Been a long time

 I ran into an old friend today - a television show.

That's because I woke up much too early by accident - darn nightmares - and couldn't go back to sleep. Rather than toss and turn for another hour, I put on ESPN2 and watched "The Sports Reporters."

It's been a little tough to find the show at times in the last couple of years. "The Sports Reporters" used to be on regularly on ESPN at either 10:30 a.m. or 11 a.m. But as ESPN has gotten more and more into the pregame show business, meaning the program has expanded exponentially in length, "The Sports Reporters" has been bounced around the family of networks in terms of time slot. Its current landing area is 8:30 a.m., although apparently it is going back to 10:30 a.m. next week. Always tough to find a show when you're not sure when it's on, and tougher to watch it when it is shown before you get up.

Then again, it's not like it was in the good old days, when it was just about my favorite show. The cast certainly has evolved over the years.

For most of the early years of the show's life (it started in 1988), Dick Schaap was the host. He was really good, with a knack for prompting top-notch discussion. Schaap died in 2001 - has it really been that long? - and was replaced by John Saunders. The "new guy" came off pretty well right from the start, and still is a good host.

But the supporting cast is different, and as a result the show feels different. The program used to use some very good sports writers from around the country - mostly from the East. Not only were they obviously thrilled and animated over the chance to be on national television, but they always had something interesting to say. Bob Ryan of Boston, Mike Lupica of New York, Mitch Albom of Detroit, John Feinstein of Washington, and Bill Conlin of Philadelphia were semi-regulars, although some others of note (Tony Kornheiser, Dave Anderson, etc.) popped up as well. In that more innocent time, it was fun to actually see these relatively famous (in my world) writers on TV.

What's more, it seemed like the writers were more than happy to get into issues. There's more to sports than trying to figure out who will win today's game. They were discussions that don't come up much on network television.

In recent years, ESPN has been more anxious to promote some of its own staff members. For example, Jemele Hill and Israel Gutierrez were on with Lupica - you never know when he is on the ESPN payroll in one form or another - for today's show. I have nothing at all against them individually; in fact, they seem to follow sports closely. Granted, it's a difficult day to be interesting. We'd been hearing about Manning and Brady for a week, and at this point we're ready to move on and see the games played.

Still, the level of discussion in the last few years has often been at the level of "First Take," another ESPN2 show broadcast during the week - except quieter. I can't say I noticed anything different today. Can't say I'll be recording the program if I can't watch in real time, which I used to do.

It's a different media landscape these days, and the conversations have changed too. That doesn't mean I can't miss the good old days, does it?

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The long way

Want to see someone go from a cliche to Alex Rodriguez in a few paragraphs? I'm just the man for the job.

Let's start with my absolute least favorite phrase in sports, one that I almost refuse to use in print whenever possible. Say your favorite team is having big problems winning. Media members ask the usual question - how are you going to get out of this mess?

The answer often comes back in this form: "We have to work harder."

I'm willing to admit that every once in a while, a lack of effort is part of the problem. Usually it's because the coaching staff has lost the attention of the team for one reason or another. The key part of the sentence is "every once in a while."

The reason players say that they need to work harder as a team is because they aren't too interested in talking about the real reason: They just aren't good enough.

And that's tough to hear. Especially when it might be true.

That's because many athletes, even professionals making huge dollars, are extremely insecure. No matter what you might think, many of them wonder if they are good enough. If they don't score goals and baskets in a couple of games, they start thinking they'll never score again and be out of the lineup and then out of the league in no time. There is a lot of pressure there.

What's more, sometime they are right. Sometimes they aren't good enough, and sometimes their teams aren't good enough. It happens every day.

That leads to all sorts of situations that keep team psychologists employed. I once heard about a hockey player who was moaning and groaning about his lot in life. He was told by a professional something along the lines of "you are 22 years old and earning about a million dollars a year in the NHL. Tell me again why you are depressed." He snapped out of it, for a while. But he didn't stay in the league for long.

You probably can understand that attitude when it comes to a fringe player. The difference between playing for the Buffalo Bisons and Toronto Blue Jays, or Rochester Americans and Buffalo Sabres, is enormous financially. No wonder some might be tempted to take some chemical help to stay in the league, or just block out an obvious answer.

