Top 5 Sports Stories

Happy Tuesday everyone, here's my Top 5 for November 10, 2009 from www.ThatsSports.com.

1. Quick Hits

Basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has leukemia. He says his prognosis is good.

Hideki Matsui and Johnny Damon both file for free agency. Both would like to stay with the Yankees.

In Monday Night Football, Pittsburgh beat Denver 28-10. Both teams are now 6-2.

One of the good guys, former Ranger defenseman Brian Leetch was among those inducted into the Hockey's Hall of Fame last night.

Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim bagged his 800th career win when Syracuse beat Albany 75-43.

Isiah Thomas is looking for his first college coaching win after Florida International got beaten by defending national champion North Carolina 88-72.

2. Too Much Information

After watching Andre Agassi on 60 Minutes I'm conflicted. OK, he took crystal meth, hated tennis, wore a bad wig and thought his marriage to Brooke Shields was a mistake. Clearly he had secrets nobody knew about. When he made his "miraculous" comeback in 1998 it was a "warm and fuzzy" story. Clearly it was all a lie. So how many other sports lies do we all buy into? And do we really need to know what lurks in the darkest corners of athletes lives? What ever happened to just "root, root, rooting for the home team?"

3. More Numbers

Yesterday I talked about the slide in World Series TV ratings from the first Yankee championship in 1996, despite the increase in population. Many of you sent along your reasons why baseball is "less popular." But here's the perspective of Matt Bourne, the VP of business public relations for Major League Baseball: "If you look at just about every other property both sports and entertainment, you will see dramatic viewership and ratings decreases over the past 10-20 years, despite the increase in population. The reasons are plentiful including the increase in number of ways people are able to spend their free time, the unbelievable strides made in video games, the boom of the Internet, and the increase in the number of television channels which cater to the specific interests of individuals splintering the audiences. The fact remains that there are very few programming options that can aggregate the kind of audience that the World Series was able to over the past two weeks." He does allow that the NFL has defied the odds with their TV ratings.

4. The Greatest Moments in Sports

Today marks the official release of my new kids book, The Greatest Moments in Sports. It includes an audio CD of some of the great moments. We don't rank the moments, 1 through 25, but I do select the #1 all time sports moment. Care to guess? Anyway, I'm very proud of this book, it's my 4th, 3rd kids book. What a perfect holiday gift for the youngster on your list.

For a rundown of book signings and national radio and TV appearances, go to my newly designed website (under construction), ThatsSports.com I apologize for the blatant commercial, but hey, you're not paying for my Top 5 right?

Now back to our regularly scheduled program

5. Slammin' Sammy

There's a debate raging. Sammy Sosa's skin looks lighter in recent photographs, and some are wondering if he's "going Michael Jackson on us?" A friend of Sosa's says he's merely going through a skin rejuvenation process.

So if you're scoring at home. He corked his bat, he's used performance enhancing drugs (he reportedly flunked a drug test). And now he's onto appearance enhancement. Is that the alteration triple crown?

Happy Birthday: Former NYU basketball great Barry Kramer. 67.

Bonus Birthday: Actress Mackenzie "I slept with my father" Phillips. 50.

Today in Sports: Miami quarterback Dan Marino becomes the first to pass for 28 miles. (50,000 yards). 1996.

Bonus Event: Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away. The debut of Sesame Street on PBS. 1969.

Extra Bonus event suggested by subscriber Tom B. The birth of the U.S. Marine Corps. 1775.

 

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