View My Seats

At the Intersection of Sports and Culture

Photo Credit for Header: Alex Foucre-Stimes

Lessons Learned From The 2012 Open Championship

by

Lesson Learned From The 2012 Open Championship

1) The term “freshening” has come to mean many different things to many different people. Apparently to those fine folks living across the pond as well as the ESPN crew manning the towers for us folks back in the States, the term “freshening” refers to a rejuvenating gust of wind that players must take notice of before attempting their next shot.  Scott Van Pelt alone must have used this term 10 times during Thursday’s opening round telecast. As McIlroy steps to the tee a freshening breeze begins to cascade off of the Irish Sea. Might want to think about going with a long iron here eh Curtis?

I don’t know about you but every time I hear the word “freshening” I can’t help but think of those hot towels airlines used to dispense towards the end of a long flight. That was always such a welcome experience. I could never deduce how they managed the proper balance of moisture to heat. Probably had something to do with the spring roll style presentation. And the tongs. What ever happened to the tongs airlines used to distribute these warm towels? By now they have rightfully been put on some sort of no fly list along with box cutters, pocket knives, and 2 liter bottles of Mountain Dew. Now when you get on a plane all you are offered is a bag of Sun Chips and the duty free catalogue. But then again, you are flying.

2) The weather, or lack thereof was a major disappointment, at least for those of us golf fans sitting on our asses back home. Surely the large galleries of fans and competitors on the course didn’t mind a little fun in the sun, especially considering that it led to reasonably benign scoring conditions over the first three days of competition. Part of the charm of the Open Championship is that you can turn on your television and expect to see sideways rain and powerful winds threatening to knock down petite golfers like Luke Donald. As an amateur golfer, part of the appeal of playing through inclement weather is that the experience can make you feel as if you’re a running through a gauntlet similar to what the world’s best can expect when they tee it up at the Open Championship. It’s a very “freshening” experience outlasting the elements, (except lighting, never lightning), that is until you get in your car and realize that it’s going to take nearly a week for your seat cushion to dry out.

The forecast for the 2012 Open called for the traditional cloudy with a chance of meatballs but failed to deliver on that promise. Here’s hoping for more rain at Muirfield in 2013.

3) Watching golf in the afternoon is great but watching it first thing in the morning while the rest of your family is still asleep is even better. I’ve never been happier to wake up at 430 in the morning in my entire life. The house was still, the coffee was fresh, and perhaps most importantly, my 1 year old son was still 2 1/2 hours from waking up. Good thing too because as soon as that little rascal opens his eyes the entire house is flipped over on its axis and I’ll then have a better chance of seeing Curious George cleanup one of his predictable messes than I will Tiger coming up short with another pitching wedge. I hope Augusta National considers wheeling in huge stadium lights so that we can get a little primetime Masters coverage next April. But that’s probably wishful thinking especially for a private club that continues to refer to the fans as “patrons”,

4) Fans at the Open Championship really are some of the best fans in the world. I counted only a handful of “You Da Mans” and maybe just one or two “Mashed Potatoes”.  If this Championship were being held at say the Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia that number would have been innumerably higher. And there are countless other reasons for why Open fans are so great including: knowledge of golf history, adherence to etiquette, and ability to pull off the messenger bag while on the golf course. It was as if all 30K or so onlookers had bopped on over to Royal Lytham en route to delivering sensitive materials to a local barrister. I wasn’t sure if I was watching a golf tournament or a group of hipsters at a Brooklyn coffee shop.

5) That for all the talk about how golf has never been better and that there are 100 or so talented players that have a legitimate chance of winning a major championship, the cream usually rises to the top. And I understand that with Ernie Els victory on Sunday that makes 16 different champions over the last 16 majors but go ahead and take a look at the leader board on Sunday afternoon: Scott, Woods, McDowell, Els, Donald. These names are some of the games best and when Adam Scott blew that 4 shot lead it wasn’t as if someone like Todd Hamilton stepped in to claim the Claret Jug. Els might not have been playing like the hall of famer that he already is but this latest coronation cements his place as one of the games all time best.

 view from the Canadian Open courtesy of @mwadzy

Tee Times To Determine 2012 Open Championship

by

If you have ever played a round of golf then you understand how important it is to be grouped with the right mix of people. No matter the level of competition, from novice to scratch, who you play with can go a very long way towards determining the outcome of your round. Some folks don’t mind playing with complete strangers, while others, like myself, prefer the company of close friends. Golf, at its finest, is an incredibly humbling sport and I typically would not want to share such vulnerability with a group of randos. Friends are there to pick you up when you take 3 to get out of a bunker and knock you down after you drain a chip shot from off the green.

