5-20-23 Mike Whaley, David Roth

Local sports writing legend Mike Whaley joins the show show to discuss his new book "A Pen for All Seasons" which is out NOW, and David Roth of Defector talks about twitter's slow death spiral, Chris Christie, and much more!

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Welcome to Overtime, the only radioshow that has somehow won multiple Tony Awards.
I don't know how that worked,but I'm just here to tell you
the facts, even if I madethem up. I'm justin mccauzick. My
guests this week were so good ifthe interviews ran even longer than I thought,
and we don't have a lot oftime for my malarchy, which a
lot of you I think will like. I talked to Mike Whaley, who's
got a new book out, alsoDavid Roth of Defector. Let's get right

(00:25):
into it. Let's start off withMike Whaley and talk about his new book.
Joining me here on Overtime is agood friend of mine and the author
of the new book, A Penfor All Seasons. If you're from the
Rochester Sea Coast era, you certainlyknow this, Dame Mike Whaley. Mike
thinks for being on the show,Hey, my pleasure. Thanks for having
me so. First of all,congratulations on the book. It's for I

(00:49):
was saving you before we started tapingthe interview. For Rochester Sea Coast Nerds.
This is kind of a gotsta have. It contained sixty five of your
favorite stories in Colton from over theyears thirty five years covering UH sports around
New Hampshire, Maine. And thething I like about a most Mike is
is it's everything from whiffleball to rollerderby to high school sports to everything in

(01:11):
between. It's really there's a lotof unique stuff in here, and I
think it's I think it's fantastic.Yeah, I mean, that's something I
tried to do. I didn't.I mean, I obviously over the years,
you cover a lot of baseball,football, basketball, hockey, that
type of stuff, and he covereda lot um but it's curing to throw
the stuff off the beaten track usa lot of fun too, and I

(01:34):
really enjoyed that. So and there'sthere's a lot of there's quite a few
stories in here that are, youknow, off the beaten track, and
you know, pretty dear to myheart. Yeah, especially as a as
a kid that grew up in Rochester. You know, newspapers used to be
everywhere there was. You started withthe old Rochester Courier at least that's that's
where I first saw your name popup. And not to not to give
away your age, but I wasI was in like a grade school at

(01:56):
that point, and you were youwere a professional writer at that point,
so you got you got a coupleof years of me. But the Rochester
Courier became the Rochester Times. Thenyou moved to the Fosters Dealing Democrat and
the Ports with Harold So I meanthere there used to be a lot more
opportunities to really kind of get theweeds on your favorite you know, local
people doing great things. There's notas much of that anymore. So I
think this is a good way forfolks to look back and kind of see

(02:19):
see how how great the coverage usedto be back in the day. Yeah,
I mean, um, well forme especially, I mean when I
started working with a courier, andI mean and then with the Rochester Times,
you know, the heavy focus onRochester and just trying to tell you
know, stories about you know,current athletes and then a little bit of
history thrown in, and and thenyou know, covering some sports that weren't

(02:43):
in the mainstream, and you know, and then covering you know, big
names like Hugo Bowland and and uh, you know Paul George, Burt,
George m Raymond Gilbrie, you know, Mike leeover in Farmington. Um,
Jamie Cafe and Rochester. You know, they're just you know, you there
was there was a lot to coverand it was interesting. I've always I
mean, I always enjoyed covering Rochesterbecause they're you know, they take their

(03:05):
sports very seriously and uh they havea you know a lot of passion and
they have a lot of history.And the history has always fascinated me.
Yeah, one of the one ofthe subjects you write about. And I
haven't read the whole book. I'veread about half of it at this point.
But Jamie Keif comes up early on. And Jamie Keif when I when
I was playing little league, thisis he stands out to because when play

(03:28):
little league, I played for ashop and save back at the old Rochester
West Side. And this is whenif you were nine, ten, eleven
to twelve, you if you weregood enough to play as a nine year
old, you're all on one littleleague team like it wasn't divided up like
in is now. And Jamie Keifhad just left little league, he had
graduated to Babe Ruth when I camein as a nine year old, and
all I heard were the stories ofthe feats of Jamie Keith and how he

(03:50):
was destined to be this great baseballplayer, and he was. He was
drafted by the Pittsburgh Parents, gotto the Double A level. But I
didn't realize he was just as almostas good as a hockey player as he
was a baseball player. And he'she's someone you've covered for a long time
now I have covered. So I'vebasically covered Jamie since I started working in
Rochetster in nineteen eighty seven. WhenI got there with a cur well,

(04:13):
when I got there with a courier. My job was my official job title
was covering planning board in school department. School board, so they didn't have
a even have a sports page.And then so I gradually worked, you
know, convinced them to let medo some sports too, and you know,
by early nineteen eighty eight, twoor three months, I was starting

(04:35):
to do some sports stuff. ButI first covered Jamie as a hockey player.
He had the he was allowed toplay on the hockey team as an
eighth grader. Oh wow, whichI heard of now, But he was
he was that good and he wasyou know, he scored scored the game
winning goal in their first ever statechampionship win in nineteen ninety and when they

(04:58):
went in double overtime over Trinity UM. But you know, obviously baseball was
his was his sport, and youknow I covered him high school and then
I've basically covered him ever since.I mean every every year or two or
three, I I catch up withhim and do something. You know,
he's moved. You know, hewent from being a player. He got
his highest Triple A with Las Vegas. Uh, and then he he he

