Tag: Sports

It’s Fantasy Season

Make no mistake about it. I will embarrass myself.

It’s Fantasy Football season. Count me in! I did this a bunch of times back at the old place. Now there’s a new group with whom I can embarrass myself!

Make no mistake about it. I will embarrass myself.

To understand Fantasy Football you’ve got to forget football is a team sport. Each player is split out as an individual and his stats establish your score.

“It’s sports betting,” says Helaine.

How can she say that about my team, The Incontinent Poodles?

Actually she’s got a point. You don’t care if the team on the field wins or loses as long as your players (often playing against each other in real life) do well. That subtracts from the purity of the game… though maybe it’s a little late to worry about purity in sports.

I’ve already downloaded a “draft kit” to help me better understand my options. It’s 79 pages long. This is serious stuff. I guess what I’m saying is, beyond a few superstars I don’t know too much!

My work league’s draft is being held Sunday in Windsor. I’ll probably just line up my choices beforehand and let the computer act as my surrogate. Windsor’s a long drive on Sunday morning.

I look forward to this every year. It’s likely everyone else in the league will know more than me. No one will have a better time.

Eagles Should Have Played: I’m With Rendell

Note: After writing this I reconsidered my opinion. I am leaving the original up, but you should read the comments which were important in my decision. – Geoff

The Philadelphia Eagles play the Minnesota Vikings tomorrow night. The game was originally scheduled for Sunday night at 8:30 PM. At game time nearby Philadelphia International reported visibility of 3/4 mile in moderate snow and blowing snow. The wind was out of the northwest at 21 mph. It was 25&#176.

Under anyone’s sense of the word it was cold… brutally cold in Philadelphia. It was unpleasant to be outside. For those improperly prepared it was dangerous!

The game shouldn’t have been postponed!

Speaking on KYW-TV in Philly former Philadelphia Mayor and current Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell said,

This is football; football’s played in bad weather. I think the fans would have gotten there, the subways work and the major arteries are still open, and other fans would have stayed home – but you play football regardless of the weather.

He’s right even though the current Mayor had declared a State of Emergency in the city.

If I was broadcasting in Philadelphia I would have encouraged viewers to stay home. People would have anyway! The game would have still been available on TV staffed by a crew ready for bad winter weather.

I’m an Eagles fan. This delay probably benefits the Eagles. It makes no difference.

It’s unfair to the other NFL teams who’ve had to suffer through pass deflecting winds, frozen fields and limited visibility.

How I’ll Watch Two Games At Once Tonight

This is the techno equivalent of rubbing your stomach while patting your head and hopping on one leg.

Comcast has upgraded our DVR. Actually that may not be the proper characterization. They’ve changed and prettied it. Upgrade? The jury’s still out.

In order to enable the new stuff Comcast eliminated a few minor never used features like the picture-in-picture I want to use today! The Eagles and Phillies are both playing at 8:00 PM.

It’s the 21st Century. I can ad lib a solution… maybe.

Our Vizio TV has picture-in-picture built in, but one picture will have to be the cable tuner in HD and the other the set’s built-in tuner. It too might be HD. I’m really not sure at this point. This is the techno equivalent of rubbing your stomach while patting your head and hopping on one leg.

In case you’re wondering what I’ll be doing during halftime of the Giants/Texans game you now know.

—–

Conclusion: Wow, it works! The setup to split the screen was reasonably straightforward… if you’re nerdy. Seriously, this is not for the faint of heart.

On top of that there is the ability to actually make the split 50/50 and swap audio from side to side.

As it turns out the picture-in-picture Comcast removed was inferior to what I already had.

Ask Me Anything–Why A Philadelphia Fan?

It is where I realized I was an adult. Normally you slide into adulthood gradually. Not me.

I’m currently answering all your questions. Read more about it here.

Dave writes, “As you grew up in NYC, have lived in the Buffalo area and now CT how did you and Helaine become such avid Philly sports fans?

Yeah, funny thing isn’t it? A lot of my friends don’t understand.

Helaine’s explanation is easier. She grew up in Philadelphia, the only child of a father who was a rabid Philly sports fan. It was from him she learned to talk back to the TV and question balls and strikes even when the Phils are up by a dozen. They shared a Phils season ticket package as she grew up.

My answer is a little more difficult. I grew up in New York and was a marginal sports fan. Nothing serious. I attended a few games–even a Mets game at the pre-Shea Stadium Polo Grounds!

I worked in Philadelphia on the radio from 1975 to 1980. Philly is where I realized I was an adult. Normally you slide into adulthood gradually. Not me.

It happened in the late 70s when I began playing poker every Thursday night with a bunch of guys around my age. Most of them had families. All of them had responsibilities. Each was accomplished in his own way. It was an impressive group.

They were adults and treated me as an equal. Therefore, I realized in one Eureka moment, I too was an adult. I was ready for adult pursuits.

At the same time a friend whose father was a season ticket holder to the Eagles asked if I wanted to buy two of them. Bingo! My love of Philly sports began.

I sat through a 4-10 Eagles season in Section 614. I never left before the final gun.

I attended a load of Phillies games at the Vet. I was there for the Phils-Dodgers playoff game where the fans rattled Bert Hooten so badly he had to be pulled!

I find watching sports with my wife among the most enjoyable parts of our relationship. She knows a lot more about the games than me!

