Saturday, April 4th, 2009

347 teams started the basketball season with championship aspirations. Sixty-five teams made it to the NCAA tournament and now only four remain. Only one can be named “National Champion” on Monday. ESPN’s Pat Forde joins Bill Littlefield to talk about how the Madness in March cut down the contenders to four in April.

On Wednesday, U.S. Senator John McCain and U.S. Representative Peter King held a press conference to request the presidential pardon for former heavyweight champion, Jack Johnson. Johnson was convicted of violating the Mann Act in 1913. Bill reports on the recent developments to pardon a boxer nearly 63 years after his death.

The Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves will kick off the baseball season on Sunday night. The rest of the league will begin play on Monday. ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian joins the program to discuss the 2009 baseball season.

Prices for bleacher and grandstand seats in the New Yankee Stadium were set at 25 cents and a dollar-ten for the Yanks final exhibition games of the spring to commemorate historical prices in the original Yankee Stadium. However, these prices won’t last beyond the weekend. Only A Game’s Ron Schachter reporters on the Yankees brand new state of the art stadium.

Only A Game listeners have written letters and now Bill responds.

Bill and Only A Game analyst Charlie Pierce discuss New Yankee stadiums new prices, Michael Vick’s post-jail plans, and a pole vaulter’s strategy to gain sponsorship.

Jeff Pearlman’s book, The Rocket That Fell To Earth, looks at Roger Clemens’ rise to supremacy in the major leagues and his eventual downfall as an accused steroid user. Pearlman makes a convincing case that Clemens is a self-centered and thoroughly deluded man, but also reflects on the positive aspects of the Rocket’s life. Bill talks with Pearlman about The Rocket That Fell To Earth.