Jonathan “Super” Squibb outlasted the likes of Lights Out Taylor, The Mouth of the South, Obi Wing, Fat Bastard, Oink Oink and the Hungry Hungry Hebe to emerge victorious for the second straight year at WIPs annual Wing Bowl at The Wachovia Center in Philly yesterday
The South Jersey resident downed 238 wings, 3 wings shy of the Wing Bowl record held by Joey Chestnut. Squibbs victory will set up a showdown next year with the 3-time Wing Bowl champion Chestnut when the recent “locals-only” policy will be rescinded.
The Wing Bowls festivities also included guest appearances by Jersey Shores Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi (above) and Susan Finkelstein, who is facing trial for allegedly offering sex for World Series tickets to an undercover police officer.
Dan Gross reports in the Philly Daily News that Ms Polizzi was “brutally booed” upon her entrance and when ridng a mechanical bull. Ms Polizzi was a good sport about it, returning the boos with an extended middle finger and she brushed off the abuse with “Its Philadelphia”.
The New York Post’s venerable “Hoops Du Jour” columnist Peter Vecsey (above) took aim at the Washington Post’s Mike Wise earlier today, accusing the former of tailoring reports of the infamous Gilbert Arenas/Javaris Crittendon locker room pistol exchange to something uncomfortably close to Agent Zero’s preferred version of events. Keep in mind, this comes after Vecsey’s own account has been challenged by Wise. DC Sports Bog’s Dan Steinberg carefully tuned to Wise’s afternoon show on Washington’s 106.7 The FanTuesday and in addition to hearing Vecsey accused of accepting interest free loans from former Nets owner Joe Taub, Wise provided the following rip job (link courtesy Jason Cohen) :
“Peter Vecsey would be a flat-out joke in my business, but he’s not funny. He’s mean-spirited, and he’s just about heartless. I’ll never forget the time I came back from talking to a kid who tried to commit suicide in Dallas after he ingested a bottle of aspirin. Leon Smith was his name, and he never should have come out of high school, and the Mavericks should have had a much better support system for an obviously troubled young man who just happened to have talent. Vecsey made cruel jokes about this kid’s suicide attempt afterward in his column. Now, I don’t care if you slam me or anybody else, but Leon Smith was raised in a foster home called Lydia Children’s Home in Chicago. He was a ward of the state of Illinois due to neglect from his parents when he was 5 years old.”
“When you do something like that, when you make fun of that kid, you’re not just insensitive, you’re a rotten human being. You’re a lousy person. You don’t deserve the respect of a punk-ass kid at the Rucker League thinking, ‘Man, Peter Vecsey used to be something, didn’t he?’ You old bitter man. You make me sick.”
Steinberg goes on to quote a number of Vecsey’s gags at Smith’s expense (eg. “Leon Smith’s Nets tryout could be viewed as another suicide attempt”), and while he deserves full credit for spending serious Google time today, I’m curious if Wise tried to publicly defend Smith from such abuse when it was happening a decade ago. Rather than, y’know, the same day he was publicly named as Gilbert Arenas’ best buddy.
“Why do you even ponder passing in that situation?” I dunno, might it have something to do with Gunslingeritis or feeling like a kid or just loving the game too much? WFAN’s Mike Francesa gave Brett Favre considerable credit for staying in the game despite taking serious shots from the Saints D, which begs the question, exactly how badly would Minnesota’s starting QB needed to be injured before Tavaris Jackson entered the game? Based on Favre’s lack of mobility in the 4th quarter, it seems nothing less than losing a leg would’ve done the trick.
I’m not sure which is more amazing, that someone thought it acceptable to make an (innocuous) voice message from WFAN’s Howie Rose available to the public (he’s no Pat O’Brien, that’s for sure), or that Howie is so thoroughly gracious about receiving CD’s from these guys. I’ve been sending Suzyn Waldman Air Traffic Controllers CD’s for years, and they come back marked “return to sender” each time. Talk about holding a grudge.
Former ESPN Radio, TV and interweb fixture Stephen A. Smith returned to the airwaves this month with a daily program on Fox Sports Radio. Smith’s predecessor, Steve Czaban (above), found out the hard way the only thing worse than being unemployed is having all sorts of spare time to listen to the guy that took your job.
My replacement, Steven A. Smith, certainly has his own, ahem, style. I said, he HAS… HIS… OWN… STYLE! The best thing about him I have realized already, is that when he makes a point, he’ll repeat it for you just in case you missed it.
AND LOUDER!
Which I think we can all agree, helps make any point a little better.
I was listening and wondered: “Didn’t he just say that? Oh, wait. Maybe I hit the “8-second jump back” button my car radio TIVO.” Then I realized, I don’t HAVE an in-car radio TIVO, and he DID just say that.
Again.
I remember when I would sometimes wander a bit on a non-sports tangent. I would always get angry text messages about 3-4 minutes into it, imploring me to get back to sports. So usually, at about the 6 minute mark without any sports oxygen, I would realize, I better get back to the sports surface.
Mr. Smith appears to have a much bigger dive tank.
For example, on the Friday before the most glorious four-game orgy of NFL playoff action – in the meaty tenderloin of the 3-hour show, the 7 a.m. eastern hour – Mr. Smith spent the first 19 minutes flirting with his two female co-workers on the air.
He also mentioned (several times) how gorgeous another un-known saleswoman in the office was, a woman I am certain will remain unknown to 99.99% of his audience from now until, um, eternity.
He finally got around to some NFL talk a few minutes before the break. Yet sadly, he only offered a half-hearted thought/prediction/hope on a single game (Cowboys v. Vikings). I listened closely. I couldn’t really tell if he was making a prediction, or not.
Then, he asked his two female co-workers what THEY thought about the game! Awesome! I had been waiting to hear their breakdown all morning, so wow, this was gonna be good!
One said she was rooting for the cowboys. The other said… well, I forgot.
Then, it was time for a break. Whew. Hard work, a solid segment in the books.
(l-r : Greenberg, Golic. Off-camera, a seething, not quite post-racial society)
Of the monumental malapropism uttered by ESPN Radio’s Mike Greenberg Monday morning, Hip Hop Wired.com opines, “I’m sure ‘coon’ and ‘king’ could easily get confused right? If the answer is no, then everyone is in agreement as such a statement makes some speculate why ‘coon’ would even come out of his mouth, of all words.” While the usually innocuous Greenberg has apologized for the gaffe, such an embarrassing incident calls into question whether or not the broadcaster will continue to be fast-tracked by Disney and ABC and/or repeatedly paired with Mike Golic in painfully unfunny, forced faux “Odd Couple” scenarios. One man’s inadvertent racist remark could well be another’s career lifeline.
Once upon a time, NYC sports yack radio as we currently know it, did not exist. Long before WHN begat WFAN (and Jim Lampley and Pete Franklin gave way to Mike Francesa and Chris Russo), Art Rust Jr.’s weeknight “SportsTalk” on WABC was the only game in town. Rust, aka “Art Rustoleum Jr.” in the words of WFAN’s Steve Somers, ghostwrote the first of two Darryl Strawberry autobiographies, as well as authoring the 1976 tome “Get That Nigger Off The Field”. Rust passed away yesterday after a battle with Parkinson’s, and is recalled by the New York Times’ Richard Goldstein :
Mr. Rust was not the first New York radio sports host who bantered with listeners over the phone; Bill Mazer had an earlier popular program. But Mr. Rust “certainly set the groundwork and the foundation for a WFAN,” Steve Somers, a host for that station, told the MSG Web site.
Steve Malzberg, Mr. Rust’s producer, said “there was a warmth” to Mr. Rust’s broadcasts.
“It was feeling like you knew Arthur George Rust Jr. and he was in your home,” he said.
Mr. Rust reveled in his love of sports history. He was also known for his “Rustisms.” A left-hander was a “portsider” and home plate was the “dish.”
He called Yankee Stadium “the big ball orchard in the South Bronx.”
As he put it in 1976: “I lived to see blacks elected to the Hall of Fame. I lived to see Emmett Ashford, the first black umpire. I lived to see Aaron break Babe Ruth’s home-run record. I lived to see Frank Robinson become the first black manager in the major leagues. The system is breaking.
