Watchdog

This is almost as good as Tom Brady dissing the Jets (see post below).

Giants linebacker and Howard Stern show intern Antonio Pierce had this to say Tuesday on FSN's "Best Damn Sports Show Period" on the subject of Terrell Owens' sitcom debut Wednesday night on Flavor Flav's "Under One Roof":

"We gave him his first audition. After our game, he was crying and boo-hooing. We started his career. He should thank us.”

Uh, oh. After all that work Tom Coughlin did in improving his news conference demeanor last season, might he be reverting to his old habit of impatiently exaggerating the frequency of redundant questions with which he is presented?

Here he is Friday when asked about Michael Strahan's future:

Q: Do you expect a decision anytime soon?

A: That is the 4,000th time that I have heard that one. It is going to be according – basically when he decides that his term for it is, “Whatever the decision I make I know I am not going to change my mind so therefore I want to be right.”

Well, silly, naive, little old me. I assumed Antonio Pierce being the most Googled term in the world this morning had something to do with Michael Strahan.

It turns out, as several loyal readers have informed me, the real reason is he began an internship on Howard Stern's Sirius Satellite Radio show, during which he will screen callers, fetch coffee and dish locker room dirt - or at least as much of it as Stern can pry out of him.

I assume many of Howard's listeners never had heard of Pierce and were looking up his background. He's a linebacker, and the guy who speculated Strahan is through.

More about the ticket prices at the new Cowboys stadium.

Eventually it will be your turn, Giants and Jets fans.

I had a pleasant chat outside the Yankees dugout before Tuesday night's game with Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. He was there with defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo and other members of Big Blue's staff as guests of manager Joe Girardi.

And what did Gilbride most want to talk to me about? Michael Strahan, of course. Turns out he doesn't know anything more about his plans than you or I do.

Here's a startling illustration of the interest level in Mr. Strahan's near future:

Antonio Pierce speculated about it Tuesday in an interview with WFAN.

This morning, the most popular Google search term IN THE ENTIRE WORLD is "Antonio Pierce," according to Newsday's Web wizards.

Yikes.

The people at "Fox and Friends" are the latest to try to pry something out of Michael Strahan regarding his future.

No dice.

I had an opportunity to chat with Michael Strahan in the green room before "Costas Now" Tuesday night.

This was before he and Chris Russo went at it on the set, and the night before Big Blue visited Mr. Bush at the White House.

(Here is T-Rock on the latter subject, with a transcript of the Rose Garden ceremony.)

Like every reporter who speaks to Strahan these days, I tried to trick him into saying something about his near future.

I reminded him of the bet I made in 2002 with (my possible future teammate) Paul Schwartz of the New York Post that Strahan still would be playing in the league in 2009.

Strahan has been aware of this bet for years. He asked whether it counts if he plays in a playoff game in the calendar year of 2009. It doesn't (I assume) but was that a hint?

Hmm. Strahan would not say.

Even though I'm pretending to be a business writer of sorts these days, I admit this article about financing for the new Giants/Jets stadium might as well be in Swahili for all I understand of it.

But one thing seems clear: This cannot be good for the paying customers who follow the teams and will help pay for the new joint.

Turns out Bill Parcells and Bob Knight are not the only Giants coach/hoops Hall of Famer buddies (see post below).

Tom Coughlin has bonded with a certain former UCLA leader.

What's next? Ray Handley and Coach K?

Speaking of the Cowboys' and Giants/Jets' new stadiums (see post below), here is an interesting story about the financing challenges the teams face in the current environment.

Well, I'm assuming it would be interesting if it were written in English. But I'm sure our many MBA readers will enjoy it.

Bottom line of all this to me: PSLs, here we come!

I've spent the past two years pestering Giants/Jets officials as well as various people in the sports business about the issue of personal seat licenses in the coming new stadium in the Meadowlands, and I consistenly have encountered two things:

No comment from the Giants/Jets and near-unanimous agreement by outsiders that they are certain to use PSLs in some form to help pay for their new football palace.

The New York Times evidently had the same experience, based on a thorough piece on the subject by the venerable former Newsday scribe Richard Sandomir.

Bottom line, people: Time for an important life decision - Jets-Jags in December, or college for the kids.

I'm shocked!

Public Relations 101: Announce price increases on a Friday. In the afternoon. On Good Friday. During the NCAA Tournament.

Here are the numbers:

Sections 301-308, 314-328 and 334-340 will be $80 per seat.
Sections 309-313 and 329-333, as well as 101-107, 115-127 and 135-140 will be $85 a seat.
Sections 108, 114, 128 and 134 will be $90 per seat.
Seats in sections 109, 113, 129 and 133 will be $95 apiece.
Sections 110, 111, 112, 130, 131 and 132 will be $100 per seat.
Mezzanine seats will be $105.

Well, wouldn't you?

Here is his rationale.

I guess I now know whom to talk to about making sure they serve rice pudding in the new Giants/Jets Stadium press box.

There's a new CEO in town.

Congratulations to Tom Coughlin on his lucrative new contract. Well deserved.

I'm such a good sport I will not demand a small stipend for the media relations advice I gave him last February.

