Tuesday, January 25, 2005
HYPERVENTOCRANKILATING
(NOTE: The normal daily post is below this rant that turned out to be really huge.)
Any readers from last baseball season may remember me bitching about the TV situation in Ellensburg. Occasionally, the Mariners TV network (i.e., the local affiliates) picks up some of the games that don't go to FSNNW (in the Puget Sound area, you see these games on KSTW-11 UPN). A couple of those games fell on Sundays. Charter Communications does the cable TV affairs in Ellensburg, and their Fox station of choice is KCYU 68 of Yakima. Unfortunately, the Mariners' Yakima local affiliate of choice also was KCYU 68. What happened? I got a couple Sundays of NASCAR on television instead of the Mariners. Also note that KONG wasn't carried on Charter, so we weren't getting the Sonics on TV over there for at least the past four years (all of which I was attending school there). Add to this the occasional winter preemption of the Sonics' radio broadcasts by Central Wildcats basketball. With all due respect to my alma mater, I'm still stewing over that one.
So I'm chatting with a former teammate (former teammate of Jeremy's too) who is attending classes there in Ellensburg, and he's got cable in his place. He's complaining about not getting the Huskies on cable. I'm trying to figure this all out. He's saying he's only getting maybe one or two Husky games this year, and the same with the Sonics. I'm like, huh? I thought the Sonics signed the cable deal just to tick me off because it coincided with me leaving, and that the Wildcat students would get to watch the Sonics 70-plus times a year. According to Jer, apparently not. He's called Charter in Ellensburg, and apparently they've switched over to just FSN, and I'm not sure how generic that is. They apparently still get FSN Live with the northwest crew, but all of the rest of it just sounds like a travesty. I can understand not showing the Sonic telecasts if you have a competing NBA market nearby (i.e., FSNNW not showing the Blazers last year), but there's no Spokane or Yakima NBA team, so I see no reason to not show the Sonics in Ellensburg. Ditto that for the Huskies, because I'm sure Central Washington U isn't overriding FSNNW to show Wildcat basketball. That's what community access KCWU 2 is for. I can't even believe this is a problem over there. Charter can relay KOMO, KING, and KIRO onto their lineup over there, but they've managed to find a difference between Fox Sports Network and Fox Sports Net Northwest (and it's a big difference, apparently). I'm not even over there anymore and I'm ticked about this. This is the worst thing they've done at Charter Ellensburg since they switched Channel 54 from ESPNEWS to MSNBC. Channel lineup before switching to MSNBC -- 52 ESPN, 53 ESPN2, 54 ESPNEWS, 55 FSNNW. It just made too much sense before.
I have called Charter before, and it was on a Sunday, I believe. The local offices weren't open. They were relaying UPN-11 over onto the Charter lineup (they probably still do). So it was a Sunday early in the season, and the Seahawks and Mariners were playing on the same day. I was able to see the Seahawks on the Fox affiliate, but the Mariners were broadcasting over their network of local affiliates that day (the Yakima Fox station had the football game overriding their Mariner broadcast). Thinking that maybe I'd still get to see the game on the relay of UPN-11, I switched over to Channel 11. Nope. It's TV Land. The problem? TV Land is normally on one of the other channels. Yes, that's right. TWO CHANNELS were showing TV Land (the same exact thing, too, by the way), and NONE were showing the Mariners. Anyway, I called some national office, and they said they couldn't do anything. That's exactly what I thought I'd get from them.
I forgot to mention that on the same day, News Talk 1240 KXLE of Ellensburg was carrying Brian Davis and Steve Raible on the Seahawks radio network. The same station also handles the Mariners, Sonics, and Wildcats. Translation: no Mariners on radio OR television for me that day.
Now that my late-night spiel about the travesty of an existence that Charter Communications leads in Ellensburg is currently over...
On TV tonight -- SuperSonics at Lakers (7:30p, FSNNW)
MARINERS
Larry Stone has his piece on baseball this offseason, as well as the scorecard. This of course brings me to the question, how much would the Mariners have had to give Richie Sexson if Arizona hadn't unloaded the coffers for Troy Glaus? In an unrelated note, I can also hear the Beane backers out there screaming at Stone for saying Sabean had a better offseason than Beane, though Stone does concede that Beane's moves probably won't fully play out this year.
In winter ball, it appears that Matt Thornton found his control, and Felix Hernandez rested. Also, Jose Lopez made a good deal of errors. I'm not sure if he's committing errors at a Michael Garciaparra clip, but the errors came in droves. There's also some other tidbits about some other Mariners in winter ball. Of course, that's hardly enough, so go to Mariner Minors, where there's a ton more. I can't say I knew that Rich Garces led the league in saves down there until I went to Mariner Minors and saw that it was so.
