Supporting the Yankees

I was recently forwarded an email which contained, as an attachment, a scanned copy of an NFL contract from 1944.  The contract, between the Green Bay Packers and a player named Ed McGroaraty, agreed to pay the athlete $150 per game, plus $35 per week for travel expenses, with the possibility of increasing payment "as soon as you are playing the kind of ball deserving more money."  The timing of this email was perfect; when I received it, I was on ESPN.com reading about Derek Jeter's contract dispute with the New York Yankees.

McGroaraty's 1944 contract with the Green Bay Packers.

As one Caught Looking reader accurately noted on Facebook yesterday, Jeter's stats clearly don't justify the kind of pay increase he's asking for.  It's hard not to agree with the following:

It's really fairly difficult to make the Yankees look like the reasonable party in a negotiation but Derek Jeter is apparently giving it his all. Players with a higher WAR* last year than Jeter's (2.5) last year: Omar Infante (2.7), Mike Napoli (2.7), Kevin Kouzmanoff (2.9), Luke Scott (3.1), and about 80 others.

But, as usual, I'm not here to debate Jeter's statistics or monetary value.  What I can't stop thinking about, though, is the notion that, according to a supposedly credible source, "the Jeter side [doesn't want] Jeter's value to be judged against that of other shortstops, preferring to base his worth on his legacy as an all-time great Yankee."

I realize that it's within every professional athlete's right to fight for the best contract he can.  MLB stars like Jeter generate a ton of revenue for their teams, and Jeter is certainly allowed to negotiate as large a contract as possible.  The question here, though, is if there's a difference between what Jeter is "allowed" to do as a star baseball player and what he "should" do as part of his self-professed efforts to be remembered as an "all-time great Yankee."  For years now, Jeter has been the gold standard of baseball players, from his cordial relationship with the media to his lack of (speculated) performance enhancing drug use.  If there was one MLB star who I would have thought would have quietly and smoothly agreed to a reasonable deal to return to his team, it would have been Derek Jeter.  These surprising developments in the Jeter vs. the Yankees contract saga show that I was wrong.

Derek Jeter is not Ed McGroaraty, and this is not 1944.  Jeter plays in a professional sports landscape full of multi-million dollar player contracts, television agreements and stadium construction proposals, and has the right to carve out the biggest piece of that pie that he can.  At the same time, though, the Yankees have the right to play hardball and stick to their original (and seemingly more than fair) three year, $45 million offer.  I hope that for once the Yankees stay true to their word about refusing to overspend, and until they budge from their current position they have my support (for once) in their battle against Derek Jeter. 

*WAR = Wins Above Replacement

No Respect on Senior Day

Earlier today, for the first time ever, I watched the BCS Selection Show that ESPN airs on Sunday evenings.  It's a completely absurd show where ESPN milks what should be a ten-minute event into a 45 minute show, and the BCS top 25 is leaked out bit by bit in between mindless commentary.  Normally I'd avoid the BCS Selection Show like the plague, but with Stanford's hopes for a BCS bowl bid almost entirely dependent on this week's rankings, I was hooked.  After a surprisingly (and embarassingly) dramatic 30 minutes of waiting, we learned that Stanford is now #4 in the current BCS rankings, meaning that, much to college football's disappointment, the Cardinal are almost definitely heading to the Sugar, Orange or perhaps even the Rose Bowl (if Auburn loses to South Carolina this weekend and TCU goes to the national championship game).

Why is this so disappointing to the BCS bowl system and the NCAA?  The underwhelming home crowds at Stanford games this season, despite the team's on-field prowess, illustrates why the BCS bowls should be concerned - there just aren't many fans of Stanford football even in Palo Alto, let alone across the country.  Stanford's inability to convince fans to come to a critical home game against Arizona earlier this season suggests that premier football matchups don't matter much to Cardinal fans. Even more disappointing to me, though, was the pathetic turnout for Senior Day against Oregon State yesterday afternoon.

A dominant team and a great Stadium apparently aren't enough to sell out Stanford home games.

Yes, there were possible explanations for why some people might not have come to the Oregon State game yesterday.  It had rained earlier in the day.  It was the Saturday following Thanksgiving, so some people might have been out of town.  Oregon State isn't a high profile opponent (Stanford's only sellout this year came against USC).  Despite these facts, though, I was personally really excited for Senior Day and would have thought more people would have been, too.  The fifth-year seniors were freshmen when Stanford went 1-11 five seasons ago, and this home finale should have been a celebration of the turnaround that the program has made since 2005.  Instead, it was just another dominant on-field performance that was only seen live by 38,775 people.

