I Endured A TV Sports Blackout

  This has been a small nightmare.  A TV blackout in the midst of the College Football Playoffs semi-finals, along with a rematch of the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New York Knicks. 

No matter what methods I tried, which included enlisting the remote assistance of Verizon, there was no meaningful television from Thursday morning to Saturday morning. A bit over 48 hours that felt like a week’s time. 

Not that I haven’t endured blackouts before. The Northeast blackout of August, 1965 was my introduction into the underworld of darkness. Except that it didn’t darken New Jersey.

In Highland Park, located in the heart of Central Jersey, we were fine. The day went like any other hot, summer day. I played baseball. I hung out with my guys. I went home for a swim. 

Except for one big difference—all of the New York television stations in New York City weren’t on the air. Because Con Ed couldn’t supply them with the necessary power to broadcast. 

I caught the news through the Philadelphia stations. They weren’t clear and the sound was muffled. But I got the gist of what was going on.

The fuzzy, grainy screens were usually reserved for stations which didn’t operate overnight. Remember, this was way before the advent of cable. 

It happened again in 1977. This one was confined to NYC. It was marked by widespread looting, injuries and some deaths. 

Then we actually experienced a blackout in New Jersey. That happened in 2003. Fifty-five million people were affected when a substation in Ontario blew out, shutting an entire grid down. The power came back relatively soon the same evening, although it wasn’t pleasant since the event happened again in August. 

One more big blackout was the greatest of all. Superstorm Sandy hit us in late October. Everything went dark instantaneously on a Friday night. It would take over seven days to have power restored to our home in Springfield. We were lucky. Others on our block had to wait even more days before they were no longer in the dark or the generators stopped humming. 

We adapted to the cold of late October into early November. Eating became a bit of an adventure. We went to powering stations to keep our cell phones alive and functioning. All the while waiting for that moment when the lights would shine and we could return to normalcy. 

More outages left me in the dark, provoking me to invest in a tri-fuel generator designed to keep on the lights and refrigerators for an extended time. It is connected to a natural gas line, but alternatively I can also use gasoline to power the generator. So far, I have not had to use it; I run it once a month to ensure operability so that I am ready to roll when necessary.

It’s not that I didn’t keep up with sports during this interlude. I used my cell phone and under 5G connectivity to receive all the sports news and scores I would regularly read.

But there was a void which I felt—more so than the aforementioned blackouts. Because everything else was working, The power was on. The lights and heat worked. I could use my microwave. I just couldn’t connect to the outside world during the day as I usually do—local news and of course, televised sports.

What was the culprit which kept me away from the television? It wasn’t a squirrel biting the wires. Too cold. However, when it does get too cold, outside lines freeze inside the box connecting me to the Verizon feed. The technician had to play around with the wires, even defrosting them to restore my connection. As modern and advanced a society that we are, there remains a lot of comparatively primitive technology from a much earlier date and time. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t have plenty to do. I began reading a funny book. I cleaned. I went to my ENT to have wax buildup in my ears removed. I even caught up on my sleep and I continued to exercise. 

I missed two episodes of Pardon The Interruption. ESPN highlights weren’t readily available. There was no NBC Nightly News to monitor the horrific fires in Southern California or the funeral of the late President, Jimmy Carter. 

Plus I missed two of the more exciting games in the CFP. Notre Dame came back to defeat Penn State on a field goal after an interception in the waning moments of the game. And Ohio State flexed its muscles in the second half to defeat Texas. 

Let’s start with the fact that none of the four teams had really defeated any team of significance in the regular season. I know perhaps a case can be made for Ohio State having defeated Penn State and played then-#1 Oregon so close on the road. 

OSU had that blip at the end, losing to arch rival Michigan in a game which ardent Buckeyes fans will hold against Head Coach Ryan Day even if the team defeats Notre Dame for the national title. Which is stupidity in its worst form and led to an article in The Athletic advocating for Day to head to the NFL after garnering that title, sticking it to the undeserving OSU jackals. 

