We’ve started to talk a lot of soccer on this show, and will continue to do so during the World Cup. Sometimes it will be just one segment at the end of the show. Other times, like today, it will be the whole focus.
Matthew from The Shin Guardian joins the show to talk about the start of the World Cup, the likelihood that the USMNT could actually go out and beat England on Saturday and, well, gets us primed for this:
First, we talk a lot about what this means to America and to ESPN. How important is the World Cup for the WWL’s future soccer business. We don’t expect to see as many plugs for MLS as in the past, but will the announcers be charged with simply calling the matches, or does ESPN have a stake in capturing more and more soccer fans who only care every four years? Can this lead to increased exposure (and ratings) for future Premiership matches on ESPN? Could this help MLS? And does ESPN need to worry about that, or can they just revel in the fact that people are actually watching what’s on now?
We discuss US Soccer’s role in growing the game in America, which includes being progressive in social media and a heavy involvement with blogs. As a blog that covers soccer, does he feel more welcome than he anticipated? It’s easy for me to say US Soccer is doing a good job, but for those who do this every day, how helpful are they?
In Philly I spoke with Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard about how much pressure they feel going into the World Cup. Landon Donovan has been quoted as saying the average American doesn’t really care if the US doesn’t fare well, which is different than the pressure they feel in England. While true, has that changed from past years? Are there higher expectations on the US team this time around?
And can they win on Saturday? More important than that…can they get out of the group? And if they don’t, how devastating will that be?
We talk a great deal about the injuries in the World Cup and try to figure out who will be missed the most. Essien? Drogba if he’s unable to go? Ballack? Nani? We run down how tough it will be for some of teams to replace their injured stars.
Two topics today. First, the fantastic debut of Stephen Strasburg. He has managed to exceed early expectations. He will never exceed the hype.
I’m not trying to throw cold water on his performance which was both historic and important for the city, and the game of baseball, but I hope two things come out of last night’s game.
First, I hope fans in DC show up tonight. And show up in five days (or whenever his next home start will be). Don’t make this a one-game event. Show up. Support your team because they’re actually pretty darn good this year.
Second, I hope Bob Costas goes back and listens to his call of last night’s game where he compared Strasburg to no less than eight different Hall of Fame pitchers. He actually said at one point in the game that — based on hype, a few minor league starts and FIVE INNINGS IN THE MAJORS — Strasburg could be in line for the Hall of Fame as long as he stays healthy.
Come on. It’s one start. It was 91 (or so) pitches. He was dazzling. But Walter Johnson has a high school named after him. Right now there’s as good a chance that Strasburg ends up like Mark Prior than Nolan Ryan. Let’s be excited, but Costas nearly ruined the moment by trying too hard to make it one.
SPECULATION STATION:
College football will end up just being one huge conference. And it will probably be called the Big Ten. We talk about the expansion mess.
Brian Cook of MGoBlog and The Sporting Blog was on a panel at Blogs with Balls in Chicago. It was not the panel on ethics, but if you watch the video, his voice makes a cameo somewhere after Spencer Hall got into a little blog tete-a-tete with The Big Lead’s Jason McIntyre. That’s at the 24:00 mark (or thereabouts).
Seriously, watch the exchange between Jason and Spencer, which spills into the rest of the panel and includes others in the crowd (including Cook). It will give you some context. Or, go to MGoBlog as Cook transcribed the entire thing.
Look, ethics are somewhat of a sliding scale, depending on the site, right? See, there are different kind of ethics. Spencer challenged McIntyre for his lack of ethics in checking sources and running a story based on a made up email and a cursory Google search on April Fool’s Day. Spencer claims that illustrates The Big Lead’s lack of ethics in checking sources and being a responsible journalist, making the case that other sites — like SB Nation — suffer when bigger blogs act so irresponsibly.
Cook and I discuss the flip side, as well. I got an email (from someone in the industry) asking me if I thought what SPENCER did was ethical at all? He made up a story and sent it to a rival site in hopes that story would be run, then used the ruse to prove his point that the site was unethical.
So, as was posed to me, Cook and I discuss which was the less ethical act. And is it that easy?
First, Andy Hutchins hops on (from what sounds like the back of a truck) to talk about the weekend. Andy is the weekend editor at The Sporting Blog — as well as writing a ton during the week — so we talk about the big storylines from Saturday and Sunday.
Andy feels the Celtics are the biggest story, so we briefly discuss that. We then talk about Rafael Nadal, and if at some point it becomes ridiculous when an athlete falls to the ground after winning what seemed like a pretty easy match. Come on, he won in three sets and was never challenged in either of them. Does that really warrant laying on the ground? Sure it was a culmination of triumph after a tough yet, but doesn’t it show just a little lack of respect for the opponent, and the moment?
Maybe that’s my biggest issue with it…the crowd was just politely applauding. It wasn’t an Oh My Gawd moment, so Nadal’s “I’m overwhelmed by my own greateness” moment seemed out of place.
That spins to talk about ESPN and the USMNT, where we talk at great length about Martin Tyler, John Harkes and the call of the match against Australia. The call fell flat, and perhaps it was because of the lack of energy in the stadium. Could this happen again or will a stadium that’s bigger and presumably louder help?
Also, are we concerned about Tyler calling the USA England match on US TV? Do we want our announcers to be homers?
