When worlds collide

March 18, 2012 2 Comments

My buddy Lars (left) and I at Alaska Airlines Arena, home of the Washington Huskies.

More than 2000 miles separate Seattle and Chicago.

I made the flight last Thursday for a NIT game. As my dad told me, “You are probably the only person in the country who is doing this.”

Well, I wasn’t the only person, but I may have been the only one not affiliated with the Northwestern Athletic Department.

Washington vs. Northwestern in the second round of the NIT was more than just a basketball game. It was my two worlds colliding. The schools have squared off in recent years before, in softball, in golf, but not in football or basketball.

This would be the first game of men’s hoops between the two schools in my lifetime.

I grew up in Seattle as a Washington Huskies fan. Granted, professional sports carried a bigger weight but UW football and men’s basketball meant a lot to me. I still remember the devastation of Richard Hamilton’s improbable fade-away shot to beat UW at the buzzer in the NCAA Tournament like it was yesterday. Rooting for UW basketball generally ends in pain. The farthest they’ve gotten in the NCAA Tournament in my lifetime is the Sweet 16.

Of course being a Huskies fan pales in comparison to rooting for Northwestern basketball. Northwestern has never made the NCAA Tournament in my lifetime. In fact, they’ve never made the NCAA Tournament, period. NU is the only team in one of the “power six” conferences to have failed to go dancing.

So the NIT has been as good as it gets for the Wildcats. This marked the fourth straight season they’ve made the NIT. Last year they made it to the round of eight before falling at Washington State in OT to the Cougars.

That game between the ‘Cats and the team I loved to hate growing up: the Cougars, was exciting enough. But this year’s NIT battle raised the bar.

Being a passionate Northwestern fan is beyond infuriating. The lack of bowl wins and NCAA Tournament appearances is one thing; I could deal with that alone. However, it’s the national perception that really gets at me. Because we’re a so-called “smart school” our fans and athletes don’t get the respect other schools’ fans and athletes get within the world of sports. Our fans are viewed as less passionate and our athletes are dismissed as curiosities. We perpetuate these myths ourselves because every now and then an idiot freshman Daily Northwestern columnist will advocate us moving to the MAC or something absurd like that. Never mind that NU football has won the fourth most Big Ten titles since 1995.

But I digress. Respect is something I crave and NU athletics gets none. (“At least you have women’s lacrosse” is a taunt I often hear.) This is especially the case when it comes to my friends from high school. Most of them went to the University of Washington and they think very highly of their Dawgs, as they should. However it often comes at the expense of my Wildcats. I always hear from them how much NU sucks. They do it mostly to bother me and it does, a lot. All I ever want is for the teams I root for to become champions and all the teams I root for do to me is laugh in my face as they find new and increasingly devastating ways to disappoint me. (The 2001 Seattle Mariners remain the most egregious offenders of leading me on to think I’ll actually see a title in my life). With Northwestern my expectations are lower for now, all I want them to do is win a bowl game or make the NCAA Tournament, but sadly the last time they won a bowl was during the Truman Administration and the last time they made the NCAA Tournament was in a dream I had the other night.

It’s hard to compare athletic programs without teams actually playing each other regularly so it’s been a Cold War between my friends from Seattle and I over the years.

Washington football has been terrible in recent seasons. They’ve won a total of 27 games since 2006, the year my friends and I started college. Meanwhile, NU has won 40 games since 2006. Neither win total is impressive, but at least I have bragging rights in that category.

In basketball, there are no bragging rights for me. The UW men’s team has been consistently at the top of their (increasingly lousy) conference and NU men’s hoops has been consistently around eighth or ninth place in the Big Ten.

So this second round NIT game between the two schools meant more to me than any NIT game will mean in the foreseeable future. It was finally a chance for the two schools to do battle in one of the two major collegiate sports.

Around 200 members of the Northwestern Alumni Club of Seattle went to the game. The Executive Editor of the Seattle Times wrote a column about how he would be rooting for his Wildcats over the Huskies. So there was quite a bit of excitement among NU alums in the area.

There was no such excitement coming from the UW team or their fans. In fact I’m not sure the friends I went to the game with would have gone if I hadn’t come back to town. Making the NIT this year was especially annoying for Washington because they’d won the regular season title in the PAC 12.

My buddy Lars got us tickets near the NU bench right by the “Dawg Pack” which is the UW student section. I had obtained a sign that read simply “Go Cats” from the Alumni Association before the game. Lars decided that it’d be more fun if we stood in the Dawg Pack than sit in our assigned seats. (This is a traditional of ours, whenever we go to sporting events we always sit somewhere else besides our ticketed seats. For example, we’ve sat in the front row on the infield of the lower deck at Mariners’ games many a time over the years.)

I started waving my “Go Cats” sign around near the start of the game and an usher came up to me and told me that only UW students were allowed in the Dawg Pack. I would have to leave. By leave he meant literally step across the aisle and sit in my ticketed seat. There had apparently been some fights between opposing teams’ fans and the students in the Dawg Pack over the years so they’d cracked down on outsiders like me. I negotiated with the usher and explained to him the situation: that I was here with friends, not to make trouble. He finally let me stay as long as I put my “Go Cats” sign down since in his words: “at least you are wearing purple.”

My two purple worlds collided and only UW’s world remained intact. After a slow start they blitzed Northwestern with their superior athleticism. There were some monster dunks, blocks and fancy dribbling that basically humiliated the poor Wildcats. John Shurna, NU’s all-time leading scorer, was really the only NU player who truly showed up as he poured in 24 points in his final collegiate game.

The details of the 76-55 defeat are hardly worth mentioning though. This game got to the heart of what I love about sports. The deeply rooted nature of fandom is hard to explain to someone who doesn’t follow sports but it’s a passion that goes nearly unmatched in our lives. Here I was, more than 2000 miles from where I normally watch my beloved Wildcats play basketball, yet I was also home.

Seattle is where I spent my entire childhood. It’s where I developed my love of sports and maybe one day I’ll return permanently. But for now, I simply can’t return that often. In order to achieve my goal of becoming a major league baseball announcer, I must go where there’s a job to be had. Luckily one of the first stops on my journey happens to be only an hour and a half from Northwestern. I feel a strong connection to both the city where I grew up and the school where I learned so much. In Seattle I would broadcast make-believe games in my driveway. At Northwestern I refined my broadcasting ability by calling actual sporting events thanks to the great student radio station: WNUR. Broadcasting NU sports and getting to know the athletes who play them gave me a deeper understanding of collegiate athletics and made me care about every game that much more.

I have friends in Seattle who don’t get why I love Northwestern so much. I have friends from Northwestern who don’t get why I love Seattle so much. Then I have friends and colleagues in Joliet who don’t get why I like Seattle or Northwestern so much.

It’s a bizarre combination of fandom that doesn’t often result in actually winning a whole lot. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Because I know in my heart that one day Northwestern will get that bowl win and that appearance in the Big Dance. I know one day the Mariners will win the World Series and the Seahawks will win the Super Bowl. I know one day the Sonics will return.

I know…or maybe I hope…these things will happen while I am still on this earth. I’m only 24 but the losses continue to pile up.

There’s still a lot of time for both my worlds to finally be happy. And when these things do happen, no one will be happier than me.

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An atheist’s case for Tim Tebow

January 8, 2012 3 Comments

Logically there is no reason why I should like Tim Tebow.

In fact, there is no reason why a lot of us should like Tim Tebow. I know Tim Tebow’s brand of Christianity very well. It’s not an easy one to digest when you know the facts. Tim Tebow’s brand of Christianity holds that if you do not accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior…you are going to hell. That’s right, even though Tim Tebow has never met me, he thinks I’m damned for eternity unless I accept Jesus Christ died for all of our sins.

That’s a rather radical perspective, isn’t it? No matter what kind of life I lead, it’s not good enough according to Tebow’s brand of Christianity. Tebow does a good job dressing up his religion but facts are facts. Tebow believes the Bible is the literal word of God. And as anyone who has read the Bible can attest, the literal word of God is not particularly pleasant.

Furthermore, I’m an atheist. It is my opinion that man created God, not vice versa. I’m a fan of Bill Maher, George Carlin, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and the many others throughout history who stepped up and said “religion is bullshit.”

But God help me I love Tim Tebow.

Perhaps some background information is in order. I spent the summer of 2007 in Fairbanks, Alaska with a baseball team called the Athletes in Action Fire. This is where I was introduced to Tim Tebow’s brand of Christianity. I spent the summer broadcasting their games and traveling with them throughout Alaska. At that time I was rather ignorant of the power Christianity had on people’s lives. Growing up in Seattle I had assumed fundamentalist religion in America was a thing of the past. Yes, some people went to church, but it was more a tradition than any actual belief in a higher power. I had known a few religious people, but they did not subscribe to this brand of Christianity, not even close. Politicians talked about their religious beliefs, but they were politicians, the best bet there was not to believe a word that came from their mouths.

Basically, religious fundamentalism was not something I experienced growing up, so it was not something I really comprehended as a reality in America.

Needless to say the summer of 2007 was a rather eye-opening experience for me.

These guys were the real deal. They also couldn’t have been nicer human beings. I think a few of them were thrilled to have an atheist in their mix to challenge their beliefs. And challenge them I did. I remember one particular discussion about dinosaurs. It’s a tenant of Tebow’s brand of Christianity that the earth was created in six literal days. Not metaphorical days. Literal, 24-hour days. Naturally this brings up the rather problematic issue of dinosaurs and well the entire fossil record. It’s been a few years now but I’ll never forget one of the guys coming up to me after the debate and saying in a quiet voice “hey man, I really think you were making a lot of sense in there.” I wish he’d came to my defense during the debate (30 against one is not easy), but I appreciate the sentiment.

To make a long story short, I couldn’t have had a better time with the AIA Fire. Their mission was to spread the word of Jesus Christ through baseball and that is Tebow’s mission when it comes to football.

And guess what? That’s fine by me.

Would I want some of the friends I made with the AIA Fire running our country? No. But in the context of sports, their religion, no matter how fanatical it may seem to me, is frankly, irrelevant.

What made that group special and what makes Tim Tebow special is that they kept prevailing despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

The Fire were a regular bottom dweller in the league before I arrived in 2007. It’s hard enough to recruit good talent to Fairbanks but when that talent has to be fundamentalist Christian to boot, it’s even harder. The other teams had an almost unlimited talent pool to choose from, not so much the Fire.

But they did it. Of all the players on that team only one that I know of (Kirk Nieuwenhuis) is still in affiliated baseball. A few others got drafted late but didn’t stick. Some of the team’s very best players in my opinion didn’t get drafted at all. They were going up against five other teams who had a number of future high draft picks and yet in the end, it was the Fire who won the title.

How did they do it? I don’t know. It had nothing to do with any higher power but was still one of the most thrilling summers of my life. Two years later I went back and called games for the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks. The Goldpanners ended up having nearly three times as many players drafted as the Fire but finished in the middle of the pack that season in the league.

The Fire were not the most talented team and Tim Tebow is not the most talented quarterback.

But they both embody what I absolutely love about sports. On Sunday Tebow went up against the vaunted defense of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Steelers finished the season as the AFC’s number one defense. They were loaded with playoff experience and some fearsome talent on both sides of the ball.

Tim Tebow entered the game having completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes on the season. Naturally he carved up the Steel Curtain for 316 yards through the air and three total touchdowns.

All of this defies logic, just like Tebow’s religion.

It’s one of my (perhaps illogical) beliefs that in order to be the best at what you do, you must have more passion than anyone else. I chose baseball broadcasting as my career because I care more about calling baseball than I do anything else. I’m not a natural. I talk too fast at times and my voice isn’t exactly going to make people think of Vin Scully. But I’ll be damned if I let anyone else outwork me at pursuing my dream of becoming a major league baseball announcer.

When I see Tim Tebow screaming “LET’S GO” on the sideline like a madman, it inspires me. His inspiration for his passion may be a belief in a God I don’t believe in, but his passion is genuine. We live in a world of millionaire athletes who certainly want to win, but there are a few special ones who stand out for wanting it more. Their reasons may vary but the results are often the same. Michael Jordan wanted it more because he had an insatiable desire to prove every doubter wrong. Ichiro displayed more passion for winning the World Baseball Classic than he does the average MLB game because his country’s honor was on the line. These guys became the best at what they did through athletic ability AND a passion that was unmatched by their peers.

Being a highly skilled player simply isn’t enough. Tim Tebow has plenty of athletic ability but minimal throwing ability. Do I think he can succeed long-term thanks to his determination to be the best quarterback in the game? I don’t know. He will never be the best in the game but I do think there’s a chance he could develop in to a very solid starting quarterback. I know he’ll continue to outwork his peers.

Every time Tebow wins, it’s not a sign from God. But it is a sign that a fanatical dedication to success can outweigh talent. No one can teach what Tebow has and no one can explain it with statistics.

I asked my friends on Facebook and my followers on Twitter to weigh in why they did or did not like Tebow. The most negative responses related to him “throwing his religion in our faces” which is ironic considering Tebow’s throwing accuracy. (I couldn’t resist.) Look, I think all religious views are silly, it’s just a matter of degree. Tebow’s open displays of his religion don’t bother me because I just see it as part of the show. Sports are entertainment and what’s a better story line than a fundamentalist Christian QB who can’t throw helping his team to improbable victory after victory? Besides, on Sunday it certainly beat rooting for the alternative. Religion being “thrown in my face” is fine. We’re constantly bombarded with messages from the advertising industry every day. Religion is just another product being sold.

Some people take issue with ESPN’s overwhelming positive coverage of Tebow. They think the hype is excessive. Well, I ask you this. When Tebow plays the Patriots, will you be watching? I thought so.

That’s really it though. The only reasons people have for not liking Tim Tebow seem to be his religion and the media hype surrounding him. The former is a rather silly reason to dislike someone personally and the latter is not really his fault.

However, as I said at the start, the fact remains that if Tim Tebow is right about the nature of God, I’m most definitely going to hell.

But in the meantime I’m in heaven watching him defy the odds.

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Joe Paterno and the myth of the university

November 10, 2011 5 Comments

They rioted in the streets of State College, PA Wednesday night for reasons that are hard for a neutral observer to fathom. How could the love of one man go so deep that students would actually protest when he was fired for failing to report child rape to the police?

The situation at Penn State revealed many truths about the society at major universities. It took an extreme example, the failure to report the raping of children, to reveal what I’ve known to be true for a few years now.

The image and reputation of a major university is more important to the powers that be than anything else. It’s more important than research and it’s certainly more important than actually educating students.

The reason behind this is simple. Reputation is what gives a university its mystique and aura. Society likes to think of universities as a separate entity from the real world. We all love myths. They let us feel like there’s something out there bigger than ourselves. Reality is all about routine but universities are a place where supposedly anything is possible. The more mystique and aura a university has, the more the best and brightest will want to go there. This increases the likelihood of those best and brightest landing lucrative jobs down the line and donating large sums of money to their dear alma mater. Money leads to the ability to build bigger, more impressive buildings on campus, increasing prestige and attracting more talented people to the school.

And the circle continues indefinitely.

***

A strong reputation can be earned in two ways: through academics and through sports. Harvard, Yale, Princeton. These are terrific schools, no doubt. But their myth has grown to the point where they are revered in American society to a degree that is disproportional to their actual impact. A student willing to put in the effort could get just as good of an education at a wide range of universities. But somehow it’s The Ivy League that has the virtual reputational monopoly on educational superiority.

At all times, it’s the reputation that must be safe-guarded. To use a specific, incredibly mild and harmless example, take the school I went to: the Medill School at Northwestern. It’s been riding on its reputation since my mom attended back in the late sixties/early seventies. The classes are easy to pass without much effort and the instructors are generally fairly average. It has the reputation of being the hardest school at Northwestern. In reality, it’s the easiest. The best part about Medill is the quarter you leave campus and intern at a news station/paper/magazine. It taught me I wanted nothing to do with the world of news.

This program is called Journalism Residency. A friend of mine is on hers now and she texted me asking if she’d get in trouble for complaining publicly on Twitter that Medill offers absolutely nothing in the way of sports journalism education. Almost none of the JR sites are specific to sports and there are no classes to be found.

I was confused. Why would she get in trouble for voicing a complaint? Well it turns out that before she left on JR, she and everyone else had been told in no uncertain terms to “watch what they tweet” because the school didn’t want anything in the public sphere that would  make the Journalism Residency program look bad.

The program, while lacking sports specific sites, is actually quite good. Most students would tell you that is the case. Medill knows it’s good but is still incredibly paranoid about anything that might hurt its reputation in even the tiniest way.

***

Universities sell you on school pride the moment you set foot on campus. And students, due to the amount of money we’re paying to go there, buy in quite willingly. I know I did. The Penn State students turning the press conference announcing the firing of Joe Paterno into a madhouse and their subsequent rioting does not surprise me in the least. They’d been sufficiently brainwashed.

I use brainwash metaphorically, not literally. What separates college football games from any other event is the undying loyalty of the fan bases. Professional sports simply don’t compare. It can be the best thing in the world to share your passion with 100,000 other screaming fans on game day (in Northwestern’s case chop that down to around 20,000, but still). This can be the greatest thing in the world. But it leads to more myths, more undeserved reputations, that can be dangerous.

This brings us to Joe Paterno. Joe Paterno has a long track record of being a good man. But Joe Paterno fell victim to his own deification at Penn State. At some point in time, protecting his own unblemished reputation became more important than anything else. It then manifested itself in the worst way possible. Informed that his long-time friend and colleague was raping children, he passed on the information to his athletic director. Paterno wanted nothing to do with the situation. A man he’d trusted for years was a predator and Joe Pa did not take the information to the police. Of course, neither did his athletic director nor the school’s president.

Instead of caring about the predator’s victims, school officials cared more about the pristine image of Happy Valley. They tried to sweep child rape under the rug.

But the horrible reality of State College finally rose to the surface and now men who I believe are at their heart: good, are paying the price, as they should.

***

Universities obviously should try to build a strong reputation, but when reputation becomes more important than reality, that’s when you run into trouble. This obsession runs the gamut across the nation: from incredibly mild and frankly silly (the Medill JR example) to dark and disturbing (what happened at Penn State).

Myths can be fun as long as you maintain self-awareness. I have a passion for the Northwestern football myth. That myth is that our players are somehow special because they play for a school that actually cares how they do academically. In reality, our players are a mixed bag when it comes to intelligence and there have been plenty of football players from other schools who went on to have a lot of success in something other than sports. We just happen to produce fewer NFL players. This is fine with me and I enjoy using that myth as an argument in a debate with other B1G fans. I don’t take it seriously though.

But it’s clear Penn State students took the myth of Paterno very seriously. They have lost all self-awareness. The destruction of the Paterno myth has been too much for many to handle. Now they are rioting in Happy Valley.

Not because their former coach failed to report child rape to the police.

But because he was fired for it.

Penn State’s reputation will never be the same again.

Sadly that’s all those in power and those who are rioting really care about.

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Baseball, glorious baseball

September 29, 2011 2 Comments

One day, the final regular season game of the baseball season: September 28, 2011, will go down as the day baseball finally emerged from the Steroids Era. It featured four teams battling for two playoff spots and dramatic finishes that will be remembered for years to come.

The National League Wild Card battle was only the opening act.

The Cardinals took care of business against the Astros but the Braves were three outs away from securing a one-game playoff with one of the top closers in the National League in Craig Kimbrel on the mound. He couldn’t get the job done as he walked three batters and surrendered a sacrifice fly as the Phillies tied the game. The Phillies would go on to win in 13 innings thanks a bloop single from Hunter Pence.

But the American League was where the real drama was Wednesday night. One of the preeminent franchises in the game, the Boston Red Sox, and the little engine that could: the Tampa Bay Rays, were tied entering tonight’s action for the final AL playoff spot.

First the Rays were one strike away from losing their game to the Yankees.

But Dan Johnson, a career 3.3 WAR player who was below replacement level for the Rays in 2011 was at the plate. Of course he homered to tie the game. Did I mention the Rays were down 7-0 at one point? We’ll get there, I promise you.

Then the Red Sox were one strike away from winning their game against the Orioles.

And Nolan Reimold, a player I admittedly had never heard of and a career 2.3 WAR player was at the plate. He was facing Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon, who looked untouchable until he gave up a two-out double to Chris Davis. But still, the right-handed Reimold looked overmatched.

Of course he doubled to right-center to tie the game. And of course Robert Andino, a career 1.9 WAR player, delivered the game-winning hit. It was a low liner to left that Carl Crawford could not catch despite a sliding attempt. His throw home was poor and the Orioles celebrated like they were going to the playoffs.

Of course they weren’t, the Rays were. Only three minutes later, Evan Longoria moved closer to legend status with a walk-off home run down the left field line in the 12th inning to win it for Tampa.

It was Longoria, one of baseball’s brightest post-Steroids Era stars, who delivered the initial body punch in the eighth when the Rays stunned the Yankees with six runs. Longoria’s three-run home run that inning pulled Tampa to within one after having been down 7-0 and seemingly doomed to start the inning.

What made this night amusing for me was seeing the Yankees, bitter rivals of the Red Sox, playing their scrubs. The Yankees had already clinched the East Division so instead of Robertson and Rivera it was the likes of Ayala and Proctor that Tampa had to deal with. It didn’t make the night any less dramatic, just slightly humorous.

Baseball has taken a beating in the national press ever since 1994. The strike killed many people’s interest in the game that season. It was revived during the Steroids Era due to the prominence of the home run, culminating in the epic 1998 clash between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa that resulted in McGwire hitting an unfathomable 70 homers in one season. But as the internet took over the country at the end of the 20th century, attention spans started to go down and Barry Bonds made a mockery of competitive fairness with his 2001 season. The revelation that all those home runs were produced not from smaller ballparks or a juiced ball, but from juiced players, once again killed many people’s interest in the game.

Football has taken over as the king of American sports. Baseball has responded with more statistics, each one more advanced than the rest.

But the beauty of Wednesday night was that it was one of those classic cases where the stats go out the window. Dan Johnson, Nolan Reimold, Robert Andino. Are you kidding me? It was the culmination of epic collapses from both the Braves and the Red Sox, but it was more than that. Baseball has seen epic collapses before but it hasn’t seen a night like this in many a year. Tampa Bay is a wonderful story. In a game that is often dominated by the Yankees and Red Sox, the Rays have made the AL East one of the most compelling divisions in the game the past few years. They only started playing baseball in 1998 in Tampa, and for years they were complete jokes. Their World Series run a few years ago ended those jokes and Wednesday night saw them capture the imagination of the country.

I don’t pretend Twitter is a good gauge of the national conscience. But it certainly is a good gauge of the national media’s conscience, since almost every relevant media member has a Twitter account. And the media can set the agenda for the country. Well, Twitter was buzzing Wednesday about baseball in a way I’ve never seen before. I follow lots of baseball people of course, but being a huge college football fan, movie fan, and my fascination with politics, I follow a fairly wide segment of the population. People I’d never seen tweeting about baseball before were tweeting tonight. The usual tweet? “I normally don’t get very in to baseball, but this is incredible.”

Wednesday night was the night baseball made a statement. Baseball said loud and clear that it will not go quietly into the night. It will not be ignored.

It has risen again.

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The sad decline of Ichiro

August 19, 2011 Leave a comment

It was the running start that always fascinated me.

Ichiro came to Seattle in 2001, the year after Kazuhiro Sasaki had won the AL Rookie of the Year and the Mariners had taken the New York Yankees to six games in the ALCS. If it were not for Arthur Rhodes’ chronic inability to get David Justice out, Seattle would have made the World Series that year. It remains the closest they’ve ever been to the Fall Classic.

Ichiro arrived the year after A-Roid left. Rodriguez decided to take his talents and needles to Arlington, Texas. Since Randy had left in the middle of 1998 and Griffey had departed after the ’99 season, Rodriguez’s departure seemed like a death blow to the franchise.

But it allowed them the money to afford the first Japanese position player in the history of major league baseball. He was a man who went by only his first name, like Elvis, like Pele. He was already a legend in Japan, but would his game translate to America?

The answer was yes.

Opening Night, 2001, I’m sitting in the left field bleachers with my family. As someone who was taking Japanese in middle school (I was 13 at the time), Ichiro was the player I was there to see. My expectations for the Mariners as a whole were modest. I had no idea Bret “most likely juiced to the gills” Boone was about to unleash one of the great offensive seasons by a second baseman of all time and Paul Abbott (Who? Exactly.) was going to win 17 games (insert disclaimer about wins being a meaningless stat.) Boone, in fact, had a career total WAR of 3.1 over nine seasons. That’s terrible. In 2001, he posted a WAR of 9.3. To give you an idea of how insane that is, Jose Lopez, the man who replaced Boone after the *probable use of* steroids finally wore off, has a career WAR of 6.4 over eight seasons.

So a lot of weird stuff happened in 2001 that allowed the Mariners to win 116 games and lose to choke against the Yankees in the ALCS. But Ichiro’s batting style was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen in the game of baseball. No one would teach their child to hit that way. You’re supposed to keep a solid base, weight back, etc. Ichiro did none of that. He was more a slap hitter in softball than a baseball player and I mean that as a sincere compliment. No one made a slow roller to short seem more dangerous than Ichiro. In fact in that Opening Night game against the Oakland A’s and their genius overrated GM Brad Pitt, Ichiro’s speed caused a late throwing error that cost Oakland dearly as the Mariners went on to win the first of 116.

Lots of players are fast. But very few incorporate their speed into their hitting style. Ichiro knew that all he had to do was pound the ball into the ground and he could beat it out. In an era of juiced up sluggers and hitter friendly ballparks, Ichiro’s style was refreshing, to say the least. But what was amazing was that his teammates swore he could win the All Star Home Run Derby if he chose to participate. Yes, Ichiro, the master of the infield single, was legendary for the shows he would put on in batting practice. Ichiro’s power though is entirely to right field so in order to be a more complete player, he mastered the art of the single. Two batting titles, the all-time single season hit record, over 3000 career professional hits, his accomplishments at the plate are undeniably Hall of Fame worthy by themselves.

But then you factor in the stolen bases and the defense and he rises to a whole different level. By at least one advanced metric, Ichiro is the 13th best defensive outfielder…ever. Now granted, defensive metrics are highly flawed (some bro named Paul Blair ranks ahead of him…who the hell is that?). But the eye test agrees with the metrics in Ichiro’s case, and then some.

He introduced us to his spectacular defense with the throw (against Brad Pitt’s Oakland A’s no less) and didn’t stop wowing us for 10 years.

Well, now he’s stopped wowing us. In fact, in 2011, he’s become a liability. At the age of 37, he finally failed to make the All Star team. He may not get to 200 hits for the first time in his career. And from a purely objective standpoint, his WAR in 2011 is -1. A replacement level player would be better than Ichiro. Even Chone “disgrace to the game of baseball and America” Figgins is having a “better” year (-0.5 WAR).

I could tell something was wrong early in the season when Ichiro dropped/badly misplayed a few routine fly balls. The man has always had his critics; there are some people in Seattle who have never liked the guy. (He is seen as aloof, arrogant, and lacking in hustle. There is a running joke that he has something against getting his jersey dirty.) Normally my response to these people was the same response I would give to people who think 9/11 was an inside job or that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. (Meaning, I ignored them and wrote them off as lunatics, and possibly a little bit racist.)

This year though the haters have had a field day and for good reason. Perhaps a decade of losing (they haven’t made the playoffs since his “rookie” year) has finally worn him down. I just fail to understand how someone who was still so good at age 36 can all of a sudden be terrible at age 37. Normally declines are slower in the game of baseball.

I hope this year is an anomaly.

However, I think this is the end of the road for one of the most unique superstars the game of baseball has ever seen.

It’s sad, but the man known for his running start…has crashed into a wall.

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Mariners Radio and Living the Dream

June 7, 2011 Leave a comment

A view from the visiting radio broadcast booth at US Cellular Field

I never really liked the word “dream.”

Dreaming that you can do something implies that you aren’t really working towards it. I dream that I can play major league baseball but my goal in life is to become a major league baseball broadcaster. It’s a singular focus of mine that has been unrelenting since I was around 11 years old. For instance, at age 13 I auditioned for a show called “Kids Talk Sports” (I got the gig by the way) and the guy asked me if I wanted to be a broadcaster when I grew up. I responded that I didn’t want to be one…I was going to be one.

As I grew older I realized that there are very few jobs in major league baseball for broadcasters. Also, everyone wants to be one. Becoming a major league announcer seemed more like a dream than ever before.

Rick Rizzs is living that dream. He’s the voice of the Seattle Mariners. He also happens to be best friends with John Dittrich, the General Manager of the Joliet Slammers. I work as the Media Relations Coordinator and sometimes broadcaster for the Slammers and when they hired me John told me that he would introduce me to Rick. I talked to Rick on the phone back in March and that in itself was a thrill.

But Monday, June 6 is a day I will never forget. I’ve been listening to the late Dave Niehaus and Rick all my life on the radio. Rick worked eight years in the minor leagues before being hired by the Mariners and this is the first season he’s been their number one voice with the passing of Niehaus. The Mariners opened a three game series with the White Sox on Monday and John arranged for me to go up to the press box and talk with Rick before the game.

The trip didn’t start so well. The traffic from Joliet to Chicago was unbelievably brutal and I got stuck on the highway while they cleared an accident up ahead. Words not fit for the radio were flying out of my mouth as I sat in my car on I-55. Luckily I got to the game in the nick of time and after a bit of confusion how I actually was supposed to get up to the press box (apparently I needed a ticket even though Rick had left passes?), I was there.

Rick was not though. He had stepped out of the booth for a few minutes. So I exchanged some awkward conversation with producer/engineer Kevin Cremin. Kevin is sort of a legend in my mind because he’s been in the booth on Mariners’ broadcasts for years but you never hear him. He also has a really cool name.

Rick arrived a few minutes later. He has a reputation for being one of the friendliest people you could ever meet and he more than lived up to that. When I mentioned that my favorite call of his was the Luis Sojo play in 1995…he repeated it verbatim. That was awesome. Rick also introduced me to Dave Valle, the color commentator for the game. He explained that Valle was a catcher for the Mariners back in the day (I knew this of course but I nodded politely). The number one piece of advice Rick has for aspiring broadcasters is to know the game inside and out. I could not agree more. If you don’t have a thorough understanding of the game and the team you are covering, you’re not going to make it no matter how good your voice is. He also emphasized that it’s important not to try and copy people. Find your own voice.

It should be noted that I brought a friend with me to the booth who is not my girlfriend, but I’m pretty sure Rick thought she was. So it was quite amusing to hear him tell me three times to “always listen to her.” But that’s good advice nonetheless.

Near the start of the game I made my move. I asked if he would give my demo CD a listen. He said absolutely, he would love to, so I gave him my demo CD with my business card inside the case as well. Rick reemphasized later as he was about to go on-air that he would definitely listen to it.

I hope he has a lot of feedback (well I actually hope he thinks I’m the greatest broadcaster ever and I should be in the big leagues right now, but there I go dreaming…) because that would be quite the thrilling email. Getting feedback from a major league announcer is not something very many people get.

The first inning started and Kevin gave me an extra headset so I could hear the call clearly. There was a crazy play in the bottom of the first where the M’s left fielder looked to have made an amazing catch up against the wall. But at the last second he dropped it. The White Sox runners became confused and at one point were both by second base. It was a crazy play and Rick was able to get through it like a pro. Watching him call it was hilarious because at the end he stood up and gestured to the field in excitement. I always like announcers who really get into the game because that’s my style as well, and that was a great moment.

