Monday Night Mayhem, Death To Shills
Nice defensive battle to start off the Monday Night Football season. The Falcons gave the Eagles a good old fashioned punch in the mouth as they take the season opener 14-10. McNabb looked out of sync all night as he was running for his life much of the night. T.O had a good game but the Iggles were unable to sustain a drive long enough to put up any points. Two David Akers FG misses didn't help matter either.
The Atlanta defense was impressive, but I'm not quite sold on the ATL just yet. Michael Vick is a fantastic talent, but I'm not sure they can win a title playing their style of offense. The option doesn't really work much in college anymore, much less the pros. And Vick is an option QB. I think he's going to have play a more traditional style of QB play to take the dirty birds over the hump. I'm not saying that he has to completely subjugate his running game, because that would take away his greatest weapon...his legs. But Vick has a helluva arm too and learning to play a more traditional drop-back style would make the offense that much more dangerous.
Randall Cunningham was never able to take the Eagles to the Super Bowl for two reasons. A mediocre running game and his inablity to read defenses. Vick has enough of a running game to keep most defenses on their toes. But if he really wants to take the next step, he'll learn to play dropback. Otherwise, good defenses will always be a step ahead of him.
That fight at the beginning of the game was so stupid...I can hardly believe it happened. Then again, this is the NFL, so I shouldn't be surprised that two players would hurt their teams that way by getting into a silly confrontation before the game. Fellas, there's too much money at stake to be getting into schoolyard brawl.
I've been meaning to write about this subject for a while but always seemed to get sidetracked. But this disgusting column that Mike Lupica wrote today, it gave me inspiration to talk about shills and the damage they can cause the sports landscape of a city.
Lupica is practically salivating at the possibility that the D-Rays and Lou Piniella could play a part in the Yankees demise this year. If you haven't been reading him lately, he hasn't gone more than two columns without mentioning the Yankees $200 million. He could be writing about the Knicks or Tennis, yet he finds a way to mention the Bombers payroll. He's so offended by the fact that one team has the resources to pay their players seven or eight figures a year. Forget the fact that he's probably making six maybe seven figures to write about these athletes.
Now I know a lot of people who are troubled by the fact that one team has a payroll $80 million higher than the next highest team. If he wanted to talk about the flaws in the current system, a system created to prevent one team from outspending the others by a significant ammount, a system that has failed miserably in that effort...fine. If he wanted talk bout the Yankees being a $200 million bust if they don't make the playoffs, fine. If he wanted to talk about the Yankees losing to a team like the Marlins, a team with a lot of homegrown talent, with a payroll that's a fraction of the Yankees, that's cool. About how the win now attitude of the Yankees has depleted their farm system and how poor scouting hasn't helped matters...go right ahead.
But to actively root against a New York team in your columns is wrong. To try to plant the seeds of dissent so someone loses their job is wrong. To be a press shill for another team because the ownership takes care of you and your family is wrong.
It's no secret that Mike Lupica has been a Mets Shill for years. I'd have no problem if he was a Mets fan. That's fine. And there have been columnist shills for years. Dick Young of the New York Post was a shill for O'Malley and the Dodgers and later he was a shill for M Donald Grant and the New York Mets. He helped run Tom Seaver out of town but he also was a defender of Jackie Robinson. So the power of the pen can draw red or blue ink on its target. Lupica has made it his raison d'etre to derail the Jets/Olympics Stadium project. While I agreed with him, I have to wonder whose agenda he was serving on that one.
And it's not just columnists. Radio and TV personalities are also guilty of this. Mike and the MadDog are at the top of the lists on that one. It's sort of the pathetic that the two hosts of the station's number one show...the station happens to be the flagship station of the Mets....that both hosts have little or no use for the team in Flushing and their fans. That's one thing. You can't force someone to root a team. But when they're giggling their asses off like little schoolgirls after the latest Mets collapse against the Braves....as amusing as it for me....is wrong.
