Watchdog

By the way, today is the third anniversary of SportsWatch, the newspaper version of my periodic musings.

It debuted the day after SNY, which is prominently featured in my Tuesday column, announced what its name and programming format would be. So we've come full circle. Either that, or I'm just running in circles.

Thank you for your support as always, readers.

You are the honored guests for today's festive birthday gala. Your piece of the Carvel cake should arrive in the mail later this week.

I thought I was done blogging for today. Then I read the excerpts from Hank Steinbrenner's latest column in the new Sporting News magazine. Yikes!

— On revenue sharing: “That’s a system I don’t particularly like. It’s a socialist system, and I don’t agree with it. Does it work? It depends on your point of view. But is it right? Is it even American? I’d argue no on both of those points.”

— On the divisional setup: “… If you want to talk about things that infuriate me about the game today, revenue sharing doesn’t top the list. The biggest problem is the divisional setup in major league baseball. I didn’t like it in the 1970s, and I hate it now. Baseball went to a multidivision setup to create more races, rivalries and excitement. But it isn’t fair. You see it this season, with plenty of people in the media pointing out that Joe Torre and the Dodgers are going to the playoffs while we’re not. This is by no means a knock on Torre — let me make that clear—but look at the division they’re in. If L.A. were in the A.L. East, it wouldn’t be in the playoff discussion. The A.L. East is never weak.”

— On Joe Torre: “I’m happy for Joe, but you have to compare the divisions and the competition. What if the Yankees finish the season with more wins than the Dodgers but the Dodgers make the playoffs? Does that make the Dodgers a better team? No.”

— On his case for the divisional setup not being good for the game: “Go back to the 2006 season. St. Louis winning the World Series — that was ridiculous. The Cardinals won their division with 83 wins — two fewer than the Phillies, who missed the postseason. People will say the Cardinals were the best team because they won the World Series. Well, no, they weren’t. They just got hot at the right time. They didn’t even belong in the playoffs. And neither does a team from the N.L. West this season.”

— On the media: “The divisional setup is not right by any definition of logic. But the sports media rarely deals with logic —s o you never read about this.”

Mary Garber, a pioneer among female sports journalists, died Sunday.

Early in my career, The Star-Ledger of Newark widely was considered among the most profitable, stable newspapers in America.

Now . . . less so.

Am I the only one who noticed The New York Times has included point spreads in its NFL previews the past two Sundays?

What the heck? Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the Old Gray Lady eschewed printing betting lines since 1851? If anyone knows the story here, please share it, because I ain't calling the Times' sports editor to ask.

The late, great Newsday sports editor Dick Sandler (see post below) was opposed to publishing point spreads on principle, but we did eventually start doing so, because, well, many people are interested in them.

Well, WatchDog Nation, I made it through an entire Thursday without a new post, and now I'm checking out for the holiday weekend.

To heck with the August page views standings. It's more important I prove I am not a blogging addict and can stop whenever I want. Really, I mean it! I'm trying, anyway.

Meanwhile read the other interesting Newsday sports (and non-sports) blogs, conveniently rounded up here.

Newsday has been as aggressive as any newspaper in the country in embracing the Internet as a platform for the kind of quality journalism it has been providing Long Island and beyond since 1940.

(WatchDog kudos to first reader to identify the woman in the picture.)

At last, some good news for the ailing newspaper industry:

Jay Mariotti has left it!

(UPDATE: Here is a highly amusing statement from the Sun-Times regarding Jay's departure.)

(ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Ebert is displeased with Jay.

I met Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio at ESPN's NFL kickoff breakfast Tuesday, which was a bit of a shock given the less-than-warm-and-cuddly relationship Daulerio's predecessor, Will Leitch, had with the ESPN p.r. department. (Not to mention a frosty relationship between ESPN p.r. and Mr. Daulerio himself.)

Nice to see the Bristol Stompers reaching out like this, and realizing it's better to offer influential bloggers coffee and a Danish than it is to feud with them.

Speaking of Leitch, here is a link provided to you by a mainstream newspaper writer who also does some blogging in which Leitch is interviewed by a blogger associated with a 122-year-old magazine for which Leitch, a sports blogging pioneer, now will be writing a magazine column of some sort.

