Can’t Panic on March 2

With another injury and another pitcher having a bad start, the last thing you want to read about is the Mets. Which is convenient because it happens to be the last thing I want to write about.

But since this is a Mets blog, here’s my 30 seconds on the Mets:

It’s March 2. There’s four more weeks of this to get through. No one can live and die with every injury and bad start for this long before the games even count. The Mets do need to get healthier, as I alluded to last night. They can’t have everyone from the 25-man roster riding the Port St. Lucie pine. But really only the Delgado injury is one to worry about because of his troubling 2007. The Ruben Gotay injury today doesn’t appear to be serious. And as for Oliver Perez getting roughed up, pitchers always get roughed up in spring training. It’s not fun to watch, but you can’t get too concerned. If we’re still having this conversation in two weeks, my opinion might change but…

Meanwhile, it’s time to plug my own work. I penned the column for the Sunday Review page of the Home News Tribune and Courier News. You can read it here or pasted below.

It discusses how Vince McMahon ignored the time-testing strategy employed by Bud Selig, Roger Goodell, David Stern and Gary Bettman this week when he declined an invitation to come before Congress and discuss steroids. He wasn’t subpoenaed by the subcommittee and he had an out because his lawyer had a prior committment. But it doesn’t mean it was a wise choice. Because if he ticked off Congress enough to look a little closer at professional wrestling, they might not like what they see. And McMahon almost surely wouldn’t like that kind of attention.

So check it out.

McMahon ignores time-tested steroids strategy
By STEVE FEITL
Published March 2, 2008

Someone someday soon is going to make a lot of money writing “The Idiot’s Guide to Steroid Accusations.”

Because after numerous congressional hearings, some sustained public outcry and a couple of perjury investigations, there’s enough evidence to know what to do and, more importantly, what not to do.

For example, players can either admit their transgressions or deny, deny, deny. Andy Pettitte chose to own up to the accusations and was lauded by Congress as an honorable person . . . a cheater, but an honorable one. Meanwhile, Roger Clemens went door to door like a 7-year-old trick-or-treater, selling his denial on Capitol Hill. For his hard work, he received one big trick in the form of a federal perjury investigation. Advantage: admission of guilt.

It works for trainers, too. They can choose to cooperate with investigations or protect their millionaire clients. Brian McNamee opted to spill the beans. He was skewered publicly, but he sleeps in his own bed at night. The same can’t be said of Greg Anderson, who spent nearly a year in prison because he wouldn’t give up Barry Bonds. So unless you’re looking for work as trainer of the prison softball team, cooperation seems like a winning choice.

And even the heads of the sports themselves have choices to make. They can appear before Congress or they can no-show. Roger Goodell, Bud Selig, David Stern and Gary Bettman all chose to show up. The U.S. Olympic Committee chose to show up. Hell, even the National Thoroughbred Racing Association chose to show up.

I’ll give you one guess what World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McMahon chose.

Yes, McMahon was the only invited guest to decline to appear before Wednesday’s hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection, which focused on possible federal regulation of drug testing in sports. Congress granted witnesses the right to be represented by their counsel and McMahon’s lawyer was unavailable Wednesday. But it’s not as if his absence went unnoticed.

The chairman, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., said he was “exceptionally and extremely disappointed” that McMahon wasn’t there and added, “Steroid abuse in professional wrestling is probably worse than in any professional sport or amateur sport.”

But McMahon’s absence did accomplish one thing. It unified Republicans and Democrats.

“Mr. Chairman, you rightfully called out Vince McMahon,” Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., said. “Someone that flips his finger at this committee or at Congress deserves to be called out.”

Now McMahon did make a lot of money in the ’90s with a wrestler that regularly flipped off authority figures, but it seems a lot like congressional grandstanding to say McMahon was doing it himself this week. According to WWE, he responded to the invitation nearly a month ago.

McMahon was within his rights not to be there Wednesday. It just may have been a mistake.

Rep. Rush said, “This subcommittee fully intends to deal with the illegal steroid abuse in professional wrestling.”

Apparently, McMahon may still be called to Congress. He can have his lawyer this time, but not the other sports commissioners. That means all the focus would be on pro wrestling and its steroid problems, not to mention its staggering death rate.

And the book on how to deal with those uncomfortable questions is no more written than the WWE’s own fictitious rule book.

MLB & WWE: Together in Congress

Here’s a wrestling-related non-sequitur for a wrestling-related shameless plug. By now, I’m sure you’ve heard that Hulk Hogan’s wife Linda filed for divorce from her wrestler/reality show star/American Gladiators-remake host/Rocky III scene-stealer husband. All I’m saying is this is a man who talks about slamming Andre at WrestleMania III and with each interview, the only thing that increases more than the Giant’s alleged weight is the length of Hogan’s nose. It wouldn’t surprise me — or any longtime Hogan observer for that matter — if this was all an elaborate stunt for a very special “Hogan Knows Best” where the Hulkster gets down on bended knee. And with Hogan’s deteriorated knees, that would be no small feat.

