Sports

Loathed

jamesjk@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:08:25 GMT

Initially I had only sent an email to some Chicago sports fans about the departure of Jay Mariotti from the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week but something happened after that which bears repeating. In just about any workplace there is going to be inevitable conflict. Sometimes it’s more magnified in some places than others but usually cooler heads prevail and it doesn’t become a public matter. When that person leaves, people usually either say something nice about that person or they don’t say anything at all or are secretly happy that the point of conflict has been removed.

Not so with the Sun-Times! Jay Mariotti has been stirring the pot since he arrived in Chicago 17 years ago and while he has had some legitimately critcizable targets (Hawk Harrelson, Jerry Reinsdorf, Tribune ownership of the Cubs, Bears ownership and management…), he also has let a lot of personal grudges seep into his articles as of late. While it makes for great copy, he burned a lot of bridges with Chicago sports teams and, more disturbingly, his own colleagues. He had a penchant for writing about items as though he had intimate knowledge yet he never was seen in such places (such as the White Sox clubhouse).

Anyway, he quit on Tuesday and by yesterday his colleagues had already started to trash him in print. Read this Kyle Koster article and all the links within it for a better understanding of what all went down but I wanted to highlight some of the most damning quotes. Never before can I ever recall when an ex-coworker was so routinely trashed in the public spotlight. The bottom line is if you’re in a profession where people have the wherewithal to make their opinions known to a potentially limitless audience, you might not want to step on a lot of toes unless you simply don’t care.

Rick Telander, Sun-Times sports writer – “If he’s gone, I don’t even know how to describe it. I am reborn.”

Chris DeLuca, Sun-Times sports writer – “We’re talking about a columnist who detested bloggers – mainly because he was easy fodder for their biting humor. He acted as if he stood on a level above bloggers. Most of the better bloggers have the kind of wit he couldn’t touch.”

The most damning quote came from Sun-Times editor Michael Cooke – “We wish Jay well and will miss him – not personally, of course – but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days.”

Ouch, ouch, and more ouch.

Even my favorite Sun-Times writer, Neil Steinberg, posted this status update on his Facebook page yesterday - "Neil is mourning the loss of Jay Mariotti, albeit in his own special way."

It takes a special kind of person to be so reviled by your coworkers that they were overcome with glee the day you leave.

Curmudgeons Revisited

jamesjk@gmail.com — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 15:43:48 GMT

Thankfully I’m not the only fuddy duddy who thinks that baseball’s claim of success comes with a price. One of the more well known fans of baseball, Stephen King, went on a rant in the past issue of Entertainment Weekly. As much as I loathe when politicians use the “But what about the CHILDREN?” line, King actually makes valid points in his argument.

Stephen King: How TV Ruined Baseball

Greed and networks' insistence on treating the national pastime as just another program -- and one airing at hours that make it impossible for kids to see -- is squeezing the joy out of prime-time games

Stephen King

Yes, it's a column about baseball. But before you click away (grumbling, ''If I wanted to read about sports, I'd subscribe to Sports Illustrated), let me add it's also about TV and greed. Have you ever noticed that those two simply go together like peanut butter and jelly, or ''Cheech?

This subject has been on my mind since 2004, when the ''Red won the World Series for the first time in 86 years, finally put the Curse of the Bambino behind them...and my baseball-mad oldest grandson missed the game because it was on way past his bedtime (his dad woke him for the postgame celebration, and good for him).

I tabled the subject then, even though ''event'' baseball games regularly appear in EW's ratings box, but my disgust with Major League Baseball has continued to grow, and finally came to a head during my last visit to Fenway Park, when the PA announcer informed us that the seventh-inning stretch was being sponsored by Coke. And that's not the worst. In 2004, MLB okayed a plan to put advertising for Spider-Man 2 on the bases during interleague play. Fan outrage killed the idea, but that it should have been raised at all is depressing. Sometimes you just want to say to the suits running America's pastime, ''Have you no shame? Is there nothing you won't sell? No disgrace you will not visit on this wonderful game in order to turn a buck?''

When I was a kid (the sort of line that invariably indicates your correspondent is growing old and curmudgeonly), children could still watch baseball on TV. I saw Don Larsen's perfect World Series game after school and danced for joy around our apartment even though Larsen was a hated Yankee. In the years that followed, more and more teams began to play more and more night games. The reasoning was simple: Lots of working guys couldn't go to day games. What the reasoning ignored was the ever greater emphasis on televised baseball. Yet those early TV pioneers were pikers compared with those selling the game today, with whole cable networks like YES and NESN pretty much devoted to the idea that baseball is just another prime-time TV series.

