Dense, even for Russo

[Frayed Knot]

Chris Russo apparently just saw (via special DVD) the first 3 episodes of the espn mini-series version of 'Bronx is Burning'. He liked them and will continue to watch the remaining ones.

But he's at a loss to understand why the author chose the 1977 Yanx to write about ('78 was more dramatic he says) or why the '77 NYY season is being lumped stories such as 'Son of Sam', the Mayoral race, the blackout and subsequent riots, etc., or even why a non-Yankee fan would be interested.
All manner of callers have tried to explain the tie-ins connecting the baseball and non-baseall themes in the story to him - starting with the part about THEM ALL HAPPENING CONCURRENTLY - but it somehow all remains beyond his grasp.

[bmfc1]

FK--I've been listening to Russo over the internet today for Mets news. I guess he's a good host and facilitates phone calls but he really doesn't know anything about baseball (maybe this isn't news to long time listeners). I didn't get any Mets news from 'FAN today that I didn't know from the internet.

I've been watching [u:7b1473e2f5]BIB [/u:7b1473e2f5]with my 14 year old and he can see a nexus between all of the events. Perhaps it's too complicated for Russo.

[Frayed Knot]

"but he really doesn't know anything about baseball "

I actually wouldn't put it that way at all.
In fact, it's more like he's a kind of idiot savant, someone whose life is so immersed in sports he sometimes loses the big picture when it comes to other topics.

The book this series is taken from (which he didn't read) is not a baseball book but rather a brief history of NYC during that tumultuous year of which the Billy/Reggie/George Yanx were one of the stories. Now maybe it's partly because the espn version (being a sports station and all) pushes the Yanx more towards the foreground and the others as background (rather than the other way around) he's acting as if it's strictly a baseball story and can't understand WhytheFuck these other stories are being lumped in with the '77 Yankees!?!
"There's no connection!!"

[G-Fafif]

I, too, was overriding my FAN ban for trade news and found myself utterly amused that caller after caller tried to break down to Russo the whole "BIB" concept like Bart used a puppet show to explain to Homer why a match lit in a room filled with gas would cause an explosion. Every time you think he's about to get it, he falls down a hole with "why not take some big NFL trade from that summer and use that for your movie?"

Oh, he's such a dope.