Marissa Miller is going to make history tomorrow at Wrigley Field. She will become the hottest person to ever throw out a ceremonial first pitch. She has had some competition for sure. Halle Berry a few years ago in Montreal, Victoria Beckham in Los Angeles last year, and Anna Kournikova, in Texas, and again in San Diego a couple of years back.

Nobody can top Miller though.

The fact that she will be at Wrigley tomorrow will cause quite a commotion before the game, in the stands. Guys all over the place will be trying to get a picture, or just take a closer look at the SI Cover Model. This will be nothing, though, compared to what will be going on in the Cubs clubhouse. See, that’s where the team will be deciding which player gets to catch Miller’s pitch.

When Kournikova threw the first-pitch out in Texas, the Rangers decided that David Dellucci was going to be the lucky guy behind the plate. He told the Fort-Worth Star Telegram back in ’04, “I’m definitely going to make sure I brush my teeth, that I’m not sweating and that I put on cologne. I guess they felt sorry for me because I’m single.”

Obviously, things ended all right for Dellucci, he ended up giving Kournikova a kiss on the cheek after it was all over.

So who gets the honor of possbily giving Miller an awkward kiss on the cheek when it’s all over tomorrow? I’m convinced there is going to be a Royal Rumble-esque battle royale in the clubhouse before the game. The whole team starts in the ring, and slowly but surely people start to get tossed out.

As time wears on, it comes down to 10 people. Carlos Zambrano, Henry Blanco, Daryle Ward, Kosuke Fukudome, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot, Ronny Cedeno, Felix Pie, Geovany Soto, and Ryan Dempster.

Zambrano tries to bully everyone out at first, and then the tag-team of Fontenot and Theriot (The Cajun Connection) come flying out of nowhere to knock him out of the the ring, the force of which knocks both of them out as well. Dempster, dressed in a cape and facemask, under the stage name “The Closer,” jumps off the top turnbuckle onto Soto, who decides, “Man, this guy is crazy,” and gets out of the ring.

Daryle Ward then gets up on the ropes, trying to do his patented Yokozuna drop on Blanco, “Hank White,” and gets it done, knocking out Blanco. However, this move leaves Ward unable to continue because he doesn’t have any energy left. So those two get rolled out of the ring.

So, that leaves us with Dempster, Pie, Cedeno, and Fukudome. Dempster continues to run around the ring, screaming….Pie and Cedeno are trying to hit somebody or something, but keep swinging and missing. Finally, Dempster walks towards Pie and Cedeno, and gets a little outside assistance from Scott Eyre, who couldn’t get into the brawl because of his elbow injury.

Eyre hands Dempster a clubhouse chair and knocks Pie and Cedeno out of the ring. Now it’s just Dempster and Fukudome “The Osaki Octopus”. Fukudome has just been standing in the corner during the whole match trying to figure out why these guys are doing all of this.

So Dempster decides this is it…”This one’s for Marissa,” he screams. Just as he begins rushing towards Kosuke, a door opens in the Cubs clubhouse…it’s Yosh Kawano. “DUCK KOSUKE!!!” He screams towards Fukudome. So he does, and Dempster whiffs, as he comes toppling over the ropes.

It’s over.

Lou Piniella walks into the ring, raises Fukudome’s arm and tells him he gets to catch Miller’s pitch.

Kosuke still won’t understand what all the fuss is over, until he walks out to the field and sees Miller for the first time.

Then I’ll bet he’ll be glad he came to America.

While we’re on the topic of the Magic, I was watching Jim Rome is Burning yesterday, and caught Rome’s interview with Doc Rivers. Doc always seems to be honest in his interviews, and that was the case yesterday as well, something he said at the end though really got my attention.

Rome essentially asked him what it was like to know that Danny Ainge had his back, even when the Celtics stunk. The full transcript of the question and answer is below.

Rome: How much does it mean to you that Danny Ainge stood by you and extended you and said this is my guy, we’re in it with him?

Doc: Well, it was key. It was really important. He has been fantastic with me. He understood what we had. You know before the year started last year he told me it’s going to be a tough one, you’re going to have to have to stand in there, and I really need you to do that, and I’ll stand behind you…

You know Jim it’s rare in our profession when that happens. You know how it works, a lot of times they (other teams) tell you you’re going to work with a young team, and then in the middle of that when the losing starts, you don’t feel the support.

