He's a Dowbboy who lives in a bubble

You sort of have to admire what Bruce Dowbiggin has done with the place since he moved into William Houston's former digs as sports media critic.

Dowbboy has done a reno. The place has been converted to one part bully pulpit to use on people who didn't graduate from his school of journalism. The other half is an echo chamber for people who want reassurance they are not living through a media revolution.

• Erin Andrews calling 911 because a couple paparazzi were skulking around her home after dark "demonstrates that the ESPN star ... clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story." (July 31)


• The Score tweaking its format to focus on "the chatter, the personalities" means that the network "has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering," (Aug. 5) since those sites are so, so evil for giving people what they want to see. Plus there are all those stupid young people who want to know whom Reggie Bush is dating.
  


• Most recently, Chicago Blackhawks hockey star Patrick Kane being arrested and charged with assault last weekend "was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers" (Aug. 12) because people joked, passed judgment and gossiped about it on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like, just like they have always joked, passed judgment and gossiped.

It's pretty clear: Dowbiggin's generation has a monopoly on good taste and substance. We get it.

Sorry to pop that secure little bubble of boomer conceit, but that is hogwash. Next to no one is prattling on about the "blogosphere" in 2009, really. The two sides came together. They locked swords. No one really got anywhere. They called a truce. Eventually, they realized they actually had a lot in common, kind of like Canada and the U.S. since the end of the War of 1812.

One should be grateful for the good sports journalists who share the experience extends to their audience. It might have been best to let this slide for that reason alone. Besides, who knows what if any overlap there is between who reads this and who reads a sports media column on globesports.com. Nevertheless, batter up:

"While Usual Suspects commiserates with Andrews' fragile state of mind after being spied upon, the tape demonstrates that the ESPN star, who has struggled to overcome the reputation as a sideline cupcake, clearly has no idea how people in her business chase a story. Gated community or not, reporters are supposed to go and knock on doors of celebrities, relatives of car-crash victims, defrauded investors, fraud artists and, yes, people who’ve had their privacy violated. It’s called getting the other side of the story."

Erin Andrews calling 911 to get rid of some paparazzi could have had more to do with only wanting the good stuff which comes with being famous during a period when she was also feeling vulnerable.

"Levy has in mind what TMZ and Deadspin and a raft of social websites have done to redefine the relationship between those being covered and those doing the covering. With Twitter and camera phones, fans can engage their heroes in new and - sometimes - frightening ways for traditionalists ... It also means putting younger people on the air who may not have experience but do connect with the target audience.

"... And having both Cabbie (Cabral Richards) and Al Strachan working in the same format is often too jarring a concept to contemplate for Usual Suspects."

Frightening for traditionalists? Too jarring? That's not an M.P., that's a Y.P, your problem. There also seems to be an assumption that everyone in that 18-34 demographic is interested in whom is dating whom and what Chris Bosh Tweeted. Personal experience suggests the contrary.

There are many sports writers born after 1970 who can go in depth about a topic with humour and wit, and without putting themselves above the audience. Just to a name a few, there are Jeff Pearlman, Jonah Keri, Kurtenblog, Jerry Brewer at the Seattle Times , and so on. The same goes for the writers in their 20s, like those at cisblog.ca (present company excluded).

Then there's those bad, bad bloggers unleashing a "torrent of abuse" on poor Patrick Kane:

"The question of whether independent bloggers should have equal status with mainstream media is a hot topic in the industry. But the alleged Patrick Kane robbery and battery of a cabby was not exactly a shining moment for the integrity of bloggers. The release of the police charges Monday morning (actually, it was Sunday) brought an immediate torrent of abuse in the blogosphere for Kane, who was accused of beating a hapless Buffalo cabby for a 20-cent tip. Before Kane could explain his side, sites were saying 'How could Kane be this stupid?...

"Patrick Kane is a stuck-up, rich, spoiled, bratty punk... this punk kid needs a ass beating... The best possible light for Kane is that he is a mean drunk, a guy who is not above physically abusing a 62 year old man after a stupid prank went awry.' You get the flavour."

