The Junkies vs. Mister Irrelevant - Round One

Wednesday, October 17, 2007


Ding! Who's ready for some DC Metro trash-talking? I know I am. It's a DC Sports Talk Station versus a blog! In one corner we have one of the oldest, most respected Sports Blog out there....Mister Irrelevant. In the other we have one of the older DC Talk Shows. It's Mister Irrelevant versus the Junkies.....Ding!

Background: For those of you not from DC area the Junkies are a radio program that surfaced in this are years ago. The four members started out as the Sports Junkies and worked nights on a talk radio station (WJFK) from 7-11pm. They were a great show to listen to especially driving to and from the middle of nowhere to go to College. Well at one point another institution in the DC Area, WHFS (alternative rock) hired the Junkies to do morning talk and play Linkin Park. Out of nowhere HFS turned into a Spanish station and the Junkies were out of the job. Many people had already started to tune them out because the just didn't talk about Sports anymore. To make a long story short they were hired back by WJFK and were moved around until Stern's move to XM Sirius made room for them in mornings. Background over.
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Fast forward to Monday when the Junkies had Brandon Lloyd on from the Redskins. The wide receiver was talking a bit of trash about Troy Aikman perhaps being gay, and the Junkies poked fun at the bit. Well wind of this hit Mister Irrelevant moved to DC Sports Bog and AA, and then broke nationwide when Deadspin made it an item later that day. Well yesterday and today it just got even more interesting.....

Here's the clip of The Junkies yesterday mentioning all of the hype from Monday and completely trashing Mister Irrelevant. After getting the actual date wrong to start the show, debating Heaven and Hell, and mentioning their families....do they talk about Mister Irrelevant (and AA).

Brandon Lloyd interview all over the blogs (WJFK)

"Ever heard of a site Mister Irrelevant? They clubbed us!"
"I never heard of their website until you mentioned it, so they can go to hell!"
"I read the three comments and two were from the brothers that write the site."
"It's showing that blogs that come out daily are grasping for content"
"Does he get the worst seats at Sporting Events because he's a blogger?" (Speaking about Dan Steinberg)
"These are the guys I hate the most right now Jamie Mottram, Chris Mottram."

Well it doesn't stop there. Today at the prime hour of 6:30am the Junkies decided to address the issue and what they referred to as Mister Irrelevant labeling them well, "Irrelevant". 3 out of the 4 said that they didn't care, but one of the hosts (EB) said that he did because the guys at M.I. were "in their demographic". They then mentioned the Washington Post, Deadspin, and Sports by Brooks as sites that also mentioned the item and somehow tried to link this to a complete other issue about how they are looked at as "barbarians" and women can't listen to their show. They then spent the next two segments taking calls from only women asking if they enjoyed the show and if they were just like every other "normal guy".

Here's the funny part. Throughout the mentioning of the B-Lloyd incident they were still bashing Mister Irrelevant saying that they definitely didn't know about Sports. And almost a full 30-minutes later while mentioning the Baseball playoffs one of the hosts (Lurch) took yet another shot at Mister Irrelevant by saying that (and I'm paraphrasing here because it was seven in the morning)...

"We know why Boston is losing the series to the Indians because they know Baseball unlike Mister Irrelevant."

The best part was that this came either right before or right after one of the Junkies mentioned that he could only name 3 players on the Rockies and another mentioned he watched 10 minutes of Game 3. Here's the thing....I listen to the Junkies just about every morning. I still think they're a great show, but the show isn't about Sports anymore. This is the reason that many folks just like Chris at M.I. stopped listening, or maybe never was listening to the show to begin with. The Junkies even admitted that they only talk about Sports 2% of the time! Well actually when they DO talk about that 2% they really just combine the front page of Deadspin and Sports by Brooks into something they call the "Sports Page". Being a listener I know. With that said they do have some great interviews like B-Lloyd, Portis, and other big name Sports Stars, but those are few and far between.

If you don't care about the "stupid blogs" as you call them Junkies, then you probably shouldn't use their material. Mister Irrelevant probably doesn't care at all about what you say about them if they don't like your show, but let's call what mentioning the issue two days in a row. You recognize that 100s of thousands of people read blogs everyday and you wouldn't be talking trash if you didn't want the attention from Mister Irrelevant and AA (local DC Blogs) and hope it gets all the way up to Deadspin HQ. I don't mind that at all....hell it's good marketing, but you need to first admit that you don't even care about Sports anymore. It's a joke really.

(I'll post the audio later today, but I felt like I needed to share this even though it's local. Also, I'll try and make sure this post is off the top of the page as soon as possible.)

Here's Chris' Post If You Are Interested (Mister Irrelevant)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 9:46 AM

9 Comments:

Whoa, that was long.

GMoney said...
Oct 17, 2007, 10:53:00 AM  

None of those guys is 1/10th as dreamy as Jamie. That's where the jealousy comes from.

Eric (Extra P.) said...
Oct 17, 2007, 10:57:00 AM  

Picking a fight with two of the nicest guys in sports blogging? Class-tastic.

I also like that their listeners couldn't even muster up a Fanhouse level of rabble on their comment section.

MDT said...
Oct 17, 2007, 11:02:00 AM  

Actually, now that I think of it, sports-radio listeners are just Fanhouse commenters who haven't learned how to turn on a computer.

MDT said...
Oct 17, 2007, 11:10:00 AM  

In their defense, the Junkies have just as many listeners, and only in the DC area, as M.I. has readers all over the world. So, it's not really a comparison there. Although I wish it were the opposite since M.I.'s knowledge base on sports supercedes the Junkies a million times over. If they'd just change the name of their radio show, they'd be much better off...

Pettey said...
Oct 17, 2007, 11:31:00 AM  

Seems that it's become standard practice to bash bloggers on radio these days, but hey; that just means you're doing your job.
The Junkies have been striving to be a younger version of Don and Mike for quite a while now, even though there's no love lost between the two shows. Other than a brief truce after Don's wife was killed, they've been sniping at each other ever since WJFK re-hired the Junkies. As the Gin Blossoms sang, "Hey, Jealousy"....

Anonymous said...
Oct 17, 2007, 11:52:00 AM  

Thanks for the kind words, homeboys.

My thoughts on the situation.

Chris Mottram said...
Oct 17, 2007, 12:09:00 PM  

AA, jeez. I was having such a good day and then you had to remind me of one of the two worst days of my life, the day WHFS went Spanish pop (the other is the GW 8-seed screw job last year). I remember when I left school that day and turned on the radio, I thought it was a practical joke. Nope. WHFS was my favorite music station, a hundred times better than DC101. I haven't been able to keep up with music (meaning rock and alternative, the only music I listened to anyway) since that day.

Oh, and sorry for the random music-related post. Just felt the need to vent.

Max Wass said...
Oct 17, 2007, 2:50:00 PM  

Please...PLEASE...PLEASE correct the first graph...HOO-HOO did NOT go to XM, he went to the Little Dog with the Giant Units...Sirius.

And no Ho-wurd...you did NOT invent EVERYTHING...ya douche!!!

Anonymous said...
Oct 17, 2007, 4:24:00 PM  

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