When you have one of the hosts who is good friends with a certain head coach (Francessa/Parcells) that's one thing...but when they not only won't criticize their friend on the air...but call in and disparage a host who does (as Mike did to Joe Benigno several years ago) that's another ball of wax. When those hosts kill the choice of Willie Randolph as Mets manager because he has no managerial experience, but you're ok with Joe Girardi getting job even though he has zero experience...that's smells of favoritism.
When you have Russo killing Isiah Thomas before he even gets here, but you constantly give the worst GM in the history of the NBA (Scott Layden) a pass, that stinks to high heaven.
I could go on forever with those two, but I think you get my point.
Surviving in the media business is about nuturing and fostering relationships. There's nothing wrong with being an insider or a homer. Peter Gammons is the ultimate baseball insider, yet he's a fantastic reporter and columnist. Phil Rizzuto, Harry Carey even the great Jack Buck and Vin Scully were and are homers. But they never got in the way of the action, never perpetuated their own agenda and always made the game fun to watch or listen to. But being a shill is something else entirely. Waldman and Sterling are worst examples of this. I blame the Yankee management for this one. They assume that fans can't deal honest critique and analysis of their teams. They think that fans want to hear their spin on a situation. Wrong.
Most fans would prefer to be at the game and not listen to announcers at all. But since we can't be there for every game, all we want the announcers to do is tell us what's going on and to give some fair and detailed analysis. After that, we want you to shut up and stay out of the way until it's time for you to say something else..Got that, Michael Kay and Joe Buck??
T sum it up, my friend K-Bisch sums it up perfectly on how I feel about Lupica's column and how I hope the Yankees react to it.
Amen to that.
The Atlanta defense was impressive, but I'm not quite sold on the ATL just yet. Michael Vick is a fantastic talent, but I'm not sure they can win a title playing their style of offense. The option doesn't really work much in college anymore, much less the pros. And Vick is an option QB. I think he's going to have play a more traditional style of QB play to take the dirty birds over the hump. I'm not saying that he has to completely subjugate his running game, because that would take away his greatest weapon...his legs. But Vick has a helluva arm too and learning to play a more traditional drop-back style would make the offense that much more dangerous.
Randall Cunningham was never able to take the Eagles to the Super Bowl for two reasons. A mediocre running game and his inablity to read defenses. Vick has enough of a running game to keep most defenses on their toes. But if he really wants to take the next step, he'll learn to play dropback. Otherwise, good defenses will always be a step ahead of him.
That fight at the beginning of the game was so stupid...I can hardly believe it happened. Then again, this is the NFL, so I shouldn't be surprised that two players would hurt their teams that way by getting into a silly confrontation before the game. Fellas, there's too much money at stake to be getting into schoolyard brawl.
I've been meaning to write about this subject for a while but always seemed to get sidetracked. But this disgusting column that Mike Lupica wrote today, it gave me inspiration to talk about shills and the damage they can cause the sports landscape of a city.
Lupica is practically salivating at the possibility that the D-Rays and Lou Piniella could play a part in the Yankees demise this year. If you haven't been reading him lately, he hasn't gone more than two columns without mentioning the Yankees $200 million. He could be writing about the Knicks or Tennis, yet he finds a way to mention the Bombers payroll. He's so offended by the fact that one team has the resources to pay their players seven or eight figures a year. Forget the fact that he's probably making six maybe seven figures to write about these athletes.
Now I know a lot of people who are troubled by the fact that one team has a payroll $80 million higher than the next highest team. If he wanted to talk about the flaws in the current system, a system created to prevent one team from outspending the others by a significant ammount, a system that has failed miserably in that effort...fine. If he wanted talk bout the Yankees being a $200 million bust if they don't make the playoffs, fine. If he wanted to talk about the Yankees losing to a team like the Marlins, a team with a lot of homegrown talent, with a payroll that's a fraction of the Yankees, that's cool. About how the win now attitude of the Yankees has depleted their farm system and how poor scouting hasn't helped matters...go right ahead.
But to actively root against a New York team in your columns is wrong. To try to plant the seeds of dissent so someone loses their job is wrong. To be a press shill for another team because the ownership takes care of you and your family is wrong.
