A Quote
Alex Rodriguez after the Yankees lost to the Tigers in game 5 of the ALDS, a game in which he had two key strikeouts:
"I have a lot of work to do for me personally...Obviously I have to get my health back in order. I know exactly what I have to do to help this team get back to the top."
The buzz among fans and writers after another disappointing playoff showing by ARod is that he might have reached the point of no return with Yankees fans. Now they feel overwhelmed and oppressed by the prospect of the dark cloud that is his contract looming over their organization for the next 5 years.
Two points about this. It shows a subtle difference between baseball and football fans when it comes to labeling star players who "can't win the big one." Alex Rodriguez dealt with that issue until the Yankees won the World Series in 2009. Peyton Manning, to take one example from the NFL, wore that label until the Colts won the Super Bowl in 2007. This bought Manning a type of free pass, because he "proved he can win the big one." Even after the Colts lost to the Saints in the 2009 Super Bowl, nobody questioned Peyton Manning's greatness. The expiration date on Alex Rodriguez's pass, if it ever existed, apparently has already expired.
Which brings me to Yankees fans. I get the feeling that they think they are more justified than the rest of us when they gripe about their underachieving players. Why? Because of how much money those players make. "We're paying A.J. Burnett over 70 million dollars for that?!?" Or: "ARod, the least intimidating 30 million dollar man ever."
Yet it's the ability to overpay these players that makes Yankees fans so smug in the first place. Think about when you're a fan of a middle to small market team like the Marlins or the Indians or the Rockies and you have a hot young player. More than likely you have heard this statement from a Yankees fan: "Yea, he's really good. He'll look great in the pinstripes." The not so subtle implication is that the Yankees can pay them what your team can't once he hits free agency. But then it's those same ludicrous contracts that make you so mad at those players once they are on your team?
I know that Yankees and Red Sox fans always accuse us of jealousy when we say we don't like them. Part of it is jealousy, but part of it is junk like this.
A Video
OK. My interest in this sequence of events actually has little or nothing to do with the fact that I know Brandon and really like him.
All of us who write a sports blog are dealing with the same core question: What can I do to stand out? As I have written about before, it becomes a gnawing issue. You have to decide the real reason you want to do this. If you really want to write about sports, and that is your number one priority, then you have to be comfortable with putting a lot of thought into a post and getting 3 views. Because you most likely won't get noticed for a long time, if ever. You can still keep your love of sports as the driving force for your blog and try your best to produce something unique and interesting. You can take comfort in the fact that you put real genuine thought into what you wrote, even if you do not become the next Bill Simmons. That's what I always try to remember.
The easiest way to get attention online is to produce inflammatory posts that insult people. You take minimal evidence and turn it into a larger claim. It's sheer and utter laziness. In fact, it relies on the "lazy logic of opinion" (gosh I hope some of my literature classmates read this). What do I mean? If somebody eats one bad piece of cheese and then turns that into a definitive and final judgment on cheese (ALL CHEESE IS BAD), we are not persuaded by their opinion, right? That's what I see in what this guy directed at Brandon.
By being lazy and taking the shortcut to page views, more often than not, they ruin it for the rest of us.
Links
A Video
I chose this classic because it is Warning Track Power's own Ryan Presley's birthday. So this is a present to him and another attempt to goad him into yelling at somebody today: I'M A MAN! I'M TWENTY SIX!
A Photo
Click this link for a great photo of John Daly and John Daly, Jr., working on their games and wearing some outstanding attire.
A Tweet
@BMcCarthy32: @keithlaw can you still brag about having an iPad? That's like bragging about having an iPhone at this point
Friend of the blog (we'd like to think) Brandon McCarthy made this cyber crack in response to somebody accusing ESPN's Keith Law of bragging about his iPad. This upset his tweeps (for some reason), and they grew increasingly more upset about the use of the word "luxury" and accused him of being out of touch because of how much money he makes as a professional athlete. Eventually this led to a sports blog called something like "Epic Sports Fail" dedicating a post to Brandon being a rich ass hole.
OK. My interest in this sequence of events actually has little or nothing to do with the fact that I know Brandon and really like him.
All of us who write a sports blog are dealing with the same core question: What can I do to stand out? As I have written about before, it becomes a gnawing issue. You have to decide the real reason you want to do this. If you really want to write about sports, and that is your number one priority, then you have to be comfortable with putting a lot of thought into a post and getting 3 views. Because you most likely won't get noticed for a long time, if ever. You can still keep your love of sports as the driving force for your blog and try your best to produce something unique and interesting. You can take comfort in the fact that you put real genuine thought into what you wrote, even if you do not become the next Bill Simmons. That's what I always try to remember.
The easiest way to get attention online is to produce inflammatory posts that insult people. You take minimal evidence and turn it into a larger claim. It's sheer and utter laziness. In fact, it relies on the "lazy logic of opinion" (gosh I hope some of my literature classmates read this). What do I mean? If somebody eats one bad piece of cheese and then turns that into a definitive and final judgment on cheese (ALL CHEESE IS BAD), we are not persuaded by their opinion, right? That's what I see in what this guy directed at Brandon.
Brandon wrote a tweet that can be interpreted as elitist. Therefore he must be a rich jerk. I'll copy and paste some other tweets and write a short character assassination. Never mind the fact I actually know nothing about him or the kind of person he really is. This is solid gold.
Brandon responded on Twitter and now this blogger has the traffic he wanted in the first place. That's why I am refusing to link this blog (google it if you want. it should be on about page 6 after all the other domains with EPIC FAIL in their name). Here's the problem: people see thoughtless lazy work like theirs and then associate it with all sports blogs. This is another application of the lazy logic of opinion, but I'm not here to insult readers. In fact I do not blame anybody that stays away from our blogs once they have that expectation. Therefore a blog that actually strives to do something interesting, something that takes real thought and effort, is never really given a chance by anybody other than the writer's friends and mother.
Brandon responded on Twitter and now this blogger has the traffic he wanted in the first place. That's why I am refusing to link this blog (google it if you want. it should be on about page 6 after all the other domains with EPIC FAIL in their name). Here's the problem: people see thoughtless lazy work like theirs and then associate it with all sports blogs. This is another application of the lazy logic of opinion, but I'm not here to insult readers. In fact I do not blame anybody that stays away from our blogs once they have that expectation. Therefore a blog that actually strives to do something interesting, something that takes real thought and effort, is never really given a chance by anybody other than the writer's friends and mother.
By being lazy and taking the shortcut to page views, more often than not, they ruin it for the rest of us.
Links
Peter King takes a look at this weekend's NFL action http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/peter_king/10/07/game-plan-week-5/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t12_a3
Jonah Keri recaps the Tigers game 5 victory over the Yankees http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/5871/tigers-topple-the-evil-empire
I'll link this one again. Check out Roger Angell's blog. Seriously.Especially with the MLB playoffs happening right now. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/old-sport/