“However,” he added, “an interesting development: My 10-year-old daughter, Suzanne, wants to know why women can’t play major league baseball.”
TNT’s Charles Barkley was a phone-in guest on Dan LeBatard’s 790 The Ticket show in Miami yesterday, and the recent SNL host chimed in on the topic du jour, as you might expect from the ever-opinionated Chuckster. The below was transcribed and culled from Sports Radio Interviews :
On Mark McGwire using steroids:
“I was listening to a little bit of your conversation when you came on about the baseball situation. There’s two things that bother me about writers. Number one when they act like they are holier than thou. But also this notion where this guy hasn’t been nice to us. I don’t judge basketball players by whether they’re nice to me or not. When I go on television my job is to talk about their basketball. You have too many reporters and you’re definitely not one of them, crying like a little girl talking about well he hasn’t been very nice to the press. So what? That’s not your job. Do your job. Don’t act like your holier than thou and you’re protecting every detail of the game or the guy hasn’t kissed up to you all these years.”
On whether or not he thinks guys who used steroids in baseball should be Hall-of-Famers:
“I think that Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens…I think those guys should all go into the Hall-of-Fame and let me explain why. We know there is at least one list that has 104 people right? (Host: Yes) Clearly there was more than 104. My problem with the whole era is these are the only guys that are going to get penalized, the Hall-of-Famers. All the other guys played in that era and I heard John Kruk and I like John Kruk he said ‘well I was clean.’ Well he still benefited by the financial structure. All the players during that era all benefited through the financial structure. But my biggest problem is, like I was saying, to penalize four guys and keep them out of the Hall-of-Fame when clearly a bunch of guys were doing it – we know of at least 104 and clearly there was more – to penalize four guys and don’t put them in the Hall-of-Fame when a bunch were doing it, I think that’s totally unfair.”
Congrats to the Red Raiders on winning last night’s Alamo Bowl without the head pirate on the sidelines, but there’s something a little creepy about hearing college administrators being vilified for, uh, having books in their homes instead of television sets. Besides, what’s the point of having a TV if you’re just gonna watch Charlie Rose?
Curiously, Breen (above) rang in immediately following Tierney’s chat to discredit Donaghy, a stunt Raissman compares to “Marv Albert stealing Breen’s microphone to call the last 1:30 of the seventh game of the NBA Finals”
When Breen started hammering Donaghy, did David Stern see a guy charging over the hill on a white horse yelling: “It’s only Donaghy. It’s only Donaghy. All other NBA refs are clean?” After all, Breen has a well documented history of being sympathetic to the fraternity of NBA officials.
Cue the sad violin.
“… These guys (NBA refs), it breaks their heart, it rips their insides out … this guy (Donaghy) is questioning everybody else’s integrity,” Breen told Tierney. “… For him to question the integrity of these guys who do an incredible job and care about their job is really disgraceful. That’s the part that drives me crazy.”
Pass the Kleenex.
If someone had walked up to Breen in 2003 and said Donaghy is a crooked official who is betting on games it’s not a reach to suggest Breen would have scolded that “someone” for daring to question the integrity of an NBA official.
…from using Twitter? What’s next, no text messaging or posting on message boards for the only thing standing between Sarah Palin and a no.1 best-seller? “Bill’s communication regarding WEEI fell short of those standards. So we’ve taken appropriate measures,” writes ESPN.com’s Rob King, essentially giving radio windbags across the nation a free shot at Simmons whenever they feel like it. Provided they’re working for ESPN affiliates, that is. My long-standing scorn for the 90210/Counting Crows scholar is well established, but it’s hard not to sympathize in this instance. This is how they thank the only guy on the payroll that’s managed to keep it in his pants?
Congrats to whoever created the above clip ; truly something Mike Francesa and Phil Mushnick will find equally distasteful, albeit for different reasons (video link courtesy Hot Foot)
WFAN’s Mike Francesa (above) claims he was wildly misquoted last week by the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick concerning the physical fitness of Philly’s Chase Utley. With a $25K bet riding on the dispute, the Mike’d Up host has challenged Mushnick to produce audio evidence of such comments, a wager the columnist finds curious given the radio station’s past inability to prove or disprove Francesa made specific remarks. To wit, Mushnick will accept Francesa’s challenge, but he’d like to go double or nothing.
Days after the 9/11 attacks, Francesa, global affairs expert (it’s a gift), launched two bigoted, backwoods and facts-depraving commentaries blaming both Israel and American Jews for America’s peril at the hands of terrorists.
Francesa also said the Jews he knows are disloyal Americans in that they would go to war to defend Israel but not the United States.
In the wake of an attack on the U.S. by Islamic lunatics, Francesa even called upon American Jews to prove their virtue as Americans, to choose between Israel, which he called “a failed experiment,” and the U.S.
As a third-generation American Jew, whose great-uncle was a WWI doughboy, and whose father was a WWII Naval Lt., then commander of the Staten Island chapter of the Jewish War Veterans, I was, shall we say, displeased by Francesa’s determination that the time had come for me to swear allegiance to the United States.
On Sept. 23, 2001, the above appeared in this column. In WFAN’s response, on behalf of Francesa, station boss Mark Chernoff denied that Francesa said any of that — despite thousands, including WFAN staff, having heard what I’d heard. My challenge to produce those tapes was ignored.
If I wrote such malicious lies, why wasn’t I sued?
….Sean Salisbury. Improbable? I thought so , too. I still do, actually. But the burden isn’t on the former ESPN analyst / Dallas radio host to prove he’s never been in the habit of harassing female colleagues with phone-cam snapshots of his schlong, ; it’ll be down to Gawker Media to prove that Salisbury’s self-portraits weren’t as crudely menacing as his treatment of John Clayton. From the McKinney Courier-Gazzette’s Danny Gallagher :
Sean Salisbury, a Frisco, TX resident and former National Football League quarterback, filed a petition for a civil defamation lawsuit in a Denton County court against Gawker Media for publishing several false stories on their sports blog Deadspin.com that cost him several jobs, ruined his reputation and made it difficult to find gainful employment.
Salisbury’s attorney, Jeffrey Tillotson of the Dallas law firm Lynn, Tillotson, Pinker & Cox, said in the petition that Deadspin has waged a “long-running smear campaign” against his client since January of 2007.
Harlow, a member of Salisbury’s counsel, said the suit singled out Gawker as a defendant because of their “concerted” efforts to single out their client, despite the reporting of others.
“What we hope to prove is that blog sites like Deadspin are accountable,” he said. “They can’t simply attack someone and make a concerted effort to destroy the lives and careers of people without any ramifications. The difference between other news outlets and Deadspin is at least the other news outlets try to get it right. We hope to make a statement that if sites are going to behave like this, there are consequences and they are long overdue for that.”
Haldeman & Ehrlichman. Seitrich & Doskocil. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. You can add to that pantheon of dynamic duos Mike Francesca and former partner in rhetorical crime, Chris Russo, who according to Newsday’s Neil Best, are getting the band back together, if only for a day (link courtesy Maura Johnston)
With the Yankees back in the ALCS, just like old times, the buildup to tonight’s Game 1 will include a nostalgic media touch: a mini-reunion of “Mike and the Mad Dog” on WFAN.
Just after 1 p.m., Chris Russo is scheduled to visit Mike Francesa’s “Mike’d Up,” Russo’s first appearance on his old station in the 14 months since he and Francesa parted ways, ending a 19-year partnership.
Francesa is to return the favor at about 6:30 p.m. with a guest appearance on Russo’s “Mad Dog Unleashed” on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
The joint appearances won’t be the first for the old duo. Last night, Francesa called in to Russo’s show as a surprise guest as part of the celebration of Russo’s 50th birthday, which is Sunday.
The two spoke for 12 minutes, mostly about the baseball playoffs, falling comfortably into their old pattern of sports banter. The only reference to their changed circumstances came about a minute in, when Francesa took a gentle poke at Russo’s lower visibility among New York-area fans, saying, “What happened to you now that you’re 50?”
Russo laughed and said, “That’s a good point. Where did I go?”
For only $75 ($95 autographed!) you can own the above jersey, as peddled by former reliever/current Nationals broadcaster Rob Dibble. “You are the real-life Kenny Powers, aren’t you?” tweets an astonished Jamie Mottram, though I don’t think that’s a very fair statement. KFuckingP is usually funny.
