Category: Sports

LeBron James owns the message

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Politicians are clamming up, Politico says, because they’re worried about becoming the next YouTube sensation.  Candidates are refusing to talk to camera-wielding activist journalists.  With more communications channels than ever, politicians are opting not to use them:

“The irony is that in an political environment in which voters are demanding authenticity, candidates find themselves in a technological environment that exploits authenticity,” lamented Mark McKinnon, a longtime political strategist and top adviser to George W. Bush and John McCain. “So rather than show more of themselves as voters want, candidates are showing less of themselves for fear of revealing too much.”

This is probably better than speaking off the cuff and apologizing for gaffes, but it isn’t a winning strategy.   These would-be-elected-officials would do well to take their advice from a monarch: King LeBron James, the most popular man in sports, and the subject of a much-criticized special on ESPN in a couple hours.

When James’ decision on where to play next year is finally revealed tonight, a new chapter will start in his professional life – not only as the signature star of the NBA, but as a player expected to win a championship.  Joel Sherman of the New York Post likens James’ situation to that of Alex Rodriguez, who used to be the best player ever to not win a championship. He’ll have plenty of questions, and will be the closest thing the sports world has to a politician for a week.

That’s why the ESPN special is a fantastic idea.

James is announcing his signing in an hour long special, and according to ESPN radio this morning, the big news will come in the first 15 minutes.  That means there will be 45 minutes where James will discuss his decision in the controlled, traditional, and respectful environment of ESPN.  That discussion will fuel tomorrow’s bloggers and drive-time hosts, and will extend into weekend coverage.

And most of it will echo the things James wants out there.  He’s answering demand by engaging in media overload.  In doing so, the King will rule over the message.

Now, if only LeBron would take control of the Knicks in the same way…

John Kerry back on the campaign trail

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Sen. John Kerry emailed his campaign supporters yesterday imploring them to get to the polls… and cast their vote for Kevin Youkilis in MLB’s All Star Game Final Vote.  The senior Senator from Massachusetts used the occasion to take a swipe at the Yankees:

Youk deserves to be in the All-Star Game — while the team has grinded [sic] it out in spite of injury after injury, he’s been a rock. But now he needs to win a fan vote to make it to Anaheim next week.

“The stakes are also just a little personal: in the fan voting, currently Nick Swisher of the Yankees is in first place. Swisher’s having a fine year, but Youk is better in just about every category, batting average, slugging, home runs, everything, and he plays Gold Glove defense to boot. Please don’t let anyone say that Swisher beat Youkilis because Sox fans have gone a little soft after ’04 and ’07. Let’s show we’re still the most ravenous fans in baseball.

Give Kerry points for acknowledging Swisher’s year so far.  That’s the closest thing to real bipartisanship we’ve heard from Washington this year.  However, he may be a little insensitive – that “ravenous” fan base has caused problems in the past.

The fan voting has drawn some attention to MLB’s strides in advanced media (they wisely don’t call it “new media”).  Swisher has been active on Twitter for a while, and his 1.2 million followers offer a ready-made network for an online vote.  The voting by text message feature is available only to Sprint customers, making cell phone coverage maps an issue – which looks like a drawback for Texas’s Michael Young and Minnesota’s Delmon Young.

However, anyone handicapping the race must acknowledge that the excitable Red Sox Nation Kerry references is a study in how offline enthusiasm can turn into online action.  The tech-savvy city of Boston has done well in online All-Star balloting since Nomar Garciaparra edged out Derek Jeter in the fan vote to start the 1999 game.

But of course, like so many of the other pressing issues that face our nation, John Kerry is wrong (if only because Swish’s endorsement deals are more wholesome than Youk’s).   You can answer by casting your vote for Swisher – and like some Boston elections of yore, you can vote as many times as you like.

That guy on MSNBC looks like that guy who used to host SportsCenter

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

S.E. Cupp’s column in today’s New York Daily asks a question that I happened to be thinking of the other night: why is Keith Olbermann, a left-wing political opinion entertainer, a fixture on sports programming while Rush Limbaugh, a right-wing political opinion entertainer, radioactive?  Olbermann and tag team partner Dan Patrick contribute to NBC’s Sunday Night Football, and he writes a baseball blog (baseblog?) for MLB.com. Limbaugh can’t even buy his way into national sports.

Cupp is right to ask the question, but the situation is not a double standard – and media watchdogs would be wise to let this one pass lest they look foolish.  Many folks know that Olbermann made his national bones on ESPN.  Few know that he was a particularly intelligent and funny sportscaster, even if his encyclopedic knowledge of the 1899 Cleveland Spiders Base Ball Club gave an early glimpse into the pomposity with which he now doles out his nightly “Worst Person in the World” award.

