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?)

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.

Blue Jays: One comes not to bury Jamie Campbell ...

A reasonable person makes do.

That might explain why it has been four months since last dropping a jamiecampbell. The Blue Jays' radio voices, Jerry Howarth, Alan Ashby and Mike Wilner are among the best in the majors (speaking as a XM Radio subscriber who has access to every team's broadcast). Besides, it would be tough to top Bruce Dowbiggin's denunciation of the team's TV flagship, which puts more on the corporation than the commenter.

"The word that springs to mind when listening to play-by-play guy Jamie Campbell and his rota of analysts would be unsatisfying ... a significant part of the hollow feeling springs from the anodyne tone of the crew.

"Now in his third season, Campbell has staked no claim to the team with either a flair for language or his keen insight into baseball. The genius of Vin Scully is that he tells you from the first pitch that he is the pilot, you are the passenger, and you are to sit back while he guides the ship. Even the lugubrious Chuck Swirsky grabbed the Toronto Raptors' mike like a thirsty man throttling a pump handle."

"... After this many games, (Campbell) still has mighty trouble judging fly balls (watch the outfielders) and a propensity for reading the daily statistical notes as if it were Finnegans Wake. His monotone delivery suits the subway (“Next stop Spadina, Spadina next stop”) more than a pennant race.

"The mark of a pro such as Jon Miller is his ability to bring out more than just inside baseball from his co-workers. Campbell's patter with his analysts is painful, leaving Rance Mulliniks or Darrin Fletcher to grind along unmercifully about arcane points of strategy.

"Part of this is not Campbell's fault. Sportsnet likes to grow its own timber and has thrust several people into key announcing spots before they are ready. The results are mixed. When it doesn't work, the outcome is like a travelling company of High School Musical – you know, 'Just wait till they grow up and move to Broadway.' Except they don't grow up. Campbell still seems stranded on first base. If he's being coached it doesn't show.

" ... When Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers legend Duke Snider broke in on Montreal Expos' telecasts with Dave Van Horne, he was raw and almost impossible to listen to. But Van Horne – a pro's pro – shaped Snider's contributions, drew out the man, not the baseball player, and they soon were a perfect team."

There is a honest reticence to comment on Campbell. He does work hard. Broadcasting baseball is a job where someone is expected to be perfect on Day 1 and then get better, although the mass of people watching really do not care too much who's doing the announcing.

The risk in writing this is someone will take it to as a way to act on frustrations over the Jays or what's going on in one's personal life. It isn't. Everyone knew going in this was clearly a sub-.500 team.

Dowbiggin, almost at long last, is pointing out national broadcasters have the wrong idea when it comes to picking the on-air talent for sports beyond hockey. They create their own mistakes, as previously noted:

"Please don't make this into a Jamie Campbell vs. Rod Black kvetchfest. It's tiresome, for one. It's not about them. It's on the highers-up in Canadian broadcasting who don't invest in bringing along bona fide baseball play-by-play people and just expect to get lucky ... The rest of us are just supposed to believe that there isn't a man or woman in a country of 33 million people who can commentate baseball. That's hard to believe." — March 31, 2008

That post, by the way, led to an e-mail from someone who had worked at one of the national networks. It seemed worth hanging on to and releasing at an appropriate time.

"The top executives of the networks don't mind putting people in positions who will 'learn the on the job' while doing play-by-play for fringe sports such as baseball. If it were hockey, you better damn well have years and years of play-by-play experience and know your stuff before they dare put you in front of a camera or on a microphone."

One can try to make do by following the Jays via radio, investing in Delay Play Radio (a device which syncs up the radio play-by-play with digital cable, which is about eight seconds behind). You can snark off that it's ironic The Score, not Sportsnet, is having a contest where the winner gets a job as a sportscaster. However, at the end of the day, just making sport of Jamie Campbell is useless.

The failure of a country of 33 million people to develop a good baseball broadcaster since Dan Shulman joined ESPN is borderline embarrassing. The Hockey Reflex does not mean it's OK to set the bar lower for other sports; look at how TSN broadcasts the CFL.

The definition of crazy is doing something the exact same way and expecting a different result, and that has happened too often with Sportsnet and baseball. One hopes it is going to change in Canada, for the sake of young broadcasters, people such as Tyler King and Mark Masters, to name a couple personal acquaintances. Jamie Campbell is not a bad guy or necessarily bad at broadcasting, he's just someone who was on the right side of a wrongheaded idea. At the end of the day, baseball fans in Canada honestly deserve better. Raptors fans got it with Swirsky and Matt Devlin; soccer fans get it with Gerry Dobson, even CIS nuts do with The Score's Tim Micallef. Why not for baseball, Sportsnet?

Related:
Something amiss from Blue Jays broadcasts?; Baseball play-by-play requires a raconteur's touch, a statistician's zeal and a sense of which plays matter most but Sportsnet yet to find right mix

Memorial Cup: The format still stinks

Sportsnet renewing its television deal with the Canadian Hockey League meaning there's no chance of overhauling the outdated format for the Memorial Cup.

As awesome as the Windsor Spitfires' win for a town and a team, the fact remains it's a tournament where, as super-commenter Dennis Prouse put it, "all you need is a 1-2 record to make the playoffs."

You know what this means, though? In the big picture, there was a point behind the booing at the Rimouski Colisée yesterday. You just have to believe it wasn't being vented at the teenagers on the Kelowna Rockets, but at the highers-up such as CHL president David Branch, who refuse to ditch the overly drawn out, outdated format since it's a cash cow (and TV ratings were up from last season, but here one could point out that's not saying much since a U.S. team represented the WHL in 2008).

Regan Bartel, Kelowna's play-by-play man, stuck up for his guys, and there's not a word there that's wrong. Teenaged players should not be booed, but the adults who left them hanging in the wind should:

"... I was a little turned off by the reaction of the crowd at the Colisée over the booing every time the Rockets touched the puck. The booing was the result of the fans belief that the Rockets threw Tuesday's game against the Spitfires when they had a chance to eliminate them from the tournament. Essentially it looked like the fans are blaming the Rockets for the demise of both Rimouski and Drummondville. Windsor would beat Rimouski in the tie breaker before eliminating Drummondville in the semi-finals. To say the Rockets threw the game is laughable."

Obviously, that game was on the level. This was no repeat of the stunt Mike Keenan pulled at the 1980 tournament, when his Peterborough Petes lost the last game of the round-robin so they could face Cornwall instead of host Regina in the final. (That debacle prompted a change in format.)

In this case, Windsor was the No. 1-ranked team. Kelowna probably had trouble getting motivated to play their final round-robin game since there was nothing at stake for them, since they were assured a spot in the final. Each Québec team had a chance to oust Windsor in win-or-go-home match and didn't get it done.

The point is the Canadian Hockey League has a problem if customers perceive that it could be to a team's advantage to dump a game. Meantime, the fact a team does not need to win the majority of its round-robin games and can still win the championship is kind of chintzy.

The rub is that in 1980, as Gregg Drinnan related in a great retrospective on the '80 debacle, Branch's predecessor, the late Ed Chynoweth and the other powers-that-were had the humility to realize bad policy could lead to bad results.

