I came home from work the other night to bizarre message on Facebook from a friend of mine, apologizing for something he wrote during a baseball discussion, that he was having a bad day and shouldn't have taken it out on me.
I literally had no idea what he was talking about.
Actually, I knew what he was talking about, as he was taking part in some trash-talking I was doing with my Red Sox fan friends over the previous week. They were all happy that the Red Sox beat the Yankees a few games, delaying when the Yankees clinched the wild card, and then when the Astros beat the Yankees in the wild card game.
I asked if they enjoyed their team's third last-place finish in four years, with one fluke World Series thrown in (which I called the "Jonas Gray" baseball season because Gray was a scrub who had one great moment). I told them the Yankees would have trouble making tee times after being eliminated because the Red Sox took all the good ones in July, and said the next thing Red Sox fans had to look forward to was Dave O'Brien welcoming them to spring training. (O'Brien replacing Don Orsillo as the Red Sox NESN play-by-play man is both an injustice and a serious thing around these parts, so the reference was hitting way below the belt.)
But even though I think very little of Red Sox fans as a whole, I knew this was just friends giving each other crab, and didn't find any of it offensive, certainly not offensive enough to block my friend (which I didn't know I had done) and then him unfriending me. Blocks were undone, friend status re-established and everythng is cool now.
Always remember folks ... it's only sports. Nothing wrong with throwing yourself into it, but it's not that important in the grand scheme of most of our lives.
* * * * *
Guys, we really need to get over ourselves.
Yes, Jessica Mendoza called the Astros-Yankees game. If you think she analyzes poorly, fine. Maybe she makes bad points, and doesn't know a lot about the game but tries to sound like a know-it-all ... wait, sorry , just had Harold Reynolds on the brain because I saw him do an ad for the MLB At Bat app, saying it's where he gets his information from. Personally, I'd hate to see how uninformed Reynolds is if he didn't have that app.
But I digress.
Jessica Mendoza doing color commentary isn't going to ruin a game because she's a woman, in spite of what some idiots were saying on Twitter, which Molly Knight did a fine job of recording. No one will have to give up his man card for listening, and it won't do any damage to any of the various parts of our anatomy.
I promise.
* * * * *
"First of all I hope your entire family contracts HIV."
The article on the health problems faced by ESPN NFL reporter Ed Werder's daughter and son-in-law is a tough read, even without what the idiot Patriots fan wrote to Werder after he defended Chris Mortensen's Deflategate reporting.
However, while I think Deflategate severed the last bit of the twine tethering most Patriots fans to both humility and rationality, I'm not writing this to pick on them, because who knows if this person even knew of Werder's family situation?
And it could have been a fan of any team who was upset about anything, because apparently, wishing disease on a person's family is what you do.
I've seen several of these in the days since the Rams cut Michael Sam, especially since he hasn't found another NFL job.
ESPN keeps looking for excuses as to why Michael Sam is unemployed. Maybe they should look at themselves. Their coverage pushed teams away.
— Skip Bayless (@FunSkipBayless) September 1, 2014
(Yes, I realize I just posted from a fake Skip Bayless account, but it's both representative of what I've seen and not profane.)
Eric Wood of the Bills seems to think so, and so did whomever talked to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report about it.
GM tells me: "Teams want to sign Michael Sam but fear the media attention."
To me, that's cowardice. But that's just me.
— mike freeman (@mikefreemanNFL) September 1, 2014
However, the people who complain about ESPN's coverage of Sam are missing a couple of points, one of which is that plenty of other media outlets have spent time on him, including Peter King's The MMQB, but more importantly ... that Michael Sam, and his attempt to make the NFL, is a legitimate story.
Michael Sam is a fringe NFL player, drafted in the last round, cut in the final cuts of training camp, looking for a spot on someone's roster or more likely a practice squad. All of those are true, and not particularly noteworthy, but Michael Sam being openly gay is a big deal, at least for now.
