A Sirius Proposition

I received a bright, gleaming new Trapper Keeper for Christmas.

Or maybe it was a Nintendo Entertainment System. Or the latest Transformers figure. Or a Topps factory set.

Meanwhile, somewhere else on Dec. 25, another happy little lad was getting a Sega Entertainment System. Or a Go-Bots figure. Or a Fleer factory set. Or whatever the hell the alternative is for a Trapper Keeper.

They're all fads, all "status symbols" when your biggest concern in life is boasting in the halls of your school about the holiday treasures you found under the tree. Inevitably, there's going to be someone who claims their treasure, although ultimately similar, shines more brightly than yours.

My Trapper Keeper was actually a Sirius Satellite Radio S50 receiver. Just like if you're a Fleer guy or a Topps guy, a Nintendo guy or a Sega guy, you're evidently either a Sirius guy or an XM guy. After exploring this new media landscape for the last few weeks, I can say unequivocally that either "team" is damn lucky — trust me, if you're still listening to terrestrial radio, you won't be in five years when the rest of the country catches up with the revolution.

Sure, it's corny, but suiting up with SatRad feels like joining a team. You feel like one of the cool kids, bumming smokes in a clubhouse somewhere in the woods behind the church. I remember speaking with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman after his appearance at the National Press Club about the league's jump from Sirius to XM next season. He said it came down to the fact that XM came to them — that the NHL, a league so odious to media that it needed to enter into a public access contract with NBC just to get its games on broadcast television, felt needed. You get that feeling when you listen to any of the nearly 200 channels on these services: they want you to want them. They want to give you something you can't get on "free" radio. They want all this talk about revolution and independence to be more than just buzzwords on Howard Stern's press releases.

Stern ... understand something, dear readers. I grew up in Jersey. I went to school in Jersey. Where other kids were raised on orange juice and cereal, I was raised on Baba Booey and lesbian strippers. Save the "Iusedtolistenbuthesucksnow" rants. It's hardwired in me. So naturally I'm going to follow him to SatRad.

His first shows have been different, uneven, but ultimately exhilarating. The freedom to use the kind of language any adult is free to use in conversations not being monitored by the government has created new spins on some moldy topics. For the most part, the crew has been reinvigorated. They sound like a bunch of kids who found a box of their father's girlie magazines, with his B.B. gun on one side of them and his ATM code on the other.

Example: a conversation earlier this week with a stripper who had sex with one of Stern's henchmen. On the old Stern show, this conversation is bleeped, blotted, and cut to pieces by some guy on a dump button. On Sirius, it plays out in explicit, gory, and hilarious detail. And it's not just the scatological references that make the difference — it's the simple, adult words you can no longer say under the FCC's tyranny. Dirty condom, for example. That would have been edited out, as would have a few seconds of conversation surrounding the nasty verbiage. It's nice to hear the show without feeling you're on "Quantum Leap," jumping a few seconds ahead every time someone makes a reference to sex.

Another innovation worth mentioning, even if it's a limited one: the addition of George "Mr. Sulu" Takai as the show's announcer. A constant source of humor for years on the Stern show when he was closeted, the newly-outed actor was live in studio during the first week. This led to the dawning of perhaps the greatest romance since Doug and Jackie Christie: that of Mr. Sulu and rotund Jersey boy comedian Artie Lange. Never before have a homo and a homophobe shared such awkward flirtation so openly. What a pair they'd make: the king of McGriddles and the Queen of the Enterprise. (With all due respect to Nichelle Nichols and Kate Mulgrew.)

Stern's channels are a bombastic adventure in egomania, but would you expect any less from a guy who starred in his own movie version of a book he wrote about his own life? There's actually a "postgame" call-in show following the morning program on Sirius, so callers can dissect what bits worked and did not work. There's a "super fan round table" that allows Stern's most rabid acolytes to spout off about their leader. There's even an entire news channel dedicated to vital topics like Howard's lunch. If it sounds pointless and obsessive, that's because it is. But who else is pulling this off? Sean Hannity? Say what you will, but there's an audience for this.

What it comes back to is choice. It's something SatRad provides in a way corporately whored terrestrial radio cannot. There is a Jimmy Buffet station 12 clicks away from an old-school rap station. There's an all-Elvis station eight clicks away from an all-new wave station. There's a Grand Ole Opry station five clicks away from an all-gay station. I don't know where you live, but I'm pretty sure I'm not getting that variety on commercial radio.

That said, it's more than a little disappointing that there isn't an abundance of choice when it comes to Sirius sports talk.

Not to point too fine a point on it, but it totally blows, actually.