Omar Minaya reached out to Kevin Towers and J.P. Ricciardi over the weekend to express his support after the two were fired as general managers and also to lay the groundwork to speak to both soon about possible jobs in the Mets’ organization, The Post has learned.
Minaya views both as friends whose strength as talent evaluators would be assets at a time when the Mets are trying to improve both their roster and the process by which they judge players.
It is an intriguing and potentially nervy move by Minaya. Towers with San Diego and Ricciardi in Toronto were long-serving GMs before being dismissed. If one or both come to the Mets, they would be arriving at a time when Minaya is not in an overly secure spot despite being about to start a three-year contract extension.
New Yorkers have no doubt noticed the current travails of the Mets are occasionally noted by a wire services report in The Paper Of Record rather than the work of a dedicated beat reporter. The Amazins’ slide into cultural irrelevancy neatly coincides with a highly successful season for the Yankee juggernaut, and as such, we can’t really compare the Times’ decisions to those of Canada’s all-sports radio outlet, The Fan 590, who confirmed yesterday they’ll no longer be sending longtime reporter Howard Berger on Toroto Maple Leafs road trips. From the Star’s Mary Ormsby (link courtesy the tweeting of Jason Cohen) :
“The Leafs are … important to what we do as a radio station,” station GM Nelson Millman said. “But we’re cutting back on a little bit of everything.”
So are others in the business of hockey reporting in Toronto.
Newspaper coverage of the Leafs is being whittled steadily for some print readers. The National Post doesn’t regularly send reporters to Leaf road games and Berger frequently freelanced stories for the Post. In the second half of last season with the Leafs out of contention, The Globe and Mail bailed out on several away games.
Only the Toronto Star and Toronto Sun use staff reporters or columnists to cover all exhibition and regular-season Leaf games.
Listeners will hear Berger’s reports from the Leafs’ first road game Saturday in Washington. But after that, it’s unclear when and where Berger will travel.
“I won’t give you a number because I can’t give you a number,” Millman said, adding the station will likely use reporters in other cities to provide updates.
Former ESPN football analyst Sean Salisbury recently left Dallas radio outlet 105.3 The Fan, an incident yours truly headlined with “It Is Possible To Lose A Broadcasting Job Without Sending A Single MMS Of Your Cock”. Said unwieldy headline was of course, inspired by earlier allegations Salibury had sent phone-cam pics of his penis to “numerous, uncomfortable women”. A subsequent Deadspin post on the end of Salisbury’s tenure in Big D suggested more “cellphone hijinx” were to blame, a claim the former QB’s representative angrily denied.
Fast forward a week later, and S.S. has engaged Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio in the most ill-advised offensive since The Bay Of Pigs. In a series of rambling e-mail missives, each including the signature line, “sent from my iPhone”, Salisbury insists “ur guys lies and carelessness about CBS and espn stories has not only ruined my reputation but has cost me jobs so prepare urself for a lawsuit so big I will own deadspin.” Much as I love to think Salisbury as Deadspin owner/publisher would result in, y’know, more than 2 links a year to CSTB, I’m gonna guess the mooted legal action is about as likely to scare Daulerio and Nick Denton as Sean’s threat to publish a book entitled, “espn exposed. The truth inside the r rated company” has Disney executives quaking in their boots.
Further messages from Salisbury are equal parts delusional (”u guys are about to revitalize my career and bank account”) and vengeful (”so you know I got some pics and smut on you that are gonna give you a taste of how it feels”). Stadium Insider is amongst those who’ve had enough of the car crash, tweeting, “it was newsworthy when he showed people his thing. It was newsworthy when he got fired multiple times….But now it has gotten to a point where the constant updates need to stop and someone needs to provide help for a mental breakdown of a human.” I’m not sure I agree — there’s clearly a time and place for this kind of outburst, though I don’t know if Salisbury is registered to comment at Deadspin.
Sean Salisbury is out at the increasingly impactful new sports station, 105.3 The Fan. Yeah. “Out’’ as in “no longer with the station.’’ And let me suggest to you that The Fan ain’t messin’ around: Salisbury was gone before he could go on the air this afternoon, and on the station’s website, Salisbury’s presence there has been erased.
When ESPN buries the Ben Roethlisberger rape allegations for several days but files repeated updates in the instance of Shawne Merriman’s alleged battery of Tila Tequila, can we presume something’s not kosher in Bristol? Or should we go to the lengths of Sports On My Mind’s dwil who concludes that when it comes to the Worldwide Leader, “black athletes are rarely afforded the consideration of ethical treatment”?
The Big Subliminal will devote time from 6 a.m. to midnight to dissect the athlete’s every performance and find, or invent if they must, the warts in a Black athlete’s game or personality if the WWL gets a whiff of trouble surrounding an athlete with dark skin. They will talk with everyone from high school coaches and societal mentors to ex-female mating objects to unearth negative news about the athlete. They will go so far as to conduct televised “investigative” reports and interview unsavory members of society and hide their identities in shadows and alter their voices just to make sure a story is picked up by other sports news outlets. The story will be on the lips of every radio show host in the ESPN radio universe – and other than the odd ex-athlete here and there, or the odd Black ESPN television personality who also does radio, every ESPN radio show host is White.
The television network will air some token differing opinion about the Black athlete in question from its revolving door of about four Black writer at ESPN who appear so often on its network programming that many White people actually believe there are Black writers everywhere at ESPN, on the .com, and in the magazine. Anyone can surely understand why these White people would think such a thing. After all, to them we all look alike.
Every so often ESPN will flip the script on who does the defending and who does the criticizing of a Black athlete plucked out for microcosmic perusal. One day, when viewers least expect it, their primary morning leadoff hitter, Skip Bayless, will earn his $1.5 million salary by flipping roles in mind-bending fashion and lamely play designated White, “Black athlete defender,” while his designated morning Black talking head foil will rip into said athlete with all the vigor of the most virulent racist. After the segment, White viewers get their guilt stroked because one of them acted as the paternal, burdened White man who can intellectualize the Black man’s plight. At the same time they can become fully self-absorbed in their righteous anger toward that particular and all Black athletes because they can tell all their friends “even other Black people can see how wrong ‘that guy’ – Black athlete – is.”
And all is well with the world ———– until the next reported incident of “wrong-doing” by yet another in the long litany of Black athletes who fail yet again to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ‘fly right’ by White standards, and rise above their ‘instincts.’
Freddie Coleman isn’t a white radio host. I realize he’s hardly the most prominent ESPN radio personality, but if you listen a lot on the weekends, he’s hard to escape. Dunno if Bayless really makes $1.5 million, but he’s clearly not spending it on clothes.
Though he’d yet to see the film, David Roth recently described the protagonist in the Patton Oswalt schmuck-vehicle “Big Fan” as “a lumpy, quietly pathological obsessive Giants fan who fucks his life up through that obsession.” The New York Post’s Phil Mushnick is slightly more effusive in his praise for screenwriter/director Robert Siegel’s followup to “The Wrestler”, declaring, “this one’s for New York sports fans, all of us, from the logical to the lunatics; this one gets us where we live; this one’s for us.” Or, perhaps, this one’s for you, you WFAN-calling motherfuckers.
Paul, slickly and sickly played by Patton Oswalt, is a habitual caller to “The Sports Dogg,” played by Scott Ferrall, the transient sports talker/act now heard over Sirius/XM. Ferrall’s never seen, but his casting — his voice and his script — make for perfect.
Paul brings to mind Marty, the poor soul butcher in the Oscar-winning 1955 movie “Marty.” Screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky made Marty 35, and had him live with his mother, but in The Bronx, not Staten Island. Marty and Paul, more than 50 years apart, are much the same, except Marty was a passive schnook. Paul works at it.
Paul attends every Giant home game. He tailgates before and then during the games — he doesn’t actually have tickets. He’s pathetic and detached, but harmless.
We all know him. We know him from inside the Garden or just outside Yankee Stadium. We know him from the old neighborhood and from listening to WFAN. We know several of him, and in different degrees, all the way to total weirdo.