But at least regular-season games are telecast at regular hours — most start at seven or seven-thirty. You can even take a kid to a 7 p.m. game on a weeknight, although he or she is apt to fall asleep in the car on the way home.

But thanks to the unholy alliance of Fox and MLB, most ''event'' TV baseball might as well come with an Adults Only tag. And the fans in the stadium? They're likely to find themselves shivering in their seats until midnight or later, due not only to late starting times but also to extra-long inning breaks, stretched so the network can sell more beer and deodorant. The spectators are in effect reduced to cheering extras, with this added kick in the butt: They pay for the privilege instead of getting paid. Oy, such a deal for the network. And the kids who buy the posters, T-shirts, and trading cards get warmed-over TiVo in the morning. Too bad, of course, but Fox has to sell lawn tractors and the latest big-bang Guy Flick. Sorry, kids, but when money talks, you guys have to take a walk.

This year's All-Star Game is a particularly disgusting case of how the game has been pimped out by the very people who pretend to care about its traditions. Fox came on air at 8 p.m. on July 15, and bingo, there go the 6- and 7-year-olds: Sleep tight, kiddies. The game actually started around quarter of nine (there go the 8-year-olds). It rolled past midnight with the score tied (there go the teen-agers and working stiffs) and finally ended at 1:38 a.m. on July 16. Duration of game: almost five hours. At 15 innings, it would have ended late no matter what, but if the first pitch had been thrown at 7 p.m., the game still would have been over before midnight. But hey, the kids don't buy Bud or lawn tractors, so to hell with them.

I tell myself I'm cynical — hardened to all this — and mostly I am, but I'm still amazed at how corrupting television can be...although there's no doubt MLB has loved being corrupted. Someone ought to give them a pants-down butt whippin'. Except I'm afraid it's already too late. As one ESPN commentator put it recently, ''Commerce trumps conscience every time.''

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One more side note on baseball's money grab.

For those of you who might be Mets fans, consider this stat (with apologies to the site that published this, as I can’t recall it from a few weeks ago – maybe the LA Times?):

Next year, the full-season package for four regular-season box seats and parking at the New York Mets' new ballpark, Citi Field, will cost $60,000.

In 1993, the same package cost $5,837.

That, my friends, far outpaces not only inflation but even hyper-inflated items like college tuition or a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe.

Blood-splattered but lucky

jamesjk@gmail.com — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:20:42 GMT

Even though it’s the middle of summer, I’m going to relay yet another story of why hockey players are tougher than any other athletes when it comes to pain tolerance. A buddy/ex-coworker of mine plays in a hockey league down here and this past weekend he suffered a rather gruesome injury while playing. Rather than try to rehash the story, I’ll include snippets of the email conversation he had (with his permission).

[Him]

I took a skate to my forearm Saturday night and had to get 4 staples in my arm. I’m a mess, dude.

[Me]

Holy shit. Hope you get better soon. What happened?

[Him]

Yeah, I’m just taking it super easy right now, not moving the arm too much until I know it’s started to heal up. It’s fucking disgusting, dude. I had to assist in the surgery since they were short-staffed. Holding the forceps while the doctor tied up the artery. Fucked up. I was cut wide open though. Hurts like a sonfabitch.

[Me]

WHAT?! What hospital were you at? Holy shit. I would have passed out.

[Him]

I was at Northside. The doctor has already numbed my entire arm (3-4 shots that hurt like a motherfucker) so it wasn’t bad pain, but still, yeah it was gross. She was like “I need a nurse but don’t want to leave you, can you hold this (forceps clamping the artery shut) while I tie off the artery?”

“Um, sure.” (shaking, almost puking, grabs the instrument)

“Thanks, okay, now hold this one…” (ties off vein, blood soaking the bed) “Good, that was easy.

Yeah honey, sure it was.

[Me]

I’m in complete shock. You win Story of the Week. Hands down.

[Him] (bragging tongue in cheek, but totally able to back it up)

There are men.

There are hockey players.

Then there are hockey players who assist in their own surgery when they get cut in a game.

Balls.

(heh heh)

[Me]

And did you drive to the hospital and back too? JFC. I’m such a pusscatore. I would have passed out. If I recall, I puked in the locker room after I broke my leg in a hockey game back during winter break in college.

[Him]

The EMT guys (fire department) that showed up at the rink offered to call an ambulance but when we got the bleeding to slow down I told them I could make it. Dude, I spilled out ½ a pint at the MIC, drove myself to the ER, spilled another 1.2 pint, got sutured and stapled, and drove home. Hell, I even stopped at the gas station to buy beer before I got to the ER since it was Saturday night and I figured I’d get fucked out of drinking being in the ER all night. I am all that is man.

