I wrote this Friday, but I totally spaced posting it until now. Sorry, folks. I tried to write something the last couple days. I really did. But I couldn’t really come up with enough to write after that Pacers loss. It was all just so simple. The Knicks woke up a bit after getting their pride pounded in game one. The Pacers seemed satisfied with taking one on the road and put it in cruise control a bit. Carmelo Anthony’s shot finally started to fall. But all those were secondary to the Pacer bench finally rearing it’s ugly head. The bench has been a worry all year for the Pacers, and it finally really caught up with them. The Pacers made a big run and actually took the lead for a brief moment, but then in came Jeff Pendergraph and momentum evaporated just as quickly. The starters had absolutely no gas left in the fourth quarter, and things got out of hand in a hurry. Game three is tomorrow. I have a hard time seeing the Pacers lose in their own building. I also have a hard time seeing the Knicks matching that level of intensity and the bench being quite that awful again. Besides that, the Pacers will be better prepared to face that sort of playoff level defense. Frank Vogel won’t let them be caught off-guard again. Besides, I’ll be at the game tomorrow, and clearly I’m a good luck charm. Now, I was also going write a piece about umpires. If you didn’t see, the umpires in the Angels-Astros* bungled a rule that I think most people who have played at all past Little League know. Without going too far into detail, the Astros went to the bullpen, but then for whatever reason,** decided they would rather go with a different pitcher, so one guy got pulled without ever actually throwing a pitch. Now, anybody who remembers the Braves-Yankees World Series of the ‘90’s remembers the farce of Bobby Cox bringing out a pinch hitter, which led to Joe Torre bringing out Graeme Lloyd, which led to Bobby Cox calling on another hitter and burning his batter. But, we all knew that Lloyd had to pitch at that point.*** Clearly, this didn’t happen last night, and Mike Scioscia rightly complained and protested. MLB admitted it was a mistake today, but I don’t know if they’ll have to replay that part of the game now or what. *It’s still so bizarre to think of the Astros as an American League team. I was quite a bit younger when the Brewers became a National League team. Was that just as weird? **The one reason we know it wasn’t would be injury. If he had managed to hurt himself warming up, then he is allowed to leave without throwing an official pitch. ***I’m not sure if I’m remembering the 1996 or 1999 series and I’m trying to write this quickly, so unfortunately, I can’t be bothered to look. I think I’ve got the teams right in that sequence, though. This combined with Angel Hernandez blowing a home run call both in live action and replay and the various misadventures of umpires the last several years did get me wondering, have umpires gotten this much worse? I mean, I don’t remember this happening all that often as a kid. The only instances of badly bungled umpiring I can really remember growing up was Jeter getting an assist from Jeffery Maier in the playoffs (in ‘96, no less) and the, um, expanded, we’ll say, strike zone of Eric Gregg with Livan Hernandez on the mound the next year. I’m sure there were other blown calls, but none seemed to big and obvious as the stuff that’s been getting missed lately. Is that because sports media has grown into such a behemoth? Is that because all our fancy HDTVs make it easier to see the mistakes? I don’t know. Maybe. But it sure seems like the quality of umpires in MLB has gone way down. Something needs to change, and maybe that something is a pretty big turnover in umpires. Turnover with MLB umpires is notoriously low. Maybe it’s time for a big transfusion of new blood. Now, as you can see, that still wasn’t very long, so I decided that wouldn’t be the main focus of today, either. Something did catch my attention, though. This Grantland piece by Bryan Curtis. To summarize, it’s an up close look at the Marlins’ well-documented attendance woes. Tellingly, it opens with a scalper. Just the thought that scalpers would even be present at a Marlins game is a bit of sad humor. The exchange is even worse. $10, goes the scalper’s opening offer. A single ticket. At an average MLB stadium, you would pounce on that deal. The Marlins? It’s laughable. $4, comes Curtis’s counteroffer, apparently the sum of cash he happened to have on him. The scalper couldn’t say yes fast enough. Actual retail value of said ticket? $1. Seriously. One George Washington. Or four of them, if you have coins. And this wasn’t a nosebleed ticket, either. In fact, the upper bowl was closed that day, and you might say is generally closed with the woes of the team. No, this ticket was lower level, somewhere on the third base side. To buy a similar ticket from the Cubs box office would run you $45. And that’s against the Rockies. The same ticket when the White Sox make the trip north? $115. Now, there is a few tricks here. First, these scalpers are buying a bunch of tickets at the group rate. Even so, a dollar for an MLB ticket? Outrageous. It really goes to show badly the Marlins have screwed up this Miami market. True, Miami isn’t really known for having rabid fans of anything. They show up when teams are good, and the Marlins are clearly not good. This isn’t, say, Pittsburgh where the fans care even when the teams are bad and there is tradition for all their teams to be good. Still, the ballpark is only two years old. There was almost no bump for the brand new park last year. It was so bad last year that the team is looking at having the lowest drop off ever between first and second year attendance at a new stadium. And let me assure you, that’s not because the fans are pouring through the gates in droves. Still, on paper, the Marlins make so much sense. Florida has been a baseball hotbed. Look at how well spring training does there and the attention high school and college ball gets there. Look at the demographics, especially around Miami. A lot of Latinos Cubans especially. Cuba plays a little bit of ball, if you didn’t know. There are a lot of Dominicans around Miami, too. They also play some baseball. Games, obviously, are cheap and have been cheap. But the team can’t draw flies to this shitshow. Why? Well, why would they? They have exactly one player the average fan would have heard of in Giancarlo Stanton (or Mike Stanton, if you didn’t get the name change memo). That’s been the case most years. Sure, they’ve loaded up before, and attendance has generally gone up in those years. But the immediate fire-sales afterwards have left fans cold and unwilling to invest their time and money into a product that won’t be there as soon as it gets “too expensive.” Fans have learned what to expect. That’s one reason* the splurge last year went so poorly and was blown up before the year was even over. Well, that and the losing. *A certain public relations nightmare didn’t help, either. That’s why it seems there’s no way for the current product to exist in Miami. The only options seem to be to sell the team and see if more invested ownership can raise fan interest and morale, or move the team (and probably still have to sell it to an owner that gives a crap) to try a new market. I’m not sure where that market would be right off, but it sure isn’t Miami. Oh, and as for Curtis? He went to the game the next day, too. For game two, he said directly behind home plate. The most coveted seats in any park. To pay for that privilege? Nada. Not a single dime. This post was written yesterday, but I neglected to post it, so you get it today, just in time for Game 2 to start. That was a pretty impressive display from the Pacers yesterday. There was no doubt about that game, the Pacers flat out beat the Knicks. It wasn’t nearly as close as the final score showed as the Pacers just flat outhustled and outplayed New York on both ends of the floor. Also, do you think there’s a chance we might see a rejuvinated Lance Stephenson? I mean, I was down on him before. I drank the Dakich Kool-Aid. I didn’t think he was going to turn out to be much of anything, between the non-production in his college and pro careers and early trouble right after draft day. But he has stepped up admirably in the absence of Danny Granger. And it sure looked like he wanted to make an especially good impression back in Madison Square Garden for the playoffs. Stephenson has had some good games this year, but I do believe yesterday afternoon was his best showing yet. All right, enough fan-ism here. Or, well, we’ll tone it down, anyway. Las Vegas had the Knicks as the favorite in this series, and ESPN’s panel of experts averaged out to Knick in 7. I guess I can respect that, though I certainly don’t agree. The ESPN pick, in any case, seems to boil down to a toss up, giving the Knicks a slight edge thanks to home court advantage. And with how the Pacers have looked at times on the road (and especially recently in Atlanta), it’s hard to argue against that before yesterday. There are legitimate reasons to pick against the Pacers, but one of the popular reasons just doesn’t cut it, frankly. There has been this question about the Pacers all year and even more so* in the playoffs. “Can they score enough?” “The Pacers are not an offensive team.” “The Pacers don’t have enough firepower.” You get the idea. And if you take the season as a whole, maybe you would buy that argument. The Pacers do win on defense, I think everybody connected to the team would say that. But that doesn’t mean they can’t score. *I struggle a little bit with “more so” vs. “moreso.” I like the one-word variant better, at least in an aesthetic way. But it appears this is an overwhelmingly American usage, and even that is somewhat minor. Not necessarily wrong, but the two-word variant seems much preferred. So I guess I’ll do that way. The Pacers averaged 94.7 points a game this year, which put them at 23rd in the league. Not too great, sure. But you have to remember that it wasn’t decided that Danny Granger would miss significant time until basically the season started, and it wasn’t until the Pacers had already wrapped up or just about wrapped up the division that he was declared out for the season. That left the team figuring out where points would come from without their leading scorer from the past several seasons. It takes a little bit of time to caress a new system and new offensive identity from something like that. So, if you break the numbers down a little further, you can start to see the team evolve. Taking the numbers from just the second half of the season, and the Pacers jump up to 98.3 points a game, which is good enough for 17th in the league. Those five spots are good enough to jump from bottom third to league average. And when you rate in the top one or two in nearly every defensive category, well, league average looks pretty darned good. So, to summarize, can the Pacers score points? Yes, they can. And if you take just a second to dig below the thinnest layer of topsoil on these numbers, and you see that the Pacers have been a respectable offensive team for a little while now. Yes, they got off to a slow start. It’s easily handwaved away if you take a moment’s thought. If you want to pick apart the Jekyll-and-Hyde act on home and away numbers, feel free. I don’t understand that one, even though we didn’t see it yesterday. But don’t try to tell me the Pacers aren’t a competent offensive team, especially one that plays the kind of physical, lock-down defense the Pacers do. As you might have noticed, nothing actually got posted on May 1 like I had originally planned. That was because I was at the Pacers playoff game that night. We left straight from work and didn’t get home until midnight, so no, I didn’t get my Jason Collins piece posted until the following day. It was written on the first, though, I promise. In related news, the Pacers are going to give it another go in Atlanta tonight. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do really, truly believe this is the night the Pacers break their losing streak in Atlanta. For those who don’t know, the Pacers have not beaten the Hawks on their home floor since December of 2006. The Pacers won that one 100-90 and had a winning record at the time. It was a time of great optimism. Little did anybody know it was all about to go sour. That season was the first in some time that the Pacers had missed the playoffs, coming off a long stretch where the Pacers were a major force in the Eastern Conference and at least in the middle of the attendance rankings.* Then, well, the brawl and the fallout from that was just truly coming home to roost in that season. *The Pacers don’t play in an especially big arena. There are only four arenas smaller than the Fieldhouse in the NBA, so even when every game is sold out, it seems the best the Pacers can hope for is about tenth. I don’t imagine this was any better in Market Square Arena. The stink of the brawl really only just started coming off a couple years ago. There were signs of a turnaround I would say four or five years ago. Not so much in attendance, but there was starting to be a little more media buzz. There were starting to be stories and phone calls by the general population asking “Why aren’t the Pacers good again?” But, I think if we were to officially put an end date on the “Post-Brawl” era, it would be the 2010-11 season, when they finally broke through to the playoffs again. There was a sense almost of the city rediscovering the team as the playoffs came closer and a sense that some of the investments Larry Bird had made were starting to come around. The team still finished with a losing record that year, but they were still good enough to sneak into the last spot in the playoffs. It was a bit of a shame the Bulls were the top seed. Bulls fans are notoriously thick in the Fieldhouse for any game. I went to that first home playoff game, and I was worried. Fans were just starting to take notice in the team again, and the presale limited to Indiana residents wouldn’t be quite as effective with Chicago as it would be with, say, the Heat or Celtics. Or anybody, really. It had to be the Bulls. Still, the Pacers had pushed the Bulls harder than anybody expected in the first two games, and honestly, probably should have won both those games in the United Center. As Andrew and I took our seats, we pretty quickly found a lot of Bulls fans around us, but we weren’t entirely surrounded. And I was relieved to hear the crowd noise seemed to favor the Blue & Gold. And while the Bulls won that one, too,* three relatively impressive performances had seemingly reenergized the city. *They didn’t clinch it until Danny Granger missed a good look at at buzzer three. Chicago fans were whooping it up like they had just won the championship. Andrew and I both had the same thought: if you’re having so much trouble with the losing-record 8th seed, how are you going to deal with the big boys in the playoffs? Miami would later soundly beat the Bulls 4-1. This carried over to last season, which has been heavily documented here, culminating in a simultaneously disappointing and heartening series against the Heat. The Pacers started being all sorts of teams on their home courts for the first time since the brawl. The (Big Three) Heat, the Lakers, etc. But one domino refused to fall. The damned Atlanta Hawks. How? I don’t know. The Hawks are notorious for having uncaring fans in any sports. But, at least the Braves and Falcons make some noise nationally. The Hawks are always just sort of there. Not awful, they have the longest active playoff streak in the East. But never great, either. They always bow out in the first or second round. I’m sure there’s a reason their series are always on NBA TV rather than TNT or ABC. Pacer fans can relate with this new resurgence.* *But at least the Pacers can say this is because they’ve just recently reappeared on the national stage. The Hawks got to NBA TV level and just stayed there. But, there are signs that this is about to change. I swear there are. I thought this before the last two games in Atlanta, but I think there are still valid reasons. For one, the Pacers absolutely dominated the Hawks in all the playoff games in Indy. The scores have all been closer than they felt, and none of them were particularly close. The Hawks seem to be unraveling, racking up technical fouls and typically letting the Pacers shoot two or three times more free throws in each game. Lastly, there was game four. Game four saw the Pacers play one of the worst quarters ever in the 2nd quarter. They went from a 7-point first quarter lead to what quickly ballooned to a 19-point 2nd quarter deficit. That was cut to 17 points thanks to a lucky tip-in at the halftime buzzer, but it was little consolation. It looked to be another lost cause in ATL. Then the third quarter came, and it seemed the Pacers had new life. They played hard, started hitting some shots, and generally looking like the Pacers again. True, they never came all the way back, but they did at one point have it down to a 4 point game before running out of gas. They ended up 11 points back, but that was the one game that felt much closer than the score showed, just because of that second half. I keep telling myself, that is why the Pacers will do this tonight. They’ll take these home games and that second half and finally put it all together and put this horrible losing streak out of their minds. Another tick off the list of being fully back. Well, so it was more or less a lost month. The book didn’t get written,* I’ve got no response from a big interview request, and I got no traction on my other big project. I really need to give that one a stab. *Only about 2,000 words, but I plan to revisit it sometime later. Anyway, the big news here lately is all about Jason Collins. I’ve pretty deliberately avoided all the talk about him I could so I could give you my unadulterated take. Here’s what I know of the situation. He’s currently a free agent center, most recently with the Washington Wizards. He’s averaged just under 21 minutes a game for his career and about three and a half points a game. So, basically a career back up. He went to school at Stanford, and I can’t say I remember him whatsoever there. He has a twin brother who also played in the NBA and is not gay. Apparently he was with a woman for eight years and they were engaged. I’m not sure how long they were engaged, and I haven’t seen any mention of any children, but at least we know who his beard was. And that is all good. Seriously, good for him. Before I go overcomplicating things as I’m sure others have by now, I’m glad he feels like he can come out and be who he truly is and the vast majority of folks are supportive of an active athlete being gay. But let’s not fall all over ourselves patting society on the back, okay? None of this has anything to do with Jason Collins per se. My complaint here is that sports seems to be giving itself a big, shiny medal for it’s progressiveness, and I just don’t think that’s really applicable here. Sport can generally pat itself on the back when it comes to race relations. We think of the Civil Rights Era as running through the ‘60’s, the age of MLK and Malcom X, and even Muhammad Ali. What recent moviegoers might remember is Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball in the ‘40’s, just a shade after World War II. I think we’re all at least somewhat familiar with his story and the struggles he faced, but it did not take long for black players to be welcomed with opened arms and the crowds at the stadiums to be just as integrated. This was the whole point of a lecture I went to at Wabash once upon a time. It was given (not coincidentally) in the Malcom X Institute and focused on baseball and the civil rights movement. I don’t remember now who was doing the presenting, but the point was made that sports, in many ways, has been a great meritocracy. Because you fail or succeed based on easily observed abilities and outcomes, it makes it plain to see who is worthy to make the cut, and thus it has enabled sports to stay ahead of the curve in terms of social acceptance. It’s a great theory, and one that holds up in terms of race.* While there are certainly shameful moments in sports regarding race after Robinson’s big break, generally speaking, sports have been a great equalizer in race relations. This should be applauded and recognized for what it is. In the case of sexuality, though, this has not been the case. *Gender is a bit trickier, given the physical nature of sports, so it’s going to be ignored for now. To put it simply, the homosexual community* has gained power and acceptance at an astounding rate in the last, what, ten years, we’ll say? I can tell you the difference in how gay students were viewed and treated my freshman year at Wabash to my senior year was night and day. ‘shOUT went from being a pariah to practically unnecessary in my four years. It seems that society as a whole has been on almost as fast a pace, if voting to allow same-sex marriage is to be believed. It was only back in 2008 that Prop 8 in California was passed. That was yet another electoral defeat for gay rights. In California, I remind you again. At that point, I don’t think a gay marriage initiative had ever passed an electorate. In this past election, if memory serves, four states passed gay-friendly propositions. That’s certainly progress, and it feels like it’s only the tip of the iceberg. *That is a conscious choice to exclude transgender. That’s a trickier situation, socially speaking, that I don’t feel has gained nearly as much mainstream acceptance. I understand that may be a sensitive decision, but please don’t take it as a reflection of how I personally feel. Just a reflection of how I feel society views it. So, by that measure, sports has really lagged behind. It took until the middle of 2013 for an active player to come out? And, you know, Jason Collins is not exactly Jackie Robinson. No offense to Collins, but the dude is a role player at best. Jackie Robinson was Rookie of the Year, MVP, a six-time All-Star, and a first-ballot Hall of Famer.* Collins is not. I don’t necessarily think this is a ploy to extend his career or his “brand,” but I’m sure it doesn’t hurt. *You might argue that Jackie Robinson was pretty well guaranteed to be a Hall of Famer given what he did outside the lines, but no matter how you slice it, he had a career worthy of his position. Maybe this is just the cynic in me creeping out. Again, I don’t mean to denigrate Collins. It’s always nerve-wracking to go first. But let’s not blow this out of proportion. The environment Collins is facing with this announcement is nothing compared to what Jackie Robinson faced inside the lines and out. I would like to think that by 2013, we’ve learned that, at least in sports, if you can play, then you can play, no matter what you look like or who you take to bed with you. And we don’t have to make a big show of the things off the court. |
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