baseball

Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria personally mandated the lineup card change that flip-flopped starting pitchers Jose Fernandez and Ricky Nolasco in a doubleheader Tuesday and left Marlins players furious with his continued meddling, three sources with knowledge of the situation told Yahoo! Sports.

Loria insisted Fernandez, the team’s prized 20-year-old rookie, pitch in the first half of the doubleheader at frigid Target Field instead of the scheduled Nolasco because the day game was expected to be warmer. The temperature at Fernandez’s first pitch (38 degrees) was actually colder than at the beginning of Nolasco’s start (42 degrees).

Rookie manager Mike Redmond delivered the news to Nolasco about 2½ hours before the first game against the Minnesota Twins, and it did not go over well with him or his teammates. Standard protocol for doubleheaders is that veterans choose which game they want to pitch. Not only did Loria ignore that and further alienate Nolasco, the Marlins’ highest-paid player who has previously requested a trade, he sabotaged Redmond less than 20 games into his managerial career.

By overstepping boundaries no other owner in baseball would dare, Loria presented Redmond with a Catch-22: listen to the man who signs his paycheck and risk drawing the players’ ire, or refuse to kowtow to Loria’s requests and find himself at the mercy of the owner’s short fuse.

So there was no short term payoff and a long term cost but Loria did it anyway.

Following an offseason in which they shed more than $100 million in payroll during an epic fire sale, the Marlins are 5-17, the worst record in baseball. Their beautiful new stadium sits practically empty on a nightly basis, even as the team gives away tickets. Neither free seats nor a public-relations barrage meant to spin Loria and Marlins president David Samson in a positive light seems to be working.

The arrival of Fernandez tried to maximize goodwill. For a low-revenue team such as the Marlins, prioritizing service-time consideration instead is of the utmost importance. Loria ignored that, preferring the splash the young Fernandez could make upon a sterling debut.

And indeed he has started well – too well, arguably, to send him to the minor leagues, which means Fernandez will be a free agent after six seasons. Had the Marlins stashed him in the minor leagues for the season’s first 11 days – a time during which Fernandez made only one start – he would not have been eligible for free agency until 2019.

No players enjoy hitting the open market more than the Marlins’, some of whom refer to free agency as parole. The only true way to build a winner, absent another misguided spending spree, is by changing that perception – by making Miami the sort of franchise for which players want to play.

The latest incident from Loria is simply another reminder: That will never happen as long as he runs the team. After more than a decade as an owner, Loria remains naïve to the real goings-on of a clubhouse – of how an incident such as this doesn’t just affect Nolasco but filters down to his teammates and even the purported beneficiary, Fernandez.

What happened to A-Rod

Feb 23rd, 2013

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

NBC Sports takes a look at the rise and fall of A-Rod

Rodriguez became a star almost instantly. In the 50 years leading up to 1996, only one 20-year-old shortstop — the Hall of Famer Robin Yount — had come to the plate 600 times in a season. It’s a rare thing to find a 20-year-old shortstop simply good enough to play every day in the big leagues. Yount, it should be said, was mostly overmatched – he hit .252 with two homers. Rodriguez at 20 hit .358 with 54 doubles and 36 homers and he finished second in the MVP balloting. There has never been a shortstop so good, so young.
He flashed all those tools and skills and traits that had amazed Allard Baird: Everyone talked about his joy for the game, his deference to teammates, his innocence. “On July 27,” Gerry Callahan wrote that year in a Sports Illustrated story called “The Fairest of Them All,” “Alex Rodriguez will turn 21, making him old enough to have a beer with his Seattle Mariners teammates. He says he’s not interested. ‘Can’t stand the taste,’ he says. Rodriguez has always felt more at home among milk drinkers.”

The story follows hits all the touchstones. Rodriguez was innocent. Rodriguez was humble. He loved playing in Seattle (“I can’t imagine playing anywhere else”). He was deferential to stars like Ken Griffey (“To me, Junior is just so special and so unique”). More than anything, he had his priorities straight (“My Mom always said, ‘I don’t care if you turn out to be a terrible ballplayer, I just want you to be a good person. … Like Cal (Ripken) or Dale Murphy. I want people to look at me and say, ‘He’s a good person.’”).