(05:18):
became a coach and then a managerand he's been a manager for you know,
good twenty twenty years now and he'sdone now in high Point, North
Carolina, the Independent A league downthere. But yeah, I mean he
sort of has followed my career.My career is you know, Jamie's been
part of it because every year becausehe's he's there's always a story about him

(05:40):
every couple of years going back tothe eighties up to now. Yeah,
he's got a it's a fascinating uh, you know, baseball life at this
point. And you still see himcome back to Rochester every now and then.
Uh, you know, you seehe still comes around the way back
to the Lilac City. But yeah, he's he's been a pretty fascinating guy
to cover um talking with Mike Whalley. He's the author of the new book
A Pen for All Season. He'sa mainstay on the Seacoast as far as

(06:01):
sports writing goes. It must havebeen tough. You've written so many stories
and so many columns over over theyears. It must have been tough to
narrow it down to just sixty five. How did What was that process like
trying to figure out your favorite storiesto put in the into the book?
Yeah, very difficult. I figuredout. I mean there's I've probably written

(06:21):
over six thousand and seven thousand storiesover the years. I mean, obviously
you have. I mean I hadlike, I think twenty or thirty that
I said, yes, those haveto be in, ye, And then
I think at one point I headeddown to one twenty and well that's too
many, and so and I saidokay, and and I eventually I got

(06:46):
it down to seventy seventy five.And you know then and then I really
the tough it really got top Iget it, and it even got it
down to sixty. But then therewas like four five or says that was
going to be in, and therewas there was another dozen that were like,
oh, I can't do I wantto go up to seventies seventy five,

(07:06):
So that was probably once I gotto one hundred and twenty five.
It was probably a six month periodwhere I, you know, I got
it down to sixty five. Itwas it was hard, um And some
of these stories, I mean Ihad to you know, if to the
ones that before two thousand and five, those I had to bring those.
I had to take those up myselfbecause they're not online because there was no

(07:28):
internet for you know at that Bythat point, for those, I was
gonna say, they are they allon micro feature? Do you still have
like the old papers still with youwhere you just had to like transcribe them
to yourself or how did that work? Well? I had so I before
I moved, I sent me retiringtwo thousand nineteen and moved to Portland.
At that point, I had uh, every copy of ever, every paper

(07:54):
I ever wrote, wow st storedup in the barn of our where where
I lived with my wife. Sobut then I decided, okay, well
we're not gonna we were moving toa condo and there was no way.
So they had like twenty basically twentybins of papers and I cut it down
to like four. Um, thatmust have been painful, right. I
can imagine I like getting rid ofyour children, right. But but I

(08:16):
I picked the best, you know, I was able to pick what I
thought were the best stories from that. So there were four bins and I
stored those and friends in Farmington.And so I went down a couple of
days, drove down from Portland andwent through those and picked out stories I
knew weren't on the web, butthat I couldn't you know, cut cut
and paste, and you know,I probably picked out you know, forty

(08:39):
or fifty, you know, andthey I trumbled those back to you know,
to Portland and then went through thosefrom there. You know, there's
probably a dozen. I think Iended up picking out that or maybe a
little bit more of that that weactually I think I picked some out that
didn't make it. That I youknow, I typed up and then I
go, oh, I guess you'renot gonna make it. Um, But
yeah, it was it was apretty long process. We're talking with Mike

(09:01):
Whalley. His new book is calledA Pen for All Seasons. As you're
listening to this, we're taking thison Friday, But as you hear this.
He's at Collin Sports Center in Rochestersigning copies of the books. So
if you drive around hearing this andsaying, damn, this sounds interesting,
good news, you can go seeMike write this very second. Go pick
up a copy of his book andhe'll sign it for you. One of
the characters, one of the folksyou write about in the book is Sheila

(09:24):
Coulson, who just had the softballfield named after her at Spalding High School,
and rightly so. And it's theone story I read. I'm sure
there's a few more coming up.The one I read was how it was
when her daughter Shannon I think,was just about to join the team,
her mom, Dot Callahan was inthe dugout with her, and the story
of how you know, when Dotwas the first coach of Spalling softball,

(09:45):
they got kicked off their fields forthe old west Side little League fields where
the middle school is now, becausesoftball had no respect to where the Spalding
softball program is now. Perennially it'sin contention for a state championship. Really
just a fascinating journey for that particularsport, right and and really, you
know, I mean so Dot's thefirst coach. And like you say,

(10:07):
in nineteen seventy seven, you know, they their uniforms consist of hand me
down Spaulding High School baseball jerseys andblue jeans, and they they played on
the Rochester West Side field over wherethe middle school is now. And you
know when the West Side had theiryou know, and they had to be
on the field for their games orpractices at five thirty, regardless of where

(10:30):
the smallting game was, they hadto get off. So I mean that's
ridiculous, right, you know,But I mean it shows you sort of
where, you know, where women'swomen's sports were back then. I mean,
you know, before in nineteen seventythere were no there were no real
team sports with you know, withthe ball, with the like soccer,
softball, basketball, that women playedthat the NHIA did. So I mean

(10:52):
we've come a long way since then. More with Mike Whaley coming up next
to here on Overtime, keep ithere, Welcome back to Overtime, the
radio show. I'm recommended by fourout of five dentists. Who's part two
of my conversation with Mike Whaley.His new book is called A Pen for
All Seasons it's a it's a greatmix of athletes like Rachel Hill, who

(11:16):
might have been maybe the best overallathlete I've covered on the radio when I
was on the Seacoast oft wtsn UM. There's a few in the mix,
but she might have. She playedbasketball as a you know, just a
just stay in shape for soccer wasa thousand point score. Who would you
say? It's uh, who wouldyou say are the best overall athletes you've
covered? There's so many good ones, but who who would you ranking?

