The Kids Aren't Alright

I finally made it to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday afternoon, just in time to see the Mariners break the season's longest losing streak against New York.  Normally, it would have been a great baseball experience; Mariners ace Felix Hernandez pitched for the visitors and Seattle phenom Dustin Ackley looked like the stud prospect he's been advertised as.  Unfortunately, the combination of terrible upper deck seats, a strong July sun and annoying, high-pitched neighbors turned the game into a rather pedestrian afternoon.

I'm certainly not above sitting in the upper deck at baseball games; on the contrary, I love sitting in the upper deck directly behind home plate and find those seats the best bang for your buck in most stadiums (when I go see the Braves play the Mets next Friday, for example, that's where I'll be sitting while at Citi Field).  For Wednesday's game, though, we were stuck in Section 406, just to the fair side of the right field foul pole (see below).  From those seats, not only is it very difficult to judge the depth of virtually every fly ball, but you also have a blocked view of the right field corner.  There were a surprising number of deep balls hit to Nick Swisher and Curtis Granderson that we couldn't see, which was at least mildly annoying.

There's no view of the right field corner from Section 406 at Yankee Stadium.

My next complaint was the heat, and in all honesty it wasn't that hot out.  The highs were in the mid-80s, which for a late July mid-afternoon in the Bronx is not unreasonably warm.  But when you're spending three hours sitting under a hot sun on navy blue seats in the upper deck of Yankee Stadium, you get very hot very quickly - not to mention sunburned.  It's for this reason that I always prefer night games to afternoon ones; I'd much rather watch a day game from the comfort of my air conditioned home and spend my money on a nice, cool, artificially-lit night game.  When a day game is during the week, you also have an unusually small crowd, which takes away from the normally vibrant Stadium atmosphere.

That being said, there was a reasonable crowd for Wednesday afternoon's game, but much of it was driven by the presence of dozens of different camp groups scattered throughout the upper deck.  Everywhere you looked you saw rows of kids wearing the same brightly colored shirts - some orange, some red, some green - cheering their brains out for the Yankees during the announcement of the starting lineups.  Unfortunately, all of those kids got bored by the second inning, and turned their high-pitched screams for Derek Jeter into generic screaming and whining.  While I don't have a problem with kids in general and honestly believe that bringing them to a ballgame is one of the best things you can do, sitting next to hundreds of eight year-olds supervised by only a handful of unqualified camp counselors can get pretty annoying.

I'll never turn down the opportunity to go to a baseball game (especially a free one), and still enjoyed my Wednesday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.  But if anything can let the air out of an otherwise entertaining Major League Baseball game, it's the potent combination of bad seats, a hot sun and hundreds of squealing children.  With my next scheduled game a week from tonight - Braves at Mets on a Friday evening sitting behind home plate - I'm looking forward to bigger and better things.

The Wrong Way To Win

With the calendar about to flip over to August, we're officially into the heart of the Major League Baseball pennant race.  Last night's 19-inning game between the Atlanta Braves and the Pittsburgh Pirates may end up impacting the National League Wild Card picture at season's end; with Atlanta winning the game, the Braves maintained their 3.5 game lead over Arizona, while the Pirates fell out of first place in the NL Central and 4.5 back in the Wild Card.  The result of the game, though, wasn't nearly as interesting as the controversial way in which it ended.  In case you haven't seen it yet, below is the video of Mike McKenry's "missed tag" on Julio Lugo that gave the Braves the victory at around 1:50 AM.

As badly as the Braves needed this win to halt a three-game slide and get back into the win column in a very tight NL race, this wasn't the way anyone wanted it to go down.  I stayed up to watch the game through the 16th inning, glued to MLB Network's MLB Tonight program anxiously awaiting live updates from Turner Field in Atlanta, before finally giving up and going to sleep around 1 AM.  When I woke up this morning and found out what happened (and watched the highlight above), I was actually a little depressed.  While the victory was huge for the Braves - you hate to drop a game in which you played 19 innings and every one of your relievers and position players were used - knowing that the Braves probably (the video evidence isn't 100% conclusive . . .) didn't deserve to win on Scott Proctor's RBI grounder gave me a feeling of regret, not a feeling of satisfaction.

