Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Did Tiger Tank?
Formerly in this space was a post about our buddy Tiger Woods and his TANK JOB at the US Open.
Well, it happened to be up to the somewhat higher standards of our buddy Jay Busbee's site Sports Gone South, so you can now find it at that link.
It's not deadspin, but his 50ish(?) readers are more that our two-ish. It's also full-text instead of just a link. Booya!
I'm taking over the Intrawebs - One blog at a time.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Blogservations - Print Edition
It’s been a big week for us here - we’ve been recognized by deadspin, and we’ve nearly wrapped up negotiations with our first corporate sponsor. On top of that, we’ve done a lot of work perfecting the blog-voice, where we refer to ourselves in plural pronouns, despite the fact that we are a singular entity. We may have some trouble with it, I tend to have trouble with change (Awwww, crap!).
Here’s the latest installment of blogservations - the print version. We call it that, because it’s not very timely. Some of these are weeks old, but both of you reading this will forgive me (awwww, crap!), we’re sure:
Alex Rodriguez caught a ton of flack for shouting some phrase or primal noise in a game against the Toronto Blue Jays, thus causing Howie Clark to spaz and drop the ball.
We’re shocked, not so much because A-Rod would do something that is against “The Code,” but that A-Rod’s lisp didn’t give away the fact that he wasn’t John McDonald.
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The media loves to report, and the people love to hear/see/read, bad news. So it’s not shocking that when the NCAA granted every member of the Duke lacrosse team an extra year of eligibility for the missing season it wasn’t headline news - anywhere but North Carolina, that is.
It was another day of vindication for the boys on the team, one that was met with great jubilation. In fact, it was worthy of a party. Lots of booze, lots of strippers, we're told.
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Reds outfielder Ryan Freel isn’t quite ready to get back on the field after suffering from a concussion.
I’m shocked that (Awww, crap!) the dude with the imaginary friend is having trouble getting a clean bill of mental health. Shocked, we tell you!
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Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware is the latest athlete to sign on the dotted line and become a spokesperson for Chunky Soup.
No punch line, we’re Cowboy fans, so the joke is on us.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Bud's Big Day
When you take a little Bud Selig ingenuity, combine that with a touch of four-letter devil overkill and a hint of college football signing day, you get MLB Draft ‘07 - Live on the Deuce!
I thought about typing out my observations as they came to me, forming sort of a stream-of-consciousness post of chronological thoughts (I know that makes NO SENSE!), but that’s work. Listening to the radio is already work for me, if watching TV becomes an exercise in critical thought I might as well just become a Gigolo on the weekends so that I can make everything fun into work.
That’s not to say I didn’t pay attention, I did. Sorta. On deadspin.com, Will Leitch made a big deal out of watching ESPNs for 24 straight hours earlier this week. Hell, I did it for about 38 hours on NFL Draft weekend, and that’s when the entire family of networks was showing the same thing.
With that experience in my background, I came up with a few ideas for ESPN/MLB to make the draft broadcast into something worth watching again. Hell, they’ve produced the NFL Draft for the last 2 decades, you THINK they would know what they’re doing by now.
1. The Draft Board - Where in the meetings to make this broadcast a reality did someone suggest ripping off the Family Feud for the board? Mr. Tony and Wilbon’s board for making lists on PTI features greater technological advancements.
2. We do care who’s being drafted - ESPN decided to devote about 60 percent of the screen to some sort of graphics, yet as soon as the supplemental picks hit they decided that showing which team was on the clock is the most overrated part of draft day. That draft logo really did need to be showcased on the upper left.
3. We do care who’s BEEN drafted - If you were watching this without the benefit of some sort of internet tracking device you had real trouble finding out who went where. The “bottom line” scrolled through the picks during each run through. Of course, that meant waiting through the French Open results, Arena Football transaction report and various other insignificant items.
Then you had to devote a half hour to seeing the picks scroll through, but that’s a problem with ESPN’s general operating procedure for bottom line graphics when something takes up more than 13 letters.
Is it too much to ask that you take SOME part of the screen to constantly scroll through the picks that have been made, and who’s due up?
4. Invite all Scott Boras clients to the draft - All we talk about any more with the NFL Draft is the guys sitting there watching the women calculate how many pairs of shoes they can’t buy with each pick that isn’t him. I don’t know what would have been better. Watching Rick Porcello (Dubbed Mr. Mushroom by yours truly) plummet down the boards would have rivaled watching Rick Porcello react to getting millions of bucks, but having to spend all summer in Detroit as the best moments of the day.
