The most horrifying stat I have heard in a while in the sports world is that the median age of a baseball fan is 56 years old. That's something. On the one hand, many 56 year-olds have more free time and more disposable cash. On the other, they might not be as likely to eat or drink as much at the park, and, well, the crowd is pretty old, which doesn't bode well for the future.
I have had frequent conversations with my sixteen year-old about this. He is not a fan, although he'll go if I get good seats or if the hometown nine is interesting, which it has not been for about four years. And, as much as teenaged boys engage with their dads in conversation, he offers a few keen observations:
1. Kids do not follow baseball today, at least his friends.
2. Supplanting baseball is international soccer, in part because the game always moves, in part because it's a global game, and in no small part because EA's FIFA Soccer is hugely popular and much more fun to play than any baseball game on a PlayStation or Xbox.
3. Baseball is the game that his and his friends' dads went to with their fathers.
4. It is hard to play and there is way too much standing around (isn't, he asks, the ball in play for only about 10-15 minutes of any 3 hour game?).
5. The games are way too long.
6. Some games are played in very hot weather, too.
Ouch for baseball. That's for sure. I loved going with my dad, found the game hard to play but with seven TV stations only (and really three if you did not count PBS or the UHF channels in town) there wasn't much to watch on TV. We liked watching the MLB Game of the Week broadcast by Joe
Garagiola and Tony Kubek, because that was a chance to see a team that we didn't get to see often if ever.
But the world changed. The NFL took off. Boxing died. Basketball got Magic and Bird and then Jordan. And baseball cancelled the 1994 World Series because of labor strife. And then steroids took over. And specialization among pitchers did too. And the games got longer and longer. Ads between innings, mound visits, batters stepping out of the box frequently.
All combine to be taxing and boring. (I recall, years ago, when Phillies' reliever Al Holland got so infuriated with the Mets' George Foster, who was notorious for fidgeting and stepping out of the box, that Holland walked halfway to the batters box from the mound and yelled at Foster, "Get in there and hit."). That said, this summer, a friend and I drove up to see the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. In-between inning clocks. Pitch clocks. Interesting. . .
It was 95 degrees out. Our seats started out in the sun, but then the shade took over in the third inning. But the game moved. The pitchers never took the allotted 15 seconds between pitches, and the innings began precisely when they were supposed to. It was an enjoyable game -- and it was over in two hours and fifteen minutes. Say what? That's right. 2:15.
The Majors should check that out. That doesn't mean that the median age of a fan will morph suddenly to 35, but what it does mean is that those who are put off by how long a game takes might do a double take and return if they learn that the average game's length will be cut by one-third.
Pitch clocks. In-between inning clocks.
It's about time.
Monday, February 29, 2016
Friday, February 26, 2016
Can the Princeton Tigers do it?
The Tigers are a half game out of the Ivy lead in men's basketball with three games to play, all home games. Tonight, they'll take on a tough Columbia team whom they beat a few weeks ago in a come-from-behind game that was decided in overtime. Cornell is next, and should Columbia not exhaust the Tigers or the Tigers look past them to the finale against Penn, Princeton should beat the Big Red. If the Tigers were to win those two games (and assuming that Yale, without its captain and point guard Jack Montague, who withdrew from school the other day, defeats Harvard and Dartmouth this weekend), then the Tigers would need a win against their arch-rival Penn Quakers on Tuesday night, March 8 (and you might recall a few years back when the Quakers, led by their outstanding guard, Zach Rosen, visited Jadwin needing in a win to force an Ivy playoff, only to have a so-so Tigers team shellac them that night). Put differently, it's usually tough to predict what will happen in a game against an arch-rival, and Penn gave the Tigers all that they could handle early this year at the Palestra.
It is exciting to watch the Tigers, and inspiring given that they lost their center, Hans Brase, before the season. But as good teams and programs know, an injury to a key player creates opportunities for others. The Tigers are a team of small forwards and guards. Centers Pete Miller and Alec Brennan have their moments, but they are not at Brase's level. Forward Henry Caruso is a hammer with a velvet touch, a determined slasher who can shoot the ball. Swingman Spencer Weisz is similar although less physical. Small forward Steve Cook is more of a finesse player, but a deadly shooter, and guards Amir Bell and Devin Cannady can play lights out on an given night. Cannady's performances have been so good that it is not too much of a reach to think that before he graduates he will be among the Tigers' top five all-time scorers.
First things first, of course, and that means defeating the Columbia Lions tonight. The Princeton Athletic Department is calling for an "orange out" tonight, and it should be electric in Jadwin Gym.
It is exciting to watch the Tigers, and inspiring given that they lost their center, Hans Brase, before the season. But as good teams and programs know, an injury to a key player creates opportunities for others. The Tigers are a team of small forwards and guards. Centers Pete Miller and Alec Brennan have their moments, but they are not at Brase's level. Forward Henry Caruso is a hammer with a velvet touch, a determined slasher who can shoot the ball. Swingman Spencer Weisz is similar although less physical. Small forward Steve Cook is more of a finesse player, but a deadly shooter, and guards Amir Bell and Devin Cannady can play lights out on an given night. Cannady's performances have been so good that it is not too much of a reach to think that before he graduates he will be among the Tigers' top five all-time scorers.
First things first, of course, and that means defeating the Columbia Lions tonight. The Princeton Athletic Department is calling for an "orange out" tonight, and it should be electric in Jadwin Gym.
RIP, Tony Burton
Tony Burton, who was memorable in his role as first Apollo Creed's trainer and then Rocky Balboa's, died at the age of 78. Burton played "Duke" Evers, the sometimes fierce-looking but wise and kind trainer of Apollo Creed who ended up training Rocky after Rocky's trainer, Mickey Goldmill, played by Burgess Meredith, died.
Great movies and genres are noted not only by the larger than life figures, such as Apollo and Rocky, but also those who are right next to them, such as Paulie (Burt Young), Adrienne (Talia Shire) and a few others, such as Duke.
Great movies and genres are noted not only by the larger than life figures, such as Apollo and Rocky, but also those who are right next to them, such as Paulie (Burt Young), Adrienne (Talia Shire) and a few others, such as Duke.
Thursday, February 18, 2016
A Thought on the 2016 Version of Baseball Prospectus
Much thicker, much heavier than 2015.
Is there a reason why?
Just got my copy yesterday, acknowledge that I do not have the higher math skills the analysts/writers do, but it's good reading just the same.
Is there a reason why?
Just got my copy yesterday, acknowledge that I do not have the higher math skills the analysts/writers do, but it's good reading just the same.
Philadelphia Phillies -- Finally, A Cause for Optimism?
Great piece in today's Philadelphia Inquirer about the different look to the team's locker room. No name plates for guys named Hamels, Lee and Utley. How forbidding does that sound? The only holdovers from the '08 champs are 37 year-olds named Howard and Ruiz.
That's bittersweet, that's nostalgic, and that's a rite of passage. For too long the Phillies were on a see-saw between the past and present, forgetting about the future, and still clinging to drafting athletic types with limited knowledge of the strike zone (either how to hit from it or pitch into it). The Ruben Amaro era at the end represented a stubborn holding onto an outdated baseball theology that compelled a look into a player's soul and not into his production. And those who were doing the latter had bypassed the Phillies.
As in all 31 other MLB teams.
But with the advent of Lee MacPhail and Scott Klentak, the team offers some more hope. The farm system, not even all that good after Howard, Hamels, Utley and Jimmy Rollins emerged, is now rated in the top 10 in all of the majors. MacPhail and Klentak have adopted analytics methods, and majority owner John Middleton is committed to them. Does that mean that the Phillies will play .500 ball this year? No. Does it mean that they could have a chance to do so in a couple of years? Perhaps. Could they contend for a division flag in four? Why not?
The same way the Phillies had to part with Bobby Abreu in 2007 to make room for the next generation of leaders, the Phillies had to make way for their next generation, whoever they might be. The Howards and Utleys were already approaching their late 20's when GM Ed Wade made his changes, so to speak. There aren't many new leaders to be seen or heard right now, but most certainly some will emerge.
There is no compelling reason to be optimistic if you are a Phillies' fan, but at least we're not dealing with the "same old, same old," of the past several years.
And it's Spring Training.
Every one is tied for first.
That's bittersweet, that's nostalgic, and that's a rite of passage. For too long the Phillies were on a see-saw between the past and present, forgetting about the future, and still clinging to drafting athletic types with limited knowledge of the strike zone (either how to hit from it or pitch into it). The Ruben Amaro era at the end represented a stubborn holding onto an outdated baseball theology that compelled a look into a player's soul and not into his production. And those who were doing the latter had bypassed the Phillies.
As in all 31 other MLB teams.
But with the advent of Lee MacPhail and Scott Klentak, the team offers some more hope. The farm system, not even all that good after Howard, Hamels, Utley and Jimmy Rollins emerged, is now rated in the top 10 in all of the majors. MacPhail and Klentak have adopted analytics methods, and majority owner John Middleton is committed to them. Does that mean that the Phillies will play .500 ball this year? No. Does it mean that they could have a chance to do so in a couple of years? Perhaps. Could they contend for a division flag in four? Why not?
The same way the Phillies had to part with Bobby Abreu in 2007 to make room for the next generation of leaders, the Phillies had to make way for their next generation, whoever they might be. The Howards and Utleys were already approaching their late 20's when GM Ed Wade made his changes, so to speak. There aren't many new leaders to be seen or heard right now, but most certainly some will emerge.
There is no compelling reason to be optimistic if you are a Phillies' fan, but at least we're not dealing with the "same old, same old," of the past several years.
And it's Spring Training.
Every one is tied for first.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Cam Newton
ESPN the Magazine wrote a challenging piece several years back lamenting the disconnect between the quarterback's obvious physical gifts and his aloofness on the football team. The latter became so pronounced that other leaders approached Newtown and apparently coaxed/instructed/demanded that the unprecedented QB act more like a leader and take over the leadership of the team.
Newtown has great physical gifts -- he can run better than most quarterbacks and can run over linebackers. He has a great arm, perhaps not yet as accurate as some of the top quarterbacks in the league. He excelled this year despite having a depleted receiving corps. He helped lead his team to a 15-1 record. And it looked like he had fun doing it, even if his critics would say that the celebrations were too frequent and too flamboyant. Most gave him a pass because he is only 26 and still learning about what it is to be in the spotlight as an NFL quarterback.
Fair enough. And most gave him a pass after his troubling press conference after Super Bowl XV, where he resembled more the petulant child whose ice cream fell off his cone at the county fair and did not get replaced than a wealthy, star quarterback with media training who should have been able to absorb with some graciousness the media's questions about the game and what happened. Instead, he pouted, he sulked, he made Bill Belichick and Greg Popovich look garrulous and he almost blamed his teammates for the loss before adding at the end of his longest statement that he made errant throws. It was not Newtown's best moment.
The pundits the following day gave him a pass, or at least most of them did. But there were a few articles about his failure of leadership. Those who gave him a pass offered that he had some things to learn from the experience and that it is difficult to put yourself in his shoes given how hard he plays and how devastating a loss like that is. Fair enough. But then Newtown spoke the next day and exacerbated the situation.
Instead of taking the day to calm down and show up with a more measured approach, the Panther QB commented that he is a sore loser and that if someone showed him a good loser, they still would be showing him a loser. Does that behavior compel another pass, or would someone be fair in calling Newtown out as a poor leader who failed to show grace under ultimate pressure and did not reveal as much character as he could have in the process. Look, it's easy to be gracious in victory -- while you are taking a victory lap. Getting up after a defeat is tougher, and society does measure people by how they deal with disappointment and come back. By many measures, these 36 hours after the game were not among Newton's finest and summon memories of the ESPN the Magazine article about gaps in his leadership.
Newtown would be wise to consult some of the NFL's elders about how to handle situations like these -- such as Tony Dungy and Chris Carter. There are better ways to handle situations like these, and one who adopts those better ways ends up getting more endorsements and cementing his legacy better than someone who does not. Food for thought for the unprecedented QB -- in terms of physical gifts if not gifts in comportment.
One of the adages that emerged after the game was that Newton and the Panthers of course will be back. Yes, they will show up next season, but a lot has to go right to return to the Super Bowl let alone win it. In 2004 the Philadelphia Eagles had a young Donovan McNabb and lost 27-24 to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Many assumed that the team under Andy Reid would be back. They were to never return. Same with the '85 Bears, whose defense transcended imagination. They did not return either.
For the Panthers to return, a lot has to go right. Players have to get healthy and others have to stay healthy. The team needs to draft well, sign the right free agents and retain players who no doubt as free agents are more attractive because they played on a Super Bowl participant. And then they have to work hard and hope that no other team surpasses them.
And, finally, perhaps they need their quarterback to take his leadership to the next level.
It certainly would not hurt.
Newtown has great physical gifts -- he can run better than most quarterbacks and can run over linebackers. He has a great arm, perhaps not yet as accurate as some of the top quarterbacks in the league. He excelled this year despite having a depleted receiving corps. He helped lead his team to a 15-1 record. And it looked like he had fun doing it, even if his critics would say that the celebrations were too frequent and too flamboyant. Most gave him a pass because he is only 26 and still learning about what it is to be in the spotlight as an NFL quarterback.
