Carmelo Anthony & Why We Should Never Believe An Athlete When He Speaks

Our Call of the Day today actually comes from Sunday night’s NBA All-Star game, when TNT’s Craig Sager firebombed Carmelo Anthony on the West bench to ask about meetings he’s had with the Nets and the Knicks.

Carmelo was not the first player interviewed during the game, but most of the other conversations featured mostly softball questions like how great Ray Allen felt being in double-digit All-Star games. Yet, journalistic integrity being what it is, some people certainly felt it was Sager’s responsibility, during the All-Star game, to ask Anthony about his plans to leave Denver before the trade deadline this week.

Kobe Bryant — who with the help of Chris Paul hijacked the entire interview — didn’t much care for journalistic integrity during the All-Star Game. Anthony, it turns out, didn’t much care for telling Sager the truth in the one question he actually answered.

Here’s the transcript from the one question Carmelo was able to answer during the conversation with Sager:

“Alright. Tuesday the Nuggets have a game. Will you be in a Denver uniform for thatREAD MORE

Marv Albert Has Bieber Fever (A Mash-Up)

Marv Albert went star watching during the 2011 All-Star Game at Staples Center, but seemed most impressed by a young Canadian lad in the front row.

Yes, folks..Marv Albert has Bieber Fever. Enjoy.

Call of the Day: Cesc Fabregas Is Great At Soccer, Terrible At Math

Cesc Fabregas led Arsenal to a world-shocking victory over Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League yesterday. The Arsenal captain, who has long been rumored to join the Barca stable, downplayed the significance of the victory as just one half of the ultimate goal of knocking out “the best side in football history.” The only problem…during his official Champions League post-match interview, the Arsenal captain got a little confused with exactly how long halfway is.

I love the fact that he was interrupted during his first answer, yet wasn’t corrected when he said they’ve only played 45 of 90, er, 180 minutes. Also, I’m certain that fans of the Gunners around the world will take a captain who played like he did yesterday, regardless of his computation skills.

Call of the Day: What If IBM’s Watson Was An Athlete, Not A Jeopardy Contestant

Tuesday’s episode of Jeopardy was day two of the long-running game show’s three-day ad for IBM, featuring super computer Watson as one of the contestants against the show’s two greatest human champions. Watson destroyed Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in Double Jeopardy, so much so that the segment about how smart Watson became more entertaining than the actual competition.

Now the question becomes: did IBM make Watson too smart for Jeopardy?

Obviously the answer is no, it’s impossible to make computers “too smart” for anything. But it’s pretty obvious after two days that the computer isn’t exactly set up properly for this particular game show, and the rules they had to bend to accommodate Watson have made the game more of a cheap gimmick than a true test of man-v-man-v-machine.

We mentioned this yesterday, but it bears repeating that Watson cannot see, nor hear, meaning the computer cannot digest the clue in the same manner by which the human contestants do. Watson receives the clues by text, giving the computer a clear advantage over someone who has toREAD MORE

Call of the Day: IBM’s Watson on Jeopardy (The Sports Parts)

Yesterday was the much-heralded debut of WATSON on the fantastic game show Jeopardy! (the exclamation point is theirs, not mine). The half-hour program was basically an ad for IBM with a few questions sprinkled throughout, so hopefully the next two nights of man-vs.-man-vs.-machine will be more about the actual game and less about the giant server room that houses the dozens of racks it takes to make Watson intuitive.

The process is pretty neat, and there’s a little bit of that in this video (though I only put that in to show everyone that one of Watson’s initial choices for a question about non-dairy creamer was LPGA golfer Paula Creamer, which automatically qualifies Watson as one of the biggest LPGA supporters on the planet.) Still, there was a category about sports on the show last night, so here are all the sports parts.

Here’s my only issue with this gimmick: I’ve watched thousands of episodes of this show and always assume that every Jeopardy contestant knows at least 75% of the answers (or questions), making ultimate successREAD MORE

Call of the Day: “And The Fans Are Storming The Court At The RAC”

Do you think when Eamon McAnaney and Tim Welsh were assigned Villanova at Rutgers that either of them thought they’d have the game of the day, especially when the day featured Duke-North Carolina and especially when that Duke-North Carolina game featured an epic come-from-behind win by the home team?