Sickly. Pathetic. Detatched. Weirdos. If this is what Mushnick thinks of persons who hang out in East Rutherford on Sunday afternoons and ring sports yack radio in the middle of the night, how might he describe the diminishing number of persons who actually read the NY Post sports section every day?
Sunday, in the fifth inning of the Yankees-Red Sox radiocast, Waldman had indignantly wondered why Posada was even being “brought into the equation.” Then she hammered Burnett.
“(Burnett) stunk up the joint (Saturday, giving up nine runs in Boston’s 14-1 win),” Waldman said. “He should just stand up and take it like Andy Pettitte (would have).”
Thursday, before Burnett (with Jose Molina catching) took the mound against Texas, someone asked Waldman if her Tuesday conversation with Burnett had anything to do with what she had said about him on the radio.
“Yes it did,” Waldman answered. “We had a lovely conversation. … A lot of times players don’t realize how their actions look on the field. I just think he was emotional about his failures. I don’t think A.J. meant to show anybody up.”
“If it’s something that I’ve said that gets a player upset, then I will tell him why I said it. But I can’t do my job thinking that if I say something someone is going to get upset with me. I can’t do that,” Waldman said. “Everybody’s got opinions. I know what a lot of people think, but I’m really not a (Yankees) cheerleader.”
“Everybody likes telling these guys bad news. Somebody’s wife hears it. Or somebody’s cousin reads it. Most of the time it comes back (to the player) incorrectly,” Waldman said. “Usually, it’s not what you said. That happens all the time.”
I agree with Traber in a sense that Simmons has gone over the top about this Seattle/OKC crap, but this is just going to end badly, even if some random act of God it picks up any steam. All that will happen is that Oklahoma City sports chatter will get humiliated once again on the national stage and Traber will have to field calls for another week about it. One thing that makes me want to headbutt my coffee table though is that Traber is acting like people like Simmons and myself aren’t any different than anonymous Internet commenters, except that we use our real names. THEN HOW ARE INTERNET COMMENTERS ANY DIFFERENT THAN YOU, JIM? Your platform is the radio. Bill Simmons’ is a podcast and a column for ESPN.com. What’s the difference? I truly think Traber’s mind exists in a parallel universe where he cannot see such logical things.
Then, to cap it off, he ripped Simmons for not allowing comments on his columns and then rips me for allowing them on mine. Face palm. And he seems to forget that he has a website with a message board with anonymous commenters and also works for a radio station with a message board with anonymous commenters.
Last Wednesday Hansen somehow didn’t receive the directive from Bristol, Conn. and spent 20 minutes on his “Hour of Hansen” 6-7 p.m. show dissecting the ramifications before producers read him the office memo during a commercial break.
In other words, his departure was ultimately a combination of ESPN corporate censoring its reporting and ESPN local not relaying that censorship.
“The directive was the fuse, but the fact nobody told me was the match that lit it,” Hansen tells me. “I don’t want to be identified with being one of ESPN’s puppets. I refuse to be anybody’s puppet. Well, Channel 8 might get to pull my strings but ESPN can’t do that for $2,000 a month.”
Hansen ignored Roethlisberger the final half-hour of his show and afterward sent an email to ESPN program director Tom Lee announcing his resignation.
Of course, that was made easy by the fact that for the last six months Hansen worked without a contract.
“I agreed to a new deal with a serious pay cut,” Hansen says. “But for whatever reason they never sent it to me. This was just another example of how I was an afterthought over there. So I finally walked.”
(alas, not all western icons are welcomed as warmly in Japan as Bobby Valentine)
Mr. & Mrs. Howie Rose spent the All-Star Break on a trip to London, affording the couple an opportunity bask in a bit of rock history. While the Roses didn’t get around to visiting the Bruno Wizard Museum, Mets’ radio announcer Howie does have a few recommendations for his fellow tourists (link courtesy Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
If you’re a fan, and you appreciate the history, I would strongly suggest a trip to 3 Savile Row. That’s the building the Beatles bought for their Apple offices, and eventually they installed a recording studio in the basement. This is where a big chunk of the Let it Be album was recorded, but it’s best known for it’s rooftop. That’s where the Beatles performed their last live “concert”, an impromptu show held in the middle of a business day until it was eventually broken up by police. It’s all in the Let it Be movie, and although we weren’t allowed on the roof, I gazed at the iconic site like an awed teenager. The building looks just as it did in the film 40 years ago.
Later, it was on to the Abbey Road studios where much of their music was recorded. Naturally, we went to the crosswalk where the famous album cover was taken. If you looked at it from the same vantage point as the one used by photographer Iain MacMillain, you would have thought it was 1969 again.
The coup de gras was the Paul McCartney concert at Citi Field on Friday night. If you are of a certain age and have a certain reverence for the Beatles, you probably felt as though the soundtrack to your life was playing out right in front of your eyes. It was incredible. Paul McCartney is 67 years old, and moved energetically around and across the stage, changing instruments, talking to the crowd and playing one historic song after another. I couldn’t help think that he has the stamina to do all of that, and the Mets have world class athletes in their 20s and 30s who can’t run out a pop up.
As the most-recognized brand in sports, ESPN is a frequent target of criticism, much of it justified. Schreiber and her predecessor, former Washington Post sports editor George Solomon (2005-07), did a good job of taking ESPN to task when warranted, but also defending the network against unjustified jabs.
Ohlmeyer will share his thoughts once a month in a column on ESPN.com. He has been an executive producer, producer, director and writer since 1967, retiring in 1999 as president, NBC West Coast.
Ohlmeyer is a curious choice for ESPN’s in-house ethical watchdog ; though he presided over an era of tremendous commercial success at NBC, his sports resume includes the ill-fated decision to place Dennis Miller in the “Monday Night Football” booth. Prior to that, Ohlmeyer ordered the removal of Norm Macdonald as anchor of “Saturday Night Live”’s “Weekend Update”, said move coming on the heels of Macdonald poking fun at Ohlmeyer crony, O.J. Simpson.
I’m not a big fan of satellite radio’s exclusive sports yack properties ; early exposure to Dibble and Kennedy’s XM show made me a devout champion of terrestrial broadcasters (or an advocate of silence while driving). But I did take the time during a recent business trip to check out Chris Russo’s Sirius venture and found the results downright shocking. Not in the sense the Mad Dog was working blue or anything, but rather that he’d either employed the world’s worst call screener or that Russo’s new audience seemed to consist largely of persons suffering coughing fits or callers familiarizing themselves with telephones for their first time since their release from an institution. Suffice to say, the level of discourse made your average WFAN program — even Russo’s solo outlings on the Queens station — seem like the (fucking) Algonquin roundtable compared to the satellite product.
So with that in mind, what can we conclude from Russo’s monumental shit-fit, as heard (by very few people) this past Thursday? Deadspin’s Barry Petchescky wrote, “If you’ll remember the hubbub when Russo signed his 5-year, $15 million deal with Sirius XM, one of the main selling points was that Russo would be in charge of hiring his own staff. So if we take his comments at face value, that if the problem is due to his co-workers, then there’s no one to blame but Russo himself.” By contrast, the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick called it, “a bogus, transparent, desperate, designed-for-suckers publicity ploy — sadly in the WWE mold.”
It’s pretty hard to gauge whether or not Russo’s on the level. He’s certainly capable of such dopey behaviour unconsciously, but when he begins crying for a radio colleague that knows who Eddie Arcaro is, I’m inclined to agree with Mushnick (though I will say Russo’s much funnier cutting a promo on his own employees than I would’ve guessed previously). But I do know there’s one person who ought to be endlessly entertained by the clip and is probably doing everything in her power not to piss herself laughing. So with that in mind, congratulations to Suzyn Waldman ; Russo’s just had his “oh my goodness, gracious” moment.
Having napalmed all ties between his Philly self and Bristol, CT, journalist/yackmeister Stephen A. Smith (shown above, right, with Tommy Hearns) has returned to the public eye of late and the Sporting Blog’s Dan Levy suggests the former “Quite Frankly” host has bigger fish to fry than mere sports commentary.
