SportsSpout

Fresh Men for Auburn Football

2011-08-05T17:14:00.003-05:00

Auburn Football: I was in Auburn a couple days ago and you can smell football in the air and feel it lurking just off College Street. The campus and the whole town is alive with alumni, and with a new generation of alumni-to-be moving into fresh apartments.

My own son is one of these switching from the Copper Beech complex to a condo south of campus. I'm also glad to report that the historic oak tree at Toomer's Corner is still living, but it was sad to see the barricades around it and the lack of leaves at the tips of the branches.

This is type of mean-spirited damage is not what college sports is all about. It's about that 50-something couple I saw in Wal-Mart holding hands, with his orange polo and her white "AU" T-shirt. It's about the giggly girl shopper at the Apple Computer specialist store, Graphicom, where my son now has a part time job, in her blue and orange; and soon it's going to be about a crop of freshmen that Coach Gene Chizik said this week will NOT be sitting on the bench.

Chizik said this week that they'll play until they show that they need to be red-shirted and not the other way around. That should make for some interesting games, even if Auburn can't live up to it's pre-season #19 national ranking. Two of the most important new Tigers will try to boost the defensive side of the line, Jonathan Rose at Corner Back and Gabe Wright on the Defensive Line. With Nick Fairley and a number of other D players gone, these freshmen will be needed; and will bring an element of the unknown to the team -- should make for some fun footbal!

Serena Not Acting Like a Champion

2009-09-12T22:46:00.003-05:00

I was enjoying Kim Clijsters performance against Serena Williams. Collected and measured with deep ground strokes, quick defense and at least one great offensive lob. Serena was managing to pump herself up at around 4 all in the second set, serving a number of aces and some tough play to fight off 3 break points to hold serve. It looked like a classic only-play-my-A-game-when-I-really-have-to display from Serena. She's done it many times and it's the biggest reason that I'm not a fan -- or it was.

She gave me another reason not to be in her corner tonight when, at 15-30, second serve, a line-person called her for a foot fault, giving Clijsters 2 match points. John McEnroe, doing commentary for CBS, said he saw no foot fault. The two replays we saw had inconclusive angles. The person with the best vantage point in the stadium made the call. Serena, you're down during a potential match game, you don't put your toes so close to the line that it might get called; they were definitely very close -- I suspect that more angles will appear in photos or other motion cameras. But the foot fault didn't cost her the match, what she did next is what cost her the match. She railed at the line judge. Shook a ball at her as she was cursing at her (we couldn't hear what she said, but we were told it was profane). Then she got even closer and shook her racket at the line judge. She walked back like she was going to serve, but went back again and yelled some more. One of the women commentators eventually said it was not how champions behave. John McEnroe, though, continued to blame the bad ending on a possibly errant foot fault call. Sorry, John, you're out of line, too. The lines person behaved 100% appropriately -- if she saw a foot fault she needs to call it; even if it had been match point. But the unsportsmanlike conduct was all on Serena Williams. And this was her second code violation of the match (the first was for racked abuse when she lost the first set). Second violation cost her one point -- in this case, match point.

S. Williams was out of line and deserved no special consideration. I do feel a bit bad for Kim Clijsters, not getting to win the match on her own racket. She had done the work, and was, at most 2 points from winning. I think she would have won, even if Serena hadn't lost it for herself.
Both the finalists seem like great sports. It'll be tough to root for one over the other. Go Kim Clijsters! Go Caroline Wozniacki!

Spread the 40-Love at the Tennis US Open

2009-09-03T23:13:00.005-05:00

Hey! ESPN2! How about showing something a little more competetive than Andy Roddick thrashing M. Gicquel, 6-1, 6-4, 5-4 in tennis at the US Open's second round? There must be something a little closer and more interesting. Okay, so the third set is slightly closer than the first two, but it's 11:15 PM already, even here in the Central Time Zone, and you've wasted my prime time tennis viewing. Sheesh.

