President Obama speaks, and speaks again in White Sox jacket

Eat your heart out, Washington political reporters. President Obama not only threw out the first pitch Tuesday at  baseball's All-Star game in St. Louis, he came to the Foxbooth wearing a Chicago White Sox jacket and took questions from announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

He did not apologize for representing the South Side of Chicago and mostly talked to Buck and McCarver about, well, not much.

According to a release from the MLB Network, Obama also did an interview with Bob Costasthat will be broadcast as part of the network's "MLB Tonight" postgame show. According to the MLB release, Obama spoke to Costas about watching minor league baseball while growing up in Hawaii, his optimism that the White Sox will make a surge in the second half of this season (Cubs fans will really be mad now) and the fact he flew to St. Louis on Air Force One with Willie Mays.

For you conspiracy theorists of the non-Cubs variety, here's a nugget. MLB Network hosts have now interviewed two U.S. presidents. Harold Reynolds interviewed President Clintonat the 2009 Gillette Civil Rights game last month. Are there no Republican ex-presidents who like baseball? Inquiring minds want to know.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: President Barack Obama throws out the first pitch at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Tuesday. Credit: Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images

ESPN and YouTube, together

If you love ESPN and you are addicted to YouTube, hey, this is your lucky day.

 

Beginning today, ESPN and YouTube, in partnership, have an ad-supported channel on YouTube. The ESPN video player will be integrated into the ESPN YouTube channel and will offer a smorgasbord of all-sports content. You can find the new channel at www.youtube.com/ESPN.

 

ESPN will sell advertising on the channel, and Under Armour and LG Electronics are the first sponsors.

 

Content will include highlights from major sporting events as well as original ESPN programming and breaking news.  "SportsCenter Right Now" -- a twice-daily capsule of top sports stories – also will be featured, as well as clips from "Outside the Lines," "E:60," "Mike and Mike in the Morning," "Pardon the Interruption" and "Around the Horn."  Additionally, the original digital series "Mayne Street," starring Kenny Mayne, will be available, as well as special programming packages created around events such as the X Games.

 

ESPN’s agency, Weiden and Kennedy, created a special commercial spot to celebrate the launch of the channel.  The spot can be viewed by clicking here.

 

-- Diane Pucin

Manny Ramirez pops out. And Vin Scully says...

In what turned out to be Manny Ramirez's last at-bat, Vin Scully, so matter-of-fact, made this of Manny's pop-up:

"[David] Eckstein goes out and calls it. That will be that. Manny goes 0 for 3."

And shortly after Fox Prime Ticket showed Dodgers Manager Joe Torre talking to Ramirez before Ramirez took off his batting helmet and walked out of the dugout, done for the night and replaced by Juan Pierre.

Which brought Scully to tell this little story of a song about an invisible man.

"There was the song, oh, gosh, a million years ago, Mr. Cellophane. The man was singing this woeful song. Nobody was aware of him, like he wasn't there. He was the invisible man. Juan Pierre said 'I am the invisible man.' Well, he is very visible right now."

That's when Pierre came into the game.

Mr. Cellophane wasn't quite a million years ago, though. It's from the Broadway musical Chicago, which debuted in 1975. Which only seems like a million years ago.

-- Diane Pucin

Credit: Manny Ramirez throws his bat after hitting a pop fly in the sixth inning against the San Diego Padres on Friday. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times

 

Manny Ramirez talks to the world -- about baseball only please

Manny Ramirez's first official press conference was just televised on ESPNews (thank you to the only outlet that gave it to us live) and here's the gist of what Manny said:

He's moving on. We are all humans, we learn from our mistakes and only one man was perfect and they killed him. Which seems to mean Manny isn't Jesus Christ.

Manny will only talk baseball, not drugs. Manny has nothing to prove, or, as Manny said, "No, I don't got nothing to prove."

Manny wore white-framed sunglasses with Dodger-blue lenses. Nice touch.

Manny chewed gum a lot. And maybe in a Lakers tribute, he finished by saying, "It's showtime."

Then Joe Torre talked. His message? Manny is uncomfortable in this moment. Ah, the burdens of stardom. And failed drug tests.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Manny Ramirez arrives at Petco Park prior to playing in his first game with the Dodgers since serving a 50-game suspension. Credit: Denis Poroy / Associated Press

How much does Tiger Woods winning matter to television?

Apparently Tiger Woods matters 100%. That's what the CBS television ratings showed Monday.

