Going on hiatus for a couple of weeks. Carry on and please check back on Monday, July 8.

Thanks to Steve Bennett for having me on this week’s Sports-Casters podcast. We discussed the stunning ratings for hockey in Chicago; the changes at Sports Illustrated; and the coverage of the Derrick Rose soap opera.

Also appearing on this week’s podcast is Sports Illustrated’s Chris Burke, who talks about the NFL off-season.

Very happy to see that Steve is back on the podcast after going through some health issues during the winter. The Sports-Casters podcast always features a top lineup of the business’ best reporters (present company excluded). Definitely worth a listen.

Spanning the globe….

Radio Ink: Really, an executive predicts the U.S. soon will have 1,000 sports talk stations.

That didn’t take long. Jason McIntyre in Big Lead reports that they already are blowing up Michele Beadle’s show, The Crossover. Co-host Dave Briggs is out. Probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Yes, Rick Reilly at ESPN.com really did write a poem about the New York Jets’ quarterback situation. Let’s just say it elicited quite a response. Such as…

Mike Tanier at Sports on Earth breaks down Reilly’s poem. He wasn’t a fan.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcer did his own poem on Reilly.

Richard Deitsch at SI.com talked to the new Canadians guys who Fox Sports 1 hired for its version of SportsCenter. Note it is on page 2 of Deitsch’s massive post.

Dottie Pepper to join ESPN as a golf analyst.

Emma Span at Sports on Earth has a fun piece about her fascination with Baseball-Reference.com.

Sports Books Review Center has a review of a new book about a Class A baseball team in Iowa.

Walter Payton biographer, Jeff Pearlman, writes on his site a tribute to Payton’s mother, who died last week.

At APSE, the Tennessee beat writer for the Knoxville News Sentinel details a project charting the Volunteers’ recruiting.

Introducing a new weekend feature: Trying to catch up with stuff I missed during the week and other interesting stories:

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John McCain introduces legislation giving cable subscribers a-la-carte options. Considering that these cable companies have big money, McCain’s proposal is going to mean a nice payday for several lobbyists. Not a chance of this going through.

Awful Announcing did a poll of media writers and came up with its own Sports Emmys. Mike Emrick won for best play-by-play. Hard to argue with that.

Also on the Sports Emmy front, Dan Levy of Bleacher Report weighs in with his winners and losers.

Oops, almost forgot the biggest news of the week. Carrie Underwood to sing the theme for NBC’s Sunday Night Football!

Brandel Chamblee not a big fan of TPC’s famed No. 17.

Frank Deford with his weekly commentary on NPR on women’s sports.

Steve Lepore of SB Nation reports Bomani Jones has signed a new deal with ESPN.

Sports Media Watch: Kentucky Derby earns second largest audience since 1989.

Tom Hoffarth of the LA Daily News writes about the split-screen problems in his area.

Chuck Culpepper of Sports on Earth not happy with Jimmy Connors’ decision to write about Chris Evert. Headline: What a jerk.

Susannah Collins decided to take the high road in issuing her first remarks since being “parting ways” with Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

Flying out tomorrow for the biggest night of the year in the sports media industry: The 34th Sports Emmy Awards in New York.

The highlight of the evening isn’t necessarily the awards show. Rather, it is the parties afterwards thrown by the individual networks.

It will be a big night for award winners. I figure Bob Costas has a warehouse somewhere to store all of his Sports Emmys.

Here’s the rundown of nominations by network groups:

NBC Sports Group: 58

ESPN (which includes ABC): 43

Turner Sports: 27

Fox Sports Media Group: 17

HBO: 17

NFL Network: 16

CBS (includes Showtime): 15

MLB Network: 9

Not surprisingly, NBC’s coverage of the London Olympics received the most nominations with 14. The NBA on TNT and Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel were next with six.

And the biggies:

Outstanding Sports Personality: Play-by-Play

Mike Breen ABC
Mike Emrick NBC / NBC Sports Network
Al Michaels NBC
Jim Nantz CBS

Note: Where’s Joe Buck? Dan Shulman should have gotten a nod. I like Breen a lot, and other people are starting to pick up on it. If Nantz wins, he is going to dedicate the award to Pat Summerall.

Outstanding Sports Personality: Sports Event Analyst

Ato Boldon, NBC
Cris Collinsworth, NBC
Jon Gruden, ESPN
Jim Kaat, MLB Network
Mike Mayock, NFL Network / NBC

Note: Jeff Van Gundy is a big omission. So is Ed Olczyk. Will be interesting if Gruden gets the nod after working in a two-man booth for first time?