NOTE TO OUR GOVERNOR – Your insipid law about not being able to buy beer on Sundays has a bigger effect than you could possibly imagine in your little puritanical world.

[Me]

On the bright side, I guess it’s good you’re still able to type and don’t have to use some sort of software that recognizes how hard you blow into a tube.

[Him]

Dude, you have no idea how lucky I am to be cut where I got cut. And I wear wrist guards too, it was a total fluke. Thanking the gods for the major injury to be in a minor spot.

The Superior League....again!

jamesjk@gmail.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:16:55 GMT

I’m going to expand upon some of your comments from my post yesterday and also add some more about the All Star Game last night.

**********

While I’m a lifelong American League fan and am happy about the current string of victories, I still think it’s utterly wrong to have home field advantage decided by an exhibition game played by a majority of players who won’t even be in the postseason. You have a sport that is a 162 game grind, with maybe a day off a week, and the team with the best record isn’t guaranteed to have a potential Game 7 played in their stadium. It defies any kind of logic, but then again I’ve come to expect that from ~~Owner~~Commisioner Bud “AssHat” Selig.

Think about this – the Cubs, who have the chance to break their 100 year curse this year (even though we know they won’t), now won’t have a potential curse-ending game played in their ballpark. The team they play might have 15 fewer wins but that won’t matter to King Bud. Last night’s 15 inning affair almost included the need for a position player to take the mound. Imagine losing home field advantage in the World Series because a second baseman in your league had to pitch for the 16^th inning of an All Star Game?

**********

New York sports teams always know how to do things in very classy style. We’ve come to expect that from a place that is legitimately the Media Center of the Universe. The introductions of some many Hall of Famers at each position they played on the field was truly a treat for any baseball fan. My only beef with the introductions is that most players appeared to wear the cap that was worn the time they were playing. For instance, Gary Carter had on the ugly Expos hat but that was cool since that was the style back then. So why weren’t Robin Yount and Paul Molitor given the cool Brewers hat worn by them back when they played instead of the current, generic, lame hat the Brew Crew wears now?

**********

Were I a Red Sox fan, I’d be having murder fantasies about the Traitor Known As Wade Boggs. The guy plays for the Sox the first 11 years of his career, then 5 as a Yankee, and 2 misguided years playing in front of Devil Ray Nation (Population: 210). He wins a World Series with the Evil Empire, rides a freakin’ police horse and completely ignores his years with the Red Sox when he goes into the Hall as a Yankee (soon to be repeated by Roger Clemens). Several players had multiple caps last night as they were introduced but Wade Boggs only had the ‘NY’ cap. One can hope that his obsession with chicken dinners will eventually give him a case of salmonella poisoning where he can shit the Yankee Pride right out of his system.

**********

Hey Yankees fans, you might not like Jonathon Papelbon because he’s a Red Sox and he also (rightly) said he should be the 9^th inning closer, not Mariano Rivera, but that doesn’t hide the fact that if you’re booing him he is still your best chance to have the American League clinch home field advantage on the slim chance your team gets to the World Series this year.

**********

Oh, and National League fans? I don’t feel sorry for you and you won’t ever get any sympathy from me. While this has been a great winning streak for the American League, I remember being on the flip side of this while growing up when the National League won almost every All Star Game. Even if the AL wins 30 years in a row, I’ll be mad the 31^st if they lose. You can keep your stupid pitcher as an automatic out at the bottom of the lineup.

Guilty until proven innocent

jamesjk@gmail.com — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:29:05 GMT

Here’s what the steroid issue in baseball has done to this lifetime fan. Instead of fully enjoying what was truly a wonderful story in last night’s Home Run Derby with Josh Hamilton and his unbelievable comeback from his self-inflicted personal problems, I couldn’t help but think what kind of masked drug he was taking that allowed him to hit so many 500+ foot long home runs.

To give people who don’t know his story a quick recap – Hamilton was a former first round pick who wasted his millions on his drug addictions. He was three years removed from playing baseball and now he’s on a first place team and among the league leaders in a few offensive categories, thus earning him a spot on the All Star Team. You couldn’t help but root for the guy last night and every aspect of the evening was a feel good story except for the fact that he still lost the contest despite out-homering his opponent by 15 homeruns over the course of the evening.

