Quotes of the Week XIX

27 09 2011

Thank goodness for Ozzie Guillen. He makes doing this weekly list of quotes worthwhile. Now that he’s the Marlins’ skipper, I can’t wait to see what he has to say about Logan Morrison and vice versa.

*****

Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boheim on the difference between where the Big East and ACC conference tournaments are played: “Where would you want to go to to a tournament for five days? Let’s see: Greensboro, North Carolina, or New York City? Jeez. Let me think about that one and get back to you.”

Eli Manning describing Giants receiver Brandon Stokley’s play responsibilities during the Giants’ Monday Nighter versus the Rams last week: “He had a small package. His package got a lot bigger in the middle of the game.”

Greg Norman drawing some sort of comparison between having a guy-to-guy talk with Tiger Woods and a similar talk he once had with Bill Clinton: “We all put our underpants on the same way, one leg at a time. So we sit down and have a chat until two o’clock in the morning.”

Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips on his refusal to give the team a hometown discount if and when he discusses a contract extension with them this off-season: “There’s no homeboy hookup.”

Jimmy Rollins on why pitchers shouldn’t be considered as MVP candidates: “They come in, they get ready, they work hard [before games] and then, for 3½ days, their feet are up in the dugout, chilling.”

Jon Lester on the reason for his three-start struggle in which he’s given up 16 earned runs in 13 2/3 innings: “I stink.”

Phillies manager Charlie Manuel defending his reasoning that players should be in the lineup every day in light of the Phils’ recent struggles: “People hear it but they look at me like I’m stupid or crazy. Maybe I am. But that’s what’s happening. That’s what you’re seeing. We’re out of sync.”

Steve Spurrier dissecting his South Carolina team after they beat Vanderbilt 21-3 last Saturday: “I apologize to Gamecock fans for such a putrid offensive performance.”

Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III on his choice to jump for the endzone in the midst of five defenders during Baylor’s 56-31 victory against Rice on Saturday. Griffin fumbled the ball to Rice on the play: “You can go out in a blaze of glory and try to jump, or you can live like a sissy and get on the ground, and I chose the blaze of glory route — and it was a blaze.”

Hunter Mahan, sarcastically, after being told “condolences” by NBC’s Roger Maltbie for losing a playoff against Bill Haas in the Tour Championship tournament Sunday. He and Haas were in a battle to secure a $11.4 million payoff for winning the tournament and FedEx Cup title: “Condolences? I didn’t die today, jeez.”

Adrian Peterson after the Vikings blew a 20-0 lead on the Lions and lost 26-23 to them Sunday: “I feel sick right now.”

Ozzie Guillen discussing what he wanted in a contract extension with the White Sox (before reports were made that he reached an agreement to manage the Marlins): “Fuck more years. I want more money.”

More from Guillen, perhaps sarcastically, on how the White Sox should treat him (also before the Marlins-related report): “They should fuckin’ fire me. Look at what I did. I got a great team that play like shit. Why not? I take the responsibility.”

Jon Gruden on what to call the Redskins’ offensive line: “You used to have the Hogs. I don’t know what you’d call these guys…the Hunting Dogs.”

Tony Romo summing up his thoughts to ESPN’s Ed Werder after the Cowboys’ 18-16 win vs. the Redskins Monday night: “It’s football season, so we usually play football.”


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Football’s Best Tailgaters

22 09 2011

ESPN Magazine told me to find the country’s best tailgates for its GO section. That was an assignment handed to me two Tuesdays ago, due the following Monday and in the issue which drops this week. The idea was to find the best NFL tailgating spots; I expanded it to college football to capture a few of the traditions held on campuses a handful of Saturdays each Fall.

I eventually amended the story’s angle by targeting a specific tailgater for a select number of teams, rather than try to describe the tailgating culture, or atmosphere, of an entire NFL or college team. Given the limited space in which we have to write stories for GO, I thought it would be easier to detail specifics of a tailgater’s typical experience instead of an entire team’s tailgate scene.

The number of capsules I would have to write – one capsule for each team – wasn’t clear to me. The word count expanded during the week as I found more and more information. I had basically three days to do this, Wednesday – Friday. So, I had to hit it fast, which I did by emailing each NFL team’s PR department and 10-15 college team PR or SID departments. I estimated that I would have to do 6-8 capsules by the time the word count was somewhat finalized. (That’s usually a fluid process with these types of stories. And whatever I turn in will eventually get cut down as editors design their pages.)

