Intelligent Sports Talk

Giants in April

2008-04-30T14:57:00.001-07:00

In the Bay Area, the San Francisco Giants are the alpha team of a two team market. They are celebrating 50 years in San Francisco this year in their third ball park and are also in what is euphemistically called a rebuilding process. This means not much is expected of them. Their most recent history has been dominated by one Barry Bonds, now the owner of the record for most home runs hit in the majors. Enthusiasm for this once hallowed record is dampened by four interrelated facts:

1. It was a sloppy kill. Bonds was anticipated to break the record in 2005, but because of injuries and aging he didn't do so until 2007. The 2006 and 2007 seasons were painful to watch. Bonds was a shadow of his former self and the quest for the record took precedence over everything, including and notably winning.

2. Bonds was the leading poster boy for that media extravaganza commonly referred to as "The Steroid Scandal." This diversion provided entertainment for millions and well paying jobs for thousands and featured the management of the game getting suddenly all concerned and moral over the use of some drugs that may or not have been illegal at the time they were used and seem to enhance body strength, stamina, and eyesight.

3. The home run as part of the game was cheapened by various management decisions. Among these were building parks with dimensions more conducive to home runs, constructing a livlier ball, and reducing the strike zone to the size of a small laptop.

4. Bonds is a jerk.

The Giants parted company with Barry Bonds during the past off season and found themselves left with a team with little talent, few young prospects, a number of overpaid over-the-hill veterans, and a reputation that scared away nearly all attractive free agents. They spent a hugely inordinate amount of money on one pitcher who has not performed well at all and let one of their few serviceable everyday players leave for not much money.

After a miserable spring training record it went without saying that expectations were low at the start of April. The Giants looked terrible.

But now at the end of April it would seem that there is some hope. Not much, they have perhaps the least talent of any team, but some. More to the point they are an intriguing team to watch having swapped the home run for an aggressive brand of "small ball" that relies a lot on speed and situational hitting. Their pitching is outstanding in places and pretty good overall.

The Upside:

1. They have some fine looking starting pitchers, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, and Jonathan Sanchez.
2. The bullpen has some strong hard throwers.
3. The outfield is, well, reasonable. The one quality free agent they were able to lure, Aaron Rowand, looks solid in center. Randy Winn is a solid everyday player in right. And, to be brutally frank about it, anybody would be an improvement over Bonds in left.
4. Bengie Molina is a solid defensive catcher and shows signs of being a real clutch hitter. Sadly, the Giants hit him cleanup, but then he's probably the best they've got.
5. A few of the young guys show promise. Notably among these is Fred Lewis who looks very much like a keeper in left field and batting leadoff. Eugenio Velez and Dan Ortmeier also show definite promise.
6. They have a lot of speed and use it to advantage at times.
7. They seem well motivated. I attribute a lot of that to the absence of Bonds.
8. Some of the over-the-hill vets, notably Ray Durham and Rich Aurilia, relieved of trying to start every day, have become useful utility players.

The Downside:

1. They don't have enough talent. Period. There's no way they can compete or even reach 500 with the talent they've got.
2. The infield is a disgrace. Second and short are currently manned by raw rookies who are trying to compete far above their current abilities defensively. You have to admire their effort and spirit, but they're out of their depth. First and third are manned by a revolving door of mediocrities.
3. Their putative ace starter, one Barry Zito, has been completely ineffective.
4. They can't seem to play good defense, certainly not consistently.
5. They make a lot of through bad decisions of their base runners or through their inattention.
6. The bullpen will not last the season at the rate it's currently being used.
7. No depth whatsoever.

Prognosis:

The Giants are fortunate to play in a weak division in a weak league. There are only a few good teams in the National League and only one, Arizona, in the National League West. Watching the Rockies one marvels that they actually made the World Series (and wonders what that tells us about the league). San Diego looks not much better than the Giants and they do not play with any enthusiasm. The Dodgers are adrift in a sea of ennui and mediocrity. So the Giants fit in rather nicely.

