Showing posts with label ESPN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ESPN. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Heartbreaking! Pedro Gomez dead at 58. A grievous loss to his family, devout Major League Baseball fans who truly care about history and context, and to the Miami/South Florida that he grew up in, knew, loved, and, like us, could get SO very vexed by.



@ESPNPR
ESPN remembers SportsCenter reporter Pedro Gomez, who passed away unexpectedly today at the age of 58. http://es.pn/3q0mK3Q

@BillyCorben
Heartbreaking news. One of the country's best baseball journalists, but always repped Miami. Alum of Coral Park High, Miami-Dade Community College and University of Miami. Thinking of Pedro's wife Sandra, their boys Rio and Dante, and daughter Sierra tonight. #RIP mi amigo.

@hbbtruth
Yes, heartbreaking. As someone who grew up in #SoFL and left #Miami to find great success + universal respect, Pedro was the antithesis of all the know-it-all media types (we hate) who've been claiming to know Miami since the 1960's. He knew what OUR history/reality was bec he lived it.

@hbbtruth
.@JeffPassan provides us w/video that's #PedroGomez in a Nutshell. Growing up in #SoFL w/friends w/relatives who'd been imprisoned by Castro, yet STILL talked longingly abt returning to a free #Cuba every time I saw them, well, his words are spot-on.

@JeffPassan
This is from Pedro’s trip to Cuba in 2016. If you want to know who he was, just watch this video. He loved his family, his heritage, baseball. He was just full of love for everyone.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is from Pedro’s trip to Cuba in 2016. If you want to know who he was, just watch this video. He loved his family, his heritage, baseball. He was just full of love for everyone. <a href="https://t.co/zc6oFACPMo">pic.twitter.com/zc6oFACPMo</a></p>&mdash; Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) <a href="https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1358628370150535169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2021</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I'll be adding to this post about Pedro Gomez over the next day or so as more anecdotes and thoughts come to mind and get better clarified in my head, so that I don't write all the things I'm currently thinking and feeling right now, so please come back to this post every so often this week to get caught up and possibly find out some things you may not have known.
Seems like I have been hearing his enthusiastic, positive voice coming out of a TV or a radio forever.
And now, no more.

Dave

Sunday, September 8, 2013

#Finally! 2013 NFL season is finally here! My counter-intuitive predictions for the 2013 Miami Dolphins season is they stumble to 5-11; Over-valued, under-performing players plus a very tough early schedule may well render Dolphins winless by Bye week in Week 6; USA Today, Dan Patrick and Peter King's Super Bowl picks; Say hello again to our old friend, NFL East Coast/Cowboys bias!; @nfl, @SI_PeterKing, #Lombardi

Above, the scene on August 6th at my table at the Panera Bread in Hallandale Beach, FL, while sipping my Hazelnut coffee and munching on my Everything bagel. August 6, 2013 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
The moment I spied this Miami Herald sports section with a cover photo showing Miami Dolphin QB Ryan Tannehill's poor footwork in throwing a pass -NOT properly planted, NOT properly using his hips to throw the ball, but instead, going with the sort of off-stride sidearm delivery you see from a shortstop moving to his right who fumbles the ball and who's then rushing a throw to try to catch a speedy runner at first- and then saw the a propos headline reading, "Critics pan Tannehill, Dolphins," I instantly knew this would be the photo that I used for my predictions for the 2013 Dolphins season.

Despite having a great arm, whether you call it a gun, a rifle or bazooka, last year Tannehill's consistently poor footwork (and plain awkwardness) and his failure to consistently follow through on his throws, led to far too many passes not being right where they need to be when his receivers were open, which is why I've chosen to use the photo at the top.

And since every fan and observer of the Dolphins has known that one of the big problems that has plagued their receiving corps for years has been their inability to create separation, when they DO have some separation, Tannehill needs to be MUCH MORE ACCURATE.

I saw far too many wasted opportunities last year in games when they were still competitive, but when you don't take advantage, those close games become two TD deficits.

