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ESPN is taking over all of sports. Need proof? Now the World Wide Leader is competing against … itself. Richard Deitsch, the first-rate media writer at Sports Illustrated, reported over the weekend that Hannah Storm — the former CBS morning host and former NBC Sports broadcaster before that — will anchor a new weekday morning SportsCenter on ESPN. Right now, ESPN just shows the replays of the late SportsCenter from the night before. In addition to Storm’s SportsCenter, there could be additional live SportsCenters in the morning.
What’s odd is ESPN’s stiffest sports competition will be over on ESPN2 where the mornings are filled with the Mike & Mike radio show and First Take, the revamped version of Cold Pizza. Strange ESPN is adding competition for itself, but give the network kudos for hiring the talented Storm.
Maybe it all means nothing, but if ESPN is going to throw a bunch of money at producing fresh SportsCenters, could that mean the ESPN2 lineup is in danger of getting cut? I kind of like First Take, but quite frankly, I’m not sure anyone would miss it or Mike & Mike, especially if the new SportsCenters add the latest in analysis and interviews.
Watching fans boo Kyle Busch after he won Saturday night’s race at Darlington, NASCAR must have been giddy. NASCAR fans’ hatred of Jeff Gordon has faded a bit in the past couple of years, partly because Gordon isn’t winning enough to hate anymore. The sport needs somebody new to hate. Busch is just that guy.
The Rays are no longer our little secret. On Fox’s coverage of the Yankees-Tigers Saturday, analyst Eric Karros said, "They’re going to be a factor all year.” Meantime, former Ray Eduardo Perez was singing the Rays praises on Baseball Tonight, even if he is still referring to them as the Devil Rays. Come on, Eduardo, it’s only been like six months since the name change.

blogs.tampabay.com

Ahead 2-0 in their best-of-7 Western Conference semifinal series against the Utah Jazz, the Lakers probably don’t have many worries to zip into their luggage as they head on the playoff road.
Except one: They won’t get any Big Love from the Energy Solutions Arena crowd.
The downtown Salt Lake City site for Friday night’s Game 3 and Sunday’s Game 4 remains one of the league’s loudest, most cramped and most hostile courts.
NBA players call games there “claustrophobic.” It’s the size of a mailbox, which fits since Karl “The Mailman” Malone once ruled this postage-sized palace formerly known as the Delta Center.
The sellout crowds of 19,900 stake their territory on the baselines and the sidelines in three rows of folding seats. From those seatbacks, fixed chairs rise at high angles, giving players the feeling that fans are hanging off the walls.
Players sitting at the bench can feel a spectator’s beer-laden breath on their sweaty, bare shoulders. Dribbling on the court’s edges comes with the chance of stepping on some businessman’s wingtips. Going out of bounds risks falling in some fan’s nachos.
And this is where the Jazz makes its best noise. The home team is 39-5 there this season, the most recent victory being the May 2 first-round closeout of Houston, 113-91, in Game 6.
The Lakers lost at Energy Solutions, 120-96, on Nov. 30, when Jazz point guard Deron Williams put up 35 points and forwards Andrei Kirilenko and Paul Millsap each had 20. But the Lakers won the last time they were in Utah, climbing to a 24-point lead before winning, 106-95, March 20. Without forward Pau Gasol.
After the Jazz struggled with poor shooting and foul trouble in double-digit defeats of Games 1 and 2, Williams was feeling a homesick. Being back at Energy Solutions Arena among the mild-mannered folk who turn into basketball-crazed minions will bring the Jazz comfort.

ocregister.com

Blogging about the Orioles isn’t for the faint of heart.
The team, which opens the 2008 season tomorrow, used to have about 30 blogs focused on it, according to baseballblogs.org.
That was on a par with the San Francisco Giants (30 blogs) and Seattle Mariners (31), but well below the rabid followings of the Boston Red Sox (145) and New York Yankees (112). Even some teams without the Orioles’ pedigree or in smaller markets had more blogs about them, such as the 3-year-old Washington Nationals (34) and the Minnesota Twins (39).
And while those numbers are ever-changing, some of those Orioles blogs have dried up since last season, evoking an image of the Wizard of Oz tinman rusting in mid-chop. Who can blame them? After 10 consecutive losing seasons, it takes a lot of effort to blog about a team that everyone expects to be lousy - even in March, when by baseball’s cliched tradition, hope springs eternal.
For a blog titled Fourth Place Birds, the no-hitter that Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz threw against the Orioles last year seemed to be the final straw on Sept. 3. Its final post: “OK, getting no-hit sucks. Especially by a rookie. Especially in his second major league start. Especially when I was convinced he was overrated. And yet that wasn’t what bothered me about this weekend. … No, it was Sunday’s opportunity to still win the series despite Saturday’s debacle and they blew it. Bases loaded, none out, and you don’t score?”
Or as the blog Camden Crazies put it more definitively in its last, bitter gasp last fall:
“Step 1. Give Dave Trembley a contract extension. Step 2. Lose 30-3 the very same day. Step 3. Win 3 out of your next 21 games. Step 4. Start the likes of Tike (bleeping) Redman. Step 5. Let Jim “9.00 ERA” Hoey Pitch! Step 6. Quit Blogging.”