We have over a week to wait for the big game. A lot will be discussed and debated. One thing for sure—there isn’t a Southeastern Conference team in the finals for the second year in a row. Let the Commissioner and the aggrieved coaches bellyache all they want for not being included in the festivities.

Besides, their representative in the Final Four was still in the Big 12 a year ago at this time. The best teams may reside in the Big Ten after all, and they aren’t overly spectacular. Could the dreaded word “parity” be creeping into the collegiate football ranks? 

And no kudos to the CFP people crying over what a great job they did. The matchups weren’t thrilling in the first two rounds. Moreover, anybody thinking that OSU and ND are 6 and 7 seeds should know better. Hence the need to seed better as I advocated in the last blog. 

With my TV and Internet restored, a complete weekend of sports awaited. Everything from F&M basketball on the computer, as the Diplomats, coming off a road victory at Hamilton College, hosted Mc Daniel, the team in the Centennial Conference with the best record so far (F&M won), to a full slate of NFL playoff games on three days (The home teams won except that Washington had a last second field goal bank off an upright to win at Tampa Bay on Sunday night). And my daughter was happy that college gymnastics could be watched. We even returned to watching Wicked, which we began on Wednesday night.

Maybe it was for the best that I didn’t see Rutgers lose badly to Purdue in men’s basketball. Or that upcoming foe UCLA, was soundly beaten by Maryland. That would tug even more with my negative emotions towards this overrated Scarlet Knights team. 

I have become so used to viewing the NFL. Yet I am more than old enough to remember the local blackout rules which prohibited loyal fans from watching Giants and Jets home games—even if they were sold out. I once again had to resort to Philadelphia TV to see the Jets home playoff games in 1968 and 1969 en route to their lone title in Super Bowl III (The Verizon tech who made the repairs to the line was also a long suffering Jets fan; he wanted owner Robert Wood Johnson III gone to thus enable the franchise to move forward instead of relying upon “Madden” statistics from Woody’s sons to decide which players should populate the roster).

While those rules technically remain in effect with some modifications, the NFL has been suspending them yearly beginning in 2015. Which is why when Met Life Stadium looks empty and it is not a sell out, the games are available in the NY area.

Lastly, I make light of my experience not watching TV and sports. It pales in comparison with what has transpired on the West Coast. Games were rightfully postponed or moved. Those unfortunate people are dealing with real life tragedies. With no significant end to the blazes in sight. 

A cruel irony regarding the NHL this season was that when the Tampa area was hit with a hurricane, the Lightning was to play the Carolina Hurricanes in a home-and-home pair of games. Now the Los Angeles Kings were to play the Calgary Flames in a home-and-home set. You can’t make this stuff up. 

The Monday night Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams game was moved out of Southern California to State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Lots of people affected by the fires have had their insurance cancelled by companies like State Farm. Couldn’t the NFL come up with a better optic than this? 

Lakers and Clippers games were affected. LAL Head Coach J.J. Reddick lost his Pacific Palisades rental home to the fire. Comedian, actor and sports enthusiast Billy Crystal’s home of 47 years is no more. The list is endless.

I feel petty when I talk of 48 hours without TV sports. I hope that those who lost everything can get back on their feet. 

This is my story. I endured a TV sports blackout. Damn the squirrels and the freezing temperatures. Comparatively, I am fine. 

Then And Now

  I was thinking about a theme for this week’s blog. And it hit me. Then and now. 

This is what I mean by then and now. The way things are shaping up in sports, they are seems to be predicated on the past. 

On Monday, I am scheduled to see #22 UCLA take on Rutgers for the first time at Jersey’s Mike’s Arena in Piscataway with both schools members of the Big Ten Conference. These are THE UCLA Bruins—winners of so many championships under the legendary John Wooden’s guidance. 

