When Baseball is More Than a Game

From time to time, we are reminded that baseball, like all sports, is more than just a game.  Sports can take a hold of person, fans and players alike, and rule their emotions.  We have all experienced, at some point, the pure, overwhelming joy of seeing your team win and the heavy, pressing sadness that comes after a hard loss.  Typically, these emotions are fleeting.  Over time, the feelings subside and you get back to the daily routine of simply being a fan.  

For some, however, the investment in one particular team is greater than even the most impassioned fan can understand.  Such appears to be be the case with Orioles pitching star and Cy Young winner Mike Flanagan.  The circumstances surrounding his suicide are surely more complicated than we know right now.  But the thought that it had anything at all to do with being “despondent over what he considered a false perception from a community he loved of his role in the team's prolonged failure” is heartbreaking.  Many of those close to the Orioles great, including ESPN’s Tim Kirkjian in a piece that made me laugh through the tears, agreed that Flanny seemed different in recent years--more subdued and introspective, less jokey.  He took responsibility, after years in the front office, broadcast booth, and as the O’s pitching coach, for the steady downward trajectory of the once-great Orioles franchise since the late 90s.

Sometimes it’s important, for all of us, to take a step back.  I would never say that baseball is just a game.  Or football.  Or any other sport.  They can all be so much more than that to those that truly love them.  The devastating loss of a man who gave so much to the game and cared so deeply about his team, whatever the cause, reminds me to take a step back and appreciate all the the game has given to me.  Remember that success, and failure, comes in cycles.  Remember to be grateful for being part of something larger and longer lasting than ourselves.  Yes, the Orioles are in a down time now.  But they won’t always be.  And it’s people like Adam Jones, who always walks down to take a look at Camden Yards after returning from a road trip, that keep the honor and tradition of a great franchise alive through those dark times, knowing that someday, someway, they will be back.

P.S.  Peter Angelos, get the hell out of there already.  It’s time.

Ochocinco Tweets his Dad...Roger Goodell

Chad Ochocinco has been hogging the spotlight for as long as he could get a hold of it, both on and off the field.  His recent move to the New England Patriots seems to have done relatively little to change this.  Most recently, the outspoken wide receiver has taken to Twitter to let Commissioner Roger Goodell know that he does not agree with the $20,000 penalty levied against Bucaneer linebacker Mason Foster for unnecessary roughness in a hit on Ochocinco himself during a preseason game a week ago.  In fact, the Patriot said, he plans to reimburse Foster for the fine.  He tweeted, in full, “@nflcommish Dad no disrespect but I don't agree with @mason_foster fine n I'll be reimbursing him personally.Please feel free to contact me”  At least he doesn’t mean any disrespect.  And how generous to make himself available to talk, should Goodell wish to contact him to discuss the matter.

This is not the first time Ochocinco has taken to social media to let the Commish know of his beef with the uptick in penalties resulting from stricter rules across the NFL over the past few years.  Last fall, in a very bizarre series of tweets, he criticized the league for fining James Harrison.  He quickly recanted his statements though, claiming his account had been hacked.  Check out the full series below:

Perhaps most bizarre, though all of this, is that Ochocinco refers to Goodell as “dad,” and appears to have done so for some time now--at least since last November.  You gotta wonder what the patriarch of the NFL himself thinks of all this.  But such is the beauty of social media in sports.  It brings together athletes, fans, media, and, now, commissioners like never before. 

LoMo’s back?!

Self-proclaimed Twittaholic and recently demoted Marlins outfielder has just announced via, of course, Twitter:

As discussed previously on this blog, many within the Marlins organization insinuated that Morrison’s demotion to Triple-A was due in large part, if not exclusively, to his prolific tweeting.  Has this brief jaunt down to the Minor made an impact on LoMo?  How much has matured in over the past week and a half?  Based on his Twitter output since being sent down -- 31 tweets on topics ranging from yoga to trailer park girls to secular humanism -- it doesn’t seem like much has changed.  I think it was crazy in the first place for the Marlins to use demotion to the minors to punish Morrison for tweeting too much.  But, if you’re going to try to teach the guy a lesson, you need to stick to your guns.  So well done, LoMo.  It certainly seems like you’ve won this round.  Welcome back and keep tweeting!

