Burning the Pennant

racin', drinkin', smokin, and "southern culture"

2012-01-30T14:02:00.000-08:00

I'm giving a presentation next week at the Southwest/Texas chapter of the Popular Culture and American Culture Associations' annual conference on the intertwined history of NASCAR and alcohol. In preparation I've been doing a bunch of research on the subject, and particularly on NASCAR sponsorships. I wanted to share a little taste of what I've learned here.

First, if you're looking for a good introduction to the business side of NASCAR, Mark Yost's 2007 book The 200 MPH Billboard: The Inside Story of How Big Money Changed NASCAR is worth checking out. Yost provides a detailed, if uncritical, history of recent sponsorship in the sport. Of particular note are the discussions of NASCAR's B2B (business to business) council, also known as "Fuel for Business", which is the primary reason Fortune 500 companies have become so involved with the stock car racing organization. The B2B council is made up of around forty of the biggest sponsors in NASCAR and they work together to literally work together in buying and selling each other's business. According to Yost, "The group's goals are simple: identify potential business-to-business opportunities among NASCAR partners, compress the time and layers of corporate bureaucracy it typically takes to negotiate these deals, and learn how other companies leverage their NASCAR sponsorships." Yost gives an example of how two companies, NewPage ("the Fortune 500 paper and packaged goods company") and USG ("the construction company") interacted through the NASCAR council, leading to a deal where NewPage would use USG to build its new corporate headquarters in exchange for printing USG catalogs and corporate communication. Seems simple enough, and a bit dull. But I think two things are interesting here: 1) neither of these sponsors do/make anything that one would think of as a consumer product that NASCAR fans would buy and 2) what other deals are being made behind the scenes. The first topic is interesting because it is becoming more and more common for companies to come into NASCAR only to work with other corporations, rather than selling a product to race fans. That's a pretty strange situation. And because there is very little in the way of critical investigative journalism on NASCAR, one is left to wonder what sorts of back room deals are being made at the B2B council that no one ever hears about. (cue dramatic music: DUH! DUH! DUUUUHHH!!)

Another thing I found interesting while researching NASCAR sponsorships was the reaction in local papers to the end of the sponsorship by tobacco company RJ Reynolds in 2004. RJR had sponsored the top tier of NASCAR division since 1972, during which time it was known as the Winston Cup Series. Winston's logo was a central part of NASCAR for over thirty years. By all accounts it was RJR and Winston that ended the relationship, presumably to cut back on costs after lengthy battles in the courts over public health. But to read about the end of the Winston naming rights, and the subsequent take-over by the wireless company Nextel (now Sprint), it was as if it were final act of Gone With the Wind. Articles in the Charlotte Observer talked about it as the end of "southern culture" in NASCAR. Never mind that Nextel was based in Virginia at the time. And never mind any concern over public image, youth marketing, or public health. This was apparently an attack on "good ol' boys" and this mythic "southern culture". Now I'm not from the south, and I haven't been to the south since I was too young to even know it supposedly had its own culture, but it strikes me as odd that something like tobacco, something both consumed globally and not consumed by everybody, could have some uniquely "southern" quality. I get the whole history of tobacco fields, the civil war, slavery, etc, but is there really something purely "southern" about tobacco, and is there really something "purely southern" about NASCAR even? Maybe there is and I'm just ignorant to it, but those are just a couple thoughts I wanted to share before I head off to Albuquerque.

Talent Drain at ESPN?

2012-01-17T14:09:00.000-08:00

Last week CBS announced that Jim Rome, host of one of the most popular sports-talk radio shows and host of Jim Rome Is Burning on ESPN was jumping to the fledgling CBS Sports Network to front several different programs that would presumably make him the face of this new channel. Last September, Brian Kenny, longtime ESPN personality who anchored Sportscenter for years while also doing work on Baseball Tonight and Friday Night Fights, left the four-letter network to join MLB Network's expanding cast of characters. MLB Network had coup the previous year when they lured away ESPN's top baseball journalist, hall-of-famer Peter Gammons, which was arguably the biggest statement of legitimacy for the young network other than the inevitable partnership with Bob Costas.

There have been many other sportscasters who have left ESPN for "bigger and brighter things" (Rich Eisen, Dan Patrick, Max Kellerman, Craig Kilborne, and Keith Olbermann to name a few), but it seems like people are leaving more frequently recently. More importantly, they are leaving for rival sports networks that did not exist five years ago. When guys like Olbermann, Kilborne, and Kellerman left, it was because they wanted to be stars beyond just the sporting world, but the emergence of new sport networks, particularly those run by the major sport leagues has changed the landscape of cable sports television. It's not like ESPN is on the brink of collapse by any means, but the growth of the NFL Network, MLB Network, and the channels of the NBA and NHL, show that ESPN is no longer the only source for 24-hour sports coverage.

ESPN has long been notorious for undervaluing their talent, and if these new networks want to outbid them for their best-loved personalities, it will quickly draw audiences away from ESPN. The exodus only further legitimizes the other stations. I was among the many who assumed these league-run networks would simply be mouth-pieces for management and offer little in the way of objective reporting, but with the staff they have compiled has yielded surprisingly excellent journalism. MLB Network's coverage of Alex Rodriguez' steroid scandal is a prime example. The invisible hand of the commissioner's offices is never too far away, but ESPN and the broadcast networks, with their billion-dollar contracts to televise games, are really no less beholden.

I'm interested to see how the new CBS and NBC cable sports networks develop their identities. CBS' big thing is college basketball, and NBC's biggest resource is hockey, but both networks have connections to bigger sports, particularly the NFL. But with the growth of the league networks, why will viewers want to tune into an NBC Sports Network over MLB, NFL, or ESPN? At this point it looks like they're hoping on-air talent will be make the difference.

PS: Check out my new music blog!

2012-01-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

Hey friends, I just created a new music blog. Its called "inaudible scratches" and you can find it here: http://inaudiblescratches.wordpress.com/

Come on over and check it out!

With TV Money, Who Needs Fans?

2012-01-11T12:55:00.000-08:00

Last month, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange County of California of the United States invested over $330 million in contracts to star free agents Albert Pujols and CJ Wilson. It was reported by the LA Times that the main reason Angels owner Arte Moreno could afford such an extravagant spending spree was because his club had just agreed to terms with FOX for a new local television contract worth over $3 billon over the next twenty years. This is just the latest and biggest example of how lucrative television contracts are filling the coffers of professional American sports teams.

TV has been a driving financial force in pro sports for decades, but until relatively recently that money has been through national broadcast or cable rights for all or parts of an entire league's programming, whereas more recent deals like this one between FOX and the Angels is for the benefit of an individual franchise. In baseball, the Yankees pioneered this business model with their successful cable network, YES, which has allowed them to consistently have the highest payroll in the game. But now many more teams are striking deals of their own. The Angels, as Bill Shaikin wrote in the LA Times, benefited from catching FOX and their regional FOX Sports West network at a vulnerable moment when the LA Lakers were bolting for a new deal with Time Warner Cable and the LA Dodgers were unable to strike a deal while Frank and Jamie McCourt's divorce was still festering. Now the team has $150 million a year to play with outside their other revenue; an increase of $100 million from their previous TV deal.

These local TV deals fascinate me, and I think there a lot of ramifications to TV having such an important financial stake in sports teams, but the first thing it makes me think of is: If teams are getting so much money from TV deals, why do they need money from fans? The Angels currently have projected 2012 payroll of around $160 million. The $150 million they're getting from FOX in 2012 almost covers that completely, and yet there will still be revenue from ticket sales, merchandise, non-TV advertising, and other sources that will fill Moreno's pockets. I understand there are other overhead costs than just the basic payroll, but still it seems like the Angels (and probably many other teams) could pretty easily lower the cost of tickets and concessions for fans. Unfortunately, with the influx of star power it is much more likely that ticket prices at Angel Stadium will increase in the 2012 season. The Texas Rangers, the division rival of the Angels and the defending AL champs, who also just inked a new TV deal with FOX, have increased ticket prices across the board. I don't believe the Angels have announced their ticket plans for the 2012 season, but I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you.

It would be such a great gesture to their fans if teams like the Angels were to put a little of their profits back to the hard working people that come out to see them (and who also watch them on TV). Moreno made such a gesture a few years back when he lowered beer prices after taking over the team from Disney. That was nice, but I think he could afford to do a lot more with the help of his friends at FOX. And he'd still be able to keep his pockets pretty full.

Updated: "Different Vision of Baseball"

2011-12-07T20:48:00.000-08:00

There comes a point when writing about visual media where the written word will no longer suffice. In order to truly express the visuality that makes this media unique, one must employ the tools of the given medium. That is why, for the final chapter of my dissertation, I would like to present my argument about televised baseball through televised baseball.

What I have attempted to do with this video is to edit existing footage of baseball in order to foreground the meanings placed upon baseball which I find to be problematic, and then to offer a visual alternative. I begin by introducing the idea of baseball as the national pastime and how this been used to connect the sport to conservative, nationalist ideologies. The video opens with images of Franklin D. Roosevelt and George W. Bush throwing out ceremonial first pitches because I think the visual broadcast of these moments exemplifies the cooptation of baseball the state power of the US government. The images of FDR and GWB also show that this is not simply a Republican or Democrat trait, but that baseball has come to represent qualities that are valued in both major parties.

There are many different aspects of baseball that have become signifiers for larger social qualities, but I focused on seven (physical strength, mental fitness, morality, discipline, individualism, competition, and nationalism) that I find to be particularly common and particularly connected to American nationalism. These seven tenets are an adaptation of the seven tenets that form what sports sociologist Dr. Harry Edwards calls, “The Dominant American Sports Creed.” Edwards believes all American sports emphasize character development, discipline, competition, physical fitness, mental fitness, religiosity, and nationalism. While I agree wholeheartedly with Edwards’ assertion, I wanted to adjust the list to include individualism, which I believe to be particularly relevant in baseball’s connection to our capitalist society, and so I collapsed religiosity and character development into the category of morality.

I chose to represent physical strength with a slow-motion image of Jimmie Foxx taking a powerful swing. The physical power of baseball, often represented by home run sluggers, is frequently tied to the mythic power of hard-working men in American society. American archetypes like the farmer, the soldier, the roughneck, the cowboy, and the baseball player honor their nation through their physical strength. The World War II-era posters of Rosie the Riveter are a similar example of how physical strength is considered a uniquely American virtue.

Former Atlanta Braves pitcher Greg Maddux preparing to throw a pitch represents the mental fitness that is supposedly found in both great ballplayers and great Americans. Maddux, known throughout his career as a pitcher who excelled because of brains rather than brawn, embodies mental fitness in baseball. His intelligence in the game of baseball has been celebrated as part of a tradition of American ingenuity in line with the likes of Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs.

I used two different images of Lou Gehrig for the categories of morality and discipline because his untimely death from ALS made him a martyr for both values. During his playing years with the New York Yankees, Gehrig never missed a game over fifteen season, until his disease no longer allowed him to perform. This record stood for fifty-six years and was considered a hallmark of self-discipline. Also, Gehrig was represented in the media as a quiet, religious man, in contrast to his famously wild teammate Babe Ruth. Gehrig’s morality and discipline, combined with his tragic demise make him the closest thing in baseball mythology to a saint. The values he is seen to signify resonate deeply with the Protestant work ethic that nationalists have claimed to be inherently American since the colonial period.

