VINSANITY!

I do a lot of reading.

Usually on my iPhone.

140 characters here.

140 characters there.

It keeps me quite busy.

But there’s nothing quite like the ink of a newspaper.

Or the staples in a magazine.

I subscribe to a bunch of publications.

I just don’t read them.

Well I don’t read them right away.

But eventually I will.

I get Sports Illustrated.

And Rolling Stone.

Sporting News.

And Entertainment Weekly.

ESPN the Magazine.

And... I’m sure there are others.

But they end up stacking up.

Way up.

Until I take a trip somewhere.

Then I read them all at once on the plane.

At least I look at the pictures.

Sometimes the news can get a little old.

But if a tree falls in the forest and nobody reads it.

Is it really old news? 

I just heard that Ella Fitzgerald died.

In 1996.

So sad.

What a voice.

A few days ago I picked up a copy of Sports Illustrated.

From August.

As I was perusing through the photos, there was this one story that grabbed my attention.

By the throat.

It was about the Los Angeles Dodgers.

And their poor excuse for an owner, Frank McCourt.

Apparently McCourt wanted a little help evaluating the broadcast team for his baseball team.

So he reached out to his season ticket holders to get their feedback.

You know, the people who come in the third inning.

And leave in the seventh.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m ok with feedback.

I used to get reviewed every year.

But there are some things you just don’t do.

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

You don’t spit into the wind.

You don’t pull the mask off the ol’ Lone Ranger.

And you don’t mess around with Vin.

Vincent Edward Scully.

Born this day.

84 years ago.

You may know him better as just Vin.

Well Mr. McCourt apparently thought it was time to put Vin Scully and his microphone under the microscope.

Vote two thumbs for yes and one for no?

I got a finger for you Frankie Boy.

Vin Scully has been the Dodgers announcer for the last 62 years.

Frank McCourt has been on this planet for just 58.

Vin Scully has been named the California SportsCaster of the Year.

29 times!

Frank McCourt has lived in the Golden State for just seven.

Of all the people in the world who needed to be evaluated.

Vin was not one.

McCourt on the other hand.

He should be committed.

Vin Scully is more than just a broadcaster.

He is an artist.

A painter.

He paints words with his mouth.

His voice is more soothing than a Ludens Cough Drop.

Vin Scully is the best voice to ever come out of my car speaker.

Sorry Adele.

There’s no one I’d rather spend the top of the fifth with than Vin Scully.

Or the 6th.

Or the 4th.

Vin Scully is the best storyteller this side of Mr. Rogers.

Sure he slips up from time to time.

These days.

Who wouldn’t.

Vin is aged.

Like an Italian Winery.

He got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when it was a cobblestone street.

Sure, if you are paying extra close attention, you might get a Luis Pujols.

Even though we all know its Albert.

Or maybe you’ll hear the same story twice.

In the same inning.

Or if you are really lucky, he might call Farmer John.

Farmer Jim.

But give the guy a mulligan.

He’s older than the dirt in the Dodger Stadium infield.

He’s broadcast like 50,000 games or something like that.

And that’s just baseball.

The Catch by Dwight Clark in 1982.

Vin Scully.

PGA Golf.

Vin Scully.

He hosted The Masters eight times.

But let’s not kid ourselves.

Vin Scully = Baseball.

Dodgers Baseball.

In the fall of 1988, Vin was working for NBC.

It just so happened that the Dodgers were playing in the World Series.

And with all due to respect to the late great Jack Buck.

It was Vin who immortalized the greatest home run in baseball history.

(Ok, the greatest home run in my baseball history.)

October 15, 1988.

Two words.

Kirk Gibson.

"High fly ball into right field, she i-i-i-is... gone!!

(67 Seconds of Crowd Cheering)

"In a year that has been so improbable... the impossible has happened!

"And, now, the only question was, could he make it around the base paths unassisted?!

"You know, I said it once before, a few days ago, that Kirk Gibson was not the Most Valuable Player; that the Most Valuable Player for the Dodgers was Tinkerbell. 

But, tonight, I think Tinkerbell backed off for Kirk Gibson. 

And, look at Eckersley—shocked to his toes!