Three things were imperative to the story as I began receiving information from teams: 1) I had to try to split teams between the NFL and college, 2) all, or at least most, regions of the country should be represented and 3) I would go after the tailgaters of teams that got back to me first. I was relying mostly on teams to tell me who their fanatic tailgaters were, and I didn’t have time to wait around for teams to get back. But it was tough.

For instance, I really wanted the Packers in there, but they had a Thursday night home game to start the NFL season. There was virtually no chance their PR department would have time to help me. So, I tried the University of Wisconsin, which is in this story. I figured the Seattle area would have something special to offer, and the University of Washington happened to have a very cool tailgating tradition. They’re in there. I wasn’t sure I needed another West Coast team, but the San Diego Chargers had die-hard tailgaters, two of whom I spoke with. One of them is in the story.

I didn’t feel as though the Rocky Mountain region was critical for inclusion, but the University of Colorado had an angle that doesn’t represent a team’s typical tailgate. I thought it might be refreshing to have their family-style atmosphere in a story which would inevitably have the drinking details that is associated with the story’s topic.

Now, the Midwest and the South definitely needed a couple of representatives. The KC Chiefs are a natural fit, but I didn’t hear from their people right away. I did hear back from the Houston Texans, who were exceedingly informational. We all know Texas barbeque is amazing, and the Texans had a boatload of willing “super tailgaters” who wanted to talk to me. I chose one of them for the story. Still, I needed another. I tried a group of New Orleans Saints tailgaters, but they never got back to me. The folks at LSU didn’t get back to me. But I did get in touch with the Ole Miss athletics department, who gave me a few leads. I ended up talking with one of their tailgaters, who has extended me an open invitation to join him for a tailgate whenever I find myself in Oxford. I hope to one day take him up on it.

Washington, the Chargers, Colorado, Wisconsin, the Texans and Ole Miss ended up being the six that made it into the story. I tried a few other teams, particularly the Cincy Bengals, but the editorial process sometimes weeds out information. It’s not ideal, but it’s a reality. I tried to find the most details I could in the amount of space I was given. Hopefully, this gives you a somewhat valuable peek into the football tailgates which exist throughout this country.

Click on the link below to read the story:

Football Tailgates

(I’ll tweet about additional story details Friday, Sept. 23 by using the #tailgate hashtag.)


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Moneyball (Spoiler Alert)

21 09 2011

*I’ll be nice and warn you not to read this if you don’t want to read details of the Moneyball movie. Go read Quotes of the Week again.*

What do I know about Moneyball? I know I’ve read it twice and the first time, in 2006, I obliterated the book in about two days. That was at a time when I had ramped up my interest in fantasy sports; my mind was intrigued about analyzing the game from a quantitative perspective in order to discover “true” player value. I never thought while reading the book that Brad Pitt would one day play the part of Billy Beane.

I was invited to an advanced screening of Moneyball earlier tonight. I certainly wasn’t among the first members of the general public to see it. There was a media screening Sunday night, and I believe a premiere in Oakland last night. Tonight, I joined hundreds (I think) of others at the Regal Cinema on W. 42nd Street and turned in my cell phone (!) before going into the theater. I wasn’t sure what to expect but I had heard this movie was sort of like the Social Network for baseball. I guess that conclusion was drawn, in part, by Aaron Sorkin holding a screenwriting credit for each movie.

I’ll get to the point. Most folks who know little to nothing about baseball, Billy Beane or Moneyball will probably like this flick. It’s well-acted (Pitt nails Beane’s spirit), well-written and has a good pace to it, with a slight lull toward the 10-20 minute mark near the end. The audience at my show, who I presume didn’t know much about Moneyball, laughed at a lot of parts of the movie at which I would expect people without Moneyball knowledge would laugh. People got it.