But what about the stars? You'd think they should be more secure. Alas, they have more to lose.

That brings us to Alex Rodriguez. Here's someone who probably was the most naturally talented baseball player of his generation. (If you want to say "ever," I won't argue too much.) He took the major league field as a teenager and probably, in a more perfect world, would have been the one to pass Hank Aaron for the all-time home run crown - as a shortstop for most of the time, no less.

But that wasn't enough. A-Rod admitted to steroid use once before, and on Saturday saw his appeal of a similar conviction upheld even if the sentence was reduced to a year. His denials this time around have been loud, and they have been generally ignored. It's difficult to see how he could possibly play in 2014, and perhaps this episode will mark the end of his career. The Yankees seem almost anxious to let him go away.

Rodriguez won't end up in Cooperstown, but instead will be in Never-Never Land with Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens - all players who apparently decided that being great wasn't good enough.

A strong work ethic was never Alex Rodriguez's problem, and neither was talent. That's what makes his fall from grace so dramatic, and so disappointing.

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Notes from the North Pole

If you haven't heard yet, we're getting some interesting weather here in Western New York.

Yes, it's January, and that's been known to happen at this time of the year - even though we've been a little spoiled when it comes to winters in the past few years. We're in the midst of our first blizzard in 20 years, which some people in the Sun Belt might not believe.

Admittedly, it's cold everywhere in the eastern two-thirds of the country. Supposedly it is in single digits in Tennesee, close to freezing in Florida. As for Fargo, where it was 99 degrees when we were visiting there in August, it is 120 degrees colder than that now. Yikes.

Out-of-towners, though, might not understand it when I say that I have almost as much anxiety before the storm as I have when it arrives. That's because no one can predict exactly what might happen. When Indianapolis had a foot of snow arrive on Sunday, the front came through, did its business and moved on. Simple, at least from this viewpoint.

Here we have something called lake effect snow. Oversimplified version - cold air passes over the open waters of Lake Erie, picks up moisture, and then dumps it in a band on land. There are only two places on earth where this happens - the Great Lakes and the Caspian Sea. No word on how the snow plowing business there is right now. It's pretty good here. Someone once said lake effect snow was like turning on the water to go through a hose without grabbing the end. It starts spraying everywhere in no particular pattern.

We've known for a couple of days that bad weather was coming. Weather experts have been talking about historic conditions with wind chills that would feel at home on Mars. Since Lake Erie hasn't frozen yet, lake effect snow was to be expected here.

But where?

That's where the anxiety comes in. I've only had to sleep at the office once in the 19 years I've worked at the News. There was gridlock on the roads one day, so I threw my car in a parking lot, walked to the office, put out the morning paper, slept on the library floor, got up at 7 a.m., put out the afternoon paper, and got a ride back to my car. Trust me, it wasn't a romantic moment.

While watching the forecasts of more than three feet of snow in spots with 60 mph gusts and sub-zero temperatures, the question came to mind: will I be back sleeping on the library floor at work Monday night? And there was no answer. As weatherman Don Paul explained, it only takes a five-degree shift in the wind direction to turn the snow band from going right over my house to a few miles south and completely out of my way. In other words, there's a five-degree difference between chaos and normal.

I watched the local newscasts and the Weather Channel today (I'm still getting used to them naming winter storms), and left early for work. I was doing fine until I could see my place of employment, when a giant traffic jam developed because of the closing of the Skyway - a main waterfront path to the Southtowns, and one that frequently closes in bad weather. It took about 20 minutes to make those final two blocks. But I made it, and you'll have a newspaper tomorrow - provided a truck can get out of the building and get it to you.

The snow bands supposedly are now south of the city, and will stay that way for several hours at least. I'm kind of hoping that the lake effect snow will head for ski country and stay that way, where it is welcomed. That's in part because my snowblower is a little cranky, and I'm not anxious to shovel by hand in frigid temperatures and high winds. Then again, who am I kidding? I don't want to go outside at all if I can help it.

On the other hand, if I make it through Tuesday, I'll have two days at home. And it's supposed to start to warm up a little by then, which would be nice.

But that's a big if. Let me get through tonight and Tuesday, and we'll celebrate Wednesday when it gets here.

