Read fast, these media notes may disappear
Not necessarily the stuff that didn't get into today's media columm, but the items just too special to include in print and more effective in for those with the Internet machine:
It's just one more example of why Dodger fans should appreciate any time Vin Scully is calling a game, even by himself.
We tuned in for maybe 20 minutes of Tuesday's FSN Prime broadcast of the Dodgers' game in Milwaukee, catching caught Charley Steiner and Steve Lyons in a conversation first about the Sausage Race, while the Brewers had a 5-3 lead going into the bottom of the sixth inning.
Then, a shot of relief pitcher Yhency Brazoban warming up in the bullpen.
Steiner: "You know what they're calling Yhency now in the clubhouse? Braz-obama."
Lyons: "What?"
Steiner: "Braz-obama."
(Long pause)
Lyons: "Why's that?"
Steiner: (A bit exasperated): "There's a guy who's running for president ..."
Meanwhile, Brad Penny has made a pitch to Brewers' pinch hitter Gabe Kapler for a strike. Kapler squares around to bunt on the second pitch, and as he fouls it away, Steiner finally tells the viewers that Kapler has come to bat, and now has an 0-1 count.
Thanks, but we're bailing out at this point and choose to follow online. Even if it means we don't get to see the new "Psycho-strator" feature where the camera is behind Lyons' head and he points to things on the field like some dude sitting in front of you in the stands acting as if he's got all the answers to what's going on out in the field that you can see just as well as he can -- but now can't because he's in the way.
If Steiner and Lyons repeated any of their "Hu's On First"-quality routine during Wednesday's or Thursday's broadcast, we couldn't tell you since we decided, to preserve some sanity, we'd abstain from watching and wait until this weekend's series against the Angels.
==STEINER/LYONS CON'T
==OK, we admit that, after seeing the Dodgers were up, 6-0, going into the bottom of the eighth on Thursday, with Chad Billingsley working on a shutout, we turned the TV on to see what was up.
At that point, Jonathan Broxton had replaced Billingsley, the Brewers scored, and Ryan Braun, who just signed a large contract extention, was coming up to the plate.
Steiner: "Is there a more famous alum from Granada Hills High School than Ryan Braun?"
Lyons: "Not today."
The clock starts ... now. We're counting the seconds before someone in the production truck talks into Steiner's headset ... And ...
Ten seconds later ...
Steiner: "Well there may be one ... John Elway, we were just told."
Lyons: "Yeah, but he wasn't that good a third baseman (Braun, who used to play third, by the way is a left fielder)."
The clock starts ... counting again to when someone points out to Lyons that actually Elway was not only a pretty good baseball player at GHHS, but ...
Steiner: "He was a pretty good baseball player ... he was drafted!"
Lyons: "My point."
Steiner: "By the Yankees."
Lyons: "Ended up being a pretty good football player."
So Lyons was being sarcastic about the "not a good third baseman" line, although you can't take that for granted. Nor can you assume Steiner knows anything much at local baseball history... let alone a simple ball-strike count, the number of outs in the innings ...
Carry on.
**LOCAL SPORTS:
==The fear is that LA36, the city-run channel that includes, among many other programs, coverage of L.A. City athletic events, will have the plug pulled by this summer. LA36 folk are trying to answer back with a campaign to keep the station alive, which includes this video, and a link to a newsletter asking viewers to write to their councilmembers.
Here's also a link to the vault of sports programs you can watch on video.
**COLLEGE BASKETBALL:
==SI.com's Richard Deitsch commends the people behind ESPN's "Outside The Lines" who produced the piece on O.J. Mayo last Sunday that has been talked about around town ever since: Reporter Kelly Naqi, senior news editor Dwayne Bray, producers strong>Drew Gallagher, Justine Gubar and Tim Hays, VP of studio production Craig Lazarus, and dot-com editor Mike Knisley .
"It's a story that's been told by innuendo quite often, but what sets this piece apart is our supporting documentation," said Naqi. "This is not the wishful thinking of rival fans on chat boards, but a real, former member of Mayo's inner circle who can shed light on what life may be like for a one-and-done presumed lottery pick for whom long-term eligibility is not a real concern."
ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber writes in her latest column posted Thursday that last week's "Outside the Lines" piece on Mayo was "a breakthrough report, impeccably researched, and it is likely to provoke further inquiry into the too-cozy relationship between NCAA basketball programs and the rogue agents chomping to get an early hold on players expected to reap hefty pro contracts after they reach the NBA-mandated age requirement. The report also helps answer a question that has existed in some minds: Would ESPN's rights contracts with conferences and leagues hamper the enterprise unit from breaking investigative stories jarring to its business partners, as opposed to advancing such stories already broken elsewhere by pursuing new aspects of them? The answer, based on this report, is that the enterprise unit is free to investigate where it sees fit."
The 16-minute piece again, for those who missed it:
Also, a four-minute followup of extra material:
And Mayo's reaction in a 1:40 clip:
**NBA:
==Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown cover tonight's Lakers-Jazz Game 6 from Salt Lake City, with a potential Game 7 going to TNT on Monday night. TNT has the Western Conference finals exclusive.
ABC has either the opening game of the Eastern Conference finals, or Game 7 of the Boston-Cleveland series, Sunday at 12:30 p.m.
==ESPN shoves out Mark Jones, Jay Bilas and Doris Burke to Secaucus, N.J., to cover the live announcement of the NBA Draft Lottery (Tuesday, 5 p.m., a half hour before the Eastern Conference game that night). The Clippers, unless they get the top pick in this show (a 7.5 percent chance), will end up picking sixth come mid June, and if you believe this, and also this, then they're taking Indiana freshman Eric Gordon and going home happy.
And if you're waiting around to see what happens in the 2009 NBA draft, the Lakers are bound to pick a couple of guys out of Gonzaga, if you believe this. Of course, that could all change. Maybe.
**WNBA:
==Dave Pasch and Carolyn Peck call the Sparks' season opener at Phoenix for ABC (12:30 p.m., Saturday, Channel 7). ABC and ESPN2 will carry 22 regular-season WNBA contests. ABC will also use a SkyCam shot on its telecast, "showcasing the speed and talent of the top female players in the world," according to the ESPN press release.
==NBA TV also has WNBA coverage starting Saturday, with Indiana-Washington at 4 p.m., followed by San Antonio-Sacramento at 7 p.m.
**BASEBALL:
==Unfortunately, Thom Brennaman and Rick Manning have been dispatched to Angels Stadium to cover Saturday's Dodgers-Angels game for Fox (12:55 p.m., Channel 11). The game goes to just 20 percent of the country. Most (72 percent) see Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver calling the Milwaukee-Boston contest, and another 7 percent see Cleveland at Cincinnati with Dick Stockton and Eric Karros. Sunday, TBS also has Milwaukee-Boston at 10:30 a.m. and ESPN takes the Mets-Yankees at 5 p.m.
**HORSE RACING:
==ESPN2 has today's Black Eye Susan event (2 p.m.), leading into coverage of the Preakness preview show on Saturday (8 to 9 a.m., then 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on ESPN) with Kenny Mayne, Joe Tessitore and Rece Davis paired up with Jerry Bailey, Randy Moss and Jeannine Edwards, and handicapper Hank Goldberg , and reporters Jay Privman and Steve Cyphers. And that's about it.
**NHL:
==News from Onion Sports, eh:
==If Saturday's Detroit-Dallas Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Western Conference final (10:30 a.m. faceoff, Channel 4) runs into overtime, NBC says it will stay with the game and not bail out as it did a year ago to get to its Preakness pre-race show. But anything beyond the 1:30 p.m. marker will mean sending the game to Versus, and videostreaming it live on NBCSports.com's website.
**MISC.:
==More from ESPN ombudsman Schreiber in her Thursday piece really digs into how "E:60" confronted the Astros' Miguel Tejada about his age discrepancy.
"If Tejada had simply been presented with the information, given a chance to regain his composure, perhaps consult with advisors, he might well have resumed the interview and offered ESPN the information he and the Astros provided to The Houston Chronicle two days later. 'E:60' might have ended up with a more complete profile and a more intact reputation."
She then quotes reporter Tom Farrey, who disagreed with her assessment.
"I wanted to give him an opportunity to tell the truth. I prefaced my questions by saying, 'I have a simple but important and serious question to ask you,' implying I really want you to think about this, don't just give the usual answer. Instead, he threw out the lie.
