Seriously,...Will Leitch is still there?

Several weeks ago, Deadspin editor/co-founder Will Leitch announced that he was officially leaving the blog to take on a contributing writer role at New York Magazine. At least I think it was a few weeks ago - it might have been four or five months ago for all I know. That's sure what the never-ending litany of stories about it on Deadspin and other sites is making it seem like.

What with all the farewells, speculation on who is going to replace him, and open weeping in the Deadspin comments, you would think that Walter Cronkite was retiring rather than that a pasty fellow who spent most of his days holed up in his Brooklyn apartment making dick jokes about Sean Salisbury was going to be going on to primarily write somewhere else - while still writing where he is now from time to time.

It's starting to feel like the last guest at the party. You know the one: it's 2:30 in the morning, everyone else has left, you're ready to finish cleaning up and/or pass out, and there's the one person who is still there, and still wants to talk to you about stock options, or the Colts defensive line, or African politics. And of course, he won't take the hint that it's time for him to leave, no matter how many exaggerated you make, or how many times you say things like "Wow, look how late it is. Don't you have a long drive home?"

I think this all points to how isolated and insular the sports blogosphere (and God, I hate using that pretentious fucking word) is. Essentially existing in your own, marginalized part of the world has caused dozens of otherwise sensible people to lose all manner of perspective, and start acting like this is Argentina in 1952, and Will Leitch leaving Deadspin equals Eva Peron dying. "Don't Cry for Me, Blogosphere" indeed. (Or, like this is Wisconsin and Will is Brett Favre.)

I like Will. I've had beers with the man. I've played "Guitar Hero" against him. I'm happy that he's moving on to a new challenge. But seriously...this all needs to wrap up soon. Someone start playing "Closing Time" over the bar loudspeakers. "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here" and all that jazz. The collective amount of their shit that everyone is losing speaks to a massive inferiority complex on the part of everyone in the blog community, leading to a massive overreaction to relatively minor news.

Oh, I'll be on vacation next week, so the frequency of posts will drop while I'm out. (I know, I know, down from "glacial" to "non-existent". Ha ha ha and shut up.) I however do fully expect daily eulogies and remembrances from fknmclane while I am gone. After 9 months of blogging, it's the least I could expect. Really, you're too kind.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:34 PM 1 comments  

Dozen of tractors overturned in Fresno following College World Series win

FRESNO, CA - Law enforcement officials picked through the debris Thursday morning after celebrations turned violent following Fresno State's College World Series-clinching win over Georgia the previous night. Raucous fans left overturned hundreds of pieces of farm equipment and left countless heads of cattle, sheep and other livestock "startled but otherwise unharmed."

The harsh light of morning revealed tractors, harvesters and balers that had been overturned during the celebrations by out-of-control fans. Officers in helicopter patrols during the night had reported multiple incidents of fires being started in celebration, but later investigations discovered that these were merely cases of farmers performing regularly-planning burning of leaves, weeds and other agricultural rubbish.

Still, many area residents who went to sleep to the sounds of wild celebrations woke up to a tremendous shock this morning. John Mosesian is a farmer with a 1,200 acre grape vineyard in Fowler.

"I start going to bed, next thing I know, I hear all this shouting and hollering coming from down the road," Mosesian said. "I just thought it was the neighbors getting into it again, so I went to bed. I wake up in the morning, and someone's set my compost heap on fire, and my rotary tiller's been dumped on its side."

Mosesian paused to survey the damage before reflecting on the clean-up effort.

"It's a damn shame - it's going to take hours for Juan, Jose, Paco and Manuel to clean all this up, and they still have 12 hours of field work to do," he said, shaking his head. "They'll be here well past sundown."

Mosesian then drove off in his pick-up to his traditional two-hour breakfast at Lou's Diner with other hard-working farmers.

There were no confirmed reports of injuries or deaths following the incidents, although three Visalia men were arrested and charged with public intoxication and animal cruelty after tossing a pig into the air repeatedly in celebration. The pig was slaughtered as planned later in the morning and was said by observers to be "delicious."

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 2:19 PM 0 comments  

MLB responds to rash of broken bat injuries by switching to maple balls

NEW YORK - Commissioner Bud Selig today announced that as a result of a string of injuries resulting from shattered bats made from maple culminating in an injury to a plate umpire at yesterday's Royals/Rockies game, MLB will be switching to maple baseball effective immediately.

"Based on recent events, we wanted to react quickly to ensure the safety of our players and umpire," said Selig. "However, because of the collective bargaining agreement with the Players' Union, we cannot ban maple bats, so we've decided to do the next best thing."

Selig said that despite MLB having done no testing, he believed switching to maple balls would solve the problem.

"I mean, obviously these maple bats are breaking because they aren't as strong and sturdy as the baseballs they are hitting," said Selig. "The answer, then, is to make sure that what the bat is striking has the same basic density as the bat itself. If we make the balls out of maple, we accomplish that."