Update: While writing this post, I saw Sport Center report that Chris Johnson would be flying to Tennessee to meet with his agent, Joel Segal, and Titans GM Mike Reinfeldt to discuss his pre-seaon holdout.  The most interesting part of this story: this news was not broken by a beat writer or agent. Instead, it came exclusively from Johnson’s Twitter account.  The medium is inescapable.  In terms of reaching out to fans and media, it’s immediacy and directness is unparalleled.  It seems like it’s only a matter of time before press releases are a thing of the past and all news is announced via a that ubiquitous little blue bird.  The MLB and other sports professionals better get on board or risk being left in the digital dust.

The NFL is just toying with our emotions. And we’re all falling for it.

The Lockout is long gone.  Football is back.  And in case you didn’t know that already, the NFL is going to remind you.  Again.  And Again.  And again.

The NFL has launched a “Back to Football” campaign to make sure we, the fans, know that we are supposed to be extra excited about football this year.  We’re supposed to forget that not much more than a month ago we were all cursing the NFL -- the greedy owners, the greedy players.  All that greed.  All at our expense.  We were worried we might not have any football at all this year.  Some said we should show our disappointment, dare I say anger, over the whole ordeal by not to going to games.  We shouldn’t feed the juggernaut with our hard earned cash.  

But we all knew we weren’t really going to do that, didn’t we?  Football is far too tempting a mistress to forsake just because of a little thing like a labor dispute.  And--here’s the ugly part--the NFL knew this, too.  They knew this all along.  They don’t have to win back our trust or our love.  They had it all along.  They merely need to tug on the heartstrings a bit with a few sepia-toned, indie-music-scored commercials and we’re over it.  We’re dressing up our dogs up in jerseys and loading up the fanbulance just like the good old days.  Just a brief look at the search results for the NFL-sponsored #BackToFootball hashtag reveals the enthusiasm for the season.  Even the players are over it.  They’re “totally psyched” to be back, too!  They were on an emotional roller coaster...just like us!

So, ultimately, no matter how upset the fans feel about the lockout, how jerked around and taken for granted we felt for the past half a year, we’ll be back.  We’ll always be back.  So, NFL owners, players, and executives, we know you’ve just been toying with our emotions all along.  And we’re OK with it.  The NFL season is just around the corner and we can’t wait. 

Twitter Should Not Be Logan Morrison's Downfall

I knew Logan Morrison’s Twitter name (@LoMoMarlins), well before I knew what position he played (left field).  And maybe that’s the problem. 
 
This past weekend, Florida Marlins outfielder Logan Morrison was demoted to Triple-A New Orleans.  Yes, his performance has taken a downturn recently.   After hitting .283 in his rookie season last year, Morrison has been hitting just .200 since the All-Star break.  Marlins president of baseball operations Larry Beinfest said Sunday, "I never thought we'd see Logan hitting in the .240s.  He's a much better hitter than he has showed."

This is not all of the story, however.  Morrison still ranks second on the team with 17 home runs.  He is tied for the most RBIs in the month of July in the MLB with 26.  It’s hard to believe that his on the field performance alone, on a team with a 56-65 record and virtually no chance of making the playoffs, is enough to warrant being sent down to the minors.


This is where Twitter comes in.  

The Marlins brass, including the coaching staff and veteran players, have been fairly vocal about their disapproval of Morrison’s use of Twitter.  Manager Jack McKeon has said, “You've got to leave your distractions at the door.  Too many young guys come into the game today and think they've got it made. They're the darlings of the media and they want to run their mouth instead of tending to business. The record books are full of one- and two-year phenoms."  John Buck, Mariners’ catcher, has gone on the record advising Morrison, “He just needs to be LoMo and play the game, and not let the other stuff get in the way.”

So who’s in the right here?  Sure, Morrison tweets a lot.  But so does Lady Gaga.  And no one has suggested that has gotten in the way of her music.  Oprah Winfrey has 7,067,048 followers.  More than SEVEN MILLION followers.  Despite all that, the Oprah empire appears to be flourishing under her watchful eye.  Why is it that in sports, unlike in many other similarly public professions, social media holds such a stigma?  

Players are confronted with a great many distractions off the field/court/rink that can impact their play--parties, women, money, etc.  Players often place a high premium on being in peak mental condition in order to before to their peak physically.  Undoubtedly, these distractions can have a very negative impact on performance.  Just look at affair-era Tiger.  Earlier this summer, many blamed LeBron’s poor playoff performance on rumors about his girlfriend’s infidelities.  No question, players need to be extremely focused in the high stress, all-or-nothing world of professional sports.  But what is the true danger of Twitter?  How much time do you think it took Morrison to tweet out a quote from the movie Dodgeball?  Or say thanks to a fan who complimented him on a good season and said he had LoMo on his fantasy team?  45 seconds?  If that?  Could that really have been the cause of a drop in hit production significant enough to drive someone out of the majors?