Which leads me to the British Open, ahem sorry, Open Championship. (Would hate to start the column by offending any readers from across the pond.) With play about to begin Thursday at Royal Lytham and St. Annes, the R&A, that’s the Royal and Ancient Golf Club to those of you outside the know, released the groupings for the 1st and 2nd rounds. If these pros are anything like us then who they are partnered with in these early rounds will play a big part in determining the champion of the 2012 Open Championship.

I think it was John Feinstein who wrote in his book on the 2002 US Open at Bethpage Black that the USGA likes to have some fun when putting together the early round pairings. Apparently they put traditionally slower players or golfers who all shared some form of the name ‘Michael’ together in the same group. Not sure if the R&A works in the same sort of mischievous ways but that doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be really interesting to sit in on some of the discussions that took place when they settled on these groupings.

Here now are a just few superlatives for the early round groupings at the 2012 Open Championship from Royal Lytham and St. Anne’s.

(all starting Thursday start times are in BST, that’s British Summer Time to you and I. I really don’t care to know what it’s called during the winter months although I have a sneaking suspicion that a Meridian Line is involved)

Group Most Likely To Be Caught With Various Tobacco Products: 7:47 BST – David Duval, Raphael Jacquelin, and Miguel Angel Jimenez

All I can say is I sure do hope Monsieur Jacquelin enjoys a good puff now and again, (Of course he does, he’s French!!!) because between Duval with his chewing tobacco (at least I assume he still dips) and Jimenez and his stogies, this group promises to be up in smoke. (Picture the cast of Mad Men on a links style course outside of Montauk.) During his halcyon years, Duval could always be found with a protruding lower lip full of enough fiberglass to build a sea kayak while for his part Jimenez, the world’s most interesting golfer, can usually still be seen walking the grounds with a nice fat Cubano protruding from his mouth. (If only wine were allowed on the course. Damn R&A!!!)

Group Where The R&A Had To Let You Play As Former Winners Of The Open Championship: 7:03 – Todd Hamilton, Sandy Lyle, and Mark Calcavecchia

Calcavecchia also bears the distinction of having his wife caddy for him, which is quite an honorable feat considering this would never be allowed to happen in our household mostly because my wife and I can barely agree on what type of dressing to put on the salad let alone decide which club to hit from a buried lie in a fairway bunker. (And by the way, I’m not one of those douchey guys who refuses to play golf with his wife. Those idiots are the worst. No, I’m fine with playing golf with my better half so long as we play at a suitable pace and I get to drive the cart.)

Group Most Likely To Get Stuck In A Waggle: 10:15 – Jason Dufner, Martin Laird, Kevin Na

Kevin Na is a walking rain delay. With the amount of time he takes to hit a shot, if it is not already raining when he addresses the golf ball it will be by the time it’s in the air. Dufner isn’t so much a slow golfer as he is a fidgety player who with all the club waggles looks like someone superglued a shake weight to his hands. In order to fit in with the circus like atmosphere Martin Laird may want to think about developing some sort of quirky walk for the fairways.

Group Most Likely To Be Confused For A Law Firm: 12:59 – Ben Curtis, Paul Casey, Trevor Immelman

Can’t you just hear the voiceover now? “Injured by a hot basket of french fries? Call the offices of Curtis, Casey, and Immelman for all your frivolous lawsuit needs. They’ll work, so you never have to again.”

Group Most Likely To Miss The Claret Jug: 9:09 – Darren Clarke, Ernie Els, Zach Johnson

I can’t believe they make Open Champions return the trophy. How is Darren Clarke, or any former champion for that matter, expected to get anyone to go to bed with them?