Fair enough. And most gave him a pass after his troubling press conference after Super Bowl XV, where he resembled more the petulant child whose ice cream fell off his cone at the county fair and did not get replaced than a wealthy, star quarterback with media training who should have been able to absorb with some graciousness the media's questions about the game and what happened. Instead, he pouted, he sulked, he made Bill Belichick and Greg Popovich look garrulous and he almost blamed his teammates for the loss before adding at the end of his longest statement that he made errant throws. It was not Newtown's best moment.
The pundits the following day gave him a pass, or at least most of them did. But there were a few articles about his failure of leadership. Those who gave him a pass offered that he had some things to learn from the experience and that it is difficult to put yourself in his shoes given how hard he plays and how devastating a loss like that is. Fair enough. But then Newtown spoke the next day and exacerbated the situation.
Instead of taking the day to calm down and show up with a more measured approach, the Panther QB commented that he is a sore loser and that if someone showed him a good loser, they still would be showing him a loser. Does that behavior compel another pass, or would someone be fair in calling Newtown out as a poor leader who failed to show grace under ultimate pressure and did not reveal as much character as he could have in the process. Look, it's easy to be gracious in victory -- while you are taking a victory lap. Getting up after a defeat is tougher, and society does measure people by how they deal with disappointment and come back. By many measures, these 36 hours after the game were not among Newton's finest and summon memories of the ESPN the Magazine article about gaps in his leadership.
Newtown would be wise to consult some of the NFL's elders about how to handle situations like these -- such as Tony Dungy and Chris Carter. There are better ways to handle situations like these, and one who adopts those better ways ends up getting more endorsements and cementing his legacy better than someone who does not. Food for thought for the unprecedented QB -- in terms of physical gifts if not gifts in comportment.
One of the adages that emerged after the game was that Newton and the Panthers of course will be back. Yes, they will show up next season, but a lot has to go right to return to the Super Bowl let alone win it. In 2004 the Philadelphia Eagles had a young Donovan McNabb and lost 27-24 to the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Many assumed that the team under Andy Reid would be back. They were to never return. Same with the '85 Bears, whose defense transcended imagination. They did not return either.
For the Panthers to return, a lot has to go right. Players have to get healthy and others have to stay healthy. The team needs to draft well, sign the right free agents and retain players who no doubt as free agents are more attractive because they played on a Super Bowl participant. And then they have to work hard and hope that no other team surpasses them.
And, finally, perhaps they need their quarterback to take his leadership to the next level.
It certainly would not hurt.
The January Transfer Period in International Soccer
is like one big gossip column . . . in middle school. Who is texting who, looking at whom, wants to be looked at, but no one actually comes to the middle of the dance floor. Yes, there were a few transfers, but when you put then as the numerator atop a massive amount of speculation in the denominator, you realize what a waste of energy it is for fans to believe anything they read in the sports columns let alone read them in the first place.
The truth is that it is very hard to pry a star at a reasonable price mid-year. First, if he's that good, his team probably needs him, so unless that team has a very deep roster at its position, it will be hurting itself. An exception, of course, is if the selling team has significant enough money problems that it needs to make the sale to stay afloat or pay other players. Second, if he's that good, the team will probably jack up the price because usually the suitors need "just another piece" either to win their league, qualify for Champions' League or, horrors, avoid relegation. And, if the sellers can get teams to bid on the player, the price really will go up. Third, there is the variable that the player's contract is expiring and that he will not sign a new deal. Then, the sellers might settle for a reasonable price in order to avoid the player's departure without compensation after the season concludes.
There was lots to read, but very little action. Naturally, once the season concludes, the top clubs will be off trying to improve their lots in any way possible. That is, of course, if they can get people's attention given that Euro 2016 will be in force this summer.
The truth is that it is very hard to pry a star at a reasonable price mid-year. First, if he's that good, his team probably needs him, so unless that team has a very deep roster at its position, it will be hurting itself. An exception, of course, is if the selling team has significant enough money problems that it needs to make the sale to stay afloat or pay other players. Second, if he's that good, the team will probably jack up the price because usually the suitors need "just another piece" either to win their league, qualify for Champions' League or, horrors, avoid relegation. And, if the sellers can get teams to bid on the player, the price really will go up. Third, there is the variable that the player's contract is expiring and that he will not sign a new deal. Then, the sellers might settle for a reasonable price in order to avoid the player's departure without compensation after the season concludes.
There was lots to read, but very little action. Naturally, once the season concludes, the top clubs will be off trying to improve their lots in any way possible. That is, of course, if they can get people's attention given that Euro 2016 will be in force this summer.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
Could This be Andy Reid's Year?
Just asking.
Here are a few arguments in his favor:
1. The Broncos offense is iffy.
2. The Patriots faded at the end.
3. The Steelers did not dazzle anyone last night.
4. As for the NFC, the Panthers drew the short end when Minnesota missed a short field goal and couldn't finish off tough guys Seattle at home. Now they have the Seahawks, who seemingly are more dangerous the deeper they go into the playoffs.
5. Neither the Packers nor the Redskins scare a lot of people. The latter won the worst division in the NFL.
6. Then there are the Cardinals, who do scare people and might be the most complete team in the league. But no matter how you analyze it, the Chiefs wouldn't get the Cards until he Super Bowl were they to get there.
7. As parity becomes mediocrity and the teams even out, injuries make things worse and the salary cap suggests that no teams have great veteran leadership, a master game planner like Reid will have better chances (okay, he's no kid, but he still has some tread on the tires). No, he is not the best personnel guy, and no, he is not a good clock manager, but he is a good game planner. He was yards and yards ahead of Bill O'Brien last night Sure, Houston is not New England, but the Chiefs are hot. Give Reid some credit.
8. The hilarious aspect of all of this is that Eagles' owner punted Reid because Reid got stale in his role as Eagles' coach. That might be true, but it's not as though Lurie has his team in good shape right now or as though Lurie picked a better coach when he pursued Chip Kelly. So it would be kind of funny if Reid were to win a Super Bowl before the Eagles do.
Okay, not funny if you are an Eagles' fan. But probably hilarious to the Reid family. Many good coaches -- among them Bud Grant and Marv Levy -- never won a Super Bowl. Reid might not be in their class, but he has had a good run. The next several weeks will tell us a lot.
Here are a few arguments in his favor:
1. The Broncos offense is iffy.
2. The Patriots faded at the end.
3. The Steelers did not dazzle anyone last night.
4. As for the NFC, the Panthers drew the short end when Minnesota missed a short field goal and couldn't finish off tough guys Seattle at home. Now they have the Seahawks, who seemingly are more dangerous the deeper they go into the playoffs.
5. Neither the Packers nor the Redskins scare a lot of people. The latter won the worst division in the NFL.
6. Then there are the Cardinals, who do scare people and might be the most complete team in the league. But no matter how you analyze it, the Chiefs wouldn't get the Cards until he Super Bowl were they to get there.
7. As parity becomes mediocrity and the teams even out, injuries make things worse and the salary cap suggests that no teams have great veteran leadership, a master game planner like Reid will have better chances (okay, he's no kid, but he still has some tread on the tires). No, he is not the best personnel guy, and no, he is not a good clock manager, but he is a good game planner. He was yards and yards ahead of Bill O'Brien last night Sure, Houston is not New England, but the Chiefs are hot. Give Reid some credit.
8. The hilarious aspect of all of this is that Eagles' owner punted Reid because Reid got stale in his role as Eagles' coach. That might be true, but it's not as though Lurie has his team in good shape right now or as though Lurie picked a better coach when he pursued Chip Kelly. So it would be kind of funny if Reid were to win a Super Bowl before the Eagles do.
Okay, not funny if you are an Eagles' fan. But probably hilarious to the Reid family. Many good coaches -- among them Bud Grant and Marv Levy -- never won a Super Bowl. Reid might not be in their class, but he has had a good run. The next several weeks will tell us a lot.
Friday, January 08, 2016
The NFL Head Coaching Sweepstakes
Many jobs are open.
Many names are mentioned.
Best thing to be is a coordinator on a hot team.
Worst thing to be is a college football coach wanting to be an NFL head coach. Chip Kelly's failure in Philadelphia owed to a dictatorial, control-freak style where it seemed that the players were not treated as men and where it seemed that if it was not done Kelly's way, you were gone. Kelly was a very good college coach and has a bright football mind. As smart as he is, he failed to adapt to the type of coaching required to succeed in the NFL. If he learns from his tenure in Philadelphia, he might have a chance to succeed in his next NFL gig. But he also should learn how to deal better with the media. He talked to the media (and correspondingly the fans) as though the City of Brotherly Love was a royal pain for him.
Second worst thing to be statistically at least is an available coach who has won a Super Bowl. Sorry, but even if Jon Gruden or Tom Coughlin were interested in your job, the odds suggest that they will not win a Super Bowl for you. Why? Because no NFL coach has won a Super Bowl with more than one team. Dick Vermeil lost with Philadelphia and won in St. Louis, and then Bill Parcells won in New York but lost in New England. So, it seems difficult for the ultimately successful coach to have an ultimately successful second act.
As for choices, well, I don't think that either Mike Tomlin or Andy Reid were coordinators when the Steelers and Eagles hired them respectively. And former coordinators for good teams aren't always successful. Josh McDaniels failed in Denver and Eric Mangini failed with the Jets and the Browns. And they coached for Bill Belichick, perhaps the best of them all.
Don't know if the analytics gurus have stats that point to why a Hue Jackson would be more successful than an Adam Gase. Fans in Philadelphia are talking about candidates as though they have deep knowledge, but all they know are won-loss records. While those are important, I would suggest that the skill set to be a head coach differs markedly from the skill set required to be a coordinator. And that's where the interviewing and skills assessments come in.
So, if your team is looking for a head coach, good luck. You probably have no idea as to who would or would not be a good fit for your team, but the speculation and conversations on sports talk radio can be amusing.
Many names are mentioned.
Best thing to be is a coordinator on a hot team.
Worst thing to be is a college football coach wanting to be an NFL head coach. Chip Kelly's failure in Philadelphia owed to a dictatorial, control-freak style where it seemed that the players were not treated as men and where it seemed that if it was not done Kelly's way, you were gone. Kelly was a very good college coach and has a bright football mind. As smart as he is, he failed to adapt to the type of coaching required to succeed in the NFL. If he learns from his tenure in Philadelphia, he might have a chance to succeed in his next NFL gig. But he also should learn how to deal better with the media. He talked to the media (and correspondingly the fans) as though the City of Brotherly Love was a royal pain for him.
Second worst thing to be statistically at least is an available coach who has won a Super Bowl. Sorry, but even if Jon Gruden or Tom Coughlin were interested in your job, the odds suggest that they will not win a Super Bowl for you. Why? Because no NFL coach has won a Super Bowl with more than one team. Dick Vermeil lost with Philadelphia and won in St. Louis, and then Bill Parcells won in New York but lost in New England. So, it seems difficult for the ultimately successful coach to have an ultimately successful second act.
As for choices, well, I don't think that either Mike Tomlin or Andy Reid were coordinators when the Steelers and Eagles hired them respectively. And former coordinators for good teams aren't always successful. Josh McDaniels failed in Denver and Eric Mangini failed with the Jets and the Browns. And they coached for Bill Belichick, perhaps the best of them all.
Don't know if the analytics gurus have stats that point to why a Hue Jackson would be more successful than an Adam Gase. Fans in Philadelphia are talking about candidates as though they have deep knowledge, but all they know are won-loss records. While those are important, I would suggest that the skill set to be a head coach differs markedly from the skill set required to be a coordinator. And that's where the interviewing and skills assessments come in.
So, if your team is looking for a head coach, good luck. You probably have no idea as to who would or would not be a good fit for your team, but the speculation and conversations on sports talk radio can be amusing.
The January Transfer Window
This seems like a great media creation.
There is tons of speculation about who might be going where.
In fact, only small deals seem to take place.
Roster continuity, however, is significantly better than in the National Football League.
Will any big-name players move?
And, if so, will they be over-priced?
There is tons of speculation about who might be going where.
In fact, only small deals seem to take place.
Roster continuity, however, is significantly better than in the National Football League.
Will any big-name players move?
And, if so, will they be over-priced?
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Chelsea, Arsenal, Barcelona and RCD Espanyol -- in 8 Days
We had the soccer trip of a lifetime in the past week. The following is our travelogue:
1. Fly out of the country on Christmas night in time to arrive in London for a Boxing Day match between Chelsea and Watford, kind of a London derby (which the locals pronounce "darby.").
2. 26 December, Chelsea-Watford. We landed at half past seven, made our way to the hotel, showered and changed (a must after an all-night flight), shook off the cobwebs (it is hard to sleep for any length of time sitting up in coach), grabbed some lunch and then took the District/Circle line to Fulham Broadway, about a five-minute walk from Chelsea's famous stadium, Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea has plenty of hospitality folks circling the stadium to direct you to where to go and even to take your photographs in front of murals of players -- former and present or the stadium itself. They also had a bunch of young folks trying to get you to sign a card to petition some body (it was not exactly clear) that you support the expansion of the stadium. They were so nice about it, that I did, and they didn't particularly care that I am not a resident of the United Kingdom.
