Firsthand Account: From Bleacher Report To The Radio

Bleacher Creature JJ Stankevitz recounts how an endeavor to preview all 30 MLB teams led to him being interviewed on sports talk radio.

It was like any other Friday afternoon here at the University of Missouri.

Dull.

(That’s not to say life at Mizzou sucks. In fact, it’s awesome—but without football games to look forward to, this semester, by comparison, has been dull.)

I was sitting there in my second-to-last class of the day, “Principles of American Journalism,” when I casually checked my e-mail.

In my box was a message from David Nemetz entitled “Sports Talk Radio Appearance.” Thinking it was a mass-email to all BR members about a radio interview one of the heads at BR was going to do now that the site was out of beta, I opened it.

I honestly couldn’t believe the message that lay in front of me. Herb Winches of 960 WERC in Birmingham, Alabama, wanted to interview me—me—about the upcoming Florida Marlins season.

At first, I thought it was some sort of elaborate joke. Then, I thought that there was no way this was a major radio station.

But after looking at their website and show lineup, I concluded it was—because any southern radio station that carries Rush Limbaugh must be pretty big. Right?

I had been (and still am) writing previews for every single major league baseball team, and apparently somebody caught on down in Alabama and thought enough of my article to put me on air.

The weird thing is that my Marlins preview was probably the least-read of all the ones I had written up until then.

Now, I have never set foot in the state of Alabama. The closest I’ve been is Mississippi for a Missouri/Ole Miss football game last August, where I was told by one of my friends not to open my mouth in The Grove because “They’ll know you’re a Yankee.” (See: Rush Limbaugh comment I made earlier).

However, the interview went fine. I was caught a bit off guard when asked about Wayne Huizenga, but I think I pulled through okay.

It just goes to show you that anything can happen in this day and age. So, to all my fellow BR writers, keep at it. Even if your articles aren’t getting a lot of hits or comments, keep writing. BR is a great site to get your work out there, and you never know who’s reading it.

Who knows? Maybe, someday, a radio station will want to interview you.

Listen to JJ’s interview:
Boomp3.com