AB Newswire - Athletic Business

Sunday, May 30, 2010

The Distance

Paul Steinbach

This season’s barrage of batted-ball injuries continued Saturday, when Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees lined what would be a run-scoring double off the head of Cleveland pitcher David Huff. Fans at Yankee Stadium let out a collective “Oh!” as the ball caromed off the left side of Huff’s head and into right field. The cringe-worthy sight rattled players on both teams, with Indians outfielder Trevor Crowe calling it “one of the first times in baseball I was fearful for someone’s life.”

Rodriguez had both hands on his helmet before reaching second base and quickly made a beeline for the mound, where he knelt with head bowed as trainers from both teams tended to Huff. The pitcher lay face down in the dirt for several minutes before he was fitted with a neck collar, rolled onto a backboard and carted off the field. A CAT scan proved negative, and Huff’s lone post-game symptoms were wooziness and a lump on his head the size of a golf ball.

Rodriguez was en route to the hospital Saturday when he received word that Huff, who never lost consciousness, had already returned to the Indians clubhouse. The Yankee slugger then called Huff as he was riding the team bus with his family.

Would Huff have been as fortunate if A-Rod had been swinging a non-wood bat? It’s hard to speculate what difference the fraction of an inch or a second would make — if such differences truly exist between balls batted off wood and non-wood in the first place. YES Network announcers calling the game did not reference the composition of the bat, but rather the distance on the diamond between combatants. “This is the fear in Major League Baseball,” one said. “The pitcher is so close to the batter after he delivers the ball.”

Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia appeared slightly unhinged immediately after a batted ball caught his right foot an inning later.

Some state high school associations have adopted a girls’ softball pitching distance of 43 feet, putting the pitching rubber and home plate three feet farther apart than before. It’s hard, though, to imagine a similar change ever being applied to baseball and one of sport’s most sacred facility specifications — 60 feet, 6 inches — no matter how horrific at first glance these incidents appear.

Posted At 12:00 PM • Comments (1)

Friday, May 28, 2010

College Rec Directors: Uh-Oh

Andrew Cohen

I've been talking to a lot of architects this week — a hazard of my profession. Kidding — it's actually the thing I enjoy the most about my job, getting inside the heads of people who design places of public interaction. Anyway, yesterday I was talking about trends in college recreation center planning and design with a certain architect who's been around for a while and who ordinarily doesn't blurt, when he suddenly blurted out, "Why, in America, do we have these damn things in the first place? Other countries just don't have this division between athletics and recreation — it's just sports."

From there, our conversation (which was not at all relevant to the feature I'm writing for the August issue on building plan geometry) settled on the way the trend toward hybrid facilities — which we've covered several times, most recently in the April issue — has the potential to complicate the lives of college rec directors immeasurably. The building boom of the late 1980s and 1990s occurred because rec directors were able to make the case to college administrators of the value of pure recreation, athletic activity that could touch the lives of more students than intercollegiate athletics ever could. When their brand-new recreation centers were completed, rec directors were handed the keys to the building. But as these centers have become the social hubs that campus planners predicted they would, more of them are being conceived as whole student life centers, recreation in combination with student unions, libraries, food service, dorms. Who is given the keys to one of these? Rec directors may well have created a trend with the purpose of burnishing their campus credentials that will nonetheless one day marginalize them.

We eventually answered the question of why America is different in curmudgeonly fashion — not "kids today," but with the equally curmudgeonly "parents today." Building playgrounds for 20-year-olds to me is evidence that college is as much about forestalling adulthood as it is about getting an education. My architect friend agreed, adding, "The Army used to serve some of that purpose, of keeping people in cold storage for a year or two until they figured out what they wanted to do with their lives."

Posted At 12:19 PM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Super Idea?

Paul Steinbach

I like the idea of a cold-weather Super Bowl. Vince Lombardi, whose name graces the championship trophy, would have been all for it, too, according to his son.

On Tuesday, the NFL announced that its championship game will be played in Meadowlands Stadium in 2014 — to be specific, open-air Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., in February 2014. The average temperature in East Rutherford during February falls somewhere between a high of 40 degrees and a low of 24, according to weather.com.

