“In the past 15 years, according to a recent study by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the percentage of African-American major league baseball players has plunged to 8.4 percent from 18 percent; the percentage of white players has slipped to 59.5 percent from 68 percent.

Now look at Division I football statistics compiled by the N.C.A.A. In the past five years, the percentage of football scholarships offered to African-American players has risen to 45.4 percent in 2005-6 from 39.5 percent in 1999-2000.”

I read Roberts’ remarkable findings and claims and thought back to Labor Day weekend, when Appalachian State stunned much of planet Earth with its compelling slaying of top-5-ranked, powerhouse Michigan. It wasn’t with smoke and mirrors that A State pulled off the feat, it was with quality athletes — all over the field, and especially at the skill positions. Does that kind of upset happen 20 years ago? Of course not; had it, the reaction to this game wouldn’t have been as powerful as it was. And now, virtually every Saturday sends fresh jolts throughout the top 25 rankings. College athletic directors who 5 or 10 years thought they’d scheduled “gimmes” out of conference in 2007 are learning something else.

The vast majority of college football games each Saturday are completed just as baseball’s playoff clubs are leaving their hotels. And so baseball’s wound in the competitive sports marketplace is self-inflicted. Why can’t a postseason first pitch be delivered at 1:05 on a Saturday? Because of baseball’s bloodlust for prime — and past prime — time big bucks.

There’s a cautionary tale here for hockey. The good news is that when a hockey broadcast, regular season or playoff, commences at 7:00 on the East Coast the action starts at 7:05 and pretty much proceeds unabated until 9:30. It’s a kiddie-family friendly schedule. For some mysterious reason baseball broadcasts arrive and viewers are greeted by nearly a half hour of non-action analysis. Then, in its modern iteration, baseball imposes something on the order of 21 pitching changes over the course of nine innings. Really, could it do anything more to drive away viewers — young ones most particularly?

The economics of baseball for families aren’t all that bad — wide swaths of stadiums’ upper decks and bleacher seats remain within wallets’ reach. Less so, though, I think with big-league hockey. The American League and CHL games I attend are constantly crammed with kiddies. That’s not because they find the NHL boring.

There are great athletes today in hockey, at all levels. This is true to some extent because they have been able to make a connection with the game on television. But could even more great athletes form an attachment with hockey, particularly, say, in urban settings? I think so.

One of the more endearing traditions in the American Hockey League is the relative prevalence of afternoon games. Some are scheduled during September’s preseason slate, others on holidays like Columbus Day. School kids by the busload fill the stands at affordable rates. Hockey wants to be a hit, but first you must hook the kids.

“As viewing habits go,” Roberts concludes, “a sport can’t be a hit if it’s not seen. Football gets that. And with it, all the talent.”   

Filed in American Hockey League, Baseball, MLB, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Other Sports, Print, Pro Hockey Ticket Pricing| Permalink| Comments (7)

Only God Can Save Baseball in Baltimore

By The OFB Team
Thursday, August 23, 2007

History — of the lurid, malicious, nauseating, revolting, and unfathomable kind — was made at Camden Yards Wednesday afternoon.

Photo by Nick Wass/AP

According to ESPN, Texas’ 30 runs, 27-run victory represent the great smackdown in baseball since 1897. That’s the nineteenth century — two centuries ago. To put the Rangers’ 30 runs in a single game in perspective, if you had Paris Hilton passed out in a frat house of 30 on a Saturday night immediately following mid-term exams, only 29 brothers would score (one or two on average would be gay). Lest you think we’re making up this sordid number, here’s the boxscore.

Just to be clear: it wasn’t the ‘27 Yankees who demolished O’s pitching Wednesday; it was 54-70 Texas.

This will be the Orioles’ 10th consecutive losing season under Peter the Ungreat.

Peter Angelos

Success or failure in a professional sports organization begins at the top; in this regard, Caps’ fans are quite lucky. And with this in mind, Skins’ fans shouldn’t chuckle too vociferously at the O’s mess Wednesday; their band leader is every bit as bad, and likely worse, than the Inner Harbor’s trial lawyer who should himself be on trial.

Filed in Baseball, Daniel Snyder, MLB, Other Sports, Redskins, Schadenfreude| Permalink| Comments (13)

The Silent Indictment

By pucksandbooks
Monday, July 23, 2007

Cup'pa JoeI read no new Harry Potter this past weekend and instead familiarized myself with details about likely indictments in baseball (Barry Bonds) and basketball (NBA referee Tom Donaghy). In Saturday’s Washington Post, Dave Sheinen had a fascinating account of Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s startling indifference to Bonds’ inevitable home run record. The commissioner — the chief executive officer of the sport — is apparently uncertain if he’ll be in the ballpark this week or next when Bonds passes Hank Aaron’s home run record.

Necessarily, and instantly, I drew a parallel between Bonds’ record pursuit and Wayne Gretzky’s with Gordie Howe’s most goals scored one more than a decade ago. This summer, neither Selig nor Hank Aaron have much stomach to be seated near home plate when Bonds rounds the bases for the 756th time. I call it The Silent Indictment.