As previously mentioned, individualism is a quality which separates baseball from other American team sports like basketball and football. The hitter standing alone in the batter’s box, the pitcher working alone on the mound like the image of Mike Flannagan in the video, and the other individual defensive players isolated at their positions make baseball a sport of single units functioning together. Throughout American culture, the mythic characters of the “rugged individual” and the “self-made man” are seen to embody the very best of capitalism, and in turn American society. Given the unique arrangement of baseball teams on the playing field, baseball players can easily be made to symbolize capitalist individualism.

Competition is just as important a value to capitalist society as individualism, and competition is an obvious part of any sport. I chose to show the Detroit Tigers celebrating their 1968 World Series victory because this is the pinnacle of triumph within the competition of Major League Baseball. The victorious team is generally heralded as an example of the benefits of competition in our nation. This team undoubtedly battled adversity, raised their playing ability in response to their worthy adversaries, and came out victorious as Americans supposedly should always hope to.

All of these values are part of a nationalist agenda, but nationalism itself is also a major component to baseball and baseball media. The 2001 World Series clip I chose for this segment shows the ubiquity of nationalism in baseball. It is important to the owners, sponsors, and broadcasters of Major League Baseball that the sport be directly connected to America, and as the six other values previously mentioned show, to a particular vision of America. This is why I ask, “What if baseball were made to represent something else?”

If we can accept that the values traditionally connected to baseball are social constructions that have developed over time in popular culture, then it should stand to reason that these ideological meanings could be changed through a similar project of media manipulation. This is not to say that there was once some pure and essential form of baseball devoid of meaning and not perverted by politics, but rather that the semiology of visual culture and political hegemony is fluid, and not impervious to change. I proposed six progressive values that I feel already have some basis in baseball, and with help from visual culture, could become celebrated values of the game and society as a whole.

Occupy Luxury Suites?

2011-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Last week I threw out a tweet to leftist sportswriter Dave Zirin: "@EdgeofSports Dave, with the NBA coming back, do you think a fan-led 'occupy luxury suites' movement would be viable?" I had been thinking about the recent police raids that had swept through cities clearing out the variants of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Friends of mine active in the Occupy Los Angeles group insist that the movement is not over, but simply regrouping. Though many criticize the Occupy movement for a lack of direction, I think many would assume that sports falls far outside of any demands of the "99%".

But aren't the owners of professional sports franchises, and the conglomerates that sponsor and broadcast the games exactly who the "1%" represents? And when Zirin mentioned in a recent column that NBA veteran Etan Thomas wanted players to identify more with Occupy, it got me wondering why NBA fans, and sports fans in general, don't do the same. On a base level, fans are routinely priced out of attending games (base price for LA Kings tickets is over $40 after service fees) and cities have frequently been screwed when new stadiums are built on the backs of regular taxpayers. At a broader level many of the major corporations in this country, who continue to circumvent tax laws and generally screw the public, hold major stakes in all the big professional American sports leagues. When you think about it, fans have plenty to gripe about, and maybe taking a page from the Occupy movement would provide a template for a new direction.

But could Occupy Luxury Suites really work? Many would say the recent police raids proved the initial Occupy movement failed, but I believe first that the movement is not dead, and second that the incredible publicity and imitation it inspired is probably more success than anyone had expected. Even if an Occupy Luxury Suites only lasted a game or two, it would hopefully at least generate some publicity for fans trying to take back some power in the sports they support. It seems to me that the biggest hurdle would be that unlike some of the sites of the Occupy Wall Street protests, sporting arenas are not public property (despite being heavily funded by taxpayers). I'm not sure how protesters would prevent being removed by security almost immediately, and they almost certainly wouldn't be allowed to remain beyond the time of the given sporting event. But if a large group, like 50 to 100 ticket holders all congregated on the luxury suite level, it would be a powerful symbolic gesture at the very least.

I doubt that I am the first person to think of this idea, but I wonder how many sports fans would rally to such a cause? As a father of two young kids, its hard enough for me to get out to a game at all, let alone commit to a potentially long-term protest. I used my kids as an excuse not to make it out to Occupy LA, something I regret, but it's true that people have enough going on in their day-to-day life to make it easy to find an excuse not to join a political struggle. Strength comes in numbers, though, and knowing you have friends willing to stand next to you can make protest easier. Dave Zirin was kind enough to retweet my initial query to his six thousand-plus followers, but I only saw one person respond after that. Does that mean Occupy Luxury Suites wouldn't work? Is it worth attempting? Where would a movement like this start? How would it start? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I certainly think they are worth raising.

Where do all the digital storytellers go?

2011-11-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

Note: This is in response to this blog post from Prof. Alex Juhasz as part of our Visual Research Methods class.

As I trolled YouTube looking for examples of Digital Storytelling, I could pull up quite a few generic examples (many of which were credited as class assignments), but when I started to look for more specific videos, the well of creativity appeared to run dry. Given my interest in sports and sports media, I was hoping to find either some first person narratives of incidents directly involving sports (like "the day I got mugged at Yankee Stadium" or something), or a first person narrative of experiencing a mediated sporting event (like documenting one's experience viewing the World Cup final or something). Unfortunately, I did not have much luck finding anything like this.

I found this video, which incorporates all the typical elements of digital storytelling (first-person narrative, visuality, personal story, etc), but is ultimately a pretty silly story of brotherly horseplay.

I also found this example, which is more professionally produced, but still follows the general style of digital storytelling:

Though there is the honesty of the first-person account, particularly with the putting on of the fire suit, this video also does not offer much in the way of painful, private, or even sensational storytelling. Of course, it seems obvious the author's of these two videos were not aiming for anything groundbreaking or controversial, but what bothered me was that I couldn't find anything "better".

I would like to think these are not the best examples of sports-related digital storytelling available on the internet, but the difficulty of posting things in the vacuous spaces of the internet is that it is hard to find people's work if you don't know exactly what to look for or if it hasn't been linked to by many other people.

This begs the question as to what impact digital storytelling can have if it is difficult to find. In a class such as ours we can link to each other's videos, but if we didn't know each other it would seem unlikely that we would ever see each other's work. Digital storytelling is a powerful tool to express ideas outside of the academy, but how can we ensure these important stories don't slip into oblivion?

A Couple Videos

2011-11-02T18:48:00.001-07:00

Here are a couple videos I have edited as part of my work on my dissertation about nationalism in baseball media. I want to critique baseball media, while at the same time give example(s) of how things could be done differently. In the spirit of visual culture methodology, I want to use the styles/tools/methods of baseball media, foreground them, and turn them on their head. The video I posted a few weeks ago from the 2001 World Series pre-game show on FOX was my primary inspiration. I had initially thought of making a direct parody or critique of that clip, but as I started working on it, I felt constrained by the limits of that montage, and so I decided to try a couple different things. The following videos represent my first two stabs at making a critical montage of visual baseball media.

The first video, "A Different Vision of Baseball", is my attempt to directly show what I am critical of in baseball media, and suggest what a more progressive semiology of baseball might look like.

The second video, "Baseball, Fuck Yeah," uses satire to critique the hyper-nationalism and hyper-masculinity of baseball media. The song comes from the soundtrack of the film Team America: World Police.

I'm not sure if I'm still searching for one great project idea that will encompass everything I want to say or if I want to do a bunch of small clips like these that are all variations on a theme, but either way, these are my first steps in this journey.

The difference between Bryant Gumbel and Adrian Peterson

2011-10-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

At the end of last night's episode of HBO Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, the host offered a commentary on the ongoing NBA lockout and recent public statements by NBA commissioner David Stern. Clearly upset with Stern's public relations campaign, Gumbel said Stern:

"...has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern plantation overseer, treating NBA men as if they were his boys."

Gumbel's commentary set off what scientists often refer to as a "media shitstorm", with basically every sports pundit chiming in today in one way or another. Well, dammit, I will not be left out of this discussion!

But seriously, back in March I posted about a similar uproar surrounding comments NFL player Adrian Peterson made during the NFL's lockout. Peterson described the current labor climate in the NFL as "modern day slavery". I basically said that the exploitation of slavery is not a valid comparison for millionaire athletes, something echoed today by many pundits talking about Bryant Gumbel's statement.

But I actually think that what Gumbel said is slightly, but significantly different. It boils down to the difference between exploitation and patronization. Gumbel was not saying that current NBA players are slaves to the owners or that their labor is being exploited in that manner. Instead, he is saying that David Stern has the patronizing mentality of a plantation owner looking down on grown men as "boys". Racism in 2011 no longer takes the form of a man with a whip bossing around his slaves, but the mentality that young black men are helpless without the guidance of wiser white men is a patronizing sentiment that dates back hundreds of years. Is David Stern a racist in the Bull Connor/Strom Thurmond/George Wallace sense of the word? Of course not, but you can't talk about the NBA, and particularly the relationship between NBA owners and players, without discussing race, and Stern's belittling of Billy Hunter and the players union is nothing if not part of a long tradition of racial patronization by white men in power.

Video Project Update #2

2011-10-12T15:09:00.000-07:00

So after sitting with this video outline for about a week now, and after getting some very helpful feedback from my classmates and Professor Juhasz, I think I want to make my project less directly tied to the original FOX clip. The inverse of a mess is still just a mess, really, and so I think my ideas will be better served by an original montage (or montages). I still plan to use found footage, probably mostly from YouTube, but I want to make my own narration, rather than rely on Joe Buck and his annoyingness. My next step is going to be to write a script for this narration, using the FOX clip as a stylistic jumping-off point, but I want to try to make a clear argument about baseball and nationalism, which is something I think my previous plan did not do.

Video Project Update

2011-10-04T15:04:00.001-07:00

I've hit some snags on the software side of things, which are preventing me from drafting a video as I would like to right now, so in the meantime what I would like to do is share with you a sort of outline for what I'm planning. I previously posted the original video from the pre-game to the 2001 World Series. My plan is to layer different video on top of the existing audio to hopefully call into question what FOX was saying that night.

Below is the script of that audio, divided into stanzas, and followed by what sorts of imagery I want to add on top:

(1) "Baseball might just be a game, but a beautiful game."

I want to put shots of things like the president throwing out the first pitch, the national anthem, and jet flyovers that point to the fact that baseball is more than "just a game".

(2) "Through the years, baseball has inspired our nation."

Here I will show imagery from 8 Men Out, representing the gambling scandal of 1919, all-white teams pre-Jackie Robinson, representing institutional racism, and recent images of players testifying before Congress, representing the steroid scandal. It would be hard to find any of these moments "inspiring".

(3) "Decade after decade, the games went on through the most difficult of times."

I'd like to show images representing the various work stoppages in baseball due to labor disputes to counter this statement.

(4) "We once again find ourselves in trying times. As a nation we have been tested, but America has gotten up. America always gets up."

I think I want to show some images representing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the recent "Great Recession" to represent current "trying times" that have extended from the "trying times" of October 2001, and to question if we have "gotten up".

(5) "So many Americans before us fought; fought for freedom. And with that freedom, our pastime has grown into our present time."

Here, I'd like to have a montage of various American war imagery from the 20th and 21st Centuries (either documentary or fictional films) questioning the idea of "fighting for freedom".

(6) "Now the World Series will be played for the very first time in the Arizona desert... Or simply a special number one."

This segment is the most specific to that individual World Series, so I'm not sure how I would alter it or if it is even necessary. I may leave that part as is and see how it works within the rest of the montage.

(7) "But tonight, the biggest story of them all is that the World Series is being played."

I want to show some footage of Afghan civilians who would probably disagree that the World Series is "the biggest story of them all".

