The worst defense the Colts have played all year, and they are beaten by a team missing both it’s starting QB and RB for most of the second half. Way to go Colts. bleh.

 I don’t know what else to say, really.

Charlie Weis Ate My Baby presents to you definitive proof that there is no God:

Bob Kravitz is getting his own drive time sports talk radio show.

What did Indianapolis sports fans do to deserve this? Wasn’t The Brawl enough?

In tribute to Bob Kravitz I am writing this entire post with simplistic, one sentence paragraphs, just like Deadspin noted two years ago.

Major League Baseball hates its fans and does its best to make sure they can’t see the games. It’s something CJ has talked about before. Tonight, the two Major League Baseball games available to me in HD are the Pirates at the Cards on FSNHD and the Dodgers at the Cubs on ESPN. I can watch neither of them because apparently I am in both teams’ home area.

Never mind that both teams’ home fields are over 4 hours and over 3 hours away respectively and it’s a Wednesday night where the brilliant minds at MLB headquarters can hardly expect me to just take off of work for the half day commitment at minimum it would be for me to go to these games.

So instead of watching two games in the insanely close NL Central race, including the team I follow (St. Louis) I get ESPN News and off-air bars. Thanks MLB! Yet another reason I’m glad the NFL is back.

What? You actually want to watch the games? Pshaw! Hogwashery! (Picture courtesy Associated Press)

A maybe sometimes regular or not who knows feature. CJ and I chatting on GTalk about sports. Hilarity (or not) ensues after the break.

(more…)

Just heard Kirk Herbstreit on ESPN regarding South Florida taking on #17 Auburn this weekend and the potential for an upset:

…on one hand Matt Grothe and South Florida have an opportunity to go to Auburn and compete. On the other hand I think their chances of pulling off this upset diminish as the days go by because too many people are talking about it.

What the hell does that even mean?!

I had no idea that people talking about a potential upset can cause it to not happen.   Thank God no one talked about the possibility of Appalachian State beating Michigan. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to block that kick at the end of the game.

So I went ahead and picked up Madden 08 for my XBox 360 yesterday. I skipped 07 because it was a horrendous piece of crap (the PC version had a habit of locking up on game winning or halftime ended fieldgoals). But the reviews for 08 have been coming in pretty good and I was missing pro football on my console.

The Good

• The “weapon” system is really very solid. It takes some getting used to but trucking a back over a linebacker or seeing Dwight Freeney do a lightning quick spin move to hammer a QB is a very nice addition indeed. My only complaint is that a few too many players are weapons and for someone who has never been good at playing the defensive side of the ball most of the weapons become useless froma player perspective so you just have to hope the CPU uses them effectively.
• The game presentation is the best in a long time for the franchise. Player intros highlight your team weapons and it feels more like the beginning of a real NFL game
• The new animations enhance the gameplay a ton. Gang tackling looks amazing, and offensive players have more little moves and turns than they used to. The Weapon animations are pretty cool too. Love seeing a Marvin Harrison one handed catch in the end zone.
• New mini games. They’ve polished up some of the mini games (especially WR/CB mini games) and added a 40-yard dash and bench press mini game. They can also be used during a season to train up to three players before a game and work on their ratings.
• Franchise mode is back with owner mode. Although you still can’t move teams like you could 3 or 4 years ago. Franchise mode is my bread and butter in Madden. Once I get more tired of playing the games I go into team management mode.
• Hall Of Famers. There’s a great Hall Of Fame section, with video highlights of select HOFers and you can start a franchise with a fantasy draft and include 100+ HOFers in the draft.
• Overall improved gameplay. The game just plays smoother.
• This seems to be the first Madden to really take advantage of the power of the next-gen consoles. Amazing frame rates and you can tell they pot more into 08 in this regard than 07.
• Update: I almost forgot! One of the coolest new features is you can set up the game so that whenever there is a new ESPN Radio SportsCenter update, it will automatically pipe it in and play it (as long as you are not in a game). This goes along with the sports news ticker at the bottom of the screen.