While I feel bad that the Braves won on the above play, I feel worse that this is all people are going to remember from what was otherwise a fantastic and exciting baseball game.  The teams combined for 26 scoreless innings of relief after starters Jeff Karstens and Tommy Hanson exited with the game tied at 3.  Braves reliever Cristhian Martinez came out of the bullpen and gave Atlanta six incredible scoreless innings, and Scott Proctor got the win with three scoreless in addition to his game-winning fielder's choice.  For Pittsburgh, Jason Grilli and Daniel McCutchen were similarly fantastic; despite getting the loss, the latter threw 92 pitches in a game he wasn't even expecting to appear in.

ESPN's David Scoenfield does a good job of explaining why this ordeal was such a shame, but I'll try to explain it in my own words, too.  Long extra inning games are some of the most exciting games in baseball, thanks to the sport's "last licks" format. As a fan, you're always on the edge of your seat, either afraid that your club will surrender the lead at any moment or eagerly anticipating a walkoff win for your Club.  But when a game ends the way the Atlanta vs. Pittsburgh game concluded last night, all of that excitement and fun is replaced by doubt.  After watching the replay this morning, I had a bad taste in my mouth and regretted staying up to watch 16 innings of a 19-inning game that my team might not have deserved to win.

Fighting the Crowds

I finally made my first 2011 trip to Citi Field this past Wednesday night for (shockingly) a very entertaining game and (even more shockingly) a Mets victory.  The Mets managed to pull a solid crowd, too - even though it was a meaningless game against St. Louis in the middle of the week - and, impressively, at times the often-silent stadium breathed signs of life.  But of all the surprising things I saw at the game, from clutch hitting from Carlos Beltran to a solid relief appearance by Jason Isringhausen, was how many fans left the game early.

After the Mets failed to score in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game, the New York fans headed for the exits in droves.  It was as if the fans were afraid of getting charged for the extra innings.  Maybe it shouldn't have been that surprising - after all, the Metropolitans are a struggling team that most fans are tired of watching, and the team had a 12:10 PM game the next afternoon.  It's possible that the diehard Mets fans that are still standing by the team through the trade deadline had to get home and rest before taking the day off to see the team play the next afternoon. 

But when the Cardinals failed to score in the top of the 10th and the St. Louis "faithful" headed for the parking lot, I was stunned.  As a Braves fan who has never lived in Atlanta, I know how precious seeing your team on the road is.  Depending on who you root for and where you live, you only get to see your team visit your town three to nine games per year (if at all), and of those you likely can't make it to every game.  So when you make it to the ballpark wearing your team's gear, you better stay for the entire game.  In this particular instance, the Cardinals ended up losing in the bottom of the 10th on an Angel Pagan walkoff homerun, but the Cards fans had no way of knowing that.  Instead, they decided to choose a few extra minutes of sleep over watching what could have been an exciting extra inning win for St. Louis, a team fighting through a pennant race.  When I see the Braves at Citi Field in a few weeks, you better believe I'll be there until the last pitch is thrown, regardless of the score - and especially if it's a close game like Wednesday night's was.

The crowd at Wednesday's Mets game was impressive; at least until the extra innings.

The early exits got me thinking about how teams could encourage fans to stay until the end of games.  Perhaps offer a promotion where fans that stay until the end of the game get a coupon for something - a free Subway sandwich, a free Dunkin' Donuts coffee, etc.  Or fans who stay until the end of the ballgame could receive a coupon for money off their next ticket(s) to a game.  It's a wonder that (to my knowledge) no teams are offering this.  Not only could teams generate more concessions sales by encouraging fans to stay at the games longer, but having larger crowds in key late game situations would generate more excitement for everyone (the players included).  It's time that teams start doing something to keep people in the seats, because it's obvious that fans aren't going to change any time soon.

Lockout Publicity Equals Good Publicity?

There's no question that the NFL and the NBA want to avoid missing games this season, if realistically possible.  A shortened season means millions of dollars of lost revenue, not to mention a serious reputational hit as fans perceive both players and owners as (even more) greedy.  But assuming the leagues can get their acts together and settle their respective CBAs before the scheduled starts of their regular seasons (seemingly likely for the NFL, perhaps not so likely for the NBA), might all of the additional publicity generated by these summer lockouts actually be a good thing for professional football and basketball?