Selig said he had asked Rawlings to immediately switch production from the traditional leather, twine and cork baseballs to the new, all-wood models. According to Selig, Rawlings has told him that they would only be able to accomplish this so quickly by using a production plant in India.

"Rawlings has told be that they would be able to start sending me the new "Cricket" line of baseballs almost immediately," said Selig. "I don't know how they were able to have these ready to go so quickly, but thank God that they did."

Players were mixed in their reaction to the announcement. The vast majority of pitchers were "shocked and appalled" at the decision.

"These balls, they're like 1/3rd of the weight of a real baseball," said reigning Cy Young MVP Jake Peavy, "and they don't have seams on them. How the hell am I supposed to do anything but lob a meatball over the plate that's going to get hit 600 feet with this thing?"

Not all pitchers were as negative. Former Cy Young winner Barry Zito said that the new ball would "even" the playing field between himself and other pitchers with "stuff", "location" and "velocity".

If this failed to fix the problem, Selig said, MLB has already contacted Wiffle Inc. as a Plan B.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:41 AM 1 comments  

Coverage of Kalitta crash raises questions

As I'm sure you've heard, champion drag racer Scott Kalitta was killed on Saturday when his funny car blew out an engine and then crashed at nearly 300 mph while he was making his final qualifying pass for the NHRA race at Englishtown, NJ. The main eliminations took place as scheduled yesterday, although in a very subdued manner. Racing went on, as the cliche says, because "Scott would have wanted it that way."

(Note: Just so there's no question what I want, let me make this clear. When I die, I want the mourning process to be incredibly, stupidly intense. Like after a champion boxer from Latin America is killed in the ring. I would like all blogs that have linked to me, that I've linked to, or that might have heard of me to shut down for at least three days after my death out of respect, and the inability to move forward because they are so personally crushed. Thanks.)

The cause of the accident is currently being investigated, and the NHRA has pledged to take those findings and make any necessary changes to limit the risks for other drivers in the future. (I said "limit" since even though drag racing cars are much safer than they were even five years ago, there is no such thing as a 100 percent safe car.) Some things are clear: the engine in Kalitta's car exploded when he reached the end of his quarter-mile run, creating an explosion forceful enough to raise the car off the ground and buckle it into two. Kalitta was unable to stop the car - either he was knocked unconscious from the initial engine explosion or the brake lines had been severed in the blast - and he went through the gravel pit at the end of the runway meant to stop runaway cars, through some addiitonal netting and into a large pole, where it there exploded in a huge fireball and basically disintegrated while sending parts into the woods behind the track.

There is already a lot of speculation on if the "run-off" area at the Englishtown track is large enough to handle a runaway dragster. Many people familiar with the sport - including two-time funny car champ Tony Pedregon - have expressed the opinion that the run-off area is far too short at the Englishtown track, and that this was a major factor as to why Kalitta's crash was fatal. Needless to say, there are going to be a lot of questions asked about this in the weeks to come, and the NHRA needs to have some pretty damned good answers.

But beyond mentioning the crash itself, I want to talk about the coverage of the crash, primarily by ESPN. As you might have noticed, I haven't posted the video of the crash yet. If you want to watch it, here it is - I'm sure not going to embed the clip. But you are all big boys and girls, and I'll let you make the decision on watching it for yourself.

There was a lot of hand-wringing on the Deadspin late night comments thread on Saturday night about two things: the size of the run-off area at the track, and ESPN's coverage of the accident and its aftermath. Specifically, there seemed to be a general agreement that ESPN has being ghoulish or appealing to the viewers' prurient nature by showing footage of the crash over and over.

First off, I watched the 10 p.m. Sportscenter on Saturday night (at least 10 p.m. on the West Coast, check your local listing for dates and times). In their segnent in the accident, they showed the footage of the crash exactly one time, preceded by a warning the the footage was "disturbing." On the ESPN2 tape-delayed coverage of qualifying (which was canceled after the crash), they also showed the accident once, and spent the rest of the time talking to drivers in the pits about Scott Kalitta. And on ESPN News immediately after it was announced that Kalitta had been killed, they broadcast the footage once every "show" (i.e. half-hour), with the same warning that Sportscenter had.

And I suspect that part of the problem is that people were getting confused because of the sheer frequency of ESPN's broadcasts, and equating that with the footage being shown "over and over." If ESPN re-runs the same Sportscenter eight times in one evening, it might feel like you can't turn on ESPN without seeing that crash. Add in ESPN News, the coverage of the actual event, etc...people tend to jumble things in their minds anyway (which is why most people are not reliable witnesses), and seeing it a few times on repeated programming can seem like it's being shown on an endless loop.

