Pearl grabs victory, Erin Andrews

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Where's George McFly you when you need him?

Anyway, thanks, Bruce Pearl, for making us all feel a little creepy during the Tennessee-Memphis basketball game Saturday night. When ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews asked Pearl at halftime what the Tigers were doing to stop Vols star Chris Lofton, the Tennessee coach said: “Hold him. Drape him like this …’’

And with that, Pearl grabbed Andrews, who looked stunned and nervously uncomfortable while muttering, "Okay.''

It weirded out most of us, but Andrews, for the record, didn't have a problem with Coach Handsy.

"I've come to learn anything can happen during a halftime interview,'' Andrews said Sunday night. "I've had coaches run right past me, a coach give me a forearm shiver, and even an offensive lineman has knocked me over. Coach Pearl is an excitable and passionate guy...because I know that, I didn't think anything of it.''

Still, I don't seem to recall anyone ever grabbing Jim Gray like that.

Stand by your man

By now, you've probably heard the whole Carl Crawford-Delmon Young war of words. What's really interesting, however, is how fans have reacted to the little spitting match. Forget who might be right or wrong, the fans are standing by their man. If you check out Marc Topkin's blog on the Rays for the St. Pete Times, fans are siding with Crawford. Taking the exact same story, fans on the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's baseball blog, are backing their guy, Delmon.

Hey, personally, I'm practically giddy over the whole thing. We could be talking about this or how Scotty Kazmir looked in the pitchers-covering-first-base drill. Maybe this can get us through until the games actually start. Anyway, check out how the fans have reacted.

Here is some of the reaction from Rays fans:
"Good riddance, Delmon.''
"Way to go CC! I love the fact that he is publicly calling him out.''
"You go, Carl!''

Meantime, a sampling of Twins fans comments:
"Sounds like Crawford is a punk.''
"Crawford is dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb ...''
"I think Crawford just doesn't like the Twins.''
"Before I heard this (stuff) Crawford has been saying, I considered him a class act. This just makes him look like an ignorant 6-year-old ... What a loser.''
"I hope Delmon doesn't get booed in Tampa Bay by the 3,000 fanatic Rays fans.''

Nomination for best line on both blogs? "I hope Crawford doesn't get hit by a bat!''

Q&A with Frank Deford

Frank Deford might be the finest sports writer who has ever lived. A six-time U.S. sports writer of the year, Deford has written in every medium (newspapers, magazines, plays, movies, television, radio and books) and is best known for his work as a writer at Sports Illustrated, a reporter for HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and commentator on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.  And the 69-year-old native of Baltimore remains a force, writing his 10th book last year and recently completing a play about dementia that he hopes finds a home in the next year. Deford speaks at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg's Campus Activities Center (corner of Second Street S and Sixth  Avenue S in downtown St. Petersburg) at 7 on Wednesday, Feb. 20. The event is free and open to the public.

Here's my chat with him earlier this week:

With the  Internet these days and ESPN bombarding us with sports news, how has sports writing changed?

I think you put your finger on it — the  Internet and ESPN have changed it dramatically. Sports is a much more argumentative thing now. It's always been fun to argue about sports, that's the nub of sports. But now everything has to have a point, a winner, someone who is right, someone who is wrong. The art of sports writing, the craft of telling a story has changed. And now with ESPN, the number of games we are exposed to is simply overwhelming. Today, newspapers have to cover and fill space with actual games. Go back 50 years and there weren't as many games. So newspapers had to fill space with feature stories. Today, the agate type alone overwhelms the newspaper. Also, writing has been terribly influenced by talk radio and the talk-radio mentality.

What do you think of blogs?
I don't understand blogs. People used to write to make money, no? You didn't give it away. I have nothing against blogs. I don't have a problem with them. But it's like, "What are you doing? Why aren't you working?'' Then again, from another point of view, anybody who is writing anything — whether it's for one other person or just themselves or for millions — is to be admired. People used to keep private journals and diaries and some of those were turned into classic pieces of literature. I guess a blog is like a journal.

