A Key Part of Seattle is Missing

When the Seattle Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder, a lot of sports fans were devastated.  While Seattlites were understandably upset that their hometown basketball team was leaving for OKC, even non-Seattle natives seemed unreasonably critical of the move.  While I felt bad for Sonics fans - I certainly wouldn't want one of my favorite teams, like the Islanders, to move - I didn't exactly understand why this was such a big deal.  For one, sports teams move fairly regularly - this was hardly the first time a professional team left town, and isn't even new to Seattle (the Pilots left the city to become MLB's Milwaukee Brewers a few decades earlier).  Additionally, Seattle still has an MLB team, an NFL team, a rapidly growing MLS franchise and a consistently-competitive WNBA club.

Then again, until this weekend I had never been to Seattle, and thus couldn't understand why losing the Supersonics was such a big deal to the city.  On the way to downtown from the SeaTac airport, we passed by Century Link (formerly Qwest) and Safeco Fields, homes of the NFL's Seahawks / MLS's Sounders and MLB's Mariners, respectively.  While these looked like nice venues (we only drove past via the highway), they were, like many new stadiums, far from the city's downtown.  Later in our first day, though, we walked by Key Arena, the former home of Seattle's now-defunct NBA franchise, and I realized why losing the Sonics was such a blow to Seattlites.

Unlike Safeco and Century Link, Key Arena is part of a beautiful area in the heart of the city.  Located within close walking distance to the Space Needle, the venue is part of a much larger cultural complex that includes the EMP Museum of Music, Sci-Fi and Pop Culture, the Seattle Opera House and Symphony theater, the Pacific Science Center and a number of other cultural landmarks.  The area of the city surrounding the Space Needle is entirely dedicated to artistic exploration, with buildings dedicated to music, theater, science and technology, TV and movies and other artistic forms all connected by beautiful walkways, green spaces and public art displays.  Seattle has one of the nicest cultural centers that I've ever seen in a U.S. city, and Key Arena is right smack in the middle of it all.

From the Space Needle you can see that Key Arena is in the middle of Seattle's cultural hub.

When the Sonics played at Key Arena, Seattle was (perhaps unintentionally) making a statement that sports deserve to be considered an art form.  Fans attending a basketball game could spend an afternoon wandering through museums, enjoying the surrounding public parks and mingling with music, cinema and science afficionados in addition to traditional sports fans.  While the Mariners and Seahawks have beautiful new venues, what Key Arena seemingly lacks in ammenities (I can't really say - I've never been inside), it makes up for with a great location and culturally-relevant neighbors.  While to an outsider the loss of the Sonics might seem like no big deal, after spending time around the area I can understand why the team's departure was so hard to swallow.  If Seattle does get a new indoor arena someday, I really hope it's built right on top of the current Key Arena site.  There's no better opportunity for the city of Seattle to proclaim to the country that it not only loves basketball, but considers the game a form of true artistic expression.

A New Level Of Losing

In his column entitled "The 13 levels of losing," Bill Simmons defines a Stomach Punch Game as "any roller-coaster game that ends with A) an opponent making a pivotal (sometimes improbable) play, or B) one of your guys failing in the clutch ... usually ends with fans filing out after the game in stunned disbelief, if they can even move at all ... always haunting, sometimes scarring."  Simmons does a good job here - every sports fan can remember at least a few times when one of his teams collapsed in the clutch and he was left feeling as if he was punched in the stomach.  For me, my most recent Stomach Punch Game was during last year's NLDS, when the Braves lost Game 4 to the Giants thanks to a series of physical and mental miscues highlighted by three errors by backup second baseman Brooks Conrad.

When that NLDS concluded just under a year ago, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that the 2011 Braves season would end in not only another Stomach Punch Game, but what I'd like to call a Stomach Punch Season.  The completion of the Braves' historic collapse on Wednesday evening was so painful for me that I honestly thought about not mentioning it on Caught Looking at all, before my sense of responsibility as a legitimate journalist (read: blogger) took over.  This post won't be long, because I can't put into words the terrible taste that the 2011 MLB season has left in my mouth.

A day later, I'm left trying to find any positives that I can in the Braves' disaster.  I've tried telling myself that if the Braves could come so close to the playoffs this year with an extremely young team and a ton of injuries to their pitching staff (Tommy Hanson and Jair Jurrjens each missed the stretch run), they should be great next season when everyone is healthy.  I've tried to convince myself that the collapse will, in the long run, be a good exerience for the young players to build on, and might even convince Fredi Gonzalez that he needs to do a vastly better job of managing his bullpen through a 162-season.  I've even tried to argue that the collapse cements the legacy of Bobby Cox, who took a weaker team to the postseason last year; under his leadership I firmly believe this never would have happened.

