“My number one rule is you don’t fall in love at the Jersey Shore”
But we did. We all did. And now we’re reconciling.
Jersey Shore premiered on MTV on December 3rd, 2009. For the following 9 weeks, we all fell in love at the Jersey Shore. Each week the show had a party element to it, and people gathered with each other to watch it. It was mass viewing at its best; people could come together to have a good time, and not have to struggle to grasp the meaning of what was happening. Everyone understood how crazy the show was, and most people loved it. If it were 1992, things would have been different. The show would have taken a while to gain traction, and it would have gathered a cult following of diehard fans that wouldn’t miss it for the world. The stars of the show would have stayed relatively unknown, and they could have gone on to continue to make the show and make their loyal fans happy. Not one person on The Real World was ever even a fraction of the celebrity that the Jersey Shore cast has become. Unfortunately, it was 2009, and things heated up faster than The Situation suggesting that Snooki ‘had some rolls’.
In the generation we live in, things don’t build up slowly, with very few exceptions. They skyrocket instantly, or they never really gain traction. Within the first few weeks of Jersey Shore, the cast had been on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Jay Leno’s 10 o’clock show and countless awards shows. By the time that the holidays rolled around, there were really only two topics of conversation at parties: Tiger Woods and Jersey Shore. I talked about beating up the beat with people more than anything else for a whole month. GTL hadn’t been established yet, so we didn’t go there. But every other little reference was talked about over and over again. I’ll remember the 2009 holidays for family, friends, grenades, hippos and smushing (Ronnie’s term for sex). For at least a few weeks, the show was ours; everyone who watched it had a coolness factor that others didn’t have. We were in an exclusive club. By the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, the show had exploded into a phenomenon. Michael Cera was given the Guido Look by the cast for promos for his movie. The cast was co-hosting MTV’s coverage of the ball dropping in Times Square. The overkill had begun.
In the coming months, the first season of the show came to an end. We were introduced to GTL, The Situation’s routine of gym, tanning and laundry each day. We learned about Single J-Woww and the gorillas and juiceheads on the beach. My go-to declaration of victory became “That’s one shot, kid!” But, in due time, the season ended, and we were left without the show itself, but with the greasy remains that spread themselves out over the pop culture world. The cast continued to yuk it up with Jay Leno, every talk show had members on, and New Jersey jokes were everywhere. Bobby Moynihan played a parody of Snooki on Saturday Night Live, and Ellen Degeneres made Jersey Shore references on American Idol, the least cult-y show in the history of TV. Slowly, the initial fans started to lose interest, since they were only getting the watered down version of each character without the actual show. Plus, a huge part of what made the show great was how it was edited and put together. One of the best jokes from the whole season was when Snooki was describing a guy that she had decided that she was in love with, and had potential with. As she finally said his name, it was revealed to the audience that she had completely gotten his name wrong, and it was something different altogether. Those kinds of moments couldn’t happen on talk shows. After a while, everyone needed Jersey Shore to go away for a few months, in the same vein as eating only fast food for two weeks. After all, how much bad food can you eat in a row without a break? It may taste really good, but after awhile you’ll just want a salad. We all needed some vegetables to counter the fried fat that was Jersey Shore, but it wasn’t being given to us. It was constantly being forced down our throats. It was announced that the cast was going to Miami for the second season, and it seemed to be a sell-out move. When the 2nd season was set to begin on July 29th, I wasn’t even sure if I would watch it. It had come to that.
But, fortunately, things turned around. As filming of the second season started, the talk show appearances died down. The talk from all sources about the show gradually wilted. The housewives and 70-year-old men started to eliminate Snooki, guidette, and every other Jersey Shore-ism from their vocabularies. Now, as commercials promoting the new season have kicked up, I’m as excited as ever. Snooki announced that she didn’t want to cheat on her boyfriend, but “Put a bottle of So-co in front of me and who knows what’ll happen”. Pauly D announced that “We’re living in a GFA, a Grenade Free America”. The Situation talked about wearing his “shirt before the shirt”, meaning that he’ll put his going-out shirt on later. I forgot how much I missed these people, for brilliant moments like these. How could these ever be replaced? Finally, MTV showed a video of the whole cast beating up the beat and dancing in a packed Miami club to Enrique Iglesias’ I Like It, arguably the catchiest song of the summer. With that, I was in. Done. Let’s do it. But there are still questions about what we witnessed.