(8) "The great American game of baseball plays on tonight, and will carry on long after: a game woven into our country's fabric and foundation."

I'd like to return to the image of George W Bush throwing out the first pitch from this World Series to represent how closely baseball has been tied to American state power, thus ensuring its ability to "carry on long after."

(9) "An inspiring escape back to a time of innocence."

Again, I'd also like to return to the gambling, racism, and steroids that do not exactly represent innocence.

(10) "The World Series is being played between Arizona and New York, but being played for, and in honor of the American people and all the wonder that lies from sea to shining sea."

A quick montage of images representing the many non-American players in MLB, as well as the many non-American fans in places like the Dominican Republic and Japan, will foreground the nationalist ignorance at the heart of this statement.

(11) "We are very proud to present Game 1 of the 2001 World Series, only on FOX."

I'm not sure exactly how to do it, but I'm thinking some images of Murdoch, O'Reilly, Beck, and other FOX people might remind the viewer what else is "only on FOX."

So, that is my current outline. Writing it out makes it feel like there is way to much going on in a short amount of time, and maybe that is true, but I think when it is translated to a video montage, it will be possible to express many of these ideas rather quickly. Once I start capturing images from YouTube I'll be able to edit together a draft to better see what is or is not working. Stay tuned...

Video Project

2011-10-03T13:05:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post I'm auditing a class on Visual Research Methods in order to help me prepare part of my dissertation. I want the last chapter of my dissertation to play with the styles of sports media and disrupt some of the conservative, nationalist connections that are made with baseball.

My current idea is to use found footage to mess with some of the juxtapositions in the below video. This video is from FOX's intro to the 2001 World Series (shortly after 9/11). In hindsight it is obviously very heavy-handed, and I think the potential for parody is fairly apparent. My goal is to alter at least a couple sections of this video by Thursday. Stay tuned for an update. In the meantime enjoy this flashback to October 2001.

Thoughts on Moneyball

2011-09-27T11:52:00.000-07:00

I went to see Moneyball last weekend, the adaptation of Michael Lewis' bestselling book about Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane. I enjoyed the book a lot, and think it is one of the more important popular books written on the sport in recent years. But while Lewis' book may be many things, it is not exactly a compelling dramatic narrative. It provides some fascinating insight into the business of Major League Baseball and the struggles of a small-market team like Oakland, and while Beane is certainly the "main character" if you will, it really doesn't read like some kind of hero's journey. It is not like the story of Michael Oher in Lewis' book The Blind Side that was made into a hit film starring Sandra Bullock. And don't get me wrong, the fact that Moneyball (the book) was interesting non-fiction and not a sappy Hollywood-type story is part of what makes it a great and lasting book. So, when I heard that Sony was turning Moneyball into a film starring Brad Pitt I was more than a little confused. Hollywood has been making baseball movies for a century, some more successful than others, but how was a book about economics going to translate into compelling cinema? The short answer: it doesn't.

Moneyball (the movie) is dull, slow, uninteresting, and this is coming from someone who studies baseball for a living. One of the themes of the movie is the fight against romanticizing baseball. Beane (Pitt) and his partner, played by Jonah Hill, are fighting against the old guard of scouts and managers who value players based on appearance and not statistical evidence. That's great, and that is one of the things that made the book interesting, but why bother even making a narrative film about Beane's A's teams if the point is not to romanticize baseball? Why not make a documentary about the same events, interviewing the people actually involved. Hell, have Brad Pitt narrate it, even. But it seemed like the director, Bennett Miller, was going out of his way to make an unappealing movie about an already unappealing subject. We get it. This isn't The Natural, but if you're going to spend millions of dollars to make this into a movie don't you want people to like it?

Ultimately, the movie falls flat for the same reason many people criticize the book (unfairly, in my opinion): because the biggest success of Beane's team was a 20 game win streak and a loss in the playoffs. His team has yet to win a World Series, and seems even further from that goal than they did in 2002. The end card of the film says the Red Sox won in 2004 with Beane's strategy, but that is a little disingenuous. The Red Sox combined Bill James' statistics with an obscene amount of money to build a championship team. So the real lesson of Moneyball (book and film) is that bigger businesses will always pilfer the smart ideas of their smaller, weaker competition. Ironically, the major Hollywood studio Sony was unable to co-opt Moneyball into a successful film. Oh wait, it did well at the box office, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Some brief observations on the 9/11 games

2011-09-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to briefly share some observations of the games I watched over the 9/11 anniversary weekend. As I wrote in my previous post, I watched the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race on Saturday, and the Cubs-Mets and Cowboys-Jets games on Sunday to get a feel for how three different American pro sports handled the occasion. I also watched the pre-game shows for each event in case there was more 9/11 stuff in that program than during the actual game/race.

I was surprised at how subdued both the NASCAR and NFL pre-games were. NASCAR, the same sport which puts on a mock military invasion in the infield of every Memorial Day race, basically just did a NY-centric national anthem, and had a couple cars painted red, white, and blue. For Football Night in America, NBC gave very small mention of the occasion, showed a couple of the tributes around the nation, and then had Robert DeNiro make a little speech before the game. After that, the story was all football.

Meanwhile the Cubs-Mets game on ESPN was ALL about 9/11. In the half-hour leading up to the game there was a tearful interview with Mike Piazza recounting his home run in the first game after 9/11, and a segment about a family of one of the fallen first responders who were diehard Mets fans. A fleet of police, fire, and other first responders lined the field for the pre-game ceremony, complete with giant flag and eagles. Marc Anthony sang the national anthem, again, just as he had done in the first game after 9/11. After that, Dan Schulman promised that the ESPN broadcasters would continue to chat about 9/11 amongst themselves and others, with the game being almost an afterthought.

The main thing I was struck with after skimming through all of these on my DVR was wow, baseball appears way more interested in making a big deal out of 9/11 than the other two sports. Why is that? Well, I think a big part of the answer is popularity. Football, by far the most popular of the three sports, doesn't need to drum up patriotism for a big rating. In fact, this game was one of the highest rated in years. The Cubs-Mets game looked to have about 25 percent capacity in the stadium, and presumably a fraction of the amount of viewers as those watching the NBC football game. It also felt like baseball, as the "national pastime", felt an obligation to spend time discussing 9/11. But like the fans who seemed to be struggling to summon the energy for a "USA! USA!" chant, the whole event felt a little forced. As if everyone had kind of already moved on, but felt the need to act like it was still as emotional as that first Mets game in late September of 2001.

I plan to sit down later this fall and spend some time going through these tapes and really dissecting what was going on, but these were just a couple thoughts that struck me off the bat.

Things I'll be watching for this weekend.

2011-09-10T10:33:00.000-07:00

Hey, did you know this Sunday marks the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001? Did that somehow escape you since it's been part of seemingly every newspaper, magazine, and TV show in the past week? Yeah, it's pretty hard to escape the pontifications on the meaning of this nice round number of a date. I am personally interested in the ways in which pro sports, and pro sports media are going to "honor" 9/11. Ten years ago, the sporting world was quick to embrace the jingoistic, nationalist responses to the terrorist attacks of that terrible day. I'm very curious to see how the sports media conversation may or may not have changed in a decade. I will be particularly focused on three events: the NASCAR Sprint Cup Race this afternoon in Richmond, VA, the Cubs-NY Mets baseball game tomorrow evening in Queens, and the Cowboys-Jets football game tomorrow in East Rutherford, NJ. I have a strong suspicion there will be big 9/11 tributes at each of these events, and I am very curious to see how each sport handles the moment. Will they use the same rhetoric? Will some be more over-the-top than others? Will the war(s) be mentioned, and if so, how? Will the sports try to claim they "healed the nation" in some way after 9/11? Truth be told, I'm planning on writing a paper about whatever ends up happening in these three games this weekend, but in the meantime, I'm just going sit back with an adult beverage and watch what unfolds.

I'm baaaaack....

2011-09-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

To harken back to an earlier post, sorry for the wait. My wife and I welcomed our son Duncan into the world six weeks ago, and life with two kids is understandably hectic. The few moments of free time I find each day have lately been directed towards my dissertation, but I am going to try to make an effort not to neglect this blog any more. Part of the reason for this is that I'm auditing a course at CGU this semester called Visual Research Methods with Prof. Alex Juhasz, and we need to maintain a regular blog as one of the course requirements. I don't anticipate this changing the way I write or what I write about in this space, but hopefully it will just provide the extra motivation to post more regularly. So yeah, I'm back.

Wait, Rickie Fowler's not a douchebag? Or how I stopped worrying and learned to love Rickie Fowler's golf game.

2011-07-16T15:07:00.000-07:00

If you've watched golf recently, during the April's Masters tournament, June's US Open, or the British Open that's going on this weekend, you've probably been confronted with the technicolor nightmare that is Rickie Fowler. His Puma-sponsored outfits have probably received more press than his game, and this kid was the PGA rookie of the year last year. I don't think I was alone in being turned off by the image Fowler gives off. In addition to the bright colors, the 22 year-old is also known for his shaggy hair that hangs out from under his wide-brimmed Puma caps, which he prefers to wear backwards whenever possible. Golf has always had players who take fashion risks. In a traditional, conservative game, it has been a way to express some individuality. But something about Rickie's style really rubs people the wrong way.

To put it plainly, Rickie Fowler looks like a douchebag. He looks like a smug rich kid from Orange County (Though he was born in Anaheim, he actually grew up in the 909. I don't know about his financial background.), like a kid who has never had a worry bigger than the morning's surf report. He looks like a guy who, despite his crazy outfits, has his pick of the hottest girls anywhere he goes. Because of his flashy style, he comes across as someone who must know how great his life is, and he wants to rub your face in it.

Now, does that sound like a bunch of jealous whining? Sure. The guy is a good-looking 22 year old professional golfer. If that's not a lifestyle to be jealous of, I don't know what is. But it is interesting to compare Rickie Fowler with Rory McIlroy, the 22 year-old Northern Irishman who won the US Open this year. McIlroy, who dresses with a little flash (the occasional white slacks, etc) still cuts a more conservative figure than Fowler. And I think regardless of the major championship, McIlroy is more respected because of his image. Again, Fowler comes off as a little punk, whereas McIlroy seems more like a charming little brother. And all of this is purely based on physical appearance, which gets me to my point...

I've decided I really like Rickie Fowler. Watching him play this weekend in The Open I've been amazed with how beautiful his golf game is. I'm involved in a friendly little wager with some buddies on this tournament, and we each pick a group of players and whoever's squad has the best combined finish wins some respect in the form of paper that can be placed in one's wallet. I took Fowler only because I read a newspaper article that said he might do well. I hesitated because I didn't like the way he looks. Shallow, I know, but did I really want to root for this guy all weekend? Then I got sucked into his round yesterday with McIlroy and all my preconceptions blew away in the British winds.

The reason experts were high on him is because he's a good ball-striker, meaning he hits the ball cleanly. The thing I love about him, is his shots are so crisp and effortless, and rarely do you think "What the hell was that?" In fact, what I've found to be most ironic is that for all of Fowler's sartorial flash, he's actually a pretty conservative golfer. Well, maybe that's not the right word. He doesn't hold back, but he knows what he can and can't do and he makes very few forced errors. Contrast this with a Phil Mickelson, especially the Mickelson of a few years ago, who would hit crazy iron shots from all over the course and left you wondering most of the time, "What the hell are you thinking?" Because Phil is insanely talented, some of those gambles paid off, but a lot of times he just looked like a fool. If Rickie Fowler looks like a fool, it is not because of his golf game.

