Kuzul

There are several great additions to MLB 13 The Show other than the new Postseason Mode.

This game is the latest installment in one of the most successful sports video game franchises around today. The 2012 iteration was quite impressive with its graphics and overall gameplay. It upped the ante, raising the standard for future video game in the genre.

For the most part, that does become an issue. There is not a huge leap in the animation, the realism was already top-notch and most modes remain the same.

Those who already own MLB 12: The Show will be looking for a reason to buy the latest version besides just updated rosters. Fortunately, the postseason mode provides just that.

As good as these games have been, though, it is tough to play a baseball franchise. While the Madden series replicates football with 16 games a year plus the playoffs, the major leagues feature 162 games.

Unless you literally have nothing else to do with your life, you are most likely not going through an entire season while playing every game. In all likelihood, you are simulating most games and hoping you are a good enough general manager to get your team into the playoffs.

Even the Road to the Show mode is often too drawn out for an average person to keep interest.

However, the Postseason brings the shortened time frame to those who love baseball.

With this feature, you can customize the 10 teams that will be involved in the playoffs. This means even a fan of the Pittsburgh Pirates can feel what it is like to play in October.

FranchisePlay’s Brian Mazique provides a look into the presentation of the Postseason Mode in this video:

Gamers can now spend their time playing fewer games with a heightened intensity. While many of the features from franchise mode do not carry over, it still has the feel of your own team competing for a World Series.

Additionally, the mode features a different presentation from the regular season. The crowd is louder, the broadcast is more intense and even the announcers seem to be involved in the action.

It truly captures the essence of October baseball and puts it into a video game.

Sports video games often have to find a perfect mixture of fun gameplay and a realistic experience. The overall game does a decent job of this, but the postseason mode completely nails it.

If you were on the fence about whether to buy the new game, this added feature should help make your choice a bit easier.

Follow @TheRobGoldberg

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With the first Spring Training game just 39 days away, the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies hosted a behind the scenes tour of their new Spring Training facility Salt River Fields at Talking Stick.

When ground broke in November 2009, it was hard to imagine what the complex would look like.

Now, just 14 months later, the transformation is incredible.

Most of the heavy earth moving equipment has disappeared and all that remains is a few minor details and some cleanup.

Before entering the stadium, we were greeted by friendly staff who gave each of us a hardhat, safety glasses, a neon vest and cloth booties. I have to admit, I was disappointed that the hard hats were not Sedona Red and was even more depressed to learn that we had to turn in that cool vest.

I was hoping I could take it and wear it to the first Spring Training game on February 26th as a badge of honor.

The entrance to the stadium is incredible. As you walk across the bridge towards the gates, there is a water feature to the left that runs below and to an adjoining lake to the right; the other cool thing about the entrance is that you are able to look out on the practice fields and batting cages and catch a glimpse of your favorite player warming up.

The left side of the complex is the Arizona Diamondbacks side, while the right is the Colorado Rockies. Besides the stadium that seats just over 11,000 fans (7,000 fixed seats and another 4,000 lawn seats), the complex also includes 12 practice fields (six each for the Diamondbacks and Rockies).

On the Diamondbacks side, there is one field that has the exact dimensions as Salt River Fields at Talking Stick stadium, while another has the exact field dimensions of Chase Field. This will allow players to learn the nuances of each field without having to actually be at that stadium.

That should pay dividends both in Spring Training and also during rehab assignments or instructional league.

Entering the front gates, the first thing you will notice is the amazing sight lines. It is almost breathtaking to see the field emerge as you walk in.

Like at Chase Field, the Diamondbacks dugout will be on the third base side while the Rockies dugout will be on the first base side.

I sat behind home plate and waited for the event to begin. I tried to remember what this looked like during the groundbreaking ceremony. It was hard to imagine what we saw in front of us did not exist just a year prior.

