Watchdog

Well, I'm out for 2007.

Enjoy your New Year's Eve TV choice, whether it be some guy jumping the length of a football field in a motorcyle on ESPN (appropriate to ring out the year in which we lost Evel Knievel) or whatever Tiki Barber is doing on NBC or the Honeymooners Christmas episode on Ch. 11 (see post below).

I'll be busy looking forward and planning my 2008.

Feb. 4: Final Mercury Morris TV interview - ever! - on '72 Dolphins
July 15: Ian Kennedy starts All-Star Game for AL squad in Bronx.
Aug. 8: Roger Clemens carries American flag in Opening Ceremonies.
Dec. 31: Tiki tries to leap 30 Rock in a single bound via rocket-powered device.

Happy New Year.

Enjoy Ms. Fitness World '08 from Las Vegas at 4 p.m. Tuesday on FSNY.

On New Year's Eve, 1980, I was in Times Square with a group of college friends. After midnight we realized one of us was missing. We were concerned, as he was a bumpkin from western Massachusetts who was unfamiliar with the ways of the big city.

We never did find him until late the next morning.

If that happens to you and you have nothing else to do at 11 a.m. Tuesday, feel free to stop by the ESPN Zone to observe its "Ultimate Couch Potato" event.

The object of the game is to see who can watch the most continuous hours of sports from a comfy chair and perhaps break the world record of 69 hours, 48 minutes.

Contestants can order unlimited food and beverages, but sleeping is not allowed, and only one restroom break is permitted every EIGHT hours. So basically these people are doing for fun what I do every day for my job, except I get more frequent bathroom breaks.

The finalists are Lindsay Wagenblast, 20, of Edison, N.J., hometown of Newsday baseball columnist Ken Davidoff; Nate Lopez, 28, of Queens, N.Y., hometown of Tony Bennett; Peter Beljakovic, 37, of Brooklyn, N.Y., hometown of Joe Paterno; and Stan Friedman, 46, of Manhattan, N.Y., hometown of Lou Gehrig.

(Update: Just got an e-mail from the aforementioned bumpkin, who is alive and well and living in Wisconsin, I believe. He claims he was a "survivor" who had things under control all the while.)

Oh, geez. I might have to get this TV out of my office. I currently am watching the final minute of the Quinnipiac-Cornell game on MSG instead of writing my newspaper column.

Cornell was losing by nine with a couple of minutes left. Now it's going into OT.

When I was in college, they used to schedule basketball games for 6 p.m. on Saturdays in hopes people would stop for a few minutes on their way through Barton Hall to Lynah Rink for the 8 p.m. hockey game.

(Update: Good guys win, 86-84.)

I have to write a newspaper column now, but before I go here is an important programming note:

Ch. 11, Newsday's Tribune company sibling, is running a "Honeymooners'' marathon that begins at midnight with the essential Christmas episode, which used to run on Christmas Eve but now is a less regularly seen treat.

Other key episodes include Ralph's appearance on a pop music quiz show at 3 p.m. and in a cooking equipment infomercial at 5.

But the most important episode, especially since this is a sports blog, arrives at 2 p.m.. when Ed Norton demonstrates how to address a golf ball properly.

Enjoy.

In Sunday's year in review/preview package, I predicted the Giants and Jets would not announce in 2008 that they would resort to personal seat licenses to help pay for their new stadium . . . but that they would do so in 2009.

When I informed Giants chairman Steve Tisch of that before Saturday night's game, he did what he always does when I ask him about PSLs: He smirked. (That's him in the picture, next to Le Grand Orange.)

Officially, the teams want to avoid the PSL route, knowing how unpopular they would be. But they won't promise not to travel down that path.

One way or another, fans will pay for the new palace, which figures to close in on the $2 billion mark by the time it opens in 2010.

The sad thing is that there is nothing wrong with Giants Stadium for actually watching a game. The old place just doesn't have wide enough concourses for the restaurants, bars and suites that 21st century corporate schmoozers demand of sports entertainment/business deductions.