Here's the Jim Moore perspective on Jeremy Reed. Hard-nosed, dirty uniform, all that stuff. Slides head-first into every base? Not so good. It might be must-see television if Ron Fairly ever sees Jeremy Reed sliding head-first into first base. Even more so if Reed decides to slide head-first into home plate with the catcher blocking or about to block. It better be an evasive slide. Heads and shoulders don't usually win in a battle with shin guards and a chest protector backed by about 200 or so stationary pounds. That's a lesson that doesn't have to be learned by experience in baseball. Another such lesson was learned by a catcher on my Babe Ruth team when I was 15. The lesson? It's probably wise to wear a cup when you're the catcher. I wish I was lying about this. Sheesh, even at that young age I wore a cup when I pitched, let alone caught, so you could imagine what I was thinking when Josias Manzanillo got nailed in the nethers without adequate shielding.
SEAHAWKS
Art Thiel pondered Sunday morning how far the Seahawks seemed from even being in the same universe with the four teams taking the field that day (especially on defense). The piece is worth it for that Randy Cross quote. Luckily, Bob Whitsitt is gone, so we hopefully won't have to worry about what Cross is referring to anymore. Thiel also reminds us that Bob Kraft didn't get it right the first time in New England either.
Also, Marcus Trufant had shoulder surgery, and Seahawk college scouting director Scot McCloughan has been rumored for a job with the 49ers and also for the Seahawks' VP of football operations post. McCloughan has put together the draft board every year since his May 2000 hire. Trufant led the Seahawks with 96 tackles, 86 of them of the solo variety. Apparently he was the second cornerback in NFL history to lead his team in tackles. If that's not something that screams for drafting some linebackers or some better pass rushers, I don't know what is.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
Marvin Williams and the Tar Heels play at Virginia on Saturday (9a, ESPN).
Huskies
Well, here's the most I've read in one sitting about Lorenzo Romar. It's a good and worthwhile piece. Though Romar was raised in Compton, he unfortunately wasn't born there, so I couldn't rattle off that DJ Quik reference (possibly not work-safe) that I've been wanting to use all this time.
Also, Dick Bennett apologized for flipping the bird at Hec Ed on Sunday. In what I read as classic Husky-vs.-Cougarism, Wazzu's AD Jim Sterk said, "we need to work harder to provide an atmosphere of sportsmanship so class gentlemen like Dick Bennett are not pushed to the point of reaction." The raucous Husky fans done drove Bennett to using the ol' finger.
The Huskies go to Arizona on Thursday (5:30p, FSNNW) and Arizona State on Sunday (12:45p, CBS)
Bulldogs
The Zags are home against the Portland Pilots on Saturday (8p, ESPN2)
Sonics
It turns out Ray Allen's 10-shot night against the Jazz might not be an aberration after all. Ray Allen might still be putting up 22 or so points a night, but it's not so good when he's missing a bunch of shots in the process (and taking a whole bunch of them). The solution? Kick it out more, and force less shots into the teeth of the defense. Apparently it's Operation:Rhythm for the offense, and it's all about ball movement and finding the best shot. Sounds like a good policy, no?
Also, the bomb threat on Sunday was a hoax.
Steve Kelley pens a piece after the passing of Don Poier. There are quotes from Chuck Nelson, Kevin Calabro, and former Grizzly Antonio Daniels. Though not mentioned in the article, you may remember him as the voice of quite a few of EA Sports NBA Live games, the last one with Poier's voice on it being the 2003 version (Marv Albert was signed on afterward).
Upcoming...
Tonight at Lakers (7:30p, FSNNW)
Tomorrow at Utah (6p, FSNNW)
Friday at Golden State (7:30p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
I can imagine how this (scheduled for tomorrow) is going to go...
Owners: Here's our final proposal. Take it or leave it.
Players: Does it have a salary cap?
Owners: It has something that guarantees cost certainty.
Players: Sounds like a salary cap...
Owners: Okay, it is. But look at all these other concessions we've made and these other things we've done!!
Players: Screw you, we're through.
I'm hoping for the NHL's return hopefully next fall. This sucks. However, in EA Sports NHL 2005, I've got the Canucks off to an 8-2 start.
Upcoming...
Tonight: Seattle at Spokane
Tomorrow: Everett at Kelowna, Vancouver at Kamloops, Tri-City at Seattle
Friday: Kamloops at Seattle, Portland at Everett, Tri-City at Vancouver, Manitoba at Utah, Spokane at Puget Sound
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Manitoba at Utah, Spokane at Puget Sound
Sunday: Everett at Tri-City
---
Have a decent Thursday, everyone.