The weather was in the mid-fifties and grey, slightly windy, and the crowd seemed anxious, as if waiting for the vaunted Blues to awaken after a godawful start that had them much closer to the relegation zone than qualifying for the Champions League. We got there early enough to circle the stadium and visit the Chelsea store, which ultimately would rank as #3 in stadium stores on our trip. It's a nice store, a bit small, and doesn't offer the variety that either Arsenal's or Barcelona's do. Admittedly, Stamford Bridge is about two-thirds the size of Emirates Stadium and less than half the size of Camp Nou, Barcelona's famed home pitch.
What struck us about Stamford Bridge were a few things. Like Emirates Stadium, it pretty much rests in a residential neighborhood, with some apartments pretty close to the stadium. There are two seemingly luxury hotels close by -- one attached to the stadium and the other about a fifty yards' walk. The stadium is old. The concrete stairwells are narrow and harken back to what they must of looked like at Knights Field in "The Natural." They were steep, too, as after a sleeplessness night we had to climb to the top of the first level of the stadium, a long walk indeed. And the sections are separated, so that you cannot walk on your level to another section on the same level. Chelsea's men's rooms offer a more modern trough urinal, somewhat reminiscent of what existed at, among other places, Princeton's ancient Palmer Stadium back in the day. And the concessions are bare bones, ranking #2 on the trip (The English don't offer American variety or depth, but they do a better job than their counterparts in Spain.)
As for the fans, they were a bit pensive, waiting for the Blues to flip the switch and make a run toward the top four in the Premiership and an automatic berth in the Champions League. The visiting section was leather-lunged, singing and chanting all through the game. (Watford is in Northwest London). Going into the match, Watford was in seventh place, Chelsea in sixteenth. My son and I predicted a Watford victory.
For a while it looked that way. Chelsea did strike first on a great follow by striker Diego Costa on a corner kick, but Watford captain Troy Deeney scored on a penalty after a late challenge by a Chelsea defender. At the half, it was 1-1. At the fifty-six minute mark, hot striker Odion Ighalo showed some nice moves to make it 2-1 Watford, and then Chelsea battled back. Costa scored at the 65th minute and then with about ten minutes to go Watford's fate looked sealed; Chelsea had a penalty kick. But midfielder Oscar slipped on his approach and air-mailed the shot at least five if not more feet over the goal, and the match ended in a 2-2 tie. The Watford fans seemed pleased, ending their long day of changing with a "We are Watford FC" to punctuate the match; the Chelsea fans seemed like they were suffering the virus that they just couldn't shake. The Blues need three points each time out to make up ground on Arsenal and Man City, but Watford were just too good. As for Chelsea, Costa when hot is sterling, their midfielders are out of sync (Cesc Fabregas was benched at halftime and Eden Hazard was all but invisible) and their back line looks out of date.
We then made our way out of the stadium and back to the Fulham Broadway tube stop, amazed at how the local authorities got all of the people out of the stadium and onto trains promptly. We were glad to have made the trip to Stamford Bridge, happy for a good game, happier (as Arsenal fans) for a tie, and looking forward to a quick dinner at a pub near our hotel and then a good sleep after our travels.
3. 28 December, Arsenal-Bournemouth. The awful news on Boxing Day was that our beloved Gunners had traveled to Southampton and were thrashed 4-0, despite Arsene Wenger's contention that their hosts' last three goals came on what should have been obvious off-side calls. Arsenal's bench is thin; more than half their midfielders are on the injured list, and two under-21s are among their list of eligible subs. We didn't know what to expect in traveling to Emirates Stadium -- whether Arsenal were starting to fall off the table (American idiom) or down the table (literally), or whether they would rebound and find form against a team that they had never played against in the Premiership because this was Bournemouth's first year up.
We took the tube to the Arsenal stop, surrounded by fans wearing all sorts of Arsenal gear, and then did a lap around the stadium to get to Arsenal's fan store, something the size of a large supermarket or four Rite-Aide, CVS, Duane Read, Walgreen or name your chain drugstores. Want an Arsenal jersey with your favorite player's name and numbers pressed on it? Done. Want a version of the famous puffy coat that Wenger wears on the sidelines? You can get one in blue (current year's color) or black (the one that they sold last year)? Commemorative socks with the names of the greats on them? Yes. Very small figurines of certain players? Perhaps, especially if you want Jack Wilshere. Hats? Scarves? Balls? Boots? All there. In many varieties and colors. To be blunt, the only American stores I find as consistently packed during non-holiday times as Arsenal's store are Apple stores and Wegman's supermarkets. These lads have a license to print pounds sterling.
Of course, we had to make our purchases, and if it were ten degrees cooler I would have opted for a puffy coat and did my best Wenger imitation (particularly the double fist pump after a goal). Among our purchases were a vintage jersey, a scarf, a t-shirt, a hat and a Santi Cazorla figurine. Ninety pounds later, and we were off to the stands.
The place was packed, 67,000 or so strong, in a residential neighborhood in North London to which no one drives. It's all public transportation, and I do have some pity for the locals who try to drive in their neighborhood on match day. Arsenal dominated, as the Cherries have difficulty scoring and have a bunch of offensive-minded players hurt, including striker Callum Wilson and midfielder Max Gradel. For this match we sat in about the 20th row closer to one goal than the other, and about one-third of the way through we witnessed Ozil curl a corner into the goal box, over the head of a running Olivier Giroud and right onto the head of defender Gabriel, who ran in behind Giroud unmarked and put the ball into the upper right hand corner of the goal. Cherries' keeper Artur Boruc did not have a chance. One-nil, Gunners.
It stayed that way for a while into the second half. While it didn't seem that Bournemouth could mount a serious threat, despite the great hustle of midfielder Harry Arter and the good tries by out-of-position striker Josh King, Arsenal kept threatening. Ultimately, on a counterattack, Ozil took the ball downfield, fed Giroud near the box, Giroud made a nice backheel back to Ozil who slid the ball past Boruc. 2-0, the Gunners, and the game was just about over. Arsenal prevailed, ascended to the top of the table, and all was well in that part of North London.
It was fun to see our favorite team at home, playing well, and revealing character by recovering from a disaster to regain form. They are relying on a small core of players with some due to return. Also, the January transfer window beckoned, and there was hope that a few players might be on the way to bolster the roster. Among the particular need, a holding midfielder to replace Francis Coquelin, who is out for a while. On this particular night defender Callum Chambers was placed in that role and acquitted himself nicely, but he is not a long-term solution. Aaron Ramsey also impressed with his hustle all over the field, but the Man of the Match, as he has been on many occasions, was the elite Mesut Ozil.
30 December, Barcelona-Real Betis. It was about a 15-minute underground ride to Chelsea from Central London and longer to Arsenal. We got to Barcelona on December 29 and figured out that it is about a 30-minute Metro ride to the station nearest Camp Nou, one of the largest football venues in the world, seating about 99,000 people. On this night Barca would be hosting the "other" team from Seville, Real Betis, whose only household name is the midfielder Dani Ceballos.
After the ride we had about a ten-minute walk down hill into the stadium and then made our way to the three-story Barca store, which is right across from the venue in which FC Barcelona play both basketball and team handball. This store is larger than Chelsea's but smaller than Arsenal's, although my son disputed my recollection. We already had a scarf, courtesy of a friend, so we picked up some hats, a refrigerator magnet, and a sweater for my son with the Barca logo and in Barca colors. After that, we made our way into Camp Nou, which is perhaps larger than the stadium in which Ireland and Bulgaria met for the Quidditch World Cup. Seriously, there are layers upon layers, and we sat below ground in about the 25th row. While Arsenal's concession stands mostly resembled those found in the United States, the ones at Camp Nou reminded me of a lower quality than I recall finding as a kid in Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia in the 1960's. You could get a hot dog, you could get popcorn, a beer, a soda and water, but that's about it. Want a burger? No. Ice cream? Not a chance. Lots of concrete, big, added onto, and a huge place. It wasn't sold out, but 83,000 people did attend to watch the Greatest Show on (Soccer) Turf.
It's hard to put into words what it is like to watch Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar work together as attackers. They swirl, they weave, they can handle the ball as if it were attached to their feet. If you guard one too closely then another will get open. Messi is the strategic and tactical genius, Suarez the threat to pound the ball into the back of the net when up close, and Neymar the equivalent of a dribbling wizard in the NBA. By the end of the night it was 4-0 Barca, but with all of the misses and near-misses, it could well have been 10-0. Betis looked a few steps slow and uncoordinated; Barca welcomed Messi back and both he and Suarez scored (Suarez twice). Suarez is a royal pain and you'd hate him if he were not on your team, but when he's on yours he never stops battling and trying to gain an advantage. Messi gets mugged a bit too much, but he also dives on occasion, perhaps because he can or perhaps because he's compensating for the times he gets pushed, tripped or bumped and there is no call. It was fun to watch this trio in action and to see the likes of Sergio Roberto, Sergio Busquets and Dani Alves. We did wonder what it must be like to be Barca keeper Claudio Bravo -- he was a bit lonely on this night.
Another interesting fact was that at 17:14 into each half the Barca fans chant "Inde-pencia," as there is a secession movement afoot and 1714 marked that last time that this very nice city was independent.
The fun thing was that we had seen three of the world's most significant teams in their home venues within five days, that we got to the famous Camp Nou, that we saw the great players and the great players played great. We could have stopped there and it would have been a wonderful trip. But there was just one more stop.
2 January -- RCD Espanyol-Barcelona. Just as Real Betis is the other team in Seville, Espanyol is the other team in Barcelona, about 7 miles from the city center and a long commute. We changed Metro stops once and made our way on the L5 line to Cornella Center, about a half-hour ride. The web told us that we would have a 15-minute walk to Power8 Stadium. My son and I figured that this would be easy, that is, until we exited the Metro. We got there about an hour and fifteen minutes or so before match time, and very few people were at this Metro. There were no street signs, and no signs pointing the way to the stadium. And we don't speak Catalan. And the GPS told me that the stadium was a two-hour walk from where we were. I didn't know how this could be and spotted a teenager working his GPS, with two teenaged sisters and a dad who looked remarkably like Food Network host Geoffrey Zakarian. We approached them, and in broken Spanish I asked if they were going to the match, they said yes, and we followed them for about 15 minutes until we got to the venue. This is about a 5-10 year-old 40,000-seat stadium, concrete, and resembles many US stadiums.
We noticed a heavy police presence (they were at all matches, but very prominent outside the stadium here, not looking for terrorists but perhaps visiting fans). We made our way to the store, which was about the size of a 7-11, at least the type that's embedded in a mid-city apartment building. Here our mission was for a scarf to add to our collection, a hat and a refrigerator magnet. Like at Barca, they don't sell programs. We made our purchases and made our way into the stadium.
We appreciated the newness. The concessions were event more paltry than at Camp Nou; picture a vendor on the beach with a small refrigerated cart from which he pulls cold beverages and perhaps a hot dog cooker and that's what you get. But it really didn't matter, as this wasn't a stadium food tour. We made our way to the seats -- and your Euros buy you a lot more when you go to a regional team that doesn't sell out, even for a derby match against the cross-town rivals -- and sit a few yards from mid-field in the eighth row. So close that we could even get a good picture of Messi from our I-Phones.
The passion was great, as the Catalan fans are louder and more passionate than those in England, as visiting fans in the UK tend to be more vocal and persistent than home fans on many occasions. The Espanyol fans were proud, loud and profane. They waved their scarves, they had a section led by three men standing on a scaffold that sang, chanted and waved flags the entire match. They (aargh) smoke in the stands.
Sitting in front of us were a father and son in Espanyol scarves; the other son sat next to me without one. I asked the father why the other son didn't have an Espanyol scarf -- he smiled and said that he and the son next to him were fans of the home team, but that the other son rooted for Barca and was, as a result, a *@#$%. I promised my son that I would not refer to him that way, even in jest.
The game was played hard. Barca threatened. Messi hit the bar with a free from beyond the box and Suarez did the same in close, but at the end the home eleven held Barca scoreless for the first time in a while and Barca failed to pull away from Athetico Madrid and Real Madrid in the La Liga standings (they would thrash Espanyol at Camp Nou about a week later in the Copa de Espana 4-1 in a match that saw their rivals draw 8 yellow cards and two ejections). The way to defeat Barcelona is to pull back your defense, clog the lower third of your field near the goal, hope to counterattack but essentially to bottle them up. If you get into a running match with Barcelona, you will lose, and probably big.
After the match we made our way back to the Metro and back to our hotel, marveling that thanks to some reliable on-line services, we made our way to four international matches in eight days and saw the famous Barcelona team twice within four days.
Great fans, great passion, great energy, great athletes.
A very fun trip.
1. Fly out of the country on Christmas night in time to arrive in London for a Boxing Day match between Chelsea and Watford, kind of a London derby (which the locals pronounce "darby.").
