Sporting Madness

The SEC "Community": recasting a great comedy for college football

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Mon, 28 May 2012 21:45:00 +0000

Community and SEC football are both great things, and as we all know, great things are great together. Also, my mind works in mysterious ways; ESPN declaring Steve Spurrier as the most-hated coach of all time surprised me, as South Carolina-era Spurrier seems to give off a Pierce Hawthorne vibe; sure, he's often annoying, grumpy and pushing others' buttons, and he's an odd fit amongst today's group of SEC coaches, but there's value to having him around and everyone just sort of ignores his terrible moments. That led to a discussion with Lisa and Eddie about recasting Community SEC-style, and it turned out to fit surprisingly well. Here's what we came up with (casting's a group effort, comments are mostly mine):

Steve Spurrier as Pierce Hawthorne: Spurrier's famed trash-talking of other schools ("You can't spell Citrus without UT," "Free Shoes University," Auburn library fires, etc) is straight out of Pierce's playbook, but both of our "villains" have their softer sides and can be crucial parts of the group at times. Plus, I can see Spurrier saying "I can't hear you over the sound of me rubbing his sword on my balls."

Derek Dooley as Jeff Winger: Much like Winger, who had to go back to community college to get his bachelor's degree and return to practicing law, people might think Dooley's more qualified than he is thanks to a certain bloodline. Winger walked into a weird situation at Greendale, and Dooley walked into a weird situation at Tennessee, replacing the infamous Lane Kiffin. Both are lawyers, both are also known for being continuously well-coiffed, and like Winger, Dooley's been known to inappropriately reference historical events (while Winger once invoked Sept. 11 to get a client off on a DUI charge, Dooley compared his team to the Germans in World War II). Both can give a pretty good speech, too. "To victory; it feels unfamiliar, but it tastes like chicken."

Will Muschamp as Troy Barnes: These two have incredible enthusiasm in common: Muschamp enjoys going "BOOM", while Troy likes bouncing around in video games and on trampolines. They also had pretty notable football playing careers, and Muschamp might just make a good dancer. "Wi-ll Muschamp in the MORNING!" "There was an episode of Happy Days where a guy LITERALLY jumped over a shark, and it was the best episode ever!"

Ole Miss (and coach Hugh Freeze) as Britta Perry: Much like Britta, Ole Miss is just the worst. It's possible to see the Rebels more concerned with the beleaguered status of gnome waiters than actually winning games, and it's very possible to see them mispronouncing "bagel". Freeze's recent overrecruitment also smacks of Britta's initial additions to the study group, and the way Freeze was involved with Michael Oher seems very Brittaesque."I want to know why these defenses are attacking us. Maybe this gridiron is their rightful land."

Vanderbilt (and coach James Franklin) as Abed Nadir: Abed is an outsider who sometimes seems above the rest of the study group and sometimes doesn't seem to fit at all; does that sound like Vanderbilt's football program to anyone else? Their presence in this conference is appropriately meta. Also, if the SEC ever descends into madness or civil war, you know Vanderbilt will be filming it. "When you guys first came in, we were as wholesome as the family in the Brady Bunch. Now we're as dysfunctional and incestuous as the cast of the Brady Bunch."

Mark Richt as Shirley Bennett: Both are generally overwhelmingly nice and outspokenly Christian, which makes them interesting fits in these cutthroat groups. I can see Richt being told at a coaches' meeting that "You're not allowed to have baking things as an identity!" Like Shirley at foosball, though, Richt's will to win can also be strong. Richt's comments on vampires and Shirley's attempts to keep Britta from one fit, too. "Oh, look. Britta brought what she believes in: nothing."

Kevin Sumlin as Annie Edison: Like Annie, Sumlin's relatively young by the standards of this group, and he's quite enthusiastic. Maybe he's also a little naive about how things work in the SEC, and the conference is sure to warp him like a Barbie in a microwave. We'll see if gifs of him become as popular, and if he's able to obtain Pegasi. "I don't want to die in a place like this. People shouldn't die in the same place as People magazines do."

Bobby Petrino as Star-Burns: Many hate them, they both left in odd ways, and dying when the meth lab in your trunk explodes is right up there with getting fired over an affair with a subordinate that was discovered following a motorcycle crash. "El Starprince" is the equivalent of Petrino's 11-2 2011, and like Star-Burns, we may not have seen the last of Petrino. "Who wants to walk my plank, huh?"

John L. Smith as Leonard: One's a 63-year-old who skydives and wants to "go get on a mountain"; the other's a man of indefinite age who swims naked, takes over the PA system, only racked up two pregnancy scares in a year and has been banned from a Denny's. As Pierce said, "Everyone hates him; that's why he's cool." Tell me you can't replace Smith with Leonard in this EDSBS piece and have it still work. I'd also watch Smith reviewing pizza. "I'm thinking about breaking into the TV game, seeing as it's apparently sticking around."

Les Miles as Chang: What's crazier: posing as a Spanish teacher or pulling off this win? Living in the vents or eating grass? A one-time Spanish professor raising an army of kids and taking over the school, or a man who tweets "Woeojuwejhdjwe" winning a SEC championship without a semblance of an offence? It's tough to pick between them. Plus, Chang goes by "El Tigre", and Miles coaches the LSU Tigers, and both recently had their convoluted schemes crash down around them. "I did what any man would do. I faked my way into a job teaching Spanish at a community college using phrases from Sesame Street."

Mike Slive as Dean Pelton: Someone has to keep the asylums of Greendale and the SEC in minimal order, and that job falls to Pelton and Slive. They both have their own weirdness, though, and both often preside over strange rituals and ceremonies, from the STD Fair to Missouri's induction. The world would be a better place if Slive donned Pelton's outfits to visit coaches. "Just reminding you to keep any April Fool's pranks physically safe, politically balanced and racially accessible."

Nick Saban as Vice-Dean Laybourne: Saban can appear evil and manipulative at times, and like Laybourne (especially early on in his arc), it often looks like he's running the show. I imagine Saban speaks about defence the way Laybourne does about air-conditioning, and they're both known for their ability to recruit and their single-minded focus. I can also see Saban manipulating people into a war and destroying friendships along the way, as Laybourne did with Troy and Abed. "Once you're in, you're in. Air-conditioning repair will be your life."

Gary Pinkel as Dr. Ian Duncan: Duncan's a professor who gets no respect; Pinkel's a new SEC coach who gets no respect. I envision the rest of the conference reacting to Missouri exactly as Jeff reacts to Duncan in the pilot: "You can't talk to me that way! I'm a professor!" "A six-year-old girl could talk to you that way!" Both have also had their issues with DUIs, but Jeff wasn't around to save Pinkel. I'd love to see Pinkel try to rap, too.

Gene Chizik as Fat Neil: One glorious triumph (national championship/the Dungeons and Dragons episode), but everyone still picks on him anyways.

Joker Phillips as Professor Marshall Kane (Michael K. Williams' bio professor): Both Phillips and Kane are tough, serious men in difficult situations; Kane spent most of his life in prison, Phillips has spent his football head coaching career at Kentucky, which may be worse. "Something happened while I was inside: Harry Potter Legos, Star Wars Legos, complicated kits, tiny little blocks..."

Dan Mullen as Magnitude: Mullen's received a lot of attention thus far as a head coach, but his Mississippi State team hasn't really done all that much yet. Similarly, Magnitude gets a lot of attention and love over just two words.

Further suggestions for the Community-SEC crossover? Leave them in the comments, or yell at me on Twitter.

Tebow Christ Superstar Redux: The Manning Move

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:32:00 +0000

When I wrote a total conversion of Andrew Lloyd Webber's famed Jesus Christ Superstar rock opera about Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow, most of it fit surprisingly well. The issue, of course, was betrayal, though; while Tebow may be overhyped and overrated, it was difficult to imagine his own team turning against him, so I had to concoct a Spygatesque plot to get it to work. Truth remains stranger than fiction (a surprisingly excellent movie, by the way), however, and the Broncos have just executed a stunning betrayal of Tebow (who did manage to lead them to a playoff win over Pittsburgh before getting crushed by New England), signing Peyton Manning to take over at quarterback. To that end, I've quickly rewritten the last three songs to reflect this new reality. Here they are, with Broncos' executive vice-president John Elway (the man who got the Manning deal done) as Judas, Manning and ESPN analyst Mel Kiper (one of the most prominent Tebow critics) as Annas and Caiaphas, Roger Goodell reprising his role as Pilate, Broncos' owner Pat Bowlen as the unseen presence behind the scenes, one of my other interests making a cameo, and Tebow, of course, playing the superstar:

Elway's Betrayal

Elway
My God, I saw him
With Manning signed, he’s dead
But he was so bad
I had to turn my head
They beat him so hard
That he was bent and lame
And I know who everybody's
Going to blame
I don't believe he knows
I acted for our good
I'd save him all the suffering
If I could
Don't believe
Our good
Save him
If I could

Manning
Cut the confessions
Forget the excuses
I don't understand why
You're filled with remorse
All that you've said
Has come true with a vengeance
The mob’s turned against him
You've backed the right horse

Kiper
What you have done
Will be the saving of football
You'll be remembered forever
For what you did on this day
And not only that
You got Peyton for your efforts
Pretty good reward
For just one FA

Elway
Tim!
I know you can't hear me
But I only did what you wanted me to
Tim!
I’m off into hiding
For I have been saddled
With the demise of you
I have been spattered
With innocent blood
I will be dragged
Through the slime and the mud
I have been spattered
With innocent blood
I will be dragged
Through the slime and the mud

I don't know how to love him
I don't know why he moves me
He's a TE
He's just a TE
He's not a QB
He's just the same
As any TE I know
He scares me so!
If he’s traded
Will he let me be?
Does he love me too?
Does he care for me?
Ohhhhh...

My mind is darkness now
My Bowlen, I am sick
I've been used
And you knew
All the time
Bowlen, I'll never ever know
Why you chose me for your crime
For your foul bloody crime
You have taken my TE!
You have taken my TE!

Chorus
So long, Elway. Poor old Elway.

Trial Before Goodell

Goodell
And so the QB
Is once again my guest
And why is this?
Was Elway unimpressed?

Kiper
We turn to the league
To sentence Makati
We have no law
To stop him at QB
We need him to be gone
It's all you have to do

Goodell
Talk to me, Tim Tebow
You have been brought here
Manacled, abandoned by your own team
Do you have the first idea
Why you deserve it?
Listen, king of the Broncos,
Where is your kingdom?
Look at me
Am I a Broncos’ fan?

Tebow
I have got no kingdom
In this league
I'm through, through, through
There may be a kingdom for me
Somewhere If I only knew

Goodell
You're a QB

Tebow
It’s you that say I am
I look for truth
And find that I get damned

Goodell
What is truth?
Is truth unchanging law?
We both have truths
Are mine the same as yours?

Crowd
Crucify him, crucify him!

Goodell
What do you mean
You'd crucify your king?

Crowd
We have no king but Goodell!

Goodell
He's done no wrong
No, not the slightest thing

Crowd
We have no king but Goodell
Crucify him!

Goodell
I see no reason
I find no evil
This man is harmless
So why does he upset you?
He's just misguided
Thinks he can play QB
But to keep you vultures happy
I shall send him to the CFL

Crowd
Crucify! Crucify!

Goodell
Where are you from, Tebow?
What do you want, Tebow?
Tell me!
You've got to be careful
You could be out of a job soon
Could well be
Why do you not speak
When I have your career in my hands?
How can you stay quiet?
I don't believe you understand!

Tebow
You have nothing in your hands
Any power you have
Comes to you from far beyond
Everything is fixed
And you can't change it

Goodell
You're a fool, Tim Tebow
How can I help you?

Crowd
Crucify him! Crucify him!
You’re Roger Goodell
You have a duty
To preserve football
So crucify him!
You'll be overthrown
You'll be sent to MLS
So crucify him!

Goodell
Don't let me stop
Your great self-destruction
Lose if you want to
You misguided martyr!
I wash my hands
Of your demolition
Leave if you want to
You innocent puppet!

Superstar

Elway
Every time I look at you
I don't understand
Why you let the things you did
Get so out of hand
You'd have managed better
If you'd read the game plan
Now why'd you choose such a strange position
In such a strange land?

If you'd played TE
You could have inspired the whole nation
Instead, you’re only a star of mass communication
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now
Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know, now
Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know
Only want to know, now
Only want to know

Tebow Christ
Tebow Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Tebow Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tell me what you think
About your friends at the top
Now who'd you think besides yourself
Was the pick of the crop?
Montana, was he where it's at?
Is he where you are?
Could Tom Brady move a mountain
Or was that just PR?
Did you mean to leave like that?
Was that a mistake or
Did you know your messy exit
Would be a record-breaker?

Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong
Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know Only want to know
Only want to know, now Only want to know
Only want to know Only want to know
Only want to know, now I only want to know

Tebow Christ
Tebow Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Tebow Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tebow Christ
Tebow Christ
Who are you? What have you sacrificed?
Tebow Christ
Superstar
Do you think you're what they say you are?

On The Ground: An interview with Red Bull Crashed Ice's Adam Horst

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:43:00 +0000

In advance of this weekend's Red Bull Crashed Ice finale in Quebec City (televised live at 8:30 p.m. Saturday on Sportsnet), I recently got the chance to talk to firefighter/ice cross star Adam Horst for a post at Yahoo!'s Eh Game blog. Along the lines of my On The Ground series, here's my full interview with Horst:

On how he got into Crashed Ice: "The first time I got into it, we watched on TV and a couple of buddies signed me up."

On what his thoughts were the first time he tried it: "I was petrified. It's hard to describe what it is the first time you go down the hill."

On his February win in Sweden: "That was unreal. You're always hoping for that but when it actually happens, it's hard to believe."

Some highlights of that win:

On how the sport has grown: "It's become bigger. It used to be just one race a year. The tracks they're making are longer and steeper, and there's a lot of competition."

On competing against other Canadians like Kyle and Scott Croxall: "The Canadian guys, we're all a pretty tight group. We all cheer for each other."

On how other sports prepared him for this: "I've been playing hockey my whole life. I'm a motorcross racer, so it's some of the same concepts."

On the strategy involved: "Before you start, you come up with your own game plan. ... It's a combination of going as fast as you can and staying on your feet."

On what it's like in Quebec City: "You get up there in front of 120,000 people and your heart stops."

On how the sport has grown: "When I first started, no one even knew what it was. Now it has a huge following."

On coming from Fort St. John, B.C.: "We're kind of secluded. I have a huge amount of support from the community here. It's cool for people to see someone come out of a small town. They're all behind me."

On how his career as a firefighter relates to this sport: "The biggest thing for both is the adrenaline factor. Standing at the top of the hill or running into a burning building, both have that adrenaline."

On how the atmosphere in Quebec impacts him: "For me, being from a small town, the most intimidating part of the race in Quebec City is how many fans there are."

On how he feels heading into this weekend's action: "I should have a fairly good shot in Quebec City. The last two years, I had the number-one qualifying position; I finished fifth in 2009, but didn't do well last year. It's going to be the same game plan: be consistent, stay on your feet and take it to the end."

On where he sees ice cross going: "I love the sport, and I think it has huge potential to grow."

Fantuz's Africa

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:03:00 +0000

Top CFL free agent Andy Fantuz is apparently off in Africa somewhere,and hasn't signed anywhere yet. Glen Maskerine had the brilliant idea to reference Toto's famous song, and that inspired me to rewrite the lyrics for him. Here you are:

They hear the tweets echoing tonight
But I hear only whispers of some CFL conversation
GMs are coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards free agency
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some long-forgotten wisdom or means of celebrity
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, money's waiting there for you"

It's gonna take a lot to get me to sign with you
There's nothing a hundred thousand bucks could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to sign the deal I've never had

The wild Riders' fans cry out in the night
As they grow restless, longing for some WR company
I know that I must do what's right
As sure as sales of my cereal rise like Greg Carr above the Hamilton DBs
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of these tweets that drive me numb

It's gonna take a lot to get me to sign with you
There's nothing a hundred thousand bucks could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to sign the deal I've never had

Hurry, GMs, he's waiting there for you

It's gonna take a lot to get me to sign with you
There's nothing a hundred thousand bucks could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to sign the deal I've never had

The Lingerie Football League as a sign of the Apocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:37:00 +0000

Few things enrage me more than the Lingerie Football League, an objectifying, safety-disregarding, deeply-troubling vindictive concern under the questionable leadership of Mitch Mortaza, who's been blasted by many former players. The league has more in common with a strip club than an athletic endeavour, as both involve scantily-clad women cavorting around for the entertainment of men: the chief differences are that strippers don't usually get concussed on stage, and at least they're paid for their trouble. Thus, as you can imagine, I was thrilled to hear that the LFL's heading to my backyard in Abbotsford. I already wrote a serious, analytical take on why this is a horrible idea, but I figured it deserved an over-the-top apocalyptic one too, especially considering Abbotsford's Bible Belt reputation. In that vein, here's Revelation 6 rewritten to be about the LFL's cross-Canada expansion.