Any readers from last baseball season may remember me bitching about the TV situation in Ellensburg. Occasionally, the Mariners TV network (i.e., the local affiliates) picks up some of the games that don't go to FSNNW (in the Puget Sound area, you see these games on KSTW-11 UPN). A couple of those games fell on Sundays. Charter Communications does the cable TV affairs in Ellensburg, and their Fox station of choice is KCYU 68 of Yakima. Unfortunately, the Mariners' Yakima local affiliate of choice also was KCYU 68. What happened? I got a couple Sundays of NASCAR on television instead of the Mariners. Also note that KONG wasn't carried on Charter, so we weren't getting the Sonics on TV over there for at least the past four years (all of which I was attending school there). Add to this the occasional winter preemption of the Sonics' radio broadcasts by Central Wildcats basketball. With all due respect to my alma mater, I'm still stewing over that one.
So I'm chatting with a former teammate (former teammate of Jeremy's too) who is attending classes there in Ellensburg, and he's got cable in his place. He's complaining about not getting the Huskies on cable. I'm trying to figure this all out. He's saying he's only getting maybe one or two Husky games this year, and the same with the Sonics. I'm like, huh? I thought the Sonics signed the cable deal just to tick me off because it coincided with me leaving, and that the Wildcat students would get to watch the Sonics 70-plus times a year. According to Jer, apparently not. He's called Charter in Ellensburg, and apparently they've switched over to just FSN, and I'm not sure how generic that is. They apparently still get FSN Live with the northwest crew, but all of the rest of it just sounds like a travesty. I can understand not showing the Sonic telecasts if you have a competing NBA market nearby (i.e., FSNNW not showing the Blazers last year), but there's no Spokane or Yakima NBA team, so I see no reason to not show the Sonics in Ellensburg. Ditto that for the Huskies, because I'm sure Central Washington U isn't overriding FSNNW to show Wildcat basketball. That's what community access KCWU 2 is for. I can't even believe this is a problem over there. Charter can relay KOMO, KING, and KIRO onto their lineup over there, but they've managed to find a difference between Fox Sports Network and Fox Sports Net Northwest (and it's a big difference, apparently). I'm not even over there anymore and I'm ticked about this. This is the worst thing they've done at Charter Ellensburg since they switched Channel 54 from ESPNEWS to MSNBC. Channel lineup before switching to MSNBC -- 52 ESPN, 53 ESPN2, 54 ESPNEWS, 55 FSNNW. It just made too much sense before.
I have called Charter before, and it was on a Sunday, I believe. The local offices weren't open. They were relaying UPN-11 over onto the Charter lineup (they probably still do). So it was a Sunday early in the season, and the Seahawks and Mariners were playing on the same day. I was able to see the Seahawks on the Fox affiliate, but the Mariners were broadcasting over their network of local affiliates that day (the Yakima Fox station had the football game overriding their Mariner broadcast). Thinking that maybe I'd still get to see the game on the relay of UPN-11, I switched over to Channel 11. Nope. It's TV Land. The problem? TV Land is normally on one of the other channels. Yes, that's right. TWO CHANNELS were showing TV Land (the same exact thing, too, by the way), and NONE were showing the Mariners. Anyway, I called some national office, and they said they couldn't do anything. That's exactly what I thought I'd get from them.
I forgot to mention that on the same day, News Talk 1240 KXLE of Ellensburg was carrying Brian Davis and Steve Raible on the Seahawks radio network. The same station also handles the Mariners, Sonics, and Wildcats. Translation: no Mariners on radio OR television for me that day.
Now that my late-night spiel about the travesty of an existence that Charter Communications leads in Ellensburg is currently over...
On TV tonight -- SuperSonics at Lakers (7:30p, FSNNW)
MARINERS
Larry Stone has his piece on baseball this offseason, as well as the scorecard. This of course brings me to the question, how much would the Mariners have had to give Richie Sexson if Arizona hadn't unloaded the coffers for Troy Glaus? In an unrelated note, I can also hear the Beane backers out there screaming at Stone for saying Sabean had a better offseason than Beane, though Stone does concede that Beane's moves probably won't fully play out this year.
In winter ball, it appears that Matt Thornton found his control, and Felix Hernandez rested. Also, Jose Lopez made a good deal of errors. I'm not sure if he's committing errors at a Michael Garciaparra clip, but the errors came in droves. There's also some other tidbits about some other Mariners in winter ball. Of course, that's hardly enough, so go to Mariner Minors, where there's a ton more. I can't say I knew that Rich Garces led the league in saves down there until I went to Mariner Minors and saw that it was so.