The event began at 1 PM and the seats behind the plate were in the shade. Mo Stein from the architecture firm HKS explained that the stadium was designed so that 80 percent of the seats would be in the shade by game time taking into account the location of the sun during February and March.

The scoreboard beyond left field was the first thing to catch your eye—it is hard to miss at 24 feet by 48 feet. The board will look familiar to Diamondbacks fans as it is similar to the one at Chase Field and can be controlled similarly.

It is the largest LED screen in all of MLB Spring Training.

Besides the main board, there are also two LED ribbon boards similar to what you see at Chase Field. The ribbon boards are positioned so that those in the lawn seats will be able to see the information clearly.

Management for the Diamondbacks and Rockies took turns addressing the media expressing gratitude for the work that had gone into the stadium. As of January, there have been two million man-hours of work done on the facility. Each day 650 people are on site working and at its peak, there were 1,250 people there.

The hard work clearly paid off—the facility was incredible.

From the main concourse, we went to the party deck. There are three party decks at the stadium. On the left field side is the Miller Light deck, while the right field side houses the Coors Cold Zone.

The third deck is the Pepsi Party deck. For $19, fans can mingle among the three decks, which will not only have seats and patio furniture but also food and beverage.

Beyond the seats in right field currently sits a large expanse of concrete. This pad is in the process of being transformed into the Cold Stone Creamery Kids area. It will have a whiffle ball field, complete with artificial turf and have other areas where kids can go to play while their parents watch the game.

Everywhere you look, the Rockies and Diamondbacks have taken fan experience into consideration.

In tomorrow’s blog post, we will move beyond the stadium and delve into the other aspects of Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, including the team clubhouses and overall fan experience.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

A.J. Burnett is fuming, steaming and most likely darn right mad.

He’s mad at ESPN voice on the radio, Colin Cowherd.

This one’s a doozie.

Seems the guy with the strange name—that would be Mr. Cowherd—said something on his show about the New York Yankees pitcher that he might, at this moment, want to take back.

Ah, but such is the beauty of our modern day sports talk radio. Once you say it, it’s ON the record. No misquotes, no pleading and no back-peddling.

Seems the guy whose name rhymes with what we used to call Cow Patties put this gem out there on the airwaves for all to absorb:

“A.J. Burnett went through a terrible divorce, and he still might be going through it. His wife was vindictive and spiteful. I don’t feel comfortable telling you everything. The story is ugly.”

So sayeth Colin Cowherd. Oh my.

Now comes Burnett’s agent, Darek Braunecker with his response to Cowherd’s statement. It goes like this:

“A.J. is ticked. He’s not going through a divorce, and if he was, it would not be anyone’s business. They (Burnett and wife Karen) are happily married.”

Oh my.

Looks like the boys in Bristol have themselves a nice little firestorm here, doesn’t it?

And such is the beast that talk radio has become. There’s certainly a lot of it out there.

There’s a guy named Jim Rome who spouts his “take” over and over again. He is the master of repetition and he does take some listener calls, although they are screened harder than guys entering the Pentagon. You are not allowed to take issue with Rome, there is no debate. Praise him and you’re on, otherwise, forget it.

Tampa Bay is blessed with outstanding sports talk radio. We have a guy named Steve Duemig on 620 WDAE who does what talk radio hosts should do—an enormous amount of research and preparation for his three-hour show. He’ll take virtually any call and doesn’t mind screaming at callers who know little about the subject being tossed.

On the same station, former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Ian Beckles can give a perspective on the NFL through the eyes of a player who spent 10 years in the league. Beckles’ takes are typically sharp and he can back up what he says from watching film and from his experience on the field.

Which brings us back to this tizzy now where ESPN, the king of commentary and the worldwide leader in sports, has gone “no comment” on this brewing feud between Burnett and Cowherd.

Cowherd had some explaining to do.

Either Burnett and his wife are getting a divorce or they aren’t. It’s easy enough. Either this has been filed in court or it hasn’t.