(11:37):
Like you don't have to give atop five, but who are among the
best athletes in this area you've covered? Okay, well, certainly you know
Rachel Hill, Uh, it hasto be up absolutely absolutely fantastic athlete.
Kelly donny Hue s. Yeah,she's I think she's probably Spaulding's greatest all
around athlete. And you know,and she's I mean, she's another one.

(12:01):
I mean, you know, shewas a thousand points scoring basketball.
She was you know, almost eightygoals and three years she played three years
of rhoud be soccer. She didn'tplay as a freshman. She played at
the end of the season, Ibelieve, But so she scored almost eighty
goals. Um, and was thatwas her sport? You know, she
was going to play that in collegemaybe, and then she got burnt out
and then went to UNH and playedthere in scholarship and it was very good

(12:22):
scoring points of year and didn't shescored like eight almost eight hundreds. Yeah,
yeah, she had, but butshe had you know, she had
like five or six hundred assist soshe's up up an assists and she she
was a very effective player for them. So she was so Division one basketball.
Then she was a state champion sprinterand track, so I mean,
um, yeah, so she's she'sdefinitely all you know. Jabe Keith is

(12:45):
another one I would mention, uh, kind of all around really good athlete.
Um, she's off the top ofmy head here, trying to think
of some others. Jason Whitehouse fromFarmington, Um, you know, baseball
basketball, just to joy I thoughtwas kind of a he stuck under the
radar, but he was. Hewas a player of the year for hockey
his senior year and you got ascholarship baseball Rhode Island, right, he

(13:09):
but you know, he didn't playalong at Rhode Island, but he went
there to you know, he youknow, he was on the team for
a bit and he was he wasan effective member of not only that state
championships falling baseball team, but thenthree of the Legion baseball team. Right.
So so justin yeah, very verygood athlete. You're kind of anating
like you said, you know,you kind of forget and that, and

(13:30):
there's a bunch I'm sure as I'mtrying to think now, you know,
I mean then you have I meanthere's a lot of runners, you know
track, you know, people likeuh the O'Brien's, um, you know,
with cross country and indoor track.Um, Danielle wood was I mean,
would you know you know again Iwrite right about her and here she
was, you know, a greatum, you know, three season runner

(13:52):
Jackie Gone. I wrote a littlebit about her at different at you know,
covering her from Exeter. Um.Uh. Trying to think of some
others off the top of my head. I mean Kerry Bascombe, who was
you know, probably the greatest basketballplayer to come out of you know,
the state of New Hampshire. Uh, you know, played at yukon scholarship

(14:13):
Orima's first big recruit. Um,you know she was played a little epping
and then but she was a goodsoftball player too, and I believe she
played the goalie for the for theboys soccer team at Epping. So there's
another great all around athlete, JulieDonald, and another one from new who
was a you know, play aunh On scholarship and it was recruited by
orim At Yukon and also was agreat softball pitcher, you know, a

(14:35):
couple of pitched new to a coupleof defeative state championships. She's she's one
of the great regional athletes. Andwe're talking with Mike Whaley. His book
is called A Pen for All Seasons. You can buy it online at shop
ball six zh three dot com.That's a good website. Or Buddy kJ
Cardinal runs basketball in the granted state. Uh so tell the story real quick.

(14:58):
Mike's so dedicated did to uh youknow, before his semi retirement.
He still writes stories. And Igot one hanging on my office wall,
by the way, that Mike Whaleywrote about a young bowler named Cameron McIsaac.
But Mike star dedicated to the localsports scene that I think it was
twenty fifteen, the Rochester you ReferenceLegion ball team there was. There was

(15:18):
a three year run where baseball andRochester, like the high schoolish level was
was pretty outstanding. They won theLegion State championship and they went to Bristol,
Connecticut for the New Englands. AndMike's like, oh, you're going
to cover that, and you mightif I ride along. And you actually
got me some free logic in afriend's house and you and I had to
dodge Connecticut traffic for four days butcovered a really fun tournament. Yeah,

(15:41):
that was a good day. Thatwas a good time. That's I looked
back on that finally. That wasa great, great venue there in Bristol.
Um and then um, you know, Rochester gout to the final day.
I think it was funny because wewent down like on a Tuesday,
I think. Yeah. And thenI had to go back for a wedding
on sat duty in Vermont, soyou drove me back. We drove back

(16:02):
Friday. Um, I get upSaturday, my wife drove to Vermont.
We drove two cards, left onea White River Junction, went to the
wedding, spent the Saturday night.We get up Sunday morning early. I
drove her down to White River Junction, and then I drove all the way
down to Bristol for that final dayand brought the lost unfortunately lost to finished
third, but um, yeah,that was that was an enjoyable experience covering.

