Memo From a Cone-head: My Saturday Night Was Not Comcastic

Please. Somebody at Comcast Sports read this post.

Yesterday, in the spirit of insane Ducks fans, I went into what is known as the "cone of silence" for Oregon's 7 pm kickoff against Arizona State, which was on radio but not on live TV. For those in the world of the sane, let me translate the "cone." The cone is when a fan walls himself or herself off from all news of the game so that he or she can watch the TV replay later, which in this case was at 11;30 pm on Comcast.

By screening all phone calls, studiously avoiding all media (ESPN, radio, etc.), reading a book and watching a video (To Kill A Mockingbird , if you must know), I safely navigated the 4 1-2 hours to my must-see TV at 11:30.

The game started and I settled in to watch it as if it were live. The Ducks' Jeremiah Johnson scored a quick TD. I was headed to Nirvana. And then IT happened.

The live scroller of the day's sports scores came up on the bottom of the taped game - Portland State 36, Idaho State 13 (good, I like the Vikes); Notre Dame 33, Washington 7 (who cares, I hate both teams); Oregon 54, ASU 20. WHAAAAAT!

Comcast didn't think to take the Oregon-ASU score out of its live scroller?

You've got to be freaking kidding me. ESPN pioneered this "skill," I think maybe 10 years ago of taking out the score of a taped game so that fanatics who'd gone in the "cone" could actually watch the game if they didn't know the score. Can Comcast really not scrape up enough money out of our humongous cable bills to pay somebody to execute this?

[Image: Marvel Comics]