It's easy to gush over Fowler's game as he is in contention to win a major, just like it was easy to fall in love with Rory's game during the US Open, but it is hard for me to imagine, now that I have put aside my petty dislike of his clothes, that I could ever not like watching Fowler play golf. I'm still jealous of the guy, but now its more because I wish I could play that cleanly, or have that many different shots in my arsenal. If he's the Justin Bieber of the PGA right now, call me a Belieber.

The MLB All-Star Game, Immigration, and Marxism, Oh My!

2011-07-12T14:46:00.000-07:00

Tonight's MLB All Star Game reveals some of the inequalities in professional baseball, presents an opportunity for some to protest, and for others to whine about how there is not enough protesting. The game is taking place in Arizona, which, apart from being hotter than the bowels of hell, is also the epicenter of the current debate over immigration in this country. Some players, most notably Boston's Adrian Gonzalez, had intimated last year when the furor over SB 1070 was at a fever pitch that they would boycott the game unless MLB moved the game to another state. That furor has since died down a bit, due in part to a federal judge striking down some of the most controversial points of the law, and Gonzalez is expected to play tonight. There is talk that some players might wear white ribbons as a subtle sign of protest, but some are saying that this is not enough.

While there are plenty of baseball fans that wish overt political statements were not a part of the game (but somehow have no problem with the national anthem, "God Bless America," flyovers, flags, etc, etc), there are many others who see such events like the All Star Game as a big stage that could be used to direct attention to important issues. Obviously, I don't think you can separate politics from baseball (or anything, really), but regardless of your opinion on SB1070 and other such laws (I'm totally against it/them), the question I keep having as I read commentary on the build-up to this game is why do we need the players to make statement on this? Sure, MLB has a considerable amount of Latino players and fans, so it would seem to make sense that there would be a strong reaction to this law, but do we really need MLB players to validate our opinions? If fans feel strongly against SB1070, or even if they support it, they should rally together. There are a hell of a lot more baseball fans than players. Leftist sports writers like Dave Zirin, put way too much emphasis on the players, longing for the next Muhammad Ali to use his celebrity platform as a bully pulpit. I personally think one of the biggest problems with those of us to the left of the political spectrum is that many of us still want others to fight our battles. Screw that. If you don't like something, stand up and say it. Don't wait around for Ashton Kutcher to start the rally, because that ain't happening.

During this time where two of the "big four" leagues are locked out, you hear a lot about the players and management, and it is easy to turn them into the rivals in a Marxist diagram of proletariats and bourgeoisie, but this also drives me crazy. While there is a long history of management exploiting the players of professional sports, it is overly simplistic to look at the mega-businesses of today's professional sports world as if the owners and the players are the only participants. The players are not the working class in this scenario. The working class are the custodial staffs of the stadiums, and the workers at the concession stands, and the parking attendants, and the low-level employees of the business offices, and so on. These people are rarely mentioned in discussions of potential winners and losers in the CBAs for the NFL and NBA. On top of that, the working class fans, most of whom can't afford to attend games or even buy licensed merchandise any more, are totally ignored.

This brings me back to the All Star Game. As Jerry Crasnick notes today on ESPN.com, the MLB All-Star Game has a very strange dynamic because the fans play a key role in voting players into the game, but because the game determines home-field advantage in the World Series, the players and coaches feel a responsibility to win regardless of putting on the exhibition the fan might want to see. I think the All Star Game shows us both how important the voice of the fan can be in pro sports, and also how easily that voice can be ignored by players and management. It's easy for managers and players to ignore the roster choices of the fans when the fans still show up in droves to the game, just as it's a lot easier to wear a little white ribbon and say nothing on the field, when the fans aren't vocal enough to push you to say more. I'd love to see a little more passion out there in the desert tonight, but I'm not holding my breath.

Is Kyle Busch the Lil Wayne of NASCAR?

2011-06-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

The guy here on the left is Kyle Busch, a 26-year-old NASCAR driver, currently ranked fifth in the Sprint Cup standings.

The guy on the left is Lil Wayne, a 28-year-old rapper, whose album "Tha Carter III" sold one million copies in one week and is about to release what will surely be one of the biggest selling albums of this year.

On the surface these two young men could not be more different. One is a goofy looking white dude from Las Vegas who competes in what most people perceive as a redneck sport, while the other is a tattooed African-American guy from the streets of New Orleans that exudes hip-hop charisma. But I believe Kyle Busch and Lil Wayne are more similar than we may realize.

Lil Wayne has been rapping professionally since the age of nine, and now fronts the crew Young Money Cash Money Billionaires, which speaks to the type of cash flow he has. Coming up as a rap prodigy, Weezy has always been viewed as talented, but there had been a question of his talent matching his potential. His early rhymes would show flashes of brilliance, but lacked coherence. His "Tha Carter" album has been seen as a turning point, where Wayne began to really own his style. By the time "Tha Carter III" came out in 2008, Wayne was a critical and popular darling, with huge sales and stellar reviews. But the differences between the hit single "Lollipop" and the more creatively adventurous "Dr. Carter", for example, show that there remains an inconsistency in Wayne's work. With the semi-retirement of Jay-Z, Lil Wayne is frequently called the "best rapper alive", but is he the best or the most talented? And is there a difference?

Kyle Busch, like Lil Wayne, has been a prodigy in the field of race car driving. He began competing in the NASCAR truck series at 16 and by the age of 18 he was racing in the top NASCAR series, the Sprint Cup series. Busch has always been viewed as enormous talent, evidenced by his quick rise to the premier level of the sport, but he has also been seen as immature and inconsistent. Early in his career, Busch would be criticized for getting too emotional during races, and quitting when he and his crew were having a bad day. His brash style has rubbed many (including me) the wrong way.

Here's Kyle flipping off a NASCAR official after being penalized for speeding on pit road.

Here's Kyle dumping Kevin Harvick's car on pit road, while Harvick is trying to punch him in the face.

Here's Kyle getting yelled at by Jeff Burton, generally considered one of the nicest drivers.

Here's Kyle soaking in the boos at Bristol speedway like a WWF villain, while Brad Keselowski calls him an ass.

Those clips give you a decent sense of why many people dislike Kyle Busch.

But on the flipside, Kyle wins races. Last year he won twenty four times across all three series which is a record, and he is known as a guy who can handle a "loose" car better than anyone. In other words, Kyle is so talented that he can drive a car that would normally be out of control for another driver. So like Lil Wayne, Kyle Busch is an incredible talented person, and a competitor who desperately wants to be at the top of his field. But also like Wayne, Busch can be wildly inconsistent. In today's music industry, with single-track downloads becoming more important than total album sales, Lil Wayne's inconsistency is easier to hide than Busch, whose chances at a Sprint Cup Championship are directly hurt by his up and down seasons. I also think Wayne benefits from being a naturally charismatic person. If you watch a video or an interview with him it is hard not to like the guy. Kyle Busch, on the other hand, comes across as the petulant child who throws a tantrum when his mommy won't buy him an ice cream cone. The competitor in him makes him come across as someone who is always complaining about something. And its hard not to notice the lack of respect many of KB's peers have for him, which is another stark contrast from Lil Wayne.

In the end, we have two craftsmen here who could easily be remembered as the very best in their respective fields. While it is more plausible, at this point, to see Lil Wayne reaching that status, he certainly needs to move away from the "quantity over quality" philosophy that has driven his career thus far. Busch may be less well regarded today within NASCAR as Weezy is in hip-hop circles, but if he can channel his passion into consistent victories, and move away from the lower circuits, he could definitely challenge the Jimmie Johnson's of the racing world. I'll probably still think he's a douchebag, though.

What is Grantland?

2011-06-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to hate Grantland.com, Bill Simmons' new website through ESPN, but its pretty great. At least for someone who doesn't currently have what some people would call a "job."

I used to really enjoy Simmons' writing, and I'd look forward to reading his columns. Even though his Boston-homerness was always obnoxious, there was something kind of fun about reading the highs and lows of a diehard sports fan. But two things changed Bill Simmons and his writing, and altered the way I read him. The first was his move to LA to write for the Jimmy Kimmel show.

As he mentions in his first Grantland column, this was a life changing event for him. Clearly it was an exciting and stressful time for him, personally, but for his readers it was strange because he was suddenly barely visible on ESPN.com any more. Its hard to believe now, but I swear there was a time when the Sports Guy wrote multiple columns per week. When he left for Hollywood, you were lucky to get one every other week. In the Grantland piece he makes it sound like he left ESPN completely at this time, but I seem to remember him continuing to publish columns, just at a much slower pace.

So, the Kimmel show took away the frequency of Simmons' columns, which, as a fan, I didn't like, but this also made me realize that I ultimately didn't miss his point-of-view that much. And when he did put something out, it either felt rushed or bloated, like he was either forcing himself to write or had too much backed up that he couldn't put it out coherently.

The other consequence of him coming out to LA for Kimmel was his immersion into the celebrity culture of Los Angeles. This was a more gradual change, but Bill Simmons had built his persona around being a sort of "everyfan", or at least an "every-Boston-fan". He often teased the establishment of sportswriters working at traditional print newspapers and cast himself as the outsider who would "tell it like it is". Then he moved to Hollywood and his circle of friends, who were also frequent characters in his columns, expanded to people like Kimmel, Adam Corolla, and later Seth Meyers. His career took off (more on this in a minute) and he was now getting the type of access he used to mock. I'm not saying that Simmons still claims he's an everyman, but I find myself less interested in the opinions of a rich insider who clearly has friends in high places. Everyone is biased in one way or another, but I find myself much more aware of his biases these days.

The other event, besides his stint on the Kimmel show, that changed my reading of Simmons was his book 2005 Now I Can Die In Peace. Immediately after his time on Jimmy Kimmel Live, he sunk into writing his first book which would go on to become a best-seller. Once again, he would rarely put out columns at this time, and once again, I found myself not too distraught. The success of the book really established him as the most popular writer working for ESPN, proving that he wasn't just an internet phenomenon, but could find success in the "legitimate" world of print publishing. So, as I said with his Hollywood lifestyle, he was now a very well paid guy, and had the access that goes with elite social class. To me, this just made the bitching he would do in his columns, which I think at one point was endearing, come across as the whinings of a rich man. Maybe this is jealousy on my part, but I don't want to hear the complaints of how some multi-millionaire wants to consume his sports.

With all that being said, Bill Simmons did recently conceive and executive produce the fantastic 30 for 30 documentary series on ESPN, which I think is the best thing both he and ESPN have ever made. Almost every film was an A++ and I believe he had a big hand in making it happen, even if the individual films were the works of the individual filmmakers. But 30 for 30 was another in a long line of distractions from Simmons' regular column writing, so when I heard he was going to be putting out a new "sports and culture" website, I was more than skeptical for what would materialize.

Grantland.com launched yesterday, and I gotta say, its pretty great. But it's also a little strange. Is this the future of the internet? Or at least the future of sportswriting on the internet? What's strange about it to me is how slow-paced it feels. Bill Simmons has always been known for his verbosity, and it looks like he's hired writers who share his love of long-windedness. But if the writing is good, then a long article can be really enjoyable, and so far the writing is great. Simmons doesn't even seem to be the best writer on the staff, and he probably doesn't need to be. I think Chuck Klosterman is a bit of a douche, but the guy can write, and the site is still more than both of these guys.