1And I saw when the Mortaza opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.

2And I saw, and behold a blue-clad Toronto franchise. And to it was given the power of incompetence, the power to make its players revolt, and the power to lose 74-0 and have bench-clearing brawls.

3And when Mortaza had opened the second seal, I heard the second beast say, Come and see.

4And there went out another franchise that was destined for Abbotsford, and power was given to it to take peace from the Lower Mainland, and that its players should concuss each other, and there was given unto them no protective apparel.

5And when Mortaza had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo! A horse with a Ticketmaster logo! And he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.

6And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A ticket for $48, and an expected crowd of 4,000 to 6,500, and we're totally not making this up.

7And when Mortaza had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.

8And I looked, and beheld a pale horse. And his name that sat on him was Injury, and Post-Concussion Syndrome followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the league's roster, to hurt with tackles, and with poor gear, and with lacking medical and safety protocols.

9And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were injured to promote the LFL, and to line the pockets of the Mortaza.

10And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Government, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that run the LFL?

11And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for another season, until the LFL's imminent destruction.

12And I beheld when the Mortaza had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun appeared in Vancouver in February, and the moon vanished, and the Fraser River ran red with salmon.

13And the stars of the LFL fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.

14And the league departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every franchise was moved out of its place.

15And the premiers of the earth, and the mayors, and the councillors, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the Lions' dens and in the Rocky Mountains;

16And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the Mortaza.

17For the great day of his reckoning is come; and who shall be able to stand?

(Alternative apocalyptic ending: The horror, the horror.)

Tebow Christ Superstar, The Complete Musical

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:33:00 +0000

The following is the culmination of a project I’ve been working on for a few weeks. It started as just a Twitter joke about the applicability of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar musical to Tim Tebow’s rise and fall, but got stuck in my head and turned into something more. Sure, Tebow isn’t playing in today’s Super Bowl, but he’s still very much present in the coverage; he notably drew more attention than Joe Montana at one point and was featured in an ESPN pre-game special. Given that his mortal adversaries, the Patriots, are featured in today’s Super Bowl, I figured it was as good a time as any to post this (that, and I finally finished it). Following in the success of The Marchand Of Venice, the Bucholtz Repertory Company presents the total conversion of Jesus Christ Superstar into Tebow Christ Superstar.

Dramatis Personae

Jesus – Tim Tebow, a TE or a QB?

Judas –John Fox, the Broncos’ coach

Caiaphas – Bill Belichick, the Patriots’ coach

Annas – Tom Brady, the Patriots’ QB

Mary Magdelene – Katy Perry, a rumoured songstress who's been linked to Tebow

Simon Zealotes – Von Miller, the Broncos’ LB

Pilate – Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner

Herod – Gene Sterotore, an NFL referee

Peter – Eddie Royal, the Broncos’ receiver

John – D.J. Williams, the Broncos’ LB

James – Champ Bailey, the Broncos’ safety

Priest – Bill O’Brien, the Patriots’ offensive coordinator

Soldiers, people in courtyard – Patriots’ Wes Welker, Jerod Mayo, Vince Wilfork, Rob Gronkowski

Heaven On Their Minds

John Fox:

My mind is clearer now

At last

All too well

I can see

Where our team

Soon will be

If you strip away

The myth

From the man

You will see

Tim Tebow’s

No QB

Tebow!

You've started to believe

The things they say of you

You really do believe

This talk of QB’s true

And all the wins we've notched

Will soon be swept away

You've begun to matter more

For the things you say

Listen Tebow

I don't like what I see

All I ask is that you listen to me

And remember

I've been your head coach all along

You have set them all on fire

They think they've found the new Messiah

And they'll hurt you when they find they're wrong

I remember when this whole thing began

No talk of QB then, we called you a tight end

And believe me

My admiration for you hasn't died

But every word you say today

Gets twisted 'round by John Elway

And he'll axe you if the team gets fried

Makati's most famous son

Should have stayed a great tight end

Like Gronkowski carving Ds

He’d have been free

Running routes and blocking pests

Would have suited Tebow best

He'd have caused his team no harm

No one alarm

Listen, Tebow, do you care for your team?

Don't you see this is all just a dream?

We’re from the AFC West

Have you forgotten how put down we are?

I am frightened by the crowd

For they are getting much too loud

And they'll crush us if we go too far

If we go too far

Listen, Tebow, to the warning I give

Please remember that I want us to live

But it's sad to see our chances weakening with ev'ry hour

All your followers are blind

Too much heaven on their minds

It was beautiful, but now it's sour

Yes it's all gone sour

Ah --- ah ah ah --- ah

God, Tebow, it's all gone sour

Listen, Tebow, to the warning I give

Please remember that I want us to live

So come on, come on, listen to me.

Ah --- ah

Come on, listen, listen to me.

Come on and listen to me.

Ah --- ah.

What’s the Buzz

Broncos’ starters

What's the buzz

Tell me what the game plan is

Tebow

Why should you want to know?

Don't you mind about the future

Don't you try to think ahead

Save tomorrow for tomorrow

Think about today instead

I could give you tape and route schemes

I could give you plans and forecasts

Even tell you how we’ll run our plays

Starters

When do we

Ride into Foxborough?

Tebow

Why should you want to know?

Why are you obsessed with winning

Times and fates you can't defy.

If you knew the path we're riding

You'd understand it less than I

Starters

What's the buzz

Tell me what the game plan is.

Katy Perry

Let me try

To cool down your face a bit

Tebow

That feels nice, so nice

Katy, oooh, that is good

While you prattle through your playbooks

Where and when and who and how

She alone has tried to give me

What I need right here and now

Starters

What's the buzz

Tell me what's happening

Strange Thing, Mystifying

Fox

It's a strange thing

Mystifying

That a man like you

Can waste his time

With women of her kind

I can understand that she amuses you

But to let her stroke you

Kiss your hair

Is hardly in your line

It's not that I object

To her profession

But it doesn't seem to square

With what you do or say

It doesn't help

If you're inconsistent

They only need a small excuse

To put us all away

Tebow

Who are you

To criticize her?

Who are you

To despise her?

Leave her, leave her

Let her be now

Leave her, leave her

She's with me now

If your slate is clean

Then you can throw stones

If your slate is not

Then leave her alone!

I'm amazed that men like you

Can be so shallow, thick, and slow

There is not a man among you

Who knows or cares if I come or go

Starters

No you are wrong

You're very wrong

How can you say that!

Tebow

Not one, not one of you!

Then We Are Decided

Bill Belichick

We've been sitting on the fence for far too long.

Tom Brady

Why let him upset us? Coach, just let him be.

All those imbeciles will see he really doesn't matter.

Belichick

But Tebow is important! We've let him go his way before

And while he starts a sports talk war, we theorize and chatter.

Brady

He's just another Scripture-thumping hack from Makati.

Belichick

The difference, they call him QB, the difference frightens me.

What about our owner? When he sees king Tebow crowned

Do you think he'll stand around cheering and applauding?

What about NFL fans? If they see we've lost our nerve,

Don't you think that they deserve something more rewarding?

Brady

They've got what they want, they think so anyway.

If he's what they want, why take their toy away? He's a craze.

Belichick

Put yourself in my place. I can hardly step aside.

Cannot let my hands be tied, I am law and order.

What about our organization? Don't you see that we could fall?

If we are to last at all, we cannot be divided.

Brady

Then say so to the locker room, but don't rely on subtlety.

Frighten them, or they won't see.

Belichick

Then we are decided?

Brady

Then we are decided.

Everything’s All Right

Perry

Try not to get worried

Try not to turn on to

Game films that upset you

Oh, don't you know

Everything's alright

Yes everything's fine

And we want you to sleep well tonight

Let the team turn without you tonight

If we try

We'll get by

So forget all about us tonight

Broncos' women

Everything's all right

Yes everything's all right yes

Perry

Sleep and I shall soothe you

Calm you and anoint you

Cloths for your hot forehead

Oh, then you'll feel

Everything's all right

Yes everything's fine

And it's cool and the ointment's sweet

For the fire in your head and feet

Close your eyes

And relax

Think of nothing tonight

Broncos' women

Everything's all right

Yes everything's all right yes

Fox

Woman, your man’s time

Scarce and expensive

Should have been saved for the plan

Why has it been wasted?

We could have accomplished

Much to keep the game well within hand.

Our players who are hungry

Our players who are starving

Matter more

Than Tim’s feet and hair

Perry

Try not to get worried

Try not to turn on to

Problems that upset you

Oh, don't you know

And we want you to sleep well tonight

Let the world turn without you tonight

If we try

We'll get by

So forget all about us tonight

Women

Everything's all right

Yes everything's all right yes

Tebow

Surely you're not saying

We have the resources

To save this team from its lot?

There’ll be bad teams always

Pathetically struggling

Look at the good things you've got!

Think while you still have me

Move while you still see me

You'll be lost

You'll be so sorry

When I'm gone

Perry

Sleep and I shall soothe you

Calm you and anoint you

Cloths for your hot forehead

Oh then you'll feel

Everything's alright

Yes everything's fine

And it's cool and the ointment's sweet

For the fire in your head and feet

Close your eyes

And relax

Think of nothing tonight

Broncos' Women

Close your eyes

And relax

Think of nothing

Everything's all right

Yes everything's all right yes

This Tebow Must Lose

Bill O’Brien

Good Belichick

The council waits for you

The coaches and QBs

Are here for you

Belichick

Ah gentlemen, you know why we are here

With not much time, and quite a problem here

Talk radio hosts and callers

Hosanna! Superstar!

Brady

Listen to that howling mob

Of blockheads praising Tebow's feats

A trick or two against the Steelers

And the country’s on its feet

All

He is dangerous! He is dangerous!

Radio

Tebow Christ, Superstar

Tell us that you are who they say you are

Coaches and QBs

He is dangerous, dangerous

That man is in town right now

To whip up some support

A rabble-rousing mission

That I think we must abort

He is dangerous

Radio

Tebow Christ, Superstar

Coaches

He is dangerous

Look, Belichick

They are right outside our yard

Quick, Belichick

Go call security guards.

Belichick

No, wait.

We need a more permanent solution to our problem.

Brady

What shall we do about Tebow of Makati?

Miracle worker, pilgrim or fool

O’Brien

The coverage, the talk shows, the callers, the ratings.

Belichick

One thing to say for him, Tebow is cool.

Brady

We dare not leave him to his own devices

His half-witted fans will get out of control.

O’Brien

But how can we stop him, his glamour increases

With every minute, he's top of the polls.

Belichick

I see bad things arising

The crowd crown him King

Which the Goodell would ban

I see blood and destruction

Our elimination because of one man

Blood and destruction

Because of one man

Coaches

What can we do about this Tebowmania?

How can we deal with a TE QB?

Where do we start with a man who is bigger

Than Kurt was when Kurt did his grocery-bag thing?

Belichick

Fools! You have no perception

With the stakes we are gambling

We cannot just cruise

We must crush him completely

So like Kurt before him

This Tebow must lose

For the sake of all football

This Tebow must lose

Must lose, must lose

This Tebow must lose

Hosanna

Crowd

Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho

Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna

Hey TT, TT, won't you smile at me?

Sanna Ho Sanna Hey Superstar

Belichick

Tell the rabble to be quiet

We anticipate a riot

This common crowd

Is much too loud

Tell the mob who sing your song

That they are fools and they are wrong

They are a curse

They should disperse

Crowd

Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho

Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna

Hey TT, TT, you're alright by me

Sanna Ho Sanna Hey Superstar

Tebow

Why waste your breath moaning at the crowd?

Nothing can be done to stop the shouting

If ev'ry fan was still the noise would still continue

The announcers themselves would start to sing.

Crowd, with Tebow

Hosanna Heysanna Sanna Sanna Ho

Sanna Hey Sanna Ho Sanna

Hey TT, TT, won't you fight for me?

Sanna Ho Sanna Hey Superstar

Tebow

Sing me your songs,

But not for me alone.

Sing out for yourselves,

For you are blessed.

There is not one of you

Who cannot play at QB.

The slow, the suffering,

The quick, the dead.

Crowd and Tebow

Hosanna

Hey Sanna Sanna Sanna Hosanna

Hey Sanna Hosanna

Crowd

Hey TT,TT, won't you die for me?

Sanna Hosanna Hey Superstar

Von Zealotes

Crowd

Tebow, you know I love you

Did you see, I waved?

I believe in you and God

So tell me that I'm saved

Tebow, I am with you

Touch me, touch me, Tebow

Tebow, I am on your side

Kiss me, kiss me Tebow

Von Miller

What more do you need to convince you

That you have made it and you're easily as strong

As the filth from New England who destroyed our league

And who've terrorized our players for so long?

Crowd

Tebow, you know I love you

Did you see I waved?

I believe in you and God

So tell me that I'm saved

Tebow, I am with you

Touch me, touch me, Tebow

Tebow, I am on your side

Kiss me, kiss me, Tebow

Miller

There must be over fifty thousand

Screaming love and more for you

Everyone of fifty thousand

Would do whatever you ask him to

Keep them yelling their devotion

Add a touch of hate at the Pats’ code

You will rise to a greater power

We will win on the road

You'll get the power and the glory

For ever and ever and ever

You got the power and the glory

For ever and ever and ever

Amen! Amen!

Tebow

Neither you, Von, nor the fifty thousand

Nor the NFL, nor the Pats

Nor Fox, nor our starters

Nor Belichick, nor his coaches

Nor this doomed team itself

Understand what power is

Understand what glory is

Understand at all

If you knew all that I knew

My poor Denver Broncos

You'd see the truth

But you'd close your eyes

While you live

Your troubles are many

Poor Denver Broncos

To conquer the public

You only have to lose

Goodell’s Dream

Goodell

I dreamed I met a Floridian

A most amazing man

He had that look

You very rarely find

The haunting, hunted kind

I asked him

To say what had happened

How it all began

I asked again

He never said a word

As if he hadn't heard

And next the room was full

Of wild and angry men

They seemed to hate this man

They fell on him and then disappeared

Then I saw thousands of millions

Crying for this man

And then I heard them mentioning my name

And leaving me the blame

The Stadium

Vendors

Hang on there, I’ll come to your seat

Come and ask, but it won’t come cheap

Take your pick of the stadium beer

Overpriced? Nah, never here

Name your price, I got everything

Come and buy, it's all going fast

Eat hot dogs on the priciest terms

Hurry now, while stocks still last

Tebow

This stadium should be a house of prayer

But you have made it a den of thieves

Get up! Get out!

My time as a QB

Is almost through

There’s little left to do

After all

I've tried for two years

Seems like thirty

Crowd of Broncos’ fans

See this team, it can hardly run

See this team, it can hardly pass

I believe you can make it whole

Do it quick, or we will not last

See the backs, they can’t cover

See the line, it can hardly stand

I have bet you can make them well

See my purse I'm a poor, poor man

Will you touch, will you mend them, Tim?

Won't you touch, will you heal them, Tim?

With your play, you can heal them, Tim

Won't you play, won't you pay me, Tim?

Tebow

Oh, there's too many problems, don't push me

Oh, there's too little of me, don't crowd me

Heal the team yourselves!

I Don’t Know How To Love Him

Katy Perry

I don't know how to love him

What to do, how to move him

I've been changed, yes really changed

In these past few days

When I've seen myself

I seem like someone else

I don't know how to take this

I don't see why he moves me

He's a TE

He's just a TE

And I've had so many

Men before

In very many ways

He's just one more

Should I bring him down

Should I scream and shout

Should I speak of love

Let my feelings out?

I never thought I'd come to this

What's it all about?

Don't you think it's rather funny

I should be in this position?

I'm the one

Who's always been

So calm so cool

No lover's fool

Running every show

He scares me so

I never thought I'd come to this

What's it all about?

Yet

If he said he loved me

I'd be lost

I'd be frightened

I couldn't cope

Just couldn't cope

I'd turn my head

I'd back away

I wouldn't want to know

He scares me so

I want him so

I love him so

Banned For All Time

Fox

Now if I help you

It matters that you see

This sordid kind of things are

Coming hard to me

It's taken me some time

To work out what to do

I weighed the whole thing up

Before I came to you

I had no thought at all

Of my own reward

I really didn't come here

Of my own accord

Just don't say I'm

Banned for all time!

I came because I had to

Because I'm the one who saw

Tebow can't control it

Like he did before

And furthermore I know

That Tebow thinks so too

Tebow wouldn't mind

That I was here with you

I have no thought at all

Of my own reward

I really didn't come here

Of my own accord

Just don't say I'm

Banned for all time!

Tom, you're a friend

A worldly man and wise

Bill, my old friend

I know you sympathize

Why are we the prophets?