Most folks like me, a die-hard baseball fan who’s read the book, will get annoyed at how dumbed-down the movie is for the unenlightened crowd. Not that it’s a bad thing. This is a movie, so it must contain the emotion and yearning to explain itself that attracts people who aren’t baseball fans. The only thing I was truly disappointed in was that the movie ignored the MLB Draft process. Those were my favorite clips from the book, where Michael Lewis explained in great detail and energy how Beane managed a draft – the pitfalls and joy that come with it.

I don’t know what else to say about Moneyball. Jonah Hill was passable, although his character’s name was not the actual person portrayed in the book. (This didn’t disappoint me so much because I figured the real-life character didn’t give approval for his name to be used.) Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a great actor, so he played Art Howe appropriately. The names of the other actors didn’t ring a bell when I saw them in credits. Robin Wright has only a bit role in the movie.

This is basically one of those films where the lead role is in almost every scene. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if there was a scene that didn’t involve Pitt. One more note: women who like Pitt will adore him in this film. He has great hair. Ultimately, this is a wonderful movie to see for someone who is intrigued by Moneyball but who has little knowledge of it. For the die-hard baseball fan, there is nothing to be learned here that can’t already be consumed in great detail through the book.


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Quotes of the Week XVIII – New Day!

20 09 2011

Tuesdays, not Mondays, will be the new Quotes of the Week day. I decided that Monday stories capturing reactions from Sunday’s NFL games are worth including in that week’s QOTW (not a good acronym). This is still a work in progress; it’s tough to read every game recap for quotes and then run through the endless amounts of stories on each website. Again, if you want to bring quotes to my attention, I’ll attribute them to you by using your Twitter handle for all 10 people who read this to see.

*****

David Ortiz on the state of the Red Sox, whose loss Sunday Sept. 11 was their 10th in 13 games: “Hell, yeah, you’ve got to panic.”

Trent Dilfer reprimanding players for fighting during the Sept. 12 Raiders-Broncos game: “Your job is to do your job.”

Former Patriots linebacker Tedy Bruschi reacting on a radio show to Chad Ochocinco’s following tweet about Tom Brady’s 500-plus passing yards in Week 1 (“Just waking up after a late arrival,I’ve never seen a machine operate like that n person,to see video game numbers put up n person was WOW”): “Stop tweeting and get in your playbook. Wake up!” Was Bruschi really upset or was he just ESPNing up?

Former Patriots wide receiver Troy Brown on Ochocinco’s comments: His “excuses are probably running out.” Wait, what excuse?

Rays reliever J.P. Howell on serving up a home run to Matt Wieters that led to a loss Sept. 14: “A stupid pitch.”

Numbers Never Lie host Michael Smith moderating an argument on the ESPN2 show: “You gotta stop crushing me with these numbers!”

Anonymous source to Pro Football Weekly about Rex Grossman’s quarterback skills: “He plays like he has bipolar disorder.”

Tigers manager Jim Leyland after Carlos Guillen went 3-for-5 Sept. 14. It was his first start since Sept. 3: “He must have a dumb manager. Dumb managers sit guys for 10 days and when they come out, they hit (five) balls hard. I must be pretty dumb.”

Real Madrid winger Christiano Ronaldo on why soccer refs don’t give him calls like they do for other players: “I think it’s because I’m rich, handsome and a great player.”

Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis in response to Jaguars wide receiver Jason Hill, who called Revis overrated: “I don’t even know who that dude is.”

Patriots head coach Bill Belichick to then-Ravens wide receiver Derrick Mason after he made a catch during a Pats-Ravens game in 2009, as shown in the NFL Network documentary, “Bill Belichick: A Football Life”: “Oh, fuck you, Mason. Just fuck you. Why don’t we talk after the game, all right? Just shut the fuck up.”

HBO boxing analyst Larry Merchant to Floyd Mayweather after Mayweather cursed him out during a TV interview for questioning the tactics of his knockout blows to Victor Ortiz: “I wish I was 50 years younger. I would’ve kicked your ass.”

Mayweather on what HBO should do with Merchant: “I am not saying they have to fire him, but I am saying he needs to be fired.” Got it, not contradictory at all.

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin using the difference between grape-squashing and wine-making to describe the Steelers’ play in their Week 1 blowout loss to the Ravens: “Last week we were grape-squashers.”


