- The Manager, in accordance with Tao of Stieb editorial policy, either not remembering or exercising/feigning selective amnesia.
He tried to get away with not knowing which relievers he had used prior to Kevin Gregg's ninth-inning meltdown on Wednesday: "I think (Shawn) Camp finished the inning, didn’t he?"
Wilner pointed out Scott Downs had come in to retire Reid Brignac to end the Tampa Bay Rays eighth. Downs was thus unavailable when Gregg walked the universe in the ninth and the Jays lost 7-6.
Call this a value judgment, but sportspeople usually have good recall.
Put it this way: Hockey Night in Canada's Mike Milbury was a failure as a NHL general manager. Yet, when Milbury was playing for the Boston Bruins in the 1970s, he said he could describe in detail every goal the Bruins allowed that season. Honestly, Cito Gaston couldn't remember which pitcher he used in a game the previous evening?
(As an epilogue, the Jays went 3-3 on their homestand against the Rays and Yankees. The thread in all three losses was they had a lead entering the late innings.) - William Houston positing there is such a creature as "a radio executive with backbone."
That deserves the Stinsonian "please." In fairness to Houston and others who pointed it out, this likely plays out differently if Nelson Millman was still FAN 590's program director instead of Don Kollins.
The rub is professional teams have rode herd on their quote, unquote radio partners for a dog's years. It's the spoken-word medium where there's still an expectation of independent sports commentary, largely by default.
The TV side is often left alone. People forget what was said by the next commercial break (or at least did prior to viral video). People have come to terms with team-employed TV voices overemphasizing the positive. Cheerleader isn't even an insult anymore.
The rule of thumb with the written word always was anything negative in the newspaper had a short shelf life. The way it translates to today is no one can read, let alone bookmark, everything written on the Internet. That leaves radio is in no-person's land.
(P.S. to the Toronto Sun: the Spanish word for testicles is spelled cojones.) - Wilner being almost as much of a Teflon man in Toronto on par with yesterday's men, Cito Gaston and Jays president Paul Beeston.
It's not a shock the reaction is nearly 100 per cent pro-Wilner. Tyler King did a definitive takedown times two of that during 2008's Tothilnergate.
Jeff Blair did tweet Wilner's line of questioning was better suited to a one-on-one situation, where The Manager would be less likely to get defensive. Wilner's ensuing blog posting was the real smoking gun.
For the behind-the-curvers and/or control freaks at Rogers Media, saying, "I don’t need to be belittled by the skipper in front of the entire assemblage when I’m asking legitimate, rational questions about a situation that he brought up earlier in a conversation," might come off like airing dirty laundry in public.
Wilner's wordage, belittled, doesn't sit well. Belittled is a victim's word, and like what was said about NFL owner Al Davis in the Straight Outta L.A. 30-for-30 documentary, if you play the victim long enough, you'll become a victim.
In a sports journalism context, it hints at hell having no fury like a sports nerd scorned (we can smell our own). Being condescended to by a coach or manager is the What Is, slings and arrows of the outrageous fortune of getting paid to take a world of games so seriously.
The give-and-take between jocks and journos and is a clash of multiple intelligences that can never be decided. The athletes' intelligence -- the very term dumb jock should rate a smack in the head -- is focused on surviving and thriving in their sport. Their minds are hyper-disciplined, from necessity.
It is like what David Foster Wallace said, they have to accept living in a child's world. Peter Gent had a great line in North Dallas Forty: "Football players aren't people who leave home and try to play football. They are football players, who come home and try to play people."
A journalist can have a more encyclopedic knowledge of Super Bowl and World Series winners, more formal education and a greater ease with using $50 words in casual conversation. Most of us could not abide the trade-off Gent and Wallace outlined.
That has to be considered when you are on the jocks' turf. As a sports mediaite, you have to like it and lump it by definition. We're there since we fell in thrall with sports, but couldn't play them.
No doubt Wilner's blog posting cheesed off old media types more than those who have grown up digital. He could claim he's there to inform and entertain, so people should know that someone who critiques Cito clashed with Cito. He didn't even play it up, putting it well down in his posting.
It fit with how a Maple Leafs blog (it might have been Pension Plan Puppets) once admonished beat reporters who kvetch about being inconvenienced on the job or feeling insulted by a source. The audience only cares about what comes out of journalism, not what goes into journalism.
Saying Gaston could not recall if Scott Downs was available and offered a weak "you need to look at some stats" defence, then pointing out said stats or lack thereof, would have sufficed. Or he could have set up a FakeCitoGaston Twitter.
It would have affirmed that what happened was an instance of Classic Cito, painting his team into a corner and setting it up for failure while the media put it on the player(s).
Framing it in personal terms did cross a line, just not necessarily one that warranted Wilner having his wrist slapped or worse. He got a raw deal from his Rogers overlords. Please do not overlook that he flew a little too close to the sun on the wings of Seamheaditude. Belittled? It comes with the territory.
(Also, there is total awareness of the irony this post might prevent this writer ever appearing on a Rogers-owned radio station, so don't bother pointing it out.)
Showing posts with label FAN 590. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAN 590. Show all posts
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Standing to the side of the Mike Wilner controversy
Three of the more absurd aspects of FAN 590's Mike Wilner receiving an "unscheduled vacation" (National Post) for the Blue Jays' biggest series of the season against the Yankees:
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Andre Dawson and availability bias
Please skip the cross-border shin-kicking and go straight to what was left out of the contrived debate about Andre Dawson's Hall of Fame plaque.
Dawson went there when, in conversation with a couple Chicago sports talk radio chuckleheads, he said he told the powers-that-be in Cooperstown: "I tried to explain, perhaps, the impact of what really catapulted me to Hall of Fame status, and pretty much what my preference was."
Typically, the articles have stated Dawson played longer with the Montreal Expos (1976-86), but won a National League MVP award with the Cubs. Being a former MVP probably did factor into the BBWAA's Chicago outfit, so-called, keeping his name in the discussion.
However -- and no one seems to talk about this -- Dawson or any Cubs player of that era had one huge advantage in MVP voting. In that era, from the late 1970s through the early '90s, the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves each had almost all of their games broadcast on superstations (WGN and TBS) which were available to most U.S. cable subscribers and parts of Canada. Hear this out.
That wrinkle of the pre-digital era has probably been forgotten. It's been on my mind for a few weeks, but what hat a player has on his plaque is a trifle. I know that, because even as a serious baseball nut, I had to check whether Nolan Ryan represents the Texas Rangers, California Angels or Houston Astros on his plaque.
Everyone has the Internet and can compare traditional and advanced statistics. Serious Seamheads shell out for the MLB Extra Innings package. In Dawson's day, most teams only got North America-wide exposure if they were featured on the NBC Game of the Week, or ABC's equivalent, Monday Night Baseball.
The two franchises' ubiquity on cable TV even seeped into popular culture. There's a circa 1990 Simpsons episode where Homer, moved by Lisa's infectious moralizing, decides to cut the family's illegal cable hookup. Bart rhymes off all the reasons not to, "Monster trucks! Tractor pulls! Atlanta Braves baseball! Joe Franklin!"
Will Ferrell once said he got the idea for a Harry Caray impersonation, because when he came home for lunch around noon California time, he would flip on the Cubs telecasts on WGN.
Before MLB went to three divisions in 1994, it briefly discussed keeping two divisions and having the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals play in the National League West with Atlanta and Cincinnati moving to the NL East. The Cubs' ownership refused because it would hurt their local TV revenues.
Coincidentally or perhaps not, the Braves and Cubs were overrepresented in the post-season awards in those days. In a 10-year span, 1982-91, those two franchises accounted for five MVP awards, even though only the '91 Braves reached the World Series. Dawson, as you need no reminder, won his award while playing on a last-place Cubs team. The BBWAA also votes for the Cy Young Award. The Cubs had three during that rough timespan (Bruce Sutter in 1979, Rick Sutcliffe in '84 and Greg Maddux in '92 before he won three more with guess who, the Braves).
Picture a hard-working beat grunt from an eastern city in 1987 on a West Coast road swing. He wakes up around 11 a.m. Pacific, understandable after covering a night game. The Cubs, who still played all day games at home, would be on TV. He would see Andre Dawson hitting all those home runs (49 that season, the most any player had hit since George Foster slammed 52 in 1977) and driving in all those runs, and it's not hard to go from there to casting a MVP vote for him, even though the Cubs could have finished last without him.
That is not meant to call out anyone well after the fact. The very definition of availability bias is people tend to go with the first information they receive. It's good to dig or try to build a more layered argument, but who has the time? They went with what they got first and it has carried down the line.
You can even see it in the coverage now, which typically has omitted that Dawson was second in MVP voting twice while with the Expos (1981 and '83 behind Dale Murphy of, wait for it, the Atlanta Braves). His only other top-10 finish also came in Montreal. That has been left out, even in Canada, since many media outlets just run the same wire service articles as every other website as part of their strategy for giving users something unique.
Dawson being MVP runner-up in Montreal twice, in a sense, is more impressive than winning it once in Chicago. The Expos were an afterthought to U.S. media and fans. Allen Barra once wrote that Tim Raines being selected to seven all-star teams while playing for Montreal was like winning the Pulitzer Prize while writing for a newspaper in North Dakota. It is somewhat Sisyphean to explain this to most Americans, who tend not to realize the one-sided natures of their conversations of the rest of the world (Eddie Izzard: "... in other countries; you do know there are other countries?).
The short answer is Cooperstown got this right and if you want to go there, it is a little pathetic for Chicago media to put a waiver claim in on Dawson's legacy. Far be it to say that's their egotism talking. Just now, Chicago media personality (and former Raptors TV voice) Chuck Swirsky was on the FAN 590 in Toronto, his former station, saying "the majority of baseball fans" remember Dawson as a Cub and that he performed "on the biggest stage in baseball, Wrigley Field," which hasn't hosted a World Series game since the year the Second World War ended. Please. That's just a reflection of selective memory.
Canadian sports likers get to see the Expos get a day in the sun. (Colby Cosh had the best line on Twitter: "The Andre Dawson news is great. Haven't been this happy since Ugueth Urbina announced he would enter prison as an Expo.")
The larger point is that in honouring past greats, baseball writers and fans tend to let themselves be controlled by factors they should be controlling for. They get caught up in whether someone lasted long enough to reach some arbitrary round number (300 wins, 500 home runs, 3,000 hits), or how he fared in MVP voting. We are well-aware how media members who votes for awards of this nature are fallible.
