Racecar is racecar spelled backwardzzz

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Daytona 500 was Sunday, I believe. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won, right? Yeah, he won in overtime. Overtime? You can do that? Actually, I know the Daytona 500 was Sunday because I spent the previous week in South Carolina, so it was clear Daytona was on Sunday. I have always been…

Just 42 days, but who’s counting?

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training, and as the great Chuck Thompson would say, “Ain’t the beer cold!” Now pitchers and catchers reporting is a great thing, don’t get me wrong. Yet it’s just pitchers and catchers reporting because pitchers have to get their throwing in and if…

One to remember? It was one of those

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports I am able to tell you I correctly predicted the score of last Sunday’s Super Bowl to be 38-35. I am unable to tell you I correctly picked the winning team of last Sunday’s Super Bowl to have been the Kansas City Chiefs. I said 73 total points in a…

‘Tis the season, time to be jolly

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s baseball season now. Pitchers and catchers report in two days. Ha! Fact. The moment the Super Bowl ends means another season of boffo ratings conclude for #NFLTheTVShow, and if the ratings weren’t boffo for the one we saw on Sunday, then there is no such thing as boffo. But…

Not the greatest, just the latest

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports LeBron James became the leading scorer in NBA history Tuesday night, surpassing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar by sinking a 20-foot turnaround with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder, putting him at 38,388 points for his career, more than any other player in NBA history. By the…

Semi-good football movies rankings

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s Super Bowl week in case you hadn’t noticed, and through each week leading up to our most obscene unofficial national holiday (more like the fall of the Roman Empire), the media is always scrambling to come up with something that has a new angle or twist of its own…

Bully for ‘Bullies of Baltimore’

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Pro Bowl Games (not game – Games). Did you watch it (not them – it)? I saw it; I checked it out. Didn’t grab me. From the middle of last week to the end of the weekend, the Pro Bowl players seemed to be enjoying themselves a great deal,…

Bobby Beathard knew it when he saw it

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Former Washington Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke said more than once that head coach Joe Gibbs was “the best bloody hire I’ve ever made.” Actually, the best hire Cooke ever made, at least as a sports team owner, was Bobby Beathard to be the Redskins’ general manager in 1978, because…

Brady’s gone; get used to seeing him

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports I offered a snide aside here yesterday about Tom Brady never going away, clearly not knowing he would choose first thing the very same morning to announce he was going away. Again. He may actually stay retired this time, but I stand by the sentiment that he’ll never go away…

Underwhelmed by #NFLTheTVShow semis

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports So it’s the Philadelphia Eagles and the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 57, both 16-3 on the season and both the top seeds in their conferences, marking the first time top seeds will meet since 2017 when Philadelphia beat New England. The Eagles had little trouble advancing, rolling the…