I won't even mention it, lest Giants public relations chief Pat Hanlon send me an e-mail filled with words not suited for a family-friendly blog.

The gratitude of Giants fans everywhere is payment enough for me.

That and a small statue in front of the new stadium, depicting me wearing a fedora and holding a notebook in one hand and a bowl of Giants Stadium rice pudding in the other.

With Jeremy Shockey and Michael Strahan lifting me up by their shoulders.

Here is a story about inappropriate dispensing of tickets the Giants donated for charitable purposes to a radio station in the Evil Empire to the north.

Naughty!

Toward the bottom there is a note about NESN's Tina Cervasio, long assumed to be pointing toward a return to the NY area and now evidently headed for MSG.

Brett just said if the Packers win it all next year he could end up "pulling a Tiki Barber."

Wow. Tiki's story now has become part of the sports language.

Jon Bon Jovi is a close friend of Bill Belichick and a lifelong fan of the Giants, whose first two Super Bowl victories he witnessed in person.

He was unable to attend SBXLII.

So . . . where did he watch, and which team did he root for?

"I was sitting on my couch in New York City with my New York Giants jersey on," he said. "Unfortunately, I couldn't be at this game, but loudly and proudly, I wore my Giants jersey."

What about Belichick?

"Head coaches come and go," he said, "but the Giants will always be."

Guess which Giant appeared on "Fox and Friends" this morning?

(Update: OK, here's a hint: That's a ball stuck to the cameraman's hard hat.)

On the day I got my first membership solicitation from AARP (see below) my pal Kate Mara celebrated her 25th birthday.

Happy Birthday, Kate. (And thanks to reader Rich for the tip.)

Other Feb. 27 birthdays: Elizabeth Taylor (1932), Raymond Berry (1933), Ralph Nader (1934), Tony Gonzalez (1976) and Chelsea Clinton (1980).

Good night.

Check out this Eli Manning interview on WFAN from Tuesday.

(Eli is an ESPN 1050 guy during the season, but he was among several Giants to appear on WFAN over the past two days plugging the new Giants DVD from NFL Films.)

It tells you all you need to know about how the world has turned upside down over the past two months.

The formerly reserved youngest Manning son is so energetic, excited and chatty the station's usually aggressive afternoon hosts barely can get a word in edgewise at times.

Speaking of the Oscars (see below) . . .

Sure, a lot of people still watch the show. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But the viewership total almost surely will be less than half that of the Super Bowl.

Maybe they should have jumped the gun on next year's awards show and nominated the Giants' season-in-review DVD in the feature length documentary category.

Or was it all some sort of fictional, science fiction fantasy?

Darn it, I told the people at Fox News Channel I would do a blog post last night alerting readers that Antonio Pierce would be co-hosting "Fox and Friends" this morning. But I forgot.

(That used to be Tiki Barber's gig!)

I'm sorry.

Click below for highlights of what he said. They even let him stay after he endorsed Obama, a Democrat.

Here it is! The video I've been waiting all day for someone to post on YouTube.

Whoopi Goldberg, a Giants fan of such stature that she was at the podium for the post-parade ceremony at City Hall, apparently mistakes Amani Toomer for David Tyree.

(No bigee. It's not like a lot of people were watching the Super Bowl or anything.)

Sorry, no blogging most or all of the day Wednesday.

I've got newspaper column stuff to do.

Enjoy "Ship Shape TV" at 2:30 p.m. on FSNY.

(UPDATE: Darn it, I thought I was the first to find this one, but now I see a couple of other sites - With Leather, Awful Announcing - might have beaten me to it by a few minutes. Do bloggers never take a friggin' break!? This is the last time I put my kids to bed and talk to my wife! Oh, well. I bet none of the other guys actually watched this live like I did. So there!)

Glauber just called with this amusing news:

Amani Toomer and Michael Strahan are scheduled to appear on the episode of The View that is on RIGHT NOW.

So THIS is what happens when teams win the Super Bowl.

Wow. Was it worth it?

(I talked to Elisabeth Hasselbeck a few months ago but did not post her picture here to demonstrate my efforts at restraint.)

(UPDATE: I think Ms. Goldberg just confused Amani with Tyree when she recreated the catch off the helmet thing. Someone more tech savvy than me needs to post that video; many page views will ensue.)

I cannot offer any brilliant observations about the Daytona 500 or the NBA All-Star Game. I did not watch either one.

I did take my daughter to FAO Schwartz Saturday, and when pointing out The Plaza across the street I realized I made a mistake in a Feb. 2 post about seeing Kate Mara at a party in Arizona.

I wrote that I interviewed her in a Plaza suite back in '06. Actually it was at the Waldorf. I did visit Marlo Thomas in a Plaza suite in 1968, though.

On Sunday, as promised, I visited Zorn's in Bethpage and bought $53 worth of chicken and other stuff. I alerted readers I would be available for pictures, but no one there asked for one.

During my visit with my sister, we watched old slides from our childhood. Sure enough, one of them pictured Uncle Bernie's backyard in Plainview, circa 1970, with several empty Zorn's buckets on the patio table.

