O, My the Landscape has Changed in 100 Days

No, not that. I'm talking about the world of SPORTS.






The Eagle fans were reeling from another NFC Championship loss. Donovan McNabb lost a great shootout to Kurt Warner. And the Arizona Cardinals were headed for their first ever Super Bowl.

A-Rod, to our knowledge, was clean. And his skin likely didn't have an orange tint to it. But he had the same number of At Bats as he does now.

SEC Basketball Coaches Dennis Felton, Billy Gillispie, and Mark Gottfried all were employed.

TO was still a Cowboy. Charles Barkley was on sabbatical. John Madden was preparing to do his last game. Harry Kalas was alive.

I woke up in Lawrence, Kansas. And BACKTIME didn't exist.

Yankees Need To Think Outside The (Batter's) Box

If Jose Molina can crack a smile out of the Majors' tightest manager, maybe he can fix the Yankees' pitching woes.

Read Backtime's post on Pinstripe Alley.

UPDATE Molina started behind the plate in Phil Hughes' 2009 debut. Hughes worked 6 scoreless IP and the team posted a combined 11-0 shutout. Molina contributed with the bat as well, launching the Bombers' first Grand Slam of the season.

Jets fans are all Marks

Gang Green has caved in to public pressure once again. Ownership is now about pleasing the fan base and creating buzz. But not winning championships.


Nothing against Mark Sanchez here. He's a good player. The Jets fans wanted him and he wants the Jets, and he's saying all the right things. But the Jets fans also wanted Brett Favre last year.

This past season I did briefly have to institute a ban on Mark Sanchez talk on our college football broadcasts. First, Jack Arute reported on our Arkansas-Texas game, that Mark Sanchez had talked to Colt McCoy after the Trojans had been upset by Oregon State. Later that night Holly Rowe reported from the Alabama-Georgia game, that Mark Sanchez and Matthew Stafford had exchanged texts in the aftermath of USC's loss.

My perception: Mark Sanchez is a phone whore.


Oh he's out there. He'll be texting and blogging and twittering all over Gotham. Talk about a media darling. He could knock A-Rod off both the back page and Page Six.

Like I said, he's good. I'll be rooting for him. But is he worth 4 extrta guys? Including a 2nd Round pick, two defensive regulars and Brett Ratliff - potentially a legit NFL QB himself (stranger things have happened - I saw the kid kick some ass in an Emerald Bowl upset of Georgia Tech).

Of course not, he's a pipe dream. You've got Thomas Jones, Leon Washington and strong O-Line. Don't turn this over to a rookie. Then again, the last guy threw 22 picks, and he was no rookie. But he was in-demand by the desperate, delirious, dreaming Jet fans.

When the deal got done, don't you think Eric Mangini did a fist-pump or two at Browns HQ? He was the scapegoat for Favre and he passed on Sanchez. And he will use the picks and players to build a winner, not to make headlines.

Cross-Checking: Backtime's Wednesday Stanley Cup Playoff Roundup

So I used the Yankees' off-night to bounce in and out of Stanley Cup Playoff games. And much like missing your favorite soap opera for several months, it wasn't hard to catch up.

Caps vs Rangers

I watched the Versus coverage and saw a total of 6 announcers - 3 game, 3 studio. I only was familiar with one: studio host Bill Patrick, and had only heard of one other: studio analyst Brian Engblom. The TV coverage included in-game player interviews. Pretty cool. Hockey has always been a media-friendly sport as far as access and this is a good example, as long as they speak English well.

Rangers Goalie Henrik Lundqvist was the hero, single-handedly stonewalling the Caps' attack that out-shot the Rangers 39-21. The great Madison Square Garden crowd chanted his name "Hen-rik" on several occasions. The surprising Blueshirts scored a 2-1 victory and are now one win from the East semis.

Washington's superstar forward Alexander Ovechkin, the NHL regular season goal leader finally got his first goal of the playoffs. But it wasn't enough and too late. Is this Alex hockey's equivalent to another multi-million dollar Alex that the New York fans are so familiar with. Hmmm?

Bruins vs Canadiens

21,000+ in Montreal saw their disappointing Canadiens drop an 8th straight game as Boston crushed them in a 4-game sweep.

So what now? Does Habs GM/Head Coach Bob Gainey now fire himself?

It was the Bruins' first series win since 1999.

Blackhawks vs Flames

Best crowd of the night (and that's saying something). Calgary held serve at home, taking both games in the Saddledome to even the series. The red-clad crowd wouldn't let the Flames quit even after blowing a 4-1 lead. They finally put it away on Jarome Iginla's 2nd goal of the night, an empty netter with just 11 seconds left.

OK Backtime hockey fans, how did I do?

What's wrong with the Yankees? We should all have such problems

Time for The Pinstripes' 15-game checkup. Much has been made off those empty high-dollar seats that sap the energy from the TV coverage. Or maybe the alarming rate that baseballs are leaving the new house. Or the ugly, crooked scores of some of their losses: 10-5, 15-5, 10-2, 22-4.

The bottom line is that the Yankees are 9-6. They take the momentum of Melky Cabrera's 14th inning walk-off HR into a weekend series at Fenway which should be a great barometer.

