49ERS head coach Mike Singletary is a very strong-willed, stoic, bread-and-butter gridiron CEO whose demeanor has a virtual choke-hold on the Bay Area sports media.
Singletary's team comes into Sunday having lost three in a row and the natives, (fans) are getting restless. Granted, his squad has faced a portion of the AFC elite; (close losses to Indy and Houston, but a blowout at home to the Falcons,) nevertheless, Singletary's weekly press briefings have become increasingly tension-filled and his "show" on KNBR every Tuesday morning amounts to an audio exercise of "tweak the host."
During last week's show, host Brian Murphy tried in vein to confront the big coach as to the game plan versus Indy, as orchestrated by coordinator Jimmy Raye. Instead of opening with a blunt question about that plan, Murphy tossed out some quick sweet nothings and Singletary made him sound like mincemeat. What else is new?
Murphy could have offered a simple, "Coach, I'm going to start off by asking 'why did you, (Raye,) stick with conservative calls when it appeared that your QB was performing splendidly with a more 'wide-open set?", or something to the effect.
Again, we got a lot of nervous laughter from the slightly-intimidated "Murph", who did manage to extract a little more on, but very little. Singletary provides little, if anything enlightening to Bay Area football fans. It would be nice if every now and then a reporter would dare ask him any potential question outside the obligatory, "gee, lately, your OC's play-calling 'sucks," but most of the scribes and tonsils here won't dare question the coach, mostly out of fear.
Why? I have my reasons; draw your own conclusions. Most of them are simply afraid of him and won't cross that line, so the best you get with big Mike is football gobblety-gook.
**TOM CABLE fallout: It's not a question of will Cable get the boot, but when. He's already on the clock. The N.O.W. condemnation was the final act.
**Cal's football radio crew of Joe Starkey and notable Troy Taylor is a most welcome broadcast. Taylor, a former Bears QB from years past, is a terrific analyst and isn't afraid to criticize the home team. For a guy who's sort of new at this, Taylor's astute broadcast style and ease is quite evident. Simply stated, he's good. Enough said.
**Rachel Maddow has become the new chic cable diva on MSNBC; her preppy, pointed ivy-league, stylish, but bookish, left-of-center commentary has made her quite popular and wealthy, (she just signed a new $2.5 million contract,); it's therefore puzzling and cheesy that she's suddenly doing a ton of skin-gel radio commercials. Do you really need the money that bad, Rachel?
**One thing's for sure about Singletary: he better get a win today against the Titans, otherwise we could have our first post game meltdown, which may not be that bad. A little excitement goes a long way.
**KRON's weekend sports package has been "beefed up." Now, its simply the news anchor providing your Sat./Sun. sports highlights with actual, (surprise!) same-day highlights. Sort of both sad and odd to see Catherine Heenan describe the CAL/Stanford highlights, but she was remarkably cool and better than some of her collegues at the station.
**Dan Noyes of ABC7, (KGO) broke the ex-49ERS/Raiders Dana Stubblefield 'restraining-order story, (he got an R.O. from his ex-gf,) but the story received little traction in the Bay Area and absolutely NO mention on the all-sports station here, (geez, what a surprise--they only go after Raiders)
**OK, its official: NBC Bay Area anchor duo Tom Sinkovitz and Jessica Aguirre provide the best newscast on local TV news. Frank Somerville and Julie Haener are great at KTVU at 10 PM and Ken Bastida and Dana King do a nice job at CBS 5, but Sinkovitz and Aguirre look as if they've been behind the desk for years. Smooth, solid and infinitely watchable.
**Yours truly was in the CAL press box Saturday evening watching the Bears gets thumped by Oregon State; nearby, KGO radio's non-smiling emperor VP, Mickey Luckoff, who acted as if he was the radio equivalent of Sumner Redstone. Seeing thirty minutes of King Mick, I can now see why 98% of those who have to deal with him feel tortured. Oy!
**Underrated weekend radio partners: KCBS' Dave Padilla and Janice Wright.
**Unintentionally funny weekend radio show: KGO's pedantic, snooty dronologist, Gene Burns, who hosts "Dining Around" from 10 AM until 1PM. God, I thought Burns liked to use big words on his nightly show at 7, until I heard a 'taste of his restaurant show. Only guy who brings a thesaurus to his gig.
**Nothing sinister about the recent news that KCBS' Steve Little is taking off the next few months. Apparently, the veteran SF news anchor just needs a breather.
**Noted without comment: Some of KRON's VJ's have taken to posting their stories on Facebook.
**I think highly of Warriors play-by-play guy Tim Roye, but I'd ditch the in-game actuality every other minute. Its annoying and disrupts the flow of the game, which given the state of the Warriors, may provide the reasons why, but seriously, I'd rather listen to Roye more than hearing some mundane remark from a player who says nothing anyway.
**Bob Fitzgerald is terrible as a radio talk-show host, but the giggler is very good on TV as part of the Dubs TV package on Comcast. Jim Barnett is pretty good himself and quite funny; by the way, Jim, miss the movie reviews you used to do with Greg Papa.
**CABLE NEWS:Don't kill me for watching Fox News, but "Red Eye" on weekend nights has suddenly turned into a guilty pleasure. Sure, its still skewed toward the right, but Greg G's a hoot and most of the panelists are funny...Hilarious SNL parody of Foxites Greta Van Susteran, Glenn Beck and Shep Smith...and later, an equally funny take-ff of The View with, of all people, Taylor Swift, playing herself and Fred Arneson doing a hysterical Joy Behar.
**I'll be a guest tonight shortly after 10 PM PST on Patrick Mauro's "Sports Overnight", heard locally on XTRA Sports 860 AM. Alert security.
**Follow me on Twitter.
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