OK, I'm done. I'll write about stuff you care about the rest of the day. I heard something about an Andy Pettitte news conference.

I hate it when my job distracts me from blogging, but what can I say? It's Thursday and I'm busy.

Fortunately, our friends at Awful Announcing posted three interesting videos today to keep you occupied while I single-handedly try to keep the printed version of the newspaper industry afloat.

One is of my good friend Marisa Miller on David Letterman's show.

Another is an amusing appearance by Bob Costas with Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio.

The third is a cool Gatorade commercial featuring Eli Manning.

Happy Valentine's Day. Please patronize our other blogs.

Every once in a while, after another mundane day of college basketball recruiting scandals or blockbuster NBA trades or maddening Congressional hearings, I flash back 10 days or so ago and am spiritually restored by a thought that reminds me why we all bother to be sports fans in the first place:

The Giants really did win the Super Bowl. Holy cow. What a story.

The other day I linked to an article in which NFL Films president Steve Sabol wrote that Manning-to-Tyree was the best play in Super Bowl history.

Here is video of him saying it.

I would argue no one on Earth is more qualified to make this assessment than Sabol, who has attended all 42 Super Bowls and whose career is based on dramatizing NFL action.

I don't really care who coaches the Redskins, and good luck operating in that nutty organization to Jim Zorn, the best quarterback in NFL history named after a famous Long Island chicken joint.

But I do feel bad for Jim Fassel, whose resume suggests a better coaching hand than he has been dealt since leaving the Giants.

Here is a good story on that topic.

I just finished my expenses - sorry, boss; Glauber ordered the appetizers - and I'm 30 minutes away from making it through a full business week without calling Tiki to ask him what he thought of the big game.

So I guess it's really, truly over now. Covering SBXLII was a wonderful experience, personally and professionally, and it was a privilege to do so on behalf of Newsday readers.

Mostly importantly, I learned a lesson in the two weeks after watching the Giants-Packers game and not necessarily rooting for the local squad, fearing the extra work and angst a Blue Blue victory would mean:

People in general and journalists in particular are better off not hoping life happens exactly the way they want it to. Much better to make the best of what does come along.

On the way home from Phoenix I watched a warm, cute romantic comedy called "Dan in Real Life." It ends with this thought:

"Instead of telling our young people to plan ahead, we should tell them to plan to be surprised."

Thanks to our friends at Awful Announcing for this find.

It's Steve Sabol of NFL Films, who has been to all 42 Super Bowls, declaring David Tyree's fourth-quarter catch to be the best play in the history of the Super Bowl.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem like I should be encouraging this sort of behavior.

On the other, how can I not link to this amazing tale of one Giants fan's excellent Tuesday adventure?

(I heard this guy might be going on with Conan!)

Much like the Arizona TV reporter who snuck into the suite where Archie Manning was watching Super Bowl XLII - only more so - this is yet another lesson in one of the verities of life: Pretend you know what you're doing, and you can get away with almost anything.

Here is a story from CNBC's Darren Rovell about David Tyree signing an autograph deal.

Why not? He deserves it. He's just . . . using his head!

Speaking of Tyree, I forgot in the course of writing two positive reviews of Fox's Super Bowl coverage to mention that it was strange Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Pam Oliver all failed to mention even in passing the recent death of Tyree's mother, which added to the drama.

Here is my Friday newspaper column on the business impact of the Giants' victory last weekend.

Here is a story for which there was not room in the Friday newspaper:

Seth Horowitz is a lifelong Giants fan, but that was only part of the reason he was rooting for the team Sunday night in Arizona.

“Knowing there was an upside emotionally for me and financially for our company made it easy to root for them,’’ he said.

That’s because Horowitz is executive VP at Modell’s Sporting Goods, and his company has benefited spectacularly from the victory by the chain's hometown team.

Horowitz declined to cite sales figures but called the past week a “record-breaking Giants merchandise performance’’ and added, “This event for football has been one of a kind.’’

I read this Arizona Republic story in the airport Tuesday and had to admire the author's, um, pluck.

Pluck - moxie? spunk? - is the most important trait for a journalist. (I thought of other words for it, but none suitable for a family-friendly blog.)

It's about a local TV reporter who watched the end of SBXLII from the Manning family suite - uninvited . . . and eventually took a family picture!

I finally got a chance to watch the final drive on TiVo.

I timed Joe Buck's dramatic pause after Plaxico Burress scored the winning touchdown:

47 seconds.

Cool.

No more blogging until Wednesday.

Enjoy the parade.

Here is a story I wrote for the Web site based on a locker room chat with John Mara, grandson of the Giants' founder and one of the classiest owners in pro sports.

I spoke to him shortly after congratulating John Johnson, 90, who retired after the game after 60 years (!) as a member of the training staff.

Good way to go out? "Absolutely fantastic, as far as I’m concerned,'' he said.

That's it for the blogging for now. I have a newspaper column to write. But I never am far from your Super Bowl coverage. This morning I inadvertently sat directly behind Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning at the coach/MVP news conference while a dozen photographers snapped their pictures.

If you see a dorky, tired, unshaven guy in a short-sleeved shirt behind Eli' s head in the pictures . . . that's me.