New podcast coming Thursday.

And we’re on the air.

The Owner’s Box After Dark will return on Thursday, as I feel the need to comment on a few issues.

One will be the Patriots’ win over Las Vegas and their Chances for victory Sunday against Kansas City.

One will be my thoughts on Tuesday night’s presidential debate. I bet you can guess where that will be headed.

And I may weigh in on the push to make “pickleball” an official MIAA sport. Yes, pickleball.

All that, and another scintillating Japanese commercial! Bet you can’t wait!

Expect it in your Facebook, Twitter and YouTube feeds sometime in the evening,

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

 

King Philip field hockey may be coming to your Plainville TV screens soon.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while trying to keep from falling down my basement stairs to get to the washing machine:

** I just looked at the counter to the left of this missive and noticed that, not counting this one, I had posted only eight times this month. I apologize for that; I was hoping to maintain a more aggressive presence of posting when I pulled this blog out of mothballs several months ago, but life happens ... and innovation does as well. That's how I see the addition of "The Owner's Box After Dark," my video podcasts that are hosted here and almost exclusively promoted through social media.

Still, I can't be screwing up too much. Individual views of this website have exceeded 13,000 since its revival, so I will definitely maintain a presence here going forward -- even as I endeavor to heal from my recent knee surgery and resume my "new" career as a high school sports broadcaster.

And in regard to that latter tidbit ...

** If plans go as expected, I will be returning to my part-time job as a sports broadcaster shortly. My friend Peter Gay at North Attleboro Community Television (North TV, as it is popularly known) believes it's safe for us to venture back into the world and resume cablecasts of high school sports, so the plan right now is for me to go behind the microphone for nine King Philip Regional High School games in three sports -- field hockey, girls' soccer and boys' soccer, all available to North TV viewers in Plainville.

Hopefully, everything will go off without a hitch and our TV work will continue through basketball in November through February, football in March and April, and softball and baseball during the spring season. Sadly, there will be no MIAA tournaments in any sports this year, although the Hockomock League may consider some sort of brief postseason event.

In the meantime, I will be cramming to not only become a little more knowledgeable about the sports I'll be calling, but also to recognize and understand the COVID-related changes in the sports that have been mandated by the state. And yes, I have practiced speaking into a microphone through a mask. 

More details to come, and I'll list the schedule, when all is available.

PC's Alumni Hall in its heyday.

** Shocking revelation from WJAR-TV in Providence, that the Providence College men's basketball team is not planning to play its games at the Dunkin' Donuts Center this year because of COVID-19 restrictions. The plan right now, according to PC AD Bob Driscoll, is for Alumni Hall to be the site of the games with no fans in attendance.

Alumni Hall was the home of the Friars from 1955 through 1972, after which the team moved to the then-Providence Civic Center. Alumni became the home for the women's basketball team in 1974, and a major renovation took place about eight years ago.

Now all we need is for the ghost of legendary Rhode Island sports broadcaster Chris Clark to take over the call from John Rooke to make things complete. But since that's not likely, I'd suggest that Rooke brush up on his play-by-play style to include the precise location on the court (in feet AND inches) from which players launch their shots, just as Clark did for his many years behind his simulcasting microphone ...

Chris Berman

** Is there anything more pathetic than Chris Berman sitting behind a phony anchor desk and trying to deliver a commercial for something called "Car Shield," selling some sort of extended car warranty?

Well, yes there is. It's the "Car Shield" commercials with rapper/actor Ice-T in them. But that's a comment for another day.

I feel sorry for Berman. He had a long and successful run at ESPN and became iconic as a result of his various catch phrases and quick-witted nicknames for famous players. He's a Brown University graduate as well. But as I am learning in my golden years, there is a significant prejudice in the media world against persons 60 years of age or older. Berman is 65, a year younger than I, and while many believe he lost a few MPH off his fast ball, it seemed as if ESPN was overly eager to cut him loose and replace him with a succession of talent that has failed to reach expectations.