"They are going wild at Dodger Stadium—no one wants to leave!"

And no one wants you to leave.

Happy Birthday Mr. Scully.

It's Tebow Time

How can you not love Tim Tebow.

He’s the Sanjaya of the NFL.

No matter what he does.

He wins.

No matter how he does it.

He wins.

No matter how many experts say what a loser he is.

He wins.

Now as a diehard Raiders fan, I’m not really wild about having such a winner in our division.

But this guy is truly something.

Terrible.

Erratic.

Brutal

Odious.

Wretched.

That’s Tebow.

But at the end of the game.

He just beat you.

Somehow.

And nobody can really explain how he does it.

Not me.

Not the broadcasters.

Not his coaches.

But today I found a higher source that must know something that none of us do.

My iPhone.

When I went to send a text with Tebow’s name in it, my iPhone told me that Tebow is not a word.

It suggested changing “Tebow” to “Renown”.

As in “a state of being widely acclaimed or highly honored.”

Now that’s a smart phone.

Tim Tebow might’ve been great at throwing a football through a tire at the Florida Fairground.

But in the NFL, he can barely complete a pass.

Last week in Kansas City he threw the ball eight times.

In the entire game.

Completed two.

As in One.

And Two.

That’s it.

That’s 25% for those of you without a calculator.

Those two passes went for a grand total of 69 yards.

Tom Brady does that in two minutes.

Tim Tebow does that in a game.

For most quarterbacks, 69 passing yards in a game would equal a trip to the Arena Football League.

For Tim Tebow it meant a win.

Another win.

His third win in four weeks since becoming the starter.

Wins against the pathetic Miami Dolphins.

The enigmatic Oakland Raiders.

And those anemic Chiefs from Kansas City.

But in the NFL, a win is a win.

And right now Tebow is piling them up.

Like a stack of pancakes at IHOP.

His latest conquest came Thursday night in Denver.

Against the not-so-high flying Jets of New York.

For 55 minutes, Tebow was his usual terrible self.

15 passes.

Six completions.

69 yards.

The same exact 69 yards he threw for one week earlier.

When he beat the Chiefs.

But the game is not 55 minutes long.

It’s 60.

And in the last five minutes, Tebow did what Tebow do.

Win.

He led the Broncos on a where-in-the-hell-did-this-come-from 95-yard drive.

From one side of the field.

To the other.

Running the final 20 yards.

Into the end zone.

For the game-winning touchdown.

Again.

Watching a Denver quarterback rally his team to victory in the final minutes of a game is nothing new.

John Elway made a career of it.

But Tim Tebow is no John Elway.

He is better.

Hey, that’s not me talking.

That’s the numbers.

In his first eight starts, John Elway had a record of 3-5.

With three touchdowns.

And 10 interceptions.

In his first eight starts, Tim Tebow has a record of 5-3.

With 10 touchdowns.

And four interceptions.

Wait, there’s more.

In his entire career -- you know, those eight starts (plus two in relief).

Tebow has rallied the Broncos back from 10+ points in the fourth quarter to win three times.

In his 234 games, Elway -- the Hall of Famer -- rallied the Broncos back from 10+ points in the fourth quarter.

Twice.

Now you don’t need 3D glasses to see that the style of Tebow and the style of Elway have absolutely nothing in common.

Nothing.

But at the end of the day, they both know how to win.

And now they are attached at the hip.

When Tebow reached the end zone to win the game on Thursday night.

The first thing the TV broadcast did was cut to a shot of Big John.

In his luxury suite.

Wearing his new hat as the Executive VP of Football Operations for the Broncos.

Tebow’s Broncos.

Elway was clapping.

And almost smiling.

But let’s be honest.

Tim Tebow winning in Denver is the last thing that John Elway expected when he took the job in January.

And if I were a gambling man, I would double down that Elway doesn’t believe that Tebow can win a Super Bowl.

But after the last month, there is a 0.0 chance Elway will be able to get rid of Tebow at the end of the year.

As he had planned.

And with TebowMania running wild, there is a 0.0 chance Elway will select his franchise quarterback in the next draft.

As he had planned.