Yes, Cowherd’s got some serious explaining to do on this one.

So is the nature of sports talk radio gossip or fact?

The fact is, if any talk radio host is making a claim, he better be able to prove it, back it up and simply know what the heck he’s talking about.

These shows are ratings-driven, that’s a fact. Controversy is always good. It brings listeners, it drives ratings. But there’s still a little thing out there called libel. It’s something everyone is aware of.

If in fact Burnett’s agent is correct and Cowherd is totally uninformed, then there’s bound to be some real scrambling going on with ESPN’s battery of well-compensated lawyers.

The nature of talk radio is that Cowherd could end up at some point in time, eating crow on the air, taking it all back and throwing out a barrage of mea culpas.

But that remains to be seen, or in this case, heard.

Cowherd, he’s always talking.

But for once, on this one, ESPN isn’t.

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WFAN’s Evan Roberts tweets everyday on his Twitter page. Most of his tweets center around the Nets and baseball.

One would think his Twitter page would about the Knicks’ surprising win against the Hornets last night. It was a signature win they were looking for. Instead, he wrote about the Red Sox acquiring Adrian Gonzalez. That was his first tweet of today.

Unreal, but that should be expected from a NY sports talk show host. All the talk show hosts on WFAN and 1050 ESPN Radio talk about for 365 days is baseball. It’s embarrassing. The Jets have a crucial divisional showdown with the Patriots Monday night, and the Knicks have a good start for their standards, but all the talkies want to talk about is baseball.

We have 10 professional teams in town. It can’t be that hard to come up with a topic about those teams. It represents laziness from the hosts. They do not work to do their homework. To Roberts’ credit, he at least talks about the other teams in town.

The rest of the talkies should be ashamed of themselves. Craig Carton has no business in sports radio, especially after his embarrassing interview with Mets manager Terry Collins the other day. Joe Benigno knows nothing about sports. Mike Francesa has been overrated for years, and he was only good when Chris Russo worked with him. Steve Somers should be in retirement.

ESPN Radio 1050 isn’t any better either. Neither stations have any interest in talking sports period. For being the flagship station of the Jets, the hosts do a terrible job covering the Jets. They spend maybe 10 minutes per show talking about the Jets, and move onto the Yankees.

Being the flagship station of the Jets, coverage should be better. But it isn’t.

WFAN’s Mark Chernoff and 1050’s Justin Craig mention the public likes baseball more than any other sports. This is hogwash. Yes, baseball is big here, but so is football and basketball.

The Giants and the Jets have good fan bases. Go to sports bars or read the message boards, and the passion can be felt from there. For the general managers for their respective flagship stations to say there is not much interest in football is insulting.

The Jets are playing for homefield advantage, division and respect Monday night, yet the talkies focus on the contract negotiations of Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera. It’s a waste of a topic. Everyone knows Jeter and Rivera were not going anywhere, so it’s pointless to talk about it. It’s remarkable why both sports stations went overboard on it, but whatever.

It’s sad though. Decades ago, fans would get quality sports talk around here. Hosts would talk about anything in the world of sports. There was plenty of football talk back in the day. In the ’90s, it was Knicks talk all winter long, and even in the summer. That’s a thing of the past now.

Even if the Jets win the Super Bowl, don’t expect the hosts to start being interested in that team. The Giants won the Super Bowl few years ago, and they only got a day’s coverage. There was not much talk about them during their playoff run.

It’s embarrassing. Sports radio shows in other towns talk about other sports. Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis and other good sports towns don’t spend all of their energy talking baseball only. They talk about other topics in town. Heck they even talk about what goes on in national sports. What a concept.

That should put both sports stations in town to shame. Either the stations are not creative enough to talk about other sports or the hosts have no clue.

