The beginning is the end is the beginning

It's a slow news day, so I guess there's no time better than the present to get this thing started. Traditionally, WRGW's Sports Director keeps a blog during his/her tenure. It is also a tradition that his/her musings go largely ignored, much like our programming. I look forward to maintaining these fine traditions.

First, some programming news, for which I'm sure you've been holding your breath: the schedule for the fall semester has been finalized. There are not many changes. In fact, there's only one: Greg Shapiro, who hosted The Hangover Special on Sundays during the fall semester when there was no sports broadcast, has been promoted into the regular five-show weekday rotation. Congratulations to him.

So aside from one new show and moving our fall sports broadcasts into the early morning time slot, things will largely remain the same in terms of the scheduled sports programming on WRGW. In other news, we're looking to add some new commercials so it will no longer be the same endless cycle of Anchorman and Wedding Crashers spots, all the while looking to expand our relationships with the local professional outfits: the Washington Wizards were great last year in allowing us to cover a couple of Agent Zero's games. We're looking to expand our coverage of the D.C.-area teams during the upcoming year.

Other than that, things continue to roll along. This is the time of year when, through sleuth work on Google, we can uncover bits and pieces of the men's basketball schedule. The university will not officially release the official version until sometime around Labor Day, but other schools have already started to do so. According to The Mobile Press-Register, the Colonials will play at Alabama on December 29.

In Crimson Tide land, it has been reported that star Ronald Steele is slowly recovering from knee surgery. If he is able to get back to full strength, Alabama is expected to compete: Andy Katz of ESPN includes them in his list of 20 teams that he left just out of his top 25, Garry Parrish of CBS Sports has Mark Gottfried's team at #16 in his rankings, while CollegeHoops.net put the Crimson Tide at #14 in its early preseason top 50 list. This is a good addition to the schedule for the Colonials, as playing an SEC team that is expected to compete on the national scene (of course, the Tide were supposed to do this last year, so who knows) will be a good test for tournament time (see Vanderbilt).

Switching to baseball, consider the following statistic:

Winning Percentages by Division
NL West - .534
AL West - .526
AL Central - .504
AL East - .500
NL East - .495
NL Central - .455

The NL Central, with only the Milwaukee Brewers (41-31) above .500, lags far behind the other five divisions (side note: I picked the Brewers to win the NL Central during our season preview show on Box Out! back in April, and I have the audio to prove it). The Cardinals finally seem like they could be headed in the right direction, winning four of their last six. Chris Carpenter and Mark Mulder both threw off of a mound without pain this week, and could rejoin the club sometime in the near future. Until they return, Tony LaRussa's team will just have to tread water, especially since the Brewers close the first half of the season with a cakewalk of a schedule (Kansas City, Houston, at the Cubs, at Pittsburgh, at Washington). The Cubs are also showing some signs of life, going 10-8 since the tirade that resulted in a four-game suspension for manager Lou Pinella. While it is still far too early to hand any of the six divisions to anyone, I'm sticking with my Brewers pick.

Time to get back to work.