A nostalgic few days
For many of us, several sports-related events that took place over the past few days brought back a lot of fond memories from when we were younger. (Okay, a lot younger.)
On Thursday, legendary New York City sports talk radio station WFAN announced that it was hiring longtime Seattle Mariners play-by-play broadcaster Dave Sims to replace the retired, unretired, and retired-again John Sterling as the voice of the Yankees. That brought me back to one of my earliest memories of listening to WFAN, when Sims co-hosted the midday spot with Ed Coleman from 1989 to 1993. Both were just really great to listen to, and the show was such a contrast to a lot of the hot-take talking heads that have permeated sports talk radio these days.
Many older Yankees fans may also remember Sims from his days at WFAN, but for the younger fans who aren't familiar with him, let me just say that the Yankees radio booth is in very good hands. Sims is fantastic at everything he does, whether it's calling baseball or the NFL or college basketball or hosting talk shows and podcasts. For the summer and fall of 2000, just after I graduated from SUNY Oswego, I accepted an opportunity to work at MLB Radio, right when it launched on Sirius Satellite Radio; the studio host for much of the programming was none other than Sims, and it was a genuine honor to have worked alongside him through the 2000 regular season and World Series. Bottom line, Sims is a class act, and is everything you could ask for out of a play-by-play guy. If you're a Yankees fan and you're not yet sold on this hire, I predict you will be immediately after he calls the first three outs of the 2025 season.
On Friday, another wave of nostalgia arrived in the form of Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul on Netflix. Yeah, us older folks remember when Mike Tyson was known as "Kid Dynamite" and "Iron Mike" and would frequently knock out well-established boxers before ever getting out of the first round. Tyson was the undisputed heavyweight champ during the late 80s, and millions of hours were spent by gamers trying to will Little Mac to victory over Tyson in the classic Nintendo game "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!" In any case, Tyson was everywhere in the late 80s and 90s, so we were taken back to that time as we tried getting Netflix to buffer in time for Friday night's main event.
The fight itself was, well, not great. By the time the bell rang to end the second round, Tyson looked like any 58-year-old would after staying up past midnight: Exhausted. Fighting on a bad knee, Tyson had very little in the tank after that, and dropped into a defensive stance for the rest of the bout. Paul admitted that he was pulling his punches in the latter stages of the fight. After all, what is there to be proud of in knocking out a nearly 60-year-old man?
So the nostalgia was fun, until the dose of reality came along. After the fight, it was pretty clear that Father Time is undefeated.
This past weekend was also time to revisit some longstanding rivalries for DIII hockey and football fans. Friday's SUNY Oswego-SUNY Plattsburgh men's hockey game provided fans with the opportunity to look back on so many memorable clashes between these two teams. The Lakers' 5-1 win over the #12 Cardinals gives them the upper hand for now, but you just get a feeling that, in a few months, the Lakers will have to go through Plattsburgh again to win the SUNYAC tournament. Oswego, by the way, completed the Whiteout Weekend sweep by beating Potsdam 6-1 Saturday night.
In one of DIII football's most well-known rivalries, Saturday featured the famous Cortaca Jug game, held annually between SUNY Cortland and Ithaca College, and the #2 Red Dragons prevailed 28-17 to cap off a 10-0 regular season. The defending national champs have earned a first-round bye in the NCAA playoffs, and will host a second-round game against either Endicott or Alfred State on November 30. There's definitely no shortage of students and alumni of both colleges who look back on past Cortaca games, from the most satisfying wins to the most soul-crushing losses.
Oh, speaking of soul-crushing losses, that brings up another rivalry that added another chapter on Sunday: The Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills. While the two teams have had their share of victories against each other in the regular season, it's been the postseason where the Bills have come up short in all three matchups in the Josh Allen - Patrick Mahomes era, two of them in heartbreaking fashion - one in overtime in 2021, and another in 2023 following a late-game field goal attempt that, instead of tying the game, went wide right. The Bills won Sunday's game 30-21 in an absolute thriller, but we know that game won't mean a thing should these two teams meet again in the playoffs.
All in all, that was quite a weekend. If you'll excuse me, I'll need to drop in my Tyson-free 'Punch-Out!' Nintendo cartridge (sorry, I just missed out on the Tyson version) and try again to beat Mr. Dream. It's a fantastic game. It’s not the greatest Nintendo game ever - that honor, of course, goes to Super Tecmo Bowl - but it's definitely up there.