Why are we the ones?

Who see the sad solution

Know what must be done?

I have no thought at all

Of my own reward

I really didn't come here

Of my own accord

Just don't say I'm

Banned for all time!

Brady

Cut the protesting

Forget the excuses

We want information

Get up off the floor

Belichick

We have the game plan

We need to destroy him

You know his playcalls

We’ve got the scheme

Brady

Your help in this matter

Won't go unrewarded

Belichick

We'll pay with our own tapes

Spygate once again

We just need to know

Where the DL can find him

With no blockers around him

We’re sure to win

Fox

I don't need your Spygate tapes!

Belichick

Oh, that doesn't matter

Our expenses are good

Fox

I don't want your Spygate tapes!

Brady

But you might as well take them

We think that you should

Belichick

Think of the things

You can do with that footage

Choose any team

And just pick them apart

We've noted your motives

We've noted your feelings

These aren’t Spygate tapes

They’re a work of art!

Fox (hands tape over)

On every first down

You'll find him where you want him

Far from the OL

Trying to run option left

Chorus

Well done, John Fox. Good old John Fox.

The Last Supper (at a New England restaurant)

Broncos’ starters

Look at all my trials and tribulations

Likely to play out between the lines

Don't disturb me now, I can’t see the answers

But till this evening is this morning, life is fine

Always hoped I would be a starter

Knew that I would make it if I tried

Then when we retire we can write our bios

So they'll still talk about us when we've died

Tebow

The end . . .

Is just a little harder when brought about by friends

For all you care, this wine could be my blood

For all you care this bread could be my body

The end!

This is my blood you drink

This is my body you eat

If you would remember me when you eat and drink . . .

I must be mad thinking I'll be remembered - yes

I must be out on the booze!

Look at your blank faces! My name will mean nothing

Ten minutes after I lose!

One of you denies me

One of you betrays me

Starters

Not I! Who would? Impossible!

Tebow

Eddie will deny me in just a few hours

Three times will deny me - and that's not all I see

One of you here dining, one of my bosses

Will leave to betray me -

Fox

Cut out the dramatics! You know very well who -

Tebow

Why don't you go do it?

Fox

You want me to do it!

Tebow

Hurry, they are waiting

Fox

If you knew why I do it . . .

Tebow

I don't care why you do it!

Fox

To think I admired you

Now I despise you!

Tebow

You liar - you Judas

Fox

You wanted me to do it!

What if I just stayed here

And ruined your ambition?

Tim, you deserve it!

Tebow

Hurry you fool, hurry and go,

Save me your speeches

I don't want to know - Go! Go!

Starters

Look at all my trials and tribulations

Sinking in a gentle pool of wine

What's that in the bread it's gone to my head

Till this evening is this morning life is fine

Always hoped that I would be a starter

Knew that I would make it if I tried

Then when we retire we can write our bios

So they'll all talk about us when we've died

Fox

You sad pathetic man - see where you've brought us to

Our playoff hopes die around us, all because of you

But the saddest cut of all -

Someone has to turn you in

Like a common criminal, like a wounded animal

A jaded tight end

Like a jaded, faded, faded, jaded, jaded tight end

Tebow

Get out! They're waiting! Get out! They're waiting!

Oh! They're waiting for you!

Fox

Every time I look at you I don't understand

Why you let the things you did get so out of hand

You'd have managed better if you'd read my game plan -

Ah --- ah

Starters

Look at all my trials and tribulations

Sinking in a gentle pool of wine

What's that in the bread it's gone to my head

Till this evening is this morning life is fine

Always hoped that I would be a starter

Knew that I would make it if I tried if I tried

Then when we retire we can write our bios

So they'll still talk about us when we've died

Tebow

Will no one try and play with me?

Eddie? D.J.? Champ?

Will none of you try to save me?

Eddie? D.J.? Champ?

Foxborough (I Only Want To Say)

Tebow

I only want to say

If there is a way

Take this game away from me

For I don't want to taste its poison

Feel it burn me,

I have changed I'm not as sure

As when we started

Then I was inspired

Now I'm sad and tired

Listen surely I've exceeded

Expectations

Tried for two seasons

Seems like thirty

Could you ask as much

From any other TE?

But if I lose

See the saga through

And do the things you ask of me

Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me

Nail me to their scoreboard

I'd want to know

I'd want to know my God

I'd want to know

I'd want to know my God

I'd want to see

I'd want to see my God

I'd want to see

I'd want to see my God

Why I should lose

Would I be more noticed

Than I ever was before?

Would the things I've said and done

Matter any more?

I'd have to know

I'd have to know my Lord

I'd have to know

I'd have to know my Lord

I'd have to see

I'd have to see my Lord

I'd have to see

I'd have to see my Lord

If I lose what will be my reward?

I'd have to know

I'd have to know my Lord

I'd have to know

I'd have to know my Lord

Why, why should I lose?

Oh, why should I lose?

Can you show me now

That I would not lose in vain?

Show me just a little

Of your omnipresent brain

Show me there's a reason

For your wanting me to lose

You're far too keen on where and how

But not so hot on why

All right, I'll lose!

Just watch me lose!

See how, see how I lose!

Oh, just watch me lose!

Then I was inspired

Now I'm sad and tired

After all I've tried for two seasons

Seems like ninety

Why then am I scared

To finish what I started

What you started

I didn't start it

God thy will is hard

But you hold every card

I will drink your cup of poison

Set me up for them and break me

Bleed me, sack me

Beat me, take me now

Before I change my mind

The Pregame

Fox

There he is

The line’s asleep, the fools

Tebow

Coach, must you betray me

With a tape?

Eddie, D.J., Champ

What's the buzz

Tell me what's happening

Hang on Tim

We're gonna fight for you

Tebow

Put away your pads

Don't you know that it's all over

It was nice but now it's gone

Why are you obsessed with fighting?

Stick to football from now on

Adam Schefter, Chris Mortensen

Tell me Tim how you feel tonight

Do you plan to put up a fight?

Do you feel that you've had the breaks?

What would you say were your big mistakes?

Do you think that you may retire?

Did you think you would get much higher?

How do you view your coming game?

How will you do against Bill’s brain?

Come with us to see Belichick

You'll just love the coach’s house

You'll just love seeing Belichick

You'll just lose in the coach’s house

Come on Tim this is not like you

Let us know what you're gonna do

You know what your supporters order

You'll escape in the final quarter

Tell me Tim how you feel tonight

Do you plan to put up a fight?

Do you feel that you've had the breaks?

What would you say were your big mistakes?

Come with us to see Belichick

You'll just love the coach’s house

You'll just love seeing Belichick

You'll just lose in the coach’s house

Now we have him, now we got him

Belichick

Tebow you must realize

The serious charges facing you

You say you're a QB

In all your handouts

Well is it true?

Tebow

That's what you say

You say that I am

Brady

Now that we have the gentleman

What more evidence do we need?

Coach Fox, thank you for the victim

Stay a while and you'll see him bleed!

Crowd

Now we have him, now we got him

Take him to Goodell, take him to Goodell!

Eddie’s Denial

Wes Welker

I think I've seen you somewhere

I remember

You were endorsing that scrappy QB

They will beat up

I recognize your face

Eddie Royal

You've got the wrong man here, Wes

I don't support him

And I wasn't even

On TV tonight

Never near the place

Vince Wilfork

That's strange

For I am sure I saw you on air

You were surrounded by mikes

And yet you deny it?

Royal

I tell you

I was never ever on-air

Rob Gronkowski

But I saw you too, bro

It looked just like you

Royal

I don't know him!

Katy Perry

Eddie, don't you know what you have said

You've gone and cut him dead

Royal

I had to do it

Don't you see?

Or else they'd go for me

Perry

It's what he told us you would do

I wonder how he knew?

Before Goodell

Goodell (over players’ headsets)

Who is this broken man?

Cluttering up my playing field?

Who is this unfortunate?

Jerod Mayo

Someone Tebow, QB of the Broncos

Goodell

Oh so this is Tim Tebow

I am really quite surprised

You look poised to fall

Not a QB at all

We all know that you are news

But are you a QB?

QB of the Broncos?

Tebow

That's what you say

Goodell

What do you mean by that?

That is not an answer

You're deep in trouble friend

Someone Tebow, QB of the Broncos

How can someone in your state

Be so cool about your fate?

Amazing to see

This silent QB

Well, I’m not a referee

So you need not come to me

You're in Sterotore’s game

So he must take the blame

Crowd

Hosanna, hey sanna, sanna sanna ho

Sanna hey, sanna ho, sanna

Hey TT,TT, please explain to me

You had everything, where is it now?

Sterotore’s Song

Gene Sterotore

Tebow, I am overjoyed

To meet you face to face

You've been getting quite a name

All around the place

Healing crippled teams

Raising playoff hopes from the dead

Now I understand you're a QB

At least that's what you've said

So you are the Tebow

You're the great Tim Tebow

Prove to me that you're divine

Change my Gatorade to wine

That's all you need show

Then I'll know it's no hoax

C'mon King of the Broncos

Tebow you just won't believe

The hit you've made around here

You’re all ESPN talks about

You're the wonder of the year

Oh what a pity

If it's all a lie

Still I'm sure

That you can rock the cynics if you try

So if you’re the Tebow

Yes the great Tim Tebow

Prove to me you're no TE

Throw a go route, that’d be cool

If you put on a show

Then I'll let you go

C'mon King of the Broncos

I only ask what I'd ask any superstar

What is it that you have got

That puts you where you are? Oh, ho ho

I am waiting

Captivated to see

I'm dying to be shown

That you are not just any TE

So if you’re the Tebow

Yes the great Tim Tebow

Show us how you throw the ball

That’s your motion? Is that all?

Well, has something gone wrong?

Tebow, why do you take so long?

Aw, c'mon King of the Broncos

Hey! Aren't you scared of me, Tim?

Mr. Wonderful Tim !

You're a joke, you're not the Lord

You are nothing but a fraud

Take him away

He's got nothing to say!

Get out you King of the

Get out you King of the,

Get out you King of the Broncos!

Get out of here, you, you!

Get out of here, you!

Get out of my game!

Could We Start Again, Please?

Katy Perry

I've been living to see you

Dying to see you but it shouldn't be like this

This was unexpected, what do I do now?

Could we start again, please?

I've been very hopeful so far

Now for the first time I think we're going wrong

Hurry up and tell me this is just a dream

Could we start again, please?

Eddie Royal

I think you've made your point now

You’ve even gone a bit too far to get the message home.

Before it gets too frightening we ought to call a halt

So could we start again, please?

Fox Loses His Job

Fox

My god, I saw him

For four quarters, he looked dead

And he was so bad

I had to turn my head

They beat him so hard

That he was bent and lame

And I know who everybody's

Going to blame

I don't believe he knows

I acted for our good

I'd save him all the suffering

If I could

Don't believe

Our good

Save him

If I could

Brady

Cut the confessions

Forget the excuses

I don't understand why

You're filled with remorse

All that you've said

Has come true with a vengeance

The mob’s turned against him

You've backed the right horse

Belichick

What you have done

Will be the saving of football

You'll be remembered forever

For this playoff fate

And not only that

You've been paid for your efforts

Pretty good footage

For one little tape

Fox

Tim!

I know you can't hear me

But I only did what you wanted me to

Tim!

I'd sell out the NFL

For I have been saddled

With the demise of you

I have been spattered

With innocent blood

I will be dragged

Through the slime and the mud

I have been spattered

With innocent blood

I will be dragged

Through the slime and the mud

I don't know how to love him

I don't know why he moves me

He's a TE

He's just a TE

He's not a QB

He's just the same

As any TE I know

He scares me so!

In the offseason

Will he let me be?

Does he love me too?

Does he care for me?

Ohhhhh...

My mind is darkness now

My Elway, I am sick

I've been used

And you knew

All the time

Elway, I'll never ever know

Why you chose me for your crime

For your foul bloody crime

You have taken my job!

Chorus

So long, John Fox. Poor old John Fox.

Goodell

And so the QB

Is once again my guest

And why is this?

Was Sterotore unimpressed?

Belichick

We turn to the league

To sentence Makati

We have no law

To stop him at QB

We need him defeated

It's all you have to do

Goodell

Talk to me, Tim Tebow

You have been brought here

Manacled, abandoned by your own team

Do you have the first idea

Why you deserve it?

Listen, king of the Broncos,

Where is your kingdom?

Look at me

Am I a Broncos’ fan?

Tebow

I have got no kingdom

In this league

I'm through, through, through

There may be a kingdom for me

Somewhere If I only knew

Goodell

You're a QB

Tebow

It’s you that say I am

I look for truth

And find that I get damned

Goodell

What is truth?

Is truth unchanging law?

We both have truths

Are mine the same as yours?

Crowd

Crucify him, crucify him!

Goodell

What do you mean

You'd crucify your king?

Crowd

We have no king but Goodell!

Goodell

He's done no wrong

No, not the slightest thing

Crowd

We have no king but Goodell

Crucify him!

Goodell

I see no reason

I find no evil

This man is harmless

So why does he upset you?

He's just misguided

Thinks he can play QB

But to keep you vultures happy

I shall let them score 45 points on him

Crowd

Crucify! Crucify!

Goodell (counting off the 45 points)

One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten! Eleven!

Twelve! Thirteen! Fourteen! Fifteen! Sixteen! Seventeen! Eighteen!

Nineteen! Twenty! Twenty-one! Twenty-two! Twenty-three! Twenty-four!

Twenty-five! Twenty-six! Twenty-seven! Twenty-eight! Twenty-nine!

Thirty! Thirty-one! Thirty-two! Thirty-three! Thirty-four! Thirty-five! Thirty-six! Thirty-seven! Thirty-eight! Thirty-nine! Forty! Forty-one! Forty-two! Forty-three! Forty-four! Forty-five!

Goodell

Where are you from, Tebow?

What do you want, Tebow?

Tell me!

You've got to be careful

You could be out of a job soon

Could well be

Why do you not speak

When I have your career in my hands?

How can you stay quiet?

I don't believe you understand!

Tebow

You have nothing in your hands

Any power you have

Comes to you from far beyond

Everything is fixed

And you can't change it

Goodell

You're a fool, Tim Tebow

How can I help you?

Crowd

Crucify him! Crucify him!

You’re Roger Goodell

You have a duty

To preserve football

So crucify him!

You'll be overthrown

You'll be sent to MLS

So crucify him!

Goodell

Don't let me stop

Your great self-destruction

Lose if you want to

You misguided martyr!

I wash my hands

Of your demolition

Lose if you want to

You innocent puppet!

Superstar

John Fox

Every time I look at you

I don't understand

Why you let the things you did

Get so out of hand

You'd have managed better

If you'd read the game plan

Now why'd you choose such a strange position

In such a strange land?

If you'd played TE

You could have inspired the whole nation

Instead, you’re only a star of mass communication

Don't you get me wrong

Don't you get me wrong, now

Don't you get me wrong

Don't you get me wrong, now

Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know

Only want to know, now

Only want to know

Only want to know, now

Only want to know

Tebow Christ

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Tebow Christ

Superstar

Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tell me what you think

About your friends at the top

Now who'd you think besides yourself

Was the pick of the crop?

Montana, was he where it's at?

Is he where you are?

Could John Elway move a mountain

Or was that just PR?

Did you mean to lose like that?

Was that a mistake or

Did you know your messy loss

Would be a record-breaker?

Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong

Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong

Don't you get me wrong Don't you get me wrong

Don't you get me wrong, now Don't you get me wrong

Only want to know Only want to know

Only want to know, now Only want to know

Only want to know Only want to know

Only want to know, now I only want to know

Tebow Christ

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Tebow Christ

Superstar

Do you think you're what they say you are?

Tebow Christ

Who are you? What have you sacrificed?

Tebow Christ

Superstar

Do you think you're what they say you are?

The Four Horsemen Of The ESPNocalypse

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:51:00 +0000

It's no secret that sports media as a whole are collectively losing their minds over Denver Broncos' quarterback Tim Tebow, who embraces all the clichés about "will to win" and somehow triumphs despite not usually being, you know, a good quarterback. It's even less surprising that the Worldwide Leader In Vaguely Sports-Related News is leading the charge. Still, as Adam Kramer remarked earlier, ESPN's piece asking LeBron James what he thinks of Tim Tebow is the most ESPN story of all time. Surely that means the ESPNocalypse is near, especially as certain newspapers have already ventured into hellfire and damnation (as you can see from the Boston Metro cover at right). In the spirit of that, we present two pieces. First, a dramatic reworking of the first three paragraphs of Grantland Rice's "Four Horsemen", timely considering how ESPN has appropriated the man's name:

Outlined against a blue screen in Bristol, Connecticut, the Four Horsemen of the ESPNocalypse rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Brett Favre, LeBron James, Tim Tebow and Craig James. They formed the crest of the media cyclone before which all intelligent sports commentary was swept over the precipice of the Internet yesterday afternoon as billions of spectators peered at the bewildering panorama spread on the ESPN.com homepage.