The NFL has never had an active openly gay player. Jason Collins is the first one in the NBA, and that's just this year. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League have never had one. So he's unique in that way, but there are also societal and cultural implications to a male athlete being openly gay in one of our major team sports, especially the biggest one and seemingly the symbol for so-called "manliness," the NFL, especially when there are a lot of people who want him to fail not because he's not good enough, but because he's gay.
Granted, ESPN's "shower" segment on Sam was absurd, and they, like any other news organization, can be guilty of beating a story to death, but if a team can't deal with the media coverage he'd bring at the beginning, that's on the team, not the media.
It will be a great day when an NFL, MLB, NBA or NHL player being gay isn't a story, the same way a WNBA player or a Hollywood actor being gay isn't really a story for more than a few minutes. (When my father and I were discussing the news that Jim Parsons of "The Big Bang Theory" was gay, something revealed as almost a throwaway line at the end of a larger profile in the New York Times, in spite of the way the Huffington Post reported on it, he almost dismissively said, "I thought everybody knew that already." He, like I, loves the show.)
But for now, it is a story, and for Collins and Sam, it probably will always be a major part of their story, because they were the first.
I love how, even though there are obviously teams favored to win the championship, anyone has a chance to make it to the NCAA Tournament and once there, anyone theoretically has a chance to win. It's better than college football, where the SEC is basically one national semifinal and everyone else is playing for one spot in the championship game. (I also don't have all that much faith in the four-team playoff, as I'm sure within a year that the cry will be for two, three or perhaps all four teams to be from the SEC.)
I wish I had the time and stamina to watch all of ESPN's Tip-Off Marathon, continuing as I write with Virginia Commonwealth against Virginia.
So why am I getting so ticked off?
The centerpiece of the marathon is the Champions Classic doubleheader in Chicago that starts with Kentucky-Michigan State and wraps up with Duke-Kansas. (Given Mrs. Last Honest's sympathies, however, we may wind up watching Florida-Wisconsin, which isn't too shabby, either.)
For the past few days, ESPN's promotion has been grating on me, in that they continually referred to the Duke-Kansas game not as a contest between the Blue Devils and Jayhawks, but between star freshmen Jabari Parker of Duke and Andrew Wiggins of Kansas.
I'm confused by all the @ESPN promos. #Duke and #Kansas are going to be able to play five guys at a time, right? It's not 1-on-1?
— LastHonestSportsFan (@LastHonestSport) November 12, 2013
I still haven't gotten an answer from The Worldwide Leader, but that's not even what has really gotten my goat.
This is.
One big reason you should watch the #ChampionsClassic: 6 of the top 10 in Chad Ford’s NBA Draft Rankings are playing.
— ESPN (@espn) November 13, 2013
I don't know ... how about that four legendary, really good teams with four of the best coaches in the country are playing at a neutral site on Nov. 12 when many of your best teams are content to challenge themselves by playing home games against No-Chance State? There are obviously countless things that could (and likely will) happen between now and then, but it would be no surprise to see these same four teams in Arlington next April.
For God's sake, NBA teams have barely started tanking to get one of those prize draft picks next year, so can we let the players that they're desperately trying to get play a little for the teams they're actually playing for now?
Hey ESPN, if you're so fixated on next year's draft, you might miss some pretty good basketball between now and then.
I was watching the Wisconsin-Purdue game today on ESPN when Bob Wischusen and Dan Dakich broke out the statistic that Wisconsin had won 19 or more games four times in its history (which dates back to 1898) before Bo Ryan came along in the 2001-02 season, and they've done it every year since.
It was at least the second time this year I've heard that statistic, and it smelled funny both times. So I decided to do some research (if looking at the program's Wikipedia page -- grains of salt being tossed -- counts as research) and found it smelled even worse than I thought, for a few reasons.
1. It assumes that Wisconsin basketball was terrible that whole time -- The Badgers actually had a pretty illustrious history through the late 1940s, with 14 conference championships and a national title in 1941. Granted, they only won 19 games a couple times during that span (1915-16 and 1940-41), but they didn't play much more than that. For example, in that 1940-41 season, the national title season, they were 20-3.