Reading the story now, you can’t help but wonder: Were there signs of the A-Rod who would emerge? The A-Rod who craved approval? The A-Rod who needed to be viewed as perfect? That’s amateur psychology drivel, of course, but it is worth mentioning that the one somewhat sour note of the story came in a quote from an unnamed teammate:

“Well, he’s definitely a good kid,” the teammate acknowledged. “But you know all that stuff like, ‘Oh gee, I’m just happy to be in the big leagues?’ Well, that’s an act. Don’t let him fool you. He knows how good he is. And he knows how good he’s going to be.”

Of now there is this part of A-Rod

In 2009, Sports Illustrated broke the story that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids in 2003. Rodriguez soon came out and, in a shaky voice, admitted to using steroids the three years he played for Texas. “Back then, it was a different culture,” he said. “It was very loose. I was young.”

And, like that, Alex Rodriguez was stripped bare of his baseball performance in the minds of so many. “I feel personally betrayed. I feel deceived by Alex,” Tom Hicks the Ranger owner who gave Rodriguez the big deal, told reporters. Well, everyone was piling on, even owners who drove their team into bankruptcy. There were those who, for a while, gave some credence to the idea that Rodriguez had only used PEDs in the early 2000s, before official testing.

Then, in the last few weeks, the Miami New Times wrote a story that Rodriguez’s name was all over the records of the Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in Miami, and that many of those records allegedly connect him to PEDs. Rodriguez has said that the records are “not legitimate.”

Shortly after the report, anonymous New York Yankees officials leaked to numerous reporters that the team would explore opportunities to void the contract of Alex Rodriguez or get some relief. Rodriguez, who renegotiated his deal in 2008, and still has five years and $114 million left on it.

4.12 40 yard dash

May 26th, 2012

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Was just watching the NFL Network Top 10 Draft Steals and Charlie Cassidy said that Bo Jackson was timed at 4.12 seconds in the 40. 6’1”. 230 pounds. 4.12 seconds. Bo Knows Speed.

Relegation

Jul 16th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

2 comments

Chris Ryan at Grantland has a fun column on the ups and downs of relegation to and from the English Premier League.

For football clubs, whether you’re talking about the bog-end of League Two or upper echelons of the game, there is always the taunting vision on the horizon — something better, something brighter — that fuels their desire to move on up. To get promoted you need luck, endurance (the Championship campaign is 46 games long), and more luck. Money usually helps, but teams have to make sure they actually have that money and can find more of it if they don’t get promoted.

Here’s where the trouble comes in: Spending money you don’t have to try and correct a free-fall through the leagues is called "doing a Leeds." You don’t want to do that.

The Pittsburgh Pirates/Kansas City Royals model of sitting back, losing a lot, telling your fan base you’re rebuilding and cashing checks from the league does not exist. You do that and the next thing you know you’re playing on a community park pitch in the Ryman Isthmian Football League against a bunch of guys who are supplementing their careers in debt collection with a weekend kick-about. The Pirates have been a losing team for most of my adult lifetime, but they still get to play the Phillies, Cardinals, Cubs, and Mets. Imagine if they were buried somewhere, playing the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

I am not a big fan of ESPN this week but I have been really impressed with the quality of writing and writers over at Grantland. Bill Simmons has done a great job with it, even if the name wasn’t his idea.

Fred Wilpon

May 23rd, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Jeffrey Toobin has an excellent in-depth New Yorker profile of New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon, long known as an honourable businessman who has been caught up in the Bernie Madoff scandal.

The Wilpon team believes that Picard and his top deputy, David Sheehan, have shown excessive zeal in pursuing the case. Madoff agrees. “When Sheehan and his assoc. were down here taking my statements for four days, I kept on insisting that Fred and Saul knew absolutely nothing of my crime,” Madoff e-mailed me. “He kept on rolling his eyes at me. I have always said that there is a big difference between the Banks and Funds (who had complete access to my financials in their files, and the sophistication to realize that the information they disclosed did not reconcile with their individual clients’ financials, including their [Madoff company] account statements), and the individual clients who had no access to that information, ie: Fred and Saul as well as most other individuals who were not complicit.” The person close to Picard denies any improper motive or conduct in the investigation.

There is something troubling, however, about the way the Picard complaint portrays Stamos as the Cassandra of the Madoff scandal—the person whose persistent warnings were ignored by Wilpon and Katz. Wilpon’s lawyers at Davis Polk discovered that Stamos had given a deposition during Picard’s investigation, and the transcript gives a very different picture of Stamos’s state of mind from that portrayed in Picard’s complaint. “I’m embarrassed to say that I said to Mr. Katz on a number of occasions that my assumption is that Mr. Madoff is . . . among the most honest and honourable men that we will ever meet,” Stamos testified. “And number two, that he is perhaps one of the—my assumption is he’s perhaps one of the best hedge fund managers in modern times. . . . All the way to the time when the fraud was discovered, I had the same conclusion.” In fact, it appears that no one in the Stamos firm had any words of warning about Madoff’s Ponzi scheme until after his fraud was discovered.

