An excerpt from my latest column for the Chicago Tribune:

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Chuck Swirsky has been through just about everything during his long broadcast career. Still, his mind was racing after being confronted with a unique set of challenges Monday in calling the White Sox-Toronto game, his first as a fill-in for Ken Harrelson during the current 11-game road trip.

It was Swirsky’s first baseball game on play-by-play in 36 years. Meticulous about preparation, the radio voice of the Bulls still is cramming to learn about the Sox and their opponents. He then had to deal with a confusing non-double play situation that led to Toronto scoring four runs in the first inning, effectively ending the game for the listless Sox.

And above everything else, Swirsky felt the weight of sitting in Harrelson’s chair.

“There were a lot of moving parts, to say the least,” Swirsky said. “Hawk has huge shoes to fill.”

Swirsky wasn’t asked until Friday night if he could take over play-by-play duties for Harrelson. The team said Harrelson has to undergo a minor surgical procedure and will return to the booth when the Sox come home on June 5.

Swirsky actually was in Toronto visiting his son when he got the request. He promptly drove through the night so he could attend Sox games Saturday and Sunday at U.S. Cellular Field.

“I took a deep breath when they asked me,” Swirsky said. “I thought it would be a great opportunity and challenge.”

So I’m watching the Cubs game on ESPN last night, and who do I see on the screen?

That young man wearing the Ron Santo jersey is Matt Sherman, who just completed his freshman year at the University of Illinois. He also just learned he has been accepted to the College of Media, where he will be studying advertising and communications. His parents are very proud.

Matt said the ESPN cameraman was just over his shoulder in centerfield, and he was talking to him throughout the game.

As for how the son of a diehard White Sox fan became a Cubs fan, don’t ask. Still a great kid despite that character flaw.

ESPN needs to make a name change. It should be “Yankees Sunday Night Baseball.”

The Yankees raised their average to .500 with their fourth appearance in eight weeks on ESPN’s featured package with Sunday’s game against Texas. Seems a bit excessive, doesn’t it? It feels as if Dan Shulman calls as many Yankees games as John Sterling.

The good news, according to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, is that the Yankees are eligible for only two more Sunday night appearances this year.

Sandomir writes:

“A lot of it has to do with the way the schedule plays out,” said Doug White, a senior director of programming and acquisitions at ESPN. “Three of those matchups have been against teams of high interest — two against the Red Sox and one against the Mets when they were hot. Obviously, you have to take your opportunities when they come in the schedule.”

White said ESPN’s early focus on the Yankees was not intended to capitalize on the return of Alex Rodriguez from a season-long suspension. Instead, he said, the Yankees retain a national appeal and have played reasonably well, and games against Boston draw a broad range of viewers. Although the Rangers are struggling, their television market is the nation’s fifth largest.

Sorry, but Yankees-Texas hardly rated a featured Sunday night date. Not when St. Louis was playing Kansas City on the same day. That was a much better match-up featuring two possible World Series teams.

Now it isn’t as if the Cardinals are getting slighted on Sunday night. Sandomir notes St. Louis is scheduled five games through July 19.

But instead of the Yankees, how about doing more with the Royals? Kansas City is showing last year’s October run wasn’t a fluke.

Here’s also hoping a surprise team like Houston also gets its games on Sunday night. And who saw Minnesota getting off to such a good start?

Sure, the Yankees always do solid ratings. But if other teams get their chance in the spotlight, perhaps a following will build for them. Then people get interested in those teams during the postseason. That’s when the ratings count the most.

Let the record the show, the Yankees only have played in one World Series since 2003.

John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reports Matt Millen is leaving ESPN to join BTN. There’s also a Fox Sports component.

Millen also will participate on Fox Sports 1 studio shows around college football and the NFL. The long-term deal gives him the opportunity to do NFL and college games on Fox’s broadcast channel.

It is a good move for BTN. Gives them a solid game analyst and he will be a presence in Fox Sports 1 and BTN’s studio shows.