The Bad

• While it’s cool they added in more depth perspective by blurring far off objects and players sometimes it gives the impression that the field is the size of the Dallas/Ft. Worth Metro Area.
• No team movement in franchise/owner mode
• I usually play on Pro level and the difficulty at that level does seem to have increased. The weapons make it much tougher to play in a way that someone has gotten used to in the franchise.
• The stupid “ring” thing where as you do more in the game your “ring” is built. You can even order an actual ring from Jostens! No really. I’m not kidding.

The Ugly

• All of the in-game advertising. The Spring halftime roundup. Spring postgame. Jostens ring of a champion. etc etc. But the absolute WORST is the Under Armor Protect This House. When you get in the red zone (offensively or defensivel) this horrifying graphic pops up telling you what happened the last time in the red zone, complete with a picture of Annoying Screaming Under Armor Guy. I want to stab my eyes out every time I see it.
• The music. Okay so it’s got an Ozzy song and a Queens of the Stoneage song but for the most part the soundtrack is decidedly BLEH. That’s why I turn off all the songs except the NFL Films music (non-remixed, damnit). It’s instrumental, it screams football and it doesn’t get so annoying on repeat after months of gaming that you hate whatever bands are associated with the soundtrack.
• Update: How could I have forgotten the horrible in-game commentary. Gone are Madden and whoever else they can match him up with. In is a lone voice representing “ESPN Radio”. it’s wholly uninspired and uninteresting commentary to go along with the game and takes away from the presentation improvements that make the game feel more like a TV broadcast. Yeah, the Madden commentary got repetitive and annoying but that’s Madden in real life too!

Overall it’s certainly a better title than I’ve played in a couple years. It’s still probably only worth picking up to the real Madden junkies and people who want the up to date rosters or the first Madden title to really take advantage of the next-gen systems.

A thought from over the weekend…

Now that Lamar’s quest for home run number 756 is over, what’s gonna happen to ESPN’s Pedro Gomez?

“… it turned out that Bonds was just suffering from a bout of gas. For ESPN, I’m Pedro Gomez.” (image courtesy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

In having to shadow Lamar daily for the last few years, Gomez had the Most Thankless Job In Sports On Earth, which he performed admirably. Frankly, if Lamar had griped about me as publicly as he did Gomez, I’d have fought him. Granted, I’d have taken my lengthy, steroid-fueled hospital stay afterward, but then, I’m a hack. Gomez deserves our respect as a professional.

I just wonder if I should be sending a check somewhere. Y’know, to help out until things pick up for him again.

Finally, someone did the necessary sleuthing to get the proper blacklist filter that will stop that godforsaken video from playing automatically when you go to ESPN.com. This man is a true hero to Blogospheristania.

• First, you need to be using Firefox. Please, if you’re using a PC… just use Firefox. I’m willing to entertain arguments for Safari, but to be using Microsoft Internet Explorer at this point is just… wrong. Objectively wrong. Don’t do it.
• Next, install the Adblock extension (which you should really be using anyway). Adblock, well, blocks ads online. It comes with a huge list of automatically-blocked ads, which is neat, but the great thing about it is that you can manually add other ads to the list. Like, I don’t know… the ESPN Motion video that starts whenever you visit ESPN.com.
• Next (after you restart Firefox to activate the Adblock extension), click on “Tools” in the menu bar. Then click on “Add-ons.”
• Highlight Adblock and click on the “Options” button.
• In the “New Filter” box, enter this: http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/fpp/*
• Click “Done.”

And that’s it. No more stupid videos advertising “Who’s Now” or WNBA broadcasts or Steven A. Smith’s newest show, “Spittin’ Mad With Steven A. (Brought to You by Cheetos)”. Enjoy.

Major major kudos to Jake for putting this out there. I can finally visit ESPN.com and only be slightly sickened by its horrendous design and cluttery crap. h/t to Deadspin.

