Daily Madden: NFL 2014 Schedule, MLB's Curious Pine Tar Regulations
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - A 2-hour prime time special announcing the National Football League 2014 schedule, for all its hype, could not keep Coach John Madden away from the bocce ball court.
"Fight for your team and fight for victory and all that," he told the KCBS Morning Crew, "that's what I had to do last night."
The team noted from his tone that Madden's prowess on the court last night, like his ability in general to operate a digital video recorder, may be in need further refinement. Madden learned the Oakland Raiders would face the San Francisco 49ers from a fellow bocce player, rather than from a DVR.
Coach was quick to add that the hours of speculation on various NFL match-ups, while too far in the future to be very meaningful, is not entirely pointless.
"All this stuff to me is, I want to say it's a bunch of baloney, but it's a partial bunch of baloney," he said.
NFL 2014 Schedule, MLB's Curious Pine Tar Regulations
More curious was the ejection of Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda from his team's 5 -1 loss at Boston for being too obvious about using pine tar to improve his grip on the ball.
Technically pine tar should not be used at all on the ball, although the general reaction seems to be that Pineda might have been okay had he been more discreet.
The headaches pine tar on baseball bats, which is allowed up to a point, and baseball helmets, creates for MLB equipment managers today is reminiscent of what NFL players back in the day had to deal with because of Stickum.
"You'd get Stickum all over everything, all over the helmets, the jerseys, the shoes, the sox, the neck, the whole thing," Madden said.
"Some of these looks with this pine tar remind me of that."
(Listen to the John Madden segment live weekday mornings at 8:15 on KCBS All news 740 AM/106.9 FM.)