After starting that uStream channel during the NBA playoffs that got a smattering of viewers, SAS took to the fast-paced world of podcasts, and immediately used his name and ESPN notoriety to shoot himself to the top of the charts on iTunes. Oh yes, and he joined Twitter, famously calling out nearly everyone of color for not supporting Quite Frankly. It seemed insane at the time, but maybe it was foreshadowing. Could Stephen A. Smith be the next Al Sharpton, without the religious leanings? Could Smith be the next great political pundit who uses his verbose dialog and pastoral cadence to both galvanize and polarize the nation whenever the issue of race comes up?
Quite frankly, it’s possible.
At least MSNBC thinks so. The Place For Politics has featured Smith throughout their coverage of the Michael Jackson death and subsequent funeral. Smith was on the network three times Tuesday alone. And that’s after he was on a panel earlier in the week to discuss the job Barack Obama is doing in the black community.
Forget about the top black voice in sports. Leave that job for Jason Whitlock or William Rhoden or Wilbon or the more-poignant-than-ever memory of Ralph Wiley. Stephen A. Smith might be angling to become the top black voice in America. And if you’ve gotten as far as Smith has on style over substance, why stop at ESPN or the occasional guest spot on cable news? Having seemingly burned all bridges in sports, could Smith, who was featured on CNN during the election as well, be shifting away from the basketball arena and into the political one?
These are things I would have loved to ask Smith. But when I reached out to his assistant with the understanding that I was writing a story on Smith for this very site, I was told, “Presently, Stephen is not available for comment regarding his career. Thank you for the follow up inquiry”
When the modern history of NYC sports radio is written, some will undoubtedly credit Imus, Chris Russo or Mike Francesca or some combination of the 3 for WFAN’s standing as the nation’s first successful sports yack outlet (and with the possible exception of WEEI, still the most commercially successful). And while all of the above deserve some acknowledgement (Imus, for instance, is a creepy jogging shoe fetishist with serious racial hangups), the real station’s real stars have long been it’s loony callers. The infamous Jerome From Manhattan was profiled by the New York Times’ J.F. Gill back in October of 2004, and today, overexcited (and recently MIA) Mets fan Short Al of Brooklyn gets the Paper Of Record’s full treatment, courtesy of the Times’ Corey Kilgannon (thanks to Mac McCaughan for the link)
Short Al suddenly disappeared from WFAN’s airwaves last year, leading some listeners to worry that he had joined the great lineup of FANdroids who have died, including John from Sandy Hook and Doris from Rego Park. “I can’t tell you how many times people called in and asked, ‘Why hasn’t he been calling? What happened?’ ” said Marc Malusis, another of WFAN’s overnight hosts.
Short Al’s familiar phone number yielded no answer, but Mr. Malusis finally managed to find out — “Someone had a friend in law enforcement,” he explained — that Short Al from Brooklyn was Albert Kaufman, an 81-year-old retired letter carrier and a widower. Last year, Mr. Kaufman was hospitalized after a fall, and he left his Marine Park apartment to live with a daughter in Bensonhurst.
“He’s doing fine except for one thing,” Mr. Malusis said. “He can’t call anymore. His daughter won’t let him.”
Reached at his daughter’s apartment, Mr. Kaufman — in his familiar Brooklyn accent — confirmed that she did indeed put the kibosh on 4 a.m. phone calls to WFAN-AM (660).
Mr. Kaufman agreed to meet at a diner near his daughter’s apartment. He had already had his morning bagel, so he ordered coffee and coconut custard pie. Immediately, he went into a FANdroid-worthy rant — “How could a manager leave a pitcher in that long?” — about the Mets’ defeat the previous night.
As if making up for all those call-ins he missed, Short Al talked about how much potential he sees in Omir Santos, a Mets catcher, and declared that the Yankees should make their catcher, Jorge Posada, a designated hitter. He rattled off the starting lineups from the 1941 World Series between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers, and then for the 1944 World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the St. Louis Browns. All before the waitress brought his slice of pie.
Clark told McGraw Milhaven, the morning host at the station, that the mutual hatred ran so deep that he purposely snubbed the Mets when they played together in All-Star Games.
“I wanted to let them know I wasn’t glad to be there with them and their teammate, didn’t want to be on any team or be a teammate with them, and we were going to battle,” said Clark, who provides commentary on some Cardinals games and manages the Springfield Sliders, a summer collegiate league team in Illinois.
Clark took particular aim at Gary Carter, the Mets’ catcher in those years, saying that he “talked his way more into the Hall of Fame than deserving it.” Carter, he said, craved the spotlight, which was “pretty sickening and disgusting to everybody else.”
Carter, who manages the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League, said he was surprised by Clark’s comments.
“He’s entitled to his own opinion, but the numbers speak for themselves, and I don’t think anybody can talk their way into the Hall of Fame,” Carter said in a statement relayed by the team’s public-relations officer.
In the interview, Clark reignited an old issue when he said that Howard Johnson, a Mets third baseman in those years, used a corked bat. Whitey Herzog, the Cardinals’ manager at the time, made a similar claim.
In 1987, one of Johnson’s bats was X-rayed. The X-rays were negative. Clark appeared not to know that.
“That just goes to show those guys were trying to cheat and, you know, it didn’t end up working for them anyhow,” he said, seemingly glossing over the Mets’ World Series title in 1986. “So if his was corked, I’m sure a few other guys’ over there were corked, also.”
Johnson, now the Mets’ batting coach, said Clark seemed to have forgotten a few key facts.
“It’s kind of funny, because in my most productive years, I used a model that he gave me, an M253,” Johnson said in Milwaukee, where the Mets were playing the Brewers.
Seriously, I cannot tell. If it’s the latter, leave it to Cowherd to prove he’s fully capable of supervising a website just as unreadable as those from Jim Rome and Scott Ferrall. If, however, someone is having a laugh at Cowherd’s expense, we might be about to witness a legal first ; Disney suing a blogger for anti-intellectual copyright violation.
Earlier today, noted global soccer expert Colin Cowherd mentioned the US v. Spain semi had yet to kick off, but “Spain’s already ahead, 4-0″.
Hopefully, ESPN’s midafternoon mouthpiece will in the future, restrict his commentary to subjects in which he has actual expertise. Not sure how he’ll fill more than 30 seconds a day with such content, but when in doubt, there’s always his boner for Courtney Love.
Perhaps proving Emmis Broadcasting CBS Radio’s NYC sports outlet doesn’t want Artie Lange to hog all the attention this week, Newday’s Neil Best reports onetime WFAN fixture Sal Rosenberg will return to the station, albeit briefly, when he pops in his former midday partner, Joe Benigno-Gazingo.
It’s a little unclear why station management have chosen to go this route — perhaps they’re tired of being licensed by the FCC? — but if WFAN is going to fully commit itself to an aggressive nostalgia route, can we please have a seance for Pete Franklin during one of Francesca’s Diet Coke breaks?
On Monday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused David J. Hernandez of violating federal securities laws, three days after the FBI executed search warrants on the Chicago office of NextStep Financial Services Inc. and NextStep Medical Staffing, two business ventures with ties to Hernandez.
The SEC said NextStep Financial is a defunct corporation through which Hernandez operated his fraudulent scheme. He allegedly sold so-called “guaranteed investment contracts” to investors that promised returns of 10 percent to 16 percent per month. The complaint said Hernandez, 48, of Downers Grove, raised more than $11 million from investors in at least 12 states.
Chicago Sports Webio debuted earlier this year with media fanfare and what appeared to be a sizable financial commitment by Hernandez. The SEC charges that Hernandez spent at least $275,000 of investor funds to pay for advertising and promotion of the Web site and another company he controlled, NextStep Medical. He also diverted at least $165,500 of investor funds to Spectrum’s bank accounts, the complaint said.
Hernandez also diverted about $500,000 for his and wife’s personal use, the complaint said. He bought an Audi Quattro car for $25,879, a $16,674 Steinway piano and $34,000 in jewelry from Tiffany’s. He also spent $23,000 for a holiday party at the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago in December. He also paid off a $318,000 mortgage on his Downers Grove residence.
The SEC said that in his pitch to potential investors, Hernandez misrepresented his educational background. The agency said that he never attended the University of Wisconsin, where he said received his bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s in business administration. His law degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago is also fake, the SEC said.
Hernandez also hid his criminal background from investors, the complaint said. In October 1998, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud for diverting money that investors sent to Columbia National Bank in Chicago, where he worked as a vice president, to accounts under his personal control. Hernandez was sentenced to 34 months in prison and ordered to pay restitution of $590,533.67.
