Watchdog

Here is my Tuesday newspaper column, leading with what I hope is a mildly interesting item about the Yankees barring Joba Chamberlain (and everyone else on the roster) from doing paid weekly radio gigs.

There also are items on Paul O'Neill's steadfast refusal to add to his YES workload (for now) and Tiki Barber being sent to Beijing for "Today," a sign that a rumor he is being cut out of that show might have been a tad inaccurate.

Heading into the Final Four, I rank in the 0.6 percentile in ESPN.com's men's tournament challenge, 3,160,365th overall.

But I sense a late rally coming.

Doggone it.

I am told the opening tease for the Yanks' opener on YES will be an epic three minutes in length and focus on the theme "if these walls could talk," with images of historic moments at the big ballyard projected onto various Stadium walls.

I assume this nostalgia stuff will settle down between Tuesday and late September. I sure hope so. But for now it's all good.

Good CBS: Analyst Clark Kellogg nailed the Final Four on Selection Sunday when he picked all four No. 1 seeds.

“We look to the Final Four now. I'm interested in seeing all number one seeds," he said that night. "I think UCLA is terrific, Final Four experience the last two years, Memphis, Elite Eight experience, Kansas terrific balance, North Carolina terrific balance and firepower. I think these four teams are the teams that separated themselves out.”

Bad CBS: If bolting to "60 Minutes" as quickly as possible is more important than providing a real post-game show after a thriller like Davidson-Kansas, maybe it's time to let someone else show the games. That way "60 Minutes" always can start on time!

Apologies in advance for probable lack of Monday posts. I have to do my newspaper job.

Happy Opening Day, everyone. And get well soon, Bobby Murcer and Bob Sheppard. You both will be missed at the Stadium.

Wisconsin's loss dropped me into the 0.7 percentile in ESPN.com's bracket challenge, good for 3,157,433rd place.

My wife and daughter both are in the 97th percentile at Yahoo.com.

Is it baseball season yet?

Well, friends, it was great fun while it lasted, but at least we'll always have that one, glorious late-March week in which our dusty, baby boomer memory banks were jump-started back to life.

Say it ain't so, Bud!

MLB and YouTube have nixed the trove of TV baseball video that loyal reader/commenter John Philips has been posting since last week.

I will give MLB a call to follow up on some of the issues John raised in his announcement of the sad news, but I'm assuming it won't change the bottom line.

No more George Kell, Curt Gowdy, Joe Feliciano, Ed Kranepool, Lindsey Nelson, etc., etc.

Click below to read John's official word.

Continue reading "Farewell, Tony Kubek, Ralph Kiner, Marilyn Dykstra, etc." »

With all the hype over Joe Girardi joining WFAN, plus ESPN 1050 adding personalities such as Billy Wagner and David Cone for regular spots, a couple of readers wondered whether Willie Randolph still will have his weekly gig with Mike Francesa and Chris Russo.

Yes. Randolph still has the Wednesday at 5:05 slot.

Girardi will appear Thursdays at 5:05.

Good night.

I have seen every NCAA Tournament since 1970.

I never, ever have seen anything like what Stephen Curry is doing.

From the perspective of 40 years later, it's astounding that Jose Feliciano's soulful rendition of the national anthem was considered scandalous when he sang it before Game 5 of the 1968 World Series.

Here it is, part of the pre-game festivities as posted by John Philips. This all started about a week ago when I prodded John into posting his video of Lenny Dykstra on "Kiner's Korner."

Now he's got 17 videos on his YouTube page and rapidly is becoming a hero to nostalgic baby boomer baseball fans.

(Check out George Kell about a minute in, where he seems to be doing a parody of sportscasters by stringing together a series of cliches, only he's serious. At least I think so.)

Bobby Murcer, who had been scheduled to work Monday's Yankees opener as an analyst for YES, still is not feeling up to the job and will skip the series against the Blue Jays, YES spokesman Eric Handler said Friday.

After missing all of spring training, Murcer, who is battling brain cancer, had hoped to make his 2008 debut in time for the final opener at Yankee Stadium.

