Neal McCready Rammer Jammered, Yella Hammered off the radio in Alabammer

[Hammer Pants]

http://blog.al.com/rapsheet/2007/11/mccready_taken_off_the_air.html

Looks like Neal wasn't part of the process.

 

[Point of Order]

"It would be easy to be very bitter and ask all of you not to give your time to the people at WNSP in the future, but that would be petty on my part and I'm going to try to be the bigger person here," he wrote to us journalists.
***

Nice of him to take the high road, isn't it??? But seriously, isn't this a "DOG BITES MAN!" kind of story?

 

[Hammer Pants]

"It would be easy to be very bitter and ask all of you not to give your time to the people at WNSP in the future, but that would be petty on my part and I'm going to try to be the bigger person here," he wrote to us journalists.
***

Nice of him to take the high road, isn't it??? But seriously, isn't this a "DOG BITES MAN!" kind of story?

It definitely is. Just thought some who know Neal or are familiar with his work would appreciate the info.

 

[Point of Order]

"It would be easy to be very bitter and ask all of you not to give your time to the people at WNSP in the future, but that would be petty on my part and I'm going to try to be the bigger person here," he wrote to us journalists.
***

Nice of him to take the high road, isn't it??? But seriously, isn't this a "DOG BITES MAN!" kind of story?

It definitely is. Just thought some who know Neal or are familiar with his work would appreciate the info.

Count me in that category. Thanks for posting it. I meant to direct the "Man Bites Dog" comment at my surprise that Neal would chose to send word of his departure out through the Birmingham News' Alabama beat writer. If a man didn't know any better, he might think Neal was trying to gin up some sympathy through a proxy so that it wouldn't appear so much like sour grapes on his part.

But as Neal clearly indicates, he's being the bigger person here.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Wow...those comments underneath are priceless. The fanbois sure got a hold of the news.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Wow...those comments underneath are priceless. The fanbois sure got a hold of the news.

Ditto. Worth the trip.

 

[Miles O'Toole]

Neal is a good friend and he simply told it like it is. As a frequent guest on the show, I'm thinking twice about appearing again.

 

[Blitz]

He'd come up with good info about 50 percent of the time when I was listening, but he all-too-often rubbed me the wrong way with his arrogance and his outright disrespect for schools, particularly in Mississippi.
He hated Ole Miss, even though he allegedly attended there or his parents taught there, or something.
And he just loved to dog-out MState any chance he got.
Saying coaches paid players in the Magnolia State while not reflecting on any such behavior around the rest of the conference. Little sophomoric jabs like that.
He worked with a good partner, Taylor, early on around 2000, but Taylor moved to the Carolinas or somewhere and the show was not as interesting (to me).
Too many commercials, too.
In my run-ins with him in pressboxes, Neal just always seemed arrogant and too opinionated.
He and the production crew would cut off callers in a second if the call wasn't going the way they wanted it to.
Either that, or just never getting hardly any callers on the air, period.
When it came to talk radio, the hosts did most of the talking on that show.
Weekly picks segments were weak, weak, and full or unneeded crosstalk.
I mean, who cares what your producer thinks in the Kentucky vs. Vandy game.
Make the picks and get more callers on the air.
(rant over, carry on)

 

[zeke12]

There is nothing on earth scarier than an Alabama football fan.

 

[Rufino]

Too many commercials, too.

Ummm, you do know that the whole point of programming is to generate revenue, right?

When it came to talk radio, the hosts did most of the talking on that show.

The NERVE of them! The hosts of a talk show were talking?! The people who spend their time preparing to do a radio program everyday were depriving the world of more poignant thoughts from "War Eagle Bob" or Tider Ted"? It almost sounds like they were doing their jobs or something!

 

[John]

He'd come up with good info about 50 percent of the time when I was listening, but he all-too-often rubbed me the wrong way with his arrogance and his outright disrespect for schools, particularly in Mississippi.
He hated Ole Miss, even though he allegedly attended there or his parents taught there, or something.
And he just loved to dog-out MState any chance he got.
Saying coaches paid players in the Magnolia State while not reflecting on any such behavior around the rest of the conference. Little sophomoric jabs like that.
He worked with a good partner, Taylor, early on around 2000, but Taylor moved to the Carolinas or somewhere and the show was not as interesting (to me).
Too many commercials, too.
In my run-ins with him in pressboxes, Neal just always seemed arrogant and too opinionated.
He and the production crew would cut off callers in a second if the call wasn't going the way they wanted it to.
Either that, or just never getting hardly any callers on the air, period.
When it came to talk radio, the hosts did most of the talking on that show.
Weekly picks segments were weak, weak, and full or unneeded crosstalk.
I mean, who cares what your producer thinks in the Kentucky vs. Vandy game.
Make the picks and get more callers on the air.
(rant over, carry on)

Neal went to Ole Miss. He was a senior when I was a freshman. We were in the same fraternity, though we might have exchanged a total of 10 words that year -- probably because I was a drunken idiot for much of my freshman year.

