Have you hugged your remote today?
This is a good time to show it some love because it’s going to be busy. Baseball, Stanley Cup playoffs, NBA playoffs, Mel Kiper Jr.’s mock NFL draft.
It started Wednesday night, when every click seemed to land us on something interesting among Orioles-Yankees on YES, Rockies-Mets on SNY and Rangers-Caps on MSG-Plus.
Al Leiter, bottom of the second inning of the Yankees telecast, after Brett Gardner, running hard all the way, nearly beat out a bouncer to second:
“Honestly, when I say this, you might think I’m lying, but that excites me almost as much as a home run — a guy to have that speed, bust it out every at-bat. This is a medium-hard ground ball to the right side, and they got him, barely, by just a half-step.”
Agreed, and in full. What Leiter further seemed to be saying is that running hard to first — playing hard — has become such a personal option, a matter of chosen style among players at the game’s highest level that to see someone play as if he cares is a rare pleasure.
(Later on Wednesday, when Angel Pagan tripled for the Mets, Keith Hernandez said: “This is a triples park.” That brought back Leiter’s comments. But is there a good park not to run hard in?)
Over to the Mets, whose telecasts are becoming over-reliant on rover Kevin Burkhardt to fill time/dull the pain. So, with the Mets up 3-1 in the fifth, it seemed the wrong time to cut to Burkhardt. Nevertheless, he provided a good interview with long-ago Met Jerry Grote. Grote said he’s the analyst on the Rangers’ Round Rock, Texas, Triple-A team’s radiocasts.
Ya don’t say? Grote, as a fabulous defensive Mets’ catcher, 1966-76, also was known as a pain in the rear for the media to deal with.
On the Rangers game, at 0-0, Joe Micheletti was explaining how the Rangers, after beating the Caps, 7-0, helped turn them from run-and-gunners to dig-in defenders.
A bit later, he very simply and effectively told an often overlooked story about Caps’ star Alex Ovechkin: “Ovechkin,” said Micheletti, “is 235 pounds.” The replay rule-determined goal that made it 1-1 — an Ovechkin shove-in from a stack of players — exhibited how replay rules make officials indecisive, subconsciously reliant on videotape.
After a whistle ended that play, there was no clear, immediate on-ice determination, one way or the other, whether a goal had been scored. The use of replay seemed to have made the call for the first time. Was the call reversed or sustained? Who knows?
Back to the Mets. Top of the fifth, two out, Rockies on second and third, Troy Tulowitzki at bat.
Gary Cohen: “Let’s be radical. It’s the fifth, Mets up by two, haven’t been able to get Tulowitzki out in this series. Would you consider walking him?”
Hernandez: “I always knew you were a radical.”
GC: “You didn’t answer my question.”
KH: “Pitch to him. Carefully.”
Tulowitzki then hit a three-run homer.
As busy New York TV nights go, this was a good one. Heck, the Knicks-Celtics scrimmage didn’t even make the cut. It’s that time of year. Show your remote some love. With a damp towel, wipe the Cheez Doodle residue from it, spring for a couple of fresh batteries. Where would you be without it?
Bonds’ conviction a result of neglect
Barry BONDS’ conviction cannot be seen as the result of a unilateral stand-alone act. It is the result of money-driven, very purposeful neglect, beginning with Bud Selig, every MLB team owner and former MLBPA boss Donald Fehr.
There was no provision in the Collective Bargaining Agreement that prevented the Commissioner of Baseball from declaring what was obvious to 14-year-olds, that players are supposed to grow older, not bigger and stronger and become sudden sluggers at 35.
There was no gag order excluding Selig from publicly or privately warning steroid and HGH users — those who would bring The Game into disrepute while shattering the records of clean players — will suffer the personal and professional wrath of “me, Bud Selig.”
And what did Fehr care if some schnooks among his rank-and-file were put at great financial and career disadvantage for playing clean?
But there was no extra money in integrity, no swollen ticket sales when Bonds and Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa came to town, no jacking up tickets prices and TV ratings.
All Bonds and everyone else got from MLB and the MLBPA for years was the “Go” sign. And there’s no question that Bonds’ career home run record — once the most recognized, revered and recited record in all of American sports — was predicated on illegal drug use.
But hey, Selig and the team owners and general managers were just “giving the people what they want.” Who cared if The Game became crooked? As if that wouldn’t someday reveal itself, as if it weren’t already self-evident!
And now Selig cynically wants to distance himself from Bonds and the rest, to be known and remembered as a crime-fighter. Among the ignorant, he has a chance.
Marv to call Knicks-Celtics games . . . Yes!
Marv ALBERT will call the first two Knicks-Celtics games for TNT. As decisions go, a layup.
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Reader Steve Sherman of Secaucus was thinking about inviting Mike Francesa to Passover Seder, but then he figured that when they reached the Four Questions, Francesa would ask the same one four times.
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Amazing, ain’t it, that Cablevision has room for four MSG channels, but when it comes to programming it doesn’t own is when the problems begin.
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With 1:45 left in regulation of the telecast of a tied playoff game and with play on, what graphic should suddenly appear to distract viewers and cover some ice? None! MSG, Wednesday, posted: “Mercedes Ranger Postgame — coming up next.” Thanks.
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South Carolina starting quarterback Stephen Garcia last week was suspended a fifth time for misconduct, some of which has been criminal. South Carolina has a zero tolerance policy for zero tolerance.
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Naturally, after shouting a homophobic slur at an NBA ref, Kobe Bryant issued one of those modern contingency — if I offended, to those I may have offended — apologies. Whatever happened to “I’m sorry for saying something offensive?”
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The football team representing Arizona State, school colors maroon and gold — gold represents the sun in Sun Devils — this season will play in Nike-issued, street-cred all-black uniforms. No better way to recruit student-athletes who regard the uniform color a deal maker/breaker.