January 28, 2005

The wonders of life in the world of the electronic medium never cease to amaze.

For example, I spent Monday night in my living room at home, tearing the stuffing out of my couch with tension as Secretary Heller faced certain death on "24."

Hours later, I was in the KNBR studio doing the Tuesday Morning Show with my partner Tim Liotta, and we were breezily chatting with Secretary Heller himself -- otherwise known as venerable thespian William Devane -- about his golf index (6), his Super Bowl Sunday ritual (party at Clint Eastwood's house) and his regular haunts the week of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am (he prefers fog-free Quail Lodge in Carmel Valley before the tourney).

Show business -- what a thing.

I'm learning the joys of radio are multitudinous: Boomer Esiason can come on the Show and explain his "Peyton Manning is this generation's Dan Marino" and make it all sing; Duane Kuiper can come on every Wednesday and make a compelling case for getting into the Ruffles bag early, the better to land sturdier chips to bear more onion dip; and Ronnie Lott can make his regular Thursday appearance and somehow tie his childhood memory of pig feet cooking to the nascent Mike Nolan Era.

"It's starting to smell better down there," Lott told us, citing the hires of Mike Singletary and, reportedly, New Orleans offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy.

Smells are a big thing at the Morning Show. Some smells are bad -- like when we accidentally leave Timmy's Mr. Coffee on in our windowless office, and return after the show to a small room that smells like cat urine. Some smells are good -- like fresh donuts on a Friday when assistant producer Patrick (P-Conn) Connor makes a donut run to Eppler's to kick off the weekend.

So, what else did the rest of the week smell like?

Hopefully, less like pig feet and more like donuts. Forthwith:

WOE AND WARRIORS BOTH BEGIN WITH 'W'

Would that be ironic, then, since "W" is the least operative word in the Warriors vocabulary this year?

I write of the Golden Staters because we are at the halfway point of the season -- 42 games down, 40 to go, and what can we say of the Mike Montgomery Era?
Twelve wins, 30 losses, is what we can say.

Well, that, and the fact that you can still catch KNBR Night Producer Brian (Crawdaddy) Crawford tripping the light fantastic with the plus-sized "Weekend Warriors" Dance Team at the Arena.

So, we've got that going for us.

Clearly, the Bay Area hoped for better. Monty submitted to an ad campaign in October and November that had him saying, earnestly, "Give us a chance". Problem was, an 0-6 start qualified as burning that chance, and most of the region, outside of the True Believers, cashed in their "Chance Coupon" and moved on to re-arranging their sock drawers.

The first half saw Jason Richardson become more assertive in his role as the go-to scorer on the team, and saw Troy Murphy assert himself as the team's top double-double threat every night.

Turns out, also, that a Richardson-Murphy 1-2 punch doesn't compare to 90 percent of the rest of the NBA's 1-2 punch. The Warriors aren't good enough to rely on one or two players, so the lack of production from former first-round pick Mike Dunleavy and the ongoing guard issues surrounding Speedy Claxton's health and Derek Fisher's consistency lead to a morass of uncertainty, night after night.

It's remarkable how cursed this franchise seems to be, the past 10 years. Surely, much blame can be laid at logical places -- the breakup of the Chris Webber/Don Nelson regime; the foibles of the Dave Twardzik/Garry St. Jean management days; the ongoing mystery that is Chris Cohan's existence as owner.

I prefer to lay the blame at more illogical places. Namely, at a Curse.

Curses are hip. Curses are cool. If you don't have a Curse, you don't really count on the sports scene, as the Red Sox made so clearly evident last fall, riding a Curse into thousands and thousands of newsprint inches from columnists looking for a lame and easy way to create drama.

So what's the Warrior Curse?

The Curse of C-Webb? Perhaps in the lore, Webber's fate is to cost teams titles everywhere he goes, starting with his ill-timed Time-Out in the 1993 NCAA title game between Michigan and North Carolina, moving on to his tumultuous Warriors stint, and now on to the close-but-no-cowbell era with the Sacramento Kings.

How about the Curse of Nellie? Perhaps Don Nelson, in leaving Oakland once and for all, buried a fish tie under the halfcourt stripe late at night -- and the ensuing bad fashion vibes emanate through the hardwood and strike evil fates on all who cross it.