A cyclone can't be snared. It may be surrounded, but somewhere it breaks through to keep on going. When the cyclone starts from Bristol, where the studio lights still gleam through the fortress windows of the ESPN campus, those in the way must take to storm cellars at top speed.

Yesterday the cyclone struck again as ESPN beat the intelligent commentators decisively, with a set of made-for-TV stars that ripped and crashed through sports fans' defences with more speed and power than the open-minded could meet.

ESPN won yet again through the driving power of one of the most SEO-friendly lineups that ever churned up the pageviews of any website in any Internet age. Brilliant backfields may come and go, but in Favre, LeBron, Tebow and James, covered by a fast and charging array of sycophants, ESPN can take its place in front of the field.

The rest of the web sent one of its finest teams into action, an aggressive organization that fought to the last play around the first rim of darkness, but when George Bodenheimer rushed his Four Horsemen to the track they rode down everything in sight. It was in vain that 1,400 sensible sports fans pleaded for the rational line to hold. The rational line was giving all it had, but when a tank tears in with the speed of a motorcycle, what chance had flesh and blood to hold? The rest of the web had its share of stars, but they were up against four whirlwind backs who picked up at top speed from the first step as they swept through scant openings to slip on through the algorithm defences. The web had great writers, but the web had no such distribution power and ongoing determinedness, which seemed to carry the mixed blood of Charlie Sheen's tiger and the antelope.

And now, a reading from the Book of Revelation (inspired by Scott Feschuk's great piece):

"And I saw when the Bodenheimer opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, the voice of the Berman saying, 'Come and see.'

And I saw, and behold a purple horse: and the Favre that sat on him had a cell phone; and a lawsuit was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to throw interceptions, and to bring a famine of real football news about players who aren't retired.

And when the Bodenheimer had opened the second seal, I heard the Simmons say, 'Come and see.'

And there went out another horse that was red and black. And power was given to the LeBron that sat thereon to make a Decision, and take peace from the earth, and to make owners write angry e-mails in Comic Sans. And there was taken from him a great sword, and given to him a flaming basketball, and the power to command the media, and the power to bring an omnipresent pestilence of his presence.

And when the Bodenheimer had opened the third seal, I heard the Paige say, 'Come and see.'

And I beheld, and lo! A white horse. And the Tebow that knelt on him had a football in his left hand.

And I heard Skip Bayless' voice in the midst of the four beasts say, 'A flawed measure of a quarterback shall be designed to promote Tebow, and three measures that dislike him shall be ignored; and see thou hurt not the television ratings.' And power was given unto Tebow to cause the reasonable to lose their minds, and to create great and widespread destruction.

And when the Bodenheimer had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the Schad say, 'Come and see.'

And I looked, and behold a pale horse! And his name that sat on him was James, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto him over the domain of college football, to kill coaching jobs with accusations and lawsuits, to silence colleagues, to ignore ethical conflicts, to reduce the audience's intelligence, to break the laws of amateurism and get away with sanctimoniously criticizing others who did the same, and to run for political office, and cause the death of objectivity (and perhaps some scarlet damsels as well).

...

And the kings of the Internet, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in their mothers' basements.

And they said to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Bodenheimer.

For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?"

The Marchand Of Venice

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:19:00 +0000

It's remarkable how insane the Vancouver Canucks - Boston Bruins rivalry has become lately following Saturday's Stanley Cup rematch. It's led to everything from fanbase and organizational fights to media going after bloggers who cover the other team to reporters verbally duking it out with opposing players to allegations of media defacing the NHL's media guides merely because a player they didn't like adorned them. There are some serious questions about the media's role in all this, and I talked about some of them this morning in an excellent discussion with Jessica Quiroli and others. Serious discussions aren't a lot of fun, though, so instead, I present one of the wackier ideas that came to mind; rewriting Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" (original quotations available here) to cover the Vancouver-Boston rivalry, and particularly Boston's Brad Marchand's polarizing hit on Sami Salo and subsequent suspension. Thanks to Cam Charron, Thomas Drance, Tom Hawthorn, Jason Ford and
Ashok Sadana for their help, and thanks to Maclean Kay and PPP for encouraging me to turn this into a post. What follows is a partial script. Call me, Hollywood!

THE MARCHAND OF VENICE

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:
- In the role of Shylock, Brad Marchand, A Bruin
- In the role of Portia, Brendan Shanahan, A Disciplinarian
- In the role of Antonio, Sami Salo, A Wounded Canuck
- In the role of Gratiano, Alain Vigneault, A Coach
- In the role of Bassanio, The Vancouver Media, A Dubious Entity
- In the role of Salarino, Zdeno Chara, A Boston Captain

ACT I:

"In sooth, I know not why I am always injured. It wearies me, you say it wearies you." - Salo

"I hold the NHL but as the NHL, Vigneault, a stage, where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one." - Salo

When criticized for his team fighting back against Boston, "Why should a man whose blood is warm within, sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?" - Vigneault

"There are a sort of men, whose visages
Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
And do a willful stillness entertain,
With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!" - Vigneault on the Vancouver media

"Vigneault speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Vancouver." - The Vancouver media

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, Brad Marchand and the rest wouldn't be in the league and Sidney Crosby would still be healthy." - Shanahan

"When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast." - Shanahan on Marchand

"If I can catch him once upon the hip,
I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him." - Marchand on Salo.

"They hate our sacred nation; and they rail,
Even there where Canucks fans most do congregate,
On me, my hits, and my well-won roster spot,
Which they call a disgrace." - Marchand on the Vancouver media.

"Thee devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness,
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek." - Salo on Marchand's justifications.

"O Father Shanahan! What these Canucks are,
Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
The thoughts of others!" - Marchand to Shanahan.

Act II:

"But hear thee, Vigneault;
Thou art not wild enough, not rude enough and not bold of voice enough!" - The Vancouver media to Vigneault.

"All that glisters is not black and gold. Not all those who wander are lost. Whoops, swapped Shakespeare with Tolkien for a second there." - Shanahan

"All things that are, are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d." - Vigneault on what it's like to coach the Canucks.

Act III: "Why, I am sure, if Salo shows up, thou wilt not take his mental health? What's that good for?" - Chara

"To bait newspaper scribes withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million in contract negotiations; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what's his reason? I am a Bruin. Hath not a Bruin eyes? Hath not a Bruin hands, gloves, pads, hockey sticks, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same bodychecks, subject to the same injuries, healed by the same team doctors, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Canuck is? If you slash us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not give you a facewash? If you beat us in the playoffs, are we not eliminated? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we shall resemble you in that. If a Bruin wrong a Canuck, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Canuck wrong a Bruin, what should his sufferance be by Canuck example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." - Marchand

"In the NHL, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil by the Bruins? - The Vancouver Media

"Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That ever blotted paper! We'll run them on the front page!" - The Vancouver Media

Act IV:

"If you suspend me, fie upon your law!
There is no power in the decrees of Shanahan.
I stand for judgement: answer — shall I have it?" - Marchand

"I am a tainted wether of the flock,
Meetest for long-term injury reserve. The weakest kind of fruit
Drops earliest to the ground, and somehow blows out its knee in the process." - Salo

"The quantity of suspensions is not strain'd,
They droppeth as the gentle rain from NHL headquarters
Upon the league beneath. They are twice criticized: they offend him that gives and him that takes. They are mightiest in the mightiest; they become
The throned commissioner better than his crown." - Shanahan

"Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that;
You take my house, when you do take the bodychecks
That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
When you do take the means whereby I live." - Marchand

Act V:

"How far that little suspension is being covered! So shines any reaction in a violent world of hockey." - Shanahan

"How many suspensions by season season’d are
To their right praise, and true perfection!" - Shanahan

"These blessed suspensions of the night." - The Vancouver media

Blogs Take Manhattan: The Women Talk Sports panel, and women in sports media

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Back in September, I headed to New York for another Blogs With Balls conference. The two I’d attended before, in Vegas and Chicago, were amazing experiences, and this one was no different; it was a great time, an excellent chance to get some intelligent perspective on where blogging’s going and a chance to hang out with some awesome people. I was just going through my files and realized I had a lot of notes from the BWB4 panels that I’d never posted, so here they are. First up, the first panel, Women Talk Sports. Note on the notes: these are in chronological order (as much as possible), but I couldn’t write down every comment from every panelist, so this is more of a "Highlights" piece than a full transcript.

Panelists: Sarah Braesch , BlogHer/Draft Day Suit, Richard Deitsch, Sports Illustrated, Jemele Hill, ESPN, Tina Cervasio, MSG, Jane McManus. Moderator: Megan Hueter , Women Talk Sports.

The panel started with a discussion of why women’s sports aren’t shown more prominently on television, and Deitsch had some interesting comments about that.

"A lot of it has to do with economics and dollars," he said. "A lot of women’s sports don’t really rate on television."

The Olympics are an exception, but Deitsch thinks that has more to do with the flags involved than the genders of the athletes.

"Olympics, nationalism trumps gender," he said.

Another example where people tuned in en masse to watch a women’s sport was the Women’s World Cup this year, which put up huge TV ratings. Deitsch said a lot of that was just thanks to the U.S. team doing well, though.

"The [final] game against Japan drew 14 million viewers," he said. "Nationalism often trumps everything else."

Other, more regular efforts like the WNBA haven’t really pulled in the numbers, though, and Deitsch said it’s a surprising demographic that isn’t tuning in.

"In general, the sport has not been able to draw, interestingly, enough women on television," he said. "Until advertisers get some sort of scale and mass, women’s sports, at least on television, will remain a niche."

Deitsch also applied the scale and mass concept to Sports Illustrated for Women, which had a short-lived run in the early 2000s. He said the scale they acheived was actually reasonably impressive by today’s standards, but not as much by the standards of the publishing industry at the time, which played a role in the publication’s cancellation.

"[At Time Inc], a lot of the time when we do something it has to be on a scale," Deitsch said. "Initially, SI for Women did really good. … [We had circulation of] 200,000; it was a big number, but in that universe back then, it wasn’t such a big number."

Deitsch said it’s difficult to have a sports magazine for women that doesn’t stray across the sports/lifestyle divide.

"It’s been successful to do the latter because service magazines, fitness magazines make money," he said. "So far, there has not been a biz model to have a successful magazine like Sports Illustrated."

Deitsch said one interesting idea is ESPN’s new ESPNw, a web-based publication that focuses both on women’s sports and on women’s perspectives on men’s sports.

"I do have hope for ESPNw," he said. "I think you have to really commit to making that an interesting publication. … I think ESPN should send its best writers to cover women’s sports and not sort of ghettoize it."

Hill, who works for ESPN and has written for ESPNw, said she doesn’t think it’s a drastic contrast from writing regular pieces for ESPN.

"It wasn’t any different and that was the good thing about it," she said. "I didn’t change anything about it. I just wrote how I would normally write."

Hill said she’s been impressed with what ESPNw has done so far, and she doesn’t see it as a secluded area.
"The writing has been really smart, it’s been aggressive," she said. "Any of the writers we have for ESPNw could easily blend into the regular pallet of ESPN.com."

McManus had some interesting comments on ESPNw and how it fits into the picture of women’s sports and female sports fans in general, . To start with, she said that men are the main audience for women’s sports; meanwhile, plenty of women are sports fans, but more of them tend to watch men’s sports.

"When you’re talking about women’s sports, the audience on TV is predominantly male," she said.

Men are still the larger part of the men’s sports audience, but the numbers of women tuning in are growing all the time, McManus said (something Forbes has since backed up). Programming and advertising executives do cater to the larger demographic by focusing on men, but perhaps they go too far doing so and don’t recognize that they could do more to appeal to existing female fans and draw new ones.

"There’s a tremendous audience of women sports fans that is really underserved," McManus said.

As female sports fans don’t necessarily watch women’s sports, McManus said that presents a difficult conundrum for women-focused sites like ESPNw.

"I think that’s something w has really had to wrestle with," she said. "Are we going for women, or are we going for women’s sports?"

She said they’ve tried to have the best of both worlds thus far, and it’s worked pretty well.

"I think what they’re doing is providing a platform for women’s voices," she said. "There are several male writers on the site who cover women’s sports and that’s how it should be."

Cervasio had an interesting perspective on some of the issues discussed, as she’s worked on broadcasts of both the NBA’s New York Knicks and the WNBA’s New York Liberty. She said broadcasting men’s and women’s sports isn’t as different as you might think.

"I approach my preparation exactly the same way," she said. "To me, it’s a basketball game."

She added that the audiences are quite different, though, especially in the stadium. The Knicks obviously draw larger crowds, but many of those crowds are made up of suits there for corporate functions, while the Liberty’s audience is mostly intense basketball fans.

"Liberty fans as compared to Knicks fans, they are so educated and so hardcore," Cervasio said. "At a Liberty game, it’s packed with diehard fans."

Braesch said WNBA games tend to be more family-friendly thanks to the lower prices.

"There’s definitely a lot more families there," she said. "I take my daughter to [Washington] Mystics games when I can. I think it’s good for her to see women’s professional sports."

Braesch said many men’s sports have huge female fanbases, too, though.

"When I go to Redskins games, about half the people are women," she said. "Women are watching sports, they’re just underrepresented by advertising."

McManus said that perception is starting to change, partly thanks to social media’s ability to illustrate publicly that many women are knowledgeable, hardcore sports fans, not just watching with the men in their lives.

"I think one of the biggest changes is Twitter," McManus said. "People can see how many women are watching games and tweeting about it. … Before, it was sort of assumed that they’re the girlfriends who are out getting nachos. These fans become visible. It’s not assumed that they’re in the shadow any more."

McManus cited the growing popularity of breast cancer awareness promotions, which have sprung up in just about every league (including the CFL this year), as evidence that leagues and teams are starting to realize the importance of their female fans.

Hill said it’s still an uphill battle in many areas, though, including gaining respect as a knowledgeable female writer—which can be tough to earn both from fans and from your own outlet.

"I think a lot of media outlets don’t know what the statistics are with female sports fans," she said.
"There’s a perception that if a guy sees a woman talking about the NFL, they won’t take her as seriously. … I don’t think we’re completely past that, but I think we in the industry give that way too much currency."

McManus said commenters in particular can be more vitriolic towards women and often use gender as a criticism, something that’s been seen since BWB4 with the response to Albany Times-Union columnist’s Jennifer Gish’s piece on the Bills.

"When your pic is up next to your byline, it’s not just ‘you’re an idiot’, it’s ‘you’re a female idiot,’" McManus said. "You have to have a thick skin because you’re going to get that."

She saw that herself last year when she wrote that the New York Jets were interested in taking a running back in the 2010 NFL draft.

"I heard, ‘This is why women shouldn’t talk about the NFL,’" McManus said.

Of course, she was proven right when they took Joe McKnight in the fourth round.

Deitsch said commenting attacks aren’t restricted to female writers, but they do tend to be more personal and more offensive when aimed at women.

"I think all of us have felt the wrath of anonymity," Deitsch said. "You guys get it a lot worse."

The conversation then moved to women on sports television, and Deitsch dropped an excellent one-liner on the ESPN types in the room for their questionable decision to ignore the ethics violations Craig James has been accused of.

"If your network wants to replace Craig James with any woman in this room, I'll get behind that," Deitsch said, receiving plenty of applause.

The subject came up of women in sports media being hired for looks, and Cervazio argued that some may be, but knowledge is more important to long-term career success.

"How long do they stay in the business?" she asked. "Knowledgeable people last."

Braesch said she thinks there are more opportunities for women in sports media than ever today.

"I think, really, in the last five years, it’s getting a lot better," she said. "The pool is a lot bigger, and there are more doors open to women."

There are opportunities for women in sports, too. One woman who’s having a lot of success is Indy/NASCAR driver Danica Patrick. Some think she only gets attention for her looks, but McManus disputes that.

"She’s won, so she’s not just a marketing tool," McManus said. "She does get a lot of attention because of her beauty, but she’s a real comp."

Patrick has frequently used her looks to her advantage, with GoDaddy ads and Maxim photoshoots, but McManus thinks the latter in particular was a smart decision.

"That was a really good marketing move for her," McManus said.

Hueter said Patrick’s key value is as a trailblazer.

"She’s paving the way for other women in her sport."

Phil Van der Vossen from Gunaxin asked an excellent question as to why we don’t see more women calling games as opposed to sideline reporting. Cervasio said one key problem is that calling games on any major network requires experience and practice, and that’s not easy to get.

"That’s what I’ve run into is just not boom, being ready to go on there," she said.

She does think there are more opportunities for women to gain that experience these days, though, as the proliferation of TV networks and smaller-level sporting events means there are more places where people can learn on the job.