I’m not sure which is more shocking — the thorough thumping Sports On My Mind’s D.K. Wilson delivered to ESPN Radio’s Mike Greenberg, or the fact Mike Golic comes off as the more thoughtful of the pair.
Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic entered into a In a discussion Monday about “the steroid era” and how so many baseball writers want to selectively eliminate certain players they arbitrarily feel took steroids or performance-enhancing drugs.
Golic rightly said that if voters want to keep suspected PED users out of the game or create a special wing for players who are suspected of using PEDs, they need or needed to do the same for players who used or were suspected of using amphetamines, players who corked bats, and scuffed baseballs. But the big one, Golic intimated, is racism. The former NFL players said that if people think using amphetamines did not greatly aid players they are fooling themselves. He also said that racism absolutely needs to be addressed by baseball writers; that because of racism in MLB we will never truly know how good any of the players from the “Segregation Era” were.
Mike Greenberg then dismissed Golic’s statements about racism in total by saying baseball has created a special wing for the Black players who were active during the Segregation Era. From that moment on Greenberg never mentioned racism as one of baseball’s more sordid “eras.”
That the separate wing is for those men who were forced to play in a separate league – Negro Leagues – from the majors just to make a living playing the game is an act so egregious that the Baseball Hall of Fame should be boycotted daily.
The simple fact is that the special wing should be for the White players who compiled their statistics and played their careers separate from Black players, not the other way around. Think about it.
Does any baseball writer, any fan, or Greenberg want there to be a special wing for the so-called victims who would be the players who made it to the Hall but did not use PEDs? Obviously not.
So why is there a special wing for the victims of racism in baseball? Because baseball, like the rest of our society, like Greenberg specifically, is inherently racist.
The official statement reads: “Liverpool Football Club totally condemns the comments regarding the Hillsborough disaster made by the radio and TV broadcaster Steve Cohen.
“Mr Cohen has obviously never taken the time to read the Taylor Report which stated clearly that ticketless fans were not a contributory factor or responsible for the events of that day.
“To use the 20th anniversary of the disaster to repeat false claims about Liverpool fans (which Mr Cohen first broadcast and then apologised for in 2006) is even more unacceptable.”
Though Cohen has recently made a public apology, his handling of this mess compares unfavorably, in my opinion, to a certain Norwich radio host being taken to task for his own ill-advised remarks.
…there’s a bunch of jerks running the show at the Nu Stadium. And while that really shouldn’t pass for news, the Daily News’ resident Gallagher lookalike considers himself the last line of defense between the fans and overwrought Yankee hyperbole (”Why dwell on the collection of high rollers, separated by a concrete moat from the heathens who can only afford $400 tickets, when you can write about Nick Swisher’s DJ stylings, the Yankees’ kangaroo court, the suddenly loose Joe Girardi, Johnny Damon’s toy wrestling belt and back-to-back-to-back home runs?”)
Monday, following the Yankees 7-6 win over Minnesota, John Gordon (above, left), the radio voice of the Twins and former Yankees broadcaster, attempted to get on the team bus parked in a tunnel underneath the Stadium. Security personnel blocked his path and would not let him enter.
When Gordon informed them he was a Twins broadcaster (this is his 23rd season) and presented a proper credential, he was told to take a hike. He still couldn’t get on the bus. Security informed Gordon he needed to be “escorted” on by the team. Gordon headed back to the Twins clubhouse where some of the player’s wives, who were on the road trip, had congregated. They asked Gordon if he could help them gain entry to the bus. Stadium security had bum-rushed the ladies, too.
So, Gordon and the wives were forced to wait about an hour before the players left the clubhouse and walked them all on to the bus.
Nonetheless it seems security does not take the same rigid stance with everyone – like ESPN’s mouthy Chris Berman. Monday, he was seen walking around the Yankees clubhouse like he owned the place. Berman was big-timing to the max, strolling into areas clearly marked “no media allowed beyond this point.” Perhaps Berman thought the sign did not apply to him because it did not read “no clowns allowed beyond this point.”
“Other things I’ve never seen before: a $4 apple being sold at the new Yankee Stadium fruit stand…yes, it was a “large” apple…but a $4 apple is new to me! Didn’t they sell apples during the depression for 2 cents?” So asks the YES Network’s Suzyn Waldman via her new WFAN.column, but if you’re afraid the Lady Goodness Gracious has devolved into a distaff Larry King, fear not. With the Bronx Bombers having won a season high 7 consecutive games and the presumably-clean Alex Rodriguez on an absolute tear, Waldman doesn’t shy away from serious analysis (link culled from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
I’ve been either covering or broadcasting Yankees games for 23 years…and until this weekend, I’ve never seen a Yankees player get hit in the face with a whipped cream pie. Now, 4 of them in a few days…Brett Gardner, Melky Cabrera , Alex Rodriguez and yesterday Johnny Damon. They are the brain child of AJ Burnett, who keeps his supply in the video room right off the Yankees dugout steps.
I think a few of the “core” players in that Yankees clubhouse were a little stunned when the first pie went into Brett Gardner’s face, but it was Mariano Rivera, an ultimate “core” player who told a dejected AJ Burnett yesterday, who was sitting in the clubhouse after being taken out of the game to “get out there….get that pie ready, man, you can’t change karma!”
To those of you who say “Act like you’ve been there before” or “That’s not the Yankee way!”….I say to you…, well, most of these guys have NOT been there before, and how’s that “Yankee Way” worked for the past 7 years? A little life is needed in there…if a pie in the face on a walkoff win is what does it…so what? Add to that the gold WWB (or WWF…whatever it is now) belt being passed around to the star of the day. It belongs to Johnny Damon and the belt was a gift from AJ Burnett’s two little sons…
A : The sports fans of America (apologies to David Letterman’s writers for that one). Still, you might wanna write this one down for posterity — Mike Francesca not only found something favorable to say about Carlos Beltran, but for one Monday afternoon he found a target for his considerable ire that neither I nor perhaps Phil Mushnick would argue with (YouToob link culled from Bob’s Blitz)
As chronicled in this space time and time again, the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick aka The Conscience Of All Sports Media, has some favorite dead horses to flog (Spike Lee, Vince MacMahon, ballgames that start/end late, overpriced sneakers, injustices against white people, etc.). Were he to make beating up on John Sterling a daily feature, however, I’d probably make an effort to read at least half of those columns. Though the Yankees’ weekend sweep of the Twins was hardly lacking drama, Mushnick accuses Sterling and the Lady Goodness Gracious of inventing no small share of their own, writing of the former, “every game played by the Yankees is a doubleheader — the game that’s played and the game Sterling calls.”
In the eighth inning Saturday, Sterling called a game-tying home run by Hideki Matsui — Sterling gave it his, “It is high … !” routine, culminating with, “It is gone!” But the ball, as Sterling several seconds later acknowledged, didn’t even reach the wall on the fly; it bounced over it.
And radio-reliant Yankees fans again were led to believe that a Yankees batter had performed the ultimate — had hit a home run — when he hadn’t.
In the fourth inning of Saturday’s game, Sterling and Suzyn Waldman fabricated a story. Johnny Damon lost sight of a pop fly as he approached the stands along the left-field line. Damon missed the ball, plain and simple as that.
But on the Yankees’ radio network, Sterling claimed the ball fell from Damon’s glove. Nonsense. Then Waldman added, “He had to fight a fan with a glove.” But there was no fan with a glove, no fan hindrance at all.
Later, Sterling would repeat that “fan with the glove interference story” as fact, as the eyewitness testimony of the Voice of the Yankees. But it never happened, nothing even close.
Before today, American Icon was languishing on Amazon, hovering from anywhere between 1,000 to 4,000, looking like yet another steroid-related book that would come and go without much thought (Now it’s No. 98). That’s what’s starting to happen in the world of books and, to a lesser extent, newspapers and magazine—people are tired of steroids; of the disappointments and the finger pointing. It’s a topic that no longer seems to interest people. They need to be given a reason to read such a book. A reason to pay attention.