In a traditional NFL / NBA offseason period, the average sports fan spends the summer watching baseball and golf.  The NFL and NBA drafts get a fair amount of press coverage, as do the opening of preseason camps and significant summer trades and free agent signings.  This year, though, the NFL and NBA are all over SportsCenter every day - updates on CBA negotiations get top billing over exciting MLB games on many mornings, and I've seen more of John Clayton this week than I typically do in December.  Even "news items" that typically receive little to no publicity are garnering attention because of the lockouts.  This week, for example, the NBA released it's regular season schedule, an event that would typically fly completely under the sports media radar.  This summer, however, the likelihood that there might not be a regular season has sports commentators talking non-stop about all of the exciting basketball action that we might miss.

You can argue that even the threat of missing NBA and NFL games hurts those leagues.  Teams can't sell tickets and sponsorships during the lockouts, and some fans will likely be angered by the constant bickering between owners and players.  But I bet that, if the NFL and NBA can avoid missing games, most fans will completely forget about the labor disputes by the time the first coins are flipped and jump balls are tossed.  At the same time, all of the buzz created by this summer's threat of a regular season-impacting work stoppage could increase the excitement for already-highly anticipated NFL and NBA regular seasons.  In a way, all of the summer lockout talk might, in the long run, be good for professional football and hoops.

I can't remember a summer where people were more focused on basketball and football (and, as a result, less focused on baseball) than this one, even though MLB is in the middle of an extremely exciting regular season, which tells me that the NFL and NBA might be poised for even bigger than normal years.  Of course, this entire argument will be moot if the lockouts do actually impact the regular seasons.  For the NFL, that seems extremely unlikely, as within a week we're likely to have forgotten about the dispute and begin focusing even harder on the return of regular season (and fantasy) football.  While the NBA legitimately might miss part of / all of the regular season, if the basketball players and owners can come to terms quicker than expected then it, too, can reap the benefits of a summer atop the headlines. 

God Hates American Soccer

When Derek Jeter's 3,000 hit sailed over the Yankee Stadium wall last week, it once again became obvious that God loves the Yankees.  Not only did Jeter get number 3,000 in front of his home crowd (thanks in part to an injury the week before), but it was part of an afternoon that seemed scripted by Hollywood.  "DJ3K" finished the day with five hits, had the game winning RBI single in the eighth inning, and the homerun ball was caught by a kind-hearted fan who returned the ball to Jeter free of charge (he did receive some suite tickets and signed merchandise in return).  It was a moment, and a day, that only Yankees fans, players and media could even hope for.

Unfortunately, U.S. Soccer doesn't seem to get any of the storybook moments that come so naturally to the Yankees.  In fact, after today's gut-wrenching U.S. women's loss in the World Cup final against Japan, I'm starting to think that God wants to torture American soccer fans.  First, the U.S. men come off of an incredible round-robin win over Algeria in the 2010 World Cup, only to lose in the elimination round to an injury-faking Ghana squad.  Earlier this summer, the U.S. men's Gold Cup run concluded with a 4-2 loss to Mexico in the finals in a game that they lead 2-0.  Despite these other heartbreaks, today might have been the worst of all.  After the U.S.'s incredible last second victory over Brazil, the women's squad seemed destined to take the 2011 World Cup championship.  But after leading the finals 1-0 and 2-1, the U.S. blew the game and lost to Japan on penalty kicks.

Just like the U.S. men did last summer, the U.S. women made major strides this July with their impressive World Cup run. Sports fans are now familiar with players like Hope Solo, and the Wambach game-tying goal against Brazil is a moment that people will remember for a long time.  At the same time, though, American soccer fans were once again robbed of a sport-altering moment.  Had the women taken the title, they would have been all over mainstream American media - nightly news programs, late night talk shows and amateur sports blogs.  Now, people will be talking about U.S. women's soccer, but for mostly the wrong reasons.  The amazing run to the finals will be lost among reports of what could have been, as people inevitably focus on the team's inability to close out Japan instead of the amazing moments and contributions that lead them to the finals.