Sigh.

Vince Wilfork's unpenalized poke of Brandon Jacobs' eye Saturday night had to make at least one onlooker in Giants Stadium wince more than the other 77,000 or so.

Brian Williams, a star center for the Giants in the 1990s, was in the house with his son and visited with former friends and teammates on the field before the game.

In training camp in 1997, at a time when Williams was viewed as perhaps the best and most indispensable player on the team, he accidentally was poked in the eye by teammate Bernard Holsey and missed the next two seasons.

Williams returned for the '99 campaign, but then was through.

Early in Sunday night's Titans-Colts game, I was passing the time working through a stack of the Best family's annual New Year's cards/letters.

On Kerry Collins' letter I wrote that I was watching the game and wished his team luck getting into the playoffs.

Two hours later, he was being interviewed by Andrea Kremer on national TV.

Which was a reminder of the great old quote attributed to Joaquin Andujar: "There is one word in America that says it all, and that word is, 'You never know.'"

I guess I'll write Kerry a new card today.

Here is a roundup of stories by yours truly in the newspaper over the weekend that those of you who only read the blog might have missed:

This one is about a guy who now has witnessed both the Dolphins and Patriots completing perfect regular seasons.

This one is about Ch. 9 and the NFL working out their differences over the league snatching away the exclusive local broadcast deal WWOR thought it had for Saturday night's epic.

This one is about the boffo viewership totals for the Pats-Giants tilt.

Thanks for reading.

I'll probably write something about this in my next newspaper column, but no sense waiting for that:

Giants fans Saturday night made me and many other people look silly for spending the week obsessing over Patriots fans snapping up tickets from old, cranky Giants season ticket holders and turning the Meadowlands into Gillette South.

As it turned out . . . not! Patriots fans seemed to be in 20 percent or so of the seats, at best.

The Giants' fans' truly remarkable effort matched that of their team, creating as electric a regular-season atmosphere as I've seen at the soon-to-be-demolished old ballyard. (The spectacular weather surely helped.)

Kudos to all of you, or whomever those loud, young, enthused, perhaps inebriated people were who were standing in front of your regular seats.

I stood inches away from Gisele Bundchen on the elevator at Giants Stadium before the Patriots-Giants game tonight.

She got off on the eighth floor, headed to a suite to watch her favorite quarterback play for the Pats.

I got off on the ninth floor and wandered into the press box.

The rest is kind of a blur.

Contrary to what I heard on the radio this week . . .

It is my understanding there is a very good chance the Giants will visit the Bucs at 1 p.m. Sunday, not at 8 p.m. Saturday.

As long as the Steelers host the Jaguars or Browns, that is the game the NFL and NBC probably will tab for prime time. (If the Steelers meet the Titans, the Giants likely will be the Saturday night game.)

None of this is for certain, but it figures to be better for ratings to have rabid Steelers fans freeze their prime time tushes off in a telegenic fashion than to do something nutty like stage a night game in early January someplace warm such as Tampa.

Sigh.

(UPDATE SUNDAY NIGHT: Sure, I could gloat. But that would be unseemly.)

My Sunday newspaper column has been posted, complete with my look back at 2007 and forward to '08.

Feel free to e-mail or comment at will to tell me how wrong-headed my choices are.

I had the good fortune to inform Keyshawn Johnson of his Rookie of the Year award in person on the field at Giants Stadium before the Pats-Giants tilt.

He seemed honored. I told him I thought he helped make Bill Parcells relax on the ESPN set, and he said it was just as important to his performance to have his old pal Tuna around to relax him.

Next year, Key will have to do without Parcells, who will be very busy in Miami.

I watched the last couple of innings of Game 4 of the '69 Series (see below).

Seconds before the climactic play, Tony Kubek was in the stands interviewing Chief Justice Earl Warren. If a network tried that today, people like me would rip them for losing focus on the game at hand.

Back then there were no regular sports media critics, though.