The players’ names are so familiar—Alcindor; Walton; Allen; Bibby; Shackelford. It is an iconic school mentioned with the blue bloods of Kentucky, Duke, North Carolina, Villanova and yes—even Connecticut, the defending National Champion. 

In the golden year of 1976, Rutgers and UCLa first met in the NCAA Final Four Consolation game in Philadelphia. There an angry Bruins squad took apart Rutgers’ best team by a score of 106-92. 

Rutgers next faced UCLA in Pauley Pavilion, losing by 21. UCLA was that good.

So, to open the new Meadowlands Arena in 1981, UCLA traveled to New Jersey for likely the first time. They came away as losers to the upstart Scarlet Knights by a score of 57-54. 

What was significant is that Rutgers managed to hang on to win with the use of a new rule implemented at the insistence of Coach Wooden—the alternate possession rule. Rutgers managed to tie up a UCLA player off a missed free throw late in the game, and since the arrow pointed in their direction, RU got the ball and eventually secured the win. 

RU Coach Tom Young did not like the rule. Except when it benefitted his team that night. And this was the second time in the early part of that season that UCLA lost due to the new rule; BYU won at Pauley Pavilion in similar fashion. 

For me, this will not be my first time seeing UCLA. On December 30, 1968 (14 years to the day before I married my wife on that date), Alcindor and his top-ranked Bruins came to Madison Square Garden for the Holiday Festival tournament. This was a homecoming for Alcindor, who grew up in upper Manhattan, the son of a Transit police officer. (My father-in-law claimed that he coached the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in youth baseball when my brother-in-law played; they all lived in the Dyckman Street projects at the time).

I was present in a raucous MSG, having walked through the snow to the New Brunswick station with my high school buddies in a small reunion after our first semesters in college. Taking the train to the game was so much better than the bus.

UCLA won handily, defeating St.John’s 74-56 for the title. The Johnnies were the sacrificial lamb for that day. The Bruins had dispatched good Providence and Princeton teams before the final. 

The tall Alcindor powered over his opponents, who tried to swarm around him, to no avail. He was dominant and opinionated—his coach taught him to pursue his passions away from basketball, which he avidly did. 

In boycotting the 1968 Summer Olympics to protest the unequal treatment of African-Americans, he put an even larger target on his back. From which he didn’t flinch. For the crowd wet after him on that very subject—booing him unmercifully when the National Anthem was played. 

UCLA went on to lose only one game—to arch-rival USC by two points. The Bruins then defeated  New Mexico State, Santa Clara, Drake and Purdue to claim another NCAA crown. Alcindor then went to the NBA Milwaukee Bucks and began to use the Muslim name by which we now know him by so readily. 

I don’t think I will see Abdul-Jabbar in Piscataway this Monday. I missed him the time the Los Angeles Lakers played the Nets at the RAC in 1977—he had broken his hand in an altercation with former Indiana University big man Kent Benson, who was playing for the Milwaukee Bucks.  

Instead, I will be reliving the childhood dream of seeing UCLA one day play Rutgers in New Jersey. The players will not be playing for a national title real soon. They probably won’t be competing for the Big Ten title either. 

The barn will be sold out. I will be sitting near the court. Looking at those iconic blue jerseys with the gold and white trim. And dreaming of the ghosts of the past who wore that uniform with such pride. While hoping that RU can remain undefeated in New Jersey over this California foe.

Shifting to the NFL, the playoffs are set. In a Sunday night marquee match, the Detroit Lions secured the top seed in the NFC with a dominant win over the Minnesota Vikings. Former Los Angeles Rams QB Jared Goff and his mates go the best of former New York Jets QB sam Darmold in what was Arnold’s worst game of the season. 

The Lions are suddenly relevant under irascible head coach Dan Campbell, with a take no prisoners attitude echoed by his players and the offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and former Jets DB Aaron Glenn, who outmaneuvers offenses as the defensive guru. Those two guys will receive multiple interviews for head coaching vacancies this winter. 

