With the exception of all the murders, the Stalin-era Soviet Union must have been a lot like the modern American television industry. Although TV doesn’t make its top executives disappear, as in dead (at least not to my knowledge), the sudden purges of top TV figures must be similar.
For several years, Saturday at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am on CBS was “Watch Ray Romano Play Golf Day.” We would watch, or be forced to watch, Romano hit mostly bad shot after bad shot — here, there and everywhere. All afternoon.
Then CBS would chat Romano up, as he walked here, there and everywhere. Everyone on CBS’ golf telecasts loved Raymond.
But that was when Romano was a CBS sitcom star. Now, he ain’t, not anymore.
So this past Saturday’s Pebble Beach coverage on CBS featured Romano in a greatly reduced form. In two hours and 40 minutes, he was seen taking five shots, with one quickie interview.
Oddly enough, Romano finally seems to have something resembling a decent swing, and a game somewhat worth watching — if we were forced to watch. He’s just not worth much to CBS anymore.
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Golf Channel’s pickup of the feed of the European Tour’s Desert Classic in Dubai on Saturday and yesterday put the event first and the fact Tiger Woods
was playing in it second.
Here, it’s the opposite, Woods is first, the event a distant second.
Making most — and least — of free throws
There was a good stat from ABC/ESPN within the Heat-Celtics game yesterday. Miami’s “Big Three” — LeBron James
, Chris Bosh
and Dwyane Wade
— with a total of 1,174 free-throw attempts this season, had the same number of free-throw attempts as the entire Celtics team.
But why, with six seconds left and a three-point lead, didn’t the Celtics foul? Why was good shooter Mike Miller
allowed an open shot at a 3-pointer?
That so many coaches don’t order fouls in such situations — that they give opponents roughly a 33-percent chance to tie rather than a one-in-at-least-100 chance — remains an enduring mystery of modern basketball.
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Strong stuff from ESPN on Friday night, cutting from Lakers-Knicks (Lakers were up 16 in the third) to Clippers-Cavaliers for the last play of regulation. The Clippers did not score, forcing the game to overtime, when the Cavaliers snapped their record losing streak.
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Even if ESPN’s Jay Bilas
were the most sage basketball analyst in TV history, until he stops talking down to us, he’ll always be tough to take.
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Hallelujah! ESPN’s Dick Vitale
made it clear at the end of No. 1 Ohio State’s loss at Wisconsin on Saturday, that because the home team — and a good team — won, the result should in no way be regarded as an upset. Now if Vitale could only get through on that to ESPN’s writers, anchors, reporters, radio hosts, producers.
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It’s all too funny. NBC’s coverage of this year’s World Alpine Championships on Saturday included several references to “getting on the podium.” That used to be known as “winning a medal.”
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If Kevin Harlan
‘s play-by-play hysterics down the stretch of Saturday’s Kentucky-Vanderbilt game were genuine, if he legitimately grows that excited (and he grows that excited on every radio and TV broadcast he works), well, that would make no sense. So that leaves viewers to know that it’s all a bad, excessive act, one that insults intelligent viewers. How much sense does that make?
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The Penguins-Islanders blood rematch on Friday was a freak show. Not only did the Islanders win, 9-3, there were so many misconducts that Pittsburgh, as captured by MSG-Plus, finished the game with two players on its bench.
Incidentally, if there’s an NHL player in town with faster, first-two-strides speed than the Islanders’ Michael Grabner
, who is he? Grabner brings to memory Bob Bourne
an Islander from 1974-86.
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“SportsCenter” on Saturday morning, included a grabber on Manhattan College’s 6-foot-11, half-armed center Kevin Laue
. Perspective, anyone? Laue’s birth was so complicated that his mother said she was grateful for him in any form, as long as he was alive. Still, Laue said that when he was a kid, his mom wouldn’t allow him Velcro-strap shoes.
“She wanted me to learn to tie my shoes like the other kids,” he said.
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From reader Tim Hanley
: The crowd isn’t booing Hosni Mubarak
in Cairo, it’s saying, “Mooooo!”
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HBO’s “Real Sports,” tomorrow at 10 p.m., visits with Victor Conte
of Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO) infamy. Speaking to correspondent Bernard Goldberg
, Conte claims to have gone completely legit, but says illegal performance-enhancing drugs are still rampant among world-class athletes in all sports.
How does he know?
“I’m kinda on both sides,” he says. “I do what I can to speak out, but I’m also in contact with people on the dark side.”
Come to think of it, Barry Bonds
and the Wilpons
seem to have the same defense: “I didn’t know and I didn’t ask. It was none of my business why I’d grown so unnaturally large.”
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There’s an intriguing “authoritative” rumor (Is there such a thing?) that Mets ownership and at least one team executive met on Saturday with WFAN management. It might have been a rights-renewal chat; their last extension was signed late in 2008. And this Mets’ ownership might be eager to make some hopeful, long-term news.
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Several readers claimed that former University of Cincinnati star and short-term NBAer Anthony Buford
, the analyst on yesterday’s St. John’s-Cincinnati telecast, is a Joe Morgan
soundalike. Impossible. Buford made sense.
MLB Network continues to lead with its better senses. After the passing of Chuck Tanner
on Friday, MLBN on Saturday plugged in “Baseball’s Seasons: 1979.” That year’s World Series was won by Tanner’s Pirates.
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Redskins wide receiver and kick returner Brandon Banks
and a pal were stabbed on Saturday at 3 a.m., outside a Washington nightclub. A pro athlete involved in something exceptionally bad at 3 a.m. outside a nightclub? How unusual.
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So two Seton Hall basketball players, Keon Lawrence
and Jamel Jackson
, have been tossed for recidivist misconduct. Gotta give them credit for persistence; they never tire of recruiting bad acts.