2. 26 December, Chelsea-Watford. We landed at half past seven, made our way to the hotel, showered and changed (a must after an all-night flight), shook off the cobwebs (it is hard to sleep for any length of time sitting up in coach), grabbed some lunch and then took the District/Circle line to Fulham Broadway, about a five-minute walk from Chelsea's famous stadium, Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea has plenty of hospitality folks circling the stadium to direct you to where to go and even to take your photographs in front of murals of players -- former and present or the stadium itself. They also had a bunch of young folks trying to get you to sign a card to petition some body (it was not exactly clear) that you support the expansion of the stadium. They were so nice about it, that I did, and they didn't particularly care that I am not a resident of the United Kingdom.
The weather was in the mid-fifties and grey, slightly windy, and the crowd seemed anxious, as if waiting for the vaunted Blues to awaken after a godawful start that had them much closer to the relegation zone than qualifying for the Champions League. We got there early enough to circle the stadium and visit the Chelsea store, which ultimately would rank as #3 in stadium stores on our trip. It's a nice store, a bit small, and doesn't offer the variety that either Arsenal's or Barcelona's do. Admittedly, Stamford Bridge is about two-thirds the size of Emirates Stadium and less than half the size of Camp Nou, Barcelona's famed home pitch.
What struck us about Stamford Bridge were a few things. Like Emirates Stadium, it pretty much rests in a residential neighborhood, with some apartments pretty close to the stadium. There are two seemingly luxury hotels close by -- one attached to the stadium and the other about a fifty yards' walk. The stadium is old. The concrete stairwells are narrow and harken back to what they must of looked like at Knights Field in "The Natural." They were steep, too, as after a sleeplessness night we had to climb to the top of the first level of the stadium, a long walk indeed. And the sections are separated, so that you cannot walk on your level to another section on the same level. Chelsea's men's rooms offer a more modern trough urinal, somewhat reminiscent of what existed at, among other places, Princeton's ancient Palmer Stadium back in the day. And the concessions are bare bones, ranking #2 on the trip (The English don't offer American variety or depth, but they do a better job than their counterparts in Spain.)
As for the fans, they were a bit pensive, waiting for the Blues to flip the switch and make a run toward the top four in the Premiership and an automatic berth in the Champions League. The visiting section was leather-lunged, singing and chanting all through the game. (Watford is in Northwest London). Going into the match, Watford was in seventh place, Chelsea in sixteenth. My son and I predicted a Watford victory.
For a while it looked that way. Chelsea did strike first on a great follow by striker Diego Costa on a corner kick, but Watford captain Troy Deeney scored on a penalty after a late challenge by a Chelsea defender. At the half, it was 1-1. At the fifty-six minute mark, hot striker Odion Ighalo showed some nice moves to make it 2-1 Watford, and then Chelsea battled back. Costa scored at the 65th minute and then with about ten minutes to go Watford's fate looked sealed; Chelsea had a penalty kick. But midfielder Oscar slipped on his approach and air-mailed the shot at least five if not more feet over the goal, and the match ended in a 2-2 tie. The Watford fans seemed pleased, ending their long day of changing with a "We are Watford FC" to punctuate the match; the Chelsea fans seemed like they were suffering the virus that they just couldn't shake. The Blues need three points each time out to make up ground on Arsenal and Man City, but Watford were just too good. As for Chelsea, Costa when hot is sterling, their midfielders are out of sync (Cesc Fabregas was benched at halftime and Eden Hazard was all but invisible) and their back line looks out of date.
We then made our way out of the stadium and back to the Fulham Broadway tube stop, amazed at how the local authorities got all of the people out of the stadium and onto trains promptly. We were glad to have made the trip to Stamford Bridge, happy for a good game, happier (as Arsenal fans) for a tie, and looking forward to a quick dinner at a pub near our hotel and then a good sleep after our travels.
3. 28 December, Arsenal-Bournemouth. The awful news on Boxing Day was that our beloved Gunners had traveled to Southampton and were thrashed 4-0, despite Arsene Wenger's contention that their hosts' last three goals came on what should have been obvious off-side calls. Arsenal's bench is thin; more than half their midfielders are on the injured list, and two under-21s are among their list of eligible subs. We didn't know what to expect in traveling to Emirates Stadium -- whether Arsenal were starting to fall off the table (American idiom) or down the table (literally), or whether they would rebound and find form against a team that they had never played against in the Premiership because this was Bournemouth's first year up.
We took the tube to the Arsenal stop, surrounded by fans wearing all sorts of Arsenal gear, and then did a lap around the stadium to get to Arsenal's fan store, something the size of a large supermarket or four Rite-Aide, CVS, Duane Read, Walgreen or name your chain drugstores. Want an Arsenal jersey with your favorite player's name and numbers pressed on it? Done. Want a version of the famous puffy coat that Wenger wears on the sidelines? You can get one in blue (current year's color) or black (the one that they sold last year)? Commemorative socks with the names of the greats on them? Yes. Very small figurines of certain players? Perhaps, especially if you want Jack Wilshere. Hats? Scarves? Balls? Boots? All there. In many varieties and colors. To be blunt, the only American stores I find as consistently packed during non-holiday times as Arsenal's store are Apple stores and Wegman's supermarkets. These lads have a license to print pounds sterling.
Of course, we had to make our purchases, and if it were ten degrees cooler I would have opted for a puffy coat and did my best Wenger imitation (particularly the double fist pump after a goal). Among our purchases were a vintage jersey, a scarf, a t-shirt, a hat and a Santi Cazorla figurine. Ninety pounds later, and we were off to the stands.
The place was packed, 67,000 or so strong, in a residential neighborhood in North London to which no one drives. It's all public transportation, and I do have some pity for the locals who try to drive in their neighborhood on match day. Arsenal dominated, as the Cherries have difficulty scoring and have a bunch of offensive-minded players hurt, including striker Callum Wilson and midfielder Max Gradel. For this match we sat in about the 20th row closer to one goal than the other, and about one-third of the way through we witnessed Ozil curl a corner into the goal box, over the head of a running Olivier Giroud and right onto the head of defender Gabriel, who ran in behind Giroud unmarked and put the ball into the upper right hand corner of the goal. Cherries' keeper Artur Boruc did not have a chance. One-nil, Gunners.
It stayed that way for a while into the second half. While it didn't seem that Bournemouth could mount a serious threat, despite the great hustle of midfielder Harry Arter and the good tries by out-of-position striker Josh King, Arsenal kept threatening. Ultimately, on a counterattack, Ozil took the ball downfield, fed Giroud near the box, Giroud made a nice backheel back to Ozil who slid the ball past Boruc. 2-0, the Gunners, and the game was just about over. Arsenal prevailed, ascended to the top of the table, and all was well in that part of North London.
It was fun to see our favorite team at home, playing well, and revealing character by recovering from a disaster to regain form. They are relying on a small core of players with some due to return. Also, the January transfer window beckoned, and there was hope that a few players might be on the way to bolster the roster. Among the particular need, a holding midfielder to replace Francis Coquelin, who is out for a while. On this particular night defender Callum Chambers was placed in that role and acquitted himself nicely, but he is not a long-term solution. Aaron Ramsey also impressed with his hustle all over the field, but the Man of the Match, as he has been on many occasions, was the elite Mesut Ozil.
30 December, Barcelona-Real Betis. It was about a 15-minute underground ride to Chelsea from Central London and longer to Arsenal. We got to Barcelona on December 29 and figured out that it is about a 30-minute Metro ride to the station nearest Camp Nou, one of the largest football venues in the world, seating about 99,000 people. On this night Barca would be hosting the "other" team from Seville, Real Betis, whose only household name is the midfielder Dani Ceballos.
After the ride we had about a ten-minute walk down hill into the stadium and then made our way to the three-story Barca store, which is right across from the venue in which FC Barcelona play both basketball and team handball. This store is larger than Chelsea's but smaller than Arsenal's, although my son disputed my recollection. We already had a scarf, courtesy of a friend, so we picked up some hats, a refrigerator magnet, and a sweater for my son with the Barca logo and in Barca colors. After that, we made our way into Camp Nou, which is perhaps larger than the stadium in which Ireland and Bulgaria met for the Quidditch World Cup. Seriously, there are layers upon layers, and we sat below ground in about the 25th row. While Arsenal's concession stands mostly resembled those found in the United States, the ones at Camp Nou reminded me of a lower quality than I recall finding as a kid in Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia in the 1960's. You could get a hot dog, you could get popcorn, a beer, a soda and water, but that's about it. Want a burger? No. Ice cream? Not a chance. Lots of concrete, big, added onto, and a huge place. It wasn't sold out, but 83,000 people did attend to watch the Greatest Show on (Soccer) Turf.
It's hard to put into words what it is like to watch Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Neymar work together as attackers. They swirl, they weave, they can handle the ball as if it were attached to their feet. If you guard one too closely then another will get open. Messi is the strategic and tactical genius, Suarez the threat to pound the ball into the back of the net when up close, and Neymar the equivalent of a dribbling wizard in the NBA. By the end of the night it was 4-0 Barca, but with all of the misses and near-misses, it could well have been 10-0. Betis looked a few steps slow and uncoordinated; Barca welcomed Messi back and both he and Suarez scored (Suarez twice). Suarez is a royal pain and you'd hate him if he were not on your team, but when he's on yours he never stops battling and trying to gain an advantage. Messi gets mugged a bit too much, but he also dives on occasion, perhaps because he can or perhaps because he's compensating for the times he gets pushed, tripped or bumped and there is no call. It was fun to watch this trio in action and to see the likes of Sergio Roberto, Sergio Busquets and Dani Alves. We did wonder what it must be like to be Barca keeper Claudio Bravo -- he was a bit lonely on this night.
Another interesting fact was that at 17:14 into each half the Barca fans chant "Inde-pencia," as there is a secession movement afoot and 1714 marked that last time that this very nice city was independent.
The fun thing was that we had seen three of the world's most significant teams in their home venues within five days, that we got to the famous Camp Nou, that we saw the great players and the great players played great. We could have stopped there and it would have been a wonderful trip. But there was just one more stop.
2 January -- RCD Espanyol-Barcelona. Just as Real Betis is the other team in Seville, Espanyol is the other team in Barcelona, about 7 miles from the city center and a long commute. We changed Metro stops once and made our way on the L5 line to Cornella Center, about a half-hour ride. The web told us that we would have a 15-minute walk to Power8 Stadium. My son and I figured that this would be easy, that is, until we exited the Metro. We got there about an hour and fifteen minutes or so before match time, and very few people were at this Metro. There were no street signs, and no signs pointing the way to the stadium. And we don't speak Catalan. And the GPS told me that the stadium was a two-hour walk from where we were. I didn't know how this could be and spotted a teenager working his GPS, with two teenaged sisters and a dad who looked remarkably like Food Network host Geoffrey Zakarian. We approached them, and in broken Spanish I asked if they were going to the match, they said yes, and we followed them for about 15 minutes until we got to the venue. This is about a 5-10 year-old 40,000-seat stadium, concrete, and resembles many US stadiums.
We noticed a heavy police presence (they were at all matches, but very prominent outside the stadium here, not looking for terrorists but perhaps visiting fans). We made our way to the store, which was about the size of a 7-11, at least the type that's embedded in a mid-city apartment building. Here our mission was for a scarf to add to our collection, a hat and a refrigerator magnet. Like at Barca, they don't sell programs. We made our purchases and made our way into the stadium.
We appreciated the newness. The concessions were event more paltry than at Camp Nou; picture a vendor on the beach with a small refrigerated cart from which he pulls cold beverages and perhaps a hot dog cooker and that's what you get. But it really didn't matter, as this wasn't a stadium food tour. We made our way to the seats -- and your Euros buy you a lot more when you go to a regional team that doesn't sell out, even for a derby match against the cross-town rivals -- and sit a few yards from mid-field in the eighth row. So close that we could even get a good picture of Messi from our I-Phones.
The passion was great, as the Catalan fans are louder and more passionate than those in England, as visiting fans in the UK tend to be more vocal and persistent than home fans on many occasions. The Espanyol fans were proud, loud and profane. They waved their scarves, they had a section led by three men standing on a scaffold that sang, chanted and waved flags the entire match. They (aargh) smoke in the stands.
Sitting in front of us were a father and son in Espanyol scarves; the other son sat next to me without one. I asked the father why the other son didn't have an Espanyol scarf -- he smiled and said that he and the son next to him were fans of the home team, but that the other son rooted for Barca and was, as a result, a *@#$%. I promised my son that I would not refer to him that way, even in jest.
The game was played hard. Barca threatened. Messi hit the bar with a free from beyond the box and Suarez did the same in close, but at the end the home eleven held Barca scoreless for the first time in a while and Barca failed to pull away from Athetico Madrid and Real Madrid in the La Liga standings (they would thrash Espanyol at Camp Nou about a week later in the Copa de Espana 4-1 in a match that saw their rivals draw 8 yellow cards and two ejections). The way to defeat Barcelona is to pull back your defense, clog the lower third of your field near the goal, hope to counterattack but essentially to bottle them up. If you get into a running match with Barcelona, you will lose, and probably big.
