Last Night on "The Knee Jerks": Sports Shutterbuggin' with Greg Shamus

We took a step outside the box last night on "The Knee Jerks," the weekly gabfest I co-host on Blog Talk Radio with Big Al Beaton, who's rapidly beginning his own Internet writing empire.

It was our first show at our new 9:00 p.m. ET time slot, and our guest was professional sports photographer Greg Shamus, who's the official team photographer for the Pittsburgh Penguins (relax, he's a Detroiter), along with snapping shots for Getty Images and the NBA.

Greg took us behind the scenes in the life of a sports shutterbug and it was quite interesting. As Al said afterward, we could have gone longer than the allotted 45 minutes with Mr. Shamus.

After Greg left us, Al and I chomped into some meaty Detroit sports stories---don't forget, we were off last week due to some faulty plumbing in the Beaton household.

First up was the big Tigers trade last week that sent Curtis Granderson and Edwin Jackson to the Yankees and Diamondbacks, respectively. We both bemoaned the apparent lack of offense, and wrung our hands over the back end of the bullpen, with Brandon Lyon in Houston and Fernando Rodney practically out the door.

And it just wouldn't be an episode of "The Jerks" without several rants on the Lions, who provided us with plenty of material in the wake of their 48-3 thumping at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens.

We even got our "Jerks of the Week" in before time expired at 11:00---which is when we used to START the show.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, for updates on scheduled guests, time changes, etc.

Upcoming guests/topics:

Dec. 21: NHL Central roundtable with Bleacher Report writers from Columbus, Chicago, Nashville, and St. Louis (rescheduled from 12/7)

Dec. 28: Tabletop sports game creator and business owner Keith Avallone


Some highlights from Monday’s show:

Big Al

On the Tigers: “They're going to have to win every game 1-0, 2-1! Granderson was a good player, but not a great player. And baseball people say the Tigers made a good trade in getting Max Scherzer for Edwin Jackson."

On the Lions: “I think Jim Schwartz had his first 'Bobby Ross moment' in the postgame presser."

On Drew Stanton not playing: "It shows that the Lions don't think he can play in the NFL."

Eno

On the Tigers trade: “Makes me long for the days when you made trades based on baseball, not on contract status."

On the Lions: “Daunte Culpepper has as much chance of returning to Detroit as Stroh's. Why was he in the entire game when the Lions were losing by 45 points?"

On Jason Hanson's rough year: “I'm uncomfortable saying that he's finished, because he had a good year last year with all the 50-yard field goals. And he's only 38 or 39, which is young in 'kicker years.'"

You can listen to the episode by clicking below!