That is what people do when hit with bits of uncomfortable news. They make jokes. The cracks people post on Twitter are in the same ballpark with the sick jokes people told after the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, when I was nine. It is the culture, for good or ill.

With respect to sports discussion, what Dowbiggin seems unwilling to reconcile is that the barriers have come down. That's TS for anyone who feels threatened (note that the good ones do not).

With regard to only bloggers looking bad on the Kane story, please. Some would say the thrust of the headlines on James Mirtle's post on Monday and Steve Simmons' Sun Media column on Tuesday were virtually identical: "Patrick Kane: A reputation ruined in an instant" and "No doubt Kane will pay; In court of public opinion, young star's reputation is tarnished by cabbie incident."

That is not to disagree with either Mr. Mirtle or Mr. Simmons. The younger cross-platformer and the older columnist (who does some TV) each said his piece very well and anyone is free to agree or disagree. It's simply that there is no us and them, and it's tiresome to have the "blogosphere" being treated as a bogeyman.

Mirtle also linked to a piece from Second City Hockey which cut to the heart of how "the Kane story ... could be useful in shattering some stories and myths we tell ourselves":

"The big one is 'hockey players are different.' No, they're not. Sorry. You know why you don't see as many athlete/criminal stories about hockey? Because there's less attention. There's less people following them to clubs, recognizing them, flashing pictures on their phones. The gossip pages tend to stay away, because no one cares about hockey players. But to suggest these guys are a different breed, that's asinine. They're rich, young kids, and those can add up to be bad combinations ... These guys are not angels, they're just people. People with freakish DNA and more money than you or I. Sure, maybe there are less of these stories in the NHL than other sports, but it's percentage points, not a wide chasm."

That might come closer to the truth than anything else published on the subjuct of "20 Cent." Hey, guess what? It was on a blog. If anyone had that kind of nuanced take in a newspaper, it passed by like a warm summer day.

Perhaps Kane and the Senators' situation with Dany Heatley each belie the culture of exceptionalism that is part of Canada's Hockey Reflex.

One would think Dowbiggin, having written a really well-received book called The Meaning of Puck, might take this into account instead of playing shoot-the-messenger. It's like what a film critic (this came across the ol' Google Reader during the process of putting this together) said about the tendency of veteran film critics, even Roger Ebert, to indulge in get-off-my-lawn techniques: "Often, the old guard sees the new guard as suspect, their tastes as lacking, and culture waning, no matter what the reality is. In the end, the thing that disappoints me most is that Roger used this moment to take what I consider a profoundly cheap shot."

Meantime, it is understood that perhaps a younger writer should not worry about Dowbiggin. The people on the blogs should just forget what's in the paper. The excellent Toronto Sun Family recently stated "aging baby boomers who grew up with print newspapers in their hands should be considered the demographics of choice ... Canada's 10 million or so baby boomers should be sufficient to carry print newspapers that are adequately staffed and focused on community affairs."

That reasoning is not entirely off. One might wonder about the argument that you should only be paid for your work if you pander to a certain demographic. What happens to anyone who wants to stay current and with it? Do they just get left with the scraps?

Point being, if Bruce Dowbiggin wants to pander to the older audience which still gets the paper, fine. He can do it without cheap shots and condescension. It would be a riot.

Fool's gold...

The local newspaper playing an April Fool's Day prank has kind of fallen by the wayside.

Ours is not to question why. Cutbacks have sucked the life out many a newsroom. There is not enough time to plan a good prank. There is also a free-floating fear that some knob with a litigious bent will fall for it, and then turn around and sue for mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life.

Reading this story from the Windsor Star, the dust should get blown off the practice tout suite. It's worth pointing this out now, just to give everyone plenty of lead time to engage their warped side.

Nineteen eighty-nine it was, and The Star put out the call to readers to come up with the best fake headline. A local teacher named Ron Jeffrey had a brainstorm:

"At the time, Windsor native Bob Probert was having troubles with the law, which threatened to end his pro-hockey career. Jeffrey suggested running a fake story reporting that the NHL had decided to let the Red Wings enforcer play in the National Hockey League — but only for the rival Toronto Maple Leafs.

