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Andy Pollin Andy Pollin
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In the end, the game comes down to one thing: man against man. May the best man win.

~ Sam Huff                    

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What a Night

Mar 04, 2010 -- 1:12pm

It's funny how the Redskins' lean years have coincided with the rise of Maryland basketball under Gary Williams.  Months after the Redskins bottomed out under Richie Petitbon with a 4-12 season in 1993, Gary led Maryland to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament with freshman star Joe Smith.  In the 16 years since, Maryland has missed the NCAA tournament only a few times while going to the Final Four twice and winning the NCAA championship in 2002. 

     In that decade and a half, there have been highly antcipated in-town games for both the Redskins and the Terps.  However, given that there has been only one home playoff game at Fedex Field - a win over 8-8 Detroit in 2000, the Terps have more consistently brought out the in-town buzz for the big game.  That's not to discount Georgetown's thriller over then top-ranked and undefeated Duke at the Verizon Center a few years ago, but the Terps have delivered their share.  And Wednesday night they delivered against Duke at Comcast Center. 
     Even though Maryland had just snuck back in the Top 25 and Duke was ranked fourth in both polls, this was for first-place in the ACC.  Two heated rivals with great games from past years at it again.  Tickets were going for 10 times face valuable with a Maryland University law student offering "TBD billable hours" once he passed the bar in exchange for seats. 
      I was lucky enough to get mine right behind the Maryland bench.  The front row!  It wasn't bad to look behind me and see the likes of Juan Dixon and ESPN's Scott Van Pelt.  Walt Williams, who Gary credits for saving the program when it was hit with probation, was working radio.  Buck Williams walked by.  Tom McMillen was there.  The players who have made Maryland basketball what it is were there to witness the chapter being written by the current Terps. 
     After a proper sendoff for seniors Landon Milbourne, Eric Hayes and star Greivas Vasquez playing their last home game, a packed house in "gold rush" yellow shirts to match the new favorite Maryland home jerseys, it seemed like an impossible task for the event to outrun the hype.  Well it did.  This was one to tell friends 20 years from now that you were there for.
     Maryland has been a second-half team all year.  So to see them jump out to a 10-2 lead in the opening minutes was surprising.  Even more surprising was to see the net on the basket Duke was shooting at, tear.  An unexpected and apparently unavoidable momentum killer that took 10 minutes for fix.  It seemed to be nobody's fault, but it didn't stop Gary from screaming at young assistant coach Robert Ehsan.  I couldn't hear exactly what had Gary so angry, but I'm not sure what Ehsan had to do with the rip in the net and what he could have done to prevent it. 
     Sure enough, Duke's Kyle Singler dropped the first ball though the new strings for three points just after play resumed and Duke was back to being Duke.  They cut the lead to two at the half and secured the lead early in the second half.  We had seen this Duke show before.
     Then Gary made a move that every knucklehead who rips him for not getting the "one and done" superstars who go on to be NBA stars.  Adrian Bowie, a junior guard and a former starter, who hadn't played a second in the game, was sent in.  After cooling on the bench for 25 of the 40 game minutes, Bowie drained a three and seemed to give the Terps a huge boost of energy.  It also allowed Vasquez and Hayes some rest for the stretch run of the game.  Bowie exited after 14 minutes with nine points on four for four shooting, two assists and four rebounds.  There are few teams in the country that can call on a player of that experience and ability in a situation like that and get that kind of return.
      Of course like all memorable games, this one came down to the wire and was iced by a fitting player on a shot befitting his career.  Vasquez launched an off-balance jumper that was so off balance that Gary later said Greivas almost landed in the lap of the trainer.  The noise of the yellow-clad crowd was deafening.  A win for the ages.  
     A few minutes later, the students spilled out of the stands to celebrate the joy that beating Duke always brings.  And in this case, special meaning since it was for s share of first place in the ACC.  Ultimately it may not mean much.  Both teams are in the NCAA tournament and Duke will still likely earn a top seed.  But if you were at Comcast Center March 4, 2010, you'll always remember a night where the event outran the hype.
 

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School Daze

Feb 24, 2010 -- 11:10am

Like many who have made a career in radio, I started at a young age.  I became heavily involved in the campus station as a freshman at American University and became Sports Director of a station in Beaumont, Texas before the start of what should have been the second semester of my sophomore year.  I eventually finished college at Trinity University in San Antonio, but never really had the typical college experience.  I worked full or nearly fulltime in radio.