Tannehill and the photo of him is the Dolphins in a nutshell from my vantage point -they have the obvious ability, but do they have the means and will to get noticeably better?
That's an open question.

The difference between a successful person and others isn't a lack of strength, a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. #Lombardi
— Krysta Bear (@KrystaBear95) September 2, 2013

It's great to hear he's showing improvement in practice, but late in a close game, will Tannehill revert back to bad habits? 

Especially against a team whose defensive linemen consistently raises its hands at the line of scrimmage, as the Texans did so successfully last year, when Tannehill never adjusted, to the dismay of fans watching at home, who thought it seemed so obvious?

But instead of having Tannehill roll-out on some passes to break that pattern, they just kept doing the same thing that never worked, extending their record of futility against the Texans, a team they've never beaten in a regular season game, an embarrassing fact considering they were an expansion team. 

And so, that idea about Tannehill from a month ago has become reality today on the blog as the Dolphins start their 47th season in Cleveland against a rapidly-improving Browns team -a team with a new offensive-minded head coach with U-M ties, Rob Chudzinski - that unlike the Dolphins in my opinion, have multiple playmakers on both sides of the ball.



*My last post on the Dolphins was my August 25th one here titled, Happy Miami Dolphins Anniversary; For some, the Dolphins' glory is like faded photographs in an album, but to me, it is as fresh in my mind as anything else in my memory. I only wish the people running and coaching the team now cared as much as I and some others do, who know what it's like to see and appreciate a thing of beauty -perfection- up-close and personal; Sports Fan in Chief Obama Honors Champion 1972 Miami Dolphins at White House

To quote myself above:
99% of anyone you see or speak to who is 27 or younger has NEVER BEEN ALIVE when the Dolphins were playing in a Super Bowl game.Now that's some perspective that really says something profound.
For the Jets, that's people who are 44-years old or younger.
Just saying...





The Herald photo and the headline fit everything I knew and have seen -and what most honest and discerning Dolphin fans and I have NOT seen- during the off-season and the five preseason games, which this year, included the Hall of Fame game in Canton against the Cowboys, who will likely share many of the Dolphin problems this year, namely, unrealized and unrealistic expectations for big improvement.

As regular readers of the blog and those who know the powers of the NFL's East Coast/
Cowboys bias, being bad will NOT prevent the Cowboys from being on national TV more than they should and even more than some of the better teams.
That's just how the NFL rolls.

The Cowboys get on high-profile TV times because... well just because its what the NFL and madison Avenue have been doing by rote for years, so they do it by default, despite the facts that the Cowboys last won a playoff game when?

Based on looking at the Cowboys schedule, it looks to me like 7 of their 16 games will be nationally-televised games, par for the course of late.

Why do you suppose tonight's NBC game is the Giants vs. the Cowboys instead of the 49ers and Packers, even though there's more interest in the latter game and not the former?
The same reason the NFL doesn't, hypothetically, have a Giants at Oakland game as the second part of the ESPN Monday Night doubleheader to start the year off.

There is no equality among the NFL's 32 teams as far as the NFL's TV folks are concerned, there's merely the illusion of equality.
To think otherwise is to publicly declare yourself naive.

And so begins another year of irrelevance for the Miami Dolphins, to join all the ones that have come before the past 15 years.

Based on what I have seen, I think Jeff Fisher was right to turn down the Dolphins job last year and go with Rams, as in 2nd year of Joe Philbin head coaching experiment in Miami, it's entirely possible that lackadaisical Dolphins, poised for what I believe could be a yet another completely inconsequential season, may also be winless by their Bye in Week 6, and only 1-6 going into a nationally-televised Thursday night home game on Halloween Night against the offensive-minded Bengals that could well turn into rout in second-half.