Outstanding Sports Personality: Studio Host

James Brown, CBS / Showtime
Bob Costas, NBC / NBC Sports Network
Rich Eisen, NFL Network
Ernie Johnson, TNT / NBA TV
Dan Patrick, NBC / NBC Sports Network /DirecTV

Note: Chris Fowler needs to be on this list. Coming off the Olympics, looks like another Emmy for Bob Costas.

Outstanding Sports Personality: Studio Analyst

Charles Barkley TNT / NBA TV
Tony Dungy, NBC
Boomer Esiason, CBS
Harold Reynolds, MLB Network
Bill Ripken, MLB Network
Kurt Warner, NFL Network

Note: Wow, quite a step in class for Cal’s little brother. And Reynolds makes it two nominees from MLB Network. That means a lot of big names missing here.

Outstanding Sports Personality: Sports Reporter

Andrea Joyce, NBC / NBC Sports Network
Pierre McGuire, NBC / NBC Sports Network
Lisa Salters, ESPN
Michele Tafoya, NBC
Tom Verducci, MLB Network / TBS

Note: Doris Burke is stellar on NBA. Should be included. I know McGuire has his critics, but I enjoy what he has to offer.

Outstanding Studio Show (Weekly)

College Gameday, ESPN
Football Night in America, NBC
Inside the NBA, TNT
Inside the NFL, Showtime

Note: All three NFL Sunday daytime pregame shows (CBS, Fox, ESPN) fail to get a nomination.

Outstanding Live Sports Series

ESPN Monday Night Football, ESPN
NASCAR on FOX, FOX / SPEED
NBA on TNT, TNT
NFL on FOX, FOX
Sunday Night Football, NBC

Note: CBS’ football coverage gets shut out. Sunday Night Football always strong in this category.

Outstanding Live Sports Special

The 96th Indianapolis 500, ABC
The 108th World Series, FOX
The Army-Navy Game, CBS
The Masters, CBS
Super Bowl XLVI, NBC

Note: Interesting that the Army-Navy game made it into this category.

Outstanding PLAYOFF COVERAGE

National League Championship Series: Cardinals vs. Giants — FOX
NBA Playoffs — TNT
NFC Divisional Playoff: 49ers vs. Saints — FOX
NFL Wild Card Saturday: Bengals vs. Texans; Lions vs. Saints — NBC
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament — CBS/tbs/TNT/truTV

Note: It is hard to beat the quantity offered by the NCAA tournament. Missing: NBC Sports Network’s superserving of the NHL playoffs was terrific.

Outstanding Sports Documentary

26 Years: The Dewey Bozella Story, ESPN2
Dream Team, NBA TV
Klitschko, HBO
Namath, HBO
The Announcement, ESPN

Note: All good, and plenty of others deserving.

Outstanding EDITED SPORTS SERIES/Anthology

30 for 30 — ESPN
A Football Life — NFL Network/[NFL Films]
Hard Knocks: Training Camp with the Miami Dolphins — HBO/[NFL Films]
Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel — HBO
The Franchise: A Season with the Miami Marlins — Showtime/[MLB Productions]

Note: It’s hard to top 30 for 30, but the Football Life series was exceptional. Powerful documentaries.

Scanning the globe for sports media headlines:

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Media critic Howard Kurtz turned the tables on himself for making an incredible blunder on the Jason Collins story.

From the AP story:

Media critic Howard Kurtz used his CNN show on Sunday to point a finger at himself, apologizing for a story on gay basketball player Jason Collins that he said was riddled with errors and shouldn’t have been written in the first place.

The extraordinary edition of CNN’s ”Reliable Sources” contained not only his apology but also a session with two other media critics who sharply questioned Kurtz’s credibility.

Kurtz wrote in The Daily Beast that Collins, the NBA center who made headlines last week by being the first active player in one of the four major U.S. pro sports leagues to come out as gay, had hidden a previous engagement to a woman in his announcement. In fact, Collins revealed the engagement in his first-person Sports Illustrated story and in a subsequent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

Kurtz said Sunday that he had read the Sports Illustrated story too quickly and missed the reference to a fiancee there and elsewhere. He said he was wrong to rush the story without seeking comment from Collins, was too slow to correct himself when it became clear he was wrong and made an inappropriate comment (about playing ”both sides of the court”) in a video report.

