COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY - MIKE IN DA - MAY 7, 2010

THE DERBY HAD SOME STIFFS!
Written by: Astro Mike Ganis aka Mike In DA
Date of post: Saturday, May 8, 2010

There were entrants in the Kentucky Derby whose only chance to win was if the sniper from the 1956 movie, “The Killing” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiDUFG56wT4) starring Sterling Hayden, took down 18 of the 20 entrants on the backstretch. Those horses are there only as ego trips for their owners and to get in the way of any late running horse that might have a shot at hitting the tote board. Handicapping a field of 20 horses on the track is neither art nor science; it is blind luck.

NCAA TOURNEY ADDS THREE MORE GAMES – WHY?

In the expansion of the NCAA Tournament from 65 teams to 68 teams resulting in a play-in game in each bracket, the NCAA announced that they want the play-in games to have “more significance”. When you are talking about adding the 66th through 68th best teams in the country to a “lose-and-your-out” tournament format, the play-in games will not be significant or compelling or noteworthy. If those games make it all the way up to the level of  “mildly interesting”, the NCAA should be tickled pink.

ANOTHER MEANINGLESS BOWL GAME?

Mentioned on most of the local talk shows last week was the expansion of the number of football bowl games to 35. The folks who run that system recognized that it was not a certainty every season to have 70 teams with a minimum 6-6 record to fill out the all the games, so, they changed the rules allowing teams with 5-7 records to play in bowl games. So, prepare yourself for a bowl game where one team is 5-7 going into the game and the opponent is 6-6. After the 5-7 team miraculously upsets the 6-6 team, you will have the situation where both teams in a bowl game will have losing records when the game is over. When that happens, it is suggested that that Bowl Game should be known forevermore as the Meaningless Bowl or Irrelevant Bowl or maybe even the Toilet Bowl.

INDIAN FANS ARE THE WORST? ASTRO FANS MAY BE CATCHING UP IN THAT CATEGORY!
The Night Shift on Sportsradio610 on Thursday (April 29) reported that according to a Wall Street Journal article, someone took a survey and found that the most hated team in MLB was the Cleveland Indians. WTF? How can baseball fans “hate” a team that is irrelevant and has been irrelevant for the vast majority of the last four decades with the exception of several years in the 90’s? Here is yet one more reason why the WSJ should stick to reporting business news.

WASHINGTON, DC: COULD THIS BE THE NEW “CHOKE CITY”?
Last week, the Montreal Canadiens eliminated the Washington Capitals from the Stanley Cup playoffs. At the end of the NHL regular season, the Capitals had the best record in the league and had scored the most goals in the league by a 46-goal margin over the second-place scoring team, the Vancouver Canucks. The Caps had led the series, 3-1, and then lost three straight games. This has happened before; It is the sixth time in the last 25 years that the Caps have come from 3-1 ahead to lose a Stanley Cup playoff series. That’s how teams get reputations as “chokers”.

TAKING SOME OF THE FUN OUT OF THE GAME!
Last week, the NCAA's new, harsher football rules were discussed on local sports talk. The rules are supposed to cure football players of taunting and showboating when, from the moment they watched their first game on TV, immodest, antisocial behavior was presented as the way football is played? How do you return people to places they've never been?

Verizon recently launched a TV ad made up of 16 highlights from NFL games - every one of a player performing a dance, as if that's how football is played. Do you think Verizon's execs would encourage their kids to play ball that way?

IT COULD BE ROMO TO SICKO FOR A TOUCHDOWN!

In the NFL Draft, there was a TE from the University of New Hampshire named Scott Sicko. What a cool name for a football player. Sicko went undrafted and planned to go to grad school rather than sign on with an NFL team. He changed his mind last week and signed with the Cowboys. That gives the Cowboys a Romo and a Sicko; all they need now is a Groucho, a Chico, and a Harpo.

THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT!

When some baseball players hit a homer and then touch home plate, they point to the Heavens for thanks. If a baseball player is a Satan worshipper, when he crosses home plate after a home run, should he point to the ground?

YOUR WIFE IS SO UGLY, WHEN SHE WALKS INTO THE AIRPORT, THEY TURN OFF THE SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS!

Last week on their website, Sports Talk 790 had a poll for the “Ugliest Athlete” with the usual suspects as contestants. How would 790 like it if someone had an “Ugliest Wife” poll of local Clear Channel Communications employees.

THE MORE THE MERRIER!
Josh Innes has a daily one hour show on SportsRadio610 (10-11 AM). On Wednesday, April 28, he brought up the topic of hazing in sports, which was an offshoot of an AP story of two members of the Indianola (IA) Middle School track team who were charged with assault last week in connection with an alleged hazing incident.

Callers chimed in with either funny or interesting hazing stories either in their lives or the life of someone they knew. It was a lot of fun. So why did Josh go in another direction in the last and third segment of his show, when it was one of the most entertaining shows he’s had in his short time with SR610. Josh, when you got something good going on your one-hour show, don’t go in another direction. It ruins the momentum.

