Monday, August 23, 2010

COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY - MIKE IN DA - AUGUST 23, 2010


COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY!

Written by: Mike in DA
Date posted: 8/23/2010

LAS VEGAS: COWBOYS AND SAINTS ARE PLAYOFF BOUND!

On Saturday (August 21), we looked at Las Vegas' early line at which AFC teams had the best chances to make it to the playoffs. Now we look at the NFC teams.




The most recent (August 20) Over/Under Win futures from my bookie for the 2010 NFL season show that the Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints are favored to win their respective divisions, as follows:


NFC EAST:


Dallas Cowboys - 9.5 wins
New York Giants - 8.5 wins
Philadelphia Eagles - 8.5 wins
Washington Redskins - 7.5 wins


NFC South:


New Orleans Saints - 10.5 wins
Atlanta Falcons - 9 wins
Carolina Panthers - 7.5 wins
Tampa Bay Buccaneers - 5.5 wins


For what it’s worth and it could be very little, below are the 2010 Over/Under number of wins for other NFC teams that would be joining the Cowboys, Saints and Falcons in the playoffs using the Vegas figures:


Green Bay Packers - 9.5 wins
Minnesota Vikings - 9.5 wins
San Francisco 49ers - 8.5 wins


At year-end, we’ll see how reliable these numbers were. Stay tuned!


As far as the AFC and NFC Championship Games are concerned, the Cowboys will be favored over the Saints and the Colts over the Chargers with the Colts favored to beat the Cowboys in Super Bowl 45 (aka XLV for you Romans out there).

But these are all guesses. That’s why they play the games and why we watch and bet them.


SHUTOUT MARATHONERS: “WHERE IS WAYNE DOLCEFINO WHEN YOU NEED HIM?!”

You'll never hear marathon talk on local sports talk radio except maybe for the days around the event, so HMW will fill the void here.


As mentioned here in the August 7 article, “THANKS A LOT, HOUSTON MARATHON!”  (http://sheltonmedia.blogspot.com/2010/08/thanks-lot-houston-marathon-mike-in-da.html), the lottery winners for entrance in the annual Chevron Houston Marathon and Aramco Houston Half Marathon to be held on January 30, 2011, were announced last Tuesday (August 17).


In the past, it was first come, first serve to get into the race(s). But now to get entered in the race, you needed some luck because due to an increasing demand over the past several years, race officials for the first time used a lottery to select runners for the two races.


Over 29,000 people registered for the race(s) during the registration period, but since the total field is limited to 22,000 entrants (11,000 for each respective race), there are a whole lot of pissed-off local people out there. Based on past experience, roughly 85% of entrants in the races held since Year 2000 are from the Houston metropolitan area, therefore approximately 6,000 local people were shut out, many of whom work and pay taxes in the area.


I’m sure there is a lot of complaining going on to the Houston Marathon Board (HMB) and it will soon realize how many people they have ticked off. This HMB decision has messed with runners, running groups, and very possibly screwed with the warm-up series.


HMB created this hype two years ago and now its computers cannot handle the masses, so the little people/taxpayers get screwed once again.


So what else is new? Let’s see if the HMB will rectify things next year. If enough people make a stink, a change can be affected, but runners just like sports fans are sheepish and more talk than action!

SPORTSRADIO  610 ULTIMATE NAME DROPPER CONTEST HAS A WINNER, FINALLY!


















I don't know Dana White from Dana Andrews, Dana Plato, or Bill Dana, but I was told that Dana White won the SR 610 "Ultimate Name Dropper Contest".


For several weeks, there were promos publicizing this contest and talk hosts were urging listeners to hook up their celebrity friends/acquaintances with their  respective shows. They made it sound like it was going to be a great event with a plethora of A-list actors, famous athletes, rappers/singers, etc. calling in.

I never heard of Dana White, until I googled his name. I'm not a follower of the Ultimate Fighting Championship of which Mr. White is the president, so I have a reason why I never heard of him. I'm sure a lot of others have never heard of him, so I don't think his name will ever be on a list of "ultimate names".

But if he is the best that the thousands of listeners to SR 610 brought to the table, it is a big disappointment. 

If I had known that SR 610 was going to go so low on the fame meter for a winner, I would have asked the Gaza Stripper to call in. She would have been a surefire winner.











FLUB OF THE DAY

Sometimes hosts have trouble with schedules. Schedules are all over the Internet - cbssports.com, espn.com, nfl.com, etc., so there's no reason to mess up dates.

On Saturday afternoon (August 21), while doing a show mostly on college football, hosts Mike Meltser and Brien Straw disagreed as to when the college football season will start. One (I think it was Brien) said in three weeks and Mike (?) in two weeks, which is correct. Mike then said that college football starts in two Saturdays at 11 AM. Wrong!  The games actually start on the Thursday night before, as they have been for years now. 25 FBS Division teams open their season on that night, including Marshall at Ohio State, Southern Miss at South Carolina, Minnesota at Middle Tennessee, Northern Illinois at Iowa State, FAU at UAB, Pittsburgh at Utah, and USC at Hawaii. 

