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)

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:

"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.

" '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.' "

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.

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.

"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."

Some would say David Pratt should be chastised for even suggesting golf is a sport ... just kidding, not really.

Related:
Andrews debate revealing; Unwanted internet exposure of ESPN reporter pits the ugly side of sports broadcasting's old boys club versus privacy rights

Jays: NL rules, not so Fabio

Roy Halladay's pitching line last night in Atlanta was pure pro-DH dynamite.

7 IP, 5 H, 0 ER, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 SO, 95 pitches, 63 for strikes

You 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.)

Morning with Mr. Canoehead...

Stuff that bounces off your head like raisins off an Oldsmobile ...

The logic of those attack ads aimed at Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff basically meaning that Wayne Gretzky isn't an authentic Canadian. He's spent too much of his life outside the country, too.

Any guilt over not caring about major junior hockey's Memorial Cup unless you live in the city of a participating team. It's not your fault the Canadian Hockey League takes two weekends to decide a championship that can be done in one (OHL champ plays the QMJHL champ in the semi-final, winner plays the WHL in the final, over).

The sneaking suspicion that Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston's refusal to have Lyle Overbay pinch-hit for Kevin Millar against right-handed pitchers can be traced back to at-bat music. Overbay's song is Creed's One. You deserve to be spot-welded to the bench for that.

Rogers Sportsnet's Mike Toth ripping Roy Halladay for, in Tother's twisted logic, "not promoting baseball" in Toronto. This from someone whose ant overlords at Rogers Communications, Inc., sold off Blue Jays telecasts to TSN2, meaning fans can't watch some big games.

Newspaper publishers being crybabies about Google even though Google is willing to show them how to keep their pages from being indexed. The last thing anyone wants is for their content to be easily found.

The Rogers/TSN2 flap has continued to put the screws to NBA fans in Canada (the few, the proud) even long after the Raptors' season ended. TSN was scheduled to show a few games of the NBA conference finals, but it's got the NHL and the the Blue Jays-Red Sox series next week.

Lastly, great line from last night's 30 Rock: "We should go to a Yankees game. I have seats in the section between the players' wives and the players' mistresses ... I never go on Bat Day." At least the Yankees are going to start letting people into the good seats during batting practice.

Junior hockey is uncool; what are you gonna do about it?

Reducing a sporting issue to a spitting contest between Toronto media personalities is an easy way out, even when it is Mike Toth and Steve Simmons.

Junior hockey players get the rock-star treatment for two weeks during the world juniors and are afterthoughts 24 hours later, especially in the GTA. Toth, of Rogers Sportsnet and the FAN 590, had his say a week ago today. Sun Media's Simmons, on the following day, had a column headlined, "Apathy greets juniors," which began, "It is Thursday night at the Powerade Centre and for every seat that is occupied at least five are left empty."

(You can almost picture Rainn Wilson as a Rolling Stone editor in Almost Famous -- "Mmmmm, dark. Lively.")

Simmons' column was referred to as a "disgrace" during a rather pointed editorial reply during a subsequent Rogers OHL broadcast. Please leave personalities out of this, since it's a good topic (and our own Duane Rollins made a point to go see for himself when the Brampton Battalion and Mississauga St. Michael's Majors played at 12 noon on a weekday so classes of schoolchildren could witness major junior hockey in all its splendour).

Simmons was blasted a bit. Presumably some people would not mind hearing him accused of ripping the attendance when he had "never been in the Brampton Centre prior to that game."



That being said, Toth at least dared to run his hand along the fourth wall of every story about low attendance at OHL games in Toronto -- namely, how well these franchises do to turn first- and second-generation Canadians on to hockey? Simmons, no disrespect, goes on about "tak(ing) the easy highway drive for the least expensive entertainment you'll find everywhere," which seems to gloss over the fact that most Toronto sports fans, especially younger ones, rely on public transit when they're going to see the Raptors, Leafs, Blue Jays or TFC. It also assumes people who live close by Brampton's arena, which is located in a huge South Asian enclave, won't.

It's not even apparent that those transit options are handy for either the Battalion or Majors. Toth, who granted has come on a little strong on the subject in the past, at least waves hello to the elephant in the room, the question of growing the fanbase:

"Toronto is completely multi-cultural and sporting allegiances include everything from soccer to cricket. Brampton and Mississauga also have huge ethnic populations and many people from the two communities have never been inside a hockey rink.

"To their credit, both the Battalion and Majors are reaching out to new Canadians. For example, the two teams staged a special game for school kids earlier this year, featuring a 12.00 p.m. face-off on a Wednesday afternoon."