Do you miss the days when you could write really long features for a magazine like Sports  Illustrated?
Oh, sure. I was very lucky to come along at a time when Sports Illustrated was an elegant magazine. Some thought it was the best magazine period, not just the best sports magazine. I'm talking better than the New Yorker and the Atlantic and so forth. It was a thrilling time. But as with everything, times change.

If Frank Deford was 21 years old, where would he go to become the writer you became?
I really don't know. I don't think anyone has specific advice. In the old days, you would give The Pitch: You know, go to work for a small newspaper, learn your craft, move up to a bigger paper, keep moving up, and maybe one day you'll end up at Sports Illustrated. I wouldn't even know what kind of advice to give today. Those traditional opportunities are gone. I think you have to be 21 or 22 to understand. They are the ones on the frontline now and probably understand the landscape better than I do.

What do you read?
I read my local papers, which in my case is the New York papers. I read Sports Illustrated. I go online and read ESPN.com. I look on the Internet, but it's not like I spend my day scrolling through the Seattle Times to see every story they have that day. Some people send me books, most of which are dreadful.

Dreadful?
Yes, most sports books are dreadful. It's usually about an athlete written by an athlete "as told to''’ by a writer. And there's nothing much to them. Of course, this isn't new. It has been that way forever. Most of my time is spent reading nonsports.

Does working on Real Sports give you the outlet to do the longer in-depth features that you used to do for magazines?
Yes, that's exactly it. The difference is that now I'm working with a television crew instead of being the lone cowboy out to do it on my own. One of my favorite pieces was the one I did on a guy from your back yard — Lou Piniella.

What was it about Lou?
Well, the whole angle of him going to the Cubs made that story. If he were still with the Devil Rays, I don't think the story is as compelling. And I just find Lou to be an interesting man. He's intense, but is intelligent. He has a temper, but has a great sense of humor. And I also knew that the story would play well on television with some of Lou's antics of throwing bases and so forth.

Who are some of the favorite athletes you've covered?
Coaches to me are more interesting than players. Most great athletes are young and the most interesting thing about them is that they can do amazing things with their bodies. But they don't have much life experience, nor should they at 25 or 26. But coaches are, well, the grownups. For example, Lou Piniella at 28 wouldn't have been that interesting of a story, but Lou Piniella is now at age 64.

Have athletes changed over the years?
They're richer. So, of course, they have changed. With money comes the sense of entitlement, and they are insulated. They don't have a sense of dependency anymore. They don't need sportswriters. Maybe in the old days, they did. But now? They make $8-million a year, so being nice to the media is going to help them make, what, $9-million? And I understand, too, that they deal with a lot of us. They are besieged by media people. But at the end of it all, you have smart athletes and dumb ones and nice ones and jerks, and when you think about it, it has always been that way.

Shooting from the lip

Looking back at a weekend of televised sports ...

Worst loss
How devastating was that Lightning loss Saturday night to the Capitals? A victory would've meant the Lightning trailed in the Southeast Division (the team's only realistic shot at the playoffs) by six points. Now, it trails by eight.  Eight points. That's four victories. Doesn't seem like much. But it is. Think about it.

If division-leading Carolina goes .500 the rest of the way, it would finish with 85 points. That means the Lightning would need 30 points in its final 23 games to make it. That means going 15-8, or something like 14-7-2. And the Lightning still only makes it if you assume that Atlanta, Washington and Florida — all ahead of Tampa Bay in the Southeast — go around .500, too. Say Carolina or Atlanta goes a game or two over .500. Now you're talking about Tampa Bay having to go something like 17-6 or 18-5 down the stretch, and considering it has won only 25 of its 59 games, what makes you think it can do that? When you have only a handful of games you can afford to lose, you must win games like Saturday night's.

Best R-rated moment
You almost needed to watch it in slow motion, but perhaps you noticed, too, the R-rated moment after the NBA Rookie-Sophomore Game on Friday night. During the postgame handshakes, Nets rookie Sean Williams pushed his middle finger into the face of Trail Blazers second-year player LaMarcus Aldridge and, based on our amateur lip-reading skills, said a Really Bad Word. Aldridge appeared to have been laughing, but Williams didn't look like he was joking.