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Love that chicken

For the last few weeks, the lines around the commercial establishment have been enormous. Tempers have grown short as people have become frantic to make a purchase in time. Others say the wait is just not worth it and vow to try at a later time.

Sounds like Christmas at the mall. Instead, the star of the story is a Popeye's Chicken store.

Buffalo got its fried chicken franchise store back in December, and the reaction has been close to unprecedented. It has caused traffic jams along Elmwood Ave. Indeed, the police have been called in a couple of times to settle disputes about people cutting in line.

It's brought back memories of the great Krispy Kreme fad some years ago. A store opened up in Niagara Falls Blvd., back when the donuts had something of a mythical reputation. It was the same story in the opening weeks - you had to go at an odd time to buy a dozen, or risk getting in a traffic accident in the small parking lot.

Thus encouraged, more stores were opened, the market became flooded, the novelty wore off, the parent company made some mistakes ... and the stores were closed relatively soon after that. You can still find some Krispy Kremes around town, but not the just-made versions that were so, so good.

Popeye's actually has been in Western New York before, despite what you might have heard on some news outlets. A store opened up about 20 years ago, and we were regular patrons. Delicious. Then, one day we went there for dinner ... and the lights were off and there was nobody home.

What happened? A friend filled me in. He was having lunch there around 2 p.m. on weekday. All of a sudden, some official-looking types barged into the restaurant and started taping notices about the store's closure on the doors. Something about tax evasion. Oops. All patrons were ordered out immediately. My pal took his meal outside on the pleasant afternoon, and finished his lunch while sitting on one of those bumpers in the parking lot that prevent cars from rolling on to sidewalks.

Since then, we've been forced to eat Popeye's while on vacation. For a while, a Thruway rest stop near Batavia had a Popeye's, although it was tough to justify the trip and toll just for that. There was a Popeye's down the road by my late mother's for a while, but that closed on us. We once excitedly had a Popeye's dinner in the Las Vegas airport, a much better bet than the slot machines.

It was welcome news in the late summer, then, that a Popeye's would be built only a couple of miles from my house. Still, I heard about the lines and traffic jams involved before I heard about the actual opening.

Last week, we were eating lunch at a Wendy's down the street from Popeye's. The woman behind us in line said she had gone to Popeye's to pick up some lunch, but couldn't wait the necessary time and gave up. Her exit line was a good one: "Tomorrow, the store opens at 11 in the morning, so I'll be there at 10 to make sure I get some for lunch."

And then today, with inches of snow on the ground and more on the air, with the temperature in single digits - several cars were still in line at 1 p.m. to order their chicken.

One of these days, sanity will be restored to the chicken workplace, and I'll be able to order a favorite treat for a meal. Hope it's soon.

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Fifty years ago

Time to weigh in on the topic of this particular day, the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, with a rather wide brush. 

I am indeed old enough to remember it. I was eight at the time, so it's rather vivid in my mind - in part because it was such a big deal, and I had started to have an interest in public events. I have memories of times before that, but they were more personal in nature.

It starts with a term that I never hear any more: split session. In my New Jersey elementary school, there were more kids than desks and teachers. So the Wayne school district sent some of us to school in the morning, and some of us did their studying in the afternoon. I was in the morning group, so I was home by 1 or 1:30.

My mother was watching "As the World Turns," like she did most weekday afternoons, when the bulletin came on CBS that the President had been shot. We watched the coverage for the rest of the day I believe. I was too young to realize just how novel it was for television to cover a story like this in wall-to-wall fashion at that point. It probably seemed natural.

By the way, I learned an interesting fact about that afternoon many years later on an Internet message board, of all places. We had an elementary school principal at Pines Lake named Mrs. Rodda. Most of my memories of her center on the way she demanded on absolute quiet in the school lunch room whenever she walked in, which seemed unrealistic for children of that age then as well as now. When the news was released that President Kennedy had indeed died, Mrs. Rodda went to every classroom in the building to tell that news to the children personally. Class move.