Rick had other guests scheduled to come to the booth during the game (did I mention he’s very popular?) so we only stayed for the pregame and the first inning. But it is something I will never forget. They say life happens while you’re waiting for the next big moment; well that was a big moment, and I’ll treasure it forever.

The Mariners lost the game, but quite frankly I didn’t care. I think Chone Figgins did something stupid like getting picked off but I can’t be sure.

To paraphrase “Casablanca,” I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Maybe I’ll get to go back to the booth sometime in the future and stay longer.

Maybe one day I’ll be the voice of the Mariners and live the dream Rick Rizzs is living.

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The Butler divide

April 3, 2011 1 Comment

How people perceive sports is something that’s always fascinated me. The NCAA Tournament is not simply a great sporting event because of the thrills it provides; it’s also a look in the mirror for many sports fans.

No university’s men’s hoops team elicits such a wide range of reactions more than the Butler Bulldogs. Their run last year was seen as a cute story. Their run this year combined with VCU’s and the lack of one or two seeds in the Final Four, has many fans very concerned about the state of the game.

Some of us like the so-called “blue bloods,” the traditional elites. Some of us root for the underdog every time. Judging the national pulse on something is difficult but has been made easier thanks to Twitter. As I watched Butler-VCU last night unfold, I saw many comments about how this was “bad basketball” and not what America wants to see in the Final Four. Fans are worried the game has so much parity that the quality has eroded. Michael Wilbon wrote about this before the tournament even began and he was dead right about the parity.

The quality or lack there of, now there lies the rub. We’re in a new era in college sports. Ever since the NBA  declared that every high school athlete needs to wait one year (translation: go to college unless you’re Brandon Jennings and want to take your talents to Europe) before going pro, traditional powerhouses in college basketball have relied primarily on star freshmen such as John Wall, O.J. Mayo, and BJ Mullens. (I’m kidding about Mullens, he sucked.)

The only problem: a star freshman has not led a team to a title since Carmelo Anthony, and he did that before the new rule was instituted. 18 and 19 year olds, no matter how talented, are still learning the game of basketball. The jump from 18 to 22 is significant, and now we’re seeing the teams who recruit the players who actually stick around thrive the most.

This has led to cracks in the armor of the traditional powers. Upsets have always been a part of March Madness, but the runs we’ve seen recently from teams outside the power six conferences are truly remarkable. George Mason made it to the Final Four in 2006, becoming the first 11 seed to do so since LSU, and that was just the beginning. Since then we’ve seen an elite eight run by Davidson, San Diego State earning a two seed, BYU earning a three seed, VCU dismantling teams from five of the six power conferences, and the absurdity of Butler reaching two straight national title games.

This is shaking the foundation of college basketball. Fans are lamenting that the game isn’t like it used to be, and they’re right, it’s not. But that’s not a bad thing.

I happen to fall into the underdog fan category. How can I not…having grown up in Seattle and attended Northwestern University? Frankly, I root against the powerhouse teams at every turn. I want as much chaos as possible in my tournaments, playoffs, and BCS.

Although, I’m not so sure Butler should be considered an underdog anymore. They had a NBA lottery pick last year in Gordon Hayward, and there’s a lot of buzz this year about the pro potential of Shelvin Mack.  Nonetheless, the underdog theme continues in prominent places because some people are hopeless romantics.

Other people are obsessed with advanced metrics and refuse to give Butler any credit, saying that Florida is a better team than Butler….after Butler beat the Gators.

You get the idea…however you may view Butler, it’s an insight in to how you view sports. If they’re bad for college basketball, it means you like traditional, elite programs. If they’re an example about why college football needs a play-off, you really hate the BCS and can’t stop thinking about it even in March. If Brad Stevens is a genius, you think coaching matters more than the players. If Matt Howard annoys you, you probably also hate the Wisconsin Badgers and a certain style of basketball.

My view? I love Butler and think they are a legitimately great team. Comparing eras is impossible so I can’t say whether they could have hung with the old UNLV teams or the old Duke teams or the Fab Five. Frankly, I don’t care. Maybe I don’t pine for the olden days because I’m 23 years old.

All I know is that for this era in college basketball…they’re one of the best programs in the nation. You don’t need a bunch of NBA draft picks to win in college basketball. That’s fine. It’s a completely different sport than the NBA. Watch a college game and then watch a NBA game. The differences are much more immense than simply talent.

My advice to people struggling with the idea of the “little guys” taking over: appreciate college basketball for what it is, not for what it was or what you wish it would be. It’s kids playing because they love the game, not for money or endorsement deals (in most cases…I think). It’s entertainment of the highest order that is still pretty darn good basketball. It’s true parity.

It’s embodied by Butler.

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A different kind of art

February 18, 2011 1 Comment

I fully admit that I don’t know the first thing about music. Piano lessons were pretty short-lived for me as a kid. One time I tried to learn how to play a trumpet. I couldn’t make a sound. You’d be hard-pressed to find very many recording artists that I’d recognize when their songs play on the radio.

But I’m very proud of my friend Doug Kaplan, whose band released their debut album today. It took them two years as they raised funds, wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered the album. This is no small accomplishment.

I feel like broadcasting, just like music, is a form of art. And with any form of art, you have to be totally dedicated to your craft to succeed. Broadcasters spend countless hours perfecting their style and musicians spend probably even more time with their music.