Worst rule
How dumb is it that the NBA forced Lakers star Kobe Bryant to make an appearance in the All-Star Game even though he, obviously, is injured? (He has a torn ligament in his hand.) NBA rules stipulate that a player cannot skip the All-Star Game with injury unless he has missed the game before the All-Star Game or does not play in his team's first game after the All-Star Game.

The rule is understandable. The league doesn't want players making up injuries to get out of the All-Star Game. But this is where common sense needs to take over. Bryant always has been an ambassador of the game. He plays in the All-Star Game — and plays hard — every season. The last thing you want is for Kobe to miss the next month of real games because he was forced to play in a meaningless one.
Everyone wants to credit David Stern for being such a great commissioner, but it's moments like this that make you wonder about the guy.

Most interesting candidate
Last week, The Hockey News listed 20 names the Maple Leafs should consider for their next general manager. One name on the list was one we thought of — Lightning assistant GM Claude Loiselle. He is a former player, a lawyer, a solid evaluator of talent and has worked at NHL headquarters where his area of expertise was the collective bargaining agreement and the salary cap. But you have to wonder if the Maple Leafs, who would rather make a big splash with a recognizable name, would hire someone with a low profile such as Loiselle even though he just might be the best man for the job.

Best performer
Just when you thought the NBA Slam Dunk competition was about to go the way of dinosaurs, VCRs and 8-tracks, one player made it relevant again — Orlando big man Dwight Howard. But the 3-point contest is still better.

Best trip down memory lane
Did you see that former Lightning goalie Dan Cloutier is back in the NHL? He was called up from the minors by the Kings after battling ineffectiveness and injuries over the past year. He has started twice, winning his first game then giving up three goals in two periods before being pulled with flulike symptoms in a no-decision Saturday night when the Kings lost to the Coyotes 4-3.

Biggest controversy
This Roger Clemens steroid thing isn't going away, especially after the Rev. Al Sharpton wondered aloud if the government is pursuing allegations against African-American players more aggressively than white athletes.
On ESPN's Sports Reporters, Selena Roberts of Sports Illustrated said, "I think they have to pursue (Clemens). If you're going to pursue Marion Jones, if you're going to pursue Miguel Tejada, you've got to pursue somebody like Roger Clemens. It’' only fair that if you’re going to chase one, then chase them all.''
Host John Saunders, however, correctly pointed out that athletes such as Jones and Barry Bonds testified before grand juries, not a congressional hearing like Clemens, hearings in which those testifying don't have the same rights as those in actual courts.

Game of the week
Don't make any plans for Saturday night. That appears to be the next, and perhaps last, decent chance Memphis has of losing before the NCAA Tournament, and maybe at all this season. The top-ranked Tigers host No. 4 Tennessee. The game is at 9 on ESPN.

Strongest comment
Indiana basketball coach Kelvin Sampson's trouble with the NCAA could end with him losing his job, perhaps this week.

"He will no longer be Indiana's head coach, in my judgment,'' ESPN basketball analyst Jay Bilas said.
Meantime, you knew it was a matter of time before someone started the Web site FireCoachSampson.com. Oddly enough, the site listed a poll in which viewers could vote whether the Hoosiers should fire Sampson. You would think the only people who would visit the site would be those who want Sampson out, but as of Sunday, 1,704 voters said Sampson should not be fired, while 1,657 thought he should. The best part of the site? A running time meter (right down to the second) of how long it has been since IU last won an NCAA basketball title. In case you're wondering, the time is at 7,630 days … and, of course, counting.

Shooting from the lip

  Looking back at a weekend of televised sports ...

Knight riders
There was no shortage of opinions over the weekend on the sudden resignation of Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight, who left the door open in a chat with ESPN's Jay Bilas that he might coach again someday. ESPN's Doug Gottlieb had the strongest take, although it's hard to agree with it totally.