Anyway, Hogan’s not the only person in the wrestling business getting bad press these days. Five months after the Chris Benoit tragedy, Congress seems to be moving closer to hauling pro wrestling’s leadership into hearings about the industry’s seedy reputation for steroids. One Congressman even went as far as to mention wrestling in the same sentence as Major League Baseball last week and that provides the opening for me to take another stab at pro wrestling’s myriad of problems in a feature-length column that appeared on today’s Sunday Review page of the Home News Tribune and Courier News.

Here’s the text of that column:

Getting unwanted attention
By STEVE FEITL
Published Nov. 25, 2007

The difficult-to-define genre of professional wrestling has spent the last several decades as the media’s version of the last kid picked for kickball. Too scripted for the sports pages. Not scripted enough for the entertainment pages. Not respected enough for the news pages.

That purgatorial existence ended five months ago today when the world encountered the horrific details of Chris Benoit’s murder of his wife and 7-year-old child, and his own subsequent suicide. The mainstream media suddenly became keenly aware of pro wrestling, and its unsavory reputation for drug use and physical wear and tear, not to mention an unprecedented death rate for performers under 45.

Where before obscure jazz musicians would get full-blown obituaries while dead pro wrestlers would only draw attention if they were the biggest of stars, now every wrestling death makes a headline — especially with jarringly young ages like John Kronus at 38 and Brian Adams at 44.

Pro wrestling has gone mainstream. And not just in the media.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., chairman of a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, told the Baltimore Sun last week that he plans to call a hearing on performance-enhancing drugs next spring. And look who’s on the invite list.

“Given recent developments — the impending Mitchell report and reports of widespread abuse in professional wrestling — I believe it’s time we get a formal update on what progress is being made to eradicate steroids from all sports and sports entertainment,” he told the Sun.

That’s right, pro wrestling is sharing time at the table with the national pastime itself, Major League Baseball. Congrats wrestling, you’ve made it.

Of course, this probably isn’t how World Wrestling Entertainment boss Vince McMahon envisioned mainstream acceptance.

The week of the Benoit tragedy, I used this space as a call to arms in the media to look past the headline-friendly ” ‘roid rage” aspect of the story and shine a light on some of the lesser-known problems that plague pro wrestling. Now I offer them to Congress as some tough questions to ask.

Why is there no offseason in WWE that might allow families to reconnect and bodies to heal?

What is being done to prevent the long-term brain damage from concussions that Benoit suffered, according to an independent medical group?

And isn’t it time to close the loopholes in the WWE drug-testing policy that allow for steroids and other controlled drugs if they are prescribed by a doctor — a doctor like Benoit’s who federal prosecutors believe prescribed a 10-month supply of testosterone to Benoit seven times in 12 months?

Stepping in and regulating professional wrestling from the sold-out arenas of WWE to the mom-and-pop fairground shows may be too untenable a task for Congress to embark on. But a little governmental pressure is a good start.

Of course, WWE will balk at this upgrade to MLB’s equal. “We’re not a sport. We don’t compete,” it will say. Ignoring the decades-worth of evidence that top bodies usually get top spots and thus top pay, there’s another good reason to haul WWE into Congress.

Wrestlers aren’t cheating the sport. Baseball players aren’t regularly dying before their 45th birthday. Let’s call it even and fix the problem.

Willie’s Back

In a move that should shock no one, but will undoubtedly annoy many, Omar Minaya announced today that Willie Randolph will return as Mets manager in 2008.

As I’ve previously noted, there was no other way for this to go down with Randolph’s fresh extension and $4.5 million remaining on his deal. The Mets management weren’t about to pay him that much to play golf for the next two years. Because that’s seemed pretty clear to me from the beginning of this collapse, I never was able to wrap my head around the notion of whether Willie should return. I just knew he would return.

As the captain on a ship that sank faster and harder than any previous in Major League Baseball history, (It’s a semantical game with the 64 Phils, since they sank faster and later, but had a half-game less of a lead. It’s either the worst or second-worst collapse in history. Take your pick.) Randolph has take a ton of heat. He also needs to change his over-reliance on veterans over youth and maybe, just maybe, show a little fire. It might keep his team from getting lulled by their own talent like happened this season.

But in Randolph’s defense, this team was not better than the 06 division champs and by most accounts, worse. He didn’t always make the right calls to the bullpen, but it’s not like he had a ton of reliable options either. He lost his best starter (Orlando Hernandez) at the worst time and had other old starters (Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez) that couldn’t get enough innings to rest that shaky pen. His team underachieved, but he also had less to work with in 2007.