Complaints in civil cases are designed to be argumentative documents, but Picard’s words about Stamos seem typical of an approach that seems to find malevolent intent in virtually everything Wilpon and Katz did. Picard notes, for example, that the Sterling accounting department “created what was known at Sterling as the monthly ‘Hell Sheet,’ which calculated” the balances in all Madoff accounts. According to Sterling, the document was known as the “Hell Sheet” because it was compiled by a bookkeeper named Helene. Last week, in a new brief filed in the case, Picard again mocked the “implausible” notion that “the Sterling Partners are unsophisticated investors who were duped by a trusted friend.” He argued that Wilpon, who had served on the board of directors of Bear Stearns, and his partners “were anxious not to ‘look behind the curtain’ as they profited at the expense of Madoff’s new victims.” Picard also pointed out that the Sterling group, in 2001, had considered purchasing fraud insurance for its Madoff accounts, though it ultimately decided against doing so. The trustee asserts that in the case against Wilpon his legal burden is modest. He says he must show only that a reasonable investor would have been “on notice” that Madoff was a fraud.

Picard must be doing something right: he has already achieved considerable success in recovering funds for Madoff’s victims. According to a press release he issued in early May, he has recovered “more than $7.6 billion, representing 44 percent of the approximately $17.3 billion in principal that was lost in the Ponzi scheme” by customers who filed claims. To do so, Picard has filed more than a thousand lawsuits. Many of these cases have settled; none have yet gone to trial. Picard has also said that he expects his own investigation to cost more than a billion dollars. His law firm has already billed more than a hundred and forty-five million in fees.

From Wilpon’s perspective, the Picard lawsuit could scarcely have come at a worse time. In addition to the losses from his Madoff accounts, the Sterling real-estate portfolio has been hurt by the recession. The Mets’ troubles have also taken a financial toll. In 2009, the year Citi Field opened, the Mets drew about 3.2 million fans. Last year, attendance fell to 2.6 million. This year, with another poor team, the Mets are on track to draw perhaps 2.4 million, though their payroll remains a hundred and forty million dollars, one of the highest in the major leagues. Last year, the Mets were forced into the embarrassing position of having to borrow twenty-five million from Major League Baseball, to tide them over for the year.

Darren Rovell of CNBC takes a look at the profile and looks at how Wilpon’s comments about some Mets players (while honest) damaged the franchise.

Contract the A’s and the Rays?

Mar 20th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Bud Selig has been thinking about contraction again.

The Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays have had a hard time making it financially in recent years. A person involved in baseball labor told the New York Post that there had been some conversation in the offices of Major League Baseball of contracting the two teams.

Has no one learned from Minneapolis and the revival of the Twins? Apparently not.

Would this look good in my living room

Feb 11th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

It’s a 1/16 scale model of Ebbets Field during the 1955 World Series (Dodgers vs. the Yankees). 4 1/2 months, 1,100 hours and $4,500 later….

More information and a video of the model can be found here.

Spring is here

Feb 10th, 2011

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Spring Training is almost here with the catchers and pitchers about to report. Here is what the Blue Jays have going on in 2011.

There is a sense of renewal that is inherent to spring training, and that feeling will be particularly strong for the Toronto Blue Jays when pitchers and catchers hold their first official workout on Monday.

While general manager Alex Anthopoulos didn’t radically overhaul the roster, several significant changes were made in the off-season. The clubhouse will be a very different place minus departed veterans Vernon Wells ,Shaun Marcum and Scott Downs.

Add in that John Farrell is taking over as manager from the retired Cito Gaston after 2 1/2 years of stewardship from the franchise giant, and change will definitely be in the air in Dunedin, Fla.

