Former NBC exec Don Ohlmeyer is really coming into his own as ESPN’s new ombudsman, particularly if you believe said role oughta to involve shameless shilling for his new employer. “Storytelling at its best…dynamic tales filled with heroes and villians” is Ohlmeyer’s frothy assessment of the network’s “30 On 30″ documentary series, and in a similar display of team spirit, the recent L’affair Phillips/Hundley is characterized as an overzealous news media looking to tar the entire Bristol campus with the same sex-crazed brush.
Salacious stories about celebrities generally focus on the principals, not their employers. When David Letterman was dragged into the muck of an alleged extortion attempt surrounding his affair with a co-worker, Letterman was the story — CBS was an afterthought that’s only involvement was it airs his show.
With the Phillips affair, ESPN seemed to provide much of the celebrity cachet. Without the network, Phillips-Hundley probably would have been limited as a local New York story, and then only because of his association with the Mets. While ESPN was center stage, the network itself made a choice to provide minimal coverage of the story on its platforms.
“Stories involving us are angst-ridden, and we recognize that we don’t always do our best work on them,” said Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news. “It’s tough to be objective when we’re involved in some way. We tend to do the minimum that allows us to say, ‘We covered it.’ Fortunately, these types of stories don’t come along too often.”
Oh really? While I don’t endorse AJ Daulerio’s scorched earth policy towards ESPN, there’s a number of persons — Ms. Hundley’s attorneys most notably — who might be very interested in how often these types of stories seem to come along. Huggy Harold. Schlong-Snapping Sean. Zipper Problem Steve.
Seriously folks, I don’t actually expect Don Ohlmeyer to come right out and say ESPN is the most dangerous place in America for a young woman to work east of American Apparel’s headquarters, but D.O. must assume his readers are pretty gullible. Erin Andrews aside, no one at ESPN is a household name you’d associate with stalking (sorry, Steve). But some ESPN employees might end up as casualties in the high stakes pissing match between NewsCorp. and Disney, again, not the sort of thing Ohlmeyer is going to talk about publicly. Who knows, he might want to work for Rupert Murdoch someday?
While I still think Hal McRae is the champ when it comes to answering stupid questions with aplomb, Charlie Coles’ reaction to being asked how his charges blew an 18 point lead to Kentucky Monday night is deserving of much more glory than mere YouToob/meme status.
Granted, this couldn’t have been the part of Friday’s assignment Michael Kay relished most. But either way, he’s absolutely flunked his audition for Hot 97.
“As I return after a grueling multiyear, life-threatening, life-changing ordeal with back problems, it is time to dedicate the rest of my life to service,” Walton said in a statement Monday. “It is great to be back in the game. Thanks everybody — for everything.”
I cannot be alone in hoping, nay, praying, that while resting comfortably, Walton takes up podcasting.
Mariotti’s Kate Hudson is most certainly not the slump-buster A-Rod is looking for. And good thing Kevin Blackistone is wearing a name tag, otherwise we’d have no way of knowing who he’s supposed to be . However, the latter deserves massive credit for prefacing every spiel with “i’m gonna let you finish, Kate Mariotti…” Somebody remind me, did Mariotti dress up as Ozzie G. last year?
Bob Griese mistook Juan Pablo Montoya for a Mexican. Montoya is Columbian. Griese could be old whitey mistaking all Latin Americans for Mexicans, but it’s far more likely he was just unaware. He had no time to google.
Assuming Griese was genuine, the taco comment wasn’t offensive. Mexicans eat tacos. They are an indigenous part of their cuisine. They predate the Spanish. There’s nothing demeaning about eating a taco.
Saying a Mexican is eating a taco is like saying an Englishman drinks tea, an Irishman went out for a pint, or an American was eating a hambuger. It’s a stereotype. There certainly are Mexican people who don’t like tacos, but it’s not a gross disparagement of Mexican culture.
Griese’s gag was lame but not scandalous. It would have appeared in a Dan Shaughnessy column.
Though I have no desire to see Bob Griese lose his job over one isolated incident, it’s pretty hard to understand why said incident should be excused as inoffensive merely because some people weren’t offended. On the Colombian/Mexican question, ignorance is a poor excuse. The phrase, “they all look alike” comes to mind, and unless Disney believes they really all do look alike, they’re smart to kick Griese to the curb, even if temporarily.
“There’s nothing demeaning about eating a taco.” Hey, you might think there’s nothing demeaning about eating watermelon, either, and Rick Barry’s still dealing with the fallout from that one. Anytime you choose to describe someone in terms that specifically target their ethnicity (or what you presume to be their ethnicity) rather than their individual characteristics, they’re reduced to a caricature.
Griese could’ve skewered Montoya for his reputation for arrogance (”he’s probably kissing a mirror somewhere”) or for aggressive driving. Instead, he went after the first thing that popped into his tiny head ; Latino = taco chomping. If that’s the kind of free expression Duffy wishes to defend, perhaps TBL can take up a petition drive to have Steve Lyons replace Steve Phillips on Baseball Tonight next spring.
….Sean Salisbury. Improbable? I thought so , too. I still do, actually. But the burden isn’t on the former ESPN analyst / Dallas radio host to prove he’s never been in the habit of harassing female colleagues with phone-cam snapshots of his schlong, ; it’ll be down to Gawker Media to prove that Salisbury’s self-portraits weren’t as crudely menacing as his treatment of John Clayton. From the McKinney Courier-Gazzette’s Danny Gallagher :
Sean Salisbury, a Frisco, TX resident and former National Football League quarterback, filed a petition for a civil defamation lawsuit in a Denton County court against Gawker Media for publishing several false stories on their sports blog Deadspin.com that cost him several jobs, ruined his reputation and made it difficult to find gainful employment.
Salisbury’s attorney, Jeffrey Tillotson of the Dallas law firm Lynn, Tillotson, Pinker & Cox, said in the petition that Deadspin has waged a “long-running smear campaign” against his client since January of 2007.
Harlow, a member of Salisbury’s counsel, said the suit singled out Gawker as a defendant because of their “concerted” efforts to single out their client, despite the reporting of others.
“What we hope to prove is that blog sites like Deadspin are accountable,” he said. “They can’t simply attack someone and make a concerted effort to destroy the lives and careers of people without any ramifications. The difference between other news outlets and Deadspin is at least the other news outlets try to get it right. We hope to make a statement that if sites are going to behave like this, there are consequences and they are long overdue for that.”
So that’s that. Phillips’ credibility wasn’t considered an issue when he suggested Josh Hamilton was undeserving of a Cincinnati roster spot, nor did anyone at the network raise an eyebrow when Phillips suggested Barry Bonds’ record breaking HR had to occur at home “for the good of baseball”. In the wake of a consensual extramarital affair, however, one that caused additional scrutiny to be placed on the Bristol U. campus, the former Mets GM apparently cannot do his job properly. For instance, the next time he and Joe Morgan had a disagreement on “Sunday Night Baseball”, Morgan could reply, “yeah, but you had sex with someone who wasn’t your wife. And bloggers didn’t think she was very attractive.” ARGUMENT OVER.
Surely Phillips isn’t being sacked simply because ESPN and Disney are trying to protect the sanctity of marriage? If that’s the case, Phillips supporters (all zero of them) might well wonder at what point the network established an official policy banning infidelity. If the cringe factor came from what sounds like the exploitation of a subordinate half his age, ESPN ought to specify as much. As a Connecticut native, I’d hate to think one of the Nutmeg State’s most widely recognized entities has gone all puritanical on us.
The LA Times’ Houston Mitchell reports that ESPN college football analyst Bob Griese, working Saturday’s Minnesota/Ohio State game, has bojoined the network’s growing long list of dudes with-a-lot-explaining-to-do after
To promote Sunday’s NASCAR race, ESPN displayed a graphic with the top five drivers in the Chase for the Cup race. Color commentator Chris Spielman asked “Where’s Montoya?”
“Out eating a taco,” Griese responded.
Wow. What a dumb thing to say.
Griese later apologized. “Juan Pablo Montoya is one of the best drivers in NASCAR. I just want to apologize for the comment I made earlier in the ballgame.” I wonder which ESPN executive ordered him to do that.
(back when Phillips actually worked in New York. With apologies to the Rotters)
Given the New York Post’s exhaustive coverage of Steve Phillips’ sex life this week, you might be mistaken for thinking the disgraced ESPN baseball analyst’s face actually sold newspapers. As such, it’s curious with all the coverage of Phillips’ zipper issues, few have wondered why a major New York tabloid would devote nearly as much time and attention to a person not nearly as famous to the general public as Michael Jackson or Balloon Boy. That Phillips’ embarrassment would be grist for Deadspin and countless other sports blogs is no surprise. Via his shoddy broadcast work and/or tenure as Mets general manager, Phillips became a widely mocked figure long before he was accused of getting busy in a Target parking lot. But even assuming half of the Post’s readers are Mets fans, how many of them were aching to see Phillips take a spectacular, personal fall?
A case like the Phillips/Hundley affair doesn’t make the front page — even in a slow news week — without authorization from the top. And the higher you go up the ladder, the more this seems like an arm of NewsCorp has gone to deliberate lengths to publicly humiliate a major competitor. Is Fox going to win future bidding rights to the NBA because Steve Phillips was horny? Probably not — and they might not want said rights, anyway. But every little revelation that proves hurtful to ESPN is making someone in Rupert Murdoch’s organization smile.
So with all that said, congratulations to Phil Mushnick for towing the company line this week. “The only time ESPN indulges — even encourages — sexual insensitivity from employees is as a matter of commerce,” lectured Phil in today’s paper, “while in public, on ESPN, ESPN Radio, in ESPN the Magazine or ESPN.com.” As opposed to Fox TV, Fox Sports, NewsCorp’s movie studios and newspapers, none of which ever stoop to pander? By all means, kick Phillips when he’s down. If baseball fans are lucky, when he gets back up he’ll be doing something far quieter. But don’t pretend for a minute that ESPN is any more or less a corrupting, degrading societal force compared to their competition.
“Tubby temptress”, “Cuckoo for coco puffs”, “geek”, “portly production-assistant”. A smattering of rude remarks about Steve Phillips’ ESPN colleague/mistress Brooke Hundley from Deadspin commentators? Nope, instead, it’s a cross section of insults delivered by the dedicated news team at the New York Post, who’ve apparently decided the only person more deserving of scorn than Richard Heene is a young woman who didn’t take kindly to being dumped faster than Marco Scutaro. The remarks about Ms. Hundley’s weight are slightly curious in that the Post doesn’t supply full body shots of any of their columnists (and you’ve been dying to see a full-frontal of Phil Mushnick for years). Mo Vaughn was in far worse physical condition than Hundley, and Phillips didn’t catch nearly as much grief over that relationship.
Finally, the Post supplies a written statement to police prepared by Phillips’ 16 year old son, in which Hundley is accused of using the handle, “riotgrrl4life” in her stalktastic correspondence. At the risk of piling on even further, I’m gonna out on a limb and presume Fifth Column weren’t on the tape deck when Phillips allegedly hooked up with Hundley in the parking lot of a Target on I-84. Really, Target parking lots. Boston Market. Never let it be said that portion of Connecticut is without glamor.