But you gotta pay the bills, and thus Berman rumbles and stumbles his way through those ads ...

** Meanwhile, some veteran broadcasters continue to find work despite their advanced ages. Former CBS and ABC fixture Brent Musburger, who recently turned 81, is the new play-by-play voice of the Las Vegas Raiders. And Red Sox radio voice Joe Castiglione just turned 73. So maybe there's hope that I can squeeze a decade or so out of my new career.

** You may notice some inconsistencies in the margins and spacing of lines of type in the blog since Blogger, the hosting service, went to a new interface a few weeks ago. I apologize for those. I've always had a demanding graphic sense and I like consistency, but this new, "streamlined" interface just isn't as precise as the old one.

I'd like to think that the quality of the content is all you need to keep coming back, but I also know that consistency in design is important. I will see if there's a way to tweak things. Blogger gave us the option to stay with the "legacy" version for a while, but that option is now gone. It bugs me.

** In the same vein, I noticed in the first game for the Patriots this season that while most of the players had uniforms that were consistent with the changes announced earlier this season, there were a few players whose uniforms resembled last year's "color rush" versions, using the old typeface for names and numbers instead of the newer versions.

The old font is called "NFL Patriots," and it's recognizable if you see it next to the newer, more traditional font in use this year. It's too bad, because I liked the specific, Patriots-only font. But by the time they played at home against Las Vegas last Sunday, it looked as if all of the jerseys had been updated.

I know I'm not the only person in the world that noticed it; one of my friends in New Jersey did as well. But we might be the only ones. 

** It's time for me to get ready for physical therapy, and then the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. It's probably a good thing I won't be able to walk after the PT, so I won't be able to get up and throw the TV out the front door. See you all soon.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 18.

 It's a supersized edition of After Dark, as I had a lot to say.

First, I take a look at the state of the Red Sox as this lost season comes to a close. Then I review the Patriots' loss to the Seahawks with an optimistic slant. Then it's on to a couple of heartbreaking tragedies -- the death of Tyrone White, father of Patriots' running back James White, and the accident that paralyzed "Battlestar Galactica" actor Michael Hogan (Col. Saul Tigh).

And yes, we throw in a Japanese noodle commercial to lighten the mood some. 

Despite the serious tone of the last two topics, there is hope to be found amid the tragedies and I try my best to seek it out.

At 46 minutes, it's my longest After Dark episode. I hope you will find it worthwhile viewing.

There are opinions, and then there are informed opinions.

My pick for the best NFL stadium: Los Angeles' new SoFi Stadium.

Every now and then, I still read the local newspaper --- maybe out of a sense of loyalty, although it's probably misplaced to some extent. 

I don't have any gripes with anyone that works there; none of the remaining employees from when I was laid off on Aug. 28, 2018, were responsible for me hitting the unemployment line five months before my planned and announced retirement. Nor do I have any animosity toward the former owners from Kenosha, Wis., who had benevolently owned us for more than 50 years before cutting the cord one month before I and four other newsroom employees were let loose. No, that responsibility belongs to the heartless, soulless corporate raiders that swooped in with a pocketful of cash and then started shearing souls from the payroll to meet their image of what a cost-efficient newspaper should be.

But I'm not bitter. No, sir. (Clears throat.)

Anyway, I still religiously check out the gold standard in local tidbits columns, Peter Gobis' collection of vignettes that appears every Friday. Beyond that, however, there's not much in the way of sports opinion being voiced in the Blue Ribbon Daily -- especially locally-based opinion. I mean, everyone can write something about the pro teams even if you've never set foot inside any of the pro venues or locker rooms, but that doesn't make the opinion anything more than just gas being expelled into the wind. But if the writer actually covers the teams in question, perhaps you should pay more attention to what he or she writes.

So anyway, last weekend I happened upon a column written by a nice-enough guy who's a part-time copy and layout editor there these days. His point was to drop the hammer down upon Gillette Stadium. Out of curiosity, I read it.