With the Dolphins given an extra week to practice and play because of their Hall of Fame game and yet with little to show for that extra week in terms of Ryan Tannehill to Mike Wallace synergy in evidence, I am ready to say that I'm completely underwhelmed by almost every aspect of the team  and its coaching staff I have observed, save their rookie kicker, Caleb Sturgiswho could well be their MVP if that tells you anything.

For me at least, it's been like watching kids playing on 75-pound Optimist teams: I see lots of players whom I've never heard of and who never seem to get better or learn from their mistakes -just repeat them in new and more frustrating ways
(Yes, like the Miami Herald and the City of Hallandale Beach and Broward County and...)

How many plays per games are their #1 and #2 draft picks of the past 5 years actually playing? It's embarrassing!
Who moves up to #3 in the entire draft to select someone -Dion Jordan- who, it was speculated, might not even play the season-opener?
Guilty.

1 SEP 8  1:00 PM EDT * AT   BROWNS 
2 SEP 15  1:00PM EDT * AT   COLTS 
3 SEP 22  4:05PM EDT )   FALCONS 
4 SEP 30  8:40PM EDT + AT   SAINTS 
5 OCT 6  1:00PM EDT *   RAVENS 
6 BYE 
7 OCT 20  1:00PM EDT *   BILLS 
8 OCT 27  1:00PM EDT * AT   PATRIOTS 
9 OCT 31  8:25PM EDT ,   BENGALS 
10 NOV 11  8:40PM EST + AT   BUCCANEERS 
11 NOV 17  1:00PM EST *   CHARGERS 
12 NOV 24  1:00PM EST    PANTHERS 
13 DEC 1  1:00PM EST * AT   JETS 
14 DEC 8  1:00PM EST * AT   STEELERS 
15 DEC 15  1:00PM EST *   PATRIOTS 
16 DEC 22  1:00PM EST * AT   BILLS 
17 DEC 29  1:00PM EST *   JETS

In the Historical Dept., I honestly think this Dolphins season may be the one where they travel west less than any regular season since I first started following them in 1970, as the farthest west they go is New Orleans. Weird.


Postcards from training camp: Miami Dolphins Source:SI The MMQB editor-in-chief Peter King discusses the loss of tight end Dustin Keller and the role rookie Dion Jordan is expected to play for the Dolphin's defense.

Veteran Sports Illustrated writer and frequent Dan Patrick Show guest Peter King sees them as a 6-10 team, while CBS Sports/nfl.com writer Pat Kirwan sees the Dolphins as slightly better at 7-9.
My friends, I think in mid-November, we'll all be thinking that a 7-9 record would be nothing short of a small miracle, with 5-11 my actual prediction, but 4-12 a real strong possibility, too.
Peter King @SI_PeterKing https://twitter.com/SI_PeterKing

There's still room for big improvement, but I can't help but wonder if a terrible start -as I expect- will tap the emotional resolve of many of the younger players who seem not quite as intense as players and teams of the past.
Yes, consistently inconsistent effort and serial under-performance in the clutch have been the hallmark of the Dolphins since I returned to South Florida almost ten years ago from the Washington D.C. area, where I probably saw about 70% of their games.   

I'm not a big believer in cautious optimism for NFL football teams, because at this level, with teams so even, I believe there has to be something that your team does well consistently that you can draw strength from when you get behind against better-quality teams.
Unfortunately for the Dolphins, I see that being their kicking game.
That's why, unfortunately, a record of 5-11 sounds pretty accurate to me.


