A pet peeve with sports radio

I really enjoy Mayhem in the AM on 790, mainly because the hosts have the right personality miz to make me laugh in the mornings. That said, they ask some of the worst questions when doing interviews. For instance, this morning, they had Chris Dimino on, who is a fount of baseball wisdom. I was looking forward to hearing his take on the teams that he had seen so far. Instead, the first two questions were about the good "buzz" for baseball in general and all of the good feelings that fans have towards the game now. What the hell kind of question is that? What sort of response are you going to elicit from that? "Yes"? "No"? The final question - "The Braves will have a successful season if...?" - was a much better one and led Dimino to an intelligent description of how Mike Hampton and Adam LaRoche could have big seasons. That said, the question only highlighted the missed opportunities from the first two. And what's with the obsession with "buzz"?

And the Tim Hudson interview that preceded the spot with Dimino? "Are you a big Auburn football fan?" (What Auburn grad, let alone a former Auburn athlete, isn't? And what sort of response is that going to engender?) "How do the A's view the Braves' success?" (What do you think he's going to say? That they view the Braves as a bunch of chokers? That's typically the province of reactionary sports talk hosts.) Real insightful stuff.

I don't mean to bag too hard on the Mayhem crew, who generally do a very good job with the show. If anything, the interview highlighted why sports interviews in general are a complete waste of time. The conventions of interviewing these days are to ask questions that have only one obvious answer and/or to make banal statements and ask the interviewee to agree or disagree. Listen to sideline reporters; this is exactly what they do 75% of the time. I don't bother watching or listening to interviews, unless the subject him/herself (Charles Barkley, Bobby Knight, etc.) is inherently interesting.