Everybody In The (NCAA) Pool

I like baseball and pro football. That pretty much sums up my sports knowledge. So why do I enter an NCAA pool every year? Good question. I’ve yet to get back a dime!

One of my co-workers, Swami, has run this pool for years. We used to check off our results on Xeroxed sheets. Those days are long gone. We’re all digital now. Are all pools? Is anyone still using paper?

Our pool is hosted by tournamentpools.com. It’s a pretty good example of finding every way possible to slice and dice a database. There are enough stats even for a stats junkie like me.

With no knowledge I revert to my math background. This year I also read a few articles on finding ‘unappreciated teams’ to help me along. With the first afternoon played I’m still in! Trust me that’s more than the pre-research Geoff would have accomplished.

Will I cash this year? Doubtful.

Continue reading “Everybody In The (NCAA) Pool”

Watching The News On Aussie TV

She is gorgeous and in the past has not been shy about appearing on camera doing travel pieces in a bathing suit… a small bathing suit.

I’m watching the 6:00 O’clock news right now. To me this is one of the cooler parts of the Internet. The picture is great direct from Australia on Nine Network Sydney.

If you didn’t know better you’d think everyone in Australia is Caucasian. I saw no Asians, no people of color. I know they’re there, but on TV they seem invisible. Think US TV in the early 60s.

I didn’t see the top of the broadcast. Hopefully that’s when the heavier stories ran. By the time I tuned in it had devolved into Kate Winslet’s marriage and a Tiger and Elin Woods’ sighting (lifted from TMZ).

Birdseye and Target were both represented in the commercials, of course with an Aussie accent (Tah-get). The rest of the commercials were definitely local, but for the products you’d expect on TV–beer, soda, insurance, paint. They were cleverly done with high production values.

I sat through the sports (except for the injured David Beckham I didn’t recognize one name or team mentioned) so I could see the weather.

OK–it’s Australia. Usually weather isn’t a major focus on the news especially on this (for them) late summer’s day. The presenter was Natalie Gruzlewski.

There’s a lot of Natalie on the Internet. In a nation of beautiful women she stands out! She is gorgeous and in the past has not been shy about appearing on camera doing travel pieces in a bathing suit… a small bathing suit.

Natalie was either reading or following along from a well scripted briefing. No turning and pointing to her maps. In fact she often stood directly in front of what she was referencing–even the extended forecast icons. She seemed disconnected from the content, but I’m looking at this from my own perspective and it’s likely Australians are used to and expect something totally different.

In the past in some dreamworld fantasy I thought it might be cool to arrange a swap where I filled in doing the weather somewhere else in the world while that person filled in for me. Selling my bosses on Natalie would be easier than selling Natalie’s bosses on me. Much easier.

Why I Love My Wife

The isn’t preseason baseball. It’s pre-preseason baseball! No one’s playing with a jersey number lower than 85.

I got an instant message earlier this evening. It was Helaine. The message was just a link, nothing more. I clicked and saw:

3/3/2010 Baseball at Philadelphia Phillies 7:00 PM Listen

It was the Florida State Seminoles site. They played the Phils tonight. Helaine was looking to listen.
The isn’t preseason baseball. It’s pre-preseason baseball! No one’s playing with a jersey number lower than 85.

And you wonder why I love her so?

I used this as an excuse to buy the yearly Major League Baseball video package. We get it every year and it is well used!

major league baseball blackout map.jpgIt’s a great idea, but talk about a purchase limited by small print! If anyone’s game is nationally telecast the Phillies game is blacked out. If the Phils are playing in New York or Boston the game is blacked out (though we do get those games on cable).

There has been some kvetching recently from folks who are blacked out though they’re hundreds of miles from the nearest team and on-air or cable telecasts aren’t available. That’s just wrong.

I scrolled down the MLB.TV page looking for dirty tricks. Sure enough well below ‘the fold’ there was a pre-checked space expressing my desire to automatically renew next March 1. I unchecked it, as I had last year. Persistent bastards, aren’t they?

I love baseball. It means spring is right around the corner.

Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather – I Understand

There has been a lot of talk about Walter Cronkite’s CNN interview and his answer to questions about Dan Rather.

“Although Dan did a fine job, I would have liked to have seen (Schieffer) there a long time ago,” Cronkite said during an interview on CNN. “He would have given the others a real run for their money.”

“It surprised quite a few people at CBS and elsewhere that, without being able to pull up the ratings beyond third in a three-man field, that they tolerated his being there for so long,” he told CNN.

You might expect Cronkite, still a member of the CBS board, to be a little more charitable… be more of a team player. I didn’t. In fact, I am surprised this kind of talk didn’t happen earlier.

Thinking back, my recollection is Dan Rather putting on the pressure and forcing CBS to move Cronkite out. Roger Mudd, who was passed over in this bloodless coup, bolted and went to NBC.

From Mike Straka on foxnews.com

According to the late ABC News and Sports president Roone Arledge’s autobiography “Roone: A Memoir,” Rather used ABC as a negotiating chip to force CBS’s hand to install him as the anchor of CBS Evening News six months earlier than Cronkite had planned to retire. This was at a time when Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America.

What’s the old line? Be nice to the people you meet on the way up. They’re the same people you’ll meet on the way down.