An Independent Sports Column/Podcast

Baseball needs to take advantage of stars like Fielder and Howard

2009-07-17T11:24:00.003-04:00

The most family-friendly sporting event of the year begins in Williamsport next month - that is, as long as your family is white, middle class and from places like Boynton Beach, Davenport or Tom’s River.

Chances are you won’t find any teams from the inner city at the Little League World Series. In fact, the odds of seeing more than a couple African-American kids on any roster are slim-to-none, which is why when Connecticut baseball coach Jim Penders calls baseball a “white-collar” sport in this country, he might as well being saying it’s a white-faced game.

Many believe the reason less African-Americans are playing baseball is strictly a financial issue. In fact, last year Penders told the New Haven Register that he recruits the best players who can afford to come to school, as opposed to just the best players. But that points to an across-the-board problem, one that affects Americans of all backgrounds and isn’t just happening in sports.

It still doesn’t explain why baseball continues to thrive even in poor white communities while it has become an afterthought in almost every urban area. The sport is becoming as segregated as hockey, golf or tennis in most parts of this country, which basically means an entire generation is missing out on our national pastime.

Like most of Major League Baseball’s problems, it has only itself to blame. The two most well-known black ball players right now are Ken Griffey Jr. and Barry Bonds, the same as it was 15 years ago. But Griffey is at the tail end of his career, currently hitting somewhere around .200 and Bonds has essentially been banished from the game. Bud Selig and company have done an awful job at marketing any of the current African-American stars, all but passing up Jimmy Rollins, C.C. Sabathia, Prince Fielder and Ryan Howard in favor of guys like Joe Mauer and Tim Lincecum.

It’s not that Mauer and Lincecum don’t deserve to be stars, but when you have a serious lack of interest from the black community on your hands, why wouldn’t you make the effort to reach out using your most valuable assets? Fielder and Howard in particular have the ability to resonate with young fans the way Griffey and Bonds did in the nineties. Fielder took home the Home Run Derby on Monday night, an event that is still quite popular in the little league crowd. And on Thursday, Howard became the quickest ever to reach 200 homeruns, getting there in just 658 games.

It’s not just chicks who dig the long ball; it’s everyone, especially kids.

And Fielder and Howard’s homeruns can reach the inner cities. They’re young enough to be fan favorites for another decade and baseball needs to take advantage of that. Maybe then Williamsport in August will stop looking like some private school reunion and baseball can actually go back to being America’s game.

Baseball Random Rumblings: Fresh Manny is a scary thing for baseball

2009-07-14T09:57:00.002-04:00

A year ago Manny Ramirez was in the process of running himself out of Boston. Over the course of about a month, he had shoved the team’s traveling secretary to the ground, taken a few nights off against tough pitchers and laughed it up following an error against the Angels. Put simple, he had the public approval rating of President Bush.

Now Ramirez has a new cloud over his head. Once considered too stupid to even know how to use steroids, a 50 game suspension suggests he was just stupid enough to get caught. His run of 11 consecutive All Star Games was halted, his legacy tarnished. Now, he’s got the public approval rating of Bin Laden.

That’s not going to change. No one is going to forget about the suspension and the diehard baseball fan will never forgive him. He’s probably a long shot to ever make the Hall of Fame. But that’s not going to stop him leading the Dodgers back to the playoffs, as he did last season when he delivered one of the great two-month stretches in the history of the game.

In fact, you could argue that his suspension will only benefit the Dodgers. (How typical for baseball. Even when they get something right, it goes wrong.) Now he’s going to be fresh when everyone else is trying to battle through the dog days of summer. He’ll be just hitting his stride as pitchers are reaching the 175 inning mark, which means he might be able to put up numbers that trump what he did last season.

And if that happens, you can count on the Dodgers being around in October… And early November.
Tiger Woods might be the greatest golfer in history, but his sport and his personality only allows him to be interesting for about seven days all year. Think about it: There are four majors in golf, plus the Player's championship. That’s 20 days. Most sports fans might follow Woods on Thursday and Friday, but we don’t actively watch. That leaves ten days, and if you assume he’ll play poorly on at least three of those days, Tiger is relevant for a week a year.

My point? Tim Lincecum is more exciting, more often than Woods.
Looking back at my baseball predictions at the start of the year, my American League picks are still in tact. I had New York, Boston, Detroit and Seattle making the playoffs. Today, I’d change only the Mariners.

The National League is a different story. I had the Mets winning the World Series, and they might finish under .500. I thought the Braves would take the Wild Card. And I had the Cubs winning the Central by the All Star break, and they’re three games out. It looks as though only the Dodgers will come through for me.

But hey, who’s watching National League baseball anyway?

McNair's story all too familiar

2009-07-06T01:13:00.000-04:00

In a lot of ways, Steve McNair was a pioneer. Here was a guy who made it all the way to the NFL from a town smaller than my neighborhood. Someone who got to the top by way of Division I-AA Alcorn State, where he almost won the Heisman. And perhaps most significant of all, McNair became a star at the highest level when being black was still considered detrimental for quarterbacks.

He was the type of athlete we’d all like to believe we would be with the type of overcoming-all-odds story we’d all need to have to ever come close to playing on Sundays. He was the type of role model we wanted our kids to have with the work ethic we want all players to possess.

He should still be that guy today.

But he’s not. Now, as we learn more and more about the secret life that appears to have led to his murder over the weekend, the Steve McNair story becomes a lot more typical. He now comes off as the type of guy we believe all athletes and celebrities are – unfaithful, selfish, egotistical types who think they can get away with anything because of who they are and what they do.

It should be made clear that famous people aren’t the only ones who cheat on their wives and run out on their families, but I also find it hard to believe this would have happened if McNair never made it to the NFL and just remained in Mount Olive, Mississippi his entire life. His fame played a role here. It allowed him to pick up a woman half his age and his money allowed him to hide their relationship from everyone in his life.

Not everyone has the ability to pull off that double-life, but athletes can and many of them do. McNair’s story should serve as a cautionary tale for those guys. It’s not that sleeping around will get you killed – that’s extreme. It’s that getting into these situations can and more than likely will lead to jealousy and resentment from one of the parties affected. That’s where problems come from.

But you know what? It’s hard to have faith in the unfaithful athlete. They haven’t learned from Magic Johnson, who could have died from sleeping around. And they clearly haven’t learned anything from Shawn Kemp (who has seven children with seven women) because Travis Henry actually topped that number. So why should anyone think they’ll learn from the guy whose girl friend murdered him?

That’s the thing with athletes. We expect them to be superhuman, but that doesn’t make them super humans. Steve McNair, it turns out, was no different. He’s gone now and so is his wonderful story. All we have left is an all too familiar athletic legacy.

More on Steve McNair
A few last words on Steve McNair - Where's the Outrage?
Affair McNair - Me Talk Athlete
The Legacy of Steve McNair… A Good Man Just Not Perfect - A Couple Things

Why I Coach...

2009-07-03T14:00:00.001-04:00

Anybody who thinks the Chicago Cubs are the most loveable losers in the world never met my little leaguers. Then again, no one has ever witnessed anyone, anywhere, lose quite like us. We were the Bad News Bears without a happy ending. We made the Washington Generals look first-class. I felt bad watching the runs pile up on my helpless little guys, but the other teams felt worse – you know things aren’t going well when the other coaches are rooting for you.

Winning just wasn’t our thing. Not that any of my little guys knew – once, after an especially bad whooping, one of my nine year olds tugged on my t-shirt and asked if we had won. Won? I gave him a perplexed look, “buddy, we didn’t even make it out of the batter’s box today.”

Such was life for my team during our 0-16 campaign. We struck out, we dodged groundballs, and for a bunch of fourth graders, we had an uncanny ability to remain clean (dirt also wasn’t our thing). But the truth is, I’ll probably remember the losing only slightly more than my team, and that’s only because I actually kept score for every game. It’s everything else, the hilarious stories and the head-scratching ones, the heartwarming and occasionally heartbreaking tales that made this season memorable for me.

Teaching baseball to children is a lot like teaching someone to speak English. Every time they think they’re getting the hang of it, another crazy rule pops up and throws everything off. The “infield fly” rule is just a preposterous as “I” before “E” except after “C.” And why, as my first basemen once asked, can’t you just throw the ball at the runner to get him out? Monkey ball works in kickball.

The key is learning all the positions, but that also means knowing right from left, which can be tricky. Sometimes it can also be hard to pronounce the names of each spot on the field. For example, one kid spent the entire year asking to go to the mountain and I would always say no. I thought he was talking about the big pile of dirt behind out dugout. Turns out he meant the pitcher’s mound, and he took the hill in our final game. Jose hit four batters in a row.

My actual pitcher (we only had one) was a 3’2 seven year old who played right field and batted dead last on opening day and was the starting pitcher and leading off by game three. He was so tiny that our catcher (his brother) would often knock him over when throwing the ball back to him. But Joey knew that pitching was all about intimidation, so he’d wear eye-black to look older and make his “mean face” to strike fear in the hitters. That’s heart.

Of course, every team has an overachiever. Ours was our shortstop. Chris knew how to catch and could throw all the way across the diamond. He liked to dive and slide and even though he had an awful habit of throwing his bat after swinging, he made contact enough to be considered our best hitter. In one already out of reach game, a ball was hit to shallow left field and he made the greatest catch any of my kids had ever seen, so they did what the pros do: They jumped on top of him and celebrated as though it were the game-winning catch. One problem: It was only the second out of the inning and a runner tagged up and scored.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t laugh or smile at everything that happened this season. Sometimes reality hits hard. They old motto is “kids say the darndest things,” but in actuality, they’re brutally honest. Mom drinks too much. Dad’s never around and he doesn’t pay child support. Or we’re going to be homeless. Real life problems that winning in baseball won’t solve. My friends often tease me by comparing me to Keanu Reeves in “Hardball,” but the truth is, real life tends to be a lot less entertaining and a lot more eye-opening.

It’s the tear-jerking stories that make me want to come back and should make you want to get involved. Sometimes we don't realize that kids these days are lonelier than ever. Not every child has a reliable parent to turn to or someone willing to pay attention to them. Too many grow up with John Madden as their male role model and Grand Theft Auto has taught them far more about stolen cars than they will ever know about stolen bases.

It's really sad, especially when you hear from people who have already given up on a generation. Children need coaches and role models in their lives now more than ever. It's so easy too. Spend a couple hours a week with a youth. Mentor them. Coach them. Teach them. Do something.

It's not hard to have an impact on a child's life.

So make it happen.

Win over Spain was great, but this was no miracle

2009-06-29T15:24:00.003-04:00

How many times do we have to compare a major upset in sports to the Miracle on Ice before we realize that nothing, NOTHING, will ever be able to top USA 4, USSR 3? The latest violation of this rule occurred last week in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup when the United States Soccer Team stunned a Spain team that had not lost in its previous 35 games.

The victory was a remarkable one for Team USA, who needed all kinds of luck just to qualify for the knockout stages of the tournament. Only two weeks ago, it looked as though head coach Bob Bradley was about to lose his job when his team was embarrassed in consecutive matches by Italy and Brazil. But the US, after manhandling Egypt and getting help from the Brazilians, managed to sneak past the first stage and into the semifinals, where it pulled off the incredible upset over one of the world’s best teams.

There is no question the story sounds a bit similar to Lake Placid in 1980; what with all the good fortune needed simply to advance to the next round and a team playing well over its head to shock the world. But that’s about where it ends and that’s why we need to keep our eye on the ball.

The Miracle on Ice occurred at the Olympics and the US soccer team’s victory happened at the Confederations Cup, a tournament that consisted of just eight teams, most of whom will not be a factor at the World Cup next summer. One is a tradition that dates back (in some form) for centuries and the other, well, even Google considers vague.

I realize that I’m probably coming off as your typical, cranky old sports columnist who refuses to acknowledge that recent great moments in sports could actually trump those from a bygone era. But that’s not the case at all. In fact, I was born six years after Lake Placid. I just recognize that, considering the state of the world in 1980, a victory over the Soviets at the Olympics meant a lot more than a win in some irrelevant soccer tournament.

I also realize that sports fans tend to embellish what a win actually means, and by no means am I trying to argue that Mike Eruzione had anything to do with the fall of Communism, but the Miracle on Ice was bigger than just sports. The USSR was considered evil; If Iran or North Korea had the world’s best soccer teams and we defeated them, then the comparison would be a little more valid.

Nearly 30 years later, it’s hard to envision anything, much less a win over a country we really like, ever matching what happened on February 22, 1980. That was about rivalry with a legitimate enemy. This was a tune-up for next summer against a country we like to vacation in.

And for the record, Team USA hockey finished the job a few days later to win gold in 1980. Team USA soccer just went back to being Team USA soccer.

Rubio's selfishness a slap in the face to Americans

2009-06-27T20:10:00.007-04:00

On the same day a piece in the Wall Street Journal criticized the way America’s youth basketball system prepares its athletes for the pros, the biggest headache from this year’s NBA Draft came from overseas. Spain’s Ricky Rubio might have the court vision and passing ability of some the sport’s all-time greats, but lately he’s proven that he has the brains of some of its most foolish players.

Rubio was largely considered the most fundamentally-sound player in the draft, but he made headlines in recent weeks more for the stipulations he had for playing in the USA than for his abilities on the court. The 18 year old made it clear that he had no interest in playing for Memphis, who picked second, and he wasn’t crazy about Oklahoma City, who followed the Grizzlies. So when Sacramento took Tyreke Evans with the fourth pick, it became clear that Minnesota was going to land Rubio.

But shortly after the Timberwolves took the Spanish star, Rubio’s father made it clear that he had no interest in playing in Minnesota and Rubio himself followed up by saying the state was “too cold.” Suddenly the kid who once said he was so excited to play in the NBA that he’d play for free was allowing his agent to say he was considering heading back to Europe for a few seasons.

Isn’t a selfish point guard an oxymoron? That’s exactly what Rubio is proving to be by trying to manipulate the system and land only in a place he wants to be. Might as well give him a private airplane while you’re at it.

This disgusts me. The media spends so much time criticizing American players because they are too-selfish, too-greedy, too-black, but no one ever wants to get on the foreign players who say they’ve always dreamed about playing in the NBA, yet will only play in place that is the right fit for them. You think Blake Griffin is thrilled to be playing for the worst franchise in professional sports?

Of course not. But he’s ecstatic to have a chance to play in the NBA, something he’s probably thought about since the first time he picked up a basketball. You can attack the American system or the American player all you want, but at least they aren’t taking the draft for granted.

They know what it means to make it to the NBA and with the exception of a few (Steve Francis comes to mind) they’d play for any team willing to take them. Meanwhile, the foreign players, realizing they have all the leverage in the world, take advantage of the system. Rubio is just the latest player to abuse it. Remember when Yi Jianlian didn’t want to play for the Bucks because there weren’t enough Chinese people in Milwaukee? For the record, Rubio and Jianlian have the same agent – Dan Fegan.

Someone ask DeMar DeRozan and Brandon Jennings, two guys who grew up in Compton and will now play in Toronto and Milwaukee respectively, how much they care about not being surrounded by people who look just like them.

What a slap in the face to the American player. And you better believe the Americans recognize it and resent it.

No matter where Rubio ends up, I guarantee he won’t be a favorite in the locker room.

More on Ricky Rubio:
Media Old & New Concur : Walsh Should’ve Taken Jennings - CSTB
Timberwolves Should Hold Onto Their Guns With Rubio - The Sportz Assassin
Anybody seen Ricky Rubio at El Meson? - Star Tribune

Random Rumblings: Greedy athletes aren't the only villains

2009-06-26T01:41:00.000-04:00

If greedy athletes are ruining sports, then what are selfish Americans doing to the country?

The question comes to mind because of what took place in Providence this past weekend, when the city hosted the United States Conference of Mayors, bringing leaders from cities all over the country together to discuss the country’s most-pressing issues and how to best go about addressing them.

It was supposed to be a chance for Providence to enter the national spotlight, to prove that it is now the Creative Capital, not the Corruption Capital that it once was. But instead, a shortsighted, self-centered group of people decided to use this opportunity to attempt to expose the city’s Mayor as a union-hating scoundrel. As a result, a number of top officials elected not to attend the event, including Vice President Joe Biden, which undoubtedly left the city’s hotels and restaurants in a bind.

The Providence Firefighters have been working without a contract for almost 1,500 days, which obviously is unfortunate. But it’s not as though they haven’t been offered a contract that is far stronger than any other city employee has and it gave them no right to protest the entire event. Providence Mayor David Cicilline has been more than fair with these egomaniacal individuals, and they refuse to sign a contract because they expect more. In a state that has an 11.3 percent unemployment rate, a rising homeless population and a $400 million budget deficit, the city’s firefighters continue to want.

How pathetic. When a professional athlete does something like this, they are portrayed as the villain and everyone turns against them. Well, what the PFD is doing hits much closer to Main Street, as the President likes to say, and they deserve to be treated the same way.
Now back to the world of sports…

Everyone wants to talk about where Kobe Bryant ranks among the greatest basketball players of all-time, but here’s a more interesting question for you: Where does Kobe rank among all athletes from this generation.

I put Tiger and Roger Federer well ahead of everyone. After that, I say it goes Tim Duncan, Tom Brady and then a tie between Shaquille O'Neal and Bryant. Honorable mentions: Derek Jeter and Michael Phelps.
And you know who might be the most overrated athlete of the entire generation? Brett Favre, who is going to end up quarterbacking the Vikings right out of playoff contention this season.
Speaking of Shaq, I don’t care who ends up acquiring him, they need to bench him for the first 40 games of the season at least. Give him the Roger Clemens treatment. No league has a more irrelevant regular season than the NBA, and if we assume that Shaq will end up on a playoff team anyway, why not make sure he’s at his best in May?
Just when the media decides to attack bloggers for assuming guilt when it comes to steroids in baseball, we learn that Sammy Sosa tested positive in 2003. Ironically, the most common response from everyone was, “well we all knew that already.”
Because I’m a gambling man, I’ll take Tiger over the field this weekend at the U.S. Open.

Citi Field Review

2009-06-25T10:00:00.002-04:00

Growing up in Connecticut, I always had three options for attending Major League Baseball games. There was Fenway Park, with all its history and seats that were too small by the time I was in the third grade. There was Yankee Stadium, which provided the equal chance that you would see great baseball or get mugged on the subway. And then there was Shea Stadium, a place that was about as plain as the little league fields in New Haven.

I probably went Shea two dozen times in my life and I have very few memories about that place. It was, and any Mets fan will admit this, one of the least exciting professional sports stadiums ever constructed. In fact, it's possible the only good part of the stadium was that it was usually so empty that you could were almost guaranteed a full row to yourself whenever you had tickets.

The stadium was a lot like the franchise that played in it - second rate and until the past few years, boring as hell. So when I got Mets Tickets yesterday at the new Citi Field, I didn't expect much. I assumed the owners probably cut every corner to save money and it would just be another cookie-cutter park that we could all make fun of for years to come.

Boy was I wrong. Citi Field is absolutely gorgeous. It's spacious, obviously very clean and after walking around the entire park, I was convinced there wasn't a bad seat at all, which automatically one-ups Yankee Stadium and Fenway right off the bat. The game itself was a blowout. The incredibly injured Mets got four hits from David Wright in an 11-0 win over the Cardinals. But a less-than exciting game didn't disappoint me at all thanks to the new stadium.

Citi Field is a 21st century ballpark with a 1950's "good old days" feel to it. It's the perfect place to watch baseball and has surpassed the other two local stadiums in my eyes.

Now, if the Mets can only start winning...

Happy Father's Day, Dad

2009-06-21T09:01:00.000-04:00

Note: I wrote this last year, but I really like it, so I figure I can always run it on Father's Day.

I'm never sure how many kids I have. Some days there will be nine and on others, 12. There are upsetting days, like the one recently when I had just four. And then there are days like our first game, when I had 15, which finally convinced me that elementary school teachers should be paid like doctors.

No, I'm not a Travis Henry-type who can't keep up with all his children; I'm just a 21 year old Little League coach of a group of mostly seven and eight year olds, who are fascinated with the dirt in our grassless infield, but want no part of the ball rolling in it. More than once, I've asked my little guys, "what are you doing, picking daisies?" and more than once, they've replied, "No coach, I'm picking worms!" Sometimes coach just doesn't get it.

But what I do know is that I've watched most of them collect their first hit without a tee and all of them learn that it's called "first base" because you run there first. Some fathers have joined me at every single game, rooting for their sons and laughing when they do something ridiculous.

Most have not been there at all.

Considering the wonderful group of parents and guardians who do show up for these children, I'm sure most if not all have okay home-lives. But I can't help but think about what my life would be like without my dad. I never had to wonder why he wasn't at any of my games because he made it to almost all of them – too many if you'd have asked me six years ago.

Today, on his 26th Father's Day, I thank him for never being a question mark.

My dad was there the day I was born and still there this morning to answer my phone call letting him know that I love him. He was there to hug me before my first day of school and around to do the same when I graduated high school. He packed his car with all of my stuff to move me in to college the same way he used to pack my teammates into the car for a long distance trip to our fall ball games.

He saw my first hit, first homerun, first basket, and first soccer goal (he was my coach for that one). He was also present the first and only time I was brought home by the police and he was definitely there to yell when I got an F in Biology one marking period in high school. As easy going as he is, he still has expectations.

He and I will probably remember all of the classic moments forever, but what I think I appreciate about him the most is how he listens to me. Sometimes, my Little Leaguers will come to our games and tell me about their school projects or how their neighbor hits bombs in wiffle ball. I find myself pretending to be so interested that I actually end up asking questions. I picked up that skill directly from my father, who has listened to me relate everything to sports for the past 15 years.

Thanks dad, for always listening, pretending and ultimately caring.

Recently, he has been a little more pessimistic than normal. You could say that life has dealt him a couple consecutive bad hands, but he doesn’t really like gambling. What he does have is a pair of children he loves to talk about, to brag about really, to anyone willing to listen. There are probably hundreds of people in West Haven, CT that know more about me and my sister than some of our friends thanks to him.

He doesn’t know this, but we do the same with him. There are people he has never met all over Boston and Providence and New Jersey and Seattle that think the world of him, just like us.

This post might come because of Father’s Day, but we make sure to tell him we love him every time we speak to him. He wrote a letter my senior year of high school telling me how happy that makes him.

The same letter told me how proud he was of the man I had become.

I can only hope he knows how proud I am to be his son.

Happy Father’s Day.

Difficult to believe scouts when it comes to Strasburg

2009-06-15T14:21:00.001-04:00

By now you should realize that baseball scouts are a lot like your local weather man, only not as well-dressed and more likely to eat fast food for dinner five nights a week. They typically offer inaccurate predictions based on inadequate information, which undoubtedly costs Major League franchises hundreds of thousands of dollars (sometimes millions) each season.

Still, we tend to take a scout’s word as gospel because they watch more baseball than any of us could bear to imagine, just as we do with Dr. Mel’s forecast, because he mutters the words Doppler radar here and there.

But that seems to be where their credentials come to an end. Which is why I’m worried that all this hype around Stephen Strasburg may never result in much of a career in the Major Leagues. Strasburg, of course, is considered a can’t-miss prospect, a term that should be as banned from baseball as any performance-enhancing drug. As Alan Schwarz of the New York Times wrote last week, “Strasburg is the sixth once-in-a-lifetime pitcher of his lifetime.”

The scouts can’t get enough of Strasburg, and so general managers swoon over him, which makes owners love him, which then gets the media aboard the bandwagon and ultimately, results in fans believing he’s the next 300-game winner. It’s a vicious cycle that usually begins with a high radar gun reading and a load of strikeouts against an obscure group of players and ends with some type of unprecedented contract.

There might be no better example of this than the last can’t-miss pitcher, Daisuke Matsuzaka. We’ve heard Dice-K’s name mentioned a lot in association with Strasburg, mostly because each is represented by Scott Boras and the super-agent expects to get Strasburg a contract similar to the one he negotiated for Matsuzaka three years ago.

But the similarities between the two right-handers don’t end there. Strasburg is billed as throwing in high 90’s with devastating secondary pitches and impeccable control. In Japan, scouts said Matsuzaka approached 100 mph on the radar gun and had as many as seven plus-pitches with pinpoint accuracy.

Someone ask Theo Epstein if any of that is true.

What the scouts didn’t seem to account for with Matsuzaka was that the strike zone is significantly larger in Japan and most of the lineups he pitched against featured only a handful of dangerous hitters, so there was probably a lot of bad hitters swinging at bad pitches. That plus the fact that Dice-K was considered an icon, which certainly resulted in him getting the same borderline calls that Greg Maddux received in his prime.

You have to wonder if scouts have made the same mistake with Strasburg. Was he simply blowing away inferior lineups from a generally weak conference? Were bad hitters just swinging at bad pitches? And were umpires so jazzed up to be calling a Stephen Strasburg-pitched game that they subconsciously gave the future top pick every call?

The answer to all those questions could be no. But considering just how subjective scouting seems to be, the outlook for Strasburg is just as vague as your typical weather forecast:

Bright. Unless it’s cloudy.

Support the United Way of King County

2009-06-14T21:59:00.002-04:00

On July 5, an ascent unlike any other will begin. Legendary mountaineers Ed Viesturs and Peter Whittaker will guide a group of community leaders to the top of Mount Rainier to show that we can rise above any challenge when we come together with commitment and heart. With your generous donation, you'll be a part of it, every step of the way. Proceeds raised from the climb will benefit United Way of King County's Response for Basic Needs.

The double standard for going pro

2009-06-13T10:19:00.000-04:00

It’s okay to tell a black kid from the projects that he needs to at least start his education before he is eligible to play in the NBA, but doing the same to a white baseball player from Middle-America is completely unheard of. That much is made clear every June when hundreds of high school students are selected in Major League Baseball’s First Year Player Draft, forcing teenagers to make the decision between a lifelong dream and more school.

All too often, reality takes a backseat.

Or at least it becomes distorted. Getting drafted is a big deal. It means that somewhere along the line, a scout saw you and decided you have the ability to play professional baseball. But what isn’t made clear is that pro ball isn’t necessarily Major League ball, and in a game that measures statistics better than any other sport, the odds of even a top draft pick making it past the 8-hour bus rides in the minors to The Show are slim-to-none.

That’s what people are missing when they focus on playing guidance counselor for urban basketball players. The majority of basketball players who don’t cut it are weeded out long before even thinking about a major D-1 school, much less the NBA. Even in the early part of this decade, when making the jump to the league became trendy, only a handful of high school seniors ever actually declared for the draft.

In this year’s baseball draft, 15 high school seniors went in the opening round. But that’s not even the scariest number. Assuming they make the right decisions, those kids will benefit from the million-dollar signing bonuses they receive, even if they never come close to the majors. But what about the hundreds of 18 year olds who are going to receive the $1,000 or $2,000 bonuses that come from being selected in the later rounds?

Those kids won’t even be guaranteed a full-ride to college and even for the ones who are, how many will actually decide they want to go to school following years of making slightly-above minimum wage in the minors? Think about the number of everyday people, not just athletes, who decide to go work right after graduating high school. How many of them ever end up with a degree?

Talk about your ultimate double standard. While we’re okay with a rule that prevents maybe six high school basketball players each year from going pro, we’re allowing over 400 baseball players to make a decision that makes them far less likely to ever be qualified for a job that doesn’t involve hitting or pitching.

But god forbid we ask baseball players to attend freshman math.

If they did, they might learn that the numbers aren’t in their favor.

Dan's Take Podcast 6/12

2009-06-12T17:52:00.002-04:00

On this week's show, I tell you why we're already starting to see the downfall of Derrick Rose. I also compare the NBA Draft to the MLB Draft and tell you why I hate the minimum age rule in basketball, but I'd be in favor of it with baseball. That plus how the Boston Red Sox remind me of a bubble team in March and why that is a reason for concern. Finally, I close the show with my thoughts on why the Lakers are about to win the NBA title and I give you my theory on why all the greatest players in NBA history are pretty much the same.

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The Breakdown
0:00 - 6:19 Intro/Derrick Rose gang signs
6:19 - 20:58 Should baseball change it's draft rules?
20:58 - 30:08 Red Sox look like a bubble team in college basketball
30:08 - End Why the Lakers are cruising

Guest Post: Why you should watch Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals

2009-06-11T23:07:00.005-04:00

Dan's Take hockey guru Dan Innamorato is back with gem on why we should all be tuning in to game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals Friday night. I couldn't agree more. Who knows, maybe we'll always remember where we were when we watched Penguins/Red Wings in 2009.

There’s a great quote by Entourage’s Ari Gold that sums up my feelings for any sports fan who can’t get excited for Game 7 of a Stanley Cup playoff game. “Get out. Seriously, get the fuck out. Don’t even grab a bagel.”

Alright, I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself…watch this clip of Stephane Matteau’s double OT winner in Game 7 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. This 22-second video captures everything that is potentially great about Game 7 playoff hockey. A third line grinder hustling past a dead-tired defenseman to win the puck, a bank shot wraparound against a rookie goaltender who would eventually go on to become the best in the history of the game, a blink of the eye ending to a hard fought series, the jubilation of victory, the anguish of defeat, the home crowd going crazy, and, of course, the single greatest call ever by a sports announcer (“Matteau! Matteau! Matteau! Stephane Matteau! And the Rangers, have one more hill to climb, baby!”). If that clip didn’t get you excited, well, you can heed Ari Gold’s advice. There is no hope for you as a sports fan.

Can I guarantee that Friday night’s Game 7 matchup between the Detroit Red Wings and Pittsburgh Penguins will be an instant classic? Of course not. Some Game 7s are anticlimactic, like the one between the Penguins and Washington Capitals this year, where an amazing series was capped off by a blowout when Washington’s defense and goaltending completely imploded. On the other hand, sometimes single-elimination playoff hockey gives you incredible, dramatic endings. Witness this year’s second round Game 7 between the New Jersey Devils and Carolina Hurricanes (formerly known as the Hartford Whalers…may they rest in peace). Or, even better, Boston University’s miracle comeback at the Frozen Four to win the 2009 NCAA Championship.

I have high hopes for this upcoming Game 7, but even if it doesn’t turn out to be a classic, there are still plenty of reasons to be watching. Listed in no particular order:

You can find it on TV! On a real channel! The game is being played at 7 on Friday night and is being broadcast on NBC. So you don’t have to search through your channels to find the Versus network, and endure endless commercials about bull riding and deer hunting. Instead, you can see promos for The Biggest Loser and America’s Got Talent…ok, bad argument, I guess I’d prefer the deer hunting.
Sidney Crosby’s hilarious inability to get past the ‘peach fuzz’ stage of growing a playoff beard.
Offensive firepower: after Alex Ovechkin, the four best forwards in the game are arguably Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, and Henrik Zetterberg. Crosby and Malkin play for Pittsburgh and Datsyuk and Zetterberg play for Detroit. Yikes.
Two of the greatest traditions in sports: the Stanley Cup celebration by the winning team, and the merciless booing of Commissioner Gary Bettman when he comes on the ice to present the trophy. Everyone HATES Gary Bettman. His whole family probably boos him when he shows up for Thanksgiving dinner. He completely ruined the NHL during his tenure as commissioner. Never before has an executive run a business with such incompetence. Even the CEOs of General Motors, Chrysler, Bear Stearns, and Lehman Brothers make fun of this guy.

The final reason to watch this game is the most important one. Quite frankly, the NHL needs you to watch it. Despite a recent renaissance for the league during these playoffs, television ratings have still been lackluster. This is what happens when your commissioner signs a television deal with an obscure network known mainly for its fly fishing coverage, but I digress. The NHL is so desperate for your ratings that they even banned the arenas in Detroit and Pittsburgh from showing the game on their video screens so that hockey fans would have to watch from their own homes. Seriously, they’re that desperate.

The good news is that the NHL has made vast improvements since the lockout, and a well-played, well-received Stanley Cup Game 7 could greatly benefit a league that still has a chance to regain its status as a major sport. So tune into the game, Dan’s Take readers. If you have a Nielsen box in your TV, the least you can do is flip to NBC and mute the game while you read a book, or leave your TV on when you go out for the night. Better yet, just watch the game. It’s going to be amazing. I guarantee it.

Big Unit is greatest of this era, maybe of all-time

2009-06-09T09:52:00.001-04:00

When ESPN.com ran a poll last week asking who the greatest 300 win pitcher of this generation was, I thought there would be a landslide winner. And I was right. Only the winner wasn’t Randy Johnson, as I thought it would be; it was Greg Maddux, the control-master who won 355 games before retiring following last season.

Put simple, this shocked me.

300 wins is 300 wins, so I’m not trying to put down any of the four guys on the list. I mean, you can’t really lose when deciding between a Mercedes and a Porsche. Roger Clemens would have received more votes had he not ruined his public image in the past year. Tom Glavine certainly goes down as one of the most reliable pitchers of any era. And Maddux is arguably the smartest pitcher in the history of the game.

But The Big Unit is clearly the Lamborghini of this group, the standout among standouts. No pitcher, heck no player, was as dominant in an era that will otherwise only be remembered for homeruns and steroids. As Barry Bonds was shattering baseball’s most sacred records at the plate, Johnson was winning four Cy Young Awards in a row, striking out over 354 hitters-per-season from 1999-2003.

Considering the time it took place, I’d argue that no pitcher in history had a better four-year stretch than Johnson did at the beginning of this decade, and that includes the four consecutive Cy Young Awards Maddux won from 1992-95.

The fact that Maddux wasn’t an overpowering figure probably subconsciously played a role in most voters’ decisions. We identity with a short right hander who wears glasses more than we do with the incredibly imposing Johnson. If, like me, you were a pitcher who lacked a fastball as a kid, Maddux was your hero, the exception to the rule that you needed to throw gas to be successful.

But Johnson was the head-turner. He was the pitcher everyone dreamed of being with the fastball everyone dreamed of having. His 2001 postseason is still one of the most unforgettable runs I’ve ever seen, when he went 5-0 over the course of the NLCS and World Series to lead Arizona past the Yankees in seven games.

Again, it’s not as though I want to downplay what Clemens or Glavine or Maddux accomplished. It’s that Johnson might very well be the best pitcher in the history of the game and he certainly should be recognized as the best of this era.

Blame falls squarely on Rose

2009-06-02T09:53:00.002-04:00

We fault Chicago’s public schools for not preparing a kid to record a very reasonable score on his SAT to get into college. We shake our heads at the adults who stand by and watch it happen. We chastise David Stern, the white millionaire who believes he knows what’s best for poor kids from the inner city. We wave our fingers at the slick-talking coach who never seems to be on the up and up when it comes to recruiting.

Everyone gets blamed. Everyone, it seems, except the one person who let it all happen, the one person who knowingly allowed another person to take his SAT for him: Derrick Rose.

This wasn’t about Rose having the wrong interpretation of some vague NCAA recruiting rule. It wasn’t taking a little bit of cash to help his family or accepting free sneakers and apparel in exchange for something down the line. Athletes can usually talk their way out of something like that. They play the naïve kid card. This was a crystal clear line that Rose crossed all on his own. It probably wasn’t his idea to cheat on the SAT, but it was his okay that made it happen.

Everyone, whether they go to public school in Chicago or some pretentious private school here in the New England, knows about the SAT. They know that many universities still use it as the key factor during the admissions process. It’s the difference between Harvard and Holy Cross and state school and community college. But none of that mattered for Rose. His ability to play basketball gave him the opportunity to go anywhere, so long as he could score in the mid-700’s on the SAT.

Yet despite the fact that all Rose had to do was perform significantly below average on his test, he still felt the need to find someone else to get the job done. That means one of two things: 1) He doesn’t know or care about the difference between right and wrong. 2) He was just that lazy.

Either way, this falls on him.

Look, I realize that school is secondary for the top athletes in this country. And that’s not just true for kids from the “ghetto;” it’s true for the hundreds of high schoolers from all over the country, suburbs and projects, who will be drafted in baseball’s Amateur Draft next week. It’s true for the elite gymnast or tennis player who gets shipped off to some academy in Florida before their tenth birthday. And if there was some highly profitable profession for incredible spellers, those kids you laughed at last week on ABC would be pushing math and science and standardized testing to the side as well.

But that doesn’t make it okay for anyone to cheat the system. Especially not when you’re someone like Rose, who was given every advantage a kid could ask for and still expected a handout. That’s just selfish.

And last I checked, that’s not what you want your point guard to be.

Dan's Take Weekly Podcast 5/30

2009-05-30T01:37:00.004-04:00

On this week's show, I give you my thoughts on the situation at Memphis and what cheating or not doing well on the SAT actually means. Also, is the LeBron vs. Kobe campaign the biggest marketing failure in sports history? Plus, why is it that all of a sudden everyone seems to have turned on the Cleveland Cavaliers and is it too early to start asking if LeBron will ever win a title? Finally, I close the show with telling you why Manny Ramirez getting voted in to the All Star game might actually be a good thing for baseball.

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0:00 - 1:43: Intro
1:43 - 17:10: Memphis situation/what the SAT really means
17:10 - 28:37: Lebron vs Kobe: A marketing disaster?
28:37 - 38:21: Why is everyone down on the Cavs?/Will LeBron ever win a title?
38:21 - End: Why Manny getting to the All Star game is good for baseball

With Ortiz, steroids argument carries some weight

2009-05-29T01:00:00.006-04:00

Want to know just how bad things have gotten with David Ortiz? On Tuesday night, I was at dinner with some friends and NESN (the network that carries Red Sox games) was showing Walk Off Sox, which should leave no questions about how the show might end. But there we were, watching the bottom of the ninth of a 2005 game against Baltimore, with Ortiz at the plate, two runners on base, two outs and only three possible outcomes…

Ortiz could strikeout to end the game. Of course, that would mean that NESN would have to be willing to show the Sox lose on a show called Walk Off Sox.
Ortiz could reach base without driving in the winning run, which would leave it to Manny Ramirez to hit the game winner – an even less likely scenario considering Manny is the anti-Christ in New England.
Ortiz could in fact walk off, helping us all to conjure up memories of the days when he was actually better than Jason Varitek.

I’m not kidding when I tell you we had to watch just to make sure Ortiz really was a great hitter at some point in his career. And we had to watch the replay just to be sure that the homerun he hit over the center field fence at Fenway didn’t somehow magically become your typical 2009 outcome for Ortiz: a popup to shallow center.

That’s how bad it has gotten for Ortiz. Everything is questionable at this point. Which is why I think baseball fans have every right to be asking the question no one in New England wants to hear: Was David Ortiz a steroid user? Was his dramatic power surge earlier this decade simply the byproduct of a needle and is the fact that he couldn’t break a lineup at the College Softball World Series the result of him being off the juice?

We don’t know the answer to that question and even if we had a leaky syringe with Papi DNA, he’d still deny everything. But it doesn’t make us wrong for asking and it doesn’t mean we’re evil or un-American for refusing to simply take his word.

Last week, Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal suggested it was unfair that Ortiz’s embarrassing season has lead to talk of performance-enhancing drugs, but conceded that this is what happens in baseball’s current landscape. He wrote that Ortiz is wearing baseball’s Scarlet Letter and that we wouldn’t believe it even if he had somehow just lost it.

But the idea that Ortiz might have been cheating isn’t as impossible as Reynolds wants to believe. It’s not just the fact that in his first 1,693 at-bats, he hit 58 homeruns, and then he nearly doubled that total in his next 1,693 at-bats that suggests something a bit out of the ordinary was occurring. It’s also that his closest friend on the Red Sox was Manny Ramirez, who we now know was either on the juice or trying to find out if he’d be allowed to go on maternity leave.

And Ortiz isn’t just guilty by his association with Manny. What about his friendship with Angel Presinal, who occasionally trained with Ortiz despite being banned from every Major League clubhouse since 2001? We now know Presinal’s clients included Alex Rodriguez, Juan Gonzalez and Jose Guillen, all of whom have been connected to steroids.

Would any of this hold up in court? Of course not. But this isn’t just some witch hunt either.

Ortiz’s numbers, both then and now, coupled with his association with known steroid users and providers certainly inject some validity into the argument.

How much does the commentator really matter?

2009-05-25T10:05:00.000-04:00

At some point, maybe in the last seven or eights years, we started covering those calling the games almost as much those playing them. In fact, you could argue that today’s broadcasters are vilified far more than most athletes. It has almost become cooler to go after Joe Buck, Joe Morgan, Dick Vitale and Tony Kornheiser than it is to attack the players who are half-assing their jobs or whining about contracts.

I realize I’m in the in minority here, but I can’t understand this trend at all. Why is it that we would rather Fire Joe Morgan than fire Big Papi or stop Brett Favre’s next comeback or ban Michael Vick from ever getting near a football field again?

These thoughts all came to mind Monday when I learned that Tony Kornheiser would be leaving the Monday Night Football booth and replaced by Jon Gruden, who will leave the very second the right coaching job comes his way. People didn’t like Kornheiser from the get-go so it seems like everyone is content with seeing him go. Apparently, he didn’t know enough about the intricacies of football.

But what I liked about Kornheiser was just that. I’m not the biggest football fan in the world so I liked his humorous take on things. But even if I was, I highly doubt that I’d be offended by the fact that he never played the game. I mean, I never played a professional sport and I still feel the need to blog and podcast about sports all the time. That’s true for virtually everyone who likes sports.

The truth is I don’t think I’ve ever not watched a big game because I didn’t like who was calling it. And I sure as hell wouldn’t start watching pro bowling if they had Al Michaels breaking down each frame.

There is no question that the best commentators can add to an already compelling game. I just don’t see how the bad ones make them any less interesting.

Walsh, Knicks taking a huge gamble by focusing on LeBron

2009-05-23T10:17:00.000-04:00

When Donnie Walsh was given almost $20 million to run the New York Knicks last year, he was taking over a dysfunctional, mostly talentless franchise that was littered with bad contracts and few signs of hope.

He was also handed the easiest job in sports.

Never before had such a large group of people (fans, the media, players, David Stern) been so collectively content with building for the distant future. In New York, the motto wasn’t, “we’ll get ‘em next year,” it was, “we’ll get ‘em in two-and-a-half years.” By contrast, if during his campaign, Barack Obama told everyone it would be the end of 2010 before the US showed any sign of progress, chances are we would be a heart attack away from having Sarah Palin run the nation.

For Walsh, winning in 2008 wasn’t a priority, which he said plenty of times. Tanking wasn’t either. The Knicks were awful, but they certainly weren’t the Kings or Clippers. To be honest, it really didn’t matter if the team just stopped playing altogether. No one would have noticed. Walsh simply needed to get rid of some huge contracts (Stephon Marbury, Zach Randolph, Jamal Crawford) to get the franchise’s finances in order so it could make a run at LeBron James in 2010.

And there lies the problem. The class of 2010 will be the greatest crop of free agents in the history of sports, with the likes of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire and Yao Ming, along with a number of veterans who could immediately have an impact on any team in the league. But LeBron James is the only player Walsh and the Knicks have their eyes on. It’s the King or bust.

Walsh has even drafted around the idea that LeBron will end up with the Knicks. He took Danilo Gallinari, knowing full well that he was just as likely to never play meaningful minutes in the NBA as he was to become a star in the league. That’s what the LeBron security blanket does. It allows you to gamble with picks.

This year, all signs point to Stephen Curry as the Knicks first pick, unless they somehow fall into a top 3 pick. Walsh sees Curry as the next Mo Williams, a dead-on shooter who can compliment James, which is true. But he’s also a 6’ 160 lb guy with no real position (can’t play the point, too small for the two) who will struggle to defend even marginal NBA players.

So the question becomes, what if the Knicks can’t get LeBron? What if he wins a championship this year or next or both and realizes he doesn’t need New York to elevate his pursuit of being a global icon? This should have been asked a long time ago, but everyone in New York (fans, the media, certainly the Knicks) is so arrogant and believe it’s their god given right to sign James.

As great as the 2010 class is, LeBron is the only player that can carry a team by himself. He’s probably the only player in modern history that could do it. And now that it’s becoming more and more of a possibility that he might not go to New York, the Knicks will be left with a roster that could win 60 games with the best guy, but will struggle to win 45 with the next-best guy.

It should be the easiest job in sports. Stink it up, clear cap room, draft safely, sign a star. That’s all Walsh had to do. Of course the Knicks would be able to sign one the top guys; it is New York after all. But it was never about signing just any star; it had to be LeBron.

So now somehow, the easiest job in sports has become the most stressful.

Random Rumblings: A good sign for baseball?

2009-05-22T23:06:00.000-04:00

Amidst all the shouting and lynch-the-cheater talk that took in place in the sports world last week, there was an important group of people who simply didn’t care. In fact, only a handful of my little leaguers even knew who Manny Ramirez was when I asked them, and not one knew that he was suspended for 50 games just the day before.

Without getting into too many details about Manny (“boys, you should never take female fertility drugs”), I tried to teach my team a life lesson after our marathon of a game Friday night. I talked to them about playing the game right (actually going after popups), about supporting each other (by using goofy chants) and never cheating (or stealing each other’s bubble gum). And all I got was confused looks in return.

They know right from wrong. They just didn’t understand why I was talking about some guy most of them had never really seen play. And that’s what got me thinking about the antics of players throughout the history of the game, an argument I normally hate. Guys took amphetamines long before I was even born and they greased up the ball and corked their bats and stole signs long before those magical green pills entered the game.

Why don’t I care? The answer, more than likely, is it just didn’t seem like a big deal when I became a fan. And maybe that’s how the next generation of baseball fans will feel about steroids in baseball. If juicing isn’t rampant over the next ten years, new stars will develop and the game will move on. And hopefully, so will we.

I just wish I could be the one saying, “who’s Manny?”
Everyone is slamming Selena Roberts for chasing a paycheck and forgetting about the fact that she broke arguably the biggest story in baseball history. She caught a guy who will make almost a half billion dollars in salary over the course of his career so redhanded that he had no choice but to admit that he was a cheater.

Let’s keep our eye on the ball, folks.

And remember, chances are you were wrong about the Duke Lacrosse case too.
I’ve always thought about what it would be like if guys like Mickey Mantle or Babe Ruth lived in a 24/7 media world, the way ARod has to. And then the New York Times had the story about Mantle being allowed to pick the exact location for his second-to-last homerun because he was always “nice” to the guy who threw the pitch, and I thought there would be outrage.

But nope, everyone just seems to think it was kind gesture. Let’s get this straight: Both ARod tipping pitches and Mantle receiving them are despicable, and we need to stay consistent.
The Houston Rockets are supposed to be at the forefront of the moneyball-in-basketball era, which is great, but they’ll never get to the top with two guys as fragile as Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming.
Josh Beckett hasn’t been great, Jon Lester has been awful and it looks like John Smoltz had a setback. All of a sudden that huge advantage the Sox appeared to have is being called into question.

Maybe the AL East will be interesting after all.

Dan's Take Podcast 5/22: On the NBA's age rule, Stephen Curry, Michael Vick and Jake Peavy

2009-05-22T02:03:00.004-04:00

On this week's show, I ask if it's okay to be friends with the drug dealers in my neighborhood. I also tell you why the NBA age rule's credibility is taking a serious hit right now. That plus my thoughts on why the Knicks will be making a huge mistake if they taken Stephen Curry in the NBA draft. I also tell you why Michael Vick might go down as one of the most compelling athletes of his generation if he can make a comeback. Finally, I close the show with some thoughts on Jake Peavy, who disappointed me by refusing to be traded to the White Sox.

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The Breakdown
0:00 - 10:03 - Into/Is it okay to be friends with drug dealers?
10:03 - 33:30 - NBA Age Rule issues/my issues with Stephen Curry
33:30 - 46:47 - Will Michael Vick's comeback can make a great story
46-47 - End - My thoughts on Jake Peavy

Be sure to check out other podcasts or great live shows at TPS Radio

Dan's Take Weekly Podcast 5/12 - On the NBA playoffs, Manny, Stephen Strasburg and Brett Favre

2009-05-12T03:07:00.000-04:00

Note: If you were previously subscribing to my podcast on iTunes, please subscribe again by clicking here. This is the new iTunes feed. You can also directly download the show below.

On this week's show, I ask if the NBA actually has a fan base. I also talk about the Manny Ramirez suspension and tell you why I don't think the next generation of fans will completely dismiss the steroids era. That plus my thoughts on Stephen Strasburg, who is being called the LeBron James of baseball. Is he worth the $50 million it might take to sign him? Finally I close the show with my thoughts on Brett Favre and why the Vikings should not touch him.

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0:00 - 3:00 - Intro
3:00 - 17:20 - Does the NBA even have a fan base?
17:20 - 33:00 - Will the steroids era be forgotten?
33:00 - 46:00 - Would you risk $50 million on Stephen Strasburg?
46:00 - end - Brett Favre to the Vikings, god I hope not

Manny just the latest jab at a jaded generation

2009-05-08T04:20:00.001-04:00

In times of distress, it’s in our fabric to say things we don’t mean. As children, it’s threatening to run away when our parents scold us; as adults, it’s threatening to move to Canada when our President pisses us off. But when it comes to steroids in baseball, our reaction tends to be a little different. Rather than overreact, we’ve been conditioned to say we don’t care or that we aren’t surprised.

But we do and we are. So even though Manny Ramirez is now just another guy on what is clearly an endless list, it still bothers us, particularly those of us who grew up watching him hit. These stories still matter. It’s like fighting when you have no shot to win; the punches still hurt even when you know they’re coming.

But now that Manny becomes the latest star to knock us down, you have to wonder how long it will be before we just stop getting up.

Almost 30 years ago, it was Jimmy Carter who suggested that for the first time in American history, the majority of the population believed the future would be worse than the past. Well for the first time in the history of baseball, a generation has been more regressive than progressive.

If you’re under the age of 30, chances are no player you grew up idolizing was fully clean. That’s something anyone older than that can’t quite comprehend. Manny and ARod and Clemens and Bonds are all we know, which essentially disqualifies us from any conversation about the history of the game. Our opinions are basically invalid to anyone older than us because of what our players represented.

All that leaves is a jaded generation. We’re always going to be a little more cynical and a little less trusting of the guys putting up big numbers. No one will pass the eyeball test. We’ll continue to assume everyone is on steroids.

That is, unless the next punch knocks us out cold.

Dan's Take Weekly Podcast - 5/4

2009-05-04T21:17:00.003-04:00

I’d like to thank TPS Radio for bringing me aboard to contribute my weekly podcast. You can listen to the show by clicking here or downloading below.

On this week’s show, I talk about Selena Roberts’ ARod book and tell you why I think we’ve labeled him as such an evil person that we almost forget that he disgraced baseball. I also tell you the excuse I just can’t stand when baseball players get off to poor starts. That plus my thoughts on the Bulls/Celtics series and why I feel the most recent great series doesn’t always have to be the best of all-time. Finally, I close the show with some thoughts on how round two of the NBA Playoffs will play out.

*Note: There is a little buzz in the background that I will correct for the next show.

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The Breakdown:
0:00 - 9:25: Intro/about me for new listeners
9:25 - 23:10: Why we're missing the point with ARod
23:10 - 34:20: Baseball is not blackjack
34:20 - 46:30: Recent greatness vs historic greatness
46:30 - end: Thoughts on the NBA Playoffs