Posts tagged Great

Sept. 21, 2010 8:22 p.m. |(0) Comments

You had to laugh when you read Augusta National golf tournament chairman Billy Payne’s explanation of why the Masters will allow an extra hour of live coverage for the first two rounds of the tournament starting in 2011.

“Since our first telecast of the Masters in 1956, we have carefully maintained a tradition of high-quality programming within an appropriate broadcast window,” Payne said Tuesday in a statement. “Now with the proper infrastructure and resources in place, we are confident the additional coverage will meet the high standards of the millions of golf fans who enjoy viewing the Masters each April.”

The swiftness with which the Augusta National Golf Club came to this signal moment shames even glaciers.

But we in golf nation salute you, the storied and ancient keepers of the “appropriate broadcast window” and tenders of “proper infrastructure and resources.”

Now that you have unshackled an hour of coverage, what will you free next, oh Lords of the Green Jacket? We humbly beseech you, the Arbiters of Amen Corner. Free Gary McCord.

The Masters will air on ESPN from 2 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, April 7 and 8.

Classic revisited

This week, Time Warner Cable Sports32 will air the first of a periodic series of specials called “Sports32 Flashback.”

The subject of the first show is the NCAA Mideast Regional basketball tournament final between Marquette and Purdue, played on March 15, 1969, at the Fieldhouse in Madison. The Boilermakers beat the Warriors, 75-73, on a high-arching jump shot by Rick Mount with two seconds left.

According to Dennis Krause of Time Warner Cable, the 90-minute show includes rare color film of the game, the original radio call and the recollections of George Thompson, the former MU star who played in the game.

The show is to air for the first time at 7 p.m. Thursday on Time Warner Cable Sports32.

Studio time

Milwaukee Brewers’ radio announcer Bob Uecker is scheduled to tape an interview with Bob Costas Tuesday in New York, which will become an episode of “Studio 42 with Bob Costas” on the MLB Network.

A spokeswoman for the MLB Network did not say when the interview would air for the first time.

The Brewers travel to New York next week to play a four-game series against the Mets before closing out their season at Cincinnati.

Head games

When the Green Bay Packers played the Philadelphia Eagles in a nationally televised game on Fox in Week 1, viewers saw two players leave the game with injuries, quarterback Kevin Kolb and linebacker Stewart Bradley.

Bradley’s injury clearly was a concussion. After the blow to his head, the television audience saw Bradley try to get up, but he stumbled and fell to the turf. He was helped to the sideline. He later re-entered the game. Both Fox announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, who suffered a number of concussions during his playing career, said Bradley appeared done for the day after he left the first time.

Kolb’s problem was not made clear at first – he complained about a jaw injury after he was tackled from behind by Packers linebacker Clay Matthews. But Kolb, too, had suffered a concussion.

Fox Sports reporter Jay Glazer offered an explanation about what happened on the Eagles’ sideline with those two injuries.

“The Eagles trainers were over on the sidelines with two players who suffered major season-ending injuries and they were trying to deal with those players and never saw Stewart Bradley stumble,” Glazer said. “When Bradley finally came over to the sideline, they gave him his concussion test and he seemed fine. They gave him a five-step process where they tell him three words and Bradley was able to repeat the three words throughout the process. Ten minutes after coming out of the game, the trainer asked Bradley again to repeat the three words and Bradley responded, ‘Three words, what you are talking about?’ After hearing that, the Eagles pulled Bradley out.”

Kolb thought he injured his jaw.

“The trainers gave him the same concussion test with the same three words and he passed them all,” Glazer said. “However, when Kolb went back out there he couldn’t remember the snap count and they took him out.”

Philadelphia coach Andy Reid said Tuesday that Michael Vick - who led his team over Detroit last week in Kolb’s absence – would again be the Eagles’ starter at quarterback this Sunday against Jacksonville.

Call SportsDay at (414) 223-5531 or send e-mail to bwolfley@journalsentinel.com