When I made the mention of what drugs he was on, I didn’t even consider his past history. It could have been Alex Rodriguez or Vladimir Guerrero or anyone else who hasn’t been tainted by the current scandal. I simply couldn’t enjoy the moment because I know that 5 years down the line, maybe even 10, we’ll find out that Hamilton was taking some substance undetectable by MLB’s drug testing scientists.

This is why I’ve really backed off of my lifelong love of baseball this year in a steep fashion. I’ve barely watched any games this year, I haven’t been to a game yet, I’ve abandoned my fantasy baseball teams and I actually hadn’t even heard of some of the All Stars. That’s something that hasn’t ever happened in my lifetime before. But take the inability for me to relate to arrogant people who make millions for playing a game, coupled by the fact that we know guys are still cheating and simply haven’t gotten caught yet, I simply don’t care about baseball in it’s current state and don’t know if I’ll ever return to being the hardcore fan I once was. That’s what truly stinks. There’s nothing more fun than taking in a summer game at Wrigley or Fenway but even at hallowed places like that, try getting the cheapest seat in the house for less than $50. It’s simply not possible.

So here’s to you, Bud Selig. You can make all the claims that baseball has never been more profitable but the difference between the “haves” and the “have nots” has widened to such a degree that teams in certain cities are guaranteed that their team will never ever have a chance of winning the World Series. If you don’t believe me, ask any Pirates or Royals or Orioles fan what the chances are that their teams aren’t destined to simply be feeder teams, or glorified AAA clubs, for the foreseeable future. Don’t point to Tampa’s success this season and say that’s parity. In the end the Red Sox and Yankees will prevail because they have the resources and Tampa will lose their current roster of good players to the bigger teams in a few years.

Icy weddings, fake goals, and unrealized goon dreams

jamesjk@gmail.com — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:35:04 GMT

There was a wedding on the ice between the first and second periods of Saturday’s Gwinnett Gladiators game. As you can imagine, unless they’re trying to recreate the ceremony from the Princess Bride, it wasn’t going to be done in a few minutes. There is supposed to be an 18-minute break between periods and the team is fined if they go over that. Long story short – the ceremony was taking so long our supervisor was forced to sound the arena horn in the middle of the ceremony to remind them they needed to get to the exchanging rings part ASAP.

Two people next to each other in the stands had two signs. One read “RUN AWAY” and the other person had a Photoshopped picture of Jennifer Wilbanks (AKA The Runaway Bride) with even more-than-normal bugged-out eyes.

One of the linesman told me that at least this wedding party was dressed like an actual wedding. There was a wedding at an ECHL game this year in Columbia, SC and the wedding party wore hockey jerseys. While I might love the sport of hockey, getting married during a game seems about as unromantic as it gets. The halls outside the locker rooms can smell during game time when players are putting their sweaty gloves on hair dryers to air them out. Since this same general area is where the wedding party was getting ready, they might have been rethinking their plans after taking a whiff of those hallways between periods.

**********

The announcer has a rather dry sense of wit about him. One of our goal judges accidentally flipped on the goal light during a scrum in front of the net even though the puck never crossed the line. The referee skated over to confirm that it was indeed not a goal. The announcer then said “No goal. This is only a test. Had this been an actual goal the referee would have signaled as such and bedlam had ensued. This is only a test.”

**********

The team’s penalty minutes leader was given a penalty with 31 seconds remaining in the game. He turned to me and said “I wish he had given me a Game Misconduct penalty so I could have gotten 300 minutes.” For those of you not familiar with hockey enforcers, 300 minutes is kind of a benchmark on whether or not your season has been laden with penalties. It’s kind of like a .300 batting average for baseball players. At the time, he had 289 minutes so a two minute minor did him no good. He needed the 10 minutes a Game Misconduct would gave gotten him. Ironically, he actually would have broken the record after a game 2 weeks ago when he received, at the time, an ECHL record of 68 penalty minutes in one game. After the league reviewed the stats they reduced it to a “mere” 53 minutes, thus robbing him of a 300 penalty minute season.

Too much info!

jamesjk@gmail.com — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:23:06 GMT

I can’t stress how much I love the internet and all the great info it gives us. From game box scores to reviews of a movie from critics around the globe, there’s more info out there than one can possibly consume in a lifetime. Add broadband access into the mix and now our computers have become extensions of our TVs.

But there can also be too much of a good thing. A perfect example was my sophomore year in college and my roommate and I decided to get every cable channel available. In order to get our money’s worth, we had to watch a LOT of TV and a LOT of TV we did wind up watching. So much TV, in fact, that I got a 2.0 GPA that semester and I don’t think my roommate fared any better. Obviously we cut back to basic cable that second semester, got our act together, and returned to producing average “B” grades.

