COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY - MIKE IN DA - DECEMBER 20, 2010

  

COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY

Written by: Mike in DA
Date posted: 12/20/2010

SPORTS DEATHS: MARCH - JUNE 2010



MARCH:


9 - Willie Davis, 69, American baseball player (Los Angeles Dodgers), natural causes. 

13 - Cliff Livingston, 79, American football player (N.Y. Giants) and stuntman, complications from LBD (Lewy Body Dementia for the acronym-challenged)) and Parkinson's disease.

11 - Merlin Olsen, 69, American football player (L.A. Rams) and actor (Little House on the Prairie, Father Murphy), mesothelioma.

16 - Billy Hoeft, 77, American Major League Baseball All-Star pitcher. 

APRIL

2 - Mike Cuellar, 72, Cuban Major League Baseball player, stomach cancer.

MAY

6 - Robin Roberts, 83, American baseball pitcher (Philadelphia Phillies), Baseball Hall of Fame inductee, natural causes.

21 - Stan Jones, 78, American football player (Chicago Bears), complications from a stroke.

 

23 - José Lima, 37, Dominican baseball player, heart attack.

JUNE

4 - John Wooden, 99, American basketball player (Purdue, Indianapolis Kautskys) and coach (UCLA, 1948–1975). 

12 - Les Richter, 79, American football player (Los Angeles Rams) and auto racing official, NASCAR head of operations, brain aneurysm.

19 - Manute Bol, 47, Sudanese basketball player and activist, kidney failure and Stevens–Johnson syndrome. 

NICE TRIBUTE TO DON MEREDITH BY FOX!

Last Sunday (12/12) on Fox’s “NFL Sunday” pre-game show, Terry Bradshaw gave a tribute to the late Don Meredith, in which he told of Meredith's spirit and contributions to the broadcasting profession. Then at the end of the tribute, Terry sang "Dandy Don’s" song, "Turn out the lights...." When Terry finished, the studio lights were turned off and Fox went to a commercial.


The tribute was very touching and while the Peanut Gallery often knocks the Fox pre-game show for its wacky approach to football analysis and not holding itself accountable for many of the things said on the show, we congratulate “NFL Sunday” for finally doing something good.

FLUB OF THE DAY!

On the "Colin Cowherd Show" on ESPN Radio (97.5 FM) on Wednesday (12/15), Colin said he had a report that Yankee pitcher, A.J. Burnett, had just gone through a terrible divorce and called Burnett’s wife, Karen, “vindictive and spiteful”.


The Burnetts are still "happily marrried"

Burnett must have either been listening at the time or was advised of Cowherd’s comments and had his agent contact Cowherd to tell him that he was still married. Cowherd then apologized the next day on his show.

The asshole Cowherd said his "report was wrong" and it was his fault, not ESPN's. Cowherd did not say why he didn't bother calling either Burnett or his agent before broadcasting his "report" to check out its accuracy. This wasn't an MLB trade or manager hiring or firing rumor. This was a personal matter.

When ESPN reporters report something, they have a habit of checking it out. However, like many sports talkers, Cowherd doesn’t seem to be held accountable for what he says.

And of course, the Houston Chronicle continues to mess up. They are famous for screwing up scores of high school games, so you might have been surprised if you looked in Sunday's 12/19 Sports on page C9 and saw the following: Second Baptist 70, Westbury Christian 38.

The score was right, but they had the wrong winning team. That's nothing new for Houston's #1 newspaper.

VIDEO: NATE ROBINSON ALMOST KILLS HIMSELF CELEBRATING!

http://www.sportspickle.com/video/4470/nate-robinson-nearly-kills-himself-celebrating

BRONCO FANS APPLY FOR HEAD COACHING POSITION!

These guys look more qualified than Josh McDaniels.

TEXAN FANS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ROOTING FOR DENVER LAST WEEK!



