This is what we have become

If you wonder why I don't have much to say in February, this might help answer some questions. One of ESPNs top headlines today (as it has been all day) was that Jeremy Lin had a conversation with Kris Humphries. Lin has become a sensation because of his high level of play, his ethnicity, his out of nowhere ascent and the fact that he plays for the Knicks. Kris Humphries married the star of a sex tape for about 2 months. Their conversation is a major headline.
Now that I think about it, the presence of this headline does carry with a more foreboding story that doesn't make the headlines: American civilization is collapsing faster than any of us imagine.
April 6th can't come soon enough

Why isn't this making more headlines?

According to the Worldwide Leader, the NFL Lockout is essentially over, after both the Players and Owners have agreed to all the principles of an idea. The weird thing is, this seems like momentous news, and it's not really being reported anywhere else (outside of CBS). This seems like it should be big news, like, to the point that major news networks and local newspapers should be covering it. Even the blogs like Deadspin don't have anything yet. Can I think of any reasons why this might be? Yes.

- NFL Lockout fatigue. People are sick of hearing NFL news that may or may not be accurate. It's been a long boring summer, and everyone would rather not think about legal bargaining any more.

- ESPN might just be making sh*t up again. Lately, there has been some doubt and mistrust for the network and their journalistic integrity (though CBS is somewhat more reputable)

- There is simply much more important news in the world today, from the tragedy in Norway, to the death of Amy Winehouse, to the shooting in Texas, to gay marriage being performed for the first time in New York, to the train crash in China. Not only that, but today is Hall of Fame induction day, so baseball gets the top spots on most web pages.

But hey, the lockout might be over, if you're into football.

Is it half time?

I often have the ESPN all sports game feed going in the background (Australian soccer on now!). I can't watch every game, but it's fun to see what's going on around the world. It's like the bottom line ticker but for scores, and not quite as pervasive. Good stuff. Anyways, this is what happened with it last night. Tell me, can anyone tell me what's going on in Connecticut with their game against Marquette?

Thanks for the help, ESPN

I was in the ESPN live chat pretty much all day, and fired off several questions about the Twins (did they mention anything about Matt Capps? No!) to no avail.I decided I was goig to flip out a question or two on the ret of the AL Central in hopes that the Twins would be mentioned.
Of course, when I finally got through, this is what I got.Thanks, ESPN, this was the kind of help I was looking for.

Purdue is on the front page?

I logged on to ESPN just now, and there was a strange sight among their headlines. It was a story on Purdue! Holy crap and what the hell? It was about Robert Marve being named the starter (so far) for Purdue. It seems like a pretty innocuous story about a team that likely won't contend for anything this year, so I can't possibly imagine why it would be a top headline. I have three ideas:

1) It's the All Star break, Lebron is signed, and there is simply nothing left to talk about.

2) Marve used to go to Miami, and that's a real football school that ESPN likes to coddle. Look! A washout at a major program can step in and take over at Purdue!

3) Marve rhymes with Favre, and Favre means pageviews!

Gotta be one of those three, right?

This is the coolest thing ever

I rag on ESPN a lot, but really, they do some cool stuff. I have no idea why this particular thing is so fascinating to me, but it is. It's a great way to pass the day at work is you have a couple seconds to kill. I don't know why I didn't know about this before. It's the ESPN Game feed. It's play by play for EVERY SINGLE GAME EVERYWHERE. What a world we live in. Of course, at 2am when I am posting this, there is nothing going on, but I have never been more excited about Simone Bolelli, just waiting for his match to start!

Opening Night Baseball, Joe Mauer and You

The Red Sox play the Yankees tonight on ESPN2, a game which isn't going to matter all that much to anyone further west than Scranton (although both teams do have strong national followings) and it isn't going to matter a whole lot in the standings (approx. 1/162nd of the entire season). But hey, baseball is back and to you, dear Minnesotan Blog Reader, that means Twins and that Mauer guy. I'm told he's pretty good.

Being a hockey guy myself, I always enjoy taking a moment to blog about something else when given the chance. I love hockey, but I'm not a one-trick pony either. Although the actual estimate would be more like 1 3/4 tricks -- 1 trick hockey, 1/4 football, 2/4 everything else.

So getting off of that tangent, Your Minnesota Twins are set to start play at that b-e-a-utiful Target Field that we've all heard so much about. And that's a lot, coming from someone who hasn't left the state of New York in a few months. I don't know if it's the fact that it's supposed to be so absurdly awesome or the idea of building an outdoor baseball field in, if you'll excuse me, Minnesota is so completely out-of-whack to all of us who don't live near the state but still choose to judge. Although something tells me the Twins may be playing the first week of the season on the road because the folks who make the schedule may have thought "early April in Minnesota = snow," which for the record, it apparently doesn't as it's supposed to be freaking 70 degress next weekend.

But aside from the weather and the stadium there are other good reasons to be excited. This Mauer person is going to be spending the duration of his career in a Twins uni and that the Twins are favored to win the division this year. Four of out of five MLB.com talking heads agree (including Gammons!) that the Twins are the favorites.

So while you're watching That Game Between Those Two Teams ESPN Never Stops Talking About (and get ready, they won't stop with that or Favre until November) be excited, Minnesota. Things are looking good for this season. It should be more interesting than this post was, anyway (I promise less parenthesis next time!). And we'll all be bored of both about halfway through.

Clearly, the Victoria Times is a big deal

Generally speaking, when I check my e-mail, if I get anything beyond my daily Google Calendar alerts, I'm pretty surprised, and probably more excited than I should be. I get the odd link submission about once or twice a week, and I try to work them into a LOTD post if I can. Usually when I get an e-mail from someone I don't recognize, it's spam.
Well, the rules were broken Wednesday afternoon. I got a link to a piece written by the sender, a Cam Martin. Do you recognize the name? Hopefully you will soon, because he is a new writer at ESPN, on their Page 2. Yep, I was sent a Page 2 article with the hopes I would link to it (I guess). Far be it from me to turn down ESPN.
http://espn.go.com/espn/page2/index?id=4902660
Obviously, this is a little flattering that Mr. Martin would send the link to me to get himself some publicity, but it also gives me pause. The way I see it, this could mean one of three things: 1) Mr. Martin worked his way through a specific list of blogs and eventually found ours, eager to get the word out on his new role with ESPN, 2) Mr. Martin is a regular reader here at the Times, and it would be only natural for him to send in a submission or 3) ESPN has some sort of spider that happened to come across our little corner of the internet and saw important keywords like "basketball" and "sports" and "Jeff Saturday's eyes".
Either way, ESPN in some fashion, knows who we are. *cold chill*
But nevertheless, I wish Mr. Martin the best in his endeavors at the Worldwide Leader. He is either working his but off to connect with the blogging community, or someone behind the scenes is doing it for him. Either way, it kind of suggests a sea change for the network.
Or maybe it is a robot. Almost immediately afterward, I got an e-mail from a PR firm for some sort of hockey jersey sanitary thingy.
(P.S. I have not talked to Cam Martin or anyone at ESPN. I wouldn't know what to say)

Yes, Kirk Herbstreit, why?

Last week, after Charlie Weis was canned, Kirk Herbstreit asked the pertinent question: "Why do we still talk about Notre Dame like they are a relevant program?" I'm paraphrasing. But he couldn't figure why the media covered the Irish like they continued to be a national powerhouse, even though they have been mediocre at best for about two decades now. I think it's a question that is easily answered if Kirk looks around the office.
Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, current college football analyst.
Bob Davie, Holtz's successor at Notre Dame, and now a color guy for college football.
Oh, but it doesn't stop at college football. No no no. Check out the college basketball.
Digger Phelps was a former Irish basketball coach and is now a college basketball analyst.
Former Irish great Laphonso Ellis is also an analyst for the Worldwide leader now too.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE
Of course, there is Sportscenter anchor Hannah Storm, who takes any opportunity to remind all of us that she too went to Notre Dame.
So Kirk, that's why people at ESPN still talk about Notre Dame because they are relevant. Almost everyone there spent some time in South Bend.

Maybe if the Yankees were playing the Red Sox

.... the potential World Series winning game would get a little bit higher billing than Luke Harangody being named one of the 50 finalists for this years Naismith award.
(click for a bigger image)

The Passing of a True Legend

There was a lot of death in the news last week, and by the title of my post, you would probably assume that I am going to be talking about Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, or Ed McMahon. But it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to talk about any of those 3 on a sports blog. We lost another not quite as big name that recently had some ties to the world of sports, loud-mouthed TV pitchman Billy Mays. I never really quite understood how someone like him got on TV, with his style of shouting to sell cleaning products, but I guess his voice definitely got everyone's attention....

I would say that I was probably in the boat of never wanting to buy any of his products because of his pitch style and general cheesy feeling to his commercials. That was the case until a few months ago, when he started to appear in the absolutely hilarious ESPN 360 commercials, where he basically was mocking his own style. Those commercials and his goofy antics on the sidelines during the bowl games gave me a different impression of the guy....that he understood his style was annoying but must have been effective. I started to watch his Pitchmen show on Discovery mostly because it came on after Mythbusters, and I never knew how involved he was in actually meeting with inventors and doing the market research to make sure the products worked. In the end, he wound up making a lot of people with great ideas (and himself) millions of dollars, and from the show it seemed like he was a really great guy.

So R.I.P Billy. I'm not going to miss you waking me up at 1 AM to buy OxiClean when I fall asleep with the TV on, but I'll definitely miss the ESPN 360 commercials and the Pitchmen show.

Josh Elliott would like to play devil's advocate

Hannah Storm: A great game last night between the Gators and Trojans!
Josh Elliott: But it's silly that they played a bowl game instead of a playoff!

LATER.....
Hannah: Let's go to this morning's poll question! Was the Confederations Cup a turning point for US soccer?
Josh: What a stupid question! It's so arbitrary!
Hannah: Uh, that's whay it's a poll, Josh.
Josh: But there is no right answer. What's the point in asking fans to predict the future?! IT'S NOT EVEN AN OPINION QUESTION!
Hannah: All right. Well, let's go to Blog Buzz....

AT HOME
Josh's wife: I think we should go out for dinner tonight. How about Italian food?
Josh: How can you make a sweeping generalization about what our entire family wants to eat? How do you accommodate all the members of our family. Not everyone likes Italian food!
Wife: Ugh, I'm just going to make myself a Hot Pocket.

DRIVING
Officer:... and I'm giving you this ticket for speeding.
Josh: I know I was speeding. Everyone speeds. Giving me this ticket is completely asinine.
Officer: It's upholding the law...
Josh!: NO IT'S NOT! Everyone is STILL GOING TO SPEED! What does this ticket accomplish? NOTHING!

(Note: Do not ever do a Google Image search for Josh Elliot. Ever.)

An evening out with some star athletes.

[Chad Ochocinco, Jameer Nelson and Cole Hamels wait for the 4th member of their party at a pizzeria]

Ochocinco: [stares blankly into space]

Nelson: [stares blankly into space]

Hamels: [stares blankly into space]

Ochocinco: [reaches for another piece of pizza, thinks better of it, decides against it]

Nelson: [stares blankly into space]

Hamels: [stares blankly into space]

Nelson: [coughs quietly]

Ochocinco: [stares blankly into space]

Hamels: [stares blankly into space, flips hair]

The Draft starts at 3pm this year

In previous years, the NFL Draft always started at 11AM. It was a spectacular day of just talking about football and the new players entering the league. It tended to take about 6 hours. Now, they chopped 5 minutes per pick in the first round and have dropped a whole round from day one. As a result, the shorter day 1 draft coverage will start 4 hours later than usual. I can only imagine this will mean more time for a 17 hour pregame show.
Maybe there are some other uses for the delay.

- Berman thinks of more witty puns for "B.J. Raji" that are not racist.
- The extra delay will work Kiper up into even more of a fervor.
- Todd McShay can put the final touches on round 7 of his Mock Draft.
- The Lions get to wait an extra 4 hours before completely blowing the draft.
- The Vikings get 4 more hours to convince themselves that they do not need a quarterback
- Sal Paolantonio gets to spend more time with his Philadelphia concubines.
- Chris Mortenson will report and retract 15 more stories.
- Matthew Stafford insists that he is no better than the third pick.
- Jets fans get too drunk to boo.
- The world realizes that they have a little crush on Sage Steele, the quiet girl who was always there when you needed her.
- Brett Favre unretires

The Lions are on the clock!

Stop it.

Excuse me, ESPN? Knock it off. Yes, it was a good game yesterday, but frankly, I can think of 2 games in the last ten years that were better than yesterday's game!
(Rams - Titans in 2000 and the Giants-Patriots, uh... last year. How short is your memory, ESPN?)
Also, what is wrong with Chad Forde's face? He looks like he's trying to say something nice about Vin Diesel's acting.

What is Chris Berman's fascination with Christopher Columbus?

It seems that every time Chris Berman has been on ESPN this week, he makes sure to mention that this was Columbus Day weekend, making him the only person in the world who cared that this was Columbus Day weekend. I am absolutely baffled as to why he feels the need to keep bringing this up. It's weird even by Berman's standards. Some ideas as to why he latched on to Columbus.

- They share the same first name.

- They have a similar career arc: Take a hair brained scheme that, in retrospect, seems rather fundamental and ride it's success. Later in life, be remembered for being an insufferable prick.

- Young Chris Berman sported the same haircut as Chris Columbus.

BREAKING NEWS

According to ESPN, Frank Thomas has aged 39 years, changed his number to 0 and now plays for the Cubs. More on this as details warrant.

Oh College Gameday, so much to love

Have you seen the new Gameday commercial? If not, you can find it here.

There's so much with this little ad:

For the ladies, we have Kirk Herbstreit in his PJ's.
We have Lee Corso showing the same situational awareness that he had at Indiana.
Lastly and most importantly. Chris Fowler likes to "sink his own battleship". Who doesn't? Life's tough on the road

Parents Dominating Kids’ Play

I was on my high school newspaper staff, holding four different editor jobs. I was never a staff writer. As such, I only vaguely had to be concerned that there was nothing in there that could get us in trouble. I knew you could tell the truth, and omit enough details to get the readers up in arms about an issue that didn't exist. I never did it, but I was well aware that it could be done.

That brings us to this story found in numerous places (I originally read it on Yahoo! Sports). The story says that a little 9-year-old boy was told he couldn’t pitch anymore, because he was overpowering in his league. He throws harder and better than any other pitcher. His coach on Will Power Fitness refused to stop him from pitching, and the opponent forfeited, and now the team is banned from playing. The parents are now suing. The boy, Jericho Scott, is quoted as saying he just wants to play ball. His mother is indignant: "I think it's discouraging when you're telling a 9-year-old you're too good at something. The whole objective in life is to find something you're good at and stick with it. I'd rather he spend all his time on the baseball field than idolizing someone standing on the street corner."

As the writer intended, I was indignant. A boy shouldn’t be told he can’t do something because he’s too good. The league suggested moving up a level, or switching positions. I have two issues with that: if a boy has been playing with a team all season, likely he’s built up camaraderie with his teammates and friends; beyond that, moving him up a level will put him with older kids, whom he probably isn’t socially ready to deal with. Secondly, why make a kid switch to a different position? You don’t see the CEO of a pharmaceutical company coming out of his office and saying, “I’m sorry, Linda, but you’ve cured too many diseases and you’re showing up your co-workers. You’ll need to switch to receptionist now.” It was all wrong. It was parents getting too involved and too focused on winning and being sore losers because some kid was better than theirs.

And then an ESPN columnist dug into the story, and reported back. It turns out that the kid played in a higher league when he wasn’t playing for this younger league. The higher level has teams of kids from 9-13 (and Scott turned 10 this week, so he’s not out of his age group). On that team, he’s the number four pitcher; good enough to be on the team, but not dominating to the level of Cy Young, as he was in the lower league. Even more suspect is that Scott hasn’t played on Will Power Fitness all year. He joined the team, along with an all-star from the higher level league, mid-year. If Scott had joined the lower-level team to play short-stop, because he sucked at fielding, that would be a legitimate move. But he joined a development team to play a position at which he was already developed.

The issue is still about parents being too involved. They think young Scott is a victim because he’s not allowed to play on a team for the sole sake of being the best and winning. In short, his parents are teaching him to be a bully. If you’re better at something than most kids your age, make sure you rub it in!

The story originally was definitely meant to make us feel sorry for the poor abused kid. The details come out, and we discover that we were only told half the story. The lesson here is to know the full story. And this isn’t my final opinion, because we might find out more details that explains this situation to turn the lower-level league back to the bad guys.

MY WISH: An end to the SportsCenter My Wish segments

Steve (you remember Steve?) and were chatting on the interwebs today, and Sports Center came on. The following conversation ensued.

Steve :Oh, it's the start of "My Wish". Time to stop watching Sportscenter for however long this lasts.

Ryan: Yep. I was going to say that this sounds like the month Ryan doesn't watch SportsCenter.

Steve: I hate this snizzle-snazzle*. I think it's nice ESPN does it, but I watch Sportscenter for highlights, not Outside the Lines crap**.

Ryan: It's not even Outside the Lines. They should make it an ESPN-Oxygen special.

Steve: They should. They even play a Rascal Flatts song. You should write into them. Maybe you can get, like, Nick Punto to visit you to send them a message.


So yeah. ESPN? You aren't drawing in viewers with your charitable actions, just driving long time viewers away. Sure, it's great you are helping out, like, 6 kids (out of millions, by the way) but come on. Make it stop.

PS: Next week, Nick Punto of the Minnesota Twins visits Little Ryan in Victoria, who is afflicted with terminal apathy. Can Nick make Ryan give a snizzle-snazzle *?

* Steve did not actually say "snizzle-snazzle". I totally did.
** Steve DID say crap.