Christmas Gift Guide: Gift Ideas for the Sports Fan | 2010 Edition

Nov 4th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

9 comments

Hockey Night in Canada Retro Puck & Stick Rug :: While Gary Bettman doesn’t respect the traditions of the NHL, that doesn’t mean that you can’t. Check out this retro Hockey Night in Canada welcome rug which would look great every Saturday night as you host your friends and family for the Hockey Night in Canada double header. Now if we could only find a way to automatically mute the television whenever Kelly Hrudey comes on. | $39.99 (Can) from CBC Shop

NFL Training Camp for the Wii | Compared to other fitness gaming releases on the Wii, EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp is in a whole other league. Unlike those other games that concentrate on general fitness concepts, EA Sports Active NFL Training Camp focuses on the agility, aerobic, stamina and strength training exercises that NFL players routinely are put through during their pre-season training camps. Developed in collaboration with NFL strength and conditioning coaches, users will experience the thrill of competition while challenging themselves, as well as friends and family in these authentic NFL football drills which are performed in the likeness of user’s favorite NFL players. $99.95 from Amazon

Saskatchewan Roughriders Shares | As a Roughrider shareholder, fans will get the opportunity to vote on team leadership, contribute to the team’s long-term viability, and help create a football dynasty owned and operated by its fans. In addition Rider shareholders receive a number of other benefits including discounts on merchandise, preferred seating upgrades, first rights to priority parking and access to special Shareholder events. Sadly you don’t get a say on the head coach, what kind of defence they run or who is the starting quarterback.

Each shareholder will receive a personalized and numbered share certificate, an owners card, as well as a window decal and bracelet. The limited edition 100th anniversary Series II Rider Share is available for a cost of $250 per share, with an option to have the certificate fully framed for $499.

To own a piece of the pride and become a Rider shareholder, fans can call 1-888-4-RIDERS (474-3377) or visit the Rider Ticket Office at Mosaic Stadium.

Sportscraft Pubmaster Dart Board :: The official size 18-inch dartboard has traditional colors with steel tensile steel spider and high visibility numbers. You can throw either steel or soft tip darts at the bullseye! Plus with no one really knowing when or if the economy is going to come back, having bunch of friends over for a night of darts is a lot cheaper than a night at the pub or doing much else now that I think of it. The great thing about darts (and bowling) is that you don’t have to be good at it to have a good time playing it. | $19.99 (USD) at Amazon.com

If you want to up the anty a bit and hide the dart board from view, check out this dart board cabinet. This pine cabinet comes with everything you need to start playing. It includes a high quality, self healing dart board, 6 steel tip darts, dry-erase scoreboard, out chart, marker and mounting supplies. It would look great at the cabin. $68.91 at Amazon.com

Wendy gave me this customizable Denver Broncos watch for our 13th anniversary. You can change the watch hands, color of strap, and engrave the back (something like “Fire Josh McDaniels” might be appropriate). While this one is sold out right now, you can get a variety of other NFL team watches from NFL Shop ranging from $25.

Men’s Team HeatGear® Longsleeve T Tops by Under Armour | If the person you are shopping for actually is athletic, you may want to consider a workout shirt from Under Armour. It’s a versatile multi-sport shirt ideal for training. It’s popular because the Under Armour Team HeatGear long-sleeve tee will keep you feeling cool and refreshed during your workouts. The shirt is made using HeatGear technology, a superior moisture-management system that moves moisture away from your body to the outer layer of the garment. To keep the shirt smelling fresh over the long term, Under Armour added anti-odor technology, which prevents the growth of odor-causing microbes. Other features include a lightweight micro-pique construction with a generous loose fit, raglan sleeves that allow for total mobility and a full range of motion while eliminating shoulder-seam abrasion points, and a UA logo on the center front chest. $30 from Amazon.com. You can get a short sleeve t-shirt for $20.

Custom NFL T-Shirt | While a customized NFL jersey may set you back $200, a customizable t-shirt or sweatshirt will cost you as a little as $40 and you can actually wear it out in public. Customize the front, back and both sleeves of your shirt in any number of ways. From players name and number to a pink breast cancer ribbon. Anything is possible and available in men’s and women’s version. I just can’t believe that other leagues aren’t doing this yet.

How many times in the last year have you said, “This room would be perfect with a stained glass Notre Dame plaque on the wall?” Now for $59.99 you can bring completion to your fan cave with one. It actually would look great in a lot of family rooms, even if you happened to cheer for teams like USC or Alabama. Now of course if you cheered for anyone in the SEC, you probably would not appreciate something like stained glass but sadly they don’t make these things deep fried.

Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns | Here is the story of America s national pastime from master storyteller Ken Burns. It is an eleven DVD epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs. A saga spanning the quest for racial justice, the clash of labor and management, the immigrant experience, the transformation of popular culture, and the enduring appeal of the national pastime. And through it all, baseball remains a mirror of America. $50.99 from Amazon.com

Watching Baseball Smarter: A Professional Fan’s Guide for Beginners, Semi-experts, and Deeply Serious Geeks | “Professional fan” Hample (How to Snag Major League Baseballs), who falls squarely in the “deeply serious geek” category, has put together an invaluable resource for armchair fans. A former college shortstop, four-time attendee of Bucky Dent’s Baseball School and an obsessive baseball collector, Hample covers basics like what to watch for in pitchers, catchers, hitters, fielders and base runners; he also provides answers to such nagging questions as why spectators stretch in the seventh inning and why most ballplayers grab their crotches. He explains the difference between a change-up and a split-finger fastball, breaks down a box score and offers an extensive glossary of baseball slang that defines both a “courtesy trot” and a “dying quail.” Other sections address free agency and fair balls, umpires and uniform numbers, stadiums and superstitions. Trivia abounds, including the names of the 10 switch hitters honored in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and a record of inside-the-park homeruns. Hample hits the equivalent of a reference-book homerun with his witty, loose and readable style-taking a friendly for-a-fan-by-a-fan approach that doesn’t hide his enormous depth of knowledge. Highly recommended for baseball watchers, Hample also schools amateur players and coaches with well-illustrated examples of some complex pitching, hitting and base-running scenarios. $10.08 from Amazon.com

Instant Reply: The Green Bay Packer Diary of Jerry Kramer | In 1967, when Jerry Kramer was a thirty-one-year-old Green Bay Packers offensive lineman, in his tenth year with the team, he decided to keep a diary of the season. “Perhaps, by setting down my daily thoughts and observations,” he wrote, “I’ll be able to understand precisely what it is that draws me back to professional football.” Working with the journalist Dick Schaap, Kramer recorded his day-to-day experiences as a player with perception, honesty, humor, and startling sensitivity. Little did Kramer know that the 1967 season would be one of the most remarkable in the history of pro football, culminating with the legendary championship game against Dallas now known as the “Ice Bowl,” in which Kramer would play a central role. Nor could he have anticipated that his diary would evolve into a book titled Instant Replay, first published in 1968, that would become a multimillion-copy bestseller and be celebrated by reviewers everywhere, including the Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who calls it “to this day, the best inside account of pro football, indeed the best book ever written about that sport and that league.” I still remember the first time I read it. It was fantastic and is still one of my favourite books of all time. $17.79 from Amazon.com

The Game by Ken Dryden | I know I broke up with hockey last year but this was written during the golden age of hockey and the Montreal Canadiens dynasty of the 1970s. This is a wonderful book which goes a lot deeper than so many sports autobiographies that I have read over the years. It was named by Sports Illustrated in 2002 as one of the Top Ten in The Top 100 Best Sports Books of All Time. It was the number-one hockey book on the list. #9: “Hall of Fame goalie Ken Dryden was always different. A Cornell grad, he led Montreal to six Stanley Cups, then at 26 sat out a year to prepare for the bar exam. His book is different too: a well-crafted account of his career combined with a meditation on hockey’s special place in Canadian culture.” $15.61 at Amazon.com

Madden 11 | Madden NFL 11 is the 22nd version of EA Sports’ classic video game football franchise. Featuring cover athlete Drew Brees, Super Bowl XLIV MVP and quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, Madden NFL 11 incorporates a blend of simpler, quicker and deeper new features with time-tested classic features expected from a game in the Madden franchise. Features included in the PlayStation 3 version include Franchise mode, All-new GameFlow playcall system, dual stick control, extensive online functionality and more. It now allows you to play games in half the time – With an all-new playcall system, spend less time in the huddle and more time on the field as you experience the drama and excitement of a full game in less than 30 minutes. While you are learning, you can actually win now. New Coaching Tips automatically pause the game at critical points to help explain each situation as it unfolds. A revamped playcall system draws player routes on the field as in-game coach’s audio provides helpful hints to better execute the play. Available for PS3, Wii, PSP, and XBox at Amazon.com. If who you are buying for is more of a NCAA fan, don’t forget NCAA Football 2011.

