who’s ready to pitch, that’s it. You don’t have any way to set up a pitch-
ing staff right now. You are basically just trying to hold on and get the
next game done. You’ll pitch whoever is available.”
With a caller from Westchester County who maintains that the Jets
will never win consistently again “until they get a franchise quarterback,”
Francesa counters, “So what’s the point? All the league laments the same
thing. So call me when you get one. You may never get one. There are
lots of franchises that never get one. It’s not like there is a large supply
right now.
Caller: “They don’t really position themselves to get the right one.”
Francesa: “Aw, that’s not fair. You mean they don’t finish last and get
the first pick in the draft in the right year?… What quarterback did you
think they should have taken that they didn’t take that would be a star
now?”
When the caller is unable to name anyone who fits that criteria,
Francesa continues: “Tell them how you go about getting a franchise
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távol legyen tőlünk, hogy az ellenünk annyiszor használt elvet,
miszerint a czél az eszközt szentesíti, kövessük – hasonlókép
tiszták, sőt dicséretesek. S van-e, ki rossz néven vehetné, ha
elvbarátinkat ebédre meghivjuk, vagy szükölködő nemes társainkat
pár forinttal segítjük? Semmi nincs, mi föltételeinktől
visszatartóztathatna, tehát bátran előre!
E fölszólítás minden tisztviselő s azok által, kik, mint Pennaházy,
nem nagy pénzáldozatokra érzék magokat lekötelezve, legnagyobb
lelkesedéssel fogadtatott; a többiek, főkép a báró szomorúan
fölsóhajta Sáskay szívrázó szavainál, s minden, mit ez utóbbi
később az egyesületek ellentállhatlan hatalmáról beszélt, s mily
roppant erő rejlik a szegény filléreiben, ha azok összeadatva, ahhoz
értő emberek által egy bizonyos czélra kezeltetnek, csak azon
nyilatkozatra bira néhányakat, hogy az idők rosszak, a rozsnak
semmi ára, s hogy épen a sok egyesületekben fekszik a baj stb.
– Az idők rosszak, az életnek ára nincs – igaz! mind igaz, – szólt
Sáskay, ki irományait letéve, ez ellenvetéseket olyanoknak tartá,
melyeket felelet nélkül hagyni nem lehet, – de vajon nem kell-e azért
annál inkább arról gondoskodnunk, hogy az idő hibáin segítsünk,
hogy ha nem is absolut, legalább relativ jóságú biztos vevőkről
gondoskodjunk? S én erre jobb módot nem ismerek, mint ha a
megyének jó tisztviselői kart szerzünk. Az idők rosszak voltak az
utósó három évben is, de a zsidók, kik az egész ország
megrontásán dolgoznak, tekintettel voltak a törvényes magistratus
iránt, s mennyire én tudom, a teins szolgabirák élete nem rothadott
el vermeikben, úgy volt dohányunkkal, melyet mind mint primae
classist adtunk el, a gyapjúval, gubicscsal, szóval mindennel; s e
classikus közmondás: officium non fallit, ha passivumra teszszük át,
igaz marad s elmondhatni, hogy a tisztviselő nem csalatik meg, még
a zsidó által sem.
Úgy látszik, Sáskaynak e szavai némi hatással valának, legalább
az előbbi ellenvetések nem ismételtettek többé; midőn azonban a
szónok előadá, hogy tekintettel a jelen körülményekre, tervének oly
alapot állított föl, melyre semmi készpénz nem szükséges, egy
majdnem «éljen»-hez hasonló «halljuk» következett s minden
jelenlevők osztatlan figyelme bizonyítá, mennyi méltánylást találnak
a mély belátású nemzetgazda nézetei még saját megyéjében is.
Sáskay terve, mely ha majd a szerző által egész kiterjedésben
közöltetik, neki kétségen kívül dicsőséget fog szerezni, sokkal
tudományosabb, semhogy e szerény elbeszélésben helyt találhatna.
Csak rövid kivonatát közlöm tehát.
A bölcs férfiúnak nézete szerint minden tisztujításhoz három
dolog szükséges: élelmiszerek, pénz és mert hazánkban a
többségnek több nagylelkűsége, mint tőkéi vannak, hitel. Az elvek,
melyek szerint a Taksony-megyei tisztujítás financziális része
rendeztetik, következők:
1-ször. Mindenki csak pénzben irhatja alá a segedelmet, melylyel
hozzá járulni akar.
2-szor. Minden élelmiszerek készpénzben és meghatározott áron
vásároltatnak meg, de csak azoktól, kik pénzbeli segedelmeket irtak
alá, s pedig azon arányban, melyben e segedelem nagyobb vagy
kisebb vala.
3-szor. A szükséges pénzeket a megye Rothschildei fogják
előlegezni, s pedig, mit Sáskay ügyes negotiatióinak köszönhetni, öt
percentre, természet szerint váltó vagy szóbeli eljárás kikötése
mellett. Minden százért, mely aláiratik, a banquierek hetvenötöt
fognak fizetni, mi, a mint tudva van, Spanyolország minden
kölcsöneinél sokkal kedvezőbb. Az egyes kötelezvényre vagy váltóra
mindig még két kezes irja nevét. A pénz visszafizetése csak egy év
mulva kivántatik, a kölcsönző házak azonban készeknek
nyilatkoztatják magokat a teins s nagyságos urak iránti tiszteletből,
szokott prorogationalis percentek mellett, az ily hitelezések
hosszabbítására is.
A terv, mint látszik, egészen a magyar nemesség geniusához
vala alkalmazva, mely valamint maga legszivesebben bízik a
multban, úgy azokat, kik tőle valamit követelnek, a jövővel szokta
megnyugtatni. Azonfölül miután az aláirt pénz mások által vala
előlegezendő, az pedig, ki azt aláirá, termésének egy részét önmaga
által megszabandó áron készpénzben eladhatá – világos, hogy azon
dicsőségen kívül, mely mindenkire háramlott, némelyiknek még az
sem vala kellemetlen, hogy nagy fáradság nélkül és pedig öt
percentre pénzhez juthat. A készség, melylyel minden jelenlevő
nevét aláirá, legszebben bizonyítá a közhelybenhagyást, melyet
Sáskay terve talált és soha ember több joggal nem dörzsölheté
kezét, mint Taksonynak boldog Law-ja, ki most megelégedett képpel
járt körül a szobában, s örömtől sugárzó szemekkel nézé időről-időre
az ivet, melyen az aláirók névsora mind hosszabbra nőtt.
A munka bevégeztetvén, a társaság elhagyá az asztalt, s mint az
ülés előtt, ismét kis csoportokra oszlott. A báró, mi az igen
közönséges, de azért nem kevésbbé kellemetes szokások közé
tartozik, az egész ülést még egyszer elbeszélte, pótolva akkor tartott
szónoklatait azokkal, melyeket, ha félbe nem szakaszták, még
mondhatott volna. Sáskay és Karvaly, szokásuk szerint, nem ugyan
egymással, de egymásnak beszéltek, s az utóbbi megjegyzé, hogy
noha maga is nyolcz p. frtot irt alá, meg nem foghatja, miként
találhatott az oly általános helyeslésre, holott az egésznek alapja
nem áll és minden tisztujításhoz, eleség, pénz s hitelen kívül, még
valami kell, az pedig: legény a gáton. Mire Sáskay megvetőleg vállat
vonítva csak azt válaszolta, hogy ahol pénz és élelmiszerek vannak,
oly legényeket, minőknek bizonyos úri emberek 1809-ben magokat
mutatták, nem lesz nehéz találni. Karvaly bizonyos emberekről
kezde beszélni, kik mióta közpénztárak kezelésétől eltiltattak, mert
nagyon is jó gazdák módjára bántak vele, s kevesebbet adtak ki,
mint bevettek, mindig új cassák alkotásáról álmodoznak. S a két
nagyérdemű férfiú kétségen kivül összevesz, ha a terem minden
oldaláról e kedves szavak «itt van a leves» nem hangzanak föl, s ha
a két vitatkozó, ismerve a szokást, miszerint Magyarországban ily
alkalmaknál néha kevesebb szék, mint vendég található, nem
sietnek helyeikre.
S most hagyjuk a társaságot kellemes helyzetében, s ha néhány
olvasóim az ülés hosszas leirása után talán azt reménylik, hogy a
vacsora részleteibe fogok ereszkedni, s a Taksony-megyében
divatozó főzésről némely tanulságos adatokat közlök: vigasztalják
magokat azon meggyőződéssel, hogy miután a taksonyi nemesség
életének nagyobb részét asztal mellett tölti, s pedig nem csak
tanácskozva, ezen tárgyak előadására többször leend alkalmam.
Legyen elég ez egyszer elmondanom, hogy a nagyságos
háziasszony, ki Slacsanek és a báró között férjének elnöki székét
foglalta el, mind a szolgáló inasok többszöri megszidása, mind az
ételek többszöri kinálása által, házi asszonyi tisztét fölségesen
teljesíté, s hogy a vacsorát általánosan pompásnak s az ételeket
számolhatlanoknak tartották, még azok is, kik, mint sokan a vacsora
vége felé, minden tálat s palaczkot kétszeresen nem láttak magok
előtt.
X.
Míg a tiszaréti kastélyban e lármás dolgok történtek, addig a kis