The fact of the matter is that as long as we have hundreds of channels on our TV, limitless websites to promote shows, and the ability to use Youtube at our fingertips, overexposure will be a part of life. Whatever the next show is that becomes an overnight sensation will face the same problems. Let’s just deal with that matter, and get over it. More importantly, what does the backlash and then the backlash to the backlash say about us? Why are we so influenced by the media that our perceptions of something can so radically be changed by something we can’t control? By mid-April, if I never saw The Situation and Vinny again, it would have been too soon. (Sidebar: It would be unjust to do an entire Jersey Shore column without once mentioning and giving ample props to Vinny, the one cast member that seems to be smarter than it all. He seems like a bright guy who just happens to live in this culture. His jokes were on a totally different level than the other cast mates throughout the first season, and it’s clear how much more intelligent he is than everyone else. Thought that needed to be said.) So how can I go from being madly in love with a show to being tired of it to hating it and then going back to loving it, without the show even being on the air? I actually felt bad for MTV at one point as this was going on. All they did was produce an enjoyable show; they didn’t ask for all the hype that made everyone tired of it. The problem is within. We all decided to judge Jersey Shore for what was happening with it on other TV shows. If we had only judged it based on the episodes of the show, we would have still loved it. If John Krasinski has a lame appearance on Leno, I’m not going to start hating The Office because of it. It’s a totally separate entity. The same must be applied to Jersey Shore if the show is going to have any sort of lasting impact. The show is what matters. The hype around it is all just noise trying to drown out its actual voice. I know that I’m making this goofy, stupid show to be much more than it actually is, but even if it were a great work of art, the fact would remain the same. Judge the product, not the hype. As we go into season 2, the show will have to address this pressing topic: How will these people’s lives change now that they’re famous? I can only hope that we find out not from Jay Leno and Billy Bush, but from The Situation, Snooki, J-Woww, Vinny, Pauly D, Ronnie and Sammi Sweetheart, our voices of truth.
The Situation, Snooki, J-Woww, Vinny, Pauly D, Ronnie and Sammi Sweetheart. Voices of truth. God help us all.
July 29, 2010 · Filed under Uncategorized
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As Fantasy Football season approaches, with drafts looming, I dusted off my column from last November about the Pros and Cons of Fantasy as it effects the NFL as a whole. I thought it might be relevant as the new season awaits. Enjoy.
I’m sitting in my living room with my friends on a Sunday afternoon in November, and we’re watching my favorite football team, the New York Giants. I’m wearing my Giants number 27 jersey*, and the game is close. The Giants have driven all the way to the 1 yard line of the Atlanta Falcons, and a touchdown here would be vital in what is a huge game for them, since a victory will revitalize their playoff hopes after a long losing streak. On first down, Eli Manning hands the ball off to Brandon Jacobs, who rumbles his way into the endzone to give the Giants a 21-14 lead. My friends clap and celebrate. I yell “GODDAMNIT!!!” to the TV screen and kick the bottom of my seat (and that’s the G-Rated version of the story). Folks, welcome to the world of fantasy football.
*The jersey isn’t of Brandon Jacobs; it’s actually of Giants mega-bust Ron Dayne. Just roll with it.
Fantasy football is the obsessive game that many NFL fans play throughout the regular season. For any football fan living under a rock for the last decade, let’s give a very, very brief outline of what it is, because I’m not a fan of telling you, the reader, something that you already know. Each team consists of about 8 to 11 players each week, which are drafted before the season, consisting of a quarterback, 2 to 3 running backs and wide receivers, a tight end, a team defense and a kicker. Obviously, teams have players from many different teams. Points are awarded for a certain amount of statistics that each player on the team amasses: for example, if Chris Johnson rushes for 120 yards, has 70 yards receiving, and scores 2 touchdowns, he would have a 31 point day, which is an outstanding day in fantasy. Most leagues operate in a head-to-head format, where you face an opponent, and whichever team scores more points that week wins. The season is usually twelve to fourteen weeks long, and then there is usually either a two or three week playoff in December, the last few weeks of the regular season. Got that? Good, let’s move on. I consider myself to be a rather good fantasy football player (or owner or coach, if you will; I’m not really playing anything per se, I’m just inserting guys into the right positions to succeed), and this week, week 15 of the NFL season, is the finals in one of my leagues and the semifinals in the other two. Since the fantasy season is reaching its apex, the time has come to ask one of the questions that many NFL fans who aren’t big fantasy guys wonder, and one that fantasy players must think about every once in awhile: is fantasy football good for the NFL? Let’s address it in a debate of pros and cons.