However, there probably hasn't been enough attention devoted to how playing for a team which had games aired coast-to-coast helped Dawson in 1987. He got a MVP award, and that helped keep his name out there until he was finally elected. Not that there's anything wrong with that, so long as it's properly acknowledged.
Related:
Dawson may wear Cubs hat for speech (ESPNChicago.com)
Dawson went there when, in conversation with a couple Chicago sports talk radio chuckleheads, he said he told the powers-that-be in Cooperstown: "I tried to explain, perhaps, the impact of what really catapulted me to Hall of Fame status, and pretty much what my preference was."
Typically, the articles have stated Dawson played longer with the Montreal Expos (1976-86), but won a National League MVP award with the Cubs. Being a former MVP probably did factor into the BBWAA's Chicago outfit, so-called, keeping his name in the discussion.
However -- and no one seems to talk about this -- Dawson or any Cubs player of that era had one huge advantage in MVP voting. In that era, from the late 1970s through the early '90s, the Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves each had almost all of their games broadcast on superstations (WGN and TBS) which were available to most U.S. cable subscribers and parts of Canada. Hear this out.
That wrinkle of the pre-digital era has probably been forgotten. It's been on my mind for a few weeks, but what hat a player has on his plaque is a trifle. I know that, because even as a serious baseball nut, I had to check whether Nolan Ryan represents the Texas Rangers, California Angels or Houston Astros on his plaque.
Everyone has the Internet and can compare traditional and advanced statistics. Serious Seamheads shell out for the MLB Extra Innings package. In Dawson's day, most teams only got North America-wide exposure if they were featured on the NBC Game of the Week, or ABC's equivalent, Monday Night Baseball.
The two franchises' ubiquity on cable TV even seeped into popular culture. There's a circa 1990 Simpsons episode where Homer, moved by Lisa's infectious moralizing, decides to cut the family's illegal cable hookup. Bart rhymes off all the reasons not to, "Monster trucks! Tractor pulls! Atlanta Braves baseball! Joe Franklin!"
Will Ferrell once said he got the idea for a Harry Caray impersonation, because when he came home for lunch around noon California time, he would flip on the Cubs telecasts on WGN.
Before MLB went to three divisions in 1994, it briefly discussed keeping two divisions and having the Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals play in the National League West with Atlanta and Cincinnati moving to the NL East. The Cubs' ownership refused because it would hurt their local TV revenues.
Coincidentally or perhaps not, the Braves and Cubs were overrepresented in the post-season awards in those days. In a 10-year span, 1982-91, those two franchises accounted for five MVP awards, even though only the '91 Braves reached the World Series. Dawson, as you need no reminder, won his award while playing on a last-place Cubs team. The BBWAA also votes for the Cy Young Award. The Cubs had three during that rough timespan (Bruce Sutter in 1979, Rick Sutcliffe in '84 and Greg Maddux in '92 before he won three more with guess who, the Braves).
Picture a hard-working beat grunt from an eastern city in 1987 on a West Coast road swing. He wakes up around 11 a.m. Pacific, understandable after covering a night game. The Cubs, who still played all day games at home, would be on TV. He would see Andre Dawson hitting all those home runs (49 that season, the most any player had hit since George Foster slammed 52 in 1977) and driving in all those runs, and it's not hard to go from there to casting a MVP vote for him, even though the Cubs could have finished last without him.
That is not meant to call out anyone well after the fact. The very definition of availability bias is people tend to go with the first information they receive. It's good to dig or try to build a more layered argument, but who has the time? They went with what they got first and it has carried down the line.
You can even see it in the coverage now, which typically has omitted that Dawson was second in MVP voting twice while with the Expos (1981 and '83 behind Dale Murphy of, wait for it, the Atlanta Braves). His only other top-10 finish also came in Montreal. That has been left out, even in Canada, since many media outlets just run the same wire service articles as every other website as part of their strategy for giving users something unique.
Dawson being MVP runner-up in Montreal twice, in a sense, is more impressive than winning it once in Chicago. The Expos were an afterthought to U.S. media and fans. Allen Barra once wrote that Tim Raines being selected to seven all-star teams while playing for Montreal was like winning the Pulitzer Prize while writing for a newspaper in North Dakota. It is somewhat Sisyphean to explain this to most Americans, who tend not to realize the one-sided natures of their conversations of the rest of the world (Eddie Izzard: "... in other countries; you do know there are other countries?).
The short answer is Cooperstown got this right and if you want to go there, it is a little pathetic for Chicago media to put a waiver claim in on Dawson's legacy. Far be it to say that's their egotism talking. Just now, Chicago media personality (and former Raptors TV voice) Chuck Swirsky was on the FAN 590 in Toronto, his former station, saying "the majority of baseball fans" remember Dawson as a Cub and that he performed "on the biggest stage in baseball, Wrigley Field," which hasn't hosted a World Series game since the year the Second World War ended. Please. That's just a reflection of selective memory.
Canadian sports likers get to see the Expos get a day in the sun. (Colby Cosh had the best line on Twitter: "The Andre Dawson news is great. Haven't been this happy since Ugueth Urbina announced he would enter prison as an Expo.")
The larger point is that in honouring past greats, baseball writers and fans tend to let themselves be controlled by factors they should be controlling for. They get caught up in whether someone lasted long enough to reach some arbitrary round number (300 wins, 500 home runs, 3,000 hits), or how he fared in MVP voting. We are well-aware how media members who votes for awards of this nature are fallible.
However, there probably hasn't been enough attention devoted to how playing for a team which had games aired coast-to-coast helped Dawson in 1987. He got a MVP award, and that helped keep his name out there until he was finally elected. Not that there's anything wrong with that, so long as it's properly acknowledged.
Related:
Dawson may wear Cubs hat for speech (ESPNChicago.com)
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Blog blast past: A sure bet for getting more attention for the Raptors
It turns out someone was on about getting the NBA back on Pro-Line (Ontario's government-run sports lottery) more than two years ago. From Oct. 31, 2007:
Here's one untouched upon reason why the Raptors don't get more widespread attention outside their core fan base: People in Ontario can't stop by a convenience store and include the Raptors on a Pro-Line ticket.
Putting your money where your mouth fuels interest in sports. Just listen to a discussion among guys in an office on Mondays during the NFL season. They'll talk about how they did in the pool or how a team scored a meaningless last-second touchdown to blow the point spread or the over/under. It's similar for the NHL, baseball and soccer in Ontario (no one does the arm's-length symbiotic relationship with gambling better than the NFL).
But NBA talk can be a non-starter. The league's absence from Pro-Line isn't the only reason, but it's a big one, since Ontario is Canada's most populous province and has the biggest influence nationally on cultural tastes. The league has been off Pro-Line since the mid-1990s. Commissioner David Stern made it a condition of granting the Raptors franchise.
What's one reason why fewer people are less interested in the NBA compared to 15 years ago? They can't bet on it using the most convenient means available. Why do the flailin' and failin' Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team get so much media play while the Raptors, far more interesting and fun to follow, get much less? Because editors and producers don't believe the interest is there. See how it works? A big part of why someone watches the 11 p.m. sports highlights, checks the web at ungodly hours and picks up the morning paper is to find out how they lost their bets, or how they will bet next time.
It says a lot about MLSE that it hasn't tried to get Stern to reverse his decision. The commish was an anti-gambling hawk then (in the shadow of point-shaving scandals in college basketball in the 1980s). Changing times have forced him to soften his stance in the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal. The perfect storm of the Internet and the revenue-hungry governments have made casual gambling on sports an everyday activity. Stern is sensitive to the dark side of this, but he knows you have to play ball, so to speak.
Stern can only ride that wave -- he even took the 2007 NBA All-Star Game to Las Vegas. Yet you or me can walk into the Union St. subway station in downtown Toronto, go into a smoke shop, grab a Pro-Line sheet, and not be able to bet on a Raptors game taking place a few hundred metres away at the Air Canada Centre. Figure that out.
How does MLSE deny itself a chance to expand the Raptors brand? That's the problem with a corporation that exists for bankers and investors, not sports fans.
Some big-business type isn't stopping at the Kwik-e-Mart to play Pro-Line since gambling remains a taboo among wealthy shareholders, a vestige of WASP old-money values.
The everyday people you need to build a mass TV audience are though. They're being denied for no good reason in Ontario. (NBA games are on the sports lotteries in all four Western Canada provinces, but soccer isn't.) Government-run sports lotteries can also help fund athletics at the grass-roots level, and we all know Canada Basketball could use the help.
Yes, there are plenty of ways to bet that the Raptors will cover the 7.5-point spread in tonight's home opener vs. Philly or that Jose Calderon (pictured) will have more assists than the 76ers' Andre Miller. Pro-Line -- where, as its ads say, "anything can happen; anyone can win" -- is for everyday people. Of course, everyday people is a concept that's lost on MLSE.
Here's one untouched upon reason why the Raptors don't get more widespread attention outside their core fan base: People in Ontario can't stop by a convenience store and include the Raptors on a Pro-Line ticket.Putting your money where your mouth fuels interest in sports. Just listen to a discussion among guys in an office on Mondays during the NFL season. They'll talk about how they did in the pool or how a team scored a meaningless last-second touchdown to blow the point spread or the over/under. It's similar for the NHL, baseball and soccer in Ontario (no one does the arm's-length symbiotic relationship with gambling better than the NFL).
But NBA talk can be a non-starter. The league's absence from Pro-Line isn't the only reason, but it's a big one, since Ontario is Canada's most populous province and has the biggest influence nationally on cultural tastes. The league has been off Pro-Line since the mid-1990s. Commissioner David Stern made it a condition of granting the Raptors franchise.
What's one reason why fewer people are less interested in the NBA compared to 15 years ago? They can't bet on it using the most convenient means available. Why do the flailin' and failin' Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team get so much media play while the Raptors, far more interesting and fun to follow, get much less? Because editors and producers don't believe the interest is there. See how it works? A big part of why someone watches the 11 p.m. sports highlights, checks the web at ungodly hours and picks up the morning paper is to find out how they lost their bets, or how they will bet next time.
It says a lot about MLSE that it hasn't tried to get Stern to reverse his decision. The commish was an anti-gambling hawk then (in the shadow of point-shaving scandals in college basketball in the 1980s). Changing times have forced him to soften his stance in the wake of the Tim Donaghy scandal. The perfect storm of the Internet and the revenue-hungry governments have made casual gambling on sports an everyday activity. Stern is sensitive to the dark side of this, but he knows you have to play ball, so to speak.