'GameDay': 2013 Bold Predictions 
Published: Sept. 4, 2013 at 11:25 p.m




USA TODAY Sports' 2013 NFL predictions 
Staff report, USA TODAY Sports
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/09/04/2013-staff-picks-season-predictions/2768317/


TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Peter King on the Dan Patrick Show 9/3/13. Peter's Super Bowl prediction is Seattle vs. New England. Uploaded September 6, 2013. http://youtu.be/ayQPoUyVkU4


TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Dan's Super Bowl Picks 9/4/13. 
Dan's prediction is Denver Broncos over Seattle Seahawks at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on February 2nd in Super Bowl XLVIII, which everyone I know -plus me-hopes is a snowstorm. Uploaded September 4, 2013. http://youtu.be/ziuas6ZKKeU

TheDanPatrickShow YouTube Channel video: Rich Eisen on the Dan Patrick Show 9/6/13. Uploaded September 6, 2013. http://youtu.be/zFDuJJW9_zI

Saturday, February 2, 2013

Must-see TV tonight! #1Michigan at #3 Indiana tonight at Assembly Hall on ESPN at 9 p.m.; @OurIndiana, @TomCrean, @INDIANAMBB, #Iubb, #CollegeGameDay

ESPN video: On CBB Live Extra, Jay Williams breaks down the matchup between No. 1 Michigan and No. 3 IU. http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=8899994
Must-see TV tonight! #1Michigan at #3 Indiana tonight at Assembly Hall on ESPN at 9 p.m.; @OurIndiana, @TomCrean, @INDIANAMBB, #Iubb, #CollegeGameDay
Jay Williams is 100% right about the better strategy being to start Remy Abell instead of slower Jordan Hulls
And it would be great to know in advance which Cody Zeller will show-up tonight?
The one Hoosier Nation expected, or the one who's played most of the year so far, who has shown flashes of what we expected but...

I think/hope Victor Oladipo will win the game for the Hoosiers tonight to put the Hoosiers back into the #1 position in the polls next week -unless the Wolverines get a lot more free throw attempts because the IU defense is allowing too many drives to the hoop and they're called for fouls instead of having proper position and taking the charge.
"ESPN’s Saturday Primetime Presented by DIRECTV telecast - is in its ninth season and on Saturday, Feb. 2, it will originate from the Indiana University campus. The first hour begins at 10 a.m. ET on ESPNU, continuing at 11 a.m. on ESPN with a one-hour edition at 8 p.m. on ESPN The Michigan-Indiana game will tip-off at 9 p.m." 
Photos of the ESPN College GameDay set-up: http://indianambb.tumblr.com/post/42041695138/photos-from-espn-college-gameday-around-assembly


IUAthletics YouTube Channel video: IU coach Tom Crean at Friday's press conference to discuss Saturday night's game against Michigan on ESPN at 9 p.m. http://youtu.be/9LwUO5WiprY


IUAthletics YouTube Channel video: Jordan Hulls and Christian Watford on the task ahead of them Saturday night. http://youtu.be/9czmcI7psPQ

http://www.iuhoosiers.com/sports/m-baskbl/ind-m-baskbl-body.html

(official) Indiana University Athletics YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/IUAthletic

Indiana Athletics on Twitter, @OurIndiana, https://twitter.com/ourindiana

Five Banners - IU Mens Basketball on tumblr: http://indianambb.tumblr.com/

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Why Lovie Smith got fired by the Chicago Bears -GRIM facts & trends that were increasingly hard to swallow for loyal Bears fans: the Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite much talent on the team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. If anything, it was an overdue decision; Bears should strongly consider hiring Brian Billick as head coach and REALLY helping Jay Cutler's progress


ESPN YouTube Channel video: ESPN correspondent Ed Werder on the Chicago Bears firing of head coach Lovie Smith on Monday, and what he may do. Uploaded January 1, 2013. http://youtu.be/mUOnaPIMPD4

While there clearly are a lot of people who like Lovie Smith's personality and experience, including some current players, consider how the players have actually played for HIM, since it seems to be something that ESPN and a lot of social media types keep ignoring.

The Bears have made the watered-down NFL playoffs only ONCE in the past 6 years despite the talent on that team, including failing 3 seasons in a row AFTER making the Super Bowl. 

That's more than embarrassing and is NOT something that fans of an NFL team in the third-largest city in the country are going to be satisfied with. 
Nor should they be.