Just like me, Doug is a product of Northwestern’s outstanding student radio station: 89.3 FM WNUR. The station gave me the chance to get experience calling division one athletics and in leadership as I was sports director my junior year. Meanwhile, Doug became General Manager of the station and was one of the most dedicated of all the DJ’s as almost every time I came in to the on-air control room, he was there enthusiastically showing other people the ropes or hosting his own show.

The most valuable part of college in my opinion is what you do outside the classroom. There are so many extracurricular opportunities where you can explore your passion. My passion happens to be sports. Doug’s is music. This album is an impressive start and I suggest you give it a listen.

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Let the journey begin…

February 16, 2011 4 Comments

In case you weren’t aware from my Twitter and Facebook posts, I will be headed to Joliet in about a week to work in media relations and broadcasting for the expansion Slammers of the Frontier League.

This is really exciting because I get to be with a team that was only formed a few months ago.

What’s really amazing about this gig is that I wouldn’t have gotten it if Twitter didn’t exist. Sorry if this sounds like I’m rehashing what I wrote yesterday, but this is a new development.

I am a member of STAA, which is a site that for about 20 bucks a month they’ll host your resume and demo and send you job notifications. They also have lots of other cool services that you can read about on their site. Anyways, one thing they did about a year ago was create a “Twitter list” of all their clients. They also created a list of their top 20 collegiate broadcasters of 2010. I happened to be on that list along with Adam Young, who is now the voice of Gateway Grizzlies of the Frontier League. Well Adam and I started conversing back and forth first on Twitter, then on Facebook. We critiqued each other’s demos and generally got to know each other via the world wide web. One day in December he emailed me about a potential opening with the expansion Slammers. I had never heard of the Slammers at that time but I sent the GM an email. He responded right away and invited me out to Joliet for an interview.

At the interview I was really impressed with the organization, even though it’s in its infancy. The Slammers want to run their operation like a big league franchise and clearly have a great drive to be successful. They seemed to like me as well. For the next month I was basically sweating bullets waiting for a response and yesterday it arrived in my email. While I didn’t get the lead role, I will be heavily contributing to the broadcasts and handling most of the media relations for their inaugural season.

This is awesome on so many levels, one of which is the fact I’ll only be an hour away from where I went to college and where so many good friends still reside. But the greatest thing is I’ll be getting paid to do something I love, which is everyone’s goal, isn’t it?

This opportunity would have never arose without someone I’ve never met in person giving me the job lead.

So stay tuned as I’ll be continue updating this blog on my journey to Joliet and through the 2011 baseball season.

Go Slammers!

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Social media and sports

February 15, 2011 Leave a comment

What we’ve seen the past few years has been nothing short of remarkable. Teams, athletes, the media members that cover them, and the fans that follow them have fully embraced the social media revolution.

Some might say “revolution” is hyperbole but I think it’s justified due to the fact social media has completely changed how we interact. For instance, yesterday I was chatting on Facebook in real time with a friend currently in Cameroon. Just  a decade ago, this would have been unimaginable. While Facebook Chat is a derivative of AIM and G-CHAT, it’s so much more powerful because Facebook as a whole allows you to keep up with your friends’ lives without making the effort of..you know..calling or having to even write anything at all.

But Facebook and more recently Twitter have had the biggest impact in the way we follow sports. Twitter in particular has become like a big sports bar for nationally televised games. Everyone gets together online and comments on the action in real time, with their predictions usually being hilariously wrong. My favorite moment is after a big play and people issue Tweets like “WOW” and my personal favorite “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” It is rather amazing that you can sit alone in your house, watching a game, yet still be connected like never before just simply by refreshing your Twitter app on your cell phone.

It hasn’t taken long for athletes and teams to catch on. Teams smartly use social media as a way to directly connect with their fans. It’s marketing Mecca. Ticket give-aways through re-tweets, which consequently spreads their brand, is just one way they get their message across. A simpler way they connect directly with you, the consumer, is by taking a photo of the starting lineups the minute they’re posted and posting them to Twitter. In the past, you didn’t know the lineups until they were announced at the game or on the radio. Not anymore. It’s instant information in the palm of your hand.

Sports are supposed to be fun. Social Media has increased their entertainment value ten fold. Athletes joined Twitter and Facebook as a way to talk to the fans without having to answer questions from a reporter. But luckily for us, some athletes aren’t quite savvy when it comes to the power of social media yet. For instance, the Matt Hasselbeck-Antonio Cromartie dust-up was classic unintentional comedy. Media members aren’t above picking fights either. Jason Whitlock joining Twitter was probably one of the best social media occurrences ever. He is a must-follow because you never know who he’s going to call-out next.

Sports is also about debate. Before Facebook and Twitter came along, you could definitely debate sports. Talk Radio and more recently blogs, were your only forums though. The @ reply feature on Twitter has allowed for heated debates that can carry on for days. You can set up your phone for a notification that someone has replied to you. These debates often are not one-on-one, but can include tons of people. And unlike on a blog, you face the challenge of having to make your point in 140 characters or less. It’s brilliant, and makes debating so much more intriguing and entertaining.

Breaking sports news is another amazing feature of social media. If you’re a reporter you can literally break the news the instant you find out. Then you can write the article to post online. As a consumer though, you have to follow the right people because there is always the risk of erroneous reports.

The world of social media is making everyone’s sports-life better. Teams can find their target audience easier, players can skip the middle-man, reporters can break stories and promote their articles, and fans are connected to the world like never before.

It’s a crazy cyber world out there and I love it.

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