Big East Basketball Tournament Time: Over Time Times Six

2009-03-13T18:20:00.003-05:00

I haven't been as big a fan of college basketball in recent years. The physicality and the rules changes have turned me off, but I got snared by the sextuple overtime (6 OT) basketball game last night: Connecticut and Syracuse in a marathon. I like that Syracuse plays zone and often extends it to a zone press. I didn't flip the TV on until about a minute into the first overtime, but I was hooked after that, staying up way passed my bed time; but it felt like watching a whole game. CT out rebounded Syracuse, especially on the offensive boards, at least in the OT's. But Syracuse stayed in it with some great free throw shooting from Paul Harris (13 of 14) and Jonny Flynn (a perfect 16 of 16) and Rautins' screened 3 pointers; that's a tough thing to do, come off a screen 20+ feet from the basket, catch the ball and shoot while still moving sideways; he had at least 3 of those that kept the Orange Men in the game. By the 5th OT CT had lost most of its tall timber and Paul Harris started taking over inside for Syracuse, although he missed numerous 2 foot and closer shots, including a wide open dunk when his exhausted legs wouldn't lift him 10 feet up to the rim -- he pulled his own rebound though and made the traditional lay-up off the glass.

For CT, AJ Price showed a lot of leadership, playing through 5 OTs with 4 fouls on him, not fouling out until CT was in desperation mode in the sixth overtime. But Price, CT's best free thrower, did miss one critical freebie at the end of one overtime (the 3rd? who can remember?) that would have put them up by 2 possessions, instead Rautins extended the game on the other end with another three. Nice to see some of the Syracuse benchwarmers get some minutes, Justin Thomas was doing jumping jacks in his zone defense while the rest of the 'cuse team were grabbing their shorts. They may not have much gas left to face West Virginia in the semi's tonight.

2008 NBA Finals First Game Wimper

2008-06-05T23:14:00.001-05:00

I watched the end of the first game of the NBA finals tonight. I guess with a minute and one second left in the 4th quarter and down by six points that the Lakers decided to let the Celtics have game one and started thinking about game two. Kobe and company need to take a look at some archive film of another basketball team from their town, a college team, UCLA, who came back from 8 points down with 11 seconds left in a game (Can't remember the year, late 1960's?). Or Reggie Miller did it by himself in 1995 . Come on guys this is professional league, the finals. Geesh.

Yankee Billy Crystal

2008-03-13T15:04:00.002-05:00

Reuters reported that actor/comedian Billy Crystal lived his dream to play baseball for the New York Yankees today. It was a spring training game against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Hey, Billy, who couldn't play against the Pirates, eh?

Gators Gall

2007-10-05T16:47:00.000-05:00

Here's what I think should have happened. I think Florida Gators football coach Urban Meyer should have been called for unsportsmanlike conduct when he called timeout an instant before the Auburn Tigers kicked what would have been the winning field goal last Saturday. That could have done two things: nullified the timeout and given Auburn the choice to accept or decline the penalty. Obviously they would have declined, but if Wes Byrum had missed that first one, they would have had a second shot at it -- from 15 yards closer.

I'm no NCAA football official so I don't know how much latitude a referee has in assessing an unsportsmanlike penalty, but if its like other sports there is just enough. College sports don't need that crap. I know it's big business and that most of these kids are only student athletes in the broadest application of the term student but they are still more or less what I just said: kids -- and so are many of the fans.

Of course the stunt could have backfired; Byrum could easily have missed the first attempt and made the second attempt -- after all he would have just practiced it. Ask any basketball player, the second free throw is much easier than the first in a pressure spot. But Byrum banged both kicks clean through the uprights and I like what he said, "After the first kick, I really felt more relaxed. I felt like I was going to make it. It just doesn't get any better than that."

No More No-Hitters?

2007-09-11T13:33:00.000-05:00

My father has an idea.

Dad's been around baseball a long time, he was a player and a manager in city leagues back when there were city leagues. More recently he's been a high school baseball coach, retiring from that only a few years ago. And he's been a fan forever; currently he's an Atlanta Braves fan, I think primarily because he gets all their games on television thanks to his satellite dish.

Dad's idea? A new baseball pitching role: the "opener", or maybe call it the "establisher" to avoid confusions with "Opening Day" or "Home Opener". But it's the opposite of the closing pitcher, or "Closer".

He mentioned this to me while I was visiting him over Labor Day this year. We were watching the first football game of the season for Auburn University on Saturday, September 1st. My son is a freshman there and he was at the game. We never spotted him in the sea of orange shirts in the Auburn stands, but he enjoyed his inaugural college football game. (Auburn defeated Kansas State in dramatic fashion, scoring two touchdowns in the final three minutes.)

As we watched, ESPN2 started interrupting with updates from the Red Sox / Orioles major league baseball game. A rookie, Clay Buchholz, was pacing toward throwing a no-hitter in only his second career start. This is a pretty big event, covered everywhere including the blogosphere. A no-hitter has always been a rare event, but in this age of protecting pitchers' arms and maximizing winning percentages even "complete games" are pretty rare and getting more so. Managers are quick to pull starting pitchers who stumble, early or late in a game and even pitchers enjoying a shut-out are often pulled for as little reason as that their pitch count is climbing beyond their normal range. No more are pitchers heroes-on-the-mound, giving up their bodies for their team and because its their game.

Depending on when a "starting pitcher" is pulled determines which role will come on in relief. There's middle-relievers, short-relievers and closers. It's not uncommon to see all four types in one game, and sometimes more than one of the relievers if the situation calls for a left-hander when a right-hander is in the game. But through the years of the rise of the relievers, the Starter has still been something of a sacrosanct role. A prime statistic for a starter was his number of complete games, but as the shame of leaving a game before all nine innings were in the book diminished, the new statistic of "quality starts" gained prominence.

Well my dad would shove quality starts into the dust bin of history as well by beginning each game, or important ones at least, with a team's ace opener, a pitcher that can come out hot and establish dominance at the dawn of the game the way a closer can vanquish the last hopes of the opposing team in the twilight innings.

Dad's thought was that the Opener might only face 2 or 3 batters, just like a Closer. I wondered if the Opener might run all the way through the line-up once, getting 7 or 8 outs before any batter gets a second look at his stuff. Of course once the taboo of starting with Starters is lifted, managers will find what works best with the rest of their style -- maybe the Opener would just pitch until he faces a strong opposite-handed batter. Starters might not even be called Starters anymore, they could be called "Gamers" or something.

The key is to break that taboo of starting pitchers and sticking with them deep into the game. Establish dominance early with a system that includes Openers and works with the bullpen you've built. A pioneering manager could earn a spot in Cooperstown with success and have a lot of fun watching the other clubs try to catch up.

I know my father would like to see an Opening Pitcher in practice. He didn't get the chance to try this idea with his own teams, but ask him sometime about "two platooning" his pitchers one year in city league -- he'd do a mid-inning triple swap among his catcher, pitcher and short-stop to keep an opposite-handed pitcher facing key batters. You bet the umpires loved it. Who'd love Opening Pitchers? Fans would, if their winners. Remember you saw it here first.

Micky D's for WiFi

2007-08-14T10:41:00.000-05:00

We were on vacation in beautiful upstate New York in late July when it was time to get connected to a fast internet pipe so that my son, an impending Auburn University freshman, could have a chance at getting season tickets for Tigers football. The flood gates on the Auburn website were due to open at 9:00 am central time, 10:00 am our local NY time, so we located a nearby McDonald's restaurant and ordered some breakfast and asked for wireless access. The young lady behind the counter handed us our cinnamon rolls, OJ, and an instruction card and we went to work.

Thirty minutes later we still weren't on line, but we were getting closer after the store supervisor rebooted their system (the extent of her technical expertise, but she was very nice about it) and we realized that we were trying to get in via the local carrier's public portal rather than their McDonald's pathway. By twenty 'til all we had to do was wait. My son pounced on the tickets link as soon as it went live: $95 for 6 home games, not bad. And Auburn is the football team in Alabama with a tested coach in place, Tommy Tuberville. I guess I'll have to learn more about the players, and quick, since the season is about to kickoff in a couple weeks, it looks like with four home games in a row!

So when you need some internet in the middle of nowhere, for tickets or just sports scores, most McDonald's can hook you up, if you don't need much tech support.

More Maddening

2007-03-13T21:46:00.000-05:00

I just entered half a dozen brackets in several different places online: Yahoo, ESPN, CSTV, etc. Including one of my usual office pools -- haven't heard from the other one back in Pennsylvania yet -- what about it Dave? I'm always good for donating my money to yun's.

So who did I pick? I haven't watched so much as half a game of basketball all season. They've pretty well ruined for me; remember when basketball was a non-contact sport? Sheesh! At least the 3-point shot is still in play. But with the clock and full body blows it's not the game it once was. But enough of my peeves.

As usual I picked the Atlantic Coast Conference teams to win at least their first round games -- not a big stretch since they mostly ended up favored. I pushed Maryland, a 4-seed, through to one Final Four, and since the committee graced North Carolina with a #1 slot I have pushed them through to St. Louis on most cards. Maryland, with D.J. Strawberry, looked good for the few minutes I watched them a couple weeks ago, with proud papa Darryl looking almost respectable in the stands.

What about upsets? I listened to John Feinstein on NPR and went with Winthrop (11) over Notre Dame (6). I hate to cheer against the Irish but you got to make a stand someplace. I also tended to disfavor SEC teams when things get close, mostly because if the upset happens it should give me a nice edge in the office.

One of my alma mater's is actually in the tourney this year: VCU; but as they are facing Duke straight off I couldn't give them a sentimental nod.

Well, let's get started. It's the only sporting event on TV that comes close to living up to its hype, even though these days I'd rather be watching women's soccer.

Kareemisms

2007-03-08T12:15:00.000-06:00

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has held a special position for me among super-star athletes ever since I saw him play in the early '70's at The Spectrum, aka "The Tuna Can" in Philadelphia. He and his Miluakee Bucs took down the 76'ers. Jabbar further endeared himself to me when I listened to his book, A Season on the Reservation (reviewed here), where he spends a basketball season helping to coach a Native American basketball team.

Now Kareem is on the lecture circuit, most recently at Technology, Entertainment, Design 2007, dispensing wisdom like this:

-"It’s like the guy who has three Ph.Ds, one in philosophy, one in psychology, and one in sociology. He doesn’t have a job, but he can explain why."

There's more at Wired News' Epicenter blog: The Quotable Kareem.

Maddening March

2007-03-06T23:08:00.000-06:00

It's been one of those Working Girl confluence of coincidences kind of days where I've gotten 3 referrals to the NCAA's March Madness. It feels a little like the radio playing Christmas carols before Thanksgiving (granted it is March already, so we can't stretch the analogy back to Halloween, but still). First Yahoo! sent me a notice that registration was open for their Pick 'em; next The CSTV Bracket Challenge did pretty much the same thing. (You can bet I'll be in both these, and a couple more before Thursday the 15th's midday tip off. I did win a local newspaper's office pool in 2004 thanks to a strong run by one of my ACC teams, a number 3 seed that year, Georgia Tech.)The third thing? Business 2.0's #8 on their list of "What's next" on the web in the March 2007 issue: PicksPal. I haven't checked it out in any depth yet, but it looks a bit like "Pick 'em" meets Limbomobile. I'll let you know.

