Watchdog

As wonderful as Whitney Houston's traditional take on the national anthem was at Super Bowl XXV (see post below), the most famous - or infamous - rendition ever performed at a sports event was Jose Feliciano's 40 years ago at the World Series in Detroit.

From a 21st century perspective, it's hard to believe what a controversy this caused.

If it were performed today, it would be considered creative and unusual and haunting, but certainly respectful.

I've been busy being on vacation and not watching baseball, but fortunately my friend/competitor Richard Sandomir at the Times followed up on the big Joe Buck unpleasantness of earlier this week since I was unavailable. That's why I recommend the Times as an occasionally useful second read after you have enjoyed your morning Newsday.

Here is that story.

Joe says he loves baseball and regularly takes his daughters to Cardinals games. Not on school nights, I hope!

The other day I viewed a fascinating production called "Base Ball Discovered" from MLB.com in which the producers put a few more nails in the coffin of the Abner Doubleday myth and trace the origins of the sport to several games still played in modern-day England, as well as to a journal from the mid-18th century.

The film debuted at the SABR convention in Cleveland last week, but the trouble is it doesn't have a distribution plan quite yet. It seems like a natural for the new MLB-owned channel set to launch in January.

I'll keep you posted.

The writer/director/producer is Sam Marchiano, daughter of Sal and a member of the famous New York Newsday part-time staff in Kew Gardens in the late 1980s, which produced numerous future sports journalism standouts.

I must admit, this job has been educational.

Take "noodling." I had no idea what it was until I was asked to review "Okie Noodling II," which will be out on DVD July 12 and be shown on MavTV later this summer.

The film features Bradley Beesley revisiting the subculture he profiled earlier this decade, in which people in Oklahoma and other nearby states catch fish barehanded. This often involves large catfish, and often involves painful bites on hands and fingers.

Is it worth watching? Sure, why not? But it makes more sense as a TV show than a DVD purchase, at least for we city (and suburban) folk.

I once caught a cockroach barehanded in Astoria. I don't think that sport has a name or a DVD attached to it. Yet.

Long Island's own Eric (Badlands) Booker recently won the New Jersey hot dog eating contest to warm up for the big one in Coney Island Friday.

The news regarding the latter is that the time limit has been trimmed from 12 minutes to the old-school 10 this year, which should make Joey Chestnut's quest to repeat as champ slightly less disgusting.

Interesting TV/radio/blogosphere debate going on today in the wake of comments by Fox's Joe Buck in which he expresses his ambivalence about following baseball in its current state.

Awful Announcing follows that up with Skip Bayless' take on the situation.

With Buck set to call Bosox-Yanks this weekend, following up with him on this would have been a slam-dunk column for the Friday newspaper.

Two things, though:

1. I'm on vacation, and thus will not be writing a Friday newspaper column.

2. I agree with much of what he said, and now I don't have to write that and get all of Baseball City mad at me.

Whew. (Let's keep reason No. 2 just between us, OK?)

Fans of the landmark series "When It Was a Game'' a decade ago will find much to enjoy in FSN's new series "Baseball's Golden Age,'' which debuts Sunday night and has a similar look and feel to the original.

That's because it was produced by some of the same people as "When It Was a Game,'' which was built around color home movies from the 1920s through the '60s. It provided an entirely new way of experiencing that era for generations who only knew those players and stadiums in black-and-white.

Steven Stern, who heads Flagstaff Films, said this 13-episode show focuses more on particular subjects and offers more details. The vast majority of footage has not been seen before.

I only reviewed the first episode. The pictures are fantastic, as always, but too often the narration and interviews offer baseball-worship generalities rather than information on the film we actually are watching.

Still, this stuff is a treasure both for the aging generations who watched that era live and in color, and those under AARP age who did not.

Holy Heilman!

The June page views are out, and I again am humbled and honored by your support.

I'm not allowed to share exact numbers, probably to avoid bumming out Glauber, but for the second month in a row, WatchDog set a new record for the blog and led all sports blogs.

We finished second overall to Walt Handelman's cartoon powerhouse.

Other sports blogs that had their best month were high school lax, golf, boxing, outdoors and Final Score.