"We were lucky for eight years under this system ... There's no sense moaning over what's happened now. Everybody coming into this knew the rules, knew the pitfalls and whatever. It's just unfortunate that this had to happen in our league's turn as host and in the host team's own city.

"Still, we (in junior hockey) do recognize that we do get ourselves into some great holes with the way we conduct ourselves at times."

More Drinnan:

"Brian Shaw, the WHL's chairman of the board, added: 'We, as adults, have put the youngsters in a precarious position because there is a loophole or two in the formula as we know it.

" 'The format, as it stands, is all right as long we put in a modification to prevent a recurrence of what happened Friday night. This formula is the best to bring together competitors from across Canada.

" 'There was a suggestion to go back to an East-West final, but we're involved with the education of our players. We don't want them out of class for the length of time it would take. With the present round-robin taking exactly one week, they don't miss too much school.' "

You wouldn't hear that kind of candour today, even with the increased lip service major junior hockey pays to education. Everything is tamer than it was 30 years ago. Tamer players, tamer fans, and certainly a tamer media. Thank goodness for those Spitfires:

On a whinge and a prayer, we have a deal

From about the about-friggin'-time department, it looks like the Rogers/TSN2 impasse will end, just in time for next week's Blue Jays-Red Sox series:

"A person familiar with the discussions told fadoo that an announcement of the agreement should be expected this weekend, likely on Sunday. No specifics of the deal were revealed, however it is believed that, as a result of the agreement, Rogers Cable customers with the VIP package will begin receiving TSN2 almost immediately and automatically." — fadoo.ca

This might be more about straight business than satisfying ball fans. Cable companies seem to be more aggressive about retention in the spring, when people might be more likely to consider cancelling or reducing their package since the warm months are coming and they're anticipating watching less TV. The public relations fallout, as others such as Chris Zelkovich have noted, was too much to risk at this time of year. At the same time, ball fans can certainly view this is a win.

Most of you are familiar with the ins and outs of this situation, which probably had the most adverse affect on Toronto Raptors and NBA fans.

Bell GlobeMedia launched TSN2 in late August knowing it had more hours' worth of sports properties than it could fit on to one channel. Rogers dug in its heels, since Rogers Sportsnet is struggling against its competitor's institutionalized superiority (TSN gets more money per cable subscriber). It dragged on through the entire NBA and NHL regular season (Ottawa Senators fans missed out on a game in December) and first couple rounds of those leagues' post-seasons.

Anyway, this is a satisfactory piece of news. Score one for TSN for throwing some high heat and playing up that next week's Jays-Bosox games were available "only on TSN2." The timing of it all, during the week before the May long weekend, was brilliant.

Presumably, Rogers didn't sell off those games thinking this would happen. It has typically given up games in the third week of may in order to clear prime time for major junior hockey's Memorial Cup. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees, eh.

Related:
Rogers/TSN2 reach an agreement (fadoo.ca; via Sporting Madness)

Snark break...

As you were continuing to give people who were in gifted classes a bad name ...

Apologies for not going in-depth on the NFL draft, but so many do it so well. Daily Norseman summed up the Lions taking Matthew Stafford No. 1 overall thusly: "I'm not sold on the guy as a franchise QB. But, the Lions apparently are ... and that's all that matters.

Ottawa Senators players scored four of Canada's six goals vs. Belarus on Friday. It all makes sense why the Sennies missed the playoffs: Dany Heatley wanted to become the Canada's all-time goal scoring leader at the world championship.*

Sportsnet made a good move by airing the first-place Blue Jays' two-touchdown win over Chicago White Sox on two channels and put the Red Sox-Yankees game on the other two. Jason Bay hit a tying home run off Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning and the Red Sox won in the 11th. If this keeps up, the Red Sox and Yankees should have a real battle for that wild-card spot (kidding).

Congratulations to the Brampton Battalion for reaching the OHL final for the first time. Does this mean the Kingston Frontenacs are no longer obligated to trade their best 19-year-old forward to Brampton every season? (Matt "President" Kang this season, Cory Emmerton last season.)

The Legendary Chris Thomas used to say he lasted so long in one town because he always gave everyone a say, a fair shake. In the spirit of that, kudos to Sportsnet for splitting up the two games. It was a win-win. Of course, then someone had to go and spell the Brampton team's name wrong on the website. D'oh.

This post is worth nothing, but this is worth noting:

• Kingston native Scott Arniel is expected to be the next AHL coach to get a shot in the NHL. Don't come crying to me that one Alberta paper spelled his name "Arneil." People from Ontario can't make jokes about Alberta schools not teaching "i before e," since at least that province didn't take until 2000 to realize high school should only be four years.
  
  
• Cincinnati Reds slugger Joey Votto is willing to suffer fools gladly.
  
  
• Former Queen's running back Brian Crawford, now a veteran special teamer with the Toronto Argonauts, was featured in a Globe & Mail story about CFL players and their off-season jobs.
  
  (Any Gaels runner is going to have a tough time matching the Brad Elberg standard, but Crawford was a favourite. He was the classic halfback who could run between the tackles, catch the ball and return punts and kickoffs.

(* Snide comment about Heatley only meant to evoke the jokes Steve Spurrier, when he was with the Florida Gators, always made about rival Tennessee: "Now I know why Peyton Manning came back for his senior year: He wanted to be three-time MVP of the Citrus Bowl.")

Top 10 things Roger Millions could say next time

Rogers Sportsnet correspondent Roger Millions avoided discipline after his 10-letter expletive went out on the air last week.

Everyone realizes to err is human. The good people at EGALE haven't even said much about a homophobic epithet being broadcast. It was a team goof, but Millions should be more careful. In the spirit of the thing, here are 10 slang words or phrases he could consider bringing back.


10. "Feck!" It was good enough for Zooey Deschanel in Almost Famous.

9. "Oh, cripes!" It brings to mind all sorts of unlucky dudes throughout history, even though we all know there's no such thing as luck.

8. "Honky doodle." For people who can't bring themselves to say "holy doodle."

7. "Sweet sassy molassy!"

6. "Crud!"

5. "Gretzky!" (Thank you, Kevin Smith.)

4. "Aw, hamburgers." Inspired by Butters Stotch from South Park (at around 2:10).



3. "Devil's fart!" (Caddyshack.)


2. "Tabernac," but said in a real Anglo way.

1. "Awwww ... at least no one watches Sportsnet."

Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Day 4

Having six of the seven series at 2-0 seems like a bit of a rip, especially since, as From The Rink notes, teams almost never come back after dropping the first two games in the other guys' barn.

1. It's a frightening concept, but the Chicago Blackhawks are set to sweep the Calgary Flames because of this thing called "better players." (Glove tap: Michael Schur as Ken Tremendous.)
   
   It's hard to get your mind wrapped around that after a lifetime of being spoon-fed pabulum about heart and veteran leadership by commentators on Canadian networks, so let it sink in.
   
