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Damon Bruce, A’s Team President Agree To Live Streamed Debate

“When you’re led by a guy like that, it’s no wonder that your fanbase has dwindled.”

Derek Futterman

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Oakland was once a three-sport city. Throughout each year, Oakland-based fans could catch Athletics baseball, Raiders football and Warriors basketball without having to drive across a bridge to San Francisco. That all changed in 2019 when the Warriors left Oracle Arena in Oakland and relocated to the glamorous new Chase Center in San Francisco. After the first metaphorical domino fell, the Raiders officially relocated to Las Vegas, Nev., and now play home games in the new $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium.

The Athletics are the lone professional team remaining in Oakland and play their home games at RingCentral Coliseum. Yet proposals within different cities, including Las Vegas and Portland have made it entirely plausible that the A’s may follow the Warriors and Raiders out of town.

The Athletics are in the midst of a two-game series against the San Francisco Giants at Oracle Park, a stadium that was entirely privately-funded and has consistently attracted many fans. After a photo of empty seats at the ballpark last night was shared online, Oakland Athletics Team President Dave Kaval tweeted an emoji and tagged a Twitter account that posts pictures of empty stadium seats – despite the total attendance figure of 32,000. The Athletics, through their first seven home games of the season, are averaging a crowd of just under 8,000 fans per matchup. Kaval questioned whether San Francisco-based media would comment on the lack of attendance after he had opined earlier in the day that Oakland does not receive “fair and balanced” media coverage.

Damon Bruce, the co-host of Damon & Ratto on 95.7 The Game in San Francisco, replied to Kaval saying that the station’s parent company Audacy has not directed him to discuss a single subject, including fan attendance. Additionally, he claimed that Kaval and his team are tacitly engaging in “intentional fan suppression” because of the owner’s direction of the team.

This began a Twitter exchange between the two, which ended in an agreement to hold a live-streamed Twitter debate about the Athletics organization’s treatment of their fans.

Bruce has a $5,000 appearance fee which he will donate to the Alameda Food Bank, and Kaval said that he will match it by contributing another $5,000 of his own.

While Kaval originally thought the debate would be this Friday, Bruce has yet to agree to a date and has refused to partake in it live on his show.

“Because we’re not giving three hours to any single subject in the middle of the NBA playoff[s] and the day after the NFL draft,” said Bruce in a tweet as to why he prefers to have the debate off the air. “There are levels to this.”

On Wednesday, The Morning Roast on 95.7 The Game reacted to the Twitter exchange between Kaval and Bruce.

“When you’re led by a guy like that, it’s no wonder that your fanbase has dwindled,” co-host Joe Shasky said of Kaval, “and I don’t blame the fans at all. You’re being run into the ground and they’re trying to leave.”

Kaval appeared as a guest on The Morning Roast last year and, according to show co-host Bonta Hill, did not directly answer any of the questions they posed to him. While he is not an Oakland Athletics fan himself, Hill said he feels bad for those who root for an organization Kaval runs.

“You’re a team president,” stated Hill. “You shouldn’t be commenting on whether or not a stadium’s empty…. Everything about it was minor league…. He’s a carnival; He’s a circus act.”

Hill believes that Kaval’s Twitter exchange and forthcoming Twitter debate with Bruce is a plea for attention amid an inauspicious start to the 2022 regular season both on and off the field.

The sentiment around the Bay Area seems to be that the team will soon be headed elsewhere, leaving the city of Oakland with no professional sports teams of its own. He does not blame Athletics fans for being dismayed with the current state of the team and for neglecting to show up to games this year.

“It’s just tone deaf,” asserted Hill. “You can’t draw 5,000 people right now because you’ve lost all the faith in your fanbase.”

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Steak Shapiro: Stuart Scott Was the Definition of a Talent

“He had the it factor.”

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Photo of Stuart Scott

As news broke this weekend of an upcoming 30 for 30 documentary on former SportsCenter anchor Stuart Scott, many have been reminded about just how talented and revolutionary Scott was. Steak Shapiro and Sandra Golden hit on that topic today during The Steakhouse on 92.9 The Game in Atlanta.

When Stuart Scott arrived on set, I’m telling you it was a gamechanger of all gamechangers,” said Golden. The show then played audio clips from a tribute SportsCenter ran on Scott the night of his passing featuring his unmatched delivery and his signature catch phrases such as “cool as the other side of the pillow.”

As the clips ended, Shapiro said, “That little montage, that is the definition of smooth. That is the definition of a broadcaster, a talent. Not just his writing, but his cadence…just listen to how smooth he is.”

Golden noted that much of what Scott did was unscripted and how she noticed the anchors who were paired with Scott looking at him with anticipation as they wondered what he would come up with next.

“He had the it factor,” Shapiro said. “…I’d put Patrick’s cadence up there with anybody, Olbermann’s flamboyance and Stuart Scott’s smoothness, if I’m thinking about sports anchors.”

Scott passed away at the age of 49 in January 2015 following a battle with cancer.

