Airwaves: A perfect tribute to ’89 World Series team
By: Artie Gigantino
Special to The Examiner
June 28, 2009
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| Dave Stewart (34) was among former A’s players who turned out for a reunion of the 1989 World Series team. (AP) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Jumping all over the place:
- Nice job by Comcast SportsNet this past week with their show honoring the 1989 Oakland A’s and their World Series victory. Barry Tompkins was the host for this on-site broadcast. Tompkins was, as always, a class act and an easy listen. Is there anyone out there who has ever said a bad thing about Barry Tompkins? I don’t think so!
- The Pac-10 Conference just released its football TV schedule for the fall. Of course, it should come as no surprise that Southern Cal will be featured six times on various channels.
This, of course, does not include the times they will be televised when they are selected during the 12-day window to add games.
The Trojans are the class of the Pac-10 and deserve to be showcased as much as possible.
The season opens on Sept. 5 with San Jose State visiting the Los Angeles Coliseum to play the Trojans on Fox SportsNet (Comcast SportsNet locally). That same evening, Maryland will play in Berkeley against Cal on ESPN, and then LSU will play at Washington on ESPN2.
Now, I know the college football season is a way off, but bet the house on the Trojans, Terps and LSU to not only win big, but also to cover the spread. What, besides money, is San Jose thinking about?
- Excellent call this week by ESPNews for adding a live prematch half-hour show prior to Wimbledon each day at 7 a.m.
- You have to admire our new prez. He is quickly becoming the most sports-minded president of all time. Not only is he the nation’s No. 1 hoops fan, now President Barack Obama will throw out the first pitch of this year’s baseball All-Star Game. The game is scheduled for July 14 in St. Louis and will air on Fox.
- The rain tried to wreck NBC’s coverage of the U.S. Open last weekend, but the crew and broadcasters did an admirable job of putting on the best show they could.
Monday’s final round was absolutely thrilling, reaching a fever pitch when Phil Mickelson eagled No. 14 to grab a share of the lead. With Mickelson and his wife’s heart-wrenching story, David Duval’s return from the dead, and the story lines of unknowns Ricky Barnes and Lucas Glover trying to break through, it was an event filled with drama.
Chance for Pitt to play Beane will have to wait
Sorry, Billy. It appears that Sony has benched its project to make the book “Moneyball” into a movie.
Brad Pitt was scheduled to play A’s general manager Billy Beane. Apparently, the script was rewritten numerous times and they never could settle on exactly what they wanted the movie to be. Too bad because that would have been a great movie.
- USC just hired a stiff in Kevin O’Neill to take over for the departed Tim Floyd. O’Neill will not go over very well with the high-flying L.A. sports crowd. In addition, the L.A. media will devour him for lunch.
- The NFL Network this past week started “America’s Game,” a look at all the Super Bowl winners. It is a well-done, detailed look at the reasons those teams hoisted the Lombardi Trophy. In addition, the network is sponsoring a poll that allows fans to vote for the best team of all time.
- The NBA draft took place earlier this week on ESPN. No one will ever confuse the NBA draft with the NFL draft. It obviously does not have the same type of following, although ESPN does a good job of hyping it. This year, the main talking heads were Stuart Scott, Jay Bilas, Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. Scott was the host, while Bilas gave input from the collegiate side of things. Van Gundy and Jackson do the NBA games for ESPN-ABC, so their thoughts were more around what teams needed and how teams evaluate players.
- I spent some time in Chicago recently, and man are they great fans. The Cubbies own the town and they never stop talking about the Bears. Comcast SportsNet Chicago is big.
Off target
ESPN, along with a lot of other media outlets, went a little overboard this week with the nonstop coverage of Manny Ramirez beginning his stint in the minors. The network sent a reporter down to Albuquerque, N.M., to cover the event and, in addition, aired all of his at-bats live on ESPNews. Is this really the type of publicity we want to be giving a player who tested positive for banned substances? And, does anyone care if he hits a home run in the minors?
Who said it
Ed McMahon
“And now, heeeeere’s Johnny,” the world’s most famous sidekick said for 30 years when he was Johnny Carson’s second banana on the “Tonight Show.” Big Ed, who passed away this week, was 86 years old. He did a brilliant job of never getting in the way of Carson and always laughing when jokes were told, even when he was the butt of the jokes.
Rex Ryan
“So much of school you have to write, but i just struggled. I couldn’t help it,” the recently hired coach of the New York Jets confessed when he admitted to having dyslexia. It certainly has never affected the way he has coached. Rex is one of the NFL’s best defensive minds and should do a bang-up job in New York this year.
One to watch
The A’s send rookie Vin Mazzaro to the mound to close out their three-game interleague series with the red-hot Colorado Rockies. Mazzaro has been a pleasant surprise for the A’s, having compiled a 2-2 record and 2.56 ERA in five starts this season. Aaron Cook is slated to take the hill for the Rocks. Comcast SportsNet California will carry the action at 1 p.m.
By the numbers
3.8 TV rating for Monday’s U.S. Open coverage on NBC
2.9 million Households tuned in to final round of U.S. Open on Monday
50% Decrease in TV ratings from last year’s Monday U.S. Open coverage, a playoff between Tiger Woods and Rocco Mediate
Artie Gigantino spent 25 years as a coach at the major-college and NFL levels, was lead college football analyst for Fox Sports Net for seven years, was with CBS for one year and was an executive with the Raiders for three years. E-mail him at agigantino@sfexaminer.com.
