Sporting Madness

The GBU: Rangers vs. Mariners

2009-07-14T02:56:00.000-04:00

I managed to make it down to Seattle yesterday to catch the Mariners knock off the Rangers 5-3 [Lookout Landing], and thought I'd present a few thoughts on the game in classic GBU style. They follow below:

- The Good:
- Ichiro Suzuki: Ichiro was impressive as usual, going two-for-five while making several outstanding plays defensively. He scored from first with an impressive burst of speed around on a Jose Lopez double, and pulled off a nice unusual slide at home to boot, staying away from the tag while throwing his arm out and catching the corner of the plate. However, perhaps his best moment of the day was his RBI single; he took a swing and didn't get much on it, hitting the ball lightly to the pitcher, but managed to beat the throw to first with an impressive sprint. He's having an incredible season so far at the age of 35, with a career-best .480 slugging percentage, .873 OPS and 133 OPS+, a .362 batting average (second-highest of his career), and .393 on-base percentage (third-highest of his career). Ichiro's still got plenty to offer this team, and was a very deserving All-Star selection.

- Erik Bedard: The Mariners' Canadian ace turned in a strong showing, scattering three hits and two runs in five and two-thirds innings of work. Unfortunately, two of those hits were home runs, but it was still a rather impressive performance from him; he was almost unhittable for most of the day. He has a tremendous .263 ERA and a 163 ERA+ this year, and is responsible for a lot of the Mariners' success.

- Russell Branyan: Branyan didn't have a great game Sunday, but he wasn't bad; he went 0 for 4 with a walk and a RBI. He's been one of the best Mariners this year, though, batting .280/.382/.573 with a OPS of .956 and a OPS+ of 152, both team highs. He's been a tremendous addition to the team.

- Don Wakamatsu: Seattle's rookie manager had an tremendous day and showed why he's been selected as one of the coaches for the A.L. All-Star team. As Art Thiel of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer pointed out in a column Sunday night, Wakamatsu's been very effective at managing his personnel all season long. He was particularly impressive Sunday, as the Mariners' crucial fourth run came after he inserted fleet pinch runner Josh Wilson for Ken Griffey Jr. and pinch hitter Chris Shelton, a former Ranger who was only called up to the team on Thursday [Jim Street, MLB.com], for Ryan Langerhans. As Nate Mayer of Mariners Dock wrote a while ago, Shelton has some impressive potential; he may be a valuable presence for the team down the stretch. Wilson scored on Shelton's single, and that proved to be the winning run.

- Jack Zduriencik: No, the general manager didn't do anything of note Sunday, but he's played a large role in turning this franchise around, as Jerry Brewer pointed out in a Seattle Times column today. Moreover, he just made an incredible trade, dumping all-around liability Yuniesky Betancourt off to the Kansas City Royals for two pitching prospects. Rarely do you see a unified reaction to a trade, but almost everyone who's weighed in on this one thinks it's a steal for the Mariners and a horrible move for the Royals. Check out a few sample reactions from Joe Posnanski, Rob Neyer, Rany Jazayerli, Keith Law and Minda Haas and Zach Saunders.

- The roof: The Safeco Field roof is very impressive. It was raining lightly when we got to the stadium (about an hour ahead of game time for batting practice), so the roof was closed. Even with it closed, the sides are still open, allowing a good view of the city. Just before game time, the rain eased off, so they opened the roof; it went from completely closed to completely open in 10 minutes or so, which was most impressive. Later in the game, rain started to fall again, so the roof started to close and was completely shut in just a matter of minutes. For a city like Seattle with unpredictable weather and plenty of rain, this roof is just about perfect.

- The microbrews: Safeco has an impressive selection of beer, featuring several smaller local breweries as well as the likes of Miller and Coors. For someone like myself who enjoys expanding his beer horizons, this was fantastic.

The Bad:
- The post-game crowds: It proved next to impossible to get out of Safeco after the game thanks to massive presses of people. Happens everywhere, but still annoying.

- The prices: Like most ballparks, the tickets weren't bad but the food cost an arm and a leg. Still, that's to be expected these days.

The Ugly:
- The OBP: The Mariners have added a number of better on-base percentage guys this year [Geoff Baker, The Seattle Times], but they still have some absolute black holes in their lineup who never walk. On Sunday, they started Jose Lopez (hitting .256/.287/.428), Ronny Cedeno (.168/.227/.301), Rob Johnson (.203/.263/.336) and Jack Hannahan (.143/.143/.286). Those are some pretty appalling numbers.

- The Rangers' pitching: Like the Mariners' batting lineup, the Rangers' pitching Sunday was not impressive. Their starter was Dustin Nippert, who had a 7.36 ERA and a 60 ERA+ by the end of the day. After just three and two-thirds innings and three earned runs, he was replaced by Derek Holland (5.97, 75), who threw two and two-thirds. He gave way to Darren O'Day, who's actually one of the Rangers' better pitchers (1.93, 231) but allowed the crucial two runs (both earned). C.J. Wilson and Jason Jennings both saw a bit of work as well and were okay, but not spectacular.

The conclusion: Overall, it was a pretty good game and a lot of fun to watch. It was also quite meaningful, something that's been rather rare of late for us Jays' fans: the Rangers' losses on the weekend allowed the Angels to take top spot in the AL West, with Texas 1.5 games back and the Mariners only 4 games back. The AL West pennant race is going to be an interesting one to watch this year, as all three teams are in contention. It should be a great battle.

On the road, and a take on Andrew Raycroft

2009-07-12T02:59:00.003-04:00

I'm on the road down in Washington State this weekend, so posting will be a bit scarce. Catching the Mariners - Rangers game later today, though, which should be a lot of fun. Anyways, I did manage to complete a Canuck Puck take on the Andrew Raycroft signing: check it out! I'll be back with plenty more sports coverage here in the next few days.

B.C. Lions - Hamilton Tiger-Cats live blog

2009-07-10T19:35:00.000-04:00

I'll be live-blogging the second game in the CFL Friday Night Football lineup tonight, which features the B.C. Lions hosting the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. Both teams lost their opening games last week, so they'll be eager to pick up their first win of the season, but that's going to be a difficult task for the Tiger-Cats. For one thing, despite an appalling showing last week against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, B.C. had plenty of chances to win the game, including on the last drive. That's not too bad against a pretty solid Saskatchewan team, especially one playing in their home fortress of Mosaic Stadium.

Meanwhile, Hamilton got their clocks cleaned at home by the lacklustre Toronto Argonauts. The final score was 30-17, but the Tiger-Cats looked worse than that to this observer. Moreover, as Globe and Mail football reporter David Naylor relates on his blog, the Tiger-Cats are 2-22 in June and July since 2005, and no team from the Eastern time zone has won in B.C. since 2004. Interestingly enough, the Eastern team to last accomplish that feat was the 2004 Hamilton Tiger-Cats, coached by one Greg Marshall, who's now the head coach of the defending Yates Cup champion Western Mustangs.

In any case, it should be an interesting evening of football. Calgary takes on Winnipeg in the first match at 7:30 Eastern for anyone looking for an early CFL fix. B.C. and Hamilton will kick off at 10:30 Eastern (7:30 Pacific), and I'll start the live blog then. The games are broadcast on TSN in Canada; they should also be available on webcast for viewers in Canada and the U.S. through CFL Broadband. Hope to see you tonight!

B.C. Lions - Hamilton Tiger-Cats

More notes on Deadspin, Gawker, and Denton

2009-07-10T18:39:00.001-04:00

Quite a while ago, I wrote about the commenting purges over at Deadspin and interviewed editor A.J. Daulerio about them. There have plenty of other developments in the sports world and the blogosphere since then, so I haven't returned to the subject; Andy Hutchins has a good breakdown of the new commenting system over at The Arena (and one that sparked a rather interesting response, plus substantial further debate) if you're interested in that.

However, some further material came to light today, which I felt was worth briefly addressing. Hutchins passed on a link to a Mediaite piece on Gawker Media czar Nick Denton's reinstatement of pageview bonuses to Gawker Media writers and potential willingness to pay for tips or photos, and that piece in turn linked to a fascinating interview with Denton at the Nieman Journalism Lab (a great site, by the way). There's a few tidbits in this one that are worthy of note.

Most interesting is an internal memo Denton passed on to Nieman's Zachary Seward. Here are the key quotes:

"[M]y hat goes off to AJ for bringing new writers into Deadspin and taking back the site from some commenters who thought they were in charge. Every transition is painful. AJ found that early when he started banning last month. But commenters on every site will be restive after we reinstitute the class system in comments tomorrow midday.

The favored commenters will be silent; and the illiterate ones will rant, well, illiterately. But we’ll be able to encourage the kind of discussion that *we* want — not one that is dominated merely by the most prolific of our commenters. It’s our party; we get to decide who comes."

Very interesting, Mr. Denton. That fits right in with his comments I mentioned in my earlier piece, where he said, "I look at Gawker comments as a party. We don't take responsibility or credit for individual comments, but we have the right to invite or disinvite guests and throw the best party we can. ... Just as a host isn't responsible for the vomit in the corner, we don't take responsibility for individual comments." In that post, I also speculated how the Deadspin commenting purge was something started at one of Gawker Media's smaller sites that could be spread across the network; that's since happened, with the new tiered commenting system engaged at all sites and de-starring/executions along with it, especially at Jezebel. It certainly seems like these changes are right in line with Denton's thinking, which is what I argued all along.

However, as long-time readers of this site will remember, that post caused a little kafuffle. I got an e-mail from Deadspin editor A.J. Daulerio soon afterwards, stating that I was completely off-base with regards to Denton's involvement. That led to this interview, where Daulerio seemed remarkably candid about the process and how it was something entirely on his initiative. Here's a direct quote from him: "And no, Nick Denton did not have any involvement in how I handled any of these situations."