One of the coolest parts of most Senior Days is when the senior class is recognized one-by-one on the field prior to the game, but Stanford didn't even do that because, as I was told by a credible source,not enough fans show up prior to kickoff to justify the ceremony.  Instead, the team videotaped a "ceremony" that was held earlier in the day, and showed it on the video boards during halftime.  Rather than receiving a standing ovation from 65,000+ fans like he would have had he attended Penn State, Texas or Alabama, two-way starter Owen Marecic was featured for about five seconds as part of a cheaply-made video that barely anyone was paying attention to.  Not cool.

It was pretty sad and very disappointing, and I can't blame the BCS for not wanting Stanford in one of their bowls.  As much as I've enjoyed watching the Stanford football team play this year (I don't think anyone in the country is playing better right now, Oregon, Auburn and Wisconsin included), I've found the support for such a dominant team thoroughly underwhelming.  If Cardinal fans won't come out to home games to watch the #4 team in the nation, why should we believe that they will travel to support their team in a BCS bowl played in New Orleans, Miami or even Los Angeles?  My guess is they won't, and what should be a neautral-site game will turn into a tough road contest for the Cardinal.

Congrats to the Stanford Cardinal 2010 football team.  They're the only team in the country going BCS bowling in spite of their fans. 

BCS Bitterness

Since its inception, I've always made it a point to call Caught Looking a blog about the sports fan experience, not a blog about sports.  I've gone out of my way to avoid covering the topics that are constantly beat to death by traditional sports media: game recaps, scenario analysis, second guessing, etc.  At the same time, I try to write about topics that actually matter to true sports fans: what it's like to attend live games, tools that improve the fan experience, etc.  So, where does the BCS debate fit in?  While I've avoided writing anything BCS-related to date because it's so overly-covered by ESPN and Sports Illustrated, few things matter more to sports fans right now than how college football's national champion is decided.  So I've decided to cave and put down a few personal thoughts on college football's championship process.

First, let's get some things out of the way.  I'm not going to leave you on any cliffhangers here; I'm definitely a fan of a playoff system.  I'm also not going to pretend that I'm not biased.  As the 2010 season nears its conclusion and it appears increasingly likely that Stanford, despite a possible 11-1 record and a top-six BCS ranking, won't go to a BCS bowl game, I'm growing increasingly bitter.  But anger over the BCS isn't very productive unless you can identify what aspect of the current system annoys you.  Today, while watching Auburn pull off an impressive comeback at Alabama, I think I figured out precisely why I despise the BCS.

As the Auburn-Alabama game was in its final minutes, the announcers proclaimed that the close games played by SEC teams were the reason a team like Auburn should play for the national championship and a team like Boise State or TCU shouldn't.  The ESPN crew insisted that because Boise State (now irrelevant because of their loss to Nevada last night) and TCU don't have to go play at Alabama as part of their conference schedules, Auburn must be a better team.  It doesn't take a genius to realize that this logic makes absolutely no sense.  Assuming the goal of any college post-season system is to find the best team in the country, it shouldn't matter how many games you've played against teams that are close to your ability.  Instead, all that should matter is which teams are better than others on an absolute basis.  While it's true that TCU plays weaker conference opponents than Auburn, we have no idea how well the Horned Frogs would do on the road at Alabama.  Many assume that because TCU hasn't had the opportunity to play a team like Alabama on the road, that must mean that they couldn't win in Tuscaloosa.

This reasoning just isn't sound.  The reason this argument doesn't make sense, however, is because it's not really the argument that these announcers were trying to make.  Their real point was that, when two teams are close in ability, the team with a tougher schedule should get priority when it comes to the national championship.  And you know what?  That probably makes sense.  I have no idea how Auburn would do against TCU (only a playoff could tell us that), but if I had to pick one I guess I'd pick Auburn as the best of the lot.  Nevermind the fact that we shouldn't have to choose.  If we're stuck with the BCS, we'll have to resolve discrepancies by giving preferential treatment to teams from better conferences.  Fine.

So if "better conference equals better team" is the BCS's mantra, then tell me this: why will Stanford be sent to the Alamo Bowl when inferior teams from the Big East and ACC play in BCS bowl games?  If tougher schedules count more, then shouldn't #6 Stanford, who has only lost one game (on the road to the number-one ranked team in the country) in a competitive Pac-10 conference, play in a BCS bowl before an unranked Big East team like UConn or West Virginia?  Why isn't the same logic that's keeping TCU out of the national championship picture keeping UConn and West Virginia out of the BCS bowl picture?