This is nowhere near as funny as CJ’s entry in the Vickoblogosphere Sweepstakes, or as serious as my last post about hockey, but…. daaaaaamn ESPN, could you choose a more unfortunate set of words for your Vick headline on your front page?

Ummm yeah. The ony ones fighting for their lives were the dogs Vick and his employees tortured into fighting, or the ones that didn’t make the cut and were put to death at his own hands. *cough*allegedly*cough* of course. I’m surprised the lead text for the story didn’t read “Above all else, expect the legal battle to be a dogfight.” ESPN writers, you so clever! What next, alliteration? “Vick Vociferous: Vows Vengeance”

OKay so I’m normally not one for conspiracy theories (unless I’m listening to Coast To Coast AM and laughing my ass off), but the following post at The Situationist* really has me scratching my head and wondering… and it starts right off with something I somehow missed from the ESPN Ombudsman ( a laughable position, but I digress).

Negative Press: Is ESPN Killing the National Hockey League by Influencing Public Attitudes?

ESPN’s ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber, felt compelled to examine hockey coverage on the network. In an article last month, she confirmed that hockey coverage has indeed diminished 28% on Sportscenter over the last three years and that hockey-oriented shows such as NHL 2Night were cut altogether since ESPN’s loss of NHL rights.

The reduced exposure on ESPN can only be harmful to the NHL. By minimizing coverage and highlights, the network is effectively reducing the imprint of the game on Americans’ collective sports consciousness. Worse still, several ESPN writers and commentators have gone out of their way to emphasize the demise of hockey. Le Ann Schreiber recently noted that during the NHL’s regular season, hockey was only mentioned on-air if there happened to be “some egregious brawl” or if it was being “dissed” for its invisibility and irrelevance.

28% decrease in coverage? Say what you will about the popularity of hockey in the United States, but not even ONE nightly show dedicated to hockey verges on ridiculous - especially with the number of ESPN networks approaching the highly desired The Ocho. And what will Barry Melrose do now?

It ain’t cheap to look this good.

But back to the seriousness. It’s obvious to anyone who watches ESPN that hockey coverage has become fewer and far between and when it is covered it’s usually about something bad or with a tinge of “yeah, but hockey’s in a bad state of things.”

In sharp contrast to the treatment of the NHL, ESPN favorites such as NASCAR face little scrutiny and massive hype. Once a niche sport with limited appeal, NASCAR is ESPN’s new hot property and has found itself to be the chief beneficiary of the network’s downgrading of hockey. Northwest News Group columnist Kevin Kaduk notes that since ESPN’s purchase of NASCAR broadcast rights, the network has been force-feeding the sport to its readers via its various news outlets. Indeed in January 2007, ESPN senior vice president Jed Drake explicitly promised as much. Unlike its coverage of the NHL, ESPN has shown remarkable patience with NASCAR as evidenced by its burying or putting a positive spin on negative NASCAR news such as that of falling TV ratings for the sport.

What? Falling TV ratings for NASCAR? Honestly I hadn’t heard that. Thanks ESPN for not reporting the news! If they made as big of a deal of falling NASCAR ratings as they consistently do falling hockey ratings, we’d be hearing about it all the time. Alas…

To make matters worse, such informational social influence can translate into normative social influence, which is born of the need to “conform to the rules of other people.” If it seems that a growing number of people dislike hockey or that being a hockey fan exposes one to ridicule, many will hide, ignore, or lose their affection for hockey.

Thus, the network’s negative portrayal of hockey is very likely causing a profound two-fold effect on the viewing public by prejudicing their perception of the facts and by affecting their feelings for the game.

Indeed. The more ESPN’s talking heads and faceless writers (or God Damnit I WISH They Were Faceless Writers) say hockey is failing, the more people will feel the need to believe that as well because ESPN is so ‘respected’ among the casual sports fan. So now hockey has yet ANOTHER hill to climb - fighting the biggest and in some areas ONLY source of sports-centric news into giving their sport as much credibility as even Arena Fucking Football.