"There’s so many college networks now," she said. "Hopefully more women will be able to do that younger."

The panelists concluded with a discussion of fantasy sports, and they agreed that far more women play fantasy sports than popular perception might have you believe. In fact, Hueter said fantasy football in particular is a terrific way to get women into sports.

"Fantasy football is a really great entry point for women," she said.

Things certainly aren’t easy for women in the sports world, and some of the still-prevalent sexism out there against female fans, athletes and media types disgusts me. We live in a world where one of the UFC’s key faces can essentially get away with calling a female journalist "cunty" (he later apologized, but got only a talking-to from the UFC), where some idiots (like some of Dan Steinberg’s commenters) still think it’s okay to rail against women in locker rooms, and where the Masters can bar a female journalist from a locker room. Meanwhile, there still isn’t much attention paid to either women’s sports (except stupid crap like the Lingerie Football League, one of the things that grinds my gears the most) or female fans of men’s sports.

There is some progress being made, though, and having an entire panel at a key sports blogging event devoted to the topic of women in sports is a good sign from my standpoint. The panelists had some outstanding things to say, and they made great points about the issues surrounding women in sports. There are certainly some positive developments happening on many fronts, and hopefully those will continue.

For more BWB4 coverage, I already recapped the Rising Stars panel thanks to Josh Elliot’s surprising comments on ESPN, and should have pieces up on the rest of the conference this week. There are also great thoughts on the conference from the likes of Shotgun Spratling and Moderately Cerebral Bias that you should check out.

The Death of A (Google) Reader, and the problem with the mutable web

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 07:18:00 +0000

They moved the curious back, the rain falling faster now, and they moved the reader over close to a pile of dead products. Brin had the halter and Green had the gun, shaped like a giant plus symbol. This symbol he placed, the crowd silent, on the reader's forehead, just between the eyes. The colt stood still and then Green, with the hammer in his other hand, struck the handle of the plus. There was a short, sharp sound and the reader toppled onto his left side, his comments unread, his friends gone, the free feeds quivering.

"Aw, ----" someone said.

That was all they said. They worked quickly, the two techs removing the broken comments as evidence for the insurance company, the crowd silently watching. Then the heavens opened, the rain pouring down, the lightning flashing, and they rushed for the cover of the internet, leaving alone on his side near a pile of deceased products, the rain running off his sharing settings, dead an hour and a quarter after his first start, Google Reader, son of Gmail, full brother of Google Docs.

Apologies to the great W.C. Heinz (who none of us damn bloggers have read anyway), but it felt appropriate. Google's bizarre decision to kill off the social functions in one of its best products has led to outrage from Tehran to Washington, for excellent reasons. Whether you use it for undermining a totalitarian state, exchanging political or social commentary or merely just hanging out with friends and laughing about DogFort or 3eanuts, Reader's an amazing tool and one that be can adapted to just about any purpose. It's much more than simply an RSS feed of blogs; it's one of the best things on the web.

For some of us, this feels more personal than just the demise of an Internet product, though. Blogging isn't an inherently social workplace; sure, I interact with people all day, but it's generally over e-mail and Twitter. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's nice to be able to have something deeper, and the Reader community has built itself into that. Reader works on a more profound level than something like Twitter or Facebook, as it's all about people sharing pieces that appeal to them, and the comment view conversations host some of the most interesting and nuanced discussions on the web. There's a reason so many ShareBros are bummed out about this; for many of us, this is a genuine way of maintaining existing friendships and building new ones, and a company whose motto is "Don't Be Evil" is out to take that away.

On another level, it speaks to a common problem in the world; things aren't defined by how good they are or how much people love them, but rather how many people can tolerate them. It's why Two and a Half Men persists while Firefly is canceled, why Leno won out over Conan, why Bill Simmons and Rick Reilly are two of the best-paid writers on the Internet and why Dan Brown's always near the top of the best-seller list. Reader obviously didn't have the adoption rate of, say, Gmail or Docs, but (to borrow from Alexander Keith's), those who liked it, liked it a lot. For those of us who like small sports, indie bands and lesser-known writers, this is just another stroke in the consolidation of everything.

It's also a disturbing pattern in the Internet world; things are built and adopted, but then frequently altered or shut down, to the detriment of the communities using them. I was already there for one of those (the old Deadspin commenter apocalypse), and it sucked. Sure, we all found ways to move on and new ways to connect with some of the people who mattered to us (I still keep up with a lot of those types through Twitter, Skype, etc), and that will undoubtedly happen with Reader; ShareBro Francis Cleary is working on a great backup solution, and we'll certainly find ways to interact with each other in the meantime. It won't be the same, though, and we'll probably never quite get back what we lost. Still, there's hope out there as well as despair, and it's always better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness. To that end, two videos.

Namárië, ShareBros. See you on the other side.

BWB4: Rising Stars/In praise of Josh Elliott

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:55:00 +0000

We're going to be running plenty of panel recaps from Blogs With Balls' fourth edition (which I'm in New York City for) here this week, but the best moment actually came in the final panel of the day yesterday. Thus, to borrow from a famous quotation, "the last shall be first and the first shall be last". The most newsworthy moment of the whole day came from Josh Elliott, former ESPN SportsCenter anchor and current ABC Good Morning America co-host, who was on the final BWB panel ("Rising Stars") and candidly responded to my question about how he handles criticism of ESPN (along the lines of what I've delivered in a couple of pieces at The Good Point).

"I absolutely understand why people criticize ESPN," Elliott said. "It’s so pervasive and there are certain decisions it makes that are so terrible it sets itself up."

Elliott was particularly bothered by his colleagues' reactions to his GChat interview with Deadspin's A.J. Daulerio, shortly before he left to work at sister company ABC.

"I did an interview with AJ, but I got a torrent of criticism when I walked into the newsroom the next day," Elliott said. "It spoke to the knee-jerk response of this 1000 pound gorilla. They’d trust me to go on live TV for three hours but they wouldn’t trust me to GChat with somebody."

Elliott also criticized ESPN for its decision to start putting Chris Mortensen "reports" that were reworkings of other organizations' football stories on their ticker.

"They just started stealing scoops," he said. "It was a practice I never agreed with. ... I felt horrible."

Elliott said he made his concerns known to his bosses, but they never went too far.

"It’s such a big place," he said.

Elliott deserves thorough props for being willing to criticize his employer in front of an audience. It was one of the most interesting moments of the day, and one that gave me a great deal of respect for him. The rest of the panel was notable as well, though. Here's a transcript of the most interesting quotes they gave:

Grantland's Jonah Keri: - “Every site’s going to take some shit.”

- “I went to Grantland headquarters this week, and I’m so old compared to these people.”

- “I think it’s specifically designed to be a place where if you are talented, we’ll give you a shot.”

- On Grantland's Katie Baker: “She’s killing it.”

- “I hope there are 25 more sites like Grantland, so we can all have jobs that we like and get paid for it.”

- “Whatever company I’m with, I’m committed to it.”

-“If someone criticizes Grantland, I’m going to say, 'What don’t you like about it?'”

- “It’s not even so much the broad entity of Grantland, it’s these are people that I like.”

- “I’m going to defend the people who do good work.”

Bomani Jones:- “In the last six years, I’ve lost my job four times, but what I’ve been doing never stopped.”

-“When you start freelancing, it’s much more about what you do for yourself.”

“I started doing the job for myself, and most of the problems I had were just trying to tailor myself for someone else.”

- “Not having a job isn’t that bad, because in this day and age, people aren’t looking in the yellow pages for what they want. They’re looking for recommendations.”

- “They’re going to recommend it because of what it personally means for them.”

Josh Elliott, on transitioning from sports to Good Morning America:- “I definitely miss it.”

- “I start scratching at it like a phantom limb when football season rolls around and when you get the 20 MLB games that matter, and when you’d normally have a basketball season…”

- Re: Brett Favre and how sports turns into news: “There was a lot of talk about the male appendage earlier and when Anthony Weiner was blowing up, I was like, 'I did this for a year on SportsCenter!'”

- Bomani Jones on Sarah Palin reportedly sleeping with Glen Rice: “That’s the funniest story that’s come out in at least a year.”

- Elliott: “The Mike Tyson commentary on that might have been the greatest two paragraphs I ever read.”

- Tas Melas of The Basketball Jones on how they found success: “We’ve got the hustle gene.”

- J.E. Skeets on TBJ's deal with The Score: “If that didn’t happen right when it happened, I think we might have stopped.”

- Keri: “When I was growing up, my dream job was to write for Sports Illustrated-and I’m not saying that just to suck up to Richard.”

-On how the industry and dream jobs have changed: “I don’t think there’s one goal where any of us can look at and say that’s where we want to be, that’s the pinnacle.”

- “We’re all doing very different things, and we’re happy.”

- “In my lifetime as a sports person, it’s become acheiveable that whatever your second job was can become your first job.”

- Jones: “If you don’t love doing it for the sake of doing it… it will eat you alive.”

- Elliott: “Ambition’s okay. You can kind of want stuff.”

- “I never thought for a second I’d be on TV. I didn’t go to journalism school to be on TV.”

- “I hope there’s something next. I hope there’s always something next until I’m six feet under.”

- On podcasting: Melas: “There’s no question that’s what people should be doing.”

- “The difficult part is the editing part. It takes a fricking long time.”

-Jones: “Kevin Smith’s probably the most famous person for making a boatload of cash off a podcast.”

- “The advantage in sports is it's gone to sort of lifestyle sort of stuff.”

- "Video podcasts are a different animal because they’re far more likely to keep people engaged.”

- Melas said TBJ's numbers weren't great before they were bought out: “The Score bought an idea. They bought us. They bought talent.”

- Jones: “You never make money unless you act like you should be making money.”

- “You never accidentally make money.”

- Keri: “I think a lot of the skills you would learn at journalism school or at least sharpen at j-school are useful skills to have.”

“There are benefits to doing something else. If you’re a history major or a philosophy major, you’re a well-rounded thinker.”

“You have to be a networker and you have to meet people.”

Jones on how there's more to analysis than journalism: “There’s a lot of room for people to put things in context.”

Elliott on ESPN's short-lived Blog Buzz: “I sort of pictured that as an awkward parent showing up at their kids party and trying to be cool.”

He said morning SportsCenter was created because of blogs' impact:

- “The nine-noon was in response to you guys.”

-“The news cycle changed because of the blogosphere.”

-“You found stuff out at 6, 7, 8 a.m.”

= On Blog Buzz: “I think it was the closest they’ll ever come to admitting the blogosphere exists.”

- “The live SCs all day now are just them admitting the blogosphere exists.”

- “People in this room are the competitors for ESPN, and God bless all of you.”

On Sebastian Pruiti:

-Melas: "He’s created his own position.”

-Jones: "I have a colossal respect for anyone that’s like 'There’s a hole here, there’s not anyone doing this.'"

Overall, it was quite a useful panel. The people involved were far more established stars than rising ones, but it was very worthwhile hearing their takes, which turned out to be a valuable part of a superlative conference.

Conference expansion: Mike Slive gets his Aggies for nothing

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:16:00 +0000

BIRMINGHAM, AL—The world of college football is going nuts at the moment with realignment, expansion and potential superconferences that could exacerbate the divide between the haves and have-nots. Other NCAA conference commissioners are raiding opponents, desperately trying to keep their conference alive, desperately trying to save their own job, lurking quietly or plotting world domination, but SEC commissioner Mike Slive has been rather quiet lately—despite extending an offer to Texas A&M and reportedly (or maybe not) to Missouri as well, allowing the ACC's raid on the Big East to dominate the headlines. Slive chose to break his silence at a Birmingham bar Tuesday night, walking out on stage with rock legend Mark Knopfler and debuting a new song the two of them have been secretly working on. Unfortunately, video cameras were not allowed, so to get a sense of what went down, watch this video of Knopfler's original (now permitted in Canada!) and substitute in the transcript of Slive's new lyrics below.

I want my, I want my, I want my ESS EEE CEE.

Now look at them Aggies, that’s the way you do it!
They’ll play their football in the ESS EEE CEE.
Conference expansion? That’s the way we do it!
Get our Aggies for nothing and our Tigers for free.

Conference ain’t working? That’s the way you do it
Let me tell you, them guys ain’t dumb
Maybe get a Baylor on your little finger
Maybe get a Baylor on your thumb.

We gotta install Missouri Tigers
Custom contract delivery!
We gotta move these threats of lawsuits
We gotta get more cash from TV.

That little AD with the beer sales and the couches?
Yeah buddy, that’s his own hair.
That little coach with the skullet and the Red Bull
He won’t fit in with our millionaires

We gotta install A&M Aggies
Top-ten fanbase delivery!
We gotta build our superconference
We gotta get more cash from TV

Look at that, look at that
I should have learned to play the tennis racket
I should have learned to play them bums
Look at that conference, cash sticking in the cameras
Man, can we have some?

And them out there, what’s that, Hawaiian noises?
Man, they just lost to UNLV!
That ain’t working, that ain’t the way to do it
No place for them in my ESS EEE CEE.

We gotta install new divisions
New big market delivery!
We gotta move these outdated contracts
We gotta get more cash from TV

I want my, I want my, I want my ESS EEE CEE
Get your Aggies for nothing, and your Tigers for free
I want my, I want my, I want my ESS EEE CEE

Destroy the Big 12 for nothing, get your cash for free.

Rick Rypien, depression, The Toronto Star and Mike Woods

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:59:00 +0000

Rick Rypien's death at 27 is a tragic story, and one that's resonated with a lot of people. Hundreds headed to Rogers Arena for an impromptu memorial Wednesday, while his teammates in Winnipeg mournedtreatment programs and the role of fighting came to the surface. Information on what exactly happened to Rypien is still scanty, but for many of us, his death brought back memories of athletes who battled depression and wound up taking their own lives, such as Kenny McKinley and Dave Duerson.

We don't know yet if depression led to Rypien's death, but it's played a major role in the deaths of others. Before Rypien's death, Sports Illustrated's Pablo S. Torre wrote an excellent piece in this week's magazine on the suicides of Duerson, former San Jose Shark Tom Cavanaugh, former New York Yankee Hideki Irabu, American Olympic skier Speedy Peterson, former Duke basketball captain Thomas Emma and Austrian Olympic judoka Claudia Heill, and how they raise larger issues of how we look at depression in sports. Bruce Arthur had a great column on the same subject, but expanded it to life in general, and that's a conversation we absolutely need to have as a society. Depression is still heavily stigmatized, but it's hit more people than you think. I've had my own struggles with depression in the past, and it's not an easy monster to lick at all. It's a problem we have to take seriously, and it's something where we have to figure out a way to support the people affected.

Unfortunately, the serious, positive conversations around depression and its effects that have sprung up out of Rypien's tragic death have been somewhat derailed by an almost farcical element. That would be the Toronto Star's first story on the matter, and the subsequent reaction it provoked. The story originally included Vancouver Canucks' general manager Mike Gillis referring to Rypien as "crazy" in a quote he gave The Vancouver Sun, something he didn't say. That's obviously problematic, and it's been called out by people over the web, from Bruce Dowbiggin in The Globe and Mail to Trevor Presiloski at The Internet Trashcan. However, the sound and the fury here is signifying very little, and it's missing a lot of the point in the process.

This is the part where I fill a paragraph with disclosure, as I'm quite biased here. The offending Star story is written by Mike Woods, who I've worked with before. "Worked with" is putting it mildly, in fact, as Mike was my boss for a full year at The Queen's Journal (where we ran the sports section together) and is one of the best people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. He's also contributed a few pieces to this very site. Also, I should point out that I have absolutely zero inside information on this mess; I've never worked for the Star, I've never even visited their newsroom and I haven't received any information on what's happened apart from the pieces linked above. I don't know anything about how this particular piece was put together, edited or published. You can decide for yourself if that's enough to disqualify me from commenting on it.

If you're still here, thanks for the trust. I'm not trying to minimize the issue or blindly defend a friend; I'm happy to call media members out when the occasion demands it, and there's certainly a major screwup here. However, I think there are a few things that aren't perhaps being fully considered. Here are five of them.

1. Shit happens: It's more than just a bumper sticker and a common phrase, it's a way of life in the media world. Anyone who writes or blogs regularly is going to make mistakes, and sometimes major ones. Whether those ones see the light of day and draw intense criticism depends on your publication's editorial process, your stature and the topic you're writing on, though, and this one had the misfortune to both make it through and to be on something controversial. Criticism of it is fair, but there's a point to the old line about "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I wouldn't personally go quite that far, as that would instantly eliminate all media criticism, but it's worth keeping in mind when bashing something like this. We all make mistakes, but only some of those mistakes draw intense scrutiny. That's part and parcel of the media business.