Despite all of these disappointments, I'm still excited for the future of U.S. soccer.  I've been looking forward to the 2014 men's World Cup in Brazil since the moment I returned from South Africa last summer, and nothing is going to change that for me.  But I do worry that the same can't be said of other, more casual U.S. soccer fans.  How many stomach punches can the average soccer-wary American really stand?  It seems like if the sports gods get their way, sooner or later we'll unfortunately get to find out.

Let There Be Stats

The MLB All Star game brought us the first televised commercials and trailers for the Moneyball movie starring Brad Pitt as Billy Beane.  On one hand the timing of the movie is a bit odd - Michael Lewis' book has been out for more than a decade, and the days of Beane's Athletics teams taking the American League by storm have come and gone.  At the same time, though, many of the advanced stats that General Managers like Beane have been using for years are just now making their way into the broader sports media landscape, making the film's September debut feel just right.

While stat freaks like me have been focused on more advanced metrics like OPS, WAR and UZR for a long time now, baseball programs like ESPN's Baseball Tonight and MLB Network's MLB Tonight have just recently begun to flood the airwaves with more sophisticated statistics.  Baseball broadcasts and highlights are now accompanied by graphics that precisely track the flight and trajectory of the baseball, and color commentators focus on much more than homeruns and batting average.  Highlight reels no longer conclude with basic reports on who leads the league in hitting or homers; now we get to break down Albert Pujols' batting average against breaking balls and Clayton Kershaw's groundball-to-flyball ratio on a nightly basis.  Given that baseball insiders have been all over these advanced stats for years, what does this mainstream stat revolution mean for baseball?

If nothing else, advanced metrics have raised the bar for the quality of sports discussions and debates.  No longer is it enough to argue that Ichiro is a superstar solely because he's always atop the league leaders in hits, or to argue that Adam Dunn (before this year, anyway) clogs up a lineup because of his low batting average.  As more and more fans start focusing on statistics like OBP and WHIP, discussions about Tim Lincecum's place among the all-time best starting pitchers or Chipper Jones' Hall of Fame candidacy have become more exciting than ever.  I'm glad that ESPN and MLB Network are making the effort to increase the stat-savvy of their viewers. Now when I argue that Derek Jeter's zone rating suggests that he's a below average defender, not everyone looks at me like I'm completely crazy.

Soccer Gives You Wings

As you can tell from my San Jose Earthquakes post, the MLS is far from perfect.  For teams without soccer-specific stadiums, Major League Soccer is still very much a second (or third) class sport.  When the league started, that's how it was for the New York / New Jersey Metrostars.  Playing their home games in the massively oversized Giants Stadium, the team struggled to build a following, and I (along with most New Yorkers) never made it to a game.  When Red Bull purchased the New York MLS franchise and built a new soccer-specific stadium in Harrison, NJ last year, things changed for professional soccer in the Big Apple.  I had heard great things, and pledged to make it across the Hudson for a game this summer.

On Saturday night, I went to the New York Red Bulls game vs. D.C. United.  Thanks to a ticketing site called ScoreBig (http://www.scorebig.com/), I was able to secure a bunch of seats for below face value.  Normally I don't like plugging websites, but in this case ScoreBig deserves the plug; for $20 a ticket, we grabbed seats in the first row directly behind one of the goals.  As expected, the view was amazing; it might not be the ideal vantage point from which to watch a soccer game, but the first row at Red Bull Arena puts you so close to the action that you can't help but get hooked into the game.  The ball was kicked into our section a handful of times, and one time a direct kick was blasted just a few feet to my left.  For the price, you really can't beat the view, and the less soccer-savvy members of my group were definitely surprised and impressed.

The view from our very reasonably-priced front row seats.