     Fortunately both of my kids have been able to take advantage of all that college offers at a pair of excellent Big Ten schools.  My daughter Samantha will graduate in May from Wisconsin and my son Jeremy is a freshman at Indiana.  Samantha joined a sorority in her freshman year (SDT) and Jeremy survived pledging during first semester and is now a full-fledged brother in ZBT.  School work so far hasn't suffered.  Samantha is headed to law school in the fall and Jeremy turned in a solid gpa for his first semester in the business school.
     Okay, enough kvelling.  What I'm getting to is the realization in middle age of what I missed out on.  With Samantha I only got an outside-looking-in look at her experience.  When I visited during Labor Day weekend she was tied up with bids day for new recruits.  It seemed exciting, but I wasn't in on the festivities.  I was the old dad sent to the hotel to wait it out.  But this past weekend, my eyes were opened up to what the college years could have been for me.
     ZBT had father/son weekend at Indiana.  Great idea.  It was a chance for the old guys to hang with the young guys and get an idea of what frat life is like in the second decade of the 21st century.  It may be different at smaller schools, but at a huge state school like Indiana, you're talking about a huge group.  There were 40 guys in Jeremy's pledge class.  
     The planned activities went well.  From the Friday night bowling (mostly bad bowling except for the dad who showed up with his own ball) to the Saturday brunch to the party with the sorority and their moms, it was great.  There was also the IU sing, a variety show with the frats and sororities performing together.  Great fun.  I also got to see up close the bond that Jeremy now has with his band of "brothers."  I am of course thrilled that Jeremy is having this experience while feelings some pangs of regret.  Oh well.  Life is wasted on the young.  As Samantha said to me in September while regretting that her college days will soon end, "Its not fair that you get all the fun early in life instead of the end."  Welcome to adulthood honey.
 
Terps
 
     Thanks to direct TV at Yogi's in Bloomington, Indiana, Jeremy and I got to see the entire buzzer-beater thriller over Georgia Tech last weekend.  We were the only ones in the place going nuts when the game-winner dropped.  It was great.
     Assuming there isn't a complete collapse in the last four games, Maryland will be in the NCAA tournament.  We can go through another March without the heat being turned up on Gary Williams.  As far as I'm concerned, after the back-to-back Final Fours and National Championship in 2002, Gary can stay as long as he wants. 
     Yes I know the championship was eight years ago and the Terps can't realistically be considered a contender this year.  But watching the win over Georgia Tech, it struck me how Gary has given us an experience that's somewhat unique in today's game.  Greivas Vasquez, Eric Hayes, Landon Milbourne...it seems like we've been watching these guys forever.  I feel close to this team.  Would I take a one and done who leads the Terps to the title?  Of course.  But to watch entire careers, to me anyway, makes it more compelling.  Senior night against Duke on Monday should be a night to remember.
    

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Rating Greivis

Feb 17, 2010 -- 11:21am

  It is a sportsradio "go-to".  We ask, where does this team or this player rank on an all-time list.  It usually makes for interesting debate among hosts and callers.  Nothing is resolved, but it becomes a chance to kick around names from the past. 

