Anthem

Happy 233rd birthday, America! You don't look older than 220.



What was amazing about this was how the Chicago Bulls and New Jersey Nets still managed to play a game after being blessed with such beautiful sounds.

Enjoy the barbeques, folks.

HA!

If you're in the mood to laugh, raise your hand.

Since TV Land began showing marathons of Roseanne reruns (dare I say an underrated sitcom? I just did), it was quite funny to see this at the end of one episode as a "what the future holds" dream sequence.

Of course, you never know what will happen in baseball and the Chicago Cubs can certainly make a run at the World Series when few expect them to later this season.

Speaking of the crystal ball that is comedy, does any baseball fan find it slightly ironic, if not hilarious, that "Rachel Phelps" want to move the Cleveland Indians to Miami?

To my fellow Americans and ex-pats around the world, enjoy the Fourth of July Weekend! To everyone else... go Canada!

Halftime (II)

Don't forget to read Part 1 of Halftime and check the new video from KeySpan Park.

Cue the classic Nas track.

Early July is a pretty intriguing time in sports. There’s the free agency frenzy in both the NBA and NHL, with the backdrop of a devastating recession. The sight of the word July is a boon to Major League Baseball as it prepares for the All-Star Game, the trading deadline and its only month as the lone major team sport in town. Wimbledon is going to give us championship battles during the holiday weekend, with storylines for both the men and women’s finals.

Yet, as Wednesday’s post discusses, we have entered the second half of 2009, a year that has sped by us with great games, historical events and utterly bizarre news. After reading about a few of the general issues headed into the next six months, here are some sport-specific thoughts you should pay attention to.

MLB: It looks as if the big boys are wielding heavy lumber into the postseason chase as all of the usually-despised big market teams (save the Cubs, at the moment) are in contention for the playoffs. Specifically, the Red Sox, Yankees, Dodgers, Mets and Phillies are in the running, while fans in Cleveland, San Diego, Washington D.C. and Oakland await NFL training camps to distract themselves from the misery.

For a sport that almost openly roots for the major market teams to go long in the postseason, it will be interesting to see not only how their players perform, but their stadiums. The demand is high in those cities, for sure, but if we are seeing empty seats immediately behind home plate in Citi Field and the new Yankee Stadium, what will we find in a few months?

You can’t even dream of getting Red Sox tickets during the season, let alone the playoffs. The Phillies might be fine considering that they would be defending their championship. Manny Ramirez’s presence in the Dodgers lineup creates absurd revenues for the front office. Yet in New York City, neither team can fill their ballpark, even as they play winning baseball. Ticket prices are such a turnoff at a time where fans would love to attend games that it would be hard to imagine that anyone would fork over entire paychecks/unemployment benefits for a Divisional Series game, let alone the World Series.

NFL: Donte’ Stallworth’s guilty plea to DUI manslaughter – in which he was given 30 days in jail, two years of house arrest, eight years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service and a lifetime suspension of his driver’s license – had set off a firestorm among fans and media. The immediate and most common reaction has been a comparison of his crime compared to that of Michael Vick’s prison sentence after his dog-fighting ring was discovered. However, the Humane Society and PETA gave the NFL enough grief (that’s being kind on PETA) about Vick that it could be credited with placing the pressure on law enforcement and the league to act swiftly on the former Atlanta Falcon.

As pondered in part one last night, will there be any word from any anti-drunk driving organization such as MADD in regards to Stallworth? Sadly, if there hasn’t been already, there may not be any time soon. Since this country and this particular league have a kinship to the alcohol industry, drunk driving does not illicit the same anger and conversations as performance-enhancing use, dog fighting or throwing three interceptions in the first half.

NBA: So the LeBron in 2010 campaign started this past season, but it will be in the final year of his contract that the real chaos begins. I say chaos because while LeBron-to-New York (or Brooklyn, if the Nets are still dreaming of the Barclays Center) has been assumed for some time, if you think that the Knicks and Nets are the only teams that will make a play for him, you must not follow the NBA outside of what the mainstream media says.

