Fiscal Responsibility

It’s hard for us to be rational about Derek Jeter.  By “us” I don’t exclusively mean just Yankee fans, either.  The New York media (coupled with a healthy heaping of ESPN) has gone above and beyond, making Jeter into a paragon of all things good and holy on the diamond and off, while simultaneously driving every Yankee hater to put him in the same category as Stalin (thereby making A-Rod a natural Trotsky).

Opinion on him has become as polarized as a debate on national health care.  The people who defend him go over the top because the detractors are so wildly irrational.  This cycle builds and builds until we can’t separate the legend from the facts.  Somehow, he is “one of the greatest Yankees of all time” and the “most overrated player in the history of baseball” at the same time.  In the middle of that stark dichotomy sits Jeter, the 37-year-old shortstop, a character we seemingly know nothing about.

LeBron Just Not Getting It

LeBron James is a phenom.  He’s beyond one of the most impressive athletic specimens to ever touch a basketball court; he’s one of the most gifted athletes of his generation and could easily be one of the best of all time.  God knows that if he didn’t like basketball he probably could have been the best tight end or the best American striker or the best water polo…er ever.  He is a gifted athlete whose physical prowess puts him beyond normal human achievement.  He’s also an oblivious dolt.

30fps

Remember years ago when you’d watch TV, and something funny would happen, and then it would be gone forever?  Just moved right along into the ether with the rest of great, embarrassing, unique television moments.  Well now with the advent of DVR and the crystal-clear 1080p feeds on shows and live sporting events, we can have some of those times back.  And no one seems to do this better than 30fps.

They take moving video and take some of the best images, presenting them as works of art in their own freeze frame world.  That could mean a great face, a stupid hat in the crowd, a close call, abject Florida college football horror, a glamor shot, or the occasional hilarious animated .gif.  They’re great for desktop backgrounds and conversation starters at nursing homes, funerals, and bah mitzvahs.  So check out 30fps for all your freeze-frame arty goodness.

The Continuance of Athletic Exceptionalism

We have a big problem on our hands, folks.  A lot bigger than the problem currently sitting in the lap of Brett Favre, the seemingly untouchable paragon of All That Is Good In Sports, currently mired in a scandal that directly involves his (alleged) groin centric self-portraits.  A problem with higher stakes than the one that is saddling the Jets organization and their mistreatment of women, stemming from the Ines Sainz situation a few weeks ago and a further Deadspin report of Favre’s mishandling (literally) of two Jets message therapists.  Much bigger, really.  We have a problem with our sense or reality, and our sense of morality.

HOCKEY!!!!!

I really don’t think people understand what’s really going on here.  You see that video?  That ridiculous 4-on-4 overtime game winner against the Habs (Canadiens = Les Habitants = Habs) last year?  That wasn’t just a one-time fluke occurrence (involving the best equipment guy in the league, natch).  It was some bizarro foreshadowing; a glimpse into the style of play set for this season. 

Enemies as Friends

There are a few absolutes in this world, and especially in my life.  Here are two of them:  I have a grossly irrational love for Liverpool Football Club, as sort of highlighted here.  Save for genocide, terrorism, and baby rape, I hate nothing more in the world than the Boston Red Sox, as sort-of inferred here.  Well picture my surprise when Liverpool finally is able to dump Hicks and Gillett, the two American owners who have driven the club into the toilet, as the New England Sports Ventures group rides on in to save the day!  The very same group that owns the Red Sox.  So now every dollar I give to supporting my beloved LFC is a dollar that could go directly into the BoSox’s coffers.  If this is what globalization is, then it fucking blows.

The sad part about all of this?  It’s probably the right move.  My friend nate (who has actually been talked about quite a lot here) runs a Liverpool blog (http://ohyoubeauty.blogspot.com) and I offered to write some words about the new ownership marriage from my perspective as an objective fan living in Boston during the Red Sox reign atop baseball.  So today’s post here is synergistically linked with my post over there.  Oh, internet.  So please, read all about my thoughts on what the new Sox ownership in Liverpool means for the club.

Back tomorrow with a post about TV.  I think.

The House Steinbrenner Built

ESPN continued their excellent documentary series 30 for 30 last night with a look in on George Steinbrenner.  Usually when that name is brought up, a lot of unflattering images and thoughts immediately spring to mind among Yankee fans, and especially among their haters, of which there are many.  We think of the ranting, the quick-firings, all the bluster that ran across the back pages, his “dedication to winning” while also tinkering with the team and creating a loser (hi, Randy Johnson!!).  But what I never really thought of was his role in my life and the life of others.

When it comes right down to it, the Yankees are still just a baseball team.  A $200 million dollar payrolled winning machine, true, but also a baseball team.  For hundreds of thousands of people, the Yankees are how we grow up, it’s how we relate to our parents, and it’s how we kill any awkward moment out with a group of strangers.  What was so striking in the film was the amount of longtime Yankee employs who were devastated by tearing down the old Stadium, describing their favorite memories, and how they almost unilaterally involved their children or their parents.  Even Hal Steinbrenner, the next and current Boss of Note, related to his father the same way that we all relate to our parents as Yankee fans: through the team.  And yes, we did see a lot more winning than losing (especially people in my age range).

In the end, the Yankees a simply a time machine, a way for us all to connect back to our fore fathers in the early part of the century, one long constant that carries on through the decades as we get farther and farther away from the past with each technological breakthrough.  George knew this, valued its importance, and always strove to keep this specific side of his business in tact.  I’m not judge enough to say if the ends justified the means; all I know is what the Yankees mean to me, to my dad, and to my friends.  I want to thank Mr. Steinbrenner for what he built, and thus giving me the opportunity to share some history with the people I love.

Photo credit, while going to Kathy Willens of the AP, can be traced by to this link

Jamie Carragher and his befuddlement

I had finally had enough.  After passionately following the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, I had to keep that emotion going and get behind a soccer team that doesn’t compete every four years.  I had no idea how much research, planning, and soul-searching that process entailed.  After (shoddily) researching many teams in many different leagues in many different–and stridently refusing to follow MLS in the United States–I finally settled on England and the Premiership.  There were a great deal of players from the World Cup that season that played at Chelsea and Man United, really enjoyed their way of playing, and they seemed to be good in a few video games I had, so why not throw my allegiance there?  They seem to be on TV a lot (as much as the Premiership is on TV), have great players, and seem to win.  Then my friend Nate came to my rescue and saved my soul by introducing me to the ways of LiverpoolFC, and the Legend that is Jamie Carragher.

Scott Stevens Ruining Eric Lindros’s Career

If I am lucky, one day, I will have a family, and I will live with that family in a house.  In that bottom of that house will be a basement that will affectionately be referred to as a “den,” which will be under my control.  And in that den, I will have a photo of the very second that Scott Stevens separates Eric Lindros from his playing career.

I’ll think of being down in game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals in game 7, on the road, down a goal, with a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals dwindling away while the Philly fans got louder and louder.  Then, our captain steps up and takes out their franchise’s player for not only the game or the series, but effectively out of the sport.  Every day that I pass that photo I will stop, pause, and smile.

Devils play an exhibition with the Flyers September 28th.  The season is coming, and I could not be more excited (even with all of this Kovalchuk nonsense).

Critiquing New Stadiums

And we in the NYC Metro area have been doing a lot of new stadium critiquin’.  The Yankees (Yankee Stadium), Mets (CiTi Field), Devils (“The Rock”/Prudential Center) and Red Bulls (Red Bulls Field) have all opened new parks in the last four years, because this area simply isn’t spoiled enough when it comes to…well…all things.  With that in mind, I went to the new Meadowlands Stadium, home of bffs the Jets and the Giants, over the weekend and have a full report!  By full report, of course, I mean what I remember before the wash of alcohol took me over – it was a preseason game, after all.