     After his 30-point performance in the blowout of Virginia on Monday night, Kevin Sheehan on the "Sports Fix", opened the debate on Greivis Vasquez's place in Maryland basketball history by putting him in the top five.   That's a bit high for me and apparently for a number of the callers who weighed in.  But it made for lively radio, especially if you're passionate about Maryland basketball.
     I've been a Terp fan for 40 years, so we picked it up in the afternoon on the "Sports Reporters."  Again nothing was resolved, but Czabe brought up an interesting criteria for consideration on the list of greatest Maryland basketball players of all time.  He thought that NBA draft position should factor in.  And that's what makes the Vasquez case so interesting.
     Maryland has had two players taken number one overall in the NBA draft.  John Lucas was drafted by Houston in 1976 and Joe Smith was taken by Golden State in 1995.  However, neither quite measured up to Len Bias who was taken number two overall by Boston in 1986 and tragically died a day later from a cocaine overdose.  Juan Dixon is Maryland all-time leading scorer and the best player on Maryland's only national championship team, yet he lasted until pick number 17 by the Wizards in 2002.  And if you brought up the name Gene Shue, an All American in 1953 and 54, you might get laughed out of the room.  You might also be surprised to learn that Shue was the number three overall pick by Philadelphia in 1954.  And what about the dynamic duos of Tom McMillen and Len Elmore in the early 70's and Buck Williams and Albert King in the late 70's and early 80's?  All four of them were first-round picks and all but King played at least a decade in the NBA.
     So...what about Vasquez?  He will leave Maryland as one of the school's all-time leaders in points, rebounds, assists and steals.  He will likely have played in three NCAA tournaments and was the biggest factor in getting them to at least two of them.  And his triple-double performance in a stunning win over eventual national champion North Carolina in 2009 will be remembered as one of the greatest individual performances in ACC history.  But his draft position remains in doubt.  Last year he tested the waters and chose to return to school, unsure if he would be taken in the first round.  What if his stock doesn't rise for this draft?  If Vasquez is taken in the second round, does his place in Maryland basketball history diminish? 
     I think you may have to examine his career as something of a hoops Tim Tebow.  Whatever he does in the pros, Vasquez not only brought great skills, but great excitement in his four years of college ball.  His pro career really shouldn't factor in to how his NCAA years are remembered.
     Here's where I stand after four decades of Terp watching.  You can debate all you want where in the top 10 Vasquez belongs (and like Mike Wise, who obviously listens to our show writes in the Washington Post, "he doesn't get past the top 10"), but short of Len Bias as a senior, no one has been more exciting to watch.  He's left it all on the court and we probably won't fully appreciate it until after he's gone.  
 
Cards
 
     Most guys my age collected baseball cards as a kid.  My collecting peaked as a seven-year-old in 1966 when I got my grandfather to buy me two boxes (that's boxes as in 24 packs of cards in each one) for finding the afikomen on Passover (it's a Jewish thing you wouldn't understand). 
    I've managed to hang on to quite a few of those cards over the years through all my moves and thanks to my mom not throwing them out.  They're not worth much since they aren't in mint condition, but they bring back some nice memories.  Plus collecting as a kid was never about money.
     Now that's apparently changed.  Topps, which now has an exclusive deal with Major League Baseball, is turning card collecting in to something that resembles the lottery.  One in every six packs of cards will include a special code that can be redeemed online for a free vintage card.  That includes a Mickey Mantle rookie card that's worth more than $20,000 dollars.  Cal Ripken is involved in the promotion.
     I haven't been able to find out how much these packs of cards will cost.  I recall my son buying a pack about six or seven years ago that went for four bucks.  Mine went for ten cents a pack and included bubble gum.  Then again, those packs didn't give me a shot at 20 grand.  Oh well.

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Snow

Feb 10, 2010 -- 11:43am

    Even I'm barely old enough to remember the blizzard of 1966.  The only reason I do remember it is because my sister Eva was born during the worst of it.  Fortunately my father got my mother to Holy Cross Hospital before driving conditions became impossible.

     I was seven at the time and happy to reap the benefits of the cancellation of an entire week of school.  That was great.  What wasn't great were the high winds and snow drifts that topped my sub-five-foot head.  One gust blew open our "storm" door and smashed it against the house. 
     That's my only comparison to what we've been through the last week.  The Washington, D.C. area I've lived in most of my life is best known for its snow wimpiness.  President Obama was right when he mocked the snow panic that sets in with the first flakes.  If you went to school in Montgomery County in the 70's like I did, you probably remember thinking we had a shot at no school with just a dusting.  I even went as far as to "pray" to schools superintendent Homer Elsroad to call it like Mills Lane in the ring.  Those were the days.  And these are days never to be forgotten.
 
