NBC Explains its Jay Leno Strategy

jayleno.jpgSimply put, Jay Leno is one of the most compelling entertainers in the world today. We defy you to think of a more immortal comedy routine than Jaywalking. Iron Jay is perhaps the most beloved character of all time. And when the history of humor is written, the works of Mark Twain and James Thurber will pale in comparison to The Dancing Judge Itos.

Jay Leno is a resource we can not afford to lose. If we don’t cater to his every whim, we have to assume he would take his classic cars and race track and march over to ABC or FOX, and take his entire audience with him. We also have to assume said audience includes the tens of millions of Americans currently avoiding his 10pm show in droves.

Therefore, we are reinstating Jay Leno into the 11:35pm slot. His program will run until 7am, preempting the first two hours of The Today Show. But don’t worry, Matt Lauer fans. Matt will get his own breakfast-time segment on Jay’s show, where Jay and him show you how to prepare eggs from the inside of a 1932 Ford roadster.

But this is only the first phase of our new Jay Leno-based programming schedule. Jay will appear in current the NBC programs Chuck, Mercy, and Heroes. Not in cameo appearances, but as a regular character named Jay Leno, who will deliver monologues at critical junctures during each episode. He will also receive 15 minutes of live airtime during each episode of Parks and Recreation to do whatever he wants. Headlines, Mini-Jay, change sparkplugs on one of his Hudson Hornets–the possibilities are endless!

And there’s even more good news, Jay Leno fans! Starting this fall, Jay will star in a new, 90 minute drama, Jay and the Jalopy, in which he and a talking robotic Stutz Bearcat solve mysteries.

As for Conan O’Brien, we had high hopes when we asked him to take over The Tonight Show. However, the ratings have been somewhat disappointing, and we feel these low ratings have adversely affected the audience for Jay’s show. It’s our theory that people aren’t watching Conan, and thus aren’t keeping their TVs tuned to NBC throughout the following 21.5 hours until Jay’s show is on. There really is no other explanation for people refusing to watch Jay Leno!

However, we greatly appreciate Conan keeping the seat warm for Jay during this past year. And we will recognize that appreciation with a special ceremony in the NBC commissary, where we will give Conan a very nice watch and a gift certificate to Bed Bath and Beyond.

Some may say this strategy is short-sighted, that it ignores the younger, more connected audience that loves Conan and will not watch Jay Leno under any circumstances. To these concerns, we would like to respectfully plug our ears with our fingers and yell loudly LA LA LA WE’RE NOT LISTENING!!

Up the Middle with Skitch Hanson: All Hail the Hall!

Scratchbomb hands over the reins to nationally syndicated sports columnist Skitch Hanson, as we’ve done many times before. It’s great to hear from him, because the last time I spoke to Skitch, he was getting lost and possibly assaulted at Yankee Stadium.

You may know Skitch as the author of the highly popular syndicated column “Up The Middle.” You may have read his best-selling book Playing Stickball with Mickey Mantle, and Other Weird Dreams I Had. He’s also a frequent guest on ESPN’s sportswriters panel show Mouth-Talkers! You can follow Skitch on Twitter here. Without further ado, here’s Skitch.

Each winter, I have a great responsibility. And no, it’s not shoveling the driveway! And no, it’s not picking up my wife from the drunk tank after the office Christmas party!

No, I’m talking about my Baseball Hall of Fame ballot. It is quite an honor to participate in the voting every year and help decide who will be immortalized in Cooperstown. There are no halls in the history of halls that are more hallowed than the Baseball Hall of Fame. Perhaps The Halls of Medicine in the old Halls cough drop commercials, but those ads haven’t been on the air in several years. Or perhaps the Halls of Justice, but that’s more of a concept than an actual place.

No, for an actual, physical set of halls, the ones in Cooperstown are the best. But those halls would mean nothing without the people who inhabit them. Not literally, of course. I mean the legends immortalized there in plaque form, or in a video loop on a TV in the lobby. That’s why I take my voting very seriously. I think long and hard about who gets my vote and who does not, because I know I have a hand in solidifying baseball history.

Unfortunately, this year I was less serious about mailing my ballot in, since I accidentally dropped it behind the Xerox machine some time last month. I would have dug out my ballot, but me and electronic equipment do not get along! Like the time I dropped my laptop in a koi pond and electrocuted several hundred fish! Boy, the people at Benihana’s were not happy about that!

andredawson.jpgI did intend to vote for Andre Dawson, and I’m very glad that he made it in. You could argue there were more deserving candidates than him, and his career was hampered by injuries, and I never got to see him play too often, now that I think about it. But I do remember “Hawk” having one unbelievably awesome year where he won the MVP. You certainly can’t argue with that! At least not until I remember exactly what year that was.

I’m very disappointed that Jack Morris still has not made it to Cooperstown. Because when you talk dominant starting pitchers of the 1980s, you have to talk about Jack Morris. Sure, you have to talk some about other guys first, like Fernando Valenzuela. And Doc Gooden. And Roger Clemens. And Jimmy Key and Frank Viola and Nolan Ryan and Orel Hershiser and Bret Saberhagen and Steve Carlton and Bruce Hurst and Dave Stieb and John Tudor and Mike Scott. But eventually, you have to talk about Jack Morris.