It’s hard to blame football fans for using Sirius XM Radio for their football fix. Nowadays, fans use podcasts from bloggers to get their sports fix. One would think both stations would get a clue, but that doesn’t been the case. They believe the formula of talking baseball works.

It’s hard to argue with that strategy, but it gets old. This listener does not listen to sports talk radio anymore. There is no point listening to a talkie ramble on a sport 365 days a year. It’s boring and stale.

New Yorkers complained for years, but with no results. It’s remarkable why their comments are being ignored. Sports radio does not exist without the fans. Talkies do not become famous without listening to the public. There is this arrogance where sports talk format can survive without the fans. It doesn’t work that way.

The newspapers are no better either. Read the back pages of the Daily News and the New York Post, it’s all Yankees all the time. There are more stories about Cliff Lee than there is with the football teams. Coverage for a guy that may not be a Yankees gets more priority than couple of Super Bowl contenders. This is ridiculous.

Only in New York, this happens. It’s hard to know why. There is nothing special about baseball. It gets redundant after watching it for six months. At some point, a fan deserves a break from all this.

It’s ridiculous a newspaper has to waste its budget on covering the winter meetings. Most towns are not even going to do it. Only in New York, this happens. There’s no reason to do this.

We get the Yankees because of their brand. We know they always buy players, but it should not merit four or five pages from different baseball writers.

Then, there are the regional sports networks in town. SNY feature three sports talk shows in Daily News Live, Wheelhouse and Loud Mouths. The topic revolves around baseball, and being that they are the regional sports network for Mets baseball, it shouldn’t be surprising. To their credit, they manage to incorporate other sports in their discussions.

It would be nice if we go one day without talking baseball. It’s not too much to ask. Baseball is life here, but there has to be a balance, right? As fanatical as Boston fans are, even they know too much baseball is overload.

It’s another good reason why this New Yorker hate the Yankees. Because of them, he is subjected to baseball year round.

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What image do you get when you think of both baseball and professional wrestling?

You never think of the two as being “peas in a pod.”

And the only similarities you might think of are the vast amounts of steroids used by their stars.

However, the two sports share a similarity that goes beyond comparing Barry Bonds’ physique to that of Triple-H. Both sports are American institutions.

American institutions that are slowly losing interest.

The reason ironically is because of their attempts to “cater” to the casual fan.

Baseball has Yankees-Red Sox, while pro wrestling has John Cena-Randy Orton.

Both are long rivalries that were exciting at first but now we’re just sick of, and both will intensify again after Thanksgiving, with the Yankees and Red Sox fighting over the latest prize free agents, while at least the WWE will go into a different direction with Cena and Orton, and Orton will be a face while Cena will be the heel.

These rivalries are what Major League Baseball and the WWE think that people want to see.

There might be some truth to that—the Yankees and Red Sox do pull in higher ratings than most other teams—while the WWE’s ratings are higher when John Cena is around.

But this has done nothing but turn off the die-hards.

In wrestling, the die-hards want to see newer wrestlers get a push. They’re waiting for the day when John Morrison, The Miz, Alberto Del Rio, and other newer, fresher faces get their turn.

In baseball, true fans want to see teams be featured on ESPN and Fox other than the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs, Cardinals and Phillies. 

Thankfully in baseball, as long as the good teams win, they get the attention of the press—well, sort of.

The San Francisco Giants had an excellent team with a great pitching staff this year. Because of that they won their first World Series since 1954, which was four years before they moved to San Francisco.

But all I heard about this series from ESPN were questions about where Cliff Lee was going to wind up and if the Yankees, who ironically were eliminated by Lee and his Rangers, would make a push toward him.

ESPN might as well hire Michael Cole based off of how they talk about the non-marquee franchises, especially compared to their constant over-hyping of the Red Sox. They were doing everything but dismissing the Giants like they were just a mediocre NBA team who won the eighth seed in the East.

So what will the solution be for baseball? Oh, more wild cards, great.