Tyson's Nightmare Annniversary
 
     February 10th marks the 20th anniversary of what may have not only been the biggest upset in boxing history, the biggest in SPORTS history.  Buster Douglas' 10th round knockout of Mike Tyson in Tokyo.  
     Tyson seemed to be at the top of his game.  He had disposed of the likes of Michael Spinks in seconds and was one of the most feared fighters in history.  Douglas was a journeyman fighter brought in just to give somebody for Tyson to dispose of in front of the eager Japaneese crowd. 
     I was living in New York at the time and happened to be here for some TV business.  My brother-in-law and I were set for an evening of watching the NBA All-Star Saturday night festivities.  We were much more interested in seeing who would win the slam-dunk title rather than watching Tyson dispose of another tomato can.
    Because of the time difference in Japan, the fight started about the same time as the TNT telecast, so we figured we'd watch the expected first-round knockout and then settle in for hoops.  The boxing kept us much longer than expected.
     When the bell rang to end the first round, I sensed a problem.  I'd seen enough of Tyson's fights at that point to know he just wasn't himself.  As the rounds accumulated, I still figured Tyson would eventually win the fight, probably by knockout.  But in 1990, a long Tyson fight was three rounds!
     By the 10th round, it was clear Tyson was in trouble and likely needed to throw a knockout punch to win.  There was in fact a knockout punch, but it wasn't thrown by Tyson.  Incredibly Douglas sent Iron Mike to the canvas dislodging his mouthpiece in the process.  The image of the seemingly invcible Tyson groggy and groping around the ring for his mouthpiece while Mills Lane counted him out is burned in my mind forever.
     HBO announcer Jim Lampley, one of the smartest to ever work in sports broadcasting, immediately called it the biggest upset in the history of boxing.  However, he was one of only a few able to put it in to historical perspective.  Even in those days, when newspapers were making money, few were willing to allocate the resources to send columnists.  It wasn't expected to be much of a fight. 
     Buster Douglas' reign as heavyweight champion was a short one.  Out of shape, he was taken down by Evander Holyfield later that year, essentially ending his career.  He soon ballooned to over 400 pounds and wasn't able to get himself back together until developing diabetes.  He was able to pick up some work with EPSN when the four letters still bothered to cover boxing, but hasn't been heard from in years.
     As for Tyson, while he continued to fight, he never regained the heavywieght title.  Later that year he was charged with raping a teenage beauty contestant in Indianapolis.  And early in 1992, he was convicted of the crime.  It was February 10th, exactly two years to the day after the loss to Buster Douglas.
 
Super Bowl Price-Out
 
     I went to my first Super Bowl in 1978.  The Cowboys played the Broncos in New Orleans.  It was Super Bowl XII (number 12.  The NFL is about to phase out the Roman Numerals. Its about time).
     At the time, I believe tickets sold for $15 and $25 dollars.  That was not an insignificant amount of money in 1978, but affordable for most people.  While many tickets wound up in the hands of the well-connected and well-to-do, the average guy had a shot without trashing his budget.  And if this was a once-in-a-lifetime event for you, maybe you would shell out $500 bucks to a scalper.
     Even as late as 1983 when the Redskins played the Dolphins in Super Bowl XVII at the Rose Bowl, face-value of tickets was $40 dollars.  I went with friends and bought four seats together two hours before gametime for face value. 
     By the late 80's, the NFL realized they could sell Super Bowl tickets for whatever they wanted.  The corporate fat cats didn't mind shelling out hundreds. Heck, it's a write-off.  The league hasn't had the chutzpah to go over a thousand bucks yet, but you can bet that's coming.
     However, we may now be reaching the saturation point.  On the Friday before this year's game, tickets could be had on Stubhub for just a couple of hundred over face value.  The rise of HD TV and a ticket price that has you at least think twice, may have taken some of the thrill of being at the game. 
     Used to be you felt like a lottery winner if you landed a ticket to the Super Bowl.  Now you almost have to be a lottery winner to afford one.  No thanks.  My 61" inches of high def will do me just fine.
 
    
 

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Don't Be Fooled By the Ghost Town Look

Jan 26, 2010 -- 11:30am

Sometime in the second half of Sunday's NFC championship game in New Orleans, Fox showed a live shot of Bourbon Street.  As you would expect, it was all but deserted with the hometown Saints locked in a tight battle with the Vikings trying to get to their first-ever Super Bowl.  I don't know about you, but I was immediately transported back in time almost 30 years.