Besides his ”sloppy and inexcusable” errors, Kurtz said, the story itself was insensitive and shouldn’t have been written.

”I apologize to readers, to viewers and, most importantly, to Jason Collins and his fiancee,” said Kurtz, who spent many years as a media writer for The Washington Post. ”I hope this very candid response can help me earn back your trust over time. It is something I am very committed to doing.’

 

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If Tim Tebow is done with football, what about a next career in TV? The New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman says he would be ideal as an analyst for college football.

And didn’t the SEC just launch a new network?

Raissman writes:

What about Tebow as interviewer? For starters, Tebow could go one-on-one with Johnny Manziel.

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In his weekly sports media column, SI’s Richard Deitsch says former Illinois star Stephen Bardo is going to the Big Ten Network.

“Most people at ESPN or CBS –they want to be at the top level,” Bardo said. “I think I did a pretty good job of establishing myself there and I think I am good at what I do. So now I thought: What did I want? Did I want to be at ESPN and hope to get an upper-echelon assignment, or go to a place where I could be more appreciated? The Big Ten is part of the footprint where I played, and I think I have a brand there.”

 

Hey, I agree with Will Leitch. At Sports on Earth, he writes about how much he likes Mike Breen.

From Leitch:

The key to Breen is he is always forceful without forcing it. He hits all the big moments in a broadcast without owning them. He is, in the purest sense, a describer. He doesn’t try to paint some poetic picture or conjure up anything. He just tells you what’s going on in the plainest possible sense. He has an even tone that has a touch of humor to it that’s more cornpoke than ironic-wry; if you’ll forgive me, he sounds more like a Midwesterner than a New York City native to me.

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Nice Kentucky Derby rating for NBC. Sports Media Watch.

Allen Kenny at Awful Announcing says viewers about going to have to pay for the new SEC Network.

Al Bernstein talks about his new book with Tom Hoffarth of the Los Angeles Daily News.

Mary Byrne of USA Today elected second VP of APSE.

Really, Steve Breen? Let the kid move on.

If you follow sports media, then you likely know about the Sports-Casters podcast. Host Steve Bennett lands top reporters (present company excluded) to talk about coverage and sports in general. It’s a good listen.

You’ve also noticed that Sports-Casters hasn’t done a podcast since January. Bennett’s health issues have kept him on the sidelines. So it’s good to see Bennett and company back this week with a new podcast featuring Lee Jenkins and Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated.

I asked Steve for an update:

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I have been battling Crohns for 10 years now and a big reason I started the podcast was because I needed to find work I could do from home.In 2010, I had my fourth surgery since 2003 and it took over a year to recover. It was clear Crohns was going to prevent me from committing to a 9-5.

The week before the Super Bowl I woke up with a 103 degree fever. I went to the hospital and they said it was something viral and it had caused my Crohns to flare up. I was admitted and was treated with IV steroids and antibiotics. After about a month in and no improvement they decided on surgery. On March 4, I had my second bowel restructure. Basically, they remove the damaged parts of the colon and small/large intestine and then re-attatch. I got home after 10 days in the hospital post surgery and made it 4 days before I developed an infection. They ended up opening the wound and I have a nurse who comes every day to help with that.

Every day I was sick I missed the podcast. The hospital is lonely. I have incredible support but their lives can’t just stop because mine did. My youngest brother plays D-I hockey at Yale and we would always say to each other, “Pittsburgh or Bust.” We both made it to Pittsburgh and to see him win a National Championship made every hour in that hospital worth it.

The podcast returns this week and we have a great show booked. Lee Jenkins on the NBA Playoffs, Richard Deitsch on all kinds of sports media stuff, and Anthony Day (my bro) and Kenny Agostino from the National Champion Yale Bulldogs. Next week, we have Dave Dameshek, Ed Cunningham, and Jonah Keri. We hope to be starting the podcast at Football Nation soon as well.

I have a lot of great stuff lined up and if there is one thing I know I am good at it’s booking a good show. We are going to have some great ones in the future.

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Thanks again to Keith Thibault and Ken Fang for having me on this week’s edition of Sports Media Weekly. We analyzed Twitter and the NFL, among other topics.

Also appearing is Dale Arnold, studio host for Bruins telecasts on NESN and sports radio host at Boston’s WEEI.  Fang spoke with Dale about last week’s bombing at the Boston Marathon and how the sports media took a break from sports and provided fans with an outlet to discuss the events of the week.