(16:25):
And then man, I mean theyhad a great runner. I think
they won five state championships in sixyears. And just you know, it's
a lot of great baseball players inRochester. Chris States is one of the
Yeah, those teams, and Iwrite write a piece about Chris, who
you know, almost died from aninfection of some sort, and you know
he uh, you know, hewas a really good basketball player, but

(16:48):
an interesting baseball player because he wasthere closer. He was a closer in
two thousand, I'm gonna say,I'm trying to remember this now. The
year before and he won he wontwo games and he had a save at
the state tournament. And then thefollowing year he became a starter, right
and actually didn't do very well anduntil they until the state tournament. Actually

(17:11):
his first state tournament appearance, hegot he got bagged around a little bit,
but they were able to win,and then they had to win two
games in one day, actually hadto win four games in two days.
But he didn't Josh get back toback games on like a Monday night,
and he pitched absolutely brilliantly and thenhe won. He won a game in
the regional that year. So greatstory. You know, he went from

(17:33):
being a from nobody to a standoutreliever to a standout starter and uh,
nice quiet kid, and uh youknow, really great story. Great kid,
And I loved running writing about him. Yeah. Actually he he's got
nine lives because he had after hishigh school career was over. He was
in a pretty bad truck accident,but then it seems to have made a
full recovery. I still see himaround now and then, and uh yeah,

(17:56):
like you said, really great kid. He's an adult now, he's
a grown and we still call thesedays kids even though they're like in their
twenties and thirties. Right, Ithink he just had him and his wife
just had a kid, so hesees a father. Yeah, they'll always
be kids to old guys like us. But before I let you know my
kid's uh you know, I referencedthe Spaulding baseball teams of like the mid
and really the Rochester Legion teams amongthe big greatest I've ever seen in your

(18:21):
time covering sports around you know,the Farmington Rochester Sea Coast area. Who
what are some of the greatest teamsYou've had a chance to cover. Well,
the Spalling hockey teams in the midtwo thousands, they had they won
I think something that I can't rememberthe exact number. It's in the mid
forties. They won forty like fortyfive in a row. Division two hockey

(18:42):
teams. They went back and backstate championships. I think they began the
two thousand and six season they lostand tied their first two games, and
then they ran the table won thestate championship. And then the following year
they ran the table and won thestate championship. Paul George, you know,
as the coach, and they hadsome really good players, Jamie Farulo,
Kyle Davis, Eric Lebatt, MattNorek, And that was just an

(19:06):
outstanding team. So that one,that one jumps right out as one that
I covered. UM Spawling volleyball twothousand and one. Yeah, undefeated state
champs, that was but team wasloaded. Then the previous year they've been
undefeated and got upset and unbelieving.One of the biggest upsets UM and they
got up, they were undefeated,got upset in the quarters in their own

(19:27):
gym by the number eighth seed.Crazy, then they turn around to all.
The following year the undefeated went in, and then the following year they're
undefeated again. And this is thefirst year when they go to the best
of five and then get up toZIP and then they lose the next three.
So that was that was a hardyear. It looked like they could
win back to they were in allset and they would have went back to

(19:47):
back. It was the old format, of course, but it looked like
they were all set up to doit u and they didn't do it.
So those are a couple that theyjump right to. Mind Spaulding Baseball two
thousand two, three four, threestraight trips to the state championship, won
two titles. Jason Whitehouse was draftedby the Dodgers. That was a great
and that was a great team thatthey had a lot that a really good
group of kids and a lot ofsuccess and tough to do to get to

(20:11):
the finals three years a row andthey were able to do it and win
two Well, Mike, uh yeah, I hope people'll get out there and
buy the book. It's called apen for all seasons. Like I said,
yeah, you're doing a book signing. Ask people hear this in Colin
Sports Center. You'll also be atFarmerson House of Pizza on right after Farming
Cooun's Pizza on Sunday, May twentyfirst, five to seven, at the
Rochester Public Library Wednesday June seven tosix to seven thirty, and at the

(20:33):
Goodwin Library and Farming Thursday, Junetwenty second from five to six thirty.
And of course you can buy itonline at shop at Ball six h three
dot com. Mike, thanks forbeing on the show. Best of luck
with the book, and I hope, I hope, I hope I see
you around the way sometime soon.My friend, Hey, thanks for having
me. Welcome back to overtime.I can say with some degree of assuredness

(20:56):
that I'm the only radio host thathas ever been stripped of a wrestling title
for refusing to show up. That'sokplace in New Jersey. While the stripping
of the title took place in NewJersey was the Cyberspace Wrestling Federation's Internet Championship.
My next guest is from New Jersey, Segue David Roth of Defector dot
com. Wrote a great article aboutTwitter and how it sucks. Now here's

(21:18):
Wroth joining me on the program.I think the first repeat guest because I've
tried to stop bugging him as muchas I tend to do with the guests
I like having on David Roth ofDefector. How you doing, David,
I'm good. I'm honored to bethe first two timer on here. Thanks
for having me two timer mix it. It sounds like a pejorative, that's
right. I'm cheating on my otherradio shows by going on your Yeah,

(21:41):
how many other radio shows do youhave? You know? Actually joking with
my wife that I as of today, I'm going to be completing in Upper
New England Clean Sweep, because there'sa show in Bangor, Maine that I
go on fairly oftense. I'm doingthat in a few hours. So this
I need to make some contacts inVermont. Basically, Oh, you're a
Rich Kimball show. Yeah, yeah, because because Rich and I arrivals.