Harvard Action Arena 7-Foot Air Hockey Table | Tired of heading to the pub every time you want to play air hockey? Enter the Harvard Action Arena 7-foot air hockey table, which brings the same exciting, fast-paced gameplay directly into your home. Designed for four players instead of two, the Action Arena is well constructed, with sturdy 4-by-1/2-inch L-style legs, a cross bar for added stability, and a 6-1/2-inch PVC laminate apron with silver trim. More importantly, the table plays fast and fun thanks to the smooth, glossy white laminated play bed and 110-volt motor. Other features include automated puck return goals, an electronic scoring system, four striking paddles, and four pucks. $637.47 and available from Amazon.com

A smaller and less expensive air hockey table can be found here for $149.00. . Sports table includes 2 puck pushers and 2 pucks. Hockey puck easily glides across the playing surface due the table’s powerful 110v 2400 rpm heavy duty fan and air box. Manual scoring. Table dimensions: 32 inches high x 28 inches wide x 60 inches long. Includes assembly and game play instructions.

If you can find what you are looking for, make sure you check out one of the other 2010 Christmas Gift Guides

November 1st | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Tween Boys
November 4th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for the Sports Fan
November 8th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for the Outdoorsman
November 11th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Wives/Mothers of Your Kids
November 15th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Really Smart People
November 18th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Toddlers
November 22nd | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Husbands and Fathers (guest post by Wendy)
November 25th | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for Geeks and Gadget Lovers
December 2nd | 2010 Christmas Gift Guide for the Road Warrior

In case you are looking, here are the 2009 Gift Guides

If I missed anything or if my suggestion made you think I was absolutely crazy, let me know in the comments. You can access the current edition and previous years list of Christmas gift guides here.

NFL Vacation

Oct 13th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

8 comments

I am trying to figure out which city I should go to and take in an NFL game next year. Here are my requirements:

The game can’t have Brett Favre playing in it.
I want to see either a baseball game in it or a NCAA football game the same weekend.
It needs to be within a 24 hour drive.

Saskatoon to Denver

Pros

It’s Mecca as far as I am concerned. I live and die for the Denver Broncos.

Cons

I have no desire to see the Colorado Rockies play.
Again, not sure if I want to see the University of Colorado play a Pac-10 matchup.
That doesn’t look like a fun drive through Wyoming and I doubt Dick Cheney would let me crash at his place after some of the things that I have written about him here.

Saskatoon to Minneapolis

Pros

Closest game to Saskatoon.
Mark can stop in Winnipeg and pee on Canad Inns Stadium on the way by again.
Can see the Minnesota Twins play in their new park.
Mall of America.
I do like Minneapolis

Cons

Domed stadium.
I really don’t like the Vikings.
Brett Favre could send me a crude txt message.
Mall of America is not that much different than West Edmonton Mall.
I would feel bad driving to Minneapolis and not going to Solomon’s Porch because I was heading to a football game.

Saskatoon to Seattle

Pros

It’s Seattle
Pike’s Market
EMP
I could take in a University of Washington game
I can taunt them for drafting Brian Bosworth
I may be able to talk Don Crawford into driving down and watching the game with us.
We could stop in Calgary and I can have breakfast with Dave King.

Cons

I lost so much respect for Pete Carroll after what happened at USC. It would bug me to support his salary with a game ticket.
What if they wear their horrific third jersey’s.

Saskatoon to Chicago

Pros

Soldier Field.
Navy Pier.
Sears (or whatever it is called now) Tower.
Wouldn’t mind seeing the Cubs, White Sox, or Northwestern play.

Cons

Jay Cutler
Mike Martz
Bears fans in general are not the most enlightened.

Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Unemployment takes it toll on the employed

Sep 28th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Good article on what it is like for the working spouse of someone who has been laid off in Tampa Bay.

We know how unemployed people struggle. Dozens, if not hundreds, of candidates compete for every opening. People spend months sending out resumes, calling old contacts, straining to prop up their sagging self-esteem.

But what about their wives?

For a woman like Julie, being married to someone who is unemployed means working all the overtime you can get, but still worrying about losing your house. It means after a long day at the office you probably still have to do laundry and dishes, only now you have to make dinner too because you can’t afford to eat out. You’re working harder than ever, but you have to give up all the little things you used to do to reward yourself: drinks with a friend, a movie out, a new blouse from Target.

People try to understand, but they really don’t. They don’t know what it’s like to get up while he’s still sleeping and work all day knowing he’s home sitting in the dark because he doesn’t want to pay to run the lights. To pack your lunch because you can’t even afford fast food. To be stuck in that cramped house night after night, listening to the collection agents screaming on your answering machine. To spend your evenings watching shows like Intervention and Hoarders, anything to make your life seem less sad.