After the match we made our way back to the Metro and back to our hotel, marveling that thanks to some reliable on-line services, we made our way to four international matches in eight days and saw the famous Barcelona team twice within four days.
Great fans, great passion, great energy, great athletes.
A very fun trip.
Monday, January 04, 2016
Good Piece by John Fry of Drexel in Today's Wall Street Journal
He is the President of Drexel and known to be an educational innovator.
He explains why Drexel has no plans to fund a football team. Drexel last fielded a team in 1973.
Fry's thesis statement is the following -- most college football programs lose money and sometimes a lot of it, and many colleges do not have the courage to stand up and provide a high-quality education for all students as opposed to funding football programs that seemingly have little tangible benefit to the university at large.
In essence, he's challenging an age-old maxim that football can do wonders for a university. Let's face it -- the concussion issue aside -- it does not. Sorry, SEC fans, where football is even more disproportional than say in the northeast, but sometimes it's good to challenge age-old maxims and long-held truths and see what you come up with. And if you dig deeply enough, you'll find that maybe Fry is right and maybe there is some other alternative to creating pride in an alumni group or state than fielding a (grossly overfunded) football team.
Something to chew on.
He explains why Drexel has no plans to fund a football team. Drexel last fielded a team in 1973.
Fry's thesis statement is the following -- most college football programs lose money and sometimes a lot of it, and many colleges do not have the courage to stand up and provide a high-quality education for all students as opposed to funding football programs that seemingly have little tangible benefit to the university at large.
In essence, he's challenging an age-old maxim that football can do wonders for a university. Let's face it -- the concussion issue aside -- it does not. Sorry, SEC fans, where football is even more disproportional than say in the northeast, but sometimes it's good to challenge age-old maxims and long-held truths and see what you come up with. And if you dig deeply enough, you'll find that maybe Fry is right and maybe there is some other alternative to creating pride in an alumni group or state than fielding a (grossly overfunded) football team.
Something to chew on.
Saturday, December 05, 2015
College Football Playoffs
Today will tell us everything about who major college football's Final Four will be. No doubt, there will be one or two schools, just like last year, who will have a legitimate beef. There is talk that the Final Four should be an Elite Eight. It stands to reason that such a format would ensure that at least the best six teams in the country will have a chance to contend for the national championship. Among the ideas thrown about would be to take the champions of the five major conferences and then three at-large teams. That would seem to honor the regular seasons of the major conferences and give strong second-place finishers, strong teams from another conference and Notre Dame in a great year the chance to participate.
This seems to be a high-class problem, and one that the powers that be, along with the advertisers and networks, can address to their satisfaction.
Today, we will find out whether Alabama will go through (they should beat Florida), whether Clemson can keep its hold on being Number 1 (they could lose to Alabama) and whether Stanford can keep its dreams alive (they should beat USC, but the Trojans have been a team on a mission since the firing of Steve Sarkisian). And, of course, the winner of the Big 10 Championship Game should go through, too.
All of this begs a few questions that continue to trouble me. First, the issue of concussions and their long-term effect on players. Second, the issue of measuring academic progress and ensuring that the players, who make significant efforts, get fair value for their contributions. That means either that they are true student-athletes who make meaningful progress toward degrees, get the ability to finish should they exhaust their eligibility and get post-college medical care should they need it.
The first issue is very troublesome. That data is bad at best and challenging at worst. I predict that the game will change dramatically over the next twenty years or become extinct. Either teams get larger and players' number of plays in a game gets limited or the rules get significantly changed about hitting both in practice and in games. Or a combination of both. The risks to one's health are so great that something must change, given the data that is out there about life well after football. It just isn't natural for overweight men (and, yes, almost all football players are overweight when you compare their weights to what the Federal government's suggestion for weight is) are banging into each other for so much of the year.
The second issue is bothersome. The purists and traditionalists argue that there isn't much to be done in this area because every scholarship player is getting a free education and that this is a very significant payment for their playing football for the college. What that suggests, though, is a view that football is an extracurricular like any other, and that it doesn't require either a substantial commitment during the season or year-round. But it does. And what happens is that coaches want players to take courses that end at a certain time of the day and that, well, are easy enough not to distract them from helping win football games. Now, this doesn't happen at all institutions, but at many coaches are more interested in keeping their jobs and winning than they are about educating their players, regardless of what they say publicly or what they say in a recruit's home. The data bear it out. And because of that, it is hard to argue that we as a society are not condoning herding kids into this system and chewing them up for our own entertainment -- and that it is up to them to argue and negotiate for an educational pathway that leads to a meaningful career after college. It just is not always that simple. And let's not forget that a bunch of these kids gain admission not because they are ready for college but because they have the potential to do spectacular things on a college football field.
So, as we go into the playoff season, bowl season and the holiday season, college football gives us a lot to think about. And even if it gives us things to pull for and cheer about, we also must ask ourselves the question -- "at what cost?" And if we wince or want to shake it off or want to ignore it, then that means we are acknowledging that all is not right and that we should do something about it.
This seems to be a high-class problem, and one that the powers that be, along with the advertisers and networks, can address to their satisfaction.
Today, we will find out whether Alabama will go through (they should beat Florida), whether Clemson can keep its hold on being Number 1 (they could lose to Alabama) and whether Stanford can keep its dreams alive (they should beat USC, but the Trojans have been a team on a mission since the firing of Steve Sarkisian). And, of course, the winner of the Big 10 Championship Game should go through, too.
All of this begs a few questions that continue to trouble me. First, the issue of concussions and their long-term effect on players. Second, the issue of measuring academic progress and ensuring that the players, who make significant efforts, get fair value for their contributions. That means either that they are true student-athletes who make meaningful progress toward degrees, get the ability to finish should they exhaust their eligibility and get post-college medical care should they need it.
The first issue is very troublesome. That data is bad at best and challenging at worst. I predict that the game will change dramatically over the next twenty years or become extinct. Either teams get larger and players' number of plays in a game gets limited or the rules get significantly changed about hitting both in practice and in games. Or a combination of both. The risks to one's health are so great that something must change, given the data that is out there about life well after football. It just isn't natural for overweight men (and, yes, almost all football players are overweight when you compare their weights to what the Federal government's suggestion for weight is) are banging into each other for so much of the year.
The second issue is bothersome. The purists and traditionalists argue that there isn't much to be done in this area because every scholarship player is getting a free education and that this is a very significant payment for their playing football for the college. What that suggests, though, is a view that football is an extracurricular like any other, and that it doesn't require either a substantial commitment during the season or year-round. But it does. And what happens is that coaches want players to take courses that end at a certain time of the day and that, well, are easy enough not to distract them from helping win football games. Now, this doesn't happen at all institutions, but at many coaches are more interested in keeping their jobs and winning than they are about educating their players, regardless of what they say publicly or what they say in a recruit's home. The data bear it out. And because of that, it is hard to argue that we as a society are not condoning herding kids into this system and chewing them up for our own entertainment -- and that it is up to them to argue and negotiate for an educational pathway that leads to a meaningful career after college. It just is not always that simple. And let's not forget that a bunch of these kids gain admission not because they are ready for college but because they have the potential to do spectacular things on a college football field.
So, as we go into the playoff season, bowl season and the holiday season, college football gives us a lot to think about. And even if it gives us things to pull for and cheer about, we also must ask ourselves the question -- "at what cost?" And if we wince or want to shake it off or want to ignore it, then that means we are acknowledging that all is not right and that we should do something about it.
Friday, November 27, 2015
Princeton versus Lafayette in Men's Basketball -- Night Before Thanksgiving
Okay, so it wasn't Monmouth upsetting both UCLA and Notre Dame, but it was something of a spectacle at Jadwin Gym the other night. Princeton was playing its home opener, and without senior center Hans Brase, who is out for the year with a torn ACL. On a night when Yale was giving Duke a battle at Cameron Indoor Stadium and Lehigh tangled with UVA in Charlottesville for about 15 minutes, most observers would have thought this game to be a "ho-hum" affair. An Ivy League team hosting a Patriot League team, blah.
You couldn't tell that the Tigers had lost their leader. They were athletic, explosive, moved the ball around well, shot the three, hit the gaps in the Lafayette defense for a few dunks and won the game by fifty, scoring over 100 points for the first time since probably the Gerald Ford administration. A mixture of upperclassmen and underclassmen led the way, and Coach Mitch Henderson probably could have seen little in the way of flaws from this Tiger team. The bigs could shoot; the guards hit the glass. The bigs passed the ball to open men, everyone tried to block shots and the help defense was there. If there were any flaws, perhaps one could argue if he is trying hard that the interior help defense was a bit slow to develop, but it is early in the season. Still, as early-season games go, the Tigers looked very crisp. The Tigers hit 17 3's and by my count about four dunks.
Henderson was able to play everyone in his lineup, many scored in double figures and there were two double doubles -- by starters who played so little in the second half that it was hard to remember that they had such good games. Now, it is a long season, and Harvard has its recent history, Yale is the favorite, and Penn is always a formidable opponent, but. . . the Tigers did look very crisp.
For what it was worth, a few of us speculated whether the scoreboard at Princeton actually could hit triple digits, given the stinginess Pete Carril's teams were known for on defense and patience on offense. But the scoreboard does go to three digits -- we confirmed it -- and that compelled a few of us to chide former Athletic Director Gary Walters why the athletic administration hadn't cut a deal with a local fast food joint for a free burger if the Tigers were to score 100 points. Walters was on a team that scored 118 points when he played for the Tigers in the mid-1960's -- and that was without a shot clock and the three-point goal.
Fun times at Jadwin Gym to start a holiday weekend.
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Ronda Rousey and Holly Holm
I think it was in 1905 that a horse came from out of nowhere -- literally and figuratively, to upset the favorite for the Kentucky Derby. The horse's name was Upset, and that's how, I recall, that verb (which had meant to turn over, as in to upset a table) became associate with the sports and political worlds.
Well, in the wee hours in Australia, for something called the UFC Women's Bantamweight title, a fighter named Holly Holm stunned the very much touted and acclaimed Ronda Rousey, perhaps the Babe Ruth of women's UFC or the Michael Jordan of it, or simply the Ronda Rousey of it, with a kick to the head in the second round that knocked Rousey out. That Holm got out of the first half a minute let alone the first round probably gave her some Rocky-like satisfaction, and I wonder if she has her own significant other worthy of a "Yo Adrian" like shout when the fight concluded.
Everyone anointed Rousey. One commentator on ESPN said we would never see another fighter like her ever. We saw that fighter last night, in Holly Holm. Does that make Holm the real Babe Ruth/Michael Jordan of women's UFC fighting? Or does that mean that on a given day, everyone is beatable, including Ronda Rousey.
I recall when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for the most hits in a Major League Baseball career, that the reporters asked him how it felt to have had more hits than anyone else. Rose, unimpressed, said he would bet that if they checked, he probably made more outs than any other hitter too. The reporters checked, and Rose was right. Show me someone who has an unblemished record, and I'd offer that either they are truly great or that they haven't taken enough chances. Data without context is dangerous, and it was dangerous to anoint Rousey as some uber-Super Hero without a deeper body of work. That said, Rousey was the best and is great. Certainly not the best ever.
On a weekend where major college football teams turned their worlds upside down with a lot of upsets, most of us thought that the one constant would be that Ronda Rousey would win last night. She didn't.
Now the spotlight probably is on the New England Patriots, with the question looming -- can they be that good?
Well, in the wee hours in Australia, for something called the UFC Women's Bantamweight title, a fighter named Holly Holm stunned the very much touted and acclaimed Ronda Rousey, perhaps the Babe Ruth of women's UFC or the Michael Jordan of it, or simply the Ronda Rousey of it, with a kick to the head in the second round that knocked Rousey out. That Holm got out of the first half a minute let alone the first round probably gave her some Rocky-like satisfaction, and I wonder if she has her own significant other worthy of a "Yo Adrian" like shout when the fight concluded.
Everyone anointed Rousey. One commentator on ESPN said we would never see another fighter like her ever. We saw that fighter last night, in Holly Holm. Does that make Holm the real Babe Ruth/Michael Jordan of women's UFC fighting? Or does that mean that on a given day, everyone is beatable, including Ronda Rousey.
I recall when Pete Rose broke Ty Cobb's record for the most hits in a Major League Baseball career, that the reporters asked him how it felt to have had more hits than anyone else. Rose, unimpressed, said he would bet that if they checked, he probably made more outs than any other hitter too. The reporters checked, and Rose was right. Show me someone who has an unblemished record, and I'd offer that either they are truly great or that they haven't taken enough chances. Data without context is dangerous, and it was dangerous to anoint Rousey as some uber-Super Hero without a deeper body of work. That said, Rousey was the best and is great. Certainly not the best ever.
On a weekend where major college football teams turned their worlds upside down with a lot of upsets, most of us thought that the one constant would be that Ronda Rousey would win last night. She didn't.
Now the spotlight probably is on the New England Patriots, with the question looming -- can they be that good?
The Problem with College Basketball
Much has been spoken, and some things have been done, but over the past several years, the game has become, well, unwatchable.