The current system in baseball is fine. Three division champions, one wild card per league. Four playoff teams in each league, one goal.

Now their plan is to have two wild cards face each other in a play-in series, which is a mistake. 

Say a team finishes with the second best record in the National League, yet is second in their division. Why would they have to play against a team that finished second in a weaker division and is more than five games back of the first wild card team?

Isn’t 162 games enough?

Wrestling fans probably feel the same way about Vince’s “Brand Extension,” which looks more and more like it will be slowly phased out.

The Brand Extension, for those of you who aren’t into wrestling and clicked on the article because I mentioned baseball, was the splitting up of the WWE roster into Raw and Smackdown, their two shows. The reason being to cut down on travel and employ more wrestlers.

But this ended up just diluting the titles. Right now there’s a WWE Champion, and a World Heavyweight Champion. 

Who’s the real champ?

Yes, I know, maybe wrestling and baseball are completely different, but not in the treatment of the hardcore fans in an attempt to appeal to casual fans.

To bring in casual fans, both need drama. With baseball its already there, but it isn’t being packaged correctly, unless of course its Yankees-Red Sox. Adding more playoff teams won’t solve this problem, it will only make it worse.

Wrestling its all about packaging to create the drama, and they seem to be back on the right track.

Maybe Baseball needs to take some pointers from pro wrestling, and no I don’t mean they should start fixing games, but knowing how Bud Selig, Fox and ESPN think, I wouldn’t put it past them.

After all the last time they did, attendance did go up.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Mark Kiszla is at it again.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Bob Raissman and Phil Mushnick write about sports media for the New York Daily News and the Ne w York Post respectively. When their papers publish their columns, it’s a must-read.

Those two are not afraid to savage any media personality. They point out their stupidity on the airwaves. 

Michael Kay is a fixture on those columns. No one can go through a week without reading a criticism of Kay in the paper.

Kay deserves it. He brings this all on himself.

The Yankees announcer is terrible at what he does. It’s amazing he has been doing TV play-by-play since 2002 yet he is not getting better at all.

He has no idea how the game is played. He loses track on the play too often. He does not know if the ball is going to be gone or not. He rarely adds any analysis, and he does not make his analysts better.

Like John Sterling, he is more into doing catchphrases and loving the sound of his voice rather than calling a good game.

He is poorly prepared when he does the games. For example, he wondered why the Rays were bunting along with stealing bases in a game last week. What he does not realize is the Yankees are capable of coming back at anytime. It’s hard to blame the Rays for their approach.

That’s how the Rays play the game. This is something an announcer should be knowing. It’s called doing research, but that’s not how Kay does his job.

Kay’s strength is to start something up and ripping people on the air. It’s been his shtick for years, and it is tiresome.

He likes to take shot at teams. He often rips the Red Sox, Mets, Rays, or any other successful team. He criticizes Joe Maddon, Ron Gardenhire, Terry Francona, Joe Torre, and other managers. He makes fun of people too.

This is a guy that picks fight with another regional sports network in town. Last month, he ripped SNY for doing a call-in show in a middle of a game. Only he knows why he sense the need to do that.

How does this writer know all this? It’s because Mushnick and Raissman mentioned this.

It’s time for Kay to grow up and start getting better at his job. He shouldn’t be resorting to this. His job is to describe the game and let the analysts do the talking.

If anything, Kay does most of the talking. Not one Yankee analyst can get a word in.

It would be nice if he stopped acting like a shill. He mentioned the litany of injuries to reason why the Yankees are struggling. It sounds convenient, but the Yankees’ pitching is still good enough to win games on their own, which is what Raissman pointed out Sunday.

Plus, it’s pathetic when an announcer has to whine about injuries on the air.

One wonders what Kay ever done to earn a job as an announcer. He wasn’t special on the radio back in the day.

He said lot of stuff that resembled junk on the radio. It worked well for him since he worked with John Sterling, who did the play-by-play.

