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At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

Champions League Soccer: A Perfect Excuse For A Pint

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Champions League soccer, a perfect excuse for a midday pint. Preferably Guinness. But from the looks of this Irish pub few got the memo. Was all the momentum for more soccer in this country following the World Cup a ruse perpetuated by young, liberal hipsters or do Americans have more important things to tend to at 2:30PM on a Tuesday afternoon in September? Possibly work? Maybe exercise. Could be family. Still, bartender seems nice enough even though she hasn’t been around this joint long enough to learn how to lower the ambient 90s rock which now threatens to drown out the Dortmund crowd. Borussia Dortmund vs Arsenal, first leg of the group stage. Live from Germany. Not Russia. Two well known sides. Even the two college kids are familiar but can’t trust them, they’re from New Jersey.

This guy sounds like he knows a little but more about the game. Maybe it’s the English accent. Could be the old school iPod shuffle. Nope, it’s definitely the English accent. Just finished a workout. Liverpool fan. Change channels? Why sure? Kids, you don’t mind do you? No. Ok, bye bye Dortmund/Arsenal hello Liverpool vs Ludogorets. English so happy that he decides to celebrate with an ice cold…Corona??? You’re English for crying out loud, aren’t you supposed to have better taste than that? Clearly ashamed, he redeems himself with an Americanized and Americansized portion of fish n’ chips. The English, so predictable.

First half transpires without incident, accident or any goals which is fine if you’ve got nothing personally invested in the Champions League but incredibly angst ridden if like English you’re a Liverpool fan and nervous because Ludogorets is playing an inspired brand of football even though few outside of Bulgaria have ever heard of the Eagles from Razgrad.

Halftime. Still no score. Kids order wings. Not too spicy. English has a second Corona. One Guinness good for me, it is a work day after all. Make the next one a seltzer please. Hold on hold on…with lime.

The second half goes by with limited drama. A few cooks come out of the kitchen to mingle with the bartender. One fills up a tupperware container with beer. Must get real thirsty standing by the oven. Either that or it’s for a recipe. English has been outside talking on his phone for the last few minutes. And you call yourself a serious Reds fan, Liverpool not Cincinnati? Back just in time for a well placed volley from newly acquired striker Mario Balotelli. Fists pumps from English. Cheers to the kids. Wink and a nod to the bartender who’s now busying herself with a celebratory Irish whiskey. Not for her, that would be against the rules. Must be for English. College kids are too young for coffee. And whiskey. But not cheap beer. Have another fellas, next one’s on English.

Ludogorets with the equalizer? How’s that possible? There’s like no time left on the clock. English silent, coffee mug pressed gently against his lips. Going to need to pace around the bar for a few moments while us other patrons do our best to blend in with the dark oak. Don’t want to upset the already distressed. Dinner crowd should be arriving momentarily and with only a few minutes of extra time remaining it does not seem like Liverpool is going to come out of this one with three points which has English sweating through his workout clothes for the second time this afternoon.

Leave it to a soccer referee to call a questionable foul in extra time. Wait, UEFA and FIFA are two separate entities? The goalie had an angle and the contact was of an incidental nature. Must be playing to the home crowd. Anfield. If this game were being played in Bulgaria it might have been a different story. But that’s not reality as Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard calmly strikes the ball in the back right corner of the net. Final score: Reds 2 Ludogorets 1. English takes a deep sigh of relief. Finally he can have a sip of that Irish whiskey. Major props to the Bulgarian side who might prove to be the thorn of this group. What’s that? Next game against Real Madrid the reigning kings of the Champions League? Fun while it lasted Ludogorets.

Settle the tab. Thanks for your kind, considerate company Ms. Bartender. Kids, get back to your books. English, congrats on the win and enjoy that whiskey. It is 4:30 in the afternoon after all. A perfect time for soccer in America.

Baltimore’s Getting Back to the Baseball

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It’s about time Baltimore got back to being about the baseball.

Move over Ravens, time to share the tree branch. The Charm City’s isn’t just button hooks and goal line stands, this town’s got baseball in it’s blood once again.

