1. Exhibition baseball games and in-game manager interviews are two of the most useless things in sports. However, there was an exception to this rule yesterday. (I know this isn’t a “rule,” but just go with me here.)
During Sunday’s Mets exhibition game airing locally in New York, SNY reporter Steve Gelbs quizzed the team’s new manager, Buck Showalter, about his memorable Seinfeld cameo.
The impetus for the conversation was to compare Showalter’s appearance with Keith Hernandez’s legendary guest-starring role on the series since Keith was calling the came for SNY.
Showalter complained about how he gets taxed on his royalty checks and that it costs him $19 every time his episode “The Chaperone” airs.
He explained how this all works a few years ago.
Showalter also explained he never made a second appearance on Seinfeld because Yankees owner George Steinbrenner did not like the way he was portrayed on the show, which of course, was done by Larry David.
“Notice I didn’t do a second appearance because when Mr. Steinbrenner found out they were making fun of him, I was told no. He embraced it later,” said Showalter.
The highlight of the trip down memory lane, though, came at the very end when Gelbs asked Showalter about cotton uniforms, which George Costanza famously pushed on the then Yankees skipper, because “cotton breathes.”
Imagine playing games and your team is five degrees cooler than the other team.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Showalter,” if we don’t get off to a good start, you’ll see cotton uniforms.”
This was nicely done by Showalter. And let’s never forget the very best part of Showalter’s cameo came at the very end of his scene with George.
“You may have something there, George.”
“Oh, I’ve got something.”
2. Last week's SI Media Podcast guest John Ourand reports that ESPN gave Fox the rights to the Sept. 1 Penn State–Purdue game in exchange for letting Joe Buck out of his contract a year early, so Buck could join Troy Aikman on Monday Night Football.
3. If you listen to the SI Media Podcast or follow me on Twitter or read Traina Thoughts, you know I've been complaining for a very long time that if you are a fan of several sports, you are getting so screwed in the era of streaming because of the number of streaming services you need to subscribe to.
Well, if you don’t want to believe little old me, here is John Skipper, the man who ran ESPN for 20 years, saying the same exact thing and predicting a little come back for cable.
4. Kevin Durant was ridiculously fined $25,000 last week for telling a fan to “shut the f--- up.” I can’t wait to see what the NBA does to Jusuf Nurkić for confronting a fan and then throwing his phone.
5. I got this tweet on the first day of the NCAA tournament.
I’m not going to rank each team, but after watching all the games for four straight days, these are my top three play-by-play people strictly from the standpoint of—I’m making up a word here—enjoyability.
• Ian Eagle
• Andrew Catalon
• Kevin Harlan
When it comes to analysts and enjoyability, nobody can even come close to Bill Raftery.
Overall, CBS and Turner have excellent depth when it comes to their play-by-play roster.
6. This week's SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Sports Business Journal reporter John Ourand.
Why did Fox let Joe Buck and Troy Aikman go to ESPN and Monday Night Football? Will the ManningCast be impacted at all by Buck and Aikman now calling MNF? What role did Amazon play in ESPN going after Buck and Aikman? Will Fox go with Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen as its No. 1 team? Where will Fox go for a No. 2 team if that happens?
Other topics covered include where we stand with NFL Sunday Ticket and DirecTV's exclusivity, Major League Baseball's bizarre deals with AppleTV+ and Peacock to exclusively air games and much more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