   Incidentally, Jonathan Toews for the 2010 Olympic team? Coming Down The Pipe! wants to know.
2. Patrice Bergeron's takedown of Mike Komisarek was a laugh and a half. You have Komisarek running across the ice like an idiot to take a head shot at a player who's got a history of concussions, getting his ass handed to him and then having NESN's Jack Edwards mine it for head-injury humour: "Concuss that!"
   
   
   
   Brilliant. And people think I'm weird for preferring baseball and basketball to hockey. Then again, I'm a pansy.
3. Canadian Roberto Luongo, Swede Henrik Lundqvist, American Tim Thomas, Swiss Jonas Hillier and Russian Nikolai Khabibulin have been the best goalies in the post-season, for anyone thinking about Vancouver 2010.
   

Blackhawks 3 Flames 2 (Chicago leads 2-0) — The good news for Calgary, beyond getting to go home, is they finally scored on the power play after an 0-for-47 drought. The bad news is they were shut out while playing 5-on-5.

By the way, Patrick Sharp, who scored the second Blackhawks goal, played at the University of Vermont. Since fellow UVM product Martin St. Louis is in Tampa Bay, it's rare to see a former Catamount in the playoffs (yes, yes, there's Torrey Mitchell on the San Jose Sharks).

Rogers Sportsnet's Calgary correspondent Roger Millions is off the air for a few days after saying you-know-what on the air. It wasn't a firing offence, since it was a team mistake, but at this rate, the Flames might be done by the time he's back.

Bruins 5 Canadiens 1 (Boston leads 2-0) — The epitaph for a Habs season gone horribly asunder came from a Montreal-aligned friend who said, "The only forward they've got who's any good as Alex Kovalev and I don't want him back next season."

The Bruins likely lose Milan Lucic to a one-game suspension, but that should not hurt much in the long run.

Between Montreal getting skated out of the rink and the New York Yankees getting shelled for 22 runs, there was a run on Haterade on Saturday. The logical explanation is that the Habs overachieved in 2007-08, overplayed their top guys (a condition known as being "Paddock-ed" and didn't have enough in the tank for this season. The fun explanation is that their fans flew to the close to the sun on wings of vote-robots.

Red Wings 4 Blue Jackets 0 (Detroit leads 2-0) — Michigan have its hockey team, but Ohio is first in home foreclosures.

Rangers 1 Capitals 0 (New York leads 2-0) — Apparently, Henrik Lundqvist has decided to spoil the Capitals' season, but just less than one-quarter of the teams which lose the first two games at home actually manage to come back and win.

The thumbnail sketch of the Rangers is that the veterans responded after John Tortorella was brought in as coach. Strangely enough, Ryan Callahan, obviously a grizzled 24-year-old third-year pro, has a team-high 10 goals since the coaching change. That all comes back to veteran leadership.

(Last but not least, a tip of the cap is due to Ian Duval, who scored two goals in the Kelowna Rockets' win over the Vancouver Giants in Game 1 of the WHL semi-final series last night. Duval played triple-A midget hockey for the Central Plains Capitals, based in Portage la Prairie, Man., during two OOLFers' tenure at the Portage Daily Graphic.)

Hoserdome 2009: Playoffs, Night 2

Playoffs!

Blackhawks 3 Calgary 2 (overtime; Chicago leads 1-0) — There is genuine envy toward the innocents who watched this without knowing that Roger Sportsnet's Calgary correspondent, Roger Millions, had a hopefully not career-ending moment before the game (language not safe for work).



Meantime, one would think that the Blackhawks, given the way which they finished off this game, have momentum for Game 2. The Flames are hoppin' mad about the fact there was no call on Chicago's Andrew Ladd when he made contact with Miikka Kiprusoff a split-second before Martin Havlat's winning goal hit the back of the net.

Fair enough, Flames fans, but it was all part of a greater glory. After Chicago tied the game 2-2, someone — let's call him Neate S., no, too obvious, N. Sager — texted Kinger, "Havlat to score the winner." That was pretty impressive, coming as it did through a haze of Sapporo and Jello shooters.

Bruins 4 Canadiens 2 (Boston leads 1-0) — The Habs lost and they won, since there was some positive news about the team's potential sale.

Ducks 2 Sharks 0 (Anaheim leads 1-0) — San Jose really is the equivalent of Red Shoe Diaries; always on late at night, leaving you screaming, "Just do it, already!" The Sharks did everything but score for large stretches vs. Anaheim and Jonas Hiller ... the tree that goes in San Jose might be an apple tree, but the apple is in the throats of the Sharks. Game 2 could be the most important game of the Joe Thornton era in San Jose.

Ryan Getzlaf's sealer in the third period was a goal scorer's goal.

Red Wings 4 Blue Jackets 1 (Detroit leads 1-0) — The Jiri Hudler-Valterri Filipula-Dan Cleary line dominated and a gaffe by Manny Malhotra, who deflected the puck into the net on the goal on which put Detroit ahead to stay, helped swing the game to the Red Wings.

Is everyone just assuming Detroit wins in four, five tops?

Last, but not least, Chris Zelkovich from the Toronto Star shared the news during the evening. The Save-On Foods grocery chain is picking up the tab for CBC Sports to broadcast Games 3, 4 and (if necessary) 6 of the Vancouver Canucks-St. Louis Blues series in HD.

Never say the squeaky wheel doesn't get the grease.

Lee, damned lies and statistics ... nice try at hosing Tavares, you hosers

You know what they say, great at history, bad at math.

There is no reason to doubt Ottawa historian Jim McAuley's claim that former 67's star Peter Lee is still the Ontario Hockey League's all-time leading goal scorer, ahead of John Tavares. McAuley did his due diligence, having "poured" — or pored, as it were — "through game summaries of every game Lee played for the Ottawa 67's in the two disputed seasons (1972-73 and 1973-74), and determined that Lee actually scored 216 goals." (Ottawa Citizen, March 10.) The OHL did its own review and says Lee scored 213, meaning Tavares, now up to 215 with two games left in his season with the London Knights, is the record holder.

However, there is a difference between giving the facts and being truthful. It's fine to take what McAuley's evidence at face value (he's a historian, they don't have the imagination to make stuff up). Giving it without context is the equivalent of publishing the results of an opinion poll without adding that it's plus or minus 3.2 points, accurate 19 times out of 20 and all that jazz. It's irritating, especially when some crude cross-multiplication reveals Tavares might have scored in the neighbourhood of 300 goals in the OHL if he had played junior in Lee's day.

It's a mild irritant when the media give facts but not the truth. There is a difference, especially when you compare across eras in sports.

Let's set aside all the advances made in hockey in between Lee's final season with Ottawa in 1976 and today (short list: The use of video analysis in preparing for opponents, better coaching and equipment for goaltenders, more attention paid to defensive play, more physical play, bigger and faster players). Most of the changes in hockey, starting from the mid-1980s until after the 2004-05 NHL lockout, worked against players putting up gaudy goal totals.

The big matzo ball hanging out there with McAuley's research is that presumes that a goal in 2009 was easily achieved as it was in 1976, or that conversely, goals were equally hard to come by 30-plus years ago as they are in the modern game. Most of you who follow hockey could establish that simply isn't the case without benefit of a quick check over at hockeydb.com.