That’s by no means an endorsement of the job he did. It’s just not a no-brainer indictment. So given the situation, I can’t argue with giving Randolph another chance with this squad. But make no mistake. Randolph needs to improve in 2008. And the team better as well. Otherwise, we won’t be having this same conversation next fall, because he won’t still be around.

*****

Scott Schoeneweis denied the steroids report about him and apparently only found about the report when contacted for comment. Check out this key paragraph from The Daily News.

“I don’t even know what that is,” said Schoeneweis, who was apparently unaware of the allegations that he received steroids from Signature until informed by The Daily News. “Steroids in Florida? I never received anything from Florida. I’m not going to comment. I never even heard of it.”

It was reported that he received testosterone and stanozolol — both generally considered steroids. It should also be noted that as a survivor of testicular cancer, it’s possible that any testosterone he received could — and I stress, could — be used for testosterone replacement therapy. As a pro wrestling fan since childhood, I have a passing knowledge of different performance-enhancing drugs and their applications. Testosterone replacement therapy is what the Atlanta doctor initially claimed to be treating Chris Benoit for. However, that wouldn’t explain the stanozolol, which I believe is the drug that Rafael Palmeiro failed his test for.

And it also wouldn’t explain why he’s denying any knowledge of the Florida pharmacy.

*****

If you think things are bad with the Mets, just consider the state of the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden. Today a jury ruled that both coach/GM Isiah Thomas and Garden management harrassed a former employee. I wrote about the state of the Garden in this past weekend’s Sunday Review page of the Home News Tribune and Courier News. You can read it here. And NBA blogger and Knicks fan Jim Green offers his thoughts here

Here’s the text of my column.

Garden made poor choices
By STEVE FEITL
Published Sept. 30, 2007

Even when running a billion-dollar corporation, there are undoubtedly good and bad decisions.

Take Cablevision, for example. This cable-television giant is worth more than $10 billion and ranked 1,144 on Forbes’ list of “The Global 2,000″ businesses. That puts it just 17 spots below all-purpose bleach Clorox and 72 spots ahead of opulent casino operator Wynn Resorts. That’s some pretty good company, so clearly Cablevision is making more good decisions than bad.

But there’s one sector of the Cablevision empire that seems to be a haven for most of the company’s poor choices. Those mistakes seem to pile up at the corner of Seventh and 33rd in Manhattan — yes, at “The World’s Most Famous Arena,” Madison Square Garden.

For years Cablevision’s head honcho James Dolan has been criticized for the men he placed in charge of the Garden’s marquee franchises — Glen Sather with the Rangers and Isiah Thomas with the Knicks. Sather rewarded Dolan’s relentless faith by turning the Blueshirts into a playoff team the past two seasons, but it only came after years of futility. Thomas has yet to generate a similar turnaround with the Knicks.

But with Dolan’s enduring patience, it came as no surprise that he supported Thomas when a sexual-harassment lawsuit was brought against the Knicks’ general manager/coach by a former Garden executive.

It was no surprise, right up until the details of the case emerged.

Thomas allegedly complaining about getting “no love” when a female executive pulled away from his attempt at a kiss on the cheek . . . Stephon Marbury allegedly having sexual relations with a Garden intern in a car across the street from a strip club . . . Thomas allegedly refusing to sign season-ticket renewal requests and saying, “Bitch, I don’t give a (expletive) about these white people.”

How do you let that go to trial?

Now you can make the argument that perhaps Dolan didn’t know any of those salacious details would come out.

But he had to know Thomas was videotaped during deposition explaining that a white male calling a black female a “bitch” is offensive, but a black male doing the same is not as bad. And he surely knows that his own response to Thomas allegedly calling a Garden executive a “bitch” was: “It’s not appropriate. It’s also not appropriate to murder anyone.” OK then.

Now Dolan was named in the lawsuit as well, so this wasn’t a situation where Dolan could simply cut ties with Thomas and leave him to defend himself. But we also know Dolan’s devotion to Thomas would have precluded that anyway and that raises the question of whether trusting Thomas with the keys to the Knicks was a wise choice.

But the bigger question remains: Why didn’t the Garden simply settle? The jury resumes deliberations Monday and a verdict could come down this week. Perhaps Thomas and Dolan will be vindicated. But with all the damaging press, the Garden has already lost. If they can pay off Larry Brown to go away, they surely can afford to do the same for Anucha Browne Sanders.

And compared to the price of the Garden’s reputation, a settlement would have been cheap.

Just another bad decision at the corner of Seventh and 33rd.