It also is a good move for Millen. It seemed like he got a bit lost at ESPN.

Thanks for Roy Bragg of the San Antonio Express-News for reaching out to me about Stephen Curry’s very cute daughter.

Here is what I said to him for his column.

Yoder, however, agrees with Ed Sherman’s assertion that sports journalists add necessary context, color and analysis to the games. That added value, Sherman said, is even more vital now in a world full of data.

The post-game press conference is an important part of that job, said Sherman, whose Sherman Report also covers sports media.

“These reporters are trying to do a job on a deadline,” he said. “And they’re trying to get a quote. Curry was trying to give thoughtful answers. He’s the MVP of the league, and you want to hear what he has to say about the first game.”

Sherman, as is the case with other journalists critical of the girl being present at the table, agree that Riley is “adorable. But if that’s you (in the press conference) and if you’re doing your job and your deadline is in 15 minutes, you’re not thinking it’s so adorable.”

And I really, really do love kids. But there’s a time and place for everything.

OK, feel free to dump on me now.

Spanning the globe to give you the constant variety of sports media.

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Richard Sandomir of the New York Times on Kenny Albert’s exhausting broadcast schedule during the NHL playoffs.

When Kenny Albert discusses the travel schedule behind his calling 27 N.H.L. playoff games since April 15, he is matter-of-fact, not boastful. His itineraries are as familiar to him as goaltenders’ saves.

First, there were 11 games in 11 days (including two Fox Sports 1 baseball broadcasts). After four days off, there was a stretch of 13 games in 14 days.

Heading into Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday, Albert will have experienced a fairly light load, by his standards: five games in eight days.

“Amazingly, I feel pretty good,” Albert, 47, said Wednesday in a telephone interview from Tampa, Fla., before the Lightning beat the Rangers, 6-5, in overtime. “I’m really lucky with my voice. Last year, I spoke with a couple of throat doctors who gave me advice about what to get over the counter at the pharmacy. I kept Hall’s in business the last couple of playoffs.”

His workload is especially large because, in addition to calling games forNBC’s broadcast and cable networks, he is also the local radio voice of the Rangers. He will follow the Rangers as long as they stay in the playoffs.

Will Leitch for Sports on Earth details why ESPN will miss Bill Simmons.

And now Simmons is gone, and you can’t help but worry. Not to get all Mad Men on you, but the whole Bristol/Grantland dynamic feels a lot like McCann Erickson and Sterling Cooper: The tiny boutique producing high quality, small-scale work suddenly looks, to the massive behemoth who owns it, as a wild-card it needs to get under more control. It’s no wonder that many in Bristol were supposedly “cheering” when Simmons got the ax last week; they saw a rogue employee attempting to challenge the Borg. But for those who worked with him at Grantland — for those he protected from the Borg’s influence — he was the perfect boss.

Peter Kafka of Recode reports Neflix doesn’t appear as if it will get into sports–for now.

Sarandos: I will never say never, but I would say that where we sit today, I don’t think the on-demand to sports is enough of an addition to the value proposition to chase. I think the leagues have tremendous leverage in those deals, so it’s not like we’re going to get in and de-leverage the leagues. We’re going to go in and overpay like everyone else does, so it doesn’t get me that excited. Not to say that it wouldn’t someday, down the road, make sense. Today, I think there’s lots of growth in what we’re doing.

Dan Levy of Awful Announcing writes about an issue involving plagiarism for a Runner’s World columnist.

Remy’s column, which we highlighted at the time here, stole the work of “The Evster” a columnist for Philadephia-centric blog The 700 Level, who had written a mock screed against running you can read here. It was clearly a work of satire, which made it even more curious when Remy took the work in a further attempt at satire and repackaged it on Remy’s World.

Pro tip: when you are trying to create a work of satire, copying and pasting previously written satirical work isn’t the best way to do that. It’s plagiarism. It’s theft.