Here's a quick table of each player's season-by-season totals (games played, goals, total goals per game in all of his team's games and per-game average for the whole league; shootout goals weren't counted, but there wasn't time to factor out 4-on-4 overtime, so the averages for Tavares' area are actually higher than they should be, not lower). Just to be sporting, Lee gets credit for the two missing goals from 1972-73 that McAuley unearthed and the one tally from '73-74 (he scored one in '71-72, when he played a handful of games as a 15-year-old).

LEE:
’72-73: 63 27 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 69 39 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 70 68 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 66 81 9.42 9.43

TAVARES
’05-06: 65 45 8.19 6.94
’06-07: 67 72 8.97 7.34
’07-08: 59 40 7.97 6.80
’08-09: 32 26 7.14 6.70 (with Oshawa)
’08-09: 23 32 7.08 -- (with London)

Tavares' feats came in a era of much tighter-checking defence. Those per-game totals from the past four seasons are probably a bit on the high side, since you would have to factor out goals scored in 4-on-4 overtime, which didn't exist when Lee played for the 67's (I subtracted shootout goals from team totals). Tavares has put up numbers in a lower-scoring era.

For anyone wondering, the 67's were not the highest-scoring team in the OHL. In '75-76, they scored 331 goals, fourth-most in a 12-team league. The previous season, '74-75, under a rookie coach named Brian Kilrea, they scored 379, second in the league, but allowed a league-worst 382.

This doesn't mean 67's owner Jeff Hunt was wrong to ask McAuley to look into Lee's totals. Hunt was trying to do right by all concerned when he noticed a discrepancy between his franchise's records and the official league book.

Facts are facts, but they're trumped by the truth that Tavares' 215 goals in the 2000s are harder-earned than Lee's 215, 213 or 216 more than three decades ago. There were a lot more goals in the typical major junior game of Lee's era than in Tavares'.

Just for kicks, here's how each player would have done in the other guy's era, taking his goals per game and plugging into the league average.

TAVARES
’72-73: 65 63 10.06 9.74
’73-74: 67 81 8.13 8.34
’74-75: 59 54 10.87 9.18
’75-76: 55 81 9.42 9.43

LEE
’05-06: 63 19 8.19 6.94
’06-07 69 34 8.97 7.34
’07-08 70 50 7.97 6.80
’08-09 66 58 n/a 6.70

Tavares' total comes out to 279 goals. (Please bear in mind that this is purely hypothetical and just for fun.)

As an add-on, keep in mind that top-end junior phenoms such as him always take a hit on their stats since they usually miss about nine or 10 games while they're off defending Canada's honour at the world junior hockey championship. That scenario didn't exist for Lee. Tavares could have scored another eight goals in his third season, when he missed nine games, and popped in another 16 during the 11 he's sat out this season.

That brings Tavares up to 303. How many he would have had is inconclusive, but his goals-per-game totals, put into context, surpass Lee's by a fair margin.

This is not about who was the better hockey player as a teen, since it's fairly obvious who comes out the winner in that argument (January-born Lee would have been 16 years, eight months old when he began his first full season in '72-73, while Tavares' debut in the league came on the eve of his 15th birthday).

Granted, there's a lot of assumptions being made (hence the use of "crude cross-multiplication" and "in the neighbourhood" up top). It's also doubtful Brian Kilrea would have been putting Tavares out on the power play with one minute left in a 7-2 game, but that was another post.

Regardless, doing some crude number-crunching beats "pouring" over microfiche any day of the week. In sports, it's absolutely essential to put a player's stats into a historical context before you present your case. No disrespect, but that should not be lost on someone who's a historian.

Related:
Tavares record in question? (Patrick King, sportsnet.ca)
Lee unsure if Tavares broke goal-scoring record (Joe O'Connor, National Post)
Ottawa historian challenges Tavares' goal-scoring record (Wayne Scanlan, Ottawa Citizen)

If Smith says so...it might be true. Maybe.

Does Stephen A Smith know what's he's talking about? Does Chris Bosh want out of Toronto?

Who the hell knows.

But, what's interesting about the fall-out of the Smith's assurance that CB4 is about the become the next Air Canada or T-Mac is how it shines a light on the modern world of sports journalism.

Smith is an acquired taste. He's loud, contrarian and, well, urban. A lot of people are rubbed the wrong way by him, sometimes for reasons that don't seem all that, um, pure of heart.

This afternoon Jack Armstrong and Doug MacLean ripped into Smith on the Fan590's The Game Plan. Missing the irony of that fact that they are on a radio station that employs about 3,842 NHL insiders, they called Smith's credibility into question.

MacLean sarcastically praised journalists that fight to get a scoop "30 seconds" before their competition (I guess he won't be in Sportsnet's studio on NHL trade deadline day then. You know, on moral grounds). Armstrong talked about people "sitting in their basement" (at least it wasn't "parent's basement" I guess) causing trouble for teams and players.

Here's the thing. "Insider" sports journalism exists because there is a market for it. Ultimately those insiders will be judged by their audience. If they are making crap up, as many are accusing Smith of doing in this case, the readers will eventually tune them out. We don't need watchdogs like Armstrong and McLean to protect us from the big, bad insiders that are out to take down our favourite player/team.

As for the rumour? The fact that Smith says that he is going doesn't mean that he is. But, the fact that Bosh and Brian Colangelo are denying it means even less.

Kill the pig! Bash his head!!

All Sean Avery! All the time!!
Below the jump. Updated constantly.

See if you see anything missing from the Dallas Stars roster.

Edit: As I type we are about 30 minutes away from the start of Sean Avery's meeting with Gary Bettman in New York. It's likely an hour or so from when the suspension will be announced.

I've heard some experts predict that he will get as much as 15 games, which would make it one of the all-time longest suspensions.

With that in mind, it's useful to look at the history of how the NHL has handled racial slurs (the closest parallel to what Avery did. Today's progressive feminism is a new thing for the league, I guess) . Bnet has a nice little summery here.

Three games has been the max. And, that was with Chris Simon, a man that was about as popular as Avery. Speaking of Simon, I'm still looking for a history of how the NHL has handled incidents of of racism towards natives. I suspect I'll be looking for a while.

Edit 2: No word yet as of 12:20 p.m. EST. About 10 minutes ago Hockey Central at Noon's Daren Millard had these two gems back to back.

First: "I hope they give him 15 games," said with disgust dripping off the tongue.
Then: "(paraphrasing) The only thing I've heard is maybe they should have let him play against Calgary so that justice could have been served on the ice," said with barely hidden regret.

So, let's review. Using the term "sloppy seconds" is grounds for the 12th longest suspension in NHL history, yet openly wishing that the Flames had the chance to beat the snot out of him — something that would, it always needs to be said, land you in jail if it happened on the street, is perfectly reasonable. It's puckhead thinking at its most embarrassing, illogical best.

