NOTE to Mike Breen: Forget Marv Albert. Sure, you studied under him since you could first reach the Philco, but now it’s time to forget him.
Now, Mike, it’s time to think Fran Healy.
Healy’s a lovely guy. But as a sportscaster, he has, for years, soldiered to the Cablevision formula for sustained and friction-free employment. He’s obedient, he works scared (and relatively cheap) and he can make a 12-2 Met loss sound like a photo finish. It’s a living.
Healy is Cablevision’s ideal of a public, professional communicator. He’s often less than candid, thus he’s often less than honest, and that’s the way Cablevision likes it because that – and worse – is the way Cablevision has always communicated with the public.
Blame the wind, Mike. Mike Piazza only made it as far as first, not because he didn’t run, but because the wind blew it back. Or just ignore it altogether. The Knicks shot 30 percent, Vince Carter scored 48 and the Knicks lost their fourth straight, but it all escaped your attention. Your audience noticed, but you, Cablevision’s courtside reporter, missed it.
And you MSG Network production guys missed it, too. Tape? Tape of what? Show that number to order tickets. Again. Plenty of tickets available, these days.
Cablevision has, at last, simultaneously identified and fixed what has been wrong with the Knicks. It was Marv Albert. See how it works, Mike? Blame the wind.
And forget, Mike, that New Yorkers and the Garden were once too hip for homers and noise sticks. Work now to serve only fools while making a fool of yourself. Cablevision plays us all for fools, anyway. For the duration of this ride, stow your integrity in the overhead compartment.
There has been much two-sided spinning since Albert, the voice of Madison Square Garden for 36 years, Tuesday was revealed to be out.
For one, Albert made a lot of Cablevision’s money, too much of Cablevision’s money – roughly $2 million per. I’ll buy that. That’s a lot. And if Albert thinks that any other team is going to make with close to that kind of dough, he’s misreading the market; he’s delusional.
Certainly Jim Dolan will never again pay that much to a guy who notes that the Knicks are down 12 against the Hawks. He only spends that – and much more – on fellows who play losing basketball.
And there’s the spin that shows Albert to have been an expensive ingrate, seeing how Cablevision allowed his return following his plea to a sexual assault.
Yet, Albert sat out, fired by MSG and NBC, for a year. Didn’t make a penny. And we wrote it then and we’ll write it again: Had he averaged 18 points and nine rebounds for Cablevision, he wouldn’t have missed a day.
If it’s only about money, we could understand. After all, Cablevision is paying a ton of severance to ex-Knick and ex-Ranger coaches and executives, fellows Dolan hired. And with the Garden now regularly dark during the NHL and NBA playoffs, revenues are down.
But among the things spun by Cablevision’s side, only some were about money. The good-faith professionalism that made Albert valued by sports fans – Cablevision’s patrons – was, beyond money, another thing that Dolan & Co. found distasteful.
But everything Cablevision touches spoils and nothing it says can be trusted. And every time Cablevision does its dirt – from twice removing the Yankees from its systems, to holding games hostage on Metro – a hideous, childlike disinformation campaign follows.
Currently, Cablevision is running spots condemning the plan to build the Jets a new stadium on the West Side, claiming the project will cost taxpayers millions. While we don’t support subsidization of ballparks, since when did Cablevision, which doesn’t pay a cent in real estate taxes for the Garden, give a damn about taxpayers?
Frankly, we’re surprised that Cablevision suffered a Marv Albert, a pricey teller of basketball truths, this long. He might be New York’s kind of sportscaster but he was never Cablevision’s kind.
So keep that in mind, Mike. Less Albert, more Healy. Same goes for that kid who replaced Albert as the radio voice of the Rangers. Kenny Albert should forget what he might’ve picked up from Marv Albert and begin to study Healy. From now on, the wind took it. Blame the wind. Got it?