Then on Monday night (August 23), Barry Warner on SR 610 was talking about the last Texan exhibition game vs. Tampa Bay at Reliant Stadium. He said the stadium will have plenty of empty seats on the night of September 4. Wrong! On that night, Rice plays Texas at Reliant Stadium ("not because they are easy but because they are hard"). Barry should have known that the NFL never plays Saturday/Sunday games during the last week of the exhibition season. The Tampa Bay-Texan game is actually on Thursday, September 2. But Barry was half right. There should be a lot of empty seats.

HANG ‘EM HIGH!




Roger Clemens might think that being in a jam was facing Albert Pujols with the bases loaded and nobody out late in a tie game of the last game of the World Series. Compared to the jam Clemens might be in with the federal government, the former is a "piece of cake".

Last week, the moment the Roger Clemens indictment made the news, there were callers to local sports talk shows who said the following, “Doesn't the government have anything better to do with its time and our tax money? We all know many baseball players were juiced?"


But the more logical of us recognize that perjury is a charge that must be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter what the reason for it was. In our country, lying under oath is a serious crime. There are no two ways about it. Our whole trial system is based on it.


Clemens was an employee of a big business, which has been granted antitrust waivers by the government. The business was full of fraud in the past decade or so. In effect, it honored and rewarded cheaters. And the people who ran the business closed their eyes on this, as the cash registers were filling up.


Though you may disagree with it, Clemens' indictment on perjury and other charges is what many of us were expecting following Clemens’ performance in front of the Congressional committee in 2008. That trip to Washington, DC, by Clemens turned out to be a circus when Clemens made a tour of the offices of many of the committee members. He shook hands, posed for pictures, signed autographs, etc. with the Congressmen and their staffs.


Clemens was soliciting votes because he was desperate. Even Clemens' defense seemed to rest on the fact that he's Roger Clemens, baseball superstar, as opposed to being rational.


We were told Roger's trainer, Brian McNamee, had zero credibility? If that's the case, then why did Clemens allow McNamee, not a doctor, to inject him and his wife, Debbie, with anything?


The Clemens indictment is an indictment of Major League Baseball across its highest levels. Every clean player who tried to make it and failed, or just barely made it in MLB, or made it big the legitimate way, should find some satisfaction here. So, too, should those fans who prefer players playing clean vs. “juiced”.

FROM THE MAILBAG:


Mr. Anonymous left a comment regarding Lamont Mann’s article of June 9 entitled, "HE IS BIG TIME NOW JOSH “PRIME TIME THE KING” INNES"  (http://sheltonmedia.blogspot.com/2010/07/he-is-big-time-now-josh-prime-time-king.html):


"Josh was the biggest joke in the history of Baton Rouge sports radio, and that’s saying a lot. He only gets jobs because his dad is a longtime FM radio hack so he gets his fat son gigs at sister stations or with guys he's worked with 20 years ago. The only thing worse than Josh's morning zoo sense of humor is his sports knowledge. He knows about 3 things involving St. Louis sports that his grandmother told him and the rest he just makes up on the fly.”













On Sunday (August 22), HMW wished former program director at SportsRadio 610, Bill van Rysdam, a happy birthday and Mr. Anonymous left a comment:


"Bill after your KILT departure, Sports Talk Radio has not been the same. 610 AM is full of college frat boys with no clue about sports. They are much more rude and arrogant. I can only imagine how things would be if Bill coached KGOW. Happy Birthday Bill”


Jonathan left comments in response to Lamont’s article of August 22 entitled, "610 AM (KILT) PRE GAME AND POST GAME SHOW" (http://sheltonmedia.blogspot.com/2010/08/610-am-kilt-pre-game-and-post-game-show.html):


"You can't get real opinions from 610. Too biased, but to be expected as they are the home for the Texans. I mean, I heard Andre Ware last night after the game: "They were just tired. You can't learn much from this game, just toss it in the garbage." Really?! Toss it aside and act like it never happened? I try to stay middle-grounded if you will. 610 is biased and speaks on behalf of the Texans and then after a loss, some of the callers are way out there like I heard this morning, "I'm not sure they'll even win a game. They'll have a hard time doing that" or "I only see them winning 5 games this year". I don’t know about that, but it’s a bit disheartening to see the starters get dominated on both sides of the ball. It reminded me of the first 3 games last season except we had (Bernard)Pollard this time. And not sure how much I should read into Mario Williams and Matt Schaub's comments: Mario Williams: ‘We just didn't come out tonight with a sense of urgency’. Matt Schaub: ‘I know a lot of us here in the locker room feel we could have had more intensity.’ Whatever the case is, better get things corrected and fixed before Week 1!”


HMW

Email: houstonmediawatch@yahoo.com
Blog: http://www.houstonmediawatch.com/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lesbiancraig
Facebook: Hmw Shelton

2 comments:

Earlis said...

Ok Mike maybe that explains it hmmmm
I love Barry but he is always gushin about how
Josh is gonna change the face of sportstalk radio
he just bubbles over talking about the bright future
of Josh Innes... I don't see it...maybe Barry
worked with Josh's dad..hmmm
I swear all these young and dumb sportstalk
guyz runnin around H-Town it's enough to make me wanna move to
Cleveland!

Jonathan said...

Hey, thanks for the "shoutout" Mike. But I was gonna say, how dare you correct Barry Warner! "The legend" knows everything! Luckily for you, you're Mike in DA and he takes your word on things and will let you get your 2 cents in. Otherwise, if you try to call in and correct these guys or disagree with their take(especially Brien and Mike), they'll drop you.