Like many others, I think a playoff system would resolve 99% of the BCS's issues, but I realize that it's not likely to happen any time soon.  So if we're stuck with the BCS bowls, shouldn't the NCAA at least be able to implement its policies consistently?  In my opinion, the NCAA and BCS need to state their stance on these issues clearly, once and for all.  If conference strength is king, then explain to me why UConn and Virginia Tech can go BCS bowling and Stanford can't?  And if conference strength isn't the determining factor, then the NCAA needs to come up with a new rationale for keeping TCU out of the national championship game.  Either way, the NCAA has some explaining to do to its fans.

Smooth Skating

This fall alone, I've been stuck in the Oracle Arena parking lot for 45 minutes following a Warriors game against the Knicks and avoided going to the bathroom at Stanford Stadium for hours because of long lines during Stanford versus Arizona.  When I pay big money (or even when I pay nothing at all) to go to a sporting event, I expect the stadiums and arenas to add to, rather than take away from, the live game experience.  The RBC Center in Raleigh, North Carolina is the perfect type of facility - a modern, clean and efficient arena that is refreshingly well-run.

After an easy ride to the RBC Center parking lot (thanks to parking lot attendants who were actually directing traffic), I entered the arena and immediately noticed a huge selection of food options.  Not only did RBC have numerous fixed concession stands, but the concourse was filled with wheel-able carts selling Carolina BBQ, four different types of sausages, ice cream, healthy options and more.  As I walked around the stadium to our seats, I saw that each of the stands and carts could be found in multiple places, meaning that fans don't have to walk more than a few sections over to find their favorite snacks.  Prices as a whole were between reasonable and typical, and because it was "Family Night" all hot dogs, regularly priced at an already-fair $3, were only $1.

I was impressed with the inside of the RBC Center, too.  Built in 1997 when the Hurricanes moved to Raleigh, the arena had new-looking red seats, tons of nice video boards and a great-looking Jumbotron (similar to the one I saw at HP Pavilion last week).  It's an above-average looking NHL arena - seemingly well-suited to host the NHL All Star game this coming January - and runs as smootly as any I've been to in recent memory.  The people working there are knowledgable, attentive and nice, which coming from New York and having become used to Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and Nassau Coliseum, I wasn't used to.

 Despite the open seats, energy was high for Hurricanes vs. Capitals at the RBC Center.

The game itself - a battle between the Hurricanes and the Washington Capitals - was fine.  The crowd was somewhat sparce, but perhaps that was to be expected for the night before Thanksgiving.  Despite being only about two-thirds full, the arena was loud during key moments and following the Canes' two goals.  I'm not sure how often RBC is full for either Canes or NC State Wolfpack basketball games (it's a pretty amazing venue for a college basketball team, and I had no idea that NC State played there until I saw their banners hanging from the rafters), but when it is I'm sure it's a great place to watch a game.  If you're in the Raleigh-Durham area, take a trip to the RBC Center for an NHL hockey or ACC basketball game if you want to see how a sports facility should be run.

Dribbling Down the Tobacco Road

I've always said that any true sports fan needs to make pilgrimages to the important landmarks in sports during his lifetime: Fenway Park, the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, Lambeau Field, the Rose Bowl, etc.  Yesterday I not only crossed two sports to-do's off of my list - Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium and UNC's Dean Dome - but I had the rare opportunity to visit both on the same day.

First up was an up-close-and-personal tour of Cameron, which exceeded even my wildest expectations.  Thanks to some special connections, I had the chance to walk right onto the fabled "Coach K Court" and take a look around the facility with no one else around.  As I'd heard, the gym is very small and cozy, and has a wonderfully classic feel to it.  Even though I unfortunately wasn't there for a game, I could understand what makes Cameron such a special place; from the blue seats to the classic scoreboard, everything had a very "Duke-cool" feel to it.  While it lacked the bells and whistles of some of college hoops' more elaborate arenas, the only college basketball facility that I've been to that might rival it is the Palestra in Philadelphia.  In addition to Cameron, we also toured the nearby Duke sports museum, which had awesome displays of Duke sports accomplishments (mainly basketball, but other sports too) over the years.  Duke has a gorgeous campus overall, and the basketball facilities truly are the icing on the cake.