It is something of a common opinion among younger media types that stepping into an OHL arena often feels like a time warp. The crowd skews older and more homogenous. Between the incessant playing of Jock Jams '95 over the P.A. and the fact Larry Mavety is still GM of the Kingston Frontenacs, it is something straight out of another century.

There's no excuse simply accepting that it won't change. Look at it this way. It's not mandatory you should adopt the favourite sport when you're relatively new to a country. However, if you were a sports-mad Canadian who had relocated to England, what would you check out first: The local soccer team's game, even if it was down in League Two, or a game between the Coventry Blaze and Hull Stingrays?

People look to sports as a cultural touchstone and will turn to what's popular -- socially approved mass movements and such. People come to Canada, they do take to the NHL. It's only right to wonder why that doesn't carry over to the major junior teams in the country's largest city, instead of going on about the Battalion's "disturbingly ugly green uniforms" and inveighing against teenagers being traded in junior hockey (although it's hard argue the players are not pawns in the grand scheme).

At least Toth tried to move the debate forward. It is also worth asking if how the OHL's a keep-your-helmet-on rule, which will probably reduce fighting, might affect attendance. There might short-term pain. It might also change some impressions of the sport among people who are missing the hoser gene that makes you stand up and cheer when two 19-year-olds start whaling on each other at centre ice, although granted, fighting has not been banned.

Point being, the whole low attendance issue is worth getting into. It happens to involve two media personalities who have sizable jeering sections, so there's a little something for the haters, plus knowing that Rainn Wilson was in Almost Famous will win you drinks at bars and cocktail parties.

Related:
A Toronto thing (Mike Toth, sportsnet.ca, Jan. 8)
Previous:
Forcing them to care. That always works (Nov. 13, 2008)

Fronts: It rhymes with 'ugh, ringer'

The sad state of the Kingston Frontenacs even warranted some time on The FAN 590 this week. The king of Kings has retrieved the clip of TV Cogeco hockey commentator Tim Cunningham's appearance on The FAN 590's The Bullpen earlier this week.

Evidently, around the 6:10 mark, Mike Toth asks, "How the hell as Larry Mavety managed to survive?" or words to that effect. Here's the clip, if you can figure out how to get it playing, let me know:

http://www.archive.org/download/OffsidesInterviews/timcunnigham.mp3.

Bleeding Tricolour: Gaels keep focus, take out Toronto

by Andrew Bucholtz, Sporting Madness

See Andrew's live blog of the game here.)

Today’s match against the University of Toronto was perhaps a difficult situation for the Gaels. They were expected to win big, so a huge victory would be the status quo and anything less a disappointment. Queen’s managed the huge victory, though, beating Toronto 58-14.

The game wasn’t necessarily always going to be this much of a blowout, though. In fact, the Blues should have had the first touchdown early on when quarterback David Hamilton handed off to slash player Mark Stinson. Queen’s defensive backs bit on the fake run, leaving Drew Meedveld wide open deep, and he waltzed in for the TD. It was called back for a holding penalty though, the Gaels’ defence held, and the offence was off to the races with two quick touchdowns.

Toronto pulled within seven before the end of the first quarter, but the Gaels pulled out to a 37-7 lead going into the half. Queen’s added two more early touchdowns in the third quarter, putting the result beyond all doubt.

It was the ground attack that carried the day for the Gaels. Mike Giffin finished with 212 yards, his 14th straight 100-yard game. He finished with three TDs, two rushing and one receiver.

The defensive performance was also impressive. The Gaels defensive line was creating solid pressure on Toronto’s quarterbacks all day and forcing plenty of bad throws. You could tell they were keying on Dee Sterling, which left holes for the other linemen. The front four also shut down the run almost completely, with the aid of linebackers like Thaine Carter. There were several injuries, including LB T.J. Leeper and DE Kyle MacDonald, but the replacement players came in and did their job quite well.

Brannagan finished 13-of-22 for 241 yards with three TDs. Not a lights-out passing performance, but not a bad one either. Blaise Morrison had career highs with six catches for 121 yards — the fourth Gaels receiver to have a "century game" — while Scott Valberg had two TD catches. Blocking back Tim Poffley also caught one, which meant graduates of Kingston-area high schools scored six of Queen's eight touchdowns.

It would have been easy to take this game off and look ahead to Western next week, and that could have been costly. Western crushed York 71-0 today, so we get to see the rivalry battle between two 4-0 teams in the middle of Queen’s Homecoming next weekend, which should be incredible. It was hard to avoid thinking about that one prematurely, but now we can all start salivating in eager anticipation.

