Exclusive: Talking “Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable” with Gonzalo “Papi” Le Batard
Sitting in a kitchen that could only be described as eclectic and is designed to mimic a time when linoleum was king, Gonzalo “Papi” Le Batard is “very intrigued.” You can’t help but imagine that just around the corner there is a living room with pastel colored wallpaper and hardwood floors hidden beneath shag carpeting.
A Cuban immigrant, his heavily accented English has to be decoded and rearranged before it can be completely understood. “Papi” almost seems like he came directly from central-casting. The accent seems a little TOO thick. The antics are a bit TOO over the top to seem real.
But while the kitchen is fake and the living room that seemed so easy to imagine doesn’t even exist, I can assure you—“Papi” is very real. He loses the glasses and he may be ever so slightly more reserved away from the camera, but he and Gonzalo are one and the same.
“This is the way I’ve been through the years,” Papi said in an exclusive interview with Rant Sports. “When (my sons) were growing up, I used to get involved with all their sports activities, and I used to discuss sports things with him about the (Miami) Dolphins—and Dan was a big Yankees fan, so we used to follow the Yankees.”
A year ago, you would have never imagined that this industrial engineer with the thick Cuban accent would have anything to offer a company like ESPN. Now, his son’s TV show “Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable,” has turned him into a daytime television sensation who keeps up with his fans via facebook. He’s got nearly 5,000 friends and counting.
“For me (Facebook) means a lot because of the viewers,” Papi said. “We’re trying to make inroads with the show, so if the viewers want to reach out to me, I’m going to be there for them and if we can improve the show by interfacing with the viewers—Why not?”
***
Over a decade ago, ESPN changed the sports-talk genre of television with a show called “Pardon the Interruption.” Two longtime friends and colleagues sitting around talking about sports was never supposed to work on TV, but it did.
However, in an effort to duplicate the magic of PTI and fill out their afternoon programming, ESPN flooded the airwaves with a cacophony of preordained stances and generic sports rhetoric. Shows like Sports Nation, Cold Pizza (now known as “First Take”), and the now defunct Jim Rome is Burning failed to capture the essence of what made PTI great.
PTI was relatable.
I’ve never had someone score an argument, and nothing Skip Bayless says ever amounts to anything more than shock or, even worse, outrage. However, two friends yelling at each other over last night’s basketball game—people can relate to that.
Despite all their attempts, ESPN hasn’t been able to replicate the effect.
That is, until Miami Herald columnist and PTI fill-in Dan Le Batard came up with the radical idea of sitting in a kitchen and talking about sports—and life—with his dad on television. As it turns out, it wasn’t really all that radical. In fact, it may have been exactly the kind of idea that ESPN had been missing all along.
Yet, people weren’t sure if it would work. Even Gonzalo had his doubts.
“I wasn’t expecting that type of reaction from the viewers, but my son likes to do things a different way,” he said. “When (Dan) came to me, I was a little bit reluctant because I didn’t think that this thing was going to work out the way that it has so far.
“I felt that they needed somebody with more knowledge than me, but I guess that’s not what he wanted.”
But despite Papi’s lack of knowledge, people have, once again, found a show they can relate to.
That’s not to say that Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable is without its critics, because it’s not. But, people who can get past ESPN’s checkered history with sports-talk television and the TMZ sports culture it has created should at least appreciate what the show is trying to accomplish.
They’re trying to recreate an experience that most sports fans hold near and dear.
Perhaps you don’t agree with Dan’s often flippant attitude (his snark isn’t lost on me), or maybe you find yourself annoyed with Papi’s sometimes incoherent ramblings, but at the end of the day, it’s hard not to be envious of what they have.
A father and son having a light-hearted conversation about sports in their kitchen. It’s like they’re picking up on a dialogue right where they left it 20 years ago.
“I’m having a lot of fun with my son, and that’s something that every father dreams of. I get to work with my son—work on TV with my son. It’s something that I wasn’t expecting,” Gonzalo said.
The result has been a show on ESPN that I can actually stand (which is saying something from a man who once called ESPN a four-lettered word.)
Sure, if you’re looking for hard-hitting sports journalism, obviously Dan Le Batard is Highly Questionable isn’t for you (I suggest you find wherever the hell it is that Bob Costas is doing his work now.) As a matter of fact, with the exception of Outside the Lines, it’s safe to say that ESPN in its entirety might not be for you.
However, if you want to see a funny video or hear about Kansas State basketball’s head coach Frank Martin and his taste in black beans and rice, then DLHQ is the premiere destination.
I, for one, am “very intrigued.”
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