That could very well be the truth. My goal here isn't to get into a Tom Cruise/Jack Nicolson showdown about who ordered the Code Red, and it's quite possible that Daulerio decided to undertake this process completely on his own. In that case, there are a few alternatives. He could have known in advance that Denton would approve and apply that kind of strategy across the network, he could have known about the coming tiered commenter system and figured the purges would be the best way to prepare the site for that, or he could have done it completely on his own and just found out later that Denton agreed. If that wasn't the case, Daulerio's comments could still be true if he knew what Denton had planned and just decided to do it first; that way, Denton still technically wasn't involved even if the end result was in line with his plans.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not particularly concerned with casting judgement on either Denton or Daulerio or performing an intensive investigation on how these changes came about. It's their blog, and they're entitled to run it however they feel like. I only mention this interview because some readers might find it interesting. It also seems to vindicate my original post a bit, which is an added bonus.

A few more brief notes from that Nieman piece. Obviously, some traditional media outlets are taking umbrage at Gawker Media paying for pageviews and perhaps tips. I disagree with this. For one thing, Gawker Media doesn't present themselves as a traditional media outlet, so they shouldn't have to follow those rules. People know what they're getting from Gawker sites, and a lot of it is valuable stuff that you won't find in the mainstream until much later. Second, paying writers for extra pageviews is logical; basically, it just gives them an ownership stake in the blog, which is a good thing. Myself and others who run their own blogs make money from our pageviews and ads; why should Gawker writers be denied that opportunity? Obviously, there's the potential for them to go for overly sensationalist stories to try and cash in on this, but you can't do that in the long term and retain your credibility. Readers aren't stupid, and neither are Gawker writers.

Paying for tips also isn't a bad idea, but I doubt it will happen on a large scale, particularly in the sports world. What likely will happen is Gawker will pay for some exclusive celebrity photos or inside sources; even some of the respectable British papers have done that for a while, and it hasn't led to the downfall of civilization. Obviously, paying for information does raise questions about its credibility, so the source needs to be carefully considered. I'm not saying it's something I'd necessarily do, and I'm not arguing that all media outlets should follow their lead, but I don't think Gawker doing this is going to cause any major problem.

However, I doubt you'll see Gawker Media pay tipsters who just send in links any time soon, which is probably the majority of those who submit tips to Deadspin. For one thing, the information's out there already; all tipsters are doing is drawing their attention to it. That's still a valuable service, but it's one that you don't have to pay for in my mind; anything of substantial value will probably come in from multiple sources, and good writers will find it, whether that's via Internet browsing, e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. Even if some writers won't submit tips without being paid, enough still will that they should be able to get that information for free.

What I would like to see from Gawker Media is a more consistent linking and attribution policy, in line with the guidelines I laid out here. Too frequently, their sites will just mention "a tipster" or "tipster X". That's not particularly helpful, either towards providing that person with their deserved credit or allowing readers to properly evaluate the source. If they would commit to identifying the source of their tips (unless anonymity is requested) and providing a link to their website, they would be flooded with useful tips without any need to pay. In the link-based economy of the Internet, a Gawker Media link is probably just as useful as direct payment anyway; it provides a lot of traffic, which in turn helps your advertising revenue. They could provide regular attribution and links to help smaller blogs out and increase goodwill towards their brand (which has been sorely lacking lately), generating their own traffic in the process from the linkees' future links back to Gawker Media stories and submitted tips. That's a great way to increase your blogosphere reputation and bring yourself all the tips and goodwill you'll need without having to shell out any cash. It's basic economics; if you increase the supply of people willing to provide you with information, the price of that information drops to a level where just a link or a nice mention's good enough to compensate for it.

Unfortunately, Deadspin in particular seems to be pursuing a bit of a "us against the world" mentality lately, which makes it unlikely that they'll go to this strategy. It's too bad that that line of thinking is now showing up in the blogosphere, as I've complained about its existence in the mainstream media often enough. The Internet's an awfully big place, and there's plenty of room for all of us in the sports corner of the intertubes. Deadspin and Gawker are doing very well for themselves, as showcased by the discussion of ad revenues in that Nieman piece and the increase in their traffic detailed by Simon Owens of Bloggasm. It wouldn't hurt them to adopt a less adversarial approach to the rest of the sports blogosphere, and it might even help to the degree where they wouldn't have to even discuss paying for tips.

Update: Received the following update from Denton (@nicknotned) on Twitter: "@AndrewBucholtz Yeah, AJ's purge was his own idea. But it fit with the wider Gawker plan. And I agree with you on giving more link credit." Thought I'd pass it along. Makes sense in my mind, as that fits some of the scenarios outlined above. Also, to re-state; Gawker Media does some links very well (such as the old Blogdomes and some of the single links in more recent times); it would just be nice to see credit consistently given in a uniform style, particularly for tips from a third party.

Vancouver Whitecaps - Minnesota Thunder live blog

2009-07-09T20:51:00.001-04:00

I’ll be live-blogging tonight’s game between the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Minnesota Thunder from the Swangard Stadium press box. It should be a good one; both teams are down towards the bottom of the USL First Division table, so they’ll be eager to get full points. Join me for it at 10:30 P.M. Eastern; 7:30 P.M. Pacific!

Vancouver Whitecaps - Minnesota Thunder

A requiem for the Jays

2009-07-09T19:52:00.000-04:00

Today's loss to the Tampa Bay Rays (47-39) dropped the Toronto Blue Jays (43-44) below the .500 mark for the first time this season, which, sadly, is probably a more accurate reflection of this team's ability than their 22-12 start that gave them the best record in the American League [Jerry Crasnick, ESPN.com]. That early start was largely piled up against weaker opponents, and was also aided by some incredible performances from unlikely pitching stars. Since then, the Jays have fallen back to earth.

This still isn't a bad team, though. The Jays aren't the best team in baseball by a long shot, but they are a bit unlucky and have a knack of losing close games by a run or two, as this most recent sweep by Tampa Bay has demonstrated; the Jays fell 3-1, 10-9 and 3-2 in a series of very winnable games that dramatically hurt their record and their playoff chances. Their Pythagorean win expectation (which suggests what a team's record should be based on runs scored and allowed) was at 46-40 after yesterday's game, not a huge difference in terms of pure games, but one that would have them right behind Tampa Bay and theoretically in contention for at least a wild-card playoff berth. Instead, the Jays have put up plenty of runs in blowout wins, but not enough in the close games. The playoffs would still be a long shot if their record sat at 46-40, but a bit of luck as to which games runs showed up in would make things seem a bit more rosy than the current gloomy atmosphere.

When you consider that the pitching rotation has been held together with dreams and duct tape this year, even a 43-44 record is impressive. Soon after the start of the year, four of last year's five regular starters were out of commission, with A.J. Burnett lost to the Yankees in free agency and Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch all likely out for the season thanks to injury. The lone survivor was the staff ace, Roy Halladay, who has been outstanding as usual this year (2.79 ERA, 154 ERA+, 10-3 record), but has faced minor injury problems of his own and missed a few games. Moreover, he also may not be around for long, if general manager J.P. Ricciardi's claims about listening to trade offers for him [Jeff Blair, The Globe and Mail] are to be believed. Pitchers Ricky Romero and Scott Richmond have stepped up admirably (145 and 117 ERA+ respectively), and Brian Tallet and Brett Cecil have been okay, but it's awfully difficult to contend in the toughest division in baseball with a pitching staff composed of spare parts. The relief side's been impressive as well, particularly closer Scott Downs (213 ERA+), but also Jason Frasor and Shawn Camp (168 and 113 ERA+ respectively).

The position players have been even better. Aaron Hill is having a season at second base that would put Roberto Alomar to shame, hitting .298/.336/.496 with 20 HR and 59 RBI and making highlight-reel plays in the field. Marco Scutaro is lighting it up at shortstop and batting .283/.382/.413, while Scott Rolen's hitting .330/.390/.486 and Lyle Overbay's batting .254/.375/.469. The lineup's dragged down a bit by the likes of Alex Rios and Vernon Wells and the odd decision to keep using Raul Chavez as a part-time catcher; Chavez has a good arm and is decent defensively, but he has the bizarre statistic of having a batting average exactly equal to his on-base percentage (both .262); he hasn't drawn a single walk in 85 plate appearances. Still, this is a strong batting lineup; Toronto's team OPS+ of 104 is fourth-best in the American League, and their team OBP of .340 is seventh-best.

In any case, this season is likely a lost cause. It would be tremendously difficult to come back even into the wild-card race at this point in time, particularly considering the strength of the Jays' own division. Not all is lost, though, and that's why the recent rumours about the Halliday trade strike me as odd. Halliday is still locked up for the next year, and keeping him around would give the Jays a plethora of pitching talent; Litsch and Marcum are likely to be back, McGowan may be back as well, and Romero and Richmond are also in the mix for the rotation. Tallet could return to the bullpen, perhaps joined by Cecil, and the Jays would have one of the better pitching staffs in the league. Moreover, if their hitters can keep up their production from this year and perhaps even underacheivers like Wells and Rios can be swapped out for prospects like Travis Snider or free agents, this team could be a powerhouse that could compete for the division title.

The window of opportunity is limited, though. With the strength of the AL East, it's very difficult to compete with Boston and New York year-in and year-out, especially when your attendance numbers are among the worst in the league. Toronto fans aren't going to the ballpark in numbers any more, and it's difficult to blame them; although it's still a lot of fun to go catch a game, the team hasn't been in contention for what feels like forever. That leaves ownership with a tough decision to make. They could cut payroll to a lower level and trade away Toronto's established assets for prospects, hoping to contend down the road, but that's likely to hurt attendance even more and isn't any guarantee of success.

The other option is to roll the dice. Keep Halladay for now and be active in the off-season, either via trading prospects for established players or signing players in free agency to buttress the roster. Try to resign him to a long-term deal before the next season starts, or hope that success will be enough motivation to convince him to come back. Spend big for a year or two and go for broke; a winning team will produce buzz, increase attendance and pay off the cost of the acquisitions, especially if they make the playoffs.