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Quotes of the Week XVII

12 09 2011

I’m giving Quotes of the Week another shot. I think it’s a fun addition to this blog, given the huge amount of athlete’s quotes on the Web every week and their propensity to say something funny, idiotic or otherwise. The timing for this is tricky, but I think the following timeline will work best: begin tracking current week’s quotes Monday and post by the following Monday morning. There will be weeks when the quotes are light, such as this one. The following quotes certainly don’t encapsulate the last week in sports. I do the best I can with the time I’m willing to devote to it. If you would like to suggest a quote to add, please email (kyle.stack@gmail.com) or tweet me (@KyleStack) and I’ll run your Twitter account (or another social media platform) so that you get some pub. To be on my blog is a gigantic reward, I know.

*****

Chris Bosh on playing video games: “It’s cool to do cool things.”

Rob Ryan on the foot fetish story that his brother, Rex, was connected to last year: “My wife, she’s got everything. She’s got great feet, too. She’s got everything nice. What the hell?”

Rafael Nadal on USTA officials trying to stage play in rainy weather: “It’s always about the money.”

How one NFL player (an “anonymous #24″) described to Complex the way groupies get the players to talk to them: “They just stare at us when we’re in the club…It’s like you’re going to the dog pound, and they’re just waiting to get chosen.”

Jaguars quarterback Luke McCown, who became a starter after the team released David Garrard: “I’ve never looked at myself and said I’m a career backup.” In 16 career NFL games before 2011′s Week 1, McCown had a 59.3 completion percentage, 1,739 yards, 9 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.

Arian Foster on his individual workout in his recovery from a hamstring injury: “I was running and cutting and frolicking.”

Ken Wisenhunt defending the Cardinals’ youth: “Maybe we can go out and spend enough money under the cap and get the top player at every position and then we’d be OK.”

Nyjer Morgan in a tweet about Albert Pujols, referencing an altercation between Morgan, Pujols and Chris Carpenter during a Sept. 7 game: “Alberta couldn’t see Plush if she had her gloves on!!! Wat was she thinking running afta Plush!!! She never been n tha ring!!!”

Tony La Russa on Morgan’s propensity to start altercations: “It takes away from the player that he’s been for them or wherever he’s been with his fuse being so short and actually looking for things to instigate. So I hope he gets a clue.”

Aaron Rodgers on a photo of Mark Sanchez’s shoot with GQ in which Sanchez is wearing white pants, a black tank top and holding a mink coat on the steps of a football stadium: “That’s embarrassing. Page 94 of the GQ thing here. That’s terrible.”

Cowboys backup linebacker Victor Butler on Sanchez’s GQ shoot: “How could you not want to sack a guy like that?”

Andy Roddick on the state of his serve during a U.S. Open match against Nadal: “Felt like nothingness.”

49ers wide receiver/kick returner/punt returner Ted Ginn Jr. on the two touchdowns he scored Sunday, one each by kick and punt return: “You do it on the video game a lot, but you don’t see it a lot in real life.”


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Landscape design meets sports

31 08 2011

As I enter Hour 5 of watching this Tuesday night Yankees-Red Sox game…

I’ve finally found a way to make use of my undergraduate degree in Landscape Design. It took a career switch from that field to sports journalism to do it, but I’ve been writing for Landscape Architecture Magazine since January.

I had been an avid reader of the magazine while I attended Montana State University. Once I moved here and began writing about sports, I thought I could – should – leverage my interest in sports to write about sports-related news for LAM. There are plenty of ways in which the landscaping industry relates to the sports world. LAM agreed to have me write for its NOW section, which is comprised of 400-600 word news stories on the industry.

My first story for LAM documented a cold-tolerant form of Bermuda grass that’s used in football and baseball stadiums in the upper Midwest and mid-Atlantic regions. A second story traced how a heated Auburn-Alabama football rivalry led to the poisoning of Auburn’s sacred Toomer’s Oaks, and what Auburn University was doing to try to save them. A third piece showed how New York City’s Parks and Recreation Department built a cricket field at a park in Queens. The sport is growing in the city, so Parks & Rec has added new fields throughout most of the boroughs.

I have two more stories coming up – one in the September issue and another in October. Each is unrelated to sports, which is fine. Writing is writing, no matter the topic. I am comfortable covering subjects which reach beyond the sports world. I’m happy to do it. There are plenty of non-sports topics which interest me, and LAM is giving me an outlet to cover them. Feel free to check out my articles for the magazine by clicking on the ‘LAM’ tab above and to the right.