Also, Floral Park got a mention in the bottom of the 10th, just before hometown boy Pete Richert made the game-losing error for the Orioles.

OMG . . . Game 4 of the '69 World Series is on ESPN Classic, RIGHT NOW.

Hurry. It's over at 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

I'm still working on getting SNY to show Game 1, despite the fact the Mets lost.

Here is a really, really weird seven-plus minutes of video, courtesy of a tip from our friends at Going Five Hole.

It is a tongue-in-cheek report on a tongue-in-cheek table hockey tournament held in 1971 at a Manhattan hotel.

Mostly it's a time capsule of the dying days of an era in which famous New York sportswriters and other journalists got together to socialize and drink too many adult beverages rather than do what they do now in their spare time: coach a youth soccer game, get in quick a run, chug some bottled water, help with the dishes and go to bed early.

Among the luminaries I spotted here are Stan Fischler, a spectacularly inebriated Nick Auf der Maur, Jim Bouton and Newsday's own Marvin Kitman, Stan Isaacs (the very first TV sports columnist in New York!) and (I think) Steve Jacobson.

I know most WatchDog readers were not born when this video was shot, but maybe the old-timers out there can help me identify others who appear here.

I don't mention ESPN's "Outside the Lines'' often enough. It's one of those grown-up shows whose existence is comforting, but that you often forget to watch. Sorry.

The show is presenting what sounds like an interesting episode Sunday, an update on the infamous 1972 crash of a rugby team in the Andes that involved taking extreme measures to survive.

ESPN said "Chris Connelly and a camera crew spent two weeks in South America interviewing people, including three survivors and the man who found them.''

The show debuts at 9:30 a.m.

The survivors' 72-day ordeal was recounted in the film "Alive'' and has been told often over the years, including in an episode of HBO's "Real Sports" in October. But it never fails to fascinate.

Here is a quote from survivor Roberto Canessa that will be heard on Sunday’s show:

"You feel very sad, very, very sad, and you think, ‘Why do I have to do that?’ Of course it was repugnant when you have to cut the piece of a dead person and eat it, and I thought, if I have to do this to go back to my mother and tell her, ‘Don’t cry anymore, your son is alive,’ I would eat in a second. I didn’t want to cause her this huge pain of dying for a dead son."

New Yankee LaTroy Hawkins appeared on Sirius Satellite Radio and had an interesting take on the steroids saga in MLB:

Host Jason Page: “You’re stepping into this Yankee fray. It’s going to be kind of an awkward time. You know in the pre-season especially there are going to be all the questions about what Roger Clemens did, Andy Pettitte did and all that stuff. How do you kind of side-step that stuff when the media comes to you on it?”

LaTroy Hawkins: “It’s not any of my business. First of all the thing is I don’t care. Only person cared about that was [Commissioner Bud] Selig. I don’t care about it. That’s just my own personal opinion.”

Page: “You don’t care if hitters are juicing up?”

Hawkins: “No, I don’t. That’s just my personal opinion. Still got to hit the ball, brother.”

Mike and Chris haven't been reading my blog again! At 3:30 they told their listeners that people in New York won't get to see the Cowboys-Redskins game Sunday.

Then their producer corrected them.

You, guys, you need to read hourly to keep up with this stuff! I'm here to help.

For the second week in a row, the comment contest winner is Sandy, who once again weighed in with a cold, hard slap of reality in response to an item on rising baseball ticket prices.

Things figure to get much worse before they get better on this subject as the wave of new stadium openings crests in 2009 and 2010.

Click below for Sandy's take.

Continue reading "Friday comment contest winner" »

I mentioned in my Friday newspaper column that nothing quite like the Patriots trying to complete a perfect regular season on the road ever has happened before.

(The Dolphins did it at home in '72.)

That is mostly true, with an asterisk. In 1934, the Bears finished their unbeaten regular season at home. But in '42, when they matched that accomplishment, their regular season finale was a home game for the Chicago Cardinals.