Oddly, my other vivid memory of the weekend came on Sunday. The National Football League played that weekend; there's an article in Sports Illustrated this week on that decision. We had season tickets to the Giants, so Mom and Dad went. I recall Mom saying that someone who sat next to them complained for the first half that it was improper to play football on such a day. Finally, Dad turned to the guy and said, "Why exactly are you here?" Way to go, Pops. The guy left at halftime, and I believe the Cardinals beat the Giants. When my parents came home, I told them about how the babysitter and I had watched someone named Lee Harvey Oswald get shot on live television in a Dallas police station.

The story about the assassination has remained a subject of conversation for 50 years. The history student in me likes to ponder the effects of the events of that day. Still, the talk of a conspiracy that has gone on for 50 years has become distasteful to me.

I can understand some of it. People invested a lot of emotional capital in President Kennedy for a variety of reasons, and those feelings came to a tragic ending. I can imagine that it is difficult for those in that situation probably have had trouble coming to terms with the concept that one lone mentally ill gunman could end those hopes. But otherwise, people are still capitalizing on the idea that Oswald didn't act alone. Been in a bookstore lately? Lots of volumes with the "definitive" answer on the subject.

But let's face it. Have you ever read a conspiracy theory that comes close to passing the smell test? Castro ordered it? The Soviets? The CIA? Lyndon Johnson? And how many "conspiracies" have gone on for this long without someone talking? Maybe the Warren Commission didn't cross every T in its investigation, but I still haven't heard a much better version of what happened.

We're better off pondering how that day changed us in a variety of ways, and hoping that we don't go through anything like it again.

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It was time

Absolute shockers are few and far between in sports, at least off the playing field, but Wednesday's developments involving the Buffalo Sabres certainly qualified. When I saw on Twitter this morning that a news conference had been called by the team, my first thought was that coach Ron Rolston was going to be sacrificed to the hockey gods. The replacement might have been current assistant coach Joe Sacco or former Canadiens coach and current Sabres employee Randy Cunneyworth. In fact, when Cunneyworth was hired a short time ago, I wondered if he was given time to study the organization while serving as an insurance policy in case Rolston had to go.

Wrong. Word leaked out only minutes before the news conference that general manager Darcy Regier and Rolston were gone, and that joining the organization would be president of hockey operations Pat LaFontaine and interim coach Ted Nolan.

I've written about Regier a lot in this space - I'm the guy who didn't think sending him to a Siberian training camp was a good idea. (Good thing this isn't well read.) He was always a good soldier, who put together a couple of good squads that could have won Stanley Cups over the course of 16-plus years. Regier also had some unusual circumstances over his tenure, with drastic changes in ownership philosophy.

What went wrong? A couple of points come to mind. The Sabres got caught in the middle of the standings for many of the past several years. That meant they didn't get many top 10 draft choices, where the good players are. It's tough to get off that treadmill of mediocrity.

It's also easy to second-guess some of the roster moves, such as the signing of free agent Ville Leino and a big contract to Tyler Myers, whose game went straight downhill. When the Sabres didn't improve, some of the veterans (and the front office) saw the writing on the wall and they headed for the exit one way or another. The last playoff team for the Sabres came in 2011, and names such as Vanek, Roy, Pominville, Gaustad, and Leopold were on that roster but are gone now. I looked at the line combinations the other day and said to someone, "They don't have anything left, do they?"

I heard conflicting stories about Regier personally. Some people I trust said he was a first-class person whose attributes didn't really come across in public well. Others I trust said he kept an unnecessary distance and was a reason why players didn't want to come to Buffalo. What's the truth? Maybe a little of both, and probably I'll never know.

But rather clearly the fan base had had enough, and certainly was ready to start voting with their wallets about the situation. A dreary start definitely looked like it was going to be a dreary season, and it was time for a move.

Was this the right move? It certainly was in terms of public relations, a grand-slam homer with that same fan base. LaFontaine is almost as popular in Buffalo as David Ortiz is in Boston, meaning that LaFontaine probably could have finished third in the mayor's race here like Ortiz did last week in Boston. Nolan isn't far behind. The move may not produce many wins, but it buys the team time with the fans. The Sabres have bought themselves a honeymoon period with the two newcomers, and Nolan certainly will motivate the players the rest of the way so that the product ought to be more entertaining.

