Bits & Pieces

By Kim J. Harmon

Are you like me? Are all these distressing stories in sports wearing you out?

I mean the Kobe Bryant rape trial, the accusations that cancer survivor Lance Armstrong has been doping before bike races, a grown man practically trampling a young boy for a baseball, the realization that all-time good guy Kirby Puckett wasn’t all that good of a guy, the allegations that Calvin Murphy (who has 14 children by nine different women) abused five of his daughter, the death threats received by Orlando Magic general manager John Weisbrod after trading Tracy McGrady, and – locally – the somewhat recent discovery that a technical school coach had been having a sexual relationship with one of the players on his basketball team (outlined in a story in Cosmos Girl magazine).

Stories like that.

I know its terribly naïve (and I don’t really believe this, only wish it were true), but isn’t sports supposed to be about stuff like perseverance and triumph and teamwork and all that? Isn’t there enough bad news in the world without it affecting our beloved sports?

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Good stories? Summer in Newtown always seems to provide us with good stories.

Like Newtown High School lineman Dan Cascone committing to the University of Wisconsin for 2005; like the Newtown Babe Ruth Baseball 10-year-old All Stars capturing the Cal Ripken Tournament title at Glander Field; and like the Newtown Babe Ruth Baseball 9-year-old All Stars ripping it up at the Bethel Tournament.

What’s great is, there is more to come.

There always is. With CVFL Tournaments (softball), district tournaments, state and regional tournaments all to be played there is a great chance we will see and hear a lot of good sports stories over the next couple of months.

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Are you looking for some decent sports talk in the morning? Have you tried ESPN 1050 AM yet?

Ever since I have been working at The Newtown Bee, I’ve listened to the Imus in the Morning show (former sports editor Tom Wyatt turned me on to it) and only occasionally – say, whenever some political dumbbell was on – I would switch over to a CD.

I have been getting tired of Imus, though, and one morning – probably when he began schlepping Tom Brokaw’s newest book – I waited for the sports report from bumbling Sid Rosenberg. When it didn’t come, I switched over to the Mike & Mike show on ESPN 1050.

I haven’t been back to Imus since.

I know a lot of people like to listen to Mike & The Mad Dog on WFAN in the afternoon … but what are we to do in the morning, on the way to work? Mike & Mike solves that problem and at least gives you a reasonable sports show before the pompous attitudes and rampant psychoses of the Mike & The Mad Dog program on WFAN in the afternoon.

Give Mike & Mike a listen.

The Michael Kay Show at 10 am is okay, but Michael Kay has always bugged me on New York Yankees broadcasts with his seemingly perfect baseball diction – ground rules double rather than ground rule double and Constantino Martinez rather than Tino Martinez. The Dan Patrick Show is kind of goofy, too, but sometimes more fun than Mike & The Mad Dog.

Sometimes – when they all bug the heck out of me – I just slip in St. Anger by Metallica and rattle my eardrums.

But maybe I should just concentrate on driving, eh?