Group Most Likely To Enjoy A Few Pints Together After The Round: 9:31 – Dustin Johnson, Graeme McDowell, Hiroyuki Fujita

Dustin Johnson has had an unfortunate, reckless history of being over-served while McDowell is on the record as saying he enjoyed a few too many after his 2010 US Open championship. Here’s hoping Fujita knows the number of a reliable taxi service and then passes those digits along to Jason Kidd.

Group Most Likely To Talk About The Mechanics Of Their Golf Swing: 9:42 – Tiger Woods, Justin Rose, and Sergio Garcia

As you know, Tiger and Rose share the services of swing guru Sean Foley. One hopes they would be gracious enough to include Garcia in their discussions but Woods does seem like the fastidious type. Plus spitting in a cup is just plain disgusting.

Group Most Likely To Produce the 2012 Open Champion: 14:43 – Luke Donald, Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy

After a solid performance in the Scottish Open, Mickelson should be feeling much better about his chances at Royal Lytham. However, it’s Donald who I’m predicting walks away with the Claret Jug and his first major championship. Of course, Ogilvy and Donald could have some sort of deep seeded feud that leads to a complete mental breakdown from the world’s #1. That’s just how important a grouping can be.

view from the practice range at Royal Lytham courtesy of @StephanieWei

 

10 Bold Predictions For The 2nd Half Of The 2012 MLB Season

by

Most informed baseball scribes are hesitant to make outrageous claims and statements for fear of the backlash. But as an uniformed hack I have the creative license, and general lack of viewing audience, to throw as much crap against the wall in the hopes of making just some of it stick. Here are 10 bold predictions for the second half of the 2012 MLB season starting with..

#1) the Boston Red Sox will make the AL playoffs and Bobby Valentine will be named AL Manager of the Year. There is much too much talent on this Boston roster to let a little dysfunction ruin the season. They are after all only 9.5 games behind the first place Yankees and can expect Jacoby Ellsbury, Carl Crawford, Dustin Pedroia, and Clay Buchholz to all return to the lineup soon. With enough time to make a playoff push look for Bobby V to garner much of the credit for changing the culture of the clubhouse by directly challenging the credibility and accountability of underachieving players OR things continue to backfire and Boston finishes dead last in the East and Valentine returns home to Stamford, CT where he will resume his duties as Director of Public Health & Safety.

#2) Speaking of health and wellness, the Texas Rangers will finish the regular season with the best record in baseball but fail to make it out of the divisional round of the playoffs due to a season ending injury to Josh Hamilton. Nobody wants to see an athlete get injured, especially one as talented and transcendent as Hamilton, but backs can be tricky things. There is no rhyme or reason to a bad back. I have a colleague who spent an entire morning on the floor of his office after spasming when he bent over to tie his shoe. Every time Hamilton swings through a first pitch changeup or runs into the outfield fence it looks like he is on the precipice of completely throwing his spine out of alignment. I hope I’m wrong about this because we all want to see the best teams and players on the field when it counts most.

#3) Which leads us to the Steel City where the Pittsburgh Pirates are going to win the NL central and Andrew McCutchen is your NL MVP. I jumped on the Pirate bandwagon pretty hard last year and that didn’t go so well but I’m hoping this year is different because @thecutch22 is the Man and there is just something about the way he carries himself on the baseball field that inspires confidence in others. A .362 average with 18 HRs and 60 RBI doesn’t hurt either. Props also for having the coolest twitter handle in baseball, a title formally held by @JoeyBats19.

#4) Cole Hamels will be dealt away by the Philadelphia Phillies before the end of the trading deadline. There is no guarantee that he wants to resign with Philly anyway, even if they do end up throwing boatloads of money his way. The smart move is to trade him away for a couple of major league ready prospects in the hopes that these new bats can add depth to a lineup that once again features a healthy Chase Utley and Ryan Howard. Can we talk for a second about how good the 2013 Dodgers rotation would be with both Clayton Kershaw and Hamels? The Dodgers, who were my preseason pick to go to the World Series, may have too wait another year because…

#5)  The San Fransisco Giants are going to win the NL pennant. For the record, I’m basing a significant portion of this prediction off of what I witnessed in Tuesday’s ASG. And what the heck happened to Melky Cabrera? When he was with the Yankees nobody believed that the Melkman was going to be anything more than a 4th outfielder at best. If the Giants can get anything out of Tim Lincecum, who posted a 3-10 record with a 6.42 ERA during the first half, during the rest of the season then they have to be considered the favorites to win the NL where they will face…

#6) The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. It’s like 2002 all over again. Except Mike Trout is faster than Darin Estrad and Mark Trumbo hits the ball an average of 100 feet further than Tim Salmon. And that’s before even mentioning Albert Pujols who, unbelievably, isn’t even the best player on the team right now. How long is his new contract again?