20 Years of Sports Celebrities

It’s the station you tune to when you want to celebrate a big win. It’s the station you tune to when you want to lament a big loss. It’s the station you turn off when the hosts and callers take maddening views on big win or the big loss. If you’re a sports fan in this area, you have a love-hate relationship with WFAN. There are times I get incredibly frustrated with the reactionary opinions that get bandied about, but everyday my radio is tuned into 660 AM at least once. Usually all day.

Back in June, the FAN celebrated its 20th anniversary with a countdown of the 20 greatest moments in New York sports from 1987-2007. I gave my opinions on that list here. Now they’re at it again, this time asking fans to pick the 20 greatest sports celebrities of the WFAN years. You can do so at this link.

Their criteria isn’t spelled out well, so I kind of set my own. I eliminated a lot of the non-celebrity executives despite great success, so that ruled out the likes of Wellington Mara, Lou Lamoriello and George Young.

I also nixed the great players who didn’t transcend into celebrities of their own, meaning Martin Brodeur, Curtis Martin, Mike Richter, Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams all didn’t make my list. (I suspect the Yankees exemptions might tick off a few Bombers fans, but they were not the ones on the magazine covers and billboards during the dynasty years. There’s plenty of Yankee representation on the main list and remember this is not the best players of the WFAN years… it’s the best sports celebs. Bernie’s jazz album doesn’t win him points here.)

Finally, I axed the greats who came to New York as enormous stars and never duplicated that success here. That exempted Wayne Gretzky, Pedro Martinez and Pat Riley. The FAN doesn’t specify that it’s only New York sports celebs, but I think we have to or otherwise we’d have Barry Bonds and Peyton Manning on this list. Gretzky (poor management), Pedro (injuries) and Riley (near miss and poor exit) all didn’t attain great success in their short tenures here, but their names are so big they would dwarf other names that were a bigger part of the New York landscape. So rather than insult anybody, they’re just not eligible for my list.

So that brings me to my list. I’m not going to put them in a 1-20 order, but I will break them into two classes because the first time I went through I only came up with 15 names. So the second group will be the five names that I didn’t think were Top 20 quality for various reasons, but make the list by process of elimination.

So here goes in alphabetical order:

Roger Clemens — I almost had the Rocket in the Gretzky category, because of his short stays and enormous success elsewhere. But he was part of one of the biggest stories in New York sports history with Mike Piazza and he did win championships here. Huge star power.

Patrick Ewing — It’s still hard not to think of the Knicks and see Ewing. Face of a franchise.

Dwight Gooden — Almost didn’t make it because his early success actually predated the FAN by a few years. But he remained a controversial figure with the Mets into the 90s and then had his run with the Yanks. Sad story, but a high-profile one.

Derek Jeter — He has a Visa card. He uses some stupid contraption with strings to improve his swing. He wears watches. He drinks Gatorade. Oh and he got his in blazing copper.

Brian Leetch — The home-grown face of the Rangers through their glory years and the ones we’d like to forget. Still, never had the media sparkle of Mark Messier and thus was the last name I put in the Top 15.

Don Mattingly — My generation of Yankee fan friends would cry if Mattingly didn’t make this list.

Mark Messier — The Messiah. If you’re going to get that nickname, you better be a huge star.

Bill Parcells — The Tuna. For entirely different reasons, if you’re going to get that nickname, you better be a huge star.

Mike Piazza — You know you’re a big star when you have to hold a press conference to announce that you’re not gay.

Alex Rodriguez — The most talked-about player in this area since Darryl Strawberry in the FAN’s infancy. Also, a fascinating car wreck of a celebrity who seems to attract controversy.

Phil Simms — His early tortures as quarterback of the Giants predate the sports talk era and would have made for fascinating afternoons. But still had several years at the glory position on the area’s premiere football franchise.

George Steinbrenner — A star so big that his mere legend keeps his name in the spotlight today despite all signs of his diminished role with the Yankees. Also, Seinfeld didn’t make a recurring character out of Fred Wilpon.

Darryl Strawberry — The FAN might not have ever existed or succeeded with Strawberry talk to fill the airwaves in the late 1980s. Like Gooden, got the career revival across town when Steinbrenner decided he wanted to collect 86 Mets like they were beanie babies or whatever was the fad at the time.

Lawrence Taylor — An iconic figure who’s managed to pull off a rare trifecta: star alongside Al Pacino in “Any Given Sunday,” appear alongside Tony Soprano in “The Sopranos” and headline a WrestleMania. Like Gooden and Strawberry, talked as much for his off-field problems as his on-field talents, but LT got more out of his career than either of the baseball players.

Joe Torre — The gentle ying to Steinbrenner’s combustible yang. Torre couldn’t survive a decade as Yankees manager without being comfortable in his soft-spoken celebrity image.

That was my 15 names. Here’s the five that weren’t going to make it, also in alphabetical order.