jegyzőház nyugodtan állt, s csak a gyertyavilág, mely ablakaiból az
utczára sugárzott, mutatá, hogy lakói honn vannak. A háznak két
szobája volt, melyeknek ablakai az utczára nyiltak; az elsőben, külön
kijárással az udvarra, maga Tengelyi lakott s itt tartá hivatalos
irományait; a másikban, melynek egyik ajtaja a jegyző szobájába,
másika a konyhába nyilt, Erzsébet asszony s leánya laktak. A
konyhának, mint tudjuk, egy ajtaja vala a kert felé, melyen Viola a
házba jött, a másik az udvarra szolgált. Mindjárt a konyha mellett a
kamra volt, melybe Liptákné az üldözött zsiványt elrejté. A ház végét
a cselédház, s azon kis szoba, melyben most Viola neje betegen
feküdt, foglalák el. Tengelyi az egész napot Cserepesen
Bántornyinál tölté, kinél szinte tisztujítási tanácskozás tartatott.
Erzsébet asszony Vándoryval, ki e napon nálok ebédelt, a betegnél
volt, s Etelka Vilmával beszélgetve a második szobában ültek.
Nincs nagyobb szerencse – mint egy öreg asszony, kivel sokat
társalogtam, mondani szokta – annál: hogy beszélhetünk, s a jámbor
öregnek, ki azonban rég nem beszél többé, igaza volt. Főkép azon
korban, midőn még álmunkban beszélgetünk s beszélgetve
álmodozunk, nincs nagyobb gyönyör, mint midőn azt, mit úgyis
tudunk, s mi szivünket eltölti, kedves ajkakról hallhatjuk; s a két
barátné e délután egész kiterjedésben élvezte azt.
Etelkát s Vilmát a legszorosabb barátság köté egymáshoz.
Miután Réty s a jegyző sokáig barátságban éltek, a két leány úgy
szólván együtt neveltetett. Vilma a kastélyban tölté napjainak nagy
részét, s Etelka mestereitől vele együtt tanult; az alispán leánya
pedig eljárt a jegyző lakába s kis barátnéjával együtt nyeré azon
oktatásokat, melyeket Tengelyi a történet s természettudományban,
s Vándory a vallásban, kedves tanítványaiknak adtak; s habár
később a szülék mindig távolabb álltak egymástól, s Vilma egy idő
óta barátnéját nem látogathatá meg többé, sziveik nem változtak s
ők csak inkább ragaszkodtak egymáshoz. Ha városban, a nagy világ
körében élnek, ez érzemény talán nem vált volna oly meleggé;
legalább a ritka dolgok közé tartozik, hogy a két legszebb leány, a
két legelmésebb férfi, vagy általán véve oly emberek, kik egymáshoz
közel állnak, a nagy világban különös hajlamot érzenének
egymáshoz. Falun, hol vetélkedésnek helye nincs, ép az ellenkezőt
tapasztaljuk, a közelállók egymáshoz simulnak; s így e két leány is.
Etelka Vilmával beszélgetve a második szobában ültek.

