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Media
May 8, 2006
California Dreamin'
Did you know that, until this weekend, there was a chance for a second-round NBA playoff series between two Los Angeles teams? More to the point, did you know that many members of the media thought that this possibility merited columns upon columns devoted to it? Now that the Suns have won three games in a row (the last one in a blowout) to knock the Lakers out, it's fun to sift through the editorial wreckage of the aborted Hallway Series.
Sports
May 4, 2006
Witnessing LeBron
We are all witnesses. So says Nike, and so say the cliché-ridden sportswriters who can't stop plugging the LeBron James ad campaign. Sure, it's a slightly clever phrase that is especially good fodder for ridicule when James's teammates stand around gawking at the star's moves, but does it really merit so many prominent mentions in the media?
Sports
April 28, 2006
Power Outage
Earlier this month, former Dodger's manager Tommy Lasorda gave the Atlanta Journal-Constitution his take on alleged steroid users such as Barry Bonds: "People say to me, 'Well, they still have to hit the ball.' No doubt about that, but those fly balls that were on the warning track are now flying into the seats, and that's the difference. It's just not right." Even in his criticism, though, Lasorda may be giving Bonds too much credit.
Sports
April 27, 2006
A Game Is Worth 3,000 Words
The Mets beat the Giants, 9-7. Barry Bonds hit his 711th career home run. That took barely a dozen words to say. The New York Times took a few hundred words, three different ways: The Associated Press's early report, the staff-written game story by Ben Shpigel, and a column by Jack Curry. Shpigel and Curry traveled across the country to witness the semi-seminal event, costing their employers a fair chunk of change. Perhaps in the future, extra Times writers can take seats vacated by the Sacramento Bee, which has decided to go in a different direction.
Sports
April 18, 2006
Can't Win the Close Ones
The Phoenix Suns haven't played a meaningful game in over a week, having wrapped up their playoff position as the second seed in the West. The Portland Trailblazers have blazed a trail to the worst record in the NBA (yep, their record is even more execrable than that of the New York Knicks, despite playing in a division that's almost as bad). Yet Wednesday's season finale between Portland and Phoenix's second string will be must-see TV, because, according to SportsCenter, the Suns will have their last shot to avoid making ignominious history: Becoming the first team to go an entire season without winning a game decided by three points or less.
Sports
April 18, 2006
Stephen A. Smith Gets Self-Reflective
Stephen A. Smith, the ESPN talk-show host who manages to sound dismissive and angry even when he's admitting he doesn't know the answer to a question, is apparently tired of himself. Sure, he's ostensibly writing about Jesse Jackson butting into the Duke lacrosse scandal, but Gelf isn't fooled.
Sports
March 24, 2006
'Much of the Information You Read Is Unreliable'
This week, Sports Illustrated published a Chris Ballard article (subscribers-only link) about online sports coverage that's alternately illuminating and maddening. Illuminating, because Ballard interviews many of the most-intriguing figures in online sports, including ESPN.com's Bill Simmons (who is too cool to be interviewed by Gelf; more on that soon), Deadspin's Will Leitch, and Tyler Bleszinski of Athletics Nation; maddening, because Ballard shoehorns his findings into the questionable and tired angle that the ubiquity of online sports coverage is lessening the importance of reportage and causing proliferating bias and inaccuracy. Some sports sites are stupid, biased, fact-free zones; but so is plenty of mainstream sports-media coverage. Gelf, a subscriber for nearly two decades, wouldn't place SI in that category—though it's embarrassing that the heavily and expensively fact-checked magazine wrote of online sports coverage "much of the information you read is unreliable (page 62)" and then placed the sidebar on unreliable information on page 64—but ESPN Radio's Chris Cowherd certainly seems to belong there.
Sports
March 19, 2006
The Tourney Gods Dislike Jewish Jokes
As if touched by an angel, Bruce Pearl's Tennessee Volunteers won their first-round NCAA tournament game after Chris Lofton broke a tie game in the final seconds with an improbable jumper against Winthrop. But two days later, the Vols couldn't shoot straight in the endgame and Wichita State hit two late jumpers to knock off the D.C. bracket's No. 2 seed. Perhaps Tennessee simply wasn't as good as the Shockers. But Gelf prefers to think that the tourney gods didn't care for Bruce Pearl's nationally televised Jewish joke.
Sports
March 18, 2006
The Leveling of College Hoops
Last year, after the first round of the NCAA tournament, Gelf noted that so many of the highest seeds had close calls. But in the 2006 tournament, the differences between the sport's elite and the low men on the bracket pole have seemingly been all but erased—until the very end of games.
Sports
March 15, 2006
Bubble Fatigue, Redux
If you're a college-basketball fan, you may have subjected yourself to hours of breathless coverage of big-conference bubble teams—Seton Hall made the NCAA tournament, Cincinnati did not. Now you can promptly ignore those five teams that limped into the tournament (Texas A&M, N.C. State, Alabama, Seton Hall, and Wisconsin). Here's why:
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