(22:02):
I do U and H football andradio. He does you Maine. Oh
wow, So we see each otheronce a year and then our teams fight
over a gun? Yeah? Areyou like just constantly doing the um like
I see you jes jure because he'sa very nice man. But it might
be that if he's a natural enemy, then right, I love riage to
pieces and then you and H madeweek. I'll say like one mildly disparaging

(22:22):
thing about him on Twitter, likehe's the type of guy that won't put
a shopping cart back in the carthouse thing when he got to the grocery
store. That's that's He's so nice. It's all I could manage. I
hate to see that brother against brother. Oh it's terrible. Yeah, it's
it's a blood feud. But youwant to do the like the buy games
like he does with Maine. Everynow and then he'll get like they some
conference you know, will like wantto play like, you know, whatever

(22:47):
America East type team. Yeah,so he'll be like, yeah, i'man
like Los Cruces, New Mexico thisweek. For some reason. It's just
like all right, man, thatfun. I've been doing the UNH game
since twenty seventeen, and yeah,we got to go to to Boulder,
Colorado one or so we play theyplay one. I say we like I'm
on the team. I you know. I talked to the players and learned
the new gen Z slang and that'sabout my contribution. But yeah, so

(23:07):
we went to Boulder, Colorado whenthey played their FBS game against Colorado,
and the guy that does the games, to me, Bob Lipman, this
is like a thread of a threadof a thread. But his college roommate
baby sat the coach of Colorado atthe time, Mike McIntyre when they were
both at Vanderbilt. So we gota tour of what is now coach Prime's
office, but it was Mike McIntyre'soffice, and it like looks out at

(23:30):
the mountains, and we got tosee the buffalo run around the field and
they actually send you a PDF ofwhere not to stand so that Ralphie doesn't
trample you to death. It waspretty awesome. Yeah, that's great,
I mean, and that's like whatever, you know, nothing wrong with the
like sort of smaller college sports there, but having a buffalo running around is
like it's nice to be able tovisit it. I don't know that you

(23:52):
necessarily want to live there like that, but that is pretty good. You
are inches a dog that goes toget the kicking tea Jim the Dungeon Dog,
and they have a buffalo. Sothat's about where the where the yeah
programs are, Like I'd be waymore comfortable around a dog than a buffalo.
Like you wouldn't need to hand mea little map. That was like
if you stand here, like aterrier is gonna sniff your ship, Like
that's fine. Jem may become territorialif you stand in the thirty two years,

(24:14):
So just just be aware. Heweighs fifteen pounds. Roth wrote a
great columns as usual, but thisone was about Twitter, and this kind
of struck a corner with me becauseI think dudes of a certain age are
of a certain amount of time thatwe spent online. I really people are
embarrassing to state sometimes, but Ireally really enjoyed Twitter when it was in

(24:36):
his heyday. Yeah, and thegreatest sports bar in the world. Just
the dumb things that would emanate thatyou would only get if you're extremely online
and on Twitter all the time.That just warmed my heart. And now
it sucks, and I would sayone hundred percent as because Elon Musk bought
it and blue check mark eys arebeing elevated and now it's just the dumbest,

(24:57):
worst people in the world that aren'tfunny. You get to see their
replies first, and that sucks.And that's basically I think the heart of
what you were writing about. Yeah, it's grim. It's because I think
the first point you made about howthere's something kind of like embarrassing and like
almost like implicating about admitting that youlike Twitter. I think this is the

(25:17):
moment where everybody is kind of gettinga little bit more comfortable with saying that
they had fun on there, becauseit's like it is very stupid, you
know, like just the even whenit's good, I mean maybe even especially
when it's good, is when it'sstupid. But it is like just the
nature of the thing. It's alittle weird thought that someone drops off.
You know, probably one third ofthe post summer site happened while someone is

(25:41):
sitting on a toilet, like that'salways been that's the way there. It
is. Yeah, it is aconserve. I mean, I'm just not
even going I'm rounding down from myown percentage. But there is something to
the sort of the community that happenedthere accidentally or on purpose that you can
feel it raying now, like it'sjust not as fun as it used to

(26:03):
be. And you know, Ithere's an app that you can use,
you know, if you're using adesktop to get on there that has like
blocked the you know, people thatpaid for a check mark who like by
m not just like reputation. ButI think at this point, you know,
if you've seen enough of their work, are the worst users of the

(26:25):
state. Either there are people thatare trying to sell you, you know,
weird supplements, or they're people thatare trying to say a racial slur
to you to see how you'll respond. What are the people whom you know
are just sort of like simping forElon the way that people have traditionally done
for like much more talented and attractivepeople. Like there's people that for whom

(26:48):
Elon Musk is basically their Taylor Swiftor Beyonce, right, And that's a
pretty dark thing to think about,Like it's not great at all, And
so that the general like sort oftone of it has sort of shifted to
be more like the site seems morelike Musk himself, which is not great

(27:08):
because Musk himself is kind of driftinginto some weird reactionary places. But also
it feels more like what his mentionswere like, which was just basically a
place where you know, crabs ina barrel were climbing over each other to
try to be heard and sell stuffto mars. It's just all of the