Vilma, ki most lépett tizenhatodik évébe, soha Taksony-megye
határain túl nem lépett; csak annyit ismert a világból, mennyit
barátnéjától, ki már huszadik évéhez közelge és pár telet a
fővárosban töltött, hallott. Nagyban s kicsiben ő nem határozott
semmit a nélkül, hogy Etelkát kérdené, s ha Vándory néha
mosolyogva mondá, hogy Vilma csak akkor tud akarni, ha Etelkától
reá engedelmet nyert, nagy részben igaza volt. Fiatal olvasóim,
kiknek egy része, mert senkitől függni nem akar, bizonyosan inkább
kész mindenre, mint hogy oly valamit tegyen, mi neki józan
emberektől tanácsoltatik, ne gondolják azért, hogy azon gyönge
teremtések egyike előtt állnak, kiknél jó s rosszra egyaránt hiányzik
az erő, s kiknek jellemök helyett csak körülményeiket említheti a
leiró. Vilma azon lények közé tartozott, kik erősen szeretni s
ugyanezért erősen bizni tudnak, s ha a világot nem ismerve,
határozataiban inkább szivét, mint okokat követett, nagy kérdés,
rosszaljuk-e vigyáztalanságát, vagy irigyeljük a boldogot? Botlunk
valamennyien, de legkevesebbet, ki bátran halad előre; s ez nem az,
ki útját maga keresi. Egyáltalában, ha eszünkbe jutna néha, mily
nagy része úgynevezett meggyőződéseinknek alapszik jó
hiszemünkön, – csakhogy, midőn egy közmondássá vált állításra
építjük okoskodásunkat, nem mondhatjuk, kinek auctoritásán
indulunk: nem néznénk le oly büszkén azokra, kik tekintélyeket
követnek, s mint Vilma, csak addig akarnak, míg szivök magának
vezetőt nem választott. Etelka teljes mértékben viszonzá ez
érzeményt, s a két hölgy, ki mind helyzet-, mind jellemre nézve
látszólag oly távol álla egymástól (a szelid Vilma, kinek mindig
támaszra vala szüksége, ki határtalan vonzalmában akarni
megfeledkezett; s Etelka, kinek akaratát a kis háború, melyet
gyermeksége óta mostohájával folytatott, megedzé), mindazon
barátsággal ragaszkodtak egymáshoz, melyet érzeni csak a gyenge
hölgykebel képes, de mely, ép mert annyival szebb s magasabb
azon érzelemnél, melyet mi férfiak barátságnak nevezünk, nem is
tarthat sokáig.
– Hát nem láttad őt? – szólt Etelka félretéve munkáját – bizony
kár! nem adnám sokért, ha egyszer Violával találkozhatnám;
minden, mit felőle hallok, érdekel. A szilaj bátorság, melyet még
ellenei s maga Nyúzó sem tagad el tőle; az, hogy mostani
életmódjához kényszeríttetett, s főkép a szeretet, melylyel neje s
gyermekei iránt viseltetik, előttem e zsiványt érdekessé teszik.
– Hogy’ beszélhetsz így? Isten tudja, hogy szánom a
szerencsétlent, de ösmeretsége után nem vágyódom. Te bátor vagy,
én meghalnék félelmemben, hisz mondják, hogy embereket is ölt,
szörnyűségeket beszélnek felőle.
– Mese, ember, ki úgy tud szeretni, mint Viola, nem lehet
szörnyeteg. – Mondj nekem egyet a teins táblabirák közül, kiket
naponkint látunk, s kiket az egész világ felséges, jámbor
embereknek tart – kiveszem atyádat, – ki hasonló körülmények közt
nejéhez jőne, halálos veszélynek, sőt mi több, akasztófának kitenné
magát, csakhogy beteg kedvesét lássa? Vilmám, ez szép, ez
nagyszerű a zsiványban is; én így akarnék szerettetni bárki által,
akkor boldognak érzeném magamat.
– Ha ez kell – szóla Vilma szinte letéve munkáját s barátnéja
kezét megfogva, – nincs oly dolog a világon, melyet Kálmán éretted
ne tenne.
– Kivévén, hogy kedvemért egyszer egy pohár borral kevesebbet
igyék, mint közönségesen, vagy káromkodásával s azon
szerencsétlen affectatióval hagyjon fel, melyet utálok. Kálmán
mindent tenne a világon, az egyen kívül, mit tőle kivánok, s a mi
épen hatalmában áll.
– Igazságtalan vagy, Kálmán tűzbe menne éretted.
– Igen, meg vagyok győződve, főkép ha egy pár ember jelen van,
ki bátorságát közhirré teheti. Kálmán bátor ember, tagadhatatlan,
nem ismerek senkit, ki életét kisebb dolgokért koczkáztatná; ő nem
számít, s hol becsületről van szó, személyes java őt semminek
tevése vagy elhagyására birni nem fogja. Igen, neki sok jó s nemes
tulajdonai vannak, én megengedem mindezt, csak azt ne mondd,
hogy szeret.
– Fel vagy gerjedve ellene, bizonyosan szelességében valami
csint követett el, azért.
– Ő javíthatlan – szóla Etelka felkelve helyéről, – képzeld csak,
ismét lerészegedett!
– Talán ismét csalódtál, mint minap, midőn hosszú harag után
végre kisült, hogy Kálmán egész hét óta nem ivott egy pohár bort.
– Először nem hiszem, hogy akkor csalódtam, s azt gondolom,
hogy Ákos, szegény hugának barátja kedveért kissé hazudott;
másodszor, ma csalódásról szó sem lehet, egész ebéd alatt mellette
ültem. De ne szóljunk többé e kellemetlen tárgyról – tevé hozzá
Etelka oly hangon, melyből mindenki láthatá, hogy e tárgy neki
legalább nem közönyös – én Kálmánt ismerem, méltánylom jó
tulajdonait, nem vagyok vak hibái iránt sem, benne nincs való
férfiúság. Ki annyi feltétel után egy pohár bornak nem képes
ellentállni, az bátor lehet, pillanatokra nemeslelkű, de nem férfias, s
valóban szeretni csak erős szív tud.
– Ákos máskép vélekedik barátjáról.
– Igen, Ákos – szólt Etelka, kényszerített mosolylyal palástolva
fölgerjedését, – s mit Ákos mond, azon kételkedni nem szabad?
Ákos a legderekabb férfi, kit ismerek, de férfi, s azért nem képes ily
tárgyról ítélni. Férfiak azon tulajdonokat tisztelik társaikban,
melyeknek legtöbb hasznát vehetik; s ha pajtásuk jó agarász, ha
adott szavához hív, ha hatszor megverekednék barátjáért, nem is
foghatják meg, mit kivánhatunk ennél többet? Nekem más fogalmam
van e tárgyról.
A barátnék elhallgattak. Vilma észrevevé, hogy e beszélgetés
Etelkának kellemetlen s tovább folytatá munkáját. Etelka az
ablakhoz állva kinézett a sötét kertre, mely szokott csendében feküdt
a ház mellett, s melynek tegnapi kárait az éj eltakará.
– Képzelhetem apád haragját – szólt végre Etelka, ismét
barátnéjához ülve, – midőn tegnap haza jött s a történteket hallá.
