Sports

March 14, 2006

Your March Madness Argot

For an unconventional guide to the players to watch this March in the NCAA tournament, you can turn to the Urban Dictionary. It's a self-edited online resource, but unlike Wikipedia, it allows for many truths, rather than one authoritative guide. So, for instance, the J.J. Redick-inspired urban slang "redick" can mean both, "An overrated basektball player from Duke who shot 4-14 in their loss to Michigan State in the 2005 NCAA tourney" and "Quite possibly the best collegiate shooter of all-time." (There's also the apparently unrelated definition, "In gay male slang, going home with the same trick more than one time"; and no mention of the famous beat poet.)

Sports

March 9, 2006

A Hockey Marathon

What's it like to call the longest game in men's college hockey history? Dan Fleschner announced the five-overtime, six-hour match between Yale and Union on March 4. He had just flown back from covering the Olympics in Torino for NBC when Yale's sports information director, Steve Conn, called to ask him if he would be interested in announcing a Yale men's hockey playoff series for WYBC radio, something that Fleschner did regularly when he was a student at Yale. (He also wrote Bulldogs on Ice, a history of the team.) Though he hadn't announced a game in five years, Fleschner decided to take Conn up on his offer, if for no other reason than to finally call a series in which Yale actually won.

Sports

November 3, 2005

Warren Miller: The Commercial

Warren Miller's newest ski documentary—if you can call it that—came to San Francisco last night. Guests paid $17.50 each for the honor of watching Higher Ground, in which amazing cinematography fights for time with grotesque product placement in what seems to be an extended Jeep commercial.

Sports

October 13, 2005

Officiating Woes Extend Beyond Baseball

Perhaps it wasn't as high-profile as the blown call that helped the Chicago White Sox win Game 2 of the American League Championship Series (WSJ.com), but this may have been even worse: The first Uzbekistan-Bahrain playoff game in World Cup qualifying last month was annulled because of a ref's mistake. The Toronto Star has the details; the short version is that the Uzbeks were unfairly denied a replay on a penalty kick, nonetheless won, 1-0, and then saw that outcome cancelled because of a call that went against them.

Sports

October 11, 2005

Here, Take Our Playbook

Sports broadcasters get special access to the players and coaches they cover. In the baseball playoffs, Yankees manager Joe Torre and Braves Game 2 starter John Smoltz even gave interviews while games were in progress, by wearing oversized headsets in the dugout. Yet I wonder why the baseball people tell the TV people as much as they do—and whether the TV people ought to believe what they hear.

Sports

September 16, 2005

Putting It In Perspective (III)

In earlier entries, Gelf pondered how sports columnists and coaches incorporate tragedy—lately, of course, Katrina—into their leisure-based jobs. But how do fans cope? We've been told that many were inspired or at least pleasantly distracted by the football wins scored by the New Orleans Saints and LSU Tigers last weekend, and undoubtedly some were. Not all, though: As Sports Pickle reported, "Non-Saints Fan Still Upset About His Destroyed Home and Dead Family."

Sports

September 12, 2005

Putting It In Perspective (II)

In an earlier entry, Gelf enumerated the ways in which sports columnists contextualize tragedy. To wit:

• Sports Are an Uneccessary Distraction
• Sports Are a Necessary Distraction
• Disasters Force Athletes to Have Perspective

Sports

September 1, 2005

Stereotypes: It's All About the Delivery

Last month, San Francisco-area radio host Larry Krueger was fired after Giants manager Felipe Alou reacted angrily to Krueger's decrying the team's "brain-dead Caribbean hitters hacking at slop nightly" (SF Chronicle). Krueger certainly gained nothing by referencing the hitters' place of origin, and there are plenty of non-Caribbean free-swingers on the Giants who egregiously fail to get on base. (Moises Alou, Felipe's son and of Dominican origin, leads the team's regulars in on-base percentage; Caucasians Lance Niekro and Mike Matheny can't buy a walk.) But Krueger was merely inartfully recycling and specifying an old yarn about Caribbean hitters that has been repeated in the past couple of months as such august publications as Sports Illustrated and the New York Times Magazine.

Sports

August 30, 2005

ESPN on Race: 'Boo-Yah!'

ESPN is known for its casual approach to sports reporting. The network features SportsCenter and its accompanying catchphrases, the magazine refers to athletes by their nicknames, and the website is the home of Bill "The Sports Guy" Simmons. Oftentimes, this relaxed attitude is refreshing. But when the website addresses serious issues like race, as it did twice this week, it seems to think that ironic comments and slang can serve as cover for poorly formed ideas and inflammatory speech.

Sports

August 24, 2005

Jay Mohr Does a Bill Simmons Impression

Jay Mohr's transmogrification from Saturday Night Live comedian to Sports Illustrated blogger has been an interesting one to watch. Certainly, Mohr knows his sports—he used to host his own show on ESPN. Gelf thought that tuning into his humorous insights might finally allow us to stop compulsively reading Bill Simmons's extended riffs on Anchorman. But after only five columns on SI.com, Mohr seems to be stuck in a comedic rut. Like the writers of his former show, Mohr seems to think that it's okay if the premise of an idea is subpar so long as he's willing to really sell it. For those of you who like your sports/comedy mix without too much chaff, here's an abridged guide to Jay Mohr's new column, The Hot Read.