“I’m dreaming of that possibility…It’s a one-in-a-million type of event, but we’re prepared.” These are the words of Anderson Fertes, a man who will be paid to do nothing while having a front row seat to the Olympic swimming events. He’s a lifeguard. Yep, they have lifeguards on hand at the Olympic swimming pool. You know, in the event Michael Phelps doesn’t wait 30 minutes until after eating before swimming.
It’s the makings of a New Yorker comic. While there are legitimate reasons for lifeguards being on site (heart attack, cramps), the notion of a lifeguard, complete with the red shorts and a flotation device slung over the shoulder Baywatch style, presiding over the best swimmers in the world is delightful. Can we just call Wendy Peffercorn and do the damn thing right, please and thank you. – PAL
TOB: YES. The Olympics need an 80s villain lifeguard – complete with zinka (not zika), an overactive whistle, short shorts, and the kind of sense of humor that enjoys barking at other people. Gosh, I feel like I know just the person…
Yes! Phil! Why, you could be an internet sensation.
With Just a…Soucant…
Legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser rates every Summer and Winter Olympic logo. It’s kind of…mesmerizing. It’s like a pretentious wine or beer review, except it makes total sense. For example:
He’s right, the typography IS peculiar and unpleasant! Or this one:
“Perhaps more appropriate for a manufacturer of paper towels.” God damn, that is some serious graphic design burn. But he saves his best for Tokyo 2020:
“…the issue has raised some fascinating questions about the nature of plagiarism in the graphic arts.” WOWOWOWOWOW. To paraphrase Piston Honda, you just got a TKO, Tokyo! -TOB
Draymond Green made some news last weekend, if you didn’t hear. Let’s just say he took a page out of the Anthony Weiner playbook. One might think, after a big mistake like that, a public personality like Draymond Green might take a break from social media. Nope! And I’m glad he didn’t, because he gifted the public his review for some of the USA Basketball team players hair. As the kids say, he kept it 100:
Now THIS is what social media is for, Draymond. Good work. – PAL
TOB: I’m still on Team Draymond. There are things he could do to make me leave Team Draymond, certainly, but they are up there at the Baylor/Penn State/Greg Hardy/O.J. levels.
Video of the Week
PAL Song of the Week: Father John Misty – “Well, You Can Do It Without Me” (and just let it roll to check out all of the weekly picks)
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Walk Up Songs: A Far More Serious Study Than I Expected
Walk-up songs matter. They give 45,000 strangers a little window into who you are. But there might just be more to it, statistically speaking. Wanna drop bombs? Then you might want to listen to Sinatra. How about a high batting average? Electronic might be the best genre for you. Walk-up songs comes up as a topic of conversation during every baseball game I attend. Does my love of Buster Posey suffer just a little because he walks up to the god-awful “Hell On Wheels” by Brantley Gilbert? Yes. Yes, it does.
Although it’s a year old, this page breaks down everything you could possibly want to know about walk up songs and the corresponding stats. Seriously, this is a comprehensive study. We’re talking graphs, charts, and a tool to search every big league player’s walk up song.
I’ve just burned 20 minutes poking around this site. The ultimate question – and we’d love to hear from you! – is what would your walk-up song be? While moods change, I think I’d go with “Showdown”, by Electric Light Orchestra:
Imagine that blaring during a playoff game with the strings just sizzling on that intro while I sauntered up to the plate with a couple ducks on the pond late in the game. It’s not about smacking people across the face with a heavy metal…it’s about the attitude. I’d like to have the place grooving. Calm, cool. Collected. A Song with swagger. The place would lose its collective mind!
Best all-time walk-up is a no-brainer – Sergio Romo & “El Mechon,” by Banda MS:
And if I were commissioner, I’d hand out the 1-2-3 Sports! Playlist at the rookie symposium, because a good portion of the player song selections are not so good. – PAL
TOB: I can’t get over how thorough this is. Or how out of touch I am. For example, WTF is Jason Aldean? I also can’t get over the author saying that Major League gets lost in the pantheon of great baseball movies. As Phil would say: What the what!? That movie is great and everybody knows that. As for our own walk-up songs, Showdown is a good one. Nice call, Phil. I think I’d be the type to change it up often, perhaps even multiple songs per day. Like, for the first game of a road trip? Willie Nelson’s On the Road Again. Coming up with runners in scoring position? Maybe Run to Your Mama by Goat (big ups to the 1-2-3 playlist!) or Refused’s New Noise. Stuck in a slump? Lil Troy’s Wanna Be a Baller. And as Phil says, the best ever is Romo with El Mechon. I’d throw that in there when I’m leading off the 9th down a couple runs.
Scientists to Olympic Marathon Swimmers: Close Your Mouths
Ugh, gross. Remember a few weeks back when I expressed a boy-who-cried-wolf feeling about the Rio Olympics? About that:
“Foreign athletes will literally be swimming in human crap, and they risk getting sick from all those microorganisms,” said Dr. Daniel Becker, a local pediatrician who works in poor neighborhoods. “It’s sad but also worrisome.”
Turns out, with the games right around the corner, the waters are worse than expected, filled with rotaviruses that cause diarrhea and vomiting and drug-resistant “superbacteria” that can be fatal. So keep your mouth shut when you swim, ladies and gents. The oceans are no better, with disease causing viruses at 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach. IOC and city officials tried to minimize that risk by noting that athletes competing in sailing and windsurfing events have “minimal” contact with water. I guess they’ve never watched windsurfers, who falls into the water plenty. And as a Dutch sailor said, “We just have to keep our mouths closed when the water sprays up.” Ew. -TOB
PAL: I tried to tell you, but you just wouldn’t listen, would you? Seriously, tell me one thing more frightening than whatever image you conjure up when you hear the word “superbacteria”.
Finally, All Those Whiffle Ball Games Pay Off!
When playing the 20th whiffle ball game in a day as a kid, you go to a different place. Specifically, you start emulating big league batting stances . About 12 people in the world find this interesting, or are there more of us? The New Yorker would suggest I’m not alone. Here’s a fun quiz. I expect no less than 5 out 6 correct answers from baseball fans. I’ll give you a hint: One of the stances comes from a player with almost as many stances as games played. I registered 6 correct answers for the 6 questions. TOB may have passed the Bar, but his 4 out of 6 barely registers over 65%. I’m not upset. I’m just disappointed.
It’s a slow sports week, folks. Just saying. – PAL
Baseball players have a lot of time on their hands, and as with any cross-section of life, it seems there are a lot of dumb ones. Hence, the Detroit Tigers killing time by playing Rock-Paper-Scissors, best two out of three, with the winner getting to bonk the loser on the head with an empty water cooler bottle:
God damn, I wish I played professional baseball. -TOB
The NBA did a good thing Thursday. It announced the 2017 NBA All-Star Game will no longer be in North Carolina. This is In response to North Carolina’s recent passing of what is referred to as “House Bill 2” into law, which eliminates anti-discrimination protection to the LGBTQ community by only allowing people to use restrooms in government buildings that align with the individual’s birth gender as listed on a birth certificate.
The NBA isn’t the first to show North Carolina the cost of stupidity. Several musicians have cancelled shows, including Ringo Starr and Bruce Springsteen. Additionally Deutsche Bank and PayPal have cancelled expansions in North Carolina. We’re not talking about a couple million dollars and a dozens of jobs here – we’re talking hundreds of millions and thousands of jobs.
The response from those in support of HB2 is misguided at best. Governor Pat McCrory had the following response: “American families should be on notice that the selective corporate elite are imposing their political will on communities in which they do business, thus bypassing the democratic and legal process.”
Wrong, Governor. They are not imposing political will, you moron. They are showing you the economic, public relations, and cultural ramifications of passing laws that promote discrimination, bigotry.
As for the sports angle here, it’s nice to see a sports league unafraid to take a stance on a civil rights issue. Good work, NBA. – PAL.
Really interesting career retrospective on Ichiro here. For an all-timer, I didn’t know much about him outside of his legendary batting practice exhibitions of power. Oh, and that he’s a hit machine. Just a reminder, he’s about to collect his 3,000th hit in in MLB, which he joined at age 27 (he had 1278 hits in Japan)! Definitely worth the read. Some of my favorite nuggets:
Ichiro more or less speaks fluent English, but continues to use a translator out of fear of being misunderstood
In what had become an All-Star tradition (at least during his 10 All-Star appearance), Ichiro would give a expletive-laden pre-game pep talk. This is so funny to think about, considering he largely communicates to the US media through his translator.