– Úgy még nem láttam őt; szerencsére Vándory jött vele s ez
áldott ember, szenvedélyét kissé megnyugtatá, de becsület-szavára
fogadta, hogy addig nyugodni nem fog, míg igazságot nem szerez
magának. Én úgy félek, ha rá gondolok.
– Attól, hogy igazságot szerez magának? Ne félj kedvesem, –
tevé hozzá némi keserűséggel, – ez nálunk nem oly veszélyes.
– De hisz tudod, hogy az egész történetet szüleidnek tulajdonítja.
– S félek, mi mostohámat illeti, nem egészen ok nélkül.
– Igen, de atyám, téged kivéve, egész családodra újra
megharagudott, Ákosra is, pedig neki köszönhetjük
megszabadulásunkat; ha ő nem jő, feldúlják a házat, Violát
megtalálják s meg vagyunk rontva.
– Ki tehet róla? Mindenki igazságtalan, némelyek, mert elveik
nincsenek, mások ép az elvek szigorúsága miatt. Vándory, mert
minden emberben félangyalt, apád, mert mindenikben ellenséget lát.
–
– Anyám elbeszélé az egész történetet, Liptákné, én s az egész
ház dicsérte Ákos viseletét; hasztalan! Apám mondá, hogy kár volt
az úrfinak házához fáradni s megakadályozni a kutatást, mely
legalább becsületét tisztára mosta volna; s hogy Ákost hihetőkép
mindent előre tudott s csak azért hagyá a dolgokat ennyire jőni, hogy
magának érdemet szerezzen előttünk. Oh, ha apám tudná, hogy
Viola itt volt! remegek e gondolatnál.
– Nem fogja megtudni soha; Liptáknéban bizhatunk, te nem
szólsz, és – –
– De ha pörre kerül a dolog, apám mondá, hogy meg fogja
esketni az egész házat, anyámtól az utósó szolgálóig s akkor mit
tegyünk?
– Nem fog történni, apád haragjában szólt, s később meg fog
nyugodni. Mindenesetre neki ne szólj a dologról, a mint őt ismerem,
nem tartaná titokban; s elég ellenségei vannak, kik a történteket
kárára használnák.
– Liptákné is azt mondja. De nem képzelheted helyzetemet; én,
ki soha éltemben atyám előtt nem titkoltam semmit, s ki most e nagy
hazugsággal lelkemen állok előtte s nem merek szemébe nézni, ha
velem szól, s nem örülni, ha karjaiba szorít; ki valahányszor ajtó
nyilik, remegek, hogy titkom elárultatott s apám szeretetét
elvesztém. Hidd el Etelkám, nem tűrhetem e helyzetet.
– S mégis tűrnöd kell, kedvesem – szóla Etelka, sírva fakadt
barátnőjét megölelve, – atyád nyugalma, szerencséje kívánja; neki
ez áldozattal tartozol.
– Magam is úgy hiszem – válaszolt Vilma, könnyeit törülve, – de
te nem ismered apám egész jóságát. Ha mellém ül s arczomat
simogatva, jó leányának nevez, s elmondja hogy éltének boldogsága
vagyok, s hogy az egész világtól megcsalatva, szerelmem agg
napjaiban jutalmat ad minden szenvedéseiért, s nekem akkor
eszembe jut, hogy minde szeretetét többé nem érdemlem, hogy
valamit titkolok előtte; hogy, tudva miként csak teljes bizalmat kér
tőlem, én nem teljesítem e kívánatát: mit tegyek? Lábaihoz akarnék
borulni s megvallani mindent, de akkor ismét nyugalma, becsülete jut
eszembe s magamba fojtom könyeimet.
– Szegény Vilmám – szólt Etelka felsóhajtva – s mégis alig
tudom, ne irígyeljem-e helyzetedet? Én rég nem tárhatom ki
szivemet apám előtt. De hidd el, minden rendbe jő ismét; a tisztujítás
után, ha apám, mint reménylem, hivatalából kilép, apád haragja
szűnni fog. Mihelyt Viola neje jobban lesz, talán Vándory veszi
házához; a dolog lassankint feledésbe megy, s akkor majd szólhatsz
apáddal is.
– Igen, de addig! Viola tudta, hogy az egész falu elfogására
készül s mégis eljött. A mint Liptákné mondja, nem képzelheti senki,
miként szereti nejét; ki áll jót, nem jön-e el ismét, ma, holnap vagy
akár mikor? Házunk körül van véve kémekkel s ha elfogják? Jézus
Krisztusom! – sikolta föl egyszerre Vilma, a kert felőli ablakra
meresztve szemeit – itt van.
– Kicsoda? – kérdé Etelka, hasonlóan oda fordítva tekintetét –
nem látok senkit – –
– Most eltünt, de hidd el Etelkám, ott állt, tisztán láttam szakállas
képét a rostély mellett.
– Violát? hová gondolsz, ő talán harmadik megyében jár, s míg
Nyúzó s a fél megye itt tanyázik, nem is jő vissza Tiszarétre. Fel
vagy gerjedve; ha akarod, magam kimegyek s a kertben körülnézek.
– Hagyd el kedves Etelkám; meglehet hogy csalódtam, én
gyermek vagyok.
– Egész testedben remegsz – szóla Etelka, megfogva barátnéja
kezét, – ha anyád látna, megijedne halványságodon, egy pohár vizet
hozok, az segítni fog.
Etelka fölkelt, hogy vizért a konyhába menjen, midőn a másik
szoba ajtaján gyönge koczogás hallatszott.
– Kérlek, maradj mellettem – szólt Vilma, megfogva Etelka kezét,
– ki lehet ez, ily későn? Én félek – –
– Talán a biró vagy más valaki, ki apádat keresi; meglátjuk. –
Szabad!
Az ajtó lassan fölnyilt, és bejött – sok alázatos bók s
engedelemkérés közt egy idegen zsidó, ki a thekhintetes, nagyságos
kisasszonyoknak jó estvét kivánt.
Vilma előbbi félelme s e zsidó alázatos bókjai oly ellentétben
álltak, hogy Etelka, főkép midőn a rémülést látá, melylyel barátnéja
még most is az idegenre nézett, gyönge mosolyt nem nyomhatta el.
Az idegen azonban, ki a két szoba közötti ajtóban állva, kezében
mocskos kalapját forgatá, ha nem is hasonlított zsiványhoz, s
látszólag gyönge termete s fegyvertelen kezeivel nem adott is
rémülésre okot, azon egyediségek közé tartozott, kik a legbátrabbra
is kellemetlenül hatnak. Üveges Jancsi, mert ez a név, melyen e
személy, legalább e megyében neveztetik, egyike vala a
legcsunyább teremtéseknek. Gyönge tagjai, melyek az óriási fej
terhe alatt látszólag meghajlának, a himlőhelyektől széttépett arcz,
melyet homlokára lógó vörös szakáll félig eltakart; egyik szemén –
mely, mint maga mondá, még gyermekkorában, midőn himlője volt,
kifolyt, – a nagy fekete tapasz, a másiknak bizonytalan tekintete,
mely szüntelen forogva mindent föl látszott keresni, csak szemedet
nem: oly egészet képezének, mely mindenkire visszataszító hatást
gyakorolt s melynek rútságát sem a kopott nadrág, sem a sárga ujjú