You can’t even enjoy that because you can’t really talk about anything. You don’t want to tell him about a good day at work when he’s been home all day, vegetating. You can’t complain about a bad day because at least you’re still working.

So what’s left? You tell him about the turtles you feed behind your office. He tells you about the fishing show he watched on TV. You talk about the kids and grandkids. You endure long silences. You try to go sleep, shut everything out. But sometimes you can’t because you’re thinking about all the things you can’t say, trying to take care of this man who once took care of you.

That’s the hardest part, Julie says, watching this person you love lose his pride, his sense of purpose.

It makes this sarcastic blog post come together as a response to Evan Longoria criticizing the Tampa Bay Rays fans for not showing up and paying to see him play baseball.

I don’t care that the there was no way of knowing that tonight’s game was going to be a clincher until well after midnight last night. I don’t care that maybe you don’t have the money or the time to drop everything and head out to a baseball game.

Maybe you should’ve called in sick to that second job you’ve got in the evening. Don’t worry, there’s not other people out there trying for the same job. Maybe you should find someone else to watch the kids while your husband is working overtime. Or maybe you should play hooky.

I don’t care that maybe you’re trying to save a few of your extra dollars to put toward a playoff ticket or two. I don’t care that you have other obligations for your money.

Dig deep. Real fans don’t make excuses, they figure out a way to get to the game. I don’t care that your house is upside down. If you were a real fan, you’d figure out a way to borrow the money to get to the game.

I’m sick of your excuses. You’re pathetic. The Rays deserve better than fans that can’t make it happen without a little bit of corporate support. Forget the fact that your boss has trouble justifying tickets for clients after the last round of layoffs and furloughs. Forget that you live in an area with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Just do your part and be a real fan.

I hate dat Derak Jeter

Sep 16th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

Several years ago I was in Boston and staying at the Midtown Hotel when it started on fire.

As we were wandering out of the front door, these rather round, handlebar wearing mustache, firemen come waddling in to put out the fire. You would expect these firemen to have their game faces on as they were facing danger and fire. Nope. This is what they said as we walked out the lobby and the first fireman came in. “I hate dat Derak Jeter too!” Only in Boston would a fireman’s hatred for the New York Yankees and Derek Jeter takes their focus away from fighting a fire.

I can’t even imagine what they are saying after Derek Jeter faked being hit by a pitch.

The death of a dream?

Aug 8th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

No comments yet

We are seeing the end of middle class America.

The slow economic strangulation of the Freemans and millions of other middle-class Americans started long before the Great Recession, which merely exacerbated the “personal recession” that ordinary Americans had been suffering for years. Dubbed “median wage stagnation” by economists, the annual incomes of the bottom 90 per cent of US families have been essentially flat since 1973 – having risen by only 10 per cent in real terms over the past 37 years. That means most Americans have been treading water for more than a generation. Over the same period the incomes of the top 1 per cent have tripled. In 1973, chief executives were on average paid 26 times the median income. Now the multiple is above 300.

The trend has only been getting stronger. Most economists see the Great Stagnation as a structural problem – meaning it is immune to the business cycle. In the last expansion, which started in January 2002 and ended in December 2007, the median US household income dropped by $2,000 – the first ever instance where most Americans were worse off at the end of a cycle than at the start. Worse is that the long era of stagnating incomes has been accompanied by something profoundly un-American: declining income mobility.

Here’s another way to look at the problem

Statistics only capture one slice of the problem. But it is the renowned Harvard economist, Larry Katz, who offers the most compelling analogy. “Think of the American economy as a large apartment block,” says the softly spoken professor. “A century ago – even 30 years ago – it was the object of envy. But in the last generation its character has changed. The penthouses at the top keep getting larger and larger. The apartments in the middle are feeling more and more squeezed and the basement has flooded. To round it off, the elevator is no longer working. That broken elevator is what gets people down the most.”

It’s not going to change anytime soon

Every now and then the Freemans invite their neighbours round to their front porch, to watch the world go by, drink beer and eat Connie’s justly renowned dish of Minnesota wild rice. In the best American spirit, Mark and Connie are active neighbourhood people. They are the types who shovel your snow, volunteer for school events, and coach the baseball little league – Mark has done all three.

It takes optimism to be like this. But in the past few years the Freemans have been running low on it. “I guess the penny dropped in the last 18 months when we finally realised that it’s always going to be like this – we are never going to be able to retire on our savings,” says Connie. “As for Andy,” she says, referring to her painfully shy but acutely observant son, “the future really frightens me. If you’re young, it’s bad enough nowadays. But for a kid with autism?”