Still, there's so much that we don't know right now. Starting at the top, is this a sign that owner Terry Pegula is learning about the hockey business, or that he made this precise move for the wrong reasons? Regier wasn't the only one in the Sabres' hockey department, and LaFontaine will have to figure out what sort of moves will be needed. His first action probably will be to hire a general manager, which should be revealing, They both will have to figure out how to deal with Ryan Miller's situation, the last big piece left on the roster. Plus, that general manager no doubt will wonder how much authority he has to switch coaches - either in the summer or later - under this set of unique circumstances.

And, somewhat ironically, the Sabres won't have much choice but to follow Regier's plan for rebuilding. It's tough to picture Buffalo shipping all of those draft choices from the next couple of years for veterans who can help now, although some minor deals for fringe players who can help a little now probably might not be a bad idea. Remember when Nolan asked general manager John Muckler to give up a pick for an unknown defenseman named Bob Boughner, who proved helpful for a few years? The current teens on the roster will have to grow up and improve, and the ones who enter the organization in the near future must come through.

But the Sabres now can afford to stay the course. Before Wednesday morning, the team was bad and boring. After Wednesday morning, it became bad and fascinating. That's not a bad day's work before lunch.

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Off-off-years

There are years when there are Presidential elections, when the nation pays attention to every detail of the campaign. There's an off-year election two years later (or earlier), when we elect some national representatives as well as some state and local ones. And then there are the off-off-year elections, in which hardly anything happens.

Welcome to the 2013 off-off-year election. The golf tour has a name for its end-of-the-year events about this time. The golfers call it "the silly season," because there are a variety of odd little closed tournaments that offer plenty of money for not-so-much work. The politicians could use the same phrase to times like this.

However, the sense of the absurd certainly does help in looking at the races of the moment. The odd local campaigns would get overlooked with a Presidential race looming. We have two examples here in Western New York that are obvious; I'm sure there are others.

The oddest situation concerns the battle for Erie County Sheriff race. This usually is not a position of interest to most people. As I recall, most people in my generation only paid attention in the Seventies when the office-holder used to brag about how many drug busts there were after concerts at then-Rich Stadium. They rushed to the polls that off-off-year in order to kick him out of the job.

This time, Republican Tim Howard currently has the job. The Sheriff's office has had some problems during his time there, such as escapes and suicides. But even more oddly, Howard announced that he wasn't exactly in a hurry to enforce the SAFE Act on gun control in Erie County because it wasn't constitutional. Who knew that the Sheriff was also a Supreme Court judge who only paid attention to laws he liked?

When Dick Dobson defeated Bert Dunn by a whisker in the Democratic primary, it was easy to wonder what might happen in the two-man main election. But Dunn formed his own political  party, got out the family checkbook, and is running on a third-party line. He's spending plenty of money on ads; well, it is his money. There's always something of a spoil-sport strategy to that tactic, because of the risk of splitting the vote of one party and guaranteeing a victory by the other party's candidate.

There's not much polling out there about a Sheriff's race, so it will be fun to see who wins the election for the county's top Constitutional expert ... I mean cop.

There's the Erie County Comptroller's race. The office is filled two years before and after the County Executive race. I haven't done any research on this, but it seems like the Comptroller usually is from the opposing party than the County Executive. The Comptroller's biggest job seems to be to shake his or head sadly when discussing the fiscal policies of the County Executive.

The person in the job is Republican Stefan Mychajliw, perhaps best known as a local television reporter. But his opponent is the more interesting case. Democrat Kevin Gaughan has spent a lot of his free time over the past few years trying to cut down on New York State's many layers of local government.

However, he probably should have looked at the incoming mail when he was doing all that pro bono work. Gaughan had a good-sized tax debt to the Internal Revenue Service - well, $22,000 is good-sized to me - which he blamed when he paying attention to his ill mother. The Republicans quickly jumped on the issue, asking the question - if a guy can't pay his taxes, should he be trusted to worry about an entire's county finances. Gaughan criticized the "party bosses" for taking that stand.

The Buffalo News - my employer, for the record - started its endorsement editorial by saying neither candidate would be chosen by a company to watch over its finances. It opted to essentially hold its nose and endorse Gaughan.

There are plenty of other races out there that will be decided Tuesday, but most of them figure to be called by the experts at about 9:02 p.m. Can't wait to see how these two turned out, though.

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