751’s Red Flag July 6, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Baseball, Common Sense.add a comment
With the All-Star game coming up next week in San Francisco, every ounce of the media’s attention is focused on the biggest attraction that ballpark has to offer: larger than life world-class asshole Barry Bonds, who stands within five swings of the bat from eclipsing the most legendary record in American sports. Oh yeah, there’s a really good chance he cheated to do it.
While Bonds is the poster child for the dark age known as the Steroid Era in Major League Baseball, it’s important to remember that he’s never actually been convicted of anything. Jason Grimsley, Jason Giambi, Rafael Palmeiro and Mark McGwire have all been caught or have given explanations so weak they might as well have been written with a syringe. Every power hitter during this troubling time is under suspicion forever, but the pitchers get off scott free.
Roger Clemens was done in 1996. The Red Sox aren’t idiots, and they didn’t think he had anything left. Then all of a sudden, he gets on the bad side of 35 and becomes the most dominant pitcher of his era, winning his 350th game this week. No one blinks. What sort of hypocrisy is this, especially since Clemens has the one trait shared by Bonds and the aforementioned cheaters:
He has a huge fucking head.
Look at him in his pics from Texas and his early days at Fenway. He was totally ridiculous on the mound, but he also looked like a regular guy. Suddenly, he’s in pinstripes in the Bronx and…well let’s put it this way: Steven Segal could fit his entire head inside Clemens’ head. He could probably get all the way inside and practice Tai Chi, and it would be spacious.
Case in point, I sat on the first base side when Brady Anderson put on 50 pounds of muscle in two months. Huge head. But we were drinking the Golden Age of Baseball Kool-Aid back then, and we continued to buy in until the Jonestown that was the senate hearings. That’s what steroids do; as huge as you get, your head grows more than anything. Kirstie Alley gained 30 stone 7 over the course of an afternoon, but her head looks the same (she also has a pedestrian 40 time). The only thing that adds significantly to your head comes from Balco.
So when in doubt, the gigantic head is the red flag. That’s why when we look back at the late nineties, we need to remember the great players, not just the HGH monsters that are the current standard bearers. Greg Maddux? Genius pitcher; tiny head. Ken Griffey, Jr? Amazing swing; same hat he wore in 1992. Curt Schilling? Compare his rookie year in Baltimore with the bloody sock game, paying close attention to the gravitational pull of that sandbag on top of his shoulders…that’s all I’m saying…
Chasing It May 28, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Baseball, It.add a comment
You can’t fake It. If It’s not there, odds are pretty good it never will be. It’s not something that anyone can manufacture, either. It is an elusive bastard.
This morning, it was plastered all over the bastion of journalistic integrity that is Sportscenter (Walter Cronkite wishes he thought of “Booyah!”) that the New York Yankees are on the brink of canning General Manager Brian Cashman. 
The man who collects allstars like a rich cougar collects poolboys, the guy who’s responsible for raiding other ballclubs of their best players, shaving them like show dogs and dragging them to the Bronx, is about to be the fallguy for the failings of the fourth place Yankees.
The thing is, the only people fighting this firing are the ones saying it’s manager Joe Torre who deserves to be held accountable. They want blood, they don’t care whose it is. Over a team that has been in the playoffs each of the last eleven years. So they haven’t won a World Series in seven years. Ask a Cub fan about patience.
The answer is obvious to anyone who can see beyond all of the dollar signs and corporate sponsorships. I am no Yankee fan, quite the contrary. It was looking up the standings at the Bombers from the vantage point of the Orioles that I understood exactly what’s wrong with the most valuable franchise in sports. There was a clear shift in philosophy, a shift that coincided almost exactly with the team signing away beloved Orioles ace Mike Mussina.
In the pre-Mussina days, the big names were not the guys who scared you as an enemy of the pinstripes. They were the guys like Paul O’Neill, who would bat .250 the whole season, but all of his hits would come at the worst possible time. Your team could be up on the Yanks by three in the eighth inning, but you knew a run was right around the corner. A bloop single by Posada, a standup double by O’Neill, an eight pitch walk to Jeter, and boom, Tino Martinez hits one out. Suddenly you’re on the wrong side of the result, and here comes the unhittable Mariano Rivera. Game over. These teams had an energy, a contagious camaraderie that made them the dynasty they were. Fiercely clutch, the only way to beat the Yankees was to survive the inevitable run. Few did.
And they totally forgot that.
Gone were the role players, the setup men, the glue guys who made those teams such a bitch to play against. In came Chuck Knoblauch, who crumbled so severely under the pressure that he lost his ability to make a routine throw to first base. In came Jason Giambi, who went from Giant Killer to just another guy. Even Alex Rodriguez, the most gifted ballplayer of this generation, found himself on the sports page only when he wasn’t getting it done. With rising expectations, the Yankee front office decided they needed to secure victory by bringing in talented mercenaries, guys who hardly cared about the guy next to them in the batting order. Why should they. They only just met.