The 30 for 30 film will explore his rise up the ranks at ESPN, his influence on media and culture, the pain of a divorce and his fight with cancer that ultimately took his life. Scott’s daughters Taelor and Syndi will also lend their voices to the tribute to their father.

A release date has not yet been announced.

“I’m really looking forward to this because I think we’re going to learn so much…and he was the most beloved at [ESPN] and treated everyone with respect and dignity.”

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Mike Francesa: John Sterling Became “The Soundtrack of New York City”

“He’s like a character with a great booming voice. And he created his own style. Critics may have hated it, but you know what, the fans ate it up with both hands.”

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Photos of Mike Francesa, Chris Russo and John Sterling
Courtesy: SiriusXM/MSN.com

John Sterling, the legendary radio voice of the New York Yankees announced his retirement yesterday. Sterling spent nearly 65 years behind a microphone and called Yankees games for 36 years. Former WFAN hosts Mike Francesa and Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo got together on Russo’s High Heat show on MLB Network to talk about Sterling.

“I thought of you after I heard the news about John,” Francesa said. “First, let me wish John well publicly for his wonderful career and I hope he enjoys his golden years and has a nice time. I’m telling you, Dog, you should take a bow for this…the guy who really got those home run calls started was you. You were the one who started wearing out the Sterling calls and then he started doing these home run calls, and I remember you playing them one after another after another.”

As they talked more about their relationship with the legendary voice throughout the years, Francesa added, “Sterling’s a character…he likes Broadway, he likes theater, he likes bouncing around New York city, he likes piano bars. He’s like a character with a great booming voice. And he created his own style. Critics may have hated it, but you know what, the fans ate it up with both hands.”

Francesa and Russo hit the airwaves as Mike and The Mad Dog in September 1989, shortly after Sterling had taken over as the radio voice of the Yankees. Prior to that, he had worked for Turner Sports covering the Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks. He had also called hockey and football.

Francesa said, about radio play-by-play broadcasters, in general is “the guy who is the soundtrack of a baseball team and he is the one fans remember, the one that the city remembers. In October the TV guys go away, network guys take over. They never have the great call; they never have the dramatic playoff call or World Series call. They don’t work those games, the radio guys work those games.

“And Sterling worked every one of those great Yankee wins and great Yankee World Series wins and all the dynasty years of the 90s and became the soundtrack of New York City.”

Sterling certainly had his own style and Francesa said, “Sterling described it differently; he had his own way of doing it. He left out a lot of the regular technical stuff…but he was very theatrical, he was very dramatic, and he was great at the big moment. He created a lot of stuff that the fans just absolutely ate up…I always got a kick out of him. He is a very unique personality…he is very entertaining.”

Russo said, “He has two things that are very important. He’s got a great voice and a great laugh…when he allows his partner to say something he contributes with a wonderful, big booming laugh, I think that goes a long way, too.”

“…He was blessed with a voice that he could take anywhere, to any octave and it never broke, and that’s the great voice. A voice like Nantz has, like Sterling has … that big, booming silky voice and he had one of those great voices. He used that as an instrument, he played it like it was an instrument. He knew he had that voice, and he played that voice all the time.”

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Greg Sharpe, Voice of Nebraska Football, Announces Cancer Diagnosis

“We are strong behind Greg Sharpe as he fights the toughest fight. The power of our Husker Nation is here to support him.”

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Graphic of Nebraska football with a picture of announcer Greg Sharpe
Courtesy: KLKNTV.com

Greg Sharpe, who has been the radio play-by-play voice of Nebraska Cornhuskers football since 2008 and also calls baseball games, announced he has been diagnosed with cancer. Sharpe revealed the news during Sports Nightly, a weeknight show he hosts with Jessica Coody.

“Tonight, my least favorite topic, it’s me and I don’t like to make much about myself,” he said. “…Sometimes when you have news and you don’t confront it, a lot of rumors and innuendos get thrown out there…so bottom line is, I have been diagnosed with cancer. I found out about a week or two ago. And so, we are getting close to the point where treatment will be necessary and so it’s going to disrupt my work here on Sports Nightly and probably some baseball broadcasts…I’ve got a great team of doctors that are putting together the plan…I have kind of had symptoms for a couple of months, it’s in the pancreatic region of the body…I didn’t want, night after night if I miss three, four straight [shows] for Jessica to have to answer questions…I didn’t want to go down that path.”

Sharpe talked about his wife being the leader of his support system and that his bosses have told him to do whatever he needs to do and miss games or shows when he needs to.

“I don’t like not completing my assignments…not doing my part of the job, so when I have to miss a show, miss a game, I feel like I’m not doing my work,” Sharpe said. “But I’ve been properly slapped on the wrist by co-workers…and family members saying, ‘Greg you have got to let us carry this for a while.’ That’s what it is. I’m not ready to walk away yet but I’m certainly going to have some disruption in my life in the coming months and just wanted to share that with all of you.”

Nebraska Athletic Director Troy Dannen sent out a message of support for Sharpe, saying, “We are strong behind Greg Sharpe as he fights the toughest fight. The power of our Husker Nation is here to support him.”

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