Tag / NFL

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Breaking Barriers

Later today, a woman is scheduled to umpire a regular season major league game for the first time.  Jen Pawol, who has been a minor-league umpire since 2016, is being called up for a doubleheader between the Marlins and the Braves, working the bases in place of the home plate umpires, who only work the one game.  She is then slated to work behind the plate for Sunday’s series finale.

Pawol, a 48-year-old graduate of Hofstra University, worked spring training games in 2024, becoming the first woman to do so since 2007. She is only the third woman to ever umpire a major-league spring training game.  She also became a crew chief in the International League last season.

MLB is behind the times in this area.  The NBA had its first female referee debut 28 years ago, while the NFL has had female officials for the past ten years.  Hopefully this leads to more opportunities for interested women to find a career in baseball.

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NBC Upfronts

For the first time in 23 years, the NBA is returning to NBC and that was the focus of their new fall schedule, released on Monday.  The week gets off to a familiar start with The Voice returning for another round on Mondays, followed by Brilliant Minds, the sophomore medical drama starring Zachary Quinto.  Tuesday will start off in September with a second installment of The Voice followed by On Brand with Jimmy Fallon, an unscripted series where the boorish Tonight Show host staffs a premier marketing agency with “the most creative, clever and competitive go-getters he can find.”  When the NBA season begins in October, it will take over the night.

Wednesday and Thursday continue to be dominated by Dick Wolf franchises, with his three Chicago series running back-to-back-to-back on Wednesday and the two original entries in his Law & Order franchise the following night.  Thursday wraps up with another season of The Hunting Party.  On Brand with Jimmy Fallon will continue on Friday, followed by a two-hour block of Dateline.  The weekend is dominated by football, with the Big Ten or Notre Dame on Saturday and the NFL on Sunday.

Come November, things will shift again.  The two-hour Monday edition of The Voice will be shrunk to one hour to make room for the displaced Tuesday comedy block, which will be anchored by sophomore hit St. Denis Medical.  The Friday comedy block with also return, with fellow sophomore Happy’s Place back to lead off the night.  At this point, the second half of both hours is undetermined.

On the bench, NBC has three comedies and one nature documentary series. The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins reunites Tracy Morgan with Executive Producer Tina Fey in a comedy where a disgraced former football player is on a mission to rehabilitate his image.  Stumble is from Jeff and Liz Astrof.  The final comedy is an untitled community center project from Sierra Teller Ornelas. In Surviving Earth, viewers will go back in time to see how life not only survived cataclysmic events but thrived.

Shows gone from our television sets include Found, The Irrational, Suits LA, Night Court and Lopez vs Lopez.

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Ballpark Tour: Mets

With the offseason underway, we continue our tour of all of the different baseball stadiums I’ve been to over the years. This week, we look at Apu’s favorite squadron, the New York Mets. So, without further ado, let’s take a deeper look at my one game history with their former home: Shea Stadium.

Stadium Name: Shea Stadium

Years in Service: 1964 – 2008

Visits: 1

After a delay caused by labor woes and an exceptionally harsh winter, Shea Stadium, home of the expansion New York Mets, opened on April 17, 1964, with the Pittsburgh Pirates beating the Mets 4–3 before a crowd of 50,312. It continued to be the home of the Mets until September 28, 2008, when the Mets lost to the Florida Marlins. Along the way, the stadium was also the home of the Yankees for 2 seasons while Yankee Stadium was being renovated and, for the 1975 season, it served as the home of both New York MLB teams and both New York NFL teams, the first time a stadium has had that many main major tenants at one time.

My one trip to Shea Stadium was for opening day in 2003 to see the Chicago Cub take on the Mets. The last day of March was Tom Glavine’s first appearance with the Mets after coming over from the Braves via free agency. His grace period with the Mets faithful did not last long, as he was booed after throwing a ball on the second pitch. The baseball gods were not on the Mets side that day, as the Cubs, behind two Corey Patterson home runs, routed the Mets 15-2. I remember the stadium itself being pretty decent, though we did have some of the best seats in the house, which may have tainted my impression somewhat.

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NBC Upfronts

NBC announced their new fall schedule last week, one in which they add three new shows to the lineup.  The week gets off to a familiar start with The Voice returning for another round on Mondays, followed by Brilliant Minds, a new medical drama starring Zachary Quinto.  Tuesday starts with new mockumentary-style comedy St. Denis Medical, starring Wendi McLendon-Covey and David Alan Grier, followed by a third season of the new Night Court.  A second installment of The Voice followed by season two of The Irrational, closes out the night.

Wednesday and Thursday continue to be dominated by Dick Wolf franchises, with his three Chicago series running back-to-back-to-back on Wednesday and the two original entries in his Law & Order franchise the following night.  Thursday wraps up with a second season of Found.  A second comedy block leads off Friday night, with Happy’s Place, led by Reba McEntire, followed by Lopez vs. Lopez.  Two hours of Dateline NBC wrap up the night.  Sunday remains filled with the NFL.