baltimoresun.com

LAKELAND, Fla. — Everyone knows Magglio Ordonez.
He’s the one with the hair, the one with the batting title, the one who hit the playoff home run against Oakland that you’ll never forget. He might be the most recognizable player the Detroit Tigers have.
Everyone knows him. And yet almost no one truly does.
He’s not a loner. He’s not moody. He doesn’t separate himself from his Tigers teammates, or even from the fans who stop by and want to say hello.
He gets along with everyone. He just doesn’t let anyone get too close.
Not even teammates.
“It’s the way I am,” Ordonez said one day this spring. “I’ve got my wall. I’ve got my space.”
On any given day in the Tiger clubhouse, Ordonez could be part of any group. He could be talking to young players, or with veterans. He might well have his son, Magglio Jr., along with him.
He’s usually smiling, but almost never actually talking.
“Magglio’s very, very quiet,” Placido Polanco said. “But he’s also very smart. You can talk to him about anything. You talk to him about hitting, and he’ll come up with something where you say, ‘I never thought of that.’ “
• Saturday’s news: The top two teams in the American League Central met for the first time this spring, and no one won. The Tigers took the lead with two first-inning runs off Cy Young winner C.C. Sabathia, but Cleveland eventually tied it with an eighth-inning run off Tim Byrdak, and it ended at 3-3 after 10 innings.
On sale now: As expected, Tiger tickets were selling fast on Saturday, the first day the club made single-game seats available. The Tigers said they sold more than 80,000 tickets in just the first two hours, compared to the 76,000 they sold in 14 hours of sales on the first day last year. The company that runs internet and phone ticket sales for major league baseball told the Tigers that their first-day sales rivaled the first-day sales for Chicago Cubs tickets.

mlive.com

Firefighter Jerry Kennelly of Squad 41 in the South Bronx is from Limerick City, Ireland. He said he had toned down his accent, but fellow firefighters still struggled to understand him.
“What er ya doin’, boyo?” the policeman might inquire. “Do n’t be standin’ there,” the firefighter would command. “Get away with yee now.”
It is the Irish brogue, an unmistakable pattern of speech that was once so common among New York City policemen and firefighters that they became stereotyped in the American psyche as tough, garrulous and widely admired guardians of the public order who could spout lilting Irish aphorisms while wielding handcuffs or a fire hose.
But the brogue has become rarer with the depletion of the reservoir of newly arrived Irish recruits who for generations were pressed by their families into joining the Police and Fire Departments as soon as they qualified for United States citizenship.
“We still have a sprinkling of guys, but the faucet isn’t running like it did,” said Paul McCormack, deputy inspector of the police housing bureau in Brooklyn, who arrived in New York from County Donegal in 1986, joined the department in 1990, and is now its highest-ranking officer to have immigrated from Ireland.

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Generosity book rockets to 300,000 copies as churches order copy for every family. Translations underway in 40 foreign languages worldwide. Story picked up by NBC TV, CBN TV, newspapers, magazines, and national radio.
Colorado Springs, CO (PRWEB) February 26, 2008 — A small 90-page book on how to lead a more generous life by a church giving expert is something of a "publishing miracle" that is being used by churches across the United States and around the world to inspire greater generosity and increase giving. Kluth is a recognized worlwide authority and media expert on church and charitable giving, philanthropy, tithing, and generosity.
In order to keep up with the increasing demand, 300,000 copies of the "A 40-day Spiritual Journey to a More Generous Life" have been printed in the first year and a half. Churches of all sizes from over 60 denominations have ordered copies by the hundreds and thousands.
The story of this booklet has even caught the attention of the media with news stories on NBC TV evening news in Colorado, a live interview on CBN TV news and talk show, a front page story in the Colorado Springs Gazette life section, a one hour live interview on Moody Radio's "Open Line", The Christian Post (as a top story), United Press International, USA Religious News, Christian Newswire, Google News, Yahoo News and MSNBC News.
In addition to the attention the booklet is receiving in the USA, requests have come in from around the world to translate the booklets into other languages. Translations are currently underway in 40 foreign languages for distribution in more than 60 countries. In Latin America, Crown Financial Ministries will promote and distribute this book in every country.
Kluth said that several publishers had declined to publish the booklet because they said there was no market for a book on generosity. He shared, "My wife and I used inheritance money to produce and print 15,000 copies that we thought it would take years to distribute. But in the first 18 months we needed to print 300,000 copies to keep up with the growing number of orders coming in every week."
The "Spiritual Journey to a More Generous Life" book takes people through 40 daily Bible readings that help them understand what the Bible teaches about managing their finances. "Years ago I was in debt and had financial problems. As I learned what the Bible teaches about money, God helped me completely turn around my finances and gave me the freedom to live more generously. I am grateful that so many other people can benefit from the things I learned," said Kluth.
Kluth reports that after bank failures in Mongolia, the largest church in the country translated the booklet and gave it to their 1,100 church members. "Over the next two months we saw offerings increase nearly 60 percent," the Executive Pastor emailed to Kluth. In Kluth's own church, offerings increased over 40% after the use of the book with his congregation.
Brian Kluth is a pastor, author, speaker, founder of www.MAXIMUMgenerosity.org, and TV, radio, newspaper media expert on generosity, philanthropy, charitable and church giving, and donations to religious causes. His generosity resources are used across the US and around the world by by mainline, Catholic, orthodox, and evangelical congregations to inspire generosity and increase giving. Last year Kluth was honored by the Christian Stewardship Association with the Outstanding Stewardship Educator of the year award.
Kluth's websites can be accessed at www.MAXIMUMgenerosity.org and www.GenerousLife.info. For a free media review copy of the Generous Life book, email your name, media connection, phone, and address to: ship @ kluth.org.

prweb.com