The entire article is a good one, talks about how the high cost of education, rising rents and a host of other factors that have contributed to the death of the American dream.

via

Move over California, Illinois is broke as well

Jul 4th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

9 comments

From The New York Times

Even by the standards of this deficit-ridden state, Illinois’s comptroller, Daniel W. Hynes, faces an ugly balance sheet. Precisely how ugly becomes clear when he beckons you into his office to examine his daily briefing memo.

He picks the papers off his desk and points to a figure in red: $5.01 billion.

“This is what the state owes right now to schools, rehabilitation centers, child care, the state university — and it’s getting worse every single day,” he says in his downtown office.

Mr. Hynes shakes his head. “This is not some esoteric budget issue; we are not paying bills for absolutely essential services,” he says. “That is obscene.”

For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession.

Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state’s bills and refuses to take the painful steps — cuts and tax increases — to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state’s budget.

Of course the impact is more than on just Illinois

The federal dollars are nearly spent. Last month, local governments nationwide shed more than 20,000 jobs. Should the largest struggling states — like California, New York or Illinois — lay off tens of thousands more in coming months, or default on payments, the reverberations could badly damage a weakened economy and push housing prices down still further.

“You’re not seeing these states bounce back, and that could be a big drag on the national economy,” said Susan K. Urahn of the Pew Center on the States. “It could be a very tough decade.”

Here is what it looks like in real terms

The Community Counseling Centers of Chicago is another of those workaday groups that are like the stitches on a baseball, holding together poor and working-class neighborhoods. With an annual budget of $16 million, the agency tends to families torn by crime and violence as well as people who are psychologically stressed and abusing drugs.

On any given Monday morning, the agency’s chief administrative officer, John J. Troy, 61, has no idea how he is going to keep its doors open until Friday. He said the state had not come through with an expected $2.2 million, which is about six months of arrears. He has laid off and recalled employees three times in the last two years.

“Two weeks ago, I had days to meet my $420,000 payroll and all I was looking at was a $200,000 line of credit from a bank,” recalled Mr. Troy. “I drove down to Springfield and said, ‘Hey, you owe us $3 million.’ They said: ‘Oh, that’s nothing. We owe another agency $10 million.’ ”

“The fact of the matter is,” he added, “I don’t sleep much these days.”

I know that several current and former politicians across the country read this blog but I can’t think of a Canadian equivalent. In reading about the second Devine government in Saskatchewan the province was pretty much broke but from what I recall, bills were being paid. While the Ontario government had Rae Days, I am pretty sure the bills got paid. Actually outside of the 1930s, I can’t think of a time when a Canadian government didn’t pay it’s bills. Anyone have an example?

Can LeBron James Save the Soccer in the United States?

Jul 4th, 2010

by Jordon Cooper.

2 comments

An interesting article from ESPN on how it isn’t a lack of athletic ability that holds America back at the World Cup

To believe the best-athlete myth is to fundamentally misunderstand American soccer’s plight. Athletic ability is not the problem. In fact, it’s generally considered a Team USA strength, along with competitive spirit. We can run and jump with the world’s best. Compared to their superstar Argentine and Spanish peers, however, our best players lack vision, creativity and technical skill. On-ball magic. Soccer-specific attributes that don’t transfer from one sport to the next, that can’t be measured with the stopwatches and shuttle cones of a scouting combine. Does being able to hit a major league curveball automatically make you a PGA Tour prospect? The things American soccer needs to improve on come from immersion and exposure, from how you grow up in the sport.

And in that regard, our best isn’t good enough. Not even close.

As a teenager, Messi attended the training academy of top professional club Barcelona, living and breathing the game’s highest level; by age 19, he was playing in his first World Cup. In the world of international soccer, his story is the norm. It’s also the norm in the United States — provided you play football, basketball or baseball, where the minors and/or de facto minor league college sports prepare you to be a pro in sink-or-swim, survival-of-the-fittest fashion.

Play soccer, by contrast, and you’ll likely spend your formative years in college — well below MLS, a Marianas Trench removed from the big-money, high-pressure hothouse of European club competition. By the time America’s top talents reach the international level, they’re stuck playing catch-up. Though a shift to continental-style player development is taking place — witness U.S. midfielder Michael Bradley, who trained at the IMG soccer academy in Florida, went to MLS at age 17 and is now playing in Germany — overnight dividends aren’t a sure thing. How else to explain Freddy Adu?