IT can’t be easy for Mike Breen, not when, “The Knicks are back to within 10” becomes the most cheerful news of the night.
Meanwhile, the Knicks have done it. It took 7-plus seasons, but they’ve done it. In regular-season play they are now, for the first time since Cablevision took full control, under .500. With the Dolans at the wheel, they’re 292-293. The Rangers are stuck at 215-294-67.
So, with salaried players annually among the top three since they took full control in March of 1997, the Dolans’ teams now stand at 507-587-67. That’s almost impossible. But the Dolans have never taken well to competition. Heck, had basketball and hockey been their normal business, they’d have bought all the other teams, then passed the cost to us – and charged extra to watch overtimes.
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It has been said that what the corporate world once condemned as conflicted interests is now praised as synergy.
The Jan. 31 edition of Sports Illustrated includes a six-page layout about the movie “Million Dollar Baby.” The magazine’s front cover, across the top, points to it with, “The Story behind Million Dollar Baby, The Greatest Fight Film Ever.” Inside, the bold-face come-on reads, “The latest fight film, Clint Eastwood‘s Million Dollar Baby, just may be the greatest ever.”
That’s odd; that movie was released six weeks ago. And while it’s supposed to be pretty good, since when does SI devote six pages and the top of its front cover to a movie, let alone become so fall-down, get-up, fall-down excited about one?
As if, by now, you couldn’t guess. It’s a Warner Bros. movie.
Warner Bros. is owned by Time-Warner. So is Sports Illustrated.
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Don King is suing ESPN for calling him a crook. So what’s his gripe? . . . Hardly surprising that commercials for a highly dubious get-rich-quick, turn-pro-overnight poker enterprise are good-to-go on ESPN Radio.
USA Network, which years ago should have mandated that its ID logo on golf be placed in either upper corner – out of harm’s way – continues to leave it in the lower right. Did Phil Mickelson make that birdie putt Thursday in the Bob Hope? It sounded that way. With the ball and the hole hidden behind that USA graphic, TV became radio.
John Sterling, calling Penn-Yale women’s hoops on YES Friday, did a darned good job. But that stood to reason. Sterling always knew his basketball and he wasn’t there to shill for either side . . . ESPN read its audience very well Friday night. It knew that those who had tuned to Cavs-Knicks actually were in place to catch all the Winter X-Games news and highlights at halftime.
Better late than never, the NFL Cards last week unveiled their new, attitude-adjusted Cardinal. Outlined in black (how original!), it now looks mean, menacing, like a killer. “We’ve made the beak much more predatory and much more aggressive,” said VP Mike Bidwell, son of the owner. Well, good for you.
Yesterday, ESPN’s “Bottom Line” repeatedly displayed the following: “Sources tell ESPN’s Chris Mortensen that the Browns will offer Pats defensive coordinator Romeo Crennel their head coaching job after the Super Bowl.” Pssst, fellas, that story has been reported elsewhere – everywhere – for the last month.
A press release announcing that Stephen Snyder has been named senior VP and GM of CBS’s SportsLine Website also notes that “Snyder received an MBA from Stanford Univ. and worked at McDonnell Douglas Aerospace Co. as a missile systems engineering specialist.” Oh, so you do have to be a rocket scientist.
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Quote of the Week (from the St. Petersburg Times): John Jordan, the coach of Statesville Christian (N.C.) HS, played his star, Zygis Sestokas, the entire game against Covenant Day School. Sestokas scored 76 points in the 117-32 win.
“At halftime,” said Jordan, “I mentioned to one of my assistants that I was very concerned about sportsmanship and our Christian testimony. My assistant said, ‘It would be more of a sin to hold back a kid who is having the night he’s having.’ ”
On the subject of the spiritual, just once, after an NFL RB bursts through a big hole to score, we’d like to see him pass on pointing skyward and instead point to, oh, perhaps an offensive lineman.
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REIGN OF ERROR
Despite annually having among highest payrolls, Knicks and Rangers are both below .500 during Dolans/Cablevision 7 1/2-year stint as Garden owners.
Knicks
2004-05 payroll*
$103.6M
Record under Cablevision
292-293
*Highest in league
Rangers
2003-04 payroll*
$81M
Record under Cablevision
215-294-67
Combined franchises record under Cablevision 507-587-67
*Second highest