"Windsor Star columnist and contest judge Karen Hall selected Jeffrey’s entry as most nutty. And in the spirit of the day — the story ran on April 1, 1989 — offered tickets to the most mythical of promises, the pending new arena which had till then been nothing but smoke and mirrors for decades.

"As reporter Ted Whipp wrote at the time about Jeffrey’s wacky win: 'One practical joke deserves another and his prize is two tickets to the first hockey game in Windsor’s new arena, whenever and wherever it’s built.' "

You know where this is headed. Windsor is opening its new arena on Dec. 11, replacing the venerable Barn which opened in 1924.

The Star has proven as good as its word, presenting Mr. Jeffrey with two tickets -- and as the story notes, he's never been to a Spitfires game.

For lack of anything original to add, it's nice to see, in this age of media bloodletting, a story where the local outlet lives up to the great Kingston sportscaster Max Jackson's adage, "If you can't play a sport, be one."

(And no, that was not on my voice-mail at any of my previous newspaper jobs. Speaking of which, back in the day at a small daily down in the 519 area code, in fact, yours truly and my counterpart our sister paper in Woodstock joked for several weeks about an April Fool's Day prank.

At the time, one of the junior hockey teams in his town had a dodgy ownership/management situation and played in a brand-new arena that was always half-empty. In the other town, a popular junior hockey coach had just been fired. Thus, the story would be that the gong show team was moving up from Junior C to Tier 2 Junior A, and that said coach would be taking over.

Well, due to a job change, it never came to pass, but a few months later, the same coach ended up taking over one of the teams near Woodstock. This really happened.)

Anyway, the gauntlet has been thrown down to newsroom across the nation. Bring back the April Fool's Day gag. Tough times are ahead, and the world needs the kind of laughter it can only get from reading about the Swiss spaghetti harvest.

This has potential, for sure. In Ottawa, first prize could be two tickets to the first MLS game in the city.

(Fist bump to Greg Layson for sending this along.)

Related:
April Fool's joke finally comes true (Craig Pearson, Windsor Star)

In the Canadian forests, it's sometimes hard to cedar wood for the trees

As underwhelmed as I've usually revealed myself to be anytime I open the Sports section of the esteemed Kingston Whig-Standard lately, nothing could've brought more warmth into my heart than the decidedly retro take they've embarked on with Clint Walper's latest piece on the Queen's football Gaels.

It's finally happened, and so close to home no less; the return of the bad pun as a viable way to write newspaper articles.

Some may see it as a throwaway line, but the comedic genius of "the Queen's Gaels definitely enjoyed a Blaise of glory last weekend" is a signal to us all that the bad pun has made its triumphant return.

For those who don't get it - the top receiver last week was Blaise Morrison, whose first name is a homophone (not that there's anything wrong with that - ZING!) of the word "blaze".

What's that you say? "Blaze of glory" is something people have before they die? Shut up, I say back.

Finally, the vault of potentially pun-derful Golden Gaels can be opened for the remainder of the season. Watch for these gems as the limestone city's top journalistic standard continues its coverage:

• "With such a dominating rushing performance last week, the Gaels' offence sure was Giffin it their all."
• "Considering the number of passes thrown by Queen's in the game, it's entirely possible that Coach Sheahan's breakfast consisted of a bowl of All-Brannagan."
• "Queen's linebacking corps racked up so many tackles that this reporter wonders whether Cypress Hill would consider them to have been inThaine in the membrane."
• "As far as scoring went, the Gaels certainly weren't Ionneedy."
• "Queen's third-string running back was unsure as to whether he'd play, but this reporter demanded the answer from the coaching staff: Izzy or isn't he?"
• "Oduwole, where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain!"
• "The Special Teams, or Village People, certainly weren't Macho Men on this day."
• "There certainly was some Sterling play on the Gaels' defensive line last week."
• "Devan Sheahan and his father/coach have admitted to having a love-eight relationship."

I readily admit that one of CFRC's colour commentators last year mentioned after a Neil Puffer sack that "he'll huff and he'll puff and he'll blow your quarterback down", so if you plan on accusing me of hypocrisy, as usual you're entirely in the right (Neate.).

