SHOCK-KING: Henrik Lundqvist’s face-to-face moments on the handshake line with Zdeno Chara and the Bruins after the Rangers season ended Saturday was largely missed by NBC’s cameras, writes the Post’s Phil Mushnick. (Getty Images)
Hey, if there’s one thing we learned throughout this NBA and NHL postseason, it’s this: The postgame show is coming up, immediately after the game.
Our only hope is that we soon run out of stupid because the supply, by now, must be critically low.
Consider that one didn’t have to know much about hockey to know the one guy to focus on Saturday throughout the Rangers-Bruins handshake line was Henrik Lundqvist.
Surely, many-to-most Bruins would pause to express their admiration to Lundqvist for preventing the out-gunned Rangers from suffering a worse fate. Good, live TV would have been virtually assured.
But NBC ignored him. In fact, with Lundqvist still in the line, NBC cut to an isolated shot of Bruins giant Zdeno Chara, alone and off to the side, just watching — as if NBC was stuck for anything else to show!
NBC’s sense of live play was no better. With whistles stopping play in a 2-1 game with 8:46, 6:53 and 2:26 left, NBC sensibly could have posted game-info graphics. But with 3:36 left and play desperate, NBC chose to distract us with a “Shots This Period” graphic — as if, at that point, it mattered!
Meanwhile, Rutgers’ newly named AD, Julie Hermann, may have less knowledge of significant on-the-job events than Sgt. Schultz. At least when Sammy Sosa testified before Congress, he had to remember he no longer knew how to speak English.
Next up for RU, Dr. Nick Riviera from “The Simpsons.” He has a degree from Club Med School.
Speaking of Sgt. Schultz, the “I-see-nothing!” fellows on YES Saturday continued to miss the fact Robinson Cano continues to make the least of every situation.
In the first, Brett Gardner was on second when Cano hit a chopper deep toward the hole between first and the second baseman. It might have been a close play at first and Cano might have forced a hurried throw, but given he was in his usual jog, he provided no resistance and was easily thrown out.
Yet, on YES, because Gardner moved to third, Ken Singleton and John Flaherty each praised Cano for “a productive at-bat.” Ugh.
In the sixth, when Cano jogged toward first after hitting a ground ball — first baseman to the pitcher covering — that ball could have been bobbled, dropped, then autographed by the 1964 Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cano still would have been out. The YES guys? Didn’t say a word.
But what else is new?
At the risk of a Federal subpoena, the Knicks’ 2013 draft agenda has been leaked to me. Here it is:
“First pick — best available player to pass, force or otherwise get the ball to Carmelo Anthony, then run off to the side, somewhere over there.
“Second pick — a Raymond Felton-type; a player who can be extremely valuable throughout the regular season, then be totally ignored throughout the postseason (should there be one).”
Champions’ League Soccer on Fox ain’t Gus-see TV
Gus Johnson called Fox’s telecast of the Champions’ League final from London. Although Johnson self-admittedly (and self-evidently) knows zilch about soccer, Fox has assigned him to call its biggest, U.S.-exclusive matches. That makes sense.
So Johnson, relying on uniform colors and numbers, calls the names of the players with the ball. Good work if you can get it!
One can find solace in the fact Fox didn’t assign him to operate your local dry cleaning establishment or funeral home. And, given Fox would assign someone who knows nothing about the subject matter to its biggest events, Dr. Johnson, operating out of “Fox’s Hospital For Special Surgery,” would produce some special results.
* Saturday in San Francisco, the Giants’ Angel Pagan ended the game against the Rockies with an inside-the-park homer, which, as most could predict, was widely reported as “a walk-off inside-the-park homer.”
Then again, how can he be both an Angel and a Pagan?
* Anyway, President Obama delivered the commencement speech at the U.S. Naval Academy. He warned against the growing sexual abuse and harassment of females in our armed forces.
At that point, he might have recited some of the vile, vulgar, hateful, abuse-’em-then-lose-’em lyrics about young women rapped and sold by his popular election contributor, campaigner, inauguration special guest, roving U.S. Ambassador and personal pal, the new sports super-agent, Jay Z.
But maybe that was enough Sgt. Schultz for one weekend. I see nuss-ing!
Barhold always made the right call
Dick Barhold — “Dick from Corona” to radio hosts and listeners — died Saturday at 81, after being institutionalized with dementia. He had no known relatives.
Among the special, Barhold was unique. Blind since infancy, he relied on radio. And many sports radio folks — including Marty Glickman in the early 1960s — relied on him, listened to him.
If disabilities inspire compensation from other senses, Barhold “saw” — and remembered — everything, including the date, time, station, broadcasters and even weather of the most forgettable ballgames.
He came across on the radio as an eccentric, even dismissible caller. But he was brilliant, likely a savant.
New York sports radio historian David Halberstam recalls Barhold, though sightless, once challenged the accuracy of a date in the NBA Record Book. Book wrong, Barhold correct.
When Marv Albert returned from calling a Rangers game in the long-gone Olympia in Detroit, Barhold called to ask if the radio booth there had been relocated. Albert said it had.
Barhold said he figured as much because “the last time you were there you said the Rangers shot right to left in the first period; this time you said left to right.” Barhold, naturally, was correct.
* Man of the Month: Duke lacrosse coach John Danowski. After Duke defeated Syracuse in the NCAA final on ESPN yesterday, he congratulated his kids, told them they beat a superb opponent, then asked that his players not wear the just-distributed championship T-shirts and caps while shaking hands with the Syracuse players.
* For a teaching aid, Mike Woodson might distribute tape of the Pacers’ Game 2 win in Miami. Five players in double figures, every Pacer on the court made relevant — and better — by the other four on the court. They out-teamed talent.
Yes, attending a Yankees-Mets game on Memorial Day Monday night makes for a lovely time for the family to enjoy a ballgame. Much like holding the Easter Egg Hunt on a Tuesday morning in late November. More black coffee, Junior?