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Media Critic--On Harold Reynolds
by rubin sierra on Jul 26, 2006 3:55 PM EDT
19 comments
So the latest is that the reason for Reynolds' firing is indeed an accusation of sexual harassment. Which is unfortunate, for some obvious reasons and some not-so-obvious ones. Among the latter, it's unfortunate because it means it the firing is not due to the ESPN programming director waking the hell up and realizing what his once-proud station has turned into.
I used to love ESPN highlight shows, and my only complaint was that there weren't enough of them. If my unspoken complaint somehow wished the current mess into existence, I regret it profoundly. The highlight shows are too long, and to fill the time, too many uninteresting ex-jocks are stuffed into suits and prodded into yapping at us like contestants in a junior-high debate. It used to be that when I thought about ESPN, I thought of the smart-and-polished anchors: Patrick, Olbermann, and Kilborn at the top of the list. But now, the anchors on SportsCenter are overshadowed by the dozen talking-heads per show that are brought on to provide so-called analysis.
There's nothing inherently wrong with analysis. A couple of analysts named Kornheiser and Wilbon bring us ESPN's one good half-hour of programming per day. I'm waiting for ESPN to ruin that. In the meantime, I'd have to say that the number of clearly-inept ESPN anchors I've seen or heard (on ESPN Radio) is probably now over 100. And Harold Reynolds was, for me, the first. Hard to say whether this speaks to my getting old enough to notice, or ESPN actually moving down the road it has. But it was HR who first made me do a double-take and think, "He just talked for 45 seconds, but he didn't say anything." Now, with 100 Reynolds clones onboard at ESPN (and, in my imagination, living together in a dorm across the street from Bristol headquarters like 12-year-old boys at a summer camp); the original dimwit analyst can be dismissed--100 potential replacements are available, and they all suck pretty much equally.
19 comments | 0 recs
The Third Shift on AN
by rubin sierra on Jul 24, 2006 6:29 AM EDT
10 comments
I have become very attached to this community, even if in physical terms this can be looked at as being very attached to my personal computer, staring blankly into the screen for hours on end. No, this may not be what most would refer to as a healthy love affair. But for what it's worth, I'm hooked, as I can tell that many of you are hooked as well. But before I get around to the title of this post, let me tell you about my particular brand of hooked.
10 comments | 0 recs
Rural Thread, Continued--a Jerry Springer Event
by rubin sierra on Jul 21, 2006 3:32 PM EDT
4 comments
MC: And now, Your AN Day Special Guests, Mycheal Urban and Susan Slusser!!
Audience: BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
That's not me boo-ing; that's just a scenario I was imagining in my mind's eye as I read through yesterday's rural (anti-Urban) thread. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
4 comments | 0 recs
Vitalstatistix: How many Comments Have you Made?
by rubin sierra on Jun 13, 2006 5:19 AM EDT
236 comments
One of the coolest things about AN is the user-profile pages. Click on any user's name and you can then access every diary AND EVERY COMMENT he or she has ever made. I occasionally feel guilty for having wasted too much time at AN, but at least my entire body of "work" here remains accessible to me--and the same holds for every AN user. Lately I've been thinking that the archives may be too good to be true, and that it will be discovered that the server runs remarkably smoother once they're all deleted. This would be a great tragedy, and so in the spirit of enjoying our own personal AN libraries while we have them, I bring you this diary of Fun With Your User Profile.
Using your handy-dandy user profile, you can answer the following questions:
- What was the date of your first AN comment or diary (whichever came first)?
- How many diaries have you posted?
- And of course--How many comments have you made?
- 10/01/04
- this is my 32nd
- 1,159
236 comments | 0 recs
Link Dump on Steroids--6/9 revisited
by rubin sierra on Jun 11, 2006 3:36 PM EDT
18 comments
On May 22, the link dump had well over 300 comments. It was what people these days are calling a World Cup atmosphere--insanity prevailed, and we all thought there would never again be anything like it, or at least not for four years or so. Wrong on that count--over the last two weeks, every weekday linkdump goes 200+ comments, 300 maybe every other day. Two weeks after the 5/22 link dump, we had the 6/9 link dump--495 comments. It was kind of like Bonds breaking McGwire's record just three years after McGwire did it--yes, the link dump is definitely on performance-enhancing drugs. I read the 495-comment Friday dump, hoping to draw some conclusions about AN chatter in the new Link-Dump Era.
18 comments | 0 recs
Link Dump 5-22 Cliff Notes, by Jerry Springer
by rubin sierra on May 22, 2006 9:00 PM EDT
47 comments
Some days, you dump links. And on some days, the links dump YOU. And then there are days like today, when the dumps and the links are so prolific and brilliant as to be indistinguishable, as they fly by like planes overrun by mice, snakes, dinosoars, albatrosses, obliques, Larry Davis clones and dead parrots. Today was one of those days. In a nutshell ...
47 comments | 0 recs
LurkerD's-fight-diary-continued open thread, brought to you by Jerry Springer
by rubin sierra on May 3, 2006 2:52 AM EDT
142 comments
Great thread by LurkerD with 170+ comments yesterday, from lurkerD's statement--how is it that what Kendall did so courageous or commendable?--to baseballgirl's rejoinder--yeah but it sure was fun to watch a fight for a change! (Note: paraphrasing very badly). I remember my high-school friends and I always yearning to go to a game that featured a bench-clearing brawl, so for that part of my inner fan, today was certainly a big success.
On the other hand, a closer examination of our guy's actions--which lurkerD's post requires us to make--tells us pretty clearly that they were far from heroic. Kendall either a) acted in the throws of a tempermental passion and needs anger management counselling (charging the mound in response to an insult? But then confer Apricot's post on rituals in baseball--much more acceptable than charging, say, your boss in real life); or b) acted according to a plan, craftily (read: Pyrzynski-ishly) getting the Angels' best starting pitcher ejected from the game at minimal cost to us (Kendall suspension--who cares? Err, I mean, now who will "handle" our pitching staff?).