Unlike the Draft, where leading to the event, it’s insinuated that teams will intentionally lose games to have a better chance to secure the top pick for a potential star, free agency is about maneuvering salaries in order to attract the best available and newly unattached players.

We should keep an eye out on which other teams not only enter the fray for the current Cleveland Cavaliers star, but which teams have a legitimate shot in landing him. Many believe that James would inherit just about the same scenario of the lack of a strong supporting cast wherever he may go. When you also add to the fact that he didn’t need to be in a ‘major’ market to become a superstar, teams that are not in the New York, Los Angeles or Chicago areas have greater incentive to make a play so long as they have the foundation to win, or at least contend for championships during the span of his new contract.

Then again, this offseason will provide plenty of intrigue on its own without thinking so much about 2010.

NHL: This league has found remarkable success since emerging from the lockout in 2005. Much of this has to do with its young stars to go along with are arguably the most exciting playoffs in all of sports year after year.

What we have discovered in the last two years in particular is that whether people love or hate them, Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin have people watching and debating their skills, value and presence in sports. What is somewhat overlooked is that both players, along with some strong supporting casts have matched, if not trumped, attention paid in larger markets. Sure, Pittsburgh and Washington D.C. are not home of the Original Six teams, but both are fairly strong sports towns. The Steel City is already home to the current Super Bowl champion Steelers, but also a pretty profound hockey history. Meanwhile, outside of Cleveland, there’s probably not another American city as starved for a champion than D.C.; proved by their willingness to get behind the Capitals in recent seasons.

Early free agent movement points towards some of the bigger market teams as they try to supplant the Penguins and the Detroit Red Wings. Yet, with the NHL’s momentum being built without some of those squads, there’s a legitimate question headed into the fall: can the league continue its ascension without a contender in New York City or a relevant team in Toronto?

Finally, a few quick thoughts:

College football: Will the anti-BCS movement gain greater traction now that there has been some governmental wrangling in recent months?

College basketball: Who will be the most talked about rent-a-stars/one-and-done players with even fewer brand names next season?

Tennis: Will the US Open give birth to a new star beyond the usual names of Venus, Serena, Roger, Rafael, Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova and Novak Djokovic?

Golf: Can the PGA learn how to live without a dominant Tiger Woods? Can the LPGA withstand some of the economic hits to some of their tournaments?

NASCAR: Next week, there will be a lengthier discussion on the country’s most popular motorsports organization. For now, if (a HUGE if) Danica Patrick joins NASCAR after the season ends, how much of an impact would she make on a sport once considered America’s fastest growing sport just a few years ago?

Cyclone

While Halftime (II) is still in the works, here's a brand spanking new video from KeySpan Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones.

The Cyclones, a short-season Single-A affliate of the New York Mets, has been a fixture in the borough since the team and park were born in 2001. Having brought a professional franchise back to the birthplace of the Dodgers, both the team and park have provided an inexpensive entertainment to a city known for extravagant and somewhat inaccessible options.

The park's name comes from KeySpan Energy, which was a natural gas company which serviced the NYC boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens along with Long Island and parts of southern New England. Despite being purchased by National Grid pc, the name has remained unchanged.

KeySpan seats 7,500 and as you'll see, celebrates the amusement park history of Coney Island.

There are a good bit of pictures in the video and they will move through faster than previous videos. However, for those of you who love details and want to see the videos that were left out, check out the photo album here.

Halftime (I)

Can you believe that one-half of 2009 has already passed by?

In some sports depots around the country, this year can’t end soon enough (talking to you, Detroit and Washington DC, despite your successful NHL teams). In others, the fun shouldn’t stop (the state of Pennsylvania and the city of Los Angeles). However, as we move into the second half of the year, there are six more months for a city/town to experience nirvana. There are also six more months for a city/town to discover sports’ version of The Ninth Circle.

You will undoubtedly read, listen to and watch a plethora of previews, mock fantasy drafts and ‘fearless’ predictions as all of the inactive leagues return this fall. If you’re fortunate to have a team in the active sports still in a playoff chase, you’ll certainly get swept up in the push for the postseason and beyond. However, between today and tomorrow, here are a few stories that you should keep an eye on as summer cools into fall and fall freezes into winter.