Right now they're fun to watch and when Lincecum, Vain, or Sanchez are pitching, they're downright dangerous.

Is This Necessary?

2008-01-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

I can hardly watch pro football on television anymore. There are the incessant commercials, many more than in the past, that have radically changed the game. The more important the game, the more commercials. This is readily apparent to those of us who actually attend games and are subjected to pauses in the game that seem not only unnecessary but uncomfortably long. It's very hard to find statistics about the amount of commercial time in, say, an NFL playoff game, but I would bet plenty that it's much more than it was 20 years ago, and much much more than 50 years ago when TV first aired the games.

So players get a lot more down time to recover from the brutality of the game resulting in a game that is much more brutal. Not long ago I remarked to a friend that I was increasingly uncomfortable with the college game due to the prevalence of thuggery among the players and he responded that they need to play like thugs in order to survive. My friend is right, I fear.

Other changes in the game have had the same effect. Unlimited substitution has created specialized defenses for particular situations for example. Equipment has improved tremendously. And of course the players are faster and bigger, the last abetted in no small part by the development of anabolic steroids.

So brutality is the metier of the game today which in turn has brought in the erstwhile fans of brutal sports like boxing. Speed is the antidote and, of course, well rested players will run faster contributing again to more brutality. Force as a function of speed. Force and speed have replaced power and stamina as key elements thus washing out a lot of the game's subtle aspects. Might as well watch roller derby.

The basic problem is that the game has become a branch of the television industry meaning it's no longer a sport but a form of entertainment. The game is tailored for maximum appeal, so not only is brutality promoted, but rules are continually tweaked to increase offense and the number of last minute victories. From the television standpoint the game is managed to increase the number of viewers so you get a lot of empty talk, purporting to analyze or "break down" the game, a particular play, coaches' strategies, what "adjustments" need to be made, or any number of items. The words in quotation marks are words one frequently hear on telecasts. As near as I can tell they don't mean anything more than "talk about".

One of my pet peeves, and others will be brought forward over time, is the bogus pass interference call. The pass interference rule was brought into the game to penalize a defensive player who knocked down or bumped an offensive player as the latter was about to catch a forward pass. This has morphed and grown over time to penalize any contact other than incidental. The first problem arises from the fact that the penalty assumes the pass will be caught. This is from the original intent that this was an egregious foul committed in desperation to forestall a sure completion. So the penalty is now often called for dubious or non-existent contact even in instances where it is questionable that the catch would be made. The second problem arises from the fact that the increased utilization of the foul is to increase scoring. Since scoring points improves ratings, officials are prone to call it even in cases of doubt.

My favorite instance of the stupidity of this rule came up at the end of a playoff game between the Giants and Forty Niners a few years ago. The Giants were lined up to kick a game winning field goal at the end of the game but the snap was botched. The holder ran around desperately with the ball as the clock expired and finally threw it downfield aimlessly. A player from each team, both big bulky linemen, jumped for the ball but neither caught it. There was considerable contact between the two prior to the arrival of the ball, but no flag was thrown. Niners win. The Giants bitched mildly afterwards that pass interference should have been called and that was that. Until the league formally apologized to the Giants the next day saying pass interference, indeed, should have been called since the Giants' lunk happened to have lined up as an end on the field goal team. I had two thoughts. the first, nothing new or remarkable, was how far the league will go to appease New York. The second was wow if they're going to start apologizing every time they fuck up a pass interference call they'll need to hire a bunch of people and rent some more office space.

Baseball 2007

2007-11-01T13:26:00.001-07:00

With the completion of yet another dreary World Series, the long long baseball season finally drew to a close just short of November. Both the League Championship Series and the World Series were played in conditions more suited to football. It should not be surprising that outside of the cities involved no one paid much attention to these games. Many post season games were televised by cable networks not available to many fans and the World Series was televised by the worst of the big networks, Fox.

The season itself held the usual number of compelling stories, unexpected developments, and outstanding games. Baseball has not made the move into the realm of marketing driven entertainment as well as football, or I'd argue, even basketball. Its future does not look as rosy as that of the other sports. Still, management blithely keeps its head well buried in the sand. The broad outlines of where this is heading are beginning to come into focus and it's not going to be good if you have any love for the game.

But, on the other hand, you get a story like the Rockies and all seems well again. Largely ignored by the alleged experts in March and not visible for most of the season, the Colorado entry went on a late season winning record the likes of which is seen very often, if ever.

The Rockies are constructed on what I like to call the post-Moneyball model which, because it was so successful in this instance, we can expect more of. That is to say, their roster was dominated by young players that had been carefully evaluated by scouts and coaches who watched them play as opposed to evaluating their statistics. These guys were then trained to play a particular type of baseball that stressed collective over individual accomplishment.

Playing in the insipid National League West Division, they dawdled around .500 for most of the season, good enough to stay within sight of the prize in their talent poor environment and then caught fire in September, managing to tie the flawed Padres for the Wild Card position in the playoffs. This tie was settled in a single game that will long be remembered, the Rockies prevailing in the 13th inning. After giving up two runs in the top of the frame, they surged back with three in the home half, the winner coming on a disputed play at the plate on a sacrifice fly. History will note that replays showed the umpire's "safe" call to be doubtful at best. Let's hope history does not also tell how this led to the institution of replay reviews. I mean please God, spare us.

Looking back on the season as a whole, the first thing that strikes the observer is the wide gap between the leagues. No one who was still paying attention was surprised by the ease with which the Red Sox dispatched the Rockies in the series. The gap in abilities was considerable and, besides, management in their wisdom made the Rockies sit for nine days prior to Game 1. Only one team in the National League had the kind of talent needed to compete on the other side, the Mets, and they put themselves on the shelf early with one of the more spectacular choke jobs in recent memory. Their unexpected demise left the Phillies to pick up the division crown and quietly drop three in a row, two at home, so they could start thinking about next year early. Elsewhere in the division, the Braves once more showed that their rebuild hasn't panned out just yet while the Marlins and Nationals, both built on the Rockies' model, brought up the rear.

The Central supplanted the West as most pathetic division in the game. The Reds, Astros, and Pirates were pretty much uniformly dreadful, while the Cardinals had one of the worst seasons for a defending champion in recent memory. It started bad for them with their slightly off manager Tony LaRussa getting busted for a DUI at spring training while passed out in his vehicle at a stop light. Things turned worse when one of their players, thoroughly drunk, hit a stopped vehicle at high speed and killed himself. On the field they were not very good and stumbled throughout the season. Their one bright light, Rick Ankeil the erstwhile pitcher who suffered one of the worst meltdowns even in the playoffs a few years ago, came back as a hard hitting outfielder to provide a boost in August that looked very promising. Then it was revealed that he was probably using illegal drugs.

So the division was left to the unlikely Brewers and perennially hopeful Cubs. For a long time the Milwaukee crew, another one built on the Colorado model, led, but they finally folded under the pressure of their unexpected success. This left the Cubs and for a few days, dreamers envisioned a Cubs-Red Sox World Series. This idea died quickly as the Cubs quietly lost three in a row.

The team that bested the Cubbies were yet another built in the post-Moneyball mode, the Arizona Diamondbacks. They won out in the west after a protracted four way race with Colorado, San Diego, and the Dodgers. Arizona actually gave up more total runs than they scored during the season and statistically were middle of the pack or lower in most major categories. So much for the wonders of Bill James and other Moneyball advocates. Their problem is that those elements of the game not subject to statistical analysis get short shrift. So the Diamondbacks played tough defense, saved their pitching to when it counted, and played smart throughout. It won them a trip to the LCS where they were swept by the Rockies, in retrospect the better team.