Update, 10:00 P.M. by Andrew: Here's the quotes I promised, from Blaise Morrison, Neil Puffer, Jimmy Allin, Dan Brannagan and Pat Sheahan:

Wide receiver Blaise Morrison:

Stat line: Six catches for a game-high 121 yards, longest catch for 37 yards

On maintaining focus for this game, despite Western coming up next week:
“The coaches prepared us really well this week, making sure all our focus was on this week’s game.”

On slow starts: “That’s just the way it’s been going this season.”

On Valberg creating room for the rest of the receivers: “After the game Scott Valberg had last week, obviously they’re going to pay a bit more attention to him, so it opens up all the other guys.”

On Western: “We’ve got a week to prepare now, and we’re really excited about this game.”

Defensive lineman Neil Puffer:

Stat line: One sack, two solo tackles

On the expectations placed on the team: “There was a fair bit of pressure on us. Everyone expected us to win, everyone expected us to be perfect.”

On improvement: “We`re not terribly excited about our game today because it didn`t meet our standards for this sort of game. ... We`ve just got to tighten up the loose ends.”

On key things to work on: “We had a couple fumbles, and the trick plays that they were running on us, they got a lot of mileage from. We need to have our heads wrapped around those and know when they`re coming. That`s pretty much it, but we just need to stick to fundamental football.”

On if Dee Sterling`s performance last week opened holes for him:
“He certainly attracted a lot of attention, and if guys are double- and triple-teaming him, it frees me up for a one on one.”

On Western: “It couldn’t get much better than this, a rematch of how things ended last year in the playoffs, and on Homecoming on national TV, and in this case, it’s a battle of the undefeated. ... It’s going to be a good football game, and I’m really excited for it.”

On what they’ll have to do differently from last year’s playoff loss: “We were a step behind all last year’s game. ... They just beat us. They came out, outschemed us, out played us, played with more heart. We’re just going to have to be perfect.”

Halfback/kick returner Jimmy Allin:

Stat line: One solo tackle, one breakup, five punt returns for 90 yards and two kick returns for 27 yards.

On how far U of T has come: “U of T’s obviously a much-improved team. They’ve got some great athletes.”

On what to improve: “Everything. We need to work on everything, we need to get better. We’ve got a big game coming up this week, and we’ll need to play well if we want to win.”

On facing Western: “We need to focus on what we do best. We’re all confident, we’ll all prepare like we always do, and hopefully it comes out for us.”

On if he thinks there will be a good crowd: “We hope so. Homecoming, we always look forward to it because the stadium’s always packed and we’ll hopefully put on a good show.”

On if he thinks his reputation as a returner is causing teams to kick away from him the way Toronto did most of the day: “I hope not. You always like to get a chance, but it’s like last game, they kicked to Jimmy (Therrien) a lot and he did an amazing job, so you can’t really take away our returns. We have two good returners, and guys are doing a great job of blocking for them.”

QB Dan Brannagan:

Stat line: 13 for 22 for 241 yards, three passing touchdowns, two rushing touchdowns, two interceptions.

On if the team met their goals against U of T: “I think overall there’s a lot of room for improvement, but the ultimate goal, the goal every week is to get a win, and we did that.”

On what’s causing the slow starts: “I’m not too sure. I guess it takes us a while to get going, but it’s something we can work on in the second half of the season.”

On if Giffin’s stellar performance on the ground opened up passing lanes in the second half:
“Definitely. All year long, I think that’s been the case. It definitely helps to have him in the backfield, and teams have to respect that and bring guys up. When you have to gang-tackle a big running back like that, it means less guys in double coverage.”

On his own scrambling performance: “Going into the game, I wouldn’t have predicted that, but it just gets to the point where you have to take what the defence is giving you if they’re going to drop a lot of guys into coverage. I think it’s something they weren’t expecting, so I think I kind of caught them off guard a little.”

On what to improve: “It’s just a matter of execution. We have great players and great plays, it’s just a matter of going out there and being confident, making sure that we’re going out there and fully executing every play.”

On if there’s a desire for revenge against Western after last year’s playoff loss: “It’s not really on my mind. You’re always trying to look forward and not look backwards. It’s a different team and a new season.”

Coach Pat Sheahan:

On the game overall: “I’m pleased with the win, but I think that we’re still not a hundred per cent polished. We still have a few areas that we can improve on, and my hope is with each passing week, we’re going to gain a measure of consistency and improve our execution. ... Maybe I’m becoming too hard to please, I don’t know. It was a good win, and we want to be better, that’s all.”