#7) Much to the disappointment of the entire state of Missouri, Robinson Cano will finish the season with the most homeruns in the AL. He already has 20 HRs and I’ll say he closes the year around 42. And for the record Kansas City, I wouldn’t have chosen Billy Butler for the HR Derby either.

Speaking of the derby,  for the 2013 ASG, MLB is going cut down the length of the HR Derby and add a skills challenge where multi tooled players like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper compete in a series of challenges like hitting the ball to the opposite field, robbing homerun balls, and a timed first to third sprint. And before all you baseball purists get your trading cards in a bunch, ask yourselves this question: does the HR Derby really need to take 3 hours? Wouldn’t one round of competition suffice?

#8) The Chicago Cubs will finish with the worst record in baseball but their young 1B Anthony Rizzo will win the NL Rookie of the Year Award over Bryce Harper. It’s going to take Theo Epstein a few years to right the ship but Cubs fans are accustomed to waiting. And with players like Rizzo and Starlin Castro providing a foundation for years to come, the future is bright on the Northside.

#9) At some point this season Bryce Harper will be sent back down to the minors. Bold right? And for Harper it’s not a question of talent but, in my opinion, the kid cannot be mentally prepared to handle a pennant race. He’s only 19 years old and when most of us were that age we couldn’t figure out how to get to class on time let alone lead a team to the MLB playoffs.

#10) And finally, months will pass and yet Tony La Russa will still be unable to offer up any sort of valid reason for why he chose not to start RA Dickey in the All-Star Game.

view from the AAA All-Star Game courtesy of @Joey_DAngelo

3 Simple Ways To Improve the MLB All-Star Game

by

According to Commissioner Bud Selig MLB has never been healthier and while it’s easy to dispute this predictably obtuse claim that doesn’t mean that baseball did not enjoy itself an eventful and entertaining first half. Attendance is up across the country, there is an exciting crop of young talent making an immediate impact, and the Pittsburgh Pirates are 11 games over .500 for the first time since 1992.

But there are still certain improvements that could be made, especially to Tuesday night’s All-Star Game. A few years ago baseball decided to make the Midsummer Classic “count” for something by having the game determine home field in the World Series. Skeptics believe that this was not enough to raise the competitive level of the game and the change certainly hasn’t roused a significantly larger television audience. When you think about it, the ASG should be able to attract an enormous viewing audience especially considering that it’s the middle of July and there is absolutely nothing else on tv except for old Bones reruns and some new show called American Ninja Warrior.* 

Here are 3 very straightforward, albeit redundant, ways to improve MLB’s All-Star Game.

1) First pitch at 7pm instead of 8pm: Yeah, I understand this screws with West Coasties but you’ve been spoiled by 10AM NFL games for long enough now that it’s time for those of us back East to enjoy a primetime game in its entirety instead of falling asleep during the 7th inning stretch.

Personally I don’t buy all that crap about how we can’t expect the younger generation to appreciate America’s Pastime if the ASG is on well past their bedtime. Please. It’s summer. School has been out for weeks now and most kids who would even care to watch the game in the first place are already so hyped up on Red Bull and Arizona Iced Tea** that they’re going to be up well past their bedtimes anyway.

No, I want to the game to be moved to 7PM for parents of young children like myself who for 17 months now have found it quite difficult to stay up past 10PM because I’m either A) too tired from chasing around a 2.5 foot little person who finds a way to bump his head against the corner of every table in our house at least 30 times a day and who also happens to wet/crap his pants with the same frequency or B) already asleep on the coach. If the game were to start at 7 instead of 8 then there is a good chance I make it all the way to the end when they hold that awkward MVP ceremony where some Chevy exec gives away a fully loaded Corvette to a multimillionaire who probably already has a stable of high priced automobiles in the garage.