On the floor of Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium.

Yesterday evening, it was off to the Dean Dome to watch North Carolina take on UNC Asheville.  The Dean Dome couldn't have been more different from Cameron Indoor Stadium; other than the trademark Tar Heel blue covering all of the seats, railings and rafters, nothing about the Dean Dome was very collegiate.  At more than double the size of Cameron, the Dome is probably awesome when filled with screaming UNC fans, but was a little underwhelming at basically half capacity.  The fans matched their team for most of the game, as they appeared to take the win for granted (and barely cheered) until it got close in the second half.  At that point, both the team and the fans released nervous blasts of energy, which gave me a glimpse of what a game at the Dean Dome could be like.  This particular pre-Thanksgiving non-conference matchup, however, reminded me more of an Indiana Pacers game than it did a home contest for one of college basketball's top all-time programs.

There were plenty of open seats at the Dean Dome for UNC's game against UNC-Asheville.

For this trip down Tobacco Road, the score reads Duke 1, UNC 0.  I hope to have the opportunity to attend big-time battles at both Cameron Indoor and the Dean Dome in the future, though, to see how the two compare on more equal playing fields.

Winning Weekend

Before I head back to the East Coast for Thanksgiving week, I had the chance to attend two great Bay Area sporting events this weekend.  First, I saw the Knicks grab an impressive road win at Golden State on Friday night, and earlier today I headed up to Berkeley to see Stanford football dismantle Cal in the 2010 edition of the Big Game.  Not only did both matchups result in favorable outcomes for my teams, but I was really impressed with the crowds at both.

First, I've already mentioned that Oracle Arena is a fun place to watch a basketball game.  On Friday night, it was a particularly exciting atmosphere.  The game was high scoring, and the crowd fed off of the energy that the Knicks and Warriors provided via an array of dunks, fast breaks and three pointers.  Though the Knicks jumped out to a big lead, Golden State made a feverish push late in the fourth quarter (blowing fourth quarter leads have become a New York specialty under Mike D'Antoni, after all).  As the Warriors began to climb back into the game, the home crowd got passionate and loud.  On top of it all, the fans were all super-nice and positive; though I was wearing my Knicks t-shirt and some fans playfully trash-talked at me, the home crowd was really courteous.  It really is a great environment for families and kids, since it's loud and fun but not at all threatening.  A very different place from Madison Square Garden for sure.

Basketballs were flying everywhere at Friday's Warriors game, including on top of the shot clock.

I didn't know what to expect from the Big Game today, but I certainly wasn't disappointed.  The Stanford fans travelled well and were out in full force at Berkeley.  From the opening kickoff to the storming of the field after the game (pictures below), the Cardinal faithful were fantastic.  While security guards and cops lined up on the field near the Stanford section to prevent a storming, the men in red were not to be denied.  After the final whistle, students started pouring onto the field and I, of course, joined in.  The players seemed to really appreciate and enjoy the fan reaction, and the band played "All Right Now" as the players and fans danced in the South endzone.  It was definitely an amazing moment, and was sort of an unofficial welcoming as a true Stanford sports fan for me.

At the same time, the Bears fans impressed me, too.  Despite being down 31-0 at the half, the Cal students stayed until the end of the game and rooted for their team until the end.  Though a shutout would have been great for Stanford, I was almost happy that Cal scored two touchdowns once the game was well out of reach.  The blue-and-gold-clad Berkeley kids deserved at least a little something the cheer about.

Stanford fans (including yours truly) rushed the field after defeating Cal 48-14.

 Cardinal fans came out in droves to Berkeley's Memorial Stadium.



Overall, this weekend was a fantastic start to Thanksgiving break.  Next up: a trip to Durham, North Carolina until Friday.  Stay tuned for a Durham-area sports post or two later this week.  Until then, Happy Thanksgiving!

The Not-So-Great Outdoors

There were two interesting news stories this week about college sporting events being played in non-traditional venues that I wanted to weigh in on.  First, it was announced today that Saturday's college football game between Northwestern and Illinois, to be played at Wrigley Field, will only use one end zone for offense because the other end zone is too close to the outfield wall, prompting safety concerns from NCAA and Big Ten officials.  Earlier this week, Michigan State announced intentions to play a basketball game, preferably against North Carolina, on a docked aircraft carrier on Veterans Day, 2011.

The east (right) endzone is way too close to Wrigley's famous ivy-covered wall.

