Sarni's Scrolls: MLB Mad Dog Madness

By Jim Sarni

Of course, Chris ""Mad Dog" Russo did not go through with his threat to retire after the Arizona Diamondbacks won the NL pennant.

Russo wasn't serious. It was a radio bit, a bad one.

“Mad Dog lost his mind. I’m a radio guy, and so is Mad Dog, and I know when you’re on the air sometimes, you want to please people and make things fun and interesting, but he f---ing went over the line," Howard Stern said on his SiriusXM show.

Stern had Russo on his show on Wednesday, and told him he had to do something radical to win back the public.

Mad Dog's punishment: He will wear a Diamondbacks branded bikini and walk down a Manhattan city block holding a sign that says, “I’m a douche.”

Tom Jones of the Poynter Report wrote that the Russo story is a cautionary tale:

"When you’re in the media and you say something, people are listening. When you write something, people are reading. So think before you speak or write. Not because you might be proven wrong. But because you might be exposed as being unable to come up with something smarter and more effective than the first dumb thing that pops into your head."

***

Poor Fox. It's stuck with a clunker of an Arizona-Texas World Series.

Not buying it. This Series has no big markets nor marque brands, but that may not matter.

Judging from recent ratings, the length of a series is more important

The ALCS and NLCS, which both went seven games, had their best combined viewership since 2018... 5.2M average on Fox, FS1, TBS and truTV.

Big Game 7 numbers. The Diamondbacks-Phillies finale put a dent on the NBA's opening night.

The MLB post-season, which had sub-par ratings for both the Wild Card and Division Series (no deciding games), is now 7% over 2022 heading into the World Series.

***

Fox will use drones on the World Series for the first time ever. A three-drone custom fleet: Gimbal Bee, Hummer Lite and Hummingbird.

Previously, the network used drones during baseball games for coverage of the All-Star and Field of Dreams games. Fox also employs drones for its broadcasts of USFL and first began using them for production in 2015.

For the World Series, Fox plans to use the trio of drones to capture moments like relief pitchers coming in from the bullpen, warm-ups between innings and pitchers leaving the mound.

Only one will be in the air at any given time. The pilot will be positioned in the outfield either behind or between the bullpens.

Fox will employ 52 cameras in all -- Umpcam, Fly Cam, 13 Super Motion, three RF cams -- plus more than 100 microphones.

***

Seven of the remaining nine undefeated college football teams play Saturday, six on the road.

12 -- FSU (7-0) (-20.5) at Wake Forest (4-3), ABC

12 -- Oklahoma (7-0) (-9.0) at Kansas (5-2), Fox

3:30 -- Georgia (7-0) (-14.5) vs. Florida (5-2), CBS

7 -- Washington (7-0) (-26.5) at Stanford (2-5), FS1

7 -- Air Force (7-0) (-14) at Colorado St. (3-4), CBSSN

7:30 -- Ohio State (7-0) (-14.5) at Wisconsin (5-2), NBC

8 -- Old Dominion (4-3) at James Madison (7-0) (-20.5), ESPNU

Michigan is idle. Liberty (8-0) defeated W. Kentucky 41-29 on Tuesday.

***

AP Preseason College Basketball All-America teams

Men

■ Zach Edey, Purdue

■ Hunter Dickinson, Kansas

■ Kyle Filipowski, Duke

■ Armando Bacot, North Carolina

■ Tyler Kolek, Marquette

Women

■ Caitlin Clark, Iowa

■ Angel Reese, LSU

■ Elizabeth Kitley, Virginia Tech

■ Cameron Brink, Stanford

■ Paige Bueckers, UConn

■ Mackenzie Holmes, Indiana

***

MLS playoffs Round 1 (best-of-three)

Saturday -- Philadelphia-New England; LAFC-Vancouver

Sunday -- Houston-Salt Lake City; Cincinnati-New York Red Bulls; St. Louis-Kansas City

Monday -- Orlando-Nashville; Seattle-Dallas

Tuesday -- Colorado-Atlanta

***

Most Food-Forward U.S. Cities

Diversity of restaurant cuisine and awareness and acceptance. Datassential rankings

1. San Francisco, 2. Los Angeles, 3. Miami, 4. Washington, D.C., 5. San Diego, 6. New York, 7. Houston, 8. Monterrey, 9. Las Vegas, 10. Austin.

***

ETC.

There are no byes on NFL Week 8. Schedule quirk... Rugby World Cup matches powerhouses South Africa vs. New Zealand on Saturday (3 p.m., Peacock)... First Ski World Cup in Solden, Austria (Sat.-Sun., Peacock).

Doc Rivers was a hard listen on his return to NBA broadcasting. That raspy voice.

Radio host Dan Patrick plans to retire in four years.

Washington St and Oregon St have asked a Washington state court to give them sole control of the Pac-12 Conference once the other teams leave... The schools are also exploring an alliance with the Mountain West that would allow them to operate a two-team conference in 2024.

Kelly Stafford, the wife of QB Matthew Stafford, ripped rapper Blueface for bringing strippers to Sunday's Rams game at SoFi Stadium.

The NBA has a record 125 international players this season, from 40 countries and territories on six continents.

Robinson Cano, Bartolo Colin, and Didi Gregorius are among several former major leaguers selected in the inaugural draft of a Dubai-based baseball league called Baseball United. There are four teams.

***

The 2024 Tour de France will not finish in Paris for the first time since 1905 due to Olympic security and logistical concerns.

ESPN has passed Paris Saint Germain as the most-followed brand in Tik Tok, now with more than 41.6M followers.

The New York Jets ticket and game day revenues are setting records despite the absence of Aaron Rodgers.

The NBA will return to an East vs. West All-Star Game.

In Portugal, a stadium called The Quarry is carved into a granite hillside and is supported by cables stretching over the field. Front Office Sports has a cool photo spread on Instagram.

***

Taylor Swift, who has now attained billionaire status, according to Bloomberg, led the Billboard Music Awards nominations with 20. ... Ohio artist Jeanette Paras, known for her painted massive pumpkins with likenesses of pop culture figures, has painted a 399-pound pumpkin to look like Swift. Now that's a tribute.

Eminem has dropped a line of his "Mom's Spaghetti" pasta sauces. There's a "Mom'" restaurant in Detroit across from Comerica Park.

The Beatles are releasing their "last" song next week. Four decades in the making, it was finished using artificial technology.

The National Zoo is returning three giant pandas to China next week.

***

They Said It

"In Slovenia, that's not cursing really, we say these words for 'good morning'." -- Mavericks forward Luca Doncic on dropping an F-bomb during a post-game interview with ESPN's Cassidy Hubbarth.

"If you operate in life trying to keep score of what's fair, you've already lost." -- Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel.

"We always hear from the NRA pimps in Congress that these mass killings aren't a gun problem. And the great Pete Hamill always asked how many home runs Babe Ruth hit without a bat." -- Mike Lupica on X.

***

Jim Sarni, BC Class of '69, is a former sportswriter for The Boston Globe and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He resides in Fort Lauderdale and watches a lot of television.