But Handler said Murcer still is "under the weather" and not ready to return. He still plans to work a limited schedule this season when he is able, Handler said.

Murcer has said a biopsy earlier this month took a lot out of him. The test showed only scar tissue and not a new tumor, as some on his medical staff had feared.

Michael Kay and Paul O'Neill will be in the booth for the opener Monday, with David Cone, a new member of the YES lineup, working from the channel's Stamford, Conn., studio.

Murcer made an emotional appearance at the Stadium for last year's opener, three months after undergoing surgery to remove a malignant brain tumor. While there, he said his goal was to be on hand for Opening Day at the new Yankee Stadium in 2009.

Derrick Coleman unfortunately was injured while appearing on the Spike TV show "Pros vs. Joes."

This fate might have befallen John Rocker had I agreed to step into the batter's box against him during a promotional appearance for the show in Bryant Park a couple of years back.

But I declined.

Michael Buffer temporarily not ready to rumble.

Get well soon.

Mike Francesa was on the radio with Sid Rosenberg.

Charles Barkley is throwing verbal grenades again.

And Mark Cuban's blogger credentialing escapades are getting wackier by the day.

I'm out.

Enjoy "Football Asia" on Fox Soccer Channel at 5 p.m.

WatchDog does not support sports gambling but does find looking at betting lines and odds interesting.

Click below for a vast array of Yankees and Mets stuff from Bodog.

Both teams' over-under on victories is listed at 93.5, but the Mets are expected to have a better chance to win their pennant, as unlike the Yankees they are not in the same league as the Red Sox.

Continue reading "Mets, Yankees both guesstimated at 93.5 victories" »

Speaking of my visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame this week (see post below), I got a tour of the vast library facility from Tim Wiles, the director of research.

Wiles (pictured at right) also is one of three authors of a book about the history of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" that should be in stores any day now.

The other two authors - Robert Thompson and Andy Strasberg - will be appearing in a segment on the book and the song that will be shown on CBS's "Sunday Morning" show this weekend.

I admit it. I'm not a huge Gus Johnson guy.

Only because I generally believe sports fans hear enough yelling from bosses, spouses/significant others and children that we don't need more of it during games.

But I'm clearly in the minority, at least among the youngish fans in Blog World.

Here is an entertaining interview with Gus from SI.com in which he discusses said popularity - which has reached (almost) Erin Andrews proportions - as well as his efforts to put a positive spin on the Knicks.

By the way, Gus is working the Davidson-Wisconsin tilt Friday night. If Davidson wins or makes it close . . . well, count on him to be excited.

Nothing says "Opening Day" quite like a book-promoting appearance by Jose Canseco on David Letterman's show.

Sure enough, Mr. Canseco will be making his "Late Show" debut Monday night, hours after the Yankees' final home opener at the big ballpark in the Bronx.

Let's hope it's on past A-Rod's bedtime.

One of my most loyal readers wrote recently to ask inquire about something he has noticed from watching way too many NCAA Tournament games:

That CBS mentions the cities in which games are being played, but never the arenas.

Hmm. Turns out it's on purpose. It says so at the end of this story in the Detroit News.

I assume this is related to the fact all corporate logos on the court are covered up during NCAA games.

Speaking of former pitchers with new media gigs (see post below), ESPN 1050 has added David Cone as a regular on Michael Kay's afternoon show, where he joins a current pitcher, Billy Wagner, whom the station signed earlier this week.

Cone and Wagner both have long histories of blunt honesty, so this is a positive development in the ongoing New York sports radio wars.

(UPDATE: ESPN 1050 just announced another feature, "New York Baseball Tonight," which will be heard from 6 to 7 p.m. during Kay's show and include Yankees and Mets talk from ESPN types such as Peter Gammons, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney and Steve Phillips, plus reports from the station's Andrew Marchand, Larry Hardesty and Rich Coutinho.)

Other than Mike Francesa and Chris Russo discussing ballpark bathrooms, I haven't missed any really big developments during my week off, but I was surprised to return from out of town Thursday night to this news:

Ron Darling will serve as an analyst this season for TBS's new Sunday afternoon package. (It's non-exclusive, meaning if TBS is showing the Mets or Yanks, they will be seen here on SNY, Ch. 11, YES or Ch. 9.)