For those of us in Packerland, that’s T-shirt weather (if you happen to be sitting in the shade), but it will be an exposure to the elements yet unseen in Super Bowl history. There have been outdoor games, of course, but only in places like Miami, San Diego and Houston. Every time the game has headed north, it has been played indoors, and the interim three games will take place in facilities with either operable roofs (Cowboys Stadium in Dallas next year, Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in 2012) or a permanent one (Louisiana Superdome in 2013). By then it might be time to breathe a little fresh air into the event.

Not everyone agrees. Mike Florio of the Sporting News, for one, has reversed field on the idea. "After further deliberation, the NFL's decision to hold a Super Bowl in a cold-weather climate with a stadium that has no lid makes us wonder whether plenty of people have lost their marbles," Florio wrote. "The Super Bowl is the single greatest day on the American sports calendar. It needs to be protected from circumstances that can make the experience something other than super."

Come to think of it, I recall complaints that the 2007 NFC Championship, played in Green Bay on Jan. 20, 2008 (at 5:30 p.m., no less) was not an ideal environment in which to decide which team would advance to Super Bowl XLII (played in Phoenix, by the way). I probably made them, too. The temperature never cracked zero. I was cold. My team lost in overtime. (I had seen the Packers win the 1996 NFC Championship in single-digit conditions. Back then, we giddily considered this a home-field advantage.)

And while we're talking histrionics, East Rutherford has a history of post-season bowls. College football’s Garden State Bowl lasted four Decembers in the Meadowlands from 1978 through ’81 before becoming the Kick-Off Classic, played in August from 1983 through 2002. There were more than 15,000 no-shows at the 1979 Garden State Bowl, where the temperature never hit 30.

But 40 degrees should be doable for just about anybody, right? “It’s been 39.8 degrees [in Philadelphia] on the average over the last 18 Super Bowls,” late Eagles owner Leonard Tose said while lobbying to make Veterans Stadium the host site in 1987, as recalled by Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Daily News. “If you can’t play football in 39 degrees, then you shouldn’t play football.”

Ultimately, the 2014 game’s proximity to New York, with its media-capital aura and corporate-entertainment opportunities, will help mitigate what is widely viewed as a huge risk for the NFL, according to George Belch, co-founder of San Diego State University’s sports business MBA program. “The Super Bowl isn’t really just about the game; it’s everything leading up to it,” Belch says. “The sponsors are using it as a relationship-building opportunity, and New York’s a great place to bring clients. They’re not going to get too many complaints, unless it’s about the weather, which could be a big variable.”

Too big a variable to see the NFL entertain a blizzard of bids from other cold-weather cities, Belch adds. “I don’t really see them getting into a rotation,” he says, “because then there are just too many risks associated with it.”

Posted At 4:40 PM • Comments (1)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Any Given Sunday

Paul Steinbach

Fans have tested the security staffs in more than one professional baseball park this season by gaining access to the field during games, but news that two men had broken into Pittsburgh’s Heinz Field (with the help of a third) and been chased across the football gridiron by police early Sunday morning got me thinking about off-season security measures.

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Shazad Hosi Mehta, 28, of Elmhurst, Ill., Adil A. Minocherhomjee, 22, of La Jolla, Calif., and Neville Noshir Medhora, 27, of Austin, Texas, were arrested at gunpoint and charged with criminal trespass and conspiracy to commit criminal trespass. Read what you will into their foreign-sounding names and far-flung hometowns; I wanted to know how any three individuals could, in these post-9/11 United States, simply use each other as human ladders to scale a fence and enter a major sports venue, with the luxury of enough time to breach Heinz Field’s Gate A after an initial attempt at Gate B had failed.

Heinz Field.jpg

I asked sport facility security expert Ben Goss, associate professor in the department of management at Missouri State University, if Heinz Field could be considered “secure” under the circumstances. “Absolutely not,” Goss responded via e-mail. “I have a hard time believing that a facility of this magnitude and visibility didn’t have motion detectors that immediately set off all kinds of alarms, lights, sirens and police notifications. With the outright expressed desire by terrorists to target sport facilities, it’s high time to treat and guard these facilities like the plum terror targets they’ve become.”