PROS
The exposure to all 32 teams in the NFL based on fantasy football is immense. Because of how widely spread across the league people’s teams can be, fans need to be fully invested in all eight divisions, because it’s never known where the next great fantasy player will emerge. As a Giants fan, I usually would never have any interest in the AFC West. But, I have Antonio Gates on two of my teams, had Matt Cassel for awhile, and have played the Broncos Defense for a good amount of time. Plus, the rise of Jamaal Charles as a top fantasy running back in Kansas City has made him a star the last few weeks. I don’t have him in any of my leagues, but would I even know who he is without the use of fantasy football? My increased knowledge of the players in the NFL due to fantasy is incalculable. I’m going to do this off of the top of my head right now. This is obviously a written column so you can’t know if I’m telling the truth, but take my word that I’m not looking this up or cheating in any way. You trust me, right? I’m doing this completely from prior knowledge.
The third wide receiver on the Miami Dolphins is Davone Bess.
The backup running back for the Cleveland Browns is Chris Jennings.
The backup quarterback for the Houston Texans is Rex Grossman.
The starting tight end for the Seattle Seahawks is John Carlson.
The backup running backs for the Atlanta Falcons are Chris Snelling and Jerious Norwood.
The third quarterback for the Oakland Raiders is Charlie Frye.
The second wide receiver for the Detroit Lions is Bryant Johnson.
The fourth running back for the Washington Redskins is Quinton Ganther.
How would I possibly learn these things if they weren’t for fantasy football? Why would I ever want to know this information? These are the things that I learn. The increased exposure to these guys is amazing. Do you think that in the 60s or 70s anyone from New York had ever heard of the third wide receiver for the Dolphins or the Browns’ backup runningback? I don’t think so. The fact that all of these players are more notable is a strong step forward for the NFL, and I can’t imagine that they’d complain about that.
In addition to the exposure to players, how about the importance of meaningless games that are huge for fantasy players? Last week, CBS showed the Dallas vs. San Diego game on national TV, two of the better teams in the NFL playing for fairly high stakes in their respective conferences. Was I watching this game? Yes, but I had my eyes on the Gamecast of the Tennessee/St. Louis game, one team on the outside fringes of contention and one that is completely incompetent, more than on the TV. I needed Chris Johnson and Rob Bironas to perform well to earn a playoff victory, and I needed to avoid a big day by the Titans defense. All three played very well, and it resulted in a high-scoring shootout of a fantasy matchup. After this game, I had to watch the aforementioned Quinton Ganther to see if he would put up enough points to cost me a playoff victory, in a truly irrelevant game between Washington and Oakland. He had a great game, but didn’t do quite enough. This is a great thing for the NFL. Without fantasy, I wouldn’t have even remotely cared about either of these games, but the implications made them vital to my Sunday. For family reasons, I couldn’t go out to a bar where each game would have been shown on DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket. I really, really missed it. The rise in fantasy football has increased the demand for Sunday Ticket, and the monopoly that DirecTV has on it has made their services more and more desirable. It may have even kept them in business, with the rise of digital cable threatening to undo them. The NFL is able to charge DirecTV a boatload of money for excusive rights to the package, and I’m sure those prices will only go up. For these two reasons, fantasy football is a huge moneymaker and greatly helps the NFL’s popularity.
CONS
The essential problem with fantasy football is that, while it increases the popularity of the sport short-term, in the long run it decreases loyalty and takes away the personality of the league. This last week, I had no fantasy implications within the Giants/Eagles game that was on NBC on Sunday night. I can’t begin to explain how refreshing it was to be able to sit and root for the Giants without worrying about how their success would impact my teams. The NFL’s foundation was built on loyal fans that would come to stadiums to support their teams 8 times a season, no matter what. In what other league are there waiting lists for season tickets that are decades long? Part of it has to do with the fact that going to 8 games a season is far more realistic for a middle-class person than going to 81 baseball games or 41 basketball and hockey games. But, the other part of it is an intense dedication to the local teams, a bond that unites a region unlike any other rooting experience. The process of going to a football game is so much more glorified than that of going to any other sport, because of the tailgate and the experience of camaraderie that doesn’t exist elsewhere. When the brand loyalties fade due to conflicting emotions because of fantasy football, what do you have left? Plus, let’s face this inevitable fact: fantasy football is a young man’s game. I have a feeling that many people above the age of fifty wouldn’t have the time nor patience to scour a waiver wire to find Davone Bess, or stare at a computer screen for hours and follow a dozen different games per week. I’m sure the demographics for who plays fantasy football right now skews towards people in their teens and mid-twenties, and that may be a biased number since fantasy football wasn’t prevalent in the way that it is now when these older people were younger. But the fact remains that, due to work and family, an older generation likely won’t have the time or patience to follow fantasy football. They’d want to follow their favorite team for three hours a week on Sundays. If their loyalties have been so badly disoriented from years of following other teams, who says that this will be as appealing? I know for a fact that I gave up playing fantasy hockey a few years ago because I wanted to only watch the Rangers, and purely root for them. It has made my fan affiliation stronger than ever. I definitely don’t feel as strongly about the Giants, and fantasy is a large reason.