Lunch 'n' Run

2007-03-06T23:07:00.001-06:00

I broke out my Adidas and went for a run outdoors today at lunch, the first time this Spring, although there have been some other warm days. I'm not sure what the inspiration was, I'd been staying in at the Wellness Center and watching Cramer's Mad Money on CNBC or The Family Feud and ticking off a couple miles on the treadmill. Maybe is was seeing the new Nike Zoom's at Fleet Feet's grand opening this past weekend. It put me in mind of my original running shoes, a pair of Nike Waffle Trainer II's, bought new in 1979. I know, 10 years later they were a collector's item in Japan, but I had started using mine for softball by 1982, they made a pretty good outfielder's shoe, but the lateral movement and the basepaths wreaked havoc on their sides.Anyway. Back to today at lunch. It was gorgeous. I didn’t see any coyotes like my wife did during her run at dawn this morning, but I did see plenty of ducks and fish. I followed the running group out from the old shower building. I hadn’t crossed over to the neighborhood that way since last summer sometime – there are houses in between the back campus road and the lake now – you still have to cross a patch of dirt and follow an unpaved road for a couple blocks. It was also too far for me, probably 5 – 6 miles; I haven’t run that far in 6 months probably. But I slowed down the last couple miles and didn’t suffer too much…(BTW, what's up with Adidas' Yoda-ism slogan: "Impossible is nothing"?)

Miami to Alabama, Greedily

2007-01-03T18:07:00.000-06:00

I don't usually follow these things, but I heard and saw Nick Saban say over the weekend that he would not be the Alabama coach... I guess it is just too sweet a deal financially. It was pretty clear that it wasn't his current life's ambition; with that in mind I'm not sure it is a good result for the Crimson Tide if he has relented and taken the job -- basically they bribed him into it and heart is a much better motivator than money; money is a great facilitator, but better to have someone who would love to excel at the job than someone who would love to get rich at the job.

Update: Saban has indeed resigned from the Dolphins. I hear that fear of crime in the Miami Metro area was also a motivating factor. Ouch.

Safin and Haas Play Tennis at Edo

2006-09-09T22:21:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday I went over and ate lunch at Edo, a Japanese restaurant near my day job. It was good, as usual. The sushi chef there, Ernesto, is a good friend of mine. He gives me extra pickled ginger with my rolled sushi.

With the remnants of another Ernesto, the tropical storm, finally moving beyond the New York City area, play had resumed at the US Tennis Open. So on the TV in the Edo sushi bar I watched Tommy Haas beat Marat Safin in a fifth set tie breaker. Or was it the other way around? They are similar players in my mind; talented but vanilla in flavor. Haas (I'm pretty sure it was Haas...), had a beautiful defensive lob in the tie-breaker, forcing Safin to run back and around the ball and thus his return was weak and the counter-drive then won the point for Haas. Gotta love a good lob.

Update: Ah, it was Haas, but Davydenko took care of him and Federer felled Davydenko in turn -- Roger just has Roddick left tomorrow on his march to another Grand Slam title.

And the women are complete. I won't be as long winded as The Daily Growler. Justine Henin-Hardenne and Maria Sharapova gave a nice physical contrast -- the grunting former Russian Amazonian after the manner of the Williams sisters and Justine as petite as her name and her country (Belgium). But the match was a bit flat, the smaller woman really needed to make the tall blonde with the uncomfortable earrings and oddly split-back black tennis dress move, and so to move herself. I thought falling behind in the second set might be just what Henin needed in order to psyche up, but she continued to overhit and then lost with a forgettable forehand into the net. Sharapova: 6-4, 6-4.

Tiger tearing a new one...

2006-09-06T21:09:00.000-05:00

A new page in the record books, that is. Five victories in his last five tournaments and 7 of 14 this year on the PGA tour. It's back to 2001 when it was Tiger versus the rest of the field -- an incredible feat in a world wide sport where victory is based on outscoring everyone else simultaneously, not eliminating them one at a time (and, by the way, thanking your competition for eliminating all but logBase2(n) - 1 of each other, e.g. 120 out of a field of 128; you have to beat the other 7 yourself, like Roger Federer will this fortnight at the US Open (tennis).)

