If you have a toss-up to weigh the chances of St. John's basketball's in the BIG EAST or John Edwards' chances in the Iowa Caucus and presidential race, I think Edwards has a far better shot at achieving his goal.
That says a lot about St. John's.
My beloved Johnnies are practicing in Hawaii to prepare for their Wednesday night (10pm et) match-up against Ohio University. The team will get a much needed boost from the return of Anthony Mason, Jr and the addition of red-shirt PF Rob Thomas.
Unless those two players can make significant contributions, the Johnnies are in big trouble.
Here are a few tid-bits:
o This year, St. John's was rated 14th in the BIG EAST by the vote of conference coaches. Only Rutgers and USF were rated lower.
o St. John’s is 41-10 in home games in the series against Niagara, and before today, had not lost a game in Queens to its upstate Vincentian rival since a 53- 49 loss on Feb. 16, 1963.
o In the 98 meetings vs. the Purple Eagles, which is second only to the 100 meetings between St. John's and Villanova, the Johnnies hold a 71-27 advantage over the Purple Eagles in the all-time series which dates back to 1909. The Red team has won eight of the last 11 meetings and 30 of the last 35 matchups. So, today's loss was big.
o St. John's had a two-week break in the schedule after a Dec. 2 loss at Miami (66-47). They return home for the tradition run in MSG's Holiday Festival.
The festival always brings back great memories for me. The most vivid being the 1973 Festival, won by Manhattan College and Billy Campion over the Mel Utley-led and favored Redmen, 74-65. My cousin, Bob - God Rest his Soul, brought me to the '73 match-up and we sat up in the Garden "Blue" seats. I never heard the end of it as Bob's Manhattan Jaspers defeated my Redmen.
A few years later, the 1975 Holiday Festival, featured the great Indiana team with Quinn Buckner, Kent Benson and Scott May. The Redmen were 'right in that game' until the end, but lost 76-69.
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This week's NEWSWEEK features John Edwards on the cover. The magazine headline reads, "Sleeper" while the inside touts the "Road Warrior." Here's a little tease of the story:
John Edwards was already on to the next thing. March 3, 2004, was a tough day for the rookie presidential candidate. He'd gone into the Super Tuesday primaries just a day earlier with momentum left over from a surprise second-place finish in Iowa and a victory in South Carolina, and hoped to win at least a few of the 10 states up for grabs that day. Instead, he'd failed to dominate any of them, not even Georgia. He was finished. He wasn't going to be president.
At least not yet. After withdrawing from the race, Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, chatted informally with staffers and campaign reporters at a farewell dinner at Sullivan's Steakhouse in Raleigh, N.C. The two were exhausted but relaxed, no longer feeling they had to watch their every word. Everyone was wondering if he would run again. Edwards, perhaps not wanting to appear impolitic, didn't touch the subject. But Elizabeth was in a more expansive mood, and spoke for her husband. At the hotel two nights before, they had stayed in room 2008. Surely, she said, that wasn't a coincidence. Standing beside her, Edwards unleashed his Tom Cruise smile, his deep-blue eyes twinkling.
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Interesting article in this past Sunday's New York Times:
Air Rights, Swapped for Schools
By C. J. HUGHES
THE thought of shrieks from playgrounds during recess may till now have distanced developers from choosing sites near schools. But with buildable city lots in such short supply, they now appear willing to reconsider.
Two Manhattan buildings are to rise close enough to schools that they will almost seem part of campus: the Azure, at 33 East 91st Street, and a condo-rental at 250 East 57th Street.
And if the schools and apartments end up looking similar, it’s because the same developers are to build both, under deals hammered out with city’s Educational Construction Fund, a division of the Department of Education.
Created in 1967 but dormant for some time, the fund works to ease overcrowding in schools by leasing unused air rights over low-slung buildings, in exchange for new classrooms.
In the past 40 years, the fund has added 18,000 school seats, said Jamie Smarr, its director, adding that the two new projects alone will create 2,700. “We’re getting $300 million of new construction out of this,” he said, “and none of it is going on the city’s books.”
The Azure, which broke ground in September, will be a “co-op with condo rules,” which means subletters won’t require board approval, said John Caiazzo, a vice president of the DeMatteis Organizations, based in Elmont on Long Island. It is a developer of the 32-story tower, along with the Mattone Group of College Point, Queens.
