Apologies for going missing for last week's Straight Outta Stockton, let's just blame Norv Turner for that series of unfortunate events and let bygones be bygones, k?  We're back this week though with your best tweets, quotes, and observations from Sunday featuring how Al Michaels really feels about Ed Hochuli, who took his time in delivering mass confusion to all of America last night.

Saturday night, HBO aired this video tribute to longtime commentator Larry Merchant after his last broadcast as a ringside announcer.  The vignette features some of Merchant's trademark commentaries and some of his more famous (and infamous) moments throughout his three decade plus tenure at HBO.  Following the video tribute, Merchant exited the stage with his unique brand of final thoughts.  Merchant's presence at HBO and broad role of boxing analyst, interviewer, host, and reporter is one you don't see elsewhere.  It's going to be difficult to imagine what HBO Boxing will be like without Larry Merchant as Max Kellerman will replace him full-time moving forward.

(H/T SportsGrid)

Last night ESPN displayed an amusing recurring screengrab snafu during a report from Tim Kurkjian with the headline "TEXT TEXT TEXT TEXT, GENERIC TEXT GOES HERE."  Always one of our favorites.  That snafu led a reader to share with us an even better snafu that was actually printed in a newspaper (evidently they still make those) and one we'd never seen before.  It comes from June's Charleston Gazette in Charleston, West Virginia and the West Virginia Power, a Class A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The headline, at the top of the sports page, appropriately enough reads "Power headline goes here."  If there is a silver lining in that headline hilariously making it to print, at least it was actually put in the right place.

(Tip of the cap to clarkbar213)

It was a little over a week ago when two of the larger players in sports announced a significant strategic parnership. With an impressive list of assets between NBC and Yahoo, the unexpected alliance has the potential to be a game changing move within the sports media industry. By the same token, similar media partnerships have over time proven to be hard to implement and maintain and have often dissolved without any substantial value added to either entity. With that in mind, I got in touch with Rick Cordella, SVP and GM of Digital Media at NBC Sports Group, to get some more information on how exactly both companies plan to benefit from working with each other going forward.

Q: An All Things D article from October mentioned that a NBC/Yahoo partnership had been "in the works for some time." When and how did conversations take root between both companies?

A: We worked with Yahoo! Sports before on a previous Sunday Night Football agreement. However, the preliminary discussions regarding this specific partnership began about a year ago.

Q: It seems that video distribution of live events and original programming is the centerpiece of this partnership. A lot of companies like SI, SBN, and B/R are ramping up original web video production but have yet to really move beyond a niche audience. What can we expect in terms of original video production given the combined editorial assets of this partnership?

A: NBC Sports has a 70-year history of producing best-in-class video. It’s in our DNA, and we have a new, 350,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art production facility with a studio dedicated solely for web content.

As you mention, both Yahoo! Sports and NBC Sports have great assets and talented personalities. We fully intend to utilize them to produce compelling original content for sports fans.

Another major piece of video is live streaming. NBC Sports has acquired the rights to some of the most valuable video content in sports. We have an impressive live streaming portfolio of successes with the Olympics, the Super Bowl and Sunday Night Football. And it will grow exponentially in the coming months and years as we acquire more content and begin streaming NBC Sports Network and Golf Channel content. In 2012, outside of the Olympics we streamed approximately 100 different events. By 2014, we’ll be streaming between 800-1,000 sporting events. Yahoo! will link and promote to our NBC Sports Live Extra video player in a more strategic and comprehensive way than ever before, allowing sports fans who are visiting their site to easily access our video.

Brooklyn Nets play by play man and NFL on CBS announcer Ian Eagle was able to pull off quite the impressive double dip during Friday's Nets-Pistons game in Brooklyn  Joe Johnson hit a buzzer beating three with the game tied at the end of the second overtime for a 108-105 victory.  Not only did Eagle give a solid call of the game-winner, he also paid homage to comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who was sitting at courtside.

Ever since Michelle Beadle left ESPN for NBC back in May, there have been questions about the full extent of her sports role at the company.  Beadle's stated on several occasions that one of the reasons for her move from Bristol to New York was to work in both the entertainment and sports fields.  So far she's taken that new role on the entertainment side as an Access Hollywood host.  However, her work in sports for the peacock has been confined to a few guest spots and hosting a morning shift on NBC Sports Network throughout the Olympics.

The plans for Beadle have always included her own sports show on the NBC Sports Network, but it's been a long time in the making with few details revealed.  Last we heard this fall, Beadle's show was going to launch in January.  But recently on the Sports Media Journal Podcast with our friends Keith Thibault and Ken Fang, Beadle unveiled more specifics about her planned NBCSN show...

ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski isn't really known for any controversial statements. He's mostly just an intelligent X's and O's type of guy who sticks to analyzing games as opposed to making news. On an interview on Friday morning on Philadelphia's 97.5 The Fan, Jaworski blasted Alabama Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban, saying he's not a fan because he feels Saban has no integrity.

Former Texas Tech coach and new Cincinnati coach Tommy Tuberville has come under fire for reportedly leaving recruits at a dinner to take his new job.  He didn't just leave as soon as he got the check, or excuse himself from the table... he left when the waitress brought out the food and never returned!  Tuberville's dash-before-dining has become a symbolic story for the unforgiving nature of the college football coaching carousel.

Tuberville appeared on The Dan Patrick Show on Thursday and Patrick pressed the coach on those reports and college coaches in general being willing to not live up to their long term contracts as "hired guns."  As the seconds tick by, Patrick becomes more and more fired up and Tuberville squirms more and more.

The entire interview is worth a listen because you don't hear tough, even uncomfortable interviews like this in sports these days...

(Ed Note: This article regarding the most joyous news of the week appears courtesy our sister site Awful Ads.)

We've all been there. You're watching your favorite television program at a respectable volume. Suddenly, they cut to commercial only to have the volume seemingly doubled. You franticly turn the volume down, trying to not be blasted out of your seat. 

These days might be over thanks to the FCC. The "noise" of TV commercials is set to be regulated in the hopes of eliminating those ridiculously loud commercials that far exceed the volume of the programming they are placed in. You may recall that the CALM act, or the act that would force television commercials to be the same volume as their programming, was passed over a year ago. 

Now that the act is up and running we have just one thing to say - Finally. 

The hammer dropped on ESPN's Rob Parker Friday morning.  ESPN announced this morning the pundit/debater/instigator was "suspended until further notice" for his incendiary comments about Washington Redskins QB Robert Griffin III on Thursday's edition First Take.