Detroit hasn’t made the Super Bowl. Not ever. When I was young, announcers like Pat Summerall recounted stories about Bobby Layne, the fast living Texan who won the last NFL championship for the Motor City in 1957. Since then, it has been a virtual drought regarding winning, let alone relevant teams there. Still not as bad as those Jets, who extended the longest non-playoff appearance streak in any major sport with another losing record. 

Historic franchises dot the NFC playoff bracket. In addition to Detroit, Green Bay, Philadelphia, Washington and the Rams go way back in time. Minnesota was an expansion team in the early 1960’s and Tampa Bay came along in the 1970’s. All have won the trophy—except for Detroit.

Should the Rams win their game with the Vikings, then Matthew Stafford, formerly a star in Detroit, could come back to end the Lions’ dreams. Otherwise, the Lions get another game with Minnesota, and it is so difficult to win three games over an opponent in a season. 

I’d love to see the Lions at least make the Super Bowl. Having suffered so many injuries, it levels the field a little bit. I just don’t see Tampa or Washington winning multiple rounds; with the other four, winning or losing at any stage is a 50-50 proposition. 

In the AFC, it is the Chiefs’ chance to three peat. But it won’t be easy. Buffalo is really good; the Ravens, too. I don’t see Houston, Denver, Pittsburgh or Chargers making it to the Super Bowl, although Denver could actually scare the Bills this Sunday. 

In the college final four, Notre Dame meets Penn State in the Orange Bowl while Ohio State and Texas dance in the Cotton Bowl. Four storied programs. All have been national champions: Ohio State most recently in 2014; Texas in 2005; Notre Dame in 1988; and Penn State in 1986.

The matchups are exciting. Did Arizona State throw a real scare at Texas? You betcha. To the inattentive, ASU had one Cam Skattebo, once of Sacramento State, who nearly single-handedly beat the Longhorns. Otherwise, the games weren’t that close. 

The talking heads want reform in the CFP and NFL. Seed the teams based on record, not rewarding schools like ASU or Georgia with byes merely because they won the conference championship game.  Plus it is a travesty that two 14-2 teams had to battle in the final regular season NFL game for the first time, with the loser relegated to a #5 seed and a road game in the first round. 

They’re not wrong. Minnesota should be the #3 seed in the NFC while Chargers and Texans should flip flop in the AFC, affording LAC a home game; ditto for the Vikes. 

With the colleges, the number of teams could be increased to 12 to make it fair and generate more cash. Boise State did not merit a #3 seed. ASU might have had an opening round game at home. It is important because in the first round the teams which won beat the bye teams who rested extra days and were not as sharp. Food for thought. 

Wednesday night the Oklahoma City Thunder (30-5) and winner of 15 straight, heads to Cleveland to play the Cavaliers (31-4). The two best in the NBA right now. 

Not to worry, traditionalists. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, forever sparring partners, lead their divisions. They remain in the hunt for the title. 

Finally, in the FCS championship game, North Dakota State downed undefeated Montana State to secure their 10th title. In Division III, North Central of Illinois beat perennial champion Mount Union to win it all for the third time in the past five title games. Mount Union has competed in the Stagg Bowl 15 of the last 19 games and 23 times total, winning 13 times. 

There is indeed a pattern here. Look at the teams. Then and now. 

Enjoy 2025

  As I begin this installment, it is New Year’s Eve.  By the time I finish it, it will be 2025. But don’t worry, I will stop to celebrate the New Year. 

We enter 2025 with many people full of apprehension. The political landscape, with the change of power at the Presidency and in Congress along with a whole new group of individuals with their own ideologies is in the forefront. Of what will take place in January. The noise that lead up to the election and the post-mortems will only intensify. 

With that backdrop, there is sports to fall back on. NFL. NBA. NHL. MLB. College football. College basketball. And a whole lot of other sports which periodically catch one’s attention. 

