Friday fun
*ESPN Classics is showing Game 6 of the 1984 playoff series between the Celtics and Knicks. I'm trying to figure out why Game 6, and not the decisive Game 7, which the Celtics won. And then I realized, this could very well be the only existing film of the Knicks beating the Celtics at any point during the Larry Bird Era, which of course would make this momentous footage indeed.
Not to mention, with the Red Sox and Yankees getting set to square off, any year prior, ESPN Classics likely would have had an all-day marathon with the 1978 one-game playoff; Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS; and the Buckner game for good measure. The tapes of Games 4-7 from last year must have gotten lost in the mail or something. So they have some airtime to fill.
Either way, in the 1984 game, one of the announcers insisted there were no way whichever team came out of the East would beat the Lakers. Oh.
*Before there were blogs, before most people had even heard of the Internet, there was Randolph Charlotin's The Arena site. Randolph's Geocities site has been up and running since 1997. Even better, his weekly NFL prognostications, Randolph's Random Picks, have been running nonstop every fall since it debuted in the UMass Boston student newspaper in 1995. Randolph, a former UMass Boston Beacons wide receiver who wore No. 82, is one of the great untapped football minds out there and it is only a matter of time until he gets his due.
*The latest thing getting caught in the media echo chamber is the notion that Chone Figgins is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now, I mentioned in the early days of the blog that Chone is a running joke in Dave's World for myriad reasons, but seriously, I'm mystified. Wednesday I heard an ESPN announcer claim that Chone is "more valuable to the team than Vladimir Guerrero." Seriously. He said that. And it wasn't even Joe Morgan saying it. So Chone can play seven different positions. Great. That's called a utility player. And he contributed to his already lengthy resume of gagging against the Red Sox on Tuesday when he dropped an easy fly ball. I just don't get it.
*Dave's World reader Ray chimed in on my note last Saturday about Wisconsin's hideous helmets: Regarding the Wisconsin helmets -- they were throwbacks to what the 1960s Badgers wore (it was dedication day for the remodeled Camp Randall Stadium). Don't feel bad - even some of the fans who were at the game thought "boy, those new uniforms are lousy."
*Hey, so, if there are any Dave's World readers in our nation's capitol, can someone drop by Democratic Party HQ and see if anyone there is awake? Maybe their alarm clock didn't go off. This is supposed to be a two-party country, right? Someone head over there, and if you can end their little slumber party, let them know there's still a war going on in Iraq, gas is three bucks a gallon, and a major American city just got wiped out in a hurricane. Thanks.
*While I'm at it, enough with certain segments of the media congratulating themselves for the jobs they did covering Katrina. OK, you did your job. For once. You're supposed to be questioning our leaders at all times, whether the GOP or the Dems are in charge. The self back-patting this week has been the journalistic equivalent of watching the Detroit Tigers celebrate all over the field after they avoided their 120th loss on the final day of the season a few years back. Let's see where things stand a month from now, and whether the networks stay on the case, or go back to chasing after the missing white blonde bride of the week or celebrities' cats stuck up in trees, before we declare any corners turned.
*We heard from Official Dave's World Tennis Correspondent Bucknell Jared for the first time in awhile yesterday. Actually, I heard from him last week, as he was in Seattle visiting his girlfriend and we had breakfast at Easy Street Records, the greatest breakfast spot in West Seattle. But, this is the first time he's lived up to his monuemental Tennis Correspondent responsibilities in awhile, as he opines on the Agassi-Blake standoff:
Wow. The match of the decade will now go down as the greatest match I
missed. I had it all arranged perfectly ... or so I thought. Only I was
under the impression, from a brief ESPN.com perusal, that Agassi and
Blake were to start at 7 p.m. I had a big screen TV waiting for me, but
I soon found out that the men would play after the women (Davenport v.
Dementieva), who were in fact starting at 7 p.m.
And then I wimped out. The jet lag from the West Coast had caught up
with me, and I don't get USA at home ... so the prospect of heading out
to a bar at 10:30 wasn't agreeing with my body. Alas, I'm getting old.
And sure enough...when I awoke, there was the 5-set score, staring at
me on my computer, as if to say, "Man, you are a dummy. You are a poor
excuse for a tennis fan. You just missed a must-see event."
But I will say this. American tennis is alive and kicking. Agassi is a
freak of nature to still be one of the best conditioned men on the
tour. Blake is a real feel-good story. I'm not sure how one breaks his
neck on a net post, but this guy did ... and came back. Not to mention
his face paralysis and father's death that followed. And the former
Harvard star is playing the best tennis of his career, sans dreadlocks.
What I like best about all this, despite missing the match, is the
excitement. I don't want to give all the credit to Blake's cheering
section, dubbed the J-Block, but they certainly epitomize what's
missing in most professional tennis matches. I love rambunctious
tennis matches. Bring me more! One of the most exciting tennis sights
I've seen is the NCAA team championships. Imagine the J-Block in the
first row, all the way around the court. Oh, and when a team clinches,
all the other matches stop and a pig-pile ensues.
At any rate, I'm still fuming that I'm missed the match between the old
and new in US tennis. Maybe I'll catch Episode II: Agassi v. Ginepri.
Dave's World interjects: I've always been basically a casual fan of tennis, and I have to agree with Bucknell Jared's assessment on rambunctious play. My earliest memories of watching tennis as a kid involve McEnroe-Borg and McEnroe-Connors and I just seem to remember it being pure bedlam whenever I tuned in. Tennis needs more of that and less of the tennis-playing robots.
*OK, according to my DirecTV, we're getting Sox-Yanks out here tomorrow. Assuming I'm up in time and coherent (that former is likely, the latter a dicey proposition at any time of day), we'll be doing a running diary of some sort.
*We at Dave's World HQ have been tracking recent decisions made by the American League dean of discipline, Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson. Among Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson's recent rulings:
--Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson upheld Boston's David Wells' six-game suspension for his outburst against an umpire.
--Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson reduced Yankee Gary Sheffield's suspension for an umpire tirade that was a carbon copy of Wells' from two games to one.
--Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson reduced the suspension of Tampa's Dewon Brazelton from five games to three, for his role in Tampa's brawl with the Red Sox in April.
We're not implying anything about Former Longtime Yankee Bob Watson's objectivity, however. No sir.
*Oh yeah … last night's Patriots game. Umm, well, the offense continues to be a well-oiled machine and the halftime defensive adjustments shut the opponent down. Nothing out of the ordinary. This posted started with one dynasty, the Celtics, and finishes with another, the Pats. And that's appropriate because the New England schedule is getting to have the same feel as the Celtics at their peak, where you looked forward to the Lakers games and maybe the Rockets and Sixers and eventually MJ, but everything else was just filler. Same deal with the Pats -- there are the games you mark on your calendar like the Colts and next week against the Panthers, and then there's everything else. If you're a non-Bostonian reading this, sorry, that's just how it is.
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