The status quo isn't particularly helpful, as the Jays are good enough to raise hopes and avoid high draft picks, but bad enough not to come close to the playoffs. To me, there's little point in trying to blow the roster up and start from scratch when the team is potentially so close. In my mind, the better option is to try and win within the next couple of seasons, when the team's still close to the top. The requiem for this season has been written, but there's still a lot of hope for the future.

The outliers of sportswriting

2009-07-06T09:00:00.000-04:00

I recently read Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book, Outliers, and was quite interested in some of the ideas he brought up. Gladwell discusses how it is almost impossible to predict who will succeed at certain jobs, such as quarterbacking at the NFL level, teaching and giving financial advice. The implications of this idea for the world of sports are myriad, but what really jumped out at me was what these theories and conclusions might mean for the world of sportswriting.

Gladwell’s general thesis in the book seems to be that the success attained by remarkable individuals is not due to their innate abilities alone, but also to the supporting infrastructure they have and the environment they operate in. At first glance, this would seem to run against the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches dream that still epitomizes much of North American society. However, when you closely examine the situations involved, this isn’t necessarily true.

For example, perhaps the most poignant example in Gladwell’s work is Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. For decades, Gates has been admired by many for his bold entrepreneurial spirit and computer skills. However, Gladwell suggests that Gates’ success also was thanks to the hundreds of hours of access he had to computers in high school and college, at a time when almost no one in his situation was able to gain similar experience. This doesn’t necessarily diminish Gates’ talent or intelligence, as his incredible drive and substantial computer skills allowed him to make the most of those opportunities. What it does suggest, though, is that circumstances as well as innate skills played a role in Gates’ rise to prominence, and that others may have been able to achieve similar greatness if they had had the chance.

For a more sports-related example, Gladwell came up with a very interesting idea about Canadian junior hockey and enlisted hockey blogger extraordinaire James Mirtle to examine some of the details. Basically, Gladwell writes (and as Mirtle shows, the stats back him up) that a highly disproportionate number of NHL players are born early in the year. The reason for this? Gladwell argues it’s because the top players are funnelled into age-based select teams early on, and age is calculated as of January 1. Because age and physical development can greatly affect the talent of junior players, those born in January would have a 10 to 11-month advantage over those born in November or December, but would be competing for the same spot. Thus, it’s only the truly transcendent late-born talents that get selected for these elite squads and progress through the ranks; many of those who might be just as good are selected against because of their birthdate, and thus may never achieve stardom or decide to quit the sport altogether. It’s interesting that something as simple as a birthday can play an important role in an athlete’s success or lack thereof.

This argument is rather applicable to journalism in my mind. Like teaching or financial planning, journalism can be entered from almost any field of study. There are an incredible amount of people interested in a journalistic career, but only a few of those who want to enter the field ever get a shot at writing for a publication and the numbers are dwindling further with the current economic climate. Moreover, like teachers and NFL quarterbacks, there doesn’t seem to be any hard and fast way of predicting journalistic success. Accomplished journalists come from all races, credos and backgrounds. Thus, it certainly seems that only a few of the people interested in and capable of doing the job actually get a chance to do so, and that appears largely due to their circumstances.

I think the blogosphere has both helped and hindered this problem. On the one hand, there is no longer a real barrier to publishing. Anyone with internet access and a bit of time can set up a blog and get their words out there, which is a tremendous development. Once those words are out there, you’re at least partially judged on their merit and quality, and that can only be a good thing.

However, that doesn’t mean that the blogosphere has been a wholeheartedly positive way to reduce the impact of circumstances. Sure, everyone can now get their words out there, but chance and connections still play a large role in whose words are read and which sites become successful. If you happen to write a post on a certain issue of the day and it gets picked up by any of the big sports blogs, that can make a huge difference to your traffic (and thus your revenue, if you’re making money off your site). If you write the exact same post but an editor at one of those sites doesn’t stumble across it or decide to link to it, the quality of your writing remains the same but the success is drastically reduced by a factor outside of your control.

This is further complicated by the webs of acquaintances and connections out there. For example, I’ve had quite a bit of traffic come my way from Neate and Out of Left Field over the years, and through that network, I’ve managed to pick up gigs writing for that site, The CIS Blog and The 24th Minute. I only got to know Neate because he writes about the Gaels and used to be a Queen's Journal sports editor, the same job I held last year; if I attended McGill, for instance, I probably never would have stumbled across his site or ever wound up writing for it. An even clearer case is the traffic I’ve got from Pension Plan Puppets, the great Toronto Maple Leafs blog whose editor has been kind enough to throw a lot of links my way thanks to our Queen’s connection. It’s the same on my end, as there’s no way to have enough time to read or link to everything. There are some blogs I read regularly strictly due to their coverage of teams I follow, such as Orland Kurtenblog or Behind The Steel Curtain, but there are plenty of other great sites I would likely never have come across if I didn’t know the people who write for them.

The other problem posed by the blogosphere is the vast amount of free content out there. On the one hand, this is a great thing for fans; there’s plenty of access to quality perspectives on sports that you never would have seen otherwise, and you don’t have to pay a cent for it. However, this means that people now expect not to pay for this kind of content, and that’s part of the reason why many newspapers are now running into financial problems. It’s a classic case of supply and demand; the supply of content has increased dramatically, which, if demand doesn’t increase, means that the price of content should drop. Fans rightly question why they should have to pay to read about their team, and that leads to decreasing newspaper subscriptions. Online advertising can counteract this to some degree, but it only really works if you have a certain critical mass of readers, and many companies are still hesitant to use their limited advertising budgets in a relatively new medium. Thus, the expansion of the blogosphere gives many more people the ability to have their work published, but it also means that there are likely to be less paid writing jobs out there, at least in the traditional print media. There are many other problems facing the print media industry and the blogosphere expansion certainly doesn’t account for all of them, but most people would probably agree that it has hurt to some degree. Thus, while blogs allow anyone to write, they may also decrease the amount of people who can make a living writing.

However, the blogosphere has also led to the creation of many new paid writing jobs. There are plenty of examples of paid bloggers out there, from Deadspin to Yahoo! Sports to SportsBlogNation, and that’s a great thing to see. Still, the vast majority of bloggers aren’t likely to make a living at it any time soon and it’s only the big sites that pay (and many of them don’t pay anywhere near as much as some of the old print jobs). so in some ways it’s like the old media world. Everyone can write now and get their words out there, but only a few can make a profitable career off of writing. Those spots are probably determined more by merit than they ever have been, but there’s still a large role played by chance and connections.

The Outliers logic applies within newspapers as well. You can have the best writers in the world and have them coming up with brilliant story ideas, but if they can’t sell their editors on their plans, then those stories will never see the light of day. Furthermore, writers obviously have different talents, but I’m not sure they always get to utilize them; often, section assignments and beats are determined by seniority or by what’s needed, so you don’t always find people covering stories they’re even interested in. In fact, it’s very likely that we rarely get to see the best anyone can do given the constraints of time, format and the newspaper hierarchy. How many potentially brilliant columnists or feature writers are stuck writing stories that no one cares about thanks to a lack of seniority or an unappreciative editor?

In the end, the great thing about the blogosphere is how it allows so many more people to get their writing out there. It’s not going to replace traditional media sources, but it provides a valuable added realm, and one that can co-exist with the old world of media. It also allows writers to pursue any topic they’re interested in, which in my mind is a positive development; we get to see people writing what they love, not just what they’re assigned. Unfortunately, much of that writing doesn’t attract wide attention thanks to the roles played by chance, connections and other factors, but it’s still a step forward in my thinking. At least now you can see your writing published, and there’s a higher chance of it being seen by at least a few people. The true outliers may still find success above and beyond the rest, but the playing field is perhaps more even than it’s traditionally been, and that’s a good thing in my mind.

A few links and some scheduling

2009-07-05T13:23:00.004-04:00

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm taking off for a few days to go camping, so things have been somewhat light around here due to preparations for that. I do have a lengthy essay on sportswriting and Malcolm Gladwell scheduled to go up tomorrow morning, though, and I should be back with fresh content Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Until then, here's a few links to tide you over:

My work:
- A post on the Canucks' acquisition of Mikael Samuelsson [Canuck Puck
- A piece on the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair [The Phoenix Pub]
- A piece on the Sedins returning and a few other signings [Canuck Puck]

Other good pieces:
- James Mirtle sees the Canucks as a team with cash still to spend
[From The Rink]
- Joe Posnanski on the Royals' lack of speed
- Neate on the Raptors picking up Turkoglu [Out of Left Field]

CFL: CIS showdown in Regina tonight

2009-07-03T15:37:00.003-04:00

The CFL's always a good option for CIS football diehards looking for offseason entertainment, and the Saskatchewan Roughriders are one of the teams to watch. As Neate pointed out with his list of CIS players in the CFL the other day, Saskatchewan is well ahead of the rest of the league in terms of CIS content. The Roughriders, who start their season tonight against the B.C. Lions, have a league-high 21 CIS-trained players on their roster. I'll be live-blogging the game here tonight; kickoff is at 9 p.m. Eastern.

Saskatchewan's Canadian-trained talent is perhaps most evident in the receiving corps, where the Riders have two players who are already stars (slotback Jason Clermont from the University of Regina and wide receiver Andy Fantuz from Western) and three more with serious star potential (wide receiver Rob Bagg from Queen's, who I profiled here, slotback Chris Getzlaf from the University of Regina and wide receiver Adam Nicolson from the University of Ottawa) ; they also have wide receiver Dave McKoy from the University of Guelph, who's currently on the injured list. The Riders are also deep with Canadian talent on the lines and in the secondary.

Their opponents, the B.C. Lions, don't have quite the same number of CIS players, but they have some quality ones. Most of the Lions' CIS stars are on the defensive side of the ball, including linebacker Javy Glatt from Simon Fraser University (a 2008 CFL all-star), defensive end Ricky Foley from York, who will have to try and fill Cameron Wake's shoes, and their top draft pick from this year, James Yurichuk, a linebacker from Bishop's. On offence, SFU centre Angus Reid has been a consistent CFL starter for several years now and has performed well.