"If Tejada doesn't get out of the chair and rip off his microphone, there is no big embarrassing TV moment. He just explains. And we thought there was a chance he would do just that."
Bottom line, Schreiber writes: That didn't happen. And producer then took it out of context and teased it on ESPN "SportsCenter" as a way to embarass Tejada as well as promote the show.
It was "information wrenched out of context, and in long-form journalism, context is crucial. In this case, we needed context to clarify the extent and significance of Tejada's lie, which would, among other things, allow viewers to judge whether the lie warranted the kind of big embarrassing TV moment it was given."
The clip again:
And a spoof of it from Jimmy Kimmel and Bill Simmons -- did it get him trouble with ESPN?
==More of Dan Le Batard, as we mentioned in "What Smokes," during a blog visit to the Big Lead, going off about modern-day sports writing angst.
==We have nothing new to report on Hannah Storm (not her real name), recently let go from whatever morning show she was doing at some network and now signed up by ESPN to anchor three hours of "SportsCenter" every morn between 9 a.m. and noon our time starting in mid-August.
But we came across this photo on the ESPN media site, and just wondered which blustery day this was taken, for her to get the hair going in such a way that she's actually trying to look like she's ready to challenge for the next Playboy Sexiest Sportscaster poll despite the fact she's a kept woman by Dan Hicks and she has three daughters.
Storm warning: If "SportsCenter" is trying to get viewers to turn away from Dana Jacobson over on ESPN2 doing "First Take" at the same time Storm is on, looks like they'll succeed.
==ESPN, trying to secure the 12-to-17 year old demo, has announced a new program called ESPN RISE, that expands it high school coverage to include a website (ESPNRISE.com), renaming RISE magazine to ESPN RISE (circulation projected to be one million) and folding publications like GIRL, Hardwood and Gridiron into it, and more events covered on ESPNU.
==Bob Wischusen and Ray Bentley call the Avengers' game at Chicago (ESPN2, Monday, 5 p.m.)
==Dwight Stone, Larry Rawson and Lewis Johnson will orchestrate the audio for Sunday's Adidas Track Classic from Carson's Home Depot Center (ESPN, Sunday, 1 to 3 p.m.)
==ESPN360.com has all 60 regular-season games of the Major League Lacrosse, starting with Saturday's Riptide game vs. Denver at 6 p.m.
==Jim Nantz and Nick Faldo have the weekend off, meaning Bill Macatee and Ian Baker-Finch are in the 18th hole tower for CBS' coverage of the PGA's AT&T Classic at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Ga., both Saturday and Sunday from noon to 3 p.m. Peter Oosterhuis, Gary McCord, Bobby Clampett and Peter Kostis are also present, with David Feherty missing another event because of the recovery process from his bicycle mishap two months ago.
==Beth Mowins, Tracey Warren and Melissa Knowles cover today's UCLA-Cal State Fullerton women's softball regional today (ESPNU, 4:30 p.m.), and the group is in L.A. all weekend for the elimination event. ESPNU, ESPN and ESPN2 will combine to cover 45 games from the NCAA women's softball tournament.
==Not that we gave any serious credence to stories that NBC's Al Michaels may have been the No. 1 candidate to replace the bumbling Bryant Gumbel as the new play-by-play man on NFL Network live Thursday games, the NY Times reports now that whatever there was to that is done. Tom Hammond appears to be the next hot rumored candidate, but if you're throwing out names, why not Spero Dedes, who does exhibition games for the network already and would have to miss only a couple of Lakers' radio broadcasts early in the season to do the job.
**AND FINALLY:
==It was CBSSportsline.com columnist Gregg Doyel who wrote a piece on Oct. 17, 2006 with the headline: "Burned by Bush, Southern Cal should be weary of Mayo". The focus was on Rodney Guillory and his past relationships with players.
Wrote Doyel at the time: "USC athletic director Mike Garrett didn't return numerous calls and e-mails for this story. But Garrett did get the message to the USC coaching staff -- and eventually to Guillory himself -- that CBS SportsLine.com was investigating Mayo's relationship with Guillory. How do I know? Guillory told me."
Also, note a piece by Marc Isenberg, a self-appointed expert on the business of college athletes and agents, who asks that, in this 24/7 news cycle of sports media, we wait to find out the facts before jumping to conclusions.
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