The other main issue that I see is the androgyny of the players in the league when all that matters is accumulating numbers. I listed before that I can rattle off the top of my head various obscure players at nearly meaningless positions for teams that I don’t particularly care about. But does that mean that I know anything about them? Do I know what type of runner Chris Jennings is? Could I tell you if Bryant Johnson is a possession receiver, a longball threat or a guy that runs over the middle fearlessly? Absolutely not. All I know is their names, what they do, and how they can impact my fantasy season. This doesn’t even only apply to the lesser-known players. Let’s take two of the greatest runningbacks to have played in my lifetime: Barry Sanders and LaDanian Tomlinson. I grew up watching Sanders, and have been witness to Tomlinson’s entire career. With Sanders, I remember his ridiculously long runs, and how he would make cuts with his ankles that would make people miss. I remember his dashes into the endzone and his style when scoring, although he would never truly show up the opponent. Pretty good recollection for a guy I would only see a few times a year, right? But when I think about Tomlinson, I can’t say that I recall anything about his running style, the length of his runs or his overall demeanor, besides jumping into the endzone and wearing very dark-tinted helmets. I remember his stats. I remember that he carried a lackluster fantasy team of mine all the way into the finals one year, where I had no right to be, given the rest of my team. I remember that he would put up 30 points a week for me with regularity, but I don’t remember how he did it. Somehow, I don’t think telling my grandchildren about the week LaDanian Tomlinson carried my fantasy team will hold very much weight with them, in the same way that our grandfathers told us about the time they saw Ted Williams play the outfield or watched Jim Brown run. The personality of each player gets taken away when all that matters is their numbers, and that’s a shame.
CONCLUSION
So, we’ve realized that fantasy football is great for the NFL on a week to week basis, but it may not be that great down the line. For each week, it’s great because it keeps the fan base involved with the whole league. For example, two weeks ago I went to the opera on a Monday night. I needed Aaron Rodgers to outperform Ray Rice substantially in order to advance in the playoffs of my league. Throughout the second and third acts of the opera, a rather good production of The Tales of Hoffman, I actually felt nervous about how Rodgers was producing. When each act ended, I raced into the lobby to check my cell phone, and was joyful in that he succeeded in advancing my team in the playoffs. The fact that the NFL was on my brain to the point that I was nervous during an opera can’t possibly be a bad thing for the league.
This Sunday is the finals of one of my fantasy leagues, and the semifinals in my other two. The Sunday night game is between the Minnesota Vikings, a team that will definitely have the 2 seed in the NFC and is basically playing out the string until the playoffs, and the Carolina Panthers, a completely irrelevant team. Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered watching this game. I have Adrian Peterson, Minnesota’s star runningback, on all three of my teams. Wild horses wouldn’t be able to drag me from watching this game. My singular focus will be on Peterson, and I will hope that he can deliver me a championship. An interesting wrinkle will be that in one of my games, my opponent will likely start Brett Favre, Bernard Berrian, Percy Harvin and Visanthe Shiancoe, aka the rest of the Vikings offense. He likes to call it ‘the Vikings sweep’. I’ll be rooting for and against the Vikings at the same time, since I’ll want Peterson to succeed and everyone else to fail. It will make for a nerve-wracking, obsessive Sunday night, and fantasy football is responsible.
The one thing that swings fantasy into the Pro side for me is its schedule. Fantasy football will wrap up by the time New Years hits, as most leagues end by week 17, to account for the top teams resting their best players in the last week of the season. Except for some new formats that have fantasy leagues in the playoffs, there is no fantasy football throughout the NFL Playoffs. This lets the game itself shine. In the Giants’ incredible run to the championship two years ago, I remember each and every moment of it as it should be remembered: for the great football moments, and not the great fantasy moments. Lawrence Tynes was redeemed for missing two relatively easy field goals by making his last one; I remember the joy that we all experienced when the Giants won the game, not being upset that his misses would have lost me points if I had him on my team. I remember David Tyree’s circus catch in the Super Bowl for its pure athleticism and luck, not for the approximately 3.7 points the catch would have given me. I remember Plaxico Burress’ game winning catch for the impact it had on all of us, not for a 7.8 point grab. Fantasy football is the perfect mix because of this. It makes games that we wouldn’t care about matter. It makes me bit my nails due to the production of Quinton Ganther. I rejoice in the meaningless catches by Donnie Avery towards the end of blowout losses for the St. Louis Rams. But, it also lets us have the best of both. We can have the celebrations of statistical victories in nearly useless regular season games. But it saves the best for the real thing: the true celebration of a favorite team’s success in the playoffs, when it matters most. And that’s all that we can really ask for.
