Sportsnet: One suggestion for how it could get it right

Rogers Sportsnet ought to see if it can turn into a hardcore sex channel so gradually that no one even notices.

It's bound to work better than what they've been doing. In a space about 15 minutes late Sunday night during the Philadelphia Phillies' win over the Colorado Rockies, Sportsnet ...

• ... Aired a promo for Game 4 of the American League Division Series between the "never-say-die Twins" and the New York Yankees. The Yankees had wrapped up the series in three games. Sportsnet could not have been expected to know this since the entire series aired on their network.


• Evanka Osmak — who is probably the best anchor they have — plugged a sponsor by saying the fans in frigid Denver could "use a shot of Wiser's to warm up." It is cheesy to plug the sponsor again after it was already introduced.
  
  (Secondly, it is a myth alcohol warms the body. It actually constricts blood vessels. There's an irony an English major pointing this out about something said about a graduate of the Faculty of Applied Science at Queen's University.)
  


• Sportsnet waited oh about 30 seconds after the final out to go to Sportsnet Connected so people could see the same highlights which already had been on every other channel hours earlier. Canadian viewers are just as entitled to see the post-game interviews. Apparently TBS let a clearly audible F-bomb make it to the airwaves.
  
  That was a missed chance to start gradually turning into a hardcore sex channel.
  

This is mainly worth pointing out to say last week's media uproar over Sportsnet keeping the Tigers-Twins tiebreaker game off the air in much of the country and sniffing consumers were at fault for not buying more channels was entirely justified. It's a joke. Chris Zelkovich noted in his Toronto Star column this was a huge screw-you to fixed-income seniors who make up a lot of baseball's viewership. Ball fans are getting screwed over. Please keep in mind Rogers has a lot to do with MLB Network being unavailable in Canada.

A better question from the young old farts is why doesn't Sportsnet stream all playoff games, so ball fans aren't put out when there's a conflict with hockey? Tonight, the Pittsburgh Penguins-Senators game is on the East channel at the same time as Rockies-Phillies. Anyone in Ottawa who has access to only one Sportsnet won't be able to get the ballgame.

Let people register with their account number and go from there, that way they're not giving it away for free. A leading telecom such as Rogers should be able to make it happen. Just a thought.

It feels bad to mention Osmak when 30 other nameless jagovs are responsible for these editorial policies, so-called. For her, it might be like the epiphany Robin Scherbatsky once had: "And that was when your Aunt Robin realized that even the bosses at Metro News One didn't watch Metro News One." That was on Season 1 of How I Met Your Mother, which on tonight as the same time as the baseball game Rogers customers cannot watch.

A Jay a Day: Chad 'Stephen' Jenkins, the difference is pitchability

Hopefully for Chad Jenkins, it's not a bad omen that MLB.com's draft tracker displayed his name incorrectly for several minutes.

The Blue Jays seem to have said "yes" to the several-million-dollar question about going over slot to sign a draft choice; baseball nerds everywhere, rejoice! There was interest in that than who they were actually going to draft. Jenkins, a Roy Halladay-idolizing right-hander from obscure Kennesaw (Ga.) State, was described as a "a cheap option who could rise quickly to the major leagues." However, they used the compensatory pick they got when A.J. Burnett flew the coop to take a Canadian left-handed pitcher, James Paxton.

Paxton's agent is Scott Boras, so yippie-ki-yay, it looks like they're finally going over slot, finally. Expect that A.J. Burnett angle to become a big part of Paxton's backstory.

Anyway, this is about the slotting thingamajig. Former Jays assistant GM Bart Given wrote Monday night at sportsnet.ca wrote that the Jays pretty much had to do it this time around, if not in the first roundt: "After a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind you back?"

For the time being, this looks like a win-win. Leave aside that it is is lily-gilding to say Jenkins was seen as a potential 10th overall pick. The Washington Nationals were seemed mostly interested in using that pick on someone who would "agree to a pre-draft slot deal." Meantime, Paxton, who can touch 98 mph and who played for the University of Kentucky with Ottawa native Chris Bisson, the Wildcats' second baseman, ended up falling to the Jays at 37th overall.

