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Recent posts
- ESPN's '30 for 30' examines Jimmy 'The Greek' Snyder
- Chargers overcome snowball fears, return to Giants Stadium
- SNY series digs into Mets history
- See ya
- Fox in Afghanistan, Agassi on drug use, Millen on NFL Network
- Yankees fuel ratings rise
- 'E' to play Nack in horse flick
- Yanks celebrate; TV people annoy
- 3 of Core 4 visit Dave
- Yankees' title good for busine$$
- Yankees visit Letterman tonight
- World Series tix were volatile on secondary market
- Yankees win, WatchDog Twitters, Hank talks . . . on to football
- 27th heaven for damn Yankees
- Paul O'Neill endorses '09 champs
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See ya
Having four Yankees stars appear on "Late Night with David Letterman" Thursday night - taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater less than 24 hours after they won the World Series - was a neat echo of other, similar appearances on the same stage.
Alan Ameche visited Ed Sullivan on the very night he scored the overtime touchdown that ended the Greatest Game Ever Played in 1958.
And in 1969, the Mets got their turn, three days after winning the Series.
All of which is a very long way to go for an excuse to post my favorite sports video for the third (or maybe it's the fourth) time while telling you the time has come to begin a World Series-delayed vacation.
In my absence, please read Newsday.com early and often and enjoy its wide assortment of fine sports journalism content.
Can we start the football season now?
Tags: see ya
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ESPN's '30 for 30' examines Jimmy 'The Greek' Snyder
ESPN's "30 for 30" documentary series concludes its initial, six-week run Tuesday night with "The Legend of Jimmy the Greek," a look at Jimmy Snyder, the famed Vegas handicapping expert who became much more famous as a member of CBS' "The NFL Today" cast.
Snyder helped turn gambling into a more mainstream concept for sports fans as a pop culture figure with enormous reach.
But Snyder had a dark side to his personality, presumably related to family tragedy in both his childhood and adult lives.
Then Snyder lost everything after publicly expressing his theory on the perceived superiority of black athletes.
This film, by Fritz Mitchell, a young researcher on "The NFL Today" in the Greek's era, is dark and slow moving at times, but will fill in younger viewers on the phenomenon behind a sports media name they probably have heard but know little about.
Thus far the series has had a dark tone overall, and has skewed heavily toward the first decade of ESPN's 30-year window.
Happier, more recent subjects are promised in 2010.
The series resumes Dec. 12 with a two-hour look at the University of Miami football program that follows the Heisman Trophy presentation.
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SNY series digs into Mets history
Call it offseason filler if you must, but SNY's new "Mets Yearbook," debuting Thursday night after its "Hot Stove" show, is off-the-charts cool for sports and TV nostalgia buffs.
The series features 27 season highlight films from 1962 through '88 that had been languishing in the Mets' archives for years.
The ones from the early years were made for promotional purposes and shown mostly to community groups; they were not designed for television and in some cases never have been seen on TV before.
Gary Morgenstern, SNY's VP of programming, said the hodgepodge of films followed various formats and were of varying lengths but have been turned into half-hour shows for "Mets Yearbook."
The first five - 1971, '84, '75, '68 and '63 - will be shown on Thursdays in 2009, with about 10 more in '10 and the rest sometime the following year.
So far I have watched '71, '68 and '63.
The '71 show includes footage of an old-timers' game in which Satchel Paige is seen pitching, and in which Bobby Thomson pitched to Ralph Branca. (You read that right.)
In the '68 show, Gil Hodges is seen going over scouting reports in the locker room with his young pitching staff, including Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.
The '63 highlights were most interesting of all, because they included extensive, full color, rarely seen footage of the Mets playing at the Polo Grounds.
That includes the final major league game played there, after which Casey Stengel is shown walking off through centerfield in a scene similar to the one featuring Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza at Shea 45 years later.
Photo: AP
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Fox in Afghanistan, Agassi on drug use, Millen on NFL Network
Random programming notes:
Fox's NFL pregame show Sunday will originate from an undisclosed military base in Afghanistan.
Also in recognition of Veterans Day, ESPN's pregame show will sit down with Pat Tillman's widow, Marie, for her first TV interview since his death.