Sloppy seconds is more stupid than it is truly offensive (although there is an element of flippancy to the term that is offensive. It's saying that women have no worth other than as conquests for men. She's nothing but someone I once had sex with...). A suspension in line with what others have received for similar things (see above) is likely in order. Some sensitivity training? Why not. But, 15 games? It simply isn't justifiable. Not with the NHL's past history it isn't.

Edit 3: (Puck Daddy has a very comprehensive post.)

Edit 4: So, it's 5:11 p.m. EST and I've yet to see a NHL press release show up in my inbox with the title "League suspends Dallas Star..." So, it might be tomorrow before we get a ruling on this. Late tomorrow, as one can expect with any touchy press release.

Of course that means we have to listen to the puritans in the working puckhead media for another day. So, what a delay accomplishes God only knows.

The other possibility here is that the league's lawyers are working overtime to find a way to justify a lengthy suspension. 'Cause, as stated, it isn't really justifiable and Avery doesn't strike me as a good soldier that will lie down and take it if Bettman and co go all medieval.

Edit 5: Did everyone see that the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch wrote that it is, "Time to ban Sean Avery from the NHL for life ...

"Make an example of this guy. Ban him for life. Classless. Conduct detrimental to the game is about the least of the worries. Enough of Avery already. Bad actor. Bad act. Time for him to go. For good."

Edit 6: God love Colby Cosh:

A surprising number of sportswriters have had no problem with the league’s instant invention of a retroactive campus-style speech code to deal with Avery’s outburst. Perhaps it’s because their own freedom of speech is hostage to abusive NHL front offices; your average hockey writer bites his tongue so much that the damn thing drops right off about a week into his career. The rest of us, however, have no trouble understanding what is wrong with a business that is not in the opinion trade monitoring an employee’s off-duty speech and punishing him for it

How refreshing to see a MSM article -- albeit from a guy that only writes about hockey peripherally -- that actually tries to defend Avery a bit. Yes, he's an tool at times, but my God...by the reaction you would have thought he had hunted down an opposing player in a premeditated fashion, jumped him from behind and slammed his head into the ice so hard it broke his neck. It's a good thing you never see that type of behaviour in hockey and the worse thing Gary Bettman has to deal with is Avery's (who has never been suspended before, by the way) potty mouth.

Edit 6.5: Glove tap to Mr. Cosh himself who sent me this link in an e-mail exchange. Some are starting to break through the Group Think.

Edit 7: It's six games. By three games, it's the longest NHL suspension for non-violent behaviour in history. It likely won't satisfy the majority of bloodthirsty puckheads in the media and in society.

It goes without saying that if the league treated actual violent behaviour this seriously there would be a lot less players with eight-month long headaches.

More reaction to come, I'm sure...

Edit 8: Here is the NHL press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / DECEMBER 5, 2008


STARS’ AVERY TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL ANGER MANAGEMENT EVALUATION SUSPENDED FOR
SIX GAMES

NEW YORK (December 5, 2008) -- Dallas Stars forward Sean Avery
has been suspended for six games, without pay, as a result of inappropriate
public comments that he made Tuesday in Calgary. Avery has agreed to seek a
professional anger management evaluation and, if necessary, structured
counseling in response to a pattern of unacceptable and antisocial
behavior.
Avery met with Commissioner Bettman at a hearing in New York
yesterday. Also in attendance were NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, NHL
Senior Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations Colin
Campbell, NHL Associate Counsel Jessica Berman, Dallas Stars co-General
Manager Brett Hull, NHLPA General Counsel Ian Penny, NHLPA Director of
Player Affairs Glenn Healy and Avery’s agent, Pat Morris.
“Mr. Avery has expressed remorse for his recent comments and has
sought a professional anger management evaluation,” Commissioner Bettman
said. “I will require that he follow through with that process as a
condition of his returning to the ice and that he complies with any and all
recommendations.
“Mr. Avery has been warned repeatedly about his conduct and comments,
which have too often been at odds with the manner in which his more than
700 fellow players conduct themselves.
“Playing in the National Hockey League is a privilege, requiring a
high standard of personal behavior. Mr. Avery forfeits that privilege for
six games.”
Avery was suspended in accordance with the provisions of NHL By-Law
17 and Article 6 of the NHL Constitution for conduct "detrimental to the
League or game of hockey.”
In addition to the two games already served, Avery will miss
games Dec. 5 vs. Colorado, Dec. 10 vs. Phoenix, Dec. 12 vs. Detroit and
Dec. 13 at Nashville.

Edit 9: People close to the game, of course, have always held deeply progressive feelings about the place of women in and around it:


So, the league's reaction to Avery is just really keeping in that tradition.

The truth shall set you free

Paging William Houston at the Globe & Mail: It is 99.9% certain there is a serial plagiazer in the Canadian media, and it's not clear where the point-one is coming from.

True, there are bigger fish to fry, and sporting topics of broader interest. Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio has done the digging with regard to sportsnet.ca's Chris Landry, and been on this over the past few days. It's especially rich, especially considering that Landry once wrote a piece about Bill Belichick titled "Above the Law" where he related to readers how, in his days as an NFL scout, he opted for the moral high ground when he worked for Coach Hoodie, saying, "I would not steal (competitors') information. I could beat them fair and square and often did so. I could also look myself in the mirror and sleep well at night, something I could not have done if I had cheated them."

Sportsnet is a distant No. 2 behind TSN, but it is mind-boggling that Houston or the CBC has not called shenanigans. We all look bush-league if this is allowed to slide. Plagiarism is a firing offence at any reputable news outlet. ask Scott Taylor in Winnipeg or David Pratt in Vancouver.

(Update, Dec. 4, 2 p.m.: Pro Football Talk is reporting that Landry will "remain off air for now." theScore.com Blog picked up on it this morning.)

The Reader's Digest timeline, of PFT's digging, which includes direct accusations from two writers affected, Andrew Brandt and Michael Lombardi, that they were ripped off, seems pretty damning. PFT has dedicated multiple posts to this, so rather than having a post that's nothing but hyperlinks, here's a summary"

• As "the result of a long-time league executive pointing out the similarities to us," PFT finds that, "In nine different instances, the words in (Landry's Dec. 1) column were virtually identical to the words in the other one (by Lombardi of National Football Post).
• Quoth PFT, "Landry responded with a general denial and a vague allegation that it was his work that had been plagiarized."
• On Wednesday, NFP posts a message, "The National Football Post became aware yesterday that Chris Landry copied certain segments of our content and published it on sportsnet.ca without our permission and without credit being given to our writers. We thank ProFootballTalk.com for bringing the issue to our attention."
• Brandt points out that Lombardi's Nov. 17 column and Landry's Nov. 21 column are remarkably similar. (Apparently Landry once worked for Lombardi in Cleveland.)
• NFP commenters note that Landry's archive at sportsnet.ca shows nothing written after Jan. 28, but links to work done since Jan. 28 still work (as, at this writing, it does for the Nov. 21 column -- I checked).
• PFT says neither Landry or anyone from Rogers Sportsnet has taken them up on an offer to go on the record and tell their side of the story. But they, as Florio notes, it's odd that a portion of his archive would suddenly vanish right after allegations of plagiarism have been levelled.

