COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY - MIKE IN DA - FEBRUARY 14, 2011

COMMENTS FROM THE PEANUT GALLERY (X-RATED)

Written by: Mike in DA
Date Posted: 2/14/2011

LEBRON JAMES' VALENTINE'S DAY CARD:

PUNK-HAIRED GRANDMA LOVES HER KANSAS JAYHAWKS!

LOCAL SPORTS TALKERS MISSED THE REAL STORY OF THE DAY!

On Wednesday’s (2/9) local sports talk shows, a lot of time was spent on a story about NY Jets QB, Mark Sanchez (24), messing around with a high school student, Eliza Kruger (17). That was a non-news story, but some of the sports talkers made it the big sports story of the day and it even carried over into Thursday.


However, on the same day, there was a story in the Houston Chronicle entitled, “Wake (Forest) baseball coach donates kidney to player”, which started off as follows:

“Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter has donated a kidney to a freshman player who suffers from a disease that can lead to kidney failure.


Both Walter and outfielder Kevin Jordan were recovering Tuesday in an Atlanta hospital one day after the transplant was performed. Dr. Kenneth Newell, the lead surgeon on the team that removed Walter's kidney, said in a statement issued Tuesday by Wake Forest that he expects Walter and Jordan to recover fully.” END.

In my travels through the local radio shows on that day, I heard no mention of this story. Why not? After hearing all the sleaze on Houston sports talk, here was a great story about the goodness of a person who makes a living from sports, but it was overshadowed by Sanchez’ not getting sacked, but in the sack with a rich high schooler whose father has made more money already than Sanchez will ever make in his football career.


But if the kidney story read as follows, you know the guys would be all over it:

NCAA SUSPENDS KID WHO RECEIVED A KIDNEY FROM HIS COACH!


(AP) The NCAA announced today that a Wake Forest baseball player who received a kidney from his coach will be suspended indefinitely. The coach will also be punished.

“This is as grievous a case as we have ever seen,” said NCAA president Mark Emmert, of the kidney transplant that saved the player’s life. “Getting an iPod or some cash or a car is one thing. But I think we can all agree that giving a player a kidney is far more valuable. This is a shameful day for everyone involved.”


The player, a freshman outfielder, is expected to be suspended by the NCAA for the entire upcoming season. Or, since he will likely not be healthy enough to play, for all of next season.


“I don’t want him to get off easy for this,” said Emmert. “He will not be allowed to serve his suspension while he’s in the hospital for however long it takes to recover from a kidney transplant. Which I imagine is quite a long time.”


In a statement the ill Wake Forest player said he regretted running afoul of NCAA rules, but felt that the risk of a year-long suspension might be worth not dying decades early. “I may not agree with them, but the rules are the rules,” he said. “I am learning that now.”


And while the NCAA says its decision is final, that has not stopped the organization’s critics from taking shots at it. Many have pointed to the NCAA’s continued hypocrisy and contradictions in its punishments — most notably the Auburn and Ohio State football incidents this past season.


The NCAA has not yet decided if it will require the Wake Forest player to return the kidney. END.

PS - If the Jets had won the Super Bowl, what Sanchez does in his spare time would be defended by many as nobody’s business?

IT'S HARD FOR THIS BUTLER PLAYER TO SCORE WITH HIS EYES FULL OF BLOOD!



SUPER BOWL WAS NOT PROFITABLE FOR LAS VEGAS AS A WHOLE!



The Las Vegas handle for the Super Bowl was up $5.5M compared to last year. However, the figures announced by the Nevada Gaming Control Board for statewide sportsbooks showed only a profit of $724K. Moreover, it seems that the small casinos had the winnings because a couple of the larger casinos took a bath.