Melky was my favorite up-and-coming Bomber when he took over in CF back in 2007. But last season he stopped hitting. This year he changed his number from #28 to the #53 vacated by Bobby Abreu's departure. The change of jersey didn't change his fortunes right away. Brett Gardner still beat him out in the spring.

Joe Girardi favored the speedier outfielder who can make more happen on the bases. I prefer the outfielder more likely to circle the bases. Melky has made most of his limited opportunities with a team-high 4 HR in just 23 At Bats.

My couch is over 800 miles from River Avenue & 161st Street, but here’s why I think the Yankees will finish well above the .600 mark they’ve posted thus far.

A-Rod's Return

Not only has his bat been missed, but think about just having his presence in the lineup with guys like Teixeira, Posada, Swisher, and a smokin’ Robinson Cano (10-game hit streak) around him.

The Rotation Will Straighten Out

Forget Chien-Ming Wang’s spiral into the pitching abyss, he was 54-20 in his career before this unspeakable stretch. You have to just hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with him and keep sending him out there.

CC Sabathia’s lackluster April (1-1, 4.81 ERA), is miles ahead of last season, when he started 3-8 for the Tribe. But from June 10 on, CC was 14-2 in 22 starts, with a 1.69 ERA in nearly 8 innings per start. He’s a horse and will be automatic in the summer months.

Joba Chamberlain is still a wild card. An awful lot of fanfare for a guy with 6 career wins. Would he be a better fit in the pen? I have wavered on this, but I’d have to ultimately say no. I saw him as the ace of Nebraska’s Big Red pitching staff, going 7+ innings almost all the time. If anything, his earlier days in the bullpen may have set him up not to be as durable a starter. But he will get stronger.

AJ Burnett (32) and Andy Pettitte (36) have been money. The other three starters are all under 30. There are no holes in the rotation, and A-Rod’s return will bring a deep lineup which leaves the biggest question mark…

Problems In The Pen

And even that is showing signs of turning around. They got 7 1/3 scoreless innings from the relief corps in the 14-inning win.

Rivera has been Rivera (7 scoreless IP, 4 saves). Brian Bruney has been Joba. He has 12 K in 8 innings, and allowed just 5 baserunners.

From the left side, it’s been a nightmare. Damaso Marte has been a disaster since they acquired him last year, and they don’t have a lefty they can count on for a single big out. The Yanks’ 3rd best reliever is a guy named Jonathan Albaladejo.

Fortunately, middle relief should be the easiest thing to pick up from elsewhere as the season wears on. And their presence should be diminished once their first-class group of starters hold up their end of the bargain.

Managing Things

I like Joe Girardi but he looks more tightly-wound in these April games than Joe Torre did in 12 seasons. Hopefully he'll be able to stop driving the Yanks like an NY cabbie and hit the cruise control soon enough.

Flash Backtime: Skating For Ratings

A couple of Backtime followers pointed out that there were two hockey posts on this site in the past week, and neither was written by me. So I was asked to write something on hockey.

I'll take a rain check on that - let me watch at least one Stanley Cup Playoff game in its entirety before I give my perspective. But I had posted a hockey blog on another forum and I don't mind dusting it off 10 months later.

We'll Flash-Backtime to the end of the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals. Detroit had just defeated Pittsburgh in Game 6.


June 5, 2008

Well another hockey season is on ice. Did anyone notice? Lord Stanley's Cup went to the Detroit Red Wings in an action-packed, thrilling final series. But who watched?

I did. But I have to admit the first hockey I'd watched this season was after the calendar had already been turned to June. I'd missed an entire season and two months of playoffs.

But the play was so compelling. The passes were crisp, the hits were jolting, and the venues in Pittsburgh and Detroit were absolutely manic.

Which leads me to think that hockey is pretty good entertainment, even if most of the season lacks the stakes of a Stanley Cup. So why have dwindling TV ratings made this professional sport so marginal?

I don't know. But it is obviously time for a change in coverage. It is time to disregard the sentimentality of hockey "purists" and completely re-vamp the way the game is televised. You don't have HD or a wide-screen? Too bad.

The TV of the future is here and hockey should be the first sport to gamble and make a regular game into a visual event. Here's how:

Envision a horizontal line across the middle of your screen. Use the bottom half for traditional end-to-end TV coverage. Slice the top part into thirds, showing tight shots of the stars, ice-level action, benches, and crowd - And just keep cutting.

Some would argue that this would be sensory overload, but I don't think anyone would find it boring.

If hockey is going to make a comeback into the national consciousness, it probably doesn't need more scoring on the ice as much as higher scores in the Nielsen ratings.

You Know How I Know That You're Gay?

Because you would have just landed a Million Dollar payday.

Many wondered when the former Gator star, the 2-Time SEC Player of the Year would break through. Today was Brian Gay's day.

He's floated around the top of the leaderboard on many occasions, but mostly on Fridays and Saturdays. Twenty-six career Top 10s, but only one prior PGA victory - that was in Mexico, a minor event when the world's best are playing the WGC Matchplay event.

Gay had never been a closer, until today. He blew away a strong field in Hilton Head with a 64, setting tournament records for best overall score (-20) and margin of victory (10 strokes).

Now 37 years old, he has redefined his career. Start looking out for him at the Majors. He just got his first Masters invite - for 2010. Maybe one day he'll take home a green jacket to add to the champion's blazer from the Verizon Heritage.

Now that's Gay.