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Recent Articles from Scott Pitoniak
Opining on QB injury comebacks, Whitey, Little Joe and the Sabres
If Alex Smith had his druthers, he would have scripted a different ending Sunday afternoon. Rather than a 30-10 loss in which he put up pedestrian numbers after entering the game just before halftime, he would have rallied his Washington Football Team to victory. The rusty quarterback who hadn’t taken a regular-season NFL snap in […]
Josh Allen getting last laugh with historic start to season
Extrapolating numbers can be an exercise in futility, but I couldn’t help myself. So, just for the fun of it, I got out my phone calculator and did some multiplication. If Josh Allen were to continue doing what he’s done over the course of a 16-game season, he’d finish with 5,304 passing yards, 48 touchdown […]
TV analyst Van Gundy living life inside a basketball bubble
By the time all’s said-and-done with the conclusion of the NBA Finals in two weeks, Jeff Van Gundy will have spent roughly three months inside the bubble at ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Complex. Fortunately, he and fellow network basketball broadcasters Mike Breen and Mark Jackson were allowed to return home for two four-day reprieves. […]
Carrier Dome’s impact has been felt for 40 years
Last Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the Carrier Dome’s opening, and as I reflected on all the momentous events staged inside that Teflon-coated big top, sage words from Winston Churchill sprang to mind. “We shape our buildings,’’ he once opined. “Thereafter, the buildings shape us.” The famed British prime minister and orator probably was […]
Bills superfan ‘Pinto Ron’ strives to keep streak alive
The 1980 red Ford Pinto will remain sequestered in Ken Johnson’s Rochester garage the entire football season. No trips this autumn to Hammer’s Lot, across the street from Buffalo Bills Stadium, where the jalopy with the 186,000 miles on the odometer has become a symbol of the rowdiest pre-game party in the National Football League, […]
Bills bracing to do something they haven’t done in 25 years
The election season is gearing up, so it’s not surprising to see red, white and blue campaign signs sprouting in yards throughout Western New York. What is surprising are the names on some of these plastic-coated cardboard rectangles. Rather than Trump/Pence or Biden/Harris, they tout the candidacy of Allen/Diggs, a quarterback/wide receiver ticket the Buffalo […]
Remembering a larger-than-life coach Syracuse basketball fans loved to hate
Georgetown was just another team on the Syracuse University basketball schedule and John Thompson was just another faceless coach. However, that all changed the night of Feb. 12, 1980 in the Manley Field House finale. That evening, a Hoyas’ upset that snapped second-ranked Syracuse’s 57-game home court win streak coupled with six salt-in-the-wound words delivered […]
Cal Ripken Jr. gave baseball much-needed jolt with streak
It didn’t save baseball the way Babe Ruth’s home run surge did following the Black Sox World Series-fixing scandal of 1919, but it did provide a soothing balm and helped remind people why they fell in love with the game in the first place. And given the way Major League Baseball is stumbling through its […]
Cardboard cutouts enabling us to have a little fun at the ballpark
I’m flipping channels recently when I come across an Oakland A’s baseball game. The camera cuts away from the action to show a life-sized cardboard cutout of a young man hawking hot dogs in the stands. His face looks familiar, and upon closer inspection, I recognize a teenaged Tom Hanks working as a vendor in […]
Rochester umpire remembers his role in a classic baseball film
Jim Quamo is sitting at a picnic table near the pond at Rochester’s Cobbs Hill Park. Decked out in a Boston Red Sox cap and T-shirt, he rummages through a gigantic, clear plastic bag stuffed with photographs, magazines, newspapers and autographed baseballs and softballs. “Here’s what I was looking for,’’ he says, pulling out a […]
Marv Levy Stadium also has a nice ring to it
Marv Levy chuckled when I told him there’s a movement afoot to get heretofore New Era Field named in his honor. The winningest coach in Buffalo Bills history sounded both flattered and amused. “I’m blushing over the phone,’’ Levy joked from his Chicago home on Tuesday, a day after celebrating his 95th birthday. “I’m complimented […]
Opining on pandemic problems, a flock of Blue Jays in Buffalo
Wow, that didn’t take long. Just five days into the Major League Baseball season, reality arrived like an Aroldis Chapman 100 mph fastball to the ribs. News that 11 Miami Marlins players and two coaches had tested positive for COVID-19 Sunday resulted in the cancellation of three games involving four different teams and sent shock […]