Alas, Rutgers upset Villanova with an epic come-from-behind win of its own, down by as many as 13 points, including a ten-point deficit with just over two minutes to play. Then, this happened:

The announcers certainly seem as shocked as the viewers (and, it seems, Jay Wright). An obvious congratulations to Rutgers head coach Mike Rice for getting his first-season signature win, something his team has been knocking on the door of for a few weeks in the Big East. Now, they’ve got it…in the craziest of ways.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the fans storming the court. I hate the randomness of fans storming the court and do think there should be some unwritten — hell, written — set of rules for doing so. ThisREAD MORE

Call of the Day: Mike Emrick + Overtime = Win.

As someone who grew up in New Jersey, right over the bridge from Philadelphia and a few hours south of the Meadowlands, I’ve always hated the Devils. Following a Flyers team that has featured, what, 20 different starting goalies in the last ten years, I’ve certainly always hated Martin Brodeur. So this season, with the Flyers atop the standings, the Devils near the bottom and Brodeur having the worst season of his (grits teeth) illustrious career, it’s actually been a lot of fun following New Jersey.

Still, the one thing the Devils will always have that the Flyers, don’t anymore: Mike Emrick. Sure, Doc will call the occasional Versus or NBC game that might feature the Flyers, and obviously he’s the lead guy for the playoffs so he should get a full dose of Philly games there, but as a kid who got to listen to Emrick call games for the Flyers from 1988-93, it’s always been annoying to hear him do Devils games. Pardon the nostalgia, but the play-by-play tandem of Mike Emrick and GeneREAD MORE

Call of the Day: One Left Cross Does Not A Goalie Fight Make (VIDEO)

Following a ton of Pittsburgh fans on Twitter, I caught a series of tweets last night that went something like this: “GOALIE FIGHT!!!!!”

Consider my interest piqued.

And consider me disappointed, too. Sure, there was a “goalie fight” at the end of the Penguins 3-0 victory over the Islanders last night, but it wasn’t exactly a history-making tussle. In fact, Islanders goalie Rick DiPietro got walloped by one punch. One punch!

Seriously!?! NHL.com billed the video as “Goalies gone Wild.” Hardly. ESPN.com put a link on their front page that reads, “Goalie brawl mars Pens’ win” which is wrong on two levels if you know what a brawl is and know that your team winning an in-game fight never mars a victory, it enhances it.

And no offense to the Penguins fans excitedly tweeting, but that’s not a goalie fight. That’s your backup goalie knocking the crap out of DiPietro to endear himself to your fanbase forever, but it’s not exactly a “fight.” Totally blame DiPietro for having a glass jaw. Man alive that was disappointing.

This does, however, giveREAD MORE

Call of the Day: Former PA Governor Ed Rendell’s First Daily News Column(!)

Excited to read former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s first official column as a member of the Philadelphia Daily News? He sure seemed excited to write it, using seven exclamation points in the story including six in the first three paragraphs(!)

Eagles touchdown in less than 35 seconds! We’re going to win the Super Bowl! I just know it, I feel it, we can’t be stopped!

You see, Rendell’s first column was just a dream, or at least he was just writing about a dream in his first column. It’s worded better that way, I suppose. And look, I like Ed Rendell. I really like the guy. I had the chance to interview him a week before the Eagles lost to the Cardinals in the NFC title game and asked him about the chances of an all Pennsylvania Super Bowl. He was excited about the idea back then, and using that concept as his first official newspaper column since leaving office, he’s still excited about the idea; even if it totally skews history, reality and common sense. Let’s review:

RendellREAD MORE

Call of the Day: Bubba Watson Wins, Tears Up On A Great Day For Lefties

During the off-season I joked with Shane Bacon that he was my second-favorite lefty golfer, other than Phil Mickelson, but he could drop to third if Bubba Watson ever got it going.

Boy did he, winning the Farmers Insurance Open atop of a stacked field, sinking a snaking 15-footer on 18 for birdie with Phil Mickelson a stroke back, waiting to hit his approach. This tournament serves as the de-facto start to the PGA Tour season, as well, with the likes of Tiger and Phil playing for the first time all season. With a leaderboard with names like Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan, Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Nick Watney and rookie sensation Jhonny Vegas, It was Watson who took home the title.

It was a great moment for Bubba, and of course, a great moment for lefties.

Seriously, how can you not like this guy? He went from a bomber who nobody looked at as a serious contender to, likely, the next great lefty on Tour and one of the top players, names and personalities in the game.

Again, what aREAD MORE