     If you lived in this area back in the early 1980's, you remember the incredible excitement over the Redskins during their Super Bowl seasons of 1982 and 83.  Not only were they good, but they were fun to watch.  Riggo, the Hogs, the Fun Bunch.  You couldn't help but get caught up in it.  A walk downtown this time of year was a blast.  There were Redskin shirts and hats being sold on every corner and it seemed like everybody was talking about the Skins.  As big as it was, it must be even bigger for Saints fans.  Realize the Redskins won championships in the 1930's, 40's and went to a Super Bowl in the 70's.  The Saints 40-plus years of history have been mostly lousy (for God sakes, their fans invented the bags-on-the head look during the 1980 season when they went 1-15.  Remember the Aints?).  Throw in the lasting effects of Hurricane Katrina, you get a picture of how welcome the Saints' success must be.
     As for the shot of Bourbon Street, for me it recalled how incredible it was when the Redskins played on TV during those seasons.  A live shot of the mall would have looked very much like Bourbon Street.  You could walk down the middle of Constitution Avenue without encountering a car.  Everybody was watching, even the criminals.  D.C. Police reported record-low crime rates when the Redskins were playing. 
     There never was and never may be again a month like January, 1983.  Because of the players strike, which knocked out two months of the 1982 season, the NFL decided to have a tournament since each team only played nine regular season games.  It took three playoff wins to reach the Super Bowl no matter how you finished the regular season.  So with an 8-1 record, the Redskins played three playoff games at RFK Stadium on their way to Super Bowl XVII in Pasadena.  On January 8th they beat Detroit 31-7, January 15th it was a 21-7 win over Minnesota followed by a John Riggins bow and the fabulous 31-17 clobbering of the Cowboys on January 22nd.  On the "Sports Fix" last week, Thom Loverro accurately pointed out that it was the greatest month in D.C. sports history.  The Skins topped it off by beating Miami 27-17 on January 30th. 
     Two more Super Bowl championships would follow within the next nine years, but nothing beats winning like the first time.  The city of Washington, D.C. was never more united that it was during that month.  The city of New Orleans gets to enjoy this for at least another two weeks.  There is nothing like it.
 
Mark Mc-Liar
 
     I said on the air last week that I believe Mark McGwire will not be the St. Louis Cardinals' hitting coach by the time the season starts.  I have no inside information, it just comes from wetting my finger and sticking it in the air.  But with only about a month to go before the start of spring training, I'm getting more and more confident about my prediction.  
     As Bernie Miklasz wrote in the St. Louis Post Dispatch over the weekend, "Nearly two weeks after Mark McGwire confessed to using steroids, the storm around him has yet to subside.  Actually the tempest is growing, and becoming more intense and ominous by the day."
     He goes on to point out the new information including the emergence of Curtis Wenzlaff, a convicted drug dealer who claims to have supplied McGwire with steroids.  And Bernie, who covered McGwire's entire career in St. Louis, says that the former slugger didn't help himself any by denying the obvious connection between steroids and enhanced home-run power.  
     Miklasz writes, "With full disclosure, McGwire would have gone a long way to immunize himself against subsequent criticism.  Instead, by dismissing the steroids-strength correlation, McGwire only left himself - and by extension, the Cardinals - open to additional scrutiny and hostility."
     Finally, these two paragraphs sum up exactly what I believe:
     "I don't think McGwire realized what he was getting into by coming back.  If he did, then he may have come up with a much different - and credible - version of his steroid involvement." 
     "And I don't think Cardinals Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. or GM John Mozeliak realized what the franchise was getting into when they gave manager Tony La Russa permission to hire McGwire."
     Pitchers and catchers report next month.  So does the media.  Mark my words, McGwire will soon grow weary of fouling off their pitches.  Faster than you can say "andro", he'll be gone and will revert back to what he had been for nearly five years - a ghost.
    
 

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Can the Jets Save the Playoffs?

Jan 19, 2010 -- 10:21am

  Unlike baseball or the NBA, if the playoff games stink in the NFL, you're still going to watch.  The television ratings from the last two weekends back that up.  But aside from the two weekend-ending games in Arizona and San Diego, this year's playoff games have been a series of blowouts.  They've been forgettable so far.  Now with only Championship Sunday and Super Bowl Sunday left, can the 2010 NFL playoffs leave a lasting legacy?  Yes!

