Sports

Jets are next victim of Dolan’s cable greed

In the throes of this Cablevision/FOX calamity, it figures: Sunday, when the NFC/FOX Giants are off, the Jets are home against an NFC opponent, thus the game will be on FOX.

It’s like dropping anything in the kitchen: It always disappears under the refrigerator.

Regardless, the folks at Dolanvision never tire of treating their customers like dimwits. The whole TV/sports scene has become a con job. Few of either industry’s leaders even care that we know it. Shamelessness is habit-forming. And 30 years ago, Cablevision drafted the original copy of the plan.

Do the slick public relations pros at Dolanvision really believe, at this point, that turning on a Cablevision-wired TV to read instant propaganda about its war with FOX leaves subscribers impressed or convinced?

Or do subscribers, especially lifers, feel intruded on, violated and used, recognizing — yet, again — that they’re being insulted with “It’s always the other guy” quarter-truths?

I know, I work for the other belligerent, FOX parent News Corp., thus I’m on the take. I’m taking a dive, here, putting my column where my paycheck is. Yeah, prior to this hassle, in my 28 years examining Cablevision’s ways and means, I’ve been pro-Dolanvision. But how can one not be impressed by an abusive monopoly that always holds sports for ransom?

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With the Giants off Sunday and the Jets on FOX, Woody Johnson has another golden opportunity to sell two more PSLs.

Remarkable isn’t it, that two years after they began to advertise their PSLs as “Hurry, hurry, they’re nearly sold out!” the Jets still are pushing that lie? But who’s going to stop them, Roger “PSLs Are A Good Investment” Goodell? A compliant and diffident local sports media?

Upon further review, NFL replay rule still rancid

Twenty-four years later, the NFL still has to make it up as it goes along because of its never-intended-to-be-used-this-way “instant” replay rule, which remains a burden born of short-sighted, misapplied populism.

Monday night, the NFL’s Frankenstein monster turned Giants-Cowboys into a stop-go-stop session in order to inspect minutiae and reverse good calls.

At the end of the half, the Giants were gifted a field goal after a fumble by Dallas TE Jason Witten, a fumble recovered by the Giants after the whistle had blown. Suddenly, the replay rule can override the whistle.

Ben Roethlisberger fumble-or-TD near the close of Sunday’s Steelers-Dolphins launched another replay rule fiasco, another institutionalized calamity.

Reader Mike Logerfo: “I still don’t know how the refs can look at anything that happens after they rule a TD. If you’re a Steeler, can’t you make the case that you stopped playing once they called TD? … The NFL is now telling players to keep playing after the whistle in case the play is reviewed.”

Well, at least the NFL did this week. Next week? Who knows?

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Too Funny, Part I: Monday, with the Giants about to kick off after scoring, ESPN’s Mike Tirico said the Giants were clustered in the middle of the field.

“I like what the Giants do here, on their kickoff team,” he said. “It makes it hard to find which guy you’re supposed to block.”

Dallas’s Akwasi Owusu-Ansah then took the kick and ran it 41 yards, straight up the middle.

Too Funny, Part II: Top of the second, Game 1 of the World Series, one out, Bengie Molina, slower than the line down at DMV, on first. Cliff Lee fakes a bunt then doubles to the opposite field.

On ESPN Radio, baloney-distributor Joe Morgan tells a national audience that Texas manager Ron Washington likes to do that — have fellas fake bunts, then swing away at fastballs.

Jon Miller, in the booth with Morgan, reminds Morgan that because Lee is an AL pitcher, he very rarely bats.

A little juice on Alderson

We continue to hear and read that Sandy Alderson, as Mets GM, will bring his alert, no-nonsense, military background to the franchise. Groovy. But as Bud Selig’s field marshal, 1998-2005, how did Alderson miss that entire steroid thing?

And from such a high-ground battlefield position, it stands to reason that an intelligent fellow such as Alderson either had to: 1) speak out on it, or 2) be in on it.

Or did he craft the original Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy?

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The average listening time for Mike Francesa to cause a case of LD (laughing dyspepsia) is now less than a minute. Monday, after Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland was let go, Front Row Francesa claimed he had heard Eiland was a goner; he knew it was going to happen.

He always knows such things, but Fran-say-so always waits until after it happens to say so. Yep, he knew John Wilkes Booth was up to no good. The only times he’s wrong is when he tells you before it’s supposed to happen.

Listening this week to Francesa, writes Dom Lavarco of The Bronx, “It’s amazing how much Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez aged between the time the Yanks swept the Twins and lost to Texas.”

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The Linda McMahon campaign successfully sued to allow voters to wear WWE merchandise at polling places. Yeah, why shouldn’t people be allowed to wear their “Suck It!” T-shirts when they go to vote?

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Chris Berman gives his pick on ESPN’s Monday night NFL pregame show last, as if the nation awaits, as if, by now, anyone takes him seriously. This past Monday, he took the Cowboys. Yep, home game, must-win situation.

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What a hammering New York’s press boxes have taken this year. John Halligan, Vic Ziegel, Mike Celizic, Maury Allen, Guido Cribari, and now Bill Shannon, baseball reporter, historian, official scorer and among New York’s all-time great sports characters, is lost to a house fire at 69.

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MSG’s Tina Cervasio, before Wednesday’s Knicks opener, asked Mike D’Antoni about the team’s “morale” after a tough preseason that included a trip to Europe.

“Well,” he answered, “I don’t think we’re down in the dumps, yet.”