These are 23 (more) facts, tried and true, about the widening world of sports television: 1. Back in the pre-remote days, I was third fastest in Maryland for switching channels anytime golf came on. 2. DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package is so pricey these days, I’m actually considering a New York Jets personal seat license. 3. “SportsCenter” is now...
Bob Uecker, 75, is back in the broadcast booth for the Milwaukee Brewers. It's one TV fact for which we can all be grateful.1. Back in the pre-remote days, I was third fastest in Maryland for switching channels anytime golf came on.
2. DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket package is so pricey these days, I’m actually considering a New York Jets personal seat license.
3. “SportsCenter” is now on 16 hours a day, which, conveniently, leaves us the other eight hours to sleep.
4. Because I need my NFL weather on NFL Sundays, I now pay Jillian Reynolds to come over and give me the forecast.
5. Craig Kilborn is back. We’ve both enjoyed his time away.
6. Bob Uecker is also back. He doesn’t have permission to leave again.
7. Pat Haden went from NBC’s Notre Dame game analyst to USC’s athletic director. That’s like going from a three-ring circus to a three-pole strip club.
8. On TV, soccer still looks like an abstract painting.
(Column Intermission I: Jimmy Johnson on “Survivor: Nicaragua” combines countless unseemly elements of modern society into a single weekly entity: The rogue football coach/stock market strategist/male enhancement pitchman on a long-running reality show without a hint of reality filmed in a nation that might be one of the only places on Earth in which the Fox studio analyst never committed a recruiting violation.)
9. Upon further review, the brouhaha over Janet Jackson’s breast appearing on CBS during the Super Bowl halftime show in 2004 seems preposterous, particularly considering that Elaine Benes’ breast appeared in her Christmas cards on NBC’s “Seinfeld” in 1992.
10. Remarkably, my Skip Bayless bobblehead doll does not even bobble.
11. In an unforgivable act, ageless Marv Albert left the “Monday Night Football” radio booth this season and forgot to take Norman Esiason with him.
12. The only thing worse than being in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles is being in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles with Nancy Grace behind you.
13. When Jim Gray got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2005, it reminded me that Hollywood Boulevard is an endless stretch of road with incalculable cracks in its foundation.
14. How can the mad men of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce also not have a gambling problem?
15. Memo to CBS in regard to its continuing policy of no sideline reporters on NFL games: Thank you, thank you, thank you.
16. They claim the tropical island of Tetepare is paradise, but it’s not even wired for cable.
(Column Intermission II: Watching Preston Sturges’ 1944 film “Hail the Conquering Hero” the other day, I heard the line, “Smile and the world smiles with you. Frown and you frown alone.” Couch Slouch needs to heed those words more often.)
17. My last rental car had Sirius XM Radio, so when I explained to the state trooper that the sound of Chris Russo’s voice caused me to veer onto the shoulder of the road, he graciously declined to give me a ticket.
18. I turned on VH1 last month to watch some music videos and instead got “The T.O. Show” with Terrell Owens. My bad.
18a. Which brings us to the brand-new “T.Ocho Show” from the forward-looking folks at Versus. Their bad.
19. If they had poker on TV in the 1880s, you’ve got to figure Bat Masterson and Doc Holliday would’ve been huge stars.
20. CNN’s “Larry King Live” is about to go off the air; the studio will be converted into a softball diamond.
21. ABC has a new police drama called “Detroit 1-8-7,” which, coincidentally, doubles as the Lions’ projected record.
22. Between Olympics, I have no idea where to find curling. 23. If you sit too close to the TV, my mother used to tell me, you’ll ruin your vision. She didn’t mention anything about my mind.
Ask The Slouch! Special Ex-Wives Edition
Q: I am enthralled with NFL Network’s RedZone Channel where it shows “every touchdown from every game.” Any chance of a Norman Chad Relationship Channel where it shows “every divorce from every marriage”?— Pete Hmel, Gaithersburg, Md.
A: Once I secure U.S. broadcast rights to that footage, the next step is to get channel clearance from major cable systems.
Q: Big-ticket purchases often include a “No Interest-No Payment for 12 Months” promotion. Is that also standard in all of your pre-nups? — John Swope, Irwin, Pa.
A: Where were you 26 years ago when I needed you?
Q: Any truth to the rumor your ex-wives are planning to form their own conference?—Bob Mason, Pittsburgh
A: I’m told they need one more to be viable for a national TV contract.
Q: Do you think your first two marriages should have been ruled “incidental contact”?— Jeff Dent, South Charleston, W.Va.
A: Pay the man, Shirley.
You, too, can enter the $1.25 Ask The Slouch Cash Giveaway. Just e-mail asktheslouch@aol.com and, if your question is used, you win $1.25 in cash!
Norman Chad is a freelance writer in Los Angeles.