On the slow starts: “I think standard practice in football is to do some things early in the game. You unveil your plan, you set your formation, see how they play you. You’d like things to go a little better than perhaps they did today in the early going. ... Being a slow-starting team doesn’t worry me, as we’re a big finishing team. I think we’ve outscored our opponents in the second half of most games, if not all of them.”

On Morrison: “I thought the contribution of Blaise Morrison today was very good. Each week, we kind of have a new hero stepping up. ... The new face that seemed to rise to the occasion was Blaise Morrison.”

On Mike Giffin breaking his career-high mark of 214 rushing yards (Giffin finished with 215 yards, and was pulled after the third quarter): “For the number of carries he got, I thought his numbers were good today. ... At times, they shut him up pretty good. I’m afraid with him today, it was kind of feast or famine: he either made a great play or they did a pretty good job on him. With a great runner, when they come in with the plan that they’re going to stack up on the running game, sometimes it works. He just kept at it, he was very determined, he was fired up about having a big game today and he did.”

On other strong performances: “ Valberg was solid today, I thought he made a couple of great big plays. I thought Danny (Brannagan) was pretty good.”

On the injuries to linebacker T.J. Leeper and Kyle MacDonald: “I don’t think it’s anything serious. MacDonald, I think he went down just to give the defence a breather. T.J. Leeper, it’s an ongoing thing, but he could have come back and played today if he had to.”

On Western next week: “There’s a lot of preparation work that needs to be done. I think we have to look at them a whole lot closer. We didn’t look at them this week, we didn’t talk about them, we didn’t even mention them, which was a challenge in itself for our team, knowing that this one was looming large. Anyway, this is a game to get excited about, and it should be a good one.”

Bullet points à la Sager:

• The Whig-Standard had a full writeup online within 90 minutes of the game being over. New sports ed. Mike Koreen's impact is already being felt!
  
  You can read all about Koreen's new gig here.
• at The CIS Blog, there's a digest of the big stories coming out of Friday and Saturday's games, along with tidbits on each game.
• Former CFRC play-by-play man Richard Zussman is calling games for Rogers 22 here in Ottawa.
• Quoth Mike Toth, on the Mike who wears No. 21 for the Gaels: "He runs like an angry young man."
• Jeff Chan has his usual outstanding photo gallery.
• Amrit Ahluwalia of The Queen's Journal covered Queen's big rugby match at Western on Saturday. It ended in a tie, 12-12, so everyone was happy ... well, not really.
• A national news service called Laurier the "Wilfrid Laurier Eagles." Just to play devil's advocate, it might well be that happened because having Golden in the team nickname caused confusion.
  
  On second thought, probably not.
  
  (Eagles? Really? The only other explanation is now that having two high school football teams in Lennox & Addington County, the Napanee Golden Hawks and the unbeaten Ernestown Eagles, is wreaking havoc on the minds of journalists in Toronto.

How far were the Tigers back with 16 to play in '87?

In other AL East news, the smokin' hot Blue Jays won again last night. That makes 12 of 13 for them. They're now 6.5 games back in the wild card, meaning if they win three of four or sweep the four-game series at Fenway Park this weekend, we've got a race.
--Adam Kilgor

What's above is a pretty benign quote to highlight, it's understood, but what makes it noteworthy is this:

It was published by the Boston Globe's blogger. It's not the words of some delusional Blue Jays fanboy blogger, or even a segue into a hilarious story by Mike Toth about his grandfather and the Calgary Cowboys of the WHA. No, it's an honest to goodness observation from a completely neutral chroniciler of the game.

We've got a race. (I'm choosing to ignore the "if" for a moment).

So, then, if what Mr. Globe blogger says is true (and he's from Boston so it must be) then does that mean that tonight--dare I say it--is...wait for it...

A Meaningful Baseball Game In September! (tm)

Somewhere Bob McCown's head just exploded.

When sports broadcasting was ring-a-ding-dong dandy

Sometimes it needs to be pointed out what humanity lost when local affiliates, bowing to competition from cable and the Internet, got rid of the 11:30 scoreboard shows that were common in the late '80s and early '90s:



There are three cable sports networks in Canada and a bajillion websites that provide a sports fix. You know what, though? Not a one has truth and fun on its side the way a young Mike Toth, of the FAN 590 and Sportsnet Connected, did back in his days doing local TV in Calgary.

There is a point to putting this up: One, it's to remind people who get tied in knots over Toth's commentaries that it's coming from someone who once dressed up as the Honky Tonk Man on TV. And two, saying this in a Norm MacDonald voice, Mike Toth once dressed up as the Honky Tonk Man on TV. If you don't like Toth just a little after this, you are at least 77 per cent legally dead.