In case you missed it, this morning Clemens was a joke. Blathering, babbling, inane, nonsensical. Whatever he utters sounds foolish and contrived. He backs himself up by repeatedly mentioning his foundation (As in, how could I have used? I have a foundation!). He seems to think by resorting to the ol’ ballplayer trick of calling media folks by their nicknames (”Well, Greenie …”) he’s forging a bond. That might have worked 20 years ago in the Red Sox clubhouse.
SI.com’s Jon Heyman took particular delight in Clemens citing his stepfather’s heart troubles, adding, “My second favorite part was when he said he was going to be the same “outgoing” person he’s always been. Funny, I missed that side of him. In my experiences covering Clemens over the years, he was intense, dark, snobby, aloof and intimidating, but rarely outgoing. The only times he seemed to really get excited was when another person of close or equal fame was around.”
OK, that’s not exactly what 7-time Cy Young Award winner Roger Clemens told ESPN’s Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic this morning. But in responding to accusations raised in the new Daily News’ compiled “American Icon”, the Rocket continued a pattern of denials and bizarre claims regarding his alleged use of human growth hormone. From Newsday’s Ken Davidoff :
“He’s never injected me with HGH or steroids,” Clemens said of McNamee. The accounts of McNamee made up the meatiest part of the Mitchell Report, and prompted Clemens to testify publicly against McNamee in a Congressional hearing, as well as file a defamation suit against McNamee.
While most of the counts of that suit have been dismissed, Clemens is marching forward with what’s left of it, he said.
“We’re still dealing with that right now,” he said. “I’m going to let [his attorneys] handle it.”
Clemens cited his family’s history of heart problems as another reason why he would never use illegal PEDs, saying that a brother had a heart attack in his 40s and his stepfather died of a heart attack. Of course, there is no genetic connection between Clemens and his stepfather.
Now 46, Clemens said that he supplied a DNA sample at the very beginning of this process, to prove that his DNA could not be on the needles that McNamee supplied to Congressional investigators. While reports have surfaced that Clemens’ DNA is indeed on those syringes — which McNamee alleges he used to inject Clemens with illegal PEDs — Clemens said that was “impossible, because he’s never given me any. He’s never given me HGH or any performance-enhancing drug.”
As of this writing, the Atlanta are putting the finishing touches on a Game 7 rout of Miami, a result that not only represents the Hawks’ first playoff series win in 12 years, but also sets the stage for Atlanta radio voice Steve Holman mocking LeBron James just as badly as he went after D-Wade. The Palm Beach Post’s Jorge Milan quotes Holman’s defense for accusing the Heat of “thuggery”.
“It’s amazing,” said Holman (above), who has called Atlanta games since 1985. “This poor old radio announcer has done these games for 24 years in mostly anonymity, and the funny part of it is I’ve done the same thing for 24 years. I’ve had the same shtick.”
Holman insisted he was only mimicking the style of his mentor Johnny Most, the legendary Boston Celtics announcer.
“He taught me it’s the good guys versus the bad guys, like in the cowboy movies,” Holman said. “It’s all theater. It’s not brain surgery. I’m not operating on anybody’s tumor or performing quadruple bypasses on anyone.
“I’m trying to entertain our Hawks fans for two hours so they can get away from 81/2 percent unemployment and GM going belly up, from Arlen Specter changing parties to the swine flu. People hear enough of that. I’d like to give them some enjoyment for a little while.”
Eric Reid, the Heat’s play-by-play announcer, indicated that Holman may have gone over the line with his comments.
“Johnny Most was his mentor and gave him his break, so I think he’s rooted in that stir-it-up style,” Reid said. “Everybody finds their own way. You have to look in the mirror and decide how you want to do the job.”
Despite heading into a weekend series with Philly holding a 9-12 record, Mets skipper Jerry Manuel is “one hell of an MC” declares the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman, one who “doesn’t have to work at being Teflon. It comes naturally.” If we’re to believe the News’ resident Gallagher lookalike, Gangsta Jerry’s opponents in this daily battle of wits are turning up for the battle unarmed.
There are potholes – that could turn into moon craters – awaiting Manuel. If the Mets continue down this familiar road, where the streets are named “Erratic Starting Pitching” and “No Clutch Hitting,” Manuel will need all the smooth operator in him to keep the howling dogs at bay.
Most of the complaining about questionable moves, or decisions that have backfired, has been confined to those addicted to All Squawk Radio. No sweat. The legions of first-time-long-time (morons) attempting to topple Manuel is like a spitball-wielding mob challenging an elephant.
Even the scholars, who host these radio shows, have buttered Manuel’s bread. So have columnists and voices in SportsNet New York’s broadcast booth. Those asking Manuel the questions, after each and every game, are not exactly conducting inquisitions.
No reason to. Manuel does not need any outside stimulus – bright lights, rubber hose – to coax an answer. He’s accommodating. Still, it may only be a matter of time before those answers are interpreted as nothing more than Manuel’s attempt to get over rather than an honest explanation of his own failed strategy. That’s when the mob starts smelling a phony.
Former Mets OF Darryl Strawberry was a guest of WFAN’s Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason this morning, and you probably won’t be surprised learn the hot topics of conversation weren’t the Citi Field Shake Shake or the Amazins’ struggles with runners in scoring position. Straw’s got a new autobiography on the shelves, and as such, Carton thought it appropriate to quiz the Crenshaw High product about his less-than-spirtual side (interview transcriptions taken from Sports Radio Interviews, link courtesy Baseball Think Factory)
On going from a shy, quiet kid to the sexual beast he became:
“I really wasn’t that high on ladies when I was in high school and coming up. I thought they were a major distraction, I was focused. All of a sudden I come to the level of getting to the big leagues and I remember my first experience, I went to San Diego and a girl called and said she was a reporter and wanted to meet me. I went downstairs and there it was, she was definitely a 10 and boom I was like, “Well this is what it’s like.” I thought it was pretty incredible. At that time in my life, there was no question. I wasn’t turning it down.”
How many women did he sleep with?
“I don’t know. More than you should have, just put it like that.”
More than 1,000?
“Oh yeah, of course.”
More than 5,000?
“Oh no, I won’t stretch it that far.”
What is the most women he’s been with at one time? Four?
John Madden (above, left) wasn’t the only veteran mouthpiece / former Raider to leave football broadcasting yesterday, as The Mobile Press-Registry’s Gentry Estes explains.
Former Alabama radio color analyst Ken Stabler (above, right) won’t be back on the air this season.
Stabler, the former Crimson Tide and NFL quarterback, announced his permanent departure today, saying in a statement, “I will continue to support UA in any way possible and wish only the best to the entire Alabama family.” He served 10 years on the UA radio team before stepping down last summer in the wake of a highly publicized arrest on a charge of driving under the influence. Stabler was ultimately acquitted of the charge.
Sources close to Stabler said he originally planned to return to the booth, but he eventually opted against it. UA athletics director Mal Moore said Stabler “has decided to pursue other opportunities.”
Crimson Tide Sports Network general manager Jim Carabin said he hopes to decide on Stabler’s replacement “very soon.” The obvious lead candidate is former Cleveland Browns GM Phil Savage, who will call Saturday’s A-Day Game and has indicated his interest in serving as Alabama’s color analyst in the fall.
Really? He doesn’t come up with his own material? The lines he repeats over and over again, throughout the radio show and later on the ESPN afternoon program? This is like finding out Oscar Wilde was straight. From the hotlink folks at Cub Reporters.org :
Sports commentator Jim Rome is seeking writers to assist with his radio talk show and with “Rome is Burning,” his TV show on ESPN.
“Looking for someone who comes at it from different angles, knows sports thoroughly, and is hungry, competitive and driven,” the ad states. “Must be willing to grind. Tremendous potential payoff and upside for the right candidate(s). Pay commensurate with experience. ”
E-mail resume, cover letter and writing samples to jimromejob@yahoo.com.
(the view from row 4, Section 436 of Citi Field, Monday, April 13, 2009)
Sorry for the crude headline folks (especially as I’ve used it before), but it’s the first thing that came to mind upon reading the following comments Mr. Howard made yesterday while appearing on WFAN’s “Mike’d Up” and addressing the furor over obstructed view seating in the 400 and 500 levels of Citi Field (quotes courtesy Mets Today)
The way we characterize “obstructed” is if you have an obstruction, something in front of you — a beam, a pillar, something that’s blocking your view. That’s not the case here. It is a function of the geometry of the building.
