Chicago
Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica
"Limits like fears are just an illusion" ~Michael Jordan
How 'bout them Chicago Blackhawks? The NHL at the Halfway Mark!!!!
Most NHL teams are at the halfway mark through the season, or should be getting to that point sometime this week. What a great first half of the season it has been! Although not all the fans are completely satisfied with their teams performance so far, it shouldn’t weigh too heavily as it’s only the half-way point and much can change. With the Chicago Blackhawks leading the way, this team is currently on a 23 game winning streak without a loss in regulation time and is making NHL history with every game. Although dominating, the team isn’t winning by blowouts, so it is entirely too early to be associating them with any Stanley Cup winning as of yet. The Chicago players when interviewed state that they are taking the games “a day at a time”, which could be one pivotal reason for their successes. It’s nearly impossible not to see a Chicago Blackhawks shirt, jersey or fan during sport highlights. This team sits at 20-0-3 and is on top of the NHL leader board. Our Hawks, never giving up, never giving out and most of all, never giving in. Their best is just going to get better. As CS&T/AA has said, We have a great feeling about this team. This is our year, remember, you heard it here first!!!!! Go Hawks!!!
Report: Goodell 'terrified' a player could die during game.
By Brad Biggs | National Football Post
In an expansive and well-written profile, Don Van Natta Jr. reports that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has privately expressed fears that a player could die on the field if the game’s “hard-knocks culture doesn’t change.”
According to the report for ESPN, Goodell has told one Hall of Fame player he speaks to on a regular basis he is “terrified of it.” Goodell fears tragedy striking for all the reasons you can imagine.
It wouldn't just be a tragedy,” the Hall of Famer told Van Natta. “It would be awfully bad for business.”
Business, of course, is booming under Goodell and that is one of the primary focuses of the piece. The NFL is expected to exceed $10 billion in revenue this year and Goodell has marked $25 billion as a goal by 2027, in less than 15 years.
Only once in NFL history has a player died during a contest. Detroit Lions wide receiver Chuck Hughes suffered a heart attack during a game in 1971. Hopefully, there isn’t another death anytime soon.
Nicklaus: Tiger 'better get going' on major chase.
By DOUG FERGUSON (AP Golf Writer)
Tiger Woods was long gone from PGA National when Jack Nicklaus settled into his seat in the NBC Sports tower.
Woods' week at the Honda Classic included two lost balls, four shots in the water and 15 shots out of the bunkers. He made four double bogeys, was never better than 3-under par at any point and was under par for only 26 out of the 72 holes he played.
None of this was enough to alarm Nicklaus.
In what now sounds like a broken record, Nicklaus maintains that records are made to be broken, including his gold standard of 18 professional majors.
"I still think he'll break my record," Nicklaus said Sunday. "Tiger's talent, at 37 ... it's not that old. I won four after that. They were spread out. It wasn't that difficult. I don't think for Tiger to get four or five more — or six or seven — is that big a stretch."
Woods, of course, has been stuck on 14 since winning the U.S. Open in a playoff at Torrey Pines in 2008. Perhaps of more interest than his 0-for-14 streak since then is that he has not seriously contended in any of the majors since giving up a two-shot lead to Y.E. Yang at the 2009 PGA Championship. Sure, he was tied for the lead at the turn at the Masters two years ago. He was in the penultimate group at Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open, as he was at Royal Lytham & St. Annes last summer.
But when was the last time Woods had a realistic chance in the final hour of a major?
Even during his previous two droughts in the majors (both 0-for-10) he had serious chances to win at Royal Birkdale in 1998 and Pinehurst in 1999, and then at Hazeltine in 2002 and Royal St. George's in 2003.
The Masters starts in 38 days, and Woods will be among the top two favorites to win a fifth green jacket, as he should be.
It's foolish to suggest 37 is old, even on a left knee that has gone through as many surgeries as Woods has won green jackets. Nonetheless, with age time seems to go faster.
"I still think he can do it," Nicklaus said. "But that said, he has still got to do it. He hasn't won one in five years. He had better get with it if he's going to."
Even after the road to 18 majors went over a cliff at the end of 2009 — and it took Woods two years to recover from the public embarrassment of his infidelities, his injuries and yet another coaching change — Nicklaus stayed consistent in the belief that his own record will fall.
— "If Tiger is going to pass my record, this is a big year for him in that regard," Nicklaus said at the start of the 2010 season, alluding to a major rotation that included Pebble Beach and St. Andrews.
— "I'm surprised that he has not bounced back by now," Nicklaus said in March 2011. "He's got such a great work ethic. He's so determined to do what he wants to do. I'm very surprised that he has not popped back. I still think he'll break my record."
