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| 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.
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| PC's Alumni Hall in its heyday. |
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 ...
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| Chris Berman |
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.
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