For midseason, NBC has The Americas, a ten-part nature series narrated by Tom Hanks which has been in the works since 2020.  Also waiting in reserve are The Hunting Party, a crime drama starring Melisssa Roxborough, the returning Deal or No Deal Island, and a new competition series titled Destination X.  Still under consideration are Suits: LA, a spinoff to the old USA show which has become a streaming juggernaut, and Grosse Point Garden Society, from the producers of Good Girls.

Shows gone from our sets include Extended Family, La Brea, Magnum P.I., and Quantum Leap.  Law & Order: Organized Crime moves to Peacock.

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NBC Upfronts

Comedy makes a return to the one-time home of Must See TV, as a single hour-long comedy block comes to Friday.  NBC announced their new fall schedule yesterday that contained a single comedy and only two new shows making the cut.  The week gets off to a familiar start with The Voice returning for another round on Mondays, followed by a reboot of Quantum Leap, where a new team looks to follow up on the mysteries of the original.  Tuesday leads off with more of The Voice, followed by a second season of La Brea and the fifth and final season of New Amsterdam.

Wednesday and Thursday continue to be dominated by Dick Wolf franchises, with his three Chicago series running back-to-back-to-back on Wednesday and three entries in his Law & Order franchise the following night.  The Capital One College Bowl kicks things off on Friday until November, when it will be replaced by the new George Lopez comedy Lopez vs. Lopez, Young Rock.  Both will be followed by two hours of Dateline NBC.  Sunday remains filled with the NFL.

The Blacklist moves to midseason for its tenth go-around, though it is still producing a full 22-episode season.  Comedies waiting for midseason include a Night Court reboot, starring John Laroquette and Melissa Rouch, and the returning American Auto and Grand Crew.  Several drama pilots were not ready for consideration but may see life as midseason replacements.

Shows gone from our sets include This Is Us, The Thing About Pam, Ordinary Joe, The Endgame, Mr. Mayor, Keenan, and the never-aired Hungry.

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By The Numbers – 23 Bonus!

In 1929, uniform numbers appeared on the back of baseball jerseys for the first time, thanks to the Indians and the Yankees. By 1937, numbers finally appeared across all uniforms, both home and away, across both major leagues. Since that time, 81 distinct numbers have been worn by members of the White Sox, while the Cubs boast 76.

Sunday, we continued our look at those players, picking our favorite, if not the best, player to wear each uniform number for both Chicago teams with #23.  Today, we take a special bonus look at player who famously wore #23 for other Chicago teams, making it possibly the most successful jersey number in town.

Michael Jordan was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the third overall pick in the 1984 NBA draft.  He would go on to become the greatest player in the history of the NBA, leading the Bulls to six titles, nabbing six Finals MVP awards, five MVP awards, three All Star Game MVPs, one Defensive Player of the Year award, and the 1985 Rookie of the Year award.  He was a 14-time All Star, 10-time first team All NBA, 9-time first team All-Defensive, 10-time scoring champion, 3-time steals leader, and 2-time Slam Dunk Contest champion.  A member of the NBA’s 50th and 75th Anniversary teams, his #23 has been retired by both the Bulls and the Miami Heat, for whom he never played.

Selected by the Bears him in the second round of the 2006 NFL Draft, Devin Hester quickly became one of, if not the, greatest return specialists in NFL history.  In his first 13 weeks as a professional, Hester recorded six return touchdowns, including three punt returns, two kickoff returns, and a then-record tying 108-yard touchdown from a missed field goal against the New York Giants.  As the Bears advanced to the Super Bowl, Hester became the first and only person to return the opening kick of the Super Bowl back for a touchdown.  2007 added an additional 6 touchdowns, followed by 2 quieter seasons.  In 2010, he added an additional 3 punt returns for touchdowns, followed by 2 punt returns and 1 kickoff return in 2011.  He added an additional punt return in 2013, his final season with the Bears.  This past September, in his first year of eligibility, Hester was nominated for the induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

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Connecting The City

Back in April, Nike announced they would be introducing City Connect uniforms to Major League Baseball, similar to their ColorRush and City uniforms for the NFL and NBA respectively, which reimagine a teams look and “celebrates the bond between each team and its city.”  The Red Sox were the first to both announce their uniforms and to wear them, a blue and yellow monstrosity based on the finish line of the Boston Marathon which they wore against the White Sox on the weekend prior to Patriot’s Day.

Yesterday, the White Sox released their design, which they will debut next weekend against the Tigers.  The jerseys and pants are mostly black, with white pinstripes and retain the olde English S to spell out Southside rather than Sox on the jersey.  The white sock patch, currently only seen on the black alternates, graces the left sleeve.

All things considered, this could have been much worse.  They retained the team’s color scheme, which has been a constant since the end of the 1990 season.  Assuming they only appear for the weekend series and then go away for the remainder of the season, I have no complaints.  In fact, one of the videos the team posted on Twitter showed the Southside logo on a sweatshirt that may end up in my closet one day.