The MLB is notoriously bad at social media.  They tear down YouTube videos of baseball games as soon as they're posted.  Their Facebook page doesn't link to their Twitter account (and vice versa).  They fail to highlight individual players as well as other leagues, most notably the NBA, do.  Social media is here to stay.  Private citizens are tweeting the most mundane details of their lives out to the Twitter-verse for public consumption.  Why should we expect any less of professional sports figures?  There may very well be more to the Logan Morrison story that we know about right now.  He did skip a team event for season ticket holders on Sunday.  Earlier in the season he wrote a tweet disagreeing with the firing of Marlins hitting coach John Mallee.  Nevertheless, the use of Twitter in and of itself should no longer be considered a danger to professional sports players.  If done properly, it is a means for fans to connect with big leaguers in a way that was never possible before.  Fans can have actual, albeit digital, conversations with players who are willing to respond.  They can be kept up to date and provided a behind the scenes look at their favorite clubs and players.  Teams, and leagues, can use the medium to manage their brand in constant, incremental ways, day in and day out.  When used properly, social media can change the very position of sports in our culture.

Not until LoMo is standing out in left field, iPhone in hand, tapping out a 140-character update of the game, will I believe that it truly has had a negative impact on his performance.  

Redemption Has No Place in Pro Football

Redemption was an overriding theme of the NFL this season.  With Michael Vick leading the Eagles to the playoffs to cap off the best season of his career and Ben Roethlisberger appearing in his third Super Bowl after not even playing for the first four games of the season, there has been much made in the media about the “redemption” of these two stars over the past year.  But these are not the grand tales of redemption the media would have us believe.  Vick and Roethlisberger have not, and cannot, prove on the football field that they have redeemed themselves off it.

Roethlisberger was asked countless times at the Super Bowl media day about “off the field distractions.”  About his suspension at the start of this season.  About “overcoming adversity.”  Let’s just be clear about this from the get go.  Alleged rape is not a distraction or adversity.  Roger Goodell did not suspended Roethlisberger for something beyond Big Ben’s control.  He is accused of doing some heinous things, on more than one occasion.  He has no one but himself to blame for this so-called “adversity” he must overcome.  Likewise for Vick.  He didn’t just bet on dog fighting.  He ran the show.  Vick was found guilty in a court of law of some atrocious things.  But now that both have returned to their former on-the-field glory, we as a nation are being asked to forgive, or at least forget.

It is important to recognize the difference between the two cases.  Personally, I have a little bit, a VERY little bit, of an easier time accepting Vick’s renewed stardom.  Sure, I’m an Eagles fan and I can appreciate what he has done for the team this season, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn to him as a model of how to bounce back from failure.  I’m not going to praise him as a hero for coming back to the game a better player than he left it.  But Vick stood trial and served nearly two years in jail.  He lost most of his life savings and declared bankruptcy.  He has, since being signed by the Eagles in 2009, lived a fairly clean and quiet life.  He has done charity work with the Humane Society and connects with fans by responding to dozens of tweets every day.  Vick recently reaffirmed his commitment to living a quiet life off the field by refusing to attend a big time Super Bowl party at the Deux Lounge in Dallas which was, confusingly, billed as “The Michael Vick Experience”  (Which is too bad, because it had a really cool video invitation/ trailer).

However, all of this says nothing about whether Vick has truly redeemed himself.  He may be the same cruel, heartless man who founded, housed, and funded Bad Newz Kennels.  He may be being bribed by his publicist or the Eagles to show up at the Humane Society.  Maybe it’s some assistant who charms his fans everyday on Twitter.  Or maybe his time in jail has helped him begin understand how reprehensible his actions were.  Maybe he is trying to make up for what he has done by volunteering.  And maybe he is as grateful for this second chance at life  and football as he says he is.  We, as fans, will never know.  But what we can know is that the number of touchdowns or interceptions he threw this season is no indication of this.