It should be an excellent game tonight. There's always a healthy rivalry between the teams, and both will be eager to start the season off on the right foot. One of the big storylines entering tonight's game is a former CIS player as well, Jason Clermont, who went from B.C. to his native Saskatchewan in the off-season. For those looking for a CIS football fix, it might be worth tuning in to see how yesterday's university stars are doing in the pros.

[Cross-posted to The CIS Blog]

B.C. Lions - Saskatchewan Roughriders

Zidane match rescheduled to July 12

2009-07-02T19:00:00.002-04:00

I haven't written much about the "Zidane and Friends" series of charity exhibition matches being played across Canada this summer, as they really don't appeal to me. Sure, there's some interesting players supposedly involved, including the legend himself, but at the heart of it, it's just "an oldtimers' game", as my father referred to it in our conversation this morning. There's much better and more interesting soccer going on in MLS and the USL, and that takes more of my attention. The Toronto match was interesting , but still lacked many of the promised names [Larry Millson, The Canadian Press], so I wasn't overly concerned about following the Vancouver one set for July 4.

However, some interesting news came out today. Reports spread across the Vancouver media landscape today that Zidane hurt his back [Full Time: Vancouver's Soccer Show in town while watching the Canada Day fireworks with his kids and might not be able to play. Funnily enough, bizarre as that is, it's not even comparable to some of the more unusual sports injuries. The organization has confirmed the "freak injury" and cancelled the July 4 game at B.C. Place, rescheduling it for July 12. That's quite the quick recovery from a back injury, though, especially for an aging star like Zidane; we'll have to see how he's doing closer to the date. The organization says they'll refund all sold tickets and allow people to buy new tickets if they want; it will be interesting to see how many people who had tickets to the original event decide to buy tickets for the new one.

One thing this tour does show is the sometimes fragmented nature of the Canadian soccer landscape. In Millson's article (linked above) on the Toronto match, organizer Ahcene Adlani blamed a lack of support from the Canadian Soccer Association for the diminished rosters. Now, the CSA certainly has no obligation to support this kind of endeavour; they've got plenty of their own events to organize, including the recently-completed Voyageurs Cup and the upcoming Gold Cup. Most successful events in Canadian soccer are supported by the CSA or the clubs, though, so it's important to have at least one of those groups on your side. I don't know the details of Adlani's conversations with the CSA or with the Canadian clubs, so I can't comment on why his efforts didn't gain support from them. However, trying to go your own way, as Adlani did, is a difficult road to take, and one that's certainly made more difficult when you get freak injuries like this. Kudos to him for the attempt to do something cool and raise money for charity; let's hope that it still works out despite the Zidane injury.

[Cross-posted to The 24th Minute]

I'm back!

2009-07-02T17:43:00.004-04:00

Apologies for the horribly long absence; I had to spend most of the past week preparing for a move and then flew across the country yesterday. I'm back in the blogging saddle now, though, and have plenty of stuff planned here for the next few days. Until then, here's a link to two of the pieces I've managed to write in the meantime and some other pieces I've enjoyed reading recently.

- A piece I wrote Monday at Canuck Puck on the Canucks' involvement in free agent rumours and laying out my blueprint for Vancouver's free-agency moves.
- A piece analyzing the top 10 picks of the NHL draft I co-wrote over at The Rookies.
- An interesting piece by First Derivative over at The Phoenix Pub on why the acquisition of Marian Hossa may hurt the Blackhawks thanks to the length of his deal.
- Neate has a breakdown of the CFL players from the CIS ranks over at Out of Left Field.
- A great piece from Joe Posnanski on the Royals' problems handling injuries.

Thanks for putting up with me during this absence! We now return you to your regularly scheduled Sporting Madness programming.

Toronto FC - Real Salt Lake live blog

2009-06-27T17:43:00.001-04:00

I'll be live-blogging tonight's Toronto FC - Real Salt Lake match tonight at 9:30 p.m. Eastern. It should be a good one; TFC are in second place in the Eastern Conference with a 6-5-4 record and 22 points, one behind D.C. United. Toronto also has a game in hand, and D.C. doesn't have another MLS game until July 4, so a TFC win tonight would vault them into first in the East for a while. Real Salt Lake have cooled down a bit from their strong start to the season. They sit fifth in the West with a 4-6-4 record and 16 points, so they'll be eager to get full points from this one as well. Come join the live blog at 9:30 tonight!

Toronto FC - Real Salt Lake

On sports in the Twitter era, and the role of bloggers and tweeters

2009-06-26T16:24:00.000-04:00

If anyone wasn’t already convinced that Twitter has altered the way we cover sports, they would do well to consider the events of the past week. First, we had Kevin Love breaking the news [Andy Hutchins, The Rookies] of Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Kevin McHale’s dismissal on his own Twitter feed, followed in close succession by a supposed Twitter feud [Andrew Stoeten, TheScore.com Blog] between Chad Ochocinco and Shawne Merriman, Shaquille O’Neal learning of his trade to the Cleveland Cavaliers on Twitter [King James Gospel] and several notable reactions across the sports world to the death of Michael Jackson (including some that were over-the-top [Jonathan Sacks, Sports Rubbish). Even before this week, many prominent news organizations have been running stories based on information from the Twitter feeds of athletes, agents and coaches, and that doesn’t appear likely to change any time soon.

The big question is what these developments mean for sports coverage. Quoting athletes from Twitter, Twitter feuds and stories based on Twitter information have their own sets of unique issues that I’ll look at later, but for just breaking news, it’s hard to imagine a better platform, especially in the sports world. When any sort of big story (a trade, an injury, a free-agent signing) happens, the sports segment of the Twitter universe tends to explode. Sometimes, that results in stories like the Love incident, where an insider such as an athlete or coach breaks news directly to their followers before the media gets to it.

More frequently, as with the Shaq trade, one reporter or blogger will pick up on the story, write a piece and then promote it on their Twitter feed. Another growing segment of news comes from media live-tweeting from certain events, such as the Phoenix Coyotes’ bankruptcy proceedings or Steve Nash’s charity soccer event. If the news is important enough, it will fly around the sports world thanks to the ease of retweeting and linking.

Twitter isn't not just for breaking news, either; if a mainstream columnist or a blogger has a unique or valuable take on a situation, either in a longer piece or in just a witty tweet, that will be rebroadcast as well, helping to publicize their work. Moreover, as Will Leitch wrote in a great column this week, Twitter is a fantastic way to collect sports information even if you’re not putting much of your own information out there. It allows you to see what the hot stories are in the national media and on small team blogs all at once, and pick out those that you find interesting for further reading.

Personally, I haven’t found that the advent of Twitter necessarily means I read less long-form pieces. What I have found is that the location of where I read those places has changed. The advantage of big sports sites like ESPN and Yahoo! is their depth of information and their ability to put breaking stories up quickly. I used to check those sites regularly just to see if anything big was going on, and would often find myself reading other pieces they added to pass the time. With smaller blogs, I often found myself not checking in as frequently, as they usually put up a new piece every couple days or so and it wasn’t worth continually looking at the site to see if there was something new. Now, with Twitter, I don’t have to spend time just surfing the general sports sites, as anything interesting that they break will be flying across Twitter instantly (and sometimes even before one of the big sites has it, like ESPN with the Shaq trade).

Moreover, I see plenty of interesting blog pieces cleverly promoted in 140 characters or less, so I check those out instead of reading the general sports stories. When the bloggers I follow regularly put a new post up, they generally alert the world on Twitter, and I generally know just from their 140-character summary if it’s something I’m interested in reading or promoting. In many ways, it’s a lot like a RSS feed but more useful thanks to the Twitter-exclusive original analysis and witty remarks many writers offer in addition to promoting their own stuff. The recommendation aspect of Twitter is also useful; I’m much more likely to check out a piece at a site I don’t regularly read or a Twitter feed I don’t normally follow if it’s mentioned by a writer I follow and respect.

Now, that doesn’t mean that Twitter and Twitter users break stories in the majority of circumstances. However, that doesn’t make their function of promoting and redistributing the news any less important, and it doesn’t make it different from many major news outlets (something which I had an interesting Twitter conversation about with Dave Leeder of the Globe and Mail yesterday in the wake of the Jackson coverage, where the accurate details were spread across Twitter long before mainstream organizations such as CNN and NBC clued in). Much of what you see in a newspaper or on a sports website is not original content produced specifically for that organization; a lot of it is wire-service material picked up from agencies such as The Associated Press, Reuters and Bloomberg. Moreover, a great deal of that wire-service material is not news broken by the wire service, especially when looking at trades or free-agent signings; those are more frequently broken by local beat reporters or well-connected national writers such as Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowski or Fox’s Jay Glazer and then re-reported or rewritten by wire-service staff for transmission to their client papers.

Thus, many Twitter users and bloggers are fulfilling a similar function to wire services by taking information that one group of people sees and transmitting it to different groups of people. In fact, I’d argue that the Twitter users and bloggers are providing a more valuable function, as they generally add their own commentary to the straight news and they generally link to the original piece, two things which wire services rarely, if ever, bother with. Occasionally, a wire-service piece will include a vague line like “the trade was first reported by FoxSports.com”, but they’ll rarely mention the name of the reporter or provide a link, making it difficult for interested readers to find the original piece. More frequently, they’ll forego attribution altogether if their reporters are able to re-report the story by getting a coach, general manager or agent to confirm to them what’s already taken place.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as these services still have their role to play. Newspapers and websites need a great deal of content, and it isn’t possible to have their own staff generate certain kinds of content efficiently. For example, consider the Shaq trade. This is the kind of big news that transcends the individual franchises involved (the Suns and Cavaliers); any paper that covers the NBA at all will likely want to have a story on it. However, it isn’t at all cost-efficient for a paper like the Sacramento Bee (to pick one at random) to have a reporter based in either Cleveland or Phoenix on the off-chance that some news big enough to make the papers in Sacramento will arise in either city. It’s far more effective for one AP writer to pull a story together and send it out to all the interested papers across the country that don’t have their own personnel covering the trade.