July 27, 2010 · Filed under NFL
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This is the first edition of a running column where Jeremy will defend a sports or entertainment star whose star has fallen thanks to public judgment. Wait, did he just refer to himself in the 3rd person? And did he (I) just do it again?
I’d like you to go on a journey with me, if you will. Let’s look at somebody’s life, all in the second person narrative. You’ve been trained to do a job since you were a little kid, coming from a poor neighborhood in a poor country. You have one specific talent that has carried you through your life, but you’ve never really made the choice to embrace it. You got a job right out of high school in your field, went through job training, and landed at your job, which pays very handsomely. You don’t love what you’re doing, and you may not share the passion that others have for the same line of work. But you continue to trudge along, doing very adequate, if not great, work until it’s time for your contract to be re-negotiated. Since you work in a position of high demand and limited supply, you make more money off of this contract than your resume indicates that you deserve. In the last few months, you’ve gotten married, and are thinking about starting a family. You live in the biggest city in the world, and you want to keep it that way. As a provision in your contract, you make sure that if your job wants to demote you to a tiny city hundreds of miles away from your home and family, then they have to get approval from you first. Your boss and employer agree to this deal, and the new contract is signed.
After a year and a half, your job performance has slipped, although you’ve tried to keep it at its best. Your effort may have gone down a bit from when you were working for a new contract, but you haven’t stopped trying altogether. Your boss isn’t pleased. He’s decided to demote you to the place that was hundreds of miles away for more job training. You say that you feel fine and that you’ll turn your performance around, but he’s having none of it. He demands that you go for more training, and leave everything that you have in order to do it. After thinking about it, you say to your boss that your contract states that you don’t have to make this move, and he has to honor it. You stay at your high-ranking job, despite hating it at this point. You’re made into a villain of the highest order by your co-workers and onlookers, because you decided to stand up for what is rightfully in your contract and was agreed to by management. You become the face of everything that is wrong with your line of work, and cynics scoff at the disgrace that you’ve become to the field. All you can do is take the abuse, and try to continue your work, until management tells you that you’re injured, despite feeling almost perfectly fine. The governing board of the management investigates the injury claim, but eventually agrees with management. They take you out of your job, and tell you to return when you’re ready to produce. Life sucks for you right now. Your name is Oliver Perez.
Perez came to the Mets in 2006, and was productive for about two years, before turning into the remarkably inconsistent pitcher that would eventually sign a 3-year, 36 million dollar contract. He went from being inconsistent to very, very consistent, and not in a good way. His ERA jumped from a 3.56 in 2007 to 4.22 in 2008 to a sky-high 6.82 in 2009. He’s been public enemy #1 for Mets fans ever since he signed his contract, and he’s done nothing to change their mind. Now, some of my first two paragraphs were pure speculation and shouldn’t fully be taken at face value, since none of us really know if Perez is passionate for the game or not. It’s possible that he’d give his life to win a World Series. But the body language he’s shown in the past few years has been of someone that is just doing his job, so that he can go home and have a stiff drink and get ready for the weekend ahead. It’s not all that different than the average person working at a cubicle and trying to make his boss happy without putting in too much effort.
This line of thought is far-fetched to a lot of sports fans out there. Why wouldn’t Perez give his all? Doesn’t he want to win World Series titles? But what if Perez just doesn’t have that kind of mentality? Is that really his fault? I went to NYU, among the biggest liberal arts schools in the country, as a vocal performance major, where some of the most artsy, non-sports-loving people attend. So I know about people that just don’t have any interest in sports and competitions to win a championship. And that’s completely fine. I couldn’t judge the people that I was with for not liking sports, because it’s totally normal to not like it. Some people do, and some don’t. There are perfectly valid reasons to hate sports (I’ll save them for another time), even if I personally don’t agree with them. What if Perez is one of these people? Is that really his fault, for working in a field that he’s not passionate about but is the one where he can make the most money? The amount of people in the world that hate their jobs but just do them anyway is large. The amount of people that are truly passionate about what they do is a much smaller number, but professional ballplayers are usually in that rare group. When an athlete isn’t, that’s when his fans and teammates vilify him. So, for people who want to blast Perez for not caring enough about winning, remember that playing baseball is his job, regardless of his excessive salary. There aren’t rabid fans calling in to radio shows to complain about when you don’t work your hardest at your job. Just because he makes more money than average people doesn’t stop it from being a job. As Oliver Perez comes off the DL this week and rejoins the Mets, remember that passion usually can’t be obtained by osmosis. It has to come from within. Some players have it, and it can be seen from miles away. But some just don’t. It’s our job as sports fans to judge the performances on the field, and to root for our teams to win. It’s not our job to measure what’s inside a man, for better or worse. We can ask of our athletes to try their hardest to win. But we can’t ask them to change who they are in order to do it.
