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Yesterday morning, I woke up all furry and blurry to tour the Empire State Building with Pedro Martinez as part of (obligatory plug) the Pro Glide Ultimate Summer Job thingee he was in town for. Vamanos. More »
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ESPN afternoon SportsCenter anchor Robert Flores took some time to answer my moronic email questions. He's good like that. More »
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There's something about CBSSport.com columnist Gregg Doyel that's very appealing, even though his combative nature and his odd mohawk stage would most often have him seated at the douchey table, he at least comes across as comfortable in his own Affliction T-shirt. Doyle has been on the wrong-end of many Deadspin posts and also managed to score a lower Media Approval Rating than Steve Phillips. Does he care? I get the sense he kind of does. (That's just an opinion.) And here's an interesting little tidbit of Gregg Doyel minutiae sure to impress at cocktail parties: He's 4-0 as an amateur welterweight boxer, with 3 KO. He tried to fight Jose Canseco this summer when Canseco advertised online for an opponent, but Canseco's manager told him he was too small. More »
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Sports Illustrated's Gary Smith has won the National Magazine Award four times, which is almost as impressive as the fact that almost no one knows his name. Unlike his longtime friend and associate Rick Reilly, Smith keeps a low profile, writing his four in-depth, massive character studies a year, living in Charleston, S.C. and staying off television. He also just released a book through SI's publishing arm, Going Deep, a collection of his best SI stories. I talked to him for about 20 minutes yesterday. Here's the transcript, with all my stutterings edited out, of course. More »
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And here we have the second portion of our interview. It's more of the same, but Sean does calm down (somewhat) to emphasize a few things. Even though he sounds enraged when he's telling you "he's not angry." He's wholeheartedly trying not to be, but I get the sense that he could sound enraged when he's ordering a pizza; he's just an amped-up guy. This whole interview process was like trying untangle the world's biggest ball of Christmas lights — especially writing the transcription. After five minutes of listening it's pretty obvious that it'll take years to straighten it out and it might be better just to plug 'em in and hope for the best. But I think it fits in that it does truly "humanize" Salisbury in a way — for better or worse — which has been part of Deadspin's m.o. since the first Kyle Orton drunk photos raced across the internet. Sean uses semantics when it comes to the "cellphone" rumor and that's the way it has to be. There are plenty of other stories floating around as to what exactly prompted his ESPN suspension in 2006 (wasn't his dick; wasn't an intern; he was ratted out, are the most talked about ones) but that is really kind of secondary to why he felt this interview needed to happen. I believe he truly wanted to attempt to clear his name from all of this (probably won't happen) but also wanted to step out from behind the two-way mirror and just let people know, ' I 'm a real, flawed person, but it really fucking sucks to be called a fetus-faced windbag.' That's a brave step for anyone to take. But I don't think he was trying to do it as a way to alter the way blog items are written about him or to change the way commentors destroy him. He'll take that stuff and not like it — but he'll learn from it too. Anyway, on to the conclusion of this mess. More »
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Sean Salisbury is at a transitional period in his life and talks rapidly — almost haphazardly — about anything that pops into his head. He's overtly defensive at times, and in our almost 2-hour phone conversation yesterday, he went through a deliberate unloading process. It was therapeutic, unhinged, and veered dangerously close to being completely out of control and incomprehensible during certain segments. Sure, it might be a calculated move for him to agree to this interview due to his new role at OPEN Sports, but he hasn't talked about what happened to him at ESPN or being at the ass-end of so many jokes, "rumors", and blind criticism until now. He was as candid as he could be, but for the always charming legal reasons, he can't go into specifics on some things. He admits in the interview that the last two years have been the "most miserable" ones of his life: the death of his father, the suspension at ESPN, not having his contract renewed at ESPN last March, and, of course, those stories ("rumors...lies!")about him on the internet a lot of which had originated or were trumpeted by Deadspin. (There's a reason why Sean Salisbury was a Deadspin Hall of Fame nominee last year — not for good reasons, either.) Due to its length it will be broken up into two parts. The second one will run tomorrow. It is edited for clarity and brevity, but not as much as either one of us or you, frankly, would like. But it doesn't feel right to present it any other way. Part one, after the jump. More »
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If you or your "client" would like to be included in an upcoming "Interviews Of A Lifetime" please contact me or Deadspin HQ. More »
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If you — or your "client" — would like to be included in an upcoming "Interviews Of A Lifetime", please contact either myself or Deadspin HQ for inquiries. More »
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Former major leaguer Fred Lynn is probably one of the nicest guys on the planet. He's a man who's brimming with self-contentedness and is disarmingly friendly. After you speak with him for two minutes, it's no surprise that seemingly every dude who grew up in New England in the past 40 years is so overtly smitten with the man. During a phone conversation with Fred Lynn last week, as part of his promotional duties for MLB.com's "Rookie Of The Month" campaign, we discussed a few topics, but mostly talked about ESPN's BIll Simmons' obsession with him. Or, rather, I dwelled on that fact. It's safe to say I probably won't be hosting my own podcast show in the near future. More »
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There's this thing about Jay Glazer that kind of makes you like him and annoyed by him at the same time. He seems like type of guy you'd hit the 50-cent wing and $8 pitcher special with at a bar for six hours, but then he'd get bored and drag you to a way-too fancy club just because "he knows people there." Then you'd get to the club, and the guy you just spent the last six hours drinking and bullshitting with will work the room like Sinatra, just letting you tag along. You'd feel like a third wheel even though it's just the two of you. More »
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Today we unveil a new feature on Deadspin, creatively titled, "Interviews of a Lifetime," where I, A.J. Daulerio, will attempt to interview a person of note in the sports, media,or entertainment community and attempt to learn something newsworthy that could be passed on to you fine readers of the internet. These will come when they come. Hopefully, more often than not. More »
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