One of the great applications I use a lot during the baseball season is mlb.com’s GameCast. It allows me to have the Tigers or Cubs game info streaming to me in real time and I can refer to it throughout the afternoon in between lulls at work. Yes, this is the nice thing about working at an internet-based company – we have unfettered internet access, Instant Message applications aren’t blocked (in fact they’re used to communicate with other offices), and our bosses know that as long as our work gets done and we meet/exceed expectations that it’s ok to visit a non-work-related web site every now and then.

Anyway, GameCast gets more and more complex each year with additional bells and whistles. There is a section where they show where each pitch ends up in relation to the batter. The screenshot I am showing below doesn’t include that because it was the top of this application-within-an-application that got me to thinking “This is simply too much info for me to use and process. Heck, even the coaches of the teams involved probably don’t even use this much info.”

Here’s a breakdown of the 3 lines I’m talking about:

Line 1 – Pitch number for that batter; Where the batted ball went; Type of pitch

Line 2 – How fast the ball was when leaving the pitcher’s hand; How fast the ball was going when it got to home plate

Line 3 – pFX (I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!); How far (in inches) the pitch dropped; How many degrees the pitch dropped; Arrow indicator showing the direction the pitch dropped

HOLY COW. Too much info! That third line is completely superfluous. As a guy, I can appreciate an overload of gadgets for just about any electronic device or application but this simply is information overload. I compare it to web sites that are too “busy” looking, making it hard to find the meat and potatoes of the site’s content.

For you baseball nuts, do you agree or disagree that this is too much of a good thing?

Ouch, Ouch, Ouch and more Ouch

jamesjk@gmail.com — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:21:34 GMT

This might be one of the most cringe-inducing stories I have ever had forwarded to me. Every guy who reads the text below will know what I’m talking about. By the way, the player’s last name is pronounced “PEE-ay”, not “Pie”.

Cubs' Pie out 3-5 days

By Paul Sullivan, 3:23 p.m.

MARYVALE, Ariz. -- Centerfielder Felix Pie will undergo surgery on Monday to correct a personal problem and miss 3-5 days, manager Lou Piniella announced before the Cubs-Brewers game.

Pie is suffering from what's called testicular torsion, or, in layman's terms, a twisted testicle. It happened early in camp, but Pie had the problem reduced manually, sources said, and was able to continue playing. He was scheduled to have the corrective surgery on the Cubs off-day next Monday, but when Pie reported to camp with soreness Monday, the Cubs decided to get the procedure done today.

The surgery involves sewing the outer layer of the testicle to the scrotum wall. The Cubs said it was a minor procedure, and if the problem was not corrected soon, Pie would risk losing the testicle.

It's not known how Pie incurred the injury, but it's not uncommon. Some men are more susceptible to it than others, but it usually happens in late adolescence.

Piniella delicately called it Pie's "situation" and said it shouldn't keep him from competing for the centerfield job. Pie is leading Sam Fuld, who will get most of the playing time in Pie's absence.

I really don’t know how I’d react if this happened to me. I’d be tempted to simply tell the doctor to lop it off. I’d still have one left and I’m done filling up this world with any more children anyway. The bottom line is that it simply isn't your day when the doctor's diagnosis includes the words "your balls" and "torsion" together in the same sentence.

Traveling down Creepy Road on the way to Shudderville

jamesjk@gmail.com — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 17:01:39 GMT

This past week has been an aberration where there are more pictures than text but something was sent to me today that I absolutely have to post. One of my ex-coworkers, Bree, is a huge hockey fan (along with her husband, Chris, whom I also worked with) and she sent me two photos of the Atlanta Thrashers’ mascot Thrash. Normally he’s dressed up in standard mascot attire – hockey jersey, hockey pants, hockey socks, etc (see the first picture). Since last night’s game was near Valentine’s Day, Thrash decided to dress in Cupid attire. The problem is, it didn’t translate well. As Bree succinctly put it, “…I guess this was supposed to be the Thrash version of Cupid. Instead, he came off as creepy molester Thrash.”

Normal Thrash (taken from the Thrashers web site)

“He’d Get Arrested Anywhere Else But Philips Arena” Thrash

“Inappropriate Bulge” Thrash

Pink

jamesjk@gmail.com — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:37:30 GMT

After last year’s successful promotion where they painted the ice green, the Gwinnett Gladiators hosted three games this past weekend with the ice surface colored pink. It was a Pink In The Rink promotion for women’s cancer research and the players jerseys were auctioned off after the game to raise money for various related charities.

Here are two ice level shots from my penalty box right after the ice was resurfaced.