If you watched the footage, you'll notice it's not particularly "graphic" - from the angle that ESPN has released, you really don't see much of the crash into the barrier itself, just a giant ball of dust and smoke and flames. As much as people want to make the comparison, this clip isn't the same as when Greg Moore was killed in a CART race at Fontana several years ago, where ESPN essentially refused to show any replays of the accident. This was footage of a closed vehicle crash from a wide-angle shot; the Greg Moore crash footage is a much tighter angle of an open-wheel car, where the car flipped and hit an inside retaining wall. Basically, you can see a human body get crushed against a wall at 200 mph and flip, still in the "tub" of the cockpit but lifeless and limp, along the grass. Needless to say, I'm not linking to that clip - find it yourself if you are so inclined.

But beyond all of this, the question remains - does ESPN "need" to show the footage at all? After all, this isn't Joe Theisman's leg, which was gross and painful, but not anything near fatal. Couldn't ESPN cover the story without showing the footage?

Personally, I think ESPN has a obligation to show the footage in a responsible manner, which I think that they did. There is inherent news value in the footage of the crash, and not just grim fascination like it's from some "Faces of Death" video. Seeing the video and how the crash unfolded gives fans the chance to form their own conclusions on what happened. You can see how the track is laid out, and how much (or little) run-off space there is. I can guarantee you that the outrage over the track set-up wouldn't be nearly as loud as it is (or will get) if there was no footage of the crash made public right after the accident. And the NHRA needs to answer these questions, whether they are at fault or not - for the sake of their drivers and their fans who pay good money to take their families to the races and would prefer that they didn't have to explain to their kids on the drive home why that driver who crashed isn't racing ever again.

Should they be "showing it over and over?" No, and I don't think that they did. And I think they have a duty to choose what angles are shown - having watched a lot of races over the years, I promise you that there is footage from a camera stationed after the finish line that would show the crash in much more horrific detail, and ESPN chose not to release it. (I find it interesting to compare the coverage of this crash to the crash that killed Gordon Smiley in qualifying for the 1982 Indianapolis 500 - where his car went head on into the wall at 200 mph and basically broke apart like a missile hit it. It was one the most graphic and disturbing crashes I've ever seen, but ABC showed a replay of it to lead off their broadcast along with news that Smiley was dead - the crash happened before the broadcast began - and ABC Nightly News showed a different, still icky angle in their broadcast.) ESPN doesn't need to show blood and guts to do its job, but they do need to report the news, even if it's troubling.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 8:47 AM 2 comments  

That Bulldog fever

The Fresno State Bulldogs were thwarted in their first attempt to make it to the College World Series final series, as North Carolina rallied for a 4-3 victory on Saturday night to force a rematch today, with the winner moving on to face Georgia. Now, normally, I wouldn't pay too much attention to the College World Series - somehow, I've managed to remain immune to the "ping" of metal bats. But...Fresno State's run to the precipice of the College World Series final series is significant enough to make me care, and that's not just because I grew up 20 miles away from Fresno.

What Fresno State is attempting to pull off, frankly, would be the equivalent of a No. 16 seed winning the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament. Quite literally - they were a No. 4 seed out of four teams in their sub-regional - essentially one of the 16 lowest-ranked teams in the tournament (so I guess they could have been as high as a No. 13 seed, but...quit ruining the narrative with your math, Mr. Math!). After making it through that, they took down nationally-ranked Arizona St. on the road to punch their ticket to Omaha - despite the Sun Devils' "fake fight", which I haven't mentioned here yet, but it's one of the stupid things I've ever heard of. Even my kickball team - the one that almost burned down our park this season - wouldn't pull something that stupid.

It's pretty amazing stuff. As I've mentioned here before, the local community has a special bond with Fresno State teams, especially the baseball team, which is almost entirely made up of players from the area. The whole Central Valley will rally around a Fresno State team when it does well, especially because in each local town like Visalia or Turlock or Hanford, there is a kid that plays on the team, and that they can rally behind. At least, they would if everyone in town wasn't too busy hiding out in their houses with the air conditioning cranked up, afraid to turn the TV on for fear that the heat from the TV will be the tipping point that causes the house to catch fire.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 1:08 AM 0 comments  

Pac-Man Jones undergoes some corporate rebranding

Remember Pac-Man Jones, the troubled football player with such a long history of legal problems that he was suspended for all of last season, and only just now reinstated on a "screw up one time and you're dead to us" basis by the NFL? Well, he doesn't exist anymore. He'd like to be known by his given name of Adam Jones, thank you very much. Which reminds me of when a company has a horrible disaster, and as part of their crisis communications decides to "rebrand" themselves to get rid of the negative associations with whatever God-awful thing they previously did. Like when ValuJet changed its name to AirTrans Airways after one of their planes slammed into the Everglades due to massive safety failings.

