Johnny Golf? Hey, Johnny Manziel is barely “Johnny Football” these days.

Still all the hype warranted putting Manziel on the cover of the latest Golf Digest. In an interview, he says is about a 7-8 handicap.

“If I’m playing in a tournament, I’m probably going to shoot somewhere between 79 and 84. My goal every time is to break 80. I’m about a 7- or 8-handicap right now.”

Manziel is the latest in a series of celebrity covers for Golf Digest. Previously this year, the magazine has featured Pauline Gretzky (who is engaged to Dustin Johnson) and Jimmy Fallon (who has some vague awareness that golf exists).

When Gretzky’s daughter made the cover, wearing not much, it caused a bit of a stir since real LPGA golfers rarely get featured. Since then Michelle Wie has been on the cover.

As if there wasn’t enough negative vibes around the Washington football team. The latest is a report by ESPN’s Britt McHenry alleging that Robert Griffin III has alienated the majority of his teammates.

McHenry cited an incident in which players reportedly disrespected Griffin during a press conference last week. From ESPN.com:

A source familiar with the incident told ESPN’s Britt McHenry that Griffin has “alienated himself” from the locker room.

Griffin gave his account of Friday’s incident and challenged the veracity of the subsequent report, saying: “We could hold a panel of guys that were in there that got the media out of the locker room. I know exactly what happened. We were laughing and they were creating the joke. It escalated quickly, and I think the Washington media and the people that are here will understand at the end of the day it is our locker room. Both sides need to respect each other. You guys have a job to do and we have a job to do, and it won’t happen again, but it had nothing to do with them worrying about me starting or not wanting to start. … It is completely false, the reasoning behind that report, but I try not to dive into what you guys have to do.”

Gruden addressed McHenry’s report by saying, “I saw that. It was an amateurish report. Totally not true. For anybody who reads that, to believe that, they’re an amateur. Anybody who reports that is an amateur. It’s totally false. Just something else you have to deal with up here at a press conference, that Robert has to deal with, that the players have to deal with, that they’re going to write about and ask about. But we are in [Washington] D.C., it is Robert Griffin, they’re going to try and tear him down and tear us down, for whatever reason. But we’re going to stay united as a locker room and that’s that. We’re not going to let anybody get to us. That’s some small-time reporter reporting fiction.”

In an email interview with Richard Deitsch of SI.com, McHenry defended her story:

“I’m confident enough in my reporting to do it all over again,” McHenry said. “I spoke with multiple sources within the organization and even talked to players around the league who are familiar with the divisive relationships between Robert Griffin III and a few of his teammates. At ESPN, we don’t just go on the air without properly vetting our material. Multiple producers and editors at the network, from the one I worked with in Minnesota to our Countdown and SportsCenter producers and news editors in Bristol, were made aware of the report.”

However, Washington beat reporters said the report wasn’t accurate. Deitsch had this rebuttal from the Washington Post’s Jason Reid:

“I don’t take any pleasure in this,” Reid said. “Again, I like Britt. But she’s not out there every day. Screw any competition. If she would have come and asked me, I would have walked her through the whole thing because it doesn’t benefit anyone to have something this potentially explosive out there and be inaccurate.”

There’s much more from both sides. Click on the links.

As for who to believe, well, I guess I am biased. After covering the White Sox and Bears beats in Chicago, I am going to side with the beat writers who are there every day. Again, I stress the every day aspect of simply being there. It enables reporters to better interpret the vibes of the locker room.

The Washington team isn’t covered by a bunch of soft amateurs.  This is the big leagues. If they say McHenry was wrong in her assessment of what happened, then I am inclined to go with their version.

The latest 30 for 30, “Brothers in Exile,” tells the dramatic story of Livan and Orlando Hernandez defecting from the squalor of Cuba for the riches of Major League Baseball in the United States. Tonight at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.

The film hammers home the immense risks these players, especially those in the 90s when Castro still was at the height of his powers, took to make the 90-mile journey. Orlando’s saga is particularly intense. Even though you know how it ends, director Mario Diaz does a nice job of documenting the suspense of that short trip.

Orlando’s torment.

Director Mario Diaz’s statement.

I am really looking forward to Al Michaels’ new autobiography, “You Can’t Make This Up,” co-written by L. Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated. The book will be out Nov. 18.

Michaels has seen it all and then some during his 50-plus years in the booth. And that includes spending some of those years with  Howard Cosell.

The current edition of Sports Illustrated features an excerpt of the book in which Michaels recalls the-one-and-only legend. He gets asked about his days with Cosell almost as much as the “Do you believe in miracles” call.

Some highlights:

Michaels on Cosell’s demeanor: We’d had a lot of fun, especially at the beginning. But something was always eating at Cosell. If you elected him senator, he’d want to be president. If you made him president, he’d want to be king. If you made him king, he’d want to be God. He ascended to an extraordinary position but never felt the sports broadcasting industry was exalted or revered enough. Howard Cosell may have known who he was. But he could never be at peace with where he was.

On Cosell’s signature yellow blazer: When Cosell was on the road, he usually took only one jacket: the Tweety Bird–yellow blazer that ABC Sports inexplicably decided would be the signature piece of our on-air wardrobe. He wore it everywhere. Here was one of the most recognizable men in America, going around with a blazer you could see from the next state. He’d complain that he couldn’t go anywhere without being recognized, but really, that was the way he wanted it.