(27:30):
fun stuff. I mean, Ithink best sports Bar in the World is
a totally good formulation for when Twitterworks, Like when it's popping during like
an NBA playoff game and everybody's kindof watching and talking about the same thing.
That was as fun as it gets. I mean, it's really like
was a way to watch something athome and feel like you weren't by yourself
on the couch or like in mycase, next to your wife who was

(27:52):
responding to emails while you're watching abasketball game or watching anime while the basketball
games on. Yeah, yeah,right, which is like, you know,
that's they shouldn't have to watch thebasketball game with me, right,
and I should, you know,if I get the feeling of being there,
you know, more or less withmy friends, even though we're all
on our respective couches. It's notthe same, but it's better than nothing.
And at this point that it doesn'texactly feel like it's gone by the

(28:15):
boards, but you can feel theparty sort of getting to the stage where
everybody's like I should really go home. Yeah, and I think we're all
just looking for somewhere else better togo, right, It's like it's like,
oh, this bar's close, thatbar is closed. There's no but
yeah, to your point, there'sno like there's less and less or fewer
and fewer like if used correct grammar, communal experiences anymore. And there's you

(28:37):
know, there's it's not a threechannel society, so we all we're all
not watching the same thing at thesame time, except generally for sports because
that's the only DVR proof medium anymore. Bright So yeah, when you just
sit there and all of a sudden, everybody would would tweet out like like
KG with like seven explanation points ora name of a random soccer player I
couldn't identify, but I have tobe watching it. Yeah, that's real.

(28:57):
That's a great one. They likewaking up on a Saturday morning and
finding out like a third of yourfriends have been awake for ninety minutes and
they're so mad. Yeah, yeah, likeam is a disgrace And I'm like,
I don't know, you're probably right, but I don't know what you're
talking about. But yeah, nownow there's nowhere for us to go and

(29:17):
there is a certain there's a certaincomfort of knowing if I see a good
tweet, I can scroll past theseventeen blue check marks and get to the
actual replies. But yeah, fewer, fewer people want to engage because it's
just such a mine field of crapto get through to the good stuff.
I mean, that's that was alwaysthe case. I should say that,
Like Twitter had its ups and downsin terms of usability, and there was

(29:41):
a time, you know, ifyou go back to twenty fifteen twenty sixteen,
generally speaking, I think the vibewas better and worse. Like I
saw a lot more Nazis in rightat that point. But then they fixed
it. I mean, I thinkthey understood at some point that that experience
was a turn off and that theywere going to lose users. If every

(30:04):
time I tweeted a joke during abaseball game, you know, six freaks
where in my mentions being like jewright, then, like that's a vibe
killer, you know, on topof being disgusting and everything else. And
so those filters were part of whatI think like Musk wound up ripping out.

(30:25):
I mean, at this point,we fired something like ninety percent of
the people that worked at the companyby this point, and so they're basically
at the stage where they're stripping thecopper wiring out of the wall and taking
it to get melted down. It'snot like a functioning website, like even
that app that I have that automaticallyblocks the users, like it does block
them, except for because the websitedoesn't work sometimes you see them anyway,

(30:48):
right, Yeah, it's just theway that the entire things it's Musk bought
it. Even the way he boughtit. It was like, oh,
he made a stupid joke tweet becausehe's not funny, I say joke with
air quotes. And then a Delawarecourt was like, now, actually you
have to spend all this money onthis now? Yeah, like this is
he didn't even want to buy it. Yeah, no. And the thing

(31:10):
is like, I think this wasthe I remember we talked to Matt Levine
from Bloomberg the Great I think theone like finance columnist guy or business columnist
guy that I read. We hadhim on the podcast, yeah, the
Distraction a million years ago. Andthis was shortly after it was you know,
before the sale had gone all theway through. But as you were
saying it was like while courts weretelling him like, no, you're not

(31:32):
allowed to say like l O lj K is not like legally yeah,
right. So he Levine said thathe had some hope that Elon might do
a reasonable job with Twitter, becauseunlike the people that that sort of that
founded it, you know, woundup with their own ideas, and then

(31:52):
the people that were running it andthat he you know, wound up buying
it from, didn't like it atall. They were just being counters their
finance type and for them, thefact that the site wasn't reliably megaprofitable and
that it didn't have that kind ofgrowth that venture capitalist investors want. That
for them it was a failing siteeven though it made money some years,

(32:15):
made less money, didn't make moneyother years. Whatever they were, it
functioned, it just didn't function theway they wanted. And Levine, the
point that he made, which Idon't think it was crazy, although it
doesn't look good now, was thatat least Elon likes it. At least
he used Twitter, and so theoreticallyyou would think he had some understanding of
what it was and why people usedit. And I think it's become clear.

