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Auburn To Honor Rod Bramblett With Helmet Decal

“Bramblett was employed by Auburn for 27 years. He started out as the play-by-play voice of the baseball team. He went on to call the last 16 seasons of Auburn football.”

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The Auburn Tigers will open their season in Arlington, Texas this weekend. It will be a top 25 matchup as the 16th-ranked Tigers take on #11 Oregon. The game will also mark the debut of a decal on the back of the Tigers’ helmets paying tribute to late broadcaster Rod Bramblett.

“It’s appropriate, it’s awesome,” Auburn football coach Gus Malzahn told the media on Tuesday. “I know our players will take great pride in having that on their helmet.”

Bramblett was employed by Auburn for 27 years. He started out as the play-by-play voice of the baseball team. He went on to call the last 16 seasons of Auburn football. He and his wife, Paula were killed in a car crash on May 25. The driver of the other car in that crash, a teenager that was found to driving 30 mph over the speed limit, has been charged with vehicular manslaughter in their deaths.

The football team isn’t the only Auburn athletic program paying tribute to Bramblett. Basketball coach Bruce Pearl said in May that he is lobbying the school to name the media area at Auburn Arena after the late broadcaster.

“I didn’t get the pleasure of listening to his calls, except I did (hear) some amazing football calls,” Pearl said. “But when you spend a half hour, 90 minutes before every game and you go over the game plan and you go over what you think you’re gonna do, and then you visit after the game and you travel together. Look, Rod cared about you, he cared about your kids, he cared about your players, he cared about your wife.”

Andy Burcham, who has worked for Auburn athletics for the last 31 years, takes over as the voice of the Tigers this season. He was Rod Bramblett’s partner on Auburn baseball broadcasts for the last quarter-century.

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Ken Carman: Radio Hosts Don’t Know How to Talk About Baseball

Carman included himself in the group of radio hosts who don’t do a great job of breaking down Major League Baseball.

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Ken Carman

Is the art of baseball talk on sports radio lost? 92.3 The Fan host Ken Carman feels like it has.

On The Ken Carman Show with Anthony Lima on Wednesday, Carman said baseball talk even in Cleveland, had become trite.

“Because we don’t know how to talk about baseball,” Carman said. “And I put myself right in there it’s not where I am above the fray or anything like that. There’s a lost thing about talking baseball. The art of it I’m not sure.”

Ken remembered one of the most fun arguments he had with Lima was a knock down, drag out over bunting and getting callers screaming about the topic. He feels like hosts don’t dive as deep into the nuances of the game as they used to.

“You listen to old Mike and the Mad Dog from the early 2000s, and when the lineups would come out, them getting into shouting matches about who’s batting sixth,” Carman said.

Carman also thought about 2017 and 2018 when the Cleveland Browns had the number one overall picks, Carman also thought about the run in the 1990s the then-Indians had and were the top team in the city. Baseball talk dominated the radio airwaves also because there were no Browns at that time.

He felt like because of a number of factors with the Guardians, talking baseball on the show has been shuffled out of the limelight in some respects.

“I think that’s been lost over the last how many years in this city, everywhere,” Carman said. “I’m part of the problem, I’ll admit it, sorry.”

“One of the things I try to avoid, because I want to be better, and you are with me on this – I can’t turn every conversation into ‘Fix your sport’,” he added. “Well, this is the problem with baseball. That’s too easy to do, and it doesn’t help anybody’s interest. If I’m just telling you how bad baseball is, well you’re not gonna have any interest in baseball or talking about baseball. So it’s a terrible, terrible thing to do.”

Reacting to fan reaction in regards to the Guardians getting the top pick in the next MLB draft, Ken Carman said he was hoping to have a little fun on the air with it. But fan cynicism it seems has tapered expectations a little bit.

“There’s not as much generated craziness with the baseball draft that there is with the football draft or even the NBA Draft. But we can have a little fun with it,” he said.

“Are those just not baseball fans?” Lima asked in response to the cynicism in the fanbase. “Those don’t sound like big-time baseball fans.”

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Tony Kornheiser: ‘I Was Sort of Surprised at Reaction’ of Return to PTI Studio

“I was excited to go in. I’m excited to see if in three days, I get COVID because that’s my great fear. It was fun to do.”

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A photo of Tony Kornheiser
(Photo: Tony Kornheiser)

Tuesday’s episode of Pardon the Interruption on ESPN saw the beloved duo of Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon reunited in person in the show’s Washington, D.C. studio.

On his podcast, The Tony Kornheiser Show Wednesday, the PTI host, 75, talked about his experience.

“I went in. I was excited to go in,” Kornheiser said, per Awful Announcing. “I’m excited to see if in three days, I get COVID because that’s my great fear. It was fun to do. I have to say, it was fun to do for those people.”

The fan reaction to seeing Kornheiser and Wilbon back together in person for the first time in a long time was overwhelmingly positive. He abstains from using social media, but Kornheiser said he did hear from plenty of friends and colleagues who reached out afterwards to send well wishes.

“But friends of mine — or people I would consider at least acquaintances into friends — were basically unanimously happy that it happened. And I tried to answer each one of those things that I will do this occasionally.”

“Glad I did it,” he later added. “I was sort of surprised at the reaction…I had a very good time.”

Kornheiser did want to emphasize that anyone getting ideas that Kornheiser will be back in-studio on any sort of regular basis is sorely mistaken.

“I gotta want to do it. And I’m not gonna do it every day,” he said. “And if somebody thinks I’m gonna do it every day. I’m familiar with the phrase, ‘Give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile.’ I understand that’s going to happen, so I’m saying right now, I’m stressing occasionally, not regularly. Occasionally, I will go in there. If that’s not good enough, we know where the doors are.”

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Desmond Howard: Paul Finebaum Now a ‘Cariacture’

“You can’t take anything he says seriously. You just can’t. It’s like they march him out there, they pull the string in his back, and he just starts spewing negative things…”

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A photo of Desmond Howard
(Photo: Icon Sportswire | A Division of XML Team Solutions)

Both Desmond Howard and Paul Finebaum have been vocal on their stances about the Michigan sign-stealing allegations. However, Howard has shared his feelings about Finebaum, and they are not positive.

During an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, the ESPN college football analyst had harsh criticism for Finebaum.

“Paul Finebaum is a caricature of a caricature of Paul Finebaum,”Howard said. “That’s what he is right now. You can’t take anything he says seriously. You just can’t. It’s like they march him out there, they pull the string in his back, and he just starts spewing negative things about Michigan. When a person does that repeatedly and you just know his shtick, you can’t take him seriously.”

Howard hasn’t been shy about defending his alma mater through the scandal. During an episode of College GameDay, the former Heisman Trophy winner told colleague Pete Thamel to “put your big boy pants on” after the reporter moved his segments on the program to inside Michigan Stadium after threats from Michigan fans were deemed credible enough that he was in danger.

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