Hype

Washington. -- Spike Lee called on African-American students and workers to play hooky to see his new movie on the life of Malcolm X when it opens this week. (What? It hasn't opened yet? Haven't we been wearing his ''X'' caps for about a century now?)Black conservatives dutifully called press conferences to denounce the suggestion, which, of course, only helps hype the movie more. Mr. Lee responded that his movie is no worse than ''Gone With the Wind,'' which his teachers forced him to see. How about that for moral equivalency?

I like Oprah Winfrey, and I was happy to see her Tuesday morning on CBS with her old pal, Gayle King, hitting on all cylinders as they hyped the gate for her interview with Lance Armstrong. She promised King, Charlie Rose and everyone else on the last-place morning show set, "You will be satisfied," by the interview that airs Thursday night on the OWN cable channel. "You will come away understanding that he brought it," she said, though she did hedge on the  specific extent of his confession versus her expectations.

Catching up with Blake Griffin … That's just it. You can't catch up with him, or no one has yet. No one saw him coming until he broke out as an Oklahoma sophomore. Even as runaway No. 1 pick in the 2009 draft, no one thought he'd be this good this soon. In the biggest surprise of all, he may just be warming up. Before Blake, phenoms didn't come out of nowhere, they were preceded by marching bands, or jet escorts. LeBron James was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine in high school.

When someone has coached for as long as Gilman's Biff Poggi, it becomes difficult to remember the finer details of past games. But he still remembers the moments. Like when Poggi and his Greyhounds found themselves in a "tough situation" locked in a close game a few years ago. The coach recalls becoming overexcited and focusing too much on the outcome of the game. While he may not remember what year the game was or which team Gilman was playing, he can recall a player approaching him. "He comes up to me and says, 'Don't worry, Coach.

I agree with the consensus that the Undertaker-Shawn Michaels match at WrestleMania more than lived up to the hype and the Triple H-Randy Orton encounter fell short of expectations. (For more, go to baltimoresun.com/ringposts)

RECENTLY IT CAME TO MY attention that I was one of the eight remaining Americans who had not seen "The Blair Witch Project."In case you're one of the other seven, I should explain that "The Blair Witch Project" is a hugely popular movie that was featured simultaneously on the covers of both Time and Newsweek (mottoes: "We Both Have The Same Motto"). "The Blair Witch Project" stunned the Hollywood establishment, because it proved that, to make a hit movie, you don't need big stars, an expensive production and a huge promotional budget to generate hype.

I like Oprah Winfrey, and I was happy to see her Tuesday morning on CBS with her old pal, Gayle King, hitting on all cylinders as they hyped the gate for her interview with Lance Armstrong. She promised King, Charlie Rose and everyone else on the last-place morning show set, "You will be satisfied," by the interview that airs Thursday night on the OWN cable channel. "You will come away understanding that he brought it," she said, though she did hedge on the  specific extent of his confession versus her expectations.

Given its ratio of hype to real-world importance, baseball's trading deadline has to rank with preseason football among the most overblown happenings in human history. Every year, baseball scribes spend July concocting trade scenarios, most of which never happen. The deals that do go down? Well, they rarely make much of a difference. Yet ESPN will give us a multihour "deadline special" today, and many Orioles fans will doubtless feel disappointed when the club fails to consummate a deal.

Back when the Super Bowl got under way in 1967, the idea o a week's delay prior to the kingpins of the American and National Football leagues squaring off was for the purpose of hyping the event and selling tickets and ad time on television.No one is quite sure what effect it had, because only about two-thirds of the Los Angeles Coliseum seats were filled for the "World Championship Game" at a measly $10 per ticket.By the way, the conference-title games that year were staged on Jan. 1, the pros stealing New Year's Day away from the collegiate bowls because it was Sunday.

BOSTON -- Sometimes it's hard to tell the hype from the hope. For a decade now, gene therapy has been described as the Promised Land of modern medicine. When we get there, we'll be able to cure disease by changing our genetic makeup. In his State of the Union address, the president talks about "miraculous improvements" and "precision therapies." In quarterly reports, biotech firms talk about their race for the cure. At conferences, scientists talk as if success were a tantalizing breakthrough away.

Before sitting down to watch CM Punk: Best in the World , I had already heard a lot about it. Most people unanimously praised it, going so far as to say it was the greatest WWE DVD documentaryever created. The words “honest,” “open” and “real” were often used. I can confirm these sentiments. The DVD is honest, open and real. But what I found most intriguing about the DVD is how much I found myself relating to CM Punk, and how likely it is that many working-class people watching the DVD will also relate to CM Punk's trials and tribulations, even if you don't have much in common with him. The DVD follows a logical life timeline, with sprinkles of Punk's interests and happenings in between chapters.