There was some more CanCon. The Jays' second-rounder is another Canadian lefty, Jake Eliopoulos from Walkerton, Ontario. (A pitcher from Walkerton? It must be something in the water. What, too soon?) Hell, if you want to localize even farther, the third-rounder, high school righty Jake Barrett, played for Team USA when it won the silver medal at the world junior championship in Edmonton last summer. Barrett, who was on the cover of ESPN Rise, is apparently supposed to be going to Arizona State.

Anyway, ours is not to say how those four pitchers will develop for the Jays. It would be a minor miracle if two of them have a substantial major-league career. Jenkins, for one, is a very intelligent pitcher, with a three-pitch mix. Oddly enough, if you poke around on Google, "three-pitch mix" comes up a fair bit with Barrett and Eliopoulos. They all have pitchability.

In a sense, it seems like the Jays worked around the broken draft system. As Given explained:

"The MLB draft is broken; the lack of enforceable slotting allows the best players to set a bonus price so high, they essentially place themselves with the teams employing the largest budgets. Not surprisingly these teams have commonly been the Red Sox and Yankees, although the Tigers and a couple of others have joined the superpowers in recent years.

"Toronto's organizational policy of not going over slot has effectively reduced the number of players available for director Jon Lalonde's scouting department to draft. If an amateur player's representative set a high price tag, the Blue Jays have placed him on the 'unsignable due to price' board. In recent years, this board has increased in size to contain hundreds of names.

"In a way, it's been commendable that Toronto has been the only team to play by the rules in recent years. But after a while, what's the point of playing the game with one hand tied behind your back?"

That dynamic came into play with Mike Trout, a high school outfielder from New Jersey who is seen as a five-tool player and who was available. Trout, who is said to be demanding a $2.5-million US signing bonus, went appropriately enough 25th overall to the L.A. Angels (by the way, Bud Selig's pronunciation of "Los Angeles Angels" has to be heard to be believed).

Trout, at least according to MLB Network (like the The Tao of Stieb says, can we get this in Canada, please?), provided the feel-good moment of the first round since he was in the TV studio in Secaucus, N.J. However, it's really kind of twisted. You have a plaer who's elated to be taken 25th instead of 17th since the Angels have a bigger budget than clubs which were drafting earlier. Only in Bud Selig's world could that be treated as positive news.

Anyway, it's nice to see one's favourite team in any sport come around. Imagine the fallout if an owner came out and said he would pay his players the lowest salaries in the major leagues. It would be bloody scandalous. The refusal to go over slot is on a smaller scale. It does not get much attention outside of Seamheads. There's enough trouble in Canada getting people to understand that draft choices cannot be traded in baseball. However, people have to understand, it's not about the payroll with the Jays. It's about what they put into player development at the front end, going over slot in the amateur draft and international scouting. They weren't doing that for several years. There's a little glimmer of promise, although it looked shaky there when Chad Jenkins' name was called tonight. It's probably too naive by half to hope playing the Canada card would help in negotiations with Paxton, but one can always dream.

Jenkins seems like he could be a good buy-low. Two writers at Baseball America who did a mock draft saw him ending up with the Jays:

"We have other options for power lefties in this draft though. Two, Andy Oliver and Canada native James Paxton, are attractive at 20 but also have Scott Boras Corp. advising them. ... In the end, Kennesaw State righthander Chad Jenkins is too attractive. Yes, there are college closers we could convert (and we've had success doing it), but why do that when Jenkins is on the board? He has stuff, he has pitchability and he has relatively low mileage on his arm because the Owls were never postseason-eligible while Jenkins was in college. Make it so." (Emphasis mine.)

For those wondering, Kurtenblog did a riff on "pitchability" right before the 2007 World Series.

Mike Wilner said on Jays Talk tonight that Jenkins expected ETA in the majors would be late 2011. Coming from an off-the-beaten-path school such as Kennesaw State, which plays in something called the Atlantic Sun conference, isn't a mark against him. He didn't put a lot of extra miles on his 21-year-old arm by pitching in the post-season, when college coaches run up ginormous pitch counts.

Plus, you have to like that Jenkins described being scouted as "hot and heavy." He must be a Seinfeld fan.

Bottom line, the Jays took three youngsters with pitch, wait for it, ability.

Besides, it was another part of a good sports night. We're getting a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup final. The Orlando Magic ensured the NBA Finals will not be a sweep for Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers. Meantime, at Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox lit A.J. Burnett up like the Coconut Grove fire in a 7-0 rout.