For me, the goal is to make that final trip to a baseball field I haven’t seen a game at. That would be Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. I have seen the oldest MLB park a few times while in Boston, even driving close to it. Just not the inside. 

When I ultimately go, I will treasure the fact that I have completed the circuit and seen the colorful interior of the stadium. But I will also gnash my teeth at the absurd tariff attached to the tickets for a game. I agree with my friend that it is much better to drive the three hours to Camden Yards to pay reasonable prices and sit much closer than I ever could in Boston or New York. Besides, I love going through the Harbor Tunnel much more than any bridge or tunnel in Boston, where the drivers are fast and loose. 

The annual New Year’s Day NHL outdoor game was at Wrigley Field, the second oldest MLB park. St. Louis and Chicago banged heads in the cold and rain. 

So it got me thinking about stadiums and outdoor venues. There have been 41 games thus far played in the elements. This is the second time the NHL has opted for Wrigley, as the Blackhawks hosted Detroit in 2009. The second outdoor game for 2025 will be in the Big Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio when the Red Wings and Blue Jackets collide. 

A few college stadiums have been utilized—so I was thinking why not at Beaver Stadium on the Penn State campus. Or Husky Stadium in Seattle? Or the University of Illinois or University of Missouri? Maybe Florida or Florida State could host a game? The University of Colorado? How about a pro venue like Geha Field at Arrowhead?

My mind also meandered to stadiums I was watching when the NFL was playing. While watching the hapless New York Jets manhandled by the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, I saw the cranes looming over the current field, used to haul in materials for the new stadium which is well underway and would be ready for the 2026 season. A new stadium is being built in Nashville for the Titans with a roof—wouldn’t you think that Orchard Park, New York is the place to have a fixed roof, not in the South?

Proposed stadiums are in the works for the Chicago Bears, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cleveland Browns, with some uncertainty about a new place for the Washington Commanders. With the exception of Cleveland, all the stadiums these teams currently play in are in need of repair; and unlike the Bills, all will be able to close the roof to the elements (and maybe host a Super Bowl or NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship?). Even the ill-fated Jets stadium on Manhattan’s West Side was prudently going to have a roof. 

With the new venues under construction, the capacity will be a bit smaller than what the current arenas hold. Jacksonville will be smaller in its new park, while the Bears will have a larger capacity than ancient Soldier Field holds. 

Which NFL stadium is the biggest? None other than the mausoleum known as Met Life Stadium, shared by the New York Giants and New York Jets, two franchises in the doldrums and then some. Surprisingly, second in capacity is the beautifully reconstructed Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers. Both hold over 81,000 customers when full. 

Yet that is misleading, as #3 on the list, AT&T Stadium, the pride and joy of Dallas owner Jerry Jones, can fit in far more people than its listed capacity. Twelve stadiums can seat over 70,000, which accounts for 14 teams (New York and Los Angeles have shared facilities). 

The smallest? State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. 63,400 is the capacity. Nonetheless, the NFL has that field on its rotating Super Bowl list because it is with a fixed roof in a warm climate, not likely to have weather disruption getting there like in Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta and Dallas, the latter two cities where winter weather can create absolute havoc. 

Yes, I am a stadium geek. Wherever I go, I love to look at fields or arenas—peering inside through locked gates if I can’t somehow get inside. Given the fact that I have seen nearly every college campus of a major power school, I have seen the arenas and stadiums at each—and a ton of non-Power 5 campuses, too.

I have seen every current NFL stadium except for SoHi—I flew over it when it was being built, as the runways of LAX are nearby. And quite a few stadiums which no longer exist like the Pontiac Silverdome; Detroit’s Tiger Stadium; War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo; Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia; Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh; the two stadiums in St.Louis when the Cardinals played there; and Jack Murphy Stadium, home to the Chargers before they alighted to LA. 

I can go on ad nauseam. I will spare you, the reader, any more details. For I want to touch on another subject. College sports. 