Limbaugh is much more widely known, but his entire public persona is based on creating controversy.  And when he had a chance to be a “sports guy,” he injected politics, famously pointing out that Donovan McNabb’s perception had as much to do with desired media narratives as it did with actual on-the-field performance.  Sure, there was media bias in the coverage of what he said, but a seat at an ESPN desk is not the place to talk about sports media bias if you want a long career in sports journalism.  Then again, ESPN was probably looking for a sideshow by hiring Limbaugh in the first place.

This isn’t to say that Limbaugh should be more like Olbermann, but the fact is that there are plenty of people – large numbers, actually – who don’t watch MSNBC.  To them, Olbermann’s image hasn’t been “tainted” by his politics. Olbermann still does sports because he always has done sports – and because, on some level, he’s good at it.

While Limbaugh will always be the “Republican talk radio guy,” Olbermann can still be the guy who pioneered the practice of using catch phrases to narrate sports highlights.  That may or not be something to be proud of, but it’s kept him working.

March Madness, April sanity, and managing expectations

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The NCAA college basketball tournament is the biggest sporting event of the year, so no one can blame the NCAA for wanting to cram more teams into their biggest cash cow.  Still, analysts seemed to worry that the 96-team tournament idea that had been floating around for the last month was overkill – even if the decision seemed imminent.

Whether intentional or not, the 96-team idea made yesterday’s announcement that the tournament would add three extra teams much more palatable.

It’s a good lesson in managing expectations; without that original 96-team plan, the move to 68 might have been perceived as the first step toward an ever-expanding format and draw a healthy round of criticism itself.  The alternative to the 68-team tournament that will probably be in effect next year is now the theoretical 96-team format, rather than the 65-team format we’ve enjoyed since 2001.

(None of this, of course, is going to help me pick a bracket that stays in contention in any office pool past the second round.)

I hate Jackie Robinson

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Major League Baseball is honoring Jackie Robinson today by having all players wear his number, 42.  I honor Jackie Robinson differently: I hate him.

And yes, it has everything to do with color: blue.

Jackie Robinson was a Dodger.  As a Yankee fan, mentioning Robinson conjures thoughts of the 1955 World Series – including the blown call on his steal of home and his team beating the Yankees in seven games.  Was I alive for it?  Not even close.  But as a fan, it stings, and so Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges, Johnny Podres, and especially Sandy [expletive] Amoros are forever enemies.

One could argue either way whether being the first black major league baseball player was enough to make someone a Hall of Famer; Robinson’s on-field achievements made the point moot.  He didn’t ask for grudging respect from fans or peers, his play demanded it.

Robinson was a ballplayer first and foremost.

So yeah, I hate Jackie Robinson.  I hate him the way I hate David Ortiz, Curt Schilling, Edgar Martinez, Luis Gonzalez, Sandy Alomar, Alex Gonzales, Bob Gibson, the 1976 Reds, the 1993 Blue Jays, and of course Pedro Martinez.  It’s not a personal hatred – I wouldn’t throw a D-cell at him – but on the baseball field I’d sure love for him to strike out four or five times.

Would Jackie Robinson have wanted it any other way?

3 Up: Nancy Pelosi, the Yankees, and GOP messages

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

Joel Sherman – who, despite growing up a Cincinnati Reds fan, does a better job than anyone of giving a voice to New York baseball – called out Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio in his daily blog for Our Nation’s Newspaper of Record.

Attanasio, who is trying to lock up franchise cornerstone Prince Fielder to a long-term contract,  complained that the Yankees spent a lot of money to pay their players. Sherman rightly observes that Attanasio uses the Yankees as a convenient straw man, much like a politician devoid of a message:

Look, I get it, we live in talk-radio world now. If you are failing your constituency then don’t take any personal responsibility just demonize an easy bogeyman. The Democrats do it to the Republicans, the Republicans do it to the Democrats, and in baseball, when you have no other answers blame the Yankees.  …[P]ulling the Yankees into the Fielder discussion is either the act of a lazy mind or the act of an owner who wants to rile up his fan base so nobody notices his own failings.

At TechRepublican, Wesley Donahue makes a similar case against the “Fire Nancy Pelosi” messaging of many Republicans:

Last week I went to a “Listen and Learn” event in Charleston with S.C. Republican Party chairwoman Karen Floyd. What I heard was exactly what I’m hearing through emails and blog comments to all my clients. People want more than “No.” They want alternative plans.