Today will be a general look at the sports industry while tomorrow will take on specific games.


“You know? I could do without the senior prom.”: For starters, there has been much made in recent weeks about gifted young athletes (and their families) trying to capitalize on their talents sooner than American society has traditionally expected them. Those of us who have followed sports long enough are certainly aware that leaving college early or forgoing it entirely is nothing new. However, there are players who are forgoing their senior years in high school because they feel that there’s not much left to accomplish at that level.

Bryce Harper and Jeremy Tyler are going to grab those GEDs and take faster tracks to their lofty professional goals. The ultimate senioritis, if you will. This has the “get your education” crowd up in arms because as opposed to dealing with athletes who rather pass on being essentially rented by colleges, now they have to contend with those see little opportunity to mature against players they routinely dominate.

While the next six months are far too short of a time to answer these questions, hopefully, we can finally ask what our country seems to avoid; Why is it such a problem for kids with NBA dreams – or truthfully, American kids – to take a different path where prodigies of nearly every other sport save football can get a leg up on their pro careers without a college degree? Will Harper, Tyler and many others who will follow be better players for the extra year they are giving themselves? Most of all, is it time to redefine, if not eradicate amateurism as we know it?



“Recession-proof? Yeah, right.”: There is this long-held belief that both sports and alcohol are recession-proof industries as the consumer demand is supposed to be so strong and insatiable that it will buoy both business through the tough times. Yet, you can’t change the channel or read something online without noticing beer ad after beer ad after hard liquor ad during programming that historically strayed from those spots.

Not too long ago on Scribe (via Advertising Age), you may have read about NBA teams taking advantage of relaxed rules about liquor ads in stadiums and team paraphernalia. MLB and the NFL have a longstanding relationship with the liquid courage producers – you can even say that those leagues were founded on them – but they have given those companies more opportunities to advertise. Even ESPN has taken to adding more hard liquor companies to sponsor and integrate their products into their shows and broadcasts.

This may reek of desperation or speak to a well-designed strategy, but with so many media and entertainment vehicles hitting them up for money, is when will the alcohol well run dry? Also, with the controversial, but effective means of PETA in terms of the Michael Vick scandal, should we expect organizations like MADD and the NCADD to pressure the NFL in light of Donte’ Stallworth’s vehicular manslaughter?




“Geez, did he really say that?”: A few weeks ago, you read about a rich-media application currently being used by the New England Patriots to keep fans abreast of their comings and goings. This came about because of a previous discussion on social media as the NFL used fake MySpace and Facebook profiles as part of background checks on draft prospects. Now as players, coaches, even teams and commissioners are gravitating to Twitter, there has been plenty of news about what’s being said on the micro-blogging service. Unfortunately, it’s not always for the right reasons.

Social media – more specifically, Twitter – is something that we are still trying to understand, if not, master. As Yahoo!’s Charles Robinson points out, there are some pros and cons of these figures being able to use 140 characters to speak their minds without a middle man (which isn’t all that bad, despite the access I have through the Beacon). Within the last few days, we’ve read a Twitter war of words between the Cincinnati Bengals’ Chad Ochocinco and Shawne Merriman of the San Diego Chargers, we found that Dwayne Wade may not be getting a NAACP Image Award any time soon (a screen cap of an n-word laden tweet was removed) and Charlie Villenueva may be a free agent because of his Tweets… okay, so maybe not the last one.

Some of you probably have your own accounts to follow your friends and family, favorite athletes and entertainers, media figures and bloggers. Because of that, I must ask the all-important question: is this only the beginning thanks to its increased use from our stars or has Twitter jumped the shark?

And if you’re wondering, Facebook is just enough for me and Scribe.

Say What?!?!: It’s been quite a while since you’ve been treated to a video. While it’s not going to be the most anticipated video posted on this blog (from the new Yankee Stadium), I hope you enjoy what’s to come tomorrow night/Thursday morning.