The Ravens are the sudden darlings of the NFL after they pulverized the Cincinnati Bengals in a prime time setting on Monday night. But as they prepare for a Philadelphia Eagles team that barely edged the Cleveland Browns in their season opener, recent history suggests that the Ravens shouldn't get too comfortable with their sudden status near the top of many NFL power rankings. In the last three seasons, the Ravens are 5-7 following victories in the season opener and wins against teams with winning records.

WrestleMania 29 is shaping up to be a blockbuster event. I know it's eight months away, and WWE has at least six pay-per-view events before it, but hear me out. Today, we live in a big-name, part-time environment. What I mean by that is that the biggest draws in WWE - like Brock Lesnar, The Rock, etc. - appear sporadically. One place you can almost guarantee they will appear is at WrestleMania, the biggest event of the year. The Rock appeared at the WrestleMania 29 press conference in February and confirmed that he would be a part of the festivities.

The kid came pretty much as advertised. Mid-90s fastball with all sorts of hop. A back-breaking change-up that had batters swinging 20 minutes early. All sorts of poise, the kind that comes from having a ton of God-given talent and playing for a big-time college program like LSU's. Yeah, Kevin Gausman, the Orioles' top choice in the 2012 draft, pretty much dazzled in his home debut Sunday at Ripken Stadium in the Aberdeen IronBirds' 3-1 win over the Connecticut Tigers. Working as if he had a plane to catch, the tall right-hander held the Tigers to one hit over three innings, striking out three and walking none.

In recent years, the debate on whether WWE superstars should be classified as "wrestlers" or "entertainers" has raged on across television, social media and casual conversation. At times, it's been used as part of storylines, with performers like CM Punk and Chris Jericho mocking the use of the words "sports entertainment. " But on tonight's Raw, fans saw the semantics at play in a different manner. Look at the careers of Shawn Michaels, who was being recognized in his hometown of San Antonio, and Brock Lesnar and there's a world of difference.

Mark in down on your calendars: the Bryce Harper Tour comes to town Friday. Oh, sure, the 19-year-old phenom is bringing the rest of the Washington Nationals with him for the three-game interleague series against the Orioles at Camden Yards. But it's the kid Sports Illustrated put on its cover as a high school sophomore with the understated headline "Baseball's Chosen One" who's getting all the hype - even more than the Nats' other Chosen One, flame-throwing righty Stephen Strasburg.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Run silent, run fast. Several Nextel Cup drivers will start today's Daytona 500 atop a wave of hype or under a cloud of controversy, but there's another group lurking quietly beyond the headlines with fast stock cars that could find Victory Lane. Daytona 500 Daytona International Speedway, Daytona Beach, Fla., today, 2 p.m., chs. 45, 5

Back in 1998, Gretchen Mol appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair's September issue, wearing a nearly transparent white gown and looking about as alluring as humanly possible. The accompanying article (and one got the feeling it was the cover photo that prompted the article, not the other way around) proclaimed her the next big thing. In fact, it treated the 25-year-old actress as though she already were a major star. Eight years later, thanks to her winsome, absolutely unselfconscious performance as a 1950s pin-up queen in The Notorious Bettie Page, she may finally be living up to the magazine's hype.

TV ratings for the NBA playoffs have been outstanding. Saturday's Eastern Conference finale set a new overnight high for cable TV. In terms of what is expected to happen on the court, I am already amped up for game one of the finals between Oklahoma City and Miami Tuesday night on ABC. But I am also worried about what the coverage on Disney-owned ESPN-ABC is going to be like. I say that after watching ESPN's studio team hyping the game Sunday morning. Magic Johnson took the lead saying that having these two teams in the finals in the greatest outcome anyone could ever hope for, because the two "greatest" players on the planet, Kevin Durant and LeBron James, were going to be head-to-head.

Ever since No. 1 seed Loyola easily dispatched of Canisius and Denver bounced No. 8 seed North Carolina from the NCAA tournament last Saturday to set up this Saturday's quarterfinal, the sentiment within the lacrosse community appears to have settled on the improbability of the Greyhounds being able to beat their Eastern College Athletic Conference rival for the third time this year. Color Pioneers coach Bill Tierney unimpressed. “Don't buy it,” he said Tuesday. “Don't buy that stock.