(32:39):
I mean, he's really only beenin charge for something like six months,
it feels much longer. He hasno idea how to use it and
no idea why people like it,and it really shows like it just he
is making everybody have the same experienceof it that he has, and I
don't want the same experience of anythingthat Elon must has. Right. The

(33:00):
problem is he knows how to useit like to use it right, and
and the whole point was to avoidthose people. But uh but yeah,
so so now it's become, yeah, like you said, an embodiment of
him, and it sucks and it'sa bummer because I myself, I can't
wait to move on to something elseif I hope Blue Sky becomes a thing.
But I also can't imagine like thisagain, it sounds pathetic, but

(33:22):
I guess that's kind of my brand. I can't imagine the living life without
Twitter, like it's it's weird,right. Part two with David Roth coming
up it just a bit keeping here. Welcome back to overtime. Here's part
two with David Roth talk a littlebit more about the demise of Twitter and
also going into Chris Christy running forpresident. Why then it might kiss off

(33:44):
Mets fans. Yeah, it's it'sespecially weird. So I've been on Blue
Sky for a couple of weeks.It's really good or yeah, it's fine,
you know it. I will saythis much for it because I'm also
I tried some of the other sites. There was a period of time where
it looked like Twitter was going downfast, like it was in that sort
of the titan Nick is standing upvertically out of the ocean stage and it

(34:04):
never quite made it there. Likeit's it's definitely still Titanic is still the
metaphor, but it's like if itjust sort of slowly sank and eventually the
water came over the Gunwales instead ofdoing that acrobatic you know, synchronized swimming
thangid and everybody's bouncing off the propellingright. So in the guess in the
case so Bluse guy functions like itlooks the same, it works more or

(34:28):
less the same, and that's comforting. It's something like masted On, which
I've been on, is very thoughtfuland very nice and everything, but it
is just different enough that I don'tknow how to really use it. This
is another embarrassing thing. I don'thave like a mega number of users on
Twitter, but I have a goodnumber. I've been on there for a
long time and I've done a lotof posts, and so there's a part

(34:50):
of me that has become accustomed orlike just had my brain gamified. I
guess it's the sort of word forit, where like I'm used to seeing
the numbers go up, and Iwant to see numbers go up, right,
A little bit of a hit fromit, right, absolutely, And
it's embarrassing because it's a value neutralthing. It doesn't mean anything. It
just means that someone saw my postwas like and like pushed a little button

(35:13):
on their phone. Doesn't mean thatthey change their lives or whatever, or
even that they read all of it. It's just the sort of noted deal,
right, blue guy. Because it'ssmaller and because I don't have as
many followers there, and because notas many people use it, is like
the number don't go up as fast, so I get upset because number don't
go up, and that is likethat yeah, yeah, Like it is

(35:35):
basically like the sort of the Anderthalsfrom the beginning of two thousand and one,
like hitting a rock with a boneor vice versa. That's me on
there. Yeah. The other thingwith Blue Guy that's kind of it's been
interesting to see it develop is youknow, it's one hundred percent Twitter refugees.
I mean there's people that were onmasted On earlier because they have that
you know, technical or code orbrain sort of approach for their Yeah,

(36:00):
this is a better protocol. Idon't have that, like I'm an idiot.
I'm a neanderthal hiding rock with abone. And so with Blue Sky,
there's people because it's still invite only, there's people sort of trying to
like they're enjoying themselves and they're likehaving fun doing posts in a place that
has less hate speech and fewer freakson it right now, like pretty close

(36:23):
to zero of both. But theyalso know that at some point it's not
going to be invite only anymore,right, that the freaks and hate speech
gang that are just going to dowhat they do, which is go wherever
they can and try to make peopleuncomfortable and ruin stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
I mean it's just like the natureof and that's like it's both like

(36:45):
because they're disgusting and then there issomething sort of like tactical about it.
I mean, you can see thatwith blue Sky that a lot of the
people that you know are the gainto following there quickly are trans people,
and they like as soon as itbecomes possible for people to come and bully

(37:06):
them in disgusting, stupid ways,the way that happened on Twitter, like
that will happen unless blue Sky buildsa real and enforceable way of preventing that
from happening, because the people thatdo that only want to do that.
They're not going on blue Sky totalk about the NFL or to watch a
basketball game. They're there to likebe disgusting and that. You know,

(37:29):
they were always there on Twitter too, But there was enough other people that,
you know, it's easy for meto say as a you know,
sort of sizz straight white dude,I didn't have to deal with as much,
you know, and that there wasenough other people that I was friendly
with on there, you know,in that way that you're friends with the
people online where I could just belike, all right, well I'm watching
basketball with these one thousand mentally illpeople right now. But that was all

(37:53):
we did was talking about it,you know, like there wasn't anybody like
jumping in like while everybody else istalking about out like a sixer's collapse in
Game seven, to be like,do you hate how woke everything is?
Like those guys weren't there that wasjust outside of it right in the liberal
media once you think that pick androll didn't exist or something like shut up,

(38:13):
I'm watching sports right now, youknow, like there was so that
with Blue Sky you can see peoplesort of trying to be like, how
do we preserve this space so thatwe can stay having fun on it and
not have the people that ruin everyonline space come into this online space and
ruin it too. And I don'tI'm not smart enough to have the answer
for that, but it does seemlike that's the thing that's gonna decide whether

(38:35):
Blue Sky works or not, isif they can figure that out. Indeed,
yeah, I'm not smart enough either. David Rotham defected with this real
quick before I let you go.Actually, the Morning Straw Produce kind of
broke the news that Chris Christie isgoing to announce for president and your guy,
Steve Cohen is going to be oneof his major financial backers, which
the response to The Mark Show hostChris Ryan's tweet was mostly Mets fans going,

(38:59):
oh great this, we're not gonnaget O. What the hell is
that your instant reaction or how doyou well, how do you feel about
that? So I feel a coupleof different ways. Um, I'm glad
that I'm glad that you said thatSteve Cohen was my guy and not Chris
Christie was my guys. I grewup in New Jersey, uh, and
Chris Christie. I was already livingout of state when Chris Christie became governor.