According to a report in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, both the sportsbooks operated by MGM Resorts and the Las Vegas Hilton showed losses on the game and the loses were non-trivial. Remember last week when we spoke of MGM Resorts having booked a $1M wager on the Packers giving 2.5 points a few days after the Crier released it to his followers in the newsletter.  The MGM books could not have been happy when the Steelers turned the ball over on downs in the final minute of the game. The director of the LV Hilton sportsbook, Jay Kornegay, told the LA Times that what hurt his book was that people who bet heavily on the Packers also tended to bet on the game going Over plus betting a parlay of those two wagers.

In addition, reports say that the public overwhelmingly bet the game to go Over 44.5, which it did with about 12 minutes to go in the game. Proposition bets kept the casinos from taking a huge bath. Like we said here several times before, prop bets are fun, but the odds given for most of them are not “generous” by any means. Bettors made that worse by playing parlay cards of prop bets where the odds tilt even more towards the house. Prop bets are for suckers. If you prop-bet, you're still a sucker, even if you won. You could have taken the total amount you prop-bet and laid it on the Packers, as the Crier suggested.

JOHNNY MAC TRICK SHOT QB FROM UCONN!



COOLEST SPORTS NICKNAMES: HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS HAVE SOME OF THEM



In the previous Peanut Gallery, the Harlem Globetrotters were mentioned. In recent weeks, the PG has featured some of the coolest sports nicknames of the past. Currently, to be a Harlem Globetrotter, it doesn't hurt if you have a cool nickname. This is a partial roster of the Globies traveling teams:


"Airport" Greenup
"Ant" Atkinson
"Big Easy" Lofton
"Bones" Millien
"Buckets" Blakes
"Cheese" Chisholm
"Firefly" Fisher
"Flight Time" Lang
"Hi Rise" Brown
"Hi-Lite" Bruton
"Slingshot" Addison
"Squirrel" Murrell


MIKE MCCARTHY IS NO GENIUS: MIKE TOMLIN SHOULD BE ASHAMED THAT HE LOST TO A MORON!

FROM THE HMW MAILBAG:

Russ, Jose, and Anonymous left comments for Lamont Mann’s 2/9 post, "MY OPEN ENDED QUESTION TO "MIKE IN DA" ABOUT SR610..." (http://sheltonmedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/my-open-ended-question-to-mike-in-da.html):


“Mike in DA, you hit the nail on the head. Everything you said was dead on. Nice work guys.” From Russ – END.

"Both hands in the air signaling Touchdown.” From Jose – END.

"And 610 still kicks the competition's ass. I'd rather listen to 610 than the other stations.” From Anonymous – END.

Response to Anonymous – In the mid-2000’s, when KILT was the only full-time sports talk station in Houston, their share was often between 3 and 4 in the overall Arbitron ratings. The last time I looked they were at 1.1 overall (12/2010). Of course, those numbers mean nothing to the listener. You listen to what or who you like and not Arbitron's ratings, which are really estimates, but probably more accurate than anything else around at the current time, short of asking each individual in the city what their individual radio preferences are.

The four Houston sports talk stations had a combined 2.4 share overall for the month of December 2010, which shows that in total, a substantially smaller percentage of listeners are tuning in to sports talk now compared to half a decade ago. There are several reasons, including poor local teams being put on the field or court, which turns off casual fans; watered-down talk-host staffs, including some no-names, and hosts who actually turn off people with their lack of knowledge or demeanor;  alternative forms of entertainment for listeners due to improved technology; and others that have been talked about here in detail in past posts.

You have stations like Sunny 99.1, 97.9 The Box, Magic 102, and a couple of others that month-in and month-out individually more than double the share of the four local sports talk stations combined; that is what I call "kicking ass".

On 11/29, I posted an article entiled, “HOW ABOUT A CHANGE OF PACE FOR YOUR RADIO LISTENING TO ENJOY THE SOUNDS OF THE HOLIDAY SEASON!” in which I suggested the following, “For a change of pace, you can always listen to KODA Sunny 99.1 FM, which is having its annual Christmas Music celebration twenty-four hours a day through Christmas Day."