In general, I think outside-the-box thinking like this is great for sports.  Taking sporting events out of their natural environments is a great way to generate news coverage, capture the interest of fringe sports fans and break up sometimes-monotonous regular seasons.  We've seen the NHL have phenomenal success with their Winter Classic outdoor game, now a New Years Day sports staple, and both the NBA (preseason) and the WNBA (regular season) have had positive experiences with games played outside.  In each of these instances, the non-traditional venues were well suited to host their respective events and the games went off without incident.

This week's newsworthy events, however, are potentially troubling.  While Big Ten officials were put in the difficult position of choosing between safety and conformity for Saturday's game at Wrigley, NCAA officials are concerned about how a basketball game on an aircraft carrier would work logistically.  It's one thing to stage a uniquely-located sporting event; it's quite another to have that event interfere with how the games are supposed to be played.  As somewhat of a traditionalist (don't even get me started on Major League Baseball's playoff expansion plan), I can't support either of these events until I'm confident that, regardless of where the games are played, they're still played the right way.  I value coaching strategy enough to maintain that having the offense always move west can alter the outcome of a football game, and imagine that unforeseen conditions might wreak having on what would otherwise be a fantastic hoops matchup between the Spartans and Tar Heels.

Sports need to think differently in order to continue to grow and attract new fans.  When the sanctity of the game is at stake, though, I think leagues and teams need to take a stand and err on the side of game standardization.  The purity of both football and basketball is a large part of what makes those games so great, and it would be a shame (and a shortsighted business move, in my opinion) to continue to throw that all away to earn a few extra dollars.

Rivalry Week

Restarting the sports job search process has been simultaneously thrilling and frustrating.  As excited as I am to learn about new potential opportunities working in and around sports, the difficulties involved in finding available positions and contacts are a constant reminder of the fact that, for most people, sports are just a tiny aspect of life.  Though I have made sports the focal point of my professional, academic and social life, most people see things differently.  Did you know there are people out there who don't consider Kiroki Kuroda's one-year extension with the Los Angeles Dodgers to be critical news?  Sad, but true.

Just when a lack of sports-love was starting to get me down, rivalry week blew into town (rhyme unintentional).  This Saturday, Stanford will travel to Berkeley to battle Cal in the 2010 edition of "The Big Game," and I'll be there in person (and will, of course, blog about it afterward).  Almost as exciting as the game itself, though, is the fact that a sports-related buzz is blanketing the entire Stanford campus right now.  The Stanford-Cal game is always a big deal, but with a potential BCS Bowl berth on the line for the Cardinal the stakes and energy are particularly high.  Our Palo Alto campus is filled with fun reminders of Saturday's significance, from the red-water (well, sort of pink-water . . .) fountain that I pass by every day on my walk to the Business School, which signifies the week of The Big Game (see right), to the giant "Beat Cal" banner than hangs on the front of the Stanford library (see below).

Despite the frustrations associated with a sports job search, I refuse to give up on my goals.  It's things like the fountain and the banner that remind me how powerful sports can be in encouraging healthy competition, connecting people, and making an otherwise-slow, pre-Thanksgiving week much more exciting.  I feel lucky to be living on a campus where people are excited about a football game a week in advance, and I can't wait for the game at Cal on Saturday afternoon.

Beat Cal.  Fear the Tree.  Go Stanford.

Swimming with Sharks

Have you ever been in a room of people, looked around and realized every single person there was different from you in some obvious way?  It's a very uncomfortable eperience.  Now, imagine if that room contained 17,000 people, and you'll get some idea of what it was like to be an Islanders fan at the Sharks game in San Jose last night.  While most people don't think of San Jose as being much of a sports hot spot (let alone a hockey one), the atmosphere at HP Pavilion was pretty electric and intense.  To pull a near sellout crowd against the Islanders on a Thursday night is solid; for those 17,000 fans to be vocal, knowledgable and confident is impressive.

The arena itself is utilitarian, but elegant in an unfinished-yet-modern sort of way.  It fits well in Silicon Valley, and looks like many of the technology company offices that fill the area (exposed ceilings, unpolished metal fixtures, etc.)  It's plain, but an arena doesn't have to be flashy when it's filled with white, black and teal jersey-clad fans every night.  The food choices were adequate, and while the place didn't blow me away, it was a perfectly serviceable and functional new-ish hockey arena (unlike Nassau Coliseum, which is neither serviceable, functional nor new-ish).

