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Anybody else notice how heavily Disney bought their own ad slots, especially front-loaded into the first thirty minutes of the game? The Cars promo, the Disney 50th Anniversary stuff; for a company whose sports branch should be spending the next week cramming its foot solidly in its mouth (thank you Vince Young), they are sho’ nuff egocentric.

The good folks at Deadspin have been excited about sideline reporter Holly Rowe’s misspeak, calling Matt Leinart “Vince” as he walked away from an overwhelmingly dejected and aloof postgame interview. We found the first part of the interview just as telling, when, of the sixty reported cameras that ABC had at the game, none of them can get in front of Leinart for the interview, and instead he gets shot from ten feet behind his head. You can see Rowe physically restraining Leinart with her palm on his chest, holding him from leaving the scene of the crime long enough to exact some torturous journalism upon him. Only after a few telling moments do we get a side-on camera shot; even so, the back-angle shows a number of cameras in the right place – but none of them apparently belonged to the media empire that was paying to broadcast the event. Go figure.

And this may not be the last time a woman calls Leinart “Vince” by mistake.

Rumors of Keith Jackson’s on-air retirement were, sadly, underinformed. But we were hanging on until the last minute.

And finally, we just have to say: Sports Media Watch is not in the business of commenting on sports themselves. There are, quite literally, thousands upon thousands of people out there who have many more informed things to say about athletes and competition than we do. We do media. That being said – what a game. What a game.

So you probably all saw the report that A-Rod is now, in fact, going to play in the World Baseball Classic. Yippee for him. But what we thought was strange was the ESPN sidebar on the above story, claiming “Cuba” as one of the participating nations (it’s also listed on the official WBC website) Because last time we looked, they had been banned by the U.S. Treasury. Yes, MLB and Cuba had reapplied for permission, and Cuba had even offered to donate its proceeds to Katrina victims – something we’re hard pressed to be skeptical or cynical about.

But as far as we know, the Treasury has not rescinded its denial, and the reapplication process is presumably underway. Both MLB and ESPN are being a bit presumptuous in continuing to list Cuba as one of the participating countries – unless they only participate in their own group, which could be held entirely in Caracas. And that sucks for Cuba, because then they have the U.S. Feds prohibiting them from success. Like, you can win your group, but you can’t come to San Diego for the actual championship.

So again, we don’t know who’s playing, we don’t know how much credibility the event will have. The commies are getting pissed off, and even Fox thinks that Fidel’s boys should be invited. There’s no broadcast deal, no sense of if games will even be available for public consumption, and the whole thing starts in two months. So either the shrouds of secrecy are about to come off – and don’t be surprised if ESPN is just waiting for a Cuba announcement before it announces its own broadcast schedule (as we’ve said before)  – or this whole thing has been mismanaged from top to bottom. And those options aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.

There’s still so much to catch up on from the holidays. Tomorrow: some more of it. Pardon the Rose Bowl-related sports media hangover.