Stern can only ride that wave -- he even took the 2007 NBA All-Star Game to Las Vegas. Yet you or me can walk into the Union St. subway station in downtown Toronto, go into a smoke shop, grab a Pro-Line sheet, and not be able to bet on a Raptors game taking place a few hundred metres away at the Air Canada Centre. Figure that out.
How does MLSE deny itself a chance to expand the Raptors brand? That's the problem with a corporation that exists for bankers and investors, not sports fans.
Some big-business type isn't stopping at the Kwik-e-Mart to play Pro-Line since gambling remains a taboo among wealthy shareholders, a vestige of WASP old-money values.
The everyday people you need to build a mass TV audience are though. They're being denied for no good reason in Ontario. (NBA games are on the sports lotteries in all four Western Canada provinces, but soccer isn't.) Government-run sports lotteries can also help fund athletics at the grass-roots level, and we all know Canada Basketball could use the help.
Yes, there are plenty of ways to bet that the Raptors will cover the 7.5-point spread in tonight's home opener vs. Philly or that Jose Calderon (pictured) will have more assists than the 76ers' Andre Miller. Pro-Line -- where, as its ads say, "anything can happen; anyone can win" -- is for everyday people. Of course, everyday people is a concept that's lost on MLSE.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Bleeding Tricolour: Gaels receivers Ioannides, Valberg sign CFL contracts
Four members of the Queen's Golden Gaels offence have signed pro contracts for next season.
The word out of Kingston is two-time all-Canadian Scott Valberg and fellow receiver Chris Ioannides have signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and B.C. Lions as free agents, respectively. Two members of the offensive line which protected quarterback Dan Brannagan so well, left guard Vince DeCivita and right tackle Jon Koidis, have signed to play in a league in Switzerland, beginning in January.
There should be more to come abut this from both Queen's and the Kingston media in the next couple days.
The Vanier Cup was nice, but it makes it even more special to hear coach Pat Sheahan's players have earned opportunities to play more football. Speaking as a grad, there is happiness that that DeCivita, Ioannides, Koidis and Valberg get to play a little more football. Being able to point out graduates who have moved on to the next level should also be a recruiting chip.
A decade ago, Queen's CFL representation consisted of Jock Climie and Brad Elberg — two players in the entire league. Now almost every team in the league has at least one ex-Gael.
Defensive end-linebacker Shomari Williams is projected as a first-round pick in the 2010 CFL draft. I am no expert on these matters, but slotback Devan Sheahan has the size and speed to likely warrant a look. Outside linebackers Alex Daprato and Chris Smith were each fourth-year players this past season, so they are draft-eligible. Both are pretty heady players who play a kind a hybrid linebacker-DB position.
Also, as observers such as the FAN 590's Mike Hogan have noted, if someone doesn't try to find a spot for cornerback-kick returner Jimmy Allin, then there's nothing real in the world anymore.
It's a nice payoff for Valberg, who appealed successfully to get a season of eligibility back so he could play this season. He ended up leading CIS in receiving for the second season in a row and also caught the touchdown passes which put Queen's ahead for good in both the Yates Cup vs. Western and the Vanier Cup against Calgary.
Ioannides — it's hard to forget the passage from a Mike Koreen column in the Kingston Whig-Standard about him being slumped, despondent, against the goal post after the 2008 playoff loss vs. Ottawa — made several catches which were just as huge in the grand scheme. He caught a pass with 3.3 seconds left to set up the winning field goal in the wild 52-49 win over Guelph in the season opener. He also caught a third-down pass on the game-winning drive in the Oct. 17 win over Western.
Both receivers played a lot of special teams this past season, which should help them in their bids to crack a CFL roster next season.
(Cross-posted to cisblog.ca.)
The word out of Kingston is two-time all-Canadian Scott Valberg and fellow receiver Chris Ioannides have signed with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats and B.C. Lions as free agents, respectively. Two members of the offensive line which protected quarterback Dan Brannagan so well, left guard Vince DeCivita and right tackle Jon Koidis, have signed to play in a league in Switzerland, beginning in January.
There should be more to come abut this from both Queen's and the Kingston media in the next couple days.
The Vanier Cup was nice, but it makes it even more special to hear coach Pat Sheahan's players have earned opportunities to play more football. Speaking as a grad, there is happiness that that DeCivita, Ioannides, Koidis and Valberg get to play a little more football. Being able to point out graduates who have moved on to the next level should also be a recruiting chip.
A decade ago, Queen's CFL representation consisted of Jock Climie and Brad Elberg — two players in the entire league. Now almost every team in the league has at least one ex-Gael.
Defensive end-linebacker Shomari Williams is projected as a first-round pick in the 2010 CFL draft. I am no expert on these matters, but slotback Devan Sheahan has the size and speed to likely warrant a look. Outside linebackers Alex Daprato and Chris Smith were each fourth-year players this past season, so they are draft-eligible. Both are pretty heady players who play a kind a hybrid linebacker-DB position.
Also, as observers such as the FAN 590's Mike Hogan have noted, if someone doesn't try to find a spot for cornerback-kick returner Jimmy Allin, then there's nothing real in the world anymore.
It's a nice payoff for Valberg, who appealed successfully to get a season of eligibility back so he could play this season. He ended up leading CIS in receiving for the second season in a row and also caught the touchdown passes which put Queen's ahead for good in both the Yates Cup vs. Western and the Vanier Cup against Calgary.
Ioannides — it's hard to forget the passage from a Mike Koreen column in the Kingston Whig-Standard about him being slumped, despondent, against the goal post after the 2008 playoff loss vs. Ottawa — made several catches which were just as huge in the grand scheme. He caught a pass with 3.3 seconds left to set up the winning field goal in the wild 52-49 win over Guelph in the season opener. He also caught a third-down pass on the game-winning drive in the Oct. 17 win over Western.
Both receivers played a lot of special teams this past season, which should help them in their bids to crack a CFL roster next season.
(Cross-posted to cisblog.ca.)
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Like another JC, Jamie Campbell is a martyr ... to poor editorial policy
jamiecampbell is going, going, gone, unlike some of the warning track fly balls he initially called as home runs over the past four seasons.
Buck Martinez is coming back to Canadian sports television as, wait for it, the Rogers Jays' new play-by-play announcer. Jamie Campbell, now restored to conventional capitalization and spacing, will become some other fanbase's whipping boy-next-door once he gets re-assigned by Sportsnet.
Having Buck back is in the ballpark with repatriating his old TSN partner Dan Shulman, but it comes pretty close. Anyway, for all of the Campbell-carving that has gone in the past four seasons, it bears reiterating what was said about him two years ago.
Snark aside, don't pile on Campbell. His struggles were the predictable outcome borne out of the Canadian television industry's indifference to helping anyone hone the craft of calling baseball and basketball, the same as with whoever had the Jays gig before him (it's been repressed thanks to a radical reverse therapy). The failure is on the industry's shoulders, so spare the rod for certain blahcasters and mediocrities of the mike who sometimes spoil the fun of watching a game.
Anyway, Buck is back. This is good if the Jays suddenly need to pluck someone out of the broadcast booth to manage again. Of course, such a situation is completely hypothetical, eh, Cito?
Campbell will be calling freestyle skiing at the Olympics, which is good to hear. A full-sized adult flying through the air, he can handle.
(Don't you love how the press release says, "Sportsnet viewers most recently enjoyed Martinez's work on the 2009 National League Championship Series on TBS." Uh, did they ask?)
Buck Martinez is coming back to Canadian sports television as, wait for it, the Rogers Jays' new play-by-play announcer. Jamie Campbell, now restored to conventional capitalization and spacing, will become some other fanbase's whipping boy-next-door once he gets re-assigned by Sportsnet.
Having Buck back is in the ballpark with repatriating his old TSN partner Dan Shulman, but it comes pretty close. Anyway, for all of the Campbell-carving that has gone in the past four seasons, it bears reiterating what was said about him two years ago.
Snark aside, don't pile on Campbell. His struggles were the predictable outcome borne out of the Canadian television industry's indifference to helping anyone hone the craft of calling baseball and basketball, the same as with whoever had the Jays gig before him (it's been repressed thanks to a radical reverse therapy). The failure is on the industry's shoulders, so spare the rod for certain blahcasters and mediocrities of the mike who sometimes spoil the fun of watching a game.
Anyway, Buck is back. This is good if the Jays suddenly need to pluck someone out of the broadcast booth to manage again. Of course, such a situation is completely hypothetical, eh, Cito?
Campbell will be calling freestyle skiing at the Olympics, which is good to hear. A full-sized adult flying through the air, he can handle.
(Don't you love how the press release says, "Sportsnet viewers most recently enjoyed Martinez's work on the 2009 National League Championship Series on TBS." Uh, did they ask?)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Media: Please don't pull that Toth
Media personality Mike Toth has inspired a few posts on this site during the 17 years we've been doing this blog.
It would remiss to overlook there is a Truth & Rumours report the Tother has been let go from Rogers Sportsnet. Toronto Sports Media chimes in "what that means exactly for his duties for the Fan 590 has yet to be decided," which is open to interpretation. It could mean something, or it could just mean it wasn't nailed down.
(Update: Well, that mystery is solved. He's staying on!)
Toth at least tried to make talking sports fun. He has been willing to go into the crevasse when it came sports topics that seldom get a good airing in Canada, like the Grey Cup's diminished standing, how culture played a factor in Ray Emery's departure from Ottawa (just as it does in the love-in the Ottawa Senators' for at-least-he's-local lunkhead Matt Carkner) or the way everyone pretends to be a huge junior hockey fan for during Christmas holidays because it "re-affirms our collective navel gazing tendencies," as Greg Hughes put it.
You could argue Toth's style is maybe on the wane. The Revenge of the Sports Nerd is at long last filtering up to sports talk radio, where the frat-boy mentality has long ruled the roost. No longer can you semi-seriously suggest Gary Carter would be a suitable manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, or say, "There are no female sportscasters that I can think of that have more knowledge than their male counterparts" without risking a bunch of swiftly well-organized wrath from the blogetariat and on Twitter. At the same time, if you start talking about WAR and VORP and quoting a bunch of statistics, people will change the station and Nelson Millman will put you on a diet of bread and water. It's a balancing act, people.