Was SNY on board with this, given its contractual rights to Darling's services? Yes. He is doing only 10 games, on days when he would have been off from SNY anyway, and he will not work any Mets games.

So . . . good for Darling and good for TBS. Darling has skyrocketed from announcer obscurity to a rising star in a matter of two years.

Buck Martinez also will work as an analyst alongside play-by-play man Chip Caray for the Sunday series, which debuts April 6.

I took my daughters for their first visit to Cooperstown this week and my first in more than a quarter century.

I recommend it, especially during weird times of year when you can avoid the summer mobs.

As enjoyable as the Hall of Fame and museum itself is, one of the best attractions is the remarkable array of baseball-related stuff available in the shops that line each side of Main Street.

It's enough to make even the most shopping-averse person - notice how I avoided writing "shopping-averse man," which might have been construed as sexist - willing to spend hours browsing.

I had a brief chat with former Yankees p.r. man Jeff Idelson, the long-time p.r. man at the Hall whose job had included following players such as Barry Bonds around and asking for stuff after they set records or reach milestones.

Idelson learned earlier this week that he was the interim president of the whole place after Dale Petrosky resigned under pressure. So he seemed a little busy when we saw him Wednesday.

CBS's "60 Minutes," which has radically increased the number of sports-related pieces it does over the past couple of years - especially following events such as NFL games or the NCAA Tournament - is at it again this weekend.

In the spotlight will be Bill James and his contributions to the Red Sox's statistical analysis in recent seasons.

The Sox are worried, though. Worried that the Evil Empire is going to try the same approach and beat James and the Bosox at their own game.

In the piece James is asked what player he most would want to see on his dream team.

Answer: “David Wright. Because he does everything I like and he’s very young.”

Here is a fascinating look deep into the recent cuts at NFL Films from my old football beat pal Paul Domowitch of the Philly Daily News.

One of the charms of NFL Films is that people in Philly consider it a local treasure - it's in suburban Mount Laurel, N.J. - and get a little more emotional about it than New York would if it were just another cog in the media factory that is Big Town.

I wrote a brief, superficial column about Billy Packer last week.

Here is a much better, more thorough take on the announcer many love to hate for one month every year.

For those of you keeping score at home, I currently rank 3,148,042nd in the ESPN.com men's tournament challenge, good for a spot in the first percentile of entries.

And yet, my pick for the championship, Wisconsin, still is alive.

How is that possible?

Everything else is wrong, that's how.

Here's Part I of Mike and Chris discussing baseball peeing strategy Wednesday.

Sorry, Chris, I'm with Mike on this one. During the ALDS last year I was amazed at the lengths of the men's room lines at Yankee Stadium and happy to be one of the cool kids who gets to duck into the one in the press box.

I have not yet run into Mike there. Maybe Monday.

I missed the already infamous argument between Mike Francesa and Chris Russo Wednesday regarding peeing logistics at Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. What can I say? I'm a STIF (spending time interacting with family). But multiple sources are planning to have it posted on YouTube by sunset, so it's all good.

The NBA Store has revealed its 10 best-selling jerseys over the 10 years since it opened. Neither Stephon Marbury nor Frederic Weis made the list. Here it is: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, LeBron James, Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady, Dwyane Wade, Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Tim Duncan.

How can Chris Webber be retired? And Jalen Rose be an analyst? Gee whiz. I covered those guys' entire Fab Five run in 1992. And I was there when Webber called timeout in New Orleans in '93. They used to be so young.

Predictably, some have made fun of ESPN for hiring Justin Timberlake to host the ESPYs in July. I say: Bravo! This is not an event for serious sports fans, so why not Justin Timberlake? And there always is the chance he'll bring along his old friend Janet Jackson.

ESPN 1050 made an excellent hire by adding the Mets' Billy Wagner to its regular guest roster; he'll appear with Michael Kay in the afternoon throughout the season. This is a big sacrifice for Billy, who is certain to miss his weird, sometimes contentious sessions with the other New York sports station's afternoon team.