July 23, 2010 · Filed under MLB
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Now that the World Cup is over, the top leagues in the world are getting ready to get play back underway, while some like the MLS resume suspended play. Players are also returning to their club sides after participating in South Africa, which of course includes American star Landon Donovan who has returned to the LA Galaxy. There has been talk recently that the MLS wouldn’t be accepting any offers for Donovan to return to Europe, where he played for Everton of the EPL on a 10 week loan prior to the World Cup. This is a big mistake by the MLS and for the future of US soccer. While Donovan may improve short term ratings for the MLS, this would not be nearly as effective as a potential successful stint for Donovan in the elite leagues of the world.
MLS commissioner Don Garber recently stated that the league had no interest in accepting transfer offers for Donovan. He feels that the midfielder is too much of a star for the league to give him up. While ratings may take a slight hit if Donovan is gone, and I suspect their wouldn’t be too much of a drop off, the value of him returning overseas, where it is rumored that Everton and Manchester City of the Premier League are interested in him, would be great for American soccer. It will gain credibility for US soccer abroad and will inspire young players in America and prove that they can make it in the elite leagues of the world. Even players in the most elite national teams such as Argentina and Brazil play their club football in Europe, in what are considered to be the top four leagues in the world, the EPL, La Liga, Serie A, and the German Bundesliga. For example, Kaka, Luis Fabiano, and Maicon are just a few of the Brazilians that play in Europe as opposed to staying in the Brazilian League.
Donovan also let it be known that his experience at Everton gave him the confidence to have a successful performance in South Africa. When you are regularly playing games against clubs with the quality of Chelsea and Manchester United you are bound to become more accustomed to playing at the highest level. While the MLS is moving in the right direction, you cannot argue that it is even close to the level of many European leagues not to mention the top 4. Other Americans such as Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, and Jozy Altidore are already playing in the top leagues of the world. In fact, the US only had 4 players on its World Cup roster from MLS, including Donovan. In his time at Everton, he proved that he belonged among the world’s elite and can become even better if he spends a significant amount of time in Europe. His games for Everton, assuming he returns to the club if he goes back to Europe, can be shown weekly here in the states where he will be a teammate of American goalkeeper Tim Howard. This will help gain more fans of the game who in turn may start watching more MLS games. Nothing in the MLS can replicate the experience and knowledge he can gain in Europe and bring back to the national team.
While Garber hasn’t ruled out more potential loans in the future, Donovan is signed under contract with the Galaxy, as of December, for the next 4 years and expects to make more than $2 million this year. Obviously not only can he make much more money in Europe, but the MLS can also make more money by accepting his transfer fees. If fans in America see their favorite domestic players competing at the highest level of the sport, they will become much more devoted to the sport and it will have a greater impact than seeing a player have success in a league such as the MLS. Think of it this way, it’s like the best basketball players in Europe coming to the United States to play in the NBA. If you want to compete at the highest level and become one of the world’s elite countries in the sport, you have to play with the top players in the world for a prolonged period of time.
As for the future of the MLS, we are now starting to see players come up through each team’s youth system, which is a great sign. This is how the top clubs in the world bring up young players year after year that have all been playing the same style and in the same system all their lives. For example, we saw Spain win the World Cup recently and they were made up mostly of players from only two teams, Barcelona and Real Madrid. The system payed at Barcelona was virtually the same that the Spanish national team displayed in South Africa. Their teamwork and possession is really what gave them an edge over the other nations this summer. The more and more developed each club’s youth system becomes, the greater the play will become and the more formidable of a league the MLS will be.
The intentions of the commissioner regarding Donovan also come at the same time as French superstar Thierry Henry is set to begin his MLS career with the New York Red Bulls. With players like Henry, Beckham, and perhaps even Ronaldinho, who has been rumored to be potentially going to the Galaxy, in the league the MLS is gaining more credibility as a league around the world. Once Donovan plays in Europe, he can potentially come back as an even bigger star with experience at the highest levels and return to the MLS to play his final years. It seems clear to me that Donovan wants to be in Europe at the moment and wants to prove to himself and his doubters that he can succeed there. When he was younger, Donovan spent time in Germany where he had little success which resulted in him coming to MLS. His stint at Everton was a real breakthrough for him as he finally succeeded in the top leagues of the world. His time in the EPL made him a better player and helped the US perform admirably in the World Cup this summer, and that was only in 10 weeks, imagine what a few years could do for his game, and perhaps more importantly his confidence. The more big game experience American players gain in Europe, the more poised and ready they’ll be when it comes time to get ready for Brazil in 2014.