In December 2010, as in almost every recent December, the listenership of Sunny 99.1 increased over 30% for that month compared to 99.1's average monthly share. And its December share was more than four times the sports talkers combined. That is what I call "kicking some serious ass". 


Sure, SR610 is kicking some ass compared to the other local sports stations, but if I was a program director, I'd like to be kicking the ass of a lot of other stations around town and not just Sports Talk 790 and KGOW 1560. I'd want to be the best that I could be and be a household name like sports talker WFAN is in New York City.

We’ve discussed this stuff and much more here at HMW over the last ten months and will continue to do so. As Anonymous said, 610 still kicks ass in the sports-talk field, but having the rights to Texans, Westwood One football games, the Rockets, and University of Texas football and hoops is a big factor. Add that to the fact that SR610 was here first and therefore had a base listenership and you have the reason why it is the sports leader. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be improved and a better product put out there. Why not be the best that you can be. 

HMW is here to make suggestions and though we may be talking to deaf ears, a lot of what is said here makes a lot of fuckin' sense.

Lastly, Earlis left a comment after reading the 2/10 post, "A MUST READ FOR NFL FANS FROM SALLY JENKINS (WASHI..." http://sheltonmedia.blogspot.com/2011/02/must-read-for-nfl-fans-from-sally.html):

If a sports venue is priced out of the reach of the average Joe or Josie Q. then the friggin venue should be financed like friggin country club venues are without public funds. It really is a bailout without a crisis or in essence corporate welfare payola. When John and Josie Q stay home from the friggin games in particular during a lockout things will change. That book you mention Mike, “Field of Schemes” is a keeper in my humble opinion. Every one should read it; heck use your library card.

FLUB OF THE DAY

The interns at CBS College Sports were probably scrambling around trying to hit up Google for the spelling of "Szczerbiak" and didn't make it in time. So Wally wound up with the default name when it came time to do it live:



Just like the Houston Chronicle, NBA.com doesn't do a good proofing job sometimes either, as witnessed by this spelling of "poor":



Before MJ, there was the Big "O"

The very reliable Bob Berger who can be heard on Sporting News Radio on KGOW 1560 on weekend afternoons and several nights a week. On the Saturday afternoon (2/12) show, he was talking about that day's “upset” of Ohio State by Wisconsin (WTF – Wiscy was a slight favorite in Vegas) when he mentioned that Ohio State was upset by Cincinnati led by Oscar Robertson in the 1960 NCAA Finals. First, it was 1961 and the " Big O" was no longer at Cincy, as he was a rookie in the NBA at that time.

Thursday night on SR610, Brien Straw and Shaun Bijani were talking about Jerry Sloan’s retirement from coaching in the NBA and his place on the all-time NBA coach win list. They said Don Nelson (left) was 100 or more wins ahead of Lenny Wilkens on the all-time list, but a check shows that Don leads by only three: 1,335 to 1,332. Look it up, guys.


THREE MAY BE A CROWD, BUT IF THEY’RE TOP-SHELF PLAYERS YOU MAY HAVE A VERY GOOD TEAM!

With LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh uniting in Miami, other top-flight players have flirted with the idea of co-habitating with a single franchise. The latest “vibe” is that Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, and Amare Stoudamire might get together and play for the New York Knicks. Maybe that will happen and maybe it won’t, but let us just assume that this practice of three top-shelf players joining forces with one team takes hold and spreads.

Here is the question the NBA needs to face: How many top-shelf stars does it have such that it can stock teams with three top stars each?

Are there enough for eight teams? I think that is a generous estimate and the number is probably only six; but for the moment consider that there are 24 of these top players floating around out there to stock eight teams. The problem is how long will it be until fans desert the other 22 teams and lose interest in the local squad?

The idea of “wait till next year” is something that can get old with some fans. You can ask Chicago Cubs’ fans for instance, but “wait till next year” has to have some basis in reality for fans to care about their local team from year to year. If “next year” is sure to be just another repeat of last year with no chance at all of winning anything more than a brief moment in the playoffs, the NBA is in trouble.

