The low hanging, massive jumbo tron at the Dallas Cowboys’ new stadium was hit by a punt last night. Tennessee coach Jeff Fisher (who’s punter hit the jumbo tron) said the giant video screen could be a problem on punts.
Dallas owner Jerry Jones was hilariously dismissive of the problem (from the AP report):
“If your desire is to punt the ball straight up and hard, I can do that,” Jones said, according to the Dallas Morning News. “The height that we’ve got it wouldn’t [affect] normal kicks unless somebody just wanted to hit it.”
By rule in football, the play is ruled dead if a punt hits some thing above the field of play. The down is then re-played, meaning, Jones is not being far sighted if he does not see a possible problem.
Here is my list of inventive ways to use this new jumbo tron to your team’s advantage:
• Tired defense? Has your defense been on the field the whole game and now, after another three-and-out series by the offense, you’re worried about their stamina? Well, give them a rest by having your punter hit the scoreboard 20 times in a row.
• Screwed by a NFL ruling? Has the NFL recently ruled against your franchise in, say, a salary cap dispute? Then there’s no better way to get back at them than turning a prime time game against American’s team into a seven hour marathon where networks will have no chances to run commercials. Tell your punter to hit the scoreboard, on purpose, for two straight hours.
• Worried a fake punt won’t catch the defense by surprise? It will if you hit the jumbo tron for 17 straight attempts and then, out of no where, just have the long snapper run it up the middle on attempt 18.
• About to be sacked? Have your quarterback throw it straight up at the jumbo tron. They can’t call “intentional grounding”, if you’ve thrown it straight up, right?
I watched the Cubs / Dodgers game on Fox today. As though watching a game called by Joe Buck isn’t annoying enough, now the commercials are as equally insufferable because every company re-writes their ads to match Buck’s whimsical, ‘every good moment with dad was over baseball’ attitude.
My recap of every ad on Fox today, during the game:
Sports blogs are all decrying the peephole video of popular ESPN side line reporter Erin Andrews that has surfaced over the weekend
(report). They are reminding every one that it is a sick crime- even refusing to link to it, as that would only add publicity (even though they have never refused to link to unsuspecting photos of Erin Andrews before).
Our previous coverage, they say, of Erin Andrews is both light-hearted and mostly related to sports. It does not follow that we would endorse stalking, or this sickening level of objectification.
Of course. Where would some one get the idea you endorse this kind of behavior?
Results from a quick search of “Erin Andrews” at Sports Illustrated’s ‘Hot Clicks’ (their main daily blog by Jimmy Traina)
Tells readers he can start to breath normally again, after learning that a ring Erin Andrews wore last night is NOT an engagement ring:
Question: Fox News versus sports blogs- who is doing a better job of back-tracking, after a crazy viewer finally took their lazy, embellished reporting seriously?
note to readers: The VLR, unlike most sports blogs, is not above posting this video. We are simply not savvy enough to find it.
If you have it- forward it to us. We will add some sort of
“Visitors Locker Room” waterstamp to it and post it on our site.
…Please include instructions on how to waterstamp a video too.
from an AP report on Shaquille O’Neal arriving in Cleveland today:
O’Neal, who will wear jersey No. 33 — his high school and college number — in Cleveland, is staying at a posh downtown hotel during this visit.
He hasn’t decided if he will buy a house, rent or stay in a hotel during his time with the Cavaliers, his fifth NBA team.
As a native Clevelander, I can tell you –if Shaq is still debating about buying versus renting– his
plane has not landed yet. I’ve seen this discussion countless times with friends transferred to
Cleveland and it always ends the same, hilarious way:
“Will we be in Cleveland long enough?”
“Do we know the areas well enough to buy?”
“Should we wait to see if you like your job?”
Then –usually at their first cocktail party– they overhear some one mention how laughably
cheap their house was and, the next day, they buy a house. Once you hear how much a
house sells for in Cleveland, all those questions go out the window. It’s like when your
dad passes a garage sale with $1 bikes- he doesn’t care if you have no room for them; he
buys them because they are too cheap to pass up. I know one lady who moved to Cleveland from
San Francisco (the most expensive real estate market in America). She ended up buying
four houses.
Take this quaint, three bed room house on the east side:
Sure, it’s small for a NBA center, but guess how much it retails for in Cleveland, OH: $950. To buy, not rent. By comparison, there’s a guy across my street in Chicago selling a stroller for $400.
As a sports writer, I am required to write about a baseball memory with my father this week. But, before the panic of reading more baseball nostalgia sends you clicking away, please know that I am from Cleveland. Thus I do not have the same boring wistfulness of, say, a Dodgers fan who got to see a stately victory in perfect weather with his dad.
Instead, I would just like to share the two quotes I remember most vividly from old Cleveland Municipal Stadium. Both were stated, well, yelled, in near terror, during the second game of a back-to-back double header against The Detroit Tigers. The Indians were destroyed in both games (*) and, by the middle of the second game, the fans were hammered with nothing to watch.
Two or three fans already ran on to the field during the first game and, when it happened again during a pitching change in the second game, an angry, impromptu announcement blared through the stadium. In that same hostile tone they narrate drug commercials with (”does being high look cool now?”), the PA announcer shouted:
“$200 and a night in jail- doesn’t sound like a good time, does it fans?”
With that, about two dozen fans –from ten different parts of the stadium– ran on to the field. Fans were being lowered down to the field by friends; running with banners; climbing back up walls; dodging police officers- it was like a border had collapsed. I was never more proud to be from Cleveland. “Actually”, our city answered, “that sounds like a pretty great time.”
II
The next inning, a woman started stripping on top of the bleachers, using the stadium’s play clock to balance herself. Security guards immediately ran towards her, but they were quickly blocked by half the men in my section. The guards realized they would never power their way through this crowd and, half-defeated, I heard one of them yell,
“Fellas- I want to see this as bad as you, but there’s a 200 foot drop off on the other side of that clock!”
The crowd then let him pass. He reached the women, helped her down, and then lead her to be arrested while wearing his yellow security jacket. The crowd applauded both of them like they just saw Bob Hope introduce Marylin Monroe. My dad and I looked at each other. We both knew that we had just witnessed some thing important: the most chivalrous moment in Cleveland history. It has since been called, “The Fairy Tale of Lake Erie”.
(*) This was back when the Tigers had Fielder, Fryman, Tettleton and every one in their prime; and The Tribe had people like Stan Jefferson starting so it was never even close between the teams
The Visitors Locker Room starts a new schedule this week: Mondays and Fridays at 3 PM. We also have some fun segments planned for this week and special guests. Lastly, expect a big update on our podcast, which has been out-of-synch for a few weeks (sorry).
…I know every one is sharing the story, but I love the detail that the ump called a cop to help him eject the fans, and that the cop assisted despite seeing good behavior. I did not realize that, in the hierarchy of uniformed authority figures, police report to umps. (Some how, however, that makes perfect sense to me)
Please follow Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s twitter updates at Wall Umps, where VLR contributors Henry Scott and Mike Berger repeat his tweets, with added commentary:
