FanHouse Bob Costas

Remember when Peyton Manning called out Joe Buck during a recent interview with Bob Costas? (No? Here's a quick refresher.)

Apparently, Peyton didn't appreciate Buck taking shots at younger brother Eli, and he told Costas as much: "[The Giants] beat [the Eagles] and [Eli] drove them down there late and I remember standing on top of the bed, yelling at Toomer or one of his receivers because they ran a wrong route, and Joe Buck is just ripping Eli, just because that's what he seems to enjoy doing."

Good news: Peyton was just joshing. Buck admitted as much to Brinson on the most recent Hauscast, and he also spilled the beans to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Beneath that "aw shucks" exterior is a competitor. A perfectionist who, by the time his career is over, could hold every significant NFL passing record.

That's easy to forget when you see Peyton Manning's face pop up on every other commercial, most recently the one where he gets handled by Justin Timberlake in Ping Pong. But the guy has a mean streak. Well, as mean as you can be when you look like Gomer Pyle.

We got a brief glimpse of Angry Peyton during his Sunday night interview with Bob Costas. The subject of his ire? Fox Sports play-by-play announcer Joe Buck. You can hear his comments around the 10-minute mark in the video below. Or if you're a very busy person, or don't like the convenience moving pictures offers, (or both) the transcript follows.

Stash or Trash tells you whether a prospective fantasy football pickup (or drop) is worthy of your roster spot.

Name value is a key component in fantasy sports. Take, for instance, Braylon Edwards. You know he sucks. I know he sucks. Heck, LeBron James knows he sucks. (Bob Costas and Buzz Bissinger might be the only people on the planet that like him, actually.) But yet ... everyone keeps drafting him! I'm guilty of pulling trigger on him late, as well, because he's so talented and it seemed like "value."

So, the question that we have to ask today is, "When can you cut a big name?" Actually, we're going to answer the question. I guess that would help out a lot more, huh?

Does Jose Canseco refuse to leave the spotlight, or does the spotlight refuse to leave him? No matter the case, the two are married to one another. Since his days as a household name, he's managed to find a dozen different means of attracting attention. He was hit on the head by a fly ball. He attempted to pitch and threw out his arm. He wrote a bestseller, the impact of which has rivaled that of his playing career. He's appeared on reality television, he's launched a mixed martial arts career, and now he's suing Major League Baseball. The spotlight will not leave him, and he will not leave the spotlight.

Tonight's Dugout is the first part of a series exploring the history of this sophisticated, decades-old relationship. Read it after the jump.

Joe Buck has been announcing NFL games for FOX since 1994 and been the lead play-by-play MLB man since the network acquired the rights to broadcast baseball games for the 1996 season.

Monday night, Buck will break with his announcing past and become an emcee for the premier episode of his new talk show, Joe Buck Live on HBO (9PM ET/PT).

FanHouse caught up with Buck last week to talk about his new show and about his 15-year career announcing some of the most high-profile sporting events in the world. Read the interview after the jump.

John Madden's retirement became a little less tear-filled today when NBC announced that Cris Collinsworth will be his official replacement on Sunday Night Football, joining Al Michaels in the booth.

This is according to a statement from NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol.

Bob Costas has always been, first and foremost, a baseball guy. So although he's been a consummate professional on HBO (as host of Inside the NFL, On the Record and Costas Now) and on NBC (as host of Football Night in America and the network's Olympics coverage) it always felt like he belonged on a network that would let him return to calling baseball.

Now that's what he's doing. Costas has left HBO to take a deal with MLB Network that will expand his baseball duties and allow him to call live games again. He'll interview Dodgers manager Joe Torre on Thursday, host other shows throughout the year, and, according to USA Today, "call an unspecified number of the channel's 26 regular-season TV games."

A few weeks ago, MDS pointed out that during last year's Super Bowl, FOX tag-team duo Joe Buck and Troy Aikman enjoyed a free ride to University of Phoenix Stadium as they prepared to call the Giants-Patriots game. According to the Inspector General (via the Smoking Gun), it was "inappropriate" for the United States Marshals Service to use federal vehicles to transport Buck and Aikman to the game. You think?

Seems like common sense, really, but clearly it's not. At least that was the story a FOX spokesman was pushing after the fact. "We were unaware, however, that those arrangements were in any way inappropriate, and regret to learn now that they apparently were."

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick got one vote among the 50 members of the media who selected the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year, and that one voter is none other than NBC's NFL studio host, Bob Costas.

Mike Reiss of the Boston Globe contacted Costas to ask why he voted for Belichick, rather than Falcons coach Mike Smith or Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, who were by far the two top vote getters, with Smith edging Sparano by one vote. Costas replied:

"I thought he deserved a nod for what might have been the best, or certainly one of the best coaching jobs of his career," Costas said. "He loses [Tom] Brady, and it's not just losing Brady, but also that [Matt] Cassel basically never played. It's not the same thing as losing Johnny Unitas and you have Earl Morrall. He brought the kid along."

I don't ever recall a coach getting any Coach of the Year recognition after a season in which his team's win total declined by five from the year before. Then again, I don't ever recall a coach leading a team to a 16-0 record, then losing his MVP quarterback in the first game of the following season, only to go 11-5 with a backup quarterback who had never even started a game in college, let alone in the NFL.

I probably would have gone with the plurality who selected Smith, but I don't have a problem with Costas's choice. The argument for Belichick as coach of the year is a legitimate one.

On Thursday afternoon, the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks hit the ice at Wrigley Field in the Winter Classic. After a sluggish first period that saw Chicago jump out to an early 3-1 lead, the Red Wings roared back and claimed a 6-4 victory, thanks in large part to a pair of goals from Jiri Hudler, and a highlight reel goal by Pavel Datsyuk. You might have heard a thing or two about it, as it was a pretty big deal. NBC even let Bob Costas cover it so, in the words of Empty Netters, he could pretend like he cared about hockey.

Meanwhile, Eric McErlain was everywhere in Chicago, collecting locker room insight from the Red Wings and interviewing crazed fans taking in all of the excitement.

The early returns are in, and it seems that this year's version was an even bigger success than the first Winter Classic in Buffalo a year ago. This was actually the third outdoor game in NHL history, as the Oilers and Canadiens played in the Heritage Classic back in 2003. Oh, and in case you haven't heard, Ty Conklin played in all three games.

So, seeing as how the NHL has actually marketed something correctly for a change, and in the process has created a monster that will need to be fed each and every season -- or so it seems -- now is as good a time as any to start looking ahead to 2010.