Andy Rankin

Pardon the Interruption, a daily sports show on ESPN, is one of my favorite television programs… that I’ve never actually watched. I don’t get much time to watch TV other than handful of shows that my wife and I watch (when we’re not in reruns). I have also gone through long stretches in my life without cable TV. I think those two things conspired to hide PTI from me for years.

I had heard about PTI and I grew up reading columns by Mike and Tony in the Washington Post. So, it’s not like didn’t know the show was out there. I probably even got glimpses of it on TVs at restaurants and public places like that. About a year or so ago, when I finally caved and got an iPod, I was out hunting around for good podcast material. I think at the time PTI was one of the higher ranked podcasts on iTunes so I subscribed.

Well, since then I’ve been a fairly loyal “watcher” of the program - I even started recording it on my DVR. Strangely, I still haven’t ever sat down to watch an entire episode.

One thing about PTI that really hits me sometimes is that my dad would have loved it! He died back in 2003 and PTI had been around for a while so maybe he did watch it. I’m not sure if he had ESPN at home but he was an airline pilot and spent a lot of time in hotels - maybe he was able to catch it then? Anyway, during almost every episode (when Tony and Mike are on) I think of my dad and wish I had found PTI while he was still around - it would have been tons of fun to watch it with him or just talk about it sometimes.

Finally, the whole point of this pointless post, is to say that Tony and Mike are back from vacation! Good stuff. I actually don’t mind too much when one of them is gone - Bob Ryan and even Dan LeBatard are decent substitutes. I used to hate it when both Tony and Mike were gone but this time around I managed to catch several episodes with the replacements and they weren’t bad.

One of these days I might have to sit down and actually watch the show.