I didn’t have that in my case (with the Celtics), I’m very lucky and I understand that every day I coach that I had great ownership and Danny Ainge behind me and that was very important to my success.”

The conclusion I drew from this is that Doc is still mad at the Magic for dumping him. He liked it in Orlando (he still has a house in town), he wanted to stay for a long time, and he felt that he wasn’t given the time to turn things around. While he didn’t flat out say it in this interview, I belive that Doc feels like he was lied to by the Magic’s front-office people, and if I had to guess, it might be John Gabriel he is still most upset with.

I said it at the time, and I’ll say it again now, I think Doc is a good coach. He shouldn’t have been fired when he was, but even he conceded, that’s just how it is most of the time in the NBA. Even in that last year in Orlando though, his teams always played hard, that team in 2003 was just TERRIBLE.

The team won its first game and then lost 10 in a row and Doc was gone. I think the team ended up losing 18 or 19 in a row…whatever…they were bad. It just goes to show you that no matter how great a coach is, they can’t win without talent, and that team in 2003 didn’t have much at all.

Look at some of those names…Desmond Penigar, Sean Rooks, Britton Johnson, Mengke Bateer, Derrick Dial, Reece Gaines, Steven Hunter….I know Grant Hill was hurt, but come on, they signed Juwan Howard to a big deal. I mean nobody would have won with this team, even with Tracy McGrady on it. The ’03-04 Magic team reminds me a lot of this year’s Heat squad…

It brings up an interesting point though, especially when you look at those last two names, Reece Gaines, and Steven Hunter. Those players were first-round draft picks by the Magic. Who pulled the trigger on those picks? Was it Gabriel or Doc? If it was Gabriel, that really wouldn’t surprise anyone, he made lots of bad picks as the GM, just like lots of other GMs.

But if it was Doc, then that proves two things. First, the Devos Family got fed up with his personnel decsions, and let him go because of that. And secondly, this time around in Boston, Ainge makes all the personnel calls, and Doc just focuses on coaching.

Either way, both Doc, and the Magic, are in much better situations than they were before, but there is no doubt that Doc still harbors some ill-will towards the team that let him go.

There are reports coming out of Memphis that Derrick Rose will declare for the NBA Draft. If this is indeed the case, the Magic need to do everything in their power to get him to Orlando. He would be the perfect fit for the team.

The Magic are a solid squad, but they are still missing a couple pieces that would be push them closer to the top in the NBA. What’s the most glaring hole? The lack of a top of the line point guard. I still can’t understand for the life of me why Otis Smith gave Jameer Nelson a 6 year, 36 million dollar deal before the season started. That deal doesn’t even kick in until next year.

Jameer Nelson is a solid NBA backup point guard, he is by no means a frontline starter. So here is what I am proposing: The Magic should put together a package for whichever team gets the pick that would land Rose, (probably #2 or #3)

That package would include Nelson, a couple first round picks, and….Hedo Turkoglu. In exchange the Magic would receive the draft rights to Rose, and probably one or two really crappy contracts, to make the numbers work.

A couple things to consider: First, I love Hedo. He should have been an all-star this year and he has had an outstanding season. He’s in the prime of his career, at age 29, and is a bargain at about six million dollars a season.

It would be tough to let him go, but it would be the best thing the Magic could do. Rose would give the Magic something they have been missing for a long time…a real-life point guard, who looks to pass first, and gets others involved. The last time the team had one of those players, the guy also came from Memphis….his name was Penny Hardaway…and he helped lead the Magic to the Finals….a place they won’t be going as long as Nelson is at the helm.

The addition of Rose would also get Rashard Lewis back to his preferred spot of small forward, giving the Magic this starting line-up next season: PG–Rose, SG–Maurice Evans. (assuming the team re-signs him), SF–Lewis, PF–Battie, C–Howard…

Assuming that Smith decides to re-sign either Dooling or Arroyo…the team becomes set a point guard….at shooting guard…Dooling, or Bognas would continue to spell Evans….Smith could use the mid-level exception to bring in a replacement for Evans, or a quality 2/3 to come in for Lewis….

Battie would hold down the four spot, and if Adonal Foyle re-signs, he would provide a solid 10-12 minutes a game. The five spot is reserved for Howard, who is only getting better.

