Posted on April 18th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Sports.
Isiah Thomas has been fired* as the coach of the New York Knicks, ending the most inexplicably protracted reign of incompetence and absurdity I can remember in all my time following sports. I'll miss him.
* Actually, he still hasn't exactly been fired; he's been relieved of his coaching duties, but is still being kept with the organization in an undefined capacity.
Posted on April 16th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Sports.
Seattle Mariners Venezuelan phenom Felix Hernandez is much celebrated at USS Mariner; in fact, they gave him the nickname King Felix by which he is nationally known. Every day he pitches is "Happy Felix Day" at USS Mariner. Today limericks broke out. I contributed two:
All hail the young King from Caracas.
His eminence never should shock us.
When he mixes his pitches
He leaves batters in twitches
And our cheers can be heard in Secaucus.
But then I discovered he's actually from Valencia. You can't rhyme much with Valencia (or Venezuela) in English, so I came at it from a different angle:
A Valencian monarch named Felix
Has an extra-high-powered double helix.
Hitters flail at his flings
And their once-mighty swings
Are reduced to limp, impotent wee licks.
Happy Felix Day!
Posted on January 20th, 2008 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Sports.
A gem from the always poorly copy edited espn.com:
Carmelo Anthony saddled up to Allen Iverson late in the fourth quarter and told him they needed to put an end to this game.
Posted on February 2nd, 2007 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Sports, Media.
ESPN is running a story about ex-New England Patriot linebacker Ted Johnson's concussion related health problems from a front page link with the headline "Ex-Pats linebacker blames Belichick for depression".
Within the story, we discover what "depression" means:
Ted Johnson said coach Bill Belichick subjected him to hard hits in practice while he was recovering from a concussion -- against the advice of the team's top trainer. [...] [A]fter sustaining additional concussions over the next three seasons, he now forgets people's names, misses appointments and suffers from depression and an addiction to amphetamines. [...] After returning to game action, the linebacker sustained more concussions of varying severity over the following three seasons, each of them exacerbating the next, according to his current neurologist, Dr. Robert Cantu. Cantu told the Times he was certain that Johnson's problems "are related to his previous head injuries, as they are all rather classic postconcussion symptoms." He added, "They are most likely permanent." Cantu, the chief of neurosurgery and director of sports medicine at Emerson Hospital in Concord, Mass., also said Johnson shows signs of early Alzheimer's disease. "The majority of those symptoms relentlessly progress over time," Cantu said. "It could be that at the time he's in his 50s, he could have severe Alzheimer's symptoms."
I wonder how many ESPN visitors see the link, roll their eyes at the idea of an ex-player blaming a coach for depression, and don't read the piece.
Posted on October 15th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Editing, Sports.
from the ESPN story about the suspension of the Raiders' Jerry Porter:
One player suggested the Raiders "were looking for an excuse [to sanction Porter], and Jerry kind of [unwittingly] gave" them one. But, said the player, "it's kind of a [horsefeathers] move if they're basing it just on what he said [Friday]."
Posted on August 24th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Sports, Comedy.
New York Met Julio Franco is my favorite player. He turned 48 today, and is not only still playing but is still an important part of his team.
Julio Franco has been around a while. Julio Franco played with Mike Hargrove, you know. Not for, with. Julio Franco played with Toby Harrah and Andre Thornton. Julio Franco played with Bake McBride and Bert Blyleven and Steve Carlton.
Julio Franco played with Pete Rose.
Remember Neal Heaton? Neal Heaton played with Julio Franco. Neal Heaton is younger than Julio Franco. Brook Jacoby is younger than Julio Franco. Mel Hall and Joe Carter are younger than Julio Franco. Remember the great young Toronto outfield of the mid-80s? Jesse Barfield, Lloyd Moseby, and George Bell are all younger than Julio Franco. All three of them have been out of baseball for more than a dozen years. Jimmie Key is younger than Julio Franco. Tony Fernandez is three years younger than Julio Franco. Cecil Fielder is five years younger than Julio Franco.
Alvin Davis is younger than Julio Franco. So is Jim Presley. Spike Owen, Harold Reynolds, Darnell Coles, Mike Moore, Mark Langston, Mike Morgan, and the late Ivan Calderon are younger than Julio Franco. Danny Tartabull is four years younger than Julio Franco. So is Edwin Nunez. Phil Bradley is younger than Julio Franco, and Phil Bradley has been out of baseball for sixteen years.