I enjoy sports talk radio, but living in Washington, DC, that's not really an option, unless you want to hear five hours of counting the hairs on Joe Gibbs's ass. Yet on Sirius, there aren't many alternatives. There's ESPN Radio, a monolith that has to be so many things to so many listeners that it's only a buffet when it should be a three-course meal. There's a simulcast of ESPNews, which doesn't exactly translate without the ability to see the highlights being described. There's Sports Byline USA, in which a cadre of Jim Rome-ian hosts spend hours making mountains out of molehills. There's the all-NFL channel, which is a great listen, but not up to the standards of the NFL Network on television. There's an NBA channel that appears to broadcast more play-by-play of "classic" games than offer original content — so far, it's a waste. And then there are several sports stations that offer play-by-play at night of NBA, NHL and college games, and appear to have NASCAR talk shows during the day.

How could a service that offers Howard Stern and Martha Stewart be so narrow-minded when it comes to sports talk? You have more options for country music than for jock chat on Sirius. Does that make sense?

Part of the problem is the competition. XM, the other cool kid in town, has FOX Sports Radio and Sporting News Radio, leaving Sirius to make due without the No. 2 and 3 sports talk syndicators in America. So what's the alternative?

Before SatRad, I used to listen to a lot of streaming audio on the Internet. I'd pick up a sports talk station in Minnesota, one down in Florida, one up in Toronto. It was fascinating to hear different takes on the same subjects, shaded by geography and personality. It was also interesting to get neighborhood flavor and explanation on topics that might warrant a four-inch story in my local newspaper.

Do the same thing on Sirius. It has traffic and weather for 21 different cities in America. Now give me sports talk from about eight of them, and you'll have revolutionized the medium.

Why shouldn't a transplanted New Yorker in New Mexico have the chance to hear Mike and the Mad Dog rant about the Knicks on WFAN? Why shouldn't a national audience be given the opportunity to hear 24 hours of self-loathing on WEEI in Boston and WGN in Chicago? Why shouldn't we all have the unrivaled joy of hearing WIP in Philly on the day after an Eagles loss?

Think of Sirius as a shopping mall. The hip-hop fans have their store. The rock fans have their store. The conservative talk and liberal talk fans have their store. What do sports fans have? A department store, filled with homogeny in every aisle.

Sirius claims it "will change the way you listen to radio forever." When it comes to sports talk, I claim bull-poopie. (Damn FCC). C'mon, Sirius: I like being one of the cool kids. Now give me some damn innovation, or I might have to start playing Sega...

Big Pimpin'

A little housekeeping before I offer some Hall of Fame thoughts.

My first book, "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History," evidently has a release day, according to Amazon: April 25. I would naturally encourage anyone who's ever enjoyed the column to get the book, because you're going to laugh, then get pissed, then laugh again, and then hopefully run out and buy 25 more copies for friends, relatives, and for use as coasters. Hopefully, I might have the chance to meet some of you if I'm out promoting the thing in the spring. Details to follow.

Also, I have two new weekly writing projects I wanted to make you aware of. First is SportsFan Magazine's Pop Sports Quiz, which is an eight-question satirical test on current events in sports and pop culture. It's a trick I've tried a few times in this column, and now it's weekly on SFM. The second is on a website called NationsPunched.com, an affiliate of a great movie site called Chud.com. Basically, it's a bunch of bitter knuckleheads ranting about whatever draws their ire — in other words, right up my alley. Here's a tirade on smoking bans in DCfor your reading pleasure.

Here ends the self-fellatio...

Cooperstown Follies

As many of you know, I'm the Cooperstown Nazi. If you're not one of the truly legendary players in the history of Major League Baseball, "no plaque for you!" If I can't mention you in the same breath as Cobb, Young, Ruth, Mantle, Mays, and Aaron without choking back the bile of mediocrity, "no plaque for you!"

My Hall of Fame is for mythical heroes. My Hall of Fame demands that a player be one of the top five or six of his generation, or have the kind of timeless impact on the game where his contributions are acknowledged long after he stopped lacing up the cleats. If I ran the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I'd purge the rolls of about 75% of the current honorees. There are just too many all-stars, award hogs, and stat whores masquerading as baseball royalty for my tastes.

But Cooperstown is Cooperstown, and Bruce Sutter is going to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame. So be it.

But if he is, why are Jim Rice and Goose Gossage not? Both missed the mark in this year's vote, and will certainly miss in next year's bumper crop of first-ballot stars. Do they deserve enshrinement?

A better question: what would their enshrinement mean for baseball? If Rice gets in, it's because he was able to hit 382 home runs and 1,451 RBI in an era before juicing (both the ball and the players). If Gossage gets in, it's because he amassed 310 saves back when a save actually had some statistical significance.

If either of them ever gets in, it will be a nod by the writers that the game has changed. That yesterday's stats, miniscule in comparison with today's numbers, are somehow more meaningful.

That wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" will be published in Spring 2006. His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].