I'm out for a few hours. I'm getting dizzy again.

David Tyree is on the cover of SI!

Which features a story on Catch 42 by my old Newsday pal Tim Layden!

I'll stop using exclamation points now!

My Tuesday newspaper column covers recent digital developments in sports publishing, radio and TV, with an emphasis on an interesting new experiment from the venerable Sporting News.

I also poked fun at ESPN for its "Titletown USA" series, which was less silly than last year's notorious "Who's Now," but still . . . Please use the comments section to propose ideas for next July's slow-season time-filler on SportsCenter.

The people in Bristol read this stuff, believe it or not. So your thoughts will be heard! Please keep it clean and respectful. I don't have time to delete comments all day.

Deitsch asked some "interesting people" to predict the top sports story of the second half of 2008.

Turns out I rank in that category, along with Charles Barkley, Danica Patrick and Syosset's own Sue Bird.

Syosset has produced an amazing number of our nation's leading citizens, from Bird to Chris Russo to Judd Apatow to Natalie Portman to NFL p.r. honcho to Greg Aiello to Washington Post sports media scribe Len Shapiro to Mrs. WatchDog's best friend from college.

Not sure what it is about that town. What has Northport produced? Patti LuPone, Edie Falco, me, um . . . Bobby LuPone? NASCAR driver Steve Park? Can I get some help here?

I went to East Northport Junior High with 1986 U.S. Open golf champ Jane Geddes, but she moved away before high school. I think she went to Florida for the weather.

Sporting News Today, an interesting experiment in a daily, on-line, subscriber-based sports news service, debuted Wednesday.

Here's an early take on it and a look at the first front page image from our friends at Awful Announcing.

I'll get around to writing about this soon in the paper.

Yo, Sporting News, send me a temporary account so I can check it out! Thanks.

(See how I did that? I've gone from e-mailing p.r. people instead of talking to them, to now asking for stuff on the blog without bothering with e-mail. I love how modern technology pretty much saves me from messy human interaction altogether.)

(UPDATE: Sure enough, Sporting News p.r. quickly responded to my request and I'm all set. New media is cool!)

(UPDATE: Evidently subscriptions are free. Hmm. I need to check this thing out.)

Thanks to Fang's Bites for finding this story about the latest unconventional career decision by ESPN's Steve Cyphers.

After giving up sports TV to teach, then going back to sports TV, he's back to teaching.

I don't know Steve, but I do know his brother Luke, who works at ESPN The Magazine, and both long have been among the leading mensches in sports journalism, including having, as you can tell from the piece on Steve, a broader perspective on the world than most of us in the business.

Congratulations to Deitsch on completing his 24-hour blog.

I'll need to think of something really good to top this. Maybe a speed record. Twenty posts in 60 minutes? Hmm.

I was going to blog for 24 hours straight to celebrate WatchDog's first birthday May 2, but Mrs. WatchDog talked me out of it and I settled for 52 posts, one for each week.

Now Deitsch has picked up the ball and is in the middle of blogging for 24 hours in a row.

Am I jealous? Um, no. Better him than me.

Little or no blogging Monday.

Newspaper reporting stuff to do.

At this rate I'm never going to catch Handelsman in page views.

When I read about the life and career of Sherman Maxwell, a pioneering sports broadcaster and Negro Leagues chonricler who died this week at age 100, I felt a little silly about not having previously heard of him.

Now I know.

You should read about him, too, right here.

This is one of those relatively rare days when all three New York-area tabloids used the same headline on their back pages.

The Post and Daily News spelled it differently than Newsday, but it was the same sentiment.

Last time I remember this happening was when Endy Chavez had a big late-game hit and everyone went with "Happy Endy," or words to that effect.

Before I begin, let's be clear on one thing: The information in this post did not come from a single person directly in a position to know, on or off the record, and thus must be considered informed speculation.

On the other hand, I would not be sharing it if I did not believe there was something to it, based on a rapidly growing pile of circumstantial evidence.

Here goes: If Mike Francesa does leave WFAN this summer (see post below), don't be surprised if MSG becomes a landing place.