July 21, 2010 · Filed under Soccer
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How about a mid-summer edition of 20 Questions? I’ve been promising this column for weeks/months, so let’s get right to it. As a reminder, these are all questions that may or may not have an actual answer, but they’re all things that I’ve thought about recently.
1. Isn’t being the T-shirt cannon guy at a sporting event the worst job you could possibly have? You only have at most 50 shirts to give out. So, if you’re in an arena with 15,000 people in it, approximately 99.7 % of the people in attendance will be mad at you for not shooting them a T-shirt. Aren’t those really sucky percentages? It sounds like a drag.
2. Are we all underrating the greatest ironic last name of all time? Brian Cashman is the GM of the Yankees, the team that spends the most money of any team in sports. He’s the guy that signs players to big contracts. He’s literally the cash man. Yet nobody ever talks about how hilarious this is. Why isn’t this talked about more?
3. What’s the appeal of bubble tea? Everywhere you go in New York City, but mainly in Chinatown, people are selling bubble tea, as the most refreshing drink to have on a hot summer day. Here’s what it is. You get some sort of iced tea that has a certain flavor, and it has milk added. It’s all well and good. Kind of like a drink at Starbucks. No issues. Then, through the middle and at the bottom, are dozens of ‘bubbles’ that are actually little balls of tasteless starch. What in the blue hell are the points of these? They taste like NOTHING, and then instead of having the comfort of a refreshing sip of your tea drink, you have to chew on these little flavorless balls until you’re annoyed with them, swallow, and are then thirsty so you need to take the next sip of your drink. The process continues forever. They taste a bit like Dots, otherwise known as The Worst Candy Ever Invented, if Dots had absolutely no flavor and were every bit as chewy and disgusting and stayed in your teeth even longer. What the hell, bubble tea? And I’m not even as mad at the institution of bubble tea as I am at the douchey people who continue to insist that it’s the greatest drink ever. You are playing into the torturous game that these evil makers of this tea want you to play. You can never get the bubble taste out of your mouth, so what do you do? You buy more tea. And it goes on and on and on. And it’s all your fault, hippies who think this is the next wave of great drinks.
4. Why do people continue to take pictures of the field at baseball games when they’re sitting in the upper deck? Do I really need to see pictures that, if I look really closely, will show me Derek Jeter playing shortstop? Can’t I just watch TV for that? Whoa, that’s what I watched on TV, but only now it’s 1,000 times harder to see! Awesome!
5. If only kids from the age of 8 and below read Highlights magazine, can’t they just repeat their magazine every 8 years and get away with it? Do they do this already, but I’m unaware of it because I’m not 8? Am I unlocking a conspiracy here? You can’t tell me that Goofus and Gallant have had unique adventures for 50-plus years. There’s got to be a rerun in there somewhere.
6. How did the term “Don’t touch a black man’s radio!” come into play? I’m a white man. Don’t touch my radio either! That’s my radio! It’s universally uncool to touch the driver’s radio. How did this become a race thing? I can’t imagine anyone being completely fine with the passenger just changing whatever’s on the radio. Not cool at all.
7. This might be my most important question: How did the makers of Coca-Cola come up with the flavor of cola? Hear me out: virtually every flavored thing in the world comes from a natural source. Orange Soda tries to duplicate the taste of an orange; even though it may taste nothing like an actual orange, it has a foundation in which the flavor is based around. The same for Sprite, a lemon-lime drink, and basically every other artificially flavored food there is. Cocoa puffs are supposed to taste like chocolate. Trix are supposed to taste like a few different fruits. Jell-O comes in different flavors that represent fruits. I could go on for days. But Coca-Cola decided to play god and come up with a totally unique flavor based on absolutely nothing that the world would decide to embrace. After extensive research (note: there was no research, I just daydreamed a lot), I came to the conclusion that the only things in the world that were specifically invented to fit the taste buds were cola and bubblegum. I considered including Dr. Pepper, but they say that it’s a blend of 23 flavors that make up the taste, so clearly it’s based on something as well. But what was the invention process? Did scientists come together and figure out the exact right combination of substances that would make for a refreshing drink? This is fascinating to me.
