Brian Kenny had me as a guest on his MLB radio show today. It’s always a treat to join Brian, who is, for my money, one of the smartest men in baseball. Seriously, he’s so smart that I get a little intimidated coming on his show, so I can only imagine how Harold Reynolds felt matched up against him on regular basis. I’m still shocked they didn’t give Reynolds a bucket of blocks to play with while Brian ran show.
Anyway, BK asked me—in terms of labor, management, and business—what the Nationals should do with Bryce Harper.
First of all, I wasn’t entirely prepared for this question. Okay, scratch that, I wasn’t prepared at all.
Now, I’m not supposed to tell you that because, you know, if a guy gets asked on a show that makes him an “expert”, and experts are supposed to be able to talk about all facets of whatever the show they’re on covers, right?
Well, wrong, actually. This isn’t me poo-pooing BK’s show. It’s a great one. Totally professionally ran with zero issues. I’d do it anytime they ask… which may never happen again by the time I’m done telling you all this. But, to be clear dear listener/viewer/reader, I’m just explaining, for the sake of the story, that guests are usually brought on shows with a full knowledge of what they’ll be asked so they don’t look like morons—like I did today.
As a matter of fact, when I go on Keith Olbermann’s show, we do a pre-interview hours before the show and then the producers send me verbatim written questions before I go on air. Most of this is because the producers need to know what to cut graphics for—if you’re on television. If you’re going to reference Giancarlo Stanton in your rant, then they want to have film to run as B-roll while you’re yakking because people want to see baseball players, not you talking. Unless you’re a baseball player and, for the record, when people see me talking they don’t think “baseball player”, they think, “Who the hell is this guy? He’s as much of a baseball player as I am the queen of England. Why am I listening to —oh, look, B-roll of a real baseball player!”
On a radio show, there is no B-roll. There is only you knowing what to say, or not. Your words sell it. And the host has got to be ready to rein you in if you babble, or prompt you if you’re too concise. This is why big radio shows can be tricky because the host really has to be up to speed on what’s being talked about. And hopefully your guest is too.
That’s why I love Kenny. He knows, like, everything. His producers help, sure, but he has to be fluent on a lot of material before the show starts to keep it running smoothly. For the record, KO knows everything as well. He could run a show by himself if you gave him a joystick to work the camera. When those two, BK and KO, were on a show together, the collective brainpower gave the camera men constant headaches, nose bleeds, and sent a make up artist to the hospital with visions of Cthulhu destroying the earth.
I say all that to say, there is a scripting dynamic in play, and it’s there to keep you safe from your own stupid. But, even if you know the topics that are supposed to be on the script, you won’t always be sure about the angle in which they come at you, or get responded too, or what little detail a host will pull a question from.
During a text message conversation with the producer before I went on air, I was asked what I was presently doing that the show could plug. At first I said “being unemployed and useless”—semi-true. Then I went on to say I was a freelance writer/baseball analyst attending full-time college for an MBA.
Not that, the producer is going to tell the host how to frame you as a guest—that’s his job. And while they’re doing that job, the host will take context clues from what the producer says and make assumptions in order to help with the interview, in case they need a question to fill for time, make you feel comfortable, and so on.
Which brings us to Brian Kenny asking me about the business underpinnings of Bryce Harper and the Nationals.
Flat out, I wasn’t paying attention to the Nats. I was paying attention to the Jays, which was what the interview was supposed to be about—Donaldson, the prospects traded to get him, Russell Martin, the Jays going forward in the AL East. Even on that end I’m not sure if I sounded all that bright, but at least I read some articles by people who did so I could fake it.
But then we got to Harper and the Nats.
The first mistake I made was, when BK asked me if I knew about the Harper events, I said yes. Hahahahahaha!…. Why the %#$!@ did I say that? Dirk, YOU IDIOT!
Well, I know why: Because I’m on a national radio program and I don’t want to say, “Who the hell is Bryce Harper?” Or, more accurately, “No, I haven’t been paying attention to this issue Brian, let’s create an awkward silence to commemorate my stupidity.” That would have never happened, BK is too good to let that happen. No, no, no, embarrassing yourself is something you have to work hard to do on BK’s show, and, no one works harder at it than me!
Instead, I say “yes” trusting/hoping that BK is going to feed me enough context clues that I can adlib my way through it based on my experience from around the game.
When I first got started doing the analyst stuff, I was told that every interview is an opportunity to sell yourself and you’ve got to roll with whatever they throw at you and do your best because, rarely ever do you get the perfect, on-a-tee set of questions. Practice acting like you know and selling knowledge even if you don’t have it.
Mind you, you can only really pull this off in sports. I would recommend this approach to no other profession—except politics.
Also, getting blindsided in an interview happens more than you’d think, despite scripts. I’ve been on with Keith for a 10 minute television hit that got turned into 20 because a game refused to end and give him his throw to cue. You have to be quick on your feet in the broadcasting game. It’s better to say something that sounds intelligent than nothing at all. In other professions, it’s much better to be quiet, but in the yack business, sounding smart is just as good as being smart. Most common fans can’t tell the difference. Sad, but true. And thank God for that because, unless you’re a sponge, it’s hard to be up on every hunk of news, rumor, scandal, transaction, stat, and stat based rumor of a scandal making news, in sports. A lot of live “analysis” is taking a concept back to what you know, in light of what the host thinks you know, so you can convince the people listening that you actually know something.