OK, I actually have no idea what the above headline really means. One of the joys of writing a sports blog as opposed to being Neil Best, however, is that I can publish such a thing. Just because I can do something, however, is flimsy justification for doing so…at first glance, anyway.
The only thing more precarious this morning than the state of Steve Phillips’ broadcasting career might be his marriage. Hours after the New York Post revealed the alleged affair between ESPN’s Phillips and a twenty-something production assistant, Deadspin’s A.J. Daulerio claimed to have sought commentary from the WWL several weeks ago. Upon being stonewalled by a P.R. flack, Daulerio declared Wednesday open season on ESPN’s long list of persons with overactive libidos (”since the tenuous connection between rumor and fact for accuracy’s sake has been a little eroded here, well, it’s probably about time to just unload the inbox of all the sordid rumors we’ve received over the years about various ESPN employees”).
After the lowly Erik Kuselias and network V.P. Katie Lacey (who apparently, slept her way to the middle) were named and shamed, the uncredited Stupid Sports Blog had seen enough, opining, “it’s just a sad state of affairs over there for a blog that used to be one funny dick joke after another, and now it’s run by a guy who has a vendetta against ESPN because the New York Post did its job better than him.”
Basically, someone sent Deadspin an e-mail accusing someone at ESPN of having some sexual indiscretions, and Deadspin printed it. And they only printed them because Daulerio was upset with his treatment by ESPN. The timeline:
1) 2006-2009: Inbox flooded with rumors about ESPN employees’ sexcapades.
2) 2006-2009: Company policy is never delete them, never do any investigating into them, but don’t publish them, because we’re not going to do that to those people.
3) August 2009: “Hello, ESPN? Hey, it’s A.J. Is Steve Phillips getting fired for doing Harold Reynolds-esque stuff? No? Anything else? No? Kthanksbye!”
4) October 2009: Daulerio spits out his pumpkin latte when he reads the Phillips story in the New York Post. He arrives at work and decides it is now OK to print those old rumors since the one about Steve Phillips, which actually wasn’t true if you recall, since ESPN didn’t tell him about the real Steve Phillips story.
If you’re looking to ruin someone’s life, I suggest you set up a fake e-mail account and e-mail Deadspin with a tasty sex rumor about whoever you like at ESPN. Get your friends to do it too so it seems more credible. Tell them Stuart Scott tried to work a three-way with Cindy Brunson and the corpse of Tom Mees. They’ll print it and be right to do so since they didn’t get the Steve Phillips story.
SSB might have a point about whether mere e-mail tips oughta be enough to publicly embarrass the (semi) high and mighty. But if you’re wondering why the public’s right to know includes digging into the sex lives of persons who barely register as public figures, perhaps this case is about more than smearing celebs. SSB inadvertently made the point mentioning “Harold Reynolds-esque stuff”, much as Daulerio raised the same issue at the end of the Lacie post in questioning an apparent double standard (”so for your notes: ESPN Corporate Ladder-Fucking: Good. ESPN On-Air Talent Production Assistant-Fucking: Not Good.”). Were Harold Reynolds’ hugging hands any more or less busy than those of Phillips, Kuselias and Lacie? Toss in Sean Salisbury’s Phone Cam Penis Gallery, and we start to see a work environment that seems exploitative at the very least, if not downright hostile towards those unwilling to help the on-air talent get off. Do such things occur at many other businesses? Fucking right they do, however not every business has a stranglehold on the sports media scene, nor are many businesses as effective in shaping dialogue and pop culture as ESPN.
So yeah, if true (and that’s a big “if”) this stuff isvery newsworthy . Reynolds and Salisbury probably found it highly interesting reading. None of that, however, excuses the sickening treatment afforded to Phillips’ production assistant by readers of the WEEI.com website. Seriously, what sort of twisted individual followed this story, looked at the frosted-tip, Hilfiger-wearing Phillips and said to themselves, “he could do so much better”?
At the risk of making light of a very sad situation for Steve Phillips’ family, I think i speak for baseball fans across the country when upon learning of the former Mets GM’s suspension from ESPN, the first thing I thought of was, “why are the network’s interns and production assistants so resistant to the charms of Joe Morgan?” While you’re wondering if ESPN isn’t an acronym for “Extremely Serious Penis Needs”, the New York Post’s Jeane Macintosh and Dan Magan provide many sordid details.
ESPN analyst Steve Phillips had a fling with a 22-year-old production assistant, who, after being dumped, taunted his wife with “Fatal Attraction”-like phone calls and a letter that bragged about her sexcapades with Phillips while taking pot shots at their “loveless marriage,” The Post has learned.
The former Met general manager, whose tenure with the team was rocked by admissions of infidelity, confessed to his wife and local cops that he had slept with ESPN assistant Brooke Hundley several times this past summer before dumping her.
Hundley’s desperate actions included accidentally smashing her car into a stone column while speeding away from the Phillips’ home.
You can (and undoubtedly will) read the full piece if you want more dirt, and there’s plenty to sift thru, including Hundley allegedly harassing Phillips’ 16 year old son via Facebook and a very precise physical description of the Baseball Tonight analysist’s crotch that most assuredly falls under the category of more than anyone wanted to know. With any luck, we’ll be spared similar revelations someday concerning John Kruk. Until then, however, perhaps the only really funny portion of this story is The Post crediting “additional reporting” to one Phil Mushnick. Never let it be said Phil isn’t a team player.
Haldeman & Ehrlichman. Seitrich & Doskocil. Ian Brady and Myra Hindley. You can add to that pantheon of dynamic duos Mike Francesca and former partner in rhetorical crime, Chris Russo, who according to Newsday’s Neil Best, are getting the band back together, if only for a day (link courtesy Maura Johnston)
With the Yankees back in the ALCS, just like old times, the buildup to tonight’s Game 1 will include a nostalgic media touch: a mini-reunion of “Mike and the Mad Dog” on WFAN.
Just after 1 p.m., Chris Russo is scheduled to visit Mike Francesa’s “Mike’d Up,” Russo’s first appearance on his old station in the 14 months since he and Francesa parted ways, ending a 19-year partnership.
Francesa is to return the favor at about 6:30 p.m. with a guest appearance on Russo’s “Mad Dog Unleashed” on Sirius XM Satellite Radio.
The joint appearances won’t be the first for the old duo. Last night, Francesa called in to Russo’s show as a surprise guest as part of the celebration of Russo’s 50th birthday, which is Sunday.
The two spoke for 12 minutes, mostly about the baseball playoffs, falling comfortably into their old pattern of sports banter. The only reference to their changed circumstances came about a minute in, when Francesa took a gentle poke at Russo’s lower visibility among New York-area fans, saying, “What happened to you now that you’re 50?”
Russo laughed and said, “That’s a good point. Where did I go?”
There is simply no greater social standing in sports than the great white quarterback, and Donovan McNabb can only nail two of the three criteria. So the question becomes:
What does Brett Favre think?
Favre’s voice could have a social impact like no other sports figure. He is football’s most iconic active player, and is also a country-boy born and raised in Mississippi – a state whose ugly racial history is well-documented. Would Favre use his voice to “reduce the hate” at a time where mass racial hatred is as publicly visible as any time since the 1960s? Or would he be more concerned that “racists buy Wranglers too”?
What does Tom Brady think?
As a member of the Republican Party, he is in a prime position to throw his greatest pass. By denouncing Limbaugh’s ownership bid, Brady can prove that Rush does not own him — unlike the congressman in his party. Brady can make an incredibly powerful statement that racism and Republicanism do not have to share the same bed, and that hatred and bigotry should never be reduced to a “political issue” alongside alternate viewpoints on deficit reduction or campaign finance reform.
What does Kurt Warner think?
Warner – who once led the St. Louis Cardinals to its only Super Bowl – is also a well-known devout Christian committed to spreading the principles. Does Rush Limbaugh reflect those principles? Warner’s words could send a much-needed message to fellow Christians that Limbaugh’s racism is an anti- Christian perversion of his religion.
With apologies to Peter Gammons, until Chip Caray finally records his cover of Big Black’s “Fists Of Love”, the above recording will probably be the most disparaged baseball-broadcaster/musician CD this year, regardless of the actual contents. “If I don’t listen to the critics of my baseball broadcasting,” McCarver tells the Philadelphia Daily News’ Stan Hochman. “Why would I listen to the critics of my singing?” Take your best shot, Pitchfork.
“My father was a huge Sinatra fan,” McCarver explained the other day. “He loved the music, the history of the music. I was 8 or 9 listening to Sinatra, listening to the Harry James band.
“In ‘61, I was 19, playing in Puerto Rico in the International League. Dean Stone, lefthanded pitcher, was a big Sinatra fan. After games we’d carry this 120-pound hi-fi set up on the roof. Bring a case of India or Corona beer. I remember the case cost about $4.80. We’d drink the beer and listen to Sinatra.”
He handles the venomous darts the way he handled Steve Carlton’s slider. Talks too much?
“There was a time when I did, when I first started,” McCarver said. “I remember [legendary producer] Don Ohlmeyer told me in 1980, Phillies-Kansas City World Series, ‘If you have something to say, you never talk too much.’ ”
That he favors one team over another? “Laughable,” he said. “You can go back to ‘86, Vince Scully and Joe Garagiola, lambasted for being fans of the Mets. Scully wasn’t even a fan of the Dodgers.
“If Boston is involved, and you [the announcer] don’t carry that Red Sox banner, they rip you. It’s inevitable. It’s unavoidable. But that doesn’t make it right.”
For only $75 ($95 autographed!) you can own the above jersey, as peddled by former reliever/current Nationals broadcaster Rob Dibble. “You are the real-life Kenny Powers, aren’t you?” tweets an astonished Jamie Mottram, though I don’t think that’s a very fair statement. KFuckingP is usually funny.
TBS’ Chip Carey is being castigated far and wide for his error-prone work this postseason, but no one’s been nearly as detailed in their critique as the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir. “If Caray’s crew could not keep him from spontaneously miscalling plays,” asked Sandomir, “you must wonder about his misuse of statistics. Is he receiving bad game notes, or is he conducting rogue research?”
He gave Alex Rodriguez’s career statistics but left out 2009; he also erroneously said that after Rodriguez hit a home run in his first at-bat in May upon returning from hip surgery rehabilitation, “he hasn’t stopped hitting since.”
Caray called a passed ball by Jorge Posada his eighth of the year but it was his ninth.
In praising Tigers catcher Gerald Laird on Tuesday, he said that his nearly 42 percent success rate in throwing out runners trying to steal was the best in the American League. But it wasn’t.
Caray said that the Twins’ Orlando Cabrera had played in past division series for the Yankees, the Angels, the Red Sox and the Rays, then came out of a commercial break, irked and chastened, to say that those were teams he played against. (The well-traveled Cabrera has played in the division series for Boston and the Angels, as well as for the White Sox and the Twins.)
Caray’s lack of knowledge of the Yankees — he calls Braves games and TBS’s Sunday afternoon games — is glaring on a national stage and creates a talent mismatch with his partner, Ron Darling, who is trying hard to maintain the high level of commentary he offers on Mets games on SNY.
But Chip Caray is not Gary Cohen, and there is little SNY-like fun or chemistry in the TBS booth.
