Recent Articles from Scott Pitoniak
A Rochester couple celebrates our ties to a basketball monarchy
David Dworkin was pumping gas recently at a Rochester-area service station when a person began razzing him good-naturedly about his Sacramento Kings warmup jacket.
Opining on Major League Baseball’s new rules, Jim Nantz, Syracuse’s plans for man-to-man defense
Sure, we’ve only had a small sample size in this still very young Major League Baseball season, but the new rules have shaved nearly a half hour off last year’s times while also infusing more action.
Red Wings baseball traditions continue – with a robotic twist
Like hardy daffodils pushing through the snow in our gardens, baseball’s return is a sign of rebirth following terminally long, gray winter days; a hopeful harbinger of sunnier times to come.
Opining on the World Baseball Classic, March Madness, Goodell’s salary, a legendary Rochester wrestler & more
I know this will sound sacrilegious to traditionalists who squawk over even the slightest tweaks to the sport, but I would love to see MLB consider pausing its season 10 days every four years and stage the WBC in mid-July.
Solving the Jim Boeheim riddle was rarely a dull endeavor
You developed thick skin when covering him — learned to stand your ground. After he bullied student reporters, I occasionally would talk to them. I’d try to boost them back up.
Never mind what the golf critics say, Micheel was a most worthy champion
I thought it was a heck of a story. Rocky Balboa striking a blow on a fairway rather than in a ring.
Hakim Warrick’s block has exalted status in Syracuse University basketball annals
The “Nightmare on Bourbon Street” history lesson wasn’t imparted to him until after the game. And that was just as well, because if Hakim Warrick had known the eerily similar circumstances ahead of time, it only would have exacerbated the knee-knocking pressure he felt after missing two free throws in the waning seconds of Syracuse […]
Opining on soaring Aaron Judge expectations, Syracuse hoops, Tiger Woods’ return to Oak Hill
Just minutes into Aaron Judge’s first spring training news conference Monday afternoon, an inquiring mind asked the New York Yankees sky-scraping slugger if he believed he could duplicate his record feat of 62 home runs this season. “We’ll see,’’ he said, smiling. “I don’t like putting a number on it. I just like going out […]
Opining on the controversial Super Bowl penalty, Mahomes’ supremacy, reasons for Bills optimism
Before celebrating the greatness that is Patrick Mahomes, we need to address the 800-pound gorilla in the room.
Opining on the deep-pocketed New York Mets owner, Super Bowl inflation, Josh’s elbow, Bills brutal sked
Eighteenth century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau cautioned that money can’t buy happiness. Two centuries later, The Beatles crooned that money couldn’t buy them love.
Opining on Bengals’ costly faux pas, Mahomes, Syracuse hoops struggles
While the Twitter cesspool piled on the 22-year-old defensive end, I couldn’t help but feel for the kid. He made a dumb mistake at the worst possible time, and now Ossai’s Shove will join Scott Norwood’s Miss and Bill Buckner’s Error as one of those defining agony-of-defeat moments.
After laying another post-season egg, Bills have plenty of work to do
You would have expected the Bills to be sky high, fueled by a raucous home crowd and the presence of safety Damar Hamlin in the stadium just 20 days after he almost died of cardiac arrest. But adrenaline can carry you only so far. It seemed to me the cumulative impact of a tumultuous season punctuated by Hamlin’s near-fatal tackle, a deadly winter storm that forced the Bills to play three games [...]