View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=8938166&pid=null

The one year the Bears made the playoffs in the past six seasons, 2010, they promptly lost the NFC Championship game -at home- in large part because they were so grossly unprepared for an injury to QB Jay Cutler.
Whose responsibility is it to ensure that you have competent back-ups if not the head coach?

As has been noted here many times before, I lived in Chicago in the mid-1980's and that coincided with their 1985-86 Super Bowl run and win, and I still usually root for the Bears.
But these CHRONIC weaknesses with the Bears, like not being able to assemble a good staff or a competent offensive line to keep Cutler upright, can be laid squarely upon Lovie Smith as head coach.

In the end, the facts didn't lie -one playoff appearance in the past six years is NOT satisfactory.
If anything, his firing was an overdue decision for fans of the team.

Just like the one the Eagles and Chargers made to finally be rid of Andy Reid and Norv Turner.
Both need to stay away from the NFL for a year for their own good -and ours.
We can't stand the utter predictability of their problems every year and their chronic inability to adequately resolve them. 

If the Bears were smart, and that's not a given, obviously, they'd hire former Ravens head coach  and Vikings OC Brian Billick, someone who knows something about offense when he has some talent to work with, like he did with those Vikings teams of the late '90's when they were one of the most-exciting teams of the past 25 years.
Give Jay Cutler some help from someone who knows what they're talking about.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Top-ranked North Carolina faces #2 Princeton Sunday in its quest for their 7th NCAA Field Hockey title, but you can't watch it on TV. Despite all the lip service given by U.S. cable sports channels -and advertisers- to taking Women's sports more seriously, unless you're in Norfolk, VA at 1 p.m., you'll have to watch via NCAA.com



So many cable sports channels offer third and fourth-rate programming opposite LIVE NFL telecasts, but despite it being an Olympic sport, one that the U.S. did very well at in London this summer, and defeating Argentina earlier in the year, apparently there's no time or space for the NCAA Field Hockey title match between Princeton and North Carolina on any of the following network of families that have about 15-20 channels among them on my DirecTV sports tier package: ESPN, Fox Sportsnet, CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network.

ESPN can show you a zillion NCAA Softball tourney games in the summer featuring a handful of teams teams you've already seen -or think you've already seen because that tourney seems to be 24/7 for 3-4 days, with each team seemingly equipped with one lanky left-handed pitcher and one very large right-handed pitcher- but they can't seem to find a space for two hours for the D1 title match of an Olympic sport, something that softball is decidedly not? Yes.
http://www.ncaa.com/sports/fieldhockey/d1

To me, it's not unlike the fact that U.S. gymnastics fans gets such crummy coverage of the NCAA Mens and Womens Gymnastics Championships, as last year Alabama won their second-straight  Women's title, and Illinois won the Men's title -ignored.
For years CBS Sports has not only shown the championships on a delayed basis, but weeks after-the-fact.

Which is why despite all the lip service given by those networks and advertisers to taking women sports more seriously, unless you're going to be in Norfolk, VA on Sunday afternoon, the only way you can see the Tigers-Tar Heels match is at:NCAA.com 

Video of semifinals, UNC over UVA and Princeton over Maryland is here:
http://www.ncaa.com/video?ncaa_mid=vod:fieldhockey#!playlists/sports/fieldhockey/d1



http://www.goprincetontigers.com/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=1096704
More highlights of Princeton over Maryland.

Watch the title match LIVE here at 1:00 p.m. Eastern: 


New York Times 
The Quad blog
Unfamiliar Foes in the Field Hockey Final
By Clare Lochary
November 17, 2012, 10:00 PM
Princeton Coach Kristen Holmes-Winn told her field hockey players that passion, not pedigree, would be the deciding factor in the Tigers’ N.C.A.A. semifinal game against Maryland, the two-time defending national champion, on Friday, and she proved correct.
Read the rest of the post at: 

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

#Olympics - Julie Foudy on the Englishman who wants to reward Fourth-place finishers at the Olympics with a medal, and is paying for them himself; Nightline asks Do you think there should be a fourth place medal at the Olympic games?; #London2012, @JulieFoudy, @JuJuChangABC, #Nightline