How brutally bad has Caray been? For the first time in my many years of <strike>tolerating</strike> watching Yankee games, I opted for John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman. On purpose. At least until I remembered I could get the KSTP feed on the internet.
It’s not really fair to compare the end-stage Al Davis Oakland Raiders to Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea, right? I mean, both are just kind of belligerently and flubbily doing their own things without regard for the rest of the world’s opinion, both are favorites of people who dress up like they’re in Gwar (note: check to see if this is true about NK before posting), both answer dissent with blustering, ham-fisted conspiratorial un-reason, and both are kind of pariahs in their respective scenes, but… there’s a question of scale. I’m aware of that. I guess my perspective is just off after reading this report from the San Francisco Chronicle’s David White on the Raiders’ attempt to ban CBS commentator and former Raiders QB Rich Gannon (above) from (first) the broadcast booth and (then, after that didn’t work) pre-game production meetings for this Sunday’s game against the Broncos. The Raiders did this for… well, really petty and vindictive and hard-to-understand and generally crazy reasons, but also ones that classily and totally reasonably invoke 9/11:
Telling Gannon to stay away from team headquarters is a new wrinkle that may not be enforceable. League policy says teams must make the head coach and players available to the network television crew for production meetings.
“It is not permitted under league policy regarding cooperation with our network partners,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said when asked if the Raiders could ban Gannon from the production meetings…
“He’s attacked us on a regular basis since becoming a member of the media,” Raiders exec John Herrera said. “After affording him the opportunity to establish a career here, he has since gone on to attack us in a way that’s totally unacceptable.”
Herrera quoted Gannon as saying in several interviews they should just “blow up the building and start over” in Oakland. Team officials took that as literally as they did figuratively, and told Gannon as much before last season’s home game against the Chiefs.
“We think in a post 9/11 world, that’s not a very proper thing to say,” Herrera said. “It’s uncalled for. He seems to be a guy who can’t get over the fact that he played the worst Super Bowl game in the history of the game and he wants to blame everybody but himself. I guess it’s our fault he threw five interceptions.”
Former ESPN football analyst Sean Salisbury recently left Dallas radio outlet 105.3 The Fan, an incident yours truly headlined with “It Is Possible To Lose A Broadcasting Job Without Sending A Single MMS Of Your Cock”. Said unwieldy headline was of course, inspired by earlier allegations Salibury had sent phone-cam pics of his penis to “numerous, uncomfortable women”. A subsequent Deadspin post on the end of Salisbury’s tenure in Big D suggested more “cellphone hijinx” were to blame, a claim the former QB’s representative angrily denied.
Fast forward a week later, and S.S. has engaged Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio in the most ill-advised offensive since The Bay Of Pigs. In a series of rambling e-mail missives, each including the signature line, “sent from my iPhone”, Salisbury insists “ur guys lies and carelessness about CBS and espn stories has not only ruined my reputation but has cost me jobs so prepare urself for a lawsuit so big I will own deadspin.” Much as I love to think Salisbury as Deadspin owner/publisher would result in, y’know, more than 2 links a year to CSTB, I’m gonna guess the mooted legal action is about as likely to scare Daulerio and Nick Denton as Sean’s threat to publish a book entitled, “espn exposed. The truth inside the r rated company” has Disney executives quaking in their boots.
Further messages from Salisbury are equal parts delusional (”u guys are about to revitalize my career and bank account”) and vengeful (”so you know I got some pics and smut on you that are gonna give you a taste of how it feels”). Stadium Insider is amongst those who’ve had enough of the car crash, tweeting, “it was newsworthy when he showed people his thing. It was newsworthy when he got fired multiple times….But now it has gotten to a point where the constant updates need to stop and someone needs to provide help for a mental breakdown of a human.” I’m not sure I agree — there’s clearly a time and place for this kind of outburst, though I don’t know if Salisbury is registered to comment at Deadspin.
“I could not be more proud of our first show,” says Joe Buck of the premiere episode of “Joe Buck Live”, “from the moment I walked out on that stage till the moment I walked off.” Buck’s opinion doesn’t seem to be shared by HBO exec Seth Greenberg, who considers Buck’s intereactions with comedian Artie Lang a foray into “dangerous territory”. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Dan Caesar previews episode #2, thus sparing you the agony of watching or taping the program.
Tuesday’s “Joe Buck Live” is scheduled to include a discussion with standout former quarterbacks Terry Bradshaw, Dan Marino, John Elway and Joe Namath, a segment with two flamboyant sports-team owners from Dallas — Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban — as well as a conversation with outspoken former big-league pitcher Curt Schilling.
“That’s a pretty darn good guest list,” Buck said. “It’s got a lot of potential.”
But it’s far different from the opener.
“We want to get back to some bread-and-butter basics and let Joe shine where he’s comfortable,” Greenburg said. “The comedic elements didn’t necessarily work the way we wanted them to, and we feel this will put him in a real comfortable position.”
Buck, who said he was “100 percent comfortable out there” the last time, said the retooling was a mutual decision.
“We both came to the realization that in this format, under the heading of HBO Sports, I’m better off doing a show based that way and let my personality take it wherever it goes,” he said. “The stabs at comedy will be toned down, and the result will be, at least in the format, a more straightforward show.”
With a handful of Mets fans chanting “Let’s Go, Giants” in the background, Keith Hernandez, Ron Darling and Gary Cohen were presented with complimentary snacks by corporate sponsor Dunkin Donuts during the 2nd inning of tonight’s Nats/Amazins tilt. Upon learning the box contained bagels rather than glazed donuts, Mex angrily demanded, “get these away from me.”
Cohen raised the spectre of Brian Schneider compiling a batting average of less than .200 for the season. I suspect if Schneider reaches the final regular season game a week from Sunday hitting .199, Jerry Manuel will be mindful of the potential embarrassment….and will give the banged-up backstop another day off.
When ESPN buries the Ben Roethlisberger rape allegations for several days but files repeated updates in the instance of Shawne Merriman’s alleged battery of Tila Tequila, can we presume something’s not kosher in Bristol? Or should we go to the lengths of Sports On My Mind’s dwil who concludes that when it comes to the Worldwide Leader, “black athletes are rarely afforded the consideration of ethical treatment”?
The Big Subliminal will devote time from 6 a.m. to midnight to dissect the athlete’s every performance and find, or invent if they must, the warts in a Black athlete’s game or personality if the WWL gets a whiff of trouble surrounding an athlete with dark skin. They will talk with everyone from high school coaches and societal mentors to ex-female mating objects to unearth negative news about the athlete. They will go so far as to conduct televised “investigative” reports and interview unsavory members of society and hide their identities in shadows and alter their voices just to make sure a story is picked up by other sports news outlets. The story will be on the lips of every radio show host in the ESPN radio universe – and other than the odd ex-athlete here and there, or the odd Black ESPN television personality who also does radio, every ESPN radio show host is White.
The television network will air some token differing opinion about the Black athlete in question from its revolving door of about four Black writer at ESPN who appear so often on its network programming that many White people actually believe there are Black writers everywhere at ESPN, on the .com, and in the magazine. Anyone can surely understand why these White people would think such a thing. After all, to them we all look alike.
Every so often ESPN will flip the script on who does the defending and who does the criticizing of a Black athlete plucked out for microcosmic perusal. One day, when viewers least expect it, their primary morning leadoff hitter, Skip Bayless, will earn his $1.5 million salary by flipping roles in mind-bending fashion and lamely play designated White, “Black athlete defender,” while his designated morning Black talking head foil will rip into said athlete with all the vigor of the most virulent racist. After the segment, White viewers get their guilt stroked because one of them acted as the paternal, burdened White man who can intellectualize the Black man’s plight. At the same time they can become fully self-absorbed in their righteous anger toward that particular and all Black athletes because they can tell all their friends “even other Black people can see how wrong ‘that guy’ – Black athlete – is.”
And all is well with the world ———– until the next reported incident of “wrong-doing” by yet another in the long litany of Black athletes who fail yet again to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and ‘fly right’ by White standards, and rise above their ‘instincts.’
Freddie Coleman isn’t a white radio host. I realize he’s hardly the most prominent ESPN radio personality, but if you listen a lot on the weekends, he’s hard to escape. Dunno if Bayless really makes $1.5 million, but he’s clearly not spending it on clothes.
You’re probably going to see this video sooner or later, so it may as well be in a safe space like this one. Bills rookie CB Ellis Lankster had two interceptions in Buffalo’s preseason game against the Bears and was then, unfortunately, run up onto a podium for a press conference by the Bills PR professionals.
Leave aside whether there’s anything for Lankster or anyone else to say about interceptions, the bad news is that Lankster doesn’t present terribly well and, apparently, has a stutter. The result is a torrent of “like um”’s that drew the expected liberated responses from the CHUDs who post comments on YouTube — even the guy who pointed out Lankster’s obvious speech issues couldn’t do so without telling the other commenters to “just go die” — and apparently provoked a torrent of forwards to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio. Who would really like you to stop forwarding the video to him, please:
Clearly, the kid was nervous. And we hope that he’ll have plenty of opportunities to hone his press skills via a long and successful NFL career.
That said, did we laugh a little at his broken lawnmower/Miss South Carolina routine? Sure. But if, as it appears, the kid has some type of speech impediment, why didn’t the Bills’ P.R. staff strongly advise against a trip to the podium? Why not simply get quotes from him in the locker room?
Curiosity piqued by Ice Cube’s recent cameos at Raiders practices and given no reasonable explanation by Oakland brass, NBC Miami’s Joe Kukura is happy to report “Ice Cube’s movie-making posse does not have the same knack for obsessive secrecy as the Oakland Raider football organization”
Turns out that Ice Cube has been enlisted by ESPN to make a documentary called “Straight Outta L.A.,” a film which will document the period during which the Raiders played in Los Angeles.
“The Raiders captured a large number of black and Hispanic fans in L.A. at a time when gang warfare, immigration, and the real estate boom were rapidly changing the city,” says an ESPN press release about the project. “The L.A. Raiders morphed into a worldwide brand as the team’s colors, swagger, and anti-establishment ethos became linked with the hip-hop scene that was permeating South Central Los Angeles.”
This is just the kind of publicity that the NFL loves!
“Still a die-hard Raiders fan,” the release continues, “Cube will explore the unlikely marriage between the NFL’s rebel franchise and America’s glamour city and show how pro football’s outlaw team became the toast of La La Land.”
Exciting that Ice Cube is doing a project about the Raiders, but disappointing that it focuses on the period during which they left Oakland. Fortunately for Oakland Raider fans, we know how this movie ends.
Though I’m not familiar with Cube’s work as a documentarian, I’m fairly confident this film will be much better than “Are We There Yet?” (though perhaps not nearly as good as “Get off My Dick and Tell Yo Bitch to Come Here”).
Why shouldn’t Andrews discuss the incident in front of the widest possible (female) audience? How is Andrews’ (prior) decision to consent to a GQ photo shoot in any way at odds with her refusal to shrug off an invasion of privacy? Really, it’s not nearly enough to condone peephole photography (”don’t get me wrong, women being taken advantage of like Erin obviously was is an awful thing”, are you sure, dude?) — how about somebody, anybody, acknowledges that Andrews has every right to make up her own mind when or if she’s going to be objectified?
