One of the blogs I like to read is that of Ken Levine, TV sitcom writer extraordinaire who has worked on Mash, Cheers, Frasier, etc. And like most TV writers, he has to have other sources of income, and his is broadcasting. To wit, baseball game commentary. Recently he posted a story about how he was covering the Tidewater Tides against the Columbus Clippers, and decided to play a prank on the visiting team. See the excerpts below:

I noted that our dreaded rivals, the Columbus Clippers (Yankees ) were coming to town next and said, “Why don’t you call them all at 5 a.m. and welcome them to Tidewater.” Now you have to bear in mind that no one listened to minor league radio broadcasts other than players’ wives. Or so I thought. The next afternoon I arrived at the park only to learn that the Clippers had been besieged with pre-dawn wake-up calls.

The Clippers’ trainer…went ballistic when he saw me, calling me words that were too harsh even for DEADWOOD. And he vowed to get back at me when we were in Columbus the following weekend.

I calmly asked if he ever watched CHEERS.

He said, “Yeah, why?” wondering why that was relevant to anything.

I then asked if he ever caught some of the bar wars episodes between Cheers and Gary’s Old Towne tavern? Again, he said, “Yeah. So what?”

“Well, I wrote those shows…Do you really want to get into a practical joke war with me?”

See Ken’s comic musings and the moral of his story here: By Ken Levine: Comedy writers can be bad ass!.

A great post and funnier than most sitcoms today (well, excluding The Big Bang Theory perhaps, that one rocks)…dude, you really need to get a new show on the air!