The Chicago Tribune’s Dan Wiederer, writing for APSE’s site, gets insights from NFL reporters on covering the recent draft.

5. What would you like to see more of/less of?

Zrebiec: I’m a sucker for human interest stories. I always enjoy reading those about some of the top prospects before the draft. I love seeing stories that chronicle the path to the draft for certain players. I always enjoy the local angles. As far as what I’d like to see less of, I find most of the reports about who is visiting here or there and who is meeting with whom at the combine to be completely pointless. One, when it’s all said and done, teams probably see and talk to over a 100 prospects either at the combine, the various all-star games, pro days, in-house visits, etc. These meetings just don’t mean a whole lot. Some teams even bring guys in as a smokescreen, even if they have no intention of drafting that player. I know news is news, and if you hear that a player is in for a visit, it’s harmless to report it. But there probably should be some perspective and context added, too.

Somers: I’d probably like to see more analysis of past drafts. How have the “experts” done over the years? How have teams done over the past five years or so? There is too much immediate analysis on this year’s draft picks. Then again, people can’t get enough of it and those stories tend to generate thousands of page views.

Goessling: I’d probably like to see the pro days covered in a little more subdued fashion; especially for quarterbacks, they’ve become such a production that it’s hard to separate on-field results from hype. The Vikings’ distaste for pro days probably helped with (drafting) Teddy Bridgewater last year; they didn’t base a big part of their evaluation on the pro day, because of how leery they are of them. I think the media could probably move in the same direction.

A reader writes into the Cleveland Plain-Dealer asking for more high school coverage.

I would much rather read about high school sports than to have little more than the Cavaliers, the disappointing Indian, and the horrendous Browns filling the sports pages of my daily newspaper. Please continue to give us meaningful high school results. A once-a-week summary for many sports is perfectly fine. Area and statewide track and field leaders on Saturdays; statewide football results on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays; statewide softball results as the games occur (you don’t need inning-by-inning summaries, and teams W-L records can be shown, say, once a week). I hope you will consider devoting more time to the high schools, less time to the pampered, grossly overpaid professionals.

An excerpt from my latest Chicago Tribune column.

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John Wiedeman didn’t say much Wednesday.  It wasn’t because he didn’t have anything to say.

The radio voice of the Blackhawks on WGN-720 knew it was imperative to rest his vocal chords after calling the longest game in franchise history Tuesday night.

“I definitely felt it last night after the game,” Wiedeman said. “I was pounding the water to put out the fire in my throat.”

Wiedeman, though, wouldn’t have it any other way. The playoffs always are the payoff for him and his partner, former Blackhawk center Troy Murray. Their TV counterparts, Pat Foley and Eddie Olczyk, get more fanfare and play to larger audiences during the regular season. However, only the first round of the playoffs air on local TV. NBC and NBCSN take over from there. That means Foley is done for the season, and Olczyk gets some, but not of all the Blackhawks playoff games with his network duties.

Meanwhile, the Blackhawks’ radio team is on the call for the entire postseason package.

“People ask, ‘Would you rather be on the TV side?’” Murray said. “Yeah, that’s great, but I enjoy doing radio. I feel sorry for Pat not being able to do these games. The fact that John and I get to continue into the postseason makes all the difference in the world.”

Wiedeman truly has savored every moment he’s been with the team. Even though he grew up in Kansas City, he says catching a glimpse of a Blackhawks game on TV during the 1960s started his love affair with hockey. Later, he used to drive up from Kansas City to see Murray and Olczyk play on the Blackhawks teams during the ‘80s.

After calling games for the New York Islanders, Wiedeman jumped at the opportunity when the Blackhawks’ radio job became open prior to the 2006-07 season.

“I always had such a passion for the Blackhawks,” Wiedeman said. “I couldn’t have imagined this would ever happen.”

Keith Olbermann did an amusing tribute to Dave on yesterday’s show.