Morris may not have had the gaudy stats that some of those other guys did. But he did have that wonderful 10-inning duel against John Smoltz in game 7 of the 1991 World Series. That’s one of the most famous pitching performances of all time. Plus there were three or four other really great games he pitched whose details escape me right now. That’s good enough for the Hall in my book.

Remember, we’re talking about The Hall of Fame, not The Hall of Obscure Statistics. Bert Blyleven had a great career, but I can’t think of a famous moment involving him. Same goes for Tim Raines, Edgar Martinez, and Barry Larkin. Until those guys have a transcendent moment, I can’t in good conscience vote to enshrine them. Unless somebody reminds me of a moment I couldn’t recall. In which case, welcome aboard, fellas!

How do you define a moment? I can’t say. Can you define a beautiful sunrise? The wonder in a child’s eyes? The magic of Christmas? (I hope the folks at Hallmark won’t mind; I adapted those last few lines from a “To a wonderful great-aunt” birthday card.) A moment is a lot like pornography: you know it when you see it. Most moments don’t involve hardcore nudity, of course. At least not in baseball. But I think you get my point.

alomar.jpgAs for Roberto Alomar, who missed The Hall by a few votes, I think that is fair punishment for spitting on an umpire many years ago. I’m aware that the umpire, John Hirschbeck, forgave Alomar publicly for his actions. But to simply let him into Cooperstown on the first ballot would be a slap in the face to all those other players who did not spit on umpires. I’ll be perfectly happy to vote for Alomar on the next ballot, after he’s had a full year to think about what he did.

What kind of message would it send to our kids to let Alomar into the Hall right away? Spitting is never okay. Unless you’ve ingested poison or sour milk, in which case you should expectorate discreetly into a napkin or paper towel.

It’s hard enough to get kids to stop spitting without seeing major league baseball players doing it. My son has been spitting at me ever since Alomar attacked Hirschbeck with his saliva. And he’s 32! He’s still mad at me for missing several birthdays in a row to cover the XFL championship game. I told him that as a reporter, I have a responsibility to cover my beat, and that responsibility doesn’t disappear just because the league hasn’t existed in several years.

We all need to teach our kids–to show our kids–that responsibility is important. We must meet our responsibilities head on, whether they involve voting for the Hall of Fame, or keeping nasty spitters out of that Hall of Fame, or filing stories on sports leagues that have folded, or making sure my wife doesn’t jump bail again. And we must not foist these responsibilities on others, like when I begged the cleaning lady to get my Hall of Fame ballot from behind the copier with her broom.

Being responsible may not get you into Cooperstown. But it will earn you a trip to the Hall of Respect of Your Fellow Humans. That may be an even greater place to be. Except for the fact that you don’t get a plaque and it doesn’t literally exist.

Sean from Massapequa: Bay-Bay’s Kids

Today I chat with Sean from Massapequa once again, as we discuss the Jason Bay signing.

seanfrommassapequa.jpgThe Mets finally made a big move this off season by landing Jason Bay. That fills at least one hole, doesn’t it?

Yeah, and fills it with another hole. That guy stinks.

The guy stinks? He hits 30 homers and 100 RBIs every year. He’s performed everywhere he’s been, even in a Pirates lineup with little protection.

Typical Omar move, gettin some guy who used to play for the loser Pirates. Nobody who ever played for the Pirates has ever been good, ever.

What about Willie Stargell, Roberto Clemente, Honus Wagner…

Honus Wagner? What is that, an electric spray painter?

No, he was one of the greatest baseball players ever.

I never heard a him, so he’s a bum, just like Bay!

Even if you totally want to dismiss Bay’s years in Pittsburgh–and I don’t know why you’d want to do that–he played just as well in Boston. And he couldn’t have had a stickier situation to deal with, taking over for Manny Ramirez.

Then why don’t the Sox want him back? I’ll tell ya why: because he stinks! And because he’s injured. I read this thing that his shoulder is about three seconds from bursting into flames.

He passed his physical.

Big deal. You can fake a physical any way you want. My buddy Joey’s got half a lung, a metal plate in his head, and seven toes on each foot, but he passes the fire department physical every year. See, if you think healthy, you can convince yourself and everyone else that you really are healthy, even if you’re on death’s door, which Jason Bay clearly is.

C’mon, the man is not on death’s door.

But he’s Canadian, ain’t he?

Yes, he’s from British Columbia.

See, right there, that’s another reason not to like him. There’s something weird about Canadians. I can’t put my finger on it, but they just ain’t…right, you know?

So you don’t like the Jason Bay signing even a little bit because he’s Canadian?

The only good Canadian I know is Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and later Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Good to see that you’ve expanded your roster of prejudices.

And speaking of Canadians, why’d the Mets hand Bay a Rangers jersey at the press conference? That’s a slap in the face to the Islanders! They practically play down the road! I got a buddy who works at the Nassau Coliseum, and we coulda gotten him a DiPietro jersey for nothin!

So you woulda given Bay a discount on an Islanders jersey?

Yeah, the old five-finger discount. Listen, if you know anybody who wants some game-used equipment, we can hook you up. Jerseys, pants, pads, goal nets…you want a zamboni?

No, I don’t want a zamboni.

Cuz I can get you a zamboni. Kinda fun to drive, but it’s a bitch to insure.

Always a pleasure, Sean.

You bet.