The ESPN Zone in Chicago is hosting a free lunch April 13 for Cubs fans interested in watching the team face the Phillies that afternoon. One catch: You have to be 100 years old, and thus have been around the last time the Cubbies won it all. Or you have to be related to said 100-year-old. Each is allowed to bring three guests. Of course, you could be 99 right now and still have been born by the time the Cubs actually won the title in October. I assume that counts.

Good luck to Chuck Gerber, who grew up in East Meadow, graduated from Adelphi in 1965 and as of April 11 is retiring from ESPN after most recently serving as its executive VP for college sports programming. He's headed for the SEC, according to Sports Business Journal's John Ourand. Burke Magnus, who has been running ESPNU, will assume many of Gerber's responsibilities.

In advance of the April 4 International Fight League event at the Izod Center, there will be a mixed martial arts demonstration and autograph signing session in the Amtrak Rotunda of Penn Station from 7 to 10 a.m. Friday. In attendance will be MMA experts from the Renzo Gracie Academy, including Renzo Gracie, Wagnney Fabiano and Jim Miller.

That's all for now. As I mentioned earlier, I'm a STIF. Enjoy the Sweet 16.

OK, John, I'll bite: Where the heck are you getting all this stuff?

Rather than me continuing to post his videos, just go to his YouTube site directly and pick what you want. It's a New York baby boomer nostalgia goldmine.

John Philips is at it again. This time it's a 1983 Kiner's Korner in which Ralph discusses with Tom Seaver Mr. Terrific's return to the Mets.

It includes video of Seaver's only career shot at Mickey Mantle, in an All-Star Game. The Mick struck out.

I spoke to Jeff Idelson, the Baseball Hall of Fame's long-time p.r. man and former Yankees p.r. man, on the phone Tuesday. He sounded strangely distracted.

Now I know why. Yikes!

Good luck running the place, Jeff.

Kudos to loyal reader Matt for staying on top of the issue he first made WatchDog aware of many weeks ago regarding a time conflict between the NFL opener - likely featuring Our Giants - and John McCain's acceptance speech at the Republican Convention.

Just for the record . . . when I called some of Matt's suggested solutions "ludicrous" I was not referring to the idea of playing the game earlier in the evening than usual.

I was referring to the notions of starting the entire season a week later and/or putting the game on the NFL Network and/or not playing the Thursday night game at all this year.

Anyway . . . good job by Matt for raising this issue in the first place!

Bob Sheppard is feeling better and plans to return to the Yankees' p.a. booth sometime this season, but not in time for the opener.

I spoke to him Tuesday. He sounded upbeat and strong. Sheppard said his voice is fully recovered from the bronchial infection that knocked him out of the ALDS, but apparently the rest of him still is not quite ready to make the trip from his Baldwin home to the Bronx.

Barring some sort of setback, he should be back sometime this summer and if all goes well help send off the old stadium this fall.

Sheppard, who served for 50 years as the Giants' p.a. announcer, said he watched Super Bowl XLII and enjoyed it very much.

As a journalist, obviously I should have mentioned Mr. Sheppard's presumed age in the newspaper article about him. But he is famously reluctant to discuss that subject and I have tried to avoid it since I speculated about it in an article in the early 1990s and he got quite upset with me.

Let's just say he is older than Yankee Stadium and leave it at that.

(UPDATE: I forgot that Newsday's venerable baseball scribe, Ken Davidoff, wrote about a month ago that Mr. Sheppard recently signed a two-year extension with the team. Not bad for a guy older than, um, Ebbets Field.)

I'm not positive where I first saw this very amusing clip referenced. I'm going to assume it was Awful Announcing. I know how annoyed the blogosphere gets when credit is not properly given for being first on these things.

Anyway, I'm hoping this clip isn't somehow doctored, because as presented it is difficult to believe.

On the other hand, as I always tell people, whatever you might think about Mike Francesa and Chris Russo, filling 27.5 hours of week by blabbing about sports is much more difficult than it appears.

Thus, on occasion, Mike, um, might tend to repeat himself. Just a little.