It's not negative. It keeps people honest, makes them challenge their thinking and become aware they don't live in the world they were born into. It's for the better, regardless of how much griping comes from misery-loves-company old media dinosaurs. There is the potential to cause people to offer tepid, inoffensive opinions, although if anything, maybe it will make people work harder to justify a minority opinion.
Personally speaking, Toth seemed all right. There are much worse things to be in life than someone trying to "stir the pot with a very short spoon," to quote Lloyd The Barber from Ghostrunner on First. It's also folly to take someone's on-air persona for the genuine article. Any communications medium has it limits and not everyone is the person you see and hear on TV and radio. Kinger, for one, swore by Toth, which says a ton.
Long story short, if Toth was shunted aside, it's a shame. We'll always have The Honky-Tonk Man.
Related:
Has Mike Toth Been Let Go From Sportsnet? (Toronto Sports Media)
Mike Toth dropped by Sportsnet (Truth & Rumours)
It would remiss to overlook there is a Truth & Rumours report the Tother has been let go from Rogers Sportsnet. Toronto Sports Media chimes in "what that means exactly for his duties for the Fan 590 has yet to be decided," which is open to interpretation. It could mean something, or it could just mean it wasn't nailed down.
(Update: Well, that mystery is solved. He's staying on!)
Toth at least tried to make talking sports fun. He has been willing to go into the crevasse when it came sports topics that seldom get a good airing in Canada, like the Grey Cup's diminished standing, how culture played a factor in Ray Emery's departure from Ottawa (just as it does in the love-in the Ottawa Senators' for at-least-he's-local lunkhead Matt Carkner) or the way everyone pretends to be a huge junior hockey fan for during Christmas holidays because it "re-affirms our collective navel gazing tendencies," as Greg Hughes put it.
You could argue Toth's style is maybe on the wane. The Revenge of the Sports Nerd is at long last filtering up to sports talk radio, where the frat-boy mentality has long ruled the roost. No longer can you semi-seriously suggest Gary Carter would be a suitable manager for the Toronto Blue Jays, or say, "There are no female sportscasters that I can think of that have more knowledge than their male counterparts" without risking a bunch of swiftly well-organized wrath from the blogetariat and on Twitter. At the same time, if you start talking about WAR and VORP and quoting a bunch of statistics, people will change the station and Nelson Millman will put you on a diet of bread and water. It's a balancing act, people.
It's not negative. It keeps people honest, makes them challenge their thinking and become aware they don't live in the world they were born into. It's for the better, regardless of how much griping comes from misery-loves-company old media dinosaurs. There is the potential to cause people to offer tepid, inoffensive opinions, although if anything, maybe it will make people work harder to justify a minority opinion.
Personally speaking, Toth seemed all right. There are much worse things to be in life than someone trying to "stir the pot with a very short spoon," to quote Lloyd The Barber from Ghostrunner on First. It's also folly to take someone's on-air persona for the genuine article. Any communications medium has it limits and not everyone is the person you see and hear on TV and radio. Kinger, for one, swore by Toth, which says a ton.
Long story short, if Toth was shunted aside, it's a shame. We'll always have The Honky-Tonk Man.
Related:
Has Mike Toth Been Let Go From Sportsnet? (Toronto Sports Media)
Mike Toth dropped by Sportsnet (Truth & Rumours)
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Bleeding Tricolour: Rejoice, just once, the battle is still at hand
Please keep in mind every 24 hours, the world turns over on someone who was on top of it yesterday.
Nevertheless, apparently some Western Mustangs followers have added crow to their diets, instead of crowing about a victory, as TSN football analyst Duane Forde related:
Two seasons ago, when Laurier beat Queen's, Argos running back Bryan Crawford went on Mike Hogan's show on The FAN 590 and sing an ow-my-freakin'-ears rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads.
It's all about who was the better man on that day; ain't no final victories.
(Cross-posted from cisblog.ca.)
Nevertheless, apparently some Western Mustangs followers have added crow to their diets, instead of crowing about a victory, as TSN football analyst Duane Forde related:
"The Queen's Gaels' thrilling come-from-behind 27-26 victory over Western last Saturday ended any chance the Mustangs had of finishing first in the OUA standings this season but, for this analyst, the implications are much worse. Had UWO won the game, my CFL on TSN colleagues Chris Cuthbert and Jock Climie, a pair of Queen's grads, would've been forced to incorporate the Mustangs' traditional purple and silver into their wardrobes during this weekend's broadcasts. However, the Queen's victory means that I will be wearing the gold, blue, and red of the Gaels during Friday night's Toronto-Hamilton game. Misery apparently loves company, as I'm told that fellow Western alumni, Andy Fantuz of the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Tyler Scott of the Argonauts lost bets to their current CFL teammates and Queen's products, Rob Bagg (Riders) and Brad Smith (Argos)."There's no word what the stakes were between Toronto Blue Jays interim CEO Paul "Western Will Definitely Win" Beeston owes Sun Media baseball writer Bob Elliott (Kingston native whose father and daughter graduated from Queen's).
Two seasons ago, when Laurier beat Queen's, Argos running back Bryan Crawford went on Mike Hogan's show on The FAN 590 and sing an ow-my-freakin'-ears rendition of Take Me Home, Country Roads.
It's all about who was the better man on that day; ain't no final victories.
(Cross-posted from cisblog.ca.)
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The NHL moves the goalposts, and maybe a whole team it was sworn to defend
Honestly, this was just a joke!
In the words of a Kurt Vonnegut character, "I had to laugh like hell." Make It Eight, Eh dug out a great quote from NHL deputy commish Bill Daly from just last month.
Meantime, it's behind the times to portray this as Hamilton vs. Phoenix (Puck Daddy). Never was. Gary Bettman and Bill Daly know who they work for, and it's whoever needs a hockey team as a front for Hoovering back scads and scads of corporate welfare.
Plus, for the Bob Loblaw Law Blog devotees, there is the whole issue of the NHL violating an important legal principle. Sub judice restrictions don't apply in the U.S., let alone in civil court, but it still doesn't mean it's not jerkass arrogance:
"If you want a short and snappy answer about where the Phoenix Coyotes will play, just say Kansas City." — Aug. 6Then it gets out that the NHL's Hail Mary play to buy the Phoenix Coyotes would only keep the team there for one season before they would try to move it. They have to protect those expansion fees, don't you know (and Eric Duhatschek's put-the-Coyotes-in-Toronto theory actually makes a lick of sense, keeping in mind this is coming from a newspaper which is part of the same corporate family as TSN):
"In an about-face, the league's bid to purchase the Coyotes out of bankruptcy court specifically mentions it is open to relocating the team.
" ... Since the NHL states in its bid that it 'does not anticipate there would be a net profit upon a resale of the team to a Glendale buyer,' its own interests, and those of the creditors, would likely be best served by relocating the team to a market where its value could be maximized beyond $140-million.
The league’s apparent openness to relocating the Coyotes flies in the face of its commitment to Glendale, dating back to when the team’s troubles surfaced last season and throughout the league’s four-month fight with Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie ..." — globesports.com
"... the NHL’s plan (to buy the Phoenix Coyotes) is nothing but a stay of execution. In the short term, it will give Glendale one last chance to lure a local investor or bring (Jerry) Reinsdorf back into play. If it doesn’t work, the Coyotes will be off for greener pastures." Arizona Republic
In the words of a Kurt Vonnegut character, "I had to laugh like hell." Make It Eight, Eh dug out a great quote from NHL deputy commish Bill Daly from just last month.
"Daly stressed the new terms would not allow the Coyotes to break the lease in a year or two and move elsewhere.Whoopsy-doodle. It turned out those "communities" are not actual communities where people live and pay taxes, but groups of really, really rich guys. There is, for instance, L.A. Kings owner Philip Anschutz, whose company owns an arena in Kansas City which needs a tenant from a big ball-and-stick league. (This just a personal opinion.)
"The NHL must fight for the bankrupt Coyotes to stay in Glendale long-term, he said, to send a message to other cities that have spent money attracting or retaining hockey teams.
" 'If we want communities to continue investing in our franchises, we need to work arm in arm to protect their investments,' Daly said."
Meantime, it's behind the times to portray this as Hamilton vs. Phoenix (Puck Daddy). Never was. Gary Bettman and Bill Daly know who they work for, and it's whoever needs a hockey team as a front for Hoovering back scads and scads of corporate welfare.
Plus, for the Bob Loblaw Law Blog devotees, there is the whole issue of the NHL violating an important legal principle. Sub judice restrictions don't apply in the U.S., let alone in civil court, but it still doesn't mean it's not jerkass arrogance:
Long story short, this is ugly. At least we now know where the NHL was coming from. It never really made sense why they were so gung-ho about Phoenix, other than Bettman's ego. As Make It Eight, Eh says:"Confident that the fans and the sports media would back them up ... the NHL circled their wagons and put on a Balsillie Is Rotten campaign.
"The pinnacle of NHL hypocrisy came in remarks recently made by Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk. Melnyk is often deservedly ridiculed by the outside-of-Ottawa hockey press for his allegiance to a lame-duck general manager (Bryan Murray). Ottawa's recent run of personnel crises has been reflected in league and playoff results.
"Melnyk, as the sports press seems so quick to forget, was the subject of an Ontario securities commission inquiry which alleged misleading and untrue statements made in the financial statements of Melnyk’s company, Biovail Corporation. Melnyk, before the OSC chastised him, blamed his staff! He settled the charges in 2007, was fined $1 million and ordered to cease being director of his company, Biovail, for one year. The OSC record is no credit to Melnyk.
"What pricks the conscious of caring lawyers is the NHL pre-emptive strike against Balsillie even while the bankruptcy proceedings are sub judice in Phoenix. By sending out their general counsel Bill Day to media outlets to spin doctor the rejection of Balsillie by the NHL board based on, apparently, Balsillie’s lack of integrity and character, not only offends the rule of sub judice, but seems to be the epitome of hypocrisy.
"The media is lapping it up too. The venerable Sports Illustrated published an article which actually quoted Melnyk’s self-serving drivel.
"The NHL and the Reinsdorf group were looking to relocate this team either now, or within five years to another centre that fits the plan of the NHL.Who knows what will happen. There's a fatigue at this point. It is perfectly rational and understandable if you have shunned sports radio and probably will until it gets resolved, since the Howard Bergers of the world are way in over their heads with this story. It has been fun, though.