Gottlieb said: "So he's tired, he's too tired to go on the road to Baylor, but he's not tired of coaching. So he's tired of coaching Texas Tech. This is Hypocrisy 101 by Professor Robert Montgomery Knight. If a player quit on the team with 10 games to go, he would be a quitter. How can you walk away from a school that gave you a contract extension in September? … This is par for the course for Bob Knight. He's a guy who preaches and teaches discipline and the chain of command yet he has no personal discipline of his own to speak of.''

First, we have no way of knowing how Knight was feeling mentally and physically before he resigned, but if he felt he was not giving his players the attention and coaching they needed and deserved then not only should he walk away, he had an obligation to walk away. Here's another thought: Many of us are always so quick to jump on Knight for his outbursts and boorish behavior when his frustrations take over. Just maybe he felt his frustrations starting to get the best of him and walked away before he had another "episode.'' If that's the case, then good for him. This time, maybe he did the right thing.

Most interesting quote
In an interview with CBS's Seth Davis, Bob Knight's son, Pat, was asked if his father would coach again.
Pat Knight said, "I don't know. Right now, I'd say no because of the recruiting. Recruiting is a big deal. Now if he could get a job where all you do is coach practice and then coach games … then he would be in.''

It just sounds like Knight isn't through. Meantime, Pat Knight was asked if the rift between his dad and Indiana would eventually heal and he said, "Right now, I'd say no.''

Best announcing team
Lightning announcer Rick Peckham and Bobby "The Chief'' Taylor were absolutely brilliant in working Saturday's game at Atlanta, especially in the third period and overtime. Peckham again showed why he's so good, choosing only the appropriate times to raise his voice for dramatic effect. Meantime, the Chief's analysis was spot on, such as when he hinted that Johan Holmqvist did not give up a good goal for the overtime winner.

"A goal on the short side,'' Taylor said. "That's what makes it hurt.''
A subtle, but effective line.
If a young person out there wants to be a hockey broadcaster, use this game as a study guide.

Best analyst
I've said it before and I'll say it again: HBO's Max Kellerman is the best boxing analyst there is, and on the short list of best analysts in any sport. He showed why again Saturday night in calling the Paul Williams-Carlos Quintana welterweight championship bout. Late in the fight, Harold Lederman, who does a good job scoring fights, said he had Williams ahead. But Kellerman quickly jumped in, saying, "I don't have the fight as close as Harold does.''

Lederman scored it 115-113 for Williams. But the judges had it 115-113, 116-112, 116-112 for Quintana, proving that Kellerman was on the money when he made his comment.

Worst attitude
Speaking of HBO's boxing coverage, analyst Lennox Lewis has his detractors, but he does a decent job. He needs, however, to lose that old-school bias that says a challenger has to win big in order to beat the champ. That's garbage. That's like saying the Patriots should be considered the champs right now because they were the favorites and the Giants didn't beat them bad enough. If you win, you win. End of story.

Most disturbing quote
Time for some (not all) West Virginia fans to get a clue … and a life. Rich Rodriguez, who left West Virginia to coach at Michigan, broke down on camera during an interview with ESPN about how difficult some lunkheads in West Virginia have made it on him and his family.
"I wish some of the people that are ignorant that don't know or don't care what they're saying, what they're doing would see what it does to young people who had no impact on the decision,'' Rodriguez said. "My kids are 11 and 9. They shouldn't have to endure things like that. My nephews and my nieces — to put a death threat on them because their uncle changed jobs? Give me a break.''

Best event
Unless you have hockey's Center Ice package or a satellite dish, you missed out on what is one of the sports highlights of the year: Hockey Day in Canada. It's the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's all day event that celebrates hockey in Canada by visiting small towns and big cities all over the Great White North and running countless features — live and on tape — showing how much hockey is a part of the Canadian culture. Every single feature was entertaining and host Ron MacLean is simply a master broadcaster. Saturday was the eighth annual Hockey Day in Canada. While watching, you come to realize that nothing in this country — not football, not baseball, not anything — means as much to Americans as hockey does to Canadians.