The new movie on Jackie Robinson, 42, opens in theaters today. I was interested in what the critics had to say. While some critics raved, the general consensus seems to be that director Brian Helgeland could have done more with the story.

A.O. Scott in the New York Times appeared to be underwhelmed:

But while “42,” Brian Helgeland’s new film about Robinson, gestures toward the complicated and painful history in which its subject was embroiled, it belongs, like most sports biopics, in the first category. It is blunt, simple and sentimental, using time-tested methods to teach a clear and rousing lesson.

In other hands — Spike Lee’s, let’s say, or even Clint Eastwood’s — “42” might have taken a tougher, more contentious look at the breaking of Major League Baseball’s color barrier. But Mr. Helgeland, whose previous directing credits include “Payback” and “A Knight’s Tale” (and who wrote “Blood Work” and “Mystic River,” speaking of Clint Eastwood), has honorably sacrificed the chance to make a great movie in the interest of making one that is accessible and inspiring.

High praise from Ann Hornaday in the Washington Post:

Anchored by a solemn, quietly compelling lead performance from Howard University graduate Chadwick Boseman, “42” possesses the solid bones, honeyed light and transporting moral uplift that define an instant classic. With luck, audiences will treat it as such, and flock to it in numbers that encourage Hollywood to keep making ’em like this.

 

Good, not great, is the assessment from Richard Roeper at RogerEbert.com:

(This) is more a ground-rule double than a grand slam.

As written and directed by Brian Helgeland, “42” is competent, occasionally rousing and historically respectful — but it rarely rises above standard, old-fashioned biography fare. It’s a mostly unexceptional film about an exceptional man.

To be sure, there are scenes of racist fans heckling Robinson and many of his own teammates signing a petition demanding Robinson not be allowed to join the Dodgers — but “42” falls short in giving us a full measure of the man himself. The Jackie Robinson of “42” is a high school history lesson, lacking in complexity and nuance. Even the domestic scenes with the beautiful Nicole Beharie as Rachel Robinson paint an almost too-perfect picture. The real Rachel Robinson was also a hero, but in “42,” she’s portrayed as a near-saint, patiently counseling Jackie to hold his temper, and looking like a movie star as she quietly endures the morons in the stands behind her.

Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune also felt the movie comes up short:

This is a smooth-edged treatment of a life full of sharp, painful, inspiring edges. Helgeland tips the narrative balance in the direction of Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey, played here in a sustained grumble by Harrison Ford, opposite Chadwick Boseman’s implacable Robinson. The latter’s story cannot be brought to life without Rickey’s, and vice versa; their fates and their places in history belonged to one another. But “42” settles for too little, for being an attractive primer, an introduction to the legend of Robinson and the faith that saw him through. The movie doesn’t condescend. Rather, it protects and enshrines.

Owen Glieberman at Entertainment Weekly says it is a B+:

The movie covers just three years of Robinson’s life, beginning in 1945, when he’s a World War II veteran playing in the Negro Leagues and gets recruited by the forward-thinking Dodgers general manager, Branch Rickey, to join his minor-league club, the Montreal Royals. As Rickey, a stogie-chomping grump with a heart of gold, Harrison Ford seems to have reinvented himself as an actor. He gives an ingeniously stylized cartoon performance, his eyes atwinkle, his mouth a rubbery grin, his voice all wily Southern music, though with that growl of Fordian anger just beneath it. Calling Robinson into his office, he tells him that he needs a player who doesn’t so much have the guts to fight back as the guts not to fight back. 42 is a rousing tribute to how impossible, and therefore heroic, a stance that was.

Scott Foundas in Variety felt the movie was too ordinary:

(Brian) Helgeland, a fine screenwriter (“L.A. Confidential,” “Mystic River”) with a patchy career as a director, doesn’t even try for any of the irreverent stylistic touches here that he brought to his earlier “Payback” and “A Knight’s Tale,” framing the action in the same, unwavering procession of medium shots and closeups whether we’re on the field, in the dugout or in the locker room. Shot by regular Robert Zemeckis collaborator Don Burgess, the images have the overly lit, diffuse halo effect that seemed to attend Redford every time he stepped up to plate in “The Natural,” while the entire movie bears the too-new look of certain period films, with every freshly pressed costume and vintage automobile gleaming like it just came off the assembly line. A movie about Robinson isn’t obliged to be dark or edgy, but for all of “42’s” self-conscious monument building, the cumulative effect is to render its subject markedly smaller and more ordinary than he actually was.