But Tebow Time is not just a Denver story anymore.

It's the best story to happen to the NFL in years.

And that's something that nobody expected.

Breaking the News

There’s a reason why the late Walter Cronkite is a legend.

Well there’s a lot of reasons.

But perhaps the main reason is for like 120 years, he was the only game in town.

Ok, there were three games.

NBC, ABC and Cronkite’s CBS.

But back in the day if you wanted the news, Walter was it.

Only you had to wait until 6:30pm.

5:30 Central.

That’s the way it was.

None of this round-the-clock, graphic-on-top-of-graphic breaking news.

Just the news.

Real news.

Now I watch as much TV as the next guy.

And when it comes to the news these days.

I love the live police car chase.

And the up-to-the-second trips to the weather center.

And those real-time sports scores.

Forget about it.

I’ve never really been a newspaper fanatic.

Unless it came to sports.

Funny story.

I was in my early teens.

We had a visitor staying at the house.

I asked if he wanted to see the morning paper.

When he said yes, I brought him the sports section.

I was shocked -- if not appalled -- when he asked where the rest of the paper was.

"What else is there?, " I thought.

To myself.

Back then, nothing was better than getting your hands black and messy from the ink of the box scores.

Of course the internet has changed all that.

For the better.

Anything you want.

Up-to-the-millisecond.

With a few clicks.

Ichiro career at bats as a pinch-hitter?

11.

Hits.

1.

Tom Brady wins in the snow, ice or below-freezing temps?

18.

Losses.

2.

LeBron James NBA Championships?

Zero.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

I didn’t need the internet for that.

But I do use the web for my news.

And these days, there’s one place I always start.

twitter.

It’s amazing what you can learn in 140 characters.

Or less.

Thanks to twitter I found out about the big east coast earthquake within seconds after it happened.

There were like a billion tweets before the world stopped shaking.

Ok, most of them were jokes.

And many of them were funny.

But I didn’t need Wolf Blitzer to tell me what was going on.

I just needed my iPhone.

Just today I was thumbing through my twitter app.

When I saw a tweet from @Denise_Richards.

She’s the one who escaped from Charlie Sheen Island.

I follow her.

With 2.1 million others.

Her tweet said:

EXTREMELY URGENT: #IN Shelter closing, all animals not adopted by 9/30 to be killed; pls RT http://hspcanimals.org/

Now I love dogs.

We have two.

And its a good thing we don’t live in Indiana.

Or we might now have three.

Or four.

But thankfully the word spread so quickly.

Within two hours all the animals were gone.

In the good way.

The thing about twitter is you can’t blink for a second or you might miss something important.

Like some @perezhilton gossip.

Or a restaurant update from @KevinsBBQJoints.

Or a great one liner from @DannyZuker.

Or something REALLY important from @ChristineCSE.

She, a self-proclaimed...

“bleeding heart liberal and sacred cow tipper who loves her leopard kitteh and wasted oodles of time engaging in economic wonkery.”

I’m one of her 79 followers.

Just an hour after Denise saved an animal shelter, Christine went on a quest of her own.

Tweeps - please write the GA Pardons & Paroles Board, tell them there is #toomuchdoubt to execute Troy Davis next week http://bit.ly/nkRC5R

I must admit when I read this I had never heard of Troy Davis.

Or this case.

But I have now.

Long story short.

Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing an off-duty police officer two years earlier.

He is scheduled to be executed in Georgia next Wednesday.

However.

Seven of the nine original witnesses have since recanted their statements.

And.

There has never been DNA evidence linking Davis to the crime.

And.

The murder weapon was never recovered. 

Hmmmmmm.

Davis’ execution has been postponed three times before.

The appeals have gone as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

Former President Jimmy Carter has spoken out against the execution.

So has Pope Benedict XVI, SVU.

Now I certainly have no idea if Troy Davis committed this crime.

And based on what I’ve read the last few hours, I’m not sure if anyone does.

I’m guessing if Walter Cronkite was still doing the news.

He would’ve covered this story.

At 6:30pm.

But thanks to twitter -- and @ChristineCSE -- I was able to learn about this story.

Maybe before its too late.