Some point to the 35-second shot clock as being the villain, but teams took an average of 18.5 seconds to get their shots off.
Others argue that the referees call too many fouls, but if they only called three more per game than in the prior season, it's hard to contend that this is the issue.
Even others argue that the "one and done" rule robs the colleges of their best players for more than a season, even if not all that many players take advantage of the rule. How many, about ten? I also would argue that to compel players to stay longer, the way they must in college football, smacks of a paternalism that is hypocritical at its best and arguably racist at its worst. Tennis players can go pro when they are fourteen, and there have been teenage golfers in the LPGA and PGA. Atop that, there are many teenagers in the elite soccer leagues in the world. No, the lament about the stars leaving perhaps derives from the networks who can demand less for advertisements, this after they ponied up huge dollars to get the broadcast rights.
I would contend it's the timeouts.
There are just way too many of them. It seems like there is a stoppage every four minutes for a TV timeout and then the teams get x number per half, and when you look at the NCAA rule book it offers well over four condensed pages of rules that rival a bill in the legislature in terms of complexity. It seems like the NCAA has reduced the number of timeouts and has indicated that if a team calls a timeout close to the timeout intervals for television (read: at the four, eight, twelve and sixteen minute marks) that timeout will count as the TV timeout so that you won't have two timeouts, say, within thirty seconds of one another. It's hard to get a sense of the before and after picture, but suffice it to say that college basketball has a problem akin to that of Major League Baseball -- the games get so slow that they are unwatchable.
Here's the thing -- let the players play. Let them move the ball down the court, give the teams a reasonable amount of timeouts and let the game flow. The glut of timeouts has devolved the game into a chess match between coaches, almost a defensive war of attrition that seems to risk causing the fans to migrate to another form of sports entertainment. The powers that be should study what worked well during the glory years (and there were many) and try to reprise them. I'm all for change and innovation, but the changes that have been made over the past couple of decades have not made the game better.
I am sure that others who study the game more closely can point to other items that contribute to the problem. But the crux of the issue is to put the ball back into the hands of the players -- without too much interruption.
Some point to the 35-second shot clock as being the villain, but teams took an average of 18.5 seconds to get their shots off.
Others argue that the referees call too many fouls, but if they only called three more per game than in the prior season, it's hard to contend that this is the issue.
Even others argue that the "one and done" rule robs the colleges of their best players for more than a season, even if not all that many players take advantage of the rule. How many, about ten? I also would argue that to compel players to stay longer, the way they must in college football, smacks of a paternalism that is hypocritical at its best and arguably racist at its worst. Tennis players can go pro when they are fourteen, and there have been teenage golfers in the LPGA and PGA. Atop that, there are many teenagers in the elite soccer leagues in the world. No, the lament about the stars leaving perhaps derives from the networks who can demand less for advertisements, this after they ponied up huge dollars to get the broadcast rights.
I would contend it's the timeouts.
There are just way too many of them. It seems like there is a stoppage every four minutes for a TV timeout and then the teams get x number per half, and when you look at the NCAA rule book it offers well over four condensed pages of rules that rival a bill in the legislature in terms of complexity. It seems like the NCAA has reduced the number of timeouts and has indicated that if a team calls a timeout close to the timeout intervals for television (read: at the four, eight, twelve and sixteen minute marks) that timeout will count as the TV timeout so that you won't have two timeouts, say, within thirty seconds of one another. It's hard to get a sense of the before and after picture, but suffice it to say that college basketball has a problem akin to that of Major League Baseball -- the games get so slow that they are unwatchable.
Here's the thing -- let the players play. Let them move the ball down the court, give the teams a reasonable amount of timeouts and let the game flow. The glut of timeouts has devolved the game into a chess match between coaches, almost a defensive war of attrition that seems to risk causing the fans to migrate to another form of sports entertainment. The powers that be should study what worked well during the glory years (and there were many) and try to reprise them. I'm all for change and innovation, but the changes that have been made over the past couple of decades have not made the game better.
I am sure that others who study the game more closely can point to other items that contribute to the problem. But the crux of the issue is to put the ball back into the hands of the players -- without too much interruption.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Stamford Bridge, We Have a Problem
Chelsea continued to look in disarray today, an aggregation of stars that seems to be waiting for some individual to grab each highly paid starter by the lapels, shake him say follow me and, in the best tradition of World War II movies, lead them up a hill and toward an enemy position to take it. Sadly for them, their leaders are failing them.
Owner Roman Abramovitch needs to talk sternly to his manager Jose Mourinho and have him be both accountable and responsible for Chelsea's woes. Instead of seemingly working diligently to instill some life into his team's leadership, Mourinho likes to point fingers. At his team. At the officials. At other managers, such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger, with whom he has had a running battle of epic proportions. Mourinho for the post part stood pat going into this season, and it looks like he overrated the ceiling for form and fitness for his returning veterans or perhaps his ability to mold them to a return visit to the top of the Premiership table. Make no mistake, the talent is there, but the coordination doesn't seem to be, nor does the ultimate will to win.
Today, the Blues imploded against a game West Ham squad, a team that hadn't beaten them in such a long time that perhaps it was when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. The Hammers took it to the Blues, and then Nemanya Matic drew two yellow cards at the first half that saw him and an assistant coach for the Blues sent off. And then Mourinho was kicked out of the game for allegedly trying to get into the officials' locker room at half time, ostensibly to assail referee John Moss for a) disallowing what looked to be a Cesc Fabregas goal, b) tossing his assistant, c) tossing Matic or d) not counting a ball that looked to have gone over the goal line (but the replay showed that it did not go over entirely).
A star holding midfielder ejected. The top assistant manager ejected. The manager ejected. Chelsea is off to such a bad start that no team in Premiership history has qualified for Champions League play (a top-four finish) with such an awful record after the first ten games. That said, if any squad can recover, it is probably the Blues, but they are what their record says they are, and that is most troubling at Stamford Bridge. Men in Blazers joked that they could be the first team to win the Champions League and get relegated in the same season. It does seem that everyone gets up to play Chelsea perhaps more than anyone else. That doesn't help their ability to regain ground, either.
On paper, they look extremely formidable. On paper, they have everyone back from a team that easily won the Premiership last season. Oh, City has a ton of people on paper and Arsenal rallied later in the season as they customarily do, but last season was Chelsea's.
One sign of trouble this year even came in a victory. Star attack Diego Costa pulled off a few dirty tricks against Arsenal, elbowing and poking defender Laurent Koscielny in the face when referee Mike Dean (who had a match that day that resembled Chelsea's season thus far) was not looking and then goaded defender Gabriel Paulista into retaliating against him that prompted Dean to give the defender a straight red card (the Football Association reversed the ruling, reversed the automatic three-game suspension provided Gabriel and suspended Costa for three games). That game painted Chelsea as the Darth Vader of the league this season (as if they needed any more prompting), and made them look just plain ugly.
At the center of this storm is Mourinho, who hasn't last more than three seasons in any job save one, and who looks to be uninterested at worst or unable to muster the energy to do what's necessary at best. Money isn't an issue -- Chelsea is so wealthy that they have more players out on loan than probably the worst six teams in the Premiership combined, and their loaner players probably would finish in the top 16 in the Premier League and not get relegated. Most teams tweak their rosters annually; Chelsea pretty much stood pat. It's hard to argue with success, but they are realizing that their back line isn't what it used to be, their midfield lacks leadership and one of the top five players in the world, Eden Hazard, looks lost. Before last season City took a similar approach; they didn't win the title, but they didn't implode, either.
It's hard to count Chelsea out, though. If there is an example in American sports, it is the Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl two years ago, got off to a rocky start last season, had a series of meetings to clear the air and ended up one questionable play call away from repeating. So there is hope for the Blues and the Blues fans -- they just have too much talent to throw in the towel and the season is much too early.
But their ownership must act quickly to hold itself and everyone underneath it accountable. Typically, that means that a managerial change could be in the offing, assuming that someone better than Mourinho is out there waiting for a position, Juergen Klopp, who did a good job at Dortmund, was, but Liverpool smartly snapped him up a week or so ago. And even if Chelsea were to hire a new manager, it will take some time for them to regroup and come up with a sense of purpose. Right now, opponents are taking Chelsea's best shots early (and there still are signs of beautiful play) and then persisting in taking it to the Blues. Their leaders need to emerge and remind the rank and file of the "Chelsea way." It doesn't seem that this is happening, but it needs to.
Fans of other Premiership teams no doubt are rejoicing that the big-spending team is having a rough time of it. The prediction here is that rejoicing will be short-lived. The ownership didn't get to where they are in life by waiting for things to happen and by avoiding problems. The Blues will have a resurgence. Whether that will be enough to get them back to the Champions League next year remains to be seen.
Owner Roman Abramovitch needs to talk sternly to his manager Jose Mourinho and have him be both accountable and responsible for Chelsea's woes. Instead of seemingly working diligently to instill some life into his team's leadership, Mourinho likes to point fingers. At his team. At the officials. At other managers, such as Arsenal's Arsene Wenger, with whom he has had a running battle of epic proportions. Mourinho for the post part stood pat going into this season, and it looks like he overrated the ceiling for form and fitness for his returning veterans or perhaps his ability to mold them to a return visit to the top of the Premiership table. Make no mistake, the talent is there, but the coordination doesn't seem to be, nor does the ultimate will to win.
Today, the Blues imploded against a game West Ham squad, a team that hadn't beaten them in such a long time that perhaps it was when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister. The Hammers took it to the Blues, and then Nemanya Matic drew two yellow cards at the first half that saw him and an assistant coach for the Blues sent off. And then Mourinho was kicked out of the game for allegedly trying to get into the officials' locker room at half time, ostensibly to assail referee John Moss for a) disallowing what looked to be a Cesc Fabregas goal, b) tossing his assistant, c) tossing Matic or d) not counting a ball that looked to have gone over the goal line (but the replay showed that it did not go over entirely).
A star holding midfielder ejected. The top assistant manager ejected. The manager ejected. Chelsea is off to such a bad start that no team in Premiership history has qualified for Champions League play (a top-four finish) with such an awful record after the first ten games. That said, if any squad can recover, it is probably the Blues, but they are what their record says they are, and that is most troubling at Stamford Bridge. Men in Blazers joked that they could be the first team to win the Champions League and get relegated in the same season. It does seem that everyone gets up to play Chelsea perhaps more than anyone else. That doesn't help their ability to regain ground, either.
On paper, they look extremely formidable. On paper, they have everyone back from a team that easily won the Premiership last season. Oh, City has a ton of people on paper and Arsenal rallied later in the season as they customarily do, but last season was Chelsea's.
One sign of trouble this year even came in a victory. Star attack Diego Costa pulled off a few dirty tricks against Arsenal, elbowing and poking defender Laurent Koscielny in the face when referee Mike Dean (who had a match that day that resembled Chelsea's season thus far) was not looking and then goaded defender Gabriel Paulista into retaliating against him that prompted Dean to give the defender a straight red card (the Football Association reversed the ruling, reversed the automatic three-game suspension provided Gabriel and suspended Costa for three games). That game painted Chelsea as the Darth Vader of the league this season (as if they needed any more prompting), and made them look just plain ugly.
At the center of this storm is Mourinho, who hasn't last more than three seasons in any job save one, and who looks to be uninterested at worst or unable to muster the energy to do what's necessary at best. Money isn't an issue -- Chelsea is so wealthy that they have more players out on loan than probably the worst six teams in the Premiership combined, and their loaner players probably would finish in the top 16 in the Premier League and not get relegated. Most teams tweak their rosters annually; Chelsea pretty much stood pat. It's hard to argue with success, but they are realizing that their back line isn't what it used to be, their midfield lacks leadership and one of the top five players in the world, Eden Hazard, looks lost. Before last season City took a similar approach; they didn't win the title, but they didn't implode, either.
It's hard to count Chelsea out, though. If there is an example in American sports, it is the Seattle Seahawks, who won the Super Bowl two years ago, got off to a rocky start last season, had a series of meetings to clear the air and ended up one questionable play call away from repeating. So there is hope for the Blues and the Blues fans -- they just have too much talent to throw in the towel and the season is much too early.
But their ownership must act quickly to hold itself and everyone underneath it accountable. Typically, that means that a managerial change could be in the offing, assuming that someone better than Mourinho is out there waiting for a position, Juergen Klopp, who did a good job at Dortmund, was, but Liverpool smartly snapped him up a week or so ago. And even if Chelsea were to hire a new manager, it will take some time for them to regroup and come up with a sense of purpose. Right now, opponents are taking Chelsea's best shots early (and there still are signs of beautiful play) and then persisting in taking it to the Blues. Their leaders need to emerge and remind the rank and file of the "Chelsea way." It doesn't seem that this is happening, but it needs to.
Fans of other Premiership teams no doubt are rejoicing that the big-spending team is having a rough time of it. The prediction here is that rejoicing will be short-lived. The ownership didn't get to where they are in life by waiting for things to happen and by avoiding problems. The Blues will have a resurgence. Whether that will be enough to get them back to the Champions League next year remains to be seen.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
The Phillies Fire Ruben Amaro -- and That is Not the Real Story
Good columns abound in the Philadelphia papers on this topic, including one in today's Philadelphia Inquirer (Bob Ford might have been the author) that suggested (rightly) that Ruben Amaro was a product of the Phillies' culture. Bingo!
