Billy Paultz Reconsidered

Here’s Sunday’s column about Tiger.
There’s a common contention in the media that golf would die of public indifference sans Eldrick. Nonsense. This nonsense comes from a persistent source, the TV Nielsen ratings, which are largely crap even when not mis- and over-used to the point of absurdity.
There’s an AP story here that illustrates my […]

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5:20 p.m.- We’re about an hour away from Supe XV-whatever the hell. Live from the living room at the Gross family compound. We’re watching the LA Open because my dad is here and he’s all about golf, and because there’s only so much pre-game hype/analysis/color/pageantry/Shannon Sharpe’s necktie a body can stand.
I had a column on […]

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7:00 p.m.- We are live from the sofa for the NBA draft. Everyone in my family is staring silently at a screen right now- but it’s four different screens in four different parts of the house. A real Norman Rockwell tableux.
By all accounts this draft is mediocre or worse, but the dealing of veteran players is […]

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Here’s a list of the NBA’s all-time top 50 players by Slam magazine. It’s easy to quibble and there are one or two obvious howlers (Dennis Rodman but not Bill Walton or Pete Maravich?) but overall, it’s a better list than I expected. Dissent welcome.
As of Wednesday night, the “aftershow” part of Artie Lange’s hideous/spectacular performance […]

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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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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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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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Caught Fox World Series duo Joe Buck and Tim McCarver on “Pardon the Interruption,” tonight. Kornheiser/Wilbon asked them if they thought the way Tuesday night played out was a disadvantage to the Phillies.
They scoffed, McCarver asserting some nonsense about how, if anything, it disadvantaged the Rays, since scoring that run in the sixth involved B.J. Upton […]

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The plan for tonight had been to do a full-blown live blog for the all-star game, but there’s a bit too much chaos at chez Gross (involving an ink stain; don’t ask) for that to be practical. So we’ll just watch the game and jump in from time to time.
Meanwhile, in other news:
One of the many excellent […]

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The guy’s been broadcasting college hoops since well before John Wooden quit coaching it. I don’t hate Packer, which evidently makes me a cult of one. Deadspin, in its’ understated fashion, today referred to him as ”The Archangel of Death.”
We can assume Phil Martelli and Dick Jerardi shared a long, tearful, celebratory hug. Maybe still are. And they aren’t […]

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