 

[Omar_dont_scare]

In my run-ins with him in pressboxes, Neal just always seemed arrogant and too opinionated.

Just like to note that my experiences with Neal have been the complete opposite of the quotation above. Carry on.

 

[FuerteJ]

He'd come up with good info about 50 percent of the time when I was listening, but he all-too-often rubbed me the wrong way with his arrogance and his outright disrespect for schools, particularly in Mississippi.
He hated Ole Miss, even though he allegedly attended there or his parents taught there, or something.
And he just loved to dog-out MState any chance he got.
Saying coaches paid players in the Magnolia State while not reflecting on any such behavior around the rest of the conference. Little sophomoric jabs like that.
He worked with a good partner, Taylor, early on around 2000, but Taylor moved to the Carolinas or somewhere and the show was not as interesting (to me).
Too many commercials, too.
In my run-ins with him in pressboxes, Neal just always seemed arrogant and too opinionated.
He and the production crew would cut off callers in a second if the call wasn't going the way they wanted it to.
Either that, or just never getting hardly any callers on the air, period.
When it came to talk radio, the hosts did most of the talking on that show.
Weekly picks segments were weak, weak, and full or unneeded crosstalk.
I mean, who cares what your producer thinks in the Kentucky vs. Vandy game.
Make the picks and get more callers on the air.
(rant over, carry on)

Neal went to Ole Miss. He was a senior when I was a freshman. We were in the same fraternity, though we might have exchanged a total of 10 words that year -- probably because I was a drunken idiot for much of my freshman year.

Wait, when was this? You know, the Columns is calling me.

Oh, and I rather enjoyed Neal, if only because I loved how he really got callers fired up. In full disclosure, I know Neal and am a fan. He's been good to me in the past.

 

[slappy4428]

Not pro-Alabama enough... **** talk radio and the entitled hilljacks who call...

 

[dixiehack]

Not pro-Alabama enough... **** talk radio and the entitled hilljacks who call...

Delta's ready when you are ...

If fan reaction cost him his newspaper gig, I could get the outrage. Talk radio? eh. If you sign up with the dancing monkey circuit, you have to expect to be gone when people don't dig your dancing.

 

[HejiraHenry]

If you sign up with the dancing monkey circuit, you have to expect to be gone when people don't dig your dancing.

Well put.

 

[Blitz]

I should have added that Neal's writing, in my opinion, was often brilliant and hard-hitting.
It's just the radio gig that really didn't sit well with me.
He's shown over and over that he can get a scoop or work a beat.
And talk radio, Rufino, as I understand the concept, is supposed to be about letting the people talk some, too.
It is the abnorm when callers are "Tider Ted" or "Eagle Bob" though that show had a few of those types.
What I don't understand is why hosts don't tell those routine, oft-callers that today they can't be on the air.
Tell them not to call so frequently.
In this and other beats, you often hear hosts "welcoming" these frequent-fliers to the airwaves.

 

[NDub]

I talked to Neal one time.

I e-mailed him and asked why he voted for Arizona State (when it was No. 12) in the AP poll. He responded less than an hour later and was candid with me.

Of course, one e-mail response does not judge a person. But I thought him taking time to respond - and so quickly - was nice.

(FYI, Neal voted the Sun Devils No. 1 for three straight weeks before the Oregon loss.)

 

[Steak Snabler]

I can't believe we've gotten this far in the thread without mentioning the whole "moving Texas ahead of Cal" controversy from 2004 ...

In case you don't know what I'm talking about (cut-and-paste from a December 2004 Knight Ridder News Service story):

"The Associated Press poll is made public and that led to a sticky problem for Neal McCready, columnist for the Mobile Register in Alabama. McCready raised Texas from No. 9 to No. 5 in his final vote of the year on Sunday even though the Longhorns hadn't played since Nov. 26. He wrote a column in the Sunday edition of the Mobile Register indicating that he received extreme pressure from Texas fans to reconsider his order."

Seems like Neal's radio bosses aren't the only ones who cave to public pressure ...

 

[Kid Bro Sweets]

Neal did good work with the radio show. It's a bummer that he's out.

I'm definitely not doing the show again. After today, I mean.