Here we go again, more complaining from Todd Farino right? How about more abuse from Paul Greco and his gang. I had a rough year in the industry last season due to my relationship with Paul Greco. Anyone who reads our blogs or listens to our shows clearly knows most if not all of the details. However, now things have gotten worse and again it's Paul Greco and his new found ally Tony Cincotta who are trying to silence The True Guru further.
The latest assault on me was them keeping me out of the Fantasy Sports Channel on Blog Talk Radio. They told Blog Talk Radio that if Todd "The True Guru" Farino was on the Channel that they ALL would not be and they would split. I was as shocked as you probably are to hear that grown men would actually lower themselves to tactics that can compromise another person's business just because of personal arguments. Especially in an industry that requires everyone to work together and my track record of running web sites that for 4 years solely did just that, work together. Helping young, old, and new sites get exposure was my main goal and still is. I even helped Paul Greco get discovered. I found his blog site after it first launched in 2007 and I invited him to have a link on the home page of http://www.fantasybaseballsearch.com/ and to become our site's official blog. He accepted and within weeks he went from a zero Google page rank to a 4 and according to him my impact was huge in bringing in new visitors to a site that was only months old. Our relationship turned into a friendship and in April of 2007 I started appearing on Greco's radio show every week with the great Lenny Melnick. I was on nearly every show and even guest hosted a few times before I left the show in October. I only left because I had football to focus on and fantasy baseball was over. We even did football shows together later that year and I met Paul when he came to Vegas that summer of '07.
So what went wrong? I hate to rehash old garbage, but basically Paul was not happy when I decided in 2008 to launch The Fantasy Baseball Gurus Show, which I informed him in January, 2008. He then invited me to the now over discussed and tiresome Fantasy Baseball Mock Draft.
Here is a breakdown of what has happened since and then I'll give you the reasons for the boycott. Footnotes for sources are present at the bottom and marked with an asterisk in the article.
- February 25, 2008 - Paul trashed me badly at the Mock Draft*. I requested an apology, he refused. Maybe he did it cause I was the least known expert in the drat, maybe cause I left his show. He bashed no one but me.
- Early March, 2008 - I went on Paul's show** to defend my picks and Paul and Lenny teamed up on me further attacking me and asking me flat out false questions about Ryan Braun, like, "Do I still think he will steal allot of bases NOW that he is batting in front of Prince Fielder now?" Well, in 2007 he stole 18 of his 19 bases while batting in front of Fielder*. Apparently Greco didn't do his homework to know that.
- We did move on as Paul was part of my Fantasy Baseball Search expert league and I thought we had buried the hatchet since he sorta apologized in private.
- April 29th, 2008 - After listening to Talking Baseball and hearing Lenny Melnick say, "you were stupid to draft closers in the 4 or 5 rounds" (not verbatim) and feeling that comment was directed at me, I posted my thoughts on the value of closers in a blog post titled, "Closer Wars Heat Up: Us Vs. Them"***. This post heavily upset both Paul and Lenny because I challenged their theories and they felt I was not in the position as a lowly industry analysis to dare match wits with the great Melnick and Greco. LOL.
- In June I had a phone conversation with Paul and in part of the conversation I asked him why he keeps inviting mu co host on his show, but not me or RC. His answer, "Patrick is published. We consider him an expert. We do not consider you an expert." Wow, I was an expert when I did his show and when we were going to run expert leagues together, but now I'm not an expert? This is coming from a man who's claim to fame is scrounging off of Lenny Melnick's reputation and losing in Gillette's Rookie Reporter contest. I thought Paul was a veteran reporter, not a rookie! Talk about a step backwards!
- July 1, 2008 - Patrick DiCaprio leaves my show after Paul Greco asked him to work on their new web site launching in January 2009. Part of the deal was Patrick must leave my show ASAP. Why would Patrick not be able to stay on till September with the site not launching till January? I do not know, but I can guess Paul's immaturity and 4th grade tactics were involved.
