MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports I had been around Lefty Driesell before as he had come to Cumberland quite a bit during his heyday as the University of Maryland basketball coach in the 1970s — ACITs, high school sports banquets, Allegany Community College basketball games … Matter of fact, he was in Trojan Square Garden…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Well, that didn’t take long. The great Bob Kirk once said that in junior college athletics, a coach doesn’t really know what he is going to have until he sees who shows up on the first day of school. That kind of ended up being the case for the Baltimore…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports We just can’t have a Super Bowl anymore unless there is a GOAT and a goat, perceived or otherwise. This is the day and age of hype and shill because the main event and everything that comes with it is about the television ratings. We can’t merely have a great…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Who’s the best team to lose a Super Bowl? Who cares? Nobody remembers them anyway. When you lose the Super Bowl, before the MVP of the game even says “Disneyland,” the great season it took to get there disappears. It matters not. To a lesser degree, the same holds true…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports I happened to glance at a television the other night while I was attending one of our Mensa meetings and saw “When should Chiefs be considered a dynasty?” Fortunately, the sound was turned down because, fortunately, we were holding our meeting in a public house; and since the channel was…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports “But Maryland plays good defense,” while accurate, is akin to saying, “Other than that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?” This isn’t a newsflash, but the Maryland men’s basketball Terps cannot score, nor can they help themselves from committing turnovers. Yes, thank goodness they do play good defense. In fact,…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Orioles continued to own the week in Baltimore and took over the calendar as well when two days after announcing they would be sold to a group led by private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, a native of Baltimore, for $1.725 billion, they turned a blockbuster trade to put the…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The timing could not have been more perfect or more cathartic for Baltimore. Just 48 hours after another crushing NFL playoff loss by the favored Ravens, it was reported the family of Peter Angelos had reached an agreement to sell the Orioles to the group of private equity billionaire David…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s gone so far beyond absurd. It’s gone to the market and straight to the cuckoo-for-Cocoa Puffs aisle. The NFL made Kansas City Chiefs star tight end Travis Kelce date Taylor Swift (yeah, I’m sure they had to really twist his arm) in order to rig the Super Bowl so…
“You come at the king, you best not miss.” — Omar MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The irony is rich, but not welcome, though all too familiar, in Baltimore. The modern-day pro sports Brooklyn, Baltimore, once again, will wait until next year. The officiating was what the metrics (and the television critics in their advance…