Goss wouldn’t venture a guess as to what the three individuals were up to at 7 a.m. on a Sunday at a venue that hadn't seen a capacity crowd since December, though he said he read one account in which they claimed they had been to a wedding at the stadium earlier, were denied field access for a photo and came back to take one. The Post-Gazette reported that the search for a lost wallet was the reason given police for the break-in. Heinz Field’s public relations department has not responded immediately to AB’s interview request.

The three men were released on bond and are scheduled to appear in court Thursday. Pittsburgh police notified the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, and have stepped up patrols around Heinz Field, PNC Park (home of MLB’s Pirates) and Rivers Casino, the Post-Gazette reported.

Goss admits that the nation’s collective guard may be down somewhat since 9/11, but that venue security is still well ahead of where it was prior. What worries him most is the lasting images created by fans spontaneously gaining midgame access to the playing field. “My fear is that those who mean harm of a larger scale see the reluctance of facility security to use more forceful measures — both at the time of the incident and subsequently — to curb this sort of behavior, and grow more emboldened to attempt a larger, more intricately planned attack,” he says. “Make no mistake about it. If facility managers don’t send a clear message about this sort of behavior when it occurs on a smaller scale, it will at least result in more large-scale attempts. And even botched large-scale attempts could prove disastrous in many respects.”

Posted At 3:07 PM • Comments (0)

Monday, May 24, 2010

Worst Product Endorsement, World Cup Edition

Andrew Cohen

USA goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann, who plies his trade for the Wolverhampton Wanderers of England's Premier League, is not happy about the ball created by adidas for the 2010 World Cup, which begins June 11. Asked by a reporter for The New York Daily News to offer his assessment of the official ball, dubbed "Jabulani" by adidas, Hahnemann could hardly have been more blunt.

"It's horse[crap]," is how the Daily News rendered the quote. "It's the worst soccer ball I've ever played with because it's plastic and feels like [crap] when it comes off your foot. It moves like crazy. Like a cross. You go up and jump to catch it and then it drops like three feet. You're not going to see any headed goals, probably. Forwards are going to get deceived as well. It's just ridiculous. There has to be a standard of what the ball should be like. Imagine baseball all of sudden you came out, 'Oh, we're playing at this place now and a new ball.' The pitches would look totally different. You can't do it. There's no standard."

Hahnemann wasn't quite finished. "These things, you try to bend them, they don't bend, they go straight. It's like those little kids' plastic balls you play with at the beach. You go to bend them and they go the wrong way. They bend exactly opposite. That's exactly what these things do. You can't tell what it's going to do."

Funny. Back in 2006, many players voiced concerns when adidas unveiled what it called the "+Teamgeist" prior to the competition, which took place in Germany. That ball was considered revolutionary because of its departure from the traditional Telstar model introduced at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico — the now-iconic 20 white hexagons stitched together with 12 black pentagons. The +Teamgeist used fewer panels and a heat-and-glue process rather than stitching, leading to a more aerodynamic ball that either would "go where you want it to go," as paid adidas endorser David Beckham promised at the time, or behave more erratically, giving goalkeepers fits.

If you're wondering who you can trust on this score, consider that tournament officials predicted that the 2006 World Cup would see more goals because of the ball design — but the final per-game average of 2.3 goals ranked the 2006 Cup 17th all-time out of 18 tournaments.

Hahnemann's larger point is worth thinking about. Major League Baseball — I think — tells Rawlings the specifications for its official balls, not the other way around. And Rawlings doesn't unveil a new ball on the eve of each World Series, asking pitchers to start using a ball that they've never used before, with possibly different properties to the one they've played with all year long. The NCAA did, in 2002, switch from leather basketballs to balls covered with a synthetic material prior to its national tournaments, but in that case, the organization knew that 89 percent of its teams were already using synthetic basketballs. FIFA's decision to give adidas the right to dictate what the planet's best soccer players will use during the planet's biggest sporting event is questionable, at best.

Posted At 3:42 PM • Comments (0)

Friday, May 21, 2010

Could Missed-Pit Tragedy Have Been Averted?