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FOX Upfronts

It has been a few years now since I’ve watched anything on FOX.  This year’s schedule does not look like it will alter that any come this fall.  Monday starts off with the returning 9-1-1 followed by The Big Leap, revolving around a group of diverse, down-on-their-luck characters attempting to change their lives by participating in a potentially life-ruining reality dance show that builds to a live production of Swan Lake.  Tuesday kicks off with the returning The Resident acting as the lead in for Our Kind Of People, inspired by Lawrence Otis Graham’s provocative, critically acclaimed book of the same name.

The Masked Singer leads off Wednesday nights, followed by yet another singing competition called Alter Ego.  Thursdays get turned over to the NFL starting in October, while Friday is the domain of the WWE.  Sunday’s animated block remains the same, with The Simpsons, The Great North, Bob’s Burgers, and Family Guy wrapping things up following football.

On tap for midseason is The Cleaning Lady, about a whip-smart Cambodian doctor who comes to the US for a medical treatment to save her ailing son, Monarch, about the first family of country music, Welcome To Flatch, a comedy Inspired by BBC Studios’ BAFTA-winning This Country, Pivoting, starring Eliza Coupe, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Maggie Q as three close-knit childhood friends as they cope with the death of the fourth member of their group.  Returning shows planned for mideason include  9-1-1: Lone Star, Call Me Kat, Duncanville, Housebroken, Beat Shazam, Crime Scene Kitchen, Domino Masters, Don’t Forget the Lyrics, Hell’s Kitchen, I Can See Your Voice, Lego Masters, Master Chef, Mental Samurai, and Next Level Chef.

Gone and mostly forgotten are Bless The Harts, Filthy Rich, Last Man Standing, neXt, and Prodigal Son.

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Book 17 (of 52) – Football For A Buck

Football for a Buck: The Crazy Rise and Crazier Demise of the USFL – Jeff Pearlman

Originally conceived in 1965, the United States Football League finally took shape in 1982, taking the field for the first time in the spring of 1983.  While not a huge success, the fledgling league showed promise.  For the 1984 season, the league, unwisely, expanded and brought in new ownership, including a young, brash real estate developer from New York named Donald Trump.  Angling for a merger with the NFL, Trump pushed the USFL to abandon the concept of spring football and, following that second season, the league announced that it would move its schedule to the fall and take the NFL on head-to-head.  Following a lame duck season in the spring of 1985, the future of the USFL depended on the vision of Donald Trump and the outcome of a lawsuit he thought would pave the way to NFL riches.

Even if you have never heard of the USFL, if you’ve lived through the past 5-6 years of American history, you can imagine how this turned out.  The NFL’s lawyers used Trump’s general unlikability and inability to be truthful against him.  When the dust settled, the USFL did indeed win their lawsuit against the NFL. with damages assessed at $1.  The league had followed Donald Trump into the abyss and, as a result, was out of business after only 4 years.

Jeff Pearlman recaps the strange experience that was the USFL in Football for a Buck.  The players, a mixture of over-the-hill NFL pros looking for one last chance, college players who couldn’t quite make it at that next level, and actual college star who were showered with money in an attempt to legitimatize the upstart league, joined a motley crew of owners, many of whom were not fully vetted and did not actually have the funds necessary to run a franchise, to make an entertaining product in hindsight, even if they didn’t get the full recognition at the time.  The parallels between Trump’s actions as the ringleader of the USFL’s destruction and his actions as president are uncanny.  All told, the story of the USFL is one that deserved to be told, and Pearlman does an admirable job in doing so.

 

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NBC Upfronts

Earlier this month, NBC presented their upfront presentation in the guise of a 30 Rock reunion episode.  Jack McBrayer’s Kenneth, who had been put in charge of NBC in the series finale, continues in that role in the special, putting together the fall lineup for the real NBC that will air… sometime.  The week will get off to a familiar start with The Voice returning for another round on Mondays, followed by another season of Manifest.  Tuesday stays static, leading off with more of The Voice, followed by This Is Us and New Amsterdam.

Wednesday also stays the same, with Dick Wolf’s 3 Chicago series running back to back to back.  Thursday starts with a small comedy block, with Superstore followed by Brooklyn Nine-Nine.  Law & Order: SVU moves up an hour for its 22nd season, followed by a new spin-off series, Law & Order: Organized Crime, bringing Christopher Meloni back to the L&O fold.  The Blacklist returns on Friday, followed by 2 hours of Dateline NBC.  Sunday remains filled with the NFL.

New shows on tap for midseason include The Keenan Show, a family comedy starring Kenan Thompson, Mr. Mayor, a comedy starring Ted Danson as a wealthy businessman who runs for mayor of Los Angeles for all the wrong reasons, and Young Rock, inspired by and starring Dwayne Johnson.