Speaking of the Arena League, I was a brief fan when there was a team in Indiana, but finding news of that league on ESPN was like looking for a live dog in Michael Vick’s backyard: if you were lucky enough to find it, you probably would have been happier if you hadn’t. But then the AFL gets on ESPN (after ESPN buys a stake in the league), pimps out John Elway and Jon Bon Jovi, and suddenly I’m awash in AFL playoff highlights at the same time that hockey highlights are reaching the frequency of Jonathan Ogden stops Dwight Freeney highlights. Maybe it’s just me, but ESPN owning part of a sports league screams of conflict of interest.

When he’s not selling cars he’s desperately trying to get you to care about an obscure indoor sport that languished in the fringes of American minor-minor leagues until ESPN bought part of the league. Look, Jon Bon Jovi!

But reports of hockey’s death are greatly exaggerated. Professional hockey is doing relatively well in both its traditional and non-traditional markets. Financially speaking, the NHL’s has rebounded since its disastrous lockout during the 2004-2005 season. Television ratings may be down nationally but the NHL’s attendance figures are still relatively strong with record crowds attending games this past January. Indeed, the NHL’s attendance figures, while lower, are somewhat comparable to those of the NBA - a league widely hailed as successful by sportswriters. In addition, franchise values have gone up markedly since the lockout allowed league owners to break the players’ union (the NHLPA) and implement a favorable new collective bargaining agreement which included, among other features, a hard salary cap. As Eric McErlain details on Off Wing Opinion, prospective owners such as Jim Balsillie and an ownership group in Kansas City have been chomping at the bit to introduce hockey to new markets via re-location of struggling franchises after paying a hefty premium for the privilege.

Amen and hallelujah! It’s something that doesn’t really get mentioned by ESPN - while ratings may be down attendance is doing great. Something I didn’t realize - the NHL’s attendance is on par with the NBA. When are we going to get the “NBA is failing!” stories - something I’d be more prone to agree with (falling talent levels, a boring one-on-one focused game, no fundamentals.. but that’s another post).

As the author of that column states, all is not indeed well with the NHL. Versus as a network can barely be found on cable networks that actually carry it and the league has far over-expanded. I would have loved to have seen the NHL contract some teams during the lockout. I would have loved to see them trim down the schedule and make it harder to get into the playoffs than it is to predict the result of a coin toss. Can fixing these negatives and the existence of the positives of the game outweigh a negativity campaign by the bully in the sports world that is ESPN? I doubt it.

Now here’s the big question that The Situationist doesn’t seem to get in to - why? What interest does ESPN have in knocking hockey down to the level of curling and inclined extreme chair bowling? My guess is that it’s not so much a dislike of hockey - hey, The Worldwide Leader is full of sports fans and I’m sure there are a good number of hockey fans, being in New England and all - but a love of the STORY of a once proud league falling and falling fast. What makes a better story, a league suffering a lockout but stumping the critics with a successful comeback or the failure of an entire sport?

The latter, obviously. We’ve seen the former before. Baseball made its comeback. The NFL survived a strike to become the dominant sport in the country. Basketball has been strangely labor-trouble free and just sort of… stagnant since the Magic-Bird-Jordan era. But Hockey! ah! Only those weird Canadians watch that, and a story about that league failing so spectacularly - now THAT is news. It’s almost like ESPN was expecting the league to fold during the lockout, and when it didn’t, when it actually succeeded in fixing the problems that led to the lockout, they had to scramble for a storyline instead of reporting the one that was there.

It really ties into the idea that ESPN is becoming less about reporting sports news and more about making sports news, with their handling of hockey just another sad example.

Ageless badass Chris Chelios has something to say to anyone who disses hockey.

*While not a sports blog, The Situationist does seem to be a pretty interesting read for those into “a forum for scholars, students, lawyers, policymakers, and interested citizens to examine, discuss, and debate the effect of situational forces – that is, non-salient factors around and within us – on law, policy, politics, policy theory, and our social, political, and economic institutions.” If you’re into that sorta thing. And apologies for liberally quoting so much of the column but it was very good and I couldn’t do it justice.