When the Islanders took a surprising (even to me) 1-0 lead in the second period, I stood to cheer.  I looked around the arena and saw about 10 other people standing.  For a sellout crowd, you'd expect at least 5% of the fans to be rooting for the opposition.  The combination of passionate Sharks fans and pathetically weak Islanders fan base, however, made this game extremely one-sided.  With their Sharks down 1-0, the fans didn't panic.  Like actual sharks, the team and its fans calmly kept circling their prey and waited for the right time to strike.  That time came on a 5-on-3 power play later in the second period, and again in the OT shootout where San Jose grabbed the win.

Fans celebrate after the Sharks tied the game in the second period.

Overall, it was a good experience.  It had been some time since I saw live hockey, and I wasn't disappointed with my second exposure to NHL, California-style (I had been to a Los Angeles Kings game once before).  My Isles grabbed a point and pushed the two-time defending Western Conference Regular Season Champions (as denoted by lame, "feel good" banners hanging from the rafters) to a shootout, while the home team got the win they expected and, quite frankly, deserved.  I would absolutely go back to a Sharks game later this season - the game made me realize how much I love hockey live, and the arena and crowd are well worth the price and the half-hour drive from Stanford.

Mr. Movember

As most of you already know, I'm currently sporting an absolutely-awful-looking moustache in support of Movember, a month-long crusade to raise money and awareness for men's health (prostate cancer in particular) by growing a funky 'stache.  From the Movember website:

Movember challenges men to change their appearance and the face of men’s health by growing a moustache. The rules are simple, start Movember 1st clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month.  The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men. 

Before I head to the Shark Tank tonight to see the Islanders visit the San Jose Sharks, I wanted to praise the NHL for taking the lead in promoting Movember in the world of professional sports.  Movember has reported that over 150 NHL players across 14 teams are growing 'staches to raise money for the cause, lead by Anaheim Ducks enforcer and Princeton alum George Parros.  Since the month started, I've wondered why more athletes aren't participating in Movember and using their status to do some good.

Anaheim's George Parros is leading the NHL's support of Movember.

Normally, I'm not one to argue that athletes "owe it to their fans" to do good for society; at the end of the day, sports is a business and the employees (the athletes) have no more responsibility to donate time or money to charitable causes that you or I do.  But Movember is simultanously so easy and so amusing that I would have thought tons of athletes would be doing it.  Why isn't a fun-loving guy like Dwight Howard comically stroking his handlebar moustache after one of his monster blocked shots?  Couldn't LeBron James, a guy who was beloved last year for acting like a kid and having fun on the court, gain some good PR and show the world that he's the "same ole' LeBron" by growing a fu-man-chu for charity?  Could Eli Manning be the creepiest looking guy ever if he grew a hilarious pencil-thin 'stache?  These questions need to be addressed.

In the meantime, kudos to NHL players for not taking themselves too seriously and doing something good for their fellow man in the process.  While I can't force Superman, LeBron or Eli to grow a 'stache, I can and will keep mine growing strong (at least until Thanksgiving break).  If you'd like to donate to my Movember campaign, please feel free to do so here.  Thanks in advance for your support, and Happy Movember.

Week in Review

One of my favorite parts of the ESPN Scorecenter application (available for both iPhone and Android) is the "My Teams" menu.  Here, you can track the most recent results from all of your favorite professional and college teams, as well as take a look at their upcoming contests.  I was playing around with my phone earlier today, when I realized that starting this Thursday I have an absolutely amazing week (plus a few days) of sports ahead.  It's a beautiful and diverse combination of games that I hope to cover extensively here at Caught Looking, but I wanted to give you a little preview first.  While each event is individually exciting, collectively they make up a monumental week in my life as a sports fan.  In fact, I can't remember a ten-day span I've been this excited about sports-wise.  Without further ado, here's what I have between now and the start of Thanksgiving week:

• Thursday, 11/11: New York Islanders @ San Jose Sharks, HP Pavilion at San Jose.  I already have my tickets and will be there in person.
• Friday, 11/12: Rutgers @ Princeton, Jadwin Gymnasium.  Princeton hoops kicks off their season with a home game against their in-state rival.  Wish I could be there in person, but instead I'll be following online.
• Saturday, 11/13: Stanford @ Arizona State.  When your team is ranked #6 in the BCS, every game is huge.  Must-see-TV for Saturday late afternoon (evening on the East Coast).
• Sunday, 11/14: Dallas Cowboys @ New York Giants.  I'm heading up to a big Giants bar in San Francisco to watch the game with friends and fellow Bay Area Giants fans.  Cowboys games are always entertaining, but this experience should be particularly awesome.
• Sunday, 11/14: Princeton @ Duke.  While watching the Cowboys and Giants, I'll also try and find a TV showing ESPNU to catch some of Princeton basketball's nationally televised game against the defending national champions at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
• Monday, 11/15: San Diego @ Stanford, Maples Pavilion.  Stanford hoops kicks off the season with a home game, and I'll be there in person.  Maples is literally a two-minute walk from my room, so I hope to be there often this season.
• Friday, 11/19: New York Knicks @ Golden State Warriors, Oracle Arena.  I don't have tickets yet, but I'm hoping to grab some to see my new-look Knicks make their only trip to Oakland this season.
• Saturday, 11/20: Stanford @ Cal.  I've always wanted to experience "The Big Game," and I'm currently in the process of getting tickets with other Stanford fans.  Assuming Stanford wins this weekend, Cal will be extra-eager to burst Stanford's BCS bowl hopes.

Pretty good, huh?  I'll be sure to keep you all posted as I make my way through this crazy ten-day stretch.  Wish me luck!

Where's the Love?

Since I started passionately following Stanford University football last season, I've always felt the team is continually underappreciated and underecognized.  While I admit I'm somewhat biased, I still think there's a lot of truth here; I look around the country and size up the SEC or Big Ten or Big XII schools that are considered among the best in the nation, and can't help but think that the Cardinal could defeat the majority of them.  This season, where 8-1 (5-1 in the PAC-10) Stanford is currently ranked #13 in the BCS (and likely to rise when the new rankings come out tonight), will the Cardinal go to a BCS bowl game?  If not, the Stanford fans can blame themselves.

The Cardinal resume is pretty solid -- they've defeated #15 Arizona and USC at home (the former quite convincingly last night), beat Notre Dame badly on the road (the Irish haven't been good this year, but you always get some style points for beating up on Notre Dame in South Bend), and have two road shutouts in the conference (at UCLA and at Washington).  They're among the highest scoring teams in the country (they've topped 35 points in every game but one), their defense has been strong and their only loss came on the road against the #1 team in the country, Oregon (and that game was close, despite the fairly-lopsided final score).  Despite the impressive credentials, Stanford may be on the outside looking in when BCS bowl bids are awarded.

At the game versus Arizona last night, I was very disappointed by the crowd.  While there was a lot of buzz about the game floating around campus and while the tailgating atmosphere before the contest was, as usual, lively and fun, the stadium was at least 40% empty when I found my seat just prior to kickoff.  As the first quarter started the fans did continue to file in from their tailgates, but there were still parts of entire sections in the upper deck that were completely empty the entire game.  Not only was the crowd somewhat sparse, but the fans who were there weren't very loud; at times, the small Arizona fan section in the quarter of the stadium overpowered the Stanford fans with their passionate chants.  And this isn't exactly a national football powerhouse we're talking about - the Cardinal fans were outclassed by a bunch of laid-back retirees from Tucson.  I expected a lot more from the home crowd -- it was a nationally televised night game matching the #13 and #15 ranked teams in the nation, after all -- and came away disappointed by the fans, despite being ecstatic about the 42-17 final score.

Undoubtedly, a lot of NCAA polsters who don't get to see PAC-10 football every week were watching the Stanford-Arizona game on ABC last night.  When they look back on the game this week in filling out their rankings, what will they remember more: the dominating Stanford victory or the underwhelming Stanford crowd?  While the big win will earn Stanford some respect, concerns about their fans and their ability to "travel well" could drastically hurt their BCS hopes.  Let's just hope that Stanford plays well in their next two games at Arizona State and at Cal, and then urge the fans to come out in droves for the last home game of the year versus Oregon State.  Assuming Stanford wins their last three games, the performance of the fans may impact the odds of a BCS bid more than the performance of the team.

NOTE: Found some interesting commentary on the underwhelming turnout here, via ESPN's PAC-10 blog.

A Quirkier NBA Experience

I've been to a bunch of NBA games over the past few seasons.  Most of them have been Knicks contests at Madison Square Garden, but I've also sprinkled in some New Jersey Nets games and Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers games in there.  This Wednesday I made my first ever trip to Oakland's Oracle Arena to see the Golden State Warriors take on the Memphis Grizzlies, and the one word I'd use to sum up the experience is "quirky."  Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised; this is Northern California after all.

