Tuesday, March 23, 2021

A Plus

TigerBlog long ago lost track of the number of times he drove up I-95 on a Friday afternoon on his way to one Ivy League school or another.

He flashed back to one specific time this past Saturday morning, when he turned on the TV and saw the FA Cup game between Bournemouth and Southampton was on.

It took him back to either the mid-1990s or the early 2000s, because his longtime friend and long-ago colleague David Rosenfeld was with him. This means that either David was the men's basketball contact and TB was going to do the radio, which would have made it 2003-08 or so, or that it was in the mid-’90s, when David was an intern, and in that case they would have been going up on a fall Friday for football, soccer and field hockey.

Either way, the part he definitely remembers is that they were listening to the "Mike and the Mad Dog Show" on WFAN radio. If you weren't from the New York area and never heard them, or if you heard Mike Francesa when he was on by himself, then you missed out on what is one of the two best sports talk duos TB has ever heard, along with the "PTI" combination of Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser.

Anyway, somehow the subject of the FA Cup came up, only the Mad Dog didn't quite call it by its correct name. No, he added an extra "A" to the end of it, creating instead the "FAA" Cup. TB hasn't been able to see the tournament named since where he hasn't thought of the Federal Aviation Administration, as opposed to the Football Association.

The FA Cup, by the way, is a pretty cool event. It takes every team from all of the pro leagues in England, from the Premier League down, and has a fairly random single-elimination tournament. 

The FAA Cup, presumably, is related to landing planes on time.

If you missed it, Southampton won 3-0. As with all English soccer games, the announcers were great, including this line at one point after a weak shot went wide: "He was going for precision over power and got neither."

That's genius. With an English accent, of course. 

It's certainly better than "Today's keys to the game, for Bournemouth, score more goals than Southampton and for Southampton, score more goals than Bournemouth."

TB texted David to ask him if he remembered the "FAA Cup" moment. His response was: "Christopher Russo FAA Cup?" 

Exactly.

The night before, David had reached out to TB to tell him that "Sadak is great on the radio."

That would be John Sadak, the former Princeton men's and women's basketball announcer who will soon be starting his first season as the TV play-by-play man for the Cincinnati Reds. Sadak was also doing the opening rounds of the NCAA men's tournament for Westwood One radio, and he has done the women's Final Four for Westwood One for years.

There has been a great Princeton play-by-play connection to the basketball postseason.

In addition to Sadak, who as David said is great on the radio, there was Tom McCarthy on CBS, first doing the game that went to overtime between North Texas and Purdue. TB was rooting for Purdue, who lost, but hey it was great to see Tom do the NCAA tournament on CBS.

And to do it from Indianapolis as well. The last time McCarthy did the NCAA tournament in Indianapolis was with Princeton in 1996, but hey, you probably read out that here the last two weeks.

Also, if you wanted to watch NIT games on ESPN, you could hear the current Princeton men's basketball announcer, Derek Jones. 

If you need a laugh, you can see this picture of Jones and Sadak back when they were doing radio at Rowan (the same university that gave you Cody Chrusciel).

It's great to see these three doing so well, and it couldn't happen to three better guys. As always, TB finds himself rooting for the announcers.

Much like the extra "A" that the Mad Dog gave to the soccer tournament, TB gives these three an A-plus as well.

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