ABC News: ABC News Nightline Olympic correspondent Julie Foudy of ESPN on the Englishman who wants to reward Fourth-place finishers at the Olympics with a medal, and is paying for them himself; @Nightline asks "Do you think there should be a fourth place medal at the Olympic games?" August 7, 2012.
http://youtu.be/CRrHDK35AKI

Just more proof of why Julie Foudy is so very likable and reliable, besides knowledgeable and articulate -and unswervingly honest
Me, I'm a big fan of hers.

I think I'd rather listen to her than just about any other TV color commentator covering any other sport, except for Jim Palmer on baseball and Ron Jaworski on the NFL.

She was excellent on ESPN's Euro 2012 coverage from Poland and Ukraine

@Nightline asks "Do you think there should be a fourth place medal at the Olympic games?"
http://twitter.com/Nightline/status/233049579925426176

@JulieFoudy http://twitter.com/JulieFoudy
http://www.juliefoudyleadership.com/

ABC News @ABC http://twitter.com/ABC 

Sunday, June 10, 2012

#Euro2012 - Meanwhile, in part owing to both history and karma, Ireland psyches itself up for Euro 2012 in ways that are slightly different than most other countries...



Euro 2012: Ireland - an animated history - The Guardian
http://youtu.be/wqHkQOzrC5U


#Euro2012 - Meanwhile, in part because of history and karma, Ireland psyches itself up for Euro 2012 in ways that are slightly different than most other countries...



Sunday's matches on ESPNDirecTV Channel 206: 
11:45 a.m Eastern Spain vs. Italy
2:30 p.m. Croatia vs. Ireland




It's Time - Ireland Euro 2012 Promo video
http://youtu.be/LOW1HAHoA9w



JEDWARD - Put The Green Cape On - EURO 2012
http://youtu.be/0eParXVjkPI


Sunday's matches on ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206: 
11:45 a.m Eastern Spain vs. Italy
2:30 p.m. Croatia vs. Ireland

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Purple Reign Again? It's Orange vs. Purple in Sunday night's title game, as #1 Lady Gators lose to Syracuse in 2nd OT of NCAA D1 Women Lacrosse Semi-final #1, while #3 Northwestern again holds off Terps in repeat of last year's title match in nightcap; AT&T's U-Verse



Purple Reign Again? It's Orange vs. Purple in Sunday night's title game, as #1 Lady Gators lose to Syracuse in 2nd OT of NCAA D1 Women Lacrosse semifinal #1, while #3 Northwestern holds off #4 Terps and hope to capture their 7th NCAA Lacrosse Championship trophy
Owing to the terrible and completely unsatisfactory Internet service I've been getting thru AT&T's U-Verse the past three weeks, where I've seemingly only been able to access the AT&T server maybe 15% of the time that I want, and only then, sometimes for only a few minutes -only five minutes all day Thursday!- this is my first post since early Tuesday morning.


For someone like myself who's not just a blogger and a news junkie, but someone who frequently hears from lots of friends and people I know all over the world, some well-known or very knowledgeable about their particular subject area, whether now in Cannes for the film festival or in LA or London or wherever, NOT having reliable Internet access at home has made me increasingly exasperated.


So it was in that mood, one of almost desperate exasperation, that I tried my best to get online Friday night to watch the two NCAA D1 Women Lacrosse semi-finals up in Long Island at Stony Brook, since they were, amazingly, NOT being televised LIVE on-air, despite all the hundreds of cable stations that presently exist.