CBS Sports' final-round coverage of the Memorial Tournament that saw Woods come from behind to win for his fourth time at the tournament started by Jack Nicklaus recorded a 100% gain from the same coverage a year ago. Tiger's one-shot win over Jim Furyk had an overnight household rating/share of 3.6/9. Last year's rating was 1.8/4 when the event was won by Kenny Perry and where Woods did not play.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Tiger Woods hits out of the bunker on the fifth hole in the final round of the Memorial Tournament. Credit: Frank Victores/US Presswire.

Tony Dungy, Rodney Harrison join NBC football TV crew

Recently retired Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy and three-time all-pro Rodney Harrison will join NBC's NFL football studio show "Football Night in America." They replace Cris Collinsworth, who is taking the place of the also recently retired John Madden as in-game analyst, and Jerome Bettis, whose contract was not renewed after last season.

Both Dungy and Harrison were part of NBC's Super Bowl pregame coverage last January in what turned out to be mini-auditions.

NHL television ratings up

According to NBC and Nielsen Media Research, ratings for the first two games of the Stanley Cup playoffs between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins are the highest in seven years. Saturday's and Sunday's games, both won by Detroit, averaged 4.87 million viewers, the most since the 2002 Games 3 and 4 between Detroit and Carolina averaged 5.35 million viewers.

That's 21% of last year's first two NBC games, which were Games 3 and 4 on a Wednesday and Saturday. And, as they say, in the "coveted" demographic of adults between the ages of 18-49, Sunday night's Game 2 was tied for sixth among all primetime telecasts (thank you NBA teams for not having any Game 7s)

And here are the top 10 markets with a noticeable absence of, yes, Los Angeles. But way to go Oklahoma City and Fort Myers, Fla. Who would have guessed?

SATURDAY, GAME 1
1. Pittsburgh, 26.5/43
2. Detroit, 19.3/34
3. Buffalo, 5.2/9
4. Columbus, 3.5/6
5. Ft. Myers, 3.3/5
6. St. Louis, 3.0/6
T7. Indianapolis, 2.8/5
T7. Cincinnati, 2.8/5
9. Oklahoma City, 2.4/5
10. Chicago, 2.3/5

SUNDAY, GAME 2
1. Pittsburgh, 31.7/43
2. Detroit, 28.1/43
3. Buffalo, 7.2/11
4. Philadelphia, 4.5/7
5. St. Louis, 3.8/7
6. Baltimore, 3.7/6
T7. Washington D.C., 3.4/6
T7. Minneapolis, 3.4/6
T7. Columbus, 3.4/6
T7. Ft. Myers, 3.4/5

-- Diane Pucin

Sparks on Fox Prime Ticket, you can set your DVRs now.

Too soon to know when star Candace Parker returns from her maternity break and will be available for viewing, but here's the Fox television schedule for the Los Angeles Sparks season, which begins at home Saturday vs. Detroit. The highlight of the six-game TV schedule will likely be Lisa Leslie's final home appearance at Staples Center on Sept. 11. Leslie has announced she is retiring after this season.

Broadcasters are analyst Tracy Warren with Larry Burnett on play-by-play.

The complete 2009 LA Sparks telecast schedule on the regional sports network is as follows:

Shawn Johnson, LA gal

Olympic gold medal gymnast and "Dancing With The Stars" winner Shawn Johnson is taking advantage of her celebrity-hood after winning that DWTS mirror ball trophy. She has appeared at NASCAR events and tonight she is appearing on Fox Prime's pre-game Dodgers television show before throwing out the first pitch at Dodger Stadium.

She's even making it onto those gossipy "Who's better dressed" polls. Like this one at the MTV Movie Awards. Who would you pick? And have you heard of the other girl? Me neither.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Shawn Johnson. Now available in 25% more peaceful. Actually, she just released a line of leotards. Credit: Elite Sportswear.

Speaking of quiet athletes, Lance Armstrong spoke words, not Twitter

On the last day of the three-week Giro d'Italia race and after about two weeks of silence (though he faithfully posted Twitter and Facebook thoughts and video), cyclist Lance Armstrong did an actual, speaking with his voice, interview with Universal Sports on Sunday. Universal Sports televised the Giro.

Armstrong, who finished 12th in the Giro d'Italia, began his mainstream media silence after he was an outspoken leader of a partial rider boycott of a stage in Milan. He spoke about his chances at the upcoming Tour de France, about how he is finding that communicating via Twitter and Facebook "eliminates the middleman" in his communication with fans, and admitted he had "a moment or two" last December when he thought it would be easy to win an eighth Tour de France. Not anymore, he said.

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Lance Armstrong at the Giro d'Italia. Credit: Damien Meyer / AFP/Getty Images