Things kind of went downhill after 1947, if you consider no postseason tournaments for 42 years and no NCAA bids for 47 years to be downhill. Nearly 50 years of futility is pretty impressive, but it pales to more than 100 years.
Which brings me to my next point.
2. Ryan finished what others started -- I mentioned two of the four 19-win seasons; the other two were in 1998-99 and 1999-2000 (22 both years, with a Final Four appearance in 2000) under Dick Bennett. They also won 18 in 2000-01, the year before Ryan became head coach. Overall, the Badgers made four NCAA tournaments and one NIT in the six years Bennett was there, if you count 2000-01, where Bennett retired just a few games into the season and Brad Soderberg coached the team the rest of the way.
In other words, while Ryan has taken the program beyond what anyone had done since the first few decades of the 1900s, the turnaround had started before he got there.
3. Why 19 or more? Why not 20 or more? -- This one should be easy. Ryan's win totals at Wisconsin have been 24, 25, 25, 30, 31, 20, 24, 25, 26, 20 (so far this year) ...
... 19 and 19.
Even though the "four times winning 19 games before Bo Ryan" would have still been four times winning 20, it doesn't sound quite as impressive to say Ryan has won 20 games every year but two in Madison. It's equivalent to NASCAR announcers saying "Driver X has seven straight top-13 finishes;" that means there's at least one 13th-place finish in there.
Today's inexplicable loss to Purdue notwithstanding, Bo Ryan is a terrific basketball coach, and it doesn't take overblown, manipulated stats to show it.
I don't watch First Take on ESPN much, if only because I work during the day. But I've heard that Skip Bayless caused a bit of a kerfuffle over something he said about Derek Jeter. (The quote is from the linked article.)
Bayless engaged in a heated debate in which he quoted
BALCO founder Victor Conte as saying synthetic testosterone use is
“rampant” in the majors today. He then asked, “If you are Derek Jeter,
would you think about using HGH right now?” Bayless backed off accusing
Jeter of any wrongdoing. “I am not saying he uses a thing,” Bayless said. “I have no idea. But
within the confines of his sport, it is fair for all of us, in fact you
are remiss, if you don’t at least think about this.”
For this, he has taken a fair amount of criticism.
What was most depressing about Derek Jeter being "accused" by Skip Bayless of using PEDs —
and "accused" is a verb that gives Bayless's dipshittery far more
credit than it deserves — is not that Bayless did it; this is what
Bayless does. It's that someone actually asked Jeter about it. He had to
give a legitimate response. And then that response itself becomes news,
with the headline "Jeter brushes off PED talk." There is no talk. There is only Bayless.
But let's step back for just a minute and ponder these three sets of numbers, remembering that they came during the time encompassing the subject's 36th through 38th birthdays, and he's a shortstop ... and make the subject not be Derek Jeter, perhaps the most-respected player in baseball:
2010: .270 (batting average)/.340 (on-base percentage)/.370 (slugging percentage)/10 (home runs).
2011: /297/.355/.388/6 (after a first half so bad that there was open speculation about what his future would hold).
2012 (so far):.324/.364/.450/13, plus a league-leading 169 hits.
What would people be saying?
I'm a big Derek Jeter fan. More than anyone else -- and there are certainly other worthy candidates like Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte -- he symbolizes to me the great Yankee era of my adulthood like Ruth, Mantle or DiMaggio did for people before me.
And I don't think he has used performance-enhancing drugs. If we ever find out he did, I'll be disappointed. I'll be unhappy. Maybe I'll even be mad.
But I don't think he has.
But why do I think that way?
For the same reason everyone ripping Bayless does (and also that they don't like Bayless).
Derek Jeter wouldn't do such a thing.
Melky Cabrera? Sure. Bartolo Colon? Ummm...yeah! (Upon learning the news, the great Ken Tremendous, who I believe has thumped on this tub before, wrote on Twitter, "Wait a second...Bartolo Colon was using PEDs?! Who in the world could've
possibly imagined such a thing except everyone in the universe?!")
