Steve & Keith Suck at Football

In the course of baseball events, fans--especially casual fans--have been consumed by a medium that interprets the game for them and sells it to them in a thousand little bits. We have graphics and sound bites and replay and announcers choking on their own testosterone. If you love replay, buy some foot powder! These perceptual enhancements are actually alienating our experience. However, football, a sport of sudden, contained action, and lengthy delays, thrives in this system. Theres no story to tell. F*** it, string some plays together on the Red Zone channel! No one will notice that this sport sucks!! We noticed! Suck it, football!!!

The Cubs might be cast off as the soulless corporate prognosticators darling team, but whats with the fairy dust in the air at Wrigley Field tonight? This mystery and more unlocked tonight as the boys also consider whether parliamentary rules, as practiced by a local school union, are more akin to a baseball or football rule book. Wait a minute...did you hear that? Are those church bells? This episode has enough time for a brief step into the church to speculate on catchiness as a factor in eternal salvation! One truth is undisputed: You eternally suck, football!

There comes a time in the podcast when we need to blast the utterly nauseating deformity of instant reply. Today is that day. The boys thoroughly break down this quintessential atrocity, appropriated from the NFL, in an effort to understand this plan so fiendish in its intricacies. After a multi-part analysis, Keith offers several alternatives to todays system and Steve reacts in revulsion but tries to offer a reasoned reply in the best interest of conversation. Is it even possible, that this artifice of sensational justice could improve our aesthetic enjoyment of the game? No! Thanks, football--you suck!!!

Why is the K-Zone graphic so provocative? The discussion opens with the idea that the K-Zone graphic should be descriptive of the actual strike calls so the viewer can see what the ump is calling. The current hard-edged rectangle puts too much emphasis on an imaginary objective standard, leading to feelings of unfair officiating and ones team being screwed, much like the rectangular grid and yard lines of a football field do. These bright lines dont bring justice in sports! Also, how does whimsy strengthen the baseball aesthetic experience? And finally, how does the flimsy sport of football stack up? It doesnt!!!

Why does an ostentation of manhood involve wearing another mans clothes? What is behind a grown mans wearing a jersey with a players name on the back? This is the kind of make-believe and cheap showiness of football, but in baseball, its not an inherent way to connect to the game. Furthermore, there are multiple layers of play and counter-play in baseball, the so-called game within the game, producing a gray area of play, but theres a logic to the progress of a game, and to an outside unknowing observer, the game is still intelligible, particularly when referring to contextual clues; whereas, in football, chaos, illogic and zaniness reign, which void the games context as a way to understand it. As a sport, its fu*****!

The Sacrilege Podcast! The discussion opens by explaining why a quirky ending to a game can be a hallmark of baseball. The games form and rules lead managers to use dwindling resources to win games, creating a natural suspenseful excitement and opportunity for oddity. In football, excitement comes from desperation, clocks, and--what else?--grotesque injury! Tonights live game between the hot Cubs and strong Pirates spurs discussion about whether walks and stolen bases are signs that baseball is broken. Sacrilege! (Its not) And one truth remains sacrosanct: football sucks!

Wed say the podcast was recorded in a very lucky moment because it captured a live 9th inning homer by Bryce Harper...but he hits so many its becoming common! Steve grills Keith about why coaches are allowed on the field to help runners get around the bases, as if the games aesthetic is flawed, preventing quality base-running without assistance. And, should we blame someone for bad pitch-calling? Would this blame be the same uninformed, poorly reasoned, post-hoc analysis we hear from football fans who call for their offensive coordinators head? Nah, baseball doesnt suck that bad!!

The podcast opens with a story about one DC residents memory of his citys tawdry past and the ongoing, pervasive urban renewal. The boys continue their podcast renewal with reflections on live baseball action! Mets-Indians and Nats-Phillies inform the discussion and a reborn Heurich lager fuels the ire! What makes the best hitter and who is it? Wheres the aesthetic value in the uncaught third strike rule? Who sucks at football???

