Local teams kept getting bashed and bashed and bashed and...

When the Atlanta Falcons dropped a 28-24 decision to the San Francisco 49ers this past Sunday in the NFC Championship Game at the Georgia Dome, it meant the end to a lot more than end of the seasons for the Falcons.
It meant the end of a year where every talking head or someone who portrays one on television could stop bashing any and all sports teams located in the Atlanta area.
There was all of the criticism about the Atlanta Hawks and star player Joe Johnson who couldn't brush his teeth without someone saying that he missed a molar.
When he was traded to the Brooklyn Nets last summer, I was disappointed but I wasn't surprised because it was time because of hitting that point where it isn't worth it and a change of scenery would be good.
I just want to know if he has met Beyonce yet at any Nets' home games.
Johnson was not the only Hawks getting drilled as Josh Smith, Marvin Williams and head coach Larry Drew were in the path of the heads.
Josh Smith is a good player who now and then will drive one to partake of liquid substances while I think Drew is a capable coach who gives off the impression of being mild-mannered but I am sure he doesn't put up with much as the recent suspension of Smith indicates.
Anyway, the attendance was criticized while those who showed up were drilled for rooting for the other team.
Last I looked, you can root for anybody you want. I spent several years in Louisiana and I continued to root for the Falcons.
With Johnson gone and the Hawks season ending, there had to be somebody else to drill and during the summer there were the Braves.
You remember those scamps, who won division titles for 14 straight seasons but only came away with one world series championship along with four other National League titles.
The starting pitching was not very good at the beginning of the season and they would have signed anyone to work in the rotation and they did when they signed Ben Sheets who helped tremendously during the summer.
When the pitching staff and their leader Roger McDowell (who I still think about in a grass skirt during one of MTV's old Rock and Jock softball games) wasn't getting the grease from the proverbial wheels, there was general manager Frank Wren, field manager Fredi Gonzalez and others to hoist insults toward.
I also do not want to forget the talking heads decided the fans were bad people because they attend all of the games.
First, most are on television and outside of the cable and utility bill there isn't much of an expense in watching from home.
Next, do I want to spend an evening driving on I-85, I-75 or I-20 trying to find a parking spot somewhere and then leaving.
I would go on but I think I have delivered the point since you have been admonished as bad people.
After baseball came the Falcons to rise up before the masses and for some reason, they were considered a bad team.
First game was a win over Kansas City, next was the Monday night win over Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos at the Georgia Dome and for six more weeks the Falcons won.
They lost at New Orleans and all of the heads came out with the horns of demons and laughed like crazy.
Well they won two more games to seal the NFC South and split the next four games on the way to claiming a top seed.
The feeling of the talking heads was that the Falcons had to beat the Seattle Seahawks to preserve the legacy of Matt Ryan and Mike Smith as well as that of general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
They teased us and blew it before defeating the Seahawks 30-28 but they won and nearly beat the 49ers.
Well there was Falcons criticism by the heads after each of those games and enough is enough.
The Atlanta Falcons were 14-4, came within yards of going to the Super Bowl and I for one am really thrilled.
The only sports I watched this week were the Hawks, the Austrailian Open tennis tournament and that was it.
The talking head craze wasn't limited to the pros as the Georgia Bulldogs and Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets took their shots but I have painted enough of a picture of this mess.
It will be fun to see what 2013 will have on its plate.

2,000 and counting for Holman’s streak (COLUMN)

Newnan resident calls 2,000th straight game for the Hawks.

Atlanta Hawks broadcaster Steve Holman

When John Sterling accepted a job in 1989 to be a play-by-play announcer for the New York Yankees the following season, the sports broadcasting landscape in the Atlanta market would change dramatically and set history.
By accepting this job, Sterling would no longer call the Atlanta Hawks basketball games which was something he had done since 1981 and Atlanta Braves baseball games which he had worked since 1983.
Since that time, fans of the Bronx Bombers have heard his call of "The Yankees win! Thuuu Yankees win! The Yankees...win!" and “an A-bomb from A-Rod” as well as other calls.
That time period has also allowed one of the longest broadcasting streak to reach 2,000 games as Steve Holman hit that magic number Wednesday night when the Hawks hosted the Brooklyn Nets at Philips Arena.
What makes this streak of the Newnan resident is the 2,000 games is with the same team which is unheard of in the sports broadcasting field as announcer usually have two or teams on their resume before they reach the age of 40.
Holman has done NBA games for the Boston Celtics when the legendary Johnny Most was ill and for the Hawks for almost 30 years.
While the Hawks players haven’t always been consistent, the position of voice has been with the late Skip Caray serving from 1968 when the team moved from St. Louis to Sterling who took over in 1982 when Caray concentrated his efforts with the Braves until his passing in 2008 and now Holman.
Working as a voice for one team for a long time is remarkable for any team except in Atlanta as the aforementioned Caray and Pete Van Wieren served the Atlanta Braves for 33 seasons while Joe Simpson will be in his 22nd season and Sutton will be in his 23^rd year with the team which has a two-year absence to broadcast with the Washington Nationals.
However, the quartet missed games during the season for a variety of reasons
While it may not be considered to be on the level as that of Cal Ripken’s 2632 and Lou Gehrig’s 2130 in baseball, the 297 of Brett Favre’s in the NFL and the 1,192 of A.C. Green in the NBA, the broadcasting streak of the 58-year-old Holman’s will be hard to beat.
However, the NBA mark of 3,338 set by former Los Angeles Lakers announcer Chick Hearn remains pretty solid unless Holman wants to chase that mark and he might.
That would probably be something his father would not object to as he preached to him to be a hard worker.
Of course it might help if the team that he lives and dies for on the air (something many of us discover frequently and I discovered in an interview I did with him a few years ago) would play a little better or he may not make it to 3,338.
As for the man he replaced, Sterling has not missed a Yankees game since joining the club and called every pitch during the 2005 season.
That is definitely someone one of my brothers would consider to possess leather lungs when one does 162 games everyday for 23 years.
According to my math, that is approximately 3,700 games when one includes the strike-shortened 1994 and 1995 seasons.
Regardless, going to work everyday for years is an achievement in various avenues of life and what Holman, Sterling and Hearn have accomplished is pretty cool.