As the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs opened up a two-game series this week, 670 The Score’s Parkins & Spiegel show did a broadcast from the radio booth at Wrigley Field. They knew that a few doors down would be John Schriffen, the first year White Sox television play-by-play voice who hosts Danny Parkins and Matt Spiegel have been quite critical of.
As the show took a break, Spiegel, who had gone viral for a take on Schfriffen messing up the name of former White Sox executive Bill Veeck, decided on behalf of the show to walk down and introduce himself. If you have been paying attention, chances are you can guess that did not go exactly as planned.
“We had said this would be an opportunity for us to see John Schriffen, he is a couple of booths down,” Parkins said to Spiegel. “Obviously we have been talking about his interesting choices as the White Sox broadcaster. He has so far turned down interview opportunities. You went viral for the critique of Bill Veeck. You said that you wanted to be the one to go make the intro for the show…you wanted to be the one to do it and I wasn’t going to deny you of that.”
“I’ve thought a lot about what kind of critiques are fair, what kinds of critiques are not,” Spiegel replied. “I think most of us want to have a direct conversation and a direct communication even with someone that we are critical of because that is the nature of what we do.”
Parkins then explained that during the break while he was reading a story, Spiegel had gotten up to walk down to the TV booth for the White Sox and asked him how that went.
“So, anyway I walked down the hall,” he said. “I opened the TV booth and there was John. I stepped up and extended my arm and I said, ‘Hey John Schriffen, Matt Spiegel from 670 The Score.’ He…patted my arm on the side with the back of his hand and said ‘Hey buddy, how you doin’ and walked out. So, that was the extent of my interaction. I tried to extend the hand and he did not want to…So, I may try again to further the conversation at some point, I probably will try again, but that’s a pretty direct ‘not interested’…he turned down the handshake, that’s his prerogative. I’ll try again and if he wants to MF to my face, I am right here for it.”
Recapping the interaction, Parkins said, “Turning down a handshake, that’s dirty pool. That’s pretty bush league. You don’t have to come on but extending the handshake and him blowing past the handshake and walking out of the booth, that’s just weak.”
Parkins and Spiegel are mostly a pair of blowhards with an overplayed schtick. They forget that they are really nothing more than a pair of very minor celebrities in a local radio market.
Why should John shake Spiegel’s hand? All he does is rip on John It’s like meeting up with your HS bully in front of the teacher. Spiegel was gonna say something negative about the interaction anyway. He probably was gonna rip on John’s handshake style.
Spiegel acts like he is more important than he is
Schriffen was a bad hire, mediocre announcer at best and actually deserves worse than he has received. His announcing rates right up there with this year’s team play. It seems to go hand in hand. Both suck!!!