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Hand-eye coordination matters

28 08 2011

As Hurricane Irene approaches New York City…

You might notice that celebrity trainers don’t try to sell people on improving their hand-eye coordination. Why that is, I don’t know. Maybe trainers feel as though people will dismiss training that part of the body. It isn’t as easy to determine if your hand-eye coordination has improved than if your biceps have grown bigger and stronger. Hand-eye coordination isn’t sexy. Yet it is necessary for just about any sport.

That is why I thought it would be useful to write an article for WeightWatchers.com about how one can improve his or her ability to hit a softball or catch a ball. As with any story, I had to figure out how to properly deploy sources. I knew next to nothing about hand-eye coordination, so I had to learn through research and through the sources I used.

Athletes’ Performance is always a great starting point; I’ve spoken with an AP trainer for several WeightWatchers.com articles. This time, I was brought in touch with Brent Callaway, who was kind enough to video record five exercises that is embedded within the article. (WW.com is subscriber-based, so I can’t offer a Web link for the articles. Alas, the fact you can read it only in PDF form means you can’t see the videos. Sorry.)

I had become familiar with Gavin MacMillan through other stories I had written. He runs the Sports Science Lab in Orange County, Calif., not to be confused with ESPN’s Sport Science show that is filmed north of Orange County, in Burbank. Gavin is an encyclopedia. The guy is incredibly knowledgeable and honest. He’s a straight shooter, so it’s always fun speaking with him.

Callaway and MacMillan were relatively easy finds. Two trainers with great advice and recommendations to make, but I didn’t think that was enough to round out the story. In these types of articles (700ish words), it always helps to have at least three sources. That ensures there’s a particular variety and depth of opinions which is valuable to completing a story the right way. But I didn’t know where to go for that third source.

Then I thought of speaking with a neurologist. This was a story about hand-eye coordination, after all. The brain sends signals to the eyes to do what they do, so I figured a neurologist could enlighten me on how hand-eye coordination training might improve that process. A neurologist I knew turned down the invite to speak; he said I’d be better off speaking with a neuro-ophthalmologist. Of course, I thought. The study between a eyesight and the nervous system. Off a tip from the neurologist, I found Mark Morrow, who works at UCLA Medical Center. That’s how I ended up with the sources I did.

Click the link below to read the story:

Improve Your Hand-Eye Coordination


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Categories : Health

The U shitstorm

20 08 2011

That’s an appropriate title given the depth of NCAA rules broken by the University of Miami football program during most of the ’00s. The amount of information provided by Dan Wetzel and Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports on those penalties is astounding. Booster/fraudster Nevin Shapiro is a weasel and surely any other unsavory name designated to him. He’s a crook.

The players who accepted the dinners, jewelery, prostitutes and other benefits which Shapiro gave them can be viewed as greedy; they can also be viewed as representations of what most people would accept in those players’ situations. Those guys – ages 18-22 – were being given everything when many of them came from nothing.

I’ve started altering my thought process on college athletes getting paid. I used to think a scholarship was enough for them. But I see these college administrators and others who make money off college athletics with their hands out, and I become more emotionally invested in what the players are getting. In this case, it’s being sold out by The U’s administration and coaches, many of whom claim naivety at the presence of Shapiro.

It’s amazing how unaware these administrators can make themselves out to be when caught between a rock and a hard place. In this case, it’s between a pile of cash and a massive controversy. Shapiro gave them both. While The U’s athletic and academic higher-ups embraced the hundreds of thousands of dollars Shapiro gave the athletic program as a booster, they never thought – or didn’t want – to investigate Shapiro. Maybe they did investigate him and didn’t want to reveal his shady background. They wanted his money, though. And they can’t blame for the players for wanting a piece of that pie.


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College athletes need Twitter freedom

10 08 2011

There has been a debate the last several days from CNBC’s Darren Rovell, CBSSports.com’s Gregg Doyel and others on whether college football coaches – college coaches, in general – should ban their players from Twitter. The reason why I think players should have access to Twitter and other forms of social media comes down to one point: people need to make mistakes to fulfill personal growth.