(Clip via Cox Bloc.)

Dining out on McDonald's moniker (take that, Tother)

Bless you, Cox Bloc -- being the coiner of a colourful nickname for a slick-fielding shortstop might not seem like much of a claim to fame. You take whatever you can get in this life, however:.

Mike Toth's most recent column laments the lack of colourful nicknames in the modern baseball world ... Sure, there are no Wahoos and Catfishes anymore, but Toth is apparently unaware of the brilliant McGlovin, bestowed upon the Blue Jays' Human Highlight Reel (with the glove, not the bat, of course) by Neate Sager."

It figures that acclaim for the splendid sobriquet that was coined in 2007 wouldn't come until near the tailend of an '08 season where McGlovin has been reduced to mostly to pinch-running.

Also, this is a reminder that everyone should go to the Baseball Hall of Fame website and vote for the late, great Tom Cheek for the 2009 Ford C. Frick Award.

CIS Countdown #27: U of T Varsity Blues

Fast facts: 49 consecutive losses. No wins since 2001. No winning season since 1995. But at least they have a new stadium, and have come close to breaking the streak in the past two seasons, with an end of game missed field goal the difference in a game against York last year, and a narrow loss to Waterloo the year before. The departure of head coach Steve Howlett does not mean the school is prepared to take the program seriously; when probed about it, school administrators will regularly try to change the subject.

Coach: Greg DeLaval (1st season, 1st overall)

Co-ordinators: Bob Howes (Director of Football), Other coaches not yet listed

Enrolment: 73,185

Alumni in the CFL: None

Famous non-football alumni: Paul Martin (Jr. and Sr.), William Lyon Mackenzie King, Adrienne Clarkson, Lester Pearson, Bob Rae, Paul Shaffer, Donald Sutherland, Margaret Atwood, Conn Smythe, and a heck of a lot more.

Three-year record: 0-24

2007 units ranking: 25th offence, 27th defence

Key losses: DL Mike Goncalves (2007 OUA Russ Jackson Award nominee), DB George Polyzois (2nd team OUA All-star), K Joe Valtellini, coach Steve "I think I'm a great coach" Howlett

Players to watch: DB Derek Batchelor (1st in OUA in solo tackles, 1st team all-star), QB Andrew Gillis (without question one of the most exciting field generals in the league, a scrambling left-hander who split most of his time with Mark Hamilton last year), WR Mark Stinson (or at least his blog, already with two entries unlike the failed experiment when Queen's Athletics tried the same thing with a few of their football players last year).

For future reference: Since he actually plays for the team, let's leave it to Mark Stinson - "I'm impressed with the size, confidence, and professional demeanor of an O-lineman named Steve - he's my pick!" All-Canada Gridiron lists no recruits for the team and CIS Football Recruiting Database only lists OL Patrick Yan of St. Andrew's. So let's go with Steve.

Schedule (swing games in bold):
Sep. 1 vs. Waterloo
Sep. 6 @ Windsor
Sep. 13 vs. York
Sep. 20 vs. Queen's
Sep. 27 @ Guelph
Oct. 3 @ McMaster
Oct. 9 vs. Western
Oct. 18 @ Ottawa

Final analysis: Opening against Waterloo might give the team some form of momentum if they can at least compete, but there's little to suggest this is the year the streak is broken. I love Andrew Gillis as starting quarterback and think he's their best chance at breaking the streak, but it's nothing to bet on. Nonetheless my official prediction is a 3-5 record with wins against Waterloo, York, and Queen's. Why? I'm secretly a Blues fan.

But more seriously and importantly, Stinson's blog makes an excellent point about this team - "For some guys on our team it's their fifth and final year. Guys like Cory Kennedy, Jeff Laforge, Cam Deans, Andrew Brankley and David Scott-McDowell have given everything they could and have yet to be rewarded for their efforts and commitment to our program."

That's something I talked to Mike Toth about when Queen's visited Toronto and I had him on the CFRC halftime show. A bevy of players have gone through a full football career, likely giving the same full effort of every other player in the league, and not been rewarded with a single win. The fault without question lies with a university administration that has deliberately ignored and, in earlier times, sabotaged this team to ensure its failure. This is a former university football powerhouse and its current state is one of the biggest things holding back the reputation of the OUA and broader CIS.

Goalers in a dangerous time; Mike Toth's minority report

There was always a racial element to how Ray Emery was treated in the court of public opinion that the media was reluctant to even acknowledge. It sucked that those with a larger platform didn't think to correct, say, callers to The Team 1200 or letter writers would go on about his "bling," his tattoos or the ex-Sens goalie being "a rap singer on blades."