I tried a dozen or so times to get onto ESPN3.com or Watch ESPN -which is being heavily promoted on the Mother Ship these days- to watch the #1 third-year Florida Gators play Syracuse, one of only two teams they'd lost to all year, a 2OT defeat in the season-opener at Gainesville. Last weekend I watched the entire second half of what proved to be the Gator's 15-2 laugher of a Quarterfinal victory over a young Penn State state squad in Gainesville on SUN Sports, where the Gator's speed, quickness and depth just seemed to overwhelm a young and improving Nittany Lion team that's freshman and sophomore-centric, with exciting and talented players like freshman Tatum Coffey of Toms River, N.J. 
The Gators were so dominant that they went ahead by ten goals with just under 13 minutes left, so the clock kept running.
http://www.gopsusports.com/sports/w-lacros/recaps/051912aab.html
(I also had caught most of Penn State's match last month at Ohio State via The BigTenNetwork.)  


But on Friday night, when I wanted to see the exciting Gators -only the second women's
team in history to make the Final Four in their third year of existence -matching UNC about 14 years ago- each time I tried, the server was down.


By the time I finally got online, the exciting double-overtime first game had already concluded, and it was just before the start of the rematch of last year's title on the same field where Kelly Amonte Hiller's talented Northwestern squad beat her alma mater, Maryland, to get revenge on the Terps for beating them in 2010's title match in Towson -which was only about the best womens lacrosse match I ever saw.



WLAX Final Four: A Comeback For The Ages. May 25, 2012.
http://youtu.be/dAfXJFqFPZI



Did Syracuse tamper with the lacrosse stick? May 25, 2012.
http://youtu.be/3WqQLUmDh_k



McManus: Syracuse sticks with it, tops Florida
May 26 2:37 AM ET 
By Jane McManus, ESPNNewYork.com
http://espn.go.com/espnw/college-sports/7972599/2012-ncaa-women-lacrosse-tournament-syracuse-orange-top-florida-gators-2ot-thriller


Syracuse upsets No. 1 Florida
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/7973608/syracuse-upsets-no-1-florida-14-13-semis


Syracuse upsets No. 1 Florida 14-13 in semis
http://online.wsj.com/article/APbe6212bfe613422c90be1b423fa5f7d6.html



NU Athletics video: Lacrosse - NCAA Semifinal Highlights
http://youtu.be/ARTp5XobE04



NU Athletics video: Inside Wildcat Lacrosse Episode 10. Junior Midfielder Bea Conley fills viewers in on the week's preparations between last week's NCAA Quarterfinal victory over Duke and this week's Final Four tourney in Long Island. May 23, 2012.
http://youtu.be/goYHpn5huXM

Since I knew that the second game would be very close, my original plan had been to tape the last ten minutes of the Maryland-Northwestern match on my FLIP camera, and then email it to my sister and youngest niece in Maryland, so they could see how things ended, and even see if anyone they know from the Howard County/Baltimore area was involved in deciding the game.


Unfortunately, the breaks in the streaming were so egregious that while I went ahead and taped it, I chose not to send it because of the often 10-15 second delays.
Very, very frustrating.
I did decide, though, to save it on a DVD as proof of how bad the U-verse service has been.


Note to anybody who cares: when YouTube streamed concerts from Coachella, they were almost flawless, but for whatever reasons, when I've watched games via ESPN3's telecasts, not so much, even before the recent Internet connection problems.



Swedish House Mafia - Save The World, Live From Coachella, April 13, 2012
http://youtu.be/rYrFeo7efEY


When I watched Swedish House Mafia perform LIVE from Coachella last month around 2:15 a.m. or so my time here in Miami, there was maybe only one short flutter the whole time in their roughly 20-minute online performance that was shown. 


Back in March, Northwestern won on the road at Syracuse in overtime, 11-9.
http://youtu.be/1Ry7Mh6C5UE


Sunday night's final between Northwestern and Syracuse will be telecast LIVE at 8 p.m. on ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208. 
See more at http://www.ncaa.com/sports/lacrosse-women/d1


-----
Did you know that even if you use the filters that AT&T provides for you for DSL 6.0 or U-Verse if you run both your house telephone phone and your Internet connection thru that phone line, i.e. "co-share," if some AT&T technician that you've never met doesn't type your original order in correctly, despite the fact that your phone number is right there and they could call if they had a question, you will be entered into the sytem as a "dry loop" -internet only- which will then adversely affect your speed and service and mean your speed isn't close to average, year-after-year?


