The Star Wars of Sports Journalism

If any baseball player or journalist/radio broadcaster from 100 years ago magically came to life and experienced the coverage the MLB gets today, they would probably die right back again of shock.

The sports journalism and media world has changed so drastically that even my parents and grandparents who lived through all the changes cannot keep track. So that begs the question, What will happen in 5, 10, or ever 30 years from now? What will the future of sports journalism be?

I think the future is already here. Mobile is the next thing in sports coverage. Being able to watch sports on the go on cell phones, iPads and the like is no longer up-and-coming technology. It is prevalent and very common. In fact, 3D cell phones where glasses are coming next year. I can only imagine that we will be able to watch the sports like a hologram.

The coverage will be constant and no longer local. It seems like ESPN will control all of the coverage in individual communities. It is turning more into a gossip channel much like TMZ. Coverage of individual sports will increase such that every players actions can be tracked and analyzed with relative ease. People will probably get notifications when individual players report to training each day and you might even be able to watch their workouts live all the time. It seems like privacy laws might even be stretched.

Sports events will be more and more surrounded around prime time slots. Afternoon baseball and football games will be more a thing of the past so the ad revenue can be maximized. The individual sports networks will have past players more and more be commentators and analyzers.

You might even be able to talk into your television and the analysts will talk back directly to you. Also, highlight shows like SportsCenter will be so fan interactive that you can customize exactly what you want in the order that you want it. Maybe you want to start SportsCenter with Top 10 plays instead of end it. And if you only had a limited amount of time you might want to watch your favorite teams highlights first.

I envision all of this and more becoming a reality sooner as opposed to later.

Ines Sainz: too much over nothing?

Ines Sainz wears provocative clothing. Ines Sainz is very attractive. Ines Sainz works in sports journalism and frequently interviews male athletes in the locker room. Ines Sainz was allegedly the victim of bullying.

While Sainz was on the field before the Jets game begun she apparently caught some eyes and the players, staff, and the head coach Rex Ryan were overthrowing footballs so they would land near her. After the practice she went into the locker room to interview Mark Sanchez and apparently people were verbally harassing her. She never heard any of it, however other individuals presumably other media personnel came over to her to apologize about the general behavior and tell her that they supported her.

She is, “embarrassed” by the entire thing and doesn’t want to make a big deal about it. So what I want to know is: Why is it blowing up? Why is it a big deal? For a long time women have had to fight for the right to be in sports journalism. Even to this day they are grossly underrepresented. I’m not here to argue why that is, but I am here to say that the women that work in the field of sports journalism today are still in the pioneering generation. They, unfortunately, have a responsibility to future journalists to lay the groundwork.

I don’t really believe that Ines Sainz is doing a good job of that. She clearly wears provocative clothing on purpose, she wants people to look at her and talk about her. I’m not saying she should dress like a nun, just not like a prostitute as she frequently does. When reading up about her I frequently found that she, “steals the show on media days” I don’t really think that is appropriate. Media days shouldn’t be about her, they should be about the players.

I think Sainz did a good job by trying to downplay all that happened to her that day in the locker room. I definitely do not think that that is always the right choice because she should never be subjected to rude comments or anything form of abuse while attempting to do her job. I also find it disturbing that the Jets organization simply made a statement saying they expect more from their players. I think they should have apologized and women’s groups from all over should not have been up in arms and all over the television preaching better treatment of women. She shouldn’t be used a pawn in the women’s movement. We don’t even know if anything even happened to her…

King Felix reigns supreme

The Cy Young award is given annually to the best baseball player in both the American and National leagues. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America votes on the award. When they vote they have to take statistics (such as wins, ERA, K’s per nine innings, walks, WHIP) into account when determining the winner.

This year, Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners was the winner despite a rough win-loss record of 13-12. He was not the most prolific of names this year but he played on the worst team in the AL. Seattle’s ofense rarely gave him a ton of run support, yet he still got the job done.

He finished with a league leading 2.27 ERA and the second best WHIP in the AL with 1.06. Hernandez truly deserved to win the award because despite a lack of hitting by the offense of his team he did his best to stifle the opponents offense. He pitched the most innings at 249.2 in the entire league and started the most games while finishing one strikeout from the league best.

A moderate baseball fan would probably look at wins and losses and see that his percentage was barely over .500 and immediately think he does not deserve to win the award. But when keeping all the statistics in mind, he is head and shoulders above the rest of the league and that is why he garnered 21 out of 28 first place votes. In the end, he defeated David Price and CC Sabathia, two big names in the sport who had great seasons this year, but Hernandez deserved it. He pitched on a team that was over 30 games below .500 for the team winning percentage, but he let his numbers do the talking. He won the award having won the least amount of games of any AL Cy Young winning pitcher in history and did it remarkably.

King Felix Hernandez had a stellar season and deserved the award… just look at the numbers.

Expansion of Sports Media.

With more sports coverage by both ESPN and regional sports networks all sports fans benefit. The average sports fan will have more games or matches to watch every time he turns on his TV while the die-hard sports fan will be able to watch every game of every season for just about any team he wants. With more sports networks, each one can focus more on a particular region or state while focusing solely on the sports in that area be it professional, high school, or amateur.

I know where I live I watch Sun Sports Florida and FSN, two regional sports networks, to see Lightning and Rays games. It is nice to get that coverage all the time, not just when they’re on national TV. Also, those channels have the rest of the time to play other sporting events that occur in that area that are interesting only to individuals that get those channels. One example is that they frequently have bass fishing coverage during the day and I know that in Tampa there is a huge market for fishing and it appeals to a lot of people.

One of the biggest benefits of increased networks covering sports is the jobs they are creating. For each new regional ESPN station and regional sports network, they need TV production people and announcers and countless other individuals working around the clock to make sure that the programs are brought to the viewers.

One of the negative affects of the increased television coverage, however, is the decrease in new information that a daily newspaper can bring. By the morning the average person already knows the scores from the previous night and has probably read an article about the game as well. The internet has brought sports coverage to everyones attention as soon as the event is over. You can check the sports scores live or watch the game on TV. This makes the newspaper not as important as it used to be.

Overall, the rise of regional sports networks and the increased coverage by ESPN is a beneficial thing for the sports fan because it brings them more access to all things sports.

Are you a tabloid star?

Brett Favre is a media whore.

Whether it is because he is “thinking” about coming back from retirement or sending lewd text messages to some masseuse, he is always on the front page of some newspaper or website somewhere. You might even see him on TV in his Levi jeans commercial. He also is overly dramatic about his injuries. We get it: you’re old! Bottom line: he wants the attention, he has to. Famous athletes with wives (and kids and grandkids) don’t send pictures of themselves to a reporter. It is a reporter for god sakes! His net worth is over $100 million and yet he can’t get enough of the attention.

On the contrary, Peyton Manning lets his performance on the field do all the talking for him. Whether it is his multiple MVPs, Pro Bowl selections, or Super Bowl, you only know about Peyton Manning because is a damn good football and he comes from a football family. In comparison to Favre, Manning’s net worth is $115 million. He has more endorsement than Favre, and the bottom line is that he is role model. Kids grow up wanting to be Peyton Manning.

Sports Media OVERLOAD!

On Saturday October 23rd, I charted my usage of sports media. The findings were not altogether surprising but the sheer amount of time I spent with some form of sports media at my disposable was slightly disturbing.

I woke up to a text from my friend about how a swimmer, Fran Crippen, had died of exhaustion during an open water race. I spent the next 30 minutes on my computer and phone trying to look up every piece of information about him. I kept refreshing my Twitter and searching for his name on hashtags. Then I watched SportsCenter for about 30 more minutes to see what happening in the greater sports world.

Later that day I went to The Head of the Charles Regatta where I followed the college football games, Tufts sporting events, and the regatta results on my BlackBerry for at least an hour total. At dinner that night I continued to check sports scored on my phone.

By the time I returned home NLCS game 6 was on and I watched that in its entirety. I was still following Twitter pretty regularly to see if any new information had come up about the swimmer who passed away. After the game, and the Giants won!, I read recaps of some of the upsets in college football. These were just the generic recaps from ESPN. That was the conclusion of my sports media usage for the day.

So to recap:

Time spent on Twitter: 1 hour

Time spent watching sports on ESPN: 3 hours

Time spent checking scores on my phone: 1 hour

Time spent reading sports articles on ESPN: 0.5 hours

When I think about where I was 3 years ago in terms of sports media I notice one immediate thing: Twitter. Twitter did not exist 3 years ago and now it is one of the premiere ways that athletes interact with their fans. As far as smart-phones go, they definitely existed 3 years ago. I did not have one so no sports were checked on my phone, however, I did have a free service from Yahoo! sports that sent me score updates at the end of certain games. Definitely not as much instant gratification…

Yankees come back to take game 1 from the Rangers in ALCS

It looked as if CC Sabathia wouldn’t stand a chance against the mighty bats of the Texas Rangers, but a crumbling bullpen coupled with errors gave the New York Yankees the go-ahead to come back from behind and win 6-5. The Rangers scored three runs in the first inning and looked to have the momentum coming off a surprising upset of the AL East winner Tampa Bay Rays in five games in the ALDS. CC Sabathia struggled with his control early, throwing more balls then strikes for the first few innings. In Sabathia’s previous six postseason starts he had given up only one total run in first inning play.

The Rangers scored two insurance runs in the 4th to get up to a comfortable 5-0 lead, and they looked to be only a few innings from taking Game 1. After surrendering one run in the 7th, the Rangers bullpen fell apart – the Rangers went through five different pitchers in the 8th inning before an out was recorded. The Yankees took advantage of the weak pitchers and scored 5 runs to go up 6-5. Brett Gardner started the 8th inning by sliding head-first into first to beat pitcher CJ Wilson to the bag. The extra effort fired up the Yankees and the next 6 players reached base. Marcus Thames hit the go-ahead hit as ex-Ranger Alex Rodriguez scored for the Yankees to take the lead.

Tufts Jumbos defeat Williams Ephs in Women’s Volleyball.

In a very intense, back-to-back, match the Tufts University Jumbos came out on top over conference rival Williams College Ephs in five sets in Division III women’s volleyball. In the first meeting this year, the Jumbos defeated the Ephs in three.

The Jumbos won the first set 26-24 coming back from a early deficit. The Ephs won the next two sets 25-23 and 25-19. The Jumbos won the next set 25-22. In the decisive fifth set, the Jumbos opened with a dominate 11-0 run. They then fell apart a little but were able to hang on and pull out a 15-8 victory to seal the match win.

The squad was led by Caitlin Updike and Cara Spieler. Updike, a 5’11” senior from Manhattan Beach, CA, is back from a sprained ankle that kept her out of the last three games. Spieler, a 5’9” junior from Santa Barbara, CA, had two decisive spikes that defeated two runs that the Ephs were on. Lexi Nicholas, a 5’9” junior from San Diego, CA was inconsistent on the evening having a number of crucial net errors.

The game featured a number of back and forth runs in which each team would gain and then lose momentum rather quickly. The Jumbos had to rally a number of times to stay in the game in both the first and fourth set. It was interesting to watch each team stay positive after mistakes were made. Very infrequently did the moral on either side dwindle at all.

The Jumbos were bolstered by a rowdy home crowd that kept the energy up even after losing sets. They stayed positive after losing a number of crucial points while the fans went crazy after each point’s win. They fed off that crowd throughout the final set and were able to pull off the win.

Where are the fundamentals?

While playing little league baseball, the most important things that a youngster can learn are the fundamentals of baseball. They aren’t difficult to learn but that doesn’t mean they are easy to employ. However, years of little league, travel ball, college ball, the minors, and the majors should make players adept to the fundamentals. Unfortunately, this postseason the fundamentals seem to be gone.

To begin with, the Cincinnati Reds, a team who had the second least amount of errors during the regular season, committed seven errors in their three losses to the Phillies. That is, on average, over two errors a game! To put that in perspective during the 162 regular season games the Reds committed only 72 errors which is less than one error every two games! Fielding is such a crucial part of baseball that it is no wonder that the Phillies swept the Reds with relative ease during the best of five series. Fielding errors are not excusable. Players get paid millions of dollars to do their job right, and that includes fielding (especially in the NL where there is no DH)!

For the Atlanta Braves, the fielding was so bad they decided to bench Brooks Conrad, a 30 year old rookie second baseman, after committing three errors in one game to tie a postseason record. However, the Braves did commit the second highest number of errors during the regular season.

What happened to NFL dominance?

Last year the Indianapolis Colts won 14 games and had clinched the playoffs long before they even thought about losing a game. This year, only 4 weeks into the season, there is only 1 undefeated team left.

The Kansas City Chiefs are 3-0 having already had their bye week. In a turn of events that not even the best analysts could have foreseen, the Colts are 2-2, the defending Super Bowl champion Saints are 3-1, and the Brett Favre led Vikings are 1-2. The so-called, “joke teams” of the NFL, like the Bears, Bucs, and Texans, have seen surprising victories.

The NFC West and East may have a team win the division with a losing record, 8-8 at the best and that hasn’t happened in 6 years!

So, what is the problem? Why does no team want to step up and dominate?

It seems this year like the teams are actually beating themselves more so than losing to a team. Is the coaching getting worse? Are the players less motivated to work hard? I don’t know the answer. Old powerhouses have not renewed and while new ones are being formed the rate is not equal. But is this truly a transition year? What does that even mean in the NFL? Maybe the quality of players at the college level have declined, but college teams are becoming more dominant.

The most interesting thing is that just as the NFL is declining in dominance, the MLB has seen a wave of dominating pitching and postseason performances.

There are only 32 teams and with 12 teams making the playoffs teams need to step up. It will be interesting to see how the season turns out. And who knows, maybe the impending lock out is one of the reasons of the lackluster performances.