Should we all now feel bad for our initial cheers? Well, as PosterNutBag eloquently put it, "Not a single person on this, or any other blog, has any right to look down on anyone for any of this." No big deal, people, just a little scrum. Sure, we all got excited, surprise, surprise--as McFood pointed out, humans have been getting excited about violence for oh, about the whole history of mankind.
Use this thread to continue talking about the brawl yesterday, including update w.r.t. any penalty handed down. And while doing so: be good to yourselves ... and each other.
142 comments | 0 recs
SunflowerseedGate
by rubin sierra on Apr 25, 2006 3:57 PM EDT
12 comments
In keeping an eye on the SF Chron's Athletics coverage the past couple of days, it seems that a behind-the-scenes controversy is developing. You might say the A's are embroiled in it.
After Sunday's Angels game, wrote Chronicle writer Ron Kroichick, "On the dirt in front of Oakland's dugout, a white bucket rested on its side, with bags of sunflower seeds scattered nearby."
A crime had been committed. A crime of passion. And so, suspicion immediately fell on the most notoriously-passionate Athletic:
"I wasn't throwing them out there," manager Ken Macha said.
Riiiight. Like we said, suspicion immediately fell on the most notoriously-PASSIONATE Athletic.
As Kroichick wrote, "Given ... his combustible history, Bradley was a logical bucket-toppling candidate, but he calmly denied any involvement."
Yet a witness (Kroichick) says Bradley "angrilly flung his bat" after his ninth-inning pop out in Sunday's game, just minutes before the bucket went from upright to sideways.
The incriminating evidence continued to pour in against Bradley yesterday, when A's beat writer Susan Slusser's excellent investigative reporting brought forth two anonymous sources:
"Two members of the team confirmed Sunday's suspicions that Milton Bradley tossed the bucket of sunflowers seeds during the game vs. the Angels," wrote Slusser, who then attempted to fight the flames of controversy by adding, "but the general sentiment was: good. The A's like Bradley's intensity and desire to win, seed-tossing and all."
But who were these anonymous informants who turned Bradley over to the media hounds? And faced with the now-mounting evidence against him, will Bradley confess? Or is he being framed? And how many buckets of sunflower seeds will be overturned before these treacherous snacks are banned from the clubhouse?
And finally, will this controversy overshadow the team and the game we love? Will baseball ever be the same, or will the bucket, now toppled, never be truly upright again, seeds scattered in the dirt like children's tears?
12 comments | 0 recs
Oaktoon's Potential Farewell Open Thread
by rubin sierra on Apr 20, 2006 5:54 AM EDT
54 comments
Initially I was going to suggest that grover start this thread, since he posted at 12:30 in the morning, a great post at the bottom of the 330-comment comment-a-ganza (comment-a-palooza?) prompted by oaktoon's diary. But though it's only an hour later, now it's safe to assume that all, including grover, are asleep, and grover might very well not receive any suggestion I make that he start a new thread until midday tomorrow, by which time who knows, the A's and Tigers could be tied 11-11 in the 6th, and all community guidelines may have been removed as the community descends into total anarchy due to Zito-angst.
So I'll do it myself. I just wanted to create this space to continue the Oaktoon/CGV soap-opera that so intrigued all of us yesterday. We talk A's baseball here, and baseball in general. We talk television and movies ... we talk players' asses. We get sophisticated and debate steroids. But for all that, nothing really draws our interest like a fight--when the discussion between members gets heated. (And now that I've characterized us all as simplistic rubber-neckers, I have to say that yesterday's thread was so fun to read because of the INTELLIGENT argument--which it could very-well be argued, would descend into unreadable crap without the CGVs.)
My own two cents: Blez's need to police the site goes without saying. But it's interesting how nothing brings about a flurry of activity on AN more than those masters of provocation who tend to disregard the rules. Reminds me of Robb's diaries last fall, which were also prolifically commented-on. Oaktoon also reminds me of Terrell Owens. Though they (O.T. and T.O.) do disregard certain rules, they also appeal to our sense of fairness in claiming that they ought not to be penalized. And their value to their respective teams (or in Oak's case, to the site) cannot be easily dismissed. I think the Eagles bungled the T.O. situation ... but how should they have handled it? Your thoughts?
54 comments | 0 recs
Playoffs: A Long-Winded Contemplation
by rubin sierra on Dec 5, 2005 11:12 PM EST
4 comments
Florida St. 27, Virginia Tech 22--and so FSU wins the ACC "Championship" and with it an automatic BCs berth. The correct response to this is "Who cares?"
Well, nobody I know, but it does remind me of some things that I care about. Because I saw the result, and I saw Florida State's record (four losses), and I said to myself--is that really the ACC Championship game? Isn't Miami in that conference? How the hell does FSU get to be champ of a conference in which it lost three consecutive games?
The answer is--bad playoff system. The current wave of stupidity in college postseason tinkering has conferences splitting themselves in half, in order to add a conference championship game. And so we give you four-loss Florida State in the Orange Bowl, while better teams play in the MPC Computer Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Capital One Bowl, et al.
This type of thing is common. In college football, everybody is up in arms about the lack of "a playoff." But other sports' playoff systems have their own problems. I, for one, still am opposed to the wild card, at least as it's currently employed. The NBA playoffs are perhaps the least-exciting in professional sports. And while everybody loves the NCAA tournament in basketball, one would have to agree that it's the playoff LEAST likely to ensure that the best team wins the championship.
So what is the ideal playoff?
4 comments | 0 recs
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