Taking his cue from a recent ESPN rating of the NFL's stadiums from best to worst (Gillette was ranked fifth-worst, which doesn't surprise me in that there has been open animosity between ESPN and the Patriots organization since Spygate, and it was re-fueled by Deflategate), the writer went on to point out his own perceived shortcomings of the Patriots' home in Foxboro, claiming that the Kraft family has done nothing to upgrade the facility since it opened in 2002.

Which isn't true, of course. 

There have been many improvements made over those 18 years, although not all of them stand out and say hello as I suspect the writer wishes they did. Yes, the Krafts built the Optum Lounge for the rich folks in the south end zone (the writer accurately points out that its construction pissed off a lot of people that had season tickets in the seating areas that were lost to the new lounge). They added larger video scoreboards and have reconfigured and added to the concession stands (the writer didn't seem to notice that), they re-did the locker rooms for the Patriots, the visiting teams and the Revolution, there have been multiple turf replacements and the stadium has been wired and re-wired repeatedly to improve Internet access for fans in the stands. There are others, many of them security-related, but I'll pass on listing those that I know about, because I'm sure there are many more that I don't. And for the purpose of keeping this stadium-related, Patriot Place doesn't count.

I guess what irked me a little about this piece is that the writer agreed with the low ranking for Gillette Stadium while openly admitting he has never been inside another NFL stadium to make an informed comparison. OK, as I said, everyone can have an opinion. There's a famous saying that compares opinions to a certain body part, but I don't need to foster any hostility here. But now, for your reading pleasure, I will offer an informed opinion.

And what makes it informed? Well, at the time that the newspaper took me off the road as a cost-cutting measure at the end of the 2016 season, I had visited all of the cities in which the NFL had teams (and a few others that don't any more, like San Diego and St. Louis). Some new stadiums have opened since then, and of course, two teams have relocated (the Chargers to Los Angeles and the Raiders to Las Vegas), but I'd like to think that I can offer a pretty fair ranking of the stadiums that I visited -- and even a few that I haven't.

Gillette Stadium in Foxboro opened in 2002.

Before I start, though, I will readily note that Gillette Stadium has never been the "best" stadium in the NFL. We didn't need it to be. It was never guaranteed, given New England's fickle fan base, that a stadium opened after the franchise's first Super Bowl victory would continue to be filled without interruption for nearly two full decades. 

No, it isn't as spiffy as some of the palaces that have popped up in the 18 years since it opened. But even as it approaches its mid-life period (studies show that most stadiums have a shelf life of about 30-40 years before replacement is warranted), the one-time CMGi Field is as good as you'll find in most NFL cities. While it does have some shortcomings, it remains a quantum leap above what preceded it. And remember, not one single person other than Robert Kraft was willing to build a state-of-the-art football stadium anywhere closer to Boston without exacting a fearsome toll upon taxpayers.

No, we got what we deserved. Maybe even more than we deserved!

Now, here's my ranking of the NFL's stadiums -- even the ones I haven't visited. Hey, I watch TV and read.

First, I picked a "Top 10" -- with 11 stadiums in it, because I couldn't choose between two.

1. SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, Calif. (Rams and Chargers; opened 2020): The last LA stadium in which I set foot was the Coliseum back in 1985, when the Raiders played there. But it's easy to see that Tinseltown went big time with this one. Now, if only fans will actually come to it when it opens to the public.

2. AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas (Cowboys, opened 2009): JerryWorld has been bumped out of the top position, but there's no doubts that everything there was top-shelf -- except that hanging scoreboard that punters can reach with their kicks. I am glad I got to visit Texas Stadium before it was razed, though.

3. State Farm Stadium, Glendale, Ariz. (Cardinals; opened 2006): I attended two Super Bowls there and I don't think it gets the props it deserves. I love how they can maintain a grass field in good shape by wheeling it out into the sunlight in one piece. 