2. Sourcing isn't as easy as it seems: On one level, it's perfectly fair to bash pulling a quote from a Wikipedia article (if that's in fact what happened; I don't know). On another one, it's more complicated than that. Go read Rick Rypien's Wikipedia page, and you'll find a couple of referenced Vancouver Sun articles. Try to click on them, though, and you'll get the lovely "Page Not Found" display. Believe me, as someone whose day job frequently involves digging up old information, I've run into these types of things before. You can sometimes get around them to find the actual old newspaper articles with sufficiently detailed web searching, but that isn't an easy process and it takes time, which is always in critically short supply these days. That's particularly true on a breaking news story like the Rypien one.

When you're quoting from other sources, yes, you always want to go to the original source when possible, but that isn't always an available option. (This goes beyond newspapers and Wikipedia, by the way: as a history major, I've had extensive experience dealing with sources that only survive in quotations from other sources. Yes, they're more questionable, but that doesn't mean they aren't usable; if we suddenly decided against that, we'd lose a lot of important Roman works.) To get back to Wikipedia, yes, the site has its problems, but it's also frequently very accurate about a wide range of subjects. Most of the quotations in it are fine. It's unfortunate that this one wasn't.

3. The supposed Gillis quote is not too far out to be true: I've seen this argument plenty of times, and it simply isn't the case. Athletes, coaches and executives often say dumb things without realizing it, and it's not inconceivable that could have happened in this situation (especially considering all the positive comments in the rest of Gillis' quote). Gillis obviously didn't say this, and it's understandable that he's mad about it, but I've had experiences where coaches have said very dumb things, had me print them and then tried to deny them and ruin my career in response. You're not going to convince me that a quote of this kind should be written off at first glance.

4. Breaking news isn't easy: In an era where sites are often judged by how quickly they can have a specific piece of news up, speed sometimes gets prioritized over quality and accuracy. Writing things quickly is never easy, and it gets even more difficult if you're dealing with physical printing press deadlines as well (believe me, I've got plenty of experience with these from my newspaper years). That doesn't mean we should abandon striving for accuracy; far from it. It just means that things are inevitably going to go wrong, particularly in cases where stories have to be finished quickly. That's not an excuse; my personal belief is that we should all strive to get it right the first time and try and achieve both accuracy and expediency. I'm just pointing out that there are complicating factors.

5. This whole situation is missing the point: Look, if Gillis called Rypien "crazy", that's obviously a problem. Thanks to The Star's apology, we now know for sure he didn't use that term in that particular article. To me, that's good enough. I've blasted plenty of media types who have screwed up in the past, but it's worth keeping in mind there are lots of worse situations out there. To me, this looks like a reporter making a factual error in good faith. I'd put that well below such things as deliberate plagiarism, lazy accusations of cheating without any proof, rampant sexism and attacking entire mediums for no good reason. That doesn't mean it's insignificant or shouldn't be criticized, but it should be kept in perspective. As Harrison Mooney wrote in an excellent post over at Pass It To Bulis, mistakes happen, and they're made by everyone. In my mind, we'd be much better off to leave the controversy over The Star's mistake alone and go back to the serious discussions on Rypien's death and what can be done to address depression.

On the Canucks, hatred, and why I want no part of the riots

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:24:00 +0000

I'm a fan of the Vancouver Canucks. I have been for most of my 23 years on this planet. The team's had some tremendous highs in that time, including runs to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1994 and again this year, but they've also had some tremendous lows (the whole Mark Messier and Mike Keenan era, for one). Still, if anything's more likely to make me abandon my fandom than an awful team struggling under the mismanagement of Keenan, it's a few entitled idiots who take a loss in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Finals as an excuse to start destroying property. I'm watching the images on CBC right now, and it's absolutely horrifying. It's that sort of hatred and destruction that's the worst part of sports, and for it to show up here sickens me.

If I could do away with one thing in this world, it would be hate. Hate not only leads to suffering, but it blinds us, convinces us to think irrationally, and tells us that whatever disgusting feelings we have are just fine, because whoever they're aimed at isn't worthy of consideration. It's hate that spawns hyper-partisanship, where fans blindly clothe themselves in their teams' colours and ignore whatever happens on the other side. It's hate that leads to messes like the football hooliganism we've seen over in Europe, or the reported attacks on Canucks' fans out in Boston (which probably happened in Vancouver too).It's hate that leads us to believe that sports are more than just a game, more than just a fun diversion, but rather some divinely-ordained way of determining that one group of people is better than another group. That's not acceptable with races, religions, political beliefs or anything else, so why should it be the case in sports?

I was reminded of this today thanks to a couple of excellent NBA pieces, one by Joe Posnanski on why there's nothing wrong with rooting against the cartoonish aspects of a character like LeBron James, and one by Tom Haberstroh on how even that kind of innocent hate tends to spill over into the personal. In my mind, both have points. There's nothing wrong with villains, in sports, literature, films or otherwise. There's nothing wrong with rooting against villains. The problem comes when "hate" is invoked, as it's a complicated term with a lot of baggage that can mean anything from "I dislike your team" to "I wish your star player's family dies." Part of that spectrum's obviously more acceptable than the rest, but our culture tends to glorify the hardcore "superfans", and one of the ways they show their devotion to their side is by hating the other side more than anyone else. That atmosphere is what leads to riots like the ones we've seen tonight in Vancouver.

These riots are just so short-sighted. If the Canucks' "fans" involved actually took the time to get to know some of the great Boston types out there, they'd realize they have far more in common with Bruins' fans than they think. Moreover, Vancouver made it to the Stanley Cup Finals and pushed the series to seven games; in a 30-team league, that's incredibly impressive. Throw in that randomness means the best team doesn't always win (contrary to narrative), and really, Vancouver fans have a fair bit to celebrate instead of things to get angry about. They didn't reach the top of the mountain this time, but they came as close as one possibly can. They're also in good shape to try again next year. To me, that's more of a reason for celebration than anger.

To the mobs of "fans" out looting and rioting, though, I hope you have fun. Your behaviour reflects on the rest of us who happen to live in the area, and it reflects on all the people who at one time or another have donned a Canucks jersey. Hopefully, it won't reflect on us too much, though. We may all be Canucks, but we're not all idiots.

Mad Libs, Tom Scocca, Tommy Craggs and why everything doesn't suck

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

It's a pity Leonard B. Stern, creator of Mad Libs, died earlier this week, as he's not around to see how his invention is still being used in the media. The most persistent offender on this front is Slate, the remarkable Internet outlet that seems to largely thrive on finding things people like and writing contrarian pieces on why they're really awful. In the past, they've taken bold stands against such horrors as pie, criticism of Creed and hand sanitizer. As Jonah Goldberg once wrote (in a piece for Slate itself, which must have set off some sort of contrarianism loop), "Freelancers especially seem to have figured out how to get through Slate's editorial defenses: Pitch a story, any story, that's counterintuitive, and someone on the receiving end will say "brilliant!" The idea seems very Mad Libs-inspired: "[Group of people] likes [noun], therefore it is [derogatory adjective]".

This approach is now spreading thanks to former Slate type Tom Scocca's new role as the managing editor of Deadspin, where he's already brought over the Mad Libs approach. In the crosshairs this time? Famed former New York restaurant Elaine's, a writer's hangout praised by the likes of Chris Jones, Kevin Van Valkenburg, Jeff MacGregor and now Grantland's Wright Thompson. If that many prominent people like something, it must be awful, right, Scocca? Right.

Normally, I probably wouldn't care about this; it's a debate over a now-closed bar I've never been to in a city I don't live in. What makes it more notable is how it fits into the larger tradition of contrarian griping; Scocca goes on to complain about how many of the Grantland pieces so far have featured personal thoughts and details from the writers, probably because some of those personal details are what make sportswriting interesting to many of us. I don't have a particular interest in the New York Knicks, but I loved the way Katie Baker described how this year's team made her feel. There are thousands of pieces out there every month on the AL East, but Chris Jones' story on losing his virginity during the 1992 World Series (and decades later, feuding with both John Farrell and Terry Francona in the same day) is one of the most interesting I've read this year. Chris Ryan's piece on the experience of the Champions League final appeals to me much more than any straightforward account of the game. There's a certain irony in Scocca complaining about "Watch the writers watch themselves," as his piece is essentially watching those writers watch themselves, but it's worth noting that writers watching themselves can be entertaining and illuminating if they're done well. Contrarian grumblers complaining about writers watching themselves, not so much.

Look, it's not that Grantland should be immune from criticism (there are plenty of things I don't like about the site and Bill Simmons, Chuck Klosterman, et al), and it's not surprising that it's Scocca and Deadspin delivering it. Scocca's the guy who's previously feuded with Jones over some pretty stupid stuff and criticized Simmons' shoes. Meanwhile, Deadspin's tendencies to go after ESPN and Simmons are not just a matter of record, but are also often for worthwhile reasons. This doesn't appear to be a worthwhile one, though, but rather more just contrarianism for the sake of contrarianism.

Sadly, Scocca's screed isn't even the most aggravating piece Deadspin has written about the site. That debatable honour goes to this rather annoying piece by Tommy Craggs, who Grantland considered hiring. Rather than even analyzing the site itself, Craggs decides to go and blast the man it's named after, Grantland Rice, one of the most renowned sportswriters of our time and one of my personal favourites, in a piece cleverly titled "Why Grantland Rice Sucked". That piece itself is an exercise in unintentional hilarity, with Craggs dropping lines like "He was responsible for a lot of the worst pathologies of sportswriting today", lines I find are far better suited to himself than Rice. Much like Scocca, I find that Craggs' writing tends to be full of rants against everyone who disagrees with him and supreme pronouncements that [thing people like] is [derogatory adjective]. It's no wonder that he doesn't like Rice, who did a superb job of illustrating and relaying the magic and wonder sports can bring. Here's Rice's memorable opening paragraph in the famous Four Horsemen piece:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army football team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds yesterday afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down on the bewildering panorama spread on the green plain below.

And here's what Craggs probably would have written instead:

It was a miserable day at the Polo Grounds, and the weather was reflected in the miserable play on the field. Notre Dame and Army both muddled through a display of awful offensive football, which served as a demonstration of how pointless this sport ultimately is. Hacks will write in its praise, but I, Tommy Craggs, supreme arbiter of the universe, declare that it sucked, so it did. So say we all.

In my mind, the worst pathologies of sportswriting today aren't well-crafted prose, clever historical or literary allusions, or even personal thoughts or experiences. I'm much more annoyed by the growing trend towards absolutism and establishing oneself as a supreme authority, which has carried far beyond the realms of writing criticism into everyday sports coverage. Check out the masses of NBA Finals pieces declaring the Heat as supreme villains or LeBron James' move to South Beach as an incredible failure after his team's first season ended just short of a title, or the volumes of NHL stories painting the Canucks as a bunch of goons or Canada's great hope. These pieces have several things in common; they oversimplify a complex situation, they deliver stronger allegations than they can support and they set the writer up as an authority, proclaiming that anyone who dares to disagree is wrong. You like the Heat, or you don't think LeBron's all that bad? Well, YOU'RE WRONG!

It's the same thing that bugs me with the criticisms of Grantland and Rice himself Scocca and Craggs have delivered so far. If they don't like the writing, or the writers, or ESPN itself, or literary devices applied to sports, fine; that's their right. It just gets annoying when they start tossing out royal proclamations to that extent, and complaining without any sense that their criticisms could apply to themselves with equal or more validity. They're welcome to the jaded, cynical view of the world they display, and people are welcome to enjoy it if that what floats their boat. Instead of constantly using the contrary, critical Mad Libs, though, I prefer to enjoy sports and writing for what they have to offer instead of trying to deconstruct everything I don't like about them. Pick whichever approach you like, but don't feel compelled to hate something just because a writer tells you to.

Update: I just spoke to Craggs about this by e-mail, and I need to admit I made a couple of mistakes. First, this is meant as a professional criticism, not a personal one. The original piece crossed that line in a couple of places, and has been modified accordingly. Second, I was wrong to assume motivation; I can't speak for Scocca, but Craggs points out that he personally isn't criticizing Rice to be contrarian, but rather because he doesn't like the way Rice's "anointing of gods and his habit of reducing human beings to mere playthings of personal fantasy" has hurt the way people write about sports (and other related subjects, such as players' early attempts to organize unions, which is an excellent point). That's a fair stance, even if it's one I mostly don't agree with, and it deserves to be treated on its own merits rather than as just being contrary for the sake of contrary.

It's also worth pointing out that getting mad probably isn't the best state of mind for writing. I wrote this because I was annoyed by what I saw as contrary attacks on writers, ideas and forms I hold dear, and my response probably wasn't as thoroughly thought-out as it could have been. As always, I appreciate the feedback and the discussion. I'm leaving this piece up because I think my point is still somewhat valid; in my mind, there are a lot of positive things about both Grantland Rice and the site named after him that Scocca and Craggs are overlooking. However, that doesn't mean they don't have a right to criticize, or that they don't have some points. There's room for a multitude of views, and I think this debate shows that.

Taiwan makes the NHL a little more exciting

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 23:03:00 +0000

The people from Taiwan's Next Media Animation have their own take on who to root for in the Stanley Cup finals, plus how to make them more interesting. Check it out:

Best use of a tiger since John Cleese's classes in self-defence against fresh fruit:

The Canucks' version of A New Hope

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:44:00 +0000

It is a period of cold war. The Vancouver Canucks, striking from a hidden base, have won their first, second and third series victories against allies of the evil Galactic Empire. Now, they must confront the Empire itself, which has taken on the new name of the "Boston Bruins" but kept its old logo (with slight revisions). By watching footage of Boston's most recent battles, Vancouver coaches managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, TIM THOMAS, a clogging-up-space station with enough padding to deflect an entire planet. Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Henrik Sedin races home aboard his starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save his hockey team and restore freedom to the galaxy…

...

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

HENRIK SEDIN as Princess Leia (a twin, a key figure in the Rebellion)

ZDENO CHARA as Darth Vader (tall, violent)

DANIEL SEDIN as Luke Skywalker (a twin, capable of hitting small targets)

RYAN KESLER as Han Solo (cocky, shows up unexpectedly)

MANNY MALHOTRA as Obi-Wan Kenobi (called back into action from the sidelines)

ANDREW ALBERTS as C-3PO (tall (6'5'') and awkward)

KEITH BALLARD as R2-D2 (short (5'11''), importance underrated by many)

GARY BETTMAN as Grand Moff Tarkin (he'll blow up a rebellious market from time to time)

ALAIN VIGNEAULT as Jan Dodonna (he's picked out Vancouver's target)

CHRISTIAN EHRHOFF as Wedge Antilles (no one talks about him much, but he's crucial to the Rebellion's success)

MIKAEL SAMUELSSON as Biggs Darklighter (knocked out by the Empire, but important to getting them this far)

TIM THOMAS as the Death Star (dangerous, seemingly-impenetrable defences, but not really)

...

SELECTED SCENES:

ANDREW ALBERTS: "Their forwards are heading in this direction. What are we going to do? We'll be sent to the penalty box formerly reserved for Phil Kessel or smashed into who knows what!"

...

HENRIK SEDIN: "Zdeno Chara, I should have known. Only you could be so bold. The NHL's discipline committee will not sit for this, when they hear you've attacked Max Pacioretty..."

...

DANIEL SEDIN: "What is it?"

MANNY MALHOTRA: "Your father's hockey stick. This is the weapon of a Sedin twin. Not
as clumsy or as random as a blaster. An elegant weapon for a more civilized time."

...

HENRIK SEDIN: "General Malhotra, years ago you almost served this franchise in the Bure trade. Now they beg you to help them in their struggle against the Empire. ... This is our most desperate hour. Help me, Manny Malhotra, you're my only hope."

...

GARY BETTMAN: "The NHL discipline committee will no longer be of any concern to us. I've just received word that the Emperor has dissolved the council permanently."

...

ZDENO CHARA: "Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a franchise is insignificant next to the power of my elbows."

...

HENRIK SEDIN: "The more you tighten your grip, Bettman, the more franchises will slip through your fingers."

...

RYAN KESLER: "I ain't in this for your Stanley Cup victory, and I'm not in it for you, Henrik. I expect to be well paid. I'm in it for the money!"

...

ALAIN VIGNEAULT: "Tim Thomas' goal is heavily shielded and carries pads larger than half the star fleet. Its defenses are designed around a direct large-scale assault. A small one-man breakaway should be able to penetrate the outer defenses. ... The target area is only two inches wide. It's a small hole in the padding, right below Thomas' glove. The opening leads directly to the net. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the Bruins."

CHRISTIAN EHRHOFF: "That's impossible, even for a computer."

DANIEL SEDIN: "It's not impossible. I used to bullseye targets in my NHL All-Star Game appearances. They're not much bigger than two inches."

...

MIKAEL SAMUELSSON: "Sir, Daniel is the best sniper in Sweden's outer rim territories."

...