Doyel made a point in his column that he supports Twitter bans; he dismissed the argument that it stymies personal growth. Rather, he argued that there are plenty of other areas in which to mature and pursue a better understanding of one’s self and the world.

The point he misses is that Twitter – social media altogether, but Twitter takes up a huge percentage of most people’s social media consumption –has helped change how people perceive the world. It’s possible to stay on Twitter all day and gather a well-rounded amount of news and information without exploring any other websites. Cut a person off from Twitter, and it can remove a fair chunk of how he or she interprets the world’s events.

Where I also feel passionate about the rash of Twitter bans throughout college football is the idea that it protects players. That’s the last thing those guys need. Protect pre-teen kids, sure. Protect them in high school, why not? But once these guys get to college, they need to be challenged. They need the freedom to make mistakes. If they can’t be trusted to make their own decisions, such as what to post on Twitter, then the people supposedly protecting them are only delaying the inevitable. Some guys can learn from their mistakes. Those that can’t should at least be exposed to failure sooner rather than later.

This isn’t to say that Twitter is the sole basis for maturation. There are other ways, to do it although, as I wrote above, it’s a dynamic platform through which to view the world and to develop opinions.

I can’t write about this topic without mentioning the obvious component to this story: college coaches really don’t give a damn about their players’ growth as people. Coaches care about results on the field and preventing any kind of controversy from surfacing in their program. Coaches care about their jobs, i.e. their bank accounts. Not all coaches are like this, of course. But players have to learn how to look out for themselves while they’re in college. They have to prepare for post-collegiate life by understanding that there won’t always be someone there to protect them. Let them make mistakes. Let them form their opinions and develop their personalities.


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Colbert invades MLB

6 08 2011

I’m a fan of sports leagues thinking outside the box. Social media has provided a new platform on which sports leagues can engage their fans, to let them know they’re thinking of creative ways to market their game to them. This is why I was optimistic about Major League Baseball’s decision to let Stephen Colbert run their official Twitter account yesterday (August 5).

Now, I’m not actually a Colbert fan. I don’t find him funny – I think he rants and raves too much. Call me ignorant, but I’m much more likely to watch The Daily Show than The Colbert Report. Humor preference is a fickle thing; there is something Jon Stewart has that I find more appealing than Colbert. But we know how popular Colbert is. Colbert Report is a ratings hit. His Twitter account has more than 2.53 million followers. People like the guy – many of the same people who probably are fans of MLB.

It makes sense for MLB to go outside its comfort zone by personalizing what is one of their central news feeds. We all know the news value of Twitter. Nowhere else can an organization broadcast a message quicker and gain a closer connection to its fans.

Colbert posted 19 tweets yesterday on MLB’s account. Most of them were not funny. Remember, I don’t find Colbert all that humorous. But I also think he was limited in what he could actually joke about. I’m sure MLB put certain rules in place for what was fair game and what was off limits. And assuredly Colbert had some sort of inner-conversation, or at least a sensibility, that @MLB wasn’t the appropriate platform for him to make a dirty joke or to make fun of someone or something too harshly. But the comedic value of his tweets wasn’t really the point.

The point was that MLB proved it was willing to bend whatever unofficial Twitter rules exist about a major organization permitting a comedian, or some other celebrity, to take over its Twitter account for a period of time. MLB showed it values its followers enough that it wants to entertain them – not just provide them with scores and injury updates. Perhaps this was a ploy by MLB to increase its Twitter following. They gained approximately 12,000 by going from 1.405 million to 1.417 million. That’s not a bad thing to want more followers. Many of the people who followed @MLB just to keep Colbert’s tweets in their timeline may find it worthwhile to continue following the account. I’m among them, almost entirely because I was impressed that MLB was flexible enough to allow for an unaffiliated celebrity to control its message for a day.


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Vote ‘No’ For NBA Parity

2 07 2011

A question was asked last week by one member of the Dan Patrick Show about whether the NBA is better off with star-studded teams. This debate is nothing new; the argument for ‘superteams’ versus parity is a spirited one. I think that, by nature, people want superteams, even though they try to convince themselves that sports leagues are better served by parity.