Oh, great, now Newsday.com's own bloggers are ganging up on me in an effort to knock me from my lofty perch as the king of all non-beat writer sports bloggers and put a stop to the endless flow of my obnoxious, self-congratulatory postings about page views and such.

Darn you, Rieber!

Yes, I watched SNY's new 5 to 6:30 p.m. lineup Monday, and I'm not (overly) ashamed to admit it.

Early observations:

"Daily News Live": The show has been reduced from 60 minutes to 30 and given a new-look set. I would advise turning the lights up and moving the table top down. The panelists looked like they were sitting at the little kids' table at a bar mitzvah with romantic mood lighting.

"The WheelHouse": Scott Ferrall managed on three different occasions in one 30-minute show to disparage a New York pro athlete by comparing him to a woman. For this we're supposed to give up "Pardon the Interruption?" Speaking of which, the show includes a rundown of coming topics and declares a winner based on the superior debating points. Why hasn't anyone thought of those gimmicks before? Oh, wait . . .

"Loud Mouths": I kind of liked Schein and Carlin, but by this point I had heard quite enough debate about the talk radio topics du jour, from Georgetown to Andy Pettitte to Isiah. At the end of the show the hosts discussed what they would be watching on TV that night. Why hasn't anyone thought of that gimmick before? Oh, wait . . .

In fairness, it was Day One. And in fairness, I'm off this week. I'll give it all another chance after a week or two, OK, guys? Please don't yell at me.

Introduced the kids to "Breaking Away" Monday night.

Hadn't seen it in 25 years.

Still one of the best sports-related flicks ever, and family friendly, if you don't mind some naughty words.

A reader wondered why CBS didn't simply go with a split screen Sunday afternoon so interested fans could see either of two interesting games: the ones involving Georgetown going down and Tennessee barely surviving.

It has been proven many times over that split screens don't work well as a viewer experience, so doing the entire games that way certainly was not going to happen.

But when three close games were in the final minute at the same time . . . Well, it might have been nice for a few seconds, but CBS got through it without anything nutty like simultaneous buzzer-beaters.

(In related news, "March Madness on Demand" continues to roll up huge, record-breaking numbers. So there are alternatives for people with proper computers and Internet connections.)

It turns out the big boss was not displeased by a recent video posted by Chicago Tribune staffers that won a contest in the Chicago Sun-Times regarding the proposed sale of naming rights to Wrigley Field.

Here is an excerpt from an e-mail he sent the staff, which I'm going to assume I'm allowed to share with you, seeing as how all of his e-mails about the company's finances also seem to make it into the public domain:

"Needless to say, I was shocked! Appalled! The video was a blatant disregard for Tribune Company policy. It demonstrated a glaring disrespect for your chairman and CEO. (I’m much better looking, clearly more agile, and I think whoever played me was singing off key.)

"So, I immediately referred to the 11th commandment: Thou shalt not take oneself too seriously. And, then I shared the video with my family and friends."

I haven't played fantasy baseball since 1988, back when it was called something else (check the picture, young readers) and Jose Canseco was an incredible steal in the third round.

So I'm not really up to date on such things. But I did notice an interesting tidbit in a release about Rotoworld.com and its traffic increases in advance of baseball fantasy drafts. (Up 108 percent in page views and 94 percent in unique visitors in the past year.)

Turns out actual front office types use the site. The release said the Yankees get a mapping file each spring from Rotoworld so they can link to its player information from their internal scouting database.

I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds impressive.

Are fantasy drafts over already, or do they happen after the Red Sox opener in Japan? If the latter, here are some lists from the site:

Top five sleepers:
1) Ian Kinsler (Rangers)
2) Lastings Milledge (Nationals)
3) Conor Jackson (Diamondbacks)
4) Jeremy Hermida (Marlins)
5) Dustin McGowan (Blue Jays)

Top five busts:
1) Roy Oswalt (Astros)
2) Jeremy Bonderman (Tigers)
3) Edgar Renteria (Tigers)
4) Carlos Delgado (Mets)
5) Jose Guillen (Royals)

Top five "let someone else draft them":
1) Aaron Rowand (Giants)
2) Barry Zito (Giants)
3) Mike Lowell (Red Sox)
4) Joe Borowski (Indians)
5) Dontrelle Willis (Tigers)

Congratulations and good luck to early SportsWatch/WatchDog supporter Mike Thompson, who has been named general manager of ESPN Radio 1250 in Pittsburgh.

