Entries from April 2009

yes, more Penn State stuff…

April 27th, 2009 · No Comments

Penn State is apparently going to be sanctioned by the Rose Bowl for failing to meet contracual agreements regarding media obligations.
From a statement issued by the bowl:
There were two non-compliance matters.  One involved the failure to conduct a pre-game interview with the Game Broadcaster, as required by contract.  The other involved the failure to open […]

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Tags: Dubya · writers · Grandaddy of em all · Rose Bowl · Joe Pa · sportswriting · Penn State · media · dumbness · college football · football

No, Penn State is not playing Pitt

April 20th, 2009 · No Comments

As several Sunday News readers have already pointed out, Pitt was included among Penn State’s 2009 non-conference opponents in my story in yesterday’s paper. It was of course a mistake, and a bizarre one. At one point the story did include a mention of Walt Harris, who was Pitt’s coach the last time it played Penn State, since he’s […]

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Tags: Joe Pa · college football · Penn State · football

Frank Rich…

April 20th, 2009 · No Comments

of the New York Times delivers a dispatch from the frontier of the gay-marriage debate. To summarize: the last (hopefully, maybe) big barricade of American bigotry is slowly, inevitably being knocked down.
No surprise there. The great Nate Silver predicts a majority of Americans will favor gay marriage within the next 10 years or so.
What I was […]

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Tags: the election · Barack Obama · politics · dumbness

Madden-ing

April 17th, 2009 · No Comments

I didn’t enjoy John Madden’s work as much as everyone else apparently did, but he did have an amazing and interesting career.
Many of you are too young to remember Madden as the Oakland Raiders’ coach.
[His career numbers are supposed to be here, in a graphic, via profootballreference.com, but WordPress hopelessly garbled them.]
Anyway, Madden was 71 games […]

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Tags: girth · broadcasting · TV · football

Outta here

April 14th, 2009 · No Comments

You have to start, of course, with The Voice.
A football coach - I think it was his college coach - once famously said of Walter Payton, “What God had in mind there was a football player.”
When He made Harry Kalas, what God had in mind was a broadcaster. Try to hear him in your head […]

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Tags: Harry Kalas · broadcasting · baseball

Gargantuan Monday

April 6th, 2009 · No Comments

This really is one of the best sports days of the year, the culmination of The Madness plus real Opening Day for baseball.
I say real Opening Day because of what an abomination it is that ESPN messes things up by pushing a game to Sunday. This is the day you call in sick (if you work […]

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Tags: pro wrestling · college basketball · Phillies · basketball · baseball

You all know…

April 5th, 2009 · No Comments

what’s happening to the newspaper business. If you want to know why it makes me want to cry, read this.

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Tags: media

NCAA semis live blog

April 4th, 2009 · No Comments

We are live from the living room with a Final Four blog event….
The opening montage - and yes, I forced myself to watch it for you, the home viewer - was relatively inoffensive as such things go. Sorry Mitch Albom, but it seems that Kid Rock is Detroit’s unofficial spokesman.
Yeah, I’m even watching commercials. Is […]

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Tags: college basketball · TV

Billy Packer…. missed?

April 2nd, 2009 · No Comments

I actually thought this would happen. Give credit to Bill Simmons, via one of his maibags, for acknowledging that it has:
Q: Clark Kellogg is talking about baking soda and Jim Nantz has to do everything including telling viewers that Blake Griffin is being doubled every time down the floor. Admit it. You miss me, don’t […]

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Tags: college basketball · TV · media · basketball