I prefer The Curse of the Famer. In this lore, KNBR mid-day host Rick Barry combines with the magical medical powers of Dr. Rosanelli to cast a spell on the Warriors for not hiring him as head coach. Until the Warriors do, Rosanelli and Barry's curse will linger, and the Famer will continue to hang out with Rod Brooks from noon to 3 pm on KNBR, chatting away and taking your calls.

FOOTBALL FIX

I know, I know. I've gone this deep without any pigskin chatter, but quite frankly -- after Ronnie Lott's description of pig feet Thursday morning on our show, I was afraid to go near any pork product.

I will give my supremely expert Super Bowl breakdown in next week's Musings, but until then will give way to Boomer Esiason for rationally and eloquently explaining his Peyton Manning/Dan Marino firebomb on the Morning Show. You remember the deal: New England dumps the Colts and Manning, and Esiason says, minutes after the game, that Manning is "destined to be this generation's Dan Marino." Marino, sitting a few feet away from Esiason on the set, fixed Boomer with a Death Stare that caused the temperature in the CBS studio to drop 20 degrees. Seriously -- you could almost see the hosts' breath turned to condensation clouds, it got so chilly in there.

But Boomer came clean. He says he didn't mean it to say Manning nor Marino were chokers. He meant to say they were tremendous players cursed by subpar supporting casts.

"What I mean is, you have to have a good team around you," Esiason said, entirely reasonably. "Manning, like Marino, is the best player of his generation. But you can't win the big game unless you have a whole team around you that is good -- like Tom Brady has, and like Joe Montana had.

"I meant it as a compliment to both of them."

Phew! We thought Boomer was going to have to wear flak jackets around the clock, or hire bodyguards, given the vibe Marino gave off on the studio set. And remember, Marino is an Italian kid from Pittsburgh. He probably knows a few guys who can take care of a few things, know what I mean?

Boomer says he and Marino smoked the peace pipe, and we can all sleep in peace, as a result.

THE LEGEND RETURNS

Admit it -- you, the casual golf fan, lost track of the PGA Tour when Tiger Woods stopped winning. And when I say stopped winning, I'm not kidding. Formerly known as the world's greatest athlete, formerly known as the world's most recognizable athlete, formerly known as Jesus in a Red Shirt on Sundays, Tiger lost you when he went 16 months without winning a stroke-play event.

I wonder how many, outside of us hardcore divotheads, could name the No. 1-ranked player in the world right now. Sure, sports nuts know it's Vijay Singh. But I bet a lot of people don't know, because without Tiger, the PGA Tour is Joe Ogilvie, with a side dish of Briny Baird and a sprinkling of Robert Damron.

Extra vanilla, please.

So when Tiger won at Torrey Pines last week, I didn't care that he did it because Tom Lehman and Luke Donald imploded, or that he did it in a week in which he didn't hit fairways (just 45 percent) and didn't hit greens (just 68 percent). Take the larger view: After quietly working on a swing change -- a swing change he didn't feel the public needed to know about for a year -- he won in Japan, won his star-studded Target World Challenge in December, finished third at the prestigious Mercedes Championships, and won at Torrey.

It isn't the Tiger of 2000 -- the nine-win, three-major Tiger. That Tiger will never exist again. It was a moment in sports history never to be repeated, it was that brilliant. Instead, it's 29-year-old Tiger, against a field not as intimidated as it was five years ago, an older, more battle-scarred Tiger, but it's still Tiger, the best competitor on Tour. That counts for a ton, and with generally-improved ballstriking, and a taste of victory nectar again -- it's Tiger, the 2005 version. Count on at least one major this year, maybe two.

Which ones? Well, you'll have to wait for the Super Special Murphy-Liotta PGA Tour Fantasy Picks when the majors roll around.

In the meantime, I salute my co-host for his stellar pick of Luke Donald at Torrey. Donald's tie-2nd landed Liotta a fat $358,400 and vaulted him past his younger, more handsome co-host. The standings:
Liotta: $468,400.
Murphy: $228,133.34.

Don't laugh. Those 34 cents may make the difference in the end. Cross your fingers, sports fans.

This week it's the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. I have Tour bad boy Jonathan Kaye; Liotta has the spunky Chris DiMarco. Neither is off to a flying start.

But you know what we say around the Musings: Lot of golf left, baby. Lot of golf left.

E-mail Brian Murphy at bmurphy@knbr.com.

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