— "I don't know whether he's going to continue to beat guys ... whether these guys have all learned how to play or they all learned how to win, they're probably no longer afraid of Tiger," Nicklaus said in March 2012. "In my opinion, I still think Tiger will regain what he does. He will come back and play very, very well. Whether he breaks my record is another issue. I still think he will."
Nicklaus never went through a major championship drought this severe, except for the 20 majors he played between the 1980 PGA Championship at Oak Hill and his 18th and final major at the 1986 Masters when he was 46.
It's too early to make a conclusion about Woods' 2013 season.
One week at the Honda Classic is not much of a barometer, nor is one day at Dove Mountain for the Match Play Championship.
His game is good enough to win anywhere on any golf course. It's good enough to win majors. It's good enough to return No. 1, perhaps even before the Masters. The intimidation and aura of Woods might not be what it was, but there were traces of it the way he rallied at the Memorial last year and dominated at Torrey Pines this year.
Still, it's the inconsistency that keeps Woods from looking to be the threat he once was.
When Nicklaus was at about the same stage in his career, it was not unusual for him to miss the cut or have a bad week. But his results were never this up and down. At age 37, the Golden Bear had 14 straight finishes in the top 10 on the PGA Tour.
Look at the start to Woods' season. He missed the cut in Abu Dhabi, won the next week by four shots at Torrey Pines, and in his next stroke-play tournament, he never broke par and tied for 37th.
Look at last year.
He won twice in five starts, at Bay Hill and Memorial. In the three tournaments in between, he tied for 40th at Masters and The Players Championship and missed the cut at Quail Hollow. He gave up a 36-hole lead at the U.S. Open, and then won his next tournament. And then he missed the cut at The Greenbrier Classic.
About the only consistency comes from his answers.
"It's not that far off," Woods said when asked to compare his game at the Honda Classic with Torrey Pines. "I feel like I'm probably just not quite driving it as well. My iron game is pretty good and my short game is way better than it was at Torrey. I feel very comfortable with my putting, so I need to obviously get it in play a little bit more and attack from there, because everything else is pretty good."
Except that he hit 65 percent of his fairways at PGA National and 57 percent of his fairways at Torrey Pines.
Woods pointed to his mistakes at the Honda Classic as painting a distorted view of how he played. Four shots because of lost balls. Four shots from his water balls. All this is true, except every player can say the same thing.
You have to wonder if Woods has a different outlook at this stage in his career. No doubt he wants to win every time he plays, but perhaps his performance at regular events takes on less significance to him, as long as his game is sharp and he peaks for the majors.
And that can't be measured for another 38 days.
New Fox sports network to debut in August.
By RACHEL COHEN (AP Sports Writer)
For anyone who thinks TV is already saturated with sports of every stripe, stay tuned.
Here comes Fox with an in-your-face challenge to ESPN - a 24-hour sports cable network called Fox Sports 1, set to launch Aug. 17.
''ESPN, quite frankly, is a machine,'' Fox Sports executive vice president Bill Wanger said Tuesday in announcing the venture. ''They have very consistent ratings, obviously huge revenue. We're coming in trying to take on the establishment. It's no different than Fox News or Fox Broadcasting back in the '80s. We're going to have to scratch and claw our way all the way to the top.''
To do that, Fox executives are confident they have enough live events, with rights to college basketball and football, NASCAR, soccer and UFC fights. In its first year, the new network will broadcast nearly 5,000 hours of competition and news.
Fox owns rights to many Big 12, Pac-12 and Conference USA basketball and football games. Its soccer deals include UEFA Champions League and the men's and women's World Cups from 2015-22.
Starting in 2014, FS1 will start broadcasting Major League Baseball games, including part of the postseason. It will show some NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races as early as 2015, with other NASCAR events on the air from the startup.
''We believe we've amassed enough live events and can package and put programming around it where we can have scale,'' Fox Sports co-President Randy Freer said. ''We can have significance. We can be a major player in the market.''
However, unlike ESPN's lineup, there's no NBA, no SEC football, no ACC basketball and, the biggest attraction of all, no NFL games. On that last point, Wanger was quick to add: ''Yet.''
Still to be determined is whether the NFL sells some Thursday night games separately from its NFL Network package. If it does, everyone will try to buy a piece of the action.
That will be the case for any rights deals that come along; there aren't many, with long-term pacts now the norm. NBC and CBS already have their own cable sports networks, and Turner is also a factor. Fox Sports co-President Eric Shanks mentioned the NBA, Big Ten and U.S. Open tennis as appealing properties whose contracts expire in the next several years.