Both baseball teams and politicians rely on a base of people whose support isn’t entirely rational.  In politics, Candidates like Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama with pleasant personalities are able to gloss over policy differences.  Sports fans will change their behavior to avoid jinxing their team.*

But in neither case is affection blind.  The most diehard sports fans can endure losing seasons, if there’s some reason to hope their favorite team can either build a winner or at least be competitive (Redskins fans understand this, especially this week).  But fans bases – and voters – lose interest when teams are stuck in the mud and going nowhere.

Nancy Pelosi and the Yankees are both easy targets.  That doesn’t make them good long-term targets, though.

*Fun story: during the baseball playoffs last year, I texted disparaging, negative comments about the Yankees to both of my brothers during the games; each time I did, the Yankees came back to win.  I even sent a text when one of my brothers was sitting in the same room, watching Game 3 of the World Series with me.  My phone should have been named World Series MVP.

Sadly, the tactic proved ineffective for the New York Giants.

I don’t get tourney picks right very often…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

While filling out his 2010 March Madness bracket, President Barack Obama made picks for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament as well.

Not to crow about this, but after our President received some mild criticism for ignoring the ladies’ tourney, my exact words were: “I’ll put $5 down that there’s a women’s bracket next year.”  That makes it the first March Madness bet I’ve ever won.

31 and forever young

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Last year, I celebrated my 30th birthday with a list of 30 lessons I had learned in 30 years on the planet, which I got a lot of good feedback for.  For 31, I only have one thing to share.

One advantage of having an early March birthday is that if you are a baseball fan, the Spring Training games are starting right now.  I am something of a baseball fan, so I’ve been reading up about the Yankees in Florida.  But a piece of news from the San Francisco Giants camp made me smile this week, when pitcher Tim Lincecum met the Mariners’ Ken Griffey Jr.:

It happened in the visitor’s clubhouse at Peoria Stadium, as Lincecum discussed his one-inning start against the Mariners. Griffey budged into a group of reporters and extended his hand.

“Lincy, what’s up?” Griffey said. “Just wanted to say hi.”

Then, as soon as he appeared, Griffey was gone, skipping out of enemy territory. “Nice meeting you!” Lincecum called out to him. He looked dazed and awed.

“Wow, he just came over here,” Lincecum said. “What were we talking about?”

The most obvious part of the story is Lincecum’s reaction.  Tim Lincecum has won the last two Cy Young awards and is among the best pitchers in baseball, if not the very best.  He signed a $23 million contract this winter and, when he becomes a free agent in a few years, will sign much bigger contract (if he stays healthy).  And when he met one of the players he grew up idolizing, he became 10 again.  Lincecum unwittingly reminds us that we shouldn’t let the responsibilities that we take on as we grow older keep us from enjoying the things that make us feel like a kid again.

But there’s another side to this.

By making the short trip from one clubhouse to another – a miniscule effort – Griffey made Lincecum’s day.  And as he shook the pitcher’s hand, surely a part of Griffey flashed back to the mid-90’s as well, when he was a skinny young kid himself with a sweet lefty swing saving the Seattle Mariners franchise.

The point is that being young at heart isn’t something you have to wait for – opportunities are created, not made.  Just make sure to grab ’em when you see ’em.

The Felix and Oscar of DC sports

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 1 Comment

The NHL’s trade deadline passed yesterday, and the Washington Capitals acquired four new players to add depth to a team that already has the best record in hockey.  A few weeks back, the NBA trade deadline saw the Caps’ roommates, the Washington Wizards, dumping their best players, waving the white flag in an effort to get better next season.

If you would have asked a Washington sports fan to imagine that scenario just a few years ago, they might have required heavy hallucinogenic help.  The Wizards were a playoff-caliber team, though never a serious championship contender; the Capitals had a half-full arena, the fans were lackadaisical, and the only place to see playoff hockey inside the beltway was on a TV screen.

In the background of these two teams going in different directions, Caps owner Ted Leonsis is trying to buy out the Pollin family for control of the Wizards.  Though the deal has hit stumbling blocks over how each side values the team, sports fans in Your Nation’s Capital should be eager for it to go through.

Having been a Yankee fan for 31 years and nine months tomorrow, I’ve been spoiled in many ways by George Steinbrenner.  The once-mercurial owner has taken on a gradually lessened role in the pure baseball decisions and has relinquished much of the control of the team to his sons, but has never wavered in the Yankees’ larger organizational goal of winning championships.  That means that at baseball’s trade deadline, if the Yankees need a player, they’re going to be buyers and not sellers.

Caps fans are getting a taste of that this year.  How many owners, sitting on the NHL’s best record, would sit on their hands and count their money from ticket sales?  Leonsis has told the DC hockey faithful loud and clear that he’s going for a championship.  It’s the right way to run a sports team.  And, as the richest team in baseball can attest, excellence is good for business.