Don Mattingly is younger than Julio Franco. Henry Cotto is younger than Julio Franco. Did you know that Bob Melvin is younger than Julio Franco? Cal Ripken is younger than Julio Franco. Larry Sheets and Storm Davis are younger than Julio Franco. Rich Gedman and Oil Can Boyd are younger than Julio Franco. Mike Greenwell is five years younger than Julio Franco. So is Bret Saberhagen.
Mark Gubicza is younger than Julio Franco. Devon White and Dick Schofield are four years younger than Julio Franco. Mike Witt and Kirk McCaskill are younger than Julio Franco. Ozzie Guillen is five years younger than Julio Franco.
Bo Jackson is four years younger than Julio Franco.
Kent Hrbek is younger than Julio Franco. So are Greg Gagne and Tom Brunansky and the late Kirby Puckett. Frank Viola is younger than Julio Franco. Mickey Tettleton is younger than Julio Franco, and so are Curt Young and Steve Ontiveros. Jose Rijo is six years younger than Julio Franco.
Ryne Sandberg is younger than Julio Franco. Billy Hatcher is, too. Juan Samuel, Von Hayes, and Glenn Wilson are younger than Julio Franco. Remember Joe Orsulak, Marvell Wynne, Sid Bream? All younger than Julio Franco. Mike Scoscia is younger than Julio Franco, and so is Steve Sax. Mariano Duncan, Mike Marshall (the outfielder), and Candy Maldonado are younger than Julio Franco. Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hersheiser, and Tom Niedenfuer are younger than Julio Franco. Tom Browning and Nick Esasky are younger than Julio Franco.
There are at least six managers younger than Julio Franco: Ozzie Guillen, Bob Melvin, Mike Scioscia, Eric Wedge, Terry Francona, and John Gibbons.
Tony Gwynn is younger than Julio Franco. Andy Hawkins is younger than Julio Franco. Kevin Bass is younger than Julio Franco. Chili Davis, Jose Uribe, and Rob Deer are younger than Julio Franco. Matt Nokes and Dan Petry, too. Nelson Liriano is five years younger than Julio Franco. Manny Lee is six years younger.
(John Franco was still pitching last year at 45. He was the second-oldest Franco in the game.)
Steve Buechele is younger than Julio Franco. Oddibe McDowell is four years younger than Julio Franco. Terry Pendleton, Vince Coleman, and Andy Van Slyke are younger than Julio Franco. Willie McGee is younger than Julio Franco. Wally Backman, Howard Johnson, Daryl Strawberry, Ron Darling, Rick Aguilera, Roger McDowell, and Calvin Schiraldi are younger than Julio Franco. Lenny Dykstra and Sid Fernandez are four years younger than Julio Franco. Dwight Gooden is six years younger.
Jesse Orosco is not younger than Julio Franco.
I could go on, but I’m tired.
God bless Julio Franco.
Posted on July 29th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Words, Sports, Oracles.
Subject line of spam received today:
Better future, well refereed
Posted on February 4th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Sports, Untruths.
My hometown team is in the Super Bowl, for the first time in their thirty years of existence. I am reasonably excited about this, and may post about it.
But. Please, please do not send me that nonsense about Super Bowl Sunday being the number one wife-beating day of the year. It's not true, and someone sends it to me every damned year.
I think the urban myths that bug me the most are the ones that people want to be true. These are necessarily made up by someone mendacious, but the credulous lazy believers are at least as responsible for the spread of these lies. The worst ones recently have been the series of racist emails that have circulated in the wake of Katrina (you can find several of them here), each of which was of course started deliberately by some overtly racist scumbag, but were passed along, I would guess, mostly by people who would deny being racists but nonetheless found the lies easy to believe (probably because the stories generally match up well with the socially conservative political and cultural propaganda that's been spread by the right-wing media machine over the last couple decades -- propaganda that always avoids overt racism while playing shamelessly upon covert racism -- and because of the ease with which people can be made to believe that people worse off than them are basically responsible for it, even when they are victims of a natural disaster*).
That wasn't a tangent I was expecting to go off on. Welcome to my ADD rant generator.
* And, of course, victims of a corrupt, incompetent, indifferent, cynical, racist federal government and presidential administration.
Posted on January 22nd, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Sports.
Fred asked me for my Top Five Teams, any year, any sport.
5: Philadelphia 76ers, 1982-83. 65-17. Lost only one game through the playoffs, swept the Lakers in the finals. The one bright spot in the streak of Laker and Celtic championships. Led by two all-time greats, Moses Malone and Julius Erving, and two superb all-stars, Bobby Jones and Maurice Cheeks. The most fun I've ever had following a team that wasn't my hometown.