(39:22):
But uh, he is a veryidentifiable type of New Jersey type.
We've I believe, talked about thiswhen I was on there. It's not
a robot, but he's still gross, but in a different way than like,
yeah, and lucky for you.Apparently the strategy is that he's going
to focus on New Hampshire. Thatis he is. You're going to see

(39:43):
him all over the state every damnday because that is where he's trying to
make his inroads. I think it'sgoing to be a real, uh difficult
needle for him to thread because theidea is basically like he wants to be
not Trump but exactly as much ofa boorish jerk quad as a Trump and

(40:06):
that's tough because he's counting on peoplecaring about his policies, and first of
all, policies aren't great. Andsecond of all, people don't care about
policies. Even in New Hampshire.I mean, like, that's the state
where you would not run Republican side. Now they don't know, yeah,
because I think that like it's thatAnd at Iowa, I've always thought like,
just given where they were in theprimary schedule, people there pride themselves

(40:28):
on having opinions and knowing about thisstuff in the way that I think they
don't elsewhere. But that's not whereRepublican politics is right now, absolutely not.
I think my theory is he's tryingto do like a year long cossplay
of what Elizabeth Warren did to MichaelBloomberg, or she just went into that
debate and just said, Okay,I'm going down, but you're coming with
me. I think that's what.I don't even think Chris Christy cares if

(40:51):
he's at two percent the whole time. He just wants to be a guided
missile at Trump. That's what hedid, you know in twenty Mark Ruy.
He did it to Mark Ruby.But it's like Marco Rubio is not
a threat, Like Marco Rubio isa you know, like a catalog underwear
model. Like he's not a guythat's gonna hold national office, but you
know, just practical. I don'tknow Boxer briefs the but there is he's

(41:15):
not a serious guy if he wantsto throw himself at Trump. I mean
they're both really nasty guys. Likethat is kind of like a fun kaiju
battle to imagine, just these twoenormous Tri State area jerks going oh yeah,
back and forth to each other.But I don't think that it's gonna
work out for him. The Cohenbit is funny him because he's kept Christie

(41:37):
around as like an emotional support dogor like he's just been in the offices
for the Mets. There's a storyrecently where um Cohen is not tweeting anymore.
But he was like a pretty publicright presence, especially relative to the
Wilpont family that owned the Mets before. But he had it. I think

(41:58):
he was talking to the Times orone of the big New York papers,
and Christie was just there like forthe meeting, and he didn't just like
ed McMahon, Yeah, hang outlike, I don't think he just guess
like Hindy and whatever. Whatever.Cohen made a good point, but he's
not He doesn't have a job inthe front office. There were rumors that
Christy was being considered for the Presidentof Baseball Operations role for a while,

(42:19):
which is vacant right now, andthat was one of those things where I
mean, I've had to do alot of mental gymnastics in my life as
a Mets fan to sort of tryto figure out a way that something isn't
as bad as it. Obviously,you know, he's got a good eye
for for for base dealers, nothaving that skill himself. So here's do
you want to actually know the justificationthat came up might be. So the

(42:40):
idea was that maybe in this case, he knows what he doesn't know,
that he's enough of a sports fanto be like, all right, well,
I don't know how to like readstat cast or like how to use
like a track man high speed cameraor any of that stuff. So I'll
defer to the people that do knowhow to do it. And he's enough

(43:00):
of a fan that maybe he wouldbe interested in a way that a lot
of the sort of checked out legacyguys that the Mets have had in the
past weren't Now, as I saythat out loud to you, I know
that that is not convincing. Likethat modicum of sense made there with the
Chris risci taking, the Donald Rumsfeld, the unknown unknowns of press. But

(43:24):
even now, especially now, Ithink if he's really going to run for
president again, then that completely undoesthe idea that it's like, well,
all right, he's at least arealistic person at this point that is by
the boards, like and so there'sno justification for Christy trying to I mean,
he did audition for her job asa local sports radio host. Didn't

(43:46):
go during the end, didn't gogreat. People kept calling up and telling
him he was a dumbass, andhe was like, oh, a real
tough guy, okay, and whichwas great radio if you hate Chris Christie,
but not if you want to hearabout sports, right, and that
I think that moment has has passedtoo, Like he's never gonna get elected
to anything else. If he wantsto hang out in the owner's box at

(44:07):
Mets games, like I suppose that'sfine, better him than me. But
if it screws up the Otani thing. I think that Steve Cohen has enough
money to do something stupid with ChrisChristy and then still do something smart where
a Showyotani is concerned. But man, I really find about shoes. Yes
we will. What are you gonnado? David Rotha Defector, thanks so

(44:29):
much for doing this. Tell RichKimball I said hello and hope to talk
to you again soon. I appreciateit. Thanks man. All right,
that's gonna do it for overtime thisweek. My thanks to David Roth,
who rites for Defector dot Com.Could download the Distraction podcast as well.
Mike Whaley's new book, A Penfor All Seasons is out now. He's
got book signings going on all overthe place, so much to check him
out. Next week. I've decidedif I'm running the Best of because it

(44:50):
show's eld to offer two months,or if we're gonna take something way,
way, way in advance because I'mgoing to Long Island for a Memorial Day
weekend, So so long suckers.But until that, and remember, hippies
are bad people pretending to be good. Pups are good people pretending to do
bad. Feel inter