Likewise, this past Monday night (May 3), Sports Radio 610’s team of Shaun Bijani and N.D. Kalu (pinch hitting for Barry “The Mouth” Warner) had a very entertaining caller-driven show with the topic being two-sport athletes and athletes who became part or full-time actors. The two hosts who are relatively young and far from old-school, did not know some of the old-timers mentioned by callers, such as Babe Didrickson, Gene Conley, Bill Sharman, Bronco Nagurski, etc., but the old-time callers enlightened them. This is what sports talk is all about. The more callers the merrier and the better. It’s a fact of sports-talk life.

THE LESS THE SORRIER!

On the other hand, we have the Sean and John Show on KGOW 1560THEGAME (3-7 PM daily). I was reviewing their show this past Monday and Tuesday (May 3 and 4) and was real disappointed that they hardly took any calls. If the combined Over/Under on calls for these two days was four, the Under was a hands-down winner.

Really, who wants to listen to two local sports talk hosts (three on Tuesday, if you count Richard Justice) talk back and forth for about four hours? Well, at least I don’t. As a result, I graded the show “Incomplete” and will try to listen again sometime down the road when callers are more welcome.

Sean and John are two of the most knowledgeable and intelligent sports talk guys on local radio and I’m sure they do a lot of homework for their show, but when I am having more fun listening to recent sports talk shows hosted by rookie sports talkers named Bijani, Kalu, and Innes, than Sean and John, something is definitely wrong.

And I’m not the only one complaining about Sean and John. On Tuesday afternoon, at 5:45 PM, due to a power failure on the block where KCOH 1430 AM is located, that station was forced to go off the air for 15 minutes or so during the Ralph Cooper Sports Rap show. As a result, the signal from 1560 AM was somehow picked up on 1430 on the radio. That means that Sean and John were being heard in the hood. This led to a barrage of phone calls to 1430 from long-time listeners who complained about Sean and John taking over the 1430 airwaves, though it wasn't any of their doing.

It’s too bad Sean and John aren’t able to listen to Ralph Cooper’s show, which is on the same time as theirs. Ralph's philosophy is to handle calls from listeners – not read stories from the Internet – we can do that ourselves and without the commercials.

Sean had the right idea at about 6:40 on Tuesday when he said that if he was a listener to the show, he would have ditched it long ago. Good advice, so I finally did.

               PUT UP OR SHUT UP 790!

Sports Talk 790 has a promo, in which someone (supposedly a listener) says, “790 is the only legitimate sports station in town”. I wonder what the other three sports stations have to say about that.

ARBITRON CONFIRMS SPORTSRADIO 610 IS STILL THE SPORTS LEADER IN HOUSTON!

According to David Barron of the Houston Chronicle (his April 30 column), the latest Arbitron ratings of the four all-sports stations in the key male 25-54 demographic show KILT (610 AM) continuing to lead in morning drive over KGOW and KFNC (97.5 FM), which are tied for second place, and KBME (790 AM). KFNC is second and KBME third behind KILT in middays, and KFNC is second in afternoon drive behind KILT.

Among persons 12 years-and-older, the only demographic for which Arbitron allows the release of specific numbers, KILT has an average weekly cumulative audience of 185,700 to 144,400 for KBME, 108,500 for KFNC, and 44,400 for KGOW. For comparison purposes, six local stations have more than a million in weekly cumulative listeners, led by KODA (99.1 FM) at 1.9 million. KTRH (740 AM) at 598,800 is the top AM station.

1560 MAKES A STRATEGIC MOVE

On the 1560 KGOW Morning Show last Friday (April 30), co-host John Granato announced that station owner, David Gow, signed a deal to bring Sporting News Radio to Houston. Mr. Gow is now chairman of a newly formed company that will produce and distribute Sporting News network programming. That was a nice move, considering that 1560 has been lagging a little overall behind the other local sports stations, but the jury is out before it gives its verdict on the move. As more info is available on this move, we'll pass it on.

THE OUTDOOR SHOW: A REAL CALLER-DRIVEN SHOW

Captain Mickey Eastman of the SportsRadio 610 Outdoor Show hosts the show Thursday and Friday mornings, 4-6 AM by himself, and on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 4-7 AM with co-host Captain Bennie Hatten. I was a sergeant, so I’m definitely outranked here.

For those who are early-bird challenged, the Outdoor Show is a very informative show that provides seasonal hunting and fishing conditions, news on the latest hunting and fishing gear, current weather forecasts to help its listeners get the most of their outdoor experience, and then there is “Fun Sunday” when anything goes.

On Thursday morning (May 6), over a span of two hours, Captain Mickey fielded more calls than KGOW 1560’s Sean and John Show (3-7 PM daily) did over a period of five days this week (Monday through Friday). Wowwwww!!!

CARLOS Z. TO THE PEN!

Did you notice that Carlos Zambrano – in the middle of his $91.5M contract - has been relegated to be the eighth inning set-up man for the Cubs? The reasoning here is that the Cubs need a way to get from the seventh inning to their closer, Carlos Marmol, in the ninth inning, as the bullpen was not very good at that at the start of the season.

The question is how reliable Zambrano’s replacement in the starting rotation, Ted Lilly, will get the Cubs to the seventh inning with a lead that Zambrano can protect and then hand over to Marmol. This looks like a desperation move to me.

I wonder what all of the fantasy baseball owners who drafted Zambrano in the first round of their fantasy leagues think about this move.

Astro Mike Ganis aka Mike In DA

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