(Personally, I was hoping he would have just moved on to a different 80s arcade name, such as "Frogger" Jones or "Q-Bert" Jones or "Elevator Action" Jones.)

Also, this guy would prefer if you just refer to him as George Kelly. He's really past the whole "machine gun" part. Thanks.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 10:16 AM 2 comments  

Sports Motivational Posters

Big Huge Labs has a fun program where you can make your own "Motivational" poster. You know, the one that your cheesy boss has of a rock climber that says something like "Endurance: Having the grit to hang tough"? So I thought, there are certainly some posters that could be made involving athletes in the news.

Kobe Bryant:

Javon Walker:

Tiger Woods:

Michael Wilbon:

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 3:14 PM 4 comments  

Brian Scalabrine is an idiot

First, please watch this video:



Now, I'm sure you're asking "who the hell is Brian Scalabrine"? Well, he's a back-up forward for the Celtics known more for being a "good luck charm" by riding an exercise bike when the Celtics are rallying than anything he's done on the court. While playing with the Nets earlier in his career, he distinguished himself by forgetting to wear his shorts underneath his sweats, a fact he only realized after he was surprised to find himself actually called into a game and started to remove his pants. Whoops.

And oh, yeah, he went to USC. So did Gabe Pruitt. So, congrats to them, although I did about as much to earn a championship ring as they did.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 6:13 PM 0 comments  

Earthquake felt across Southland attributed to Laker fans ripping flags off of cars

LOS ANGELES - Cal Tech researchers reported that a massive earth movement that registered 4.3 on the Richter scale Tuesday night was not an earthquake as previously thought, but the result of hundreds of thousands of small Laker flags being thrown to the ground in disgust after the team's series-clinching 131-92 defeat by the Boston Celtics in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.

The jolt was felt by people as far north as Merced and as far east as Phoenix at 8:54 p.m. Pacific time. Cal Tech researchers admitted that they were puzzled by the event.

"Of course, your first reaction is that this must be an earthquake, but it became apparent quickly from the data that there was no epicenter and in fact the impact was felt equally across the area," said Lucy Davis, a seismologist at Cal Tech. "It wasn't until we left the lab for the evening and saw the streets littered with hundreds of suction-cupped Lakers flags with tire tracks on them that we were able to piece this together."

Davis warned that something similar to aftershocks could be expected over the next few days, caused by Laker fans simultaneously slamming their garage doors as they put remaining Laker flags away for the next 11 months.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 6:01 PM 1 comments  

The Schilling Curse

Not to burst the bubble of my esteemed colleague, who seems to think that his daughter personally jinxed the Lakers and doomed them to a collapse similar to a Jenga tower built by Michael J. Fox (Editor's note: too soon?), but she was not responsible for what happened. No, the blame squarely rests on the shoulders of an organization known to be so corrupt, evil and Machiavellian that it's obvious that they would be responsible for this.

I'm, of course, talking about the New York Yankees.

Think back to before Game 4, when Curt Schilling blogged about sitting behind the Lakers bench for Game 2, and how Kobe wouldn't stop yelling at his teammates. First, let's concede that Schilling is an idiot and a lout - the fact that he is an athlete that is universally hated by bloggers despite being a blogger himself (usually an instant path to Blog Crush City) is proof enough of how transparent his self-promoting, blowhard ways are.

The problem came from Kobe's response when asked about Schilling's comments: "Go Yankees." Now, at first blush, that's a fun, innocuous comment that's good for a chuckle. But you have to be in Los Angeles and know the history to know that Kobe saying "Go Yankees" was not just tempting fate, but basically was A Hot, Blonde, Teenaged Hotel Worker in Vail for fate. (Editor's note: too so...never mind.)

I know Kobe spent most of his time in Italy, or Bulgaria, or wherever the hell he grew up, so his idea of a rivalry is his ego vs. Shaq's ego AC Milan vs. Juventes, but for people with any sense of history, the leading figure in the Los Angeles sports scene saying "Go Yankees" is the equivalent of Abraham Lincoln waving a Rebel flag while singing Dixie and beating a slave. (Maybe not quite that bad, but you get the point.)

The Yankees and the Dodgers have always hated each other, as long as there has been baseball, and the Dodgers moving from Brooklyn in the 1950s did little to change that. Things really were bad in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Yankees beat the Dodgers in the World Series back to back in 1977 and 1978 before Los Angeles was able to extract some revenge in 1981. Tommy Lasorda would be spinning in his grave if he knew that the Lakers' star player was saying "Go Yankees."

(I've been told that Tommy Lasorda is still alive. Please substitute "his grave" for "the bed of a high-class call girl". Thanks.)

Frankly, Kobe's lucky that he wasn't struck by lightening, or that a plague of locusts didn't invade the Staples Center. At least he has booze to ease the pain.

Posted by The Duke of Everything at 11:19 AM 0 comments