This trade would give the Magic a young, and talented nucleus, of Howard, Lewis, and Rose, and would make them a powerful contender for years to come. Rose will be 20 years old when the season starts next season, and Howard will still be just 22….the possibilities with these two on the same team are endless.

So, can it work? I don’t know. The numbers would have to work, and there can’t be many teams that would be ecstatic about adding Nelson. The Magic have a great bargaining chip in Turkoglu, but that might not be enough. As a long-time NBA fan though, one of the many things I’ve learned is that there is always a GM who is stupid enough to make a bad trade.

Following up on what I was talking about earlier today, just read this article from the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

“Half of the 1,326 people who work at The Tampa Tribune and WFLA-Channel 8 have been offered a voluntary separation package Monday as the media group’s parent company looks to trim costs in what it describes as a “difficult economic environment.”

The saddest part is that this really doesn’t surprise me. The thing that is scary is that I think this is going to happen more and more often, in markets all across the country. Maybe not half the employees, but a fair number of them.

But this goes back to the question I was asking earlier, what happens to all these people without jobs now? Where do they go? What happens to everyone else? Will the people in Tampa fill these jobs with younger and cheaper talent, or will all these jobs just go away.

It would not surprise me to see some stations simply take all its money and put it all into on-line coverage, and forget about the coverage on the radio, in the physical newspaper, and on the television.

A good friend of mine gave me this article to read, and it really got me thinking about some things.

First, local newscasts in general, are simply not as popular as they once were in most markets. While this article is based mainly in Boston, stories like this have become commonplace in a lot of markets. I agree with the story’s main point which is that the era of “celebrity” newscasters has ended.

As I mentioned in my last post, I don’t know many people who even watch the local news anymore, and I don’t know anyone who watches the news so that they can watch a particular news or sports anchor.

This brings up a larger point though. The days of anchors making large sums of money in most places are over. That’s not to say that people who work for local stations can’t make a decent living, because I believe they can.

We’re at a point now though when stations can simply fire a person if they are making too much money. They can get somebody younger and cheaper in to do the same work, even though that work may not be of the same caliber.

There is good news and bad news in this, for people my age. The good news is that people coming out of school who, years ago, may not have dreamed of being in a larger market a few years out of school, might have that chance now.

The bad news is that they are getting that chance based in many ways because they are young and inexpensive. The jump in market size isn’t giving them the pay increase it once was, it’s just giving them a little more prestige. After they spend some time in a certain market, and believe they have earned a raise, the station might just say, “Sorry, you’re making too much,” and then bring in the next person.

There’s the rub. At school. we were always led to believe that if you busted your butt in a very small market for a few years, and then worked your way up to a medium sized market, and really worked hard, if you really had talent, you would eventually make it to a large market and start making some real money.

Those days are gone now though. The difference is the money is not what it used to be. You could say that about a lot of industries right now, but the broadcast/local news industry has really been hit hard.

People can get news instantly, from a variety of different sources, why would somebody wait until 11 o’clock to watch the local news, when they can read about the same story 20 minutes after it happened?

For somebody who is my age, just getting the chance to be in a larger market is worth the cut in the paycheck. But what happens to all the older people in the business who are trying to support a family? Where do they go? And what happens when that 25 year old reporter suddenly becomes 35, and wants to earn a little extra money?

The bottom line to me is that the broadcast industry has become a youg person’s business. The only problem is that young people are the ones that these stations need to watch their newscasts to drive advertising interest, and I don’t know a single person my age, who watches the local news.

I just don’t see local news making some grand resurgance, like some other people do. I think there will always be a place for a local newscast, I’m not saying the format should be totally cast aside, I’m just saying that if people think they are going to even have the chance to make a lot of money down the line, they need to get into another profession.

A friend of mine is a producer in a fairly large market. Recently, we talked about the tv business, and where we thought it might be headed, especially concerning local sports. He told me that at his station, they were going with only one sports anchor.

While at first this really surprised me, as we talked a little more, it made sense. As it turns out, a few weeks back, the sports anchor at this station had to take a week off, so for that week’s shows, the station did not even provide a sportscast.

While you may think that viewers were upset, think again. Not one person called the station to complain.

More than anything this story makes me sad. I have a few friends that are trying to carve out a niche for themselves as local sportscasters, and they are all very talented. My biggest fear for them though is that more and more, local sportscasters are becoming a thing of the past.