In March 1994, as Gretzky honed in on his 802nd goal, both Commissioner Bettman and Gordie himself followed #99 in the L.A. Kings’ games. Gretzky being Gretzky, he didn’t have them travel all that long, scoring the record goal precisely where he should have, in Edmonton. It was the among the mightiest of individual records that was about to fall, much as Aaron’s is in baseball, and Bettman and hockey royalty accorded it its full weight in commemoration.

It’s a staggering juxtaposition. The most significant testimonial to the record-breaking moment on the diamond this summer will likely be offered by the game’s TV play-by-play voice. And even there, you wonder what manner of reaction he’ll offer. Elation? Relief? Contempt?

There’s a queer and almost perverse juxtaposition, too, in place when comparing the physical makeup of the athletes who pursued these hallowed records in different sports. Wayne, who likely never lifted a weight in his life, let alone entertained thoughts of injecting horse hormones into his bloodstream, surpassed the brawny shouldered, iron-elbowed, and menacing demeanor and determination of hockey’s greatest power forward, Mr. Hockey. There could be no second-guessing about the legitimacy of Wayne’s virtuosity or his rightful claim to the record. Aaron was the Wayne of his era, diminutive in physical stature but a world-altering presence with his talent. Today he’s pursued by a fraud, a freak, a pariah, an emblem of our judgement-free sports culture.

The cage into which Gretzky scored his record-breaking goal today resides at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto. Perhaps Bud Selig will follow hockey’s practice and establish a commemorate display of Bonds’ record at Cooperstown one day: an encased syringe.

Filed in Baseball, Gary Bettman, Hockey Hall of Fame, Hockey Heroes, MLB, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Other Sports, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (1)

The Kettler-Capitals Oasis

By pucksandbooks
Monday, July 9, 2007

Cup'pa JoeThe Caps can never take July Rookie Camp away from us, ever. It would be a high crime against hockey humanity. Imagine this week, with the mercury flirting with 100, without the refrigerated oasis at Ballston. You can boil hotdogs in our swimming pools. The air quality indicators are in dangerous hues. Only scorpions and cactus could be happy here this week.

I had planned on arriving at Kettler-Capitals late Wednesday afternoon, for the week’s first scrimmage, but after today’s thermometer baking, I may pack a bag and snag a pillow from home and sleep in the stands there beginning tonight. Like Duke students and their encamped anticipation for hoops tickets, that’s how I’m longing for live hockey this week. Kettler Krazies?

From a simple karma point of view, the Caps’ July Rookie Camp is perfectly perched in a mid-point of hockey’s calendar absence from our lives. We last witnessed live hockey here more than 10 weeks ago, and when this week’s summit of skilled skaters adjourns early Saturday evening, we’ll have about eight weeks before training camp commences. I’ll need your commiserating camaraderie to help get me through August.

In my business comings and goings in Northwest today and tomorrow I want to happen upon a family of heat-frazzled tourists from Minnesota, their tempers short, the children ornery, and I want to emergency transport them to the Metro Orange line and home to their hockey hearts at Ballston. Who needs monuments when soon Swedes on skates will be in sublime motion?

Years ago, pre Bud Selig, I used to lose myself a bit in June, July, and August in Major League Baseball games. It seemed inoffensive to my hockey heart, rejuvinative and patriotic. But for at least 10 years now I’ve been unable to distinguish the cheaters from the honorable on Bud’s diamonds, and requiring as I do a modicum of integrity to the games I invest my time, money, and emotion in, I simply cannot and will not play the sucker, the duped. This morning the media is reporting that Alex Rodriguez homered for the 30th time this season yesterday. He’s on pace perhaps for 70 dingers. After the season he had last year, I want a drug test. He may well be perfectly clean, but on Bud’s watch, I have zero basis for believing it. Don’t even get me started on Barry Bonds’ profaning of Hank Aaron. What happened to sports America’s ability to blush?

Last night I was seated in the stands of Shirley Povich Field, in Rockville’s Cabin John Regional Park, taking in a doubleheader between two senior league baseball teams. Under every cap was short, grey, receding hair. On the basepaths there was more strolling than scampering. There were one or two dropped fly balls, but I was pleasantly engaged in the overall quality of play — clearly most of the guys had played college ball. I was watching authentic baseball, and even in breezeless suburban D.C., I was happy. It was an oasis.

Kettler-Capitals brings us another this week — relief from the heat. And the hot air.

Filed in Development Camp, Kettler Capitals Iceplex, MLB, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (7)

Backstrom Pitches a Strike

By Gustafsson
Monday, May 21, 2007

Per the Caps website:

“Washington Capitals center and 2006 first-round draft pick Nicklas Backstrom threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Washington Nationals-Baltimore Orioles game this afternoon at RFK Stadium. Backstrom, a native of Gavle, Sweden, attending his first baseball game, delivered a strike over the plate in front of the crowd of 29,281 before the Nats’ 4-3 win.”

Backstrom Throws First Pitch - photo by Mitchell Layton - courtesy of The Washington Capitals
photo by Mitchell Layton

OFB will attend a press conference that will be held today to introduce Backstrom as the newest member of the Capitals.

Filed in Baseball, MLB, Nicklas Backstrom, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (1)