But not Derek Jeter.
Because he's the most-respected player in baseball.
With every fiber of my being, I want Skip Bayless to be wrong, to be proven as the idiot who can do no better than saying stupid things about white Redskins fans supporting a white quarterback over a black one. I think he is.
However, we need to decide ... is everyone who has an unexpectedly good season suspect, or is no one? Because one of these days, someone who "nobody thought" would ever use PEDs is going to get nailed.
The NBC Sports Network (the artist formerly known as Versus) starts today, and Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing provides this from the Philadelphia Inquirer in his take on the launch.
"Programming this first year will lean heavily on the Olympics, 38
regular-season Major League Soccer games, 13 IndyCar Series races, 14
hours a day of Tour de France coverage for most of July, 90
regular-season NHL games along with 50 NHL playoff games, 20 hours of
horse-racing coverage around the Triple Crown, and 40 college football,
basketball, and hockey games."
Writes Yoder:
"That lineup should worry NBC execs because it's not exactly the NFL and
the NBA. However, there's enough of a live sports portfolio to at least
get off the ground. The Olympics (and all of the trials that go along
with it) will be a huge boost in this first year with the 2012 summer
games in London. NBC is also putting a lot of stock in MLS numbers
growing in the same way NHL numbers have risen in their time on
Versus/NBC. Soccer is a growing television power, but MLS has not
received the same impressive ratings that international soccer and the
EPL have experienced."
On the other hand:
"You can bet the folks in Bristol will also be watching the NBC Sports
Network debut closely. For sports fans generally, this is a good day
because competition breeds quality. NBC stepping up to challenge ESPN
will push both networks to be better. Whichever way the competition
breaks, it'll be fascinating to see just how much of a challenge NBC
Sports Network can provide ESPN in 2012 and beyond."
The folks at ESPN probably will be paying attention, but it would be a mistake for NBC Sports Network to think it can go head-to-head with The Worldwide Leader right away because it doesn't have the programming heft. However, there is room for an alternative, and NBC is in position to be just that.
One effective thing they've already done is the "NBC Sports: A Storied History" show, which I watched last night. While it's a complete infomercial, it is a good reminder that NBC Sports has shown a lot of great sports programming over the years and carries with it the implication that the network will do the same on its new sports network.
At a minimum, whatever NBC Sports Network does, they'll have to do it well, and even then, it is going to be an uphill battle to let people know there's another sports channel out there. For example, the "Cold War on Ice: Summit Series '72" documentary today looks really interesting.
As for me, I have my own favorites and people who make me cringe. Like the old All-Madden teams, these are based on people I see or hear, so while I have a general idea that Colin Cowherd is an insufferable doofus, I don't have the "privilege" of listening to his show, so he's not on my lists.
Let's start with the positives, shall we? (By the way, with the exception of my favorite or least favorite, who are listed last, these are in no particular ascending or descending order.)
LIKES
English soccer announcers - I know people who can probably provide more of a clue as to the quality of individual announcers' work, but what I love about them is their honesty. If someone makes a bad play, they say it. If a ref blows a call, they say it. If someone can't play, they say it. The closest thing most of them have for a euphemism is "That was optimistic" if someone skies a shot into Row ZZ from 40 yards out.
Jeff Van Gundy (ESPN/ABC) - He looks and acts a bit comical at times, especially when he's talking about referees, but don't be fooled. The guy knows his stuff, and he's really good at explaining it. He gets extra points for respecting the game enough to ask for the UConn-Baylor women's game because it shaped up to be a good one and he wanted to be there.
Don Orsillo (NESN) - He must be good for a Yankees fan to put him on this list, but he's a pro and gives a good call. There's a reason why TBS puts him on its postseason coverage and tried to get him full-time before he signed a new deal to stay in Boston.