I don’t know that many people who tune into a local newscast anymore, let alone to watch the sportscasters do their thing. Ten years ago, I would always tune into the local station to see what Ryan Baker had to say. He was my favorite local sportscaster and I always thought he did a good job.

Two things have changed though, especially in the last decade. First, ESPN has gotten enormous. SportsCenter is at the heart of everything, but ESPN has so many different platforms to broadcast its programming that they have basically cornered the market.

Secondly, the inception of the Internet has forever changed the way people can get their news and sports. In an instant, people can read, watch, or listen to whatever they want. That’s why most people aren’t waiting to watch the local sportscast everynight.

So why not just get rid of them alltogether? I disagree with that idea. I still believe that local sportscasts serve a purpose. I’m not sure if sports need to be on every night though. I think there are days when you could just go without them. However, there are plenty of days when they are needed.

Every Friday night in the fall, I would argue that local sportscasters play the most important role at a station. That’s because they are in charge of putting together the highlights of all the high school football games. All kinds of people tune in on Friday nights to see their child, or friend, play on tv.

The thing is, aside from high school sports coverage, and the occasional local story, there isn’t much a local sportscast can offer, that viewers/readers can’t get off the Internet, or from ESPN.

As time wears on, you’re not going to see as much sports on the local telecasts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the day, some time soon, when local stations start sending news anchors out to cover sporting events.

I spent the weekend in Texas visiting a few friends of mine. While I was there, I picked up a copy of the Houston Chronicle. Inside the Chronicle was an interesting column from Richard Justice, about Memphis coach John Calipari.

Justice argues in the column that Calipari has played the “respect card,” numerous times throughout the year, telling his players that nobody believes they are that good.

After reading Justice’s column, I surfed the Internet to see what my local paper, The Orlando Sentinel, had to say about the Final Four. I ended up finding David Whitley’s column about the previous night’s games.

In his column Whitley argues that Calipari needs to lighten up, and stop playing the “us against the world card.”

Essentially, Justice and Whitley wrote basically the same column, even using some of the same quotes. While there words were different, and some of their ideas were different, the point in both was the same: Memphis is good, and Calipari has gotten his team to believe that people don’t believe in them.

This post is not meant to slam Justice or Whitley, I enjoy reading their work most of the time. I also realize that a lot of writers end up writing similar columns all the time, and use some of the same quotes, that’s just a part of the business.

My problem is this, with the newspaper business seemingly shrinking by the week, wouldn’t it have been in the Sentinel’s best interest to just save its money and use Justice’s column, or someone’s else’s in the Sunday edition?

I am all for sending a local columnist to a big event, if there is a local angle to cover, but in this case, I don’t see an Orlando angle. It used to be that local columnists, like Whitely, were a reader’s link to a bigger stage. It was a big deal to send a columnist to a national event, because that columnist represented the city. The local columnist could give readers a taste of what it was like in a different place.

We live in a different world now though. How many people are really picking up the newspaper anymore who care whether a local columinst is at an event or not? In a matter of seconds, readers can be in any number of different places, and read any number of different things on the Internet. With the way the newspaper business has been lately, I would rather the Sentinel save its money, and send its writers to events that have more local ties to them. The days are gone when it’s a big deal to a have a local columnist cover a big event, unless there is a local angle to cover.

I noticed something while watching the Final Four over the last few days, and I am wondering if anyone else realized the same thing. For years, CBS has sent its studio crew to the site of the Final Four. This year they did not. Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg, and Seth Davis broadcast both their pre, and post-game shows, inside CBS’ New York Studio.

It’s the first time in a long time I can remember the crew not being at the game. Why didn’t CBS just send the studio crew to the site? Is it a money issue? That’s one of the few explanations I can think of.

In general, I don’t think the network’s coverage suffered that much because the crew wasn’t in San Antonio. CBS set up an on-site studio in San Antonio, which allowed Gumbel and company to interview people like John Calipari on Saturday night, and Roy Williams on Monday night.

Still, as a sports fan, I think it adds something to an event, when an entire studio crew is on-site, especially at something as big as the Final Four. At almost every big sporting event, you see a network bring its entire crew to the game for a series of live broadcasts.

Comparatively, at the Women’s Final Four in Tampa, ESPN sent down its regular women’s college hoops studio team of Trey Wingo, Kara Lawson, and Stacey Dales.