Katie Couric will sit down with Andre Agassi on "60 Minutes" Sunday and ask him about criticism - including from Martina Navratilova - in the wake of his recent admission in a book that he used drugs.
"I had a problem, and there might be many other athletes out there that test positive for recreational drugs that have a problem," he said. "So I would ask for some compassion."
The NFL Network begins its Thursday night slate with the Bears against the 49ers, featuring new analyst Matt Millen.
Millen on whether his failure as a Lions executive taints his credibility as an analyst:
"I just stick with the game and stick with what's going on the field and talk about that; that's all I can do. The rest of it is all somebody else's opinion. If there's credibility, there's credibility. But that can only be given from you, not from me. That's how I approach it."
Tags: Fox, CBS, NFL Network, ESPN
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Chargers overcome snowball fears, return to Giants Stadium
The Chargers next (and last) game against the Giants at Giants Stadium Sunday will be their first since the infamous events of Dec. 23, 1995, when the home team nearly forfeited because their fans spent most of the afternoon pelting one another - and the players - with snowballs.
The vibe in the press box mostly was one of amusement, until a Chargers equipment man was seriously injured.
Afterward co-owner Wellington Mara expressed his disgust in the locker room and vowed to revoke season tickets privileges for those involved.
One of the strangest, lowest moments in the now-doomed stadium's history.
Photo: Jim Peppler/Newsday
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'E' to play Nack in horse flick
Did I mention that Patchogue-Medford High alum and Islanders fan Kevin Connolly, of "Entourage" fame, will play former Newsday columnist William Nack in the 2010 movie about Secretariat?
Well, he will.
Photo: AP
Tags: HBO, dead horses
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Yanks celebrate; TV people annoy
I watched bits and pieces of the 11 television channels that carried the Yankees parade live, and have come up with a plan to make coverage of next year's championship celebration easier to take:
Gather all the non-sports department TV news reporters in a room before the festivities, then have Derek Jeter walk in and wave. When they all pass out from excitement, begin the parade without them.
I can't pretend to have seen every goofy TV moment, but my favorite came from Ch. 4's Andrew Siff, who began yelling at Robinson Cano on a passing float, "Robbie! Robbie!"
It appeared he was not seeking an interview. Rather, he just wanted to get his attention and, um, I suppose to wave hello.
Which was when I waved goodbye to the 2009 Yankees parade.
Uh, oh. Now the ceremony at City Hall has begun and Mayor Bloomberg is saying corny sportsy stuff to sound like a regular guy.
At least Bloomberg pronounced John Sterling's and Michael Kay's names correctly. Big improvement over the "Bob Popper" incident after the Giants parade in February of '08.
Now the team is walking onto the stage. Hal Steinbrenner has really great hair. Good enough to be a TV newsman!
OK, I'm done. Enjoy, Yankees fans.
Photo: Jen Uczen
Tags: Yankees
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3 of Core 4 visit Dave
Jeter, Posada and Pettitte were OK on Letterman Thursday night, but Biff Henderson's World Series report was funnier.
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Yankees fuel ratings rise
Here are a couple of other items from my Friday column:
Ratings for the Series were the highest since 2004, aided by the Yankees' presence and the fact it lasted more than five games for the first time in six years.
Also, a mini-review of Fox's coverage, in which I address the criticism Chris Rose took for his interviewing style after the trophy presentation.
The interviews YES' Kimberly Jones and Michael Kay conducted after the game were far more comfortable and well-informed than those of national entities, naturally. And many people watched. YES' post-game rating after Game 6 peaked at 3.0 percent of New York area homes. Not sure what Jones' dry-cleaning bill was after four separate sessions of champagne-soaked locker room interviews this autumn.
The parade is going on now!
I'm watching on YES, because their correspondents (Kimberly Jones and Chris Shearn) actually know who the players are, unlike the hairdos doing their obligatory gushing on the local broadcast stations' coverage.
(UPDATE: Just noticed SNY is covering the parade, too! I counted 11 stations offering live coverage as of 11:45 a.m. God, I hate sports parades.)
First ticker-tape parade for a New York team: 1954 baseball Giants - but for winning the pennant, not the World Series, which began two days later.
That's weird.
Photo: AP
Tags: Yankees