I know, however, that none of the above is likely to be true.  More than anything, I'm just glad that it's over.  For two weeks now I've been predicting that the Braves would miss the playoffs - I saw it coming a mile away, and felt helpless as I continued to watch games and check scores and see the Braves lose.  Now that it's officially happened, if there is a positive it's that there will be no more disappointing results for me to check tonight or read about tomorrow morning.  The 2011 baseball season is over for the Atlanta Braves and their fans.  Finally, I can rest.

Moneyball: A Review

Ever since Michael Lewis's Moneyball hit bookstore shelves in April of 2004, I've been a big fan of the story of Billy Beane's transformation from small market GM to baseball revolutionary.  The story, as portrayed by Lewis's book, is one not just about baseball, but also about risk-taking, relationship-building and management style.  It's these themes that have placed Lewis's book in the hands of business executives across the country and motivated countless people, myself included, to pursue professional opportunities on the then-emerging, now-established numerical side of sports.  Shortly after the book came out, I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Lewis on the phone about his experiences while writing it, and I was also fortunate enough to meet Billy Beane himself this past year.  The next logical step in my love of Moneyball was to see the movie, starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill, and I took care of that last night.

Overall, I found the film extremely entertaining, both as a baseball / sabermetrics nerd and as a moviegoer.  From my brief interaction with Billy Beane last school year and from what I read in the book, Brad Pitt's representation of the Oakland GM seemed accurate and well-acted.  Jonah Hill did a great job playing the part of the "baseball outsiders" who really lead the statistical revolution popularized by the A's and Moneyball during the early- to mid-2000s; while most people assume Beane is the father of sabermetrics, in reality his contribution towards the movement was using the tools that Bill James had invented and "stat heads" like Hill's character had embraced.  While sports movies typically struggle to find actors who can artfully and realistically portray professional athletes, the cast of mostly no-names who played A's Moneyball poster children Scott Hatteberg, David Justice and Chad Bradford handled the roles well.  I also loved Philip Seymour Hoffman as bumbling and over-praised Oakland manager Art Howe - perhaps the most underrated performance in the movie, in my opinion.

The movie is admittedly slow, and takes a little while to get to its ultimate point - that Beane took a huge risk by transitioning from traditional scouting practices to analytical reasoning and, after early-season struggles and internal conflict with his scouting director and manager, won (at least until the playoffs rolled around).  There are a lot of scenes showing the conflict between Beane and his scouts, coaches and, at times, his own "gut," most likely left in there to ensure that the average movie-goer fully understands the distinction between Beane's Moneyball strategy and the more traditional, career-maintaining strategies of baseball's "old school."  Readers of the book and baseball fans might find all of these scenes a bit repetitive and slow, albeit very entertaining and at times quite humorous.

Brad Pitt does a great job as Billy Bean in Moneyball.

What I liked most about the movie, though, wasn't how it portrayed what Beane did, but instead the way it accurately portrayed what Beane didn't do.  At the end of the movie - I don't think this needs a "spoiler alert" tag because a) the book has been out for more than seven years and b) it's based on historical events that happened almost a decade ago - Beane is left without a World Series championship and caught between staying in Oakland near family and leaving for a much higher paying job with Boston.  The movie acknowledges that while Beane's Moneyball shockingly took the 2002 Oakland A's to the American League playoffs, his methodologies were incorporated even more successfully in places like Boston, which won the 2004 World Series with then-29-year-old GM Theo Epstein adopting Moneyball-esque practices.

Whether or not you've read the book (or even like baseball, for that matter), I would highly recommend the film.  More than just a baseball movie, Moneyball is a great story about leadership, self-transformation and risk-taking - a true underdog story that relies more on mental will than physical strength.  Start by seeing the movie and, when you find yourself enjoying it, you can go back and read the book for the full story on Billy Beane's impressive rise to the top of baseball's list of most wanted General Managers.

Room For HGH In The NFL?

On my way to check my fantasy football roster this morning, I stumbled across an intentionally provocative headline on the CBS Sports website arguing that "In Peyton's case, using HGH to heal is no crime."  The article, written by CBS Sports columnist Gregg Doyel, argues that if doctors prescribe HGH to heal Peyton Manning's injured neck, he should be allowed to take it and, as soon as he's ready, play in the NFL.  Doyel asserts that this would be fair, since it would be for medical (and not performance enhancing) purposes, and would be good for the NFL because it would ensure that one of the league's marquee players returns to the field faster.  Doyel acknowledges, however, that fans are already mentally opposed to HGH, but claims that people are missing the point - that if a doctor says it's OK for Peyton, then we should accept it.