" ... The NHL has shunned the fans of Canada, and is quickly shunning the fans of Phoenix.
"Jim Balsillie has a brighter future in the NHL than Gary Bettman, and let’s see who is around in 10 years.
"Jim Balsillie, despite being voted against, has been approached by other struggling franchises, and is the true white knight to help the destitute owners."
Friday, July 24, 2009
Mike Toth needs a message-polisher
Reading this line from Mike Toth in Bruce Dowbiggin's column calls to mind the time back in the day broadcasting Queen's football games when there was a analyst who, during his first game, had an unfortunate tendency of uttering a drawn-out, "Wow," after almost every play.
Really, wow is about all one can say:
However, in the manner of that Weekend Update gag, "Really? I mean, really?"
Apparently our man never noticed Lesley Visser or Pam Oliver on NFL broadcasts. ESPN's Robin Roberts comes to mind. Former Score correspondent Patricia Boal, she always came across very well. Canadian Stacey Dales always got very good reviews when she was at ESPN. No doubt there are plenty of talented, intelligent women in broadcasting programs across Canada, who don't mind looking good for themselves but who also want to show they have the chops. Toth should spend one day job-shadowing Alison Sandor, the recent Carleton graduate whom this old cowboy
Visser's name would have immediately shot to mind even if she had not just been named the No. 1 female sportcasters and Jeff Pearlman had written about her for Sports Illustrated. As Pearlman pointed out, a decade ago she was replaced on Monday Night Football when the highers-up decided the show needed to get younger and hipper. They replaced her with Melissa Stark and put comedian Dennis Miller in the booth (Miller is older than Visser, how's that for irony). Visser is still going strong and Stark, quoth Pearlman, is "somewhere."
The other sticking point with that statement is that it assumes male sportscasters need a perfect knowledge of sports, which we know is not true.
There's no personal animus here toward Toth. He is heart-on-his-sleeve and he's willing to flip over a few rocks that the Canadian media usually stroll by, from the lack of widespread coverage for junior hockey, to the apparent lack of diversity in a CFL crowd. Sometimes he just makes a blanket statement that leaves some of us small-l liberals wincing.
The rub is that if you hear anything about it, it's usually from a male columnist such as Dowbiggin, not an interest group. That might say something about how people look at talk radio, as something that's for quote-unquote angry white males, not for anyone else. They're not listening. That should be of concern to programmers, since you can't kiss off a large portion of the potential audience.
Anyway, it just needed to be pointed out. Give Toth credit. Anyone who's ever thought The FAN 590 was sophomoric knows that still puts them several years ahead of their brethren in Ottawa and Vancouver. As far as we know, no one's stormed out of the studio in Toronto lately because someone had the nerve to disagree with them:
Related:
Andrews debate revealing; Unwanted internet exposure of ESPN reporter pits the ugly side of sports broadcasting's old boys club versus privacy rights
Really, wow is about all one can say:
"On The Fan 590, Rogers Sportsnet host Mike Toth suggested that young women including Sportsnet co-workers Martine Gaillard and Evanka Osmak get by with less than perfect knowledge of sports.One comes not to bury Toth. He is entertaining on The FAN 590's late-morning show The Bullpen, with Mike Hogan, and he was very accommodating to my good friend Tyler King when he hosted Kingston's most-listened-to hour-long sports show on CFRC 101.9 FM.
" 'This is going to sound harsh,' Toth said. 'But be that as it may, here it comes: There are no female sportscasters that I can think of that have more knowledge than their male counterparts.' "
However, in the manner of that Weekend Update gag, "Really? I mean, really?"
Apparently our man never noticed Lesley Visser or Pam Oliver on NFL broadcasts. ESPN's Robin Roberts comes to mind. Former Score correspondent Patricia Boal, she always came across very well. Canadian Stacey Dales always got very good reviews when she was at ESPN. No doubt there are plenty of talented, intelligent women in broadcasting programs across Canada, who don't mind looking good for themselves but who also want to show they have the chops. Toth should spend one day job-shadowing Alison Sandor, the recent Carleton graduate whom this old cowboy
Visser's name would have immediately shot to mind even if she had not just been named the No. 1 female sportcasters and Jeff Pearlman had written about her for Sports Illustrated. As Pearlman pointed out, a decade ago she was replaced on Monday Night Football when the highers-up decided the show needed to get younger and hipper. They replaced her with Melissa Stark and put comedian Dennis Miller in the booth (Miller is older than Visser, how's that for irony). Visser is still going strong and Stark, quoth Pearlman, is "somewhere."
The other sticking point with that statement is that it assumes male sportscasters need a perfect knowledge of sports, which we know is not true.
There's no personal animus here toward Toth. He is heart-on-his-sleeve and he's willing to flip over a few rocks that the Canadian media usually stroll by, from the lack of widespread coverage for junior hockey, to the apparent lack of diversity in a CFL crowd. Sometimes he just makes a blanket statement that leaves some of us small-l liberals wincing.
The rub is that if you hear anything about it, it's usually from a male columnist such as Dowbiggin, not an interest group. That might say something about how people look at talk radio, as something that's for quote-unquote angry white males, not for anyone else. They're not listening. That should be of concern to programmers, since you can't kiss off a large portion of the potential audience.
Anyway, it just needed to be pointed out. Give Toth credit. Anyone who's ever thought The FAN 590 was sophomoric knows that still puts them several years ahead of their brethren in Ottawa and Vancouver. As far as we know, no one's stormed out of the studio in Toronto lately because someone had the nerve to disagree with them:
"Pratt had just finished airing an editorial shortly after 4 p.m. Monday about how a couple of gladiators like golfer Tom Watson and world champion poker player Doyle Brunson were able to continue to perform despite their age.Some would say David Pratt should be chastised for even suggesting golf is a sport ... just kidding, not really.
"Taylor made light of the comparison and chastised Pratt for even suggesting that poker was a sport.
"Game on. The high-pitched yelling and screaming maxed out the decibel levels of the station's control board. After a brief interlude of dead air, roughly 12 continuous minutes of taped commercials were followed by a repeat of a previous interview. Pratt eventually returned to finish the last hour of the show, making no reference to his spat with Taylor.
"When eager listeners tuned in Tuesday for round two they heard Rick Ball announcing he would be sitting in for Pratt with Matt Sekeres subbing for Taylor."
Related:
Andrews debate revealing; Unwanted internet exposure of ESPN reporter pits the ugly side of sports broadcasting's old boys club versus privacy rights
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
American Needle vs. the NFL: Don't be so sure
It's a fair bet that most who have picked up on the American Needle v. NFL U.S. Supreme Court case have never read farther than Lester Munson's ESPN.com story which predicted a court win in the U.S. will hasten the apocalypse. Pro sports owners "will rule the world," as Doug Farraway just said on the FAN 590, Jim Balsillie will never be able to get a NHL team, no team will be able to improve through free agency.
Smart Football described Munson's tone as "all hysterical and apocalyptic," and the The Sporting Blog also had a very reasoned rebuttal pointing out that Munson was guilty of "a misunderstanding of the economics of the thing — the NFL and other pro sports leagues already auction off television packages as collectives."
It's damn entertaining to jump to wild conclusions for the sake of a 40-minute block of all-sports radio (look, Farraway just said they might as well bring back Eddie Shore!)
The rub is many people are just hearing about this, and Munson might have spread it on thick to get attention. The way some have spoken, it's like this is a walkover touchdown for the NFL. Please. No one knows how a court is going to rule, even if the SCOTUS leans more than a bit to the right politically. The SCOTUSBlog passed on an important take-home. The Supreme Court "sought first to get advice from the U.S. Solicitor General," before it elected to take the case. That is unusual:
No doubt the big ball-and-stick leagues would love to reduce their player costs and increase what they charge for tickets and merchandise. You just don't know how a court will rule.
Antitrust case could be Armageddon (Lester Munson, ESPN.com)
Smart Football described Munson's tone as "all hysterical and apocalyptic," and the The Sporting Blog also had a very reasoned rebuttal pointing out that Munson was guilty of "a misunderstanding of the economics of the thing — the NFL and other pro sports leagues already auction off television packages as collectives."
It's damn entertaining to jump to wild conclusions for the sake of a 40-minute block of all-sports radio (look, Farraway just said they might as well bring back Eddie Shore!)
The rub is many people are just hearing about this, and Munson might have spread it on thick to get attention. The way some have spoken, it's like this is a walkover touchdown for the NFL. Please. No one knows how a court is going to rule, even if the SCOTUS leans more than a bit to the right politically. The SCOTUSBlog passed on an important take-home. The Supreme Court "sought first to get advice from the U.S. Solicitor General," before it elected to take the case. That is unusual:
"Ordinarily, when everyone involved in a case, plus outsiders, agree that the Court should review it, that is quite persuasive with the Court. But the Justices are looking for some legal advice before they act.Long story short, in a general sense, courts do not tend to award ultimate victory to one side in these matters. They also tend to be hands-off when it comes to how sports leagues manage their affairs, even when it's a practice which would be ruled illegal in other walks of life (i.e., entry drafts).
"When the Court asks the Solicitor General for the government’s legal views on a case, it often takes months for that office to respond. The Court does not set deadlines for such briefs. The new leaders of the Solicitor General’s office in the Obama Administration will determine what schedule they plan to keep."
No doubt the big ball-and-stick leagues would love to reduce their player costs and increase what they charge for tickets and merchandise. You just don't know how a court will rule.
Antitrust case could be Armageddon (Lester Munson, ESPN.com)
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Sports media: Wilner to baseball-yak it up on the old yak-box
This ought to be good for the geek love. The FAN 590's Mike Wilner announced on his blog tonight that his station is adding a daily baseball show, to run in Hockey Central's normal noon-hour time slot."Starting tomorrow, Monday the 6th, the Fan590 will be carrying a daily, one-hour program dedicated solely to the discussion of the greatest game there is — Baseball Today will be on Monday through Friday at noon Eastern and (for the time being, at least), be hosted by yours truly. It's still kind of open as to what kind of show it will be. I'm going to want audience interaction. I'm going to want discussion of not only the goings-on in Blue Jay land, but across the landscape of MLB. I'm going to want to have the audience learn about newer metrics to measure and predict performance. I'm going to see if I can get a Blue Jay or two to pop by in studio (when they’re at home, of course) to chat and take phone calls. All kinds of things. Tomorrow’s premiere edition will be a phone-in show, because I'm going to want to hear from you, the listeners, about what you want from a daily hour-long baseball show."It might even take more of a commitment. You are going to have to take a leave from a job and dissolve all personal relationships.