Cosell on longtime Monday Night Football partner Frank Gifford: “The human mannequin,” Cosell called him. He resented everything about Gifford, especially his close relationship with ABC Sports President Roone Arledge. ‘Roone’s bobo,’ he’d call Gifford.

Cosell after giving an on-air eulogy for late Cardinals third baseman Kenny Boyer: Cosell leaned back. He had the cigar going. He said, “Just understand one thing. Kenny Boyer was a pr—!” There was nothing Cosell loved more than delivering a eulogy. He would affect a “half-mast” voice. Didn’t matter who it was. Cosell wanted to show you how much he knew about the deceased and how well he could put their lives in context.

Michaels on confronting Cosell’s drinking on-air during a game: “We’re protecting your ass. You’re sitting here drinking all night, and you’ve ruined the damn telecast. I’ll take a stand right now, Howard: The next time you’re in this shape when we’re doing a game, either you’re not going to be there or I’m not going to be there. Is that a good enough stand for you?” He said nothing and walked away.

Michaels on Cosell’s last broadcast at an little-seen late regular-season game in 1985: I didn’t know it then, but I would never see or even speak with him again. It was the last time he appeared on network television. So think about this: Howard Cosell—this seminal, larger-than-life figure in sports television, this man who made Just tell it like it is a catchphrase and who, two decades after his death, is still being imitated—ended his career with a meaningless game that got a rating you could see only with a microscope.

Again, yesterday I read tweets saying it isn’t fair to compare baseball’s current World Series ratings to its heyday in the 70s and 80s. Hard to imagine, but the ’78 and ’80 Series both averaged a 32.8 rating.

This year, the seven-game KC-San Francisco Series did an 8.2 rating with a 14 share. Big difference, right?

Of course, the entire prime time landscape has changed considerably. Back then, shows like “All in the Family” pulled 30 ratings on a weekly basis. Now, the numbers for all programs are much lower in the era of 500 channels.

But as I continue to point out, the decline in the World Series ratings is a recent trend. Just look at the numbers from Baseball Almanac.

This year’s World Series was down nearly 50 percent compared to the ’99 World Series, which averaged a 16 rating. Cable was fairly strong back then.

OK, you argue there was the Yankee factor, as they beat Atlanta to win their third straight World Series in five games. There also was the Yankee factor in 2009, when their six-game victory over Philadelphia did an 11.7 rating, the highest since 2004.

So throw out the Yankees. I’ll go back to my White Sox. In 2005, Chicago’s four-game sweep over Houston did an 11.1 rating. This year’s rating for a seven-game series is off 27 percent from that 2005 Series. Again, plenty of viewing options in 2005.

As late as 2007, the Series average rating never fell below 10. Since then, there only have been two Series to hit double-digits in ratings, and it required seven games for the ’11 St. Louis-Texas Series to score a 10. The ’13 Series featuring Boston, usually a strong ratings draw, and St. Louis, a traditional power, could only muster an 8.9.

Bottom line: MLB has lost 20-25 percent of its Series viewers since 2005. There’s no reason why these games shouldn’t be averaging at least a 10 rating.

Work on it, baseball.

Madison Bumgarner’s performance wowed Roger Angell. And that’s saying something since the 94-year-old Hall of Famer has seen it all.

Angell captures Bumgarner’s historical postseason as only he can in the New Yorker:

I don’t know what it felt like watching (Christy) Mathewson pitch, but watching Bumgarner is like feeling an expertly administered epidural nip in between a couple of vertebrae and deliver bliss: it’s a gliding, almost eventless slide through the innings, with accumulating fly-ball outs and low-count K’s marking the passing scenery. It’s twilight sleep; an Ambien catnap; an evening voyage on a Watteau barge. Bumgarner is composed out there, his expression mournful, almost apologetic, even while delivering his wide-wing, slinging stuff. Sorry, guys: this is how it goes. Over soon.

 

And the great Angell had a rather atypical ending to his piece:

I don’t know how to bring this up, but attention must be paid, as Mrs. Willy Loman used to say. In the last line of my pre-World Series post here, I startled myself with a prediction: the Giants, because of their bullpen, would win this in seven. Yes, exactly so—and who now wants to step up with a wayd-a-minnit objection, claiming that Madison Bumgarner, though he actually emerged from there—we saw him—did not exactly represent the Giants’ bullpen last night? Eat my shorts.

Yes, Angell actually wrote “eat my shorts.”

Also on the recommended reading list, Michael Powell’s story in the New York Times on watching the games with Bumgarner’s father in the back country of North Carolina.

I caught up with Eddie Olczyk for a post on the Chicago Tribune’s site. For a change, he wasn’t en route to a hockey game.

From the post:

******

Eddie Olczyk will be busy covering his other favorite sport this weekend for NBC.

The Blackhawks and NBC’s lead NHL analyst will be part of the network’s crew working the Breeder’s Cup Friday and Saturday at Santa Anita in California. It is a dream assignment for Olczyk, a passionate horse player.

“I’m really excited,” Olczyk said. “I’d be doing it (analyzing the races) at my house or at Hawthorne. This is the Super Bowl of horse racing. To be there for NBC really is going to be special.”

Olczyk said his start in broadcasting actually occurred in horse racing, not hockey. While playing for the New York Rangers in 1994, Meadowlands Racetrack in New Jersey invited him to analyze the races during a NHL work stoppage. He had been hooked on the sport ever since a friend’s father took him to Arlington Park at the age of 13.

“They knew I was a big horse player,” Olczyk said. “They said, ‘Why not come down and do some race analysis?’ I was going to be there anyway.”