So they were the visiting team, but they were in their own town, unlike the Pats.

Make sense? That Bears-Cardinals game attracted a crowd of only 8,251, by the way.

My profound apologies to the thousands of you out there who sat glued to MSNBC from 9 to 9:30 a.m. waiting to hear more from me on the NFL Network saga.

I got a call while on the train to the big city informing me that I had been cancelled because of some sort of ongoing news story in Pakistan.

Do these people know who they're dealing with! I know Keith Olbermann personally! I know Bernard McGuirk personally! (Does he still work there?)

Whatever. I'm back in the basement now and ready to get started on my Sunday column. Don't tell the Sunday editor that my original plan was to goof off on national TV and not work on his stuff until this afternoon.

One more thing related to my Friday newspaper column about the Patriots-Giants ticket saga . . .

Here is an idea of what the ticket landscape looks like on eBay.

As you can see, options abound, at many price levels.

Happy shopping.

Just don't go giving Patriots fans any ideas and telling them about eBay.

This might be my last post until late Friday afternoon, so I'll leave you with this snippet of the Super Bowl VII pregame show, in honor of the 1972 Dolphins and the men of Apollo 17, still the most recent manned flight to the moon.

I was a huge Redskins fan back then, but the Super Bowl was so dull my friends and I eventually changed the channel to an old movie or something.

That won't happen when the Patriots try to match the Dolphins' feat Feb. 3, because now it's my job to watch such games, no matter how dull they are.

Enjoy the Outback Bowl preview at 2:30 p.m. Friday on ESPN2.

Paul Dottino of ESPN 1050 asked me to tell you about some pre- and post-game coverage he and Larry Hardesty will be providing for Saturday's Pats-Giants tilt.

Paul does a good job covering the team, and it sounds like there might be some interesting elements, so why the heck not?

Among the pre-game guests between 4 and 6:30 p.m., each of whom has some connection to or insight into the Patriots' quest for a perfect season, are Mercury Morris, Bob Tucker, Jessie Armstead, Sam Madison, Steve DeOssie and Jerry Reese. (I assume at least Madison and Reese will be on tape, as they will be busy that night.)

The post-game show is scheduled for 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.

WFAN also will do it customary pre- and post-game shows.

It's a big game . . . even though it's meaningless in the standings.

On behalf of myself and Mark LaMonica, the Newsday sports department's two most famous Cornell alumni bloggers . . .

A laurel and hearty handshake to the newest member of our club, Chris Mascaro, Class of 2006 (gulp!).

Chris started a high school wrestling blog earlier this month.

Wrestling for decades has been a vital part of Newsday's high school coverage. Now it's even better.

You should read it regularly. Thank you.

Tired of your boring, demeaning, musty old job?

Your troubles are over. Turns out the Jets and Giants are looking for a CEO to run their new stadium.

I would do it myself, but between blogging, appearing on cable news channels and commuting to the basement, I don't have the time.

If you do get the job, I get a lifetime parking pass for tipping you off. Thanks in advance.

Assuming Ch. 9 goes through with its showing of the Pats-Giants game despite no longer having local broadcast exclusivity, it will be a night unlike any in 51 years in New York sports TV.

David Halberstam, executive VP of Westwood One radio and a sports media historian, wrote in an e-mail that the last time three New York stations showed the same sports event was the 1956 World Series, which was on Channels 4, 9 and 11.

Westwood One will carry the game on radio outside New York and Boston.

While Giants fans and players ponder how much of their stadium will be overrun by Patriots supporters Saturday, the Buccaneers have taken steps to limit the number of Giants fans who show up in Tampa for the playoffs next week.

Only Florida residents are eligible to purchase tickets through Ticketmaster's site for the game.

It's actually kind of cute, and not that big a deal because tickets are available to New Yorkers through other secondary market sellers.

Sean Murphy, 42, a Giants season ticket holder from Lindenhurst, said he bought four tickets five rows behind the Giants bench on eBay for $170 apiece, quite modest for playoff tickets of that quality.