Paul Steinbach

Upon learning that a pole-vaulter from Division III Grinnell College in Iowa had died this week from injuries sustained last Friday at the Midwest Conference track and field meet, I made four phone calls before someone could tell me the dimensions of the pit that sophomore Robert Yin had fatally missed to one side. This morning, an attorney for Illinois College, the meet host, called with the numbers: 24 feet deep by 21 feet, 6 inches wide.

Olympic medalist Jan Johnson, a three-time NCAA champion and USA Track and Field’s pole-vault safety chair since 1995, was among those who couldn’t tell me the exact dimensions of the Illinois College pit when I reached him yesterday, but having obtained photos of the pit in question from its manufacturer, he assured me that it was “big enough,” meaning it met NCAA standards for depth (16 feet, 5 inches) and width (19 feet, 8 inches). When I asked him how any pit could be considered big enough if it allows a vaulter, as was the case with Yin, to only graze the side of the pit before landing on his back and slamming his head, Johnson noted that NCAA rules, unlike those applied to high school pole-vaulting, make no mention of padding hard surfaces around the pit. This extra safety measure typically takes the form of two-inch-thick high-density foam extending four feet from the pit’s edges.

But Johnson, who runs several pole-vault camps as director of Sky Jumpers Vertical Sports Club in Atascadero, Calif., also shared with me this item from his own intelligence gathering: Yin’s personal-best height was 11 feet, which Johnson says put him at or near beginner status. “It’s very unusual for a man to be jumping only 11 feet in college,” Johnson says. “If pole-vaulters are going to the side a lot, like a lot of beginners do, and they continue to raise their grip, they can go off the side of any pit.”

Yin was coached at Grinnell by Will Freeman, who like Johnson was an elite pole-vaulter in the 1970s. “The bottom line is we in pole-vaulting still have to get rid of hard surfaces, and that includes the ones in the plant box,” Johnson says.

I’m thinking maybe it’s time the NCAA hardened its rules on this point, so that the odds of softer landings are raised and the risk of such tragedy is lowered.

Posted At 2:38 PM • Comments (0)

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Punching Incident

Michael Popke

Yesterday's E-News article about so-called "locker boxing" — essentially a locker room fight with boxing gloves — proved to be a popular one. Gowanda (N.Y.) High School's promising varsity and junior varsity lacrosse seasons came to an abrupt end last week after players participated in a locker boxing match as teammates cheered, videotaped the incident and posted footage on YouTube that has been since removed. School superintendent Charles Rinaldi called his decision the most difficult one he's ever had to make as head of the district.

But administrators at other schools might be forced to make similar decisions. Over the past couple of years, locker boxing (also sometimes referred to as "helmet boxing" when it involves the wearing of helmets) has been gaining in popularity among teenage lacrosse and hockey players, and it is often considered a rite of passage for participants. The objective is to land as many hits to the opponent's head as possible until that individual is knocked down or gives up. But a locker room, as a quick YouTube search reveals, is not always the venue.

As things turn out, the cancellation of prep lacrosse in Gowanda — where the Panthers have won 12 sectional titles and numerous league titles over the years while regularly drawing several hundred spectators per game — was short-lived. The school board reinstated Gowanda High's lacrosse program last night, allowing the 15 players who were not in the locker room at the time of the incident to finish the season. But 17 of the 22 players who were present received suspensions, and longtime coach Ray Logan was not allowed to return to the team.

Did the Gowanda School Board make the right decision? Has your school had to deal with locker boxing? How did you handle the situation? And how can coaches and athletic administrators prevent these incidents from happening at all?

Posted At 12:40 PM • Comments (0)

Keeping Current on Taser News

Paul Steinbach

I’m starting to get numb to Taser news, yet I feel compelled to keep our readers current.

Today, we learn of Willie Lorenzo Buie, the stepfather of Boston Celtics guard Marquis Daniels, refusing to leave his seat following a disturbance during Tuesday’s Game 2 of the Celtics’ Eastern Conference Finals series against the Orlando Magic. When police officers attempted to remove Buie from a seating section behind one of the baskets in Orlando’s Amway Arena, he reportedly said, “I’m not going, [expletive] you.”

