Posts Tagged ‘Beano’

Continuing with more random off-season banter, today’s “message of love“** goes out to one of my absolute favorites on the web and the radio: Tony Basilio and “Beano Jeff” on the Edge.

Sports-talk shows are about as common as overly-opinionated and poorly written blogs like Gate 21 … okay, maybe not that common, but they’re common.

As a general rule, I tend to tire quickly of sports-talk personalities — especially those where the show ends up being more about the host than it is about sports (which is increasingly the case). It is for this reason that I have not been a regular sports-talk listener for the last decade; that is, until a friend turned me on to B&B at Midday.

If you are a fan of the Tennessee Volunteers and enjoy talking sports, then you should really give Basilio & Beano a listen. They just celebrated their second anniversary on the air with Knoxville’s WVLZ, and — in my humble opinion — they are the best sports-talk tandem anywhere. Period.

They’re on the the air everyday from 11:00 am until 2:00 pm on ESPN Radio – Knoxville: 1180 WVLZ. There’s no spin, just truthtellin’ and real analysis of anything having to do with Tennessee, the SEC, and the rest of the sports world. The biggest difference between B&B and all the rest is the fact that they unabashedly represent the views of the common fan, and don’t needlessly buy into the hype that so often spews from the mouths of many out there in the sports world. I like that “de-crap-ified” type of sports-talk. Tony Basilio and “Beano Jeff” are down to earth, never take themselves too seriously, and aren’t afraid “to call a duck a duck.”

“Hey, don’t you live like six hours from Knoxville? How are you listening to the show?“

Well, sports fans, you’re right — I live in the bowels of ACC country. In my neck of the woods I hear enough about the Tarheads and Dook to make me want to retch, however, through the miracle that is the internet, I can listen to Basilio & Beano everyday from my desk (when I should be doing something else … such as work) via their streaming audio broadcast on the web. Thus, as long as you have an internet connection, you can get your daily fix — even from hundreds of miles away … or more (not too long ago, a Tennessee fan living in Japan called in on the show). If you miss the show, they even have podcasts of the show available for download.

At any rate, give Tony and Beano a listen: always standing up for the common fan, always interesting, always honest…

– Go Figure …

** Disclosure: While Gate 21 and TonyBasilio.com both feature hyperlinks to one another, neither site, their parent companies, editors, nor webmasters receive any payment or other compensation of any type or kind in return for those links. Furthermore, neither Gate 21 nor Lawvol received any compensation for this review, which was not requested or solicited by B&B at Midday or WVLZ. This “Shout Out” represents the actual opinion of the author (for what that is worth) and was in no way influenced by any other person.

In other words: This isn’t an advertisement.