Over five years later, I learned that lesson Friday afternoon when I finally reached a very friendly and knowledgeable AT&T rep who'd tell me the truth and think outside-the-box.
Yes, the sort of person that I have only been trying to find for years -as well as at Bank of America: someone who told me the truth about many things that I didn't know about.
I suspect they were only doing so since I mentioned that I was preparing to do the un-thinkable and actually go over to the Dark Side, and get my Internet service thru the company I loathe more than almost any other, COMCAST.


(Their terrible customer service record on the cable side in Arlington County, VA while I lived there for almost 15 years was legendary, one of the few D.C.-area legends that proved 100% accurate. Using the speed tests that YouTube has embedded with videos, COMCAST is nearly twice as fast in HB as what I currently have with AT&T.)


Did you know that it's AT&T's policy NOT to dispatch someone to check the lines in your neighborhood if you live in the Southeast United States, without first sending someone to a customer's home or business, even if they can tell on their computers at their HQ that the problem is affecting lots of their customers in a given geographical area?
It's true.


(Earlier this week an AT&T rep told me that 26% of their customers in my area were having the same problem I was having, but they still wouldn't just dispatch them to see what the problem was!)


For years I, like perhaps most of you reading this, have assumed that when I or someone else in the neighborhood called-up AT&T to report a problem with the server, help was being sent to check it out.
It wasn't.


Not unless they were willing to risk a $55 service charge if the problem was inside of their house, that is, after they were willing to hang around the house for 4-5 hours waiting for someone to show up.
And again, they already know that the problem ISN'T you.
So why the pretense?

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Virginia Cavaliers begin defense of their NCAA Mens Lacrosse crown as NCAA's D-1 tourney starts today; "The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse"


The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode One of  Three. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/fXoo-3OYQ1o


Now I finally have a good reason to post these behind-the-scenes videos of last month's Duke at UVA match, where the then-number one-ranked Cavaliers lost to the Blue Devils, the 2010 NCAA champs at Klöckner Stadium.


The 2012 NCAA D-1 tourney starts Saturday with the 16 best teams, and UVA's defense of its hard-fought NCAA Mens Lacrosse crown begins in the lead-off game on Sunday against Princeton.


The Virginia Lacrosse Experiencehttp://www.experienceuvasports.com/index2-ml.php


Here's this weekend's TV schedule, with all eight games on the tube.
Saturday, May 12th:

Noon-2 p.m. -Syracuse at Duke, ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206
2:30-4:30 p.m. -Colgate at UMass, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208
5-7 p.m. -Canisius at Loyola MD), ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208
730-930 p.m. -Denver at North Carolina, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208

Sunday, May 13th
1-3 p.m. -Princeton at Virginia, ESPN, DirecTV Channel 206
3-5 p.m. -Stony Brook at Johns Hopkins, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208
515-715 p.m. -Yale at Notre Dame, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208
730-930 p.m. -Maryland at Lehigh, ESPNU, DirecTV Channel 208




ESPNU Lacrosse Podcast: Quint Kessenich Talks Dom Starsia, Rob Rotanz, NCAA First Round
By Terry Foy, May 9th, 2012

http://insidelacrosse.com/news/2012/05/09/espnu-lacrosse-podcast-quint-kessenich-talks-dom-starsia-rob-rotanz-ncaa-first-round



The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode Two of Three. April 19, 2012.
http://youtu.be/XLJq73KSTcg



The Big Game: Duke at Virginia Men's Lacrosse, Episode Three of Three. April 19, 2012. http://youtu.be/y2ZYB_C4jxE



http://www.ncaa.com/championships/lacrosse-men/d1


U.S. Lacrosse YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/uslacrosse8