The situation was begging for a reasoned response by someone who brings a certain sensitivity to such matters. Mike Toth is not that guy, but at least he tried:

"...it should be pointed out that Emery definitely could have handled certain situations better and has, in fact, admitted making some mistakes. But there are lots of NHL'ers guilty of errors in judgement that had much more dire outcomes. Mark Bell, Todd Bertuzzi and Dany Heatley are just some of the players who have found themselves in various forms of hot water. However, they were all afforded a second chance in the blink of an eye and the last time I checked, none of them were receiving their mail in Moscow."

For anyone who needs a reminder:

• Bertuzzi: Broke Steve Moore's neck in a game on March 8, 2004, was criminally charged. Now on his fifth NHL team since the end of the lockout. A civil suit is still tied up in legal wrangling.
• Bell: The Leafs traded for him last summer knowing he was facing two felony counts in a connection with a drunken hit-and-run crash. He's now serving jail time.
• Heatley: Actually a poor example. He was repentant and sorrowful over the 2003 crash which killed his Atlanta Thrashers teammate Dan Snyder.

Emery, of course, had a poor season. Andrew Raycroft, though, has had three poor seasons in a row and he still got a NHL contract, even though he hasn't played in the post-season since 2004 (and wasn't any great shakes when he did -- his Boston Bruins team coughed up a 3-1 series lead).

With Toth, it's seldom clear if he really believes it or he's just playing devil's advocate. That's often tiresome -- it's as if having an argument 1% of the audience will agree with trumps actually having a good argument. This time, though, going with the old Lloyd Dobler, "I know that I don't I know," is pretty smart. Toth just put out there and let the sportsnet.ca crowd kind of prove his point by dragging out the "race card" catchphrase in about every second comment.

The mere fact that sentient people believe that race, for someone who's a visible minority, is just something you whip out of your wallet like a Platinum Visa or a card that gives you 10% off at Chapters, shows that racism does exist in Canada. That can't possibly describe the experience of being brown or black, or speaking with a foreign accent. It just can't -- and this is coming from a white male, a basically commoner-than-cowshit rural Canadian who will never know what that's like.

It's entirely possible that if Emery was white, there wouldn't be any ifs, ands and buts about his fall from grace landing him in Russia. Plenty of players wash out of the NHL each year and are forgotten quicker than a runner-up on Canadian Idol. It's possible that with Bertuzzi-Moore, people would have forgotten quicker if it was, say, Darcy Tucker or Jarkko Ruutu instead of a clean-cut, well-spoken Harvard graduate.

That's unknown. What is known is that no other player's lifestyles and taste got brought into this conversation quicker than Emery's. (You didn't hear any Senators fans wonder if Jason Spezza's playoff performances were linked to him listening to Coldplay.) Sean Avery can come right out and say that hockey isn't his main interest and people are like, "Oh, cool."

NHL executives aren't racist, but there is a double standard here that made it easier for the media and the public to buy why Emery is going away for a while. Good on Toth for kicking at the darkness, in his way.

For much better read on how something is framed differently with black athletes vs. white athletes, read this from Sports On My Mind. It's not like this in Canada, but just you wait.

Related:
Ray, Russia and Racism (Mike Toth, sportsnet.ca)
ESPN: Don't Hate the Journalist, Hate the Machine (Sports On My Mind)

Probably not the last word on 'The Kid can manage, I tells ya!'

It would be mean to say there's an overall feeling of pity coursing through The New York Times' article on Gary Carter, Mike Toth's dream manager for your Toronto Blue Jays.

No, it's more like a kind of weary sadness felt toward an ex-ballplayer who still wants to be called "Kid" at the age of fifty-four. Carter more or less lost it on a correspondent from The Times. The Old Grey Lady -- talk about pure sensationalism! -- downplayed it and buried his blowup at the end of the article.

" 'I've always been accommodating and it's hurt me because I've worn my heart on my sleeve,” Carter said, lacing his answers with expletives. 'They throw me under the bus and two weeks later, he (Mets manager Willie Randolph) is fired anyway. Yeah, so I'm the one to blame. If this is what it's about, I don’t want you to print it.

"If I'm thrown under the bus because of my desires to one day manage in the major leagues, then every one of you guys don't ever come to me again. Period. Am I clear?"

The sense of sadness comes from realizing that Gary Carter, like a lot of pro athletes once the game is done with them, is trapped. Not to do dollar-store psychology, but it's like he doesn't have the self-awareness to get past his little baseball bubble, the only place he could exist, and it kind of sucks to have that confirmed, in black and white. He couldn't hold up to honest questions in a 1-on-1 interview from someone who was there to write a mostly positive story -- how would he handle the post-game scrums in the majors?