I know, some of you guys have had it up to here with pretty faces who owe their gigs to sex appeal / internet sex cults. But enough about Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews is in no way obliged to keep a low profile.
Having already run afoul of Washington’s coaching staff during his brief tenure as Nats color commentator, MASN’s Rob Dibble (above) is apparently a boor in multiple mediums. Nationals blogger Miss Chatter describes herself as “a bit taken aback at Dibble’s liberal use of the ‘block’ feature” on Twitter.
WHAT?! Ok, so this is weird. I consider myself a pretty amicable person who gets along with everyone and has a decent pulse on the Nats fanbase. I also get along with most media members and broadcasters (both radio and television). One television broadcaster has mentioned me during game broadcasts a handful of times this season and we’ve emailed back and forth about me teaching him how to effectively use Twitter (someday). His partner has mentioned his Twitter name (@rdibs49) during broadcasts and encouraged followers. I’ve been following him for a while (since before he started mentioning it during games) and kind of thought he should totally be following me to learn about the Nats fanbase. However, I discovered this afternoon that he apparently blocked me and I have no idea why. Talk about awkward!
For someone representing the ballclub who is supposed to help fans understand the game and remain faithful to the club, this is surprising to me and something I would consider a clueless act when it comes to social media. You don’t publicly pick fights with fans of the club you represent for one (which he has done, but then deleted later). Well, maybe “pick fights” isn’t the correct phrase — retaliate is more appropriate. I wasn’t going to mention that before… And you don’t ostracize one of the longer-tenured, vocal and influential fans. I’ve seen broadcasters come and go and will probably still be around long after someone else is in the Nats Park booth. So I’m trying not to take it personally, but am still puzzled.
At present, subscribers to Cablevision are denied access to the Tennis Channel ; Dolan Inc. would prefer the Tennis Channel being offered as part of their Sports Pak. Much like the NFL Network in years past, the Tennis Channel would naturally, rather be available as part of a basic package. A protest advertisement aimed at Cablevision customers ran in a number of newspapers this weekend, but not Cablevision-owned Newsday. Tennis Channel chief exec Ken Solomon tells the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir he’s surprised the ad was rejected, “The newspaper industry is not doing all that well, so it’s a surprise they turned down this amount of money.” No kidding, that might need that dough to sign Ramon Sessions.
“Thanks for nothing Cablevision,” says the ad, which shows a tennis racket smashing a cable box.
It adds: “You’ve dropped the ball by preventing your subscribers from seeing Tennis Channel’s round-the-clock coverage of the U.S. Open.” It invites Cablevision customers to switch to DirecTV, Dish TV or Verizon FiOS to get access to the coverage.
The channel said that the ad was accepted by all the newspapers it was offered to — the New York Times, New York Post, Daily News, Westchester-Rockland Journal News and the Record of New Jersey.
Newsday’s decision not to carry the ad raises questions about the paper’s independence from Cablevision and whether it would have accepted the ad under its previous owner, the Tribune Company.
Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute, said, “There are times when a newspaper says no to an ad because they find it objectionable on taste grounds, or find it filled with hatred for a particular group of people. But this one doesn’t measure up in terms of protection because they’re protecting themselves.”
Howard Schneider, a former Newsday editor who is dean of the journalism school at Stony Brook University, said, “It’s not a felony to protect your economic self-interest unless it influences your news coverage.”
Aside from roundly mocking Sky’s Andy Gray for his inability to describe any event in the past tense (”there is a tribe in the Amazon called the Pirahã who live entirely in the present. They have no interest in the past, and there are no words in their language to describe it…I am wondering if Andy Gray is one of them”), the Guardian’s Martin Kellner surveyed ESPN’s first attempts at UK coverage of the Premier League and based on his measured critique, I am going to assume neither Golic nor Greenberg were guests in the commentary box.
Its pictures came from Sky cameras, and in the presentation, there was scarcely a whiff of innovation. This is extremely annoying for people like me, used to getting three snappy paragraphs out of an Andy Townsend Tactics’ Truck or some similar gimmick. Steven Berkoff (above) was about all there was to laugh at on ESPN, filmed on a stage somewhere, declaiming about the importance of football, in the style of Henry V on the eve of Agincourt, but without entirely losing sight of the Hovis advert. “This is who we are. This is what we are,” thundered the great actor. “This is bollocks,” was the unworthy response, I am afraid, from my sofa.
In its early days ESPN subsisted on obscure action from the outer suburbs of sport, allowing wags to create imaginary schedules featuring sports like Amish Rake Fighting and Australian Dick Wrestling, so now when the channel sees plausible sport, economically priced, it tends to make a play for it, and not worry too much about the programmes around it.
As it happened, ESPN lucked out in its first match with Everton standing back with the rest of us to admire Arsenal’s pretty football and six goals. Aside from the action, the show did not look very handsome, although one was distracted from the garish red and black set, and mirrored desk, by pundit Peter Reid’s patchy grey mutton-chop sideburns, which make him look either like a Dickens character or someone pitching to be the new face of Special Brew.
Reid also kept referring to Everton’s Fellaini as Fellini, possibly as a tribute to Bobby Robson rather than the late great Italian film director. And the channel’s list of forthcoming attractions, which included UFC, MLB, DTM, and AFL, lead you to wonder whether ESPN has a particular affinity with sports defined by initials.
As Brad Lidge’s ugly season marches on — if last year was “Lights Out,” this year is definitely “Come As You Are” — Phillies fans and writers can’t stop dreaming of alternatives. The Philadelphia Daily News‘ Paul Hagen, for example, nominates CSTB favorite Country Time.
That’d be Billy Wagner — the guy whose loss and blown save in two games against the Astros kept the Phillies from the wild card in 2005. And also the guy who helped the Phillies finish off a four-game sweep of New York back in August of 2007. Is it something about facing former teams? Guess not, since he was brutal in the ‘06 NLCS as well.
Wagner also coughed up seven leads during 2008 before requiring surgery; Lidge has now blown eight. It all seems a pointless topic really – should Wagner do well with the Mets these next two weeks, a wild card contending team will waiver-claim him, and/or the Mets will want a real return (at least from Philadelphia). And if he doesn’t, then it’s moot.
Besides, the Phillies already have a former closer poised to come off the DL and play September hero. Because it isn’t just Brad Lidge’s pitching that is lacking — it’s also his personality. I mean, what’s the matter with this guy? He keeps coming out and talking to the press after every blown save or tough outing, including each of the last two nights. Not once has he physically threatened a beat writer, or even blown one off, as reigning World Series MVP Keanu Reeves seems prone to do. They taught him well at Notre Dame I guess.
Which is why the news he’d miss a scheduled rehab start on Saturday was kind of a big story. It was first reported that he’d injured his left eye while playing catch with his four year-old son Kolt. Scott Boras tried to sign Kolt then and there, but soon the story changed – turns out Myers actually tripped out of the backseat of his wife’s Escalade while they were out for dinner.
The Phillies said early Saturday that Myers suffered an eye injury while playing catch with his son, Kolt. But the Phillies later said Myers changed his story.
“I know exactly what people are going to think,” Myers said in a telephone interview Saturday evening with MLB.com.
In other words, they will think Myers was intoxicated….
And that’s why he said he initially told Brian Cammarota, who is the team’s Minor League athletics trainers and rehabilitation coordinator, that he got hit in the eye with a baseball. But Myers said soon after the first call to Cammarota, Kim urged him to call Cammarota back with the true story.
“I’m an idiot,” Myers said. “I’ve never felt so frickin’ embarrassed in my life.
First statement, agreed. Second statement, really? This was worse than the arrest?
Because I know my first thought wasn’t, “oh, Brett must have lied because he got a little drunk.” I also didn’t figure that he had a power-washing accident. No, when someone who was once arrested for domestic violence turns up with a shiner and is less than truthful about how he got it, your first thought’s probably gonna be… domestic violence. Especially when Myers’ wife, having refused to testify against him in 2006, said back then she started it (”I became upset with him and I pushed him away from me”).
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Andy Martino did acknowledge all this history, and even called the local sheriff’s office to make sure there hadn’t been an incident report (they did not return his call). His colleague Jim Salisbury also interviewed Kim Myers:
“No, I did not hit him with a frying pan,” Kim Myers (above) said, with a laugh, while teasing her husband for being a “klutz.”
Well, okay then. I’ll take the whole thing at face value for the sake of making several other points.
First, if you’re described on a 911 tape as “smacking a girl around…he’s a pretty big guy… and he’s hitting her hard,” but you can also hit a home run off C.C. Sabathia, hey, it’s all good, dude! Granted, Myers received legal vindication, while Michael Vick did not, but now that he’s served his time, methinks the Eagles new QB is one long “Wildcat” TD run away from feeling more accepted in his new hometown.
Second, I guess we are supposed to view Brett Myers as a guy with focus problems, anger issues and a boys-will-be-boys penchant to throw back a few too many until Boston gave him the big wake-up call. That probably pisses off domestic violence advocates, but let’s just stick to baseball here. THAT’s the guy who’s gonna stabilize the Phillies bullpen? I know closers can be crazy, and Myers was a decent – if not perfect – closer in 2007, but I’m not sure I feel any better about him facing Manny or Albert Pujols in a playoff game than I do Lidge. Whether he’s getting arrested, threatening a writer, being sent down to the minors or enjoying a night out in Jacksonville, volatility and drama follow #39 around.
In an unprecedented move, Madden works for Fox, CBS, ESPN and NBC. Fox and CBS each provide Madden with a partial schedule of West Coast games. That sked would negate him from having to venture far from his northern California home. Madden would stay fresh. Most of these games would be regional broadcasts not seen (except for the satellite crowd) throughout the entire country.
Still, the public in markets like San Francisco, Oakland and San Diego, would be well-served by Madden’s presence. So would the networks. Just the prospect of Madden, the legend, working with a young broadcaster from CBS or Fox would generate the kind of buzz the suits love.
Madden could return to the national stage working West Coast dates on ESPN’s “MNF” and the Peacock’s “SNF” packages. Since Collinsworth is quite fond of Madden, he would readily step aside for a game, or two, and let his hero reunite with Al Exigente. As for ESPN, well, the Bristol faculty wouldn’t likely pass on a chance to bring Madden into its “MNF” booth (ESPN will air Cardinals-49ers on Dec. 14).
Raissman’s Victory Tour concept is intriguing ; why didn’t anyone propose this when Fran Healy was taken off Mets telecasts?
Following the near-collapse of Setanta, EPL Talk reports ESPN will begin showing two live Premier League matches per week (Saturdays, 7:45am EST, Mondays, 3pm EST) starting with August 15th’s Chelsea v. Hull City tilt.
Those two weekly timeslots were previously held by Setanta Sports who in the past had sub-licensed those games from Fox Soccer Channel. Despite Setanta losing the two timeslots to ESPN, Setanta US will continue showing the two 10am ET Saturday slots (one game on Setanta US, and the other on Setanta Xtra), as well as the early Sunday morning ET kickoffs and the Tuesday and Wednesday midweek Premier League matches. The games shown by Setanta will also be available on its broadband package at http://www.setanta-i.com.
