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03
Limited interest in ‘opening day’
Mar 24, 2008The baseball season begins Tuesday - sort of.
You know, that big battle in Japan between the defending Central League champion Boston Red Sox and Pacific League power Oakland A’s?
Maybe you’re not feeling the buzz. That’s OK, no one else is, either.
In a season in which Major League baseball needs a strong opening day more than perhaps any year in recent memory, Commissioner Bud Selig decides to start regular-season play in Japan. Not that there’s anything wrong with Japan - baseball has a long history in Japan, and it might be more popular there than it is here.
But starting the MLB regular season - 1. Before the NCAA Tournament regional semifinals and 2. Overseas - is further illustration that the powers-that-be of MLB just don’t get it.
Ignore the steroid problem until the government basically makes you do something about it, then ignore the fact that the Mitchell Report and Barry Bonds’ perjury case have given the sport its biggest black eye since the 1995 strike. Then again, there’s still no salary cap and the MLB Players’ Union still cares more about how much money it can bleed from the fan than actually trying to keep or add to the fan base, so the players don’t seem to get it, either.
Does anyone at MLB remember last year, when games played the first week in April had to be postponed or moved because of cold and snow in some cities. No, that won’t be an issue in Japan, but why, while some teams are still playing spring training games, does this goodwill visit to Japan have to be a regular-season contest?
Are the Japanese fans really going to care whether the A’s can take an early lead on the Mariners, Angels and Rangers in the American League West with a win? Would people in Japan who would otherwise pay to see David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez swing a bat decide to skip the game if it were an exhibition because Ortiz and Ramirez would only get two at bats rather than four?
MLB has an opportunity to capitalize on a hot spot in the global market, one where people really care about baseball, and the idea of playing a game in Japan is a good one - unlike the NFL’s brilliant plan of making two teams lose a home game and travel to London in the middle of the season, a place where they love football, but not the kind you catch with your hands.
Had the game just been en exhibition, Selig could have dictated that the teams start their every-day lineups and No. 1 pitchers and leave each in for at least five innings to make it feel like a real game. Maybe to make it more “important,” Selig could have decreed that whichever team won the first game got home-field-advantage on April 1 and 2, when the teams finish their four-game series in Oakland. That, by the way, is after the Red Sox play a three-game series of EXHIBITION in L.A. against the Dodgers.
HUH?
Hopefully the fans at the L.A. Coliseum will be excited to see Julian Tavarez and Bryan Corey when Hideki Okajima and Josh Beckett are on the 15-day disabled list with a bad case of jet lag after Boston’s whirlwind tour. Think the Yankees are the slightest bit gleeful that MLB is treating the Red Sox like the Harlem Globetrotters this spring?
Speaking of which, what’s going to happen if the Red Sox and Yankees both don’t make the playoffs this year, will MLB schedule a series of exhibition games between the two in the middle of the AL Championship Series to remind us all what a great rivalry the two teams have?
When it comes to bad decisions, poor judgment or terrible ideas, nothing that comes from Selig’s office is a surprise anymore. The only thing surprise is that despite its own best efforts, Major League Baseball hasn’t destroyed itself.
Despite every controversy and head-scratching decision that comes down the pike in March and April, the fans will be there in June and July. How many of them there are will be perhaps the most interesting story of the season.
The National Media and Terrelle Pryor
Mar 20, 2008There are times when I’m embarrassed to call myself a sports writer.
Usually, it’s when ESPN is running something completely ridiculous like “Who’s sexier: Tom Brady, Tiger Woods or Lebron James?”
Or when ESPN devotes half a day discussing the minute details of how the Boston Red Sox decided not to go to Japan, and then changed their minds.
Or when ESPN devotes a whole day discussing “bracketology.”
Or when I’m covering a high school game, and fans constantly berate refs/players/coaches with all the class of a second-grader.
Or when …
Well, actually, it’s quite often.
Sports are a wonderful microcosm of the modern world. There are things I love. There are things I like. There are things I tolerate. And there are things so ridiculous, short-sighted and self-involved that I wonder how we ever made it past the 20th Century.
Which brings me to Terrelle Pryor.
I’ve never met Pryor. Probably never will. But the fact that I even know his name is scary.
Pryor’s every move has been documented, covered and dissected in the past year.
Is Pryor going to sign? When’s he going to do it? Who’s he like more, “University of Ohio State” or Michigan? Did you hear that he got into a fight?
How about this one: who cares?
Really, who cares?
If you’re Pryor, you care. If you’re a friend of Pryor, related to him, played ball with him or coached him, you care. And if you’re a Buckeye follower, well, congratulations.
But the rest of the world? ESPN? Sports writers, The Associated Press and the national media?
Are you kidding me?
Sadly, no.
This is where we’re at.
End times, kids.
We’re not even two months removed from the sad story of Kevin Hart, Pryor has yet to even play a down of collegiate football, but your average hardcore sports fan now knows more about Pryor than hat’s going on in Iraq, the state of their own local government, or why the national economy is in the tank.
A blow-by-blow breakdown of Pryor’s “career” and Wednesday’s press conference still ranks in ESPN’s top-10 stories, a day after Pryor made his announcement.
And judging by Pryor’s quotes, he’s got the act down.
(People wonder why modern athletes are so jaded. Well, if you had two major press conferences and had fielded thousands of questions from the media before you graduated high school, you might be, too.)
It’s all Pryor, all the time.
Granted, his numbers look great.
Pryor could be the next Vince Young.
But he could also be the next Michael Vick, Todd Marinovich, Maurice Clarett …
I have nothing against Pryor. I wish him the best.
Hate the game, not the player … I get it.
But we’re part of the game. We subscribe to it and contribute to it and keep it alive.
And, right now, the game is broken.
From the proliferation of high school recruiting sites to signing day-mania; from an obsession with meaningless stats to an unhealthy obsession with kids who aren’t even old enough to even vote—we’ve created a monster.
Pryor’s not a savior. He’s not a god. He’s not even a college star, yet.
He’s a kid.
Good luck, Terrelle Pryor.
I hope you make it.
VIDEO REPORT: Food City 500
Mar 19, 2008http://www.tricitiesblogs.com/video/watch/food_city_500_race/
Posted by Nicki Mayo Love III and Snedeker Heading to Bristol
Mar 17, 2008PGA Tour members Davis Love III, Brandt Snedeker and Lucas Glover will join PGA veteran Mike Hulbert at the 21st annual Bristol Morning Rotary Club Golf Classic, which will be held April 28 at The Virginian golf club.
The announcement was made Monday morning at The Virginian.
Check Tuesday’s paper or the Sports section of our Website for more info ...
Posted by Brian T. Smith Big Orange and Lap 498
Mar 16, 2008Tony Stewart drove the Car of Tomorrow around Bristol Motor Speedway on Goodyear tires.
Stewart survived.
But the controversy that followed Stewart into BMS eventually found him on the track.
This time, though, the drama had nothing to do with Goodyear or its tires.
It had to do with racing.
Good, old-fashioned, hard-nosed racing.
Stewart led 267 of the 506 laps run Sunday afternoon in the Food City 500, but his hard charge ended when Kevin Harvick ran low on Turn 2 of lap 498.
As Stewart stayed high, Harvick’s No. 29 Chevrolet knocked into the left side of Stewart’s No. 20 Toyota.
Harvick kept driving, Stewart spun out, and the man who came into Bristol talking up a storm had little to say when he hopped out of his car following the race.
“I thought I left [Harvick] plenty of room, but I don’t know,” said Stewart, who finished 14th, and now sits in seventh place in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. “I was far enough ahead of him that I didn’t see where he hit me or when he hit me. I’m sure somehow it was my fault. I’m just sorry I got in his way.”
As soon as Stewart went into a spin, his day was effectively over.
Still, Stewart dominated Bristol Motor Speedway more than any other driver Sunday.
His first lead came on lap 96.
And Stewart owned BMS between laps 102-189, running slim lines and burning his way through lapped traffic, as he used the high and low sections of Turns 2 and 3 to his advantage.
Denny Hamlin grabbed a momentary lead on lap 190.
But by lap 193, Stewart again held first position.
Stewart possessed six separate leads Sunday, his last an 82-lap hold on first place from 415-496.
And where other top drivers like Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Ryan Newman fell prey to the out-of-nowhere oddities that make BMS a perennial fan-favorite, Stewart managed to keep his No. 20 Toyota in the clear.
Until lap 498.
Stewart’s frustrating ending mirrored his performance in last year’s Sharpie 500 – he led 257 laps before finishing 35th.
But a different outcome appeared to await Stewart Sunday.
After starting in sixth, Stewart’s bright-orange No. 20 began shining bright by lap 36, when he pulled into fourth place.
Stewart then flew past Jeff Gordon on lap 42, going low at Turn 2 to take over third position.
And Stewart began to close on then-leader Bowyer at lap 47.
As Bowyer fought traffic and tried to get around Ryan Newman’s No. 12 Dodge, Stewart gained ground.
Only a pre-race determined competition yellow at lap 50 prevented Stewart from overtaking Bowyer.
But Stewart began his charge again. And by lap 94, the track belonged to Big Orange.
But Turn 2 at lap 498 was waiting.