MANNY MALHOTRA: "Use the Force, Daniel!"

...

ZDENO CHARA: "I have you now."

...

RYAN KESLER: "You're all clear, Sedin! Now let's blow this thing and go party!"

...

RYAN KESLER: "Well, I wasn't gonna let you get all the credit."

FIN.

Stanley Cup Finals preview: myself on the Canucks

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:04:00 +0000

Here's the conclusion of this point/counterpoint setting up the Stanley Cup Finals. Earlier, my old Queen's Journal colleague Mike Woods made the case for the Bruins. Here's my take on why I think the Canucks will win.

The NHL playoffs are a funny thing, and the best team doesn't always win. In fact, as I've written before, contrary to the demands of narrative, the best team probably wins about 55 per cent of the time. That leaves 45 per cent of the time where upsets happen, and the odds may be even higher in a series like this that looks like it should be close. Thus, anything could happen here. If you're a betting man or someone making predictions, though, you want that 55 per cent chance over a 45 per cent one, and that's why I'm going with the Canucks.

What Vancouver accomplished this regular season was nothing short of historic. They finished first in the NHL with 117 points, 10 ahead of their nearest competitor (Washington) and 14 ahead of the Bruins. They scored an NHL-best 262 goals and conceded a NHL-low 185 (if you're not entirely convinced of the predictive value of goal differential, it's notable that Boston's +51 was second-best in the league, but miles behind Vancouver's +77). Even an 82-game or 162-game (as in baseball) regular season may not be enough to really give us a solid indication of who the best teams really are, but it's a pretty good sample size, and it suggests that these Canucks are a pretty incredible group.

Special teams also look like a particular advantage for Vancouver. The Canucks put up a NHL-best 24.3 per cent mark on the power play during the regular season, an area where Boston particularly struggled; the Bruins were 20th with a 16.2 per cent mark. Those trends have continued in the postseason, where Vancouver's third with a 28.3 mark (behind only first-round exitees Anaheim and Phoenix), while Boston is 14th with a miserable 8.2 mark (ahead of only the Rangers and Pittsburgh). Postseason penalty killing has also been an edge for Vancouver, where they've put up a 80.6 per cent mark against Boston's 79.4 per cent; that advantage was even more stark in the regular season, where Vancouver's 85.6 per cent mark (third in the league) was notably better than Boston's 82.8 per cent (16th). As close playoff games often come down to what you can do with the man advantage, it's hard not to like the Canucks there.

Vancouver's roster is strong throughout as well. Despite criticism of goaltender Roberto Luongo, his playoff save percentage is a sparkling .920, eighth-best all time. Boston's Tim Thomas may hold an even better .928 mark, but Luongo is no goaltending slouch, and he's got plenty of support. The Canucks' defining characteristic is their depth, as in addition to superb production from Henrik Sedin (a playoff-best 21 points), Daniel Sedin (16) and Ryan Kesler (18), they're also getting key contributions from the likes of Mason Raymond (eight points) and Chris Higgins (seven points). Their defence is also deep and consistent, with everyone from Christian Ehrhoff to Alex Edler to Kevin Bieksa having tremendous playoffs. Moreover, this year has been proof that bruins can be defeated by prominent B.C. products. I think it's going to be close, as Boston's a great team too, but I think the Canucks have enough edges to take this series.

Prediction: Canucks in seven

Stanley Cup Finals preview: Mike Woods on the Bruins

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:13:00 +0000

To get you set for the Stanley Cup Finals, myself and former Queen's Journal colleague Mike Woods are running one of our traditional point/counterpoint pieces predicting who will win. First up, here's Mike to make the case for the Bruins. My piece on the Canucks will follow later before the series kicks off at 8 p.m. Eastern/5 p.m. Pacific today. Take it away, Mike!

After the Boston Bruins’ nail-biting 1-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning last week that got them a berth in the Stanley Cup final, my first thought was that the series would be evenly-matched and picking a winner would be a toss-up.

Instead, most people outside New England seem to be casting the Bruins as underdogs by a wide margin.

It’s hard to blame them. The Vancouver Canucks are rolling; they tamed the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference final’s first four games, then relied on show-stopping goaltending from Roberto Luongo in Game 5, who stopped 54 of 56 shots when his team faltered. A President’s Trophy-winning team that has hit full stride heading into the final is hard to pick against. Even EA Sports’ NHL ’11, which is 13-for-14 so far this postseason, is picking the Canucks.

But don’t count Boston out so fast. The Bruins, who seem perfectly happy playing the underdog role, bring a number of things to the table the Canucks haven’t seen yet. How Vancouver responds to them will determine who takes the cake (or, if you will, the pizza).

The series’ most important match-up is Zdeno Chara lining up against the Daniel and Henrik Sedin. The Sedins thrived, of course, against the Sharks last round, who eventually resorted to using Kent Huskins and Marc-Edouard Vlasic to shut down Vancouver’s top line, which didn’t work at all.

The Sedins had the most trouble these playoffs against Nashville. Against a strong shutdown defensive pairing in Shea Weber and Ryan Suter, the twins combined for just seven points in six games—hardly top line numbers. They were also a combined minus-16 through the first two rounds.

Chara usually plays with Dennis Seidenberg, but the Big Z by himself is as good as any shutdown pair in the league. He’s likely to disrupt the Sedins’ cycle game, which is their bread and butter.

With the Sedin twins neutralized in Round 2, Vancouver beat Nashville largely due to a superhuman effort from Ryan Kesler. The Bruins and Predators are similar teams – both feature Vezina-calibre goaltending and stifling 5-on-5 defensive play. The difference, of course, is while Nashville could barely put together one scoring line, Boston’s forward depth is on par with Vancouver’s.

Boston’s top line has been as clutch as Vancouver’s, and even their third line features goal-scoring threats Michael Ryder and Tyler Seguin, who are more of a threat to score than the Canucks’ third unit. Vancouver hasn’t had to look beyond their top two lines for goal-scoring, but that could change against Boston.

Tim Thomas and Roberto Luongo are Vezina nominees who have both experienced blips. Luongo’s came in the first round, when he was the backup goalie in Game 6 against Chicago before an injury to Cory Schneider forced him back into action. Thomas’s have been less significant: a couple of games against Tampa where he let in five goals, and that’s about it. Questioning Luongo’s playoff credentials is kind of tacky at this point, but unless he wins a Cup, those questions aren’t going away.

Thomas is a wild card in net, which is just the way he and the Bruins like it. Thomas’s flopping around in the net, reminiscent of Dominik Hasek in his prime, could prove to be an asset against the Sedins; it could also be a hinderance. Not to read too much into regular-season stats, but it’s worth noting that Thomas has won his last two games against the Canucks, stopping 96 of 97 shots in the process.

The biggest concern for the Bruins heading into the final, as it has been all playoffs, is their atrocious power play. It’s a disastrous 5-for-61 in the playoffs, and it took until Game 6 of the conference finals for them to score a power-play goal on the road. The Canucks’ penalty killing was third-best in the league this season, which also doesn’t bode well for the B’s.

On the other hand, it can be said that the Bruins’ five-on-five play has made up for their awful power play. After all, they’ve made it this far while firing blanks with the man advantage the whole way. If they can pick things up on the power play, they could have the Canucks on the ropes early in the series.

These teams are evenly-matched five-on-five squads, and this series has great potential to be the most compelling Stanley Cup final in years. It’s right to call Vancouver the favourite, but writing Boston off is a huge mistake. If Chara effectively contains the Sedins and the Bruins’ special teams get back on track, look for the Bruins to be hoisting the Cup later this month.

Prediction: Bruins in 7.

Winnipeg, Phoenix, Seattle and why relocation is awful

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:08:00 +0000

It looks like the Phoenix Coyotes are going to be around Glendale, Arizona for at least another year. TSN's Dave Naylor writes that the city council there voted 5-2 to give the team a $25 million subsidy if they haven't found a buyer by the end of the 2011-12 season. As Joe Yerdon writes, that subsidy should keep them there for at least another year, if not longer, and that means Winnipeg probably isn't getting a team this summer. Of course, that won't make everyone happy; it was only decided after a hilarious council meeting (described perfectly by friend of the blog Dennis Tarwood) that featured plenty of comments both for and against the idea, and it's sure to meet with criticism from the Goldwater Institute, many Canadian hockey fans and media outlets, economists and others. However, while there are substantial issues around hockey in Phoenix that still need to be addressed, keeping the team there is a good thing from this perspective.

It's not that economic arguments should be written off entirely. Having a league directly subsidize a team (as the NHL has been doing with Phoenix over the last while) is very problematic for the perception of that league, and it's also troubling from a financial point of view. Having a city council potentially hand out that kind of money to what's supposedly a professional, for-profit sports franchise isn't necessarily a great idea either; I can't speak for the taxpayers of Glendale, but they can decide if that's the best use of their money or not. It's certainly not the greatest long-term solution. However, there are positives to keeping the team in Phoenix, and those need to be recognized.

Look, Phoenix has had attendance issues, but those are understandable, especially with the uncertainty around the team's future over the last couple of years (plus the whole decision to put the team's arena in a suburb that isn't all that accessible to many, from what I've read). What's probably hurt them even more is their general lack of success over their time in Phoenix; they've made the playoffs regularly, but have never gotten out of the first round. They've never really been good enough to build a lot of buzz, and they've never really been bad enough to get the top draft picks.

It's a simple fact that winning sells in sports. For a case in point, consider the Nashville Predators, who only a few seasons ago were rumoured to be bought by Jim Balsille and moved to Hamilton (before he got into the whole chase for the Coyotes). At that time, Nashville was widely seen as a struggling NHL market, and they'd had the same sort of success as Phoenix (reasonably regular playoff appearances, but had never made it out of the first round). A few years later, they've continued to build, and hockey in Nashville has become a huge success story; not only did the team make it out of the first round for the first time (before losing to Vancouver in a very close six-game series), but they also drew tons of very knowledgeable fans. Some of those fans were always there (see James Mirtle's excellent series from way back when), but others have been attracted over time, and team success has a large role to play there. (Check out Sean Fitz-Gerald's recent piece on Nashville fans in The National Post, Cam Cole's column on watching a game in a bar in Nashville and Brian Cazeneuve's article in Sports Illustrated on where the Predators have come from for more on what things are like in Nashville these days.) Keep in mind that today Nashville is being celebrated as a success story for hockey in the south, and few credible people would envision relocating that franchise, but just a few years ago, it seemed sure they were going to move. Circumstances change, and they often change with the team's fortunes.

It's become a widely-trumpeted line that hockey can never work in Phoenix, but is that really true? Yes, the current financial circumstances of the Coyotes are anything but promising. If you were a hockey fan in Phoenix, though, would you really bother investing yourself in the current team? They're acceptable at the moment, sure, but they suffered another first-round playoff loss at the hands of Detroit this year and were never really in the series. Moreover, they've sort of been acceptable for a while, so they haven't had a lot of top draft picks. Doesn't that sound a lot like Nashville a few years back? If so, and if we accept that Nashville's been able to turn its team around with competent ownership and a solid low-budget franchise-building strategy, isn't there hope for Phoenix? From a marketing perspective, the area has huge upside; Nielsen lists it as the 12th-largest TV market in the U.S., far better than Nashville. A huge potential fanbase doesn't mean anything if the Coyotes don't draw those fans in, but there's certainly a lot to recommend the NHL trying to reach those fans instead of abandoning the market.

That brings us to another element of this. Yes, many decisions are made on the dollars and cents level, and yes, professional sports is absolutely big business these days. However, as pointed out above, the business case for the NHL to leave a team in Phoenix isn't as bad as some might make it seem; significant subsidies may be involved in the short term, but the market has major upside and a strong Phoenix team has the potential to not only make money but boost the league. However, ignore all the economic factors for a moment and think about the diehard Coyotes fans already out there, like Five For Howling's Travis Hair. They've devoted their time, money and attention to supporting a franchise, and deals sports franchises are not pure once-off business transactions; for example, when you pay $100 for a jersey, you're not paying just for the simple article of clothing, but also demonstrating that you support the team for a period of time. Sports fandom is an ongoing relationship rather than a pure commercial transaction, and it's important to recognize that the real fans will be significantly hurt if their team leaves.

The case that's always going to stick out in my mind there is Seattle, where I covered the court case, the fan protests and the eventual relocation of a franchise. Yes, there were plenty of complicating factors there; the owners really wanted to move, there were arena issues and there were definitely enough fans to sustain a franchise with a decent building. Still, I'll never forget some of the anguish I saw there. Look, sports may just be a diversion and a toy box, but it's an important one for many people; it's a distraction, but we need distractions to take our minds away from how screwed up the world can be. As Earl Warren famously said, "The sports page records people's accomplishments, the front page usually records nothing but man's failures." In cases of franchise relocation, the sports pages are reporting man's failures, and that's not all that great.

Fans in Winnipeg know this more than anyone. Their team was taken from them and moved to Phoenix back in 1996, and while (as is currently the case with Phoenix) there were some solid economic arguments in favour of relocation (notably the extremely low Canadian dollar, but also corporate sponsorship and arena issues), relocation was a devastating blow for those fans (and the city). I'd love to see them get a team back as much as anyone; I think Winnipeg has the potential to be a solid NHL city, and it would be fantastic to see once-spurned fans get another chance to really embrace the game. However, it's worth pointing out that franchise relocation hurts many people while it's helping others. As the NBA example shows, Oklahoma City was clearly ready for an NBA franchise, and they've done a great job of supporting their new team, but that relocation still damaged the league in the Pacific Northwest and alienated a lot of fans.

That's not to say that relocation should never be done. Obviously, there are markets out there in any sport that could handle teams, and giving them a chance to do that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Moreover, that can't always be done via expansion without diluting the quality of the league and hurting the overall product, so relocation will sometimes be necessary. In my mind, though, it should be seen as an absolute last resort, and it should be viewed as a sad state of affairs rather than a triumphant moment for the new city. That's why I like Phoenix's decision to hang on to the Coyotes for now; the city has the potential to grow into a good, profitable hockey market if they get some solid teams, and even if it never really works from the economic side, they'll still be bringing plenty of joy to the fans they do have. If Winnipeg does wind up getting a team via relocation at some point, I'll be happy for the fans in that area, but sad for the people who just lost their team. For now, things aren't really bad for anyone; Phoenix fans get to watch their team a while longer, Winnipeg fans still have hope for the future, and the NHL doesn't have to go through an embarrassing relocation just yet. It may not be a perfect long-term solution, but for now, it doesn't seem all that bad.

When narrative goes too far, and inequalities fail

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 02:21:00 +0000

Regular readers will know that I'm pretty interested in how narratives shape our perception of sports. One of the most significant ones lately has been in the Vancouver-Chicago series in the NHL playoffs, where the Canucks led 3-0 before the Blackhawks won three straight games to force tonight's seventh game. Of course, that's led to plenty of pieces on how this is a defining moment for Vancouver, a historic occasion and all the rest. Those stories aren't necessarily wrong, as there certainly is a significant mental aspect to sports, and that mental element will be involved tonight; I give it more credence than Joe Posnanski does, even if I share some of his other opinions on storylines. What's happened in the series so far does have a bearing on tonight's game in my mind, so it's perfectly relevant to talk about the pressure, the situation and the rest.

What I don't like is when that analysis takes the next step, though, and ascribes narrative reasons to why one team lost and another won and narrative solutions as to how to remedy this in the future. We've seen this plenty of times before, with certain teams or players being labeled simply as "chokers" for poor performances in small playoff sample sizes, or authoritative declarations that there was some clear flaw in the team that lost; they didn't have enough depth, enough grit, good-enough goaltending or anything else. None of those claims are necessarily wrong or problematic on their own, as it's certainly worthwhile to try and analyze what went wrong and think about how it could potentially be solved. What bothers me is more along the lines of the shades of grey discussion; in essence, any particular claim about size, scoring, goaltending or the rest isn't necessarily wrong and could in fact be right, but pointing to one of those things as the definitive cause of a team's downfall and something that has to be remedied if they're going to win in the future is generally inaccurate.

Many people tend to look at sports as a system of mathematical inequalities. If Chicago beats Vancouver in this series, some claim that's proof Chicago's team > Vancouver's team. From the particular perspective of results in that series, that is correct, but when it's expanded throughout the playoffs, it's more problematic. For one thing, we don't know how teams would have fared against different opponents. Just because team B beats team C, and team A then beats team B, that doesn't mean A > B > C.