Save the Old Bay for the crab cakes and potato chips, this fall season’s going to be all about Orioles baseball as the Birds make their second trip to the postseason in three years. And so what if this is the first time since 1997 that the team has won the AL East, Fort McHenry wasn’t built in a day and to all those fans who stood patiently by as the team floundered like the fish in Baltimore Harbor, congrats to you because without your loyalty and passion throughout those lean years Camden Yards would have felt even more like a graveyard, haunted by Orioles legends from the past like Ripken, Murray and the Robinsons.

To the national media still hesitant to sing the Orioles praises due to the roster’s apparent flaws like a starting rotation without a star or an injury/suspension riddled lineup missing all-stars Machado, Wieters and Davis, those fireworks exploding in the sky above the Warehouse may not be bombs bursting in the air but if Francis Scott Key were around today it’s hard to imagine that tucked between some line or stanza of our National Anthem wouldn’t be some reference to the Birds because while the Stars and Stripes still fly prominently next to Boog’s BBQ so too does the orange pennant nesting comfortable a top the AL East.

So let’s move the conversation beyond ‘The Wire’ already. With all due respect to David Simon the only corners that Orioles fans care about this fall are occupied by guys with the last name Pearce and Paredes. Yes, the Inner Harbor is still a great place to take the family, but when’s the last time you saw a bottle nose dolphin at the National Aquarium take back a home run like Adam Jones? Or the canons on the USS Constellation fire a strike like Chris Tillman and Kevin Gausman?

To all you young ones out there that never heard of the Oriole Way, whose grandparents call them ‘Hon’ and still yammer on about the good old days of Memorial Stadium, buckle up because moments like this can be taken for granted. Appreciate this team and opportunity and make sure your family brings you back to the yard. Because Baltimore was built for baseball.

A Southpaw Showdown: Koufax or Kershaw

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Historical comparisons in sports are great because there is usually no right answer to the question ‘who’s better’. Jordan or Kobe? Manning or Montana? Tiger or Jack? Individual opinions vary and can be easily validated or rebuked depending on your point of view. If you never saw Johnny Unitas throw a spiral how can you say that he was better than Brady? If you never watched Oscar Robertson drop an entire season’s worth of triple-double how can you possibly argue that LeBron is the superior basketball talent? Right or wrong, these comparisons fuel some of the most passionate conversations in sports.

In baseball today there is a debate developing that may never be solved, one that even though it is currently based on speculation and career trajectory remains very worthy of our attention. Who’s better: Sandy Koufax or Clayton Kershaw?

At this point in time the Hall of Famer Koufax’s legendary accomplishments make it difficult to compare him to just about any other pitcher in MLB history, let alone Clayton Kershaw. 1 MVP. 3 Cy Youngs. 3 World Series Championships. 2 World Series MVPs. The accolades do not do justice to the dominance of Koufax who’s career came to a premature end at the young of 30.

Yet the 26 year old Kershaw has already staked his claim as this era’s best pitcher and could soon find himself listed alongside some of the games all time greats. This season he is on pace to win his 3rd Cy Young award and could be in line for his first MVP as well. Kershaw’s superiority doesn’t stop there as he has allowed 3 runs or fewer in 24 of his 25 starts with the Dodgers going 18-1 in games he has started since the beginning of June.

The similarities between Koufax and Kershaw run deeper than their Dodger blue. Both lefties average around 230 strikeouts per 162 game season with Kershaw’s 2.48 career era slightly lower than Koufax’s 2.76. Koufax led the NL in complete games twice which Kershaw is doing for the first time this season.

The one area where there is no comparison is postseason performance as Koufax became an immortal because of October while Kershaw has so far struggled to find his playoff stride. Things could change this season however as the Los Angeles Dodgers are once again a top the NL West, thanks to Kershaw, with a talented roster poised for a postseason run.

And if the Dodgers do go on to win the World Series and Clayton Kershaw pitches like he has for most of his career, maybe then will the Kershaw/Koufax debate become a real thing, an argument for the ages, a showdown of southpaws.