Vacations and the slow news months of summer will knock down the numbers in July and August, so I will bask in the glow of May and June for a while.

I don't make a dime from this, so your interest is my payment. Thanks. Next time, send cash.

As usual, here is the vacation blogging plan:

I'm not giving it up cold turkey, but I will not be on the usual pace. Just enough posts to let you know I'm still here so you don't drift away for good to our many other fine sports blogs.

Thanks for reading and for the feedback over the past 14 months.

It's been fun. Mostly.

Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez were unimpressed with Jose Reyes' behavior in the seventh inning Sunday after his errant throw failed to find its way into Carlos Delgado's first baseman's mitt.

Here is what they said on Ch. 11 in the top of the seventh:

Cohen: Reyes has taken his glove off and is standing hands on hips out there, with the glove on the ground. That's something you don't like to see. That's not a good look.

Hernandez: Well, he's got to get over that. Enough babying going on now. He's a grown man, he's been around a long enough time. Take off the kid gloves.

Here is what they said in the bottom of the seventh, following a shot of Reyes picking up his glove and sunglasses after throwing them to the ground, then trotting slowly off the field:

Hernandez: There's one thing you have to do when you're an everyday player. It's not that tough. You run onto the field, and you run off of the field, to start the inning and at the end of the inning, no matter if you hit a triple with the bases loaded or you made an error or you struck out. It's a simple thing to do, just run off the field, don't walk off the field. Nothing looks worse than a team walking off a field.

Cohen: The question is, what was he upset about? Was he upset about making the bad play or about the fact the error was charged to him?

Hernandez: I will give him the benefit of the doubt that he's mad at himself. I'm hopeful that that's what it is.

TBS sent an interesting comment from Ron Darling off today's Yanks-Mets tilt, which viewers in the New York area didn't hear, because TBS' telecast was blacked out here:

On Carlos Beltran being a New York type of player:

“I don’t know if there are New York kind of players anymore because this is a tough town and you’re going to catch a lot of criticism. Also, people don’t begrudge the big contracts of athletes, but they do feel as though that when you sign a player to a historical kind of contract they want that player to be a ‘get dirty’ kind of guy, a leader kind of guy, a vocal kind of person, and Carlos is none of those things. He’s an excellent player, great athlete, but would prefer to be left alone. He’s more Greta Garbo than Big League Star.”

I promise Newsday will be writing much more about PSLs as the Giants reveal more specifics and the Jets inevitably announce they will sell them, too.

But the Giants' announcement didn't come down until late Thursday, and I'm on hiatus for now so I didn't have time to properly tie it all together this week. It's too complicated a subject to cover simply by allowing incensed fans to vent for 750 words in the Sunday newspaper, so I restricted myself to a small comment at the end of my column.

On the other hand, blogs are an excellent place for venting! So to keep everyone busy for now, click below for a sampling from the first round of angry e-mails I received. I am presenting them without names, because I have not had the chance to verify their identities, but I'm only using the ones that at least seem legit.

For more angry fan comments, see my several previous posts on the subject, including the first one.

Keep in mind there are other sides to this. Many in the (relatively) cheap seats are relieved they only will be charged $1,000 for the right to keep buying tickets. And many who have been shut out of season tickets for decades by entrenched, multi-generation subscribers are pleased they might finally get their shot now, a view reflected in e-mail No. 2 below.

My question: Remind me why we needed a new stadium in the first place, when the one that currently stands is a fine place to watch a football game, even if it isn't a fine place to stroll around in wide concourses and spend money in expensive bars and restaurants?

Continue reading "Many Giants/Jets fans not fans of personal seat licenses" »

Given all the unpleasantness this past week with the Mike Francesa/Chris Russo feud and the Giants' announcement that PSLs are on the way, wouldn't it be nice to send myself off on a brief hiatus with a heartwarming Sunday newspaper column about a father and son working in the sports media business, one in the Evil Empire, one in New York?

I thought it would.

If you had been watching the series "Playing for Peanuts" on SNY, you aren't anymore. The producer has pulled it in a dispute with the channel over its lack of promotion for the show.