After Seattle acquired his rights from his Japanese team, Ichiro started spring training dribbling grounders to third base. Lou Piniella, wondering what the hell the spent $27M on, told him to pull the ball. The next at-bat Ichiro launched a home run to right and asked Piniella, “Happy now?” Ichiro was dribbling the ball to third base to get a feel for the outside edge of the strike zone, as he had always during spring training.
He has a life-size picture of Snoop Dogg in his house. Big Snoop fan
Although the exact number isn’t known, Ichiro made the biggest donation to the Negro League Baseball Museum by any active player. He and the now-deceased Buck O’Neil had a real kinship.
Congrats, Ichiro. As this story points out, he carried the weight of Japanese baseball on his shoulders when he came to the bigs. While Hideo Nomo came over before him, Ichiro was the first touted position player to try to make the jump. As the “Jordan of Japan”, Ichiro had a nation watching, and he delivered. That’s legendary stuff. – PAL
TOB: I get that we can’t count his hits in Japan and declare him the MLB’s Hit King, but I want to offer a couple thoughts to those who think those hits mean nothing because they think the Japanese league is not as competitive as MLB. First, Ichiro averaged about 177 hits per year in his 7 full seasons in Japan (they play less games). He batting average was .353. But his numbers were as good or better in MLB. In his first year in here, he collected 242 (!!) hits and batted .350. He won the Rookie of the Year AND the MVP. In 2004, he set an all-time record with 262 (!!!) hits in a season and batted .372 (he was just 20 hits shy of batting .400). He had at least 200 hits (and usually way more) in each of his first TEN seasons in MLB (no other player has more than eight for their entire career). His career batting average is .314, and it would have been .337 if he had retired at age 37, when he left Seattle. Oh, and he won TEN Gold Gloves by making insane plays like this:
This is not a guy who destroyed the Japanese league and then came over here and was not as good. Ichiro destroyed EVERY league. I’ll also point out that in the only three World Baseball Classics, Japan has 2 gold medals and one bronze. The United States has ZERO. So, you might not want to credit Ichiro’s 1,278 hits from Japan, and that’s fine. Pete Rose is still the MLB all-time hit king. But drop the Americentric crap, because Japanese baseball is very good, and Ichiro has always been great. And he has the most hits of any professional baseball player, thanks.
Mike Trout: Still Really Good
The Angels suck, so you don’t hear much about him anymore, but make no mistake: Mike Trout is still stupid good. Historically good. If he keeps up his current pace this season, he will finish the year with the highest Wins Above-Replacement (WAR) in MLB history for any player through age 24, passing Ty Cobb. So far this year, he’s first in the AL in WAR, second in on-base percentage, fifth in slugging, and second in OPS+. Plus, he’s once again stealing bases at an elite level and still plays great outfield defense.
But…the Angels really suck. And there are rumors that Trout could be trade bait this deadline, which seems unfathomable, but you never know, if someone offers an absolute blockbuster of elite prospects and young, proven talent…
So FiveThirtyEight looked at what the Angels would need to get back for fair value for Mike Trout. The short of it? It’s not possible. His value is double that of an ENTIRE top-ranked farm system. So, unless two teams can convince Commissioner Manfred to allow them to use Mike Trout as a timeshare, the Angels would be idiotic to trade him. They can’t possibly get enough value back.
PAL: He’s 24. The Angels would be trading the best young talent for what – more young, less talented players? Yeah, that makes no sense.
And the Raffle Winner Is…Us. All of Us.
God damn this is funny. A third-tier English soccer team “held” a raffle to raise some money, with the prize being one lucky winner accompanying the team on a trip to Hungary. The deadline for the raffle came and went with no word, so some fans inquired and they announced the name of the winner, James Higgins. The team leaves for the trip, and there’s no word or sign of James. Fans inquire. The team then announces James was too sick to make the trip. Then the team offers a refund to everyone who bought a raffle ticket. Why would you offer a refund just because the winner couldn’t make the trip? Click the link to see the whole story unravel. -TOB
PAL: Jesus, 1-2-3 could have a more successful raffle than this team. Love the cover-up. I imagine it went something like this:
Intern: Ah, sir, no one’s bought raffle tickets
Marketing Director: They’re still coming in. How many do we have?
Intern: 4 raffle tickets.
Marketing Director: Ha-ha. Very funny. For real, how many?
Intern: 4
Marketing Director (collecting his thoughts and assessing how his career has come to this): I have an idea. It’s a little risky, but it’s not like anyone pays any attention…
Why do taller players typically and historically suck at free throws? This (very good) article suggests it boils down to players getting what sports fans know as the yips – in other words, it’s psychological. It’s a pretty compelling argument:
“When was the last time you drank from a cup?” Dr. Christian Marquardt is on the phone, and he almost makes me spit, because surely he can’t know that I have taken a sip of coffee that instant. He’s a leading sports psychologist studying the neurological causes of the yips at the Science and Motion facility in Munich, Germany.
I tell him that I literally just took a sip of my coffee.
“Did you put any attention on it, or any thought? Or did you just drink it?”
No thought.
“Now, imagine it was completely filled up with hot liquid. You don’t want to spill it. All of a sudden, you will act very differently.”
He’s right. Thoughts about how tightly I’m gripping the handle, the precise twist of my arm, the angle of the cup to my mouth …
“Because,” he explains, “you start thinking about the consequences of failure.”
You should really read this article. It’s a fascinating look into how the psyche affects physical performance. -TOB
Fred Simmons: Well, I rebuilt the engine about a year ago. New tires, new brakes. Gotten this baby up to 157 on the open highway, plus there were 2,000 rpm’s left. It’s a very special car. It means a lot to me. And sure I wanna sell it, I wanna get rid of it, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna unload it on any little yahoo that comes in here off the street, thinking this car’s neat-o. I wanna check your credentials. I gotta know what kind of man you are. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?
Man Who Buys Car: Well, I’ve always wanted to drive a car like this, since I was a teenager. I’ve got two kids, and I’ve got debt up to my ass. My wife said she’d divorce me if I wasted my money on this. I don’t care, I want it anyway.
Fred Simmons: I hear what you’re saying. And I like it. You got yourself a deal.
Tim Duncan, you are one of a kind. You will be missed!
A Thin Blue Line Between Love and Hate
It’s been a rough couple week to be an American. The shootings last week of Philando Castile in St. Paul, Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, and five police officers in Dallas overseeing a peaceful protest have everyone’s nerves a bit raw. Last Friday, in the wake of the shootings, Knicks guard Carmelo Anthony put out a call to athletes to take a stand and demand change, no matter the possible implications on their endorsement opportunities. Taking Carmelo up on the challenge were four players on the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx. The players wore t-shirts commemorating the lives lost, and made a statement, prior to their game Saturday night against the Dallas Wings. In response, four Minneapolis officers walked off their freelance jobs working security at the game. Lt. Bob Kroll, of the Minneapolis Police Federation (not the department, but a union) supported the officers, saying, “I commend them for it,” and adding that, “ [t]hey only have four officers working the event because the Lynx have such a pathetic draw.” Man, must have been some terrible statement that the Lynx players made, huh? Let’s check:
At a pregame news conference, Lynx forward Rebekkah Brunson said the players were “wearing shirts to honor and mourn the loss of precious American citizens and to plead change for all of us.”
“We are highlighting a longtime problem of racial profiling,” said forward Maya Moore, the 2014 WNBA MVP.
Players also denounced the “senseless ambush” of Dallas police.
Uh, ok. Seems pretty balanced. Well, it must have been the t-shirts. Those must have been awful.
Well, sure the front is fine. But how about the back?
The names of Castile, Sterling, and a Dallas Police Department logo? Christ, I give up. Lt. Kroll and the four Minneapolis officers are just total dickheads. But it’s more than that. It is a microcosm of what is wrong with much of the discussion on this topic. No, not all cops are bad. And yes, they have a dangerous job that puts their lives in danger and sometimes requires them to use deadly force, and sometimes they lose their lives in the process. It sucks that as a society we have so many people willing to take someone else’s life, but that’s the reality we live in. However, the fact an officer has a dangerous job does not mean he should be given the leeway to use deadly force in all situations in which he feels some apprehension.
Let me preface this by saying we may not have all the facts at this point. But “this” story has happened so many times, whether the details we have now are complete is of no importance to the larger picture. With that said, Philando Castile was killed after reportedly trying to take out his identification after being asked by the officer to do so, and having previously volunteered to the officer that he had a concealed carry permit and was in possession of a gun.
As reported, the officer went about everything wrong from the get-go. If there was no reason to detain Castile and his girlfriend (and that poor 4-year old little girl in the backseat), then he should have sent them on their way, having given them a traffic ticket if appropriate. But if there was any reason to detain Castile, he should have called for backup before doing anything else. He should have asked Castile to slowly exit the car. He should have explained to Castile that he was doing this for both of their safety. He should have asked Castile to place his hands on the roof of the car. He should have placed Castile in handcuffs, and told him that he was not under arrest but that he was again doing this for both of their safety. He should have asked him where the gun was located. He should have explained to him that he was going to take the gun for both of their safety. He should have then slowly taken the gun, secured it, removed the handcuffs after a further pat-down search, and conducted the rest of his business. Once that was done, he should have returned the gun to Castile and sent them on their way. He should have never unholstered his weapon.
It seems he did almost exactly the opposite. He left Castile in the car where the officer has less control over the situation. He then reportedly asked him to present his identification. He then completely freaked the hell out as Castile attempted to retrieve his ID from his pocket. And he shot him Repeatedly. Then, he didn’t offer medical assistance. He could have begun attempting to put pressure on the wound and hey, maybe Castile is alive today. Instead, he stood there holding a gun in the face of a dying man, while the man’s girlfriend and little girl sat in the car and watched him bleed to death.
Which is not to suggest that this officer is a bad person. He sounds terrible at his job, because it seems he did everything wrong. But he may very well be a good person. He was certainly ill-suited for his job, either because of the wrong temperament and the inability to deal with stress, or because he got poor training, or not enough training, in how to deal with that stress. Either way, that is an institutional failure. If the officer was not personally able to deal with the stress of the job, that should be uncovered during the hiring and training process and he should not have been hired. Institutional fail. If it’s a lack of quality or quantity of training, that’s also an institutional failure.
And on top of that, when officers do shoot someone, in my opinion as someone who has dealt with this in his profession, the law gives officers far too much leeway. Officers have what they call a Use of Force Continuum:
But too many officers jump right to the last step on the continuum: deadly force. The law then does not second-guess the officer’s decision making in hindsight: as long as they say they felt fear for their life, and there is at least some plausibility for having done so, they skate. The standard for the reasonability of their apprehension should be far higher, because we have essentially written them a blank check. And when there are no witnesses, as often happens, it’s open-and-shut. The officer’s word against nobody’s. Dead men don’t talk.
But instead of being able to have this discussion, which is what the Lynx players asked for when they demanded justice and accountability, you get police officers working a part-time job as literal rent-a-cops walking out on their job. And they didn’t just walk out on the team. They walked out on the public that they have sworn to protect and serve. That idiot Lt. Kroll might want to know that over 7,600 people attended that game. And there were apparently no officers in attendance to keep those people safe in the event something happened. Not because the players said all cops are bad. But because they offered condolences to the dead, and demanded institutional change. Sad. -TOB
PAL: I don’t mean this as a copout, but I’m still processing and trying to form my opinion on a whole lot of what’s covered in this story. I’ll tell you what – I’m not sure I’m down with police moonlighting in uniform as security (the norm for a long time), which was the case for the Lynx game. I agree with TOB – you can’t walkout and endanger those in attendance at the game.
I was visiting family in Roseville, MN when Castile was killed 3.6 miles from where I grew up. The tension is palpable – no doubt. It came up within a few minutes of every conversation with friends and family. We have a race problem, we have a police problem, and it can’t be ignored a moment longer.
Joe Paterno Can Rot In Hell
The Penn State child rape story somehow got more depressing this week: Here’s the short of it: Penn State settled with all of the victims and then tried to get reimbursed by their insurance company. The insurance company balked and the two sides have been litigating. In the course of that litigation, a lot more has come out. For one, it appears Paterno knew about Sandusky raping children as early as the 1970s! For two, it appears other coaches, including former Rutgers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano and current UCLA defensive coordinator Tom Bradley knew about the rapes as far back as the early 1990s, about ten years before Mike McQueary later did. McQueary testfied in a deposition that when he told Bradley about seeing Sandusky raping a boy, Bradley told him that Schiano had seen something “similar” to McQueary in the early 90s and told Bradley. None of these bastards did anything.
Which is why it disgusts me that Penn State even still has a football program. To be clear, I don’t think Penn State should have punished more because a coach raped a child. Or even multiple children. Penn State should be punished more because a coach was raping children for decades, and for decades, people ALL THROUGHOUT the university knew – from assistant coaches, the very powerful head coach, and upwards into the administration – and did NOTHING. They even let him continue to use campus, where he continued to rape children. So many children were raped because the first time Paterno and others knew, decades before it became public, they turned the other way. And they did so to protect the football program. They chose football over raped children, and worse, over children who had not yet been raped but would be raped.
Penn State should be absolutely crushed. It honestly hasn’t been bad enough. The fact that they are still competing at the upper levels of college football proves to me they weren’t punished enough
And the reason they should be crushed into obscurity is to serve as a deterrent. Maybe the next time a Mike McQueary or Greg Schiano sees a little boy being raped in the showers they won’t just tell the head coach and when no arrests are made continue on their merry way. Maybe they’ll go to the police themselves, and the next kid and the kid after that will be spared. -TOB
PAL: How about this – when you see a coach, former coach, or ANYONE sexually assaulting a child, you step in and remove the child from that situation immediately. Separate from all process and procedure, those who witnessed Sandusky in the act and walked away…how do you do that? How do you not separate the two and beat the crap out of Sandusky on the spot?
There Was No Joy In Mudville, Mom and Dad Stole the Cash
This very uplifting week of 1-2-3 Sports continues… this time we have parents embezzling money from youth sports leagues all across the country. Terrific. Some of the amounts stolen are quite amazing – including this guy who stole over $200,000:
The league had been fundraising for years to buy its own fields – and this guy Kevin Baker stole it all. When he was caught, the league was in fact in debt. It did remind me of a story from my own life – when I was a kid, my mom served as our Little League’s president for a couple of years, so I have the inside scoop. For years, two people ran our league’s snack shack. And every year the snack shack lost money. Per my mom’s memory, it lost about $15,000 per year. After many years, two new people took over and suddenly the snack shack was a gold mine – it was now MAKING $15,000 a year. Because it was all cash and thus difficult to prove, no one ever went to the authorities. But it does highlight how easily this can happen. The article suggests that many leagues have moved to hiring professional bookkeepers and taking the money out of the hands of parents. Seems like a wise move. -TOB
PAL: This week sucks. I don’t know what else to say. This story is depressing. Sometimes parents are the absolute worst part of youth sports. Makes you wonder if kids would be better off just going to the park and playing pickup games until they’re in high school.
You know what pisses me off, now that I’m on the subject? I loved Little League! I had great experiences in youth sports. Sure, some parents were a little intense and liked to play the politics game, but for the most part everyone kept their sh*t together. Youth sports can be the best, and stories like this make it the worst.
NoNoNo
“The only thing I’ll remember about it is just the pain. That’s the worst part about the injury, is how much it hurt, because I tried to get up. I went down and I didn’t know what happened, because you don’t feel it in that area. It goes up to your mid-section, so I thought my appendix burst or something, because I couldn’t move. It was an unbelievable feeling. I’ll never forget it. I tried to get up and I had to crawl to the bench. I had to crawl and they were like, ‘Get up, get up.’ I was like, ‘I can’t get up.’”
And that’s what it feels like to get hit in the man region with a slapshot in hockey. An unbelievable feeling, indeed. As a catcher, I had a couple not so great moments that I’m happy to tell you about over a beer. I did have a cup break once, and then there’s the time, off of a foul tip, one of my testicals ascended up into an area where testicals should not be. I bounced my butt on home plate (I want to say a coach provided this tip earlier in the season), and it returned to its parking spot. Good times. – PAL
Let me start by saying: I am absolutely pro-labor in all pro athlete vs. ownership battles. And so I am very happy to see the insane contracts middling players are signing (hey, Evan Turner at 4 years and SEVENTY MILLION), and the even more insane ones that good players are signing (Mike Conley. 5 years. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE MILLION – over $30M per year). The immediate cause is simple: under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, players are guaranteed around 45% of “Basketball Related Income” (TV money, ticket sales, etc.). This year, the new TV deal kicks in. The new deal jumps from roughly $950 Million per year to roughly $2.3 Billion per year. That means the players are guaranteed an extra $607 Million this season (there will be even more next year, so get ready for another summer of insane contracts). So the cap went from $70 Million to $94 Million.
But as the article notes, the TV money isn’t the only thing distorting contracts for middling players like Evan Turner. The NBA is not a free market, and in addition to the soft salary cap ($94 Million this year) there’s a hard salary floor (teams MUST spend 90% of the cap, or $85 Million next year). And there are max contracts (35, 30, or 25 percent of the salary cap, depending on a player’s tenure). This means that while teams would gladly pay LeBron $50 Million per year, they can only pay him around $30 Million. That means that because many players cannot make as much as they would in a free market, and because teams must spend a lot more this year than last year, mediocre guys like Timofey Mozgov gets 4 years $64 Million and Solomon Hill gets 4 years $48 Million. It’s has to go somewhere. Maybe now Tim can stop doing those awful and hilarious local commercials, but I sure hope not. – TOB
PAL: Wouldn’t eliminating max contracts and maintain a salary cap and floor help with this a bit? Allow really great players to earn what they’re worth relative to the the market. LeBron, Steph, Anthony Davis – go north of $40M per year. I’m assuming ownership wouldn’t jump at this – being pinched with a cap and a floor while players are set free. I mean, by allowing LeBron to make what he’s worth, don’t we also prevent mid-level players from making more than they’re worth? I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but it seems like a good start…because Matthew Dellavadova and his mouthguard should not be making nearly $40M over 4 years.
TOB: Makes some sense. But who wants it? Not the rank-and-file NBA players who will suddenly make way less. And they are the majority voting bloc for the NBAPA. The owners don’t want it either. They like the max contracts because max contracts save the owners from themselves. If I offer LeBron $60 Million, then I don’t have enough money to put a good roster around him, and then the team isn’t good enough. So, I don’t see it happening.
PAL: Good point – Players unions are chartered to get the most amount of money, benefits, and flexibility for the most amount of players. But wouldn’t it be interesting if the system put it on LeBron and players of his stature? Yep – you can make as much as you want, super duper stars, but capping yourself will give you the best opportunity to actually field a competitive team. I just like that it puts more onus on the players to regulate themselves.
Rio’s Sh#tshow
In one of our first posts we shared a story ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Corruption, mass protests, and security forces handing out pamphlets instructing visitors how to act when robbed. Not a good look. Now the Rio Summer Olympics are fast approaching, and the situation doesn’t sound much better in Brazil. If anything, it sounds worse.
Antibiotic super bacteria (not the same as Zika, and has the potential to infect many more people)
Zika
Rio’s waterways are full of poop. So much poop.
Hospitals are running out of meds.
The police are disgruntled, underpaid, and telling people “Welcome to hell.”
Murder and robbery rates are up 15% and 25% respectively.
The occasional human body part washing up on the beach where competitions are being held
Add to all this the dubious notion that short-lived, global events boost the local economy, and I’m even more convinced that in most cases a limited number of host cities with the infrastructure already in place to put on the Olympics might be the best route. Consider this breakdown from Binyamin Applebaum’s 2014 article in The New York Times Magazine:
The idea that big sporting events are good for growth is relatively new. A 1956 article in this newspaper noted the curious hopes of Australian officials who were “somewhat optimistic” that visitors to the Melbourne Olympics might settle in the city, or perhaps do a little business there. “Ordinarily,” it said, “being host for the Olympic Games is unlikely to gain a nation much beyond prestige.” But as the cost of hosting rose inexorably, so did the supposed benefits. The Olympics and the World Cup are now routinely described as economic engines. Four American cities — Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington — recently announced that they were flirting with hosting the 2024 Summer Olympics, and in each case a justification was economic development. In Massachusetts, a state-appointed commission led by a construction executive suggested that a Boston Olympiad could “catalyze and accelerate the economic-development and infrastructure improvements necessary to ensure that Massachusetts can compete globally now and into the future.”
Such claims are based on the idea that the Games can serve as a tourist attraction, a chance to catch the eye of global business leaders and a way to rally political support for valuable infrastructure projects. The lean and profitable 1984 Los Angeles Olympics are often invoked. So are the 1992 Barcelona Games, which amplified that city’s revival.
But there is strikingly little evidence that such events increase tourism or draw new investment. Spending lavishly on a short-lived event is, economically speaking, a dubious long-term strategy. Stadiums, which cost a lot and produce minimal economic benefits, are a particularly lousy line of business. (This is why they are usually built by taxpayers rather than by corporations.) And even though Brazil, like other recent hosts, has sought to make stadium spending more palatable by also building general infrastructure, like highways and airports, the public would derive the same benefit at far less cost if the transportation projects were built and the stadiums were not. The Los Angeles Olympics were successful, after all, because planners avoided building new stadiums. Barcelona, long neglected under the rule of Francisco Franco, was in the midst of a renaissance that would have probably occurred without the Olympics.
While it seems this story is written before every global sporting event (Beijing, Sochi, Qatar), the Rio Olympics are less than 1 month away, and I really don’t see how some of these health and safety issues are fixable in that amount of time. I’m sure the networks will show us the rose-colored version of the event, but this does seem like a recipe for very real disasters. – PAL
TOB: There’s a little boy who cried wolf thing going on for me at this point. I don’t doubt it’s an absolute economic boondoggle. Some people are getting very rich constructing all the new stadiums and infrastructure. But the health stuff? They said before Beijing that the smog would be so bad that people would have trouble breathing. It was fine. They said before Sochi that nothing would be done. And it was. As you note, NBC will show us the rose-colored version and likely ignore the real problems. But absent some real and serious health issues befalling athletes or tourists, I think this will be much ado about nothing, in the end.
How To Join a Pickup Basketball Game
As with the author, I have been joining pickup basketball games for most of my adult life. I have managed to ingratiate myself into long-running games with former college basketball players/athletes, games at Mormon and non-denominational Christian churches. Games with the worst and nicest people you’d ever want to meet. This article has makes a lot of good points: Be normal (so, don’t be this guy. Actually, that’s hilarious. Be that guy), don’t talk trash, ask for the court rules, don’t call too many fouls, and do bust your butt on defense. All very good advice. I’ve got a couple tips to add, though, more related to style of play. Don’t try too hard to make a fancy pass, but if you can show that you know how to find the open man, you will be appreciated quickly. If you’re a pretty good shooter, the first couple times you play in a new game, don’t shoot too much. And if you miss your first couple shots, only shoot when wiiiide open. It might not be your day and no one wants to add a guy to their weekly game who they think can’t shoot well and shoots too much. If you’re tall, crash the boards. Basically, you want to play like Chris Bosh when he played with LeBron and Wade: Hit the open man. Crash the boards. Only shoot when wide open. And keep your mouth shut. You’ll be fine. -TOB
PAL: I only have one addition – never go full Jordan:
You Can’t Separate Sports and Politics
In a recent email panel, Sports Illustrated asked 7 sports media members their view on whether or not sports and politics mix. More specifically, they are asked whether or not the media members should impart politics into their commentary and social media posts. The extended piece is here. First off, it appears that those questioned have a different definition of politics. While some seem to define the word more narrowly (support or criticism of candidates), others identify issues are at the heart of politics. Most of those questioned come off informed and reasoned (Jemele Hill):
NEWSFLASH: Sports is political. This idea that sports is untouched by politics is bull. In both little and big ways we’re exposing our political views all the time. We just buried arguably the greatest athlete of all time in Muhammad Ali, and the majority of conversations about Ali were about his beliefs and politics. If you express open admiration for Ali because he stood up against the war, or if you’re among those that still consider him to be anti-American, aren’t you exposing a little bit about your politics? When Richard Sherman criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, my co-host Michael Smith and I took him to task, and thus exposed our politics. Congress inserted itself in the performance-enhancing drug and concussion issues. We have billion-dollar stadiums being built on taxpayer money.
Others come off like scared self-promoters without an original thought (Adam Schefter):
It does not impact how we go about our jobs. Sports figures who publicize their political viewpoints only serve to divide the audience. People are drawn to sports as an escape from politics. Even for someone like Andy Katz, who gets President Obama’s NCAA picks, Andy should not have to disclose his political views because he’s doing the interview. The focus of their interaction is basketball, not politics, as it should be. Though also allow me to say that while we’re on the topic of reporting and the White House, no President ever has invited me to make his playoff picks up to and through the Super Bowl. If whichever President is in office will have me down to Washington to do this story in January, I’m all in, Democrat, Republican, independent or any party.
Aside from the fact, as Petchesky points out, politics absolutely impacts how Schefter goes about his job, I love how Schefter uses the forum as a segue to getting a segment with the future POTUS and her NFL Playoff picks. What a turd.
I’ve never understood the notion of sports as an escape. I love watching big sporting events. Joining friends, family, and my community to rally around a playoff run is one of my favorite things to do. It’s a part of my life – not an escape from it. We are intelligent enough to have more than one truth take up real estate in our brains: Sports are enjoyable, sports are big business, and sports – like every other segment of society – struggles with issues. – PAL
TOB: Very subtle insertion of Phil’s radical politics into that one. Did you catch it? STAY YOUR LANE, PHIL! Nah, I agree. I think there is a fine line here, but no one needs to be Michael Jordan (“Republicans buy sneakers, too”). And…Schefter, such a turd.
PAL’s Song of the Week: Sam Cooke – “Bring It Home To Me”. And check out all of our weekly picks here:
Video of the Week:
That’s right, Bennet Brauer here with another commentary. Didn’t think the suits would have me back perhaps. Thought they’d have my dairy-air replaced by one of tem store mannequin well maybe I’m not “the norm”. I’m not “camera friendly”, I don’t “wear clothes that fit me”, I’m not a “heartbreaker”, I haven’t had “sex with a woman”, I don’t know “how that works”, I don’t “fall in line”, I’m not “hygienic”, I don’t “wipe properly”, I lack “style”, I don’t have “self-esteem”, I have no “charisma”, I don’t “own a toothbrush”, I don’t “let my scabs heal”, I can’t “reach all the parts of my body”, when I sleep I sweat profusely. But I guess the powers that be will keep signing my pay check until Jack and Jane K. Viewer start to go for the remote so they can get back to commentators who don’t “frighten children”, who don’t “eat their own dandruff”, who don’t “pop their whiteheads with a compass they used in high school”. Thank you, Kevin.
He makes that bottle of Cristal look like a bottle of MGD Light.
Requiem for a Great Team
Hoo, boy. The Warriors. What the hell happened? Did they tire themselves out going for 73? Maybe. But if so, I support it. They have a title already. Go for history. So what was it? Was Curry injured? He seemed good at points, but he definitely had a tougher time creating space with his dribble (see that last possession where Kevin Love defended him) and had an even tougher time getting to the rim and finishing (see that last possession where Kevin Love defended him; also see what seemed like 1,000 times he got swatted at the rim in the series against OKC and Cleveland). Did someone actually castrate Harrison Barnes? Did teams figure simply figure them out? They could have easily lost 3 or 4 against Portland; probably should have lost to OKC; and did love to Cleveland. So, maybe. Or…was there something more at work? Karma, perhaps? Back in early April, the Warriors were 68-7. They weren’t playing quite as well as they had in November and December, but damn. 68-7. And then owner Joe Lacob opened up his conceited rich venture capitalist asshole mouth in the New York Times. If you haven’t read it, you should. It was hilarious and dumb and widely mocked at the time. After the Warriors lost, it’s even better. The most important passage was this:
“He boasted that the Warriors are playing in a far more sophisticated fashion than the rest of the league. ‘We’ve crushed them on the basketball court, and we’re going to for years because of the way we’ve built this team,” he said. But what really set the franchise apart, he said, was the way it operated as a business. “We’re light-years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we’re going to go about things,”he said.
What an asshole. There are actually insightful moments, but there are way too many moments where you think, “God, what a rich prick.”
Ok, so. 68-7. Lacob opens his big mouth. And the Warriors record since then? 20-11. That’s a solid record! But that’s not an all-time great team’s record. So, the Warriors lost game 7 to the Cavs. You might think Lacob would, you know, tone it down.You might think that, if you don’t know rich pricks. Lacob spoke this week (less than 4 days after the Warriors lost the Finals) at Stanford University (OF FRIGGIN COURSE). And he said more dumb things. Dumber things, even:
“We drove this idea of small ball, and it’s a different style of play,” he said. “Having said that, I think it’s important to know that whenever everyone else starts doing things, it’s time to start doing what’s next. We’re on to the next idea — How can we iterate to evolve to get an advantage? I can assure you we’re very forward thinking in that regard.”
Oh, REALLY, Joe? You’re moving on from small ball. How are you going to do that? Are you going to trade Curry? Draymond? Both? Sign a bunch of 7’2 centers? GTFOOH. I’m tired of you. You make it quite easy to be glad the Warriors didn’t win another title. -TOB
PAL: Hot take alert! Hot take alert! Here’s my real take away from the NBA Finals: I’m not a true fan of basketball or the Warriors. I say that relishing and thoroughly enjoying this season. I love it! And yet, when they lost game 7 I slept like a baby. I’m a baseball fan. I love the Minnesota Twins, and I like the San Francisco Giants. I would be sick if the Twins lost a game 7 after being up 3-1. Sick and mean. When LeBron blocked Iggy my reaction was not “NO!”; rather, “Damn, that’s impressive.”
As far as owners go – the hell with ‘em. No one cares about you, Mr. Lacob. Your recognition comes in the form of tremendous wealth and court side seats. Enjoy, because that’s all you get. You can’t buy admiration or credit.
My Problem With LeBron James
I have a problem with LeBron James. On paper, he is nothing but extraordinary – the rarest of athletes that exceeds expectation on the court and avoiding any semblance of trouble off of it. He’s a superstar of the highest order, yet perhaps his signature move is a pure hustle play – the chase-down block. He hasn’t forgotten where he’s from, and he puts his money where his mouth is in terms of charitable work (He’s committed to donating $41M – forty-one million – to send kids to college, for starters).
So why does he rub me the wrong way? For no good reason.
23. Dude, get your own number if you want your own legacy. Kobe didn’t even wear 23.
Why I hated it: When his coronation took place in Miami, James’ response to coming to Miami to win championships was “Not 2, not 3, not 4, not 5, not 6, not 7…”
Why I’m wrong: It was a goddamn party. He’s having fun and getting the crowd going. Upon re-watching, he’s really just going with the moment and feeding off the crowd.
LeBron isn’t cool…and he really wants to be: You know what made Jordan cool? Me! Upon reflection, was his McDonald’s ad cool? No. Was his “Be Like Mike” commercial cool? NO! Corny crap. The 10 year-old version of myself made him cool, and that shit seeps into our adult head, and we call it nostalgia. He was cool because there was some mystery to him. All we saw was panel group tested campaigns, which is the exact opposite of cool. MJ in his prime on Instagram would have absolutely lowered his cool factor. We consider Jordan cool because he didn’t to try to be cool, and that’s wrong; he was cool because all we knew about him is that he won and the spoonfed message Nike, McDonald’s, Gatorade, and Hanes allowed us to gobble up. He was also cool because he won. And yet what made him a winner is that he was (and remains) a cold-blooded, obsessive-compulsive, single-minded m-effer on the court. Know anyone like this in your life? They are not cool!
LeBron is immature and passive aggressive. Again – and, god how I hate this argument, but…social media was built upon passive-aggressive behavior. So Kevin Love wasn’t in the team photo…and neither were 7 other dudes on the team. Besides, why is that on LeBron anymore than it’s on Kevin Love? And why must 14 adult males who work together all hangout together at all times?
He’s contrived and self aware. Sure, but find me a superstar that plays harder than him (you won’t). Find me a superstar that actively involves his teammates and at his core is more of a team player (you won’t).
His hair. No joke. LeBron would get so much love if he shaved his head tomorrow and said, “I fought the good fight. It’s over. I can bring championships to Cleveland, but I can’t bring my hair back, no matter how hard I try.” It drives me nuts that someone who has so much make a pathetic attempt at controlling the one thing – literally the only thing God didn’t give him. What does that say about his personality? It says he’s like just about every thirty something who’s losing his hair: It sucks, and he’s trying to hold on. There’s nothing that makes him more human to those that don’t know him than his attempt to hold onto a lost cause.
He has more influence on a sports team than any other athlete. Stop getting coaches fired, and stop demanding trades, LeBron. You aren’t the GM. Just ball.
Yet no one – no one person – directly contributes to the competitive and financial success of the franchise more than LeBron James. With only 5 players on the court, no other team sport is dictated by the talent more than basketball, and LeBron might be the most talented player we’ve ever seen. By all accounts, he’s a brilliant basketball mind, and the team rides or dies with him anyway…you could do much worse than LeBron as a GM, not to mention he isn’t thinking about the long-term future of the Cavs, which fans should love right now!
Why wouldn’t I support more power to the working force? The more power and influence LeBron has, the more earning potential the mid-level player has. While the new TV deal would have been big even if LeBron never existed, he’s not a bad cherry on top either.
I still don’t like LeBron James, but I don’t know him either. If the worst thing he’s done is be somewhat of a harmless tool who is exceptionally talented and who tries really hard, well…then I just need to let it go, because there are a lot of athletes much less talented and less accomplished than LeBron that are so very much worse than he is. All that said, he’s a Yankees-Cowboys fan…so I retract everything that I’ve written. Only the rarest of tools claim both of those teams. – PAL
TOB: You seem to have mostly talked yourself into LeBron, welcome to the light. Everything is great here. You get to root for the best player in basketball, and will get to tell your kids you saw one of the two greatest basketball players ever play the game. But a few pointed retorts:
“Taking my talents…” – I did not know this, and NO one seems to remember, but I saw this recently:
Kobe used that dumb phrase first! Which is not really a vote in LeBron’s favor because Kobe is the absolute worst. But LeBron got a ton of crap for that line, and as it turns out, he was just copying Kobe. Copying Kobe is never a good thing. I think LeBron has learned his lesson.
Jordan and “Cool” – You hit the nail on the head there. No one cool would EVER dress like this:
Or this:
MJ was great at basketball. That is about it.
LeBron’s influence on team decisions: This is as old as sports. Nothing new. Magic got a coach fired in his second year, for example. He’s the best player of his generation and his legacy will be determined by how many championships he wins. Damn right he deserves a say (he of course cannot blame his supporting cast if he chooses them). We also don’t know how much influence he actually has. We just have rank speculation that he does.
Self-awareness: Yes, he’s a little contrived and hyper-self-aware. But he’s been under the national spotlight since probably his junior year of HIGH SCHOOL when he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. And in those 15 years, he has never had one iota of trouble. His self-awareness has allowed him to do things like commit to send 3,200 kids in his hometown of Akron, Ohio to college, and unlike someone else we all love, LeBron will actually follow through.
Passive Aggression in Social Media to Teammates: How would YOU like to play with lazy a-s Kevin Love? If you’ve got to call out a teammate who is supposed to be an All-Star, then that’s on him.
The hair: Yeah, ok. Shave that shit.
The Texas Rangers: Forcing Me to Publicly Agree with Bill Simmons (ugh)
You’ve probably seen those incessant TV ads for Bill Simmons’ new HBO show, Any Given Wednesday, where he takes a page from Crash Davis and lists the things he believes in.
For example, Simmons, ever the dork, thinks soup is the perfect food. Ok, buddy. (Though the worst is the Kanye one), He closes with the only thing he says worth saying: billionaires should pay for their own fucking stadiums.
We’ve covered that before, but there’s an especially egregious situation in Texas, where they have decided for some reason that the 22-year old Ballpark at Arlington (seriously, it opened in 1994) isn’t good enough anymore, and so they’re building a new one. The new stadium will cost $900M to build, it is being pitched as the costs are being split equally between the city and the team. Cool, cool. Fine. Not great. No city should spend $450M on a stadium. But it could be worse and I’m really jaded about these deals. But…as it turns out, the 50/50 split is a load of bull. You see, this deal included an “admissions and parking tax” for people who use the stadium. In most cases, this money is what the city uses to raise its share of the cost of the stadium. But not here. In this deal, the Rangers get that money themselves. It is expected to be about $300M over the 30 year financing of the deal. Which means that the city is turning tax revenue over to the team and is thus really paying closer to 80%. That is outrageous. I don’t live there, but shouldn’t those people be outraged? Why aren’t they outraged? Why aren’t they picketing? This is the side of sports that can make you so cynical. Phil, I hope you have something happier for us this week. -TOB
PAL: You know what else these bullshit stadium deal-with-the-devil scams do? In the spirit of not raising (or minimizing) tax increases, they pull from a general fund. This is money set aside for – you know, public schools and parks – and that fund can be depleted in the name of not raising a stadium tax. Here’s a little excerpt about the new Atlanta Braves stadium (its current stadium was built for the 1996 Olympics, by the way):
“Every time a city or county funds a stadium through hotel taxes or by dipping into a general fund, local politicians and team cheerleaders proudly say that residents won’t see their own taxes go up. This is a damned lie.
“Not only does putting public money toward a stadium take away money that could actually go to the public good (SunTrust Park was approved at a time Cobb County schools were desperately slashing budgets), but the general fund is no longer there to prop up existing and future bonds, forcing taxes to be raised to pay off those debts.”
While there won’t be a stadium tax, taxes will be raised for many other things once the general fund gets wiped out covering the stadium costs. There is no sport-related issue that I’m more passionate about than the scam that is publicly funded professional stadiums.
The Best Father’s Day Gift J.R. Smith Could Give
J.R. Smith is, uh, colorful. He’s had his ups and downs, but he just played a key role in winning an NBA title, defeating the 73-win Warriors in the process. It happened to be Father’s Day. And J.R.’s dad happened to be there. During the postgame press conference, someone asked J.R. about his father, and, damn.
Is someone cutting onions in here? But don’t worry, J.R. Smith isn’t changing. That same night the Cavs flew to Vegas to celebrate (God, that does sound awesome. Why couldn’t I have been 6’6 with a 40” vertical) and ESPN reporter Arash Markazi tweeted video of J.R. pouring an entire bottle of champagne on a female server’s head. SMH. -TOB
PAL: That’s nice. I’ll be the insensitive turd here…my single favorite part of this video is the concert poster behind J.R. Smith’s dad:
TOB: That’s ok. I laughed at that, too.
PAL Song of the Week: Fruit Bats – “When U Love Somebody”
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“All I’m gonna do is write essays. I don’t know what they’re going to be. They might be erotic. I don’t know. But I’m just going to write lots of essays.”
Losing 4 Super Bowls is fine when you have a Stanley Cup for your tears to fall into. China is an amazing place.
Since We’re All Watching O.J.: Made In America, Let’s Talk About O.J.: Made In America
And if you’re not watching it – get on it! To state the obvious takeaway from the series – the Simpson trial represented a boiling over of cultural conflicts that even surpassed the scope of a double homicide trial. The broader story is way more than I can summarize here. I just urge you to watch the series.
Let’s focus on one tiny, fascinating breadcrumb leftover from the broader story here. How do we remember Simpson’s athletic accomplishments? We don’t. Jason Reid contends its white people’s anger over the acquittal that is at the root of the “ghosting” of Simpson’s athletic feats, and he sums it up like this:
“Many white people still refused to abide by a verdict they believed to be illegitimate — to see him not only freely interacting in society, but being celebrated, made the injustice that much harder to swallow…
“[P]art of the ghosting of O.J. means never, ever acknowledging his greatness on the football field.”
“Think about it: When was the last time you heard an analyst, anybody, compare and contrast a thrilling young running back to Simpson?
“Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Tony Dorsett and others are legends cited constantly to praise top backs. During the countless hours of football coverage on television all year-round, it’s not uncommon for former players to revel in sharing anecdotes about Jim Brown’s power, Walter Payton’s determination or Gayle Sayers’ elusiveness. It’s as if no one ever saw Simpson run.”
The documentary talks a lot about Simpon believing he transcended race. I think people’s disgust with Simpson, and the act many believe he committed, transcends race. Reid makes the argument that white anger is the root cause of our erasure of Simpson’s football greatness. I have a really hard time thinking people want to forget about him as an athlete because of his race. I think people don’t bring up his time with the Bills and USC because he murdered two people and was acquitted, then wrote a book titled If I Did It. OK, he was one of the greatest at running with a football. There. We don’t bring it up, because he’s made us not care about him as a great football player, which is next to impossible to do. – PAL
TOB: Two white guys discussing this article is dicey. BUT. In watching the documentary, there seems to be something that Jason Reid misses: white people didn’t want OJ convicted because he’s black and he married a white woman. They wanted him convicted because most people think he did that shit. Hell, the documentary spends considerable time talking about how OJ had infiltrated the white business world. Those rich, old, white dudes OJ palled around with did not care that OJ was married to a white woman. Not one bit. On the other hand, the documentary also does a fantastic job explaining the anger that black people in Los Angeles were feeling after decades of horrible treatment at the hands of the LAPD. So when I read this article it strikes me that the writer thinks that anger is a two-way street. But it’s not. Sure, there are lots of racist people out there. But the media doesn’t compare players to OJ because that’s a lightning rod that no one wants to touch. Who the hell wants to be compared to OJ? Not me. And why compare someone to OJ when Jim Brown was first and better? There’s no need to invoke OJ. White people are not out here trying to erase OJ Simpson’s football career because he’s black. They’re erasing his career because they think he butchered two people. Simple as that.
The Moment Before Sport Becomes Business: Ultimate Frisbee
Yep, I’m writing about Ultimate Frisbee. Never played it, but I’m in a weird mood after Curry fouled out on 3 bad calls in the NBA Finals. Thinking big picture here. Hang with me.
Ultimate Frisbee is a sport that costs nothing to play and rewards pure athleticism (speed, leaping ability, agility). It’s a team sport that – like soccer – is in constant motion, and its highlights are about as good as anything you’ll see in football or basketball.
Let’s say CTE is an even bigger problem than we realize, and the mighty sport of football – crippled by damning medical research, lawsuits, and plunging participation at the youth level – all but disappears within a few generations. In all seriousness, I could see Ultimate Frisbee being a legitimate contender for a spot as a major sport in the US.
Which brings us back to the present. Ultimate is on the fringe, but gaining some momentum. As it straddles the line between a “pickup” game and a professional sport – with a multi-year ESPN deal – it faces several decisions, not the least of which is whether or not the game needs referees.
For many years, the players decided if they had been fouled. But as the sport became more competitive, players were accused of taking advantage of the system. Extended disputes threatened to spoil the game for spectators and television audiences, so a debate about adding officials began.
Many big tournaments, including the world championships, have found a middle ground: They use an official known as an observer or adviser, who acts more like a mediator than a judge or executioner.
The observers are not empowered to make calls on their own, as a referee would. Rather, they can mediate if two teams cannot come to an agreement.
A mediator. No ref, but a friggin’ mediator. So simple, and fundamentally perfect! Let the players decide the outcome of the game. I love this notion. It’s like a golf ethos applied to a team sport. And yet, if the game keeps growing, i.e., becomes a bigger revenue generator, this will never, ever, ever fly for 3 reasons I can think of off of the top of my head: player salaries (not very much at this point, but who knows in the future), TV money, and gambling. It’s almost as if one could argue the factors that make a sport without an official untenable are the factors that simultaneously corrupt and evangelize the major sports we love today.
It’s just fun to get a snapshot and think about the future of a sport in its professional infancy. – PAL
TOB: I was all set to make fun of this (For example, I’m sorry, Phil but that highlight reel is not as good as anything I’ll see in football or basketball. I had a lot of “I mean, that was cool, sure…” reactions. For one, it’s a lot easier to catch and throw a frisbee than a football). But then I read the mediator thing. My god, it’s brilliant. Imagine if basketball had mediators, whose job was only to step in and make calls when players disagreed on a call. You know those games when the referees blow their whistles waaaay too much, and both sides are annoyed, and the fans are annoyed, and everyone says, “No one pays to see the refs!” That frustration would be gone. If a couple guys were going at it, they could do that without interrupting play every possession. What a great idea. I’ll still never sit down and watch a game of Ultimate Frisbee, gtfooh. But I like the thought of what they’re doing.
PAL: I’ve seen you throw a frisbee, and you’ve seen me throw a frisbee…are you sure you want to make the argument that it’s easier to do than throw a baseball?
TOB: With a little practice, anyone can throw a frisbee really far. I will never throw a ball like this:
Or this:
PAL: I’ll grant you the arm strength argument of throwing a football. But throwing a ball far is one tiny portion of what makes an professional quarterback good. There’s reading the defense, making quick decisions, elusiveness, touch, etc. – all of which are far more important than having a strong arm. Those other qualities also completely translate to Ultimate.
Let’s Check in With Curling. YES I SAID CURLING.
No, it’s not a Winter Olympic year. No, it’s not even winter. But curling, that very Canadian (read: weird) “sport” that is part shuffleboard and part cleaning your apartment after a wild party, is going through some major unrest.
The short of it: someone invented a new broom (the icePad, very original and clever) that makes it much easier for the “sweepers” to direct the stone to the target. Consequently, the icePad has been banned for this season while the sport tries to figure out what the heck to do when a technology so fundamentally changes your sport. If you want to understand the physics of the icePad, read the story. It is interesting. But I really love the complaints from players (curlers?) who hate the icePad. For example, Olympic Gold Medalist Ben Hebert: “When you throw a great rock, we want you to make the shot, and when you don’t throw a great rock, I don’t think you deserve to make the shot.” Another former Gold Medalist, Brad Gushue, complained that it takes the skill away from the players and puts it in the hands of the sweepers. Isn’t sweeping part of it, fellas? Sounds to me like Hebert and Gushe don’t like their own damn sport and they’d be better off meeting me and Phil at Wreck Room where we can dominate them at tabletop shuffleboard. And I hope their people is around to see it, because they will get embarrassed! -TOB
PAL: Goddamn, this is a 1-2-3 story if I ever saw one. Good little physics lesson in it, funny names for meetings like “Sweeping Summit”, and old-timers trying to preserve the “spirit of the game” (this comes up in our story about Ultimate Frisbee, too…what an odd week). One question remains: Who’s the Chazz Michael Michaels of Curling?
Video of the Week: see above, fools!
PAL’s Song of the Week: Mason Jennings – “The Field”
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As we all know, Muhammad Ali passed away last Friday, at age 74. Phil and I happened to be hanging out, watching Eddie Murphy’s “Raw” on Netflix, when I glanced at my phone and read the sad news. We immediately turned on ESPN and watched the retrospectives pour in. ESPN continued the coverage late into the night, with Jeremy Schaap, who knew Muhammad Ali better than most because of Ali’s relationship with Jeremy’s dad, the great Dick Schaap, leading the way with some great anecdotes. We laughed at the clips of Ali’s best trash talk:
And his in-ring exploits (this is at the end of his career, in 1977, and he dodges 21 punches in 10 seconds!!)
We also shook our heads at how early he was obviously showing signs of Parkinson’s, and wondered aloud why he was allowed to fight as long as he did. I considered suggesting a special edition 1-2-3 Sports edition on Saturday morning, but decided against it: one of our guiding philosophies for this blog is not to bring sports news, but to bring you the best sportswriting we find, and throw our own take in for good measure. This approach also allows some perspective. Over the last week, I read a lot of words written about Muhammad Ali – almost all of them interesting. Like this old article by Roger Ebert, about watching Rocky II with Ali back in 1979, with some very funny anecdotes, observations, and insights from the Greatest. I also really enjoyed this retrospective. It touches on what made Ali great in the ring, and so beloved out of it; but it addresses his shortcomings, both in the ring and out, as well.
And that’s an important part of the Muhammad Ali story. The man was not a saint, and that’s ok. He can still be loved, even if he wasn’t perfect, and even if he was not really the greatest heavyweight boxer, let alone in any weight class, of all-time. Ali was so beloved because of who he was and what he did: he was generous and kind and made our world a much better place. Ali was funny. He was a great fighter. He was a man of principle. But he could be kind of a jerk, too. Truth be told, I’ve always been a Joe Frazier guy. He was tough and he was great, and he was the underdog. I was born 7 years after their last fight, but I watched plenty about it as a kid, and I could not escape the thought that Muhammad Ali was a jerk to his former friend Joe. But the world is not that black and white, either. And so I thoroughly enjoyed this old Sports Illustrated article, written about Ali and Frazier and their final fight – The Thrilla in Manila, their respective mornings after that fight, and the respect that two vicious enemies earned from each other.
“In his suite the next morning he talked quietly. “I heard somethin’ once,” (Ali) said. “When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself why am I doin’ this. You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin’ that at the end. Why am I doin’ this? What am I doin’ here in against this beast of a man? It’s so painful. I must be crazy. I always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”
I hope you read the whole thing. It is poetic and enlightening, and artfully demonstrates the reason I do enjoy boxing, as brutal and corrupt as it may be.
PAL: Like TOB said, you just gotta read this story. My favorite bit of writing:
“Once, so long ago, he (Ali) had been a splendidly plumed bird who wrote on the wind a singular kind of poetry of the body, but now he was down to earth, brought down by the changing shape of his body, by a sense of his own vulnerability, and by the years of excess. Dancing was for a ballroom; the ugly hunt was on. Head up and unprotected, Frazier stayed in the mouth of the cannon, and the big gun roared again and again.”
Malcolm Gladwell Has Made a Fool Out of Me
I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty of it: I read a book and start spouting off factoids from said book at a bar or family gathering. I couldn’t shut up about it after reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, which is a study on what makes the greatest minds, business people, innovators, athletes, etc. great. I convinced my middle brother to read it. I would purposely steer bar conversations towards Bill Gates so I could casually drop in lines about how his access to computers at an early age gave him a head start on accruing the 10,000 hours needed in order to master a skill. It took me a minute to realize every damn person had read or was reading Outliers, too, and the “10,000 Hour Rule” has lived on…and now I find that is was BS? What the what:
First, there is nothing special or magical about ten thousand hours. Gladwell could just as easily have mentioned the average amount of time the best violin students had practiced by the time they were eighteen — approximately seventy-four hundred hours — but he chose to refer to the total practice time they had accumulated by the time they were twenty, because it was a nice round number. And, either way, at eighteen or twenty, these students were nowhere near masters of the violin.
Second, the number of ten thousand hours at age twenty for the best violinists was only an average. Half of the ten violinists in that group hadn’t actually accumulated ten thousand hours at that age. Gladwell misunderstood this fact and incorrectly claimed that all the violinists in that group had accumulated over ten thousand hours.
How could you do this to me, Malcolm? I was pawning off your intellect for small talk during boring social gatherings for years, and I come to find you misunderstood the difference between “mean” and a minimum benchmark? Canadians…- PAL
TOB: Interestingly, Gladwell appeared on the Freakanomics podcast a month or so ago and addressed this, claiming that people misunderstood his point. He claimed his thesis was that he wanted people to move away from the notion of success as something individual – that it has to do with chance, contribution of your culture, your generation, and your family. He wanted to disabuse people of the notion of the “lone genius”, which he says has very little basis in reality. He said that he was very surprised that the average takeaway of Outliers was the so-called 10,000 hour rule, and that he used the 10,000 hour rule to “perform a very specific argumentative function” – he says the point is that if it takes that long to be good, you can’t do it by yourself. If you have to play chess for ten years to be a great chess player, you can’t have a job, you can’t help take care of your kids or help around the house. He points out Jordan Spieth and notes that his parents made untold sacrifices his entire life to make Jordan Spieth such a great golfer. If it take 10,000 hours to become an elite performer, then there must be a group of people behind that person making it possible. Essentially, it takes a village. You didn’t build that. Etc. What seems clear is that, if what Malcolm is saying now is what he meant, he did a poor job making his point.
PAL: I thought a made a pretty funny joke, and then you have to ruin it with facts, updates, and – you know – information.
TOB: Lawyered. For hire!
PAL: Wait…you’re a lawyer? Since when?
Sharks Benefit From a Pittsburgh Jinx
The Sharks staved off elimination Thursday night in Pittsburgh to send the series to a 6th game. Aside from having their first lead in the entire series (their only other lead game came on an overtime winner), the Sharks have a jinx to thank:
Public Works crews began going to various parts of the city Wednesday to enforce a little-known ordinance in advance of the Penguins potentially winning the Stanley Cup Thursday night at Consol Energy Center.
Guy Costa, the city’s chief of operations, said crews are removing couches from front porches, collecting abandoned furniture and emptying trash containers before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final against the San Jose Sharks.
I’ll say it – the Warriors came back from being down 3-1, and I got a feeling…oh, I got a feeling the Sharks just might do the same. And we don’t round up couches when teams win here in the Bay Area – we’re the winning idiots that burn ‘em. Pittsburgh Public Works shouldn’t have been going around taking couches off the street. And if the Sharks do end up winning The Cup, this will become my favorite jinx of them all. – PAL
TOB: Wait, they took couches off of people’s front porches? Like, they went on to private property and took people’s personal property without prior notice? That can’t be legal. Anyways, I have less faith than Phil, every time I’ve gotten on the Sharks ‘wagon, they do me dirty. I have been watching, though. Sharks goalie Martin Jones was fantastic last night – 44 saves on 46 shots, and many of them incredible, like this one late in the third to preserve a one-goal lead:
It was the most saves by a goalie staving off elimination in the Cup Finals since 1968! Go Sharks!
So many things to love in this photo, not the least of which is that young Bochy looks suspiciously like Hunter S. Thompson.
Despera-Joe
I don’t like Joe Buck. I don’t like him because he wants to be cool. At some point during his meteoric rise to the summit of broadcasting, he wanted to be cool, and that’s when he started driving me nuts. I don’t want a broadcaster to be cool. I want Al Michaels. A witty uncle with thin hair. Buck is a younger uncle trying to be witty and his thinning hair only makes it worse. He’s like The Eagles: Widely successful and incredibly lame.
With all that said, here’s a story telling us we’ve got it all wrong about Joe Buck, and then the entire story only points out examples that makes me feel like I got him lined up about right: Buck’s a little bit a d-bag. Some of my favorite tidbits:
Buck started calling Cardinals’ games at the age of 21 (following in his father’s footsteps)
He’s a longtime friend of Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm
He took over the top NFL play-by-play spot for Fox at the age of 33
He married a former Broncos cheerleader and had Rich Eisen ask her for a phone number on his his behalf
But the most notable portion of this story, which – remember – is trying to show us that Buck isn’t as bad as we think and that he’s in a no-win situation as a play-by-play announcer, is the following (referencing the 2014 NLCS between the Giants and the Cardinals):
Buck finds himself in an odd position. San Francisco Giants fans think Buck is in the tank for the Cardinals. Whereas Cardinals fans, who heard Buck deliver that lousy World Series call, feel that since he left town he has worn a bogus mask of nonpartisanship. “I’m a man without a country,” Buck said. “I’m Snowden.”
There is nothing – literally nothing – in this story that makes me like him any more. Joe Buck’s not the worst thing in the world, but he’s not underrated either. – PAL
TOB: My favorite part, aside from having Rich Eisen ask his now-wife for her number for him (and, really, Rich saying the number was for someone in the press box and her saying, “Please don’t say it’s Joe Buck” is just *mwah* perfect; also, getting your first tattoo because a woman you just started dating says she likes guys with tattoos is just *so* Joe Buck), is this passage:
In 2012, Will Leitch listed the indictments against Buck: that he was “smug” (that word again), that he under-emoted — that is, he didn’t seem as excited to call the game as those of us at home were to watch it. Buck said the second gripe was occasionally true, but not for the reasons his critics thought. Before a 2006 NLCS game, the public-address system at Shea Stadium played a song by the band Toto. Buck sang along in the booth — only to have the stadium take the camera feed and put his mugging on the scoreboard. “People booed the shit out of me,” he said.
Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. They didn’t boo you because you were having a good time. They booed you because everyone thinks you suck! If you had been just standing there, you’d have similarly been booed. The interesting thing about this story is how inside-his-own head Joe is about his own likeability, or lack thereof. Sorry, Joe. Own it. Also, he complains about people still making fun of him for his pearl-clutching-call of Randy Moss’ hilarious fake-mooning TD celebration, but he doesn’t own that, either! Own the mistake, Joe. And tell us just what the hell was your problem that day.
This article was entertaining, but as Phil notes, not for the reasons it tried to be. If this is the kind of writing we’re going to get from The Ringer, Bill Simmons may be looking for a new home sooner rather than later. Let’s hope it goes up from here. I do miss Grantland.
Donald Trump Too Big of a Risk For PGA
Donald Trump likes real estate. In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, Trump bet big on golf resorts, and snatched them up at basement prices. Legendary Doral in Miami was one of those courses. Doral has long been a PGA tour stop, but after this year its tournament is moving to Mexico City. Cadillac is out as a sponsor, and the PGA Tour can’t find a replacement. One of the reasons might be Trump:
“But corporations hate controversy, and they especially hate political controversy. Companies sponsor golf tournaments precisely because they offer a way to market to upscale customers in a setting where the only controversy is about who is going to win. Although there are certainly chief executives and other corporate executives who are supporting Trump, corporate entities on the whole don’t want to be associated with polarizing political positions…”
It’s not an isolated occurrence: “In Scotland, Trump’s Turnberry resort, which he bought in 2014, has traditionally been in the rotation to host the British Open. But the R & A, which organizes the British Open, indicated last year that Turnberry was out of the rotation after Trump’s comments about Muslims.”
So, what you have here is one of the most stodgy, yuppie, white Republican sports ever has deemed Donald Trump is too much of a liability. Your presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, everyone. – PAL Source: “They Won’t Play Ball With Donald Trump”, Joe Nocera, The New York Times (06/02/2016)
How Do You Solve a Problem Like MadBum?
Madison Bumgarner threw 7 more shutout innings, striking out 10 along the way, on Thursday. His season ERA is down to 1.92, and he’s struck out 92 in 80 innings (all three are 4th in MLB). He seems to have finally made The Leap to Ace. But Bumgarner did something else Thursday – he hit another MadBomb, this time a 2-run shot to break a scoreless tie.
It was Bumgarner’s 11th home run in his last 190 plate appearance. In Mike Trout and Bryce Harper’s last 190 plate appearances? Also 11 home runs. I saw that stat on Twitter and it did not seem believable. But…it is true. Bumgarner is the Unburnt, the Breaker of Chains. The Giants have to seriously be considering how to get him more at bats, which is a crazy thing to say about a pitcher, but Hunter Pence is hurt and here we are – the Giants best pitcher is also their best power hitter. -TOB
PAL: To restate, Madison Bumgarner has as many homeruns in his last 190 at-bats as Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have in their last 190 at-bats. Let that marinate for a moment.
Pretty damn impressive. He is, however, hitting under .200, and obviously his at-bats are spread out over a much longer period of time because, as a pitcher, he only plays every fifth game. Look, he’s the best there is – plain and simple. Give the big, hairy American winning machine more rips, Bochy!
In all honesty, let’s get off the crazy train here, TOB. He’s got serious pop, but he’s a career .180 hitter with a slugging percentage under .300.
“Oh, Elaine. The toll road of denial is a long and dangerous one. The price, your soul. Oh, by the way, you have until five to clear out your desk. You’re fired.”
1-2-3 SPORTS! 