There is a modicum of sympathy for all the writers these days, and god knows the temptation to scalp or cut corners must be overwhelming. There's far more for those who see someone else nicking their stuff without attribution or permission.

Related:
Smoking Gun Emerges In Landry Situation (Pro Football Talk)

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

So inside, he can just take whatever he wants?

Sportsnet's NFL insider, Chris Landry, is in a bit of pickle.

ProFootballTalk has found at least nine instances where Landry's copy in a column that ran Monday was almost verbatim to portions of an article from NationalFootballPost writer Michael Lombardi. (All of those links are from PFT.)

Landry has declined to comment specifically, saying, I have been in the hospital with my Mother who broke her hip and am out of the loop. Thing is, sportsnet.ca has been caught red-handed scalping from the Calgary Sun, Edmonton Sun, Ottawa Sun, Minneapolis Star-Tribune and Toronto Star. Those are merely the ones yours truly found while half-heartedly searching over a three-month span in 2007, before getting bored out pointing out something so stunningly and obviously wrong.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself, "Well, that's the pressure of the 24-hour newscycle," or, "what is it with you journalists and that taboo about not taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own?" Well, far be it to say that with the web opening up avenues for so many commentators, it's more important than ever to properly attribute, or at least be submitting original work if you have a paying gig. This site is in the clear, since nothing it has ever done is original, unless it involved the CIS and Simpsons characters.

The funny part is Landry didn't cover his tracks very well, as PFT readers pointed out:

"As a reader initially pointed out in the comments, Landry’s column contains a passage regarding Giants receiver Plaxico Burress that is but for the omission of a hyphen by Landry identical to a portion of a December 1 column from Brandt regarding the Burress situation."

On some level, this is a chattering class issue. Honestly, when the headline read "Brandt, Lombardi claim plagiarism by Landry," the first thought was that this had something to do with Gil Brandt, Vince Lombardi or Tom Landry. One has to wonder what is going on when a writer faces accusations and it's an outlet that would often rip something right out someone else's story.

Related:
Brandt, Lombardi claim plagiarism by Landry (Mike Florio, ProFootballTalk)

Grey Cup: You lost us at turban-spotting

That old line about the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function always comes in handy.

There is a Toronto media personality who has truth and fun on his side like no one but no one in this country, but sometimes, well, he doesn't polish the message. His heart was in the right place when he wrote about the Grey Cup losing some of its cultural cachet, but it he blew it kind of with a line about how you won't "spot a lot of turbans" or "many young immigrants with tickets" in the crowd at Olympic Stadium Sunday.

Eep. Did anyone else read that and look over their shoulder for the Queen's University conversation cops? It is not necessarily prejudiced, merely careless on the website editors' part to post that unexpurgated.

"...take the behind-the-scenes crew at Sportsnet who put the nightly highlights together. Most of them are young, some of them multicultural, but all of them are passionate NFL fans. I see it every year and I'll see it again on Sunday; The kids will go crazy if the Jets upset the Titans but when the Grey Cup kicks off, our studio will sound more like a library.

"So, while CFL officials, the media and fans come together to toast the league with a few wobbly pops during Grey Cup, they should also take a good look around.

"With Calgary in the big game they're bound to see a bunch of cowboy hats in the crowd, and French-Canadians might even break out a few colorful Berets.

"However, they won't spot a lot of turbans and they'll be hard-pressed to find many young immigrants with tickets to the 'Big O,' which is too bad since it should be a heckuva game." (emphasis mine)

Far be it to wonder about what makes an individual "multicultural," whether colleagues in their 20s count as "kids" or where this guy gets off thinking he is entitled to use a semicolon. (Granted in Ontario, the definition of "kid" keeps getting pushed farther and farther back.)

They won't spot of a lot of turbans ... A Heinz-57 Canadian from cracker-ass crackerville cannot assume to know what it's like read that for those who are young, black or brown, or a first- or second-generation Canadians (not "immigrants"). The best one can is be thankful to have once had a teacher who stood before a classroom full of whiter-than-white Eastern Ontario teenagers and said, "You're not Canada."

The CFL has some issues with demographics, but it's borne of age, not just ethnicity. The CFL, in central Canada, is reaping what it sowed in the '80s and '90s, which is why the makeup of its crowds have not kept pace with the face of modern Canada.

Shortsighted blackout policies, franchises in turmoil in all four Eastern cities and the nuclear proliferation of televised sports caused the CFL to lose a lot of fans. They are now, 25-39 years old, which represents a person's prime years for following sports and buying tickets (the optimal point between having disposable income and not having to chase after children). There are still plenty of men and women who will seek out the CFL on their own, the same way some people love indie rock or art-house movies. That cuts across all lines.

If the CFL is becoming nichey, it's because of what happened in the '80s and '90s, and CFL commissioner Mark Cohon, et al., have to find that lost generation. They're smart enough to figure that out, without looking for fans in turbans.

Related:
It's just a football game (sportsnet.ca; funny someone at the cable sports network that doesn't have either the Vanier or Grey Cup games would make that argument, but whatever)

With fans and TV friends like these, there's no happy medium

Travis Snider's splendid home debut betrayed everything all that is soulless and wrong about the Rogers Blue Jays, their main TV carrier and Toronto's alleged sports fans.

It was twofold. Sportsnet, as Drunk Jays Fans pointed out, was doing an interview with an ex-Leafs hockey player and thus ignored the super-prospect's first at-bat. Secondly, the lack of a warm welcome when Snider came up was described as "shameful." (Miked Up.)

For a diehard fan, there's only so much you shrug off before you want to get your Billy Jack on: It's only a silly baseball team which hasn't been in the playoffs since I was in Grade 11, and I want you to know, that I try. When well-meaning family members and friends say that "it's only baseball" and tell me that I'm supposed to control my violent temper, and be passive and nonviolent, I try. I really try. Though when I see Travis Snider ... who is so special to us we (ought to) call him 'God's gift of sunshine' ... and I think of the number of years that he's going to have to carry in his memory ... the savagery of this idiotic moment of yours... I just go BERSERK!

No one's asking for the kind of saturation coverage TSN gives to hockey players who roughly the same age as the 20-year-old Snider. However, when the best homegrown hitting prospect the Jays have developed in relevant memory comes up to bat in his home stadium for the first time, pretty please with sugar on top and you can make this a Christmas and birthday present, focus on his at-bat. Don't talk over the play by doing an interview with ex-Leafs goalie Curtis Joseph, which is what happened.

Granted, the broadcasters might not have even noticed Snider was up to bat. As Mike Wilner pointed out on the radio and on his blog, he got roughly, oh, three-one thousandths of the reaction elicited when the "gameday crew" at the world's largest Rogers Video store brings out the T-shirt shooter. It was pathetic.

Perhaps the ignorance and indifference is no surprise, when you consider how little evident fanfare the Rogers-owned network dedicated to the up-and-coming star of the Rogers-owned baseball team.

As someone whom, admittedly, can zone out on baseball for hours on end, it's hard to get wrapped around what is so hard to understand. What are sports consumers in the Centre of the Universe apparently incapable of seeing with their own eyes?