The Padres were expected to win the division, but faded badly in September. As did the talent rich Dodgers, beset by internal friction. As for the Giants, they were as dreadful as anything in the Central Division plus had to endure the Barry Bonds sideshow. Their future is not bright.

In the good league, the Red Sox prevailed in the annual struggle with the Yankees primarily because of superior pitching. David Ortiz established himself as the premiere clutch hitter in the game and teamed with my favorite eccentric, Man Ram, presents a serious problem to any pitcher trying to navigate the middle of their batting order. With solid hitters throughout the rest of the order, the Red Sox were deserving winners of this year's title. But it was their pitching that cinched it. Beckett is probably the best today and Schilling is usually tough in the important games. Dice K was a worthy addition and a pleasing sideshow. All in all a very worthy champion.

Elsewhere in the East, the Yankees managed to capture the Wild Card berth with a lineup that rivaled the Sox but not much pitching. And then of course they presented the usual off field drama culminating in the retirement/sacking of Torre. The Yanks managed to take one from the Indians before throwing in the the towel. The rest of the East was pretty dreadful, although the Jays showed some mid summer life. The Orioles continue to be the worst managed franchise in the game and the Rays are simply an embarrassment to the game.

The Indians won out over the most competitive division, the American League Central. They parlayed a stout lineup with a couple of first rate starting pitchers to hold off the Tigers and Twins, both of whom made strong showings. Of the White Sox and Royals nothing need be said. Meanwhile, out west, the Angels cruised in a division weakened by Oakland injuries and Ranger strife. Seattle made a run for awhile but laked the horses in the end.

The Red Sox and Indians played the only series worth watching and for a time it looked like there'd be an upset that would set Cleveland up for their first championship in 60 years. But they couldn't close the deal at home and the Sox rolled them badly back in Boston.

The series was a total bust, I couldn't watch it after three innings. It looked a lot like the Little League World Series back in the day when Taiwan routinely sent a team of ringers. The Rockies magic was melted by the nine day layoff and the Sox picked them off like fish in a barrel. Yet another black eye for baseball.

Two years ago Ozzie Guillen was hailed as a genius when his White Sox cam out of nowhere to capture the prize. Now with a comparable roster he's just another Venezuelan piece of fecal material. The point being is there's not much form in the game any more. Yes the best team won this year but they had to overcome three match points against the Indians. And the extremely unlikely Rockies played in the series. The best team in the National League, in fact the only team that could even compete in the Junior circuit, failed to even reach the playoffs. Here in the Bay Area, the GM of the Giants reacts to criticism that he's built a marginally talented team by pointing these things out. How the Cardinals took the flag even thought hey only won 83 games in the season, by noting the Red Sox have won twice in four years after waiting over 90 years. The message is simple, luck has become very prevalent in determining championships. The smart strategy is to play well enough to get into the playoffs then hope to get lucky. This worked for the Angels in 2002, the Marlins in 2003, both the White Sox and Cardinals in 2005, the Cards again in 2006 and the Rockies this year. With the exception of the Angels all these teams were far from first rate. But all played in the World Series and three of them won.

Respecting the Game

2007-10-17T11:29:00.000-07:00

When I was first retired, I didn’t always know what to do with myself, so among other minor vices I listened to too much “sports talk radio”. For those of you not conversant with this particular form of entertainment, the format consists of a “host” who offers opinions about various aspects of the professional sports/entertainment industry and “callers”, individuals who phone the show to offer their opinions on the opinions offered by the host.

There is a lot of sports talk radio on both a national and local level and some of it can be entertaining from time to time. A few of the hosts display quite a lot of knowledge about their beat and sometimes offer opinions that are informed by that knowledge and are therefore insightful. But mostly it’s dreck. At its worst it panders to the racist fascist fringe, which is to say a lot of angry white guys who never managed to get past adolescence. Thus the boorishness and hubris of say Barry Bonds or Terrill Owens, both black athletes who display a lot of arrogance in public, are sometimes elevated to the status of some sort of crime against humanity. More frequently, however, the yahoos go on about how these guys (read niggers) don’t show any respect for the game.

Well, what a laugh. I should point out what is only logical and that is sports management and the media which underwrite and profit greatly from this particular genre are always portrayed as wise and all beneficent, working tirelessly to please you, the fan, who is, after all, the bedrock of the industry. They and you know how to respect the game, both of you selfless protectors of the great legacies of our national pride. Or something along those lines.

Well, excuse me if I dissent here. Television (TV) and the corporate wolves that run Major League Baseball (MLB) respected the shit out of the game just last Sunday night when they put on a game, a very important game at least according to them, on October 14 in Denver, Colorado, at night while it was raining. The temperature was in the 40s, may have even dipped down into the 30s, they didn’t talk much about that, but the people in the stands were well bundled up against winter weather. Then they did another one on Monday, not raining or quite so cold near as I could tell, but far from ideal or even acceptable baseball weather.

Furthering this pattern of respect for the game, the World Series will take place in Denver and either Boston or Cleveland and may stretch into November. And the games will be played at night. There’s a measurable chance that it could snow at one of these games. It did snow frequently last April (or was it late March?) in cities where major league games were scheduled. These games, being not nearly as important as the Denver fiasco, were sensibly postponed. Postponing the Denver game would have disrupted the television schedule too much, so that one, that very important one, was played.

We'll look at some other ways management and the media show their respect for the game in future posts.

Fan in the Stands

2007-09-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Now that pro sports and certain elements of college sports have become subsidiaries to the entertainment and gambling industries, we might want to look at who has won and who has lost because of the transition. By far, the biggest losers are the fans who actually attend the events. Here we differentiate between fans at the game and consumers at the game.

Consumers go for the cheap thrills and big plays, but mostly so they can say that they were there in case something a little unusual happens. They are happy to be there, and for games the industry assigns the adjective "important", they will pay very high prices for a ticket. The industry provides outlets for scalped tickets nowadays, so a they are always available. If the game falls short of their expectations, the industry thoughtfully provides alternative entertainment, dot racing being my own personal favorite.

Fans, though, don't do so well. First off the demand created for tickets by the marketeers have driven their prices up much faster than the fans' ability to pay. And game times are changed on very short notice to accommodate the industry needs leaving the fan in the lurch at times. Schedules offer little help, they are managed to maximize television exposure. Football games are played every day of the week except Tuesday and Wednesday. Baseball starts earlier in the season and ends later which means a fan in Cleveland or Chicago may be watching while the temperature drops into he thirties.

At the stadium, fans are poorly treated. They are a captive audience, so food and drink are very costly. Their movement is restricted. Rest room lines are long, particularly womens'. The action on the field is stilted and filled with unnecessary delays to accommodate commercials.

The big winners are the athletes, the sports books, and of course television. People actually at the game, whether fans or consumers, essentially play the role of extras at a large entertainment event. The odd thing is they pay, often exorbitant prices for the privilege. Fans need to organize for a better deal.

Reason for Being

2007-08-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

I have been a fan of professional sports all my life and have become quite dismayed to see the various professional sports enterprises devolve into subsidiaries of the gambling and entertainment industries. Neither of these two behemoths has much to do with the principles of sport, fair play, respect for opponents, adherence to coherent rules, and as a result they have tarnished them perhaps irreversibly.

One consequence of this has been the rise of "sports talk radio", a subsidiary of all talk radio, where you will hear some the most uninformed, bigoted, delusional, and just plain stupid commentary you'll ever hear. And then there's the folks who call in.

These people are not fans, they're consumers. There's a lot of intelligent things that can be said about the state of professional sports today, but not in the mass media. They are all part of the industry and they certainly don't want the consumer thinking.

So this is part therapy, part outrage, and part attempt to find some more intelligent commentary. I plan to post once a week at first just to see how it goes. Hopefully I can ramp that up over time. Friday will be post day.