Roethlisberger’s case is different.  Yes, Roethlisberger was never found guilty of any wrongdoing.  But, in some ways, this makes it worse.  There seems to be little doubt that Roethlisberger is a pig who behaved inexcusably that night in Georgia last year, as well as in Lake Tahoe in 2008, regardless of what the courts have been able to prove.  But Roethlisberger has done nothing publicly to indicate that he is remorseful for what happened and that he would never behave that way again.  His tactic has primarily been to ignore that anything happened at all.  And really, what has he lost in this whole ordeal?  A few early season games and a beef jerky sponsorship.  He didn’t serve jail time.  He didn’t go bankrupt.  He didn’t miss entire seasons in the prime of his career.  And what exactly has Roethlisberger done to try repair his reputation, if only in the public eye?  He has never apologized.  He doesn’t volunteer at a battered women’s shelter (which would probably be a bad idea, in any case).  Roethlisberger has paid a very little price for his wrongdoings and has done very little to appear remorseful.  And yet, we again have no idea if Big Ben is sorry.  Maybe he did some real soul searching during those four weeks at the beginning of the season.  We don’t know.

But I can tell you one way that both Roethlisberger and Vick will not prove to me that they are changed men -- by winning football games.  Making up for past sins, redeeming oneself, becoming a changed man are all things that have no place on the gridiron.  Playing ability and morality have almost nothing in common.  Guys play in the NFL because they are good at playing football, not because they have high moral standards or should be our children’s role models.  Admire their physical ability and their mental toughness; leave your parents and preachers to be your role models.  Just don’t expect me to forget the horrible, horrible things Roethlisberger and Vick, and many other NFL players, have done just because they’ve won a few games.

New Media and the NFL Lockout

As the hours tick down to Super Bowl XLV, the clock is also ticking down to a more frightening date -- March 4th, 2011.  That’s the day the NFL’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expires.  NFL Players Union (NFLPA) Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announced just this Monday that reps from the NFL and NFLPA will meet this Saturday, the day before the Super Bowl, for a “formal bargaining session with both negotiating teams … in [an] effort to reach a new agreement by early March."  As tensions and public attention ramp up, everyone is becoming increasingly anxious to get down to business and, if you believe both sides, make sure there is a football season in 2011.  

An other battle, however, is taking place outside the bargaining room.  NFL players and executives alike have taken to the Internet to win over fans in the court of public opinion.  The NFLPA has definitely taken the offensive online.  Leading the charge is NFLLockout.com.  Here, fans can sign a petition to “Block the Lockout,” count down the hours to the start of the lockout, and read articles on the lockout from all kinds of news sources.  The union is careful to tell the fans what the lockout is about -- economics, equality, healthcare, and history -- and what it is not about -- players’ greed, an unfair CBA in 2006, or owner’s risk.

Beyond the carefully crafted party line, NFLPA executives, as well as current and former players, have taken to the figurative streets to garner sympathy and support for the player’s’ position.  

There was national Let Us Play Day on January 18th when players and fans alike showed there opposition to the lockout by using the Twitter hashtags  #letusplay and #blockthelockout and encouraging friends on Facebook, and, of course, in real life, to sign the petition.  Just a brief look at all of tweets including #LetUsPlay and #BlockTheLockout reveals the broad success of this move to get players vocal and fans active in building momentum for the players’ side of the debate.

NFLPA executives have been active on Twitter by keeping fans updated and responding to comments made by the NFL.  In response to Goodell’s claim that he would take a $1 salary if there is a lockout, for example, Smith tweeted that he would take a 68 cent salary.  Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs George Atallah is a prolific tweeter, updating dozens of times each day.  He responds directly to fans and updates on the negotiation process, giving fans access behind the scenes of the NFLPA.

The greatest source of potential for the NFLPA, both positively and negatively, is the players themselves.  When united, the players can have a huge influence on fans by putting a human face to the lockout.  Online, they can come across as a bunch of regular guys who want only to play the game they love and support their families in doing so.  Some of the more on message tweets are highlighted by the NFLPA here.  However, this tactic has the potential to go very wrong, as in the case of the Hasselbeck-Cromartie spat.  The players need to present a united front.  Internal bickering brought out into the open seriously hurts the NFLPA position of just trying to get back to playing football.

The NFL has responded with its own online assault.  The primary component is NFLLabor.com and it’s corresponding @nfllabor Twitter account.  Though more tame than most of what we see coming from players, the NFL is nevertheless using the opportunity to take some subtle jabs at the NFLPA.  They are letting fans know that they believe the players currently got a “great deal” and emphasizing Gooddell’s commitment to resolving the dispute by the March 4th deadline.  Goodell himself has a Twitter account but does not update very frequently.  