Tiki Barber — For the same reason he won’t make the Hall of Fame. Just wasn’t a big enough star for long enough. However, he’s managing to become a bigger presence in retirement than he was as a player.

Jason Kidd — Revitalized a franchise and had some problems off the court, so it’s not like he hasn’t been a presence here. But the Nets remain a distant second to the Knicks so Kidd is a victim of his location.

Jose Reyes — Generally accepted as the most exciting player in baseball, Reyes also shares the mantle of the “new” Mets. The shared face of the franchise thing hurts Reyes more than David Wright, but neither has done it long enough.

Michael Strahan — Given his tenure with the Giants, should be bigger star than he is, but has a frosty relationship with the media that hurts his celebrity. Also, he’s hurt by being the leader of a defense that has traditionally come up small in big spots.

David Wright — The Kid became a media darling almost immediately upon entering the big leagues. Going into this year it seemed Wright got a disproportionate amount of the Mets’ attention, but answered with an MVP-caliber year. Still, like Reyes, must do it longer.

So that’s a list sure to tick off someone. Just imagine how much worse it would be if I actually ranked them.

Real-Life Rocky

Longtime readers of this blog know I am a big supporter of mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championships, in particular. I just think that a UFC pay-per-view has all the excitement that is missing from your average boxing event with a stacked card from top to bottom. And the actual combination and evolution of the fighting styles from jiu-jitsu to judo to boxing to grappling is fascinating to watch and makes this sports so much more than the “human cockfighting” that uninformed critics continue to claim.

And right now in UFC, there is another great reason to watch. And his name is Randy Couture. He’s the heavyweight champion and last weekend simply dominated his dangerous and favored challenger Gabriel Gonzaga. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, he’s 44. As in years old. In one of the most physically demanding, ever-evolving sports in the world, this old man is defying the odds.

It’s a tremendous story and is the subject of my feature-length column in this week’s Sunday Review page of the Home News Tribune. You can read it here.

Randy… Randy… Randy…

Something To Read (Not Potter)

I don’t know how the Harry Potter series ends. Perhaps Potter lifted the curse on himself by beating the Yankees four straight. Maybe Potter sat around a table with his family while Journey played in the background. Or maybe the feds busted up his little magic school when they discovered his spells and potions were really just the work of performance enhancing drugs.

I could be right. I’m probably wrong. But I’m not reading it to find out.

So if you’re like me and without 700 pages of wizardry to read this morning, let me offer you some alternatives.

I penned a piece for this morning’s Home News Tribune about what was possibly the worst week ever for sports and how I don’t envy any parent trying to raise a sports fan in this scandal-ridden environment. But I do offer guidelines and reminders of the off-the-field lessons that now must go hand-in-hand with the rules of the game. You can read my feature-length column here.

In that column, I do reserve a little space for ESPN bashing as they continued their weeklong hero worship of David Beckham leading up to his debut with a MLS team last night. Their love of celebrity is simply sickening. But I’m not the only person bashing ESPN these days. In fact, this week with the ESPYs, their ridiculous “Who’s Now?” segments and the overpromotion of Beckham’s arrival may have been the tipping point for ESPN and the media. They’re getting killed everywhere. Here are a few of the many pieces destroying “The Worldwide Leader” this morning.

From the New York Post, Phil Mushnick attacks ESPN’s self-promotion.

From Newsweek, Devin Gordon attacks ESPN’s too-cozy relationship with athletes.

And don’t forget my own scathing piece from earlier this month right here in the CitiBlog noting the outright gall of ESPN.

Go read and then get your torch so we can all march on Bristol.

The Worldwide Leader?

Steve here, back where I belong in the CitiBlog. The whole “Role Reversal” thing was an interesting experiment. Just one I’m not anxious to repeat. But it’s over and we can get back to business here.

It’s also been an interesting couple days for the undisputed sports leader, our good friends at ESPN. On Tuesday we learned that Dan Patrick — one of the longtime faces of the ubiquitous network — would be leaving for undisclosed future endeavors this August. Now rumors are running rampant that Patrick, the host of a fairly compelling radio alternative to Mike & the Maddog on ESPN Radio, might be up for the former Imus spot on WFAN. That could be an effective fit, especially if he continues to have Keith Olbermann on as a regular co-host. It’s a combination that could work.

But the really interesting part of the Patrick story was reported this afternoon by the Chicago Tribune. Apparently ESPN, in its neverending need to be the source of all sports-related news, decided to scoop Patrick on his own announcement. For the first hour of his radio show, the departing host hyped his big announcement to come at the start of hour two, but then five minutes before the top of the hour, ESPN sent out a press release announcing the amicable split. Some parting gift, eh?

