the sports section

Press-Box Confidential: Favre Madness, Sports Journos Loose in Beijing, Manning’s Star Power

What have I gotten myself into?Photo: Getty Images


The big sports story this week was the shocking (and somewhat bewildering) trade of Brett Favre to the New York Jets. Annoyingly, the news broke just past midnight Thursday morning, which wasn’t too late for the Daily News to roll Mike Lupica out of bed — you just know he has the delicate linen, with a thread count that looks like a Social Security number — to remind everyone that the Jets matter now because Mike Lupica is writing about them and Mike Lupica doesn’t just write about anybody, you know.

He did let loose a zinger: “Somehow, and against the odds, because these are the Jets, it worked out this way Wednesday night: He’s 4 New York.” It was totally worth saving that line all these weeks, Mike!

Jets fans had less than an hour to enjoy the Times’ Toni Monkovic — he’s the blogger they don’t let in the paper, probably because he’s good — telling everyone that Pennington would have been better than Favre. Because there’s nothing lazier than quoting blog commenters as some sort of person-on-the-street reaction, let’s play!

How does guy have a job? He must be reviewing broadway plays and not sports … Chad better then Favre … hahahahahahaha I almost choked on laughter.

China Man. Because he’s the only member of the Daily News sports staff who has a passport, Filip Bondy is filing his always amusing, not-bloggy-at-all dispatches from Beijing. Today’s news: “Noodle salad was down to 75 cents.” Thanks, Filip!

If Only They Could Figure Out a Way to Take Out Papelbon’s Dad. Cheers to the unfortunately anonymous reporter who asked Joe Girardi before a game last weekend whether he was glad not to have to face Torii Hunter, who was at his grandmother’s funeral. Thanks for your conveniently timed death, Mama Hunter! God must be a Yankees fan!

Eli Manning Is a Star of Stars. Fun bit from Tuesday’s “Mike and the Mad Dog.” Mike Francesa mentioned that he’d heard a story — that’s the attribution spirit! Go sports radio! — about some hotel that had one opening and three celebrities looking to stay there: Eli Manning, Robert Downey Jr., and David Schwimmer. And the room went to Eli. Poor Schwimmer never had a chance.

Murray Chass Lives! It’s official: Murray Chass is a real blogger, not a fake one. Thank God for that: We were beginning to wonder if Chass was in fact an invention himself, a mythic beast created by a bored and ornery Roger Angell back in 1951. It wouldn’t have surprised us, and we suspect it wouldn’t have surprised you either. —Will Leitch and Joe DeLessio

Press-Box Confidential: Favre Madness, Sports Journos Loose in Beijing, Manning’s Star Power