On TV, it does not work well, period. One would think Kay would work hard to get better at his craft, but he shows no inclination to do so.

It’s a joke the YES Network insists on having him to do the games, but it shows lack of credibility of the network and the Yankees.

Kay will always suck up to the Yankees at every opportunity. In that regard, the network and the organization will continue to enable him.

Baseball fans deserve better than this.  For this viewer, I cringe watching the Yankees game on television. I try to put them on mute, but it’s hard to watch a baseball game on mute.

Why should pressing the mute be an option? Baseball is meant to be listened not hearing in silence.

An announcer should know how to paint the picture well. It’s similar to what a sportswriter has to do in presenting his or her thoughts.

Kay does not mirror those things. All he does is speak nonsense and treat viewers as if they are stupid.

When is enough is enough? When does YES hold him accountable?

Yankees fans love it when their announcers say nothing but good things about their favorite team. With that said, they can’t stand Kay. It’s hard to come up with one Yankees fan that like the guy.

It’s an indictment of how bad he is as an announcer and a human being.

He should be ashamed of himself for what he is. One figure he would have some sort of pride and start working.

That’s not how he is though. He can care less. He is making money. He has a dream job that people wish they had. He is not afraid to rub it in and tell people he has a better job than others.

Maybe he is inspired to do that because he was picked on a lot as a kid.

With that anal voice of his and the way he looks, he was probably picked on.

It’s just sad he has to resort to stupidity. He can be a better announcer if he wants to be.

What a shame!

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DeSean Jackson has been finding himself in the headlines a lot this week.

One interview with The Sporting News has turned into a giant fiasco, pitting Jackson against his former quarterback and his offensive coordinator.

When Jackson took the interview, I don’t think he had any intentions of bad mouthing, throwing under the bus, or anything else. However, Jackson’s words have been put in the national spotlight with a negative connotation. He’s even been compared to T.O. in terms of his attitude off the field.

So now we’re forced to ask the question: is DeSean Jackson’s mouth a problem?

First of all, the comments that involved Donovan McNabb were blown way out of proportion.

When asked how the team would be without McNabb, did you really expect Jackson to say “we’re screwed”? Regardless of whether or not he thought that (which I really don’t believe he does), he’s not going to say it. If Ty Detmer was announced as the starter in 2010, Jackson would still say positive things even though we’d all very well know the Birds would be screwed.

Jackson’s comments were to simply state that he is confident in Kevin Kolb and believes Kolb will pick up right where McNabb left off.

However, the media took Jackson’s comments and made it sound like he was simply bad-mouthing McNabb. They then fed McNabb these quotes out of context and McNabb made his typical defensive comments. Since then, Jackson has come out wished McNabb the best of luck, basically an apology.

I don’t think this was necessary but I suppose it was the “right” thing to do.

After everyone had a couple days to dwell on the Jackson-McNabb battle and the dust seemed to settle, the stories started breaking about Jackson’s comments on Marty Mornhinweg. This was a surprise, as you wouldn’t think a coach would rush a player back from a head injury. The Eagles coaches certainly shouldn’t be the ones rushing players back after seeing what happened with Brian Westbrook firsthand.

Obviously, the Eagles offense is better when DeSean Jackson plays, but there should be no pressure on a player to come back from an injury like that or judge their toughness.

I heard a radio interview with The Sporting News writer who interviewed Jackson, and he said that there was no remorse in Jackson’s voice when speaking of the incident. From what I heard, it sounded more like Mornhinweg really wanted Jackson to play due to the importance of the game. Of course, the media loves to blow the words out of proportion to make good headlines.

Overall, I think this interview was probably a good experience for Jackson.

He’s a superstar on the rise and is going to see a lot of attention in the future. After this interview, he’s seen first hand how anything you say can be misconstrued and turned against you. From this experience, you would think Jackson will start to be more careful about what he says.

I hope he does.

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