What matters most, the GOAT or the goat?

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…

For the loser, a show about nothing

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…

Dynasty off the air for good reason

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…

No-O Maryland well beyond frustrating

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,…

O’s back from ‘No way’ to ‘Why Not?’

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…

Sale of O’s shines happy on sad city

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…

Pretty sure $330MM was the big factor

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…

It’s baseball season in Bawlmer, hon

“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…

I want to believe, but they do test me

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports­­ I truly don’t know if there is or if there isn’t; but why do you suppose there is such suspicion of conspiracies and “scripts” each week during every week of every #NFLTheTVShow season? Maybe because there is always available data such as what follows? It seems NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell…

Trust in Ty — the Bills know about it

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports For Baltimore Ravens fans living in Cumberland, you were, in theory, between a rock and a hard place Sunday night as far as which team you wanted to see advance to play the Ravens in Sunday’s AFC championship game, the defending world champion Kansas City Chiefs or the Buffalo Bills,…