The technical term for this is bullshitting, and I can [usually] bullshit.
So BK explains the issue assuming I know it. I study it on the fly and think through my bullshitting options as he goes along.
1) Change the subject by talking about something else that, at least initially, parallels this subject before I completely hijack it.
2) Do a short history of the Bryce Harper and all he’s been through—which sounds on target but answers nothing.
3) Let BK know that, regardless of what he may have assumed when he heard that I was in business school from his producer, I’ve only made it through 3 months so far! We cover Harper and contract grievance in month 4.
4) I avoid it, talking about the Nat’s division and what they need to come up with to win, win, win!
5) I give him my former player’s perspective on the matter (and mind you, I know BK hates when guests do the, well, I played so I know… card).
6) I act like I know and just run with it and let the chips fall where they may, talking with such passion it makes BK look like he asked me the wrong thing.
Or, 7) I reverse the question with, “you know, I’ve got a thought on this, BK, but I want to hear yours first because I’m not sure we have time to battle this out if I walk into one of your punches.”
Right of the top I know that option 5 would work on other hosts, but not BK, so I can it. I can’t try and misdirect then fudge an answer because BK can spot a fake and he’d roast me on it, meaning 1,2, and 4 are gone. Going with 3 is like saying, “oh, wait, I lied.” 7 might work, but I’ve already said I’ve been following the situation and I’m on his show to answer questions not ask them which really leaves me with 6… Son of a…
6 it is.
I am pretty sure I said something about Jose Bautista having a ton of power to boss the GM around and question the management’s opinion, and if Harper got locked into a deal and everyone got behind him and his maturity level and drama and…. ooooh my holy God it was awful. Not even close to what BK was talking about.
When I’m done, I know that BK knows I didn’t know what the hell I was saying but he’s so gracious about it, pushing the events along, validating me if only by not utterly destroying me (Thank you BK!). Oh man, why didn’t he just telepathically give me a stroke or something just to shut me up? I would have.
But after the interview, I go to Twitter and there is nothing there. No comments on Facebook. No emails. No nothing. It went over with no one reacting to it. I mean, I know I sucked. BK knows I suck. His producers probably know I suck. And yet, most folks, either they thought I was wrong or (god help them) right, weren’t paying attention, or just don’t care. And that, folks, is the life of a sports broadcaster!
So what’s the lesson here? For one, don’t sweat messing up on a live show because it will happen eventually. Two, no one is paying attention for very long—there is so much white noise that nothing sticks around in the entertainment industry. Attention spans are short, talk is cheap, and entertainment is perpetual. Finally, make sure people know how many months of business education you have before you go on live air.
After brushing up on the Harper events, yes, I feel the Nationals should drop the money to keep Harper happy. He’s already a Franchise player—I think I actually called him the Justin Bieber of Baseball on Kenny’s show—and he’s young with a major upside, and, the Nats already spent oodles to sign him. They’re obviously invested. Give him the extra millions now to avoid getting totally pillaged later because we all know that Scott Boras is happy to crush your front office, see it driven before him, and hear the lamentations of your fan base… if it brings in more money for his clients.
However, the one thing you do have to be mindful of is precedent. So the negations were heated before they were finalized with Harper. It happens. So he was a big time uber draft big. It happens. So previous contracts were rejected by the Harper family when they didn’t show the opt out clause. It happens.
But if you’re signing a legally binding document, wouldn’t you do so with at least some provisions expressly stated to amend the contract later? How did it get to this point? Why the push to resolve now? If you’re an arbitrator, do you look at this as a play to leverage time constraints to muscle through a grievance consequence against the Nats, similar to what happened when the first contract was negotiated?
If this was not Harper, but a lesser player that didn’t have his clout or investment, and wasn’t considered a franchise player—does such a player win this case? Do we care? And if Harper does win this, does that mean other players then have a potential grievance scenario concerning contracts that are missing “common” provisions? Common is an interesting word here, because you could say that Harper, and uncommon player in an uncommon scenario, shouldn’t be treated as a common. Is that what got him his first contract?
From the business side of this (3 months worth, dammit!!!) yes, I get behind signing Harper because I don’t want to lose him or his upside. He should be a lock in my lineup for years because that’s what I drafted him for. I also want to avoid litigation because it’s expensive and counter productive. It tarnishes both my club and Harper going down the road. And, the sooner I can get him into a situation where he can be treated and controlled like “common” contract player, with obligations to my franchise that don’t include threatening me with a grievance, the sooner the drama (drama = expensive) goes away. The Nats are a good organization, and they don’t need this blemish. Even if they do beat Harper in a hearing, they’d still be the organization that Boras shuns for chicanery when it comes to contracts—and Boras represents some of the most premier talent in the game, including other Nats.
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