4. Allegient Stadium, Las Vegas, Nev. (Raiders; opened 2020): I'm watching it on TV right now. It's impressive. They call it the Death Star, but we'll see if Vegas fans have the same passion as the nitwits in Oakland. By the way, it has both turf and real grass. UNLV uses the turf field, while the Raiders use a grass field that is grown outside, just as the Cardinals' field is.

MetLife Stadium is home of the Giants and Jets.

5. MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, N.J. (Giants and Jets; opened 2010): I still think the New York metro area could have done better, but this one did cost $1 billion to build and it has all the bells and whistles. They replaced the artificial turf before this season, however, and the complaints are pouring in.

6. Lambeau Field, Green Bay, Wis. (Packers; opened 1957): Multiple renovations have brought Lambeau into the 21st century, but despite its many expansions and the addition of an entertainment-filled atrium that inspired Robert Kraft to build a real hall of fame for his team, it's still not amenity-filled. Still a lot of flat bench seating in the place. But the Cheeseheads love it, and well they should.

7. Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City, Mo. (Chiefs; opened 1972): A rare example of a 1970s stadium that has stood the test of time. The place underwent a $325 million renovation 10 years ago, and it enhanced a great design. The acoustics remind me of Denver's old Mile High Stadium, in which sound stays within the bowl. Great place.

Denver struck gold on the Mile High site.

8. Empower Field at Mile High, Denver, Colo. (Broncos; opened 2001): One year older than Gillette, the Broncos' next-door replacement for their raucous and rickety former home embraced the new without sacrificing the old -- notably the ability to maintain a high decibel level throughout the game. Amenities are good. Traffic is a mess even with an Interstate right next to it. And they can't keep a name on the place.

9. NRG Stadium, Houston, Texas (Texans; opened 2002): I've made three visits there (two Super Bowls) and I really like the place. There's nothing particularly special, but the press box is at midfield, the Astrodome is next door for nostalgia buffs, and just a short distance down the road is a medical district where the hospitals rival Boston for their quality. Can't go wrong if things go wrong.

10 (tie) -- Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, Ga. (Falcons; opened 2017) and Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, La. (Saints; opened 1975): Well, at least they aren't named after Fiat. Weird that both would share a naming partner. Atlanta (which replaces its stadiums every three weeks or so) did well with the freshly-designed successor to the soulless Georgia Dome. Some might balk at the Superdome's inclusion here, but I saw three Super Bowls there (but not the Saints) and the way it rose from the devastation of Katrina like the proverbial phoenix warrants my respect.

My next three are newer stadiums that rise slightly above the pack of newer 21st century ballyards:

12. CenturyLink Field, Seattle, Wash. (Seahawks; opened 2002): Such high grandstands in a compressed but appealing design. No wonder they call the fans the "12th man." It's deafening.

Lincoln Financial Field is Philly's gem.

13. Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pa. (Eagles; opened 2003): Philly got this one right. A large-capacity stadium with a feeling of intimacy. And very easy access!

14: Ford Field, Detroit, Mich. (Lions; opened 2002): I didn't get there because the Pats played there on two Thanksgivings. Surely beats the old Silverdome. Inner-city warehouse figured into the design and there's a glass view of the skyline.

Here are my "all about the same" picks:

15. Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Ind. (Colts; opened 2008): Might rate a higher rank. I love how its design mirrors that of the Butler University Field House on steroids. Great replacement for the RCA Dome.

16. US Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, Minn. (Vikings; opened 2016): Wish I had seen it in person; its striking design is a far cry from the Metrodome. Not a happy place for the Patriots, who lost a Super Bowl there.

17. Gillette Stadium, Foxboro, Mass. (Patriots; opened 2002): The second time a stadium in the sticks saved the franchise, and it became the home of the most dominant team of the 21st century. So there. (And yes, I would make the lighthouse look a little more like a lighthouse.)

18. M&T Bank Stadium, Baltimore, Md. (Ravens; opened 1998): One of the first of the new wave of football-specific stadiums, it's not as unique as nearby Oriole Park at Camden Yards and I hate the parking.

19. Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, Pa. (Steelers; opened 2001): Great location, very picturesque and iconic, but oh, those gawd-awful yellow seats. Kickers hate the river end and the grass is always a mess.

20. Levi's Stadium, Santa Clara, Calif. (49ers; opened 2014): Lopsided design (press box side is low), way too far from San Francisco, called "underwhelming" by those that visited it. I liked Candlestick.

21. First Energy Stadium, Cleveland, Ohio (Browns; opened 1999). It brought football back to Cleveland and they designed in the Dawg Pound. Otherwise, could be a swimming pool if the lake rises.

22. Nissan Stadium, Nashville, Tenn. (Titans; opened 1999): Very similar to Gillette, except that the press box is at midfield and lower. Terrible parking situation there. A bland place.

These three made my "barely tolerable" category:

23. Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, Fla. (Buccaneers, opened 1998): Without a doubt, the lamest feature in the NFL is the end-zone pirate ship. I preferred the old Sombrero. 

24. Paul Brown Stadium, Cincinnati, Ohio (Bengals; opened 2000). It's like the General Motors designers (circa 1957) took over the design and needed to add tail fins. It's fugly. And they towed my rental car there once and it took me hours to find it.

25. Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, N.C. (Panthers; opened 1996): Big and bland, awful parking. And if it snows, as it did during my 2001-season visit, the entire city is paralyzed.

And these are the awful awfuls (with apologies to Newport Creamery):

You can see a third of the field in Chicago.

26: Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill. (Bears; opened 1924 and renovated 2003): I visited the old and new Soldier Fields. The old one had character but was outdated for today's NFL. The new one looks as if a spaceship crash-landed in the bowl. Devastatingly ugly.

27. TIAA Bank Field, Jacksonville, Fla. (Jaguars; opened 1995): They took part of the old Gator Bowl and just built someone's idea of a stadium around it. I felt at home during Super Bowl 39, though, because the press box toilets were overflowing and effluent cascaded past my feet for most of the game.

28. Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla. (Dolphins; opened 1987): It's been renovated to include a shade-producing half-roof, but this one has outlived its design. A pig with a lot of makeup is still a pig.

Bills Stadium is a Schaefer Stadium clone.

29. Bills Stadium, Orchard Park, N.Y. (Bills; opened 1973): I suppose I should be nostalgic because the builders of what was first called Rich Stadium used the original (and slightly updated) blueprints for Foxboro's Schaefer Stadium when construction began in 1972. You can still see some elements of that design today. But multiple renovations can't mask its inadequacy.

30. FedEx Field, Landover, Md. (Washington Football Team; opened 1997): One big mausoleum. Lots of seats, no soul. Open-air press box from which fans regularly steal computers. Hopefully plans for a new stadium at the old RFK site will be fulfilled.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

The Patriots will see this view in Seattle on Sunday night.

 

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while accepting the feel of fall but bemoaning the lack of high school football to cover:

** Yes, we're two weeks into what should have been a high school football season, but the COVID-19 pandemic has stood in its way. A shame, too. Tonight would have been perfect football weather, but wouldn't you know it, two of the local towns that comprise the King Philip Regional school district have suddenly become coronavirus hotspots because of outbreaks at nursing homes, so that would have put the kibosh on any games that Glen Farley and I might have wanted to cablecast from Macktaz Field in any event.

I don't get it. Nursing homes should be the most protected places aside from hospitals. Families are restricted from visiting their loved ones, so is it a case of the care-giving professionals bringing the virus into the premises and giving it to the vulnerable individuals within?

When I first started typing the word "coronavirus" back in March, I never envisioned it would still be a problem as we near October. Now I'm actually afraid that there may be no high school basketball to cover this year, and that football may have to be conducted before empty stands as well during the bastardized season in which it will be placed.