So, in this new age of social media and around the clock access to newsmakers, both the NFL and the players are wasting no time using technology to their advantage.  But ultimately, how much does it really matter?  No fans are going to be happy if there is a lockout, regardless of who tweets and Facebooks the most.  The real work needs to be done by the big players.  Maybe on Saturday, when Goodell and Smith put down their smartphones and sit down to talk face to face, some actual progress can be made.  In the mean time, I will be glued to my Twitter feed watching it all go down.

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For more background info on the CBA, lockout, and what it means for football next season, check out these two great articles.

A New Day Has Tweeted

Much has been made of Jay Cutler’s exit from Sunday’s NFC championship game.  Even more has been made of the response to this on Twitter.  Commentators, current and former NFL players, and plenty of armchair quarterbacks have alternately blasted and defended – but mostly blasted – Cutler’s departure from the game due to a knee injury, reveled on Monday to be a sprained MCL.  In my first post especially, I hate to jump on the hottest topic in sports.  (Does anyone even know there’s a Super Bowl in two weeks??)  But this is a monumental day in sports, that I can't let pass without comment.  We have entered a new era of interaction, technology, and real time reaction.  And I couldn't be more excited.

Technology has been praised for shrinking the world.  We can live video chat with someone thousands of miles away on a cell phone now.  The 24-hours news cycle has allowed even the most local of stories to become national or even worldwide news.  Youtube, Twitter, and their ilk have given everyone a shot at their 15 minutes.  A lot of good has come out of this.  But it can hardly be surprising that a lot of dumb has come out of it.

And I don’t mean “bad.”  I mean “dumb.”  Twitter has done for live sports exactly what it has done for the rest of life.  It has allowed anyone to share his or her most mundane, profound, and downright ridiculous insights into just about anything, including sports, with the online world.  With a 140-character, limit there isn’t much room for careful, complex writing and with one-click publishing, the time it takes a thought to get from brain synapse to World Wide Wed is next to nothing.  What everyone needs to remember is that technology didn’t create the Cutler backlash.  It merely allowed the public’s opinion to become just that -- public.

This weekend was the first time I watched a live sporting event set, from the get-go, on following the game online as well as on TV.  I settled in with my iPhone at the ready.  I checked Twitter and Quickish every time there was a good play, a sloppy call, or a booger.  What I was struck by was how all I was reading were things I had already heard, sometimes only seconds earlier, from my friends with whom I was watching the games.  Sure, some posts may have been a littler wittier or more succinct than what we were saying.  But sometimes, we were all just thinking the same thing.  In fact, my buddy from Chicago took off his Cutler jersey in disgust and threatened to burn it right there in the family room.  Not 10 minutes later, I was able to show him a picture of some guy in Chicago who had actually followed through on that very same threat.

This is the beauty of new media.  Suddenly, I’m not just watching these games with a half dozen friends in the living room of some apartment in California.  Now I’m watching it with the whole country.  I’m watching with ESPN analysts.  With the beat reporters from each of the teams’ hometowns.  With Hall of Famers and current players who didn’t make it to January.  How could that be a bad thing?  I found humor and comfort in what others were saying online.  I felt relieved to know that my analysis of the game was not far off from the top analysts and reporters were saying and that my jokes were not much less funny than those from the most quick-witted sports personalities.

Everyone I was watching with was ripping on Cutler.  Why didn't we see him icing his knee or limping down the sideline?  Why didn’t we see him talking with some trainers?  Or at the very least, why, once all hope was lost, did he not don a headset to help out his backups?  All the big names online did was to voice these same concerns coming from many family rooms across America.  What is the benefit (or the fun) of minute-by-minute updates if they are not going to be a bit brash and hasty?  Instead of listening to talking heads preaching patience and maturity hours after the clock has run out, it was fun to see everyone reacting in real time.  Suddenly, we were all just fans.  Regardless of our qualifications, for a while, we were all just fans, watching a game and wondering what was going on on the sideline.

This is the very phenomenon I will explore on this blog.  Technology and new media have created a whole new world of sports.  Fans, players, and experts are interacting in ways never seen before while navigating uncharted waters.  The way we experience sport has fundamentally changed.  And now I’m here to figure it all out.