Any 20-year-old who smokes a line-drive single off a 3-and-2 slider from Joe Nathan, Minnesota's lights-out closer, with two out in the ninth inning when it's his first week in the majors pretty much has the baseball world by the tail. Typically, in that situation, most hitters expect a fastball, and if they get anything else, they need a miracle in a worse way than Ricky did in that Trailer Park Boys episode when he couldn't smoke or swear in a courtroom. Experienced major-league hitters, including a few on the Jays, will swing and miss or produce a weak groundball out if Joe Nathan throws them a slider in that two-strike situation. (Not that anyone is naming names, Vernon Wells.)

That's what makes the indifference so galling, as Wilner articulated on air:

I have to say, (I'm) very disappointed in the crowd of 21 and a half thousand people that when Travis Snider came to the plate for his major-league at-bat at home -- nothing. Quiet, polite applause, no different than the applause for Lyle Overbay or Marco Scutaro ... you know what? And I mentioned to somebody before off the air and they said, 'That's what you get in this city. People just don't understand.' And I try my best not to give in to the people who say Toronto's not a baseball-savvy town and the fans don't understand baseball and you know, whatever. But that showed me something. And that was just terrible -- terrible! Everyone who was at the ballpark tonight should be ashamed of themselves for not giving Travis Snider a better welcome to the big leagues."

I can see where it's possible Wilner laid it on a bit thick. It was the Wednesday after Labour Day. The tourist crowd who make a point to come see a game or two each season are gone. Everyone there was probably on freebie tickets.

The newspaper reporters got it right and made Snider the focus of their game stories (although saying that Snider and John McDonald are in any kind of "similar situation" as hitters is more than a stretch. The only similarity between Snider and the .540-OPSin' McGlovin as hitters as that they each use a bat).

Ultimately, though, this is what you get in a market where how baseball is presented and absorbed is affected by Rogers' uninterested ownership (hat tip to Dan Rowe). When you have big corporations that don't care about the stuff they own, is it really any shocker people don't show any love to God's Gift of Sunshine?

Anywho, it's dumbfounding that Sportsnet couldn't save the softball questions for CuJo for the next half-inning. Meantime, for fans, start getting to know Travis Snider, AKA God's Gift of Sunshine. Not next summer, after he does a six-week or so turn at Syracuse Buffalo just to fine-tune his swing and cut down on his strikeouts, but now.

Going to a Jays game and not clueing in about Travis Snider is like going to a hockey game and not knowing it's played on ice. Sorry for the rant, but someone had to say it.

Singing the Blues

Today has to be considered a great day for CIS football fans right across Canada! Following the end of the longest losing streak in CIS history, there was coverage in really every major news outlet across the country! (you had to dig a bit for the National Post, but it was there too!)

Today, before our weekly meeting at work, while recapping our long weekends I said how I had caught the Blues game, and it actually snagged the attention of everyone in the room. There were both men and women, of a pretty wide range of ages, and they all knew about the Blues victory. And then someone said something I never thought I'd even hear many hardcore CIS fans say: "Man you're so lucky, that's so great that you were there I wish I was there!"

Who wishes they were at a U of T Football game....EVER??? This victory may very well be that injection the CIS needed to bring back interest here in Hogtown. With all the talk of the mass complacency within Toronto for Canadian football and Canadian sports in general -- let alone CIS ball -- I was honestly surprised with the sudden interest from so many people as they jumped all over this newstory. While it could easily be ignored as an amateur Canadian product not worthy of attention, it turned into one of the stories of the day.

It's also funny that Neate made mention below about Sportsnet borrowing my footage after leaving early because they actually did! -- and CTV Newsnet did as well! Unfortunately I was in said meeting mentioned earlier when they had tried to get in touch with me, they wanted interviews with people at the game last night. While it would've been nice to give a little praise to the Blues effort to the national media my footage graced the real tube alongside its spot on 'OurTube,' and that's pretty great!

But anyways here's the game-winning Field Goal, enjoy!

Things that make you reevaluate your life

Somethings you just aren't prepared for. Like moments ago when Bob McCown made a shocking admission on Prime Time Sports (You'll be able to download it later). In an off-topic conversation with co-host Jim Kelly about American politics McCown--the grumpy, hangin' judge McCown--admitted that he was, get this...

A democrat. And a fan of Bill Clinton.

Bob McCown. Yes, that one. Now, I've heard everything.

Zen Dayley: Insert picture of upside-down Canadian flag in 3, 2, 1...

Fox Sports cutting to a commercial during O Canada is tacky -- but it's like expecting the class clown not to make armpit noises during a school assembly.

The point is, you almost look forward to it with Fox. One less than endearing Canadian trait is that we often overanalyze American interpretations of us, just to look for the boo-boos. It's kind of like the nerd who adds to the goofs section on the Internet Movie Database. Watching how Fox, the broadcast arm of the hyperbole-industrial complex, utterly ignored this country's baseball fans during the baseball All-Star Game telecast from Yankee Stadium, though, you can't blame us for feeling that way.

It happens too often. We are forced to keep score at home. No one in Canada would have known about this right away, save for the fact globesports.com's Jeff Blair blogged it, but MLB did have O Canada. While Sheryl Crow performed The Star-Spangled Banner, there was a recorded version of our national anthem, with no singer. The only reason it was even seen in Canada, ironically enough, was due to a screwup by the Canadian rights holder.

Think about it. Months of planning and preparation went into this Bronx bonanza, but MLB couldn't find anyone to sing O Canada. Hey, it's not like there were an unprecedented three Canadians in the game. In fairness, New York City isn't swimming in unknown performers who just need a break.

This very well could be the old Canadian insecurity talking. Doesn't it seem like U.S. broadcasters constantly betray a lack of broadcast preparation when it comes anything Canadian? The half-assed treatment of our anthem was just the tip of the iceberg.

What happened was that that chill bump-raising pregame ceremony introducing virtually every living Hall of Famer wrapped up and Fox went to a commercial break. That's not so bothersome. They had a lot of ads to squeeze in and the pregame ceremony was bound to run a little long.

On Sportsnet Pacific, the screen went to black for about 15-20 seconds. Then suddenly the feed came back, somewhere around the "from far and wide," although it was hard to be pinpoint it exactly, since there were no words. What, MLB couldn't spring for the airfare and a hotel room to get this singer down to New York City?

Any Canadian baseball nut who tuned to see a game that had an unprecedented three of our own playing in the Midsummer Classic -- the L.A. Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, Cubs right-hander Ryan Dempster and Twins first baseman Justin Morneau -- saw half of a half-hearted treatment of our anthem.

In the top of the fourth, Roy Halladay came on to pitch. Joe Buck called the four-time All-Star Holliday (no, he plays for the Colorado Rockies -- as Amrit pointed out, he homered an inning later, but not off his AL near-namesake). A few moments later, Tim McCarver, referred to the Jays' home stadium as the "Rogers Dome." (Well, it has only had Rogers' corporate on it since 2005, and it is a dome.)

Hopefully Jays president Paul Godfrey wasn't expecting any quid pro quo for persisting in playing God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch at the Rogers Centre long after many U.S. teams discontinued the practice.

It was a slap in the face. They skimped on an anthem singer and then Joe and Tim skim over some basic prep work for the broadcast involving a Canadian-based player. It comes off as saying, hey, it's Canada, what does it matter?

This isn't coming from someone who's resolutely anti-American. There's so much they do better than Canada -- sports, movies, politically motivated witchhunts, Trials of the Century, showing celebrities at their worst, subtle political satire. How many Canadians who couldn't get anywhere creatively in this country have made it big down there?

One of the funnier aspects about that line "where else can even paperboy option the film rights to a book?" in that Bruce McCullough Kids In The Hall monologue, In America, is that it has a grain of truth. The U.S is still the country for the dreamers, the lottery players. Canada is where your life is just a job you have to finish, although that's probably just as true for most Americans (that's why country music is so popular in both countries).

Getting back to the point, no Canadian broadcaster would ever think to go to commercial during the American anthem. We're way too eager to ingratiate ourselves with the Americans. Our government even let American fighter pilots do a flyover over the U.S. ambassador's residence in Ottawa on July 4, as well we should have. We would never consider not giving our American friends equal consideration.

Down south, they figure there's no need to bother with acknowledging Canada, but then again, we are kind of boring.

You think Buck and McCarver mentioned that there were three Canadians in the game? Don't be foolish.

(How sweet was it to see the full range of Martin's talents -- hitting, going first-to-third on a single, working the plate -- and to see Morneau score the winning run?)

Forget it, it's the Bronx

• Capping the pregame hoopla by wheeling in George Steinbrenner was lame. Only the Yankees would have the gall to be so obvious about ripping off the scene in Boston in 1999, when the presence of Ted Williams, in evident poor health, turned Fenway Park into a giant kiss-and-cry area at a figure skating competition.
  
  There's no moral high ground in begrudging an 78-year-old plutocrat in his sunset years becoming America's grandpa. That said, you can sub in "baseball owners" into that line from Chinatown about how "politicians, ugly buildings, and whores all get respectable if they last long enough" and it fits the scene to a tee. It's no wonder he didn't get a big ovation from the crowd.
  
  Painting Steinbrenner in such a glowing light, giving him more of a spotlight than Hank Aaron, Ernie Banks, George Brett, Mike Schmidt and Frank Robinson, et al., is a whitewash. Sorry, but there's no way to be objective about Steinbrenner.
  
  In the back half of his time running the Yankees, he was the best owner in sports. However, you have to remember that for at least as long, probably longer, he was the worst owner in sports. He demeaned players and managers, ran roughshod over people who had no way of fighting back, traded in thinly veiled racism to try and shake down NYC for a new stadium -- remember when he kept saying the area around the Stadium was "too scary" -- and damn near destroyed the Yankee tradition.
  
  A generation ago, Goose Gossage, one of the Yankees legends involved in the first-ball ceremony (four first balls? Really?), said, "George always like to talk about the Yankee tradition. When did he ever play for the Yankees?"
  
  Gossage was right the first time. The Yankees can recognize Steinbrenner on their own time, like before their final home game of the season, rather than shoving it down the throats of fans whose teams don't have $209-million payrolls. The rewriting of history is well underway.
  
  Plus there was the time he invited himself to Costanza's wedding.
• The best hitters in the game (and Jason Varitek) went 3-for-28 with runners in scoring position. Basically, it was like a Jays intrasquad game.
• Everyone will be having a lot of fun with the story about Ichiro Suzuki's not-G-rated Gipper speech.
• Great lines from ShysterBall: "The baseball luminaries are riding in 100 Chevy Silverados. Baseball's carbon footprint is taking a beating this evening.
  
  "This thing reminds me of the Macy's parade. I hope I didn't tune in too late to see the David Wells balloon."
• Dustin McGowan's not out for the season. Even better news: He never watches movies that star Bill Murray.
• Via Uni Watch, here's a great trivia question: Who was the first player to play in an All-Star Game wearing Blue Jays gear? OK, It was Ruppert Jones, an outfielder in the '70s and '80s who never played for the Jays. How did he pull that off?
• Lastly, how much more informal was baseball back in 1967, the only previous time the game went 15 innings? Mickey Mantle was on the American League team that season, but didn't feel like he rated the honour, so he flew from Dallas to Anaheim, arrived after the game had started, pinch-hit for the starting pitcher in the third inning, struck out, and flew back to Dallas. The game was still going when he met up with his buddies at the country club.
  
  It's too bad that OPS+ wasn't around in in 1967. For a guy who was supposedly done, The Mick had an OPS+ of 150. Most players never get close to that in their entire career.

(Digression: Searching for the McCullough monologue turned up the greatest cold opening in television history. Try to work "guilty, but with various good excuses" into conversation whenever possible.)

Getting ready for a resounding gong show; or, bollocks to wannabe Sam Pollocks

Re-reading Neal Pollack's essay The Cult of the General Manager is one way to feel fortified against the NHL's quote-unquote free agent frenzy.

"If you don't care about buying, selling, and trading, the sports world has much less to offer you these days.

"... My modest GM fantasies begin and end with baseball, where numbers rule and where such obsessions were born. Every other sport has to stay relatively pure in my mind; I've struggled for years to ignore the NBA's arcane salary cap rules, and I'm not about to change now ... I want to see the final product, not hear about how it was made in Santa's workshop.

"As deathly dull as a general manager's machinations may be, there's obviously an audience for it. I think that's warped ... Really, who would you rather be, Tom Brady or the guy who signed Tom Brady to a long-term deal? This may be the age of the general manager. But the quarterback still has more fun."

Who needs any of it? As far as this country boy's concerned, all the myriad hockey insiders in the newspapers, on the Canadian sports networks and among the blogeteriat combined who would have you believe it matters where Sean Avery signs combine to be a resounding gong or a clattering cymbal. (Not all of them, mind you; Mirtle should have outstanding coverage.) There's an element there of knowing everything about hockey except how to enjoy it.

They have not love. (It's in First Corinthians, people!)

(Devil's advocate: Who says hockey is meant to be enjoyed? After all, as any good hockey parent who just plunked down $425 to send little a week at Mike Fisher's hockey school knows, if you're not as serious as a heart attack about hockey from the time you're six years old, you'll have nothing but regret when you become one of the complete and utter failures otherwise known as the 99.5% of Canadian males who don't make the pros and have only themselves to blame.)

Hockey talk is most soothing during the time of year when the game is actually in season (which is a long enough timeframe already). It's OK to talk about the business dealings of certain NHL owners (cough) or possible rules changes during the off-season.

The only interest on this end is whether Mats Sundin will sign with a team that wears blue helmets, which won't be known for a while. Seeing him with a red or black bucket after all these years with the Nordiques, Leafs and Team Sweden would be too weird.

Seriously, though, anyone whose mind is on where Marian Hossa will sign should go a fly a kite on Canada Day. That's not just an expression.

Related:
The Cult of the General Manager; Can We Go Back To Worshipping Athletes Already (Neal Pollack, Slate, Aug. 29, 2005)