2) Eliminate the managers: Like most adults, coaches just end up screwing things up anyway. Want recent proof? Look no further than how Tony La Russa totally botched the NL starting pitcher decision by choosing Matt Cain over RA Dickey. No offense to Cain but RA Dickey needs to start this game. He’s a 37 year old knuckleballer with a 12-1 record and 2.40 ERA who is one of the main reason why the NY Mets continue to outperform all expectations and who also happens to be such a crazy Star Wars fanatic that he named his family minivan the Millenium Falcon. Has a knuckleballer ever started an ASG before? Take La Russa out of the picture and I guarantee the players pick Dickey over Cain.

And who wouldn’t want to follow along as a hidden camera records the goings on in the clubhouse as the players debate their starting lineups and batting orders? When I envision an ASG clubhouse without coaches and managers I see a surreal world that is equal parts Lord Of The Flies, ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’, and 12 Angry Men. And networks like Fox love reality tv because it costs nothing to produce and the ratings are usually solid. Throw a little Liev Schreiber narration in there and you’ve got yourself a 1/2 hour pre game show that people would much rather watch instead of a 90 minute televised intervention between George Brett and Tim McClelland hosted by Jim Gray.

The only question is, who holds the conch? If MLB is really going to ask each clubhouse to make these types of crucial decisions then one player on each side must emerge as the Henry Fonda type leader, someone with an understated charisma and humility who is also able to earn the respect of his peers. My vote in the AL goes to Curtis Granderson who just seems like the type of well grounded individual (his parents are both teachers after all) that would be able to take command of the room. For the NL team I’ll go with Buster Posey if for no other reason than he’s a catcher and those guys usually make the best leaders anyway.

3) Unlimited reentry for players in the starting lineup: No offense to Asdrubal Crabrera, who is a deserving All-Star, but the fine folks of Kauffman Stadium want to see as much of Derek Jeter as possible. By allowing Carbrera to pinch hit and then have Jeter reenter in the bottom of the inning gives fans the opportunity to see their favorite players determining the final outcome of the game.

I’m all for keeping it where every MLB team is represented by at least one player but that shouldn’t mean that all reserves see a significant amount of time on the field. This year is different because there are several ASG reserves, like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper, that everyone wants to see get several at bats.

In the end, we’ll all probably be watching the MLB All-Star game but mostly because ‘American Ninja Warrior’ airs on Monday nights.

*No, seriously. Look it up. This is an actual show on network TV. I’ll be sorely disappointed if it weren’t a half hour montage dedicated to old Chris Farley SNL highlights.

** Someday soon scientists are going to reveal that too many energy drinks make you sterile which is going to be a real shame for extreme sport athletes as well as the actors in those bargain basement 5 Hour Energy commercials.

view from Kauffman Stadium site of the 2012 MLB ASG courtesy of @AllStarGame

All Quiet On The Wimbledon Front

by

It’s been said plenty of times before, and with much greater eloquence and authority, but one of the things that makes Roger Federer such a fantastic, eternal champion is that he has always possessed a certain way of making everything he does on the tennis court look so damn easy. From his return of serve to his cross court forehand winners to the way he never looks out of breath even after chasing down volley after volley. There is even a disturbing consistency to the way he delicately brushes the hair from his eyes as if to show us all that we can only dream about being as in the moment as he has been over the course of his now 17 Grand Slam victories.

I exchanged a few messages with my buddy Chip who was in London during Sunday’s final and he said that the Britons weren’t all that disappointed by the end result given that the oddsmakers and daily rags had penciled down Federer as the heavy favorite over Andy Murray, the hometown hero from Highlands. Chip also went on to say that according to his Boston centric sports senses the reaction of Londoners after the 2012 Wimbledon final was very to similar to what happens in the Fens following a Red Sox regular season loss to the New York Yankees, an occurrence that I had to remind him was becoming much more frequent in 2012.* In simpler terms, Great Britain was proud of Murray for the way he battled through to the final and for this heartwarming, endearing post match speech but not all that surprised when the greatest of all time came out on top once again.

