Reilly-Patrick I -- This Time, It's Insignificant.

[Fenian_Bastard]

Meee-****ing-yeeeoww!

http://sportsmediawatch.blogspot.com/2007/11/patrick-v-reilly.html

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Good for Boomer asking those questions.

 

[steveu]

Way to go, Boomer. I mean, it's obvious listening to Rick that he absolutely kisses the NBA's ass, but can he HOST a prime-time program dealing with it? He might not have the on-air presence that some of his columns do.

 

[ondeadline]

<a href="http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/48098/">
This topic was covered last week on this thread.</a>

 

[Lugnuts]

I'm on Team Dan.

 

[Dignan]

The Boomer Esiason Show?

 

[broadway joe]

Way to go, Boomer. I mean, it's obvious listening to Rick that he absolutely kisses the NBA's ass, but can he HOST a prime-time program dealing with it? He might not have the on-air presence that some of his columns do.

You think Reilly kisses the NBA's ass? I don't see that. He's never shown any extensive knowledge of the NBA at all. In fact, I think he's into superstars more than the actual sports they play. He's the type who would hang out with Schilling, but couldn't tell you who the Red Sox setup man is, for instance. But I do agree with you that Reilly might not be as effective on the air as he is in print.

 

[Singapore Slim]

The dude's got a fetish for anyone who pays attention to the NBA, and as you pointed out, Reilly is not one of those people.

Save for the nets movement and the Jordan column from 2001, I can't even recall the last time he even wrote about the NBA. Steveu's just a freak for this stuff; if Beano Cook gets arrested for indecent exposure next week at a Shoney's, Steveu will have the first reply in a post talking about how he knew Beano was going downhill once he started talking too much about Baron Davis.

 

[TheMethod]

The fact that Boomer Esiason was interviewing Dan Patrick says something significant about our industry. I'm not sure what that thing is, though.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

The fact that Boomer Esiason was interviewing Dan Patrick says something significant about our industry. I'm not sure what that thing is, though.

That it's all turned into a big fish market?

 

[jgmacg]

Reilly/Patrick I: Pillow Fight in the Penthouse.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It will be interesting to see if Patrick is a better columnist than Reilly is on TV...

Everything Patrick said is accurate...

 

[Songbird]

Don't most of the ESPN anchors write their own material? I would think Patrick will carry those writing skills over. Column writing is tougher, though. Which is why I like Reilly (most of the time).

 

[Lugnuts]

Most if not all. It's a pretty big misconception about TV. In sports, 95% of the anchors and reporters will write their own stuff. Not so in news.

Dan Patrick has a wit. Writing well for broadcast and carrying it off can be tough, and he did it. Column writing must be difficult, too. They use different muscles, and I'm sure Dan hasn't had occasion to flex the column muscle (c'mon - that thing he wrote for The Mag? That's not what we're talking about...) But it doesn't mean he can't work it out.

The same goes for Reilly. I'm sure he knows that simply writing his old column and reciting it won't make good TV.

The only person I've seen pull off a "print style" on TV was Leigh Montville. He would write these print-style commentaries and deadpan them. It was hilarious. Of course they were well-covered with video, so it didn't get boring... but he's a guy who made it work.

 

[broadway joe]

I agree on Montville. He was excellent on TV. Totally original. I believe he won an Emmy of some kind.

As for Patrick, regardless of how much of his TV material he wrote, writing for print is much different, and writing for print at the level of SI is even more so. It's a little like Michael Jordan playing baseball -- as good as Patrick might have been at his old sport, it's not likely that he can jump to a new one and play in the big leagues. Unless he gets heavy editing (and who knows if his contract allows that) his writing at SI will probably stick out like a sore thumb.

 

[Lugnuts]

Print people like to think nobody else can "pull off" what they do.

TV people think the same thing.

But the unpleasant truth is for people who work in the creative fields and who make a living with words, quality material is definitely doable with some practice.

It's a blow to everybody's ego, but it's the truth.

 

[broadway joe]

It's not that I think Patrick can't do print, it's that I don't think he can do it at the level of SI. Not when he's never had any experience writing in that medium, as far as I know. (I don't count anything he did for ESPN the Rag.) That's like going from 0 to 100 mph. There are TV guys who could probably do it, like Costas or Olbermann, who are both essayists to some degree. But Patrick's strength has always been his charm and personality more than his facility with words.

 

[Lugnuts]

I think you're overvaluing the quality of Reilly's and Rushin's columns from the last 5 years.

 

[joe king]

I think you're overvaluing the quality of Reilly's and Rushin's columns from the last 5 years.

I'm right there with you, Lugs. Rushin especially had been less than mediocre -- often unreadable -- for several years before his departure, and while Reilly showed on occasion he could still bring it, mostly he came across like a guy laughing way too hard at his own lame jokes.

 

[broadway joe]

Reilly and Rushin both lost something off their fastballs, but I still don't think Patrick could compete with them as a columnist. And it's not just Reilly and Rushin. For all the valid complaints about SI, it still has more quality writing than any other sports outlet. It would be as unrealistic to expect Patrick to match that as it would be to expect Reilly to anchor SportsCenter smoothly.