Tag: ESPN

UConn – Tennessee Final Stunningly Interrupted By Extra Games

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Pat and Geno

Tennessee coach Pat Summitt and UConn coach Geno Auriemma are baffled over new developments.

TAMPA, FL–The UConn Women’s Huskies and Tennessee Lady Volunteers’ NCAA Women’s Championship basketball game has been hijacked this month by sixty-two additional games played by some 60+ additional teams. The championship, previously scheduled for March 12, will be pushed all the way to April 8. Some of these charlatan universities inexplicably challenged the two schools to matchups themselves.

“It’s just rude, quite frankly,” said UConn coach Geno Auriemma. “Our girls were looking forward to our annual preordained slugfest when I got a call from Erica (Naughton, NCAA “Selection Committee”) ordering me to face off against this Cornell school, or something. Never heard of them. Then we had to keep playing more until she was satisfied. I told her, ‘Yeah, sure I’ll play Rutgers, and beat them in the friggin’ regular season finale a month ago’, but she had none of it. Politics, maybe.”

Less understanding were the players themselves. All-American freshman Maya Moore wondered aloud why so many other teams faced off across the country. “I don’t understand what these ‘Regional Tournaments’ are. Is this like, for charity?” Moore said, flipping through the scouting reports of Tennessee offenses as she has each day since mid-October. “It’s very weird.”

“What the hell’s a Texas A&M?” asked Tennessee forward Candace Parker. Read More

Oh, To Be A Pop Fly On The Wall

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Strategery

From the Washington Post:

The team will host an exhibition game Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles before opening the season with a nationally televised game Sunday night against the Atlanta Braves — one in which (President) Bush is scheduled to both throw out the first pitch and appear in the ESPN broadcast booth.

I’m sure we’ll see the hard-hitting journalism Jon Miller is noted for, as well as the factual accuracy of a Joe Morgan to back us up. I think we see where this is going…

“I remember playing with Pete Rose on that ’76 team, he told me, ‘Curveball, fastball, all it is is baseball, and that’s what you need to win.'”
“Slider down and away.”
“You know Joe, it’s, it’s a crime that Pete Rose idn’t in the Hall of Fame. He knew what he was doing, and the punishment, you know, the punishment…”
“Fit?”
“Fit, and he’s served his time. He served his time and did his shame and now it should be time for him to get that Hall of Fame ticket.”
“The pitch, swung on and looped up over second, a base hit for Lo Duca puts a man on with one out in the third.”
“Speaking of Pete, I remember late 1983 I knew we were going different ways from the Phillies, and I told him, ‘I’m gonna know when you get to 4,000 hits, and I’m gonna be there when you get past Cobb. And I went to Oakland and he went to Montreal…”
“Ball high to Ryan Church, and the count is 1-0.”
“He got his 4,000th hit!”
“Absolutely did, Mr. President!”
“Hahahahaha…”
“Heh heh heh heh heh heh…”
“Heh, yes, there’s a strike…”
“Heh…I remember that game too. You know, you never forget a number like 4,000.”
“………”
“………”
“………”
“………”
“………”
“So, Laura played softball in high school, is that right?”

Washington Nationals manager Manny Acta will catch the first pitch, not catcher Paul Lo Duca, almost certainly because of his presence in the Mitchell Report. The pitch will be a strike, as the President has demonstrated time and again his effective leadership through . This will also be the highlight of the Nationals’ season.

TVlog: 5 Minutes of ESPN Firsttake

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Since Jonathan Lee Riches decided to give me a day off by suing Martha Stewart for the benefit of Rachael Ray, I had to come up with a new subject. So, in a first for NerdsOnSports, I’m going to write running commentary on what I’m watching on TV. At 11 AM. I don’t have a job to go to until Monday. So I watch things like “Firsttake” (f/k/a “Cold Pizza”) on TV. It really is this bad.

All times EDT.

11:00: OK, They’re talking about Steve Spurrier’s history vis-a-vis LSU. Interesting, perhaps, but I tuned in right in the middle, so I’m really not sure what the operative thesis is here. I think it’s something about how Spurrier’s had a great coaching career and has performed well against LSU, or hasn’t, either way he’s a football coach. Read More

[Business Day One] The Worldwide Leader

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This is a dead time in sports. Baseball is still shaking off that All Star nap that it took and everyone associated is trying to work off the 5 pounds they gained from their Celebrity Ping Pong and Bowling tournaments. The pre-break freshness of a young season has faded, and the playoff chase has really yet to begin. Unless you’re a big fan of college recruiting, football news is pretty infrequent. Basketball summer leagues have nothing to do with anything, and are justifiably not followed by fans, coaches or even most players. And hockey is hockey.