[Note to self: Dropping F-bombs on men in blue is a surefire Taser invitation.]

That same night, an intoxicated homeless man attending an Altoona Curve double-A baseball game claimed he was looking for a shortcut to the Blair County Ballpark concessions stand when he lowered himself over the center-field fence and began walking hands-in-pockets along the warning track toward right. Security officials, alerted to the intruder’s presence by the Curve’s radio announcer, escorted 24-year-old Tyrone Squires off the field, where he was arrested by local police and charged with criminal trespass, disorderly conduct and public drunkenness.

Unlike the Buie arrest, a Taser wasn’t used to detain Squires. According to Curve general manager Rob Egan, Blair County Ballpark security personnel don’t even carry the device. Still, the latest indication of just how much Tasers have entered the crowd-control lexicon came from Akron Aeros right fielder John Drennen, the closest player to Squires during his midgame stroll.

“There’s no room for that,” Drennen told the Altoona Mirror. “He should have gotten Tasered.”

Posted At 10:15 AM • Comments (0)

Friday, May 14, 2010

Ballpark Fall Turns Fatal

Paul Steinbach

Having reported on fatal falls involving ballpark escalators and upper decks, I was particularly shocked to read minutes ago of a death involving a fan who fell 14 feet from a lower-level railing at Miller Park in Milwaukee.

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Stuart Springstube of Weyauwega, Wis., tumbled face-first onto hard dirt while trying to catch foul balls during batting practice April 25. Milwaukee Brewers officials reported that the 51-year-old was cut but conscious, and moving all extremities as first responders removed him from the field. However, a brain hemorrhage subsequently hospitalized Springstube, who died Wednesday. A medical examiner's report released today gave no indication that Springstube, who was with several relatives at the time of the fall, was intoxicated. In fact, the report states he had not drunk alcohol in 15 years.

It leaves one to wonder if architects and security personnel can ever make ballparks absolutely safe for patrons without actually strapping them into their seats.

I’m heading to Miller Park tonight to see the Brewers open a three-game series against Philadelphia, which has faced its own security challenges this season. I’ll let you know if the Brewers, who haven’t played since Wednesday afternoon, at least acknowledge the loss of Stuart Springstube.

Posted At 3:30 PM • Comments (0)

Citi's Second-Year Slump

Paul Steinbach

The New York Mets own Major League Baseball’s best home win total in 2010 and its worst per-game home attendance drop from a year ago. The latter is perhaps the least surprising.

The Mets have gone to some lengths to avoid a second-year slump for Citi Field — lowering ticket prices, adding historic imagery to the stadium — but as it is for most new parks these days, the honeymoon was short. As recently as the early 1990s, stadium construction delivered extended attendance gains in places like Baltimore and Cleveland.

“Stadium fatigue sets in much faster than it did before,” Team Marketing Report executive editor Jon Greenberg told the New York Times. “When Camden Yards and Jacobs Field were built, they were a big deal and were a complete change. The novelty has worn off.”

Through 22 home dates, Mets attendance is down 6,852 fans per game to an average of 31,892 at Citi Field, which seats 41,800. That translates to an 18 percent drop, second only to the 30 percent decrease endured by the Indians (who have a losing record at home so far in 2010) but still short of the 22 percent decline suffered by the Washington Nationals in 2009, the year following their stadium’s debut.

That bit of foreshadowing, coupled with their own 92-loss season, gave Mets executives reason to believe a slump was coming. “With the factors of the economy and team performance last year, there will be an effect,” Mets executive vice president for business operations Dave Howard told SportsBusiness Journal in January. “A lot of fans have been taking a wait-and-see attitude.”

Conversely, Minnesota Twins fans have been flocking to Target Field during its inaugural season. Bolstered by a 12-6 home record, Minnesota currently sits atop the American League Central Division standings, and its average gain of 14,129 fans per home game leads the Major Leagues.

It will be interesting to see if the Twins, whose transition from the Metrodome to an open-air stadium has been more novel then the typical stadium switch, can hold those numbers next season.

