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Between the Braves and the Falcons, sports happened in Atlanta last week and the local NBC affiliate and the national media outlets were all over it.
The nation took in Braves baseball last weekend when both FOX and ESPN paid visits to Turner Field for the Phillies/Braves series. On Saturday, FOX’s color analyst Mark Grace was right on target when he broached the topic of Brian McCann having overtaken Chipper Jones as foundation of the franchise. Grace noted on the telecast that Jones was still the “face of the franchise,” but McCann is “clearly the future of this team and is the foundation of the Atlanta franchise.” The next at-bat McCann homered to prove Grace’s point true. It is nice to hear that Brian McCann is finally getting the recognition that he deserves. He is the best young catcher in the National League, and outside of Joe Mauer in Minnesota, the best hitting catcher in the game. McCann’s four straight all-star games prove he is a bright and shining star, but fans across baseball must start voting him in to start the all-star game as he is certainly worthy. On Sunday night, despite the rain delay, ESPN broadcasted the series finale as its Sunday Night Game of the Week. The broadcast crew of Jon Miller, Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips praised Javier Vazquez, calling his season a “renaissance” and crediting Braves manager Bobby Cox for the turnaround.
Last Saturday, Atlanta’s WXIA, 11 Alive carried the Falcons preseason contest against the Detroit Lions and former Georgia QB Matthew Stafford. The team was made up of WXIA’s Randy Waters and Fox’s Brian Baldinger, with Fred Kalil working the sidelines and Sam Crenshaw holding things down in the studio. Waters and Baldinger seemed to find chemistry as the game progressed, but hopefully the team improves by the second game. WXIA used the NBC sports graphics but still flashed atlantafalcons.com across the screen enough to know that it was a local broadcast. Sports Radio 790 The Zone personality Beau Bock was highly critical of the production quality, calling the broadcast “high school, but even now high school coverage is better than that.” Bock also brought up the point that Baldinger has no tie to the Falcons or even Atlanta. He was involved in Fox’s coverage of the Falcons in several games last season, but Bock is right. How come WXIA didn’t get a former Falcon or someone with Atlanta ties to do the game? CSS’s (and former Yellow Jacket) Dorsey Levens or former Falcon and local radio personality Chuck Smith both would have been better options. The team will be at it again Friday when the Falcons travel to St. Louis to play the Rams at 8 p.m. The game will air on 92.9 Dave FM with Wes Durham calling the play-by-play and those wishing for pictures can view it on WXIA once again.
Philadelphia Eagles backup quarterback Michael Vick was on 60 Minutes Sunday where he admitted that he cried while in prison. Vick told CBS’s James Brown that he realized the “magnitude of the decision that [he] made,” once he stepped foot into the prison and he noted that he deserved to lose the $135M that was stripped of him from the Falcons and his sponsors after the dogfighting charges came to light. Vick seemed to be forthcoming with his answers but the questions were not as hardball as many would have liked. Brown did not follow up when Vick admitted that he didn’t try as hard as he could have for the Falcons. I would have liked to have heard what Vick would have said if Brown had asked if he thought the fans deserved a refund for the games that Vick didn’t try as hard as he knew he should have. Vick signed with the Eagles last week and the Eagles will visit the Georgia Dome this December. The Dome will be sold out no doubt for that tilt and the networks will likely make it the game of the week. It probably deserved consideration before the Vick ramifications began, but now that his presence has been added it will be interesting to see if NBC tries to “flex” the game away from FOX. Between Vick’s return to Atlanta and Brett Favre’s return to Green Bay as a member of the Vikings, the NFC slate will certainly have its exciting moments this season.
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