More on this in Press Coverage later today.
We do talk briefly about game five of the Stanley Cup finals where it looks like I’m going to owe Kaduk some Tastykakes.
Thanks to Andy for hopping on last minute. We end with a talk about the pressure for the USMNT. I had the chance to ask Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard about that last week. We end with their thoughts. They are at the 26:00 mark.
Thanks for listening.
This is show two of two today. No show tomorrow. Don Povia from HHR and Blogs with Balls joins the show to plug the event this weekend at Wrigley Field in Chicago. We run through a brief list of some of the panels and panelists making the trip to Chicago. For those not in attendance we — yes, I am not going this weekend — can watch on Justin.TV
Check out Blogs with Balls official site for more information.
The conversation looks back at the last year from the first BwB until now. What’s changed, and exactly how pie-in-the-sky were we last year? Or, looking back, were we dead on with our future projections of new media, social media and sports blogs?
I’ll admit, there is a lot of inside blog stuff about this show, and much of it stems from the conversation on yesterday’s show about The Big Lead getting The Big Buyout. Will that dominate the talk at BwB? And how much do we expect that news to change anything for anyone else?
There’s a lot to this conversation, and assuredly, some frank conversations about a lot of the bigger names and bigger sites in our little world.
Make sure to check out the BwB site before Saturday. And after Saturday for whatever videos and other stuff you missed.
Two shows today. This is the first. We talk about the perfect game that wasn’t, but still could be. How long until we have robot umpires? We also talk about Ken Griffey Jr.’s retirement. More on that at TSB, including a look at his Top Ten moments. Plus, the Stanley Cup finals were totally overshadowed [...]
This show is broken into two segments. First, we discuss the news that Teaneck, NJ-native Giuseppe Rossi was cut from the World Cup roster…for Italy. Yes, if you’ve been living under a soccer rock (or I suppose a rock that precludes you from seeing soccer, not one made out of soccer) you may not know that Rossi – born and raised in New Jersey – decided as a teenager to pursue a spot on the Italian national team in hopes of World Cup glory. He spurned the United States as a boy, then rubbed salt in their eyes during the Confederations Cup by scoring twice.
ESPN The Magazine featured Rossi last month and called him “America’s Best Hope At The World Cup.” Whoops. It seems Rossi didn’t make the Italian roster. He was cut. No World Cup glory for him, this time around.
Listen to our take on the show, but read more about it at The Sporting Blog.
Print’s Not Dead:
If you’re an habitual reader of sports blogs, by now you’ve read the news that The Big Lead was officially purchased by longtime sponsor Fantasy Sports Ventures. Richard Sandomir of the New York Times had the story, and mentioned, “a buyer has established a value for the blog by acquiring it for a figure in the low seven figures.”
Low seven figures. This is great news for the burgeoning, and continuing, legitimacy of sports blogs. Of course, my biggest issue — and what we discuss on the show — is why it had to be THAT sport blog? We talk about this from a media perspective, and genuinely try to figure out how to write this story without letting personal feelings creep in.
What a holiday weekend in sports. We start with a conversation about Roy Halladay’s perfect game, but rather than discuss the game between us – full disclosure, I was watching the hockey then switched over and tracked back to watch after the fact while Nick had the foresight to watch both – we thought it would make more sense to talk with one of the men who had the opportunity to call the 20th perfect game in Major League history.
Scott Franzke, radio play-by-play man for the Phillies, joins the show to talk about that amazing performance, and what it was like in the booth. At what point did they start to think they might be witnessing something special? How was Larry Anderson during the game, and were they conscious of superstition throughout the broadcast? How many times did Franzke mention the word perfect? Did he say “perfect game” before it happened?
We also discuss the historic nature of calling something like a perfect game. After Dallas Braden’s perfect game this season, Nick and I talked about beat writers crafting the “perfect game story” knowing that more people will be reading that day than, perhaps, any other in a writer’s career. For someone doing play-by-play, Franzke doesn’t have the luxury of thinking out what he’s going to say, and hitting a delete key. So how perfect did he try to be? Did he have something in his mind for the last out should Halladay complete the perfect game?
And seriously, how nervous were they in the booth? More on this later today on The Sporting Blog.
The Weekend that Was:
Nick and I rundown the weekend in sports, including the Stanley Cup finals (and the ratings for game one that some people — looking at you John Gonzalez — thought wouldn’t be good because of the holiday). We also discuss the rest of the series, and if the Flyers should be worried or feel fine with the fact that, on the road, they were in both games.
Next, we spend a lot of time talking about the game both of us attended on Saturday at Lincoln Financial Field. The U.S. men’s soccer team defeated Turkey in their final Send-off Match before heading to South Africa for the World Cup.
I worked the match for Sporting News, so we give a rundown of some of the storylines that came out of the even. I also try to convince you, Nick and myself, that soccer is now for the cool kids. If a member of the media says they don’t watch soccer now because it’s boring, that’s an old and tired meme that will, finally, make them look stupid. Soccer isn’t boring, we just weren’t any good at it. Now, we might be.
Housekeeping:
We talk about Lakers Celtics and if we’re rooting for the Lakers (and Kobe) or just rooting against everything related to Boston. We also talk about which is a more lame way to win a game, a walkoff balk or a walkoff grand slam where you break your leg.
Thanks to Scott and click here to listen…