In case you all have forgotten, winter weather extends well into March. We could have 18-inch snowfalls at any time during that very volatile month. I don't want to be too much of a downer here, but I have a feeling that this will be the most miserable high school football in memory, with the word "pneumonia" replacing "coronavirus" on everyone's shit list.

But tonight would have been a glorious night for a game. No, I'm not suggesting that we should throw caution to the wind at a time when COVID-19 is still a palpable risk. But I do wish I could be behind the microphone calling a game tonight.

Another prototype deep-dish pizza.

** I made a pizza last night. I know that's no big deal, but I have spent most of the last 40 years trying to make the perfect homemade Chicago-style deep-dish pizza, and every now and then, I feel as if I take a quantum leap toward that goal. The process last night took a few new steps. 

First, I pre-baked my crust so I wouldn't be putting ingredients atop raw dough. Second, I chopped the mozzarella and mixed it with a home-made pizza sauce before putting it down into the pre-baked crust. Then I put the chunks of San Marzano tomatoes down atop that bed of cheese and sauce before adding the last few ingredients (oregano, grated Parmesan and Romano, olive oil) and baking it. The result looks good. Tasted good, too. But it wasn't perfect.

I found I needed to use less cheese and less sauce in the mix, and I had to bake it longer (probably more like 12-15 minutes) before turning on the broiler for the last four minutes for the browning. Now, you may think that it looks burned on top, but that was the result of brushing tomato sauce on the dough before the pre-bake to give it added flavor.

I think that with a few tweaks, I may have it down pat. We shall see ...

** I almost walked into a store without a mask on the other night. It wasn't intentional; I just jumped out of the car without grabbing one and realized just before I got to the door that I was un-masked. Yes, I went all the way back to the car to get one and put it on.

No big deal, you might say. You're right, but just remember, I'm still dealing with the rehabilitation of my surgically-repaired left knee, and it is still quite sore. But the rules say we wear masks, and so I wear a mask. So why is it that so many other Americans might want throw fists with me over wearing masks?

We have a lot of problems. Wearing a mask to prevent a deadly disease should not be one of them.

** I hope you've noticed that I'm expanding the world of "The Owner's Box" into video. The audio podcast has returned with Episode 27, featuring baseball writer Maureen Mullen, but now I can add video segments from those recordings to "The Owner's Box After Dark." I'm feeling really good about this innovation and I hope you'll all tune in via my links here, on Facebook and Twitter and on YouTube.

** That's all for today. Stay safe and wear a mask. And my apologies if some of the formatting in this entry is off-kilter; the folks at Blogger have changed their interface, and despite their claims, it's not as precise as what I used to use before the unwanted change. I'll try to get more comfortable in it.

And in case you're wondering, the Fearless Forecast for Sunday night's game in Seattle is 34-21, the Seahawks beating the Patriots. Cheers.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 17.

The Patriots opened their 2020 season with a bang, and so we follow with a Patriots-dedicated edition of The Owner's Box After Dark.

I taped some of my expectations for the opener against Miami beforehand, and follow that up with some knowledgeable analysis (hey, I have covered the team for more than 40 years and still would be if not for COVID-19) and my predictions for the Patriots' season record from how things stand now.

Believe me, you already have the best seat in the house if you're watching the games on TV like the rest of us. And now you've got top-notch analysis to go along with it. Enjoy.

The Owner's Box, Ep. 27.

Maureen Mullen returns to "The Owner's Box."

Welcome back to "The Owner's Box," the original and best product of Duck and Cover Productions, as we kick off our second season of audio podcasts. Let's get topical, as baseball reporter and author Maureen Mullen makes a return appearance to try to explain what in the hell happened to the 2020 Red Sox between her trip to spring training seven months ago and the hybrid 60-game season that is nearing its close.

Maureen and I talk about the changes in the rules, too -- and then we tackle a couple of other topics, including the state of journalism today and what she finds in her students when she teaches journalism coaches at local colleges. And we also get an update about her nephews and niece, who are young athletes in the King Philip pipeline.