Even more importantly, though, it's worth recognizing that every single sports game carries a notable element of randomness. For example, the Canucks finished the regular season with a league-best 117 points, while the Edmonton Oilers had a league-low 62, but if you watched just the Oilers' 4-1 thumping of Vancouver earlier this month, you'd conclude that Edmonton was the better team. It's not just a small sample-size issue, either; in an excellent piece for Baseball Prospectus, Tommy Bennett calculated that even baseball's mammoth 162-game regular season doesn't necessarily tell us which team is the best. Here's part of what Bennett wrote:

hat do we mean when we talk about the best team? The team that had the best regular season record, most likely. But it turns out that performance over 162 games isn’t even enough to say for sure which team is the best. If an entire league with a “true talent” level of .500—that is, one in which God told you all the teams were .500 ballclubs—played a million 162-game seasons, two or three teams would end up with more than 90 wins each time. You’d probably look at those teams and assume they were the best, but we’ve specified that all of the teams were of exactly the same quality. So there’s a real way in which regular season record does a pretty lousy job of telling us which team is the best.

That's applicable to the playoffs too. Playoff outcomes matter, and good for the teams that win in the playoffs, but that's not necessarily proof that they were "better". It's proof that things broke their way on at least four occasions in each series. Part of that's down to their physical skill, part of it's coaching, part of it's mental and part of it's matchups, but a significant part is random, too; it's been found that even the best teams only have about a 55 per cent chance of winning any given playoff matchup. Thus, there's at least a 45 per cent chance that the team we wouldn't describe as "better" (in terms of true talent level) will win.

In essence, the most important thing to take away may be not overreacting to the result of any given playoff game or series. Winning a game or even a round doesn't magically make you an amazing team, while losing doesn't make you an awful one. It goes against the sports talk radio narrative that demands heads of coaches and executives and trades of players when things go wrong, but it's worth keeping in mind that a lot of the outcome of any sports event is pretty random. Sports and math have a lot in common, but I think playoffs are more about chaos theory than straight mathematical inequalities.

Subdivisions, exclusion and communities in sports

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 00:53:00 +0000

I was reading Gary Smith's fantastic, tear-jerking piece entitled "The Wheels of Life" in my most recent Sports Illustrated magazine today, and it got me thinking. The piece is a superb tale of Dick Hoyt and his paralyzed son, Rick, and how they've worked together to compete in everything from marathons to triathlons for over 30 years. On one level, it's a great story of two people who have overcome incredible adversity to do things that many able-bodied people never will be able to, but I think there's a broader point there as well, and one that applies to our current sports world. Read this paragraph and see if you can figure out where I'm going with this:

Race day came a few days later. So closeted were the disabled in 1977 that many people, including Dick before the birth of his first son, had never laid eyes on a wheelchair or a quadriplegic, let alone one in a five-mile race. Dick's two other sons, Rob and Russ, wisecracked that the Hoyts' race number, 00, summed up their chances of making it to the finish line. Most people figured Dick would shove the kid as far as the first corner and peel off. None had a clue what happened inside Dick Hoyt's head when it bumped against a task.

What I take from that is that Dick and Rick's racing career isn't just a man-versus-himself conflict (them trying to overcome their physical limitations), or a man-versus-nature one (them trying to overcome the racecourse), or even man-versus-man (them trying to beat other racers), but also contains a profound element of man-versus-society. For them, racing is a way to prove that Rick in particular belongs and has value, despite the world's attempts to say that he doesn't. That point is emphasized more prominently in a later section of the piece, describing what happened after Dick experienced severe medical issues following their first race:

One hour. That's how long Dick remained under the impression that their short, happy, hellish racing life was over. That's how long it took Rick to squeeze out a single sentence and get his father off the floor to read it.

Dad, when I am running, I don't even feel like I am handicapped.

It dawned on Dick as he stared at the screen: I run. I push. He is.

Obviously, not everyone faces as difficult of a struggle for societal acceptance as Rick Hoyt, but many of us have gone through that on a smaller level. It's something that has more of a role in sports than you might think, too. One thing that came to mind was this piece on the Baltimore Orioles' Luke Scott, a reaction to a recent ESPN piece that included disturbing scenes like the following one, in reference to Dominican-born Orioles' outfielder Felix Pie:

"Felix is my friend," he says. "I give him a hard time. The reason why I give him a hard time is because there are certain people you deal with and you go up and talk to them, and it doesn't work. They don't understand.

"I tell him about some of the ways he's acted: 'Look, you're acting like an animal, you're acting like a savage.'"

Scott turns to his locker and pulls out a bag of plantain chips.

"So I throw bananas in his helmet. Here are my banana chips to remind him that whenever he acts like an animal, 'Hey, that's what other people are thinking. They're just not telling you, but that's what they're thinking about. And I'm telling you so that you're aware of that so you can make a cognitive decision to not behave like that.' I would want someone to tell me that instead of letting you making a jerk of yourself."

For the record, I haven't heard Pie complain about that, and black teammate Adam Jones did defend Scott's behaviour as innocent joking around. To me, though, regardless of what Scott's motivation is there, his actions seem to suggest an attempt to "other" players like Pie and try and get them to conform to Scott's social norms. Maybe Scott would act the same way towards a white teammate, maybe he wouldn't, but throwing bananas has long been associated with trying to portray non-whites as animals. Whatever Scott's intentions may be, his actions seem to showcase some of the tensions and difficulties that lurk in locker rooms. They're not just centred on race, either; former NBA player John Amaechi had an interesting piece at The New York Times on how being gay often made him feel excluded, and how Kobe Bryant's recent use of "faggot" has the potential to make other gay players even more uncomfortable. The divisions go beyond race and sexual orientation too, as there are plenty of straight, white players who don't necessarily fit in either; there's an excellent discussion on that in Dirk Hayhurst's book, The Bullpen Gospels, which goes into some of the difficulties he faced trying to fit in with other baseball players (a particularly notable moment in there is where Trevor Hoffman mocks him for asking a question in a rather verbose manner). In essence, professional locker rooms are just like any other clique or group, and Rush summed them up pretty well in the following song, Subdivisions: "Be cool or be cast out."

Dividing, assigning, disparaging and judging others thanks to one specific quality or stereotype is hardly something that's exclusive to professional athletes, though. We all do it from time to time, and examples are common throughout the world of sports. A particularly troubling aspect of this is the barriers women in sports media still face. Consider how the Masters decided to ban Bergen Record columnist Tara Sullivan from a dressing room this year solely because she's female (which Joe Posnanski perfectly roasted here). The Lisa Olson story from 1990 isn't all that long ago, and there are still plenty of cases of discrimination; read Nicole Auerbach's comments on being kept out of a minor-league locker room in 2008, and Jessica Quiroli's thoughts on what it was like being a female reporter covering the Can-Am League (although she noted that things got better after she complained). One piece that really stuck with me this week was Julie Veilleux's post on why she quit doing sports radio. This part in particular jumped out:

I thought I’d be called upon to be a voice for women into sports everywhere, to tell a story of exclusion, prejudice and passion, and encourage women everywhere to get involved and break down barriers. Instead I learned that I was to comment mostly on the physical attributes of athletes, and found that my co-hosts remembered to introduce me more often if I was wearing something that was appealing to them, that they would also mention on air. Be as asexual as possible, unless of course you expect on-air time at all.

In a lot of ways, these are the obvious examples, and they're the ones a lot of people have problems with. I think the use of divisions goes deeper, though, and it's something that many people still fall into in ways they might not even think about. Dividing people into us and them, good and evil, is something that goes back throughout history, and it's an instinct we still indulge in inside the sports world. For example, even being a fan of a team is in one way a divisive stance; you're identifying yourself with one team and its supporters, and many people also take that to mean identifying yourself as against that team's rivals. In a lot of cases, that isn't necessarily bad; rooting against a team isn't inherently wrong, and it can be a lot of fun. The problems can arise when that goes a bit farther, though; there are those who attack media types on Twitter for criticizing their team, or fans who tweet (probably in a joking manner, but still) that they'd like their opponents to die. While those aren't behaviours I like or endorse, even they're not as bad as the actions of those who turn fandom into an excuse for property destruction, poisoning trees or attacking other people.

Again, most people don't take it to those extremes, and that's a good thing. It's worth thinking about our own tendencies to judge and exclude people, though, and perhaps considering how we might change our approaches to be more inclusive. In a world of extremist positions, hyperbole and outright trolling, it's all too common to see exclusionary arguments. "My position's the best and yours is completely wrong!" "My team's the best and yours sucks!" We even see it on the levels of whole leagues: "You're an idiot for watching basketball while hockey's on!" "Soccer isn't an American sport!" "NCAA basketball's awful; you should only watch the NBA!" "Only morons like the CFL; real men watch the NFL!" We see it with fans insulting each other, writers attacking each other, radio hosts going after each other, mainstream media types bashing bloggers (and vice-versa), the war between the statistics and traditional communities, and plenty of other situations. It's like Lord of the Flies; we form tribal communities that are as much defined by what they're opposed to as what they're in favour of, and never realize that the beast was within us all along.

I'm not saying everyone should abandon their fandom, give up on defending their ideas and their principles, or never criticize anything. All of those things have their place. Maybe, though, let's take a little more time to think about how our communities, our words and our actions impact others. Are there specific people or groups we're excluding or targeting? Are we defining ourselves by what we're not, instead of reflecting on the positive things that we are? As I wrote a little while back, I see writing as a way to challenge myself, not a way to compete with others or try and insist that my ideas are best. That's why I love the conversations I have with fellow writers, both on Twitter and at various events like the Blogs With Balls sports blogging conventions; in my mind, we're all in it together. Maybe we can extend that approach across sports and life, recognizing the extraordinary abilities and strengths of people with disabilities like Hoyt, appreciating the diverse perspectives players like Pie, Amaechi and Hayhurst and writers like Sullivan bring, reaching out to and including fans of other teams and sports, celebrating sports and teams for what they are rather than what they're not, and appreciating the work of others even when we don't agree with it. To modify Rush a bit, perhaps it's possible to be cool without casting anyone out.

Canucks - Blackhawks Game IV live blog

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 23:43:00 +0000

The last one of these was a lot of fun, so we're doing it again! Join me and a cast of Internet types for a live blog of tonight's Vancouver - Chicago game. Will the Canucks sweep the series, or will the Blackhawks live to fight another day? Find out in the live blog below, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern (5 p.m. Pacific). All are welcome to join!

Canucks - Blackhawks Game IV

Canucks - Blackhawks Game II live blog

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 01:33:00 +0000

I'll be live-blogging tonight's Canucks - Blackhawks clash with an assortment of interweb friends, including Beau Brace and Josh Koebert. Vancouver's up 1-0 in the series after a 2-0 win Wednesday night, but Chicago certainly can't be written off yet. Everyone's welcome; drop in and give us your thoughts on the game, the series and the rest of the playoffs so far. The puck drops in Vancouver at 7 p.m. local (10 p.m. Eastern), so swing by and join us then!

Canucks - Blackhawks Game II

NHL playoff preview: setting up the first round

noreply@blogger.com (Andrew Bucholtz) — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:42:00 +0000

The NHL playoffs get rolling tonight, with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins going head-to-head in one early game, the Phoenix Coyotes and Detroit Red Wings facing off in another clash and the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals in a third. There are also a pair of late games, featuring the Vancouver Canucks and Chicago Blackhawks and the Nashville Predators and Anaheim Ducks. There should be some excellent hockey on display tonight, and hopefully for much of the rest of the playoffs as well. Here's a preview of each first-round matchup, organized by game time (broadcast info from The 506):

(4) Pittsburgh Penguins - (5) Tampa Bay Lightning

First game: Wednesday, 7 p.m. Eastern, CBC (Ontario east, except Windsor)

This is an interesting one. The Penguins have a stronger defence and better goaltending (I'll happily take Marc-Andre Fleury over Dwayne Roloson), but their offence doesn't look as promising without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin (at least to start). Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is deep up front with the likes of Steven Stamkos, Martin St. Louis and Vincent Lecavalier, but their depth is an issue just about everywhere else. I like Pittsburgh in this one, but the Lightning shouldn't be an easy out.

Prediction: Penguins in six

(3) Detroit Red Wings - (6) Phoenix Coyotes

First game: Wednesday, 7 p.m. Eastern, CBC (Manitoba west, plus Windsor)

The Red Wings are trying to fight off age to make a deep playoff run yet again, while the Coyotes are looking to pick up their first playoff series win since the move to Phoenix. The biggest question for Detroit appears to be in net, where Jimmy Howard hasn't exactly been all that successful this season. Meanwhile, goaltending might be the Coyotes' best aspect, as Ilya Bryzgalov has had another good year in net for them. The Red Wings seem deeper up front (they'll need that depth thanks to an injury to Henrik Zetterberg) and on the blue line, but I like the Coyotes to pull this one out thanks to their goalie.

Prediction: Coyotes in seven

(1) Washington Capitals - (8) New York Rangers:

First game: 7:30 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, TSN

It's an interesting one-versus-eight matchup out East, as the Capitals have long been burdened with the tag of playoff underacheivers, while the Rangers have frequently struggled to even get to the postseason in recent years (falling to Philadelphia in a pre-playoff shootout last year). One of these teams is going to have to step up. For Washington, Alex Ovechkin hasn't been as dominant as usual this year, but they've still gotten solid performances from most of the rest of the lineup. They had a great regular season, and they don't look as top-heavy as they have in the past. Beating Henrik Lundqvist isn't going to be easy, but the Caps' offence is about more than just Ovechkin these days, and that should help them pull away here.

Prediction: Rangers in five

(1) Vancouver Canucks - (8) Chicago Blackhawks:

First game: 10 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, CBC

We've seen the Canucks fall to the Blackhawks plenty of times in the postseason, including last year, but this year's teams are considerably different. Chicago faced plenty of attrition from their Stanley Cup-winning nucleus, while the Canucks got stronger in the offseason and delivered by far the best regular-season performance in franchise history. The Blackhawks are still a formidable opponent, but they're not as dominant as they were, while the Canucks are a better and more balanced team than they used to be. The injuries they suffered and survived this year have tested their depth, and the results have generally been very positive. I think Vancouver gets a little revenge here. (Also, I'll be live-blogging Game Two of this one here Friday night, and possibly later games as well.)

Prediction: Canucks in six

(4) Anaheim Ducks - (5) Nashville Predators:

First game: 10:30 p.m. Eastern Wednesday, TSN

This matchup probably isn't going to get a lot of attention thanks to its overlap with Canucks - Blackhawks, as its teams are far less well-known. Still, there's plenty of interesting stuff here, particularly the battle between Anaheim's tremendous forward line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan and Nashville's superb goaltender, Pekka Rinne. The Predators also have a strong defence, led by Shea Weber and Ryan Suter, and they're not going to prove an easy nut to crack. Still, I think offence will eventually prevail.

Prediction: Ducks in six

(3) Boston Bruins - (6) Montreal Canadiens:

First game: 7 p.m. Eastern Thursday, CBC

One of hockey's most storied rivalries gets another installment this year, and it's had plenty of recent fuel to throw on the fire thanks to the Zdeno Chara hit on Max Pacioretty. On the ice, we should see an excellent goaltending duel between Tim Thomas and Carey Price. The main question is if the small-but-skilled Canadiens can hang with the bruising Bruins. Many don't seem to think so, but I like their chances; Montreal's coming into this series with a lot of emotion, and they've got more talent than people generally give them credit for. The NHL isn't all about big, hard-hitting guys any more; there's plenty of room for speed and skill, and I think the Canadiens have the edge there.

Prediction: Canadiens in seven

(2) Philadelphia Flyers - (7) Buffalo Sabres:

First game: 7:30 p.m. Eastern Thursday, TSN

This is another size-versus-speed matchup. The Flyers are still channeling their Broad Street Bullies era, and that emphasis on physical play took them to the Stanley Cup Final last season and a second seed this year. I'm not sure it's going to work against Buffalo, though. The Flyers do have plenty of offensive talent, including Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, but don't write off Buffalo either; they've got plenty of scoring depth, including Drew Stafford, Tyler Ennis and Thomas Vanek. The goaltending matchup in particular is stacked in the Sabres' favour. They have the reliable Ryan Miller, while Philly is bouncing back and forth between Sergei Bobrovsky and Brian Boucher. That might be enough to give the Sabres the win, especially considering that Chris Pronger is battling injuries.

Prediction: Sabres in seven

(2) San Jose Sharks - (7) Los Angeles Kings:

First game: Thursday, 10 p.m. Eastern, TSN

The Battle of California (or two of the three California teams, at least)'s always interesting, but this looks a bit imbalanced on paper. The Sharks have long had a tough time in the playoffs, but they're coming into this year's postseason on a considerable hot streak. Meanwhile, the Kings slumped their way into the seven seed and haven't looked particularly impressive lately. They do have a good defence, though, led by Jack Johnson and Drew Doughty, and Jonathan Quick is a solid goalie. What worries me about the Kings is their lack of depth up front; they've struggled to score ever since Anze Kopitar got hurt, while San Jose can field the likes of Logan Couture, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley. The Sharks just seem to have too much firepower for the Kings.

Prediction: Sharks in five