Posted At 11:32 AM • Comments (0)

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Can't Wait to Lace 'Em Up

Paul Steinbach

While attending my first North American Rink Conference & Expo this week in Chicago, I couldn't help but get the itch to play hockey again, to convince my nine-year-old son to take up the sport (or even a stepping-stone version that I've learned about called ringette), to encourage my daughter, who just turned eight, to apply her years of formal dance training to a future in figure skating. Perhaps one day we'll all give curling a whirl.

Everything from rink flooring and ice covers to low-emissivity ceilings is on display here. There are products to keep the air in arenas dry, spectators warm, skates sharp, dasher boards clean, and ice perfectly smooth and white. A half-dozen companies are emphasizing their environmentally friendly approach to ice-making. The latest skate models are featured, of course, as is a floor mat that facilitates rental sizing.

In each booth are professionals who have found their own perfect fit, their lives devoted to providing the very best facilities and programming to novice youths and Olympic champions alike. I got caught up with a former teammate who now coaches girls' hockey players at the prominent Milwaukee prep school I used to cover as a newspaper sports editor. He told me the on-campus arena, which I last toured 20 years ago, has been expanded to include all new home and visitor locker rooms. I recall the old spaces as being quite posh as is, with individual player cubbies befitting college or pro teams.

I recognized the manager of the more modest, but beautiful rink in my hometown and introduced myself. I think I'll reintroduce myself and the kids at the next available open skate. Just give me a bench to sit on. Having been to NARCE, I can't wait to lace 'em up.

Posted At 12:28 PM • Comments (0)

Monday, May 10, 2010

A Horse, Of Course

Michael Popke

You wouldn’t believe some of the press releases we receive here at AB HQ. Today came word that the Los Angeles Dodgers would feature a horse — a horse! — as part of the team’s “This Is My Town” marketing campaign with high-profile Los Angelenos. Granted, Zenyatta is a popular undefeated thoroughbred horse that calls L.A. home. But is the filly really a Dodgers fan? For that matter, is Yoda, who also has been on a “This Is My Town” billboard?

(I do like Zenyatta’s name, though. It was inspired by Zenyatta Mondatta, the title of The Police’s 1980 album, released on A&M Records — the label co-founded by Zenyatta's owner, Jerry Moss.)

Posted At 1:14 PM • Comments (1)

Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Remembering the Voice of Summer

Nicholas Brown

During home games, when a player would hit a foul ball into the Tiger Stadium stands, Detroit Tigers radio broadcaster Ernie Harwell would, in his characteristic light Southern drawl and easygoing delivery, say “a man from Livonia with the catch,” or “that ball was caught by a young lady from Saginaw.”

Photo of Detroit Tigers radio broadcaster Ernie Harwell

As a kid growing up in Ann Arbor, Mich., whose first memories as a sports fan were of the Tigers’ pennant run and World Series championship in 1984, you didn’t question how Harwell knew where those fans were from. He knew everything about baseball — everything — and he was a fan just like you. It was a kind of magic.

But it wasn’t his numerous and understated catch phrases (“that ball is loooong gone!” or, after a called third strike, “he stood there like a house by the side of the road and watched it go by”) that best demonstrated this magic. Rather, it was his understanding of the game itself — its cadence, its rhythms. He would pause naturally between pitches, allowing the sounds of the ballparks to come through the radio. You could hear jeering fans, the calls of vendors in the aisles. I remember hearing birds. Thanks to Ernie Harwell, you grew to love these sounds as you grew to love the game.

Approximately two years ago, I had an opportunity to interview Harwell. A group of conservationists and baseball historians led by him were making an attempt to save his beloved Tiger Stadium, which had fallen into disrepair since closing in 1999 and was being auctioned off piece by piece in order for the city to fund its demolition. A lawyer representing the group asked if I’d like to interview Mr. Harwell. Of course, I said yes. The next day, Ernie fell ill. My deadline called and the interview never happened. I regret the circumstances.

Now, Tiger Stadium is demolished. And yesterday, Ernie Harwell died at age 92 after a battle with cancer. Thankfully, though, I am just old enough to have been one of the lucky kids to whom Ernie introduced the magic of baseball. And I’ll bet anyone of us will tell you that, deep down, we still believe Ernie knows who we are and where we’re from. And maybe one game, we’ll be lucky enough to have a foul ball come our way.