But this kind of gall from the all-sports (as long as you don’t count poker, spelling bees and hot dog eating contests) network shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone. It’s their standard operating procedure. But it also came back to bite them on Sunday. That’s when Major League Baseball announced it was booting ESPN from the All-Star Game for violating an embargo last week when All-Star announcements were made. You see, TBS had exclusive rights to the selection show, but it was delayed by a Braves game. So ESPN announced the NL starters before the TBS show even went on the air, using embargoed copy sent out on the Associated Press wire. And just in case you thought it might have been an oversight or error, ESPN then went ahead and announced the entire All-Star rosters before the TBS show was over. As a result of this cavalier attitude towards MLB’s exclusive package with another network, MLB cancelled ESPN’s hourlong “Baseball Tonight” broadcast from San Francisco prior to Tuesday’s exhibition and demoted ESPN reporters to the same access as all other news outlets.

Good for MLB, right? Well ESPN of course got the last word by having San Diego Charger LaDainian Tomlinson in the booth for multiple segments of its “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast. ESPN using MLB to promote the NFL — a league the network remains strongly tied to thanks to its “Monday Night Football” rights. How does ESPN get away with such arrogance? Because they just keep doing it.

Take this weekend for example. You might have heard ESPN report Sunday night about Mark Buehrle agreeing to an extension with the White Sox, including crediting Buster Olney with the details of the deal. No mention, however, was made of his report Saturday that talks had broken down completely and that the Sox were “aggressively” pursuing a trade and that when Buehrle tipped his cap to the crowd at U.S. Cellular Field Saturday, it likely was for the last time. Somehow none of that made the ESPN broadcast Sunday.

Yet we watch. Really only because we have to. There is no viable alternative in sports broadcasting. YES, MSG and SNY do a good job regionally, but no one can offer the national scene like ESPN. At least not now. There’s always hope of a money mark somewhere wanting to start up his or her own sports network. And as long as they’re willing to dump millions upon millions into it and deal with the embarrassment of broadcasting low-rent sports leagues and live with existing somewhere north of the Hallmark Channel on the dial and wait out years of low ratings and ignore all reports calling the upstart network a failure waiting to happen, then there’s a chance.

So if you know any lottery winners looking for a new business venture, please point them in the direction of this entry.

Because I can’t sit through another “Who’s Now?” segment.

A Call To Action

In today’s Sunday Review page of the Home News Tribune, I wrote a column dealing with the Chris Benoit tragedy from this past week. In it, I explain the struggles reporters are facing with this case and offer guidelines for the mainstream media going forward. You can read the feature-length column here.

There are so many different aspects to this story and implications for the professional wrestling business (not to mention the sports world in general) that I easily could have written a column three or four times longer than the one I did. But I needed to stay focused so I narrowed the scope to a simple premise and a launching pad for future discussion. Essentially, we must accept that we may never know all the reasons why Benoit killed his wife and son before killing himself. We most certainly will not be able to point to any one reason. Unfortunately, that means his employer World Wrestling Entertainment can deflect any direct blame for this tragedy, and while I certainly don’t think Vince McMahon is main culprit here, there are problems with his company that also couldn’t have helped the situation. The media is starting to understand some of them, such as the company’s continued steroid problems despite an established wellness policy. My column is meant to fill in some of the blanks that the media might be missing.

You can’t trade three lives for positive changes to an industry and think it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. But we weren’t given a choice beforehand so that’s the best-case scenario from where we are today. As I outline in my column, the media will play a big part in those improvements.

Or at least it should.

Twenty Years of the FAN

Growing up a sports fan in the Tri-State Area, you quickly learned to find 660 on the AM dial — the home of WFAN, the nation’s first all-sports talk radio station. I remember spending my summer days out in the backyard with the FAN blowing out of my hideously 80s-ish red boombox. There were a lot of Mets games (back when MLB scheduled day games) and some good sports talk that really expanded my sports universe. I remember taping an hourlong interview with Tom Seaver on a cassette tape that I still probably have somewhere. And of course, I remember staying up to 3 a.m. on Saturday nights to listen to Jody MacDonald talk professional wrestling and then trying not to doze off in church the next morning. OK, I probably would’ve had that problem anyway, but the lack of sleep sure didn’t help.

My point is, you don’t really become a big-time sports fan until you’re 10 or 11 and that’s right about when the FAN came into existence. July 1, 1987 to be exact. Without it, I don’t know that I’d be the sports fan I am today or even working in the sports media. So despite the maddening hosts and the over-reactive callers that sometimes plague the station, I know I’d miss WFAN if it were gone.