This thought, to me, is rooted in the belief that most people are good, at heart. Therefore, they want every team to have a chance – for fairness. And this is a result of the desire for most sports fans to cheer for an underdog. Most people like underdogs, including reporters, because it offers a fresh story. But I think most us who are realistic understand that parity isn’t always the best route for a league to take. It makes sense in football because there are so few games; each one is critical and it’s easier for a team to come out of the blue to surprise other teams.

In basketball, talent levels out whatever momentum an under-manned team might hold for a certain period of time. Plus, let’s face it: an underdog story has only so long of a lifespan. People eventually get bored with one story. They want to be entertained, which is part and parcel why sports fans become fans in the first place. That’s why star-studded teams benefit the NBA more than a league full of parity.

I’ll finish with the following point: what do NBA fans typically think of when they reminisce about the league’s supposed golden age of the ’80s? Lakers, Celtics, Pistons, Magic, Bird, Isiah, Jordan, right? Superstar teams and superstar players. Do fans now even realize that the Dallas Mavericks made the playoffs five years in a row from 1983-88, including one appearance in the Western Conference Finals? Do they understand that the Milwaukee Bucks – a team not considered to have a rich history – made the playoffs every year of the 1980s, won 50-plus games seven consecutive seasons from 1980-87 and made the Eastern Conference Finals three times in four seasons from 1983-86, at the height of the Bird-McHale Celtics dynasty? Hell no; I didn’t even know all those Bucks accomplishments until I looked them up for this post.

Long-term, people care almost exclusively about the superstar teams. Perhaps this new digital/social media era will change how fans think of teams 10, 20 years from now. I’m willing to bet it won’t make a big difference. Sports fans want the superstar teams to root for and against, which is why all those NBA stars should continue to talk their way into playing with each other.


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Riggleman a Quitter

29 06 2011

I’m late to this subject but so be it. I was disappointed in Jim Riggleman quitting the Nationals last week because of a contract discrepancy. What caused me more annoyance was how a pair of highly-respected baseball journalists rationalized Riggleman’s decision to quit because the Nationals wouldn’t pick up his 2012 option. Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated and ESPN’s Buster Olney each justified Riggleman’s decision; I highly doubt they would have kept the same attitude had a player done what Riggleman did.

On the day of Riggleman’s decision, Heyman wrote in consecutive tweets that the manager is a “tremendous individual” and that he applauded his decision, given that, in Heyman’s view, the Nationals acted irrationally.

Regarding Riggleman, Olney took a more calculated view of the situation, although he did point out that Riggleman is a “very respectful person.” I might be too critical of Olney, since he didn’t take Heyman’s path in outright supporting his resignation.

What bothered me so much is that each writer felt the need to state a positive quality of Riggleman near the outset of each of his tweets about the situation. It felt like a need to soften the blow of whatever criticism they might offer. I can’t imagine a player would be treated the same way if he quit on his team in-season because of a contract dispute. Remember the avalanche of negativity directed toward Manny Ramirez in his final days on the Red Sox?

I’d prefer not to be pessimistic but it felt as though Heyman – likely more than Olney – was voicing his support for Riggleman to protect a source. After all, managers usually have a longer life in the Majors than players. Perhaps Heyman has a long-standing relationship with Riggleman. I just can’t see any other viewpoint on Riggleman other than that he deserted his team for selfish reasons. It wasn’t noble and it wasn’t justifiable.

As Dan Patrick stated on his radio show, Riggleman was under contract for this season and still had a job to perform. Players are critiqued so often by the media for thinking only of themselves at a time when their team needs them. This was an opportunity for Heyman to hold a manager accountable similar to the expectations of a player.


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Categories : MLB

Judging Personalities, Not Talent

24 06 2011

I love behind-the-scenes information. What excites and interests me most about sports is that information which you don’t catch on SportsCenter or from your favorite team’s beat reporter. The world of sports health, specifically, is what fascinates me because it’s constantly evolving. How do teams help their players recover from injury? What do athletes eat and drink to consume to take care of their bodies? How do teams evaluate the mental makeup of athletes? These are the questions that intrigue me, and it’s that last question which I explored recently for Wired.com.