Michael Felger (98.5 FM, Boston) - There's a really crappy sports talk radio station in Boston, full of blowhards who worship loudly at the altar of all the local sports teams while only having the advantage of knowing what they're talking about or actually being interesting once in a while. Felger and his partner, Tony Massarotti, have a show that's not on that station, and actually have a take that's sometimes ... the horrors! ... contrary! And he's arrogant enough in a good way to pull it off ... if you've ever heard him pronounce "fact, not opinion," you'll know what I mean.
Doris Burke (ESPN) - Smart, articulate, knows the game, great at explaining what's going on, funny at times, so good that she can go from women's to men's games or booth to sideline without a problem ... am I missing anything? The only quibble I've had with her is that she would sometimes get carried away ("We see you!" is the dead giveaway), but I think she has calmed that down since she started doing men's games from time to time. It's like she realized she wasn't in her usual sandbox, so she knew she needed to throttle down a little bit, and in so doing, found her correct speed.
Dan Shulman (ESPN) - He's good at everything, with everyone. Even Bobby Valentine couldn't drag him down.
Jim Lampley and Max Kellerman (HBO) - Lampley's forgotten more about calling sports than most of us will ever know, and I love Kellerman's style on HBO boxing. I'm not as wild about Larry Merchant, but this was pretty cool.
Sean McDonough, Bill Raftery and Jay Bilas (ESPN) - Individually, they're all really good, and Bilas' Twitter feed is outstanding, but when you put them together, their chemistry is incredible. I'm not sure if it was their idea to get together, a happy accident thrown together by ESPN or the result of someone thinking "these guys could work well together," but they make Big Monday a lot more entertaining.
Jack Edwards (NESN)/Tommy Heinsohn (Comcast Sports Net New England) - I'm not crazy about homers, but I can deal with them. However, I really don't like yahoos who think everything that happens against their team is some sort of conspiracy, especially referees' calls. But if you're going to be a yahoo, be so over-the-top that it's hilarious like these guys do on Bruins and Celtics games.
Vin Scully (I don't know the network, but it's the Dodgers on TV) - He's the second-best thing about my MLB.TV subscription. Once the Yankees game is over, I check the West Coast games to see if there are any that interest me. Unless there's an intriguing pitching matchup (Roy Halladay against Tim Lincecum in San Francisco will likely get my attention, for example), if the Dodgers are home, that's where I'm going. He's in his 80s, and I hope he keeps coming back until he physically cannot do it any longer.
DISLIKES
Brent Musburger (ABC/ESPN) - The guy's a legend, and for the life of me, I have no idea why. The best term I can think of for him is "carnival barker," and some of his banter with Erin Andrews on ESPN's Tuesday night Big 10 basketball games has nearly made me physically uncomfortable. (Yes Brent, we get it. She's pretty, and college boys like her. I'd be interested in hearing what the coach told her at halftime, if you don't mind.)
Joe Buck (FOX) - We all know somebody who's not nearly as smart, funny or interesting as they think they are. (Perhaps some of my friends feel that way about me. Guilty.) That's Joe Buck.
Tim McCarver (FOX) - What, did you think I wouldn't include Buck's partner on Fox's baseball coverage? Not only does he use 9,000 words where 25 will do, it's often for something he really doesn't even need 25 words for.
Meghan Culmo (Connecticut Public Television) - CPTV picks up the UConn women's basketball games that aren't on national TV, and people who live outside Connecticut can subscribe for $59.95. That's cool, but what's not cool is having Culmo, a former Connecticut player and assistant coach, call the games. She's hampered a little bit by having mostly blowouts, but her analysis consists almost completely of what UConn coach Geno Auriemma has told her and what she read in that day's Hartford Courant. When she talks about the other team, it's completely condescending in a "Look at those girls try so hard!" kind of way, punctuated by a surprised "Ha ha!" if one of their players hits a shot. What's sad is that all this still doesn't completely describe how unprepared and terrible she is. She's one of the main reasons we didn't renew our subscription this year.
Darrell Waltrip (Fox) - While he was still an active driver, Waltrip would sometimes call truck races on the former TNN on his off weeks, and he was really good. We all know he can talk, but he was really good at analysis and quite funny, so I was excited to learn he would be joining the Fox NASCAR broadcast team. And he was great ... for about six weeks. Then he morphed into "Ol' DW," with the singing and "boogity, boogity, boogity" at the start of every race. Instead of being a character, he became a caricature, and is almost unwatchable.