(Incidentally, someone in the Tampa Bay Rays front office obviously was a big fan of The Band, judging by the given name of their first-rounder, LeVon Washington.)

The laughter seemed exceptionally forced

There is no truth that Matt Vasgersian's producer hides his eyes when he's on the air, the way people used to when Mitch Williams pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies. But they might want to:



Long story short, MLB Network had just shown Colorado outfielder Brad Hawpe being taken off the field after being struck in the neck by the ball while sliding into second base. Vasgersian, God love him, noticed one of the attending medical personnel was African-American and a bit on the stout side, so ...

Vasgersian: "Can you guys go back to that, uh, I thought I recognized somebody in that shot that I'd like to take another look when they were putting Ryan — I mean Brad Hawpe — on the cart there. Is that Donovan McNabb right there?"
Mitch Williams: "Dude!"
Vasgersian: "I thought he was on the field as an EMT."
Third MLB Network dude: "In Colorado?"

Eventually, everyone slips up since the on-air talent is under such pressure to be hip and edgy, but that probably wasn't the time for a joke about the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback.

It used to be taboo in the media to joke that two African-Americans looked alike, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. It's not racist, it's definitely not a hanging offence. It's more like something Don Cherry once said to Ron MacLean, "A million comedians starvin' to death, and you're trying to be one!" Snark is for amateurs, indeed.

(Clip via Babes Love Baseball.)

Not yet on the side of the majority, but time to Poz and reflect

This conversation, really, should be over, thanks to Poz.

"Baseball folks just do not seem to get that the people who get into baseball statistics often do it BECAUSE they love the game, because they want to understand it better, because they want to celebrate the greatest players, because they want a more specific answer than 'We had great team chemistry' or 'John just knows how to come through in the clutch.' "

Long story short, some of the I-played-the-game, don't-question-my-authoritah baseball flat-earthers resurrected that rubric on the otherwise awesome MLB
Network over the weekend.

At this point, it's best just to hope as time rolls along, sabermetrics will just continue to slowly seep into the mainstream. Good friend Neil Acharya always makes the point that 20 years ago, you never heard on-base percentage cited on a baseball broadcast. Today, it is displayed every time someone comes up to bat. These things take time.

Related:
Straw Hats and Calculators (Joe Posnanski)

Snark break ...

(Please omit flowers for the Montreal Impact. Canadian soccer teams always being the scrappy underdog is so little for the mind ... but they came so close.)

There is a method to the madness of the CFL legalizing the Wildcat formation: Based on last season, the Argos should have the quarterback handling the ball as little as possible.

It's good to see the single point we know and love will be spared. It might be universally regarded as an award for failure, but that's Canada at its essence. Thank your lucky stars for that, eh, John Tory?

Say whatever you want about Terrell Owens, but four quarterbacks have thrown 30 touchdown passes in a season with him, and only one of them ever did it without him, Hall of Famer Steve Young. Granted, it's better for ESPN when the Dallas Cowboys are stupid. (Fist bump: Pacifist Viking.)

Ontario Hockey League commissioner David Branch said this week the recession is having "no significant impact on the league." For instance, the Kingston Frontenacs will sell as many playoff tickets as they did last season.

That's not a cheap shot when you consider that the Frontenacs tried to blame their attendance on the recession, despite the fact most season tickets were paid in full before the Dow took a dump.

Thank you, Cox Bloc: We want Sean Avery. We need Sean Avery.

Lastly, one for The Tao of Stieb: It's a sad commentary on the state of Canadian literacy that so many have heard Prime Time Sports regular James Deacon on the radio, but never read one of his columns.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting

• The MLB Network is getting rave reviews, which perfectly explains why it could never get carriage in Canada.
  
• Twitter is bad, very bad. Go tweet that to all of your followers.
• Ottawa native Chris Bisson, a sophomore shortstop at the University of Kentucky, is on the Canadian Baseball Network's 2010 draft list.
• The economy is bad, Ken Griffey is back in Seattle, it's pretty much like the early '90s, so perfect time for all four Seinfeld actors to reunite.
  
  (In the old days, this would have inspired a Top 5, but turns out ESPN.com did the best Seinfeld sports moments almost five years ago.

Rodriguez: Thirteen thoughts on the baseball Judas

It is better for your health to "ignore these blowhards" with regard to the media coverage of the Alex Rodriguez scandal, to quote FanGraphs, which has created the Hyperbole Index (HI, for short).