To help celebrate it 20th anniversary, the FAN ran a promotion where listeners could vote for the Top 20 moments of the last 20 years in New York sports. Here’s the list, as decided by the fans:

20: WFAN’s First Broadcast
19: David Cone Perfect Game
18: Buster Douglas KO’s Mike Tyson
17: Rangers Trade for Mark Messier
16: Endy Chavez Catch
15: Cal Ripken Breaks Gehrig’s Record
14: Clemens v. Piazza
13: Robin Ventura Grand Slam Single
12: Mets Win 2000 NLCS
11: Mets Sign Pedro Martinez
10: Mets Trade For Mike Piazza
9: Jeter Flip to Posada
8: Yankees Win 2000 World Series
7: Aaron Boone 2003 ALCS Home Run
6: Stephane Matteau GW OT Goal
5: Mike Piazza 9/11 Homerun
4: Red Sox End Curse
3: Yankees Win 1996 World Series
2: Norwood Misses FG, Giants Win SB XXV
1: Ranger Win 1994 Stanley Cup

It’s an interesting list, peppered by Mets moments, which is interesting considering the Yankee dominance over most of the last decade. What I think hurts the Yankee dynasty is the World Series wins haven’t been filled with the dramatic moments like the losses have. Think about the clips you see on YES throughout the day: Boone, the D’back late-inning homers and the Jeter flip are far more memorable to the average fan than anything that happened in 1996, 98 or 99. And 2000 was overshadowed by the Piazza-Clemens debacle. So I think that’s how there were six Mets moments and five Yankee moments in the Top 20, not counting the Red Sox ending the curse or the Piazza-Clemens thing.

As for my list, I struggled because I really don’t think you should count moments where the team didn’t ultimately succeed, which eliminates the grand slam single and the Chavez catch — which were amazing moments, but can’t stand up because of their lack of overall meaning. I also find it difficult to judge the national events like Ripken and Tyson because we’re talking New York here and I don’t really see the impact. Regardless, I came up with my Top 5, so let’s hit it.

No. 5: Yankees Win 1996 World Series — Surprised, considering I’m a Mets fan? You shouldn’t be. I say it all the time and most Yankee fans don’t believe me, but I was actually happy when the Yanks returned to the mantle in 96. I knew a lot of Yankee fans at the time and they had suffered through those dreadful teams in the 80s and all the Steinbrenner distractions. So I was glad that those fans were rewarded. If I knew then that it would create the largest bandwagon in the history of sports and years later I’d be accosted by drunken idiots yelling “26 BABY!” in my face in the Shea Stadium men’s room, I might have reconsidered. But at the time it was a major moment in New York, and while it doesn’t have the sizzle of some of those other Yankee highlights, its significance remains.

No. 4: Matteau, Matteau, Matteau — At the time, I was working my first season at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, N.J. As an 18-year-old Games & Attractions cast member, I often stayed late into the night, helping fix up the games area after the onslaught of summer crowds. Given the NHL’s recent ratings woes, it’s easy to forget that the Devils-Rangers Eastern Conference Finals was huge in this area. It was on everyone’s mind that night so someone in an office tuned into the game on the radio and broadcast it throughout the deserted theme park over one of the walkie-talkie channels. I was on a ladder, hanging stuffed pigs and cows on the wall of the “Barnyard Baskets” game when the Devils scored with seven seconds left to send the game into overtime. I was so angry, I lost my balance, falling safely into a pile of plush prizes. We finished up at the end the first overtime and I ended up driving home through the intermission. I didn’t quite make the time I was hoping to and the second overtime started before I got home. As I pulled onto my family’s street in East Windsor, Stephane Matteau scored the game-winner, sending the long suffering Rangers to the Stanley Cup Finals. Just as Howie Rose finished his legendary “Matteau, Matteau, Matteau” call, I started laying on my horn (Hey, no one should have been sleeping during that game.) and ran into my parents’ house just in time to see the replay of the fateful goal. Any moment I remember that vividly belongs in the Top 5.

No. 3: Clemens v. Piazza — I think people are starting to forget how big this thing was. It overshadowed a World Series, even before a shattered bat was ever thrown, and then continued for another two years until Shawn Estes managed to miss Clemens rather significant a$s. As Mike Francesa said on the FAN this afternoon, they could start taking calls on it today and it would still get heated. From a Mets fan perspective, Clemens beaning Piazza was like when Shooter McGavin had some dude run over Happy Gilmore because he couldn’t beat him fair and square. In Hollywood, Happy won anyway. In reality, Piazza had to wait a couple years before getting his happy ending. No, I’m not talking about his home run in the regular season game. I’m talking about when he gave away the pitches to the AL batters while catching Clemens in the All-Star Game. Watching the Rocket get rocked on a national stage — that was the happy ending to this saga.