The weird thing is this site feels more like an online magazine than your typical website. And I don't mean an online magazine like the online homepage of People or GQ, but if you just put the articles of a print magazine online. It's not something you can consume in quick bursts, like much of ESPN.com. Instead you need to take the time to sit down and read these articles. That's great if you happen to be at home all day writing like me, but if you have a regular job like most people, I wonder how you would keep up. They certainly seem to be publishing stuff on there very frequently, so I don't you're supposed to just check in once a week. But maybe as traditional print magazines die off or evolve into online publications, Grantland will be a model for what a really great online magazine could look like.

I personally wish they would stick to just sports. I don't need 10,000 words on the LA Noire video game, but maybe someone else does. I'm curious to see how the site evolves. Though it acts like a stand-alone site, it is still run by ESPN and ultimately, Disney, so I don't know how edgy it can ever truly be. But luckily, it seems like they are going for quality over flash right now. Its not trying to be some crazy new "you've-never-seen-anything-like-this" site, yet it feels so simple that in a way you haven't seen anything like it.

_________________________________

Some quick thoughts:

For my friends who continue to ignore NASCAR: Did you know that one of the team owners fought a driver last week? Awesomest sports story so far this year. I can't stand Kyle Busch.

There are obnoxious sports announcers and then there is Mike "Doc" Emery, who does virtually every American televised hockey game (since there are only about five all year). Tim McCarver sucks, but Emery really takes it to another level. I think he's worse because McCarver, and most other annoying sportscasters are analysts, but Emery is the play-by-play guy, so he never shuts the fuck up!

On the flipside, watching the French Open last week made me realize that John McEnroe is one of the best analysts out there. I'm sure he's a prick in real life, but on TV the guy really knows how to break down what is happening in a game and also perfectly capture what is at stake in a given moment. He was constantly pointing out key moments, as they were happening, where a match was taking a turning point. Its obviously a little harder in sports like basketball and hockey to make the same insights because there is less stoppage of play, but all these other chumps could learn a lot from Johnny Mac.

Posey and Blood Lust in Sports

2011-06-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

Last week Buster Posey, the star catcher for the reigning World Champion San Francisco Giants, went down with a season-ending ankle injury after a brutal collision at the plate. Since then, there has been much hand-wringing over whether catchers should ever block the plate, or if there are situations where the catcher should save his body and let the run score. ESPN's Buster Olney is among those who think blocking the plate, especially in May, is foolish, and Chris Ruddick of the Kansas City Star is one of many who scoff at reactionaries, and says it's all just "part of the game." For me, it's obviously a terrible injury, and I feel bad for both sides. Posey is a great player and an integral part of what made the Giants champs last year. Cousins is just trying to earn a long-term stint in the bigs and you can see in the clip his immediate remorse and attempt to help Posey. I'm not even going to get into Giants GM Brian Sabean's comments about Cousins or Posey's refusal to hear Cousins' apology. It's just a shitty situation for all those directly involved.

But in terms of the importance of blocking the plate and the supposed "coddling" of modern athletes (Ruddick's term), I think it speaks to a larger issue of the public's tolerance for violence, and the cultural position of violence in sports. The discussions swirling around the Posey injury seem oddly similar to those around the effects of concussions in football and hockey. The big hits of football and hockey are one of the main attractions of these sports, but they have serious repercussions on the athletes giving and receiving these hits. Though baseball doesn't have the same frequency of collisions, having a 98mph fastball whiz past your face is probably enough to put the fear of God in you.

When it comes to football and hockey, many people say that these guys are gladiators, this is what they get paid to do, and they should accept the risks. That's fine, but are the players truly aware of these risks? Probably only recently, with all the coverage on concussions and brain damage, are some players becoming educated on the risks they are putting on their lives. A broken ankle is not the same as permanent brain damage, but the idea that a baseball player needs to "suck it up" is as old as the game itself. Sandy Koufax was criticized for ending his career at a relatively early age because he didn't want to permanently damage his shoulder. So should catchers always block the plate, even in a blowout loss in April, despite the risk of permanently damaging their ability to walk later in life? I guess I do think it comes down to the player, and if that player feels he is being well-compensated for his risk, then knock yourself out. I sure as hell wouldn't do it, though. And I don't think fans should gripe about it if a guy on their team opts out of blocking the plate either. That's not coddling. That's just taking your life into your own hands. We don't live in ancient Rome, and today's athletes don't serve at the mercy of the emperor. I'd much rather watch a skillful play than someone getting brutally injured. Sports don't need to be violent to be entertaining.

Distractions

2011-05-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Fat Mike of the punk band NOFX has started using the word "nawesome" on twitter to describe things that are not awesome. It's a pretty easy word to adopt, and I've been thinking about it a lot while dealing with different degrees of nawesomeness in my day-to-day life. I think a common response to things that are nawesome is to seek out some sort of distraction. Whether it's not wanting to write your dissertation (me! me!) to world news about natural disasters and terrorism, it's often easier to turn away and look at something that is at least superficially less nawesome.

I know I'm not alone in turning to sports as an easy distraction from "the real world". But a big point of my academic work on sports is that it is much more connected to this "real world" than we would like to admit. "Real world" issues like the economy, racism, and war are always lurking in sports and sports media, and usually they are not too far below the surface. So why, especially since I'm aware of this, do I continue to try to distract myself with sports?

I was at a conference recently where someone was talking about the 2001 World Series, something I have written about as well, and how she viewed it as a much-needed distraction from the post-9/11 drama. I was thinking to myself, with all the fighter jet flyovers, with Dubya's first pitch, with FOX's over-the-top nationalist imagery on TV, was it really a distraction? But of course it was. It was certainly different than watching CNN and focusing a little more directly on the carnage of terrorism.

I wince when people look at sports as just mindless entertainment because it does contain elements of the important social issues of the day, and the news, which is supposed to be all about the "real world" is just as commodified into an entertainment product. That being said, I don't think I'm going out on a limb to say that watching an NBA playoff game is more fun than watching Anderson Cooper 360.

We need distractions in order to be able to later re-focus on what is important to us. If you only wrote academic papers all day, or operated on patients all day, or built car engines all day, you would probably go nuts. We need to be able to give our brains a break from time to time. I guess the important thing to try to remember is that the things we distract ourselves with often connect back to the nawesome things that upset us to begin with.

So, there's no escape. Happy weekend everyone!!

-------------------------

A couple quick thoughts to cleanse the palate:

As a Laker-hater, I absolutely LOVE the hiring of Mike Brown. I put the over/under for Kobe's mutiny at Nov. 5.

The NASCAR all-star race (which was last weekend) is by far the most watchable all-star event. 100 laps. Winner gets a million bucks. Automatic stop at 10 laps to go to ensure a tight finish. Nobody is going through the motions out there.

The Mavs have basically made their last two opponents quit because they're playing at such a high level. I'd love to see them do the same to the Heat.

On the flipside, I loved the Thunder heading into the playoffs and was pretty depressed with how they closed out. A lot of growing up to do out in the Okie Dokie.

Didn't watch any of the games, but I gotta say I'm delighted that the Sharks got bounced by the Canucks.

The elephant in the room

2011-05-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

Lance Berkman is crushing the ball. Bartolo Colon is throwing like a slightly less fat man. Jose Bautista is continuing his Brady Anderson impression. Travis Hafner was having a nice little comeback before he had to go to the DL.

Gosh, isn't it great that some of these veterans are having career years? Its a good thing the steroid era is behind us and we don't have to worry about these guys juicing.

Give me a break.

I'm sorry, but because of the so-called steroid era, I am going to continue to be skeptical of any players like the ones listed above who have career years out of nowhere. Now, I have said before that steroids in baseball doesn't particularly offend me. I think it is stupid from a health perspective for athletes to take them, but it doesn't tarnish some non-existent "purity of the game". That being said, I'm not going to blindly marvel at the strong starts of Berkman and Colon. There is a very strong chance something, perhaps HGH which MLB still doesnt test for at the major league level, is playing a key role in these athletes' success. Again, I don't find their use of PEDs offensive, but I do find the blind praise they receive to be naive. Let's call it like it is. I'd much rather hear sports commentators say, "Wow, Lance Berkman must have really juiced up this year because he is crushing the ball," and acknowledge the elephant in the room, than just say, "Wow, what a comeback!"

Time to get back into hockey

2011-05-20T10:50:00.000-07:00

I really need to get back into hockey. I had kind of given up on the game after the 04/05 lockout, and I know that I was not alone. Since then, though, the NHL have revamped their rules, getting rid of stupid things like the two-line pass penalties which have freed up the game and made it much more exciting to watch. I've continued to watch the Red Wings in the playoffs, but I think next year I'm going to try to follow the entire season. Hockey at its best combines the speed and skill of basketball with the hard hits of football. The great thing about "new hockey" is that the faster pace makes for faster games, and at this time when baseball and football games seem to go on for 6 hours, its refreshing to watch a game in less than three hours. I'm excited to dive back into hockey and learn who all these players are again. I only know who's on the Red Wings, plus a couple of the other stars like Crosby and Ovechkin. My one problem with "new hockey" as a casual fan recently is that the salary cap has led to a crazy amount of free agency and trades. Every year it seems like half of the players in the league switch teams, which can make it difficult for the casual fan to keep up with. I hope that if I pay a little more attention to the league I can make sense of all the roster changes. And luckily the Red Wings still have the best GM in the NHL, Ken Holland, to make all the right moves.

The Favorite Team Manifesto

2011-05-20T09:57:00.000-07:00

I wrote some variation of this about five years ago on facebook. I can't seem to find the original text, but with this new platform, I felt I needed to lay out the teams I support and why because it may be different than many peoples' rationale.

I'm a first generation immigrant from Scotland. My family moved to Rockville, Maryland, just outside of DC when I was three, and we then moved to La Canada, California, just outside of Los Angeles, when I was seven. My parents had no allegiances to any American sports team, and the only teams/athletes I was aware of my dad rooting for as a child were the Glasgow Celtic football team and the golfer Jack Nicklaus. Its my understanding that most people either inherit their favorite sports teams from their parents or their hometown, but I didn't really have either since we moved a lot when I was young.

Baseball

The first team I remember getting attached to was the Baltimore Orioles. In Maryland, they were the hometown team, and hard as it may be to imagine today, they were actually really good back then. In 1983, the year we moved to Rockville, they won the World Series. I of course don't remember this, but the point is that the Orioles were relevant, and I remember going to games at the old Memorial Stadium and chanting "Eddie! Eddie!" for Eddie Murray. All my little friends were Orioles fans and baseball by far was the sport we loved the most. Baseball cards were a big reason for this. We collected them, traded them, and got to know all the players. Its hard to believe this now, but back then when I was only six or seven, I felt like I knew every player on every major league team. I was obsessed. I don't recall caring much at all for football, basketball, hockey or anything else back then. I didn't hate those sports, but I just didn't care about them either.

When my dad got a job in California in 1988 and we moved, I was excited to be going to the home of the Dodgers. I loved Fernando Valenzuela and now Orel Hershiser. The Orioles were going downhill fast, and the Dodgers were about to win a World Series, and it seemed like a good time to move on. In baseball, even now with interleague play, there's a big enough difference between the National and American Leagues where I think you can root for a team from each League. One team, will presumably always have your heart (The O's, for me), but you can enjoy rooting for the other as well (Los Doyers).

So baseball has been the one sport where I've been pretty consistent in my fandom. I became and Orioles fan as a kid in Maryland, and I'm still one today. I cheer for the Dodgers too, but to a much lesser degree.