Welcome to our fifth season! Four seasons of abominations, rants, and dogma combine to fuel a new spur-of-the-moment format to please our adoring fans and offend the followers of this nations great shame--football! This season, look for introductory comments about the state of football and baseball followed by a segment of analysis and witty repartee as the boys analyze a live baseball game each week. New sounds! New songs! Abominations galore! Were back!!!

Our season-ending Super Bowl Special! The big game is so extraordinary it dwarfs our audio capabilities (as you might hear in our sub-par microphone performance), but compels us to new heights in abomination journalism! Thats right--we give you loads of good material extolling the virtues of baseball, the foolhardy vacuousness of the NFL, and a not-to-be-missed middle section (28:30 - 47:00) about 90s alternative rock. Our shameless and devastatingly accurate account of 90s rock is only eclipsed by the fact that, after four seasons, we totally suck at football! Aaaaanndddd....you know the rest!

Your long wait for the podcasts return is over, and youve been rewarded with a double episode! The boys clear the decks of topics leftover from this abysmal NFL season to prepare for the blow-out spectacular of Super Bowl 50. The Rams are moving to Los Angeles, a playoff game was decided by penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct, and Catholics take note: Hail Mary prayers are answered if youre an NFL player! Mike Francesas podcast elicits an admission from a former NFL referee that the game is ungovernable! http://newyork.cbslocal.com/audio/mike-francesa/ Our podcast is explicit: football sucks!

Football is slow! Some parts of it might feature break-neck speed and literal broken necks, but overall it is a slow, plodding nightmare, lacking any pleasing or quickened movement toward its end. Baseball, on the other hand, employs mechanisms--the 3-out rule, or 3-strike rule, for example--to move the game forward steadily. And, the Super Bowl is the New Years Eve of sports. People show up to view it, they think they need to act in a special way, and revel to the max. However, true fun and genuine expression are lost in this goofy contrivance. Baseball allows for real connection, real expression, real selves. Wait! The ball is dropping...4, 3, 2, 1...You Suck Football! Link to photo discussed: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/12077801/Drunken-scenes-in-Manchester-turned-into-hilarious-works-of-art.html

As Earth spins toward its darkest hour, the boys adopt a pagans ecstasy about the coming Solstice, and revel in the end of the football season! Can we actually call it a season? We dont find any cogent narratives and only 3 teams worth watching! Crappy teams are in first place! And, by way of comparison, the boys show how football fans, like Star Wars fans, can be strung along in a world of their obsession by gross exaggerations of spectacle, exploitation, commercialism, and gluttony. This was true of the prequel trilogy, but the new Star Wars movie gives a baseball-type performance--a return to reliable form, using plot devices as devices and not zany distractions. We return to this truth: Football sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two terms enter the Steve andamp; Keith lexicon this week: lasso luck and dick ball! This eloquence of wordplay is the only thing keeping the boys afloat during another soul-dessicating football season. LOL--just kidding, the holiday beer also helps! This weeks commandment: football cherishes desperation as a redeeming feature (e.g. Hail Mary pass), but baseball shows us that desperation--in an at-bat, or an anxious pitcher--create low-quality gameplay. The boys finally flesh out the idiotic argument that football is a grand chess match, showing instead that this comparison is probably offered by fans and commentators as a way to mask footballs brutality beneath a veneer of sophistication. We pierce the veil! F*** football!!

We hit the jackpot! This weeks Thursday Night Football demonstrated all the points of dogma from this season of the podcast! The boys point them out while telling of Green Bays improbable and unearned comeback versus Detroit. Lets not forget this weeks commandment: Football relies on deception. Science attempts to explain why the Pick 6 is a strategy, and whether it is comparable to a game-changing home run. Of course not! A home run is the result of a fully executed play by equal contenders; whereas, a Pick 6 is lucky and often a product of the game faltering. Football: where flubs and drubs equal excitement. This episode dedicated to Scott Weiland.