07.31.12
Posted in Baseball, Mob Behavior, The Marketplace, Ugly New Stadiums
at 6:14 pm
by GC
(perhaps this is part of the problem. image culled from River Ave. Blues)
If the vibe at the new Yankee Stadium is somewhat akin to a night spent gawking at Las Vegas’ Forum Shops, it’s hardly hurt the Bombers’ performances on the field. As the New York Daily News’ Bob Raissman points out, the Yankees have slugged 89 HR’s at the venue he kiddingly calls “The Library”, with no apologies to Arsenal’s old Highbury Stadium. However, along with suggesting criticism from ESPN’s Dan Shulman and Terry Francona might come to bear on future negotiations for Yankee radio rights (WCBS’ contract expires after this season), Raissman suggests disses of the Steinbrenner Family’s Glittering Monument To Avarice & Greed “might spark a debate over whether the Yankees actually have a home-field advantage”. Or at the very least, enough of a home field advantage. (h/t – Repoz, Baseball Think Factory)
“A big but somewhat quiet crowd at Yankee Stadium,” Shulman said. He was actually being kind.
Francona: “This ballpark is beautiful, don’t get me wrong. But it just doesn’t seem like it has the atmosphere of the old one.”
Shulman said the ambience in the new Stadium was “different.” Orel Hershiser agreed with his partners. Francona called the old Stadium “electric” before getting more specific.
“As a visiting team, especially for the Red Sox, by the time the (national) anthem was over, you couldn’t wait to get back in the dugout,” Francona said. “Now (there is) a little different (kind) of fan sitting around down there by the dugout.”
Was Francona suggesting a fan fortunate enough to pay $2,000 per seat in front of the “moat” isn’t as passionate or loud as those who sat in “cheaper” box seats in the old joint? Do the $2,000 patrons have a collective case of lockjaw? Or are they too cool to root — loudly?
From the handful of games I’ve attended each season since the Nu Stadium’s 2009 opening, “big but somewhat quiet” is not an entirely inaccurate description, though it surely varies from game to game. Were the Red Sox actually within striking distance of first place this season, it’s reasonable to expect the paying customers would’ve been exercising their right to free expression with more gusto. Is the average fan who pays $2K for moat seats likely to keep a somewhat lower profile than Freddy Sez? Probably, but keep in mind, even when Terry Francona was cowering in the visitor’s dugout at the Old Stadium, the Bronx’s priciest box seats were hardly within the entertainment budget of the borough’s average resident. If you wanna call the Nu Stadium a playpen for the uber-wealthy and jaded, fair enough, but things were headed in that direction long before ground was broken on the new ballpark’s construction.
Of course, over in Queens, Mets fans need not worry about national broadcasters describing their crowds as “big yet quiet”. As they’re not really that big.
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Posted in Baseball, Sports Radio
at 1:11 pm
by GC
(EDITOR’s NOTE : Today marks the 6th anniversary of Mets reliever Duaner Sanchez’ 2006 season coming to an early close after a Miami car accident. In this post from August 2, 2006, we recall Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, then employed by NYC’s WFAN, suggesting Sanchez had more on his mind than rabo encendido).
One heck of a performance by WFAN’s Chris Russo this afternoon. Not only has the Mad Dog wondered about Duaner Sanchez’ “poor judgement” in ending up in a taxi wreck late Sunday night, but Astoria’s biggest (only?) SF Giants fan has pointed out “we don’t even know for sure he was looking for a Dominican restaurant.”
“Dominican restaurant”, is after all, Russo code for crack den, strip club, Omar’s Copacabana Where Talented White Men Are Given Their Walking Papers, etc.
Russo’s listeners, thankfully, aren’t buying such innuendo. “What about Tom Glavine?” (another cab crash casualty) asked one reasonable soul.
“TOM GLAVINE WAS TRYING TO GET HOME TO HIS FAMILY!!” screamed Russo. “HE WASN’T OUT AT THREE IN THE MORNING!”
It clearly isn’t enough that Sanchez has suffered a serious injury during his breakout season. The reliever can now recover while hearing the drivetime host of The Mets’ flagship station trash his reputation.
Coming on a future edition of the Mike Francesca’s On Vacation Show :
“Lyman Bostock : Victim Or Just Asking For It?”
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Posted in Free Expression, olympics, Sports Journalism, Sports TV, twitter twatter
at 11:50 am
by GC
““The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel,” read the offending tweet from The Independent’s Guy Adams. “Tell him what u think!” Apparently, the naming and shaming of a television industry professional falls outside of Twitter’s standards and practices, as Adams finds himself banned from the service today. Either Twitter has picked a particularly convenient moment to exercise such censorship (the beneficiary in this case being a media partner) or Zenkel — much like Sirius/XM’s ethically challenged Dino Costa — believes he’s above public criticism. Slate’s Will Oremus wonders, “why can’t the public realize that any technical glitches are their own fault, and that it’s wrong to hold the network’s personnel accountable?”
Not long after, Adams’ Twitter account was suspended and his tweets disappeared. The social media site informed Adams that he had violated the site’s policy against “posting an individual’s private information.” And what might have prompted Twitter to enforce this heretofore-little-known policy? Well, an NBC Sports spokesperson acknowledged that the network filed a complaint with Twitter, but added, “Twitter alone levies discipline.”
Given that Twitter has partnered with NBC to offer an official Olympics page, my first thought would be that the network might have exercised some corporate leverage here. But that’s probably just because the situation is too complex for me to understand.
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07.30.12
Posted in Baseball, Firearms, non-sporting journalism
at 11:45 pm
by GC
In a world in which Diamond Dallas Page is a yoga instructor, Andrew W.K. produces television programming for children and the director of “Trainspotting” directs the Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies, is it really so weird that Vice has commissioned former big leaguer Jose Canseco to pen a weekly column? If you were expecting the avowed PED user to weigh in with an apology to Grass Widow, you might be disappointed with Jose’s less-than-trenchant analysis of this month’s tragic events in Aurora, CO (” I think you have to send a message to the criminals: ‘No no no no no, you think you’ve got a gun? I’ve got a bigger gun. I’ve got two guns on you.’ It’s simple psychology, really.”)
The problem with trying to restrict psychopaths’ access to guns is: How do you know what a person qualified to own a firearm intends to do with it? Obviously, something was wrong with the guy who shot all of those innocent people in that movie theater in Aurora. I’m sure it was some psychological issue or depression or drugs—we really won’t know unless they do some blood work on him.
It appeared as though he was convinced that he was doing some kind of military black ops or something: the way he was dressed, the way he went about it, the way he used the whole environment, bought a ticket, went out, came back in the exit… Everything was planned out. The only thing he didn’t plan was his escape. I think he wanted to die. That’s why I truly believe that if the people inside the theater were armed, they could have taken this guy down. There’s no doubt in my mind, that if one person had a gun they could have stopped him.
If you misuse a weapon and kill innocent people, you should be executed. And if it were up to me, I would fry the Aurora shooter, big-time. I’d do it like old times; I’d make it a spectacle and try him in public. Hang him, electrocute him, whatever. Maybe make it a Pay-Per-View special and send the proceeds to the families of the victims and maybe offset some of the costs of keeping him on death row and operating whatever death machine you strap him to. If I were president, that’s exactly what I’d do. No doubt in my mind. Financially, it’s a great deal.