But until you do, I leave this parting shot:

What did the papa buffalo say to the baby buffalo before he went to work?
"Bison".

Oh, what a day for Journalism!

UP AT 6: THE WORST SACKING IN WASHINGTON SINCE L.T. ON THEISMAN

As you were absorbing the meaing of "shorn't."

• The best-case scenario is that Matt Tunison outing himself and getting fired from his Washington Post reporting gig actually ends up being a great career move.
  
  Tunison, AKA Christmas Ape of Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber fame, got sacked over his blogging exploits. Yahoo! Sports recently hired on Greg Wyshynski, who had been contributing to Deadspin, to write about hockey, so perhaps they snap up Tunison.
  
  Like the great philosopher Peter Peart once said of himself as a younger man, "That was the end of my upward mobility ... and it was the best thing that ever happened to me."
  
  Stay strong, Matt. All of the frustrated wordsmiths who balancing having one foot in the blog realm and one in the newspaper game are with you in solitarity. Silly Post, not realizing a guy who was part of a great blog might be a great asset to them -- don't poachers also make the best game wardens?
• Good read in the N.Y. Times about a sports pioneer who's largely unknown -- Jackie Walker, a Tennessee Volunteers linebacker and one of the school's first African-American players, who was held out of a spot in his hometown's sports hall of fame while he was alive since he was gay. The oversight is finally being rectified.
• The Vikings possibly trading for Jared Allen, a premier pass rusher? Too good to be true. He led the NFL in sacks last season and unlike some rush ends, he wasn't on roller skates when on running plays to his side (check the Kansas City Chiefs' D-line stats on runs over left tackle).

Plans today are to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Jason Segel plays a guy who gets over a woman -- clearly, this is science fiction.

BATTER UP: CINCINNATI REDS

It's staying light longer, the Leafs are all-but-eliminated ... that can mean only one thing: We'll soon see the first halter dress of the season! OK, two things: It's time for baseball, the timeless game that involves committing to a team for six months after reading all winter about why they won't win jack squat. Here's a "starting nine" for the Cincinnati Reds.

1. The NL Central is dangerous for those upper lower-middle class teams: The Cubs improved by 19 wins last season and won the division, so who could fault anyone for believing it's plausible the Reds might do the same? They won a whopping 72 games last season, so they wouldn't even have to improve as much. It's doable if their bullpen improves and their lineup shows it can do more than home runs.
2. Damn it: It's too bad that lefty reliever Jonathan Coutlangus was sent to Triple-A. He and righty Todd Coffey potentially make the best-named bullpen combo ever. You know, Coutlangus followed by Coffey.
3. Free Votto: New skipper Dusty Baker, who's angling to become the worst manager to ever take three teams to the post-season, has set back more young players than addiction to Guitar Hero. Just ask former Cubs bright hope Hee Seop Choi, wherever he is.*
   
   What does that mean for lefty slugger Joey Votto, the 24-year-old Torontonian (nice of Citytv to interview the hometown kid during that Reds-Jays game three weeks ago -- wait a second, they didn't)? Votto should be starting at first base ahead of aging Scott Hatteberg, whose numbers get juiced by Great American Ball Park.
   
   As you know, Baker just loves his veterans, believing that a player's best years come between the age of 32 to 36 "and beyond."
4. Case in point: Under the heading of "Dear God, why?" the Reds just picked up centrefielder Corey Patterson, who's been a league-average hitter exactly once in six seasons -- back in 2003, when he manager was, wait for it, Dusty Baker. (That summer, Patterson suffered a season-ending injury in July before he could regress in the second half.)
   
   That's the rub with the Reds. They could be half-decent enough to win a truly terrible division. Instead, they mess around with a guy whom fans pay good money to be snarky about: "Corey oozes with so much talent that he makes the game look easy. He doesn't like to slide back into first on pickoff attempts because they are an insult to him. He never fully extends on his dives in the outfield because he simply does not have to."
5. Missed by a mile prediction from last season: "The Reds figure to be fourth in the NL Central again, but '08 and '09 should be more exciting when the likes of Bailey and Votto are ready for prime time." Wrong! They lost seven of their last eight to let Houston snatch fourth place on the penultimate day of the season. Pitching propsect Homer Bailey, well, he's another story.
   