The oddities started before I even got into the arena.  Parking cost a relatively steep $18; when I paid with a $20 bill, I got a $2 bill as change.  While I''ve seen $2 bills before, this was the first time I had even given or received one as part of a legitimate business transaction.  More efficient than giving everyone two $1 bills?  Yes.  Extremely weird?  Also yes.

The game was fun -- the Warriors are an exciting, high-scoring team and are playing extremely well right now -- but something about the experience was a tad "off."  It's tough to put my finger on it, but I think the fact that a company called "The Solar Company" was prominently featured on the courtside rotational signage at numerous points throughout a game (only in the Bay Area . . .) had something to do with it.  I literally laughed out loud when, with over 11 minutes left in the second quarter, Golden State forward Vladimir Radmonovic was awarded the "Bug Zappers Pest Control Swat of the Game" after a block on Memphis center Hasheem Thabeet.  The whole thing was so absurd that I took a picutre of it (see below).  Even the Warriors new uniforms are pretty quirky.  In particular, it's weird that the numbers on the front of the Golden State jerseys are contained inside the logo, as opposed to below it (to be fair, the old Warriors jerseys also shared this unique feature).  Weird stuff.

See?  I couldn't make this stuff up.

The Warriors fans are a very passionate bunch, I must admit.  I know the Warriors' faithful has a good reputation and, although the stadium wasn't completely full, I did find the crowd to be enthusiastic, knowledgable and entertaining.  I loved the "M-V-P!" chants that echoed throughout the arena every time Monta Ellis shot free throws - that's serious dedication to your local candidate for the fourth game of the season.  The fans love their players, and the players seem to feed off of the energy and produce some highly entertaining basketball.  Anyone who complains about the chippy, drawn-out nature of NBA games certainly isn't watching the Warriors play very often.

The Golden State basketball experience was odd.  But, sometimes odd can be good.  Overall the game was well worth the ~45 minute drive from Palo Alto to Oakland, and I'm looking forward to getting another $2 bill some time later this season.

Rooting for the Little Guy

Halloween went extremely well this year.  My Little Mac costume was met with largely favorable results; as predicted, a lot of people (all of them men) got the Punch Out! reference and everyone else just figured I was a boxer, which was fine with me.  One guy asked me "which Klitschko brother are you supposed to be?" and someone else told me he loved "the De La Hoya costume," but overall it was a good night.  Much better than a few years ago when I went as Marty McFly from Back to the Future and everyone thought I was Tony Hawk (because of my skateboard prop).

Little Mac is one of my favorite childhood characters not only because he was the star of my favorite Nintendo game, but also because it was fun to root for the little guy.  I was always one of the smallest guys in my grade (and, height-wise, I still am), so I could always relate to the undersized athletes trying to do battle with opponents twice their size.  This got me thinking: who are my favorite little guys in sports?

Football: I'm a huge Wes Welker (5'9", 185 lbs.) fan, and respect the hell out of the guy.  The way he can run a route across the middle, take a hit from a linebacker that outweighs him by 60 pounds and manage to hold on to the ball is impressive.  The fact that he does it week in and week out and teams have yet to figure out a way to stop him is fascinating.  I'm not normally a big fan of anything even remotely Boston-related, but Welker gets a lot of respect for me.  The fact that he sports my number 83 is just icing on the cake.

Hockey: Richard Park is a fascinating NHL player not only because he's pretty small, but also because he's one of the few Asian-born hockey players ever to reach the NHL (he moved to Southern California from Korea when he was three).  As a member of the Islanders from 2006-2010, I saw Park take his share of hits, slashes and blocked shots.  While he was never the most talented player on the ice, he hustled as much as anyone else on the team and consistently produced despite his relatively-small size (5'10, 190 lbs.).  Unfortunately Park left the NHL this offseason to sign a contract with a team in Switzerland.  He'll be missed.

Basketball: Though he's moved on to the Boston Celtics, no one lit up Madison Square Garden in recent memory like Nate Robinson.  While he's best known for his show-stopping slams at the NBA All Star Weekend's Slam Dunk Contest (and in particular his dunks over Dwight Howard), Robinson is actually a very talented basketball player when his head's on straight.  He has the potential to be one of the better scoring guards in the league, and his athleticism gives him the potential to be a solid defender and rebounding guard, too.  Though it's been in a drawer for a while now, I'll never get rid of my green number 4 "KRYPTO-NATE" t-shirt.

Long live the little guys!