What role would he play, exactly? Don't know. But the network could use a big-name boost in its battle to remain relevant in a market featuring two high-profile, baseball-oriented channels in YES and SNY.

Of course, Mike could end up staying at WFAN and Chris could leave, perhaps for satellite radio. But I still believe one of them will go.

If Francesa does end up at MSG, remember you read it here first. If not, forget it, it's just a blog!

(Full disclosure: Cablevision has an agreement to buy Newsday from Tribune, which would put MSG and WatchDog under the same corporate umbrella. But that has nothing to do with this post, because like I said, no one directly involved has told me anything. If they do, I'll write a newspaper article about it. Except that I'm on vacation . . . )

I'm going to miss Deitsch's monthly media power rankings when he leaves for that fellowship or whatever the heck it is in Ann Arbor in September.

Did I ever mention the time I covered a St. John's-Michigan game in Ann Arbor and still was home by the second quarter of Super Bowl XXIX?

I believe I have. Never mind.

I am getting more and more jealous of my Tribune teammate (for now) Teddy Greenstein in Chicago, because Jay Mariotti keeps giving him endless juicy material to work with.

Why can't we have nutty columnists like this in New York?

Good stuff here from Deitsch on Tim Russert, a link to an interesting interview with Tony Bruno and a mature take on the objectification of Erin Andrews. (Certainly more mature than the approach to Ms. Andrews here over the months.)

And for something completely different . . . here's a story about ESPN.com apologizing for an unfortunate Hitler reference. Memo to all fellow writers: Hitler references rarely lead to anything good.

(UPDATE: The writer of said Hitler reference reportedly has been suspended.)

As I often point out, Boston regularly features more interesting media squabbles than what we customarily produce in New York.

Now Chicago has gotten into the act!

Check out this story from Tribune teammate (for now) (and native New Yorker) Teddy Greenstein.

Here is an interesting story about the latest incarnation of the venerable Sporting News, for which I was a contributor during my days on the Giants beat.

It mentions Troy Aikman, Hank Steinbrenner, Ron Darling and . . . me.

No, really. Will Leitch is quoted referencing this blog. Is this a subtle hint from Leitch about whom he favors as his successor at Deadspin?

Nah. I'm pretty sure no one born during the Eisenhower Administration is eligible.

I often praise the work of movie, TV, radio and internet professionals here, so why the heck not praise the work of regular old newspaper grunts once in a while?

Even when they're . . . us.

Here is Chicago Norm, our fearless leader, patting the Saturday night Newsday crew on the back, deservedly so.

(Speaking of hard-working Newsday types, Ken Berger has been busy, too.)

I love this description from Carlo Rotella, who used it in reference to boxing writers in a piece about Floyd Mayweather Jr. but might just as well have been referring to sportswriters of every type:

"Sentimentalists who think they're cynics."

That's dead-on, whether my colleagues and I like to admit it or not. Not that there's anything wrong with that . . . most of the time.

I think I broke the story last year of Rick Reilly bolting SI for ESPN and what he admits is "ridonkulous" money. So I was going to do an item in my newspaper column about Rick actually starting with ESPN this week. But I didn't have room and didn't get around to it.

Instead, my venerable corporate teammate (for now) and native New Yorker Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune is all over it here.

Inevitably, many fellow sports journalists are resentful of Reilly's bucks and/or are tired of his shtick.

Me? I'm like the 100th guy on the PGA Tour money list or the technically proficient no-name working the mixed martial arts circuit, and I say this: In the big picture, Tiger Woods and Kimbo Slice are good for business.

So is Reilly. So good for him.

I attended a luncheon/party in Bethpage Friday to celebrate the career of Joe Gergen upon his retirement from Newsday after 40 years at the paper - 33 of them as a columnist, nearly half the entire life of the newspaper.

Bud Harrelson was there. So were a long list of Newsday sports luminaries present and past - including Gergen's long-time columnist counterpart, Steve Jacobson - and one noted scribe from each of the Times, Daily News and Post.

(Buddy Harrelson! What famous athlete will attend my retirement party? Scott Gragg?)

The startling fact that I was one of the four or five youngest people in the room was a reminder of my delicate balancing act in straddling the old and new media worlds.