mellény, sem a kis szürke köpeny, mely ruházatát kiegészíté, nem
takarhaták el. Maga Etelka kellemetlenül meghatva érzé magát ez
ember előtt, főkép miután Vilma fülébe sugá, hogy ugyanezen arcz
az, melyet előbb az ablaknál látott.
– Mondtam, Tengelyi úr nincs idehaza, – szólt Etelka, – jőjön
kend később, vagy talán holnap reggel, akkor bizonyosan honn
találja.
– Nagyságos kisasszony – szólt a zsidó, mindig kalapját forgatva
s a szobákban körültekintve, – ez szörnyű baj nekem, igen
szükséges dolgom volna a jegyző úrral.
– Hát jőjön fél óra mulva; vacsorára, úgy tartom, visszajő.
– Talán majd addig künn várok – szólt a zsidó, helyéről nem
mozdulva; – a teins úrnak nincsenek kutyái?
– Kutyái? – kérdé Vilma megijedve.
– Igen – ha kutyái nincsenek, majd az udvarban várok, máskép
félek.
– Bátran várhat kend – válaszolt Etelka türelmetlenül, – nincs
kutya a háznál.
– Igen, de talán a szomszédoknál, idegen ember vagyok s taval a
harmadik faluban csakhogy szélylyel nem téptek, azóta úgy félek! –
Itt az idegen hosszú történetet kezde beszélni: mint ment át a falun,
hogy’ támadtatott meg, mint köszönheté megmentését egy
juhásznak, ki véletlenül arra ment. – Bizony Isten, ha ő nem jő, oda
vagyok, egész köpönyemet széttépték, pedig még egészen jó volt,
nem egészen új, de nagyon jó, öt forint harmincz krajczáron vettem
Pesten.
A zsidóban oly csudás vegyülete volt az álnokság s
nevetségességnek, mi Etelkát nevetésre készté, míg Vilma mindig
nyugtalanabb lőn s még egyszer kéré, hogy menjen el most s jőjön
fél óra mulva; mire az üveges azt felelte, hogy majd a cselédházba
megy s ott várakozni fog. – A cselédház nincs itt a szoba mellett,
úgy-e kisasszony? ott nem fogok alkalmatlankodni.
Vilma, kinek félelmét fölülmulta a türelmetlenség, melyet a zsidó
tolakodása benne gerjesztett, szárazon mondá: – A cselédház
mellett beteg van, s már háromszor mondtam, hogy fél óra mulva
jőjön s ne időzzön itt.
A zsidó alázatosan meghajtá magát s a konyhába nyiló ajtó felé
ment, melyet fölnyitott.
– Hová megy kend itt? – szóla Vilma.
– Alássan csókolom kezeit, engedelmet kérek, de úgy meg
vagyok zavarodva. Talán arra is kimehetek az udvarra?
– Az ajtó be van zárva, menjen kend, a merre jött. – S a zsidó
ismét meghajtva magát, Tengelyi szobáján át az ajtón, melyen jött,
kiment, de nem, mielőtt a másik szobában ismét két-három bókot
csinált, kalapját leejté s az ajtónál oly ügyetlenül viselé magát, hogy
azt alig nyithatá föl, mely idő alatt úgy látszott, egy szemével a szoba
minden szögletét átvizsgálá.
– Mit mondasz ehhez? – szólt Vilma, miután a zsidó elment –
fogadni mernék, hogy kém.
– Kém? meglehet; ez ember, úgy látszik, minden, a mire épen
használni akarják; s ha ellenség jőne hazánkba, talán az volna, de
hozzátok mit jőne kémlelni?
– Violát; tudod miként üldözi Nyúzó.
– Azaz, miként üldözte tegnap, ma hidd el legkisebb gondja is
nagyobb ennél. Nyugodt lehetsz; a zsidó valami panaszszal vagy
kéréssel jött apádhoz, s a ki e népet ismeri, nem bámulja
tolakodását.
– De nem vetted észre, mennyit kérdezett, s hogy’ nézett körül a
szobában?
– Mert a kutyáktól fél, s talán törött ablakot keresett, melyet
holnap, ha eljő, kiigazíthasson.
Vilma korántsem vala megnyugtatva, s hihetőkép még többet
szólt volna aggodalmairól, ha ép akkor Tengelyi nem lép a szobába s
Etelka előtt meghajtva magát, leányát kebléhez szorítván, a
beszélgetésnek véget nem vet.
– Nem is reményltem – szólt Etelkához fordulva, míg Vilma apja
kalapját s botját szokott helyére raká, – hogy a kisasszonyt itt
találom, a kastélyban ma annyi vendég van.
– S nem tudja, hogy ez egy okkal több idejövetelemre?
– Igen, de mily vendégek! – szólt Tengelyi kissé keserűen – ily
embereket nem lehet eléggé becsülni tisztújítás előtt.
Etelka, ki sértve, hamarjában feleletet nem talált, csak azon
észrevétellel válaszolt, hogy Tengelyi úr, mint látszik, kissé rossz
kedvű. Mire Vilma, hogy a beszélgetésnek más fordulatot adjon,
kérdé: nem találkozott-e senkivel a ház előtt, egy zsidóval, – tevé
hozzá – ép most volt itt, alig birtuk kiigazítani.
– De igen – válaszolá a jegyző, – közel a házhoz, Macskaházyval
beszélt, ki hogy el ne feledjem, azt üzenteti Etelka kisasszonynak,
hogy mindjárt huszárt fog küldeni lámpással; nemsokára vacsorához
ülnek s az alispán már többször kérdezősködött a kisasszony után.
– És a zsidó mit kért kedves atyámtól? úgy látszott, fontos dolgai
lehettek, annyira vágyott még ma szólhatni.
– Fontos dolgai? Szegény nyomorultra nézve fontos dolgok,
egyébiránt puszta tréfa. A szegény ember a kastélyban dolgozott, s
a teins karok és rendek összetörték minden üvegét, s mert e nemes
cselekedeten velök nevetni nem akart, vagy mert zsidó, vagy mert
csak egy szeme van, mint mondá, nemes haragjokban meg is
verték. A dolog kicsiség, mint a kisasszony látja, – szólt Etelkához
fordulva Tengelyi, – hány embert nem vernek meg tisztújítások
alkalmával, főkép zsidókat, csak már azért is, hogy az új
tisztviselőknél panaszkodva, mindjárt meggyőződjenek, hogy reájok
nézve minden a réginél maradt.
– De ez szörnyűség, atyám! – szólt Vilma, ki a zsidót szánni
kezdé.
– Ki tehet róla kedvesem – viszonzá apja keserűen, – mi volna a
magyar szabadsága, ha még egy zsidó üvegest sem volna szabad
megvernie? Egyébiránt a dolog minden tekintetben rendben van;
Macskaházy az egész kár megtérítését igéré, s a zsidó, ki hihetőleg
fájdalmai díját az üvegtáblák árához fogja számítani, ezzel
megelégszik.
Azalatt Erzsébet asszony s a tiszteletes, kik a beteget alva
hagyák, bejöttek s rövid barátságos beszélgetés után Etelka
megölelvén barátnéját, elhagyá a jegyző csendes házát, hol
Erzsébet mindent vacsorához készíte.
XI.
Hogy azalatt, míg Tiszaréten a conservativ párt részéről a