Thompson, who grew up in Pittsburgh, had spent the past year as New Media Program Director for ESPN Radio, and before that was program director at ESPN 1050 in the big city from 2004-2007.

Also: congratulations to WatchDog Nation.

This is the 2,000th post in our 10 1/2 month history. Plans for a gala first anniversary celebration in early May are well under way. There's a lot of red tape to deal with, but the parade down Hempstead Turnpike is a real possibility.

Here are the latest stats from the ESPN.com bracket challenge, which had 3.6 million entries. (Full disclosure: I am not among the two people with a perfect Sweet 16.)

2 picked all 16 of the Sweet 16 teams correctly;
4,621 picked Davidson, Villanova, and Western Kentucky to advance to the Sweet 16;
72 picked 15 of the 16 Sweet 16 teams correctly;
294,060 picked Davidson to defeat Georgetown in the Second Round;
640,180 had picked Xavier to defeat Duke in the Sweet Sixteen;
544,753 incorrectly picked Butler to defeat Tennessee in the Second Round;
1,950,119 incorrectly picked Connecticut to advance to the Sweet Sixteen;
189,492 have picked Xavier to defeat West Virginia in the Sweet Sixteen;
25,331 have picked Villanova to defeat Kansas in the Sweet Sixteen;
159,423 have picked Michigan State to defeat Memphis in the Sweet Sixteen;
420,746 have picked Texas to advance to the Championship Game;
4,703 have picked Davidson to advance to the Championship Game;
50 picked Davidson to defeat Western Kentucky in the Championship Game;
3,159 have picked Villanova to advance to the Championship Game;
1,548 picked Western Kentucky to advance to the Championship Game;
64,813 have picked Washington State to defeat North Carolina in the Sweet Sixteen;
233 have picked Davidson to defeat UCLA in the Championship Game;
16 have picked Western Kentucky to defeat Villanova in the Championship Game.

Twin brothers Brett (CEO of the Nets) and Michael (COO of the Florida Panthers) Yormark are scheduled to appear in a feature on CNBC's “High Net Worth” at 8:30 (and 11:30) Friday.

The Nets still insist the Brooklyn arena thing is going to happen.

In many ways it would be cool having an NBA team in downtown Brooklyn, but on the other hand it seems like it would be more efficient to play in Newark with the Devils or Uniondale with the Isles. But I digress.

ESPN.com's Bill Simmons made fun of Cornell fans and Cornell cheerleaders after the first round of the NCAAs, meaning we finally have hit the big time. (Thanks to Newsday night desk boss Jeff Weinberg for the tip.)

And it finally is time to stop torturing readers with Big Red posts.

Until the NCAA lax tournament, obviously.

For those of you who missed my programming note from Friday, I am off this week and will be doing only limited blogging.

In honor of the Scooter, my official notation for the week is WW - "Wasn't Watching."

Read our other blogs instead.

Coulda been worse.

In 2001, I covered a first-round NCAA Tournament game in Storrs in which UConn beat LIU, 101-29.

And Geno was being kind.

He easily could have won it, 201-29, if he wanted.

Here is the schedule and announce teams for regional semis:

Thursday:
7:10 p.m. . . . Xavier vs. West Virginia . . . Lundquist/Raftery
7:27 p.m. . . . North Carolina vs. Washington State . . . Enberg/Bilas
9:40 (approx.) . . . UCLA vs. Western Kentucky . . . Lundquist/Raftery
9:57 (approx.) . . . Tennessee vs. Louisville . . . Enberg/Bilas

Friday:
7:10 p.m. . . . Wisconsin vs. Davidson . . . Johnson/Elmore
7:27 p.m. . . . Texas vs. Stanford . . . Nantz/Pac