4: North Carolina Tar Heels, women's college soccer, 1986 to 1994. Eight consecutive national championships, two unbeaten streaks of more than a hundred games.
3: UCLA Bruins, men's college basketball, 1966 to 1973. Seven championships, four 30-0 seasons, an 88-game winning streak.
2: Seattle Mariners, 2001. One of the best teams in baseball history, almost certainly the best to not win a championship. 116-46. Ichiro's rookie year. The most delight I've ever had following a baseball team. I can't talk about the awful way they lost to the loathesome Yankees in the playoffs; I'm just not reasonable about it. I stopped following sports altogether for a year because I felt so terrible at the Mariners' loss, and I knew this wasn't a healthy way for me to feel. I came back to sports when I felt I was able to approach it with less passion. Which is a much better place for my head to be, but also means I will never again experience anything close to:
1: Seattle Sonics, men's professional basketball, 1978-1979.
This is the one that matters. I was fifteen years old, and had been a basketball fan, and a Sonics fan, as long as I could remember. The Sonics were a young franchise, admitted to the NBA in 1967, and had been up and down over their first decade. In the same period, their archrival, the younger Portland TrailBlazers, had already won a championship behind the dominant leadership of Bill Walton, before his feet fell apart.
The seventies were a great time to be a basketball fan. This flies in the face of conventional wisdom; the seventies are supposed to be the nadir of the NBA, and it was the bottom of the NBA's popularity. The eighties brought the three-point shot (lifted from the defunct ABA) and the superstars who lifted the NBA to its preeminence: Magic, Bird, and Jordan. But I hated the eighties, with its emphasis on the big stars, and the well-balanced teams (Milwaukee, Atlanta, San Antonio, Denver, Portland, Dallas) always falling in the playoffs to the superstar-led teams getting superstar calls.
The seventies were about team play. Defense hadn't yet taken over the game, and the players were not the amazingly conditioned athletes of today; run-and-gun was still a viable strategy, and teams could make the fast break a fundamental part of their game. The first half of the decade still had the marvelous wide-open ABA. No superstar ruled the game; as great as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was, he had one championship before Magic Johnson joined Kareem's Lakers in the 1979-80 season. From 1970 to 1980 no team won the title two years in a row; the seventies feature the only championships for Portland, Milwaukee, Golden State, Washington, and Seattle. Seattle's championship was the last of that era; Magic and Bird entered the league the next year (along with the three-point shot). The Sonics were the last championship team to not feature a hall of famer (or obvious future hall of famer) until the Detroit championship team of a year ago. If that Detroit team wins another championship -- and they look very good this year -- they're going to have to put someone on that team into the hall.
At the beginning of the 1977-78 season, the Sonics were in turmoil. They started the season terribly, at 5-17. Coach Bob Hopkins was fired, and old local hero Lenny Wilkens was brought back to coach (he had been the Sonics' player-coach a few years earlier, and I think he's the last full-time player-coach the NBA has seen). Wilkens scrambled the starting lineup, emphasised the youth of the team, instilled a hard-nosed defensive work ethic, and the Sonics made a historic turnaround, going 42-18 the rest of the way, the best record in the league. Because of their terrible start, they had to overcome both Denver and Portland's home-court advantage to beat each of them in six games in the playoffs, then faced the Washington Bullets in the finals. The Bullets were another cinderella team, having only gone 44-38. They were led by two hall of famers near the end of their careers, the undersized but rugged Wes Unseld at center, and the great power forward Elvin Hayes, a player of machine-like efficiency who was the Karl Malone of his time. The Sonics took a 3-2 lead in the series but lost the last two games to lose the championship, and leave their amazing turnaround incomplete.
The next year they burned up the league. The Bullets and the Sonics weren't cinderellas any more; they had the two best records in the NBA, and met in the finals. The Sonics had a bad scare against Phoenix, needing an overtime win on the brink of elimination before prevailing 4-3. But the Bullets were extended to seven games in consecutive series against Atlanta and San Antonio. The Bullets pulled out the first game against the Sonics with a narrow two-point win; then Seattle won the next four to take their first and only championship. Jack Sikma, Dennis Johnson, Gus Williams, John Johnson, Lonnie Shelton, Fred Brown, Paul Silas: I could spend a couple paragraphs on each of them -- pages on Lenny Wilkens, my favorite person in basketball ever -- but I've gone on too long about this already.
I can't describe what it meant to me. I can't explain it, either. That was the peak of my life's experience as a sports fan, and I know that nothing else can be like it again. The night the Sonics won, I conceived the idea of finding out when their flight would come back to Seattle, and going down to Sea-Tac airport to meet it. I knew I wouldn't be the only one. My parents, bless them, did not dissuade me. Very early the next morning, I took the long bus ride to the airport -- I think it must have been a couple hours -- with my portable radio, and I walked around asking airport employees till I got pointed in the right direction, then hiked an hour to the non-commercial field where the plane would be arriving. I was the first one there, and for an hour I worried that I was in the wrong place. But then a few people showed up, then a few dozen, then a few hundred, then more; airport workers began setting up ropes beyond the fence we all waited behind. For the first time in my life, I experienced Festival Seating Anxiety: the frustrating knowledge that all one's care and planning can go astray with bad luck and the bad behavior of others, and that all one can do is wait, try to hold one's place, and be alert. I was ready when they opened the fence, and I sprinted to the ropes, and while I did not have the best location, I was in the front. It was still an hour before the plane arrived, but it was a happy crowd, playing music in various places, sharing food and drink, enjoying a festival atmosphere. When the plane finally taxied and stopped and the team emerged, waving and happy, we roared: not a roar like any I had heard at a sports stadium, not even a roar of triumph: it was a roar of celebration and joy. And I got to shake the hands of my heroes. It's no use telling me what we ought to have felt, where our priorities ought to have been: that crowd celebration is one of the peak moments of my life. The next week there was a parade, and I climbed and straddled a lamppost to watch, and no policeman ordered me down; the next day several people told me they had seen me on the news.
That's where I ought to have ended my sports fanhood, I suppose. I will never experience anything like it. But today I will watch the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC final, one step from the Super Bowl. And I'll be cheering for them, and will feel bad if they lose. But not so bad as I used to, nor so good.
Posted on January 15th, 2006 by Scraps.
Categories: Stuff, Sports.
Mariner fans in the blogosphere¹ are fortunate to have possibly the best single-team baseball blog around, USS Mariner. Over the last few days, Derek Zumsteg has been writing a wonderful series of articles explaining Mariner fandom from a variety of philosophical positions:
Mariners fandom, as seen through Materialism
Fans without a team are in a state of anarchy, almost unbeing, restless and chaotic, a life almost not worth living. It is natural then that these fans seek out teams that they can follow and believe in, even in places where their favorite sport is not popular. Otherwise, they may fall into cheering at silly, trivial things, like the changing colors of traffic lights, or racing clouds.
This proclivity to fandom is a piece of our nature, and we seek out the sensations of being in the audience for a game as surely as we do water or food. Our joy at a team's victory and our discomfort at our team's losses are both products of the body and motivate us to find ways to grow closer to a team or to distance ourselves from them and seek a more pleasing team. Our perceived choice in the matter is little more than an illusion, and we will reliably look to whatever choice best satisfies our desires....
Mariners fandom, as seen through Logical Positivism
True fandom is grounded not in the unquestioning belief in a team and the infallibility of everything it does. The meaning of our fandom is built on
verifiable facts, stacked one on top of another. Each fact must be verifiable, and so the fan must be both scientific and suspicious. Emotional ties are neither true or false, but meaningless.A fan might acknowledge that Edgar Martinez is an outstanding hitter, deserving of induction into the Hall of Fame, based on his accomplishments. But an argument that he is a clutch hitter would be discarded, as that's not a clearly verifiable claim....
And my favorite, Mariners fandom, as seen through Post-Structuralism
We are not fans, and being fans is not part of us. "Fan" is a socially and culturally-defined role that we fill at certain times. During these times, we are different people, with different values, desires, dislikes, all the way to different social systems.
We may act as fans in ways that we would not act "normally" (which is to say, occupying other roles). We may have fan-friends who we don't associate with outside of those times when we occupy the fan role. Encountering those people unexpectedly creates tension and unease unless we give in and return temporarily to our fan role, and act in a manner appropriate to that role.
[T]he post-structuralist fan . . . looks at the game and sees the events in terms of power and knowledge, and the social constructs that imply and impart identity.
Instead of arguing over methods of player evaluation, they instead see the clubhouse as a panopticon, where the manager exercises his power as a proxy for violence against his players, and the game itself is a barely-concealed analog for the crowd-pleasing gladitorial combat spectacles staged thousands of years ago.
"Milton Bradley exercises micro-political resistance," this fan might say, "and the structural factors repress him."...
God bless Derek Zumsteg.
¹ a silly but amusing word I use with no shame.