   The aforementioned righty could be fast becoming this generation's Todd Van Poppel.
6. Way to oversimplify: Venerable Ohio baseball writer Hal McCoy typed that all the Red Sox's principled stand to make sure their coaches got the same stipend the players were getting for their Japanese trip was "put a spotlight on the fact that these young millionaires are being paid an extra $40,000 to go do their jobs. Forty grand? Many, many fans don’t make that much money in a year."
   
   So what you're saying is it's Kevin Youkilis' fault that the U.S. economy is in the dumper?
7. Hate to Harang them about this: Crashburn Alley went out on a limb and took Reds righty Aaron Harang to win the NL Cy Young Award. Would you believe the Reds, for all their success in the '60s and '70s, have never had a Cy Young winner? They haven't even had a pitcher get a first-place vote since Jose Rijo got one in 1991.
   
   The Reds rotation is bound to be better. Their bullpen would need a trickle-down effect from Francisco Cordero coming in to be the closer. Whether that actually happens is another story.
8. Party like it's 1999: The Reds are a bit of a throwback to the late '90s. They outslug some teams. Pitching and fielding aren't always high priority. Hey, look, there's Ken Griffey Jr. in a starring role! The Reds will be peaks-and-valleys when it comes to scoring runs.
9. Need-to-know: The Reds aren't totally last season's Colorado Rockies, the sleeper which plays in a hitter-friendly park. Colorado has a better farm system and their team is built to last. That qualification will seem petty if they end up in a playoff race. After all, Ken Griffey Jr. is 38 years old now and the cheerleaders in the media would really like to see him finally make it to a World Series after 20 seasons. It will take 21, at least.

(* South Korea.)

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.

UP AT 6: BONDS-LESS IN SEATTLE

As you were cocking your Tater Gun ...

• Pride goeth before the fall, but enough about T.J. Ford in the fourth quarter for the Raptors last night in Utah. Like Dinosty says, you don't want to "waste brainpower" on these guys, since they sure haven't lately.
  
  The sun will still come up tomorrow and they'll still have cap room in the summer.
• Right on time for the NCAA Tournament, Bill James reintroduces his equation for figuring out whether a college basketball game is over.
• Just sayin': Barry Bonds is unsigned and the Seattle Mariners, who have a clear run at the L.A. Angels in the AL West, are going with washed-up Jose Vidro at DH.
• Those Rogers kioskes at the Air Canada Centre, one imagines, are part of a nice little quid pro quo. Rogers Sportsnet has dropped their NBA package, which will make it that much harder for hoops junkies to resist getting Raptors NBA TV and lining MLSEL's pockets.
  
  Sportsnet will surely find some quality programming -- as soon as Fox Sports Net tells them what it will be.
• Sports Illustrated is introducing "a free online service called the SI Vault, a database consisting of all SI articles and pictures." So you can re-read Frank DeFord, Dan Jenkins or Gary Smith for nothing. Meantime, elsewhere it's expected people will pay for a three-week-old 425-word newspaper story.
  
  

TAKING SPORTS SERIOUSLY DRIVES YOU TO DRINK

The feature on Gregg Zaun at ESPN.com kind of touches on some personal and professional frustrations.

For starters, it was the second time in about a week a U.S. publication had a profile on a Jay that you're probably unlikely to read in a Canadian newspaper any time soon. Please don't take that as a slam. Yours truly is guiltier than most of failing to change that across the past decade. Bear in mind, though, there's the layers of senior editors and publishers who care more about catering to functioning illiterates* than chewing on the old Dan Jenkins adage, "The dumber the world gets, the more the words matter."

Most importantly, there's what people are willing to share. Americans, since they're so big on celebrity and redemption, are very much into the whole idea of a public confessional, while Canadians favour stiff-upper-lip stoicism and not wanting anyone to know your business, since we all know each other, right?