Good friend Pete Toms notes this is a chattering class issue. The majority of people who will attend ballgames, just for something to do or on a company outing, will have forgotten about this by April. For sanity's sake, condensing the whole Rodriguez matter to 13 thoughts seems appropriate for putting the matter to bed for a few days.

1. Rodriguez breaking the home run record... good thing: Contary to what you might have heard, Rodriguez has not destroyed the game's history. His shame will serve to liberate it from the conceit, kept up by self-appointed gatekeepers such as Bob Costas, that baseball is the best game of all because of its record book.
   
   Those of you who have also watched all 18½ hours of Ken Burns' Baseball, six times over in the past 15 years might remember this part. At one point, Costas says the grand old game stands alone since you can rhyme off numbers such as 56, 755, 4,256, .406 and everyone will get the reference. In other sports it is, "How many yards did Jim Brown have when Walter Payton passed him? How points did Wilt Chamberlain have when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar passed him to become the all-time leading scorer in the NBA?"
   
   Statistics are a good backup for confirming what you saw or filling in what you missed. It's mostly a reflection of the competition player faced, the conditions (i.e., segregation, scouting, home ballpark), the way the game was played at the time and whether he was fortunate enough to enjoy a long career. Everything needs to be put into context, not just the Steroid Era.
   
   The failure to understand is this is why Dick Allen, who played in the low-scoring 1960s and early '70s, is not in the Hall of Fame. It is also a big part of why Jim Rice got in last month by the skin of his teeth. Oh, and remember, anyone who played before the game was fully integrated, their numbers are a bit suspect too.
   
   It's a fair leap, but if the top two home run hitters of all time are a pair of universally hated cheaters, perhaps it gets slower-thinking sportswriters to stop furrowing their brows in a vain attempt to understand the situation. This is a small, nerdy point to list first.
   
   
2. Marvin Miller must be laughing. The now 91-year-old former players' union boss warned five years ago (The Biz of Baseball, July 13, 2004) that the U.S. government might step all over players' constitutional rights in order to be the white knight on Steroids in Sports. No one was listening (guilty as charged):

   "... it's one thing if an employer makes it a labor-management issue. It's quite another when the government says, 'I now will subpoena records of confidential tests and I will use the material,' which, after all is tantamount to saying, 'I will require self-incrimination and I may send some of you to jail.' I think the sports media, like so much of the other media, is just asleep on this issue."

3. This shall pass. This is only the second-worst scandal in sports history, according to the estimable Seattle baseball writer Geoff Baker. (Canadians might be interested to know what claimed the No. 1 and No. 5 berths.) People are so jaded that they can shrug this off, noting it was timed so it keeps Steroids in Baseball on the front burner in the lead-up to the start of Barry Bonds' trial (which is going so, so well for the prosecutors).
   
   
4. Statistics can prove anything; 14 per cent of all people know that. Baseball was due to see an attendance decrease in 2009 due to the recession. Expect someone to blame that on the Bonds and Rodriguez fallout.
   
   
5. Putting the media on trial: The Sports Law Professor turned the cannon on Sports Illustrated's Selena Roberts, who broke the story Saturday.

   "Where is the reporters' complicity? I see Selena Roberts, Sports Illustrated's new back-page moralizer ... being interviewed on evening news programs without having to answer for her conduct. If it not permissible for an insider to reveal the contents of sealed evidence, then why is it morally permissible (if not illegal) for an outsider, especially a veteran reporter experienced in prying admissions out of reluctant innocents, to cajole and entice such insiders to break their known legal obligations? Isn't luring another to commit a wrong just as culpable as the wrong itself?"

6. In other words, Rodriguez didn't have to make stuff up: Rodriguez steered some of his ESPN interview with Peter Gammons around to spewing invective about Roberts. He even went so far to accuse of her of committing a B&E:

   "What makes me upset is Sports Illustrated pays this lady Selena Roberts to stalk me. This lady has been thrown out of my apartment in New York City. This lady has, five days ago she was thrown out of the University of Miami police for tresspassing. And four days ago she tried to break into my house while my girls are up there sleeping, and got cited by the Miami Beach Police. I have the paper here. And this lady's coming out with all these allegations, all these lies, because she’s writing an article for Sports Illustrated. And she's coming out with a book in May. And really respectable journalists are following this lady off the cliff, and following her lead. And that to me is unfortunate.