- During the All-Star break Paul Greco quits my expert league posting about it with the hopes more would follow. It was more like the scene out of Jerry McGuire, but not even his secretary Patrick DiCaprio went with him. Nobody else quit. After I told him off, he posted taped messages I left on Patrick's voice mail after we got in a heated argument. Paul ALSO had attacked me several times in the expert league on the message board and accused my of all sorts of improper actions. All proven false of course and all ended up being very embarrassing for Paul. In fact, who takes a recorded message and posts it on his site and solicits people in the industry to listen to it. How childish and 4th grade level is that! Really?
- August 6th, 2008 After we went back and forth, I agreed to stop it at the request of my co hosts cause the fight was childish and a waste of my time. Patrick DiCaprio didn't think so and he put up a harsh post in his blog titled, "The Fall Of Jacoby Ellsbury"****. This article was posted while Jacoby Ellsbury was in a slump and also begged the question, "Did I qualify as an expert or should I even be called that anymore?" Well, Ellsbury got hot after that and ceased Patrick's worthless post and argument. I did not retaliate, trying to stop this BS and move on like an adult.
- In August my good friend Johnny Archive and I were viciously attacked on our show rating comments and chat rooms by a listener called R.A. Dickey, who we later found out through IP address chasing and other sources was Tony Cincotta. Tony is the man with a thousand aliases and at the time he was not getting along with either of us, so of course it was him. Tony also attacked my radio shows by giving them 1 star ratings on Fantasy Baseball Search, and after I banned his Yahoo! IM account from contacting me, he asked to join my friend list under the alias edorfred38, saying he was a iTunes listener named Ed H. He asked me baseball related questions and never said he was Tony. Why would he do that?
- In September the Fantasy Sports Channel launched on Blog Talk Radio and Johnny Archive and I were never invited. After several conversation with BTR customer relations and Tony Cincotta I found out that Paul was friends with Alan Levy (CEO Blog Talk Radio) and was put in charge of getting the shows for the channel. Him and Tony waged a campaign to keep Johnny and my shows out of the channel basing it on our relationship and saying I would cause problems. They even said that if I were allowed in tehy would leave the Fantasy Sports Channel. That's right me. I'd cause the problems, Not Paul and the man with a thousand alias'! I hadn't done anything in months, and if I did it was normally in response, not an attack. I had absorbed attacks by Tony and Patrick without doing anything. Hmmm. Those actiosn clearly showed that they care more about themselves and their own egos than they do the listeners or Blog Talk Radio. Even without the channel, my show is still one of the highest rated.
I left allot of details out cause I don't want this post to be a book, but you get the idea. I am asking for a boycott of Blog Talk Radio's Fantasy Sports Channel until they let us in and cease control of it from Paul and Tony. We deserve to be in there. I've been broadcasting on BTR since April of 2007 and they launched in January of 2007. I helped build the fantasy sports audience on the web site creating 4 shows and making guest appearances on countless others. My shows constantly remain in the top 20 shows (podcasts) in the sports section on Blog Talk Radio out of over 13,000+ shows! It is an injustice that I was kept out. With over 64,000 total listeners, 1.5 years in service, and 4 seasons of broadcasting I deserve to be in the Fantasy Sports Channel I helped build. Email BTR at service@blogtalkradio.com and tell them you are boycotting the Fantasy Sports Channel until The True Guru and others are let in. Blog Talk Radio is a great company and I have a tremendous amount of respect for them and what they are doing. However, they dropped the ball on this one and letting bad people like Paul Greco and Tony Cincotta make the decisions they did is just bad business. Especially when they base their decisions on prejudices and not what is right.
Check out our radio shows on Blog Talk Radio that are not in the Fantasy Sports Channel for all you Fantasy Football and Fantasy Baseball needs:
The Fantasy Football Gurus Show - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/The-Fantasy-Gurus
The Fantasy Football Scouting Report - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Football-Scout
The Fantasy Baseball Gurus Show - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the_true_guru
The Fantasy Baseball Scouting Report - http://www.blogtalkradio.com/Fantasy-Gurus-Networ
Footnotes and Sources:
* Mock Draft Central's Expert Draft February 25, 2008 hosted by Paul Greco
** Talking Baseball Live March 5, 2008 - hosted by Paul Greco
*** Closer Wars Heat Up: Us Vs. Them April 29th, 2008 written by Todd Farino
**** The Fall of Jacoby Ellsbury August 6, 2008, written by Patrick DiCaprio
