From Way Out in Left Field:
A Sports Blog from "Coach" Jim Brown
September - 2007
Lost in the public ardor over baseball's new dynastic heroes, The Boston Red Sox, was the fate of the lowly Cleveland Indians. And with it the peculiar sports suffering of that particular Midwestern city.
Most of us are more familiar with losing than winning. One line of thinking maintains that our sense of personal loss underlies our love of sports: we want someone, something, to win for us in proxy. Hence, the wild popularity of the jackets caps and t-shirts emblazoned with the names and logos of sports' latest winners.
But I must not be the first to point out that the Red Sox’s old dignity came in part from their many broken dreams. Their fans were less embittered than ennobled by the disappointing losses and the dark names that haunt the dreams of Sox fans: Ed Armbrister (interfered with Carlton Fisk), Bucky Dent (the homer to drop the Sox in the one-game playoff), poor old Bill Buckner (no note necessary).
So, if you're an oddball like me and it's loss you seek, forget the Chicago Cubs. That's a cliché. And the city had the Bulls and Bears to ease their loss.
Cleveland, however, well, this is a city that must just operate in a sort of fog of love/hate for their ball clubs.
The Indians had the thing done. They were up 3-1. They need one win. And they had the Sox at home with their ace, C.C . Sabathia, on the hill.
They lost the final three games by a combined score of 30-5, a collapse of epoch making proportion.
File it with the other stunners in Cleveland. John Elway lead to the Denver Broncos to what are now the signature wins of his career, even moreso than his Super Bowls. In both cases the games appeared won by the Browns. But it was not to be.
In 1995, the Indians had the best record in baseball, but hit 179 to lose to the Braves in six, of course, at home.
For the others, Sports Illustrated has done the work here.
What's the point, Lefters? Well, loss is better for the soul than winning. It purges. It burns. It is the more accurate reflection of the truth of the cosmos.
It makes your fan caps, logos and t-shirts count.
The Red Sox Nation is noticeably larger than it was in, say 1986. I grew up with the Sox as my American League team (more on that idea in another blog, Lefters), but I'm going to pull for the Indians for a while now.
October - 2007
September and October are the best months of the year for the traditional sports fan.
Baseball season proceeds with its mathematical rigor towards it conclusions. The mere contenders watch the magic numbers narrow until they are eliminated. By October the series champions will win those all important odd numbered games.
Football numbers, meanwhile, still reflect season of hope. Any pro franchise looks like it win might the requisite nine or ten games to claim a playoff berth, and with about 400 bowl games available, only Temple and Slippery Rock are ever truly out the bowl hunt.
The big games endow each weekend with a special promise. I always look forward to the first Friday I can wear a jacket and go watch a good high school football game.
But this shining time of year had dawned cold and ugly for me.
The Braves, my favorites since Willie Montanez and Ralph Garr were feared hitters, have disappeared from contention amid a series of injuries.
I didn't like Michael Vick over the last seasons. And that was when he was only drowning the Falcon's chances to win a playoff game. Given the 24-3 opening loss to Minnesota, all us Falcon fans have to look forward to are Carolina Panther games.
Lets us not speak of a Georgia team that loses to super-villain Steve Spurrier. In Athens. On national television.
And raised Irish Catholic (my dad and all his bothers and I all graduated from Old BC) Notre Dame looks so bad that I will not tune into the Michigan game.
And I have to say that these situations have led me into a sour mood.
I know, I know. I'm 42, married, with a good job and a kid. Sports are just sports. They don't spill over the sides into a man's real life.
But something's really missing from my Saturday and Sunday mornings. There's no reason to plunder the paper for last night results. No checking of the last line out of Vegas to see how close the edge has been drawn.
I can't even enjoy watching Mark May on ESPN, so that I can riled up at his anti-Notre Dame predictions. Because he's just flatly, dully right. We'll be 1-7. He's right.
I've known guys who find their way to rooting for some team that happens to be hot. I remember when Detroit won the World Series all these Tigers caps popped up along Savannah streets. What in the hell? Detroit?
But not me. I'm stuck with the teams I grew to love as a child.
When I was 11 UGA went all the way to the Sugar Bowl, only to be routed by Pitt. I still remember the Dogs veer, with Ray Goff sprinting left and right, and Ben Zambezi making all the tackles.
The Braves were predictably awful, but the AA farm team was right here and I saw Dale Murphy come up as a catcher. A six five catcher.
In the 90's when they won all those pennants and a lone World Series, it like payoff for a lifetime of watching the Reds sweep double headers from us on TBS.
Notre Dame football? I have two words. Joe Montana. Ok, some more words. 1977 ND 38, Texas 10. Ha
But as an old guy once said sagely to me, "Them days is gone."
So it's hard out here this. But you have to be faithful in the lean years. People will point and laugh, but I'm alternating my ND cap with Atlanta cap (I have a green Atalnta cap with a shamrock. Got it on sale. Don't know why it was on sale.)
And I'll schedule some time for ND/Michigan. I'll watch at least one Braves game this fall.
Just for old times sake.
November 2007
For the college sports fan the period from Thanksgiving to New Year's is the year's richest, with the football conference championships leading to the BCS announcements and the long bowl season (too long I'd say).
And as football grinds to a halt, basketball begins with pre-season tournaments and early pairings of ranked teams. The ACC-Big Ten Challenge dominates the week after Thanksgiving. I'm not sure whose brainchild the Challenge is, but it was a bright move, good for marketing the teams, the conferences and the sport.
On television at least basketball is a more intensely personal sport, if for no other reason that the very simple: the fan sees the player's face, un(face)masked. The greatest player’s faces become iconographic. One thinks of the great 70's Knicks teams, the best of the 80's Lakers and Celtics, the incomparable Jordan era Bulls. For the fan who remembers, I give this list: Frazier, Parrish, McHale, Jabbar, Jordan himself, the knitted brow, his tongue somehow slipping out of the side of his mouth.
I'm old enough now that college players look like children to me. For all this amazing skill Tyler Hansborough looks like he's about 16 to me. Maybe it's the name Tyler, the dual gender name of choice for the millennial generation.
College basketball is played at a ferocious and personal level too. Every game, it seems to me, takes on the intensity seen in the NBA only come playoff time. Compared to the college game, the NBA style seems at times almost laconic.
Even marginally good college teams do basic basketball things right: the motion offense, backdoor cuts, ball rotation on the perimeter, switching of zones and man defense.
And to me college basketball, even at the highest levels, keeps its amateur quality. I know the players probably don't go to class much or try very hard when they do go (The Patriot League, Ivies, and a tiny number of majors excepted), but one has the sense, as the games go down to the wire, that these young men play for the pure thrill of the ride, the beauty of knowing their own skills, the joy of getting it right.
Of course for a pure amateur thrill, one need look no further than women's NCCA basketball, where only the WNBA awaits a tiny few players. By contrast the many foreign leagues for men must seem downright lavish.
For me college basketball can be addictive. With ESPN broadcasting the west coast, a basic warning sign for me lies in too much basketball knowledge. If I catch myself saying, "Well, I like Pepperdine over Cal Davis, based on their supier depth," I know I need to get to bed earlier.
But it's early in the season. Tonight I'll catch the 9 p.m. slate and see UNC take Ohio State apart. What a game this might have been had the OSU super frosh stayed in school! But that's for another column.
January 2008
Playoff System Must Happen. Or Should It?
The moneyed interests have long prevented a playoff system in college football, but this year's BCS Championship matchup of Ohio State and LSU may provide the energy needed to change the entrenched system.
No single team lost more from the standing system that the University of Georgia, a ballclub that found its groove after the Tennessee loss and was rated 4 th in the BCS system, poised to play for the title if numbers one and two fell. If a playoff system were in place, I think UGA would have naturally been considered one of the most dangerous teams, based on their last seven games. And the UGA destruction of Hawaii proves at lkeast part of my point.
Most intelligent observers think a 16 game format would best serve the game and its fans. Since all D-1 conferences would send their champs, a selection committee would choose five at large bids. It's unthinkable the UGA would not get one of those bids were such a system in place this year.
It's true that some pretty good teams would get left out, but that's the case no matter what system is in place. And at least the teams with the best resumes would have a legit shot at the title.
And I think it would have the final effect of strengthening the mid major conferences. When these schools (Troy State, Central Florida) can tell recruits they will have a shot at the tile, they may get some leverage with high school athletes who now sign at major schools, only never to play much. I'm thinking of David Cone from Statesboro, who may never start at Michigan, but might have been a huge star at a mid major, thereby getting a shot to show his stuff to the NFL. Cone is an excellent player who took only a handful of snaps this year, playing behind Chad Henne. I wonder how USF might have been with that talented sophomore at the helm?
Problems
1. Total Number of Games: having set up the current 12 game regular season, the NCAA now faces a situation in which teams might play 17 games. I think a playoff would have to include a return to the 11 game regular season, which would mean some tricky legal business for games placed on schedules.
2. Notre Dame: Love them or hate them, the Irish have a massive legal contract with NBC based on being an independent. I think the Irish would be better off in a conference (they long ago should have joined up the Big East), but it's a fact: there would be some legal hassle to get the Irish out of the NBC contract and into a conference.
3. Home Field Advantage: In order to keep fans at the games (no team has a following that will travel four consecutive weeks to neutral sites), teams with higher seeds would win home field advantage. My sense is that some of these advantages would be unfair. This could be particularly true for a team in the upper Midwest, getting to play in bad weather against a closely ranked sunny state team like UF or USC. In the NCAA basketball forum, teams do not get a home court advantage for important games.
4. Who gets Left out and Why: There's just something odd about cutting Arkansas out of the hunt and letting Troy State wander off to be sacrificed in a first round game. I say that despite the Arkansas loss to Mizzou.
But problems aside, perhaps the time has come. If OSU beats LSU, it will be the cheesiest title since BYU took the championship by limping past a 6-5 Michigan team in the 80's. UGA and USC both look far better than Ohio State. We have on our hands a real travesty this year, and no real champion.
On the other hand, so what? What does a championship mean? Dawg fans feel left out, but I don't think the lack of the title takes any luster off the Sugar Bowl win or the Florida win.
I wonder if the controversy over titles and teams isn't part of the beauty of the sport. We used to call it the mythological national title. For me, myths can be good. They connote magic and paradox. There's something cold blooded about a playoff system. Somewhere in the new American psyche lurks a digital monster that wants every last aspect of society quantified. Someone told me that a playoff system would end the discussions. Is that what we want? Isn't that part of sport? The talking? The controversy?
Feb 2008
Best Super Bowl Memories: Lynn Swann's catch, Joe Montana's drive, the Fridge scoring on the short run, Tom Brady's first SB win…
Worst Super Bowl Memories: any of the Blow Out Bowls, which seemed to dominate the 80's.
Thoughts on the QB matchup: I genuinely like the image associated with both QB's. Brady is amazing, on his way to comparisons with the best ever, and Eli, you have to like for his scrappy play this playoff series. One imagines that Eli will make mistakes in the game. I predict a first quarter interception.
Thoughts on halftime: I really really like Tom Petty, so I hope it goes well. At least they get relatively cool acts these days…does anyone else recall the horrible shows from the 70's and 80's?
Best Super Bowl Food: veggie chilli, cheese fries, cold sodas, pretzels
Thoughts on the Commercials: It's apt. The game is commercial, the sport is commercial. Let the commercials stand as the ultimate symbol of what we are really doing!
Best Literary Quote related to the Game: "We should have a Day of the Dead here in America." - "We do. It's called Super Sunday." Don Delillo, White Noise
Last Notes: I ran into some rabid Giants fans the other, Polish guys from NY State, transplanted to the South. They were loud, silly, deliriously happy. "That's why we're football fans," said one. I can't generate the same enthusiasm for any pro team, even the Falcons, whom I loved when I was younger. But these guys did demonstrate the extent to which the game is deeply meaningful to its most passionate fans. So to the fellas from North Chucktown, I say, good luck Giants, here's to the biggest upset in the history of the game. Go Eli!
March 2008
Steroids
The gripping testimony offered before Congress by Roger Clemens et alia holds a number of lessons for Americans, especially sports fans.
The American project involves the destruction of idols as much as the creation. This is perhaps the only thing Roger and Brittany have in common. The truth of allegations aside (and it does not look good for Roger, as of this writing), Americans would do well to consider this paradox of celebrity. To me it points out the vacuity of our inner lives. We cannot turn off the celebrity IV as it pours into us.
Baseball stonewalled legislators, the media and its own fan-base for years. And we are all complicit because we all knew. So I don't like much the vitriol some fans have turned on Roger (or on Barry) for that matter. Real baseball fans do not need a homerun every three innings or pitchers who strike out 12 batters a game. They like 3 to 2 ballgames that feature good defense, team play, the hit and run, the clever baserunning. But we sat back and watched while league expansion thinned out the quality of pitching, while the owners rebuilt stadiums at taxpayer expense (complete with shorter walls for more homers), while mediocre players were awarded million dollar paydays at fan expense. Anyone remember Jeff Blauser? We knew what was up. Period.
Race still matters. Ask Marion Jones who will serve six months in jail, while Republican lawmakers (at the bidding of Texas Prez Bush) try to turn the hearings into an attack on the loathsome Brian MacAmee. Neither Roger nor Brian will serve time. But Barry may well join Marion in the huskal.
Has Congress nothing better to do? The last time I checked we had a failing war in Afghanistan/Iraq, a tanking economy, a Justice department that may have illegally jailed a sitting American Governor (Seiglman), and a predatory lending industry that has destroyed more lives than Barry has baseballs. That's just off the top of my head. Oh yeah, remember when it used to get cold? As Congress fiddles, we'll soon have the Grapefruit league in Manitoba.
A way-left friend of mine cannot understand why I like sports still: "It's part of the distraction business. No one knows or cares about politics, history or justice because they're all too busy playing Madden 09 and icing down coolers for the Ga/Fla game." "No," I say. "Um, it's um, more complicated than that." I used to win these arguments hands down.
Spring training opens now. I'm trying to find some enthusiasm.
April 2008
Notes from March Madness
Now that Davidson has lost to Kansas, UNC looks amazing, and they’re my pick to win the whole thing.
Comparisons between Tyler Hansborough and Larry Bird strike me as absurd. Bird handled the ball better and shot from the perimeter with dominance, may I remind the Tyler-crazed of Bird's passing. In the NBA Tyler will be a role player with occasional good moments. He may start. He will never make an all-start team, let alone win MVP's and lead teams to championships. The Love kid from UCLA will be a better pro player, if we must get into this Great White Hope Business (which, I loathe).
I saw some bonehead legislator in SC wants to make NCAA office pools illegal. Such pools are, to my knowledge legal in Georgia, but illegal in many states. Hmm, let's see: war in Iraq, global warming, campus shootings, crooked Wall Street investors destroying the economy…but some folks think the way to a better America lies in charging office workers with class misdemeanors. Makes sense…
Notes from Spring Training
It's time again for Braves baseball. That's right… Braves baseball. That's what matters. So, unless you've been a Red Sox fan since at least the mid 90's, please don't give me any of this Red Sox Nation bandwagon. In my family we were allowed one national League team and one American team. My AL team was the Sox, following my dad's life long obsession with the boys from Boston. But I now officially find it difficult to root for the Sox because of the poseurs out there.
So: I like the Braves to give the Mets and Phillies trouble all year in the race for the NL East. With Teixeira in at first all year, and host of young offensive talent, the Braves will score runs. Can the bullpen stay healthy? That, I think will be the big test. Brian McCann, an All Star two years in a row, will have a true breakout year.
But win or lose the pennant, the Braves will entertain. Baseball is a beautiful sport, despite what Clemens and Bonds have done to it. I love the pacing, the strategy, the coaching, the signs in and out of the bullpen, the occasional bench clearing brawl.
I urge all Savannahians to get out to Grayson, one of America’s great minor league parks. The seats behind home plate are all 100% all good. Anyone immune to the romance of summer evenings at minor league ball parks has perhaps lost a crucial part of his/her joie de vivre. (look it up, you got Google). Look for me…I'm moving to Savannah in late May! Go Gnats!!
May 2008
Notes on the NBA Playoffs
Dirk Nowitzki mocked by the basketball nation for letting David West touch his face Midway through game two of the heated Dallas/New Orleans series. Paul Pierce fined 25,000 for flashing gang signs at Atlanta Hawks players. Brendan Haywood picking up a nasty flagrant foul against league legend LeBron James.
While the quality of the games so far has not been great (a lot of blowouts, a lot of home court advantage), it has been interesting to gauge the extent to which codes of masculinity and violence inform NBA culture.
Of course, it's not like hockey, where the fights are encouraged, but TNT commentator Charles Barkely may have been on base when he said of Dirk: But they're trying to say to you, 'We think you're soft.' That's what it means.... You've got to slap his hand down, and then you got to say, 'Hey, let that guy drive to the basket' and then you've got to knock the hell out of him." Sure enough, Dallas has again been dismissed and upstart New Orleans team is in the second round.
I think it's at least slightly odd for Avery Johnson to be fired. One of the fastest coaches to win 100 games in NBAS history, Johnson was lionized for getting Dallas to elite status. But he couldn't win the big series.
Meanwhile Larry Brown wants to coach in Charlotte. I'm sick to death of Larry Brown and his traveling show. I think Johnson, for all his faults, speaks to the condition of the game today in ways that Larry cannot.
I like Boston to take the Eastern Conference and LA to win the west. Dust off those ESPN classic videos of the Larry Bird versus Magic series!
Braves Update
Injuries. Tom Glavine, Mike Hampton and John Smoltz all on the injured reserve list. The team is 0-9 in one run games and looked like an untrained group as they lost to Washington on Wednesday night, with Manny Accosta forgetting to field a bunt and allowing the winning run to score in extra innings.
I love the Braves and will continue to wear my now ragged, special edition green Braves hat…but it's feeling less and less like a return to the playoffs for the Bravos.
College Football
Interesting that Charlie Weiss and Steve Spurrier, both known as offensive gurus, will both cede play calling to assistants this year. Neither USC nor Notre Dame looks like a top ten team anyway, but the trend bears watching. If either of those teams exceeds expectations in a big way, you can look for fans across the country to question the play calling duties of any coach who has underperformed.