But if his compatriots are mad at Tiger for his "Back to the Future" performance, they shouldn't be. Professional golf purses have accelerated like the DeLorean from those films since Woods repopularized the sport and arguably brought a broader audience to the game. Tiger was a phenom from the start and pulled a lot of eyeballs to the links. Of course adding in his endorsements of everyone from Buick to Upper Deck trading cards, and of course Nike, he makes a mint, but so do dozens of other pro golfers these days. Even the anti-charismatic Vijay Singh has non-equipment endorsements (84 Lumber). And like the royal animals he's named after, Tiger is a joy to watch go through his paces.

2006-09-05T19:49:00.000-05:00

Crikey! Steve Irwin is dead!

"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think." -- Jean de La BruyÃ¨re

It was neither for Steve Irwin, also known as “The Crocodile Hunter”. He died yesterday in a freak diving accident, stabbed through the heart by the barb on a sting ray’s tail.

Steve’s death is a tragedy for many people: most of all for his children and wife, but also for his personal friends, for the people of Australia and for all of us who loved not only his work but his big Aussie personality that leapt across the oceans. Who Steve’s death was not a tragedy for is Steve Irwin. He lived the way he loved. He understood the meaning of the word wild and loved nature the all the more for its wildness. He put Animal Planet on the map, raising the fortunes of The Discovery Channel group.

Of course he wanted to see his kids grow up and to handle 10,000 more crocodiles; but watching animals through a plate of glass was not his passion – you might as well have put him in a cage. I mourn our loss but salute Steve Irwin’s life and legacy.

2006-09-04T17:47:00.000-05:00

Let's start with a movie, a new football movie, since I went to see
Invincible today.
(Spoiler Alert -- but then this is a Disney movie so if you're looking for a downer of an ending you've dropped in at the wrong production house.)

Do we really need another undertalented-athlete-with-a-lot-of-heart-gets-a-shot-at-the-big-time film? After all there's already a pretty good football film just like that, Rudy. It's college (Notre Dame) and Invincible is pro, but we still get to see a lot mis-matched pad hits. (Just FYI, Rudy Ruettiger is available for inspirational lectures, he recently spoke nearby at a fundraiser for a new Catholic High School -- wish I'd heard about it beforehand.)

In fact Disney has already had a very similar film in The Rookie, but that was about a baseball player, Jim Morris; and it was in Texas, not Philadelphia, PA. So has Philly already had an underdog-gets-a-shot movie? Uh, yeah, a little film called Rocky. Coincidentally this film is begins in the year Rocky came out, 1976.

So did we really need another one of these films? Of course not, but you know what; I'm glad they made it and if they keep finding these stories and doing a quality job with them I hope they keep right on making them. I can stomach one or two a year.
This one was made easier to swallow with a fine performance by Greg Kinnear as new Eagles head coach Dick Vermeil and it didn't hurt that I was kid in a Philadelphia suburb in the early 70's, when the team was struggling -- brought back memories like the Christmas that both the boys next door got full Eagles' uniforms, pads and helmets included.

Maybe my favorite part of Invincible was the stock footage at the end, showing the real Vince Papale, Dick Vermeil and the gritty Philadelphia fans, bad 70's haircuts and all.

2006-09-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

Welcome to SportsSpout, where our spouting off about sports is spot on!

We plan to cover the big 3 1/2 sports: Football, Baseball, Basketball and Hockey. At least some of the time we will, but we will also talk about lesser sports like table tennis, soccer, cross-country running and lacrosse. And we'll look at all levels, from grassroots beginners in recreational leagues to scholastic conferences to minor leagues to the pros. We'll look from all angles: promotion, officiating, playing, operations and of course, as fans.

Let's have some fun!