Friday, October 26, 2007

History is a Thing of the Past

Imagine if you could predict the future.

Well, actually you can.

In today's world of sports, history is becoming a thing of the past. How so, you ask? Think about all of the quirky, intriguing, and valuable sports artifacts that have been collected from decades past, such as the ones you can see here.

A home run ball hit by Mike Schmidt.

Tommy MacDonald's game-worn helmet.

A broken stick signed by Bobby Clarke.

Etc.

They were all real, genuine items that were used and had a sentimental value to the player because that's what they had to use, and that was it.

Fast forward to today's world.

The 756th home run ball hit by Barry Bonds was tagged with a special marking to prove authenticity.

Eight seconds after a team wins the World Series, Super Bowl, etc., the players are wearing the hats that are available in stores the following day.

Baseball card printing can be planned so that there will be a limited number of certain ones printed so as to make them more valuable.

I could go on. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

But my point here is that sports memorabilia is a lot different in today's highly monetized, merchandized, milestone-marking business world. All of these new items of memorabilia that I mentioned were essentially prefabricated, and had a predetermined collector's value and predicated how the collector's market should react. Obviously not all collector's items are prefabricated like these, but enough are to make it feel like history is a thing of the past, and as a result predicting what's going to happen is as easy as shooting a free throw.

Perhaps soon you'll be able to buy a shirt honoring the player who surpasses Wilt Chamberlain's record of most free throws made in an NBA game (28) before the game is even over. On-demand memorabilia, I'll call it. It's the wave of the future...

Friday, October 19, 2007

Booing is Universal, Not Just a Philly Thing

To the next yokel who automatically declares Philadelphia boorish for booing, as announcers always love to point out, I suggest we all keep in mind that Philly isn't the only boo haven.

As reported by The Sporting News in a recent soccer match between the U.S. and Switzerland, in which the U.S. won 1-0, the fans booed the Swiss team off of the field.

And this was in Switzerland.

SWITZERLAND!

The "neutral" capital of the world!

If they can boo in Switzerland, then, like it or not, I think the rest of the world should get a free pass for booing at sporting events. How can the notoriously neutral natives of Switzerland get to reign down their disgust and not the rest of us sporting hooligans (booligans, perhaps?)? It's only fair.

If you'd like to see for yourself, simply fast forward to the end of this clip...

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Nick Leyva Will Be Sending Himself Home

Former Phillies' coach Nick Leyva got waved home on October 8th as the Milwaukee Brewers opted not to bring him back as a third base coach for next year.

As the Phils' manager from 1989-1991, Leyva went a not-so-lusty 148-189 and was fired in the beginning of the '91 derby. Those were indeed some lean times so it's not easy to tell how much of the blame for that brutal won-loss record is, but it still doesn't look favorable in the record books.

Anyway, let's see if he resurfaces somewhere else as the coaching shuffle in the MLB continues.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Bring It On

Philadelphia Flyers hockey is here and I hope you're ready. Because after watching the Phillies get manhandled to end their season and the Eagles get outplayed to begin their season, I for one am hoping the Flyers have a fighting chance.

Speaking of fighting, I thought these two clips might inspire you to get fired up for the start of hockey season.

A dash of Dave Schultz...


And a splash of Flyers vs. Senators...


Bring it on baby...

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Sports Tradtions that Need to Be Dumped

Let's get rid of these sports traditions, shall we?

1. Spraying champagne after winning a playoff series. I just saw the Arizona
Diamondbacks celebrating their victory by blasting champagne all over their locker room after winning their NLDS series. If you win the World Series, I guess you're entitled to partake in this venture, but I don't get the practice of going nuts with the bubbly after winning one series. What a waste.

2. Giving towels to fans at games. I attended the Phillies first game against the Rockies in the NLDS. All fans got a rag to swing around in the air. Ok, I guess it looks cool when everybody's waving them, but at the same time, it prevents people from clapping and making noise, which to me is more overwhelming than a bunch of towels spinning around.

3. Giving long skinny balloons to fans behind the basket. See #2.

4. Yelling "sucks" after an opposing player's name is announced during opening introductions. Once again this was observed at the Phillies/Rockies game on Wednesday. The first time I heard it was at a Duke University basketball game on TV which I thought was pretty cool at the time, but now it's just trite and immature.

5. Announcers giving "keys to the game" or other such fodder. Look, we're fans, we all know what has to happen for a team to win. Just re-wording the same old standards, such as: "get out to an early lead" or "take the crowd out of the game" or "adapt to the weather." Thanks guys but we get the point.

6. Playing loud music at any possible moment. This is particularly prominent and annoying at NBA games, whereby home teams want to make it seem like there's a lot of excitement and the fans are incompetent when it comes to make their own noise. Thanks guys, but it's unnecessary.

7. Football players, coaches, and announcers talking about how playing football is like "going to war." No it's not. It's a past time where people tackle each other. I don't recall any war in the history of the world where a gang of people out-tackled another gang of people and declared themselves conquerors of a plot of land.

Thanks for listening to my rant. And thank you for allowing me to continue the tradition of critiquing all things sports.

Now I'm goint to celebrate this post by spraying champagne all over my keyboard.