8. I was watching a commercial for an auto-repair store, possibly Pep Boys, when the person in the commercial’s car battery wouldn’t start, and the guy went “Not now…this is the worst time!” This made me think, is there ever a good time for a car battery to die? Whenever you enter your car, you’re going to a destination. Has anyone’s car battery ever died and the person thought, “Well, at least this is a perfect time for my car battery to die!”?
9. I’m always one to defend baseball from its detractors, because I love the sport and enjoy watching it on a night in and night out basis. But can it really be considered a sport when the players chew gum through the entire game? Can you possibly imagine a player in any of the other 4 major sports chewing gum while playing their game? Wouldn’t they choke on it or swallow it within the first minute of playing?
10. Isn’t a whiteout the sports version of a tramp stamp? It’s cheap, it’s easy, and afterwards you can never have the same level of respect as a franchise. It’ll be with you forever, and just makes you look unworthy. And if I really wanted to distract the visiting team, how about a pink-out, or a rainbow-out? Wouldn’t they spend the first five minutes of the game wondering why the hell the entire building was dressed in pink, or how they managed to coordinate it so that the building looked like a gigantic rainbow?
11. Is the phrase “That woman’s accent is so thick, she sounds just like Rosie Perez” now more famous than Actual Rosie Perez? What has she done in the last decade besides making Pineapple Express 17% worse?
12. How old are the jockeys that run in the Kentucky Derby? I couldn’t give you an approximation within 20 years. If you told me that Calvin Borel was 30, I’d believe you. If you told me he was 20, I’d believe you. If you told me he was 60, I’d believe you. Absolutely no clue.
13. Do people still use washboards? The term “washboard abs” is still in the lexicon, but does anyone in America not have a washing machine? When’s the last time that someone actually used a washboard? I know what a washboard looks like, but only because I’ve seen Fiddler on the Roof multiple times. What percentage of the GTL-ing part of the country has ever actually seen a washboard? How do they know what to make their abs look like?
14. Going right along with the washboard abs idea (as in, going as far away from it as possible), how much would it cost to get Lou Bega to come hang out with me? We’re not talking more than 20 to 100 bucks, right? Maybe more on the weekends?
15. How come we can’t have more of a sense of humor at sporting events? When Matt Kemp comes to the plate in a visiting stadium, how come they can’t play a Rihanna song? Everyone would get a kick out of it, and would he really get that offended? It’s so bad to play a song by the girl he’s dating? We need to find more ways to make it fun to be at the ballpark, and that wouldn’t hurt. Speaking of that relationship…
16. Doesn’t Matt Kemp have the smallest shoes in the world to fill when dating Rihanna? Nowhere to go but up.
17. We hear about no-nonsense managers and coaches all the time. Do nonsense managers exist? Are there managers that just let everyone have a grand old time, and don’t bother with any punishments? If guys come to a game late, are they just okay with it, because they’re a nonsense manager? How do their pre-game pep talks go? “Guys, I want you to give it your all out there. And if you don’t, I’m not really gonna care.”
18. How do you riot? Each time a sports team wins their title, I hear about cities rioting afterwards. What’s the process for this? Who starts it? Is there a riot leader? Does he just punch somebody to get it going, almost like lighting the Olympic torch? Do people really get a kick out of throwing trash cans? And would I really be able to set something on fire? I barely know how to work a lighter, so I don’t think torching cars is in my repertoire. I don’t think I’ll be rioting any time soon.
19. Time for a guest question! My friend Brian, of occasional podcast fame, asks this:
What’s the deal with “weather records”? Does anybody out there want to be a part of this?? And why am I supposed to care about being involved in an “historic record breaking day” when it’s either ridiculously cold or ridiculously hot outside?? Is this among the dumbest and least sought after records ever or what? Is this something I’m going to tell my grandkids about?? Are there going to be any grandparents sitting around talking to their grandkids about living through a record breaking weather day?? “Your grandmother and I were a part of history. I remember back in July of 2010 when we were involved in the all time heat record in NYC on a July 8th. We were all a part of something very special that day.”
20. To wrap it up, I’m going to start a new feature called “The One I Found an Answer To”. Whenever I watch Family Guy, in the opening credits a writer by the name of Cherry Chevapravatdumrong is listed. Is this an actual person, or was Seth MacFarlane playing some sort of elaborate joke on the audience? Could someone with this long and crazy of a last name actually exist? I don’t remember anyone ever having a 6-syllable last name, or 1 syllable longer than my entire name. Well, after some quick research on Google, I learned that Ms. Chevapravatdumrong has been a writer on Family Guy since its fourth season, and has written