It's good to be back with the audio podcast, and I hope you'll enjoy it.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 16.

Baseball reporter and author Maureen Mullen joins me for the first "live" interview in the "After Dark" series, helping me make sense of the total dumpster fire that the Red Sox have become.

It took a little effort to get this one to the interwebz, because the program I use to create these videos would not accept the format of the Zoom recording we made. No problem; I made a video of the playback ... but it did make the audio less than optimal, and there is a slight slant to the split-screen picture. I'll probably try to use Skype for future recordings, as I know those work.

This recording is about two-thirds of the total interview, and the rest will be added to the first episode of my standard-bearing audio podcast, "The Owner's Box," which will debut in a day or two on all the popular podcasting platforms. But until then, get ready for some outstanding insight from Maureen, who first joined me for Episode 12 of The Owner's Box.

The Owner's Box After Dark, Ep. 15.

Welcome to another episode of The Owner's Box After Dark, in which I hop into the Wayback Machine with Sherman and Mr. Peabody to watch a 12-year-old episode of "The Blog Show," a feature of my "Blogging Fearlessly" blog for The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, Mass.

The episode features my good friend Missy Traversi, the former Bishop Feehan High School three-sport standout who will be entering her fifth year as the head coach of the Adelphi University women's basketball team shortly. When the video was recorded in May 2008, Missy had just returned from her second year of playing professional basketball in Sweden and was just starting to set up her basketball camps and make plans for the rest of her career.

It's always interesting to return to moments like this. You see how organized and focused persons set goals for themselves, and you can see how close she came to following the directional arc she had mapped out for herself.

There a lot of stuff packed into this episode beyond the time travel, and it's jammed into an easy-to-watch 24 minutes. Enjoy!

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering ...

Glen Farley (left) and I will return to the KP broadcast booth soon.

Ponderous thoughts I was pondering while looking out the window and thinking, "Gee, I should be getting ready to cover a football game ...":

** As stated above, I'm feeling a little forlorn today because under normal circumstances, I'd be a week away from calling my first high school football game of the year on local cable TV. Last year was my first as a play-by-play announcer, as it also was the first year as an analyst for my broadcast partner, former Brockton Enterprise football scribe Glen Farley, and we had an absolute blast bringing King Philip football to the viewers of North TV in Plainville. We were really looking forward to a second season to further hone our craft, and then the coronavirus struck.

We are now 27 weeks into the COVID-19 crisis, and our worst fears have been realized -- a fall season without high school football. It's been moved to a shortened "wedge" season during March and April, and I'm sure it will look a lot different than that to which we are all accustomed -- especially if we have one of those aggravating March blizzards that dumps 20 inches of snow on the football fields of the area.

But that's not all. Recently, the Hockomock League's schools voted to move girls' volleyball (a fall sport) to the wedge season over coronavirus fears. And several other leagues (the Mayflower League and South Coast Conference among them in our area) have just thrown in the towel altogether and moved ALL fall sports to that two-month window at the end of the winter.

Personally, I think that will be a disaster for the fall sports. Unless a school is fortunate enough to have artificial turf fields, the soccer and field hockey teams will be struggling to play on dormant fields that will be either frozen or muddy and easily damaged by increased foot traffic. Ditto for the golf teams, many of which may struggle to find golf courses that are actually open and playable.

King Philip football will be put off until early March.

COVID-19 has already taken a heavy toll on the 2020-21 season, even before it has started. There will be no MIAA tournaments this year and all of the seasons have been shortened. State-imposed alterations in the sports will also change the landscape; the urge to socially-distance the athletes on the playing field has resulted in rules changes that will make pandemic soccer almost unrecognizable as the sport the athletes have played all their lives. I understand the need for safety, but drastically altering the rules of the games will result in mass confusion on the field, and potentially harm the development of young athletes that may have the chance to compete in college or beyond.