The Azure’s L-shaped lot had been home to Public School 151, which closed in 2000. The new structure, with 80,000 square feet across five floors, will serve Middle School 114, whose 350 students are now shoehorned into a nearby elementary school. It is set to open in September 2009, Mr. Caiazzo said.
The Azure’s 127 units will range from 600-square-foot studios to 1,970-square-foot three bedrooms, he added. Priced from $713,000 to $3.7 million, the units went on sale in October, though “only a few contracts have gone out.”
Mr. Caiazzo played down concerns about noise; the school’s 40-foot-wide recreation area will be away from apartments, he said.
In fact, proximity might be a plus. “We’ve gotten quite a few inquiries about people moving here, so their kids could attend that school,” he said.
The high-rise at 250 East 57th Street, as designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, is an angular 59-story glass tower over a retail base. Its offering plan still requires state approval.
But David Lowenfeld, a principal with World-Wide Group, its Manhattan-based developer, envisions a total of 320 units, from studios to three-bedrooms. Sixty percent will be condos, priced at $1,500 a square foot, he said.
The 1.5-acre site now houses P.S. 59 and the High School of Art and Design, which faces Second Avenue. For the 2011 school year, the schools will have roomier new quarters. The elementary will triple in size, and the high school will grow 40 percent, Mr. Smarr said.
First, though, World-Wide Group must build P.S. 59 a temporary facility; It is currently under construction on East 63rd Street.
But what about noise from P.S. 59’s future rooftop playground? “This is the middle of New York,” Mr. Lowenfeld said. “People are used to noise.”
My Portland Trail Blazing buddy, Mike, finds himself in an "NFL Network-like" bind out in Portland. Maybe worse? Here is the latest take on the Blazers' TV situation:
Blazers' fans caught in a cable turf battle
Televised sports - Only Comcast subscribers get the games -- there's no deal with satellite or other providers
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
BRENT HUNSBERGER
The Oregonian
More than a month into the NBA season, tens of thousands of Portland Trail Blazers fans in Oregon and southwest Washington can't see most of their team's games on television.
Only Comcast Corp. cable subscribers can watch all games, carried on Comcast's new regional sports network. Even subscribers of Charter Communications Inc., a cable company owned by Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen, are shut out.
The reason: Comcast, which owns rights to game coverage and operates a dominant cable system, has not come to terms with satellite or other cable TV providers to transmit the games. As a result, nearly all residents who subscribe to satellite or live outside the Willamette Valley can't watch at home.
Industry observers say it's no coincidence that such a fracture would affect sports fans. Cable operators covet regional sports coverage because its power to draw an audience can boost their market shares -- and trim those of operators without it. But, observers say, it also illustrates a reality for everyone: Bare-knuckle competitive tactics can limit choices for viewers and potentially boost prices.
In the past two years, the problem has attracted scrutiny from federal regulators. But the line between tough negotiations and unfair competition is fine, and regulators are reluctant to step in, largely leaving private companies to sort things out.
Meantime, the impasse has confused and angered fans, many of whom blame the team for allowing such an agreement. One fan is organizing a boycott of the team and its sponsors.
"Seems to me, the Trail Blazers are missing a big market," said Don Cleland, once a team physician who retired to an area outside Washougal, Wash., served only by satellite.
Such stalemates have unfolded elsewhere, too. In Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Sacramento, cable and satellite providers have clashed over access to marquee sports programming, leaving consumers helpless on the sidelines.
Last year, the Federal Communications Commission tried a new tack to avert such disputes. It approved the buyout of Adelphia Communications Inc. by Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. on condition that Comcast share all current and future regional sports networks with competitors on reasonable terms -- or face commercial arbitration.
Under the order, only cable and satellite companies -- not consumers -- can force arbitration. So far in the Blazers' case, neither satellite nor Paul Allen's cable company has done so.
"Willingness to fight"
"The best consumers can hope for is that (Comcast's) rivals successfully bring a case somewhere," said Hal Singer, president of Criterion Economics, a Washington, D.C., economic consulting firm that advised a client in a similar dispute with Comcast. "Comcast has shown a willingness to fight these things out as opposed to caving."
A Comcast spokesman, denying any hardball tactics, said the company's main interest is to get its new network into as many homes as possible. Doing so, he said, brings more revenue from advertisers and fees from cable providers.
"We succeed in this business when our distribution and our viewership increases," said spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick, who declined to detail negotiations.
In a statement, Charter spokesman Craig Watson said the company is studying the arbitration option.