Clearly, this might have come out of Rogers bean-counters figuring a hour of baseball talk each weekday might be good cross-promotion for the Jays. The FAN 590, case in point, has a tennis show that's a pretty obvious attempt to whip up interest in the Rogers Cup. It's either that or there are a lot of males 18-49 who want to call in and talk about Juan Carlos Ferrero's second serve. Nevertheless, this is welcome news, presuming CSIS will not trace all the calls since anyone in Canada who wants to talk about baseball instead of hockey in the middle of July is probably capable of treason.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Hoserdome 2009: Oh, that court thingy...
The stickiness of a sports business story is usually in inverse proportion to how sticky it is outside. People might have missed the story about a court finding the NHL has been underfunding pensions, especially in Ontario, where it's probably bigger news the LCBO strike has been averted.
Meantime (and there is a damned-if-you-do element to this space blogging on hockey on the 24th of June), there are a couple fish to toss out there.
"The decision by Ontario Superior Court means the league will have to top up its pension fund by as much as $30 million and may have to make retroactive payments to the widows of deceased players.This does not necessarily go all the way to Gary Bettman and Bill Daly, but it whets the thirst for reading about what depths of malevolence to which a league will sink. Point being, it will be really interesting to see what kind of reception Bettman and/or Daly get on Friday at the NHL draft in Montreal, since it would be his first appearance in Canada since a bankruptcy court dealt a setback to Jim Balsillie's plan to buy the Phoenix Coyotes (which is still very much a going concern).
"The suit, brought forward last year by the NHL Players' Association, charged that errors in the calculation of pensions for players who died before 1986 meant their widows received as little as 10 per cent of the funds entitled to them."
Meantime (and there is a damned-if-you-do element to this space blogging on hockey on the 24th of June), there are a couple fish to toss out there.
- Have you heard the one about Dany Heatley being traded to Vancouver for the Daniel and Henrik Sedin? It would not come as a shock, after reading Bruce Garrioch's story, that the Senators might end up getting stuck with Heatley.
- Ex-Senator Martin Havlat Twittered that he is "only thinking about singing with Chicago."
- Actual words from an actual FAN 590 caller:
"Any real Leafs fan knows the only way to get better is to suck."
Believe it or not, people are already entertaining the idea of finishing dead last and earning the right to draft Taylor Hall No. 1 overall. That would certainly explain why the Leafs would have interest in bringing in ex-Senators Wade Redden and Peter Schaefer: They're planning to tank the season. - Further to the point about the fault-finding mission with John Tavares, check out an interview that OHL coach Dave Cameron did with Islanders Point Blank:
"As a head coach in the OHL, I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes we over-play our best players. These young men play too much. It is impossible for them or for anyone to go full-out over a 100-game season as a teenager. We ask too much of them. So if anyone - the scouts, the experts, the fans - want to focus on gaps in a young player’s game, there will always be areas to pick apart."
Meantime, someone actually said Tavares and Victor Hedman might be the same dyad as Alexandre Daigle and Chris Pronger in 1993. That's rough, man. The only common thread there is Daigle and Tavares were both left-handed shots.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The CB4 farewell tour — Colangelo mulls sign-and-trade (again)
Bryan Colangelo, you sound like a man who's trying to make a commitment to a course of action, although this is hardly new.
The most prominent sign-and-trade in recent years came in 2007 when Rashard Lewis went from the Seattle SuperSonics, who don't exist anymore, to the Orlando Magic, whom he helped lead to the NBA Finals.
Again, to be blunt, expertise about how player moves work in the NBA is not our forte. The best that can be offered is that it's was already time to brace for BWOB (Basketball Without Bosh) and try to figure out what can be gleaned from the situation. Jay Triano, Colangelo and Maurizio Gherardini would like to play an up-tempo style, but they need personnel who can make it work. There should be no fear about Bosh leaving ... there is plenty out there. Just from doing a quick surf around the series of tubes, possible trading partners would include Atlanta (how about Marvin Williams at small forward, how does that sound?). The Phoenix Suns power forward and Amare' Stoudemire and shooting guard Leandro Barbosa are about to get shopped around (oh, to be a fly on the wall when Barbosa and Leo Rautins meet up, since the analyst and national team's coach son, Andy, hurt his knee while defending Barbosa in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifier in 2007). The Portland Trail Blazers could take on Bosh, and they're deep.
Anyway, no sense in denying Bosh could leave.
Related:
Raptors to sign-and-trade Bosh? (Truth & Rumors, via Andrew Bucholtz's Twitter)
"... I have to reiterate the point that keeps being overlooked - we're the only team that can offer him a full six years versus five years, 10.5% increases versus 8% increases ... Basically equates to a $30-million dollar difference. So, even if he wants to leave, he's still better served, and we're better served if he works a sign-and-trade with us where we can get some sort of an asset back from the team that he's going to. And, I think that's probably the thing that we'll both push for because he'll benefit from it and we'll benefit from it, and that's why it's probably not time to panic now and make a bad deal." — Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo, on the FAN 590 todayYour question about why this has not been reflected in most of the coverage about is as good as any. Sign-and-trade deals are not quite as commonplace as they once were, partially since they did not to send sit well with the media or fans. It seemed too much like meek capitulation. The team getting Bosh would have to give up an awful lot, so hey, maybe this is not so bad.
The most prominent sign-and-trade in recent years came in 2007 when Rashard Lewis went from the Seattle SuperSonics, who don't exist anymore, to the Orlando Magic, whom he helped lead to the NBA Finals.
Again, to be blunt, expertise about how player moves work in the NBA is not our forte. The best that can be offered is that it's was already time to brace for BWOB (Basketball Without Bosh) and try to figure out what can be gleaned from the situation. Jay Triano, Colangelo and Maurizio Gherardini would like to play an up-tempo style, but they need personnel who can make it work. There should be no fear about Bosh leaving ... there is plenty out there. Just from doing a quick surf around the series of tubes, possible trading partners would include Atlanta (how about Marvin Williams at small forward, how does that sound?). The Phoenix Suns power forward and Amare' Stoudemire and shooting guard Leandro Barbosa are about to get shopped around (oh, to be a fly on the wall when Barbosa and Leo Rautins meet up, since the analyst and national team's coach son, Andy, hurt his knee while defending Barbosa in the FIBA Americas Olympic qualifier in 2007). The Portland Trail Blazers could take on Bosh, and they're deep.
Anyway, no sense in denying Bosh could leave.
Related:
Raptors to sign-and-trade Bosh? (Truth & Rumors, via Andrew Bucholtz's Twitter)
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Jays: NL rules, not so Fabio
Roy Halladay's pitching line last night in Atlanta was pure pro-DH dynamite.
There isn't a manager alive who doesn't pinch-hit when the game is tied in the eighth inning. That is precisely the point. The self-described purists say they love all the strategy that goes on in the National League. It's not strategy when the decision is automatic. Praising the strategy in the NL is like praising an NFL coach who opts for a 99.9% automatic extra-point kick instead of going for a two-point conversation in the first quarter.
What happened last night also puts the lie to one of the big sells with interleague play. Major League Baseball, back when this contagion was introduced in the late 1990s, said it would help fans to gain an appreciation of the stars in the other league. Well, Roy Halladay, baseball's best right-handed pitcher, was removed through no fault of his own after facing only 26 batters and throwing just 95 pitches. They didn't get the full measure of the Good Doctor.
One objection here is that most of the people who were at the game barely noticed. Fans in Atlanta went home happy because their Braves won. That's fine and dandy like sour candy, but not addressing something just because most people wouldn't notice either way is kind of dumb. Why try to do anything better, in that case?
Maybe this was more irritating to a Jays fan since they lost the game. However, they could have won while removing a starting pitcher while he was still fresh, which is also wrongheaded on a certain level.
The National League dinosaurs have their conceits. Their league is the aggressive, get-after-'em brand of baseball. The average AL team this season has actually stolen more bases than the average NL team (31-25). It would be neat to know if that is a reflection of being able to have nine hitters in the lineup who have all learned to hit and run the bases (relatively speaking) instead of eight (two big reasons are the two most steal-happy teams, the L.A. Angels and Tampa Bay Rays, are in the AL, while the most station-to-station team going, Milwaukee, is a NL team).
Then there's the great double switch. Far be it to point out that it can often mean taking out either the leadoff or No. 2 hitter and at least ostensibly, that can mean losing a player who is good enough to hit higher in the lineup than all the other starters.
As previously noted, National League teams don't have a problem with their minor-league affiliates using a DH (the pitcher only bats in games between two NL-affiliated teams) in order to get their farmhands more at-bats. They don't mind using a DH in spring training games to get someone more chances to fine-tune his swing.
More strategic thinking goes on in the AL. The manager has to decide to change pitchers based on effectiveness, not when the No. 9 spot is due up in the order. Weighing the benefits of pinch-hitting one position player for another, or whether to pinch-run for the catcher and run the risk of an injury to the other catcher, that actually involves some thinking.
The NL rules are as dishonest as The Sporting News headline which says Atlanta's pitcher, Kenshin Kawakami was able to "outduel" Halladay. Kawakami was full value for the effort with eight shutout innings, but he would have come out for a pinch-hitter earlier if Halladay hadn't been so darned effective, or if the Braves hadn't had last bat.
At the heart of the matter is that the way baseball has evolved over time has gone against pitchers being able to swing the bat competently. The Blue Jays pay Halladay a pretty handsome salary to pitch. He still had another inning, maybe two in him last night, and he was denied that because one league, for whatever reason, doesn't half to play be late 20th/21st century baseball rules.
Point being, things change, people accept them, get used to them and move on. There is something disquieting about sports fans who can't accept the designated hitter almost 40 years after it was adopted.
(As sidebar, one idea that has been floated out for interleague play is to use the visiting team's rules. Let the fans see a different style of game. That's not a half-bad idea.
Speaking from self-interest, that would mean Matt Stairs would not get to start at DH when the Philadelphia Phillies come to Toronto for an interleague series in June. Nuts to that.)
The Vegas shuttle
The moves the Blue Jays made over the 48 hours reflect how they have a pretty sharp front office and less-than-swift ownership.