This just makes it seem all the more batshit crazy to ever believe that Gary Carter will ever manage a game in the major leagues, even on a drunken wager between a couple of MLB owners. The only person who should be rooting him to get a shot is the old Dodgers leadoff man Maury Wills, since he would no longer be the worst great player-turned-manager in major-league history.

Update: Jeff Blair links to us, and provides a link to a T.J. Simers column in the L.A. Times.

Related:
The Kid Keeps Himself in the Picture (Billy Witz, New York Times)
Gary Carter is suddenly a dead-end kid (T.J. Simers, L.A. Times; via Jeff Blair, who linked to us!)

The Kid can manage, I tells ya!

As much as I'm no fan of brief blog posts, I felt I had to put forth a little tidbit that nobody's yet mentioned in this hilariously extended Gary Carter debate. Plus, the longer my posts are, the more flaws in the argumentative framework there are for noted literary expert Andrew Stoeten to undermine me with.

Remember how we all enjoy bashing Carter's ability to manage by noting his current presence in the independent, and thus bad, Golden Baseball League?

It just so happens that Carter's Orange County Flyers are 13-5 (.722) on the season, good for first in the GBL South Division and the overall league lead.

Update: Last night on Sportsnet, Toth threw out a few more Blue Jay manager candidates: former President Jimmy Carter, former Raptor Vince Carter, current Flyer Jeff Carter, and the lovely and talented Lynda Carter. I look forward to the blog brigade's statistically-based refutation of these clearly serious suggestions.

In further defence of the Tother

Just as a quick rejoinder to the Nerdinista's newly united offensive against Mike Toth's high-larious Gary Carter love-in...

We've heard it from a bevy of sources, so let's get the obligatory linkage out there first: the Mike Wilner Fan Club Blog, mostly by linking to Cox Bloc's take on it (awesome headline banner on that site, by the way), and Fire Joe Morgan gave it what Neate called "the treatment" (though an uncharacteristically brief mockery is hardly going to make that fine blog's wall of fame, I'm ready to predict). Finally, Neate's oft-recycled and rephrased take (just kidding, I love ya man) has made the rounds of various comment threads.

But did any of you take the time to think about just why, precisely, an otherwise successful broadcaster would postulate such a seemingly insane line of reasoning?

Maybe if you all had tried to think of his rationale in another way, you might've been a bit more successful in avoiding the trap that Mr. Toth had clearly laid out for the geek brigade.

Would any of you be writing about your favourite topic - the uselessness of the RBI - if not for Toth's little mention in his column? Would you guys have been able to compete to see who could produce the most hilarious comparisons of managers with vastly differing RBI totals and management abilities, if not for him? Would you have been able to spend but five minutes crafting what you all believed to be comedy gold, allowing yourselves hours afterwards to laugh at your own jokes, if the Tother hadn't put forth that maze of crossed logic?

Absolutely not. And you're all still talking about him days after the whole feud with Wilner has died down.

You know what a psychiatrist would say to you bloggers? You're all secretly in love with the Tothmeister.

"Yesterday's show really seems to have created a lot of interest, which as you know, is the whole idea behind what we do..."
-Mike Toth

In Defence of Mike Toth

(Yes, somehow Neate's mortal enemy and pain in the proverbial posterior, the incomparable, interesting, intense, infuriating, incontinent Tyler King has been granted access to the rarely matched rostrum that is Canada's best sports blog — as voted on by me, myself, and myself's self. A good move, or the beginning of the end? Only the following post can stand as the first clue towards this nationwide enigma.)

Forgiveness will surely be required as a result of my desire to differ from the clearly emerging consensus of the Canadian blogosphere regarding the aptly-named Tothilnergate. Full credit to Drunk Jays Fans for their Globe & Mail quality scandal-naming, though their own sycophantic take on the issue will be a major theme of the coming paragraphs.

Recounting the controversy is a needless task; OOLF has already done it. But what remains notably absent from the debate is a comprehensive third-party opinion that doesn't consist of a variety of attacks on this man, the product and pride of such markets as Estevan, Saskatchewan and Stettler, Alberta.

"I’m not a fan of Toth’s style," our own Duane Rollins easily admits. "Toth broke a simple rule," is Neate's take on it, and this is pretty well where blogosphere civility ends. "A little weasel" is DJF's analysis of the man, while The Tao of Stieb admonishes "Mr. Fun Stuff" for "burying vastly superior broadcasters on the air." Even the down-and-out Bugs & Cranks manages to throw out a "Mike Toth is a knob" after crying about the aforementioned Drunks not returning their calls.

