GET YOUR PLAX STRAIGHT
YOU know what we need from Fox, today? At some point, say late in the third quarter during Giants-Eagles, we could use two or three quick clips showing whether Plaxico Burress has even bothered to get in the way of a defender, let alone throw a block, during a play in which the ball is being carried downfield in someone else’s hands.
After all, it’s a playoff game. And what once was a given – wide receivers throwing blocks – is becoming a lost art as star WRs increasingly seem to show up in the NFL as one-trick divas.
It would be nice to know whether Burress, in a playoff game, would even try to block the DB closest to him, or whether he’d do his regular-season thing – allow that DB to run directly toward the ball and get involved in the tackle.
Just a thought, that’s all. One downfield block can be the difference in any game. And one little video package can tell a very big story.
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The metal-bat lobby, with Little League spokesman Mike Mussina‘s help, of late, keeps insisting that metal bats are no more dangerous to kids – especially pitchers, roughly 42 feet away after throwing – than wood bats.
Yet, the metal-bat industry keeps advertising that its bats make swings faster and/or balls jump off of the bats quicker – “increased trampoline effect” – causing batted balls to travel farther.
Meanwhile, the names given to these no-more-harmful metal bats include, the “Stealth,” “Havoc,” “Warrior,” “Armor,” “The Burn,” “The Catapult,” “The Magnum,” “Wicked,” “Rebel,” “The Hooligan,” “The Rogue,” “The Laser,” “Diablo,” “The Samurai,” “TechZilla,” “The Freak,” “Ambush,” and “Rampage.”
Incidentally, the full, official name of “The Hooligan” is the “DeMarini Hooligan Youth Baseball Bat.”
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MSG Network, in a piece it re-aired this week following the death of Chicago-to-Baltimore-to-New York broadcaster Jim Karvellas, found Karvellas in an it-happened-one-year lament about his relationship with New York teams while in Baltimore.
In January of 1969, as a radio voice of the Colts, Karvellas called the Jets-Colts Super Bowl. The Colts, 18-point favorites, lost.
That fall, as a voice of the Orioles, easily the majors’ best team – the O’s won 109 games, that year – he figured that New York lightning could not strike twice. But the Mets beat the O’s in the World Series.
Next, as the radio voice of the ’69-70 Bullets, another packed Baltimore team, Karvellas hit the triple. The Bullets lost an epic seven-game playoff series to the Knicks.
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Instead of Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser spending three hours telling ESPN hostages that Chad Pennington has a weak arm – old news – why not enlighten an audience to the great, championship-winning NFL QBs who had similarly weak arms? Heck, if you compare 1960s film to 2000s videotape, Bart Starr and Pennington are the same QB.
Cops found 550 rounds of ammo, six guns and narcotics in Tank Johnson‘s house? What is the official Taser gun of the NFL?
Not only were many 7-8 teams alive in the last weekend, but the Seahawks, 9-7, won the NFC West and a home playoff game having allowed six more points than they scored.
Why do fools fall in love? The cost of Mets seasons’ tickets to field-box seats at Shea have increased 42.5 percent in the last two years, 235 percent in the last 10. (Thanks to abused Mets fan/reader Jack Waslin for doing the math).
George Kalinsky, Madison Square Garden’s head photographer for nearly 40 years – and The Garden’s most enduring sweetheart – has been elected to the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He’ll be inducted this spring.
Too bad ESPN didn’t have the rights to Saddam Hussein’s hanging. There would have been that “Countdown To The Hanging” clock, followed by a “He Got Strung Up!” segment.
It’s not easy handicapping NFL playoff games when you don’t know whether, come kickoff, starters will be in jail, not allowed to leave the state, or even be alive.
So a friend, who should have known better, spent $40 to buy his 14-year-old son “Scene It?” for Christmas. It’s a sports trivia, DVD-attached ESPN game. And then both the kid and his dad immediately discovered that the game is laced with ESPN advertising – “SportsCenter” and Chris Berman nickname promotions – posed as questions.
While it stands to reason that Jon Kitna, QB for the 3-13 Lions, threw for 4,028 yards, the fourth-most yards in the NFL,this season, we’d bet that more than half of TV’s football experts, representing millions in salaries, would be startled.