   Jeff Pearlman has some choice words for Gammons for not challenging Rodriguez's assertions. Roberts was also slagged by The Futility Infielder last night.
   
   
7. Yes, him again: Rodriguez's infamy means that Pete Rose, who's been sent down the river so many times only to keep bobbing up like some raspy-voiced Rasputin, can continue his two-decade-old image rehabilitation.
   
   Rose was on MLB Home Plate on Tuesday afternoon, where he drew a distinction between his crimes as an athlete-gambler and a juicer: "What I did had nothing to do with the direct outcome of a game. What I did (betting on baseball), I did as a manager." That might be a flimsy premise, but taking a banned substance definitely impacts
   
   For what it's worth, Rose did not buy any claim Rodriguez was young and naive in 2001-03, pointing out "he wasn't a kid." Granted, at the time Rodriguez was playing for a team whose former managing partner who referred to things he did in his 30s as "youthful indiscretions." Maybe that gave him the idea (kidding).
   
   
8. Cooperstown needs new shorts: Rose, who of course wants to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame worst than anything, said, "I just got a call from a guy in Cooperstown. He's all pissed off. He's like, this is going to ruin us because no one from the last 10 years is going to get into the Hall of Fame because of steroids."
   
   There would not be a problem if the Baseball Writers' Association of America would get off its collective high horse, but that's another 100 posts. To borrow a phrase from one of Kinger's contemporaries, Tim Cunningham, the Hall of Fame voting system is "totally broken." A-Rod sticking a needle in his bum doesn't let anyone off the hook.
   
   
9. Comfortably numb: Please keep in mind that some other big name will get out at some point.
   
   
10. Who is innocent by association? Poz noted Frank Thomas, who was just naturally huge and cooperated with the Mitchell Report, comes out very well. Thomas was huge naturally and his career has wound down at a normal pace. Some of the pitchers who played through the Steroid Era, such as Mike Mussina, might have stronger arguments for the Hall of Fame, assuming they were on the level.
    
    It's been hard, as a Jays fan, to shake the idea that Carlos Delgado's reputation might improve even though there's no way to presume anyone was clean as a bean. The former Toronto slugger, as you probably remember, finished second to Rodriguez in the American League MVP voting in 2003. Delgado was fourth in 2000, behind the tainted Jason Giambi, Thomas and Rodriguez.
    
    Being a former MVP draws a lot of water with the BBWAA. The view might take hold that Delgado actually should be looked at as the winner in 2003, which would help his borderline Cooperstown bonafides. As a first baseman who has OPS+'d 138 over his career, Delgado is an iffy Hall of Fame candidate, but he is getting close to the 500-home run plateau which once meant automatic induction, along with 500 doubles and 1,500 RBI.
    
    
11. Talk about timing: The Rodriguez scandal has done for the new MLB Network what the first Gulf War did for CNN back in 1991, as Sports Media Journal noted. It's been a real coup for the digital channel, although Canadians have to take everyone's word for it since the channel is not available in Canada, thanks Rogers.
    
    
12. Why the shrug? It is tough to feel scandalized when one made his peace with the Steroid Era three flippin' years ago:

    "Baseball’s hamfisted attempt to put a gloss over the steroids scandal last year makes every fan a little bit guilty. We are taking pleasure in a sport that you know has been altered by drug cheats, knowing that there are strings attached."

13. Barry Bonds is still in the 10th circle. It makes no sense to draw a distinction between Rodriguez and Bonds because the latter is a more arrogant jerk. No one thought to call Rodriguez a cheater before Saturday, and Bonds was pilloried far, far worse.

No MLB Network? Time to get as mad as hell

This is not surprising.

"By the way, once again MLB is ignoring Canada. The 24-hour MLB Network for the moment will not be available to Canadian viewers." — Richard Griffin

The Tao of Stieb noted some time ago that there was a report that Canada would be the first country to expand to if the channel — which launches Jan. 1 — goes international. Thing is, Rogers Sportsnet supposedly has a licence for a 24-hour baseball, but hasn't done anything with it.

Oh, well. Canadian ball fans are doing quite well at finding other places to get their baseball fix if the major media outlets in this country don't want to cater to the second-biggest bloc of sports fans in Canada (granted, after No. 1, there's good-sized drop-off).