It is a wise move to ship out pitchers Brett Cecil and Bobby Ray, God's gift of sunshine Travis Snider and bring up Casey Janssen (who starts tonight vs. Atlanta), a rehabbed Ricky Romero and utilityman Inglett, who's good at being average at a lot of things. A key bit of understanding is that (unnecessarily) expanded pitching staffs lead teams to run a constant shuttle between the major-league team and Triple-A to effectively create what Bud Selig would never a allow: A 28- or 29-man roster instead of 25. Of course, that would be a lot easier for the Jays if their top farm club wasn't 3,597 kilometres away in Las Vegas.
Fabio Castro (pictured), as most diehard farm system-studying diehards know, had a 24-inning scoreless streak in Las Vegas. Castro, who was an Ottawa Lynx in 2007, is a curiosity since he's only 5-foot-7 (if that) and he's also on his fourth organization while still only being 24 years old. He might be good lefty-reliever timbre if Jesse Carlson falters.
MLB Trade Rumors figures Travis Snider might stay down in Triple-A until after the all-star break in July. It has to do with keeping him from becoming eligible for arbitration and free agency, all that fun stuff.
Drunk Jays Fans also laid waste to any notion of an attitude problem:
It's convenient to point out the closest Triple-A team to Toronto, the Buffalo Bisons, are dead last so far in their first season as the affiliate of the New York Mets. (The Jays' farm club in Las Vegas is 10 games below .500, but that's neither here nor there.)
7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 SO, 95 pitches, 63 for strikesYou know the rest: Halladay came out for a pinch-hitter with a runner on second and two out in the top of the eighth inning. The Atlanta Braves scored off lefty reliever Jesse Carlson in the home half for a 1-0 win on the first night of interleague play.
There isn't a manager alive who doesn't pinch-hit when the game is tied in the eighth inning. That is precisely the point. The self-described purists say they love all the strategy that goes on in the National League. It's not strategy when the decision is automatic. Praising the strategy in the NL is like praising an NFL coach who opts for a 99.9% automatic extra-point kick instead of going for a two-point conversation in the first quarter.
What happened last night also puts the lie to one of the big sells with interleague play. Major League Baseball, back when this contagion was introduced in the late 1990s, said it would help fans to gain an appreciation of the stars in the other league. Well, Roy Halladay, baseball's best right-handed pitcher, was removed through no fault of his own after facing only 26 batters and throwing just 95 pitches. They didn't get the full measure of the Good Doctor.
One objection here is that most of the people who were at the game barely noticed. Fans in Atlanta went home happy because their Braves won. That's fine and dandy like sour candy, but not addressing something just because most people wouldn't notice either way is kind of dumb. Why try to do anything better, in that case?
Maybe this was more irritating to a Jays fan since they lost the game. However, they could have won while removing a starting pitcher while he was still fresh, which is also wrongheaded on a certain level.
The National League dinosaurs have their conceits. Their league is the aggressive, get-after-'em brand of baseball. The average AL team this season has actually stolen more bases than the average NL team (31-25). It would be neat to know if that is a reflection of being able to have nine hitters in the lineup who have all learned to hit and run the bases (relatively speaking) instead of eight (two big reasons are the two most steal-happy teams, the L.A. Angels and Tampa Bay Rays, are in the AL, while the most station-to-station team going, Milwaukee, is a NL team).
Then there's the great double switch. Far be it to point out that it can often mean taking out either the leadoff or No. 2 hitter and at least ostensibly, that can mean losing a player who is good enough to hit higher in the lineup than all the other starters.
As previously noted, National League teams don't have a problem with their minor-league affiliates using a DH (the pitcher only bats in games between two NL-affiliated teams) in order to get their farmhands more at-bats. They don't mind using a DH in spring training games to get someone more chances to fine-tune his swing.
More strategic thinking goes on in the AL. The manager has to decide to change pitchers based on effectiveness, not when the No. 9 spot is due up in the order. Weighing the benefits of pinch-hitting one position player for another, or whether to pinch-run for the catcher and run the risk of an injury to the other catcher, that actually involves some thinking.
The NL rules are as dishonest as The Sporting News headline which says Atlanta's pitcher, Kenshin Kawakami was able to "outduel" Halladay. Kawakami was full value for the effort with eight shutout innings, but he would have come out for a pinch-hitter earlier if Halladay hadn't been so darned effective, or if the Braves hadn't had last bat.
At the heart of the matter is that the way baseball has evolved over time has gone against pitchers being able to swing the bat competently. The Blue Jays pay Halladay a pretty handsome salary to pitch. He still had another inning, maybe two in him last night, and he was denied that because one league, for whatever reason, doesn't half to play be late 20th/21st century baseball rules.
Point being, things change, people accept them, get used to them and move on. There is something disquieting about sports fans who can't accept the designated hitter almost 40 years after it was adopted.
(As sidebar, one idea that has been floated out for interleague play is to use the visiting team's rules. Let the fans see a different style of game. That's not a half-bad idea.
Speaking from self-interest, that would mean Matt Stairs would not get to start at DH when the Philadelphia Phillies come to Toronto for an interleague series in June. Nuts to that.)
The Vegas shuttle
The moves the Blue Jays made over the 48 hours reflect how they have a pretty sharp front office and less-than-swift ownership.It is a wise move to ship out pitchers Brett Cecil and Bobby Ray, God's gift of sunshine Travis Snider and bring up Casey Janssen (who starts tonight vs. Atlanta), a rehabbed Ricky Romero and utilityman Inglett, who's good at being average at a lot of things. A key bit of understanding is that (unnecessarily) expanded pitching staffs lead teams to run a constant shuttle between the major-league team and Triple-A to effectively create what Bud Selig would never a allow: A 28- or 29-man roster instead of 25. Of course, that would be a lot easier for the Jays if their top farm club wasn't 3,597 kilometres away in Las Vegas.
Fabio Castro (pictured), as most diehard farm system-studying diehards know, had a 24-inning scoreless streak in Las Vegas. Castro, who was an Ottawa Lynx in 2007, is a curiosity since he's only 5-foot-7 (if that) and he's also on his fourth organization while still only being 24 years old. He might be good lefty-reliever timbre if Jesse Carlson falters.
MLB Trade Rumors figures Travis Snider might stay down in Triple-A until after the all-star break in July. It has to do with keeping him from becoming eligible for arbitration and free agency, all that fun stuff.
Drunk Jays Fans also laid waste to any notion of an attitude problem:
"(Assistant GM Alex) Anthopoulos also gave Snider credit, when the delightful Mike Toth threw down some hockeyish bullshit and asked if Snider's request to Cito to stop giving him so much information in-game suggested that maybe there was a problem with 'coachability,' saying that he did it in a very respectful manner, and that they thought it was a positive that Snider wasn't intimidated to go into the manager’s office."Getting back to the point, Rogers should have tried a little harder to get a Triple-A team located in the Eastern time zone. It is tempting to point out there is a 10,332-seat ballpark located a 4½-hour drive away in Ottawa that was built for Triple-A and is less than 20 years old. That ship has sailed, though, since the International League just doesn't want teams to have to come to Canada in April and May.
It's convenient to point out the closest Triple-A team to Toronto, the Buffalo Bisons, are dead last so far in their first season as the affiliate of the New York Mets. (The Jays' farm club in Las Vegas is 10 games below .500, but that's neither here nor there.)
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Vees for victory!
The same three words keep coming to mind, "They did it. They did it."Others can fill in the details, but the Kingston has a championship hockey team in a league of some consequence for the first time since the days of seven-man hockey, pretty much. The Kingston Kimco Voyageurs beat the Oakville Blades 5-2 tonight on Jarrett Burton's hat trick to wrap up the Ontario Junior Hockey League final in six games. As so often happens in a deciding game, Kingston removed all doubts early, scoring four goals in the first nine minutes. Oakville got within two in the the third period before Burton got the sealer with 4:22 to play. The next step, as if winning five playoff rounds wasn't enough, is the Dudley Hewitt Cup in Schreiber (near Thunder Bay), the regional qualifier for the RBC Cup.
The story is best left to those who were there, such as Kinger, who had the call for TVCogeco, and to the hometown Whig-Standard. It's been far too long for a team from hockey's hub to play this deep into the spring, but the Vees' triumph is significant on its own, not just as a contrast to what their junior hockey neighbours at the downtown arena have done or not done over the past decade.
Full marks go to the Vees coach Evan Robinson, who knew in that dressing room there was a group destined to play the kind of hockey which had not been seen in a very long time in Kingston. Goalie Shawn Sirman, who's been a wall throughout the playoffs, kicked out 46 shots in the clincher, while Mike Farrell's goal exactly one minute after the opening faceoff helped start the onslaught.
Meantime, the coach of the other team, Doug Gilmour, told the FAN 590 yesterday that they will draft Ottawa-born centre Alan Quine with the No. 2 overall pick. (It was in The Whig and Ottawa Sun earlier today.) Who knows, maybe the Vees' good karma rubs off on the Frontenacs.
(This might be something to get into later: The OJHL, which has an ongoing tension between mostly Toronto-area teams and the ones outside the GTA, is realigning, so Kingston and Oakville will be in the same conference next season. Cobourg, Wellington, Peterborough and Pickering will each be on the other side, so much for geographical rivalries. Maybe they should pull out and join the CJHL; easier route to nationals!)
Related:
Kingston Kimco Voyageurs win league title (Kingston Whig-Standard)
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Zen Dayley: Angels pitcher, agent die in crash
Nick Adenhart rates more than a bullet point.The Los Angeles Angels right-hander died in a hit-and-run collision last night, one of three young people killed by an apparent drunk driver. The others, who are bound to get less attention, were a young woman named Courtney Stewart and a young man named Henry Pearson, who as it turned out is a childhood friend of Matt Clapp from Sharapova's Thigh, who wrote a must-read tribute.
The point is the world of sports is not good at dealing with this, not that it necessarily should since grief and overcoming pain and wrong and death is personal. Running over the franchise's history, which seems to include a disproportionate high number of people connected to the Angels who have died young, does no one any good. It doesn't dilute the troubled waters, doesn't moot the unspeakable, a 22-year-old — a teenager, practically — dead. Scott Boras broke down during the press conference, so keep that in mind next time someone complains about him.
It is senseless to evoke Donnie Moore or Lyman Bostock. It probably means the people who were connected to those earlier events have to relive it, so spare a thought for them.