No matter how much money the nation of Steinbrenner hurls onto the field, he can’t buy It. He can’t even find a group of guys that would be guaranteed to have It. It just happens, and that requires a bit of patience. You need selflessness, which is hard to get with eight figure salaries.
You could argue that this applies to anything. Are teams better than individuals? Usually. People have eccentrities and neuroses and daddy issues. A group doesn’t. Successful businesses get this. Mismanaged ones try to fake it, with company retreats and open bars. Because you can’t guarantee It by working harder or spending more or doing anything, a lot of people are ready to believe that It is basically a product of luck and nothing more. Cashman won’t be around to find out if that’s true or not, so I’ll give the ending away for his sake.
It isn’t.
Common Sense Man: Cardinals, Trust Falls, and Ludicrous Lawsuits May 24, 2007
Posted by rosolio in Baseball, Common Sense.1 comment so far
I think I’m pretty good about being an American. It’s not hard to get a C+ in that at all. You just need to pay your taxes, stand for the National Anthem, and not board-check Margie, the little old lady with cataracts the size of DirecTV dishes, when she tries to merge into your lane on Lakeshore drive. We might want to. After all, the daffy woman’s left turn signal has been on since the Carter administration. But we don’t. We show restraint. And a lot of that comes from the psychotically basic of civilized duties: trust.
Considering how many people I know that can’t drive a golf cart in a straight line and have been busted for DUI, it’s an absolute miracle that the driving system works. You stay in your lane, we’ll stay in hours. We’ll observe speed limits (at least the signs, while we gun past them). It’s really amazing. Wow, we really trust the shit out of each other, don’t we? In today’s Patriot Act and identity theft America, how do we trust each other? Because we trust ourselves to do our part. I’m trusting Margie not to t-bone me because she’s trusting me to do the same.
But, if there’s a car crash, it has to be someone’s fault.
Accidents happen all of the time, way less than they probably should. The more stuff auto manufacturers cram into cars to distract us, the more likely we are to be…distracted. I’ve fished for a CD in the foot-area of the passenger seat while on the highway. If little ol’ Margie didn’t see me in her larger than average blind spot, I would have been dust. Accidents are accidents, sometimes bad things just happen. If you’re boozing, bad things are slightly more likely to happen.
The reason I’m talking about this is that I just read that the father of Josh Hancock, the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who died in a fatal car crash, is suing the bar his son was visiting for over-serving him. Over-serving. Josh wanted booze and the bar served him. And they’re getting sued. For not protecting young Josh against himself and his own horrible judgement. Let’s break this down.
I know people who it is goddamn impossible to tell if they’re wasted. I know some people who become more eloquent after a six or seven beer buzz. The fact that it is ever, EVER on the bartender for serving someone who made the horrible decision to get behind the wheel of a car while blacked out is totally insane. Also, a little indisputable fact, no one who gets in an alcohol related accident or popped for a DUI does so on their first go round. This was probably closer to the 30th time for the late Josh Hancock.
What in the holy hell is wrong with us? People are suing McDonald’s for making them fat; it’s the worst food on the planet. Yes, the millet the peasant workers were eating in Seven Samurai is of a higher nutritional quality. People suing cigarette companies for making products that kill them. The guy who sued the lawnmower company after picking it up and using it on a vertical hedge. The commercials that show an H2 diving under the sea and turning into a Bond car have a tiny disclaimer that reads “Simulation, do not attempt.” What happened to trusting people not to be idiots? How can we plan to protect people who have no common sense? Wouldn’t Darwinism have kicked in back when this kid was eating paste in the 1st grade? What’s so wrong with that? It drives me out of my goddamn mind that we need to modify our rules to cater to people who can’t be Trusted to look out for themselves and each other. God forbid someone feel bad about being called stupid, even if they’re destined to pull a Death Proof on an unsuspecting family of four who Trusted them to not do exactly that.
Hancock’s father is upset and is looking for someone to blame other than his son who made a bad decision and died for it. He violated the trust of everyone else on the road by not being in full capacity to drive. There’s that T word again, a cornerstone of being an American citizen. Another one is responsibility, and in this case, it all lies with Josh Hancock.
Follow the Worldwide Leader June 20, 2006
Posted by rosolio in Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, TV.add a comment
First, we are going to open with a disclaimer: I am as addicted to ESPN as anyone else. I check the website a hundred times a day. Upon moving to the midwest and being out of the range of my beloved PTI, I’ve begun downloading the podcast and listening a day late. I have this weird feeling that watching a Stanley Cup Playoff game on OLN somehow isn’t as valid as if it was on ESPN, even though it’s the exact same people with the exact same haircuts. ESPN, a jewel in the crown of the Disney empire, has an absolute hidden monopoly on everything revolving around sports.
The term ‘Empire’ carries fantastically negative connotations. It feels weird to write ‘Empire’ and not capitalize it. This is due to the fact that most are not recognized as Empires until it becomes evil. ESPN has not always been bad, but it is this author’s intention to, at least in some way, shine light on a negative trend that is spiraling uncontrollably toward disaster. Picture a volkswagen on fire careening down a street in San Francisco toward a crowded intersection. A little intense, but so is Around The Horn.
Like it was written in Revelation, the sports apocalypse starts with a positive event (I clearly follow the bible intently…anyway). Pardon the Interruption features two of the greatest sports writers (frankly, two of the greatest columnists regardless of subject) this country has to offer: the Old Tyme [sic] sportsfan Tony Kornheiser and the plugged-in, X’s and O’s Michael Wilbon. The idea was that these two very different, but very smart, writers would address the various events of the sports day and argue their opinions. Part of the appeal was that these two colleagues are very good friends, and the dynamic in a way simulates any group of fans discussing the same topics. They don’t claim to be experts, but neither do we, really. I can get in a trench war over whether the 2000 Ravens or 1985 Bears had a more fearsome defense, but unless I’m arguing with Buddy Ryan, neither I nor my adversary has any actual cred that makes us ‘right’. It’s still fun to debate, however, and that’s why PTI is so great.
The problem is that ESPN, through the Nielsen ratings and internet buzz, saw that they had a gigantic hit on their hands; a lively, opinionated sportspage that contrasted directly with the objective, just the facts ma’am Sportscenter. The suits at Team Rodent completely missed the boat as to why PTI is so popular. Rather than seeing the everyday banter of the show, the producers instead took the ratings to mean that audiences wanted to see people fight.
Around the Horn soon premiered: the Game of Competitive Banter. Aside from being advertised as a competition and the constant ad hominem attacks from the ‘contestants’, the show’s real flaw was that through the assignment of points, someone was going to be decided to have been right. Former host Max Kellerman wasn’t shy about mentioning his New York bias, and it showed in his assignment of points. The show has improved with current host Tony Reali as it seems that points are assigned based on argument and stat inclusion. But there are three types of lies, and the show still yielded a winner.
Dozens of other headache-inducing shows and segments featuring talking heads yelling at each other soon followed, but that wasn’t the real problem. The charm of PTI was that Kornheiser and Wilbon would occassionally take ludicrously bold sides, because the idea was to facilitate discussion, and plus it can be funny. It was because of this reason that asinine segments such as the Budweiser Hot Seat came to pass. Dan Patrick would ask pointed and directly controversial questions to athletes and sports personalities, seemingly begging for the person to slip and say something controversial. A classic example occurred with Jeremy Roenick. After being asked about the fans who claim they’ll never watch hockey again after the lockout, Roenick answered very honestly, “Hey, if they don’t want to watch, whatever, good riddance.” Following the interview, a thousand online and televised segments announced that “Roenick does not care about fans!” Patrick claimed total ignorance of the situation, but he threw the bear trap down and Roenick stepped into it. It is also worth mentioning that the rise of PTI changed Patrick’s radio program, which went from witty banter between he and ex-pitcher Rob Dibble, to Patrick’s controversy-stirring rants defended oh so smugly with the “It’s just my opinion” defense.
Patrick is right, it is just his opinion. He’s just another guy, with no more cred than someone working at Walgreens. He’s never stepped on a field of any kind. And that’s why I cut him a lot of slack and listened loyally to his show. I also listened to Colin Cowherd, who followed a similarly abrasive formula.
And then it became clear to me. Cowherd was on one of his rants, screaming about why Americans love the frontrunners and hate underdogs. This is completely insane, of course, as anyone outside of the five boroughs would say that the Miracle on Ice was a greater event than the 2000 Yankees rolling over everyone on the way to a title. His logic was that more people watch when the Yankees and Dukies and Fighting Irish are playing. He also supports Rush Limbaugh, which is a great way to retain listeners, because he makes a lot of money. It’s debatable as to whether Cowherd even likes sports; he certainly hates athletes and reminds his audience daily of all the reasons you should hate them. The problem with The Herd, and it took a long time to decipher, was that Cowherd wasn’t telling you what he thought. He was telling you what YOU thought. And as I looked more and more, I saw a thousand examples all over the place where ESPN was dictating the sports world by telling people what they were thinking.
What?
There is a lot of great stuff on ESPN. Mike & Mike on ESPN radio is great, PTI is great, Chris Mortensen simply has more information than every other football reporter on the planet, and Bill Simmons relates to more fans my age than anyone else out there.
But ESPN waxes poetic about how outraged America is over Barry Bonds and then unleashes a Bonds reality show. They create the Minnesota Vikings Love Boat Scandal; you mean insanely rich people fuck insanely hot strippers on boats? Whaaaaat? Or the Randy Moss mooning incident, or the constant Terrell Owens coverage, or entire days dedicated to the Yankees and Red Sox who play 30 times a season.
ESPN does all of this under the guise of “We’re giving the people what they want.” The reality is closer to this, “We’re telling the people want they want and then giving it to them.”
That’s what media has become. We dreamed of it becoming more inclusive with added interactivity and all of that, but instead of us reaching to them, they’ve reached us. Through weblogs and focus groups and polls, they can monitor their progress. Based on the fact that I checked ESPN.com three times while writing this, they’re doing a pretty good job.
