OK, so maybe he makes the announcement today, maybe not.
Maybe he announces that he is leaving ESPN, maybe not.
But The Announcement that Wouldn’t Die got me to thinking about the show and why I like it so much. And what I’ll miss about it if it ends.
When I started listening to the show (January or February 2006) it was the first sports talk radio show I had ever listened to. The first talk radio I had ever listened to, period. I’ve always been a sportsaholic, so it struck a chord with me. The more I listened, the more I liked it. A generalist show, he didn’t get technical and break down X’s and O’s. But I enjoyed the intelligent discussion, mixed in with the usual goofy sports stuff. That Olbermann guy who came on for an hour each day was a plus.
Then I started listening to other ESPN Radio shows: Mike and Mike, The Herd, Sports Bash, etc. They are OK. But none of them come close to capturing what DP does on his show.
KO mentioned during their recent appearance on Letterman that in their SportsCenter days he took a cue from the old Bob and Ray Show and would try to make DP break up on air. A while back it occurred to me that the DP Show is — stylistically speaking — like the old Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, or the even older versions of the Tonight Show with Jack Paar and Steve Allen. I’m a wee bit too young to remember Paar and Allen in their heyday, but whenever I’ve seen clips of their shows on tv I am stunned by the quality of the work. Compared to the current crop of talk show hosts (tv and radio), Carson, Paar, and Allen are geniuses.
Slapstick funny but with the ability to discuss the serious. Pointed without being downright mean. Entertainment with intelligence. Carson would have high school birdcalling champions on along with Itzhak Perlman. DP will go goo-goo-ga-ga over Jessica Alba, and then discuss racism with Mark Jackson. There are people that don’t like that sort of mix, but I do.
It would put a crimp in my day if DP stopped doing his show. In the current crop of ESPN hosts the only one I really like is Bob Valvano. If DP were replaced by Bobby V I’d give the new show a chance. If DP were replaced by Kuselias or Gottlieb or Kincade or ….
I’d have to give afternoon sports talk radio the Big Sayonara:
About a week before Johnny Carson died I’d been talking with a friend of similar vintage (hardly anyone under 40 remembers Johnny) about him and I said “Leno and Letterman are pretty good, but there’ll never be another Johnny.”
There will never be another Dan Patrick.
I feel like doing my Brandon DeWilde impersonation:
Dan! Come back! Come back, Dan!
Oh. Wait a sec.
He hasn’t gone anywhere yet ….