To me, Doyel is missing a lot in his argument.  First, we need to think about what's best for Peyton Manning and his legacy.  As of now, Manning is considered one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game of football, and one of the NFL's best ambassadors as well.  The way his team has been struggling so far this season without him is further testament to his value, and suggests that he might be an even greater asset than his extremely-impressive career numbers originally lead us to believe.  Manning is a first-ballot Hall of Famer who can't do anything to change the public's opinion of him; except, that is, start using HGH to recover from his off-season neck surgery.

Additionally, we're walking along a very slippery slope here if we agree to let Peyton Manning use HGH to recover from his injury.  This is the National Football League we're talking about - it's the most savage sports league in the world and, despite the league's efforts to protect its players with rule changes, virtually every player is injured every week.  Where would we draw the line between who's injured enough to take HGH and who's just "regular injured?"  You can quickly see every player lining up to take HGH to recover from sore muscles, ankle tweaks and all sorts of very routine ailments, creating a league of suped-up freaks.  And the fact that a doctor prescribes the HGH doesn't really change anything - as we've seen in other sports (baseball, track and field, etc.) there are tons of unsavory characters in the sports medicine community willing to do anything for a buck.  Don't think anything will change when it comes to prescribing HGH to NFLers.

It's easy to say that allowing Manning to take HGH to recover from his neck injury is a "no brainer" when you don't think about the long term consequences of such a move.  Admittedly, neither the NFL nor fantasy football are as fun or exciting without Peyton Manning under center for the Colts every weekend.  But, unfortunately, injuries are part of football; they've derailed the careers of great players before, and they're surely do so again in the future.  There's no reason to risk the NFL's rock-solid relationship with its fans by allowing one of its stars to do what many will perceive as break the rules, though.  At the end of the day, the NFL is an entertainment property, and I think most fans will find an HGH-fueled Peyton Manning more upsetting than entertaining.

Too Much MLB

By now, you hopefully all know that I love Major League Baseball as much as anyone.  I can watch any game at any time and be completely satisfied - I truly believe that each contest brings an opportunity to see something you've never seen before, and I consider magical what other people view as routine.  In light of all this, the title and subject of this post likely doesn't make sense to you - yet.  But hear me out here: The MLB season is a bit too long.

Now, at first blush you might stop me here, and accuse me of some blatant homerism.  After all, my Atlanta Braves are in danger of squandering what was just a handful of days ago seen as an insurmountable NL Wild Card lead, and admittedly a shorter regular season would help their playoff push.  But the Braves struggles aren't my motivation for this appeal for a shorter season.  Keep in mind, for starters, that a 162-game regular season is a relatively recent phenomenon by baseball's standards; not too long ago, in the early 1960s, the season lasted just 154 games.

Like it or not, modern professional sports are driven by star power.  The NBA has grown tremendously over the last two decades (the recent work stoppage not withstanding) because the league and its teams did a great job of elevating key players to stardom.  Baseball has the same potential, but the added injuries, physical exhuastion and mental breakdowns that naturally accompany six straight months of baseball limit the sport's quest to create more stars.  It's not good for the game when some of the sport's top talents are injured for much of the season, especially during the later months.  A shorter season would lighten the load on everyday players and keep them on the field more often.

To be fair, the MLB has a mechanism for helping teams get through the rigorous, 162-game season: On September 1st, rosters expand to give teams more depth.  But while the larger rosters provide teams with enough healthy players to make it through September, they also force unknown former minor leaguers into key roles during a time when MLB should be showcasing its biggest names.  Whether the Braves make the playoffs or not, the fact that starting pitchers Randall Delgado and Mike Minor will decide the team's fate while injured and overworked stars Jair Jurrjens and Tommy Hanson sit on the DL is unfortunate.

The MLB likely sees the situation as an example of "you can't have too much of a good thing," with that good thing being baseball.  While a shorter season might equate to slightly less gate, sponsorship and TV revenue, the league needs to focus on the full ramifications of a longer season.  Though rewarding health and organizational depth is admirable, the average fan doesn't tune in to see which clubs have the deepest bullpens or best utility infielders.  During key, nationally televised matchups (and especially during the playoffs), fans want to see the game's brightest stars playing (the All Star Game voting process, if nothing else, has taught us that).  By reducing the number of regular season games back to 154, but keeping the season the same length date-wise, MLB can add additional off days throughout the year and protect the health of its everyday players that fans pay to see.