Friday Four-Pack 8.7.26
Red Sox on a generational run. Boston College dumps two announcers. Surviving Barstool begins. MutStack Merch is here!
A Note from MutStack Owner Dave Portnoy
No note from Dave this week.
He did launch a new Caleb Durbin Red Sox shirt, celebrating the man who Lou Merloni thinks had a huge part in this whole turnaround for the Sox.
Big day for new shirts in the Barstool Store.
You’re in luck, The Cumrag! And David in Maryland. And my neighbors who keep saying they want Mut Barstool shirts (they probably have no idea about MutStack TBH). And my parents. Maybe.
Live now in the Barstool store - the MutStack Collection.
Couple of options for the people. The traditional white with the big MutStack Logo. Or your QR code version - a tribute to MutStack owner Dave Portnoy’s idea to add a QR code to the MutStack Business card. That version comes in white and grey (Shout out Go Go Greys).
Yes - the QR code indeed goes to the Subscribe Now page for MutStack. I tested it and got it to work. So now, not only are you supporting MutStack, you're promoting it, too! You’re a MutStack Influencer!
These things are perfect for mowing the lawn. Betting Saratoga. Watching race replays. Going to the hardware store. Taking in a kid’s sporting event…really all the very boring things that I spend my time doing!
It’s not lost on me that these are on sale in the effing Barstool Sports store. MutStack T-shirts lol. I get to talk and write about the Red Sox, hang out on KMS, handicap horses with Elio, help try and find Dave the next Go Go Greys Star, all while still doing this newsletter - and now we get merch. I should have begged Dave for a job a few years ago.
Very lucky, I understand that.
Winter hats and polos would be great down the road if there’s interest. But those are a different level - if these do well, maybe? Dave thinks we'll sell like four - I’m hopeful it’s more.
A day for a few Day 1 MutStack Subs and my parents to celebrate!
Meanwhile, the Red Sox can’t lose. The Boston College announcers story is getting WAY too much pub. Surviving Barstool starts Sunday. And the usual MutStack notes
All ahead in Friday Four-Pack #183
Yes, My Boss Dave still owns MutStack. But it remains free to subscribe and have it emailed directly to your inbox every Friday.
100% Free. Still.
On the Best Team in The American League - the Boston Red Sox…
What a win. But I gotta ask - what are the Red Sox waiting for?
On the firing of two BC Basketball Announcers…
This is an interesting story for MutStack. I can’t believe it made the pages of the NY Post. Or the freaking New York Times. Somehow, it did. 🙄🙄🙄
Awful Announcing had it first: the details of Josh Mauer and Kevin Collins losing their jobs as the announcing team for Boston College Men’s Basketball. A revolving door of announcers is not a new thing in college sports, for sure. What made this a national headline is that new BC coach and former UConn assistant Luke Murray was reportedly the one who called for the change. At least according to Collins.
The reasoning delivered to the pair, relayed through Deputy Athletic Director Craig Anderson, was that Murray didn’t want anyone in the travel party who’d been part of what was described as the program’s “losing mentality” under the previous staff, despite neither broadcaster having any real relationship with the coaching staff itself beyond showing up to call games. When pressed on why the decision took months to reach them given how long Murray had already been on the job, the answer was that the administration had only recently had the actual conversation with him about it.
“The reasoning that I was given was that Coach Murray basically wants a whole new fresh coat of paint on the entire program and wants no remnants of the past around the program,” Collins said. “We have nothing to do with any of that. But he wanted us removed. Didn’t feel comfortable being around a link to the past, if you will. My challenge was, well, how can he not feel comfortable around us? He hasn’t even given us the chance to meet us.”
Collins said he even offered to stay on purely as an engineer with no on-air role at all, and was turned down.
Collins and Mauer became broadcast martyrs of sorts, with Luke Murray getting buried by everyone involved. What many of the stories did not mention was this post from Collins RE: Murray back in March, as BC was looking for a new head coach.
Collins is a team engineer and broadcaster - for all intents and purposes, he’s there to pump up the program. This reads like a BC Message Board poster or a local columnist. If I’m the AD, Associate AD, or Murray himself, this is a red flag. I think that would be the case for most college programs, just how it works.
I have worked with Kevin - he was our engineer for Patriots broadcasts at Gillette and some WEEI events. Very nice guy, smart guy. Funny guy - would bust Doug Lane’s balls all the time. Loved it. But Kevin worked for Bill Belichick! If Bill saw a critical post from a radio producer, they would have been gone in two seconds. I don’t get how Collins doesn’t see that.
Kevin keeps talking to every media outlet, blaming Murray for all of this. Sources close to MutStack suggest the AD and Associate AD were behind the change, but it’s just whispers. Boston.com reported there was a “recommendation from Craig Anderson, deputy director of athletics for BC whose responsibilities also include serving as the direct sport administrator for men’s basketball, that the Eagles make changes in the booth.” I believe it.
