Looking for a few good fans
One of our faithful Ledger-Enquirer readers, Sam Ruffner, recently asked me about resurrecting a feature that used to appear in our sports section during college football season.
He proposed bringing back a weekly Top 25 poll as voted on by readers.
I figure our readers can't do any worse than a panel of sportswriters or coaches, although it wouldn't surprise me if our top 10 included Georgia, Auburn and Alabama in some order based on fan loyalties in this area.
Anyway, I pitched the idea of the poll to our sports editor. He liked it.
The next step is to determine what form it should take.
My thoughts are to make it online-only. We put a poll format on our web site and you log on and vote. I figure we can leave the polling open from Sunday morning until Monday night so those folks who lack computer access on the weekends can limit their productivity at work by deciding whether to put South Florida ahead of Missouri.
Anyway, let me know what you think about the concept.
And, if you have any ideas for a name, we're open to those as well (I think "Super Fan Football Extravaganza" might be a little wordy and sounds a bit too similar to a Japanese game show).
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Monday, August 04, 2008
A distinctive voice goes silent
If you follow the Atlanta Braves, this particular call from Skip Caray will live in your imagination forever:
"A lot of room in right-center. If he hits one there we can dance in the streets. The 2-1. Swung, line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here's the throw to the plate! He is ... Safe! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! ... Braves win!
"They may have to hospitalize Sid Bream -- he's down at the bottom of a huge pile at the plate.''
I remember where I was when Caray called the moment during Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series. I was sitting in the living room with my late father, watching Francisco Cabrera's line drive drop and watching Bream chug around the bases and just barely beat the throw. The great announcers frame such moments without overpowering them and, in that regard, Caray obviously learned well from his legendary father, Harry.
What made Skip Caray, who died in his sleep Sunday, stand out even more was the fact that he told it the way he saw it. Even though he was expected to be something of a homer while covering the Braves for TBS, he put his sarcasm to effective use when the team wasn't performing well. His wisecracks, about everything from Shea Stadium to the Montreal Expos' oddball mascot Youppi, provided the perfect balance to the prim and proper baseball scholar, Pete Van Wieren.
He represented one of the last members of a sports broadcast generation that existed without yelling, screaming and shameless self-promotion, a breed that included gruff but cuddly curmudgeons like his father and smooth stylists like Vin Scully.
"His legendary calls and trademark wit on TBS baseball are what resonated most with fans nationally and will not soon be forgotten,'' Turner Sports president David Levy said Monday in a statement.
Turner Sports will honor Caray over the next several weeks on its family of networks. There will be rememberances of hims during its upcoming telecast of the PGA Championship on TNT, a feature on its Aug. 10 Sunday MLB on TBS telecast and another set for an Atlanta Braves' game on Peachtree TV on Aug. 12 to coincide with what would have been his 69th birthday.
Those ideas are nice, but the best and most appropriate way to pay tribute to the impact of Caray's work would be enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
If you follow the Atlanta Braves, this particular call from Skip Caray will live in your imagination forever:
"A lot of room in right-center. If he hits one there we can dance in the streets. The 2-1. Swung, line drive left field! One run is in! Here comes Bream! Here's the throw to the plate! He is ... Safe! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! Braves win! ... Braves win!
"They may have to hospitalize Sid Bream -- he's down at the bottom of a huge pile at the plate.''
I remember where I was when Caray called the moment during Game 7 of the 1992 National League Championship Series. I was sitting in the living room with my late father, watching Francisco Cabrera's line drive drop and watching Bream chug around the bases and just barely beat the throw. The great announcers frame such moments without overpowering them and, in that regard, Caray obviously learned well from his legendary father, Harry.
What made Skip Caray, who died in his sleep Sunday, stand out even more was the fact that he told it the way he saw it. Even though he was expected to be something of a homer while covering the Braves for TBS, he put his sarcasm to effective use when the team wasn't performing well. His wisecracks, about everything from Shea Stadium to the Montreal Expos' oddball mascot Youppi, provided the perfect balance to the prim and proper baseball scholar, Pete Van Wieren.
He represented one of the last members of a sports broadcast generation that existed without yelling, screaming and shameless self-promotion, a breed that included gruff but cuddly curmudgeons like his father and smooth stylists like Vin Scully.
"His legendary calls and trademark wit on TBS baseball are what resonated most with fans nationally and will not soon be forgotten,'' Turner Sports president David Levy said Monday in a statement.
Turner Sports will honor Caray over the next several weeks on its family of networks. There will be rememberances of hims during its upcoming telecast of the PGA Championship on TNT, a feature on its Aug. 10 Sunday MLB on TBS telecast and another set for an Atlanta Braves' game on Peachtree TV on Aug. 12 to coincide with what would have been his 69th birthday.
Those ideas are nice, but the best and most appropriate way to pay tribute to the impact of Caray's work would be enshrinement in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.
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