Posted At 11:22 AM • Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The Longer Arm of the Law

Paul Steinbach

An unarmed teenager bolted into the outfield at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last night. Fans hooted as he managed briefly to outrun a lone police officer and several uniformed event security personnel. But ultimately the long arm of the law was made longer by a Taser — its incapacitating shockwaves dropping the trespasser to the turf, where he lay motionless for a full 30 seconds. By then, many among the Philly faithful had begun booing.

Tasers have been used with increasing frequency to control crowds at professional and college sports venues on down to high school athletic events. Today, Philadelphia police defended the deployment of a Taser in apprehending the teen, even though he was outnumbered and his arrest appeared imminent.

Put yourself in a seat at Citizens Bank Park on Monday night. Are you cheering or jeering the use of a Taser in this instance?

UPDATE: Fans running onto the field in Philadelphia are getting older, if not wiser, but one wonders if Citizens Bank Park security personnel have learned something this week.

A 34-year-old Phillies fan gained access to the field Tuesday, one night after a 17-year-old was tasered to the outfield turf by a police officer. The latest trespasser was apprehended without use of a Taser.

Posted At 3:15 PM • Comments (0)

Monday, May 03, 2010

GM Bombs, Reporters Duck and Cover

Andrew Cohen

In a world in which professional sports have been elevated to the level of seriousness once reserved for arms-control negotiations, this is how bad things have gotten. During a pre-draft interview with Oklahoma State wide receiver Dez Bryant (who beginning this year will earn tens of millions of dollars after being picked in the first round by the Dallas Cowboys), Miami Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland asked a very logical question that is widely viewed as the equivalent of a nuclear strike. If you haven't heard the story, the conversation went like this:

Ireland: What did your dad do for a living when you were growing up?

Bryant: My dad was a pimp.

Ireland: What did your mom do?

Bryant: She worked for my dad.

Ireland: Your mom was a prostitute?

Bryant: No, she wasn't a prostitute.

Bryant's subsequent outrage to reporters (Ireland has since apologized for, in essence, connecting the dots drawn by Bryant) is more than a little ironic, given the recent changes in the relationship between sports franchises and sports reporters. The reversal of fortune experienced by professional athletes and erstwhile media tycoons over the past few years resulted in two alarming developments just last month:

• At the University of Tennessee, members of the media were allowed to attend an otherwise closed football scrimmage, but were charged $50 apiece by the athletic department for the privilege. This one's a real head-scratcher — I mean, the Vols' budget for sports in 2009-10 was $102.45 million.

• In New Jersey, Gannett newspapers began running stories about the NHL's Devils bylined by Eric Marin, who is not a reporter but an employee of the Devils. Hollis Towns, executive editor of The Asbury Park Press, the largest of the state's six Gannett newspapers, commented, "I think journalists get hung up on certain lines of what's ethical more than the readers."

I think he's right; I guess I'm old-fashioned enough to believe that AB readers would rather that when I write about about turf safety issues, I draw my paycheck from a publishing company and not from, say, the makers of AstroTurf. I was heartened a bit by the take offered by Tennessee Titans coach Jeff Fisher in a story in The Tennessean about the Vols' closed practices: "I think the media has a right to know what's going on at practice … I've always felt we have a responsibility to our fans, and obviously the media is a conduit to the fans."

I still think of Fisher as being young, but with the retirement of Bill Cowher from the Pittsburgh Steelers, he actually became the longest-serving NFL head coach with the same team. He's a throwback now, from an era in which team owners and athletes needed the media to help establish or burnish their reputations, help them survive scandals and so on. There are other, more immediate conduits to the fans now, and teams and athletes can craft their own messages, decide what news gets out there and what stays out of sight. It's also ironic (as long as we're talking irony here) that those same, more-immediate conduits can get athletes in a whole heap of trouble quicker than you can say Ben Roethlisberger.

My question regarding the Ireland case is, if the reporter covering the Dolphins was an employee of the team rather than a member of the media, would it have even been reported? I suppose Bryant might have Tweeted about it. Sigh.

Posted At 9:54 AM • Comments (0)