I’ll say this - the timing stinks. They should have told these guys months ago rather than stringing them on. Mauer is a voice of the Brewers and flies in from Wisconsin to do games (what??????) so he’ll be fine. Stinks for Collins, I get it.
The quickness at which the sad, pathetic, lonely Boston College fanbase has pinned this all on the UConn guy Murray is both embarrassing and expected. This is a school that was so afraid of UConn they blocked them from the ACC. The AD should have come out even harder to defend the new coach. Welcome to BC, Luke!
I’d like to root for Luke, but I can’t just root for BC. And this is another example why.
On the newest season of Surviving Barstool…
By the time this week’s MutStack is published, we’ll be about 48 hours out from the premiere of Surviving Barstool - Season 5.
🚨First and foremost, you should watch it. 🚨
Second, a couple of non-spoiler thoughts from someone who was there as referee for various competitions, but has not been seen in any of the promos.
Let’s address this now - I’m for sure out of shape, and that will be evident. Let’s all remember I hurt my knee (hit by a car, no big deal), and it has limited my cardio big time. Take that into account before you’re screenshotting pictures of my out-of-shape belly for all the Internet to see. Keep it classy. I had planned to tell you here how much better shape I’m in now, but that would be a lie, and we don’t lie in the MutStack Trust Tree.
I think it’s going to be an awesome season. The competitions and games are sick.
As far as the game itself, I know maybe just a little more than you. As one competitor said to me during the week, “Mut, where do you go all day?” I made a concerted effort to stay out of the “game” stuff, so most of the show will be all new to me. Which is kind of great. Also, I was blogging and doing other work #nobigdeal #grind #content
Can’t wait to tune in Sunday night. My kids can’t wait. I think I wrote this here the week after taping; Jeff D Lowe is really good at this shit. He has a great team working with him, and I was lucky to be a small part of it.
Tune in Sunday night. And remember, I got hit by a car. That’s if you see me in the show. Shit, they might have just edited me out based on the promos. I guess we’ll all find out together! Sunday night, 8 PM ET!
On your Weekly MutStack Notes…
⚾ Yeah. I have run out of words to explain this Red Sox run. We went live at midnight Friday - myself, Hogdale, Kutter and Ed - to walk through the biggest win of the year and this insane Red Sox run. This team could be better with some guys coming back from injury too…
Closing in on 800 subs on YouTube - so go watch and then subscribe. Then go listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
🏀 So, Jaylen Brown was finally introduced as a 76er on Thursday. He told CLNS that he and Tatum won a championship together, and that “their relationship is rooted in respect. Said "not really" when I asked if they've spoken since the trade.
Can we PLEASE be done caring what Jaylen says now? Please? Focus on your streaming and your new teammates.
⚾ This. It felt like half of the NESN Women’s Celebration Night broadcast on Wednesday was just NESN patting itself on the back for holding a Women’s Celebration Night in the first place. Emma Tiedemann handled play-by-play duties alongside color analyst Alanna Rizzo, and they were good - Rizzo has good energy for sure. But they missed a big storyline of Sam Antonacci having a terrible night. I left like a few in-game things got brushed over, again, to celebrate that it was an all-woman cast. More game, less NESN promotion. Always.
⚾ I make the SAME argument when they spend two innings with the Dining Playbook crew. MORE BASEBALL!
📻 I know Matt Reimer, Alex’s dad, is a Day 1 MutStack sub. I hope he suggests his son write about this. As someone who has let work affect his own mental health, I’d love to hear Alex’s take on his time at WEEI. And if he wants to write about it here, he has an open invitation.
🏇🏻 I have a lot of thoughts on The Preakness moving back 8 days and the Triple Crown being dead as we know it. I’ll be diving into that in tomorrow’s weekly horse racing blog for Barstool. I wrote about the new series of three-year-olds here.
🏈 Hell, yes.
🏈 Adam Vinatieri goes into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend. A little late, but well-deserved. Probably because he’s a kicker, still underrated in the Pats’ dynastic run. Fans who booed him when he came back as a Colts (b/c Belichick did not want to pay him) should be embarrassed.
❓Is this how the sports card flame gets lit? Just got this from my son - said he found all sorts of rare cards at an Antique shop. Here we go. Shoutout, Coleman.
That feels like enough Stack for this week.
Good luck to the 10U Cal Ripken Chelmsford Lions as they play their first World Series games this week in Virginia. Can’t wait to see this crew on the biggest of stages.
And good luck to everyone betting Whitney Day at Saratoga. Looks like a LOADED card, and we’ll cover it all tomorrow on the Barstool Blog.
Thanks for reading. And watching. And buying a shirt - if you bought a shirt.
Good stuff Mut! Love the shirt
I’ve ordered three shirts, one for me, my wife, and my son. We are proudly going to be a family of Mutstack influencers for the foreseeable future. #ThankYouKirk & #ThankYouMut