Buster Olney Interview Backlash Is Way Off Base
1. ESPN baseball reporter Buster Olney got a lot of people on social media all riled up because he asked Angels manager Phil Nevin about the team’s possibly trading Shohei Ohtani during an in-game interview on Sunday Night Baseball.
The backlash Olney is getting is absurd. Ohtani is having an all-time season and has gotten more coverage than any player in the league this year. If he’s on the trading block, the topic is fair game for Olney. All Olney was doing here is his job.
Many fans took issue with the fact that the question came during an in-game interview. That’s not Olney’s fault. If managers have to do those stupid interviews, they can’t expect the reporters to not ask certain questions.
Those in-game interviews with managers are completely useless because the managers are trained to not say anything of substance during them. If you ask any baseball fan to recall anything any manager has ever said during an in-game interview, you’d get a blank stare.
Those interviews are always filled with the typical clichés like, “We need to be more patient at the plate” or “We’ve hit into a lot of hard outs,” blah, blah blah. Heck, Nevin even went into full nonanswer mode with Olney, saying, “It’s all business. We’re focused on playing baseball games.”
Olney knew Nevin wouldn’t give him anything. Nevin knew the question was going to be asked. Both handled the question and answer the way they should have. No harm, no foul.
Leave Olney alone.
2. There are two kinds of manager ejections in Major League Baseball. There's the one when the manager comes right out of the game going ballistic. Lou Piniella was great at this.
Then there’s the ejection that features a slow build by the manager. This was the case Sunday for Reds skipper David Bell, who started out relatively calm but then gave us a great performance.
3. Steph Curry won the American Century Challenge, which included him sinking a hole in one and an eagle to win the tournament.
The best thing about all this were people synched up Curry’s golf shots with Mike Breen’s calls of Curry’s basketball shots.
4. The $10 for popcorn seems more offensive than $14.75 for a hot dog.
5. Tiki Barber revealed on his WFAN radio show Monday that he will be part of a three-man NFL booth with play-by-player Andrew Catalon and former Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan for CBS this season.
6. This week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with New York Post sports media reporter Andrew Marchand. Topics covered include:
• Did the NBA play a role in ESPN’s axing Jeff Van Gundy?
• What will ESPN do for its top NBA booth?
• How is Derek Jeter doing on TV?
• What’s going on with ESPN Radio?
• Tom Brady–Fox update
• Threads
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Eminem was a surprise guest at Ed Sheeran’s show in Detroit over the weekend and performed two songs with the pop star.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok.
