Extra, Extra

This just in: the Internet is really, really popular.

Interested but not surprised that Jay Mariotti handed in his resignation from the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years at the paper. (Okay, maybe a little surprised -- he's walking away from $2 million a year, apparently.)

The rationale delivered by Mariotti sounds logical enough: print journalism is getting creamed by the Internet, and he doesn't want to go down with the ship. Fine. But does anyone believe that he doesn't already have something else in his back pocket? To repeat: $2 million per year. One doesn't walk away from cheese like that, no matter how dismayed one may be about the state of one's industry. He's got to have something else lined up already -- if not, well, he must be awfully confident about his resume'.

Anyway, I'm interested, but not surprised. The newspaper industry is in dire straits these days. Just across the street from Mariotti's old haunt, the rival Chicago Tribune is in a pitched battle for its own survival, as new owner Sam Zell is attempting to sell the Cubs and Wrigley Field in order to raise cash for the heavily-leveraged newspaper operation. Here in Florida, many dailies have already inflicted massive job cuts, including the Palm Beach Post, the Miami Herald, the Tampa Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel, to name but a few. Surely, no matter where you may be as you read this, the same thing is happening in your market as well.

Why?

Saying "it's the economy" or "it's the Internet" is convenient, but what is it that makes the newspaper business so much less viable, and suddenly?

In my view, two words: timeliness and distribution.

Timeliness is obvious. The Internet is quite literally always on. As more and more credible journalistic outlets pour their resources into online news gathering, we will reach a point (if not already) where there is, for all intents and purposes, zero lag time between the event and the reporting of the event. Printed newspapers, by definition, can never compete with that.

Personally, I like reading a hard copy of the newspaper, if only so that I can scan headlines, move from one story to the next quickly, double back and re-read something I skipped. Online newspaper sites don't afford that quick flexibility, particularly if one has a slow connection. However, as the technology improves and the creative catches up with the technical -- I'm still waiting for a major daily newspaper to come up with a one-webpage format that gives readers a method of scanning more than just headlines all at once -- that 'ease of use' concern will fade.

Newspapers are well aware of the immediacy of the Internet, of course, and have been blasting full-speed towards moving the bulk of their resources to their online divisions. Every columnist and reporter in the country is now compelled to blog; every major paper in the country is pushing its website in print. The problem is, they're still a few years behind, and still moving too slowly.

Consider this nugget from the Silicon Alley Insider last summer: as of August 2007, the "total monthly online revenue for the entire public newspaper industry amount[ed] to approximately 15% of Google's monthly US revenue."

Why? Because Google was there first, and had plenty of time to ingrain itself into our minds as the first-choice source of finding information on the Internet. Only when it became apparent to the print industry that no amount of indignation or disbelief could stem the public stampede to the Internet did they (the papers) decide to jump in. Thus, they're so far behind the curve, they can barely see it from here.

Which brings us to distribution. From this laptop, I can read almost any newspaper in the world, instantly. The cost to me is my Internet connection -- which is zero if I'm at work, a manageable monthly bill if I'm at home. Those newspaper websites themselves are maintained via a server -- a large initial investment, but not prohibitive -- and a staff, which can vary in size, but can be "doubled up" with the newspaper's print division as a cost-saving move. There's nothing to stop a print editor from doubling as an online editor, for example.

Point being, when you calculate the total cost of me reading a story online, factoring in my time, my Internet connection, my computer, the newspaper company's server, the staff required, and the like, economies of scale dictate that it comes down to pennies per minute, or per story.

Now -- compare that to reading a story in print. I buy the newspaper: 25 cents, or perhaps $1.25 on Sunday. How much energy was required to run the presses that printed all of those papers? How many employees work the press? How many trucks were required to carry those papers to distribution centers, and how much gas did they use? How much gas did the newspaper carrier use to deliver that paper to my house?

The newspaper model suffers against the Internet model primarily because of distribution (which itself is related to timeliness). Printing and delivering all of those newspapers creates a massive cost; any slippage in sales, advertising, or subscriptions sends the print world over the edge. Which is happening right now.

So how can newspapers keep up, other than layoffs and pushing web traffic?

The answer is out there, but I don't know enough about distribution systems to guess. There's got to be a Long Tail-type solution, something along the lines of Amazon or Rhapsody, but I'm not sure what it is. I do believe, however, that newspapers are not dead.

The model simply has to change. I can't blame Jay Mariotti for deciding to bail instead of waiting for the newspaper industry to figure it out.

Is It Time Yet?

It's about damn time.

Don't get me wrong -- what Tiger Woods did at the US Open was spectacular TV. The Nadal-Federer final at Wimbledon was the best tennis match I've ever seen. The Tampa Bay Rays, as I've written several times before, are one of the best sports stories (not 'baseball' stories -- sports stories) of the last decade. And Michael Phelps is probably the most dominant Olympian we'll ever see in our lifetimes.

I get it. Blah, blah, and furthermore, blah.

Can we please play some freaking college football already?

I've been getting more "when do you guys come back?" e-mails this summer than ever before, which is a good thing. That means we've achieved traction in our college football coverage. August 25th officially kicks it off with the first episode of "Tailgate Overtime," with the entire cast returning: former UM quarterback Steve Walsh, former Florida State fullback William Floyd, and former UF wideout Chris Doering on the 'player panel,' with the media side once again represented by Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi and national sports radio host Todd Wright.

And me, playing the role of Bus Driver, every Monday night at 7pm.

I've already had a few people ask me about this -- "College Kickoff," the Friday night matchup show featuring Brady Ackerman and Terry Norvelle, will not be back in 2008. Additionally, we will no longer be producing those live one-hour postgame shows after Florida and FSU football games -- but check Gatorzone.com and Seminoles.com, both of which offer extensive streaming audio and video, including postgame press conferences.

Anyone who might be interested in the factors that led to those programming decisions can e-mail me, and I'll put you in touch with someone at Sun Sports & FSN Florida who will not only answer your question, but give you a rundown of all the college football programming that we're offering this season. That said, our goal is to pour all available resources into "Tailgate Overtime" on Monday nights, plus we offer this little carrot: five pregame shows, live and on location around the state, at some of the most intriguing games of the year. Seeing as how we used to do these shows from a studio with satellite "look-ins" at game sites, I'm thrilled to be finally taking our show on the road. Look for me, Brady, and a cast of who-knows-how-many outside the stadium one hour prior to kickoff at the following games:

Miami at Florida, Sept. 6
Florida State at Miami, Oct. 4
LSU at Florida, Oct. 11
Florida - Georgia (Jacksonville), Nov. 1
Florida at Florida State, Nov. 29

Not a bad lineup.

Aside from those five games, here's my preseason watch list for the first month of the college football season, a highly unscientific composite of games that will be worth your time in September:

FAU at Texas, August 30

Never mind the fact that UCF scared the holy crap out of the Longhorns at the Knights' opener in their new stadium last season -- FAU head coach/trailblazer/demigod Howard Schnellenberger raised the bar on this innocuous non-conference opener by opining that Texas "wasn't tough," suggesting that the mighty Borrowing Owls will simply lay multiple hats on whichever unsuspecting five-star wideout Texas rolls out there and subsequently send the 'Horns into the fetal position. Uffta.

While said comments ignited the Texas message boards, Schnelly backed off in subsequent interviews, claiming that he never really, umm, *said* that.

Doesn't matter. It's out there. And now the Owls, who claimed their first ever Sun Belt Conference title and gained an historic bowl win in 2007, are on the hook.

Sidebar: when I forwarded Howard's comments in an e-mail to Sun Sports studio producer Jamie Shapiro (Subject: What The Hell Was He Thinking???), Jamie replied, "he's a genius. This is the same coach who was laughed at in 1979 when he said that Miami was on a collision course with a national championship [a line he's also used at FAU]."

Yeah, but that was MIAMI. This is Florida Atlantic. He can't be right...can he?

USF at UCF, September 6

Everyone knows the drill by now: South Florida doesn't need this game, and doesn't want it. Too much to lose as a BCS-conference program playing a state rival from a non-BCS league, and the Bulls don't consider the Knights to be on their level anyway. The Knights are desperate to prove that they really are the team that won a school-record 10 games en route to a conference title and a bowl berth last season, not the squad that got hammered by South Florida 64-12 last October; the Bulls are desperate to prove that they really are the team that reached the #2 spot in the BCS standings last season, not the team that lost 3 in a row after a 6-0 start and went on to get smoked by Oregon 56-21 in the Sun Bowl.

I've written this before, and said it on the air: this series needs to continue. It's good for college football in Florida, even if the Bulls don't believe it's good for them.

USF at FIU, September 20

This game is interesting not so much for the potential outcome; odds are that the Golden Panthers will get hammered. The question is, by how much? Will FIU bring any home field advantage into this contest? And how does Jim Leavitt feel about playing UCF and FIU -- two non-BCS state rival programs that offer them little return -- on the road, in the same season?

Florida International went 0-11 last season before finally breaking through against North Texas, and head coach Mario Cristobal has been recruiting his guts out ever since he got the gig. FIU won't win this game, but the strides that the program is making under Cristobal -- who could motivate ice to stop melting -- will be apparent when the clock goes all-zeroes.

That's just September, mind you.

We haven't even touched on Florida's chances in the SEC, Miami's stunning youth movement (remember two names: Forston and Spence), or the fact that this could be, maybe, Bobby Bowden's final season at Florida State.

Pace yourselves, people. It's only the beginning.

Fay vs. Rays

"I'm scared. People will be evacuating and the dumb--- Angels are going there."

So said Torii Hunter, Angels outfielder, prior to this week's three game series at Tampa Bay. I suppose I could have said the same thing, subbing "dumb--- sportscaster," of course.

Tropical Storm Fay was nice enough to allow the Angels and I to arrive in St. Petersburg unharmed on Monday, and as we watch the weather today, it appears that the rest of the series will continue as scheduled. I'm here to fill in as the sideline reporter and host on FSN Florida; the Angels are here to test the Rays' resolve, again.

Playing without Carl Crawford and Evan Longoria, the Rays went 7-3 on their ten-day, three-city road trip. That was one game better than Boston's last ten, which stretched Tampa Bay's lead in the AL East to 4.5 games. The Rays returned to the Bay early Monday morning after their final roadie at Texas. I spoke to the FSN Florida production staff when I arrived on Monday, and most of them didn't get to bed until 5am that morning. How these people maintain this schedule for 162 games is a constant source of wonder for me.

Stepping into Todd Kalas's seat is a unique challenge. While Joe Magrane is in New York calling Olympic baseball for NBC, Todd moves upstairs as a color analyst for a couple of games alongside play-by-play announcer Dewayne Staats. That leaves me to handle the pregame and sideline duties. I welcome these chances to work Rays games -- especially this year -- and would certainly never complain about it, but it's tough to develop a rhythm when you see the team in person only once a month. Having two games this week as opposed to a "one-off" makes a big difference. The prep time for Game 2 is dramatically less than that of Game 1. Simply attending the previous night's game, hearing the locker room talk and weighing the mood at the stadium, makes an enormous difference in my job. Hard to explain, but it goes for anything I do -- NBA, college football, whatever. I'm sure Paul Kennedy feels the same way when he has to step in on the Chevy Florida Fishing Report.

Good game last night, albeit one characterized by mistakes: Vlad Guerrero's defensive brain cramp in right that led to a Rays run, BJ Upton's much-discussed baserunning error, a blown cutoff by the Angels that allowed Justin Ruggiano to score the final run of the game -- after Ruggiano ran through a stop sign at third. Interesting that two teams who pride themselves on doing things 'the right way' -- or 'the Rays way,' according to signs inside the Tampa Bay clubhouse -- had a game decided largely on dumb luck. Baseball, as they say, is a funny game.

The Rays are doing it the right way, of course, something that I have written about extensively in this space before. Monday's crowd was still sparse, but cut them some slack -- there was a freaking hurricane coming, or so we thought.

(On that note -- fantastic column in Monday's Tampa Tribune by Daniel Ruth. Pretty much sums up my view of the weather industry. And yes, it is an industry -- making quasi-educated guesses about that which is mostly unpredictable.)

Two more with the Angels -- weather permitting -- and then into September. Meanwhile, on the TV front, the first episode of 'Tailgate Overtime' on Sun Sports is this coming Monday at 7, with everyone back. Pretty cool that the Rays will be playing meaningful games during college football season for the first time ever.

See you on TV.

Skip Caray, 1939-2008

As I was on vacation last week and unable to dedicate any amount of time to blogging, a few words on the passing of Skip Caray.

As an Orlando native who grew up in the '70s, my team was the Atlanta Braves. This was pre-Rays, pre-Marlins, pre-anything resembling a professional sports franchise in my home state other than the Dolphins and the Bucs (who joined the NFL when I was five years old). The Braves, as we all know, were catapulted to the rank of 'America's Team' when Ted Turner had this wacky idea to broadcast their games nationwide via satellite -- a concept that Caray himself called "nuts" when Turner proposed it for the '77 season.

Most of us remember great sports announcers in pairs, and I cannot think of Skip Caray without also thinking of Pete Van Wieren. No offense to the inimitable Ernie Johnson Sr., but it was Van Wieren's pleasant tones that stuck in my head. Interestingly enough, the Braves were my first exposure to the concept of the two-man play-by-play booth, wherein two equally competent play-by-play men would split the call by innings, trading seats, as it were, from PXP to analysis and back. That's much, much harder to do than it sounds. In fact, as I recall, Skip, Ernie, and Pete used to switch back and forth from radio to television in those days (again, during the same game), which is completely unheard of now. That, friends, is serious talent.

(Aside: that is also how I got my first live play-by-play experience. When I moved back to Orlando after graduation in 1993, I was introduced to Andrew Monaco, who was the radio play-by-play voice of the Orlando Cubs (Southern League, AA) and a former Magic employee. Andrew invited me into the booth at Tinker Field several times, using me -- a former high school and college baseball player -- as his 'analyst,' mostly because he was bored out of his mind. One night, without any warning, he pulled a Skip 'n Ernie on me, saying into his live microphone: "Cubs lead it 2-0 over the Birmingham Barons here at Tinker Field. Now, with the play-by-play call for the next three innings, here's Whit Watson." And with that, he took off his headset, folded his arms, sat back in his chair, and stared straight out towards the field with a hint of a smile. A simple act that merely changed the course of my career. I've probably never thanked him enough for that.)

One of Andrew's favorite shticks during those long, quiet, sleepy Southern League games was reading the "out-of-town scoreboard" -- in his case, scores from the Japanese League. You had to be there. With a totally straight face, he would update his Orlando audience on the Seibu Lions versus the Tokyo Giants. It was really, really funny. Skip was funny, too, but in a different way -- a scathing, sarcastic, very subtle way.

He had to be funny, too, because the Braves were God-awful back then. My father took me "up to Atlanta" several times to catch Braves' homestands during those summers, and we pretty much had Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to ourselves. Even when they were good -- during the Dale Murphy - Bob Horner - Chris Chambliss years -- they maintained the feel of a local club. Different era and all that.

There are three things that stick with me about watching the Braves during my childhood. The first is the stadium itself, the old "Launching Pad," set in a less-than scenic neighborhood and utterly bland; but it was my first Major League ballpark, and that was enough.

The second thing I remember is my great-aunt Sarah, who lived with my uncle Lou in an historic neighborhood close to downtown Atlanta. Every night for the entire summer, Sarah would pull on her Braves cap, fix herself some dinner, and camp out in the living room to watch her Braves. She spoke to the television as if speaking to her own children, a quirk that cracked me up to no end. We made sure to take Aunt Sarah with us to at least one or two Braves games when we came up for our annual visits; the look on her face when she entered the stadium was not unlike my own. Aunt Sarah is still kicking, by the way, although much of her memory has faded.

The third part of my Braves childhood, of course, was Skip. That nasal delivery was beyond distinctive; it WAS the Braves, at least, as far as I was concerned.

The best Skip Caray call that I can remember is one that has no doubt been mentioned countless times elsewhere -- Francisco Cabrera's pinch-hit RBI single to score Sid Bream and win the 1992 National League Championship Series. I was a senior in college at Cornell, with a final exam the next morning, so I shut myself in my room and listened to the game on the radio, with Skip's call. When Bream came chugging home to deliver the pennant -- on two surgically-repaired knees, no less -- I sprinted down the hallway of my fraternity house to watch the replay on television. I'm pretty sure I was whooping at the time.

Want to know what made Skip unique? His call of that play was terrific, no doubt, but a few moments before Cabrera swung, Skip pretty much predicted it.

"There's a huge gap in left-center field," I remember him saying just before the fateful pitch. "If he hits it there, we can dance in the streets."

That level of attention to detail -- that ability to see the whole field, the whole game -- is what made Skip a special announcer. I think about that call all the time. Honestly. When I do a football game, or a basketball game, I spend as much time and energy watching what's happening away from the ball as I do watching the play. I'd like to think I learned that from Skip Caray's call in 1992. I can tell you with certainty that I listened to that call about a dozen times in my capacity as sports director at Cornell's WVBR-FM, and it never got old.

It's become cliche' to suggest that announcers like Skip are a thing of the past, but I submit the opposite: the team announcers who truly resonate with audiences today are precisely like Skip. Critical when they need to be, supportive when deserved, funny when the game demands some levity. Human. People like us, but with a much better view of the game. They make us feel like we're a part of it, like we matter. Even Skip's most famously caustic late-game remark from those dog days -- "you have our permission to turn off the TV and go walk the dog, as long as you promise to patronize our sponsors" -- is inclusive. He KNEW the game was a stinker, and respected his audience enough to realize that they could see it, too. There are a lot of announcers in our business -- too many, probably -- who believe that they are the reason we watch. They're not.

We're there to see the game, and the announcer is supposed to facilitate. That's what I liked about Skip. He wasn't the show, and he knew it. In fact, he seemed to revel in it. For that, I thank him.

May he rest in peace.

Beantown Gazette

Wanna know why I love Boston so much?

I mean, aside from fresh seafood, smart people, a stunningly pleasant result from the Big Dig, great neighborhoods, a ton of history, and personality to spare?

It's because you never know who you're going to run into.

Took my son to his first ever Major League Baseball game on Sunday, and it happened to be the Red Sox at Fenway. As we fought our way through the crowds on a sun-splashed Back Bay afternoon, working our way towards our seats along the first base line, we stopped at a food stand for the obligatory Fenway Frank. As I'm waiting in line, I hear someone call my name.

Huh?

It was Scott Anez, the sports director at Orlando's 580 WDBO. Scott is the Magic pregame host on radio, and his wife is from New England. Turns out, he was on vacation, visiting family, taking in a Red Sox game, exactly as I was doing. I would later learn that we were staying at the same hotel. Weird.

Wanna hear something even more weird?

Earlier this summer, I found out that Bill Pidto was leaving ESPN after ten-plus years. My former co-workers sent me an e-mail inviting me to a going-away party, which, sadly, I could not attend, but I taped a farewell message alongside Mark Cassoni, another ESPN refugee, who, like me, worked with Bill in Bristol many years ago.

So anyway, same Red Sox game, a few minutes after I saw Scott, I hear my name called again.

Huh?

Pidto. Sitting four rows behind me and Zach. We chatted for a while -- he was on his way to the Cape for a vacation with his family as they plot their next move. Said hello, he thanked me for the video tribute, and he was off.

The Red Sox won, by the way. Oh, and my son got to drive the boat during our Duck Tour yesterday.

This has been a VERY good week.