The L.A. Times’ T.J. Simers usually dishes out shit as often to the owners of franchises in the L.A. sports market as he does to players and managers (this is someone who refers to Dodgers owner Frank McCourt as the “Parking Lot Attendant”), but in the middle of rightfully taking Andruw Jones to task for his crap hitting, he mocks this particular notion that Jones espouses:
Saturday night the fans in Dodger Stadium booed Jones’ name when the starting lineup was announced. “Don’t you care that the fans in Dodger Stadium have turned on you?”
“No,” he said. “That’s their problem.”
I suggested that it’s not human for someone not to be bothered by booing fans in their own stadium, and he stuck out his tongue and made some noise.
“How do I write that down?” I said.
All together now: “I don’t care,” he said.
Without the fans, I said, there’s no reason for you to be here in Los Angeles playing baseball and no way you’re getting paid $36 million over the next two years.
“I don’t care,” he said. “You play for the team, you don’t play for the fans. The fans never played the game. They don’t know.”
Both a Tubbo and clueless, which really isn’t a very good combination for the player with the highest annual salary in Dodgers history.
Well, Jones is right. The team needs the fans to survive and the players who get paid those high salaries need them, but essentially, he is correct in saying that he’s ultimately responsible to his coaches, his managers, and the front office directly. Fan consideration is an indirect thing, really — and players train themselves to ignore it, to put it aside. Jones’ response sounds juvenile and aloof, and it is — but it’s probably the best way to go if he’s ever going to try and break out of a slump. It’s kind of silly for Simers to ridicule him for not caring about the fans booing him because ignoring the fans and trying to concentrate on his game is what he’s supposed to do. Take him to task for his high strikeouts, bad power numbers, and miniscule batting average, but if Jones was super-concerned with the fans’ response to him, it might actually fuck him up more.
Most wheeling and dealing media fun has to do with the print or online writing end of things, which is why I don’t have a huge media section of posts despite knowing TV journalism. However, this is worth noting, and plenty of others already have, although Sports Media Watch was first to hit my RSS reader with it: SI’s Richard Deitsch writing that Hannah Storm will be going to Bristol as host of a new weekday morning version of SportsCenter, which will be followed by two extended episodes to get the network up to 11 AM Pacific with some form of non-repeated SCs.
Storm has cred in both sports broadcasting and the morning show milieu, although CBS’ Early Show was shite before she got there and hasn’t gotten much better since. It’s a smart hire. What’s more interesting is that if the announcement is true, it’s admitting a couple of things: that First Take’s attempt to be the Today Show of the sports world is not catching on at all over on ESPN2, which makes sense when you consider that the format has been ill-executed from the get-go. From its Cold Pizza genesis in NYC to its current incarnation, it’s a joke of a show, more notable for the outrage peddled on a daily basis by Skip Bayless and whomever happens to be sitting across from him during the 1st and 10 debate segements.
It’s also ceding the fact that repeating a SportsCenter until 2 PM EST or so can’t fly, not if you consider yourself even a somewhat serious news enterprise. (Whether ESPN actually is a serious news enterprise in terms of sport is another issue.) Why six to eight hours of a repeated SC was ever permissible remains the question; it left the network looking flat-footed if something broke in the morning hours.
Whether this produces any sort of better coverage obviously has yet to be seen. I doubt the tone of the network’s coverage of sports will be any better; it will simply be more timely.
Generally, if a basketball team is in absolutely horrific shape, I tend to think that you have to build back up by starting with commitment on the defensive end, creating offense through turnovers, etc. Then again, I am a yahoo who watches sports on TV and types about that, so the grain of salt principle applies. Despite not being as hardcore an Isiah Thomas slammer as others (James Dolan is just as responsible for the mess, and Zeke should have been fired after the Anucha Browne Sanders settlement), the Knicks as currently composed are a wreck with a few bright spots, and short of a roster overhaul, they’re not going to be any good for a couple more years.
So, why bring in Mike D’Antoni to run his Seven Seconds or less system with a roster that’s totally unsuited to run it? I’ll hazard a guess as to why D’Antoni took the offer (or, well, several guesses):
- Better money than Chicago would be able to offer
- Anything he accomplishes in the Garden will be a severe improvement, so there will be kid gloves for the first year, even for the NYC media
- Donnie Walsh won’t intrude on D’Antoni’s basketball principles as much as Bulls GM John Paxson would have (Paxson seems to like coaches who emphasize defense; I expect Avery Johnson to wind up in Chicago now)
This still doesn’t mesh to me. Unless D’Antoni is going to coax something out of Stephon Marbury or convert Jamal Crawford or Nate Robinson into something useful on the O-end, he won’t have the guard play and it’s safe to assume that Eddy Curry and Zach Randolph are both ill-suited for his game plan (Randolph more so than Curry; D’Antoni could probably find a way to work Curry into the system.)
On instant assessment I suspect the Knicks would have been better off with the Little General or his successor in Dallas, Rick Carlisle. Carlisle seems a sensible hire in the sense that he is able to get a lot out of players, motivate them up, get them to play hard — and he’ll have to try something with a team that never should have traded away first-rounders and its young point guard to the Nets in a desperation trade after Memphis gift-wrapped Pau Gasol for the Lakers.
Carlisle may struggle more than D’Antoni because it will be his first head coaching gig in the tougher conference, and the Mavericks may get worse before they get better with Jason Kidd inching ever closer to 40 and Josh Howard disappearing.
I hate Roger Goodell, a sanctimonious prick who decided to get his Little Lord Napoleon act on with the NFL players and is facing some nice little backlash from not being as hard on teams as he is on players with the whole Patriots taping bit, going so far as to destroy the tapes and consider the matter “finished” even though anyone with half a brain knows the cover-up is almost always worse than the original crime.
Despite defending him and even mocking him, I hate Bill Belichick because he’s a curmudgeonly crumbum with an arrogance factor that’s off the charts. Oh, and he willingly broke the rules.
I hate Senator Arlen Specter because he’s another sanctimonious prick who has better things to be doing in the U.S. Senate rather than trying to hold Goodell’s feet to the fire and saying it’s in the public interest to know the NFL is clean and honest. How the good Republican senator from Comcast can talk about honesty and integrity (the man talked nothing but game about putting a check on President Bush regarding war strategy and civil liberties, and then folded faster than origami paper) is beyond my range of comprehension.
I hate Matt Walsh for allowing the whole “Pats taped the Rams before the 2002 Super Bowl” rumor to fester in the hope of trying to protect his own ass legally. The guy seems scuzzier than he lets on, particularly because he stole the tapes (let’s not forget that.)
I hate all the forms of sports media for labeling this whole matter “Spy-gate”, which allowed them to lapse into stupid cliche and continuing with the mockery of crucial points of American history by using the “-gate” suffix as poorly as the political media does.
Now, we have information about the tapes that Walsh turned over — and several teams were taped, including the Steelers in the AFC Championship game. Naturally, the senatorial asshole wants the taping jerk to testify in order to embarrass the front office prick, who will then be shamed into further punishment of the sideline fucknozzle (NYT columnist Harvey Araton is calling for Coach Hobo to get a year’s suspension.) The NFL, for its part, is saying none of the tapes show anything that’s actually new (well, what did you expect them to say?)
I’d love nothing more for this story to die. Yes, the Patriots broke the rules, and the NFL was too hasty in destroying the tapes initially. With that fuck-up by Lord Rog’s office, this load of crap now has a shelf life much longer than it should have been, and is now being driven by some completely unlikeable people on all sides.
I know I’m a day late on this, but it’s still cracking me up like crazy: Ernie Johnson gives Charles Barkley a Ron Burgundy moment:
Thanks to Fornelli at Foul Balls for sending it along.
While David Stern addressed the whole clock issue in an interview with TNT’s David Aldridge two nights ago during Jazz-Lakers, saying he would bring it to the competition committee, it’s nice to see that he says the committee will address a far more insidious problem (at least in my eyes): Hack-a-Shaq.
Stern indicated he had a problem with “the idea that, ‘Hey, look at me, I’m going to hit this guy as soon as the ball goes into play, even though he’s standing under the other basket.’ I think that conversation has been started again, by the media, by fans etc. We’re going to look at it again.”
It needs to be looked at again; in fact, something should be done to make it a less attractive option to coaches like Gregg Popovich, who used it to an annoying extent in the first round against the Suns and used it in the same annoying manner when Shaq was with the Lakers and the two teams met in the playoffs. Personally, I suggest two shots and the ball for fouls like that. If you take the incentive away for him missing them — you get the ball back with no points scored — you cut down on obvious fouling just to send the worst free throw shooter to the line.
Unfortunately, Aldridge did not ask about and Stern did not volunteer anything about the flopping epidemic that seems to have infiltrated the league over the past few years, with some players acting as if they’re really covert members of the Italian national soccer team on the court (and it’s not just European players in the Association; American ballers do this more now too and expect every call to go their way with it.) This is the big problem that the networks won’t explain and the league won’t look into much, because if they have to do something about obvious flops, then they have to look into the star system of fouling and how refs will blow whistles for more established players.
I don’t think anyone really expected the Hornets to go up 3-0 on the Spurs, but I bet there were a lot of people rooting for just that to happen. A change in scenery from the Crescent City to the Alamo not only helped, but putting Bruce Bowen on Peja Stojakovic did too. Chris Paul had a 35 point night and nine assists, and David West got 23 and 11 boards, but keeping Peja from shooting deadly threes helps, as does the unfettered penetration both Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili got in the game. Both scored 31 a piece and spurred an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter that put the game out of reach. The onus is on New Orleans to take a game on the road now, because if the Spurs take both games at home, New Orleans will lose the momentum completley.
The Cavaliers are not screwed yet. It does not look good, but if Atlanta can take three games at home from the Celtics, so can Cleveland. But they’re going to need LeBron to show up in a more meaningful way. James had 21 points, but he shot 25% from the field in order to do it — and if he’s jacking up 24 shots, that’s a really bad trend for a team with no visible offensive set outside of “give it to LeBron and hell do something with it.” Shooting in the low 30% as a team won’t help either, and having Paul Pierce and Ray Allen break out of funks now isn’t a good sign either.
Photo: AP/David J. Phillip
Diamondbacks 8, Phillies 3- Brandon Webb throws a complete game, and it wasn’t even as close as it looked — he gave up two runs in the ninth. Brett Myers gave up seven in the loss, including a two-run homer to Chris Young and a two-run double to Chris Snyder. Webb is the first pitcher to go 8-0 since Jon Garland did it with the White Sox.
Rangers 5, Mariners 0 - Not very notable outside of Richie Sexson’s taking umbrage at Kason Gabbard throwing high and rushing the mound. Sexson got tossed, Gabbard only pitched a bit longer before leaving with a leg injury and the bullpen continued to shut the M’s out for the second straight night. Ian Kinsler hit a two-run jack off Felix Hernandez and got plunked the next time he was up (which probably set up the whole deal.)
Rockies 9, Cardinals 3 - Colorado gets a four-run first inning right out of the gate, and the five other runs they drove in off of Kyle Lohse would be just insurance. Nelson de la Rosa scattered four hits over 5.2 innings and Matt Holliday had four singles in the win.
Yankees 6, Indians 3 - Bad night for Paul Byrd: Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Robinson Cano all homer off him, and then the reliever taking his place immediately gives up one to Wilson Betemit (the latter three all are hitting below the Mendoza line.)
Marlins 7, Brewers 2 - Florida is still in first place in the NL East thanks to a three-game sweep of Milwaukee, which can’t hit to save its life right now. However, Matt Treanor and Jorge Cantu can, going yard off of Brewers starter Carlos Villanueva.
Red Sox 5, Tigers 1 - Josh Beckett gets strikeout #1,000 for the career in seven innings of work while Justin Verlander gets pounded again thanks to Jason Varitek’s two-run single and Kevin Youkilis’ 2-run homer. Curtis Granderson is the unlikely member of the Golden Sombrero club, striking out 4 times (never good for a leadoff guy.)
Photo: AP/Ross D. Franklin
The question is whether the Lakers will lose before reaching the conference finals (they will; Utah is too good a team at home not to take one game) and why the Jazz came out so flat looking early, after Kobe got his MVP statue. There were a lot of fouls called really early — most of them on Utah, as happens often — and when it puts Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur out for long stretches of the game, the Jazz were fortunate to not be down by 20 at any point during the game. The Lakers were operating at light-speed on offense, reacting to movement quickly and crisply. Kobe is a reliable 30, Pau and Lamar Odom got theirs, but watching Derek Fisher be able to drain shots in tough times shows how much he means to this team now. If the Jazz can take anything out of losing by 10, it’s that Paul Millsap kept them in the game in the 2nd, for stretches filling Boozer’s role.
Maybe I should go back on that “Orlando is toast” notion if Chauncey Billups can’t actually play. This was the Detroit game off, where some of their weaknesses come to the fore (mostly those of Rasheed Wallace on defense against Dwight Howard and Rashard Lewis). The Pistons need Chauncey to guide them; without him, there goe stheir biggest advantage in the skill of their guards.
LeBron won’t shoot 2-for-18 again. Trouble for Cleveland is that Paul Pierce and Ray Allen won’t combine to go 2-for-18 again either. Who else gets to step up for the Cavs? I mean, when two of Boston’s Big Three are down, Rajon Rondo becomes a steady hand, Sam Cassell chips in 10 off the bench, and James Posey plays lockdown on defense. LeBron is going to have tap into that domination gear from last year’s Eastern Finals to even get his team back to that particular round, because it appears Kevin Garnett wants to prove that he can dominate and take his ball club to a win if he needs to.
Photo: AP/Mark J. Terrill
In no way do I mean to pick on Chicago per se, necessarily. I love the city; I made plenty of 6-8 hour drives from my dinky little college in Iowa between 2000 and 2004 to enjoy the city and it remains on my list of preferred cities to live in should my day job take me out of California any time soon. But ballers are not having the best of times with the city. Eddy Curry and Antoine Walker both got jacked at home last year while in the Windy City, and Illinois native son Rashard Mendenhall, fresh from being drafted in the first round by the Pittsburgh Steelers, got held up last night while out walking.
Fortunately, Mendenhall and the woman who was with him are OK, and he told his mom it wasn’t anything worth trying to lose his life over.
The “athlete getting robbed or assaulted” story always twinges a nerve in me (and I suspect a few others), because you can largely sense how this will play out when (not if) it makes the screamer shows on ESPN and past the desk of various columnists over the next day or so. Many will gloss over, but others, desperate for time to fill, always trend towards something more than the usual lament about how the streets aren’t safe. What Mendenhall went through is pretty much garden variety ish for anyone these days — it doesn’t read like he was targeted because of who he is yet, and I want to leave that emphasis on yet. But I can sense a train of thought forming in the response of mainstream blowhards to this for one simple reason: Mendenhall was out at 2 A.M. when he was robbed.
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