It's no secret that Mike Lupica has been a Mets Shill for years. I'd have no problem if he was a Mets fan. That's fine. And there have been columnist shills for years. Dick Young of the New York Post was a shill for O'Malley and the Dodgers and later he was a shill for M Donald Grant and the New York Mets. He helped run Tom Seaver out of town but he also was a defender of Jackie Robinson. So the power of the pen can draw red or blue ink on its target. Lupica has made it his raison d'etre to derail the Jets/Olympics Stadium project. While I agreed with him, I have to wonder whose agenda he was serving on that one.
And it's not just columnists. Radio and TV personalities are also guilty of this. Mike and the MadDog are at the top of the lists on that one. It's sort of the pathetic that the two hosts of the station's number one show...the station happens to be the flagship station of the Mets....that both hosts have little or no use for the team in Flushing and their fans. That's one thing. You can't force someone to root a team. But when they're giggling their asses off like little schoolgirls after the latest Mets collapse against the Braves....as amusing as it for me....is wrong.
When you have one of the hosts who is good friends with a certain head coach (Francessa/Parcells) that's one thing...but when they not only won't criticize their friend on the air...but call in and disparage a host who does (as Mike did to Joe Benigno several years ago) that's another ball of wax. When those hosts kill the choice of Willie Randolph as Mets manager because he has no managerial experience, but you're ok with Joe Girardi getting job even though he has zero experience...that's smells of favoritism.
When you have Russo killing Isiah Thomas before he even gets here, but you constantly give the worst GM in the history of the NBA (Scott Layden) a pass, that stinks to high heaven.
I could go on forever with those two, but I think you get my point.
Surviving in the media business is about nuturing and fostering relationships. There's nothing wrong with being an insider or a homer. Peter Gammons is the ultimate baseball insider, yet he's a fantastic reporter and columnist. Phil Rizzuto, Harry Carey even the great Jack Buck and Vin Scully were and are homers. But they never got in the way of the action, never perpetuated their own agenda and always made the game fun to watch or listen to. But being a shill is something else entirely. Waldman and Sterling are worst examples of this. I blame the Yankee management for this one. They assume that fans can't deal honest critique and analysis of their teams. They think that fans want to hear their spin on a situation. Wrong.
Most fans would prefer to be at the game and not listen to announcers at all. But since we can't be there for every game, all we want the announcers to do is tell us what's going on and to give some fair and detailed analysis. After that, we want you to shut up and stay out of the way until it's time for you to say something else..Got that, Michael Kay and Joe Buck??
T sum it up, my friend K-Bisch sums it up perfectly on how I feel about Lupica's column and how I hope the Yankees react to it.
Yankees, I want you to go out and beat the living shit out of every team from here on in to the rest of the season almost more than I have ever wanted something for this team. Alex Rodriguez, I want you to lead the attack, and I want Randy Johnson right there behind you, to shut everyone the hell up. In year's past, I've wanted the Yanks to win for my own personal delight. Now I want them to win just to piss everyone the fuck off; Every Yankee hater. Every A-Rod basher. Every ESPN columnist. Every bandwagon fan who jumped off earlier this season. And Lupicass. Win this sucker to SPITE THEM ALL. And it will be awesome.
Amen to that.
posted by Darth Marc at 6:36 PM
1 Comments:
Very well-put, DM. I don't know if it's because we come from journalistic backgrounds and get offended easier when so-called journalist become these shills, but I think it's probably disturbing to everyone. The Mike and the Mad Dog thing is so spot on -- they only love anyone who agrees with them, god forbid you have a differing opinion. I haven't listened to them for a full show in years, but if they're actually laughing at the Mets and not taking their fans seriously, when a good amount of their listenership are Met fans, well that's just nuts.
As for Sterling, I feel like he will get all whiny and pissy and fan-boyish when the Yanks aren't pulling through just so people don't call him a shill. I mean, there's critiquing and there's Sterling's "Waaaaah, The Yanks should be getting hits, waaaaaaaah." I mean, I could do that.
Also note, Lupicass used to be able to not say enough good things about the Yanks. My guess is someone either pissed him off (aw, poor him) or he's bored with the material. Either way, he should just walk away because he's become a one-note hack.
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