Amaro grew up in an ownership that for the most part was one of benign neglect. Sure, the Giles-era ownership will argue that they made some big signings, going all the way back to Gregg Jeffries (remember that future Hall of Famer?) and built the city a new stadium, but they seemingly only did so because they had to and, unlike the Yankee regime in New York, didn't have the burning compulsion to win.
Vilified were the now disgraced Curt Schilling and, before him, stellar third baseman, Scott Rolen, who called ownership to account publicly and somehow managed not only to infuriate the Giles group, but also the fans. Why? Because the team spun the story in a way that both players had insulted the good, hard working people of the city. Nonsense.
The reason why what Schilling and Rolen said hurt so much because it was true and pointed out inconvenient facts that other franchises were more committed to winning, not only by upgrading stadiums but also farm systems and rosters. At one point it seemed that you got a front office job if you new the Carpenters or the Giles' family and perhaps went to certain Philadelphia area private schools. It also seemed like you got jobs in the organization if you once played for it, and, given the Phillies' rather tepid history, seemed to help perpetuate a team that resembled a geyser -- every now and then by happenstance it would erupt into something fantastic, but otherwise it would sit there sleepily from season to season, unexciting and unproductive.
That's, of course, not to knock the Whiz Kids, the Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt era, even the oddball '93 team and most certainly not the Charlie Manuel/Rollins/Utley/Howard/Hamels Phillies' teams of recent years. But those were the eruptions. In between were some of the worst eras known to baseball. It isn't by accident, after all, the the franchise was the first to lose 10,000 games. That takes some doing -- benign neglect and worse.
The columnist was accurate because it struck me years ago that the team didn't need a managerial change (sure, perhaps it was time for Manuel to retire, but he was great when it counted) or a GM change (even though it was baffling that while the awful Astros were improving markedly through analytics the envied Phillies would have taken a leap forward had they at least hired a few nerds from Drexel with slide rules). They needed an ownership change. Forget the wealthy Main Liners who enjoying owning a baseball team. We needed someone like Josh Harris of the 76ers, someone who just wants to win (even though his patience at this point is somewhat perplexing), the Cardinals' history of excellence, the Steinbrenner family's passion, something, somewhere, to shake this ownership group out of its malaise. No analytics today yields no talent yields huge drop-offs at the box office. What a difference seven years makes!
So fast forward to 2015. Well-liked president David Montgomery is a few years gone, and the guy who gets credit for rebuilding the Orioles, Lee MacPhail, has replaced both him and ostensibly his interim sub, the Hall of Famer Pat Gillick (Gillick gets too much credit for the success of the 2008 team; former GM Ed Wade gets way too little, perhaps because he was so bland and humorless in dealing with the media). But even that advent of MacPhail is not the big story. More than that, I'd submit that the firing of Ruben Amaro isn't the biggest news.
Yes, Amaro did some good and bad things. He gets credited for signing Raul Ibanez, which I believe is one of his worst moves as GM, followed by his inking the following season of Placido Polanco. My reasoning is simple -- demographics. The Phillies' core in 2008 was about the same age -- 29 to 31. So, at a time when they needed to reload by getting younger, the Phillies got older. Ibanez had one good half season and two and a half bad ones, and Polanco was often hurt. The team signed him when he was 34. Getting Cliff Lee was great; trading him was awful, and signing him as a free agent again was brilliant. Sadly, concurrently, the farm system was a very dry well. Peddling Hunter Pence to the Giants was a big mistake, and while Amaro gets credit for trading for Roy Oswalt, Oswalt pretty much was a disappointment and the front office goofed by somehow letting promising outfielder Domingo Santana be on the player-to-be-named list, and the Astros snapped him up.
To examine the stats, the team won the World Series in 2008 and by 2011 lost in the first round of the NLDS. Cliff Lee, paid to do exactly this, failed to hold a four-run lead after one inning in the second game of the series with the Phillies up 1-0. If Lee were to hold that lead, the Phillies, who had a great regular-season record, would have been on their way. Instead, the Phillies couldn't hit Cris Carpenter, who outdueled Roy Halladay in a gem in Game 5, and saw Howard rupture his Achilles in the game's last at-bat. By 2015, they have had consistently worse records and attendance. To quote Bill Parsells, "you are what your record says you are."
But even with all that -- and Amaro was held accountable -- there was something more vexing about the team -- ownership. It made poor decisions and it made late decisions, after the damage was done. It seemed like whoever controlled the group only made decisions after bad facts popped up and had festered into an antiobiotic-resistant infection.
Until, perhaps, now.
Enter John Middleton.
He is vocal, and he seems decisive. and he seems to want to break the back of the "noblesse oblige" type of ownership that has plagued the team for decades.
The man wants to win.
The man does not want to be part of a group that presides over a pastime and is content to sit back and not be involved. It was Middleton who took over the ownership group, it was Middleton who got MacPhail hired and it was Middleton who helped terminate Amaro. It will be Middleton who helps revamp the farm system, it will be Middleton who will be instrumental in hiring the new general manager and it will be Middleton who helps the new GM effect change and get him the resources he needs to succeed.
And all of that is more important right now than who sits in the dugout writing out the lineup card (Pete Mackanin is doing a good job) and who the general manager will be. Because without a strong, vibrant owner who is committed to winning, the team doesn't have a chance against every other organization in the majors, all of whom who have evolved and adapted analytics long before the Phillies did.
The firing of Amaro might draw the headlines, but it is the emergence of Middleton that should get the fans very excited and has the potential to bring them back into Citizens Bank Park.
This is long overdue. This is something for the Phillies to get excited about.
Amaro grew up in an ownership that for the most part was one of benign neglect. Sure, the Giles-era ownership will argue that they made some big signings, going all the way back to Gregg Jeffries (remember that future Hall of Famer?) and built the city a new stadium, but they seemingly only did so because they had to and, unlike the Yankee regime in New York, didn't have the burning compulsion to win.
Vilified were the now disgraced Curt Schilling and, before him, stellar third baseman, Scott Rolen, who called ownership to account publicly and somehow managed not only to infuriate the Giles group, but also the fans. Why? Because the team spun the story in a way that both players had insulted the good, hard working people of the city. Nonsense.
The reason why what Schilling and Rolen said hurt so much because it was true and pointed out inconvenient facts that other franchises were more committed to winning, not only by upgrading stadiums but also farm systems and rosters. At one point it seemed that you got a front office job if you new the Carpenters or the Giles' family and perhaps went to certain Philadelphia area private schools. It also seemed like you got jobs in the organization if you once played for it, and, given the Phillies' rather tepid history, seemed to help perpetuate a team that resembled a geyser -- every now and then by happenstance it would erupt into something fantastic, but otherwise it would sit there sleepily from season to season, unexciting and unproductive.
That's, of course, not to knock the Whiz Kids, the Steve Carlton and Mike Schmidt era, even the oddball '93 team and most certainly not the Charlie Manuel/Rollins/Utley/Howard/Hamels Phillies' teams of recent years. But those were the eruptions. In between were some of the worst eras known to baseball. It isn't by accident, after all, the the franchise was the first to lose 10,000 games. That takes some doing -- benign neglect and worse.
The columnist was accurate because it struck me years ago that the team didn't need a managerial change (sure, perhaps it was time for Manuel to retire, but he was great when it counted) or a GM change (even though it was baffling that while the awful Astros were improving markedly through analytics the envied Phillies would have taken a leap forward had they at least hired a few nerds from Drexel with slide rules). They needed an ownership change. Forget the wealthy Main Liners who enjoying owning a baseball team. We needed someone like Josh Harris of the 76ers, someone who just wants to win (even though his patience at this point is somewhat perplexing), the Cardinals' history of excellence, the Steinbrenner family's passion, something, somewhere, to shake this ownership group out of its malaise. No analytics today yields no talent yields huge drop-offs at the box office. What a difference seven years makes!
So fast forward to 2015. Well-liked president David Montgomery is a few years gone, and the guy who gets credit for rebuilding the Orioles, Lee MacPhail, has replaced both him and ostensibly his interim sub, the Hall of Famer Pat Gillick (Gillick gets too much credit for the success of the 2008 team; former GM Ed Wade gets way too little, perhaps because he was so bland and humorless in dealing with the media). But even that advent of MacPhail is not the big story. More than that, I'd submit that the firing of Ruben Amaro isn't the biggest news.
Yes, Amaro did some good and bad things. He gets credited for signing Raul Ibanez, which I believe is one of his worst moves as GM, followed by his inking the following season of Placido Polanco. My reasoning is simple -- demographics. The Phillies' core in 2008 was about the same age -- 29 to 31. So, at a time when they needed to reload by getting younger, the Phillies got older. Ibanez had one good half season and two and a half bad ones, and Polanco was often hurt. The team signed him when he was 34. Getting Cliff Lee was great; trading him was awful, and signing him as a free agent again was brilliant. Sadly, concurrently, the farm system was a very dry well. Peddling Hunter Pence to the Giants was a big mistake, and while Amaro gets credit for trading for Roy Oswalt, Oswalt pretty much was a disappointment and the front office goofed by somehow letting promising outfielder Domingo Santana be on the player-to-be-named list, and the Astros snapped him up.
To examine the stats, the team won the World Series in 2008 and by 2011 lost in the first round of the NLDS. Cliff Lee, paid to do exactly this, failed to hold a four-run lead after one inning in the second game of the series with the Phillies up 1-0. If Lee were to hold that lead, the Phillies, who had a great regular-season record, would have been on their way. Instead, the Phillies couldn't hit Cris Carpenter, who outdueled Roy Halladay in a gem in Game 5, and saw Howard rupture his Achilles in the game's last at-bat. By 2015, they have had consistently worse records and attendance. To quote Bill Parsells, "you are what your record says you are."
But even with all that -- and Amaro was held accountable -- there was something more vexing about the team -- ownership. It made poor decisions and it made late decisions, after the damage was done. It seemed like whoever controlled the group only made decisions after bad facts popped up and had festered into an antiobiotic-resistant infection.
Until, perhaps, now.
Enter John Middleton.
He is vocal, and he seems decisive. and he seems to want to break the back of the "noblesse oblige" type of ownership that has plagued the team for decades.
The man wants to win.
The man does not want to be part of a group that presides over a pastime and is content to sit back and not be involved. It was Middleton who took over the ownership group, it was Middleton who got MacPhail hired and it was Middleton who helped terminate Amaro. It will be Middleton who helps revamp the farm system, it will be Middleton who will be instrumental in hiring the new general manager and it will be Middleton who helps the new GM effect change and get him the resources he needs to succeed.
And all of that is more important right now than who sits in the dugout writing out the lineup card (Pete Mackanin is doing a good job) and who the general manager will be. Because without a strong, vibrant owner who is committed to winning, the team doesn't have a chance against every other organization in the majors, all of whom who have evolved and adapted analytics long before the Phillies did.
The firing of Amaro might draw the headlines, but it is the emergence of Middleton that should get the fans very excited and has the potential to bring them back into Citizens Bank Park.
This is long overdue. This is something for the Phillies to get excited about.
Friday, September 11, 2015
Patriots' Games
We all liked the hippie chick teacher in high school. She was cool, she was cute, she drove a VW bus. One day in tenth grade she walked in with her arm in a sling, had a shiner in one eye and looked pretty banged up. She offered up a car accident the reason. Fast forward to the middle of twelfth grade, and she had told us that she had been in three more car accidents. Each time, she looked pretty banged up.
My father offered the following advice. "Son, if you have one car accident, chances are you had an accident. But if you have four in two years, you have a driving problem."
If the New England Patriots hadn't had all the noise surrounding them -- Spygate (which just got uglier thanks to reports in both SI and ESPN the Magazine), Deflategate (prediction is that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn the District Court's ruling) and now the headphones in the game versus the Steelers' last night -- we could chalk up what happened to last night to a combination of bad systems and bad weather. But, because of all the other incidents, it looks very suspicious.
Right now, the New England Patriots do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to character matters. Right now, everything funny that happens in that stadium or with that team must be fully scrutinized. As Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin said in last night's post-game news conference, something always happens when they play New England.
And you don't hear that about every other team. You hear it about New England.
Many refuse to believe it, of course. The Patriots are the gold standard, they're too good to have cheated, they're too well-run and well-coached. (These fans also thought that Lance Armstrong was winning all of those Tour de France races without using performance enhancing drugs). Patriots' supports adopt classic bullying tactics -- their owner fires before aiming at Commissioner Goodell and the Wells Report, and their star -- their version of Lance Armstrong before the fall -- goes on the attack (and, look, I will be the first one to say that the team and the player are entitled to a defense). Then their fans mock the commissioner. Some might call it rightful, others aggressive, others bullying. But at the end of the day, it's hard to convince anyone that the Colts and the Steelers are joining forces to bring down the Patriots. It seems like the Patriots are doing that to the Patriots.