I wrote an item for my Friday newspaper column about Giants season ticket holders and their attitudes about Saturday night's game, which figures to feature many Patriots fans in attendance.

One guy I didn't have room for was David Schwartz, whom I left out partly because he's a p.r. man for Spike TV, so it seemed a little strange to include him.

But what the heck, he's a legit season ticket holder from Section 309, row 29, and he had some strong opinions on the subject when I reached him . . . in Puerto Rico!

"I'll be back in time Saturday,'' he said. "No way I would sell my tickets, especially to a Boston fan and let those people into my house to boo my team, no way! I'm going to be one of those who are supporting my team. They need me. The last thing we need is Boston fans in New York cheering their team . . . I feel we have a responsibility that comes with cheering on the team in good times and bad.''

Here is the legal version of my TV appearance this morning, straight from CNBC's Web site.

It gets stranger, though: Now I am scheduled to appear on MSNBC between 9 and 9:30 a.m. Friday.

And Fox Business Network invited me to be on today, but I was unable to do it.

Wow. I'm having fun riding this wave as desperate TV bookers look for help from the few Americans working this week.

On Wednesday morning, Jan. 2, I turn back into a print media pumpkin.

I'm back in the basement after wiping CNBC's makeup off my face.

I forgot to TiVo my laryngitis-marred appearance, so if anyone out there is twisted enough to have done so feel free to post it on YouTube. (If that's illegal, Darren Rovell can have CNBC's lawyers call you, not me!)

I have to write a newspaper column now. I wrote Friday that I'd be blogging on a limited basis through Jan. 2. I also wrote that a Dolphins upset of the Pats would have made for a much less eventful sports media/business news week.

The Phins didn't come through, so here we are. See ya later. Thanks for reading.

(Update: Rovell confirms it's illegal, so don't do it. Or do it and don't tell me.)

Sorry I didn't blog last night about the news the NFL will simulcast Pats-Giants on CBS and NBC.

I was busy writing a newspaper article about that. Here it is.

Still unresolved is how the league plans to address Ch. 9's understandable anger over having its broadcast exclusive in the New York market wiped out.

Also . . . DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon and other companies that do carry the NFL Network must be wondering whether they get some sort of rebate for that they've been paying to get games such as Saturday's.

I am scheduled to appear on CNBC at 10:50 a.m. to talk about all this. Feel free to watch if you are so inclined.

Also, I have been talking to Giants fans this week about the delicate matter of whether to sell their tickets for the game, and if so, whether it's OK to do so to Patriots fans.

I've got plenty of fans on my list who are not selling. If you are selling and are willing to talk about it, e-mail me at nbest@newsday.com and include a daytime phone number. Thank you.

It would have made for a much better event Saturday if the Giants needed to beat the Patriots to reach the playoffs.

On the other hand, the fact they don't need the game has been much better for the people who have to fill newspaper columns and talk radio air time this week.

What should Coughlin do? Blah, blah, blah. Glauber even got a backpage column out of it in today's newspaper.

We'll see what happens Saturday. The betting line is the Patriots minus 14.5 points, which suggests Vegas is leaning toward the rest-your-regulars theory over the let's-win-it-for-the-'72-Dolphins theory.

I'm out. I have two columns to write and I promised to do only limited blogging this week.

Enjoy "Addictive Fishing" on FSNY at 2 p.m.

I have written a couple of newspaper columns over the past two weeks about baseball ticket prices in New York for 2008 and '09.

First there was this one, then this one.

Here's another disturbing aspect of the drama, a paragraph Yankees season ticket holders read with their renewal notices:

"By accepting this Non-Renewable, Revocable Ticket License (this 'License'), Licensee acknowledges and agrees that it has no expectancy, right or privilege to any Tickets to 'Postseason Games' played in by the Yankees, or any other events held at the Stadium (e.g. the All Star Game). Any opportunity granted by the Yankees to renew the License or to purchase Tickets to Postseason Games or other events is a privilege revocable, at any time, in the Yankees' sole discretion."