It has hit me a couple of times in December about the absurdity of what is called college athletics. The Name-Image-Likeness pay-for-play atmosphere. The humongous TV money spilled out to the conferences and schools. The transfer portal and the new one-and-done at a school making the player a hired gun for money. 

I come from a Division III background. Where scholarships didn’t exist. Our Division I athletes were wrestlers and they had work grants to subsidize their attending a fine liberal arts college which still fancied itself as part of the upper echelons of Eastern wrestling. 

One of my Franklin and Marshall baseball teammates also played basketball and could easily have played at a Division I level. Except that no one would take him to play two sports. Our shortstop was also the quarterback on the football team. His name adorns the new stadium the football team plays in. There were others in the class following us who played two sports. They came for the athletics and the education. 

We were fortunate that our schedule was only a bit more than 20 games. Now the F&M baseball team plays over 40 regular season games, which will include a trip to California this season. And then there are the playoffs. 

I felt the strain of academics against athletics when I played in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. A fair number of professors didn’t care that you were on a team and had a game to travel to three hours away; you had to keep up with your classwork. There were no videos or recordings to substitute what you missed in a lecture. No tutors. You relied on somebody’s notes and hoped for the best. 

Yet we practiced or played every day from the middle of January until nearly the beginning of May. There was off season training and in season supplemental activity. We worked as hard as our compatriots on the Division I level. And our parents were playing top dollar for us to succeed academically and take the next step into a career—whether that meant graduate school or heading straight to work. 

Nobody was getting money to play. No one was thinking about transferring. That wasn’t the mindset. 

Contrast that with the payola atmosphere in college sports today. I thought of the Washington State football team which participated in a bowl game despite more than 20 key players leaving via the portal. Or the Miami quarterback who decided after a half to stop playing to protect his NFL draft status. Really? How do your teammates feel about that?

I watched Columbia come to Piscataway to face Rutgers in men’s basketball. The no-scholarship Lions fought gamely but were no match for the Scarlet Knights, a team which has two players receiving huge NIL money and destined for the NBA after a year while also on scholarship. I am willing to bet that after 10 years, if you compare the squads and what their livelihoods will be—maybe the RU duo will have made a lot of money but the CU guys will be more advanced in their chosen careers, thanks to the education they took advantage of. 

Not everyone is Lebron James, who at 40 years old has accomplished so much foregoing college to play in the NBA. Maybe even King James might have gone to school for a year to get the kind of money now thrown at 17 and 18 year olds to play for dear old U. 

I don’t want to necessarily poison your enjoyment of intercollegiate sports—there are plenty of kids who go on to fantastic careers once they graduate which don’t necessarily involve sports and aren’t buttressed by NIL opportunities. Yet I thought of how many players in the CFP quarterfinal game between Penn State and Boise State have NIL money and are or will be products of the transfer portal. 

The almighty dollar has always been the evil of college sports. Add in the permissive betting which attaches to sports and it is a ravenous atmosphere which eats up and spits out kids who play the games. 

I watched the University of Washington quarterback, tearful after his team failed to convert a two point conversion to defeat Louisville in the absurdly-named Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl (the winning coach was showered with Frosted Flakes instead of a Gatorade bath). For a second, I felt sorry for him. Then I wondered if he was being paid big bucks to play on a prestigious Big Ten team one year removed from the national championship game or if he had already utilized the transfer portal. 

I can’t help but be highly cynical about what is going on at the collegiate level. A lot of regulation is warranted. Provided the schools and their bosses, the networks, want to reel in the quagmire which has been created. Instead, they and their alumni are too busy whining about why their school might have been excluded from the playoffs. 

Watch all the sports you want. But think of those kids from the Ivy League or those retired, successful F&M baseball players—a couple of attorneys, doctors and a plethora of businessmen—playing for the love of the game, accumulating debt with higher tuition costs, while having a real goal in life. 

Enjoy 2025.  Just think—I haven’t even mentioned Juan Soto, Taylor Swift, the Kelces, Mannings or the Detroit Lions.