This makes ESPN’s job rather difficult. They need to fill numerous SportsCenters each day with compelling stories that will draw an audience and keep the ratings high. As someone that watches SportsCenter every day, I can say definitively that they are failing. ESPN, who has an entire department dedicated to flashy graphics and laser sound effects, cannot keep the mid-July doldrums entertaining. Granted, I don’t think anyone can, but watching ESPN fail is like watching your dad get smacked around. Emasculating to a frightening degree.

But damn if ESPN isn’t trying. The Worldwide Leader launched two big things at us to try to ease the post-All-Star, pre-Playoff sports deficiency. This month, we were treated the ESPYs and the launch of the Who’s Now tournament. I sure as heck appreciate the network’s tenacity, but I think they only went 1-for-2 at the plate with these. I loved the former and hated that latter…

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Tom Hicks and the ‘roids

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Update: I got an email from CBS11 (the story link below) pointing out the video of the interview with Tom Hicks. Check out the video.

Texas Rangers Owner Tom Hicks with his Liverpool ScarfUmm… why is nobody talking about Tom Hicks and the accusation of Juan Gonzalez doing steroids? Is it because Canseco has already ‘been there; done that’?

If you don’t know, Tom Hicks, the owner of the Texas Rangers, was interviewed last week and he was asked about deals he regretted making and the money spent on those deals. He mentioned the waste of $65 million on pitcher Chan Ho Park and also “Juan Gonzalez, for $24 million, after he came off steroids probably… we just gave that money away.” [full story]

I’m wondering what (if any) could be the exciting fall out from this; if you mention steroids, it seems that Bud Selig will blackmail you. (Ultra smart Canadian man looks into the future of this.) Read More

[Business Day One] Will Mel Kiper Be There?

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Mel Kiper Has a Huge Head and It’s Filled with DreamsOn June 7th, Major League Baseball will hold it’s 2007 First-Year Player Draft, also known as “the baseball draft.” In about three and a half weeks, down in Disney World, all thirty teams will sit down and draft players for fifty rounds, rapid-fire style (as they only get five minutes per pick).

Also on June 7th, for the first time ever, ESPN will cover the event on national television. As a man who loves both baseball and startlingly thorough sports coverage, one may think that I would be in favor of four hours of real time analysis. This is, unfortunately, not the case at all. I think that live media coverage of the MLB draft is going to be silly, boring, and something that ought to be skipped in favor of going outside and playing catch with some friends. Or, for you nerds, getting a LAN party together.

We as sports fans have grown up on the magnificent chaos of the NFL Draft, with well-coiffed analysts slogging through stacks of statistics to provide bold commentary as the events unfold. We’re not going to get this kind of compelling television with the MLB Draft. In fact, as we’ve been raised on the football draft, this new baseball coverage is going to be a big, smoking failure by comparison. And I have three reasons why.

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Madden ’08 Cover and Who Not to Draft in Fantasy Football

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Vince Young during his great Texas daysIt’s official, Vince Young, a sophomore Quarterback on the Tennessee Oilers Titans will be the Madden Football Roster Update v2.008 cover model this year. And according to ESPN, (Yes, the same ESPN that decided that the first week of baseball didn’t happen and erased all reference to it in it fantasy site.) he wasn’t even the front runner. What does this honor get Mr. Young? Well, he gets his face on every different size of box and every console ever known to exist. (They make Madden for cell phones; I wouldn’t be surprised if they still made Madden for the Commodore 64.) He also gets to be in some Madden commercials.

What he also gets is cursed. Read More

Broken Fantasy

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I love my fantasy baseball league. Even beyond the awesome players, and the excellent commissioner, the online system itself has proven to be flexible and versatile to satisfy the unusual quirks of our own league. I’m not going to plug the company unless I get some money out of it, but suffice to say that it isn’t through ESPN, who recently released this statement.

We are sorry to have to make such an aggressive change, and fully recognize the impact this will have. This action was our only option because of the nature of the issues and their potential to compound if not addressed on a fundamental level. Ensuring the integrity of the season ahead for ALL players is tremendously important to us and this solution ensures that all players will be treated equally.

I did some research – after all, I wondered what could have happened that required such drastic measures – and found the following user comments on one of the various online forums I frequent: Read More