While Red Bull Arena might lack all of the bells and whistles of other, larger New York-area stadiums such as Citi Field, Yankee Stadium and New Meadowlands Stadium, it's everything an MLS stadium should be.  It's modern looking, but not too futuristic - it will still look good after the novelty has worn off.  The concessions were diverse, plentiful and reasonably priced, and the "stacked" nature of the two decks puts even upper deck seats right on top of the action (see below).  Perhaps most importantly, Red Bull Arena is super-easy to get to from Manhattan.  The park is right across the street from the Harrison PATH station, which goes directly to Lower Manhattan.  If you like downtown, Red Bull Arena is easier, quicker and cheaper to get to than Yankee Stadium or Citi Field.  As a result, crowds are solid; while far from a sellout, the Red Bulls drew good numbers for a Saturday night, including a section of vocal United fans who made the trip from D.C.

Upper deck seats are surprisingly close to the field.

The game at Red Bull Arena was the polar opposite of my Buck Shaw Stadium experience in San Jose.  The weather was beautiful, the stadium is great and, unfortunately, the home team lost.  Quality of play was fair (other than one nicely-timed goal from D.C., the game was filled with a lot of long balls and turnovers), but you go to Red Bull Arena to enjoy a nice night in a great venue, not necessarily to watch high-level soccer.  If you're in the New York area this summer, definitely try and make it down to Harrison for the game.  And let me know if you're interested in going, because I'm definitely looking forward to a return trip some time soon.

Vacating Common Sense

Despite Derek Jeter's best efforts to monopolize the sports headlines this week (congratulations to the Yankee captain, by the way), a few other news stories have made their way to the back page of the newspapers and the homepages of sports websites.  Included among these was the news that the Ohio State Buckeyes football team has elected to vacate all wins from the 2010 season, including its Sugar Bowl victory, as punishment for a memorabilia-for-cash-and-tattoos scandal.  The ruling is just another example of how, when it comes to college football, the fans are smarter than the people that run the NCAA.

According to an ESPN.com SportsNation poll, 60% of readers believe that the punishment is too lenient, compared to only 15% who think of it as too harsh (the other 25% called it sufficient).  These 60% of respondents realize that the NCAA's love of having teams vacate wins is a complete joke.  While the school can no longer call itself the 2010 Sugar Bowl champions and the record books will dock Ohio State for 12 victories, the decision isn't really punishing anyone.  The players still have the memories of a great 2010 season, and many of them have multi-million dollar NFL contracts to look forward to.  Ohio State fans get to keep the memories of watching their squad roll through a 12-1 year and a big victory over rival Michigan, while the school itself retains its reputation as a top football school with tremendous recruiting power.  While former head coach Jim Tressel was forced to resign, even he made out alright; he's put together a great (and profitable) career at OSU, and will be able to return to coaching soon enough if he really wants to (we all know other coaches have received second chances after doing far worse).

At the end of the day, I don't think anyone really cares whether the 2010 Ohio State season was "official" or not.  Anyone who was around to witness it knows that it certainly happened, and no school-imposed ruling is going to change that.  While there's still a chance that the NCAA will levy harsher penalties on OSU, many believe that this decision by OSU will put the issue to bed.  Going forward, Buckeyes football will remain strong - the loss of QB Terrelle Pryor will hurt in the short term, but soon enough the program will bounce back with another elite QB prospect to join what's sure to be a perennially loaded Ohio State roster. 

If the NCAA is smart and just, they'll see through this empty move and hit Ohio State where it really hurts - the future.  Force Ohio State to miss bowl games for the next few years, take away scholarships, etc., until a lesson is actually learned.  Will the NCAA do this?  Who knows.  Will anyone be surprised if they decide to let Ohio State regulate itself?  I doubt it.  When asked if he thought the NCAA might impose harsher penalties on his school, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith responded: "Might the NCAA do more? I just can't speculate on that."  Well, I can, and I'm guessing the NCAA will take the easy way out and let a major college football powerhouse off the hook once again.

Keep Smilin', Keep Shinin'

Adam Dunn of the Chicago White Sox is among a number of high-profile, high-paid MLB players who are having absolutely horrendous 2011 seasons.  The players on the unofficial list of candidates for 2011 LVP,  including Braves 2B Dan Uggla, Nationals OF Jayson Werth and Marlins SS Hanley Ramirez, are probably in a terrible mental state right now.  When you've had a career filled almost entirely with success, as most of these guys have, it must be extremely frustrating to have played more than half of the year and still have an ugly season stat line staring them in the face.  As even an amateur athlete like myself knows, nothing makes a player angrier than a prolonged period of struggles.