Best reporting
ESPN's Outside the Lines delivered a powerful story on possible match-fixing in tennis. It centered on a match in August in Poland between No. 4-ranked Nikolay Davydenko and No. 87 Martin Vassallo Arguello. More than $7-million was bet on the match, much of it on Arguello and much of it after Davydenko had won the first set. Sure enough, Davydenko retired in the third set with a foot injury, leading some to believe he threw the match, possibly for Russian mobsters.

Davydenko swore he aggravated a left foot injury and denied throwing the match, but the story also included suspicions by gamblers and bookmakers in Europe, where betting on tennis is huge, that as many as 140 or so matches over the past few years might have not been on the up-and-up. The troubling part is the Association of Tennis Professionals seems more interested in the whole thing going away than getting to the bottom of it all.

Three things that popped into my head
1. The Big East, at the moment, is the best basketball conference in the country … by far.
2. Picking up five out of six points on a road trip was great for the Lightning, but it lost a chance for that sixth point when Johan Holmqvist gave up a goal in OT at Atlanta on Saturday that a goalie just can’t give up in such an important game.
3. I watched the Pro Bowl, which proved I absolutely nothing to do on Sunday afternoon.

Shooting from the lip

Looking back at the best and worst of televised sports over the weekend, which, of course, was dominated by Super Bowl XLII

Super Bowl coverage
It's evident why the conference championship games in the NFL are more fun to watch than the Super Bowl. It's not the games. It's the coverage.

Yes, the Super Bowl is a very big deal and it's an event more for everybody, not just football fans. And that's what it is, really: an event. But for real fans, it's a hard game to watch. Too much hype. Too many commercials. Too much time trying to build drama. Too many little films shot in black and white with hokey closeups and slow motion and the tug-at-your-heart music. Why manufacture drama instead of letting the championship between the two best teams in the league play out on its own?

Fox covers sporting events about as well as any network, and it didn't cover the game the way it can because of all the other stuff. And you almost can't blame it. Over the past decade or so, the Super Bowl has evolved into this larger-than-life spectacle. Covering it like a normal game is not expected or even wanted by the casual viewer, which makes up the bulk of people watching.

But Fox was at its best when there were long stretches where there were no timeouts or breaks, the times when it  had no choice but to cover the game instead of pandering to all the hyperbole. In fact, only in the final five minutes, when there were few breaks and it was nothing but football, did the game and the coverage become compelling. Doesn't that prove that the football can speak for itself? The bottom line: True football fans have lost the Super Bowl. It isn't for us anymore. It hasn't been in years. It's for everyone else, the people who watch once a year. And, when you think about it, that's a shame.

Biggest frustration
We know ads drive the Super Bowl, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the game itself. For example, this line came out of announcer Joe Buck's mouth in the first quarter: "Two players down for the Patriots. We’ll take a break.''
Whaat? Which two players?!
We had to sit through four commercials then Buck talking about the city of Phoenix before we learned that key players Rodney Harrison and Randall Gay were banged up. Gay, in fact, missed a good bit of the first half.

Dumb comment
Troy Aikman, right before the Giants kicked a field goal on the opening drive, said, "'To hold them to three points was a win for them (the Patriots).'' No, a win would've been holding the Giants to three-and-out. Allowing a 16-play drive that chewed up nearly 10 minutes and resulted in a 3-0 Giants lead is not a "win.''
Overall, however, Aikman and partner Joe Buck turned in their usual solid performance, showing why they rival NBC's Al Michaels and John Madden as the best NFL announcing crew. Aikman, in particular, treated it like another game — and that’s the right approach.

Worst predictions
So the talk before the Super Bowl was how viewers were turned off by violence and sex in commercials in recent seasons and how this year we were going to have "kindler and gentler'' commercials.
Then, bam, right out of the box, the first two commercials were a Bud Light ad when a guy nearly burns down his girlfriend's apartment and an Audi ad that recreates the horse's head in the bed scene from The Godfather.