The Patriots have a culture problem and a credibility problem. It will get worse if those recent magazine reports get legs, too. I hope for the NFL's sake that Spygate does not descend into a hellish Armstrong-like story. But with the Patriots, it seems like we never know just what to believe.
My father offered the following advice. "Son, if you have one car accident, chances are you had an accident. But if you have four in two years, you have a driving problem."
If the New England Patriots hadn't had all the noise surrounding them -- Spygate (which just got uglier thanks to reports in both SI and ESPN the Magazine), Deflategate (prediction is that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals will overturn the District Court's ruling) and now the headphones in the game versus the Steelers' last night -- we could chalk up what happened to last night to a combination of bad systems and bad weather. But, because of all the other incidents, it looks very suspicious.
Right now, the New England Patriots do not deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to character matters. Right now, everything funny that happens in that stadium or with that team must be fully scrutinized. As Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin said in last night's post-game news conference, something always happens when they play New England.
And you don't hear that about every other team. You hear it about New England.
Many refuse to believe it, of course. The Patriots are the gold standard, they're too good to have cheated, they're too well-run and well-coached. (These fans also thought that Lance Armstrong was winning all of those Tour de France races without using performance enhancing drugs). Patriots' supports adopt classic bullying tactics -- their owner fires before aiming at Commissioner Goodell and the Wells Report, and their star -- their version of Lance Armstrong before the fall -- goes on the attack (and, look, I will be the first one to say that the team and the player are entitled to a defense). Then their fans mock the commissioner. Some might call it rightful, others aggressive, others bullying. But at the end of the day, it's hard to convince anyone that the Colts and the Steelers are joining forces to bring down the Patriots. It seems like the Patriots are doing that to the Patriots.
The Patriots have a culture problem and a credibility problem. It will get worse if those recent magazine reports get legs, too. I hope for the NFL's sake that Spygate does not descend into a hellish Armstrong-like story. But with the Patriots, it seems like we never know just what to believe.
Tuesday, September 08, 2015
Hallelujah -- Temple Beats Penn State!
I waited my entire life for this.
Like Coach Matt Rhule, I felt a sense of gratification that the team and fans did not "over-celebrate" because they flat out knew that they could win the game. And win the Temple Owls did, because they simply out-hit Penn State on both sides of the ball, sacking the Nittany Lions' quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, ten times. As the game moved further and further toward its end, a groundswell of emotions picked up in me. Part of me had to convince myself that this was happening; the other part convinced myself that this really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Yet, this was the biggest win in Temple's football history (or at least since 1941, the year the Owls last beat Penn State), even though these aren't your father's Penn State teams and, upon consideration, for symbolic reasons too. The gritty urban underdog beat the pampered scenic wealthier cousin. That doesn't happen that often.
The reason I waited my entire life for this is because my father went to Temple and had at least a cup of coffee or a thermos with the football team, playing in the late 40's with, among others, many WWII vets who were a lot older and hardened by the war. From the time I was a little kid, we trekked first to Temple Stadium, then to Franklin Field and then to Vet Stadium to watch the Owls. Temple Stadium was intimate; Franklin Field a great venue but far from packed, and the multi-purpose Vet soulless as it played to mostly empty crowds.
We saw some good players under George Makris, among them quarterbacks Tommy DiFelice and John Waller and wide receiver Jim Callahan. And then entered Wayne Hardin, the coaching brainiac who had coached both Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino at Navy. Hardin could innovate, motivate and recruit -- especially if you were a favorite, and we saw Maxwell Award winner Steve Joachim, future Steelers' tight end Randy Grossman, linemen such as Bill "Skip" Singletary (now a HS coach in Philadelphia) and Jim Cooper, who would go on to play for the Cowboys. We saw what we thought was the best nose tackle known to man, a barroom brawler named Joe Klecko, and we saw a graceful receiver in Steve Watson. The former would go on to star for the Jets, the latter for the Broncos. We also saw the great kicker, Nick Mike-Mayer. Of course, there were many others, and I've probably forgotten a few whom I should not have who excelled and brought many fond memories.
We saw the Owls upset West Virginia in the early 1970's at Temple Stadium, with the team carrying Hardin off the field. We saw Penn State nick them at Franklin Field by a point, even after on one of the first plays from scrimmage Cooper bowled offer Penn State's all-American linebacker Greg Buttle to spring Bobby Harris for a 75-or-so-yard touchdown run. We also saw the Owls lose 10-7 at the Vet late in the game on a field goal by one of the Bahr brothers, this after the game was tied late in the fourth, the Owls were driving and the Owls coughed the ball up. It was in that game that Hardin punted consistently on third down to pin Penn State deep in their own territory, deploying the nation's leading punter, Casey Murphy, deftly.
There were so many memories because this was the father-and-son thing that we did. We went to Temple football games, and, of course, heard many disrespectful comments in the process. We were surrounded by Penn State fans, who view their school and team as superior. As to the latter, well, way back when, in the 1960's and 1970's, it wasn't necessarily bragging if you could back it up. And Joe Paterno's Lions could.
But I didn't care. This is what I did with my dad, and this was our team. We loved the Owls, Hardin's innovative style, the way they played hard and won many more than they lost. Temple Stadium was tiny but intimate, and we trekked their many Saturdays and watched with great interest. I still cherish those days. It was special time that we had together, uninterrupted, eating hot dogs, drinking soda, eating peanuts, talking football.
It wasn't quite the same at Franklin Field or the Vet, and I'm happy to see bigger crowds at the Linc. Dad died in the mid-1980's, and my interested waned. Put differently, I lost my football-watching buddy, and to be honest there aren't many around who, with an increasing number of choices, would select going to Temple football games above them. I kept up my interest, occasionally watching them on television or listening on the radio, and most usually I read the newspaper accounts. I liked Bruce Arians' promise and then was sad as a succession of coaches couldn't bring success to North Broad Street. It was an empty feeling -- not only was my father gone, but the current version of what had created fond memories had cratered.
Then came Al Golden, who resurrected the program, and then Steve Addazio, and now Matt Rhule. My guess is that better facilities and the fact that schools can no longer hoard players has helped the Owls get better ones, as has the current crop of coaches. The buzz got louder, the players and team got better, and that led up to Saturday's game.
I saw the point spread and hoped for the best, liked what I had heard on ESPN that morning and read enough to know that the Owls had a very good defense. As the game played out, my mind raced from here to there, from the time I went to games when I was a young kid (I think I went as far back as 1965) to the mid-1980's, before Dad died. And oh did he love his Owls and going to games. I felt his spirit, as though he were pointing out the gaps in the Penn State line for Temple's pass rushers to exploit. When it came to Temple football, I was a dormant volcano's worth full of emotions. I always had hoped to be able to open that vault and express them, but feared that I never would in my life time.
But then the game happened and ended, and the Owls won. I smiled a very big smile, and had a trace of tears in my eyes. Okay, so the Lions weren't nationally ranked, big deal. To see so many Temple fans at the Linc wearing the cherry and white there to enjoy to watershed moment was something to see. We saw some close calls, but felt like Sisyphus -- our team had pushed its proverbial rock up the hill only never to get there. But on Saturday they did. And it felt good.
I told my son that for my sports-watching and rooting experience, this was like a major shift of tectonic plates, a fault line, a discovery that there is life on Mars, that chocolate can cure cancer or something else that hard to fathom. It was a great thing to see, it really was.
I just wish my father were there to watch it with me.
And perhaps sitting with me on the porch all night, sampling sipping whiskey, talking about all the games we went to until the sun rose.
Temple beat Penn State.
Hallelujah!
Like Coach Matt Rhule, I felt a sense of gratification that the team and fans did not "over-celebrate" because they flat out knew that they could win the game. And win the Temple Owls did, because they simply out-hit Penn State on both sides of the ball, sacking the Nittany Lions' quarterback, Christian Hackenberg, ten times. As the game moved further and further toward its end, a groundswell of emotions picked up in me. Part of me had to convince myself that this was happening; the other part convinced myself that this really shouldn't have come as a surprise. Yet, this was the biggest win in Temple's football history (or at least since 1941, the year the Owls last beat Penn State), even though these aren't your father's Penn State teams and, upon consideration, for symbolic reasons too. The gritty urban underdog beat the pampered scenic wealthier cousin. That doesn't happen that often.
The reason I waited my entire life for this is because my father went to Temple and had at least a cup of coffee or a thermos with the football team, playing in the late 40's with, among others, many WWII vets who were a lot older and hardened by the war. From the time I was a little kid, we trekked first to Temple Stadium, then to Franklin Field and then to Vet Stadium to watch the Owls. Temple Stadium was intimate; Franklin Field a great venue but far from packed, and the multi-purpose Vet soulless as it played to mostly empty crowds.
We saw some good players under George Makris, among them quarterbacks Tommy DiFelice and John Waller and wide receiver Jim Callahan. And then entered Wayne Hardin, the coaching brainiac who had coached both Roger Staubach and Joe Bellino at Navy. Hardin could innovate, motivate and recruit -- especially if you were a favorite, and we saw Maxwell Award winner Steve Joachim, future Steelers' tight end Randy Grossman, linemen such as Bill "Skip" Singletary (now a HS coach in Philadelphia) and Jim Cooper, who would go on to play for the Cowboys. We saw what we thought was the best nose tackle known to man, a barroom brawler named Joe Klecko, and we saw a graceful receiver in Steve Watson. The former would go on to star for the Jets, the latter for the Broncos. We also saw the great kicker, Nick Mike-Mayer. Of course, there were many others, and I've probably forgotten a few whom I should not have who excelled and brought many fond memories.
We saw the Owls upset West Virginia in the early 1970's at Temple Stadium, with the team carrying Hardin off the field. We saw Penn State nick them at Franklin Field by a point, even after on one of the first plays from scrimmage Cooper bowled offer Penn State's all-American linebacker Greg Buttle to spring Bobby Harris for a 75-or-so-yard touchdown run. We also saw the Owls lose 10-7 at the Vet late in the game on a field goal by one of the Bahr brothers, this after the game was tied late in the fourth, the Owls were driving and the Owls coughed the ball up. It was in that game that Hardin punted consistently on third down to pin Penn State deep in their own territory, deploying the nation's leading punter, Casey Murphy, deftly.
There were so many memories because this was the father-and-son thing that we did. We went to Temple football games, and, of course, heard many disrespectful comments in the process. We were surrounded by Penn State fans, who view their school and team as superior. As to the latter, well, way back when, in the 1960's and 1970's, it wasn't necessarily bragging if you could back it up. And Joe Paterno's Lions could.
But I didn't care. This is what I did with my dad, and this was our team. We loved the Owls, Hardin's innovative style, the way they played hard and won many more than they lost. Temple Stadium was tiny but intimate, and we trekked their many Saturdays and watched with great interest. I still cherish those days. It was special time that we had together, uninterrupted, eating hot dogs, drinking soda, eating peanuts, talking football.
It wasn't quite the same at Franklin Field or the Vet, and I'm happy to see bigger crowds at the Linc. Dad died in the mid-1980's, and my interested waned. Put differently, I lost my football-watching buddy, and to be honest there aren't many around who, with an increasing number of choices, would select going to Temple football games above them. I kept up my interest, occasionally watching them on television or listening on the radio, and most usually I read the newspaper accounts. I liked Bruce Arians' promise and then was sad as a succession of coaches couldn't bring success to North Broad Street. It was an empty feeling -- not only was my father gone, but the current version of what had created fond memories had cratered.
Then came Al Golden, who resurrected the program, and then Steve Addazio, and now Matt Rhule. My guess is that better facilities and the fact that schools can no longer hoard players has helped the Owls get better ones, as has the current crop of coaches. The buzz got louder, the players and team got better, and that led up to Saturday's game.
I saw the point spread and hoped for the best, liked what I had heard on ESPN that morning and read enough to know that the Owls had a very good defense. As the game played out, my mind raced from here to there, from the time I went to games when I was a young kid (I think I went as far back as 1965) to the mid-1980's, before Dad died. And oh did he love his Owls and going to games. I felt his spirit, as though he were pointing out the gaps in the Penn State line for Temple's pass rushers to exploit. When it came to Temple football, I was a dormant volcano's worth full of emotions. I always had hoped to be able to open that vault and express them, but feared that I never would in my life time.
But then the game happened and ended, and the Owls won. I smiled a very big smile, and had a trace of tears in my eyes. Okay, so the Lions weren't nationally ranked, big deal. To see so many Temple fans at the Linc wearing the cherry and white there to enjoy to watershed moment was something to see. We saw some close calls, but felt like Sisyphus -- our team had pushed its proverbial rock up the hill only never to get there. But on Saturday they did. And it felt good.
I told my son that for my sports-watching and rooting experience, this was like a major shift of tectonic plates, a fault line, a discovery that there is life on Mars, that chocolate can cure cancer or something else that hard to fathom. It was a great thing to see, it really was.
I just wish my father were there to watch it with me.
And perhaps sitting with me on the porch all night, sampling sipping whiskey, talking about all the games we went to until the sun rose.
Temple beat Penn State.
Hallelujah!
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