SNY says as a matter of policy it does not promote any "barter shows" - shows in which air time is given free to a producer in return for programming. It also says that "Playing for Peanuts" was given more exposure than any previous barter show in SNY history.

(By the way, the team and league depicted in the series no longer are operational.)

SNY garnered Friday comment contest honors during Game 1 Friday (see two posts down), then wrapped up the twin bill by mentioning moi in Game 2!

Click below for a transcript of Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez after a shot of WFAN's Mike Francesa watching from behind home plate in the seventh inning.

Note what sounds like it might be a shot from Darling at Michael Kay's frantic 1050 ESPN/YES work schedule.

Unless I'm imagining things . . .

Continue reading "Mike Francesa, Chris Russo saga comes up on SNY" »

Here are two things that have nothing to do with sports, but I'm on vacation so I'm allowed to write about whatever I want:

1. NBC is replaying the debut episode of "Saturday Night Live" from Oct. 11, 1975, tonight, in honor of the late George Carlin, who hosted. (Bonus WatchDog kudos to the first person who can say what is factually incorrect in the previous sentence.)

2. I know there is a separate category for animated best picture these days, but I saw "Wall-E" today and it should be a candidate for THE Best Picture of 2008.

Thanks for your patience with non-sports matters.

I spent all day waiting for the perfect Friday comment contest winner to drop into my lap to properly wrap up an eventful week of news about Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, Michael Strahan and Jeremy Shockey, Bob Papa and the NFL Network, etc.

Not to mention send me out in style for a bit of time off.

It arrived in the top of the seventh inning of Game 1 of the Mets-Yankees double dip, after the SNY announcers discussed what a nice job Alex Rodriguez is doing playing third base.

Take it away, Gary Cohen:

"Of course the thing that the Yankees never talk about is the fact that A-Rod is still twice the shortstop that Jeter is, but you're not allowed to say that here."

Yikes! Fightin' words!

Someone tell Michael Kay to compare A-Rod and David Wright tonight. See ya.

All kinds of stuff going on at Deadspin this Friday afternoon for Will Leitch's farewell.

A new editor (A.J. Daulerio)! An interview with Buzz Bissinger! Assorted tributes to Will!

Too much for individual links. Just go over and check it out if you are interested.

Good night, sweet sports blogosphere prince.

For the first time ever, no reader earned bonus kudos for identifying the sports figure in a picture.

I must be even older than I thought.

This guy used to be the fastest man in the world!

Sorry for the interruption. I'll write my Sunday newspaper column now. You can go back to reading the Mike Francesa transcript in the post below.

I'll be back later with a Friday comment contest winner . . . if I am properly motivated.

Say something funny, Mike!

Click below for the complete transcript of Mike Francesa's on-air remarks at about 1:25 p.m. Friday, the first time he has offered his take on my story last Sunday that the "Mike and the Mad Dog" show could be through by Labor Day and Chris Russo's comments Monday.

At times Francesa sounded like he was giving the first draft of the show's obituary. Wow.

Like he said . . . should be an interesting summer.

Continue reading "Mike Francesa admits future with Chris Russo is murky" »

Mike just acknowledged on the air that "Mike and the Mad Dog" is at a "crossroad."

Wow. Transcript later.

Patrick Munroe of Greenlawn will be featured on ESPN Monday night as part of the "My Wish" series from the TV network and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

His dream: To meet Smarty Jones. Which he does.

ESPN Radio's Scott Van Pelt on the early carnage at Wimbledon:

"The only American left at Winbledon is Chris Fowler."

Sources deep within ESPN tell me that on the 6 p.m. SportsCenter New York City will be announced as one of 20 finalists for the summertime "TitleTown USA" competition.

The other candidates include Boston (boo!) and Green Bay (which, um, already is Titletown, right?).

Well, it's about time our backwater burg got some national pub! We recently won the Super Bowl! And beat the Packers along the way! So there!

Voting is scheduled for July 24 - 26, after a daily feature on each city from July 4 through 23. The winner will be announced July 27.

(Hey, it beats "Who's Now," last summer's big event.)

I'm telling you right now, New York: Vote for Green Bay, or you are a weenie.