It is ironic that these wire services are some of the biggest critics of the blogging and tweeting segments of the sports world, though. When AP chairman Dean Singleton rails at Google and bloggers [Joseph Jaffe, Jaffe Juice] and apparently agrees with Wall Street Journal managing editor Robert Thomson’s characterization of them as “parasites”, perhaps he should look in the mirror. If the definition of a news parasite is one who disseminates without adding original content, the wire services are perhaps more guilty of said offence than bloggers. At least bloggers who comment on these stories on their own sites or on Twitter are providing credit to whoever broke the story, a link to the original piece and their own take on the news, all of which are rather valuable. With the wire services, the credit often goes missing or is unnecessarily vague, the link to the original is generally non-existent, and extra analysis generallyis not included (which is fine, as that’s the way that straight news tends to be done).

Perhaps the problem is with the connotation of the word “parasites”. Of course, it evokes rather unfortunate mental images of bugs or worms living off of larger hosts. “Symbiotes” might be a better term; many organisms provide useful functions for their hosts, such as the gut flora that live in the human digestive tract and help to process food. In that manner, wire services, bloggers and tweeters all provide useful benefits to the original reporters to some degree, as all help get the information to the masses. Bloggers and tweeters help even more by providing credit and links to their sources. There’s enough room out there on the sports segment of the interwebs for each group to carve out its niche. In the end, we all have the same goal of getting the information out there; we would be better served working as parts of a symbiotic whole than feuding with each other.

Toronto FC - New York Red Bulls live blog, and US-Spain analysis

2009-06-24T18:34:00.001-04:00

Toronto FC takes on the New York Red Bulls tonight at 7:30 at BMO Field. It should be a good game, as TFC look to translate their recent Voyageurs Cup success into MLS play. I'll be live-blogging the match here and at The 24th Minute; come stop by then!

Also,if you're looking for a soccer fix in the meantime, I have some thoughts on the U.S. - Spain Confederations Cup match from earlier today over at The Phoenix Pub, Adam has a good piece for tonight's Last Call at Avoiding The Drop, Jason Davis of Match Fit USA has reversed his stance on Bob Bradley and Andy Hutchins, my colleague at The Rookies, has a nice take over at The Big Lead. Hope to see you for the live blog!

Toronto FC - New York Red Bulls

The Most Annoying Fan Traditions, Part I

2009-06-24T14:35:00.004-04:00

Note: this piece originally ran at The Rookies yesterday. However, a massive failure on the part of our hosting server means that it isn't accessible at the moment, so I figured it would be appropriate to repost it here today so everyone watching the Confederations Cup matches could share my vuvuzela hatred. It also originally had more pictures and looked prettier. I'll hopefully be running Part II on specific fanbases over at The Rookies tomorrow if our server's back up. - Andrew

The ongoing Confederations Cup in South Africa has seen some great moments on the pitch, including the bizarre collection of circumstances Wayne and Rockabye described here and here. However, they have been overshadowed by one appalling one; the unleashing of the hated "vuvuzelas" (basically, cheap plastic trumpets) on an unsuspecting worldwide audience. A movement to ban them is already underway, and bloggers around the globe have weighed in. Even those who
respect the vuvuzelas' origins tend to concede that they're bloody annoying. Still, it doesn't look like the vuvuzelas will be going anywhere in the near future, as they're endorsed by His Royal Majesty King Sepp I. In their honour, I present my selections of the five most annoying fan traditions from general fanbases after the jump.

General fanbases:

5. Shipping Up To Boston:
This Dropkick Murphys song is actually pretty cool, which is why it only comes in at five. Moreover, it's perfectly acceptable to play at Boston-area sporting events; it's got a great intro and it's a solid pump-up tune. However, no franchise outside of Boston should touch this one with a 29.5 foot pole, and far too many of them do. The Australian Football League? Atlanta Braves' pitcher Eric O'Flaherty? The New York Jets? The Buffalo Sabres? For god's sake, the University of New Brunswick Varsity Reds? What possible logic is there behind any of these franchises regularly using a song about Boston? It's not even like Journey's Don't Stop Believing, where the geographical reference ("Born and raised in South Detroit") consumes a grand total of one line; the freaking TITLE of the song includes Boston. Everyone else, back off and get your own music.

Typical fan who enjoys this: The punk:

"This song makes me want to crack some skulls! I'm so hardcore, man!"

What it tells us about the human condition: We all have a desire to feel like we're tough, and this desire's enhanced even more in an environment like a hockey arena, where all the guys are trying to prove just how manly they are. That's behind the massive eating and drinking rituals, the competitions to outcheer each other and hurl the most vulgar insults and all the rest. Thus, cities not named Boston use songs like this about fighting to pump up the spectators and instill a bloodlust, and they go home feeling like they proved themselves.

4. Cowbells:
Okay, cowbells were cool once. I am a former drummer who enjoyed making extensive use of my set's cowbell, and if I know anything, I know that you never question Bruce Dickinson (even if he isn't this one). At sporting events, though, they left cool behind a long time ago and moved into the annoying realm. A bizarre collection of teams, including the Tampa Bay Rays, the Toronto Blue Jays, the University of New Hampshire Wildcats, the San Jose SaberCats, and the Alaska Aces have become infamous for their fans' frequent cowbell use. Some junior hockey teams, such as the Everett Silvertips and the Belleville Bulls, even embrace the cowbell. Interesting gimmick at the start, but the constant ringing of cowbells throughout a game tends to convince people to pull their brains out through their ears. There's no gold-plated records to be had here, so give up the cowbells!

Typical fan who enjoys this: The frat boy. "Dude, this cowbell gig is so totally awesome! After this, let's go home and watch every Will Ferrell movie ever made so we can quote them even more!

What this tells us about the human condition: We can't think of any new jokes, so we're compelled to endlessly repeat the old ones in ways that aren't funny. The groupthink aspect of having large numbers of fans do so at the same time and instantly tell each other and themselves that they're hilarious leads to a sad self-perpetuating loop of cowbell behaviour.

3. Thunderstix:
Thunderstix are as irritating as they are prevalent. Sure, there's a cool sound when you first inflate them and bang them together, but they get annoying after only a few minutes, especially when thousands of fans are all smashing them together at once. Moreover, they lose air over time and people wind up just scattering them all over the stadiums. Far too many landfills are sadly brimming with these abhorrent creations.

Typical fan who enjoys this: The eight-year old kid. He only enjoys using Thunderstix "properly" for a few minutes, though, and then starts banging them off innocent spectators' heads.

What this tells us about the human condition: We've gotten to a point as a society where we can't enjoy events on their own any more. We can't tolerate boredom, and young kids especially can't. There's a need to be entertained at all times, which leads to the creation of vile devices such as Thunderstix to spice up games that need no enhancements to be enjoyed.

2.Vuvuzelas
The new kid on the block (at least in terms of awareness in North America) checks in at number two. There's a good reason tons of people have been querying about mosquito infestations or audio feed static during the Confederations Cup; these things produce a horrible monotone buzzing that seems to go on for the entire match, seemingly never adjusting its pitch or producing any attempt at a tune. Look, marching bands are cool, but they actually play recognizable tunes on real instruments. There's a considerable difference between that and a stadium of untrained spectators attempting to blow their own lungs out for 90 minutes, producing a mind-numbing drone that infuriates everyone else.

Some hide behind cultural relativism in their attempts to defend vuvuzelas , but that's hardly a good excuse. Bad culture is bad culture, regardless of where it comes from; you don't see too many Canadians attempting to defend Celine Dion or Nickelback. Stupid fan ideas are everywhere, and should be addressed on equal terms. Unfortunately, these things are going to make it painful to watch the World Cup next year, but most of us soccer nuts will persevere regardless.

Typical fan who enjoys this: The tourist student who isn't really there to watch soccer at all, but to pick up some sort of "deep experience" he can relate to his friends later. "Oh yeah, I've been to Africa; I'm totally in to the culture, man. I got a vuvuzela and I blew the
hell out of it!"

What this tells us about the human condition: Stupid behaviour at sporting events is hardly limited to North America. Of course, there are the riots and hooligans that afflict global soccer, and in the grand scheme of things, these are much worse than vuvuzelas. Vuvuzelas show that some overseas fans have gone beyond the riots and violence at games to a more North American-style of just annoying the hell out everyone watching. Maybe that's progress, but progress could have been made without this horrible intermediary step.

1. The Wave
One of the most ubiquitious North American sporting traditions is also the most annoying one in my books. Hey, you've just spent a lot of money for a game ticket, and then more still on food and drinks? Well, why not forget about actually watching the game thanks to the people around you who'd rather spend the entire time trying to get the wave going. As Andrew Stoeten of Drunk Jays Fans once wrote, there are plenty of good questions to ask anyone trying to start the wave:

How old are you, four? You actually want to start the wave? In a huge crowd of adults who are trying to watch a baseball game like big boys and girls? Seriously? Exactly what the hell will this accomplish? What void in your tiny existence will this fill? I'm serious, I want to know. Did your uncle touch you and this is the way your silent inner torture manifests itself?

Typical fan who enjoys this: The 25-year-old who thinks the world revolves around them. They give far too much importance to their own actions. "Hey, you may have enjoyed the game, but I started the wave, man! I'm a god, a legend! I'M KEITH HERNANDEZ!"

What this tells us about the human condition: People have a need to feel accepted and affirmed. They can't enjoy a game on their own as just one fan in many; they have to stand out, which leads to dressing up in ridiculous costumes, crazy ideas like the KissCam and self-promoting stunts like the wave. The wave demonstrates groupthink at its best. Like so many of these topics, it's an inherently stupid idea, but if everyone else is doing it, you're suddenly the outcast and loner if you don't go along.

So, we give in. It's always easier to conform than to rebel. We wear our punk shirts and give our cries of bloodlust whenever "Shipping Up To Boston" comes on, we bring our cowbells, Thunderstix and vuvuzelas to the stadiums, and we try and start the wave whenever possible. It's not just about sports any more; it's an ongoing process of group identity, cries for acceptance and stupid stunts to increase our own profiles. The horror! The horror!