Best commercials
Leave it to Coke with two classy ads to win the day. The spot with two parade floats (Underdog and Stewie from Family Guy) chasing after a float of a Coke bottle kept me mesmerized  then completely won me over when the Coke ended up in the hands of … Charlie Brown. What made the commercial special was the shot of a little girl watching it all, a little girl holding a football who looked just like Lucy. Brilliant. Then the Bill Frist/James Carville ad was another winner. Both ads showed you don't need violence or sex or the sense of humor of a 13-year-old to make a good commercial.

Other favorite commercials
Any ad that references The Godfather is a winner, such as the Audi commercial where a man wakes up with a part of a car and motor oil all over his bed. But you have to wonder how many people under the age of 25 actually got the spoof.

Other big winners were the Budweiser commercial with the horse training to Rocky music and the Justin Timberlake Pepsi commercial. It's always fun to see a megastar such as Timberlake not taking himself seriously — though, once again, the "kindler, gentler'' approach didn't ring true when Timberlake was mashed in the groin several times. But it does go to prove the age-old theory: Groin shots are funny.

Also a thumbs-up to the Pepsi Max ad with the head-bobbing reference to the old Saturday Night Live "What is Love?'' skit. And to the Vitamin Water spot with Shaq as a jockey — another with the aforementioned groin shot. And to the Chester Pitts bagboy-to-NFL-star commercial for NFL.com. And to Ben Roethlisberger singing Escape (The Pina Colada Song) to promote American Idol.

Worst commercials
The very first ad -- the Bud Light spot with the guy breathing fire -- wasn't only not funny, it was stupid. Does anybody think it would be cool to breathe fire in the first place? Another Bud Light ad had a guy flying then getting sucked into a plane. Not funny, either. Oh, since we're talking about Bud Light, raise your hands if you think foreigners in exaggerated accents mangling the English language is funny. (My hand is not raised.) And did SalesGenie.com really use cartoons, including one with panda bears using an awful stereotypical Chinese accent?

Best idea turned bad
GoDaddy.com poked fun at itself and showed some ingenuity by teasing us with a commercial starring Danica Patrick unzipping her jacket that was rejected by the NFL then directing us their Web site to view the commercial in its entirety. If you went to the Web site, as I did, you saw a commercial that wasn't sexy (nope, Patrick doesn't unzip her jacket) and not all that funny, unless you think juvenile names for a female body part is funny.

Best pregame feature
Fox had four hours of pregame coverage. Four! It wasn't a pregame show as much as it was a survival test. You would've been better off watching NBC’s excellent hockey coverage of Sunday’s Rangers-Canadiens game for half that time. Anyway, if you saw Pam Oliver's interview with the new and nicer Giants coach Tom Coughlin, then you saw the best that a pretty good Fox pregame show had to offer.

Final super thought
When you're putting together your list of the greatest teams in NFL in the Super Bowl era, the 2007 Patriots cannot be higher than 43rd. The top 42 are reserved for teams that won Super Bowls.

Other stuff
The Super Bowl wasn't the only thing going on over the weekend. Here's a quick glance at some of the other events.

Biggest dropped ball
The key play in Saturday's Lightning loss was a rare closing-the-hand-on-the-puck penalty on defenseman Dan Boyle. The ensuing Florida power play tied the score then the Panthers won it with a goal a few minutes later. It would've been nice to see a replay of the rare call, yet Sun Sports never showed one. How can you not show a replay of the most critical moment of the game?

Best quote
It seems silly that Congress is interested into checking out the Patriots' SpyGate mess, but Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) convinced me otherwise during Sunday’s Outside the Lines on ESPN. "We're not neglecting the stimulus package or Iraq or judicial confirmations here,'' Specter said. "But the integrity of the game is very important. These players set the role model for America.''
Oh, and one more thing: Why on earth would the NFL destroy the evidence from SpyGate?

Best hoops team
It's starting to look as if Memphis might not lose. The Tigers went 1-for-17 from 3-point land and missed 20 free throws and still beat UTEP on Saturday  to run their record to 21-0. "If someone was going to catch Memphis, this might have been the game,'' ESPN's Jay Bilas said. "Now they might run the table the rest of the regular season and maybe to the Final Four.''