There’s no word yet from Bristol about which combination of Alexi Lalas, Tommy Smyth, Janusz Michallik and/or Qadry Ismail will be calling the games, but rest assured once the team is unveiled, I’ll be complaining about it.
“As social-media sites continue to mature” wrote ESPN.com’s Ryan Corazza, “the clamps are going to tighten on what athletes are allowed to do with it.” Funnily enough, Corazza chose not to mention his own company’s short-lived ban on social networking. In the space of less than 24 hours, contradictory memos were issued, first stating “personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted”, and after the resulting firestorm of ridicule, a second missive stating, “ESPN understands that employees may maintain or contribute to personal blogs, message boards, conversation pages and other forms of social media (such as Facebook and Twitter) outside of their job function and may periodically post information about their job or ESPN’s activities on these outlets. If an employee posts ESPN or job-related information, they are required to exercise good judgment, abide by ESPN policy, and take the following into consideration.”
Translation? The WWL would prefer their employees leave the story swiping breaking to the network’s existing or future platforms. Personal Tweeting (ie. if Adam Duritz and Tom Brady are both drowning and @sportsguy33 can only save one, who will he pick?) is permissible, just so long as no one does anything to embarrass the company (or gives the impression they’ve saved the good shit for their own blog). Sort of like most large companies, then.
(photograph by Chris Strong, taken from Stop Smiling)
Cheap laughs aside, ESPN’s made-for-TV films haven’t been especially memorable but there’s one on tap that might prove the exception. “Hoop Dreams” co-creator Steve James (above) was commissioned by the network to direct “The Trial Of Allen Iverson”, a project Bill Simmons wrote, “has a chance to become one of the most important sports documentaries ever.” Word to the SportsPutz, “Ice Castles” was not a documentary. From the Daily Press’ David Teel :
During the last nine months, James has traveled from his Chicago home to the Peninsula four times to interview those on both sides, and in the middle, of a chasm created in 1993 when a black-versus-white fight at a Hampton bowling alley prompted mob-violence charges against Iverson and three other African-American youths.
Each was convicted of felonies, but Iverson, then an impoverished basketball and football prodigy at Bethel High School, was the lightning rod. A juvenile when the chair-throwing brawl occurred, he was tried as an adult, convicted by Hampton Circuit Court Judge Nelson Overton and sentenced to five years in jail.
The subsequent firestorm included what many described as the Peninsula’s worst racial tensions since the King assassination, weeks of blanket coverage from the Daily Press and drive-by reporting from national outlets such as NBC and Sports Illustrated — the magazine later published a full-page apology for its error-ridden account.
Race relations, law enforcement, celebrity, class and sports: All collided on a Southern stage.
Three-plus months after sentencing, another twist: The nation’s first elected black governor, Douglas Wilder, furloughed Iverson.
“This is not a dispassionate journalistic inquiry,” Fox Hill, VA native James said. “It is an inquiry, but it is from a very personal place.”
Teel is careful to mention that Iverson and his mother, Ann, declined to be interviewed for James’ film. Also refusing comment, former prosecutors and current judges Christopher Hutton and Colleen Killilea.
Times sports editor Tom Jolly wrote in to CSTB’s comments section, pointing out a fact that needed correcting in my story. In both my responses to the Ramirez/Ortiz and Sosa stories, I said that Schmidt based his reporting on evidence thrown out of Federal Court by Judge Susan Ilston in the Barry Bonds case. That was my basis for saying the Times based their stories on “discredited evidence.” I still say it’s discredited, or at least too weak to prove anything on its own. Jolly’s correction gives me different reasons to believe this.
As Jolly points out, Judge Ilston allowed the Bonds test results to remain as evidence. As I gleaned from this report, it’s the 104 names list she has problems with, as well as much of the evidence needed to corroborate the Bonds test results. I misread the report and took that she wants the 104 names list tossed out, which includes the Bonds original test, later retested by the Federal Govt, allegedly showing that he took designer steroids. It’s the retest she’s allowing as evidence. Confusing? Yes, but I should have gotten it right.
What was thrown out was a pile of evidence corroborating the Bonds test results needed to prove him guilty. That is, without corroboration, the admissible Bonds tests aren’t enough. The government case against Bonds collapsed in February. The prosecution currently scrambles to find a new way to nail the Sultan of Surly. The Bonds test, and anonymous lawyers quoting the players’ 2003 test result lists, are all The New York Times has on which to base the credibility of their Sosa, Ortiz, and Ramirez claims. That’s the evidence that gets you nowhere in court on its own. If not “discredited,” it’s at least too flimsy to mean anything by itself – unless you’re The New York Times. Selena Roberts’ A-Rod story for Sports Illustrated has something the NYT still doesn’t have – a confession from the named player, vindicating the reporter’s anonymous sourcing and accusations. I imagine it’s what the Federal Gov’t wishes they had from Bonds, too.
I definitely stand corrected on the fact of what got thrown out of court and what didn’t. My own ineptitude aside for the moment, you can decide for yourself on whether the government’s evidence looks even more discredited because Bonds’ tests are admissible and the case still collapsed – or not. You can also read the same flimsy, in-need-of-corroboration evidence Schmidt uses, and decide on the Times case.
Fact Correction Acknowledged. I’m sorry Jolly didn’t address the bigger ethical problems of what the Times is doing to player reps on such evidence. It’s the reason I wrote the stories I did. Michael S. Schmidt, in this blogger’s opinion, is still getting played by someone with a creepy agenda. Here’s Jolly’s comments section note to me, and my response to him.
Tom Jollysays:
8/1/2009 at 9:03 am
Ben,
Two points about Barry Bonds’s drug tests from 2003:
1. The 2003 test list has not been discredited. Judge Ilston threw out positive tests seized from the Balco lab because she said the government cannot authenticate them without Greg Anderson’s testimony. The judge is is permitting the government to present the results of Bonds’s 2003 tests.
2. Unlike Ortiz, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sosa and Segui, Bonds’s name is not on the anonymous list of those who tested positive in 2003 because he did not come up positive when MLB conducted the test. However, the sample was later seized by federal authorities, who retested it for the designer steroids that Balco used and that’s when it came up positive.
First, thanks for the gentlemanly level of restraint in your response, something I probably don’t deserve, but then, around here, am never expecting. Re your two points:
1) I’m assuming you mean the judge is allowing the gov’t to present both Bonds’ players union result (negative) and then the govt’s retest (positive) – all from the same sample. The judge’s admission of the govt retest adds up to the same thing – it isn’t enough to nail the Sultan of Surly for something we all “know,” or assume, he did – take steroids. That requires more evidence, something the NYT stories don’t add to the 104 names list. That seems pretty discrediting to me re the Ilston decision, in that the positive results don’t prove anything in and of themselves. So why does it matter what it says about Sosa, Ortiz, etc?
What Schmidt’s stories argue is that Sosa, Ortiz, and Ramirez are on the 104 list. That’s it. Ok, but that list isn’t helped much by its standing in the Bonds case. Also, apparently, it tests for some steroids but not others. Do you know which steroids? I had an asthma medicine with steroid in it – would that show up on the 2003 test? Has the NYT investigated the specific medical procedures of the test and which steroids it detects? If you want me to believe this list matters, I’d like to know some of that (more on this below).
2) well, that’s why I included Schmidt’s background stuff on the 2003 tests in my post, to point out that Bonds was positive on the retest, not the initial test.
Here’s some other stuff that’s come up since I posted this piece: Nomar Garciaparra’s interview, wherein he further questions the credibility of the 104 names list as false and rigged by players:
If Michael S. Schmidt is in the mood to make some calls, I hope NG is on his list. Garciaparra specifically states players from the White Sox lied and said they were positive. That’s a lead, right? A day later (the same day?) White Sox mgr. Ozzie Guillien said he wants the whole 104 list released instead of the drip-drip-drip list of names. As a Cubs fan, I definitely want to know which Sox are on the list and how many played for the 2005 WS championship team. I would forgive Schmidt everything on a purely partisan level if he publishes that list. Again, though, Nomar raises questions about the testing process – what was it? How does a player just put himself down as “positive?” You could opt out of physical testing if you just put “positive?” Is that the list you want to damn these players with?
Secondly, here’s a timeline that bothers me: 1) the A-Rod/steroids story broke in SI as the gov’t’s case v. Bonds crumbled and A-Rod was on a long, off-season PR binge of Madonna, money, and sex workers. 2) When Sammy Sosa announced his retirement he smarmily said he planned to wait by the phone for his call from the Hall of Fame. A week later (?) Michael S. Schmidt ran his Sosa story, handing Sosa a timely comeuppance. 3) Manny Ramirez gets busted for steroids, does a 50-game suspension, and comes back to standing ovations from LA fans and seemingly no dent in his career. Within a month, Schmidt ran the Ramirez/Ortiz story. Why the coincidence of Ramirez/Ortiz’ names doled out at once, btw? That’s as nice a built-in an angle as the Sosa take down, as both were on the Curse Breaking Red Sox team. Nice of those anonymous lawyers to provide your angles, I guess.
Given the timing of all three stories, whose agenda is the NYT on? I realize you can’t reveal sources, but whoever leaks these stories sure has it in for smug, unapologetic players who your sources know to be on that 104 list. This is why I think Michael S. Schmidt looks like he’s being played (unless he’s calling the lawyers first in order to knock the players down a peg). After Garciaparra’s public statement, I fully expect Schmidt to get a call about him. Or, that the next player the NYT outs will have some similar recent public hubris some anonyous lawyer feels he needs to pay for. Are you at least confident that the lawyers familiar with the case aren’t all the lawyers on the same team with the same agenda? Schmidt looks like he’s taking dictation on these stories, and not asking around for information to balance anything beyond what’s given him. I mean, thanks for the press release, but does the NYT have anything to add to anonymous lawyers attacking players, or is a sensational leak really news enough? I think Schmidt’s stories serve people with a nasty, petty vendetta of some sort.
Why are all the 2009 stories about Latinos? I ask not because I believe the NYT has a problem with Latinos – Selena Roberts wrote her A-Rod story for “Sports Illustrated,” not the NYT – but who ever doles out the names for you has offered up only Latinos.
Finally, is Schmidt looking into which steroids these players tested positive for? So the players tested positive on this creaky list – for what? how much? Is the test just +/- like Garciaparra says, or is there more detailed information that would give us a clear picture of abuse, severity, or possibly legitimate use of medicines prescribed by doctors (again, like my asthma medication). Players’ careers and reputations are getting permanently damaged by the NYT, so it’d at least be considerate to ask such questions or make clear some limitations on what you know – adding context and the possibility that not all these players are dead to rights cheats because of a questionable list and shady leakers.
All in all, if Obama had me and Michael S. Schmidt over for a beer, I might not call him names, but I’d still have some real issues with how the NYT handles these stories. Thanks for writing in – as a freelancer myself, I doff my hat to any editor who sticks up for his writers.
It would seem as though whoever was responsible for the lettering on Washington Nationals jerseys earlier this year has found gainful employment with FSN Florida (thanks to Paul Lukas for the screenshot).