The seats are great seats, the value is tremendous. I understand people have their own point of view, but, when you sit in those seats in the left field promenade, it is a GREAT sightline. Yes I understand that if there’s a fly ball hit to the wall, you’re going to lose it, we do have, you know, TVs extensive, high definition televisions everywhere, you know, we do, we made that accomodation
There are additional comments / inaccuracies to squirm over in the Mets Today post, but I’ll deal with the above items. Mr. Howard’s limited definition of “obstructed” isn’t quite the same as mine. If a view of left and/or left-center field is almost entirely blocked by lower rows of seats, as was the case for yours truly Monday night, the Mets have no business selling those tickets for full price. I don’t consider $49 “great value” for a ticket more than 420 feet from home plate that affords no view of balls hit to left, and I’d characterize the Mets ticket rep who sold me a 15-game weekday plan as nothing more than a budding mini-Maddoff. I specifically asked if the seat in question would have an obstructed view and was assured otherwise.
It’s not just fly balls that are hit to the wall that are lost if you’re sitting in the left field 400’s — anything hit past shallow left is a mystery. Howard’s comment about the plethora of high definition screens at Citi is ludicrious. Even if — and this is a pretty huge stretch — paying customers were prescient enough to gather around the promenade concession stands in advance of a fly ball being hit — they’d arrive at said snack aisles to learn the mammoth flat-screens Howard refers to are only visible at the ballpark’s lower tiers. Even on the level of being a comfortable, expensive place to watch television outdoors, Citi Fleld comes up short.
That said, I don’t want to be a total killjoy. MetsBlog’s Matthew Cerrone Twittered on Monday night that he’d just high-fived Omar Minaya after David Wright’s 5th inning HR (a ball that just happen to land in an area invisible to patrons of the left-field promenade) from the cozy confines of a suite. As long as the well-connected are having a good time, that’s all that really matters to me.
He died with his mic on, so to speak, and I’m sure it will be said repeatedly that “at least he got to see the Phillies win another series,” but 73 is still too young. This sucks.
From the Philadelphia Inquirer
Harry Kalas, the Phillies’ Hall of Fame announcer, died at 1:20 p.m. today, the Phillies announced.
Mr. Kalas collapsed in the press box at Nationals Stadium in Washington at about 12:30 p.m. and was rushed to George Washington University Medial Center.
The cause of the death was not announced. Today’s game against the Nationals will be played, but the team will not visit the White House tomorrow.
Kalas, who was found unconsious, missed most of spring training after undergoing undisclosed surgery in Feburary. That surgery was unrelated to the detached retina that sidelined him for part of last season.
Kalas, who turned 73 on March 26, has broadcast Phillies games since 1971. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2002 as the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award. He is entering the final season of a 3-year contract that he signed in December 2006.
Since the the Series, my text message ringtone has been Harry’s final out call. It’s loud and far too long and with the new season upon us, I was just about to dump it. Guess it’s staying for at least a shiva period.
Update And let me also add…. as a sometimes sports-journalist I’ve had occasion to cover the Phillies a few times, and while I’m not so jaded that I didn’t get a thrill out of standing in their dugout during BP in 2007, or huddling around then-manager Larry Bowa at spring training, work is work, and I am no more starstruck around athletes than I would be interviewing John Darnielle. But the last time I was in the Phillies press box, Harry passed me in the hallway, and it was all I could do not to giggle… and then burst into the broadcast booth to beg him for a voice mail message.
And, not to get all “they don’t make things like they used to,” but the days when an announcer was so woven into the fabric of one’s daily life and daily fandom certainly is dwindling. It starts with radio, of course – Harry and others like him weren’t just the voices of the game, but our entire picture of the game. Today’s 12 year-olds not only have TV whenever and wherever (about to watch the game on MLB.TV myself) but between the national broadcasts of one’s own team and the ability to watch so many broadcasts of other teams, the impact of any one broadcaster is diminished.
“Harry would want us to play,” says Gary Matthews just now, which was to be expected. Still gotta be tough for them to do this game though, even more than it might be for the players.
Multiple sources at XX Sports 1090 confirmed on Monday that the afternoon drive-time show that aired from 3-7 p.m. is off the air.
It will basically be replaced by Padres baseball.
The 1090 schedule for a Padres 7 p.m. game will now be Scott Kaplan and Billy Ray Smith from 5-9 a.m., Jim Rome from 9 a.m.-noon, Darren Smith from noon-2 p.m. and John Kentera from 2-4 p.m.
The Mets’ Grapefruit League loss to Baltimore Sunday afternoon wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal back in Charm City, but it might’ve attracted less attention than usual. As the New York Post’s Bart Hubbach explains, O’s fans following the contest on the radio might well have believed the game was rained out (link culled from Baseball Think Factory)
The Orioles’ flagship radio team of Joe Angel (above) and Fred Manfra quietly left the stadium here today during a 90-minute rain delay and didn’t come back for the final eight innings, telling their bosses at 105.7 The Fan in Baltimore that the game had been canceled.
“Yes, the rest of the game was not on the air back home and we don’t know why,” a baffled Orioles PR rep said later. “We looked over during the game and they weren’t there.”
What if, for example, All-Star reliever George Sherrill — who ended up pitching this afternoon when the game resumed — had hurt himself?
All you would-be announcers might want to get your resume tapes ready, because there could be an opening or two in Baltimore very shortly.
The Baltimore Sun’s Ray Frager took the time to contact Angel, who insists the decison to vacate the premises was made by his radio paymasters (”Fred Manfra and I would much rather have preferred to stay and finish
the broadcast after the rain delay”). Angel’s version of events has been corroborated by Dave Labrozzi of CBS Radio, so perhaps those audition tapes Hubbach refers to might well be sent elsewhere.
If arrogance were indeed the taproot, the message to ESPN from fans would be simple: “Get over yourselves, it’s not all about you.” And the solution would be as simple as ESPN asking the loudest and most self-smitten of its many personalities to tone it down.
In a previous column, I wrote, “The endlessly swirling synergy of events programming continuously reinforced by pre- and post-event shows, by preseason and postseason shows, by news shows that cover those events and by opinion shows that derive their topics from those events is a business model both extremely effective and extremely transparent.”
I would like to revise that statement by deleting “extremely effective.” We now know that any business model based on the assumption the rich can get endlessly richer is bound to implode.
That is why, when searching for the taproot of discontent within those 30,000 messages, I settled upon the excesses of coverage that provoke fans to send me their virtual shouts of “MAKE IT STOP. PLEASE. IT’S TOO MUCH.” Those viewers are sounding a potentially empire-saving alarm.
What’s the one last message I want to leave ESPN? I guess it would have to be: Don’t be so predictable. Subtext: Stop trying to make the publicity-rich ever richer. Spread the wealth around before fans turn on ESPN the way investors have turned on bankers.
Remember to read this while shouting at the top of your lungs so you can sound as obnoxious as Jordan:
“He has the nerve, LT, to come out and say, ‘We’ve done a lot of stuff here.’ Well, what have you done here, LT? … What stuff have you done here? What stuff? What stuff, if it’s all about winning? You tell me, LT. You’ve done nothing here. Nothing. I don’t care about your MVP. I don’t care about you breaking the touchdown record. Get us a Super Bowl. That’s all I care about.”
– Then, in a reference to the Thanksgiving turkey giveaway that LT hosts every year for needy families in San Diego County, Jordan said, “I’m listening to Mama LT this morning with Scott (Kaplan) and BR (Billy Ray Smith) – and God bless them, too, bringing up the turkeys again … do me a favor, stick the turkeys up your (bleep). I don’t care about the turkeys. I don’t care about your charity.”
Later he also said Tomlinson could “stick the community” in the same place as the turkeys.
At the station, where morale has plunged since Hal Brown gave the Bozos a show, employees were besieged with calls and e-mails. Several listeners sent copies of their e-mails to me, and some threatened never to use the product of a station sponsor as long as these guys are at XX.
The most popular question, however, has been a version of this: What can we do to get these guys off the air?
They’ve done it themselves. Maybe, just maybe, it’s for good.
From 
