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Weekly briefing for Monday, June 23, 2008 |
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June 23, 2008 |
≡ 7 Days ≡
 Scalabrine: in uniform but not in the game! |
= To Our Readers =
You can now find us in two different places on the Web: in addition to The Sports Examiner, we now write three times a week on Olympic sports for the World Championship Sports Network site, WCSN.com in a column called “Inside the Rings.”
Here at The Sports Examiner, we have changed our format to include a weekly intelligence briefing, with commentary, for the astute sports fan called “7 Days” on Mondays and a bonus posting called “Fun & Games” during the week.. Thanks again for your continued support; please ask your friends to sign up for the Tip Sheet and the free newsletter.
= The Top Story =
>> Chicago, Il.: Well-known columnist Jay Mariotti of the Chicago Sun-Times made no friends in his own newsroom a couple of weeks ago when he wrote of White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, “As you may have noticed through the years, I am the Blizzard’s only critic in the Chicago media, mostly because my soft colleagues either fear Guillen’s wrath, enjoy how he rips me, work for one of the [Jerry] Reinsdorf-controlled broadcast outlets or are afraid of getting on the chairman’s bad side.”
His colleagues didn’t take too well to that and the paper’s national baseball writer Chris De Luca and columnist Rick Telander both took Mariotti to task. Telander’s two columns on the subject were both cancelled (“spiked” in newspaper lingo) and the Chicago Tribune reported that he asked for an apology from Mariotti, which he has not received. Sun-Times editor-in-chief Michael Cooke apparently killed both of Telander’s columns.
The upshot of all this? Mariotti, who also appears on ESPN’s “Around the Horn,” had his contract at the Sun-Times renewed for another three years.
= The National Pastime =
>> Washington, D.C.: Forget about Yankees vs. Red Sox. What about shirts vs. skins?
That’s the question raised, with some delicacy by David Segal of the Washington Post:
You rarely hear much from either squad, but a few of the Skins were fuming recently when they attended a Nationals game and were told by ballpark employees that they needed to put on their shirts.
“We bought a few beers for $7.50 each, and kicked back to enjoy the game,” wrote Benjamin Correia, who sound like a dedicated Skin in his letter to the editor published by the Washington Post. “Around the third inning, a ballpark employee informed me and a friend that we would have to put our shirts back on.”
It turns out, this has been deemed a type of “indecent exposure” by Nationals management. “We pointed out the many other shirtless men,” Correia continued, “and she assured us she was getting to them as well. We were dumbstruck.”
Segal was not dumbstruck. He points out that the skins are “part of the fleshy, lardy B-roll of summertime America at its most overexposed, a montage of film that also includes pale thighs, varicose veins and Technicolor sunburns, not to mention that 17-year-old in her far-too-short madras shorts.” And he doesn’t stop there, pointing out that “in many circumstances, especially at the intersection of sports fandom and beer, the male body is positively hideous to look upon.”
And in this age of gender equity (?), he notes that women do not have the same rights (sometimes) as men: “There is no such thing as a shirtless woman, just as there’s no such thing as a topless man.”
Comment: Another reason to stay at home; you can wear whatever you want . . . or not! However, attendance at some parks might be increased if women and men were given the same top-optional rights!
>> New York, N.Y.: The New York Daily News has a heart after all.
Despite its sensationalist headlines, Bob Raissman’s radio-TV column last week carried this note about SportsNet New York:
“SNY director Bill Webb has a history of having fun focusing his camera on Mets PR boss Jay Horwitz.
“The comings and goings of Mr. Horwitz often provide some laughs. Yet sometimes it would be better to keep him off the air. Like Tuesday night (fourth inning, Diamondbacks-Mets) when SNY had a closeup of Howitz falling asleep. That’s called a cheap shot.
“Maybe SNY should bring the camera into its own production compound to offer closeups designed to embarrass.”
Comment: Having known Horwitz since he was the Sports Information Director at Fairleigh Dickinson-Teaneck in the 1970s, there’s no one nicer or who works harder on behalf of the media than he. He does deserve better, especially since he’s the one who has to convince his players to fill SNY’s pre- and post-game shows with endless interviews.
= The NBA =
>> Kansas City, Mo.: Usually on-the-money columnist Jason Whitlock bashed himself last Wednesday for writing a column about how foreign players are better than the Americans.
Noting that he’s written 3,125 columns for the Kansas City Star and been right in 3,123, he wrote that he’s willing to admit his error. More to the point was his epiphany about the meaning of the Celtics’ win over the Lakers:
I should’ve written that it’s a good sign that American-born players have responded to the competition from international players by adopting a more selfless style of play.
That’s what happened. Three of the league’s biggest stars – Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen – put their egos aside and pursued a championship the San Antonio way. Rather than worrying about putting up numbers, The Big Three allowed Doc Rivers to make defense the signature of the Boston team.
What Boston just accomplished is a positive byproduct of the NBA’s influx of international players. And it’s a sign that USA Basketball has a chance to win the gold medal in the upcoming Olympics. American players now understand what it takes to beat international players.
They have to do the little things well.
When American-born players do the little things – draw charges, get back on defense rather than bicker with the refs, share the basketball – they’re still impossible to beat, as good as the original Dream Team.
Whitlock did get this one right. As to the other 3,122 . . .
>> Boston, Ma.: The NBA’s award for biggest fraud of the 2007-08 season was awarded to Boston’s Brian Scalabrine.
Scalabrine is on the Boston roster, but didn’t play a second during the championship series. But as the Boston Herald noted, he was ready to celebrate:
Though he sat on the bench in street clothes, the forward ran into the locker room just prior to the end of the game and put on his uniform for the postgame celebration.
“I’ll tell you, it’s not that difficult to do,” he said. “Guess what? Maybe you could say I didn’t play a second, but in five years you guys are going to forget.
“In 10 years I’ll still be a champion,” said Scalabrine. “In 20 years I’ll tell my kids I probably started, and in 30 years I’ll probably tell them I got the MVP. So I’m probably not too worried about it.”
Comment: Scalabrine went to USC, so this kind of behavior is no surprise; remember, they have an excellent film school. He’s already forgotten that his future children will remind him that the box scores – preserved on the Internet – will show he didn’t play in the series.
But he’ll have a championship ring for doing nothing on the court, about as close as USC basketball player will ever get to contributing to an NBA champion.
>> Boston, Ma.: NBA commissioner David Stern often speaks about how NBA fans are the best in the world. Here’s another feather in the commissioner’s cap:
A total of 23 people arrested for a variety of crimes following Boston’s win over the Lakers in the NBA Finals. Windows were smashed, street signs were uprooted and park benches were destroyed by various “fans” but this is a lightweight disturbance compared to world-class hooligans such as at the Euro 2008 soccer championships.
There, 157 people – mostly Germans – were arrested in Klagenfurt, Austria for violence and disorder before the opening game of the tournament between Germany and Poland. Why wait for the game to end?
= Soccer =
>> Vienna, Austria: After four scintillating quarterfinals, are you fired up to go and see the Euro 2008 final? You can, but it will cost you.
A British hospitality outfit called Blue Bespoke is offering packages for next Sunday’s championship game in Vienna at a cool £3,995 per person, about $7,887! Naturally, the price does not include value-added taxes!
Of course, that includes a ticket between the goal lines and a full hospitality package at the sumptuous Vienna Marriott for three hours prior and two hours after the game.
Comment: Instead of spending the money – which does not include airfare, of course – you could stay home, watch it on television and invite a bunch of your friends over for about $87 instead. If you want to make-believe you are in Vienna, you could play some Mozart at halftime!
>> Klagenfurt, Austria: The British newspaper The Telegraph reported that an accused Nazi war criminal was seen “mingling” with Croatian fans prior to the start of the Euro 2008 championships:
“Milivoj Asner is wanted by Interpol for alleged genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during his service as a police chief in Croatia during the Second World War, when the country was ruled by a Nazi puppet regime.”
Asner, now 95, is no. 4 on the “most wanted” list of Nazi hunters and Croatia has asked for his extradition, but Austria has refused to give him up, saying he is unfit for trial. He fled Croatia in 2004 and has been living in Austria ever since. Nazi hunters accuse the Austrians of providing sanctuary for suspected Nazi war criminals, but the government says its examination of Asner showed him unfit for trial.
= The Five-Ring Circus =
>> Beijing, China: As expected, tickets for the 2008 Olympic Games have sold well, with about one million out of the seven million tickets for sale still available. Most of these are for the preliminary football matches being held outside of the Beijing area, which typically don’t sell strongly until very close to the dates of the matches.
According to the organizing committee, of the six million tickets sold so far, 3.43 million have been sold on the Chinese domestic market and 2.57 million internationally, primarily through the National Olympic Committees. The head of the Olympic ticketing center said that 185 national committees have booked tickets for the Beijing Games, which is reported to be a record.
Tickets for the Paralympic Games went on sale last week, but the pricing is quite a bit different than for the Olympics. Paralympic tickets are priced at the equivalent of $4.35 to $11.60.
>> Beijing, China: In case you thought the Beijing Games was a totally serious endeavor in China, Chinanews.com reported that a Guinness Book of World Records mark was set for the most people posted in swimsuit picture, with 1,202 women in bikinis formed into the five Olympic rings at Changdong Water Park in Guanzhou. The previous record was 1,010 Australians in a picture staged in 2007.
Score another world record for the Beijing Games!
= Potpourri =
>> Maidstone, England: In case you missed it, the 41st World Custard Pie Championships, a competition in which teams throw pies at each other instead of eat them, was held last week at the Kent Showground.
The rules are so complex, with scoring dependent on exactly where each pie hits, that a C.P.A. firm is hired to keep score! “It all happens so fast,” said Mike Startup, one of the partners of the DSH firm that was doing the scoring, “it’s certainly a challenge to keep both eyes on the action, while writing down the scores.”
According to the accountants, 2,300 pies were thrown by 22 teams with a team of radio personalities from station kmfm winning the event, ahead of a protest group called We Don’t Like Asparagus. Happily, money raised at the event went to two hospice facilities and an air ambulance service.
~ Rich Perelman
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