NFL Storyboarding: Bill and the Bathtub

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Weekly NFL picks in storyboard form.

Week 2: Bill and the Bathtub

One day, an average man, let’s call him Bill, woke up same time as usual and went to take his normal morning shower only this time when he stepped into the bath he slipped on a bar of soap and spun helplessly in the air. As time slowed down random moments from his life flashed before his eyes.

He thought about how later that day at work he was going to have to choose between two acquaintances, one who recently committed a heinous act of violence that was caught on video and the other who years ago was suspected of something equally horrific yet it could never be proven because there were no cameras in the bathroom. These two instances, and many more like them, were cause for major concern for Bill who didn’t want to lump all employees of the corporation into the same category, because like any business there are always a couple of bad apples (1) but it was becoming increasingly difficult to watch the brutality unfold on a weekly basis and he was not alone in feeling that it was the bosses who deserved the blame for perpetuating such bad behavior because the only thing they were ever interested in doing was protecting their ridiculously lucrative brand, especially when it came to the precedent they had been setting regarding punishments and suspensions for various infractions which made very little sense to Bill or anyone else in normal, regular society. If something didn’t change and soon Bill believed the entire business model would cease to be sustainable.

He thought about this and many other less consequential moments from his life as he fell head over heals down towards the bottom of the bathtub. He thought about how last week at his coffee shop, a new barista stepped in minutes before the morning rush and even though the customers didn’t think the new barista would make coffee like the regular barista the new barista proved fully capable. A few days later, the regular barista returned and all the customers got really excited because this barista was like a wizard with caffeine and really knew how to make coffee. Unfortunately, the beans that the barista was working with were overrated and the coffee ended up bitter and full of sediment (2) which Bill realized as he was walking to catch a train and when he went to pitch the coffee into the garbage can a businessman in an expensive new suit stepped in his way causing Bill to spill hot coffee on his hand. He thought about yelling at the businessman in the expensive suit but when he looked more carefully at him he realized that in addition to the nice clothing he had bright red hair which was unfortunate because businessmen with red hair never get the initial respect they deserve even when they are employed by companies with high expectations. (3) Bill decided to forgive and forget and after drying his hand with the corner of a newspaper took a seat on a nearby bench.  [Read more…]

U.S. Open Tennis: A Premature Passing of the Torch

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To be clear, the 2014 men’s final of the U.S. Open did not represent an end of an era. Before Marin Cilic of Croatia dismissed Kei Nishikori of Japan in straight sets there were no funeral pyres lit, no songs of remembrance sung. The sadness that swirled through Ashe Stadium like the gulf stream had little to do with the quality of play or the crowning of an unfit champion as the 6’6” Cilic, with his rangy athleticism and powerful service game, gave the crowd plenty to cheer about.

No the real reason for remorse, the factor that few fans and ticket agencies anticipated, was that for the first time since the 2005 Australian Open a major men’s singles final took place without at least one member of the Big Four. But just because there was no Federer, Nadal, Djokovic or Murray does not mean that tennis is on the verge of a cosmic power shift. Over time, Monday night will prove to be more of an anomaly than a trend as the demise of men’s tennis current standard bearers is being grossly overstated.

The cause for concern comes from the fact that for nearly a decade the Big Four has brought both consistency and comfort to tennis fans. We could all count on tuning into a Grand Slam final and watching at least one of the sports all time greats compete. That familiarity is important to the brand of tennis and it’s not going away, at least not any time soon. Djokovic and Murray are still very much in the prime of their careers and even at the ripe old age of 33 Federer still covers the court with the grace of a man half his age. Nadal has battled back from injuries before and we can all but pencil him in for the finals at Roland Garros next June.

But when the torch is finally past to the next generation of men’s tennis stars fans must take comfort in the reality that new names and rivalries will rise and take shape just as they did before the Big Four when when it was McEnroe and Connors to Becker and Edberg to Sampras and Agassi and so on and so forth. Cilic and Nishikori might not be household quantities yet, at least not in this country, but eventually their names might be capable of lighting up the marquee as tennis’ next big stars.

Just not yet…