FS1 has two main challenges, he said. One is producing enough alluring live events to draw viewers, and he thinks the network is already in good shape to do that. The other is inertia: Fans accustomed to tuning to ESPN must be persuaded to switch to a different network.
''People need to over time feel like there's a channel number in their head that they can go to as an alternative to one of the more powerful sports channels out there,'' he said.
Will they watch nightly highlights on something other than ''SportsCenter'' ? FS1 will try to find out with its own news show, which will look more like Fox's NFL pregame coverage than ESPN's cornerstone program.
''We like our position,'' ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said. ''We have always had vigorous competition so there is really nothing substantially new here. Others are, however, beginning to recognize what we have long known: The power of live sports, especially in light of technological advances, is substantial and brings tremendous value in today's entertainment landscape.''
ESPN has eight cable networks that combine for almost 30,000 hours of live coverage.
FS1 will be converted from Speed TV, a motorsports network, and will be available in 90 million homes, compared with almost 99 million for ESPN and ESPN2.
And in what might seem odd for a company known for drawing a young audience, Regis Philbin will host a weekday sports talk show for the new network. The 81-year-old Philbin jokingly pretended to be hard of hearing when questions came up about this at the press conference.
Wanger noted that ''Live! With Regis and Kelly'' did well in younger demographics before Philbin left that show in late 2011.
''Regis has appeal from young to old,'' Wanger said. ''That's why we want him.''
Fox plans to use its ''double box'' format for showing commercials during live action for sports events. Kicking off the coverage on Aug. 17 will be NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race from Michigan and a UFC event in prime time..
Fox executives had talked about potentially launching a sports network for years. As DVRs made live events even more valuable, the timing was right once the company was able to line up enough broadcast rights. And not having a cable sports partner could hurt the main Fox network in negotiations, Freer said. Fox has used cable channel FX in the past to show some sports.
The network wasn't ready to announce its deal with the new basketball conference formed by breakaway Big East schools, but Fox's executives were happy to talk up the ratings draw the league will provide. Freer called it an ''iconic basketball brand'' that will immediately be one of the top hoops conferences in the country.
''They're very historic, high-profile teams. The Georgetowns of the world and so on, St. John's, Villanova etc.,'' Wanger said. ''It would be a coup if that deal did happen.''
Fox is airing the 2014 Super Bowl in the New York area, a valuable opportunity to promote the new network. Its 22 regional channels will also offer regular chances to direct viewers to FS1.
A report by RBC Capital Markets analyst David Banks says that while FS1 may not match ESPN right away, it can still thrive without doing so. Banks writes that a ''modestly successful'' venture would more than quadruple Fox's monthly subscriber fees from what Speed received and increase ad revenue from $90 million to $460 million.
''It's going to take us a while, and we're aware of this fact,'' Fox Sports Chairman David Hill said. ''We're not expecting to knock ESPN off in the first week or two. ... It's going to be a solid slog.''
World Baseball Classic's heart is in the right place, but money, spring training hurting its appeal.
By Jeff Passan
The idea of the World Baseball Classic is so much greater than the actuality of the World Baseball Classic. It should be a tournament to which the game's best players crave an invitation, like the World Cup. It is a tournament to which far too many of the game's best players cringe at an invitation, like the NIT.
The criticisms of the WBC are sound. The timing, at the beginning of spring training, is awful. It creates a faux version of baseball in which starting pitchers can throw only a certain amount of pitches. The media distribution – every game is on MLB Network – is paltry and invites the question of whether the tournament is there to grow baseball internationally or ratings domestically. And more than anything is the tepid response in the United States, something officials believe would disappear were Team USA not to bomb out like it did in the first two WBCs.
Amid such sobering truths, the U.S. squad met here Monday for the first time, wearing red jerseys and blue caps, each trimmed in white, looking very much the part of all-American boys. Their stories sounded similar, bathed in patriotism, and not disingenuously, either. Inside baseball, the sport still considers itself America's pastime, and as such it continues to foster a sense of connection with the country, even if it's not near what it used to be.
While the games don't have meaning in a universal sense – the WBC, after all, is a wholly contrived event that has no bearing on any standings – they barrel toward a conclusion in which a team wins, and there is something wildly appealing about baseball that crowns a team something, anything, even in March.
Few things in baseball are as polarizing as the WBC. Patriotism and responsibility and sacrifice get tossed around and explode like loaded-word bombs, turning a baseball tournament into a moral Geiger counter. Ultimately, really, it comes down to this: Just how much is a player willing to commit to an event that should and could be great but, because of its inherent weaknesses, almost certainly never will be?