Vancouver Whitecaps - Cleveland City Stars live blog

2009-06-23T15:48:00.002-04:00

I'll be live-blogging tonight's USL-1 contest between the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Cleveland City Stars. It should be an interesting one, as the Whitecaps seek to rebound from both watching the Voyageurs Cup slip away in front of their eyes and then throwing away their chance at revenge on a revitalized Montreal Impact side.

The Whitecaps enter tonight's with a 4-5-2 record through 11 games, putting them eighth out of the 11 teams in the USL-1 table. They do have a couple games in hand on many of the clubs above them, but they'll need to start making a run soon if they hope to defend their USL-1 title this season. Of course, it's not going to be easy. Key striker Charles Gbeke and central defender Wesley Charles will sit out this one thanks to the suspensions [Simon Fudge, whitecapsfc.com] they received following their punch-up a while back. Defenders Jeff Parke and Geordie Lyall and wingers Ansu Toure and Justin Moose will also miss this one thanks to injury.

Cleveland also needs to turn their season around. They're a new USL-1 side, and won the USL-2 title last year in only their second season of existence. Head coach Martin Rennie left after last season for the Carolina Railhawks, though, and that's proved to be a good move for him; Carolina's tied for second in the table with a 7-3-3 record, while Cleveland's second from the bottom with a 2-9-2 record. They do have some faces that will be recognizable to Canadian fans, including former Trinity Western University player and Whitecaps reserve Paul Ballard and former Montreal Impact midfielder Pato Aguilera, who leads the team with seven points from one goal and five assists. They also will have the home-field advantage of playing on FieldTurf at the oddly-named Middlefield Cheese Stadium, which may be a difficult adjustment for the Whitecaps. It should be an interesting one to watch. The game is on USL Live tonight, and the live blog will start at 7 p.m. Eastern. Come join in the fun then!

Vancouver Whitecaps - Cleveland City Stars

Where has all the writing gone?

2009-06-23T14:36:00.003-04:00

Apologies for things being slow around here lately; I've been pretty swamped with other writing work. I'll try to get a full new post up tonight, but until then, I thought I'd share a few of the other pieces I've been working on. Hope you enjoy them! Feel free to leave comments on them at those sites or here, or send them to me via e-mail (andrew_bucholtz AT hotmail.com) or Twitter. Thanks as always for reading!

- Over at my new blog, Canuck Puck, I have an analysis of how the Sedin twins stack up against other elite NHL players and why resigning them would be a great Moneypuck move.

- At The Phoenix Pub, I have a few thoughts on how the recent increase in statistical analysis has changed sports. It's a bit of a follow-up to the piece I wrote here the other day about the (partial) demise of Moneyball.

- At The Rookies, I have a piece looking at the most annoying fan traditions in sports.

The death of Moneyball, as a film and an idea?

2009-06-21T21:54:00.002-04:00

Some interesting news came out this evening. Apparently, Columbia Pictures decided to cancel [Will Brinson, FanHouse] the upcoming movie of Michael Lewis' famed book Moneyball at the last minute, only a few days before shooting was set to start. It's rare to see that kind of cancellation so close to production on any film, but even more unusual when it's a big-ticket film involving the likes of Brad Pitt and director Steven Soderbergh. Apparently, the studio didn't like the direction Soderbergh was taking the project. There's a chance the film could still get picked up by someone else; we'll have to wait and see on that front.

This is a somewhat unfortunate move in my mind. Moneyball was a brilliant book, and one that truly revolutionized how many segments of people—from print journalists to television personalities to fans, bloggers, and even team executives—approached baseball. Its influence spread beyond baseball to other leagues, and it dramatically changed the sporting landscape. It encouraged unconventional thinking and analysis and played a key role in popularizing the sabermetrics movement. It's the main reason I labelled Lewis as the Elvis of the sports world a while back, and he fits the moniker much better than even Bill Simmons' candidate, Houston Rockets' general manager Daryl Morey. I wasn't sure that Moneyball would translate to the big screen all that well, but it would have been interesting to see in any case. There certainly aren't many sports movies being made these days, either, so losing one of the few high-profile ones known to be in development isn't a good sign for the sports film scene.

It's also somewhat apt, though. The film's currently in limbo. Its future with Columbia appears dead, but there may be other studios interested in giving it new life. In my mind, that same process has happened with Moneyball as a whole. At its heart, Moneyball described how Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane and his staff couldn't afford to compete with the clubs with bigger budgets for the top free agents, so they had to find another way to win. They did so by spotting players who were productive, but undervalued, most notably players with relatively low batting averages and relatively high on-base percentages, and then acquiring those players cheaply.It's simple economics; if there's a limited supply of traditionally valued players and a significant demand, they'll be expensive, but if you can find players with close to as much value and lower demand for their services, you can achieve similar results.

Beane and his staff did very well with this philosophy, winning 90 or more games every year from 2000 to 2004 and 80 or more games from 1999 (the year after Beane succeeded Sandy Alderson as the A's full general manager) to 2006, despite minuscule payrolls, a lack of high draft picks and not many players traditionally thought of as top-end talent. Some have used the A's lack of playoff success during that period (they lost in the first round four times and in the American League Championship Series once) as a knock on the Moneyball approach, but that criticism is flawed; just making the playoffs in baseball is tough enough, for one thing, and short playoff series have a small enough sample size that even far better teams will still lose quite a lot of the time (as David Berri explains wonderfully here). In short, the Moneyball approach worked very well for the A's from 1999 to 2006.

Since then, however, things have gone downhill for Oakland. They suffered through losing seasons in 2007 and 2008, and appear likely to have another one this year. That's not an indictment of Beane, as he's still doing quite well with limited resources and the team has suffered its fair share of injuries and free agency departures over that period as well (see Swisher, Nick, a first-round draft pick covered in Moneyball who had significant success
with the A's, but left for the White Sox in 2008 and is now with the Yankees). It is a reflection that the Moneyball strategy no longer works in the form it once did.

It goes back to simple economics again. As the most basic example, before Moneyball came out in 2003, there was a significant supply of the high on-base percentage, lower batting average players favoured by Beane's approach and relatively little demand for them. After Moneyball, almost everyone from fans to team executives realized that these guys were worth more than they thought. Several guys with a background on the statistics side got jobs as major-league general managers (including Beane assistant J.P. Ricciardi, now the general manager of the Toronto Blue Jays), with many more being hired as assistant general managers and consultants; most of them quickly started adopting some of the strategies that had worked well for Beane. Even executives who don't seem to place a high value on OBP in practice give it at least lip service (see Moore, Dayton, who Joe Posnanski comments on here), resulting in significantly more demand for these kind of players. This increased demand means these players achieve a market value more suited to their skills, and thus can no longer be acquired cheaply. When everyone's doing it, it isn't an unconventional strategy any more. Thus, the idea of Moneyball along the specific terms expressed in the book is largely dead; the OBP approach in particular still has plenty of value and is a good idea for many teams, but it's no longer really a cheap way to win.

However, the larger idea behind Moneyball is very much alive and ticking despite the claims of some curmudgeons. The book's central thesis was that you can build an effective professional sports franchise cheaply by finding and exploiting market deficiencies, and that's still very true. In baseball, one way we've seen this lately is in teams' evaluations of players' defensive prowess, which used to be largely based on eyesight and spectacular, highlight-reel plays. Defensive statistics still have a way to go, but such statistics as Michael Lichtman's Ultimate Zone Rating (fully explained here, explained more simply here) and John Dewan's +/- system (explained here) allowed for a more detailed evaluation of players' fielding performances and gave some teams that picked up on them early the chance to sweep up undervalued defenders. I'm sure Beane and his fellow unconventional thinkers have plenty of other ideas in the works as well.

In hockey, guys like Vancouver Canucks general manager Mike Gillis have tried to apply a similar "Moneypuck" strategy for finding underrated players and have discussed in detail [Iain McIntyre, Vancouver Sun] how Beane inspired them, plus there's been a surge in new statistical analysis as exemplified by such sites as Gabriel Desjardins' Behind The Net. Basketball's also witnessed a statistical revolution and an increased application of unconventional insight, led by the likes of John Hollinger and the aforementioned David Berri. Even Lewis got in on the act this year with a tremendous piece on the Rockets' Shane Battier.

Statistical analysis have taken on a large role in football as well, as shown by the work of writers like KC Joyner (who I interviewed here) and Aaron Schatz; I still argue that there's room for much more unconventional thinking in the sport, though. Lewis also discussed some of the historical changes in the game wrought by unconventional analysis in his book The Blind Side (a few of which I analyzed over at The Good Point), which has already been made into a film scheduled to be released later this year.

These, and the numerous other examples out there, demonstrate that large numbers of people have caught on to the basic idea of exploiting market deficiencies to build a successful franchise. They'll likely take it in many different ways, and only some of them will pan out. However, this is proof that the principles behind Lewis' book linger on despite the specific examples perhaps petering out. Like the film, reports of the death of the ideas behind the book may have been greatly exaggerated, to borrow a phrase from Mark Twain. Moneyball is dead: long live Moneyball!

On The Ground: Jason Brewer on the Eagles' tackles

2009-06-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

In the last part of my interview series for this piece on left tackles at The Good Point, I present my full interview with Jason Brewer, who covers the Philadelphia Eagles for the excellent SB Nation blog Bleeding Green Nation. My previous interviews with KC Joyner and Bruce Raffel can be found here and here. Hope you've enjoyed this series!

Andrew Bucholtz: What do you see the left tackle's role as in today's NFL: mostly pass protection, mostly run-blocking or a combination of the two? How would you evaluate a left tackle's importance as compared to the rest of the offensive linemen? Also, do you think this role's changed over the last decade, and if so, how so?

Jason Brewer: I think that's entirely dependent on the team he's on. We all know that some teams, like the Eagles, pass more than others. However, I would say that primarily the role of a LT is be a great pass protector. The biggest reason the guy playing on the left is more important than the guy on the right is that he's protecting the blind side of a right-handed QB. So the ability to pass block is that much more important for a LT than most other positions along the line, whereas the ability to run block is no more important for a LT specifically than any of the other OL positions.

