With his return to the vast radio wasteland that is WFAN, Craig Carton has been released from a prison for a second time, having left the bright lights of his Fox Sports show from which he faded from view and his ill-gained fame. Now he can again return to being a crude, name-calling, excrement-reliant junk-talker … Read more
I suspect there’s a reason they don’t manufacture brass knuckles for fish, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Source link #Professional #morons #broadcasting #football #games #flaunting #useless #numbers
There are times when visceral responses — those that instantly flow from the gut — outsmart the contemplative responses. Source link #College #basketballs #mismatches #senseless #cruelty
The reason ESPN brought in Pat McAfee is the same reason the polarizing entertainer is at war with his coworkers. In a video posted to his Instagram story on Tuesday, McAfee addressed comments that were written about him on a post from the official “College GameDay” account — a show of which he is a … Read more
Enough! Enough! Enough! I know I’ve been down this path so often I’ve worn it to a highway, but in the fading light of sweet mercy, enough! How can Fox possibly be so detached from a major sport, an expensive deal and the best interests of its audience, advertisers and mental health advocates, than to … Read more
Don’t know if nearly 50 years on this job qualifies me as a sportscasting historian, but I do know this: There has never been a time in my life when televised sports have been worse, more excessively senseless and for no good reason other than negligent or dopey execs who think that we neither want … Read more
Why continue to treat baseball fans — or try to attract new ones — with images of rank public immodesty rather than with genuinely skillful baseball? Source link #MLB #served #showcasing #fundamentals #worthless #selfaggrandizement
And here I thought that Bad Bunny was Bill Belichick’s pet name for his, er, girlfriend. It figures that the best things presented by ESPN/ABC are a matter of accident. Thus it stands to reason that its best MLB postseason telecasts have been the Tigers-Guardians games anchored by Sean McDonough, whose calm, knowledgeable and hype-free … Read more
There are many, many reasons why 41 years later “The Natural” remains the gold standard for baseball movies (and probably for sports movies as a whole). Three are so many things to like across its 122-minute running time. I like that Joe Don Baker completely hams it up as The Whammer, and doesn’t even pretend … Read more
INDIANAPOLIS — It’s something to see, really. It hangs as a permanent display in the Indiana Farmer’s Coliseum about five miles north of downtown, and from a distance it looks like just another old gatefold from The Beatles’ 1967 album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” Walk closer and you see it’s something else. It’s … Read more
Beware of those who publicly declare that their stuff doesn’t stink. Recently, CBS newsman and “60 Minutes” regular Scott Pelley made news and noise when he seized the close of the venerable program to deliver an appeal, threat or whatever, depending on how one heard it, to CBS News parent Paramount, as it was reportedly … Read more
There used to be a ballpark … I suppose he lasted years longer than the game plan allowed, a split-T formation vs. an empty backfield world, but there will be no Richard Neer starting tomorrow morning at WFAN. The last reliable stop to enjoy thoughtful, calm, topical and clean adult-oriented sports talk radio — and … Read more
As all sports-attached TV networks are conspicuously working off the same plan to remove the sport from our sports, we wonder: Who came up with the plan? Where was the research and surveys that told network execs that the sports-minded public prefers the worst images from games, the worst acts and actors in their sports, … Read more
Having missed two columns to my annual formaldehyde blood spins, let’s not waste time writing the pithy. Catch-up formation on “Hut.” (Hmm, wonder where “hut” came from.) Hut! It’s all a con continued: When MLB introduced interleague play, thus further homogenizing the two leagues, “Bottom Line” Bud Selig proudly boasted that “it’s a gift to … Read more
I’d like to think that it was something Tom Thibodeau said on Monday or Wednesday that ignited the Knicks to those miracle comebacks, halftime speeches that inspired them toward greatness. Except there are two problems with that: 1. The Knicks played worse in the minutes after halftime in both games that at any other time … Read more
He has been a part of our lives since March 9, 1967. We didn’t realize it in the moment, of course. The papers that day all featured pictures of No. 52 for the Southern Illinois Salukis, the best team in what was then called the “college division” of NCAA basketball. The Salukis would’ve been a … Read more
There are exceptions to most every rule. As long as they’re exceptional. For all my whining about game-casters who talk too much, there are two who would only minimize their value if they chose — or were able — to speak less. One was now-retired hockey play-by-player Doc Emrick whose charm, knowledge, wordsmanship and overall … Read more
John would appreciate this, I know he would. As his longtime friend and co-worker, Dan Steinberg, said Friday on X, “Just about every piece he wrote about a retiring or dead sports great flashed back to a tale involving John Feinstein, by like the fifth graf. It was a running joke: how many grafs in … Read more
Signs of the times: What does it tell us that LeBron James, one of the all-time greats — some argue the greatest in basketball history — makes for such a self-entitled, blind-to-facts compromise of the good senses that he has become impossible for thoughtful adults to root for? Further, why do thoughtful fans of what … Read more
It’s like modern baseball, lousy with conspicuous, shameless artificial additives and cheap con jobs. It’s now almost an obligation to stand at first and signal your dugout for group approval — a shallow ritual — after hitting a checked-swing bloop single. But diminished standards have become standardized. Even the natural act of laughter has been … Read more