Not only that, but the sports writing culture in Canada has always been geared toward being shallow. Taking sports seriously, putting it in a larger context, is just too, too American. So the horizon becomes the doors of a hockey arena. It's as if you couldn't expect a Canadian to write about sports the way the best U.S. writers do, unless their name is Stephen Brunt -- and he's just as rooted in the Brit all-things-considered approach, besides.

That's why, as previously noted, there is no Canadian equivalent to Will Leitch. It never changes. A fellow writer who went to journalism school in the late '70s telling this story. Around that time, The Globe and Mail wanted a young sports columnist since dour dispatches of who won and who scored had become passe (although, three decades on, you can still pick up a the sports section of a daily in a small city -- the Brantford Expositor, to give a random example -- and find the same old tired story).

What did they do? Instead of trying to find out if there was a Canadian version of Rick Telander, they got an American, Allen Abel. It never changes.

Anyway, there is a levelling effect that comes with reading about Zaunie's time in a bottle. In 2004, when he'd just been released by the Expos, Zaunie was not much different from a certain sports editor at a small-town daily who was also "wasted way too many nights at the bar."

Now one of those guys is making more than $3 million a year. Perhaps there is hope yet.

Related:
The Steroid Era begets the Skepticism Era (Jeff Pearlman, ESPN.com; via The Tao of Stieb)

IT'S LIKE TALKING TO A ROCK SOMETIMES WITH THIS GUY

Chris Rock once said, "I like the concept of people, but people ruin it."

That's kind of how it is with certain sports columnists sometimes. There's one guy writing in Toronto who can write like a dream sometimes. Other times, he just abuses his forum in the Sunday sports section by slapping two half-truths together to make one quarter-truth.

"Sunday stat you can't live without: (A.J.) Burnett has 18 complete games in his career. Canadian Ferguson Jenkins had eight seasons of 20 or more complete games and one year he finished 29 outings."

Actually, you can live without it, especially if you happen to believe that since TV and the Internet have taken over the role of reporting what happens in sports, the newspaper guys and gals should focus on trying to increase understanding or stimulating the odd serious thought. This serves neither goal. It's just a cheap shot at A.J. Burnett.

Cy Young is referenced in the same column. Sunday stat you can't live without: Roy Halladay has 31 complete games in his career. Cy Young had 12 seasons of 35 or more complete games and one year he finished 48 outings.

Wait a second, isn't that a little silly to compare a pitcher from today to a Hall of Famer from a completely different period solely based on complete games, which have fallen at a steady rate down through the years? There, now you see how wrongheaded and what a waste of space it is to make that comparision.

It's an affront to Ferguson Jenkins to use him as a prop in an attack on a contemporary player. It trivializes what Jenkins did and who he was, and if he was pitching nowadays, he'd probably chuck his seven strong and turn the game over to the bullpen, just like Burnett and Halladay do on their good nights. In four of those eight aforementioned seasons Fergie didn't even lead the league in complete games; one year, he was fourth.

Incidentally, here are some other present-day pitchers who are even bigger gutless wonders than A.J. Burnett, based on the fact they have fewer complete games:

• Barry Zito (9): Won someone called a "Cy Young Award" in 2002. Never heard of it.
• John Lackey (10): Didn't he win Game 7 of the World Series once? Pretty good for a guy with less guts than A.J. Burnett.
• Brad Penny (3): In fairness, Burnett did make his major-league debut a whole six weeks earlier, so he got an unfair head start.
• Roy Oswalt (12): That .675 winning percentage (10th-best all time) would be a thousand, if he wasn't such a wimp.
• Josh Beckett (4): No guts and all, but somehow has two World Series rings.
• Johan Santana (6): He's got two of these Cy Young thingies, but perhaps the New York Mets should be trying to get that $137.5-million contract annulled.

Granted, though, for $55 million across five years, perhaps A.J. Burnett should be able to pay some MIT scientists to invent time travel and ship him to 1968, so he could complete 20 games every summer.

That must have been the point: A.J. Burnett sucks because he hasn't furthered advances in time travel. That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.