A.B.: In your mind, how important is it for a team to have a good left tackle? Can you win without one?

J.B.: I think it's just about imperative to have a good LT on a winning team. Any time an opposing team can pressure the passer, the likelihood of turnovers goes up. When a team can pressure the passer from his blindside, turnovers are even more likely. We all know that moment that makes you cringe... When your QB is looking downfield, you can plainly see that DE coming unblocked at his blind side, and he doesn't know the guy is there. How many times that does end up in a strip sack or the QB getting hammered and fumbling? Often. So having a guy that prevent a game changing turnover like that with consistency is incredibly important.

A.B.: Are left tackles worth the amount of money they're paid?

J.B.: That's an interesting question. Actually, the gap between what elite LTs make and what other guys along the line make is getting a little smaller. We've seen guards get some big paydays in recent years, but the LTs are still making the mind-boggling bucks. I guess if you've spent $100 million on a franchise QB, it's worth it to spend around half that to make sure his back side is protected.

A.B.: What are the most important characteristics for a good left tackle in your mind?

J.B.: Probably footwork. These guys are facing the elite pass rusher on the opposing team week in and week out. They face bigger 4-3 DEs and speedy 3-4 OLBs. Only the ability to move your feet and adjust your center of gravity quickly is going to give you a chance to block those guys consistently.

A.B: If you were appointed as the GM of an NFL expansion franchise and had to create a roster from scratch via an expansion draft, a regular draft and free agency, where would acquiring a left tackle fit in your priorities? Would you try and grab him through one of the drafts or through free agency?

J.B.: I'd probably rank LT as my #3 priority. Franchise QB comes first, then an elite pass rusher, then the LT. I guess I'd probably rather draft one than spend the $60 or $70 mil needed to sign one on the free agent market.

A.B. Your posts I've seen on the Jason Peters trade seem fairly positive. What do you think he'll bring to the Eagles? Will he be worth all the picks the team gave up?

J.B.: Well, the amount of picks is really not all that great. There was a late first, a 4th, and then, I believe, a sixth-rounder in 2010. For a two-time Pro Bowl LT who's only 27, that's fairly cheap in my opinion. It's far less than the Eagles would probably have had to give up in order to move up in the draft for one of the two "elite" LT prospects.

I'm optimistic about Peters. He has the athleticism to do the kind of things the Eagles ask of their offensive linemen. I think now that he's properly motivated and got the money he was after, he should return to that devastating form of 2007 that made the league sit up and take notice of him.

Thanks to Jason for taking the time to answer my questions. Check out his blog here!

Vancouver Whitecaps - Montreal Impact live blog

2009-06-20T13:35:00.001-04:00

If this wasn't enough of a USL grudge match before, it certainly is now after Thursday's events. Come join in the live blog below!

Vancouver Whitecaps - Montreal Impact live blog

The launch of a new site

2009-06-19T19:22:00.003-04:00

It's time to announce another exciting new venture. I'm now running a new blog, Canuck Puck. It's going to be mostly focused on the Canucks, but also will touch on deeper issues in the NHL from time to time. The idea's to bring subtle, detailed analysis to the Canucks. It's also part of the great Fanball Network, which is an excellent group of blogs across a wide variety of sports. You can check out my introductory post here.

P.S. If you liked my draft posts from earlier this week, I have more analysis of them over at The Phoenix Pub. Suggestions on how to improve the method or thoughts on the data are much appreciated!

Soccer: A tale of three cities

2009-06-18T23:23:00.001-04:00

The seemingly-impossible 6-1 victory Toronto FC pulled off against the Montreal Impact tonight gives them the Voyageurs Cup, the one fact everyone can agree on. Apart from that, there's no clear lesson or moral to draw from this one, though. It means drastically different things to fans of all the teams involved, and there's no one right answer. Read on for my thoughts on what this result means to fans in each city.

Toronto: It's a great day to be a Toronto FC fan. Almost everyone wrote them off after the Vancouver game; sure, they've got a solid team, but a four-goal victory on the road is hard for any side. For a team that's suffered some significant setbacks recently, including a brutal home loss to the L.A. Galaxy, a series of fan protests and a recent roster makeover, this is a huge step forward. They finally have the CONCACAF Champions League berth they've coveted for so long, and they have some tangible silverware to show their fans. The load on Mo Johnston's shoulders just got significantly lighter; regardless of how TFC do in the remainder of the MLS season, this year will be seen as at least a partial step forward thanks to tonight's events.

Vancouver: For Vancouver fans, it's the opposite. The championship seemed in their grasp, and it would have been a perfect stepping stone on the road to MLS as well as a way to bring some well-deserved Eastern media attention to the Whitecaps. To have that ripped away by a stellar TFC performance would have been bad enough. However, the way this went down was much worse. Their old archrivals, the Montreal Impact, first decided to dress a B-squad, including former Whitecaps' backup goalkeeper Srdjan Djekjanovic. That B-squad then went on to roll over and play dead (after notching the game's first goal on a penalty) in a manner that made the Montreal Screwjob look positively fair, all but assuring TFC's triumph. The faces of head coach Teitur Thordarson and the Whitecaps in the stands told the story of the night; first joy, then cautious optimism, then worry and then disbelief.

In the end, though, Vancouver fans don't have anything to be ashamed of. Their side put in a great tournament and may have deserved the trophy. With a credible effort from Montreal, they might even have won it. There's no point in kicking themselves or their franchise over something that in the end was out of their hands. You can bet they'll be fired up for Saturday's USL game against the Impact, though.

Montreal: In many ways, Montreal fans come out of this in the worst situation. They just watched their side demonstrate that they don't care about the Voyageurs Cup when they don't have a chance to win it. The appalling effort shown by the Impact tonight gives Montreal fans nothing to be proud of, and that's made worse by their lacklustre performance handing the championship to their Toronto-based rivals. Montreal's going to take a lot of criticism over the next few days, and much of it will be deserved. That's not the fans' fault, but it's going to be awfully tough for them to defend their franchise at the moment. Tonight's showing brought back horrible memories of the Santos Laguna defeat, and perhaps was even worse. That was an Impact team that had overachieved; just making it to that point was an accomplishment, and getting any sort of result in Mexico is always difficult. Losing by six goals at home to an MLS team with a poor recent run of form? It's hard to find a way to rationalize that.

In the end, I don't think it necessarily means much for Canadian soccer as a whole. Toronto FC will make a great representative for the country in the CONCACAF Champions League, but as I argued a while ago, Vancouver would have as well. Each would bring a different audience to the table, and a run by either will be good for the game. For Toronto, their focus now shifts to the CCL; for Vancouver and Montreal, the mission's now to succeed in the USL and come back hungry for the Voyageurs Cup title next year. It's been a great, thrilling, dramatic tournament, and it's really shown that these sides at their best can compete with each other and give us some fantastic soccer to watch. In my mind, that's the most important thing to take away from this one.

[Cross-posted to Out of Left Field].

Toronto FC - Montreal Impact live blog

2009-06-18T14:06:00.005-04:00

Note: Post-game piece is here.

It's the final game of the Voyageurs Cup tonight, with Toronto FC taking on the Montreal Impact. TFC have their backs against the wall and need to win by four to take the title; otherwise, the Vancouver Whitecaps will claim the championship. Montreal have nothing to play for but pride, but don't underestimate that motivation; they certainly won't roll over and play dead against their bitter archrivals from Ontario.

It should be an interesting one with plenty of offence; Toronto will be going for it, and that might provide Montreal with some counterattack opportunities. Kickoff is at 8 p.m., and the game will be televised on all regions of Rogers Sportsnet. I'll be live-blogging the game here and at The 24th Minute as well, so come join in the fun then!

Toronto FC - Montreal Impact live blog

Comparing the NBA and NHL drafts

2009-06-18T11:32:00.013-04:00

Here's the second part of the 2002 draft comparison I started the other day, looking at the success rates of players in the NBA and NHL drafts. See that post for an explanation of what I'm trying to accomplish and a discussion of some of the limiting factors of this type of analysis. The format is almost the same, but the ratings are tweaked slightly to allow for the differences in each sport; full explanations are below. I've also included the ratings as a column in the actual spreadsheets to make it easier to see how players performed relative to their draft position. I have an analysis of the differences between leagues at the end of the post as well.

NBA:

[Table from Wikipedia]

System:
5 – All-star (at least one all-star game selection)
4 – Solid (played in 60 or more games last season)
3 – Marginal (played in the NBA last season)
2 – One-off (played at least 100 career NBA games)
1 – Bust (played less than 100 games)

Ratings:
5 – Ming, Butler, Stoudemire: three players, 10.7 per cent of all 28 picks.
4 - Nene, Wilcox, Prince, Salmons: four players, 14.3 per cent of all picks.
3 – Jeffries, Ely, Jones, Dixon, Dunleavy, Rush, Krstic, Gooden: eight players, 28.6 per cent of all picks.
2 – Tskitishvili, Wagner, Nachbar, Haislip, Welsch, Woods, Jacobsen, Dickau: eight players, 28.6 per cent of all picks.
1 – Jay Williams, Borchardt, Humphrey, Frank Williams, Jeffries: five players, 17.9 per cent of all picks.

Notes: The NBA draft is limited to two rounds, so every player taken in the first round got at least some time in the league; thus, the one-off standard is set higher than in any of the other leagues, where just making the big show bumps you from a 1 to a 2. Also, some players play considerable amounts of games but relatively few minutes, inflating their ranking by this method, while others play a lot of minutes but few games thanks to injury, reducing their ranking. The classic examples here are Stoudemire, Wilcox and Jeffries. Stoudemire only played 53 games last season before he was injured, but racked up 1948 minutes; if not for his previous All-Star nod, he would have been a three in this system. Jeffries played 1310 minutes in 56 games before an injury, so he's a three that easily could have been a four. By contrast, Wilcox played 62 games but only recorded 1049 minutes, so he's a four who probably deserves to be a three. The team situation of each player also comes into play; a good player on a terrific team may get less time than a bad player on a lousy team. As pointed out earlier, this isn't intended as an absolute evaluation of any one player, but rather an attempt to measure how these draft picks stack up against those found in other sports.