The NFL markets “on any given Sunday…” even though there are bad teams who rarely fulfill that marketing promise. However, in the NFL, bad teams come and go from year to year. If the NBA star players continue to unite around a few teams, the rest of the league will wither and die.






A. I. R. STUDY: AMERICAN STUDENTS LEAD THE WORLD IN BASKETBALL!

A recent study conducted by the American Institute of Research found that American students, even those who live in traditionally academically low-performing states likes Mississippi and Alabama lead the world in basketball I.Q.

“While U.S. students continue to trail far behind the rest of the world in science and math scores, they are head and shoulders above international students when it comes to understanding the need to spread the floor and hit the offensive boards,” said the study’s author, Thomas LeMais.


The results are a positive sign for the United States, which had seen significant gains made on its position as the world leader in basketball I.Q. in recent years by the likes of Argentina, Spain, and even Puerto Rico.


The new stronghold is attributed to a return to basketball fundamentals in the lower levels of the sport - most 12-and-under youth programs had focused on dunking in the ’90s - and a president in the White House who is a proponent of the sport.

“I am very encouraged by this study’s findings,” said President  Obama. “Between this and my wife’s efforts to improve the eating habits and health of America’s children, I hope we can win every world basketball title through the 21st century. Our physical might will allow us to beat the pants off anyone who makes fun of our academic failings.”










47 YEAR-OLD NBA DEVELOPMENT LEAGUE EXEC, SPUD WEBB, CAN STILL DUNK OR SO IT APPEARS!





ODDS AND ENDS:

1. The United States Parachute Association’s National Skydiving Championships were held last year at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, IL, which is about 50 miles west of Chicago. I don't know how they judge it, but as far as I’m concerned, being ex-Airborne, everyone who landed safely was tied for first place.

 2. "GoDaddy.com" or a variation of it is a good screen name for anyone of a number of athletes who have children out-of-wedlock.

3. According to a report in the Columbus Dispatch, Art Schlichter is now a suspect in a criminal investigation related to bilking people out of money as part of a criminal enterprise. This guy has been involved in illegal gambling, forgery, passing bad checks, and now – allegedly – phony investments on and off over the last three decades. If he is found guilty of these charges, here is a question for the legal eagles: Why can’t we just lock this guy up and throw the key away?

P.S. - Art was born in the city of Washington Court House, OH, which is ironic, since he's no stranger to courthouses.













CRIER’S CORNER

BASKETBALL ACTION

Yesterday’s Record ATS: 5-2

Cumulative Season Record ATS (excludes “pushes”): 354-234


Today’s Action (for reading purposes only):


NBA

HOUSTON* (-2.5) over DENVER (TOTAL UNDER 223)
This is a great placement game for the Rockets. Denver had to fly from Memphis last night while the Rockets had a day’s rest after hosting the Mavericks. Houston played this team decently in January in a 7-point loss and it could have easily gone another way if the starting guards for the Rockets shot better than 8 for 27 from the floor. HOUSTON, 100-87


COLLEGE HOOPS

SYRACUSE* (-5) over WEST VIRGINIA
As evidence by the sustained Casey Mitchell soap opera, Bob Huggins has some disciplinary issues, and the midst of the Big East schedule is not an ideal time to seamlessly solve such puzzles. The Orange crisis appears to have passed, at least for the moment. SYRACUSE, 74-62

HAWAII* (-3.5) over NEVADA
A very young Nevada team travels to Honolulu off an overtime win at San Jose. Should be a lulu of a time. Nevada has one day between games, Hawaii has had eight. Seems like it might be a bit of an edge, considering Hawaii has revenge for an 86-69 loss at altitude in Reno when it was they who had only one day between
games, were playing without senior, 6'9", 235 forward Bill Amis (14.3 ppg, 7.1 reb) and Nevada was off two road losses and coming home with three full days in between games? HAWAII, 72-61




MIKE IN DA

HMW

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