I recently spoke to an athletic director about the effort to implement all of the changes forced upon his school by COVID-19, and there was an unmistakable tone of frustration in his responses. One sticking point has been the Hockomock League's refusal to implement the one-year suspension of the MIAA's out-of-season coaching restrictions. Suspending the rule seemed to be a good idea in the wake of the lost spring season of 2019-20, allowing coaches to keep close contact with athletes that had been denied practice and competition, and therefore maintain some sort of normalcy. But as the AD told me, many coaches are hired for only the season in which they are actively coaching. It would be unfair to ask them to "coach" for no compensation out-of-season, or to ask the schools to provide additional compensation that may not have been budgeted. Liability issues are also raised if the coaches aren't compensated.

Amid all this, I wish there was more data on the sports that were conducted independently during the springtime. A number of high school-age baseball leagues sprouted during the summer to replace the lost spring season and the canceled American Legion programs, and I would really like to know if there were any COVID-19 hot spots among them. That could have gone a long way toward determining if there was a realistic risk to stage fall sports, but I imagine no one kept any data on that.

So we sit and wait and hope against hope that the leagues that decide to keep fall sports on the field get through the season without incident, and then that basketball, hockey and the winter sports can endure as well. In the meantime, I'm practicing -- not for any athletic pursuit, of course, but I'm practicing at speaking clearly through a mask and into a microphone.

** Of course, that's assuming that media will be allowed in any sporting events this year. The AD to whom I spoke said that as far as he knew, media had to be figured into the limitation of 50 spectators at any game.

I, of course, think that is ridiculous. There are some games in the so-called "major" sports where as many as 20 media members might show up from local cable TV and radio and newspapers, lessening the number of parents and fans that can attend.

The media should be independent of those numbers; we were determined to be "essential workers" during the height of the pandemic and we willingly accept the risk. But more importantly, with restrictions almost certain to be imposed upon attendance, never before has it been so important to allow the media to bring the coverage of these games to the parents and fans that may be denied the privilege of watching them in person.

** On the topic of high school sports, I spent some time perusing the list of proposed changes to the MIAA Rulebook that will be voted upon sometime next year. Each year, the association solicits rule-change proposals from its members and the public at large, and the individual sport committees review and recommend prior to the final vote.

Among the more interesting proposals are those calling for the banning of male athletes from girls' field hockey or the establishment of boys' field hockey. The premise is that boys are too big and strong to play on the same teams as girls. I might agree, but I can also imagine what the response would be if girls were being told they can't play on a team because they're perceived to be weaker than boys. All hell would ensue.

I don't see a great demand for boys' field hockey out here in the sticks. But as it is a very popular sport in some parts of the world, maybe it would get some traction in more diverse communities closer to Boston or other metropolitan areas.

The same battle is being fought in volleyball, where schools that don't offer the sport to boys have to allow them to compete on the girls' teams. One possible solution is to raise the height of the net. No wonder why athletic directors get frustrated!

One proposal to the MIAA is to make
pickleball an official high school sport.

But the corker of them all was a proposal from a charter school that the "sport" of pickleball be made an official MIAA sport.

Pickleball?

According to the sources I found, pickleball incorporates elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis into its rules. It's played on a badminton court and as many as four players can compete, holding oversized wooden paddles to smack a rubbery wiffle ball over a net. It looks like something that should be played at a rest home or on the beach because the level of athleticism involved is minimal at best.

At the risk of getting multiple letters and emails of complaints from the pickleball lobby, let's get real. I'd rather see the MIAA sanction curling as an interscholastic sport; at least the skills of using those brooms will come in handy later in life when it's time to sweep the garage.

Pickleball.

** I had more to share today, but the column is getting long and I have things to do. Good news -- I have recovered most of the data from the damaged hard drive of my former desktop computer. Bad news -- the knee is still super sore and my lawn really needs mowing.

I think those are first-world problems. 

Stay safe, everyone, and keep an eye out for my next episode of "The Owner's Box After Dark," coming soon. I'm really liking the production values!