Watchdog

On summer hiatus.

Please enjoy our other fine Newsday sports blogs.

For up-to-the-minute coverage of the sports world, check Newsday.com early and often.

Thanks as always, WatchDog Nation, for another powerful month of page views in June.

We recorded our fifth best month ever - with four of the top five coming in the first six months of 2009.

WatchDog finished third overall behind monthly champ TV Zone and second among sports blogs to a monster performance by Alan Hahn's Knicks blog.

I have a feeling Hahn's blog is going to do even better next June 30/July 1!

This week's winner is Scott E for his comment on my post regarding the sale of Giants Stadium seats at $499 per pair:

"Rather than buy a PSL at the new stadium, can I buy a pair of old seats and take them with me to the new place? They'll perform the same job at a fraction of the cost."

Excellent idea!

Here is another way to look at it: For the price of a $20,000 PSL plus the $700 game ticket to the Giants' first preseason game of 2010, you could buy 84 seats from the old stadium, set them up in your back yard and invite 83 friends over to watch the third-stringers play on TV on an early August evening.

Odd and ends:

NBC has the women's final at 4:30 p.m. Saturday and the men's final at 4:30 p.m. Sunday of the AVP stop at Coney Island. This will be the first time Chris Marlowe and Paul Sunderland call an event together since the Sydney Olympics. The two were teammates on the 1984 Olympic team and have worked three Olympics together. Heather Cox is the sideline reporter.

Fox Sports Net's "Best Damn Sports Show Period" is kaput. Sports Business Journal's John Ourand reports: Fox confirmed that "Best Damn Sports Show Period" taped its final studio show today, and it will be telecast tonight. The show will remain on the schedule through the fall in its "Top 50" format. A few new "Top 50" shows will be produced as well. "Obviously, since the show premiered in 2001, the RSNs have re-focused and added tons of local pro games and locally produced shoulder programs," a Fox spokesperson said in an e-mail. "The need to have a show like 'BDSSP' fill in the gaps isn't what it was eight years ago."

We have only six more months to decide, people. Is it going to be called "twenty ten" or "two thousand ten?"

Photo: Getty

Two important reminders about Neil Best, as we bring another rough-and-tumble blogging month to a close.

First, about a minute in: "Best fears no man."

Second, about two minutes in: "There's a man there who is 100 percent testosterone."

New York ranked third among 56 major markets tracked in "overnight" ratings for Sunday's U.S. vs. Brazil game in the Confederations Cup final on ESPN.

Miami-Ft. Lauderdale topped the list with 5.67 percent of households, followed by Las Vegas (4.28) and New York (4.23).

The rest of the top 10:
West Palm Beach, 3.65
Hartford/New Haven, 3.64
Atlanta, 3.58
Richmond/Petersburg, 3.46
Washington, DC, 3.45
San Francisco, 3.35
San Diego, 3.30

Photo: Getty

Giants Stadium seats are going for $499 a pair, a bargain compared to Shea and old Yankee Stadium seats.

Act fast: It'll be Christmas/Chanukah before you know it.

Or save it for food or college or something boring like that.

It turns out one of the reasons the Panthers canned long-time TV analyst Denis Potvin is that he preferred to summer in, get this: Canada rather than south Florida!

Seems to me that's a sign of sound mental health.

By contrast, SNY's Keith Hernandez summers in Sag Harbor and winters in Florida, which also makes good former jock/TV analyst sense.

The Knicks City Dancers who, like Newsday, are owned by Cablevision, have been holding auditions for the 2009-10 squad.

Over 350 talented young women showed up for Sunday's first round.

Shockingly, the group's Web site has posted pictures of the process. Which works out well, what with this being the final day of my page views month.

Did I ever mention how I watched Game 5 of the '94 Stanley Cup finals with the Knicks City Dancers on a ranch outside Houston? I'm quite sure that I have. So never mind.

Photo: MSG

It is a rite of early summer: The ESPN news release announcing its annual July time-filler on SportsCenter.

Often these concepts get a tad confusing and convoluted. Last year it was "Titletown," whose goal was to identify America's "Titletown," even though Green Bay has used that nickname for decades.

I'm on vacation and don't the patience to figure this year's feature out. So you're on your own. Click below and have at it.

Continue reading "Kobe Bryant fantasizes about playing cricket, I think" »