It's this last fact that makes Adam Dunn's July 4th so interesting.  Not only did the White Sox DH have his best game in weeks (a single and a homerun, the latter of which played a crucial role in a Chicago walk-off victory), but his attitude during the game was shockingly positive.  Coming into the game, Dunn was 1-for-54 against left-handed pitching on the season; when Dunn singled to right off of a lefty early in the game, the crowd game him a sarcastic standing ovation.  Rather than get angry with the fans, Dunn smiled and actually tipped his cap to the stands, revealing his good-natured personality and an impressive ability to make fun of himself.

Later in the game, Dunn launched a two-run homer (off of a righty this time) which ESPN claimed was the highest homerun hit this season - reaching a maximum height of 150 feet (interesting stat via Baseball Tonight) - earning him  a legitimate curtain call (see photo).  Perhaps Dunn was just having a good night in an otherwise brutal season, but it's hard for me not to think that Dunn's ability to laugh off his miserable 85-game start contributed to his clutch hit.   

With millions of dollars on the line for professional athletes like Dunn, it would have been easy for him to turn the sarcastic standing ovation into another point of stress, driving him deeper into a pit of dispair.  Instead, Dunn's self control was impressive, and might have been exactly what he needed to jump-start the second half of his season and return to the 35+ homerun form that fans have become accustomed to over the past several years.  After the game, Dunn explained his reaction and his appreciation for the White Sox faithful:

"I appreciate them, especially tonight, sticking with it. The thing about the fans, they boo and stuff because they want to see the team and me personally do so well. That's how I've been looking at it. It makes it more special when they cheer like that." 

Players who laugh and smile often don't get the respect they deserve; they're seen as weak, immature and lacking a killer instinct (see Dwight Howard, for example).  But for players who have been struggling as much as Dunn has for Chicago this season, maybe laughter really is the best medicine.  It worked out for the White Sox and their DH last night, and after witnessing Dunn's self-depricating response to the fans, I'll be rooting for him to pull the rest of his 2011 season out of the dumpster. 

The Joys of Daytime Baseball

As much as I follow National League baseball, I don't normally spend a lot of time thinking about or watching the Chicago Cubs.  Despite a reputation as one of baseball's most famous franchises and a home ballpark that is among the most iconic in the game, I don't think about the Cubbies the same way I think about the Yankees, Red Sox or even the Cardinals.  Much of this has to do with the fact that, for most of my life, the Cubs have been relatively uncompetitive, and with the exception of a few seasons that I can remember, there hasn't been much of a reason to watch them.

For me, that has changed this season, and not because of anything that the North Siders have been doing on the field.  In fact, the team has once again solidified itself among the NL Central bottom dwellers and is among the worst teams in baseball.  But the Cubs do have one thing going for them if they're looking to grab my attention this summer: They play a majority of their home games during the daytime, and I have access to a big screen, HDTV and the MLB Extra Innings DirecTV package at work.  As a result, I've been watching a ton of (muted) Cubs baseball over the last few weeks, and I'm loving every inning of it.

I'm the type of person who can watch virtually any MLB game and be reasonably entertained, but afternoon Cubs games add an entirely new dimension to being a baseball fan.  Being able to go into work knowing that, when the Cubs are home, it's likely that come 2 PM EST I'll be able to flip on WGN or CSN and watch Chicago battle the rest of the National (and, during Interleague Play, American) League is huge.  I even have a few Braves vs. Cubs games to look forward to later this summer.  I've really enjoyed my summer internship so far, and the afternoon Cubs games are definitely part of the reason why.

Sure, if there are other afternoon baseball games on TV (say on a getaway day like Thursday), I may stray from the Cubs and look for something more competitive (yesterday, Philadelphia vs. Boston did the trick).  But on most afternoons, when I'd otherwise have to wait until the evening to catch the Yankees or the Mets or the Live Look-ins on MLB Network, being able to watch Major League Baseball for three hours at work can make or break my day.  Like many other baseball purists, I hope the Cubs continue their tradition of daytime home games at Wrigley Field - at least until I finish work at the end of August.