So let's get the controversy out there; there is nothing wrong with what Mike Toth did or said, and you're all a bunch of suckups to Mr. Wilner for thinking there was.

This is an unusual stance for a blog, considering that the general blogophere protocol is one of consistently marvelling over whatever observations the popular Jays Talk host puts over the air. For some, it extends to marvelling over the comedic genius of adding "-age" and "-itude" to the ends of words. For fewer, the obsession extends to profiling in detail the varying inflections of the man's voice. Though we can't all be the unfailing and blinding Wilner fan that Dustin Parkes exemplifies, the consensus is pretty consistent; the buzzwords are "logic," "intelligent," "correct," and/or "awesome" (Sorry, Neate).

To preface my disagreement, I should make clear that I'm no Wilner hater. I'm on record as saying he should be the Jays' TV voice on Sportsnet right now (and I'm no jamiecampbell hater either). The man even appeared on my lowly college sports talk radio show during spring training, despite me taking five times the amount of time I asked him for. His dedication to fans through his FAN 590 blog is unmatched, and unquestionable.

But just as his fans profile him as the sole source of "logic" or "intelligence" in the Toronto media, they omit his and their reliance on the supposed "stupid" callers that make up the bulk of Jays Talk. When I asked Wilner what the "perfect call" would be for him, his first example was that "the perfect call could be a complete idiot." It's the conflict between the two that makes the show entertaining, which is why it's so baffling when Wilner fans honestly wish that he didn't take those callers, or leave them on as long. If he followed that advice, he'd be out of a job, because he'd have the most boring show on the station.

As for the logic bit, let's defend Mike Toth here for a second. Sure, his suggestion to hire Gary Carter seems a little farfetched and illogical (then again, they said the same about Garth Snow). But how can the Wilner fans, who oppose the panic-induced firing of John Gibbons because the manager has a supposedly low impact on wins, simultaneouly say that hiring Carter would be a bad move based on his likely impact on the team? Either a manager has an effect on the team or he doesn't, and Wilner fans can't seem to decide which it is in their blind rage against the Tother.

Frankly, there's a reason Mike Toth has been successful despite regularly infuriating the self-proclaimed sports intelligentsia. He's not afraid to stir up a bit of controversy, and in this case he's doing a great job of it. Who among us would be talking about the usually tame 4:00 hour of Prime Time Sports, or even listening to it, if not for the stream of anti-Wilner callers? Nobody would've wanted to listen to an hour of people raving about how awesome Wilner is — we can listen to the DJF podcast for that.

Toth makes an excellent point when defending himself; Mike Wilner doesn't, and shouldn't, need to be defended. This apparent rule that you can't attack someone who isn't there to defend himself is not any canonical regulation — it's just something that Wilner says (and is thus regurgitated by his fans as law). Sportscasters attack all kinds of people who aren't there to defend themselves. As to the crowd who say Toth's callers could have, and should have, just called the man himself on Jays Talk; calling into a person's show to attack them is the last thing any savvy sports talk caller thinks of doing. You're putting yourself at their mercy, and the frequent/popular strategy of hosts cutting off the caller and then proceeding to rip on them for five minutes afterwards is, while not a staple of Wilner's show, an omnipresent threat.

Perhaps Toth did "egg on" the callers, but for Wilner to then make a post on his blog clearly fishing for compliments? That's not taking the high road, especially coupled with his doing nothing to prevent or discourage the rash of vulgar attacks on Toth that followed in the post comments. Toth wasn't there to defend himself, and his reaction in his letter to DJF is certainly a more classy reply to an attack than Wilner's reaction was; not to mention that Toth faced far worse from the Internet hordes than Wilner faced from forty minutes of PTS callers.

In all, let's lay off Toth. Don't enter into the debate of who the superior broadcaster is, because they are apples and oranges. Mike Toth has to cover every sport imaginable, and can't be expected to be at a Wilner level on all of them, even baseball. But I will say this much; if junior hockey were popular enough to justify a Jays Talk-style show, then Mike Toth would be the Mike Wilner of junior hockey. It's all based on where your beat is, and we're in a sense spoiled by Wilner's ability to dedicate his entire career to the sport he's most passionate about.

To end off, a thought for the future; I'm surprised nobody's yet brought up the fact that last year around Christmastime, Toth and Wilner were in fact the regular co-hosts of Prime Time Sports, and in my opinion produced some pretty entertaining stuff. Here's hoping they get paired up again — I'd certainly be listening.