This seems to indicate that season ticket holders are not promised the right to buy playoff tickets, which would be a stunning reversal of sports ticket tradition.

I'm going to assume for now this is just the Yankees keeping their legal bases covered, so to speak, and that in reality season ticket holders will be taken care of, as they should be for prices up to $250 per game.

The ticket scramble for the two new baseball stadiums will be one of the most interesting and contentious topics of the next couple of years on the sports business beat. I'll do my best to keep up with it.

(Update: Further research indicates the paragraph in question is indeed primarily legalese and that season tickets holders reasonably can expect to be taken care of in the postseason.)

Here is a corny but cute video from when we were all younger, more innocent and more taken with the holiday spirit . . . on Monday.

It's Hannah Montana herself, introducing "Monday Night Football.'' I never did come through with Hannah concert tickets for my daughters, but the one who used to be a Packers fan will enjoy this.

She was a big Brett Favre fan as a pre-schooler before ditching him later in life for Kerry Collins.

(By the way, my New Year's resolution is to learn to embed YouTube videos rather than linking to them. I'm learning.)

Professionally, sportswriters must keep a safe distance from public relations people and never take what comes out of their mouths at face value.

Personally, sportswriters often end up liking and respecting the p.r. people who help them do their jobs and serve readers.

An example: Fox Sports director of communications Tim Buckman, who has handled much of my New York-based whining on behalf of his L.A.-based superiors.

Buckman will be leaving the network after almost eight years at the end of next week - three days before the BCS title game and four weeks before the Super Bowl - to move from New York to California for a new gig at Callaway Golf.

Thanks for all your help, Tim, on behalf of SportsWatch/Watchdog and their readers. I hope you and Big Bertha are very happy together.

Ch. 5's Giants post-game shows this season have been inadequate in both length and depth, and pale in comparison to what SNY offers after Jets games.

The only advantage the Ch. 5 show has over SNY's is the contractual right to show highlights, but even that isn't much of an edge given that 99 percent of the people who care enough to watch have just seen the game live.

Ch. 5 needs to rethink its approach in 2008 and do whatever is necessary to carve out a longer and more reliable time slot after games. Otherwise, don't bother.

OK, I'll leave you nice people alone after this one.

Here is a really scary Santa conducting a really weird trivia quiz that includes three sports questions.

I'm assuming 50-plus years ago they were easy for the audience, but I was unable to come up with quick answers for the horse racing and auto racing questions.

The baseball one? OK, I got that.

Enjoy, if you've got seven minutes of your life to squander. If not, check back Wednesday when I return to normal sports blogging.

If I could find it, I'd post video of my greatest Christmas sports memory - having to repeatedly tell my mother in 1971 that I'd be ready to leave my aunt's house for the drive home very, very soon - only to have the Chiefs and Dolphins keep failing to wrap things up.

Yes, of course I watched until the end.

This is going to come as a shock to young New York sports fans, but it's true:

The Knicks used to play regularly on Christmas Day, and often performed memorably.

Such as in 1985, when Patrick Ewing was a rookie, the Celtics were a dominant force and the home team at the Garden sometimes won basketball games.

Here is the video evidence.

The sports media world suffered its share of losses in 2007, but none hit home more for New York baby boomers (and their elders) than the death over the summer of Phil Rizzuto.

RIP, Scooter.

Here is a Christmas-oriented "Money Store" commercial featuring Rizzuto from the late 1980s.

Why? Why not?

I only spent one Christmas during my 20-month stay in Alaska, where the folks dressed up like Eskimos often are Eskimos, and the reindeer don't really know how to fly but do make for a tasty sausage at many local eating establishments.

That Christmas Eve of 1983 I spent most of the night shooting pucks on one of the many lighted, groomed rinks available in town, covered from head to toe in hoarfrost. (Basically, it's frozen dew that covers objects and people in crystals of ice.)