If you’re going to invest all the money to show the Final Four on your network, you should at least save a little extra so that your entire coverage team can be there.

I think my mom sent this question in. As an alternative to traditional newspaper reporting I have chosen to start blogging. I have really enjoyed reading blogs in the last few years, and I feel like, even though I am a little late to the blogging party, it’s time to throw my hat into the ring. (Is that enough cliches for you?)

I enjoy the fact that a blog can be whatever you want it to be. Anybody can blog. You can talk about whatever you want, post whatever links/pictures you want. You are in control, you have an outlet for all your thoughts. Whether anyone reads them or not is a different story, but at least the access is there.

That’s one of the things that has bothered me the most since I left school, I felt like I had all these things to say, and no vehicle to convey them. So now with this blog, I can finally share my experiences…GET READY WORLD….

Very good question. I came to Syracuse with a life-long ambition of wanting to be the play-by-play voice of my beloved Chicago Cubs. That was it. I didn’t want to be Bob Costas, I just wanted to be the Voice of the Cubs. The thing is, the more play-by-play I did, the more I realized I didn’t like it as much as other things, namely writing. I took a class early in my junior year, taught by the immortal Voice of the Orange, Matt Park, and I realized that play-by-play just wasn’t for me right now. I loved being on the air, I actually co-hosted a baseball talk show while I was at school, and I realized that I enjoyed that format more.

Another path that a lot of people take after school is to become the sports director at a news station in a small town. This is just not something I wanted to do.  I HATE EDITING.  For those of you who have done it, you know what I mean. My buddies still kid me, saying that I was the first person in the history of the school to graduate without really knowing how to edit. Truth be told, I do know how to edit, it’s just that it took me forever to do it. The thought of filming things, and editing them, day after day, did not appeal to me.

So, knowing all this, I started to focus on writing. The problem was that my degree was in broadcast journalism, not newspaper. I did not have any internships at a newspaper, my internships had been mostly at radio stations, so I didn’t have a lot of writing samples. I worked for the paper at school, so that helped, but I was far behind my peers in terms of their experience level.

I then applied to numerous jobs, trying to sell myself as a writer/tv reporter/radio host, but at the time, people were not very receptive to my ideas, or lack of experience. I was stuck. In August of ’06 though, two things happened that really helped me out. First, I started working part-time for 740 The Team, which at the time was Orlando’s only 24 hour sports-talk radio station. At 740, I worked mainly as board-op, making sure everything at the station worked correctly.

Through Marc Daniels, then the program director at 740, I was introduced to Lynn Hoppes, the Sports Editor at The Orlando Sentinel. Lynn allowed me to started writing freelance stories for the Sentinel, something that I really enjoyed doing. I worked at the radio station and wrote as much as I could for the Sentinel. This lasted for about a year, while I was still trying to figure out what my next step was going to be.

During this time, I started to realize that my chances of landing a full-time job at either the radio station, or the Sentinel, were not very good. First of all, I, along with my fellow graduates, lacked the experience to land a job in a “major market.” (Thank you Dr. Wright)

Secondly, while I didn’t realize it at the time, neither the radio station, nor the paper, were very high on available funds. It was at this time, that I realized that times were changing in the journalism world. Radio and Newspapers, as I knew them, were about to become a thing of the past.

So, thanks to a family friend, I landed a job working for an agent that represents baseball players. I had a lot of fun working for the company, but over the course of the next year, I realized that the athlete representation business just wasn’t for me. My heart was still in sports, but I wanted to see if I could make a living writing about them.

It was last November when I finally came to this realization. I was convinced that there had to be a way for me to break into the business, the problem was, I still didn’t know exactly how to go about doing that. The budget cuts in all local journalism arenas were overwhelming. In fact, in January ’08, 740, the station I used to work for, became an all Spanish talk radio station.

Long story short, I am at a crossroads in my life. Do I try to reinvent myself with a job I’m not passionate about? Or, do I continue to try and find a way to break into the sports journalism world? I still believe in myself, and I believe I can be successful in this field, if given the chance.
That’s why I am still driving, flying, and e-mailing trying to get my foot in the door. But, there are certainly days when I think I should probably go do something else. I seem to be asking myself the same question lately: Is this really what I’m meant to do?

It’s funny, two years ago I really didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do. All I could tell people was that I wanted to work in/cover sports. Two years later, I actually think I have a better understanding of the direction I am heading.