The dispute brews as cable companies struggle to keep subscribers amid new competition from phone providers. Verizon Communications Inc. this week began piping cable TV programs into the first of what will eventually be 230,000 suburban Portland homes. Three of the nation's largest cable companies -- Comcast, Time Warner and Charter -- reported net declines in subscribers in their fiscal third quarters.
Comcast, the nation's largest provider, dominates the biggest cities on the I-5 corridor between Longview, Wash., and Eugene. More than half of television owners in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington subscribe to cable, according to Nielsen Media Research, while 28 percent use an alternative, mostly satellite.
Nationally, sports networks of Comcast -- it now owns nine -- have become critical chess pieces in its strategy because subscribers value the live action more than other programming.
"Sports falls in one of the categories of what we call must-have," said Richard Ramlall, senior vice president of strategic and external affairs at RCN Corp., a New Jersey-based cable provider. "Without access to that, you lose customers."
Comcast outbid Fox
The dispute over Blazers games was seeded in May, when Comcast outbid rival Fox Sports Northwest to win rights to broadcast most games. Until last season, Fox had televised games through various cable and satellite providers covering much of the region. Comcast's 10-year deal is worth as much as $13 million a year to the NBA team -- at least three times what Fox had paid to carry the games, according to Sports Business Daily.
Using Trail Blazers games as an anchor, the company launched Comcast SportsNet Northwest in November, making it available to its 600,000 subscribers in Oregon and southwest Washington.
In that region, some 350,000 satellite subscribers and 300,000 subscribers of other cable systems -- including Charter's 200,000 customers in Oregon and Washington -- can't get the network's 53 Blazers games.
Cable companies claim Comcast wants too high a price for the network. Comcast, they say, also wants the network included in extended basic service. But the channel's content -- which includes high school sports and sports talk radio -- isn't compelling enough to distribute so widely, they say.
Competitors and industry experts say Comcast is driving a hard bargain to keep subscribers from switching to satellite providers such as DirecTV Inc. or Dish Network and to phone companies such as Verizon.
"It's all about market share and protecting their turf," said Seth Palansky, communications director at the NFL Network, which is locked in its own dispute with Comcast.
Federal law, with rare exceptions, requires cable companies to offer programming to cable and satellite competitors on fair terms. But regulators and industry experts allege that when companies such as Comcast and Time Warner control both the supply and distribution of sports programming, they can demand higher rights fees from competitors -- possibly driving rates up for everyone, including non-sports fans.
For instance, they say:
In Comcast's hometown of Philadelphia, the cable company denies satellite providers access to the city's pro baseball, hockey and basketball team games. Partly as a result, the FCC found, the region's satellite penetration was 11 percent in 2005, about half the national average of 22 percent.
Comcast disputes those estimates and says the Philadelphia case is unique. Federal law exempts programming delivered to cable companies via land lines, as Comcast does in Philadelphia. Most cable programs are distributed to cable companies via satellite.
In Sacramento, Comcast won rights to broadcast Sacramento Kings games in 2004. Charter and DirectTV accused Comcast of overcharging for the channel and requiring them to carry games far outside Sacramento, where fewer Kings fans live.
In Washington, D.C., the newly formed Mid-Atlantic Sports Network beat out Comcast for the rights to carry Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles baseball games. Comcast then refused to carry the network, meaning most residents of the nation's Capitol couldn't see Nationals games for most of the 2006 season.
The Washington impasse prompted federal regulators to establish the arbitration condition in the Adelphia purchase. The FCC concluded that the lack of access to sports networks in both Philadelphia and San Diego reduced satellite subscriptions by at least a third.
Spokespersons for Verizon, DirecTV and Charter all say negotiations over Comcast SportsNet Northwest continue.
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If you ask people about their "favorite foursome for golf," very often the name, Bill Murray, will come up as a choice. Go figure?
You can play with some of the greatest golfers, greatest minds and greatest human beings that have ever walked the earth. And, you pick Bill Murray?
If I were asked the question, my answer would be:
Tiger Woods
Jack Nicklaus
and Brian McIntyre
(With Brian there, I wouldn't be the worst of the foursome).
On the all-time list:
My Dad
JFK
John Lennon
(It would be fun to bring them all back for a nice day).
If comedy is the goal, for those Bill Murray voters:
Charles Barkley
Michael Jordan
and Bill Murray, of course.
MJ and Bill would ride Chuck for the entire round...
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