Hockey

Sometime around junior high, I started to get into hockey. It was actually my brother Rob who got into it first, through friends I think. Again, sports cards played an important part. I remember many issues of Beckett Hockey in our house. This was also back when Wayne Gretzky was on the Kings, so I think that led to some increased interest in hockey around town. For whatever reason, I've had an aversion to just automatically liking LA teams. I guess I didn't feel like it was my hometown, and I didn't want to just jump on the bandwagon. It was around this time that I started thinking that you shouldn't just like a team because of where you live, but you should pick a team that you genuinely like for some more tangible reason. I "tried" a couple different hockey teams, took them on a few dates, but nobody stuck. Then in junior high, my friend David, also a hockey fan, and I started talking about our favorite NHL fighters. As adolescent boys, the crazy fighters of the NHL were our favorite players, and by far our favorite was the Detroit Red Wings enforcer Bob Probert. Bob was considered at the time to be the meanest fighter in the sport and his pastimes of booze and cocaine just made him seem even more of a loose cannon, and therefore even cooler in our young eyes. Through Bob we became die hard Red Wings fans. This was 1991/92, and the Wings were just starting what would become 20 straight years of playoff appearances (and counting). They would go on to win the Stanley Cup in 96/97, 97/98, 01/02, and 07/08. As the only pro team I like that has won championships during my fandom, my continued allegiance to them should be understandable.

Basketball and Football

I didn't really follow basketball or football until late high school/early college. When I did start to pay attention, I wanted to pick teams that were not hometown teams (not hard for pro football in LA), not the biggest winners or the biggest losers, and had some cool players I could get excited about rooting for. Given this criteria, I initially latched onto Kevin Garnett's Minnesota Timberwolves and Warren Moon/Eddie George's Houston Oilers. Shortly after I started following the Oilers, they moved to Tennessee and became the Titans. At first this was cool because it was like starting fresh with my own franchise. Watching the "Music City Miracle" was one of the highlights of my life as a sports fan. Meanwhile, the T-Wolves really blossomed with KG and when they went to the conference finals agains the Lakers in 2004, that was another highlight.

But then the fortunes of both franchises went south and I started to question my rationale behind liking teams. I realized that what I had thought initially were arbitrary reasons for liking a team (family, community) were actually much more constant and concrete than the things like "up-and-coming franchise" and "cool young player" that I had gravitated to. When KG went to Boston, I realized I had no real allegiance to Minnesota anymore (and I sure as hell wasn't going to become a Boston Celtics fan. Yuck)

So I decided it was time to go back to my sports fandom roots in Maryland/DC. I still liked the Orioles (and this was still before the Nationals existed). The Washington Redskins became my NFL team. They also won a championship back in 83, and even though I didn't follow them back then, I do remember there being a ton of buzz around DC about the Skins back then. I despise their racist team name, and Daniel Snyder is an awful owner, but I will fight those things from inside as a fan. For basketball, I went back to the Washington Bullets/Wizards. As I said above, I can't abandon the Red Wings now because they have given me so much as a fan, so the Washington Capitals are the only DC area team I don't support. Basically, my argument now is, "if I'm going to like a shitty team (which is what the Titans, Twolves, Orioles, and Dodgers all were), I might as well like the shitty teams from a town I lived in." Besides the Red Wings.

So that is my long-winded explanation as to why I'm an Orioles, Red Wings, Redskins, and Wizards fan.

Guess who's back??

2011-05-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

Hello friends,

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I've been distracted by this silly little dissertation I'm writing, and though I'd been having ideas for posts, I hadn't taken the time to stop and commit them to cyberspace. To make up for lost time, I'm going to throw several posts at you today and then I'll try to get back on a weekly schedule.

One man's hopes and fears about the 2011 Orioles season

2011-03-30T09:56:00.000-07:00

With barely two days until the 2011 baseball season starts, I wanted to get on the record some of my thoughts about my favorite team, the Baltimore Orioles, before the games get under way. Most people out there probably don't care about the Orioles, and I don't blame them, but it would be disingenuous of me to try to give a preview of the entire league. I love baseball. It's my favorite sport and I follow the whole league, but I'm not going to pretend I'm some kind of scouting expert. I couldn't name the starting nine of most of the teams, so it would be foolish of me to try to make any statements about how their season is going to go. Furthermore, I kind of think such predictions are stupid. They all become irrelevant on April 1. I'll throw out a playoff guess at the end just for fun, but if you want hard-hitting analysis, go somewhere else.

I do, however, love to see/read the perspectives of fans on their favorite teams because they are so passionate, and often so hilarious about the states of their teams. As much as Bill Simmons' Boston-centric coverage of the Red Sox drives me crazy, I enjoy reading about the highs and lows of his season, as well as his Yankee buddy Jack-O, if for nothing else but schadenfreude.

So please, humor me as I vent about my O's for a minute.

After thirteen-straight losing seasons, I find myself getting excited by little things like Zach Britton tearing up spring training, much more than any big-ticket off-season acquisitions like Derrick Lee or Vlad Guerrero (more on them later). Ever since Andy MacPhail took over as team president the Orioles have done a much better job building their minor league system, and they finally have some young guys that appear on the verge of contributing at a major league level. But the drawback of the patience required by fans like me to wait for young guys like Matt Wieters, Brian Matusz, and Chris Tillman to pay off is that there is still a very good chance they never will. In my opinion, Matt Wieters better show his stuff this year, or the guy is going to be one of the all-time big busts. He's not terrible, and he has shown some life at the major league level, but just a couple years ago there were articles arguing over who would be better: Wieters or David Price? And the consensus was pretty much that it was a win-win. Both would be stars. Price has quickly elevated himself to one of the very best pitchers in the league. Wieters... not so much. I'm sure he's a great guy, and everyone says he's great with pitchers, but screw all that. Hit some homers! The guy was supposed to be Joe Mauer with power, Jason Varitek with actual baseball skill. If we wanted a guy who could just manage a pitching staff, I'm pretty sure Varitek and his weak-ass bat would have been available.

And the same thing goes for the pitching staff. Sooner or later these guys need to prove they can "do the damn thang" as Jason Whitlock would say. Why can't we have a guy like Price who just dominates from day one? I'M TIRED OF BEING PATIENT!!! Don't get me wrong, though. After years of the likes of Sidney Ponson, Bruce Chen, and Jason Johnson taking the mound at Camden Yards, I am ecstatic that we have some guys that at least have the potential to be great on the mound. But at a certain point, it becomes put up or shut up time. Most of the Orioles' top pitchers have made it to the majors now. Britton is really the only big exception, and he'll be a mid-season call-up for sure. When guys like Clay Bucholz, David Price, Rick Porcello, Justin Verlander, etc, etc, got called up, they showed why they were there. Some of them, notably Porcello, had sophomore slumps, but they still showed the dominant stuff their fan base was waiting for. Brian Matusz, the pride of the University of San Diego, showed flashes of greatness last year, and I'm hopeful for a strong season from him, but I also hope he doesn't have to carry the team by himself.

Which brings me to the O's offense. If the pitchers need to put up or shut up, I don't even know what to say about guys like Nick Markakis and Adam Jones. I think Markakis already pretty much is what he is. Great fielder, decent hitter. Jones, on the other hand, could improve. Or he could just not be that good. And then we've got the birther, Luke Scott in left field. I can only hope he has a nice April/May and gets traded for some prospects. And then there's the new vets: Guerrero, Lee, JJ Hardy, and Mark Reynolds. Guerrero and Lee have giant forks in their backs. I love Guerrero, but the guy is done. But for some reason I'm getting a little excited about Hardy and Reynolds. Hardy is certainly an upgrade on Cesar Izturis, and Reynolds does mash the ball when he's not striking out 211 times per year. My biggest worry with the offense is injuries. Roberts has been battling nagging injuries since, well since drug testing began, and there's no way Vlad and Lee play 162. That's already a third of the lineup, and in the AL East we're already behind the eight-ball.

The two things that give me faith though, are MacPhail and Buck Showalter. It can't be overstated how important good leadership is in baseball organizations. Just ask the Dodgers or Mets. Hell, I lived it for a decade with the O's. The difference pre and post MacPhail is night and day. Are we even close to winning the division? Hell no. But, we are headed in the right direction, which is more than some clubs can say. Words can't fully describe my love for Buck right now. His rant on the Sox and Yankees, though futile, was fantastic. I dare say I see shades of the great Earl Weaver in Bucky, and that's not just because they're both five feet tall. Was the end of last season a fluke? Maybe, but I think Buck has got the clubhouse on his side, and that goes a long way. The day-to-day effect of baseball managers is overrated, but, using an example outside baseball, the guys like Phil Jackson that can find ways to motivate millionaires over the course of a season are rare treasures. I know he hasn't even had a full season with the team, but I feel Buck is one of those guys.

So here's some quick predictions, just for the hell of it:

I think Matusz, Arrieta, Tillman, and Britton combine for 55 wins, but I think Guthrie, Bergeson, and whoever else they throw out there will struggle. I think Vlad and Lee each miss at least 20 games. I think Roberts either has an all-star year or only plays 40 games. I wish I could say this is the year we finally get back to .500, but the AL East is ridiculous, so I think we end up at 75-87, which will hopefully be better than Toronto for fourth place.

Division winners: Rays, Chi Sox, A's, Braves, Reds, Giants

Wild Cards: Red Sox, Colorado

World Series: Rays over Braves

Barry Bonds is a Figment of Your Imagination

2011-03-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

"What's interesting is that even if Bonds is found guilty, the odds are he's not to going to go to jail. The guy who knows about it and won't testify has spent a lot of time in jail... Greg Anderson in a way is sacrificing himself to more or less preserve Barry Bonds' image as best he can... It's quite amazing, him going to prison, not to keep Barry Bonds out of prison, but for friendship, preserving an image, a home run record, making sure Barry Bonds goes into the Hall of Fame. It's not to save his life."

This quote, from University of San Francisco law professor Robert Talbot, is taken from Bill Rhoden's column in Wednesday's New York Times. I think it perfectly sums up the imaginary issues of the Bonds trial, and the crusade against steroids in baseball.

Barry Bonds, who hit more home runs than anyone else in MLB history (among many other records), is on trial for perjuring himself in front of a grand jury investigating illegal steroid use and distribution among professional athletes. His trainer and childhood friend, Greg Anderson, who is presumably the only person with direct knowledge of whether Barry KNEW what supplements he was taking (he has admitted to taking substances called "the cream" and "the clear," but claims he didn't know they were forms of steroids), has surrendered himself four different times now for contempt of court. He refuses to testify against Bonds. As Talbot points out, this is an incredible show of support for Bonds considering that he likely does not face an equal penalty in terms of jail time. So the question is why? Why would Anderson voluntarily separate himself from his family for Bonds? And why is the government so hell-bent on prosecuting Bonds? And why does anybody care about all of this?

The argument against steroids in sports goes beyond the simple fact that they are illegal in the United States. Baseball only recently outlawed them from the sport. Steroids, and other substances like human growth hormone (HGH) get lumped into the category of "performance-enhancing-drugs" and they are verboten in sports because they call into question the sacred statistics by which all are judged, and no sport values their stats more than baseball. If Barry Bonds did steroids, then his home run record is meaningless because he "cheated" to get it. Henry Aaron, the previous record-holder, and Babe Ruth, who held it for decades before him, supposedly earned their stats "purely", and Bonds the dirty steroids user should not be allowed that honor. So what?

Meanwhile, Anderson and Bonds, represent the other side, but they are really using the same rationale. They want to protect Barry's image as the greatest hitter of his time, and they know that if he ever admitted to taking PEDs, his image would be forever tarnished. Bonds can't just say, "Yeah, I did it. So what? I still outplayed anyone I played against and most of them were taking PEDs too."

We have this myth that sports is a meritocracy and that the best-of-the-best (whatever that means) simply rise to the top. In reality, people in all walks of life, and particularly in sports, take advantage of various opportunities that they are presented with and many people do anything they can to "get ahead." To some, "getting ahead" requires "cheating", but often "cheating" is very loosely defined. As I said, steroids, let alone HGH, were not officially illegal in baseball until 2003. Babe Ruth played his entire MLB career (not counting barnstorming tours) against all-white teams, which one could argue helped enhance his stats by diluting the talent pool he competed against. Hank Aaron played during a time when clubs openly provided players with amphetamines to enhance their performance through the long season. And this just reveals how silly it is to try to compare players and stats from different eras. The circumstances, the historical moments were totally different.

What fascinates me about the improbable determination of Greg Anderson is this desire by people other than Barry Bonds, to maintain an IMAGE of him. Not to get too philosophical here, but the reality of Bonds' career has come and gone, and whatever "image" anyone wants to construct from here on out is just that: an image. At the end of the day, what difference does it really make whether Barry Bonds knowingly took PEDs or not? It can't negate his existence. And we can't foolishly celebrate other statistics just by their contrast with his.

I guess my ultimate point is that statistics are useful for day-to-day record-keeping, but the comparison of statistics over time is futile because there are so many factors that aren't quantified. And when we start using statistics to validate imaginary constructions of who a person was or wasn't, then we are really treading in murky waters.

Millionaire Slaves?

2011-03-16T09:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple weeks, friends. I've been busy working on my dissertation, but I also haven't had strong reactions to any sports/sports media stories recently.

That changed this morning when I was listening to the Dan Patrick Show, and the topic of the day was Minnesota Vikings star running back Adrian Peterson using the word "slave" when talking about he and his fellow players who are locked out of the NFL in a labor dispute. Peterson said of the NFL, "It's modern day slavery, you know?" So now sports fans, sports writers, and the blogosphere are freaking out that a multi-millionaire like Peterson would dare to refer to his position as comparable to that of slaves. DP and his listeners, at least during the 20 minutes or so I was listening, were offended by Peterson's comments and felt it did a disservice to the fans. Patrick's argument was that fans, who support the league by paying exorbitant fees for tickets and merchandise, and make considerably less than the players AND the owners, don't want to here these guys bitching in such overstated terms.

Meanwhile, Dave Zirin wrote a surprisingly reasoned column by his standards (someday I'll do a post on my thoughts on Zirin) for The Nation today, laying out a bit of the history of black athletes referencing slavery, and attempting to understand why Peterson is using such rhetoric. He mentions how Curt Flood, who unsuccessfully pioneered free agency in baseball, called himself a "well-paid slave", and how the New York Times' William C. Rhoden wrote a book called "40 Million Dollar Slaves" referencing a quote by the Knicks Larry "Grandma-ma" Johnson. Blacks (and all other players) have been "bought and sold" in pro sports since day one, and blacks have been historically underrepresented in management and ownership. There is a clear disparity in power in pro sports, and the NFL is a prime example, and race is a central part of this discourse.

But does that make NFL players slaves? I have to emphatically say no. I think players are taken advantage of, and I think in the NFL they are particularly physically abused for the benefit of ownership, but slavery is a brutal and tragic term reserved for a relationship in which the slave has zero power and is completely abused by the master. I think this whole desire to use bold language to make a point is part of a larger problem in our culture, which is a lack of historical memory. Slavery still exists around the world, and I'm sure there are people in the United States living in slave conditions in sweatshops or brothels, but Adrian Peterson is not one of those people. That is not to say he and the NFLPA don't have a grievance against ownership, but we need to be careful about the terms we use in describing events, because it diminishes our arguments when our analogies don't fit. Why is it that every asshole now gets compared to Hitler? It's easy to reach for easily shocking comparisons like the holocaust to explain some new tragedy, but too often these comparisons don't hold water. It's also the same impulse that leads people to immediately say "that was the greatest game ever!" or "this is the most significant thing that has ever happened" until tomorrow's new significant thing replaces it. We should appreciate the singular horrors of slavery, Hitler, etc, and we should seek new descriptions for the new struggles we face. Particularly in the media, it is too easy to reach for hyperbole instead of actually explaining the historical significance of a given event.

The most important thing members of the sports media and professional sports can ever do is to stop making stupid comparisons. The very history of human civilization depends on it.... Just kidding.

Quick Thoughts

2011-02-24T15:25:00.000-08:00

There's no one thing that's particularly on my mind this week, so I thought I'd throw out some quick thoughts on several different recent sports topics:

The NBA Slam Dunk Contest was a joke. It was the epitome of the post-modern, all-style-no-substance coverage of this league. Blake Griffin was anointed the champ before stepping on the floor. When it came time for his final dunk, TNT didn't even have the camera on him because they were focused on the gospel choir brought out to sing an R. Kelly song. Griffin dunked over a car, but it was a compact KIA. Are we suppossed to believe no one else in the NBA can do that? Serge Ibaka dunked from behind the freaking free-throw line and didn't even make it to the finals! JaVale McGee dunked three balls at once! But the NBA once again showed the sideshow is more interesting than the game itself (not to mention the sideshow of the sideshow).

This ongoing story about retired NFL players with brain damage and depression continues to get worse. The New York Times has been all over it, and this week's story about Dave Duerson was no exception. Duerson, a DB on the Bears in the 80s, committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest last week, but not before leaving a note asking that his brain be donated to research on NFL players. Players in other sports take enormous bodily sacrifices for their sports, but with basketball and baseball it's more about physically crippling ailments. In addition to those problems, NFL players are getting Alzheimer's disease and suicidal depression. Is it worth the chance to make some millions in your twenties (I believe the average NFL career is 3 years) if it ultimately kills you earlier and in a much more painful fashion?

I don't understand the uproar around Albert Pujols' contract negotiations. First of all, its amazing how much we know about athlete contracts and how little we know about just about any other high profile person's salary. Even movie and music stars only publicize their total salaries, but we rarely hear about terms and conditions. Do we ever hear about the contracts of CEO's? That being said, I would never pay Albert Pujols (or anyone else his age) $300 million. The guy has been undeniably great, a certain Hall of Famer, but its doubtful in five years he'll still be that guy. But I also see Pujols' point of view. If he believes he's the best in the league, and he has every reason to, then he should be paid that way. If St. Louis won't, he has every right to take his talents elsewhere. If St. Louis doesn't want to pay him, they have every right to let him walk. And they should.

The Daytona 500 was an awesome race, and it was great to see the kid, Trevor Bayne, come out ahead of all the big boys. But Daytona is such an anomaly. The carburetors are fitted with restrictor plates that limit the horsepower of the engines and prevent a handful of cars running away from the field. Because of that, the cars team up in two-car drafting pairs that allow them to run faster than cars on their own. But this style of racing also leads to big wrecks that knock out half the field, and let guys hang around all day and swoop in at the end for the win. I'm not saying it doesn't take talent, or that Bayne didn't deserve the win, but it's just so different than the way NASCAR races most of the year. The season really starts on Sunday in Phoenix!

The Onion SportsDome is my favorite new TV show. It is hilarious. There is so much to parody in sports television, but the thing I love about this show is that they take it way over the top. It's pretty dark and twisted, and that's what makes it so funny. The show about masturbating the lame race horse killed me, and the segment "Who would you kill?" is brilliant satire.

That's it for this week. See ya in March!

I Love NASCAR, And So Can You!

2011-02-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

I have a lot of friends who are sports fans, and most of them are diehard fans who follow a lot of different sports. But I don't think any of these sports junkies follows the sport that outdraws all but the NFL in TV ratings: NASCAR. As recent as one year ago I was one of these skeptics, too. I knew NASCAR was popular, but so are Tyler Perry, Glenn Beck, and Miley Cyrus, so that is not necessarily a sign of quality. But as a student of sports and sports media I was curious to know more about this strange little southern auto sport. Why do people like it? Is it really so redneck? I expected to find plenty of interesting material to criticize from a cultural studies perspective, but over the course of the 2010 season I also became completely hooked in the sport. It is fascinating, exciting, funny, and occasionally disturbing, and I encourage anyone reading this to give it an honest shot and see if you don't get hooked too.

I can already see you rolling your eyes, so please allow me to respond in advance to a few of the concerns I imagine you have:

Why would I want to watch a bunch of cars drive around and around a circle hundreds of times?

This is like saying basketball is just a bunch of guys running back and forth for four quarters. From a distance it may seem that NASCAR racing is just a bunch of cars driving around in circles, but a closer look reveals that there is so much going on during race that is hard to look away. And the shapes of the tracks are not the same either. Though many of them are oval shaped, there are differences to angles of the track and the length of the turns and the width of the raceway that greatly affects the type of racing. There are two "road courses" on the schedule (Watkins Glen and Sonoma) that are more like Formula 1 tracks with cars winding around turns and going up and down hills. Because the cars are so similar (more on this later) there is a great deal of strategy going on during the race as to when a driver chooses to pit and take gas and/or tires, and fans have access to the radio communications between drivers and crew chiefs that provides insight into the ongoing decisions throughout the race. If you have a favorite driver or two, or a driver that you hate, you are constantly keeping tabs on where they are running and who is around them. If you stop and look and listen to what is going on during a race there are a lot of intricacies to each lap around the track.

I prefer sports with athletes. Isn't NASCAR just about the cars? Why should I care about cars?

Again, from a superficial perspective it would seem that NASCAR is just a bunch of cars going really fast, and how much athletic prowess does it really take to floor the gas pedal and turn left for three hours? Well, what makes NASCAR different than, say, Formula 1, is that this is stock car racing, meaning all the cars have to meet rigid specifics that more or less level the playing field between the cars. There are four different manufacturers in the sport (Chevy, Ford, Dodge, and Toyota), but since they have to make their cars to the same specs the importance of the drivers and crews becomes that much more important. There is an incredible amount of strategy on the engineering side of the teams, with crew chiefs trying to maximize fuel efficiency over the course of a race, time the changing of tires, and balance the weight of the car to give their driver the best chance to win. Even though there are strict spec guidelines for the cars, its the little adjustments that effect the things I just listed that make the difference between winning and losing. These are all team decisions worked out between the driver, crew chief, and the rest of the pit crew before and during the race. The driver has to hold onto this monster vehicle at speeds around 200mph, weaving through traffic, with no A/C, fuel gauge, or speedometer. Is a NASCAR driver as athletic as a pro football player? Of course not. But he's probably more of an athlete than your average golfer. And don't forget about the pit crew. Many of these guys are actually ex-college football players. They change the tires, adjust the car balance and refuel the tank in under 14 seconds. The jackman, the biggest guy on the crew, swings a huge car-jack around to one side of the car, lifts it in one pump, and then runs around to the other side to do the same without knocking anyone over or getting ran over by other cars passing on pit row.

Isn't NASCAR just a bunch of rednecks/racists/conservatives/right-wing nuts/etc?

Yes, NASCAR is predominantly a southern US sport. Yes, it is dominated by white men (and mostly white, southern men). Yes, you will see the occasional Confederate flag in the stands/infield. But, NASCAR is not as conservative as it may seem on the surface. Though there is only one non-white driver in the Sprint Cup Series (NASCAR's equivalent of the major leagues), there are more African American team owners in NASCAR than in Major League Baseball (1 to 0). And say what you will about Danica Patrick and her "Go Daddy.com" commercials, but NASCAR has more women playing in its ranks than the NFL, MLB, NBA, or NHL (1 to 0 to 0 to 0 to 0). NASCAR also has a strong LGBT fan base (see the site QueersForGears.com as an example), and actively courts gay fans to races through special promotions. The sport developed from moonshine distillers fixing up their cars during Prohibition to outrun the police. Thats pretty punk rock if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, though. There are plenty of conservative characteristics to the sport that still upset me. It still needs to pursue diversity on the track more actively, and the prayer at every race before the National Anthem is also problematic for me, but there are seriously problematic aspects to all our professional sports. NASCAR is no more reactionary or conservative than the NFL or MLB, and in many ways is actually more forward-thinking.

It's so corporate. Why should I root for companies like Budweiser and Office Depot?

You're kidding yourself if you think all the other sports are not corporate. Sure, baseball, football, and hockey haven't reached the point of European soccer clubs who were sponsors on their jerseys, but that doesn't make corporate sponsorship much less conspicuous. Almost every stadium or arena is named after a corporate sponsor and inside these facilities fans are constantly bombarded with advertisements for the official sponsors of the team and the league. In baseball, the backstop now rotates ads during TV broadcasts, just like the scorer's table in basketball. NASCAR may be more upfront about it, but they are all playing the same corporate game. Does a driver's sponsor factor into what driver you like? Sure. Part of the reason Clint Bowyer is my favorite driver is because he drives the Cheerios Chevy and I drive an Impala, and my daughter loves Cheerios. But I also like him because he's a great driver, a funny guy, and comes across as down-to-earth. Corporate sponsorship pays for much of the sport, and this may be naive on my part, but I think it makes the owners of NASCAR teams a little less shady than some of the characters that own teams in any of the other big leagues. There are no Donald Sterlings or Peter Angelos or Dan Snyders in NASCAR. I'm not saying guys like Rick Hendrick or Richard Childress (the two biggest NASCAR owners) are saints, but they seem to be much more focused on their sport than some of their counterparts in other leagues.

Doesn't The Same Guy Win Every Year? Screw That.

Yes, Jimmy Johnson has won the last five Sprint Cup Championships, which is unprecedented. Going into last year, I knew I didn't want to be a front-runner and become a fan of JJ and the 48 Team, but by the end of the year, with him coming back in the last race of the playoffs to win the championship, I had profound respect for the guy. This really is a historic run, and something to celebrate and marvel at. Just because Jordan's Bulls won every year didn't make it less enjoyable to watch him play. And NASCAR is much more competitive right now than the NBA was when Jordan was winning his titles. The 48 barely won last year, and he'll hopefully have another battle on his hands. But watching something historic should be a selling point, rather than a turn-off.

I Don't Like Individual Sports

As mentioned in the cars section, NASCAR is very much a team sport. Though a lot of emphasis is placed on the driver, it is a group effort between that driver and the crew chief and the pit crew and the guys back in the garage and the owner. And this doesn't even address the "teams" of cars under each owner, though these teams mostly only collaborate in the garage between races. That being said, your primary allegiance as a fan is with the driver and this can be a good thing I think. As a lifelong Baltimore Orioles fan I know what it means to feel beholden to a terrible team just because of where you grew up or who your dad liked, but with a sport like NASCAR you can feel more free to change allegiances to a new driver if your guy goes in the tank or suddenly reveals himself to be a dog-murderer or rapist or something. There isn't all that rubbish of hometown allegiances or family ties (unless you live near or are related to a driver I guess) to bog you down.
There are so many great personalities in NASCAR too, and the sport gives you much more access to them than other leagues. The biggest example of this is the ability to tune into the radio conversations of drivers and crew chiefs during races. If you are attending the race, you can get a radio scanner which allows you to listen to the driver, spotter, and crew chief communicating during the race. This would be like having a mic at the bench of every basketball game. You can hear them cussing each other out or their fellow drivers. On TV, the networks play cleaned up excerpts of the conversations during the race, and DirecTV offers a handful of channels for four to five drivers per race to get the full conversation. Another great feature of attending the races live is the "pit pass" that allows you to go down and walk around the pit area before the race. You can't touch the cars, but you can get close to them. Can you walk around a major league dugout before a game?

OK, I'm intrigued. What do I do next?

Watch the Daytona 500 on Sunday, February 20 (10am on FOX). Its the first race of the year, so it's the perfect time to start. Hell, come over and watch it with me if you want, and I'll school you on what's going on.

If you want some more information on the basics of how NASCAR works, the rules, the points, etc, Mark Martin's "NASCAR for Dummies" is a good resource. The book does a great job of giving you an overview of the sport. It's where I got all my info in my first season as a fan. Also, Showtime's "Inside NASCAR" (like its counterpart "Inside the NFL") is a weekly magazine program with good analysis and more of that uncensored footage like the NFL version.

If you've read all this, I hope you'll consider giving NASCAR a shot. I genuinely think if you are a sports fan you will love it. Let's go racing!!

Someone tell me why the NFL is so popular

2011-02-02T23:16:00.000-08:00

The NFL is far and away the most popular sports league in America, but why? No, seriously, I'm asking you: WHY? Don't get me wrong: I like to watch football, but it is by far my least favorite of the major US sports leagues. Hell, I like NASCAR way more than the NFL (more on that another day). So what is it that I'm missing? Like almost everyone else in the US (which is staggering when you stop and think about it) I'll be watching the Packers take on the Steelers on Sunday, but I can't help feeling like I'm a lot less interested in this game than many of my fellow sports fans.

I'm going to lay out five hypotheses on why the NFL is so popular, and why these hypotheses still seem flawed to me.

1) NFL teams only play once a week

The once-a-week schedule makes being a fan less of a time commitment. Whereas baseball has a marathon 162 game season with games virtually every day of the spring, summer, and fall, football only asks a few hours of its fans per week. But is that really true? One of the reasons the NFL has become such a juggernaut is because of the apparently insatiable appetite of its fans. NFL fans don't just watch their own teams, but every team, all day on Sunday, plus Monday and occasionally on Thursdays. ESPN broadcasts their NFL Now show year-round because of demand, while Baseball Tonight, NBA Today, NASCAR Now and other sport-specific shows are only seasonal. The league is on the verge of expanding the season to 18 games to help placate the country's football hunger. The fact that the Pro Bowl, the most useless and embarassing all star game in pro sports, got the biggest TV rating of any show last week just goes to show that football fans (a LOT of football fans) will watch anything, anytime. And this is not just a small segment of die-hard football fans. This is tens of millions of people. I really don't get it.

2) Violence

From Roman gladiators to James Harrison spearing a QB there is a long history of fascination with watching "controlled" violence. Sure, football is violent, and surely there are many people that watch it because of the big hits, but does that really set it apart from other sports? Baseball and basketball are much less focused on contact (though a hardball to the face or a free-fall to the parquet can get pretty nasty), but what about hockey? Hockey has a pitiful American audience despite its bare-fisted boxing and crushing checks. And though our most violent sport, MMA/UFC fighting, is big for a niche sport, it doesn't come close to the popularity of the NFL. Maybe the NFL has the right amount of violence to make it a popular spectacle without making it too disturbing? I don't know.

3) Gambling

Now this one I get. Football is the best American sport to gamble on because of the point spreads. In baseball, basketball, or hockey point spreads are usually only a half point or 1.5, but in NFL football you usually get somewhere between three and six points to play with, making it very enticing to gamble on underdogs or undervalued favorites. But again, does this really account for the enormous popularity of the league. Sports gambling is a huge business, but football bettors are still a minority in terms of the overall viewership of NFL games. If you are reading this and don't know what a point spread is you are proving my point. I think gambling is a significant contributor to the popularity of NFL football, but it definitely doesn't tell the whole story. College football, arguably even better to gamble on because the point spreads are wider, is not as popular as the NFL. It must be something more.

4) Parity

I've heard it said that the salary cap in the NFL has created parity, where every year a majority of the teams in the league have a shot of making the playoffs at the beginning of the season. This is supposed to be in contrast to MLB where big market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox buy all the top free agents and small market teams' seasons are virtually meaningless from Game 1. But is this really true? USA Today reported last week that MLB actually had the most number of different teams competing in the championship finals (World Series) over the last 25 years (23 of 30 teams). For me, the parity of the NFL is its least attractive characteristic. There are so many mediocre teams in the NFL, and so many low-scoring dull games, that I find myself bored. And while parity can get a fan-base excited about the first game of the season, with a limited schedule, an 0-3 start can quickly turn fans to distraction. Trust me, I'm a Washington fan.

5) "All of the lights"

In the end I think the NFL is so popular because the NFL is so popular. There is a self-perpetuating year-round hype for this league which is something baseball, basketball, hockey, and NASCAR don't have. I still don't understand how we got to this point, but the fact that the NFL has become so incredibly popular, and that its media is almost inescapable, makes it seem very unlikely that anything will change. Unless of course there is a lock-out and the 2011 season gets cancelled....

So, those are my little theories, but if anyone else has any other thoughts or some more concrete reasons why the NFL has become the behemoth it is, please post them here. I genuinely wish I understood this.

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UPDATE - 2/4/11

El Oso pointed out a couple glaring omissions from my list, so I wanted to add this brief addendum to my original post:

6) Fantasy Football

How did I forget about this? Probably because I my own team suffered a heart-breaking loss in the conference finals this year and forced me to temporarily erase fantasy football from my brain. Fantasy football is a phenomenon and certainly a big contributor to the audience for the NFL and helps to explain why people want to watch every game and consume random information during the week about injuries and roster moves. But I still think that, like gambling, fantasy only accounts for a large minority of the total NFL audience. Fantasy leagues started with rotisserie baseball, so football does not have sole ownership of fantasy sports. I have found from experience, though, that fantasy football is by far the most enjoyable fantasy sports game because of the simple one-game-per-week schedule. Fantasy baseball, basketball, and hockey all require way too much of a time commitment.

7) Weather

I had never even considered this before, so I have to give props to Brian "El Oso" Linhart for pointing it out to me. The bad winter weather in much of the country makes it easier to stay home on Sundays and watch football. During baseball season, people want to go out and play because its summertime and the livin's easy. This is so simple, but really makes a lot of sense. BUT..... basketball and hockey are winter sports. Why aren't they as popular. One can make an argument about racism and basketball, but the midwest certainly loves its basketball at least at the high school and college levels. I think when you factor weather in with all the other reasons listed above, though, it just makes it that much easier to watch football.

So this is the blogosphere?

2011-01-31T14:55:00.000-08:00

Hello world,

On "Burning the Pennant" you can expect to find my thoughts on all things sports and sports media. Though portions of my academic work on these topics may find its way on here, it will more likely be shorter reactions, rants, criticisms, and jokes. If nothing else, I hope my posts will be original views that spark conversations.

The title "Burning the Pennant", like burning the flag, is meant to express anti-nationalism, but in the context of sports. One of my biggest problems with mainstream sports and sports media is the rampant nationalism that hangs over every game. Sports are often used to express the conservative values of the state, but hopefully this blog will provide a venue to counter that narrative.

With that, I leave you with a quote from the great sports sociologist, Dr. Harry Edwards:

“Sport is about the most sacred, deeply rooted, most important values, sentiments, and structures in the society, and if you can get to sports and you can get to the athletes, you’re way up the road in terms of changing definitions of reality in the society as a whole.”