     If you're under the age of 50, you may just have to trust me on this, but a Jets upset of the Colts Sunday will bring a tidal wave of nostalgia and karma that will no doubt have Chris Berman frothing for two weeks and producing another tired "hey look at me" piece that includes the line from "Hotel California" by the Eagles, "we haven't had this spirit here since 1969."   But I will give Berman this, he like me, is old enough to understand what the historic Jets win over the Colts in Super Bowl III meant to the NFL and where it stands today.  You don't get those kind of TV ratings with blowouts unless your product is that popular.  And Joe Namath and the Jets gave the league a rocket boost on that January day in 1969.
     No matter how old you are, you've heard that Namath "guaranteed" victory over the 17-point favorite Baltimore Colts before the game and forever took his place in sports history by delivering.  As Dave Anderson of the New York Times (who not only remembers, but lived it.  That's Dave with the newspaper on his head talking to Namath with other reporters in the famous photo as Broadway Joe sat poolside before the game) writes, "on the Thursday night before the game, Namath accepted the outstanding pro football player of 1968 award from the Miami Touchdown Club. 
     "This should be a most valuable player award for the entire team," he said.  "You can be the greatest athlete in the world, but if you don't win those football games, it doesn't mean anything.  And we're going to win Sunday.  I'll guarantee you."  The word "guarantee" made it in to the headlines in the The Miami Herald.  The rest is history and pro football hasn't been the same since.
     Now for the karma.  In Miami for the game with his dad, who was defensive line coach of the Jets, current Jets coach Rex Ryan.  Buddy Ryan had brought his 6-year-old twin sons Rex and Rob, who is now the defensive coordinator in Cleveland.  Rex Ryan, like then Jets head coach Weeb Ewbank, had previously coached in Baltimore.  Rex Ryan today, like Namath then, is putting it out there.  He told reporters Monday, "I'm confident.  There is no question about it.  We're going into the game expecting to win.  I'd be shocked if we don't.  Absolutely would be."  And although Rex's quarterback is bit more green than Weeb's (Namath was in his fourth year, Mark Sanchez is a rookie), he's also embraced the young sex-symbol image.  And Sanchez, like Namath, understands if you can make it in the Big Apple you can make it anywhere.  He's also smart enough to leave the predicting to his coach.  On Sunday he'll wear a uniform almost identical to the one Namath wore in Super Bowl III, except fittingly his green number 6 on the white jersey is half of Namath's long-retired number 12.   
     On the other is the Colts.  They no longer reside in Baltimore, but the uniforms are the same.  And the quarterback with a uniform number one digit lower than the legendary Johnny Unitas is at, or at least close to, Johnny U's level.  Peyton Manning will one day join him in Canton.  He has a Super Bowl ring and a place in history as the leader of one of the best teams of the last decade.  Unlike Unitas, who spent most of the 1968 season on the sidelines with an elbow injury, Manning has played in every game and is irreplacable.  The '68 Colts were so good they barely missed a beat with Earl Morrall.  He took a 15-1 record in to the Super Bowl.
     Sunday the game will played in a modern dome, not the Orange Bowl, which is being demolished.  It's the AFC championship game, not the Super Bowl.  And this time the Jets are only 71/2 point underdogs.  But 41 years later, should they do it again, get set.  Whether it's the Vikings who have never won one, or the Saints who have never been to one as the opponent, we'll have two weeks of hype never to be forgotten.  If you're under 50, you'll have to trust me.
 
Pockets
 
     It goes back to the days of Walter Cronkite.  News anchors and reporters wear suits and ties.  Although these days, the rule has been relaxed.  Channel 4 news does an hour between 3 and 4 in the afternoon that concentrates on entertainment and off-the-wall features.  Dan Hellie and Lindsay Czarniak, the station's sports anchors, often host it together.  (By the way does anybody else think of them as being married in the same way we thought about Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore as Rob and Laura Petrie on the "Dick Van Dyke Show" in the 60's?  Just for the record, Dan is happily married, Lindsay is single).
     Anyway, Dan doesn't wear a tie when he hosts.  It must be Channel 4's way of saying, "the real news hasn't started yet, this is phoofy filler."   Llindsay dresses like she usually does because I guess it wouldn't make sense for her to take off an item of clothing (stop it!).   But the point of this use of valuable blog space is to question something I saw while watching the "Today" show. 
     Lester Holt was reporting live from Haiti on the recovery efforts from the earthquake.  He was wearing a blue button-down shirt with huge pockets.  No tie, no jacket, just the shirt with the huge pockets.  What make the huge-pocket shirt the uniform of choice for reporters?  Do they put things in there?  Do they only wear this item of clothing outside of the United States?  It's nothing new.  Mike Wallace used to wear a kahki jacket with huge pockets when he did this kind of reporting. Did that set the standard for the industry? 
     Networks spend plenty of money researching these kind of things.  There must be a reason for the pockets.  I'd be interested to find out what it is.
 
 
 
  

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