It’s also possible that Matt Harvey would have gone nanners on a camera man for getting to close.
5. Take advantage of Jim Callis - The Baseball America guy predicted the first 18 guys right in 2005. Read that again, and then think of Mel Kiper. He’s way more accurate, and he sorta looks like John Clayton minus 30 years and plus 80 pounds (that is to say he’s of average weight). He’s got everything the 4-letter devil needs in a draft guru.
After the Toronto Blue Jays used their second pick of the day to draft Jonathan Arencibia, one of the ESPN guys (Probably KR) talked about how this was unexpected and a bit of a reach. Callis then laid the smacketh down and said that he was fairly certain of the pick the night before.
Callis should have been on the set instead of Gammons, who allegedly “pumped his fist” after Billy Beane’s first rounder. Asked by KR why, Pete said because he saw the guy pitch in college. Spot on, Pete, spot on. I bet when the WWE goes to Boston Gammons cheers every time someone says “Boston” into the microphone.
6. Be less reactionary - Honestly, it’s not draft day that makes the NFL draft so good, it’s all the different mock drafts and speculation leading up to it. That’s how the baseball draft got a little bit of internet foothold as well letting it get on TV in the first place.
But I heard no one talk about what was going to happen with the current pick until the pick was made. Have I mentioned that Jim Callis was on the broadcast and had the first 18 right in ‘05?
SPECULATE!
7. Change the Day - Suggesting moving it to Saturday is obvious.
8. Replace Bud - Look dude, I know you’re the commissioner. I’ve even softened up on you lately because you’ve not been all bad since “The Tie,” but honestly, when you look down at the card we have to see the top of your head. Not very flattering. Then you read the picks with all the enthusiasm of Ben Stein taking roll. “Beaven, Beaven, anyone, Beaven?”
Get Cal Ripken Jr., to man the podium. He’d be competent. Or if you want to get crazy, get Ted Kennedy. You’d pass the NFL Draft in viewership if you can make that happen. “With the First Pick in the 2007 First-Year Player Draft, The Tampa Bay Devil Rays select, David Hyde Pierce, Vanderbilt.” Seeing him demolish names like a car on - too easy. Seeing him obliterate names like a drunken. It’d be funny alright, funny as hell.
That, and hearing him pronounce Los Angeles hurts my brain.
9. Replace the Card - Honestly, the whole Nick Schmidt pick sticks out I my mind as the lasting memory of the broadcast.
Quoth the Bud: “Nicholas Schmidt, Left Handed Pitcher, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, Arkansas.” I remember as the pick was made, I heard that he pitched at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville and wondering to myself where the hell THAT school was.
Did I miss anything?
The Best Defense is a Horrible Offense
When I was a kid, one of my mom’s favorite sayings was, “There’s no need to make a Federal Case out of it.” Mom never met Michael Vick.
Federal investigators reportedly descended upon Vick’s Virginia dog-fighting compound (Crimes always happen at compounds, not at rural Virginia homes), looking for evidence of dog fighting. The AP reports that more than a dozen vehicles entered the compound, as they injected themselves into an investigation nearly 2 months old.
Vick has been silent about the development, but he’s found an unlikely champion in the fracas. The prosecutor who was investigating him. Per the AP, Surrey County Prosecutor Gerry Poindexter said, "What is foreign to me is the federal government getting into a dog fighting case." Keep in mind they only did this after a search warrant given to local investigators expired.
Further comments from Poindexter, again per the Associated Press: "I know it's been done, but what's driving this? Is it this boy's celebrity? Would they have done this if it wasn't Michael Vick?"
I’m not a genius, but I’m thinking it’s being driven by Poindexter’s slow-to-react “investigation.” I don’t know if they would have “done this” if Ron Mexico weren’t involved, but I’m sure they wouldn’t have if Poindexter had instructed police to execute the search warrant rather than sit there doing nothing.
Reading the comments of Gerry, it’s possible that rather than defending Vick, he’s simply trying to cover his own ass, since he didn’t want to make a federal - errr local - case out of it. That is, until he goes there.
“There's something awful going on here. I don't know if it's racial. I don't know what it is,” Poindexter concluded. Poindexter, who’d black, didn’t specify if the racist acts of the federal government were directed at Vick for fighting dogs or himself for being an incompetent prosecutor.
If I were Michael Vick, I’d be sleeping pretty well tonight. After all, it’s not that often that the prosecution in a case goes on the offensive for the defense.
(Note, I use the pic of Jack because he's a "FEDERAL AGENT!" There are more of these Jack Bauer Motivational Posters)
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