The difference between yes and no isn't nearly as big as you may think.
Along the first-base line, players started to gather. First it was two, then four, half a dozen, double digits, each gawking, transfixed, slack-jawed. R.A. Dickey was throwing his knuckleball, and his Team USA teammates, a few of whom had flailed at it in the batter's box, watched with wonderment still. It is that sort of a pitch, one that gives hard-to-impress ballplayers a temporary bout of hyper attentiveness. And the funny thing is, the last time Dickey was wearing this jersey, he hardly ever threw it.
Dickey is the only former U.S. Olympian participating in the WBC. He beat Italy and the Netherlands at the Atlanta Games in 1996 as a 21-year-old with a big fastball. Almost 17 years later, with a Cy Young award in his pocket and perhaps the greatest mastery of a pitch believed to be untamable, he is back for one reason.
"It's a real chance at redemption for me," Dickey said. "We came up painfully short in '96. You don't often get a chance in a situation of this magnitude to do that."
Dickey sees the WBC as an Olympic equivalent, even if its scope is infinitesimal comparatively. He said he "made myself blatantly available" to manager Joe Torre, still saddened by the 11-2 beating Japan laid on the U.S. in the semifinals of the '96 Olympics, still wishing for a gold medal instead of a bronze.
And yet for all of his pragmatic points – Dickey would be throwing 65 pitches in his next start for the Blue Jays, as he will Friday, when he takes the mound in Team USA's debut against Mexico – not only does he understand the root of the debate, he can empathize with those whose emotional tugs weren't strong enough to yank them off their practical sentiment.
"I would commend them," Dickey said. "If you don't want to be here, even 1 percent of you, then you shouldn't be here. I don't fault anybody for that."
Justin Verlander wanted to be here. He just couldn't.
"Not a year when I came off of 270 innings and pitched in the World Series," he said.
He said he'd try anyway. So he got to spring training early.
"Once I started throwing, I realized quickly I wasn't nearly prepared enough," he said.
"I was behind, but I didn't want to rush to catch up."
Verlander is 30. He is the game's best pitcher and its greatest workhorse. He also is going to make $200 million-plus on his next contract if he stays healthy. It's not the pitch count at the WBC that scares him. It is the pitches themselves: maximum-effort, studded-with-importance, far-heavier-than-spring-training pitches. The kind a pitcher throws in the postseason. And doing that now, after an off-season that consists mostly of rest, is like taking a sports car out of a garage for the first time in months, turning the engine and peeling down the freeway at 100 mph.
"What are you sacrificing? Risk of injury?" Verlander said. "No way. It's tough for pitchers. Particularly pitchers."
He shrugged. For a tournament ostensibly about bringing together the best players and allowing them to compete for worldwide supremacy, a Team USA without Justin Verlander is like watching Argentina without Lionel Messi. Or maybe Clayton Kershaw is Messi. Or David Price. CC Sabathia. Jered Weaver. Matt Cain. And on and on and on.
Here's the thing about the WBC: It can grow baseball around the world. One of Team USA's coaches, the great Dale Murphy, goes to clinics in Italy and Brazil and sees talent, real talent, in the heart of soccer countries. He raved about Brazilian Luiz Gohara, a left-handed teenager signed by Seattle last year for nearly $900,000. He is huge and throws hard and already has earned a nickname: CC, as in Sabathia.
While these emerging markets are supposedly the impetus behind the WBC – the likelier reason is the goo-gobs of money the tournament should make – the organizers can't lose sight of the truth: Unless a fundamental change occurs and the tournament engages the U.S. audience, it always will be regarded as a Seligian sideshow waiting to get steamrolled by the NCAA tournament.
Because it has focused so much on the international aspect, Major League Baseball has let that narrative run out of control. It could, frankly, use a little jingoism to pull in the domestic fan. And, better yet, cultivate others. Baseball has that power. Just listen to the team's second baseman.
"It was the best thing to ever happen," he said.
He's talking about 1996. Atlanta. The Olympics. Team USA. A bat boy named Brandon Phillips.
"I wasn't really taking baseball that serious at that age," said Phillips, now a two-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner for Cincinnati. "I was all about football and basketball. And for me to have that opportunity to do that, it made me want to concentrate on baseball a little more, because it gave me a goal to really do. To say if I ever make it, I want to play for the USA team."
He never thought he'd have that chance, not after he ascended to the major leagues and the Olympics got rid of baseball. The combination of country and sport drew him away from the sports with far more magnetism to youth today. And he's certain it can with others, too, whether it's here or around the world.