közelgő tisztújításra ennyi előkészület történt, Cserepesen,
Bántornyi főkvártélyában, a szakács s pinczérnek szintén nem voltak
ünnepei: azt olvasóim gondolhatják; miután azonban egymás ellen
működő pártok tetteikben többnyire csak úgy különböznek
egymástól, mint ugyanazon darab pénznek két oldala, melyen
különböző fölirat s jelek mellett, bármint forgassuk, ugyanazon
érczet s nagyságot találjuk: nem szükséges, hogy azon conferentiák
részletes leirásába ereszkedjem, melyek a tiszaréti ármányok
kijátszására itt tartattak. Ki, mint Krivér, mind a két tábor
tanácskozásaiban részt vett, láthatá, hogy valamint a hölgyek, úgy a
nép szerelme mindig ugyanazon fortélyok által szereztetik meg.
Számra Bántornyi pártja hatalmasabbnak látszott, sőt Kislaky,
Sóskuty s Slacsanek kivételével a megye intelligentiáját s nagyobb
birtokosait is majdnem mind Cserepesen találjuk, s ha a lelkességről
a lárma szerint itélünk, a párt győzelme biztosnak látszik, miután
hozzá, mint szabadelvűhöz, az egész ifjúság is szegődött; csak két
ok van, mely miatt Krivér a dolog kimenetelét kétségesnek hiszi. Az
első: hogy magát a főügyészt s egypár alszolgabirót s esküdtet
kivéve, az egész tisztviszlői kar az ellenféllel tart, mi a jelen
körülmények között igen természetes, miután Bántornyi ügyét
majdnem kizárólag olyanokkal köté össze, kik, mint ő, a nemes
közönségnek csak most akarák szentelni tehetségeiket; de a «beati
possidentes» a hivatalokra is kiterjedvén, igen veszélyes is. A
második, mi ennél sokkal aggasztóbb, az: hogy Bántornyi barátai
mindjárt a tisztújítás kihirdetése után elhatározák, miként szándékaik
kivitelére csak a capacitatio s nem a megvesztegetés ocsmány
eszközeivel fognak élni. Az indítvány Tengelyi által tétetett s
Bántornyi minden barátai között, azokat kivéve, kik választatni
akartak, oly általános helyeslést talált, hogy Krivér, a főügyész s
maga Bántornyi hiába használák ellene minden szónoki
tehetségeiket. Igaz, hogy Bántornyi s csáládja nem mulasztott el
semmit, mi által pártjának hibáját jóvá teheté, s hogy, becsületére
legyen mondva, nemes pártolóinak sem bor, sem pálinka nem
hiányzott sehol; azonban az ellenzéki conferentiának e
meggondolatlan határozata, mely a Rétyánusok által bizonyos
commentáriusok mellett terjesztetett, megszülte erkölcsi rossz
hatását. Mondatott például, hogy Bántornyiék nem hiába szólnak a
zsidók emancipatiója mellett, kiknél fösvénységre nézve magok sem
jobbak, hogy megvetik a nemességet, mert máskép bizony csak
jobban vendégelnék meg, s ily nyilvános rágalmak ellen az alispáni
kijelöltnek titkolt bőkezűsége mit használt? A pártnak, mint Krivér
mondá, hiányzik a nyilvánosság hatalmas eszköze. Réty emberei
faluról-falura mennek, tanyákat nyitnak, zászlókat hordanak körül, a
fiúknak színes tollakat, a lányoknak szalagokat ajándékoznak;
magok az iskolás gyermekek könyv nélkül tanulták a kijelöltek neveit
s a falusi piaczokon restaurálnak, minden nemes legény tudja, hogy
három pengő huszast kap, mihelyt Réty alispánnak választatott, s mi
addig szégyenlős koldusokként titkolódzunk! Mit reménylhetni így?
Hogy ezen véleménykülönbség, mely Bántornyi hivei között nem
a czél, de – min annyi becsületes ember vész össze – az eszközök
iránt létezett, igen élénk vitatkozásokra adott alkalmat, s hogy
néhányan a hivatalvágyódók közül a pártot elhagyák s a másikhoz
szegődtek: világos; sőt az egész felekezet hihetőkép föloszlott volna
rég, ha egy örvendetes hír nem tartja együtt.
A főispán t. i., ki valahányszor Taksony-megyébe jött, a megye
határain küldöttséggel váratott, ez alkalommal igen nyájas levélben
Bántornyinak tudtára adta, hogy Cserepesnek veendi útját s ismerve
a régi barátságot, melylyel a földesúr iránta viseltetik, a hó
harminczadikát annak házában fogja tölteni, kinek hív alázatos
szolgája gróf Marosvölgyi főispán. E levél egészen ő excellentiája
kezével irva, epochalis történet vala a megyében. Hogy a főispán, ki
eddig mindig Rétyéknél szálla meg, most először, épen akkor, midőn
az előbbi szabad elveitől eltért, s Bántornyi mint a liberalisok kijelöltje
lép föl, ez utolsónak házában száll meg, nem mutatja-e világosan a
rokonszenvet, melylyel ő excellentiája az ellenzék elvei iránt mindig
viseltetett? Így szóltak Cserepesen; míg Réty felekezete e váratlan
történetet vagy annak tulajdonítá, hogy a főispán más úton jövén a
megyébe, sehol jóravaló korcsmát nem találván, kénytelenségből
száll meg itt; vagy pedig e lépést a lehető legnagyobb politikai
hibának nevezé, mely később vagy előbb a gróf bukásához fog
vezetni. Mindazok, kik a nemesség megvesztegetése ellen
nyilatkoztak, főkép Tengelyi, e diadalt természetesen annak
tulajdoníták, hogy az ocsmány mód, melylyel Réty többséget keres,
a főispán tudtára jött s hogy ő kegyelmessége most az által, hogy
Bántornyihoz szállt, akarja megmutatni, mennyire rosszal minden
korteskedést. S ezt nem bámulhatja senki, ki természetünk
gyöngeségeit ismeri, hisz ha kevesen vannak, kik valamely
történetet egymagok előidézhetnének, nem rikábbak-e még azok, kik
azt, a mi kedvök szerint történt, nem egészen önmagoknak
tulajdonítanák?
Bármi volt is azonban az ok, mely ő excellentiáját Cserepesre
vezette, az öröm Bántornyi házában nem vala csekélyebb, s alig
mult nap, melyen az ellenzéki felekezet pártolói azóta ne
szaporodtak volna egypár kitünő egyeddel, ki esküdtség vagy
szolgabiróság után vágyott. Főkép október harminczadikán a
cserepesi ház tele volt elvbarátokkal, s noha a megyei küldöttség
csak ebédre, a főispán pedig vacsorára váratott, már reggel alig
lehete mozdulni a szobákban.
Bántornyi háza néhány év előtt egyike vala azoknak, melyekről,
ha sohasem láttuk is, egészen helyes fogalmunk lehet, s ha
egyszerűen mondom, hogy Bántornyiék kastélyban laknak, olvasóim
nagy része minden leirás nélkül a ház s a hozzá tartozó udvarokról a
lehetőségig hű képet alkothatott volna magának. Nyolcz ablak a ház
hosszában, három széliben, a ház közepén kétszárnyú vörösre
festett ajtó, melyhez három lépcső vezet; a ház négy szögletén egy-
egy négyszögletű torony. Ki nem látta mindezt százszor életében s ki
nem tudja, hogyha az ajtón, mely fölött a kőbe vésett czímer függ,
belépett, kövezett pitvaron át egyenesen az ebédlőbe jut, melynek
jobb oldalán a teins vagy méltóságos asszony cum appertinentiis,
balra a háziúr s vendégek laknak stb. Ha történetem pár évvel előbb
játszik, a cserepesi ház leirásától, mint mondám, fölmenthetném
magamat; most azonban, mióta teins Bántornyi Jakab vagy James,
mint magát szívesebben hivatá, Angliából visszatért, maga Lajos úr
alig ismeri saját házát többé, s az ifijasszony, ki előbbi időkben a
házat határtalanul kormányozta s még most is, mióta Jakab
megházasodott, nem tudni mi okoknál fogva (talán mert kapitány
özvegye volt) hatalmának jó felét megtartá, estve sohasem ereszté
ki leányát vezető nélkül, nehogy, mi már kétszer történt, ismét
eltévedjen s a cancellistához jusson.
Van Angliában egy különös dolog, melyet comfortnak neveznek s
mely e nemzetnek annyira tulajdona, hogy a szót fordíthatlannak
mondhatjuk. Vannak, kik azt magyarul «commoditás»-nak akarnák
nevezni, mióta azonban a comfort a cserepesi házba behozatott,
Taksony-megyében mindenki meg volt győződve arról, hogy a két
dolog között roppant különbség létezik, s Jakab vagy James úrnak
csakhamar azon elégtétel jutott, hogy ezen állítása – melyért
mindjárt visszatérte után annyit vitatkozott, – általánosan el lőn
fogadva.
A comfort főkép három dologban áll. Az első: hogy a ház külső
alakjában symmetria ne legyen. A második: hogy belsejében
mindenféle kis folyosók s főkép kisebb lépcsők legyenek a szobák
között. A harmadik: hogy mennyire lehet, az egész lakás egy, s
pedig kis brámaféle lakattal zárassék. Szőnyegek s jó karszékek
igen kivánatosak, elkerülhetlen azonban egy vagy több s pedig
kőszénégetésre épült kandalló, melynek szaga a comfortot
Angliában tetemesen neveli s a világért sem volna fával
fölcserélendő.
Mindez, mihelyt Jakab úr Angliából visszatért, a Bántornyiak ősi
lakában alkalmazásba vétetett. A nyolcz ablakos kastély mellé egy
egészen Laudon encyclopedia of cottage architecture szerint
tervezett angol emeletes ház épült; a régi tornyok egyike, mely az új
épülettel összeköttetésben állt, fölemeltetett, s Lajos úrnak a
tűzveszély ellen tett minden észrevételeinek ellenére falépcsővel
láttatott el. A ház egyik oldalán a kert felé nagy üveg veranda, a ház

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Making Radio: Early Radio Production and the Rise of

Sweet Wild of Mine Laurel Kerr

Sweet Wild of Mine Laurel Kerr

Sweet Wild of Mine Laurel Kerr

Claiming You Brooklyn Kerr

The ARRL Ham Radio License Manual

Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health (Handbooks

An Inspector Recalls: Selections From The Memoirs Of Dr

ISBN 978-3-319-67252-6 ISBN 978-3-319-67253-3 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017952822

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover illustration: © Bitboxx.com

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

How Postmodernism Explains Football, and Football Explains

1 Introduction: Why the Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

2 The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio 19

3 More Intensity in Major Regional Talk 37

4 Small Talk - With a Big, Classic Clash of Narratives 59

5 Straight Talk from Beyond the Male Gaze 79

6 Conclusion: What Matters Most Sociologically 93

Introduction: Why the Sociology

Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Postmodernist theory

Talk radio… is about as accurate as a North Korean test missile.

When Oklahoma State University Head Football Coach Mike Gundy

© The Author(s) 2018 1

vividly express an essential sociological dynamic of commercial sports

it comes to our most prominent cultural institutions, like commercial

sport with communication”) by the fact that sport is a source of “con-

The Vital Connection Between Postmodernist

to suggest that anyone claiming to reliably explain postmodernism is

Recognizing Mediated Sport’s Social Construction

associated with philosophical writings and social and political theo-

rationalities, or totalities, striving “to demonstrate the fractures and

The Hyper-mediated Narrative Marketplace

compelling source of narratives that fulfill a deep sociological need.

A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

In this raging maelstrom of exponentially ever more mediated sports

the discussion above on how human behavior can be shaped as much or

The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

consumers construct representations of reality via this robustly interac-

through a multi-step process. As a methodological approach, it is not

The Smooth Talk of National Sports Radio

Abstract This chapter focuses on a prominent sports talk-radio show

Keywords Sports-talk radio · Sociology · Narrative analysis

© The Author(s) 2018 19

in the unprecedented multitude of narrative advancement and rejec-

Qualities of a Very High-Profile National Show

Patrick and most other observers expected them to win. Retelling on a

your jersey and walked in downtown Stillwater?” Mayfield replies, “I

A Venue Generally Chummy and a Bit Wonky

Patrick finesses the matter diplomatically: “Absolutely, great call.

national and relatively diverse audience. As will be evident in the follow-

The Salience of the Errant but Most Ferocious

“Unless you’re a Quaker or a Mennonite, Paulie, you should have picked

More Intensity in Major Regional Talk

A Narrative Marketplace that Never Ends

The Hyper-mediated Sociology of Sports-Talk Radio

The Salience of the Errant but Most Ferocious

A Cordial but Rigorous Venue