Sigh.

Here's a hockey-related Christmas video for your enjoyment.

Well, now we know what the Cowboys were doing in December of 1986 while the Giants were busy getting ready to win a Super Bowl.

Here it is, the cheesiest sports-related Christmas video EVER.

After this, I know where I'll be spending next Christmas.

Where else could you properly celebrate the holiday than . . . Dallas?

This is strange, sad and uplifting all at the same time.

It's Babe Ruth, dressed as Santa Claus before the final Christmas of his life, already ravaged by the cancer that soon would kill him but doing his part to lift the spirits of children stricken with polio.

I hope those of you celebrating are having a happy, joyous Christmas Eve.

My family honored the centuries-old traditions of our people on this night by eating takeout Chinese food, then watching "It's a Wonderful Life."

One more thing . . .

Here is what Arthur Staple wrote in the Wednesday paper:

"Ahmad Bradshaw had two touches Sunday, one a juggling, circus catch that produced just 1 yard. But the rookie has worked hard on his game and provides open-field speed that Jacobs doesn't possess. Why Gilbride and Coughlin haven't worked Bradshaw into the offense gets more mystifying by the week as Jacobs has fumbled and dropped passes."

Thanks for reading Newsday, TC!

Every holiday tradition had to start somewhere, so I have decided to begin a new one in the Best family, at 2 p.m. Christmas Day on CBS:

Rooting against Nick Saban!

WatchDog's favorite college football coach will be in action in the Chick-fil-A Bowl Alma Mater, a charity golf tournament taped in May.

It features coaches teamed with a celebrity alumni from their schools, to benefit scholarships to the colleges represented.

The field includes Steve Spurrier, Frank Beamer and the ubiquitous Darius Rucker of Hootie and the Blowfish.

I could look up how Saban did in the event, which I've been told had an exciting finish. But I'd rather be surprised.

There also are a couple of NBA games being played Tuesday, I believe.

I'm taking the rest of the day off from blogging.

Check back Tuesday for another holiday tradition WatchDog debuted on Thanksgiving: random YouTube fun!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good morning, afternoon and night.

The NFL just announced that the Titans-Colts tilt would be moved into prime time Dec. 30, giving NBC a meaningful regular-season finale.

Yo, CBS, how are enjoying the "flex schedule" system this week?!

(The Jets and Chiefs originally were penciled in for prime time. Not anymore! They'll play in late afternoon instead.)

Anyway, NBC keeps getting stuck with stinker games. (As I write this, the Redskins are pounding the Vikings.) That has been reflected in the ratings, which have been modest.

Titans-Colts should be mildly interesting, though. More so than anything else on the schedule, at least.

Most of the time the NFL gives teams and fans 12 days' notice before moving a game. But in the final week the requirement drops to six days' notice.

People holding tickets in Indy for an early afternoon game now will be up quite late.

Maybe they have off from work New Year's Eve. Maybe not. Maybe they are traveling a great distance and now must find a hotel room in Indy.

Whatever. Reality check for fans who still purchase tickets: It's a TV show, people! You're only props!

I should have mentioned this in my item today on Mets and Yankees ticket prices, but . . . check this out:

A good seat in Row K at Yankee Stadium's lower level went for about $90 (as part of a season ticket plan) in 2005.

It went for about $100 in 2006.

It went for about $125 in 2007.

It will go for about $250 in 2008.

Stop the madness!

Here is the link for Ducks tickets.

As promised, I did watch the 1994 PBA Greater Detroit Open on ESPN Classic Saturday.

The most interesting thing about it: Some of the hair and clothing styles of the female fans in the background bore a scary resemblance to the 1980s, which means 1994 was longer ago than I imagined, which means . . . I'm really, really old.

In today's newspaper column, which for now appears in two pieces on the Web site, I wrote more about the price rises in Yankees tickets, as well as a story about the TV rights deal for which we have to thank the existence of Our Islanders.

Go Dolphins.