It is not just the United States that struggles with its best playing. Yu Darvish declined to pitch for two-time defending champion Japan. Shin-Soo Choo, the best player ever from Korea, turned down an invite. Felix Hernandez used his new contract as a reason to skip it for Venezuela. Jurickson Profar, barely 20, said no thanks to the Dutch team.
And arguably the most popular player from outside the U.S., the Dominican Republic's David Ortiz, revered back in his country and twice before a WBC participant, couldn't get past the tournament's drawbacks a third time.
"Playing important games when you have to produce coming out of vacation? I'm David Ortiz, but that doesn't mean I'm going to hit the damn baseball," he said.
"There's timing. There's preparation. At the beginning of the real season, a lot of us struggle because our timing isn't there.
"You're talking about the top-performing players in baseball. And not one of us could perform at our highest levels. They want a lot from me, and I understand. I'm just not ready to give a lot."
He loves the Dominican Republic, he made sure to say. He loves baseball. There's a beautiful symbiosis between sport and country that even baseball, a game rarely partitioned by border, can exemplify. The D.R., where baseball is not just the national pastime but a huge part of the economy, should live for a tournament like this. Only it's not just Ortiz skipping out. It's Jose Bautista and Albert Pujols and Adrian Beltre and Starlin Castro and Johnny Cueto and Rafael Soriano.
"I don't think this is the right time," Ortiz said. "But there's not that time that works."
No matter how beautiful the WBC is, each time it looks in the mirror, this ugly reflection stares at it.
Major league players in particular do not want to spend their entire off-season staying in game shape for a tournament before the season, a sensible point of view considering the millions of dollars teams lavish on them to remain elite.
"The only other option," Verlander said, "is the All-Star break. And I don't think teams want their guys going out then. I don't think they'd appreciate me throwing another 120 pitches in the middle of the season."
Well, there is after the World Series, which has been discussed and turned down. So Big Papi, Justin Verlander and dozens of others who should be the marquee attractions for a tournament that should be a sporting jewel spend their springs in Fort Myers and Lakeland and other outposts slogging through another boring game and getting ready for another grind of a season. And baseball, married to this flawed time, tries to convince itself that "for better" will outweigh "for worse."
Andy Pettite called Joe Torre asking to play for Team USA this year. Among the New York Yankees' reticence to let players participate, considering Pettite's age (40) and his injury-pocked 2012, they eventually agreed: Probably not a great idea.
As the manager for Team USA and a high-level executive with MLB, Torre should, in theory, be the advocate of all advocates for participation. As a reasonable person, he can't look past what the WBC has going against it.
"There are a lot of issues that are legitimate issues why players don't play or teams don't want their players to play," he said. "And the time of year has a lot to do with it. Let's admit it: These guys are going back, and they're going to play 162 for their teams.
"I've talked to a number of players who have respectfully declined for one reason or another," he added. "And to me, having been around the game for a long time, I understand. It's not like, 'I don't want to do this.' Their body's not ready to do this."Just as the players have reasons not to show, the motivation for Torre isn't abundantly apparent. He's 72, out of the managing game for two seasons, enjoying his job as a voice of reason and providing institutional knowledge in the commissioner's office. He's here, though, and dispensing nuggets of nationalistic superiority like "When you wear the USA across your chest, all of a sudden it takes baseball to another level," and "You put on your Sunday best to beat the USA."
He's here, in part, because he's a true believer in the idea of baseball as something more than a sport. With every word Torre spoke Monday, he ran the risk of invoking a gagtastic amount of good-ol' 'Merican pride. He brought up Sept. 11, a flashpoint for the politicization of anything. Because he is Joe Torre, of course, he did it with a deft enough touch that it seemed neither cloying nor desperate. His belief in the power of baseball, whether it's real or not, is, at very least, earnest.
"It's more than a sport," Torre said. "It's a place for people to go. And of course when you have USA on your chest, it's a responsibility. You represent yourself, yes, but you represent your country, and we know how proud that makes you."
It makes him and R.A. Dickey and Brandon Phillips, who will wear it on their chests, proud, just as wearing their countries' jerseys would have done the same for Justin Verlander and David Ortiz. It makes them no less a patriot, no less responsible, no less willing to sacrifice. It makes them casualties of a tournament that could be so great if actuality could just get out of the way.
Two and a half weeks
until the start of the “CS&T 2013 March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournament”
Pool.
Please let us hear your opinion on the above articles and pass them on to any other diehard fans that you think might be interested. But most of all, remember, Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica wants you!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment