The most joyful point on the sports calendar might be the moment the clock reads 0:00 on the last NFL preseason game.
It means the exhibition season is over, the rosters will be cut, and teams will now scout opponents, formulate a game plan and, you know, actually try to win.
The final preseason game is especially awful because the starters sit. The Steelers devoted several hours the other night to reinforcing the sound theory that if their season got down to Landry Jones at quarterback, they'd be pretty well sunk.
Coaches love the preseason because they get video on marginal players. Of course. Coaches obsess. But the fact is most of the cuts could have been made after a week of training camp.
They call them games and they charge regular prices for tickets and everything else, but they're really scrimmages. The uniforms are recognizable, and the estimable Ed Hochuli shows up to make the calls. The action on the field bears little resemblance to the real NFL product, though.
As consumer scams go, this is up there with personal seat licenses. Here's hoping the undrafted free agents got selfies so they'll have proof they once wore an NFL uniform. Now kindly go home, and let the real games start.
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--HOBBLING HURDLE
Poor Clint Hurdle. In addition to the daily stress of managing (especially with a shaky bullpen), he's suffering physically with a bad hip.
He's headed for replacement surgery, and there was sentiment that he should have had that done over the All-Star break. He didn't, and he's probably now regretting that decision to tough it out through the rest of the season. Thanks to Root's constant surveillance of Hurdle in the dugout, you can see he's hurting.
It seems like Jared Hughes gets to the mound quicker on his mad sprint from the bullpen than Hurdle does on his wobbly walk from the dugout.
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--MISSING THE POINT
Greg Brown is one of the most conscientious broadcasters around, which makes it even more disappointing that he adheres to the silly tradition of not directly saying a no-hitter is in progress.
It's potentially one of the biggest stories of the season, and listeners have to decipher clues to figure out what's happening.
This is rooted in the dugout superstition that mentioning a no-hitter jinxes it. That might be OK for the players, but it's a losing strategy for broadcasters. The game is decided on the field, not by some mojo from the radio booth. Lanny (Hi, Friends) Frattare, who routinely overloaded broadcasts with mind-numbing factoids, did the same incongruous thing.
The radio audience is transient. People constantly join the game in progress, so tell them what's happening. When Edinson Volquez completed the sixth inning Friday night, Brown's summation was that he had allowed three base runners, hitting one batter and walking two others.
They'll tell you a dozen times about Free Shirt Friday. They don't hesitate to mention no-hitters in other games. It's OK to be up front about one against the Pirates. But listeners need a decoder ring to figure out that a Pirates pitcher is doing something special.
There have been four no-hitters by Pirates pitchers in the last 54 years. There have probably been 10 times that many close calls (remember Jose DeLeon?) So by the numbers, the jinx theory doesn't even work.
Of course, if someone bought a sponsorship -- "This no-hitter update is brought to you by Winky's" -- they couldn't mention it enough.
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--CALLING IT QUITS
James Harrison has officially retired. He had a fine career, he has a permanent place in Steelers history for his Super Bowl touchdown, and he's presumably sitting on a bank account made fat by big contracts.
But the best thing about this announcement is people won't be calling talk shows every five minutes to ask if the Steelers should bring him back.
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--DOWN THE AISLE
Big week for celebrity weddings: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in France, Kevin McClatchy and longtime partner Jack Basilone in Martha's Vineyard.
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