But before prattling on for far too long about a result and champion the context of which overwhelms most middling scribes and is better suited for a discussion amongst McEnroe’s, it’s much easier to instead focus our dwindling attention spans on something simpler like the behavior of the Wimbledon crowd and how it was predictably impossible for the fans at Centre Court to keep their personal allegiances secret. On this particular championship Sunday the vast majority of the crowd was pulling for the Brit Murray but there were also a healthy number of onlookers there to support Federer who is, with all due respect to Pete Sampras, arguably the greatest champion the London grass has ever seen.

So as the emotions of a 76 year old drought came within a few games/points/sets of reaching its crest, the partisan crowd managed to remain respectful and did not distract either player from the task at hand. This sort of restraint shown by the fans raises the all important question of why it is that a sport like tennis requires that the crowd maintain its silence while the point is being played yet there are other sports like baseball that do not ask for the same serenity? Is this because tennis is a much more difficult sport than baseball that it requires a much higher level of concentration or perhaps tennis players have been conditioned throughout the years to play without distraction? The easiest analogy to make is the art of bunting in baseball compared to the serve in tennis.

Arguing over which is the more difficult task to execute, the 120 mph serve or the sacrifice bunt, is both futile an unnecessary. Each requires more skill and precision than we mere mortals can even begin to fathom. A good serve, as with a sacrifice bunt, relies on not just speed but location as well. A hard serve is difficult to return only if placed properly. The same can be said about an effective sacrifice bunt. Depending on the situation a batter needs to direct the ball either down the first or third base line.** Just simply putting the ball in play does not guarantee that the batter will be able to advance the runner into scoring position just like hitting a 120mph serve does not necessarily result in an ace.

The other interesting parallel between these two skills is that both tennis and baseball players have a limited number of chances to accomplish their goal. Tennis players get two chances before committing a double fault while in baseball a hitter has two strikes to put a bunt in play, unless they’re being managed by a real old timer like my high school legion coach who would keep the bunt sign on throughout the at bat regardless of the count.***

So why is it that baseball players can handle the noise yet tennis players require such stupefying silence? The simple answer is history and tradition. Think about it this way, if there was no such thing as tennis etiquette and fans were allowed to make as much of a racket, no pun intended, as they wanted to eventually players would cease to be distracted by the noise. It just like basketball players adjusting to shoot free throws while staring at this guys face or Tiger Woods hitting a low cut 3 wood stinger with hundreds of fans snapping cell phone pictures.

But the rules and tradition of tennis do not allow for fans to interfere with the action. And it’s a good thing too because elite tennis players cannot handle the additional distraction. Take yesterday for example. What if some hooligan Andy Murray supporter wearing a Union Jack shirt with matching Dame Edna glasses were to have directed at Federer right as he was going into his ball toss a string of expletives that would even make EL James blush? For starters, the offending fan would have been thrown in the Tower of London to rot for all eternity alongside the ghosts of William Wallace and Oliver Cromwell. Secondly, due to the interruption Federer would have been thrown completely off his game and that laser like focus that has made him such a vaunted champion in the past would have been melted down to nothing more than a puddle of ineptitude that even Pippa**** woud have had a difficult time watching.  Because tennis is such a proper sport, and because no true athletes wants to be given an unfair advantage, Murray would have most likely conceded the point and even personally apologized to Roger for the poor behavior of the fans.

The reason why baseball fans don’t go silent just as the batter squares around is not because bunting is any less difficult than hitting a 120mph serve but rather because baseball players have been conditioned to perform through the distraction. In fact, it would probably be more off putting for major leaguers if the crowd did go silent during important moments of the game. Unless of course you are currently playing in Oakland.

*Before going ahead and accepting Chip’s analysis as the gospel please understand that he was drinking white wine while watching the championship at “Lady Di’s Place” which was either a reference to a former residence of the Princess of Whales or a gentleman’s club by Emirates Stadium.

**Back when Roberto Alomar was playing for those great Toronto Blue Jays teams in the early 90s, they would say that he would intentionally bunt the ball foul early in the count just to get the defense to shift out of position so that later in the at bat he would have more open space to put the ball in play. 

***FYI, there is nothing more embarrassing as a baseball player than failing to get the bunt down. Close second is getting picked off second base.

****Never forget.