Garrett is all smiles

 Dallas Cowboy coach, Jason Garrett won his first game as an interim-head coach this year; so did Leslie Frazier of the Minnesota Vikings. Last week (12/12), Eric Studesville, who took over for Josh McDaniels in Denver, did not win his first game as interim-head coach of the Broncos, as they got blown out by Arizona, 43-13. That is probably comforting for a bunch of head coaches around the NFL. The NFL is a copycat league; had Studesville won, owners might have spotted a trend there that would not be a welcome sight for coaches with losing or mediocre records. That includes Texans’ coach, Gary Kubiak.

TEXAN INTERVIEW OF THE DAY

Right before the second half of Sunday's Texans game (12/19), sideline reporter, Rich Lord of SR610, asked Houston Texans Coach Gary Kubiak what the Texans needed to do in the second half to get back in the game. Kubiak's insightful response:

"John, err, Rich, we have to move the ball..." Thank you, coach.

ANDRE WARE NEVER LISTENED TO ME!


"Oklahoma all over Texas A&M." Now that makes sense.

Several years ago when Andre Ware was co-host of the "Morning Show" on SR610, I told him that when he gave scores of other games he should not use the phrase "all over", as in "the Steelers all over the Bengals..." unless it was a definite blowout of four TDs or more. That's 28 points for the mathematically-challenged.

On Sunday (12/19) two of Andre's "all overs" were:

"The Giants all over the Eagles at halftime, 24-3." Final score, Eagles 38, Giants 31.

"Baltimore all over New Orleans, 21-7 in the second quarter." New Orleans eventually tied the game at 24 and the Ravens needed two fourth quarter FGs and an interception to pull it out, 30-24.

THIS IS CALLER-DRIVEN RADIO? NUNO FOOLED ME AGAIN!

On Sunday night's "Nuno Show" (KGOW 1560, 7-11 pm Sunday through Thursday) with Marcus Coleman co-hosting, Nuno started off the show saying it will be a caller-driven show. Since I enjoy caller-driven shows, I thought, "Show me, don't tell me."

Nuno should ask Santa for callers.

So I spent four hours listening to his show to see how truthful Nuno was. That's four hours of my life I'll never get back, as the clock is ticking on me. I would have been better off spending quality time with my daughter by watching "Grease" and  "Miracle on 34th Street" on the tube. During the show, there were only two calls from listeners:

At 8:03, Luke called in to ask Marcus something about soccer. With all the noise in the background at the remote, all I could get from the call that it was about Manchester and Chelsea (I think) and I didn't understand Marcus' response.



Dylan Gwinn's show is "caller-driven".

 At 10:39, "Freaky Deaky" called in to complain about the Texans, saying he's finished with the Texans. At this rate, Reliant Stadium should be only 2/3's full next season and Texan paraphernalia sales should be down by 50% next season. Then Freaky asked why the high school football playoffs aren't played in Houston. His call went on for almost five minutes and it was a passionate call, but a good call at 10:39 PM on a Sunday night cannot carry a "caller-driven" show. The night guys on SR610 can handle two-to-three dozen calls in a four-hour span, depending on the number of guests.

As the Jewish Defense League once said, "Never again." Now I know why Craig Shelton told me to never review Nuno's show because it would be ripped to shreds.






USELESS GRAPHICS CONTINUE TO FILL THE SCREEN!

One of my pet peeves here is the ridiculous number of graphics on the TV screen that are basically meaningless, which shows that certain network employees have a lot of time on their hands, so they look for things to report on graphics. 



Last Sunday night on NBC’s Sunday Night Football (SNF) game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Dallas Cowboys there was a graphic that showed that the best winning percentage against the Cowboys by a coach belongs to the Browns' Blanton Collier, who coached Cleveland in the 1960’s. Did it matter that the Cowboys, a 1960 expansion team, didn't have a winning season until 1966? NBC didn't care.

Wally Lemm

Then there was the graphic "Midseason Replacement Coaches, Most Points Scored In Four Games." The top three leaders: Houston's Wally Lemm, 1961; Raymond Berry, 1984 Patriots, then Jason Garrett, the current Dallas coach who replaced Wade Phillips. This was another one of those look-hard stats that have nothing to do with anything.