Ken Harrelson (Chicago White Sox TV) - This one makes me sad. During my younger days, I loved Harrelson on White Sox and later Yankees games. He was insightful, intelligent and taught me a lot about hitting. He once did a riff about "giving yourself a chance to hit a home run" that I found enthralling. But in recent years, when I watch White Sox games on WGN, he's nothing more than a yahoo, filling time between "He gone" and "Put it on the board ... YES!"
"One bad stock pick doesn't make this a bad book. The cliches which frequently begin each chapter ... that doesn't make it a bad book. The charts from Morningstar which are so small and are shaded so poorly that they strain both your eyes and your patience, they don't make it a bad book. But, you know what, overall, it's a bad book."
That's a bit how I feel about John Sterling. His silly catchphrases ("Tex message," "Robinson Cano, doncha know?" "An A-bomb...from A-Rod!) don't make him a bad announcer. His sometimes only being aware of what's going on doesn't make him a bad announcer. His desire to turn every game into "The John Sterling Show with Yankees Baseball" ... that makes him a bad announcer.
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE
Dick Vitale (ESPN) - In small doses, he's OK. In larger doses, he'd make we want to throw my TV off a bridge.
Michael Kay and the cast of thousands (YES Network) - Fairly inoffensive on Yankees games. They're just kind of there.
Gus Johnson (Fox) - He's known for his enthusiasm, but if the Big 10 football championship game (in which I turned the sound off midway through the first half) is any indication, he's at high risk for Garces/Brown Syndrome.
"Are rising sports broadcast fees going to lead to pay-for-only-what-channels-you-want?"
The above Tweet from Darren Rovell linked to this video on sports rights fees and the possibility of a la carte sports programming in the future.
Whether or not it's through special packages of channels that only subscribers have to pay for or some other means, it's likely that sports fans (and all consumers of media, really) will eventually have to answer the question "How much is seeing that game worth to me?"
In a way, the option already exists, at least to a point. The money I pay to watch baseball online is worth it for me to see the Yankees when they're not on national TV or playing the Red Sox. Even though it costs a lot less, my wife and I decided to not renew our Hoop Streams subscription to watch UConn women's basketball online because the lousy games, uneven streaming and terrible announcing were no longer worth it.
I like to watch boxing on HBO, but we didn't order the channel for that reason; it's just a nice bonus, and I wouldn't have subscribed to it just for that purpose. I also don't think there's a fight I would order a pay-per-view for as opposed to reading about it the next morning or catching the highlights somewhere.
Even our choice of satellite provider and package had at least something to do with sports, as we picked the one with the most options. We also got a lot of channels we never watch, but that's the way it's set up right now.
So how far will this go? Will sports programming move beyond even subscribing strictly to sports packages into pay-per-view for the big events, including eventually the biggest of all ... the Super Bowl?
I don't know the answer to that, but it does seem like there's a lot of untapped financial potential for sports programming, and someday, someone's going to figure out ways to get their hands on more of that money.
Reading an article on this year's NBA coverage, I came across this from Jeff Van Gundy about the possibility of a two-man booth with Mike Breen after Mark Jackson left to become coach of the Golden State Warriors:
"I'm one of those who enjoyed the three-man booth more than doing the
two," Van Gundy said. "I really don't know going forward if ESPN/ABC has
plans to fill Mark's spot or just leave it as is. Even though there
will be more time available to talk, I just don't want to talk for the
sake of talking. I want to make sure I don't throw too many hair-brained
ideas out there. I don't want to just fill time."
If it was up to me, I'd take Doris Burke off the sideline and put her in the booth. She's outstanding, worked well with Van Gundy during the UConn-Baylor women's game the other night and he wouldn't have to sit in the middle seat.
But "I just don't want to talk for the sake of talking ... I don't want to just fill time"?