A ball club, like anything else, constantly evolves, on the field, in the front office, even in the stands. At the end of the day, there's a young man's family, his teammates and the people who believed they had a connection because they knew his height, age and jersey number. It's brutal, although statistically speaking, it happens every day.
Adenhart figured to have an excellent chance at a long and productive career, as did Pearson. No doubt this will become a first point of reference with how L.A.'s season plays out, although that's of secondary concern.
(Of all the things to happen the week you finally read Douglas Coupland's The Gum Thief, where dying young is a big theme.)
Damn, the Jays
- Ricky Romero was all right, eh? Two earnies across six innings.
- As you probably heard, Jays GM J.P. Ricciardi is no longer making his regular post-game Wednesday radio appearances with Mike Wilner. One wonders if that was Adam Dunn fallout, some corporate edict from Rogers, although the official word is he just didn't want to do it anymore, like someone else who you're reading right now.
For the Jays, It's also more expedient if Ricciardi is no longer so visible. - Sports figures can have selective memories. The FAN 590's Alan Ashby touched on his memories of his major-league debut during the Tigers-Jays game today, since it was a matchup of two debutantes, Ricky Romero and Rick Porcello (fortunately for the Jays, they got Porcello in his first start, not his 15th, not unlike a game in 2007 when they hit around some skinny San Fran right-hander named Tim Lincecum).
Ashby said he recalled coming in for defence in a home game and making his first start at Tiger Stadium against a Detroit team that had Al Kaline, Norm Cash and Willie Horton, et al. He didn't mention that his first start came on July 4, 1973, Independence Day in the U.S.
That's the difference between athletes and the civilian population. You would remember if something momentous in your life came on a major holiday. Alan Ashby's focus, back as a 21-year-old catcher, was calling pitches for Milt Wilcox and Tom Hilgendorf, who checked the Tigers on eight hits in a 5-2 win for the Clevelands.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
The door is open ...
Ottawa 67's owner Jeff Hunt was on the FAN 590 tonight and left the door open to partnering with a soccer team, if Ottawa ever gets a stadium.
Related:
'Other' options for Ottawa (The 24th Minute)
"For soccer fans the highlight of the discussion came when Hunt said that they would look into bringing a MLS 'or other professional soccer league' to their stadium if they win the day. Although the cynic in all of us might dismiss that as just pandering to anyone in city that is leaning towards the footy option, let’s take it at face value for now." — The 24th MinuteThe possibility of soccer was mentioned during the Lansdowne Live press conference back in October (although it might have come off better if there had been any trace of soccer memorabilia on the podium).
Related:
'Other' options for Ottawa (The 24th Minute)
Monday, April 06, 2009
Batter up: Chicago Cubs
It's that mystical, wonderful time of year where you commit to a team who you know fully well won't win. In honour of an popular Internet meme, we'll present 25 things tangentially about each Major League Baseball team. At bat: The Chicago Cubs.- Baseball Prospectus 2009's leaderboards see Rich Harden of Victoria, B.C., leading the majors in ERA (3.04), WHIP (1.12) and strikeouts (235).
- Canadian insult: Ryan Dempster can go do his impression of Will Ferrell doin' an impression of Harry Caray out in the middle of a mosquito-infested lake, eh.
Dempster and his spouse, Jennifer, were expecting a baby (a girl who was born last Thursday), so it's understandable that he demurred from playing for Team Canada at the WBC (although someone should have told the guy in Montreal who wrote, "Dempster must think those millionaire hockey players in the NHL who always seem to jump at the opportunity to represent Canada are crazy." There's still one living Montreal Maroon.)
Dempster also just put up Triple Crown stats of 17-6 and a 2.96 ERA with 187 strikeouts, a once-a-career season, so one can understand why he wouldn't want change his routine. Granted, liking sports is not about being rational. - Sometimes it is this simple: The Cubbies led the National League in on-base (.354) and slugging percentage (.443) last year before adding Milton Bradley's big bat.
- Their outlook summed up in one line from an Apatow movie: "Try some wrong, dog." It's a good group of complementary players, with catcher Geovany Soto as the one legit star at the eight everyday spots.
- It's tempting to think ace Carlos Zambrano spoke for more than a few players when he wished the Cubs would get a new stadium. The place is 95 years old, for pete's sake.
- The Cubs don't have a ton of depth in their farm system, raising the question of what they would give the Padres for Jake Peavy.
- Harden has a rep as damaged goods. The Beep notes that Cubs manager Lou Piniella has a track record with brilliant-but-brittle pitchers. Jose Rijo had his three best seasons with Piniella in Cincinnati from 1990-92, averaging 204 innings a season with a 2.59 ERA and 1.107 WHIP.
- Carlos Marmol has been the closer-elect for a while. Kevin Gregg, who saved 29 games for Florida last season, has been installed as closer.
- You'll grow sick of hearing that leftfielder Alfonso Soriano went 3-for-28 in the playoffs the past two seasons. The sample sizes in the post-season are too small to really form firm conclusions.
- Milton Bradley, who's 31, wasn't born the last time a Cubs had a 30-homer season from a left-handed hitter. That streak likely continues unless you believe Kosuke Fukudome has some latent home-run tendencies.
Bradley is more dangerous from the right side, but going with Fukudome in right field again is the equivalent of bringing Zambuca to a party. Fukudome's passable in centrefield if there's no one better. - Neal Cotts is the only left-hander in the bullpen. Marmol is pretty tough on all hitters, though.
- Neither second baseman Mike Fontenot nor shortstop Ryan Theriot is up to playing every day, but they can be on the Bobby Hebert All-Stars every day (that's American athletes with French-sounding names; they won a College World Series title together at Louisiana State).
- Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez make for a decent set of corner infielders. It's still hard to believe Lee once had 99 extra-base hits in a season.
- Minor League Ball says the Cubs have "no one with impact hitting potential at the higher levels" of the minor leagues. There goes another destination for Roy Halladay.
- Theodore Lilly is a good glue guy as the fourth starter, 200 innings a season, ERA in the high 3s or low 4s. Sweet liquor eases the pain of the year when he was the lone Jay selected for the all-star game, even if he and I share a birthday.
- Former Jay Reed Johnson, according to a panel of Jays Talk callers, has been voted the greatest baseball player of all time. He wasn't a league-average hitter last season. He didn't have a 50% success rate as a base stealer (5-for-11) and he only hit six home runs all season while playing at Wrigley Field, but he's a white guy who always looks like he's trying really hard.
We dare not think of the bitterness that will happen if the Cubbies make the World Series. - True to form, the Chicago writers are already up in arms over Fukudome starting in centrefield over Johnson: "Forget the idea of a platoon unless Johnson shows one is necessary."Johnson has a career on-base-plus-slugging of .712 vs. right-handers. What more does he have to do to show it's necessary?
- The Cubs are 163-128 (.560) since June 1, 2007. Keep in mind that includes the oh-fer in the playoffs.
- It's fake baseball, so it shouldn't really be annoying, but National League teams shouldn't get use a DH whenever they pretty much feel like it during spring training games. They get to have it both ways: More swings for their players before the season starts, less swings for the AL teams' guys once the season starts. Screw them.
- Kris Pollina was the only one out of Baseball Daily Digest's 11 prognosticators who doesn't have the Cubbies making their third straight playoff appearance (which would be unprecedented for a Chicago baseball team).
- Good trivia question for the year 2025: Utilityman Aaron Miles got the first hit in the new Yankee Stadium.
- Right-hander Jeff Samardzija gave up football to focus on baseball, but as long as he's in same city as the NFL's Bears, he's the best wide receiver in town. (Yes, Samardzija is in Triple-A.)
(This what happens when you cheer for the Vikings and they don't get Jay Cutler. You have to compliment a Notre Dame guy to zing the Bears.) - Great Bermanesque nickname suggestion, which best of all, did not come from Chris Berman: Bleed Cubbie Blue has come up with Starlin "Vocal Band" Castro.
The Cubs do play the most afternoon games of any major-league team. - Pedro MartÃnez's career 4.12 ERA at Wrigley Field is the worst for any part where he's pitched at least 50 innings. That might come up later this season — or not.
- One reason not to replace Wrigley that no one thought of: There is the risk future generations might not get the part in The Blues Brothers when Dan Aykroyd's character listed his address as 1060 West Addison St.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Ron Wilson has Berger for breakfast, lunch and dinner
Please enjoy Leafs coach Ron Wilson messing with the FAN 590's Howard Berger tonight before TSN and Sportsnet ruin it tomorrow.
Absolutely brilliant, since Wilson owned every moment. You ask a question like, "So, were you annoyed by all those penalties?" and you have it coming. Hockey beat reporters do invaluable work for those on the other side of the rope, but once in a while they need to be reminded they're completely incidental to the whole operation.
Related:
Ron Wilson is a bad man (Cox Bloc)
He had it coming (Norman James Sports)
Absolutely brilliant, since Wilson owned every moment. You ask a question like, "So, were you annoyed by all those penalties?" and you have it coming. Hockey beat reporters do invaluable work for those on the other side of the rope, but once in a while they need to be reminded they're completely incidental to the whole operation.
Related:
Ron Wilson is a bad man (Cox Bloc)
He had it coming (Norman James Sports)
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Canadian who likes baseball actually allowed to commentate baseball
And the world, remarkably has not spun off its axis.
The FAN 590's Mike Wilner, who's something of a folk hero in these parts, let it be known that he will have the call of Canada's first-round World Baseball Classic games next weekend. He'll partner up with ex-Jay Paul Spoljaric, who'll handle the colour.
"It’s my pleasure to announce the broadcast crew for the Fan Radio Network’s coverage! I’ll be doing the play-by-play, and former Blue Jay and Team Canada member Paul Spoljaric will be providing the colour commentary.It's a bit of crack in the glass ceiling. No disrespect to any of the play-by-play voices who have handled the Blue Jays since the days of Dan Shulman, but it's always seemed like the only way to get a shot was to be a hockey guy who was slumming or be a studio host who would learn on the job (Rob Faulds and the guy whose name should always be typed in bolditalics as a send-up of his faux folksiness).
I can’t tell you how thrilled and excited I am to be given this opportunity, and I couldn’t be more thankful to Nelson Millman for having the faith in me to give me this chance, and to Doug Farraway for being strongly in my corner."
It's not a huge deal, but Wilner has been on the Jays beat since his days as a U of T student in the early '90s, and it's always nice to see an assignment handed out on the basis of who's passionate about the sport. It doesn't happen every day in the media.
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