Here's the Jim Moore perspective on Jeremy Reed. Hard-nosed, dirty uniform, all that stuff. Slides head-first into every base? Not so good. It might be must-see television if Ron Fairly ever sees Jeremy Reed sliding head-first into first base. Even more so if Reed decides to slide head-first into home plate with the catcher blocking or about to block. It better be an evasive slide. Heads and shoulders don't usually win in a battle with shin guards and a chest protector backed by about 200 or so stationary pounds. That's a lesson that doesn't have to be learned by experience in baseball. Another such lesson was learned by a catcher on my Babe Ruth team when I was 15. The lesson? It's probably wise to wear a cup when you're the catcher. I wish I was lying about this. Sheesh, even at that young age I wore a cup when I pitched, let alone caught, so you could imagine what I was thinking when Josias Manzanillo got nailed in the nethers without adequate shielding.
SEAHAWKS
Art Thiel pondered Sunday morning how far the Seahawks seemed from even being in the same universe with the four teams taking the field that day (especially on defense). The piece is worth it for that Randy Cross quote. Luckily, Bob Whitsitt is gone, so we hopefully won't have to worry about what Cross is referring to anymore. Thiel also reminds us that Bob Kraft didn't get it right the first time in New England either.
Also, Marcus Trufant had shoulder surgery, and Seahawk college scouting director Scot McCloughan has been rumored for a job with the 49ers and also for the Seahawks' VP of football operations post. McCloughan has put together the draft board every year since his May 2000 hire. Trufant led the Seahawks with 96 tackles, 86 of them of the solo variety. Apparently he was the second cornerback in NFL history to lead his team in tackles. If that's not something that screams for drafting some linebackers or some better pass rushers, I don't know what is.
BASKETBALL
The Marvin Williams Watch
Marvin Williams and the Tar Heels play at Virginia on Saturday (9a, ESPN).
Huskies
Well, here's the most I've read in one sitting about Lorenzo Romar. It's a good and worthwhile piece. Though Romar was raised in Compton, he unfortunately wasn't born there, so I couldn't rattle off that DJ Quik reference (possibly not work-safe) that I've been wanting to use all this time.
Also, Dick Bennett apologized for flipping the bird at Hec Ed on Sunday. In what I read as classic Husky-vs.-Cougarism, Wazzu's AD Jim Sterk said, "we need to work harder to provide an atmosphere of sportsmanship so class gentlemen like Dick Bennett are not pushed to the point of reaction." The raucous Husky fans done drove Bennett to using the ol' finger.
The Huskies go to Arizona on Thursday (5:30p, FSNNW) and Arizona State on Sunday (12:45p, CBS)
Bulldogs
The Zags are home against the Portland Pilots on Saturday (8p, ESPN2)
Sonics
It turns out Ray Allen's 10-shot night against the Jazz might not be an aberration after all. Ray Allen might still be putting up 22 or so points a night, but it's not so good when he's missing a bunch of shots in the process (and taking a whole bunch of them). The solution? Kick it out more, and force less shots into the teeth of the defense. Apparently it's Operation:Rhythm for the offense, and it's all about ball movement and finding the best shot. Sounds like a good policy, no?
Also, the bomb threat on Sunday was a hoax.
Steve Kelley pens a piece after the passing of Don Poier. There are quotes from Chuck Nelson, Kevin Calabro, and former Grizzly Antonio Daniels. Though not mentioned in the article, you may remember him as the voice of quite a few of EA Sports NBA Live games, the last one with Poier's voice on it being the 2003 version (Marv Albert was signed on afterward).
Upcoming...
Tonight at Lakers (7:30p, FSNNW)
Tomorrow at Utah (6p, FSNNW)
Friday at Golden State (7:30p, FSNNW)
HOCKEY
I can imagine how this (scheduled for tomorrow) is going to go...
Owners: Here's our final proposal. Take it or leave it.
Players: Does it have a salary cap?
Owners: It has something that guarantees cost certainty.
Players: Sounds like a salary cap...
Owners: Okay, it is. But look at all these other concessions we've made and these other things we've done!!
Players: Screw you, we're through.
I'm hoping for the NHL's return hopefully next fall. This sucks. However, in EA Sports NHL 2005, I've got the Canucks off to an 8-2 start.
Upcoming...
Tonight: Seattle at Spokane
Tomorrow: Everett at Kelowna, Vancouver at Kamloops, Tri-City at Seattle
Friday: Kamloops at Seattle, Portland at Everett, Tri-City at Vancouver, Manitoba at Utah, Spokane at Puget Sound
Saturday: Everett at Seattle, Tri-City at Portland, Kelowna at Vancouver, Manitoba at Utah, Spokane at Puget Sound
Sunday: Everett at Tri-City
---
Have a decent Thursday, everyone.
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