No. 2: Super Bowl XXV — It remains unquestionably the greatest Super Bowl I’ve ever seen and it doesn’t hurt that the Giants won. But from an actual gameplay standpoint, both these teams were nearly flawless as they slugged it out in a physical war of a football game. Adding to the atmosphere was the actual war taking place in the Gulf which led to the most inspirational lip synching you’ll ever see from Whitney Houston. But the game will always be remembered for Scott Norwood missing the climactic kick and the underdog Giants winning their second Lombardi Trophy.

No. 1: Rangers Win The Cup — Without hesitation, this was the greatest moment of my sports fandom. Fifty-four years of frustration capped off with a tense 60 minutes of hockey. I just remember sitting on the edge of the sofa with my elbows on my knees and looking across the family room at my old man, sitting on the edge of the loveseat with his elbows on his knees. And we waited and waited. I hadn’t even been alive for 19 of the 54 years of frustration at that point, but every Ranger fan carried that burden that night. There was even that damn icing call to force one final faceoff before we could finally celebrate. For drama, for joy, for excitement, this event can never be topped. Every sporting event to come will always be fighting only for No. 2 on this list.

So that’s it. That’s my list. Here are the two events that almost made the cut… but didn’t.

HONORABLE MENTION: Piazza 9/11 Homer — It meant very little from a baseball perspective, being a regular season game in a year the Mets didn’t even make the playoffs. But from a societal standpoint, it was incredibly important. We all walked around in a daze after Sept. 11, unable to comprehend how the attacks could have transpired and unable to distract ourselves as television was overrun with round-the-clock news coverage and the sports world went on hiatus. Piazza homering in the first game back signalled somewhat of a return to normalcy and reminded us that it’s OK to cheer.

HONORABLE MENTION: O.J. Bronco Chase — This will always be one of the watershed moments in the history of television. It was salacious, shocking and celebrity all wrapped into one, transpiring live in the middle of an Knicks-Rockets NBA Finals game. I actually didn’t see it live (Six Flags again) but I had recorded the game on my VCR. I drove home listening to a mix tape, undoubtedly filled with 1994-ish music like Stone Temple Pilots and Jesus & Mary Chain, and avoided the result of the game so I could watch it as if it were live. It was late though, so I just started fast-forwarding through the game when all of sudden I noticed the split screen. “What the hell is that white Bronco doing? And why is it going so slow?” This event was the springboard for the O.J. story, which crossed all sorts of sports and societal boundaries and changed television news forever. Like most people, I still remember the details of the chase. I don’t remember the result of the game.

Wow, this became a ridiculously long post. I guess that’s what happens when my planned Mets game falls through. So anyway, Happy 20th WFAN. Hopefully, there will be some more great New York sports moments happening at Shea this October.

The Rampage of MMA

***WARNING! THERE’S MINIMIAL METS CONTENT IN THIS POST!***

Mixed martial arts hasn’t completely found its way into the sports mainstream. But Saturday night was a hell of a start.

Much of the sports media world — from the Associated Press to ESPN to Sports Illustrated — turned its attention to Ultimate Fighting Championships 71 in Las Vegas and what they saw was an exciting action-packed card of MMA competition. In the main event, 3-to-1 underdog Quinton “Rampage” Jackson defeated “The Iceman” Chuck Liddell for the UFC light-heavyweight championship with a shocking first-round knockout.

The UFC brass couldn’t have been thrilled to see their posterboy go down on the fledgling sport’s biggest stage. But with some proper promotion, they should have made a huge star tonight in Rampage, who is as intimidating as a Big Papi at-bat and as charismatic as Pedro Martinez. (There’s your Mets content!) But UFC should be thrilled that on the night the media chose to pay attention, they delivered an exciting night of fights. Certainly much better than the snooze-fest of an undercard offered on the Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather pay-per-view. They provided value for your dollar. That’s important.

But also, in the short main event, UFC delivered a strong retort to the uninformed critics that continue to play the “human cockfighting” card. Make no mistake: Chuck Liddell is a fighter and if this was boxing, his instincts would have taken over and he would have gotten off the mat, the ref would’ve counted to eight and the fight would’ve continued. And then Liddell might have gotten hurt. In MMA, referee John McCarthy made a good stop and Liddell’s best interests were served.

And besides, now there’s a reason for a rematch. That’s always good for business.

So MMA is here, even if everyone isn’t quite ready for it. After spending nearly 10 minutes reviewing the fight on ESPNews this morning — including post-fight analysis from UFC announcers Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan — the ESPN anchor closed out the package by making a snarky comment about “the guy from Fear Factor making ESPNews.” Ummm, the guy from Fear Factor has two shows in syndication and is now broadcasting pay-per-views for millions of fans… and you’re doing overnights on ESPN’s fourth channel.

Yeah, MMA hasn’t convinced everyone. But Saturday night, I bet they convinced an awful lot.