On specific players: Dunleavy was injured last year and only played in 18 games. Jay Williams, the #2 overall pick, only played in 2003. Tskitishvili hasn’t played since 2006 and Wagner's out of league since 2007. Haislip hasn’t played since 2005; he only played nine games in his last season and 79 in his career. Nachbar was in the league and playing 60+ games until 2008, but went to Europe; he may return this year. Humphrey and Frank Williams haven’t played since 2005, Woods hasn’t played since 2006 and Jacobsen played in 2008 but not last year. Rush played only 25 games last year, while Dickau went to Europe last year but played 67 games in 2008.

NHL:

[Table from Wikipedia]

System:
5 – All-star (at least one all-star game selection)
4 – Solid (played in 60 or more games last season)
3 – Marginal (played in the NHL last season)
2 – One-off (played in the NHL at some point)
1 – Bust (never played in the NHL)

Ratings:

5: Nash, Bouwmeester: two players, 6.7 per cent of all 30 picks
4: Pitkanen, Upshall, Lupul, Bouchard, Nystrom, Ballard, Eminger, Semin, Gordon, Grebeshkov, Paille, Babchuk, Eager, Steen, Ward, Slater: 17 players, 56.7 per cent of all picks
3: Lehtonen, Higgins, Bergenheim: three players, 10.0 per cent of all picks
2: Taticek, Klepis, Johansson, Toivonen: four players, 13.3 per cent of all picks
1: Niinimaki, Koreis, Vagner, Morris: four players, 13.3 per cent of all picks

Notes: As with the other leagues, some players could easily move between categories. Higgins played 57 games last season, but played 82 the year before, so he could be a four instead of a three. Johannson only played one career game (with the Washington Capitals in 2006), so he could easily be a one instead of a two. Slater notched exactly 60 games last year and has bounced up and down, so he could certainly drop from a four to a three.

Overall comparison:

There's some pretty revealing data here. From 2002, the NFL teams were by far the best at drafting future superstars. The NHL teams were the best at drafting all-star and solid players, though, with 63 per cent of their picks falling into categories five and four compared to 50 per cent in the NFL, 46.6 per cent in MLB and a horrible 25.0 per cent in the NBA. The strength of those NHL numbers may be thanks to the comprehensive junior hockey system; most of the players drafted in the first round have already been competing at a high level for several years, and there isn't as much difference between the junior game and the NHL one as there is between the college and professional games in football and basketball. Not every junior stud becomes an NHL star, but most of them are good enough to hang on to a spot somewhere in the league.

The NBA numbers are quite surprising, actually; there are only two rounds of the draft, so it's not like there's a massive amount of picks competing for spots the way there are in the other leagues. Despite that, an incredible amount of their players still turned out to be marginal at best and complete busts at worst. Part of that may be thanks to the considerable differences between the college and professional styles of play. Another part of that is the time frame we're looking at here; this draft saw a lot of European players without a great deal of high-level experience drafted early on, mostly because of their size and potential. In recent years, there appears to have been a bit of a shift away from that philosophy, perhaps thanks to the large amount of busts from drafts like the 2002 one.

Questions? Thoughts on what it all means, or different ways to evaluate the drafts? As mentioned, this is just a starting point, so leave your ideas on how to improve it here in the comments, or e-mail me at andrew_bucholtz [at] hotmail.com!

On The Ground: Bruce Raffel on the Ravens' tackles

2009-06-17T13:27:00.003-04:00

Time to continue my series of supporting interviews for this piece I wrote for The Good Point on the importance of the left tackle. Today's interview subject is Bruce Raffel, editor of the excellent Ravens' blog Baltimore Beatdown. The Ravens' tackle situation is quite an interesting one; they used the first draft pick in their history in Baltimore on Jonathan Ogden, who turned out to be a great franchise LT. Recently, they brought in Jared Gaither to replace Ogden after his retirement. This year, they drafted possibly the most famous left tackle out there, Michael Oher of The Blind Side fame, 23rd overall. Raffel has some very interesting things to say about the Ravens' moves at tackle over the years, so read on!

Andrew Bucholtz: How important do you consider the left tackle position, especially compared to the other positions on the offensive line? How important is a good left tackle to a team's overall success?

Bruce Raffel: While the center position is sort of the "quarterback" of the o-line, the left tackle s the most important piece, as they protect (usually, unless QB is lefthanded) the QB's blind side. Most great pass rushers come from the left side and therefore the best offensive lineman usually plays there. In addition to pass protection, the LT must open gaping holes for the running game as well, which of course, makes the passing game even more successful.

A.B.: What are the most important attributes of a good left tackle?

B.R.: There aren't too many LT's I can think of that don't have that massive size to go along with their incredible athleticism for such big men. Due to the speed rushers of today, the LT must have quick feet to keep up with the defense, but also have the bulk to ward off the bull rush and long yet strong arms to fend off the slap, swim and spin moves of the elite DE's in the league.

A.B.: In your mind, is there a significant difference in the skills required to play left tackle and right tackle?

B.R.: It seems that most teams put their best pass protector on the QB's blind side, which as noted earlier is usually the left tackle position. Both tackles need the size and bulk, but still must have the quick feet to be successful. However, since the best ones play LT, the money for that position is much greater than the right side. Overal, the skill set is similar, but the QB can have a better chance of avoiding a pass rusher from the right side than he can from the left.

A.B.: Obviously, Jonathan Ogden had a tremendous career with the Ravens. When he was drafted fourth overall in 1996, what did you think of the pick? Did you think it was worthwhile picking a tackle so high at the time?

Ogden was the premier LT coming out of UCLA in that draft year, and when trying to build a team for the future, taking the guy who will be protecting your QB's blind side for the next 10-12 years or so is the best place to start (which is why the Detroit Lions should have done the same thing this year rather than take a QB with the first pick). Besides, when you look at the entire career of JO, as he is called here in Baltimore, it looks like we did the right thing, eh?

A.B.: What do you think was the key to Ogden's success in the NFL: physical attributes, game smarts or a combination of the two?

B.R.: JO was a very bright young man when drafted and then became an even smarter player as he matured, both emotionally as well as physically. He watched tape on his opponents and knew their signature moves and was rarely beaten by the same guy more than once. He was also a huge physical specimen who took care of his body which permitted him to enjoy a long healthy career, at least until towards the end of all the abuse he lasted through against the best pass rushers in the league.

A.B.: When Ogden retired in 2008, were you nervous about who the Ravens would replace him with?

B.R: Ravens fans always knew that time was coming, especially towards the end. However, when we grabbed former Maryland Terrapin LT Jared Gaither with the 5th pick in the Supplemental Draft, every Ravens fan knew we had a guy that would have gone in the top part of the first round if he stayed only one more year in college. Having a year to learn from JO was the best thing that could have happened to Gaither, as he had an on the field coach in Ogden.

A.B.: How do you think Jared Gaither has done so far? Do you see him as a long-term solution at left tackle?

B.R.: Absolutely, Gaither is fast on his way to becoming an All Pro at LT. He is a massive human being at 6'9" and 334 pounds, but moves around pretty good for such a behemoth. He already had a great season last year and will only get better. Joe Flacco has a lot of confidence that his back is covered with Gaither entrenched at LT.

A.B.: The Ravens took another tackle high in the draft this year with the first-round selection of Michael Oher. What did you think of the move? Was it made because he was the best player available at that slot, or because the team needed another strong tackle?

B.R.: Most Ravens fans, including me, were looking for a wide receiver with the first round pick. When I heard that we made the trade to move up in the round, I was sure it was to grab either a WR or one of the USC LBs, such as Rey Maualuga, who I thought would be a great transition to Ray Lewis at MLB. However, when they took Michael Oher and his life story came out, it was obvious that he fit the mold of a typical Raven player. Finally when RT Willie Anderson announced his retirement, opening the door for Oher to start at RT right away, it became apparent that this is why our GM, Ozzie Newsome is well known as the "Wizard of Oz."

A.B.: Oher's quite likely one of the most well-known linemen in the NFL already thanks to Michael Lewis' book on him, despite him not playing a down yet. Do you think he'll be able to handle that pressure?

B.R.: The pressure off the field living up to the personal hype is nothing compared to learning the pro game as a starter. The Ravens are keeping him at right tackle as they have a great one in the making already at left tackle. However, Oher was a LT in college and could easily move over if there was an injury, etc. Learning at RT will be a challenge, but I was at Ravens' training camp this past week and while Oher is 6'4" and 310 pounds, there is not an ounce of belly fat on the guy, which is rare for an OT.

A.B.: A lot of the talk so far seems to have Oher as the Ravens' starting right tackle for this coming season. Do you think he'll be able to handle the shift from playing left tackle in college? Do you see him as a LT or a RT long term?

B.R.: If Jared Gaither stays healthy and continues his rapid growth as a fixture at LT, then Michael Oher will become one of the best RT's in the game very quickly. If something happens with Gaither, then Oher would seamlessly slide over to his natural position. Although a LT in college, it will actually be easier to acclimate himself to the speed and challenges of the pro game by learning right off the bat from the RT position, which is far less pressure.

A.B.: How much emphasis do the Ravens as an organization place on the offensive line in general and the left tackle in particular? If you were running the team, how much emphasis would you place on the offensive line positions?

B.R.: Although so many Ravens fans want to see this team get an elite wide receiver and air the ball out, we are not that type of team. We are a defensive-minded team, that earns its offensive success on the ground. Therefore, the O-line's abilities to open holes for the running game will set up the simple passing attack that does not have to be really good, just good enough. And we all know the run game starts with the LT's ability to collapse the line to get the RBs space to run off tackle, or even between them.

Thanks to Bruce for taking the time to answer my questions! Check out his website here!