Once again, imagine the meaningless research that went into this; then someone had to approve this info to be entered into the data bank and then passed on to NBC's national audience.




1960 WORLD SERIES GAME #7 WAS DEFINITELY A CLASSIC IN MORE WAYS THAN JUST BEING AN EXCITING GAME!

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned here that last Wednesday, 12/15, the MLB Network would air Game #7 of the 1960 World Series between the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates. It was one of the most exciting games ever and was ended by Bill Mazeroski’s ninth-inning homer, a 10-9 Pirate win. (If you’re not familiar with that series, you can read about it using Wikipedia.)

As mentioned in that previous blog, the game took 2:36 though there were 19 runs scored, 24 hits, and seven pitching changes. That was baseball the way it should be played and the broadcast is the way a game should be broadcast.

During Game #7, there were no ridiculous on-screen graphics like today. The TV screen was not cluttered with graphics. Can you imagine what my 10-inch or 17-inch screen would have looked like with today's graphics?


(Talking about clutter, for example, last Thursday night (12/16) on the NFLN, during the first quarter of the 49ers-Chargers game, there were 32 plays. During that time, 30 different graphics were posted on the TV screen. That doesn’t include the score, time, and down and distance graphics. Many of them contained unnecessary and needless information.)

Getting back to Game #7, though Pittsburgh is a blue-collar town, many of the male fans in the crowd wore ties and jackets and many of the female fans wore dresses. The fans sitting behind home plate did not wave to the TV cameras and since there were no cell phones then, there were no people speaking into them.

There were no “Yankees Suck” chants or hand-made signs mocking any of the players. There were no shots of the crowd after every other pitch in the exciting late innings of the game. The cameras were focused on the field and dugouts and the game was played in sunlight.

When players hit home runs, they weren’t able to shake hands with the first base coach because they were already on their way to second when the ball went over the wall and the batters stayed in the batter’s box between pitches.

And last but not least, there was one announcer at a time. Bob Prince of the Pirates announced half of the game and Mel Allen of the Yankees announced the other half. That’s one man in the booth instead of three guys chattering back and forth with a lot of unnecessary info. There was no off-field baseball reporter roving around the stadium putting in his or her two-cents. There were no cuts to the studio telling the audience to stay tuned for the post-game show.


I'm sure you get the picture by now. Things were much more simpler then and a lot less costly and the games were just as well-played, if not better than they are today.

A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FROM BRETT FAVRE!

ODDS AND ENDS:

1. The New York Knicks played two home games (12/15 and 12/17) this past week on ESPN. Of course, Spike Lee was there in his usual courtside seat acting like a shmuck. If I behaved at any game like Spike Lee behaves at Knicks games, I’d be arrested and banned from whatever arena in which I acted like that. If you don’t believe me, try it yourself next time you go to a game.

2. Big Ten Legends Division member, Michigan, may have lost one of its top 2011 recruits when prep receiver, Michael Tyrell, announced he instead will play for Illinois of the Leaders Division. “Much of being a legend is about fame,” said Tyrell. “And while that’s great, fame doesn’t necessarily leave a positive impact on the world. Leaders do. So I wanted to play for a team that is associated with leaders. Let those other teams worry about being legends.”

3. Last Thursday night, I was in the car listening to Westwood One’s Thursday Night Football game on SportsRadio610 between San Diego and San Francisco. With about five minutes left in the game and the Chargers up 34-0, one of the announcers said that if the Chargers shut out the 49ers, they would be the first team since the 1985 Chicago Bears to pitch two shutouts in a row by scoring 30 or more points. He then mentioned that it’s an honor to be in the same class as the 1985 Bears. Was this clown really comparing the Chargers defense to the 1985 Bears that went 15-1 and won the Super Bowl and gave up an average of 12.4 ppg? A minute later, the 49ers marched down the field and avoided the shutout. Good! Now I won’t have to hear any longer that the Charger defense is being compared to that of the 1985 Bears.




MIKE IN DA



HMW


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