A couple NBA teams had told me they used Sports Aptitude as a form of psychological analysis. Of course, to call SA psycho analysis would be doing it a disservice, especially when you drop that term on the company’s founders. SA likes to call their analysis ‘personality and behavioral assessment’, which is legitimate when considering what they analyze. They basically have players take their assessments (185 questions that take 25-35 minutes to complete) and then use their algorithms to break down, in a 1-10 rating, each personality trait they deem worthy of analyzing.

The next frontier in athlete evaluation is minimizing risk. Teams don’t want to waste their money, and gaining more information on a player’s behavior helps teams assess whether that’s the person who deserves their time and cash. Here’s what Sports Aptitude’s role is and why NBA teams value it.

Click the link below to read the story:

Player-Aptitude Reports Are Critical for NBA Prospects


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Pryor not the root of Ohio State’s problems

22 06 2011

There was a question on ESPN’s SportsNation last week – and I’m sure the same question is being asked on radio and TV shows nationwide – of whether Terrelle Pryor was right to apologize for his actions at Ohio State. To phrase it better, SportsNation asked if Pryor should have apologized. I don’t think he should have.

There’s no need for Pryor to be the one to apologize because he didn’t bring that culture of deceit and dishonesty to Columbus. That would be Jim Tressel, whose proclivity to look the other way when players received illegal benefits was documented in Sports Illustrated. What does an apology mean, anyway? I’ve never understood why people, in general, place so much importance on someone else apologizing. Words aren’t necessarily sincere.

I don’t claim to be a body language expert. In fact, I probably fuck up half the judgements I make on athletes when I watch them and try to assess what they’re thinking or feeling. But in watching Pryor, in seeing him talk on TV about his transgressions and how he feels about them, I don’t get the feeling that he’s sincerely apologetic. I think he’s pissed off that he got caught doing what he did, likely because he knows plenty other guys around the country who do the same things Ohio State players have been accused of doing. Whether he apologizes just isn’t something that I think should be valued.

Frankly, what good does an apology do for people? It won’t change the circumstances of his life or the status of Ohio State’s football team. Sure, he has to accept a certain level of responsibility because he was the most well-known player on the Buckeyes. Yet he’s not the guy that has to take the fall for what happened at Ohio State. That should go to those managing the chaos – Tressel and Ohio State’s athletic department.


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Categories : College Football

High-tech golf gear

11 06 2011

Who says golf is boring? The sport interests me so much because of the convergence of tradition and technology. Golf has a pace of play and set of rules which go back decades, perhaps centuries, if you want to take it that far. Yet it’s one of the most technologically-sophisticated sports there is; its level of difficulty inspires players to look for a competitive advantage wherever they can get it. Golf equipment companies recognize this and capitalize on it monetarily by providing a vast number of products marketed to help golfers’ games.

Face it, most of us are suckers for slickly marketed and packaged items that can help us. Whether it’s with our golf game or  something else in our life – cooking, working out, watching movies – really doesn’t matter. People are willing to shell out cash for items that can help them.

I figured that with golf season in full effect for nearly every part of our country – my mom is still having trouble playing regularly on Montana’s flood-ravaged courses – it would make sense to provide a photo-based gallery of 10-15 golf items on Wired.com’s Playbook that can help a golfer’s game.

These aggregation stories are always tough. I knew that for it to work it would have to comprise a multitude of golf products – clubs, balls, tees, clothes, teaching guides. My editor had some great ideas for products to target, and I knew of a couple others which would work. The problem here is accurately representing what’s new on the market. It doesn’t make sense to profile products that have been available for a few years. The point is to introduce new items to readers. They don’t necessarily have the access to companies that I do as a writer. A company is going to want to profile a new product using us as the conduit through which to do that. Yet there are always obstacles to doing this.

Someone reading this story might wonder where Titleist is, or why a Sun Mountain product isn’t included. Well, for one thing, we felt like it’s best to cap a gallery to only so many products. There are 12 in this story, even though I probably could’ve done 20-plus had I wanted to do that. But at what point does the reader tire of the story before he or she just wants to move on? Twelve is a number that provides enough variety without taking up too much of the readers’ time.

And without taking up too much more of your time, I’ll link to the story:

Click the link below to read the story.

12 High-tech Golf Products (Wired.com Playbook)


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Categories : Golf

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