Have a little assignment for ya while watching Sunday’s NFL and MLB games: Note how many times the leagues’ partner networks focus on players acting like self-smitten me-first show-offs — replaying shots of posing, preening, trash-talking and excessively uncivil professionals rather than showing them doing something skillful as it relates to winning team games. And … Read more
Ever consider whether game announcers return home after games to review their recorded work? Given that announcers rarely change their overall approach, most must be well satisfied with their work, right? In other words, is it possible that Michael Kay enjoys his superfluous verbal presence on Yankees telecasts? Say, the way he adds to moments … Read more
Q:What’s the difference between organized crime and big time college athletics? A: Organized crime has rules. Q: How do you make level playing fields? A: Make them all crooked. I don’t know why or how — heck, I just learned how to use our toaster — but about twice a day CBS Sports dings my … Read more
Ladies and gentleman, may I have your fully divided attention! Thank you. … Reader G. Wilbur asks a good, though self-dating question: “When did MLB telecasts become ‘The David Susskind Show’?” “The David Susskind Show” was an interview program seen throughout the 1960s and 1970s on Ch. 11 then Ch. 5. It featured long, pensive … Read more
Imagine … Imagine if MLB players spent as much time practicing winning fundamentals — say, bunting — as they do practicing and perfecting elaborate home run celebrations. Imagine if late in close games in anticipation of a 10th inning with automatic runners on second, prospective leadoff batters were sent inside to the batting cage to … Read more
Roughly 60 years ago, Mad Magazine, published for kids with a bent toward satire before they graduated to the National Lampoon, invented a game called 43-Man Squamish. Mad included play diagrams depicting 43 players running in 43 different directions, a comical absurdity that perhaps inspired StatCast graphics that networks purchase then seriously present to show … Read more
Lots of notes to share. And with recycling day approaching, we’re mindful of the pre-Revolutionary War flags — when George Washington worked for the Brits — that declared years before the Fourth of July, “Don’t shred on me!” No refunds. Blackout restrictions apply. Here goes: One of the hard-earned benefits this messed up country has … Read more
First, to meet this month’s journalistic requirement. Here goes: Bronny James, Bronny James, Bronny James. There. That should do it. The son of the almighty, enriched by Nike’s Communist China partners and Fourth World laborers despite his chosen omnipresence as a social and racial activist, the son without portfolio, yet drafted in the second round … Read more
Tuesday from ESPN’s on-site Stanley Cup Final, studio host Steve Levy delivered the news that Willie Mays had died: “The Say Hey Kid, is gone. Too soon. Willie Mays has passed away tonight at the age of 93.” Too soon? Perhaps Levy had the over 94 in a BetESPN parlay. Not that I’ve ever been … Read more
Good things come to those who wait. At least to those who wait it out. MLB on Friday night was forced to show the Dodgers-Yankees to the nation’s two largest TV markets on both YES and L.A.’s cable network, as well as on a previously exclusive paywalled streaming service, because Rob Manfred and Associates bit … Read more
Geez, spring intrasquad college football is now all over afternoon TV. And smack in the midst of finals! How do these scholar athletes manage it all!? Now that making bail is no longer essential for big city criminals, I’d like to commit several breaking-and-entering capers, just to leave my mark in the renewed spirit of … Read more
We’re often reminded— scolded, actually — that we deserve the politicians we elect. Sports fans are sentenced to worse. We get what we’re given. Since the disappearance of “Miss Rheingold, 1964” on Mets’ Ch. 9 telecasts, we’ve had no vote. For example, we all now know that big-time college athletics have nothing to do with … Read more
The kids in our neighborhood, this time of year, would envy the kids in Cincinnati. No foolin’. There was a wonderful tradition back then, before MLB placed a price tag on everything and marked up its soul for sale to TV, then pay-more cable, and now whatever it can get via streaming — even if … Read more
Stop me if you’ve heard it: Man walks into a diner for breakfast. A waitress approaches. She’s scratching her rear end. “Do you have hemorrhoids?” he asks. “Whatever you see on the menu,” she answers. Good morning. Thought for food: 1) Given the growing group incivilities at college basketball games — the vulgar taunts and … Read more
Advance to the rear! Back before television was overly medicated with the excesses of technological achievement, it was never a worry. TV would make good on its goal to provide “the best seat in the house.” Now that’s more of an oddity than an expectation. My strongest hope for genuine football fans Sunday is that … Read more
Two business partners are having lunch at a swanky Midtown restaurant when one suddenly erupts, “I think I left the safe open!” His partner places a reassuring hand on his arm and calmly says, “What are you worried about? We’re both here.” And that, baseball fans, is why election to the Hall of Fame has … Read more
One wonders if anything would be different if 21st century sports TV execs discovered that we’re not nearly as stupid as they figure we must be. In the second quarter of Saturday’s Ravens-Texans playoff game, Houston’s Steven Sims returned a punt 67 yards for a TD. But when he reached the 10, he suddenly placed … Read more
It’s all a con, continued: Bernie Madoff, the Guinness Book of Records Ponzi operator, had a rule that, for subscribers to the too-good-to-be-true dictum, served as a red flag: The rule: You’re not allowed to ask questions. Just give him as much cash as you can gather, then sit back and reap the totally unqualified … Read more
The reason bills don’t arrive scented with perfume is because they’re bills. You could soak them in Aunt Ida’s Sweet Syrup and they’d still stink. Nothing nice about them beyond, perhaps, the word “please,” as in “please remit.” And that’s why Thursday’s lengthy dual-network announcement that YES and MSG will partner in all-their-local-sports streaming ventures … Read more
Last column of the year. Reminds me of the death row convict, when headed to the chair, asked what he wanted for his last meal. “What are you out of?” he said. So let’s try the Couch Potato Salad Closer: While there’s no end to the damage excess and greed do to sports, occasionally the … Read more