But in this case that was a good thing, because whenever I am tempted to stumble too far over into the latter, I can think about reading and/or working with Gergen over the past 36 years and remind myself how the profession can and should be practiced - even in the 21st century.

Click below to read my favorite line from the farewell bash.

There is an item in my Friday newspaper column in which I quote Tim McCarver about this weekend's Dodgers-Mets series.

Other topics we covered:

On whether it is easier to be critical doing national games compared to local ones: "I never worried about that in the first place. I tried to respectfully treat a local broadcast as I would a network broadcast. I didn’t worry about what I said or go home thinking, 'Oh, boy, I’m in trouble in now.'"

On whether he enjoys the lifestyle of only doing national games: "That’s fair to say. I think my days of doing local broadcasting are over and have been for the last six years."

On whether having Joe Buck do baseball only sporadically has been difficult: "It has not been a problem at all. I thought it might be when we started out and Joe was doing football in the middle of August. I thought there would be more of a problem, but I think this is further evidence that Joe Buck is as good as there is in the business and as good as there ever has been in the business."

On whether he has thought about how much longer he will work: "The thought has passed through my mind, but one of the real rewarding things of my life is my work. The travel always is a problem. But it’s very rewarding to continue to do a good job and stay contemporary."

Here is the inside story on one of the most misinterpreted headlines in New York sports history, courtesy of Rieber and 1050 ESPN's Andrew Marchand.

The writer of the story that led to that 1995 headline was Ian O'Connor, who has been in the news again lately for writing about another New York baseball manager.

If you want to be picky about it, yes, there are a few differences between me and another famous blogger, Emily Gould, what with her being a single, tattooed, twentysomething, city-dwelling female who has shared her sex life and other intimate matters with readers.

I have shared the deaths of pet fish with readers, but the rest is, like I said, different.

Still, much about this long, confessional magazine article she wrote resonated with me. I especially liked this paragraph:

"The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible. What I didn’t realize was that those ideas and that urgency — and the sense of self-importance that made me think anyone would be interested in hearing what went on in my head — could just disappear."

I haven't gotten to the disappearing part, so I'm not quite as evolved as Ms. Gould. Maybe someday.

Well, it's been a very interesting week in Newsday-land, with more interesting times to come.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily.

But here is an interesting article out of Chicago about the Tribune's coverage of the Cubs that will give you an idea of the issues we will be dealing with as we cover the Rangers, Knicks, Garden, etc., in the coming years.

Have a lovely weekend following the fan/media death watch over whichever team loses the Subway Series.

My late, sainted mother was quoted in The New York Times hammering the cereal industry for its "disgraceful" prices . . . in the summer of 1993.

It was enough to get her into the first paragraph.

Today I joined her in the Times archives for eternity, but I was far less quotable, and thus relegated to the last paragraph.

Much more of my wit and wisdom is available in Newsday's archives, of course.

I do not recall Newsday ever quoting my mother, but she was a loyal subscriber for 25 years, so it's all good.

Dan Le Batard seems to be having some sort of mid-life crisis.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Good luck to him in re-ordering his life.

I have to watch "Wheel House" and "Loudmouths" on SNY now.

I was going to write this item for my Friday newspaper column, then I said to myself, "Self, no one cares about this other than people in the media or media junkies, so why not stick it in the blog, which is predominantly read by people in the media or media junkies."

So here it is: Did you know there are fewer than 10 newspapers in the nation that employ a full-time sports media and/or business columnist? This is way, way down from 10-20 years ago, presumably because as newspapers attempt to get leaner and meaner, the media beat is among the first things to go.

So there are fewer people doing my job than there are United States Senators or NFL head coaches. We're roughly as common as Supreme Court justices.

All four New York papers have full-time people in the role, perhaps no surprise in the media headquarters of the galaxy.

Check this out, though: Since Newsday was the second newspaper with a full-time TV sports writer (Stan Isaacs, 1978) and since the first (The Boston Globe) no longer has one, that makes Newsday the paper with the oldest continually appearing full-time sports media column.

That's all. Carry on, members of the media and media junkies.