“In light of the New York Post’s decision to run graphic photos of ESPN reporter Erin Andrews, we have decided to stop utilizing Post reporters on any of our outlets,” ESPN’s senior VP of communications, Chris LaPlaca said.
“Erin was grievously wronged here, and while we understand the Post’s decision to cover this as a news story, their running photos obtained in such a fashion went well beyond the boundaries of common decency in the interest of sensationalism. This is not a decision we undertook lightly, but we feel it is an appropriate one.”
The Post used images both in print and on its Web site Tuesday from a video the showed Andrews in the nude in a hotel room.
It is not yet clear where the video was shot or who shot it, but Andrews’ attorney has promised legal action against any media outlet that publishes the material.
Among those most affected are Kevin Kernan and Lenn Robbins, who regularly appear on “First Take” on ESPN2 and Joel Sherman, who appears on 1050 ESPN radio.
The Post followed their Tuesday coverage of Andrewsgate with a Wednesday cover headlined “Erin’s Perv Fury”. Said piece by David K. Li included the following gem :
Andrews apparently feared something creepy might happen to her one day. Sports blogger Neil Best said, “She knew the fine line she was walking, and told me at Citi Field earlier this year of her concern over some of the darker corners of her fan base.”
Yup, “sports blogger” Neil Best. As opposed to y’know, veteran Newsday columnist Neil Best. It’s that sort of failure to properly attribute the competition that drives some people (well, Phil Mushnick) crazy.
That’s right. I’m allergic to traffic. As the Erin Andrews Hidden Camera Video story spreads, a number of prominent commentators have revealed sensibilities that have ranged from the downright thoughtful to the predictably dopey. While Newsday’s Neil Best carefully plays it down the middle (”what made this case unusual was that much of the angst has come from sports blogs, which usually offer seemingly harmless, fraternity-style fun aimed at young males who enjoy watching sports and young females”) (for the first and only time in history, feel free to imagine Best as Hugh Hefner), Sports Media Watch’s thoroughly reasonable Paulsen opines, “to such people, Andrews is not a person. Instead, she is merely a body that exists for the sole purpose of leering at.” And with that, SMJ holds the sports blogosphere’s (apparently) narrow demographic accountable for fostering an environment where affording Andrews such treatment was considered the norm (at least until an aspiring Chuck Berry put a video camera in her toilet).
Fang’s Bites notes that “Many sports bloggers myself included liked posting pictures of Erin. And it was nice that Erin played along with us.” While Andrews should not be blamed for the actions of others — after all, she isn’t the one who took those pictures or videos — perhaps the lesson here is to not play along. Maybe the next step is to not accept this objectification as normal, the nature of the beast, or a case of boys being boys. Ignore it if one must, but don’t give what ends up being perceived as tacit approval.
Bloggers and mainstream writers will no doubt come out in the next several days to blast the video, and justifiably. And as sincere as those sentiments may be, they will still come off as somewhat hypocritical. While nobody would approve of the crime against Andrews, there are countless who are culpable in creating the atmosphere in which it occurred.
Perhaps feeling the sting of the above words, Deadspin’s Will Leitch — no doubt wondering if sports blogging ought to be mentioned on future resumes — declared, “this is awful for anyone who has ever written or said anything about Erin Andrews, ever.”
It’s all just kind of dissembling now, isn’t it? People who took photos of themselves smiling with Andrews on the sideline feel guilty, ESPN feels guilty, bloggers feel guilty, everybody feels guilty except the scumbag who shot the video in the first place. (I am ascribing this person with the inability to feel empathy.) The whole thing went wrong, very wrong. I do not think there is direct causality here … at all. But it’s not so wakka-wakka all-in-fun anymore, isn’t it? Even if we all feel comfortable that we were above board, if we scoffed at those other sites who were cruder and uglier, that part is over. No one feels good about it.
I have never met Erin Andrews. If I ran into her on the street today … I’m not sure I could look her in the eye. I’m not sure anybody could.
Really? I mean, I think I’ve seen more than enough pics of Ms. Andrews on Deadspin that I think I’d recognize her if I ran into her on the street. And while said event would be no more or less remarkable than watching Kevin Burkhardt eat lunch, I don’t think I’d share the Godfather Of Sports Blogging’s intense shame. Everyone doesn’t feel guilty, Will. There’s no shortage of persons who neither pandered to meatheads or gave a minor talent like Andrews much more than a passing thought. But if Lou Piniella feels a slight pang of regret, that’s totally understandable.
Hard to say which is more amazing, that MSG still allows Fran Healy to host a television program or that Reggie Jackson continues to gripe about ESPN’s dramatic adaptation of Jonathan Mahler’s “Ladies & The Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning”. Reggie unloads to Healy on Sunday’s broadcast of “365″ (”I was portrayed as a buffoon”), and Newsday’s Neil Best has some of the choice quotes.
“Swagger became arrogance, confidence became conceit and at times I think I looked foolish and silly and they had me make all these efforts to be egotistical to the point of being very insensitive to other people.
“There was a scene in the movie that had me ripping up a bench. I got angry at some point and that never happened in the clubhouse. Even the benches that they used, they were chairs. They weren’t these benches that were nailed down on the floor. It looked like we sat and ate lunch somewhere at a park.
“There were so many scenes we were kidding before that had me sitting inside having a beer with Billy Martin. That never, ever happened. Who would have a drink with a guy who couldn’t stand him and went out of his way to make a fool out of him? I just went out of my way to keep my distance and stay away.
“The way they characterized me walking around with big sunglasses all the time. I wore sunglasses when I played. They were prescription. But the overdoing of the hats. There was one time they showed me loaning money to Mickey Rivers to go to the horse track. I never did that. I thought they disparaged and did their best to embarrass Mickey Rivers with that. It didn’t make me look bad but it never happened.”
(YES’ Michael Kay, receiving zero credit below for the Yankees’ ratings success)
There’s “a new wrinkle for both the Mets and Yankees” writes the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman, surmising one unintended benefit of Citi Field and the Nu Stadium is that fans wary of being gouged by the Wilpons and Steinbrenners are opting to watch baseball from the comfort of their own homes.
The first-half ratings for the Yankees, who appear to be headed in the right direction, and the Mets, who don’t, prove more eyeballs are at the tube in ‘09 than they were in ‘08. Both the Yankees, on the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network and the Mets, on SNY, set first-half ratings records.
On YES, the Bombers averaged a 4.6 rating, up over 2% from the 4.5 registered during the first half of ‘08. On SNY, the Mets averaged a 3.2, up 14% from the 2.8 recorded during the first half of ‘08.
Considering the inconsistent, inept, unwatchable baseball they have played, made even more dismal by injuries to marquee players Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado, the Mets’ rating is stunning.
You want to attribute it to Gary Cohen’s food reviews of Citi Field eateries, or the new ballpark itself? Go ahead. If you want to say the increase may also reflect a first half in ‘08 that featured ratings killers, which included 22 late starting times (16 West Coast games and six in Colorado) and six mid-week day games, well, that’s cool too.
Still, the toxic economy cannot be discounted. Not even for the Yankees, a team often portrayed as a bottomless money pit. There are patches of empty seats in the new Stadium, too. Where are those fans, who once filled every seat across the street, watching these games? Only on YES.
The Yankees own about 30% of YES and the Mets own 70% of SNY. Get it? The the economy has also produced a cannibalization effect. Those who once could afford tickets now watch the games on TV.
For better or worse, both teams have got you – coming or going.
I haven’t been around here much of late (GC can vouch for the resultant spike in readership) but I’ve been pulling long hours in the ghastly dude-chamber that I refer to as an office in my more self-important moments. I’m also in the process of allowing my very dysfunctional relationship with the very dysfunctional Mets to cool into mutual contempt/disinterest, which takes time. What I’ll miss most as I continue to ween myself away from these weenies — even more than the opposite-of-a-buzz that sweeps the stands when Argenis Reyes comes on to pinch-hit — is the Mets spectacular three-headed announcing monster. To say that they’ve been more entertaining than the team they cover this season is a dramatic understatement. To say that they’ve nearly rescued the experience of watching the most depressing team in recent Mets history is closer to the compliment they deserve.
Gary (Cohen), Keith (Hernandez) and Ron (Darling) have received plenty of commentary in this space — their drinking game is already the stuff of too-dangerous-to-try legend — but they’re here again because they recently received a great journalistic salute from the New York Observer’s John Koblin. Koblin leads with an on-air sneeze from Keith Hernandez, and the piece somehow gets better from there. The dialogue bits are hard to excerpt effectively, but they actually read better than they sound. If movies had dialogue this good, they wouldn’t need loud robots:
Gary and Ron talked about how deflating it is for a pitcher when he’s working on a no-hitter and loses it. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the time the Mets—who have, amazingly, never had a no-hitter—came their closest to one: a game in July 1969, when Tom Seaver was two outs away only to surrender a left-center hit to the Cubs’ reserve man, Jimmy Qualls.
“Seaver looked like he wanted to go and strangle Jimmy Qualls,” said Ron. “That’s the look he gave.”
Silence.
Keith: “He’s a winemaker now—Thomas.”
Ron: “Don’t forget Nancy Chardonnay.”
It was a reference to the wine Seaver named after his wife.
Keith: “It’s Nancy Fancy—it’s a red.”
Ron: “Oh, it is? I thought it was a char.”
Keith: “It’s like a petite sirah, almost.”
Gary: “Are you oenophiles done?”
Ron: “It’s a blend, right?”
They all laughed.
Keith: “Sorry, Gar.”
Gary: “It all tastes the same to me.”
More silence.
Keith: “I had a splendid Joseph Phelps the other night!”
Gary: “Reyes down swinging, and that’s seven strikeouts for Burnett.”
As the most-recognized brand in sports, ESPN is a frequent target of criticism, much of it justified. Schreiber and her predecessor, former Washington Post sports editor George Solomon (2005-07), did a good job of taking ESPN to task when warranted, but also defending the network against unjustified jabs.
Ohlmeyer will share his thoughts once a month in a column on ESPN.com. He has been an executive producer, producer, director and writer since 1967, retiring in 1999 as president, NBC West Coast.
Ohlmeyer is a curious choice for ESPN’s in-house ethical watchdog ; though he presided over an era of tremendous commercial success at NBC, his sports resume includes the ill-fated decision to place Dennis Miller in the “Monday Night Football” booth. Prior to that, Ohlmeyer ordered the removal of Norm Macdonald as anchor of “Saturday Night Live”’s “Weekend Update”, said move coming on the heels of Macdonald poking fun at Ohlmeyer crony, O.J. Simpson.
At $10 a pop, even the most budget conscious amongst us can dress as though we have terrible taste in baseball players.
Of course, this is an even cheaper alternative.
Lest you think Friday’s swap of Church for Francoeur was the end of Omar Minaya’s wheeling and dealing, on Saturday the Mets acquired a former AL Rookie Of The Year without giving up a player. And I’m really not trying to mock Angel Berroa ; Omar could just as well have signed Ben Grieve.
Trades of starting position players between division rivals are rather rare, but in the case of the Braves and Mets each giving up on Jeff Francoeur (above, center) and Ryan Church respectively, both sides are probably figure they’ve got little to lose. Church’s injuries and uneasy relationship with Jerry Manuel are well documented, while Francoeur’s production has dropped dramatically since hitting 48 HR’s and driving in 208 runs between ‘06 and ‘07. John Delcos hopes “there’s a greater upside with Francoeur than Church”, and while it cannot be argued Church has never scaled similar heights, he’s also not suffered the indignity of being sent to Double A for poor performance within the past year. I’m not sure how acquiring the arbitration-eligible, not-so-selective Francoeur (OBP .282) addresses a 2010 rebuild, but if the Atlanta native can recapture anything close to the form he flashed his first two full seasons in the big leagues…the Mets might have a legitimate shot at 3rd place this year.
WFAN morning yackster Craig Carton visited colleagues Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin in the WPIX TV booth a few weeks ago, an occasion marked by one of the play by play duo allegedly threatening, “”If Craig continues his antics, I am going to leave the show.” Upon learning yesterday it was Rose who complained of hosting Carton, the latter went on the offensive, as transcribed by the New York Post’s Justin Terranova.
“The day before the show, I was at the game, the afternoon game, and Howie and I spent five minutes together,” Carton said. “He couldn’t have been nicer, more gracious, it was like we were old friends.”
“And by the way, the (Stephane) Matteau call was exaggerated. Keep doing Islanders games.”
All the while Carton keeps complimenting Rose for his skills as a broadcaster and bemoaning the fact he has to take him on.
“He put himself in a bad spot with me. I fight back. Call (WFAN boss Mark) Chernoff and cry and whine all you want about it.”
Rose appeared on the “Boomer and Carton Show” Friday morning to explain. He said he made it known that he was willing to talk baseball — and baseball only — on the TV program, and if there were any “shenanigans” he would walk out.
“I wanted to make sure that all we talked about was hard-core, nuts-and-bolts, Mets-Yankees stuff, or else I wasn’t going to be a party to it,” Rose said.
Carton — who pushed for an apology he did not get — said he was told Rose was more adamant about walking out if things had gone off-topic, which bothered Carton because the two had gotten along only the day before. He maintained that Rose was “a little out of order,” which Rose would not admit to.
“Do you think that I’m going to turn into a complete phony, low-life overnight?” Rose asked.
“The Mets are causing fans to drink right now, so why not have some fun during broadcasts?” asks Amazin’ Avenue’s James K, originator of the
Gary, Keith & Ron Drinking Game. The full post is well worth your time, but here’s a few of the highlights from a contest that should well have many Mets fans requiring liver transplants by the trade deadline.
One sip:
Keith uses the expression “second division” to describe teams like the Padres or Nationals
The delicious Citi Field food is brought up
Keith complains about the lack of aggressiveness by a first baseman
Keith calls an RBI a “ribeye steak”
Any reference to Gary and Ron’s Ivy League backgrounds
Two sips:
Keith uses the word “boner” to describe a defensive miscue
Gary reminisces about an obscure Mets game from the 1970’s
Ron discusses the latest movie releases (he was quite fond of “Pineapple Express” last summer)
Keith says “Metsies”
Three sips:
The announcers’ SAT scores are discussed
Gary describes a batted ball as having been “fisted”, e.g. “he fisted it to shortstop”
Keith says the word “bulge” in reference to attaining a lead in the division, e.g. “The Mets are in first place in the NL East, with a 3 game bulge over the Phillies”
Any reference to the classic college matchup between Yale (featuring Ron) and St. John’s (featuring Frank Viola) when Ron threw no-hit ball for 11 innings before losing 1-0
Having napalmed all ties between his Philly self and Bristol, CT, journalist/yackmeister Stephen A. Smith (shown above, right, with Tommy Hearns) has returned to the public eye of late and the Sporting Blog’s Dan Levy suggests the former “Quite Frankly” host has bigger fish to fry than mere sports commentary.
After starting that uStream channel during the NBA playoffs that got a smattering of viewers, SAS took to the fast-paced world of podcasts, and immediately used his name and ESPN notoriety to shoot himself to the top of the charts on iTunes. Oh yes, and he joined Twitter, famously calling out nearly everyone of color for not supporting Quite Frankly. It seemed insane at the time, but maybe it was foreshadowing. Could Stephen A. Smith be the next Al Sharpton, without the religious leanings? Could Smith be the next great political pundit who uses his verbose dialog and pastoral cadence to both galvanize and polarize the nation whenever the issue of race comes up?
Quite frankly, it’s possible.
At least MSNBC thinks so. The Place For Politics has featured Smith throughout their coverage of the Michael Jackson death and subsequent funeral. Smith was on the network three times Tuesday alone. And that’s after he was on a panel earlier in the week to discuss the job Barack Obama is doing in the black community.
Forget about the top black voice in sports. Leave that job for Jason Whitlock or William Rhoden or Wilbon or the more-poignant-than-ever memory of Ralph Wiley. Stephen A. Smith might be angling to become the top black voice in America. And if you’ve gotten as far as Smith has on style over substance, why stop at ESPN or the occasional guest spot on cable news? Having seemingly burned all bridges in sports, could Smith, who was featured on CNN during the election as well, be shifting away from the basketball arena and into the political one?
These are things I would have loved to ask Smith. But when I reached out to his assistant with the understanding that I was writing a story on Smith for this very site, I was told, “Presently, Stephen is not available for comment regarding his career. Thank you for the follow up inquiry”
While the Mets hope to rebound from a lost weekend in Philadelphia amidst the backdrop of the Manny Ramirez Circus coming to Citi Field, Fox’s Tim McCarver expressed revulsion this weekend over his network’s treatment of the Spacey Slugger. Though the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick might well have penned McCarver’s words, the columnist finds the broadcaster’s protests a tad hypocritical.
On the Fourth of July, Fox chose not to present the national anthem prior to its Mets-Phils telecast, but it did choose to interrupt the first inning to show Manny Ramirez’s first at-bat in his second game back from a drug suspension, an insert from the Dodgers-Padres game.
“It’s almost as though Manny Ramirez is being treated as if he’d been on the disabled list for 50 games. … Why all the adulation for a guy who has served a 50-game suspension when guys like Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and A-Rod served no suspensions, yet they’re branded?”
McCarver next noted that Dodgers-Padres wasn’t originally scheduled to be shown by Fox in the New England market, but the return of Ramirez changed that. “We jumped right on the wagon, too.”
Apparently, McCarver hadn’t received a copy of the plan, the one ESPN and Fox have been working from: We’re all supposed to love Manny Ramirez, unconditionally.
Perhaps, too, McCarver’s magnificent spew, Saturday, was in part designed to forgive his own senses-defying commercialism. In 1999, he co-authored a book, “The Perfect Season: Why 1998 Was Baseball’s Greatest Year.”
Turned out that 1998 was baseball’s most shame-filled year, with a few more that came close, still to come. Yup, right after McGwire and Sosa combined to hit 136 home runs, McCarver jumped right on that wagon, too.
Of course, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it’s pretty easy to paint McCarver as a shill for Baseball’s Great Recovery. So Tim McCarver wasn’t the guy who found the andro in McGwire’s locker. Neither was Mushnick. That McCarver might’ve been an accessory to the crime during the PED era makes him no different than countless journalists, managers, baseball executives and fans. If only those who pointed a finger at McGwire and Sosa (sans evidence) a decade ago have a right to express an opinon on Manny Ramirez, it’s going to be an awfully short conversation.
Really, why stop at mocking Jews, racism and exhbitionism? Eric Collins and Steve Lyons butted heads a few times during last night’s telecast of of the Dodgers at the White Sox, and let’s just say x-rays of Psycho’s head would reveal nothing. Here’s a few of the highlights, as collected by Sons Of Steve Garvey (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
Lyons: Do you follow some of the other whacked-out statistical categories that are nouveau to the game of baseball?
Collins: I do. It’s —
Lyons: What are they?
Collins: Well, you got defensive — for the first time ever you have —
Lyons: The WHIP —
Collins: For the first time ever you have categories that measure defense. The UZR: Ultimate Zone Rating. It makes a difference. Everyone talked about it last year. Tampa Bay making it to the post-season because of pitching and defense. Defense matters nowadays.
Lyons: It’s fictional. There is a place, a very small place, for the computer geeks that are now taking over the game of baseball. There is a place, but it’s a small place. We’re seeing way too much of it. UZR. And your WHIPs and your OPSes. They don’t show me what kind of heart the guy has. BABIP?
Collins: Batting Average on Balls in Play?
Lyons: Stupid. Doesn’t tell me if the guy is a player. Doesn’t tell me if the guy can play. Is he a gamer? Does he get dirty? Does he go out there and play hard? Is he a good teammate? None of that stuff tells me any of that. That’s the guy I want.
Collins: That would be your Derek Jeter, we were talking about an inning ago.
Lyons: I’ll take your computer and I’ll toss it right off this balcony here.
Collins: Every computer ever designed would have told you that Alex Rodriguez was a better defender than Derek Jeter when he first came to the Yankees, yet Derek Jeter continued to play shortstop. And that didn’t help the Yankees at all defensively.
Three-one pitch.
But Derek Jeter is a gamer and he’s —
Lyons: I’ll let you take that up with Joe Torre.
Collins: I bet he’d have an interesting thought on that. Maybe that’ll be my task for tomorrow.
Lyons: I hope you still have a job after that conversation.
The Dodgers and White Sox are currently tied at 5-5 in the last of the 9th at the Cell. I’ll not bother to link to the box score, because it would tell you absolutely nothing about any of the participants’ willingness to get dirty.
(will the The Special One make the jump to the WWL? Better yet, when does Mario Rosenstock let loose on Bill Belichick?)
Earlier this month, Setanta’s failure to make a contracted payment to the SPL was described by this author as “the worst news to hit the football biz since the On Digital debacle.” Of course, that was before I imagined Trey Wingo hosting a Sunday soccer roundtable discussion. From the Daily Mail :
ESPN have secured a clean sweep of beleaguered Setanta’s Barclays Premier League TV packages for the next four seasons.
Sportsmail understands that the Disney-owned TV channel, who already broadcast two sports channels to the UK on the Sky platform, will be the owners of both Setanta’s packages for next season – a total of 46 games.
Sky have purchased the five other bundles for season 2010-11 and were not allowed to buy the sixth.
Setanta lost the right to broadcast the matches on Friday after failing to meet a deadline for a £10million payment to the Premier League
Setanta has around 1.2m subscribers, but this is below the 1.9m it needs to break even, and it is currently thought to be running at a loss of nearly £100m a year.
It suspended new subscriptions earlier this month, prompting fears over the future of the business, and also recently missed a £3million payment to the Scottish Premier League.
…the New York Knicks took a 3-2 lead in the 1994 NBA Finals over the Houston Rockets with a 91-84 win at Madison Square Garden. Television viewers missed portions of the contest, as NBC cut into their broadcast to cover an developing story in Southern California. Hard to believe Al Cowlings had that kind of Q rating, but keep in mind, those were different times.
I skipped Joe Buck’s alleged comedy debut on HBO last night, and I’m not even gonna use “Weeds” or the College World Series as an excuse. I’m not sure what the opposite of “Must See TV” is, but any program that features Buck, Brett Favre and Artie Lange doing anything other than being chased by mountain lions is not something I would watch by choice. It does appear, however, that I missed the boat on what the New York Times’ Richard Sandomir describes as a “hijacking”
The bookend to the show was a panel show featuring Lange, the actor Paul Rudd, and Jason Sudeikis of “Saturday Night Live.” The latter two need not have shown up for this as was Lange staging a hostile takeover. His scatological, homophobic, insult act was delivered with a sort of blithe and gleeful explosiveness that threw Buck a bit. This 10-minute trap on the stage at the Equitable Center’s auditorium in Midtown Manhattan was unlike any live TV Buck had ever practiced with Tim McCarver or Troy Aikman.
As Lange was popping off, Buck said, “I was thinking, ‘How much longer do we have in the segment?’ I thought that spending time on a treadmill felt long, but that was eight or nine minutes turned into an eternity. But it’s cable. You can get away with it.”
When Lange left the stage after the segment (which continued for 10 more agonizing minutes on the Internet at hbo.com), Buck said that Lange told him, “ ‘Was I good? Was that great?’ That’s his M.O. That’s what he believed he was brought here to do. He’s a guest, and it’s live TV. Short of hitting a trap door, what are you going to do?”
Michael Irvin, in the audience after being part of a segment with Bengals receiver Chad Johnson following the Favre interview, could only laugh at the spectacle.
“It’s refreshing to see white-on-white crime,” he said.
It’s curious that HBO have asked YouTube to remove dozens of clips from last night’s telecast. Either the Time-Warner property no longer believes in the ability of YouTube to generate buzz for a new project, or they’re thoroughly embarrassed by what happened.
(UPDATE : Francesca : “this was the worst show I’ve ever seen” Yes, and Mike is including Bruce Beck as a substitute host for his own program)
From time to time I’ve taken a swing at the Washington Times, often disparinging DC’s no. 2 daily as “the Moonie Paper”. These sad attempts on my part to distract from all the good work the Unification Church does selling flowers by our nation’s highway exits have not stopped The Times’ Thom Loverro from setting his sights on a most deserving target, Nationals color commentator Rob Dibble. Suggesting that Dibble is unqualified and ill-prepared to critique the Nats’ coaching staff as he’s doing a radio show for XM when he could be observing workouts (”If this large and tattooed man is on the field and in the clubhouse ‘all the time,’ he should start offering disguise lessons at the Spy Museum”), Loverro wonders, “what the heck is MASN paying him for?” (link courtesy Capitol Punishment)
What we have heard is tough criticism toward the manager and coaches and particularly at former Nationals pitching coach Randy St. Claire and the way he worked with the young pitching staff. It has been uninformed criticism, if we want to be as frank and honest as Dibble claims he is trying to be.
Dibble never spoke to St. Claire – who was fired June 2 – about anything to do with pitching, according to the former Washington coach.
“He has never talked to me about anything about pitching,” St. Claire said in a telephone interview. “He has never asked what we do for prep work. I’ve never talked to him about pitching.”
When I asked Dibble whether he ever spoke to St. Claire – who was Bobby Cox’s first choice in Atlanta to replace Leo Mazzone at the end of the 2005 season but couldn’t make a deal with the Nationals – about the pitching, he said yes and no. You figure out it:
“Why would I need to? … That’s not true because I had a discussion with almost every pitcher. If they were No. 1 in pitching, I don’t think I would need to have a conversation with him, either. But they weren’t. They were the worst pitching staff in baseball. I think this is a moot point. Steve McCatty is the pitching coach now. They moved in a different direction. He had been here seven years, and the fact that I am even involved in this discussion is kind of ridiculous. … Because I have an opinion, people think that I am critical. I am just stating the obvious.
“I’ve gone to Mark Lerner, and I’ve asked him, ‘Have I done anything to offend the organization?’ ” he said. “From the top, they said no.”
Well, as long as the owners of the team are not offended, then what’s the problem?
Earlier this year on his blog, he suggested the Nationals would win 92 games.
“The Rays went from 66 wins to 97 in one year and won the AL East; so why is it so hard to believe the Washington Nationals can’t go from 59 wins to 92?” Dibble wrote on his MASN blog April 7. “That’s how many wins the 2008 World Champion Phillies had when they won the NL East last season. If you still don’t believe me, believe this: nearly 20 years ago right around this time in April, I was on a team that was 400-1 odds in Vegas to win the World Series. Anytime you want me to show you my WS ring, let me know, I really won’t mind…”
Do you think anyone in the Nationals organization thought they could win 92 games this year? Did you?
What kind of credibility can any analyst have after such a suggestion?
The New York Daily News‘ Mark Feisand reports Alex Rodriguez and Mark Teixeira took valuable time out before last night’s 6-5 loss to Boston to have a word with ESPN’s Rick Sutcliffe.
Upset with an accusation made by Sutcliffe two weeks ago, the two players approached the former Cy Young winner to discuss the situation.
Sutcliffe said on the air that A-Rod had been feeding Teixeira verbal signs from the on-deck circle, giving his teammate a heads-up on the catcher’s location before the pitch was delivered. Teixeira and A-Rod pulled Sutcliffe aside when they saw him in the clubhouse last night, expressing their displeasure with his charges.
“Me, Alex and him talked about it,” Teixeira told the Daily News, confirming that the conversation took place. “No doubt it’s disappointing when someone makes an accusation like that. Whatever. I can’t control what they say.”
Teixeira said he has known Sutcliffe “for years,” adding that he’s always considered him to be “a great guy and a great pitcher.” Teixeira wouldn’t comment any further on the tone of the conversation, although he and Rodriguez were clearly upset with Sutcliffe’s words and let the former All-Star know it.
Ben,
Two points about Barry Bonds’s drug tests from 2003:
1. The 2003 test list has not been discredited. Judge Ilston threw out positive tests seized from the Balco lab because she said the government cannot authenticate them without Greg Anderson’s testimony. The judge is is permitting the government to present the results of Bonds’s 2003 tests.
2. Unlike Ortiz, Ramirez, Rodriguez, Sosa and Segui, Bonds’s name is not on the anonymous list of those who tested positive in 2003 because he did not come up positive when MLB conducted the test. However, the sample was later seized by federal authorities, who retested it for the designer steroids that Balco used and that’s when it came up positive.
Here are a couple links to reports on this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/sports/baseball/20bonds.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/02/20/MN8M161I4R.DTL
Best,
Tom Jolly
Sports editor
The New York Times
Tom,
First, thanks for the gentlemanly level of restraint in your response, something I probably don’t deserve, but then, around here, am never expecting. Re your two points:
1) I’m assuming you mean the judge is allowing the gov’t to present both Bonds’ players union result (negative) and then the govt’s retest (positive) – all from the same sample. The judge’s admission of the govt retest adds up to the same thing – it isn’t enough to nail the Sultan of Surly for something we all “know,” or assume, he did – take steroids. That requires more evidence, something the NYT stories don’t add to the 104 names list. That seems pretty discrediting to me re the Ilston decision, in that the positive results don’t prove anything in and of themselves. So why does it matter what it says about Sosa, Ortiz, etc?
What Schmidt’s stories argue is that Sosa, Ortiz, and Ramirez are on the 104 list. That’s it. Ok, but that list isn’t helped much by its standing in the Bonds case. Also, apparently, it tests for some steroids but not others. Do you know which steroids? I had an asthma medicine with steroid in it – would that show up on the 2003 test? Has the NYT investigated the specific medical procedures of the test and which steroids it detects? If you want me to believe this list matters, I’d like to know some of that (more on this below).
2) well, that’s why I included Schmidt’s background stuff on the 2003 tests in my post, to point out that Bonds was positive on the retest, not the initial test.
Here’s some other stuff that’s come up since I posted this piece: Nomar Garciaparra’s interview, wherein he further questions the credibility of the 104 names list as false and rigged by players:
http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=18466
If Michael S. Schmidt is in the mood to make some calls, I hope NG is on his list. Garciaparra specifically states players from the White Sox lied and said they were positive. That’s a lead, right? A day later (the same day?) White Sox mgr. Ozzie Guillien said he wants the whole 104 list released instead of the drip-drip-drip list of names. As a Cubs fan, I definitely want to know which Sox are on the list and how many played for the 2005 WS championship team. I would forgive Schmidt everything on a purely partisan level if he publishes that list. Again, though, Nomar raises questions about the testing process – what was it? How does a player just put himself down as “positive?” You could opt out of physical testing if you just put “positive?” Is that the list you want to damn these players with?
Secondly, here’s a timeline that bothers me: 1) the A-Rod/steroids story broke in SI as the gov’t’s case v. Bonds crumbled and A-Rod was on a long, off-season PR binge of Madonna, money, and sex workers. 2) When Sammy Sosa announced his retirement he smarmily said he planned to wait by the phone for his call from the Hall of Fame. A week later (?) Michael S. Schmidt ran his Sosa story, handing Sosa a timely comeuppance. 3) Manny Ramirez gets busted for steroids, does a 50-game suspension, and comes back to standing ovations from LA fans and seemingly no dent in his career. Within a month, Schmidt ran the Ramirez/Ortiz story. Why the coincidence of Ramirez/Ortiz’ names doled out at once, btw? That’s as nice a built-in an angle as the Sosa take down, as both were on the Curse Breaking Red Sox team. Nice of those anonymous lawyers to provide your angles, I guess.
Given the timing of all three stories, whose agenda is the NYT on? I realize you can’t reveal sources, but whoever leaks these stories sure has it in for smug, unapologetic players who your sources know to be on that 104 list. This is why I think Michael S. Schmidt looks like he’s being played (unless he’s calling the lawyers first in order to knock the players down a peg). After Garciaparra’s public statement, I fully expect Schmidt to get a call about him. Or, that the next player the NYT outs will have some similar recent public hubris some anonyous lawyer feels he needs to pay for. Are you at least confident that the lawyers familiar with the case aren’t all the lawyers on the same team with the same agenda? Schmidt looks like he’s taking dictation on these stories, and not asking around for information to balance anything beyond what’s given him. I mean, thanks for the press release, but does the NYT have anything to add to anonymous lawyers attacking players, or is a sensational leak really news enough? I think Schmidt’s stories serve people with a nasty, petty vendetta of some sort.
Why are all the 2009 stories about Latinos? I ask not because I believe the NYT has a problem with Latinos – Selena Roberts wrote her A-Rod story for “Sports Illustrated,” not the NYT – but who ever doles out the names for you has offered up only Latinos.
Finally, is Schmidt looking into which steroids these players tested positive for? So the players tested positive on this creaky list – for what? how much? Is the test just +/- like Garciaparra says, or is there more detailed information that would give us a clear picture of abuse, severity, or possibly legitimate use of medicines prescribed by doctors (again, like my asthma medication). Players’ careers and reputations are getting permanently damaged by the NYT, so it’d at least be considerate to ask such questions or make clear some limitations on what you know – adding context and the possibility that not all these players are dead to rights cheats because of a questionable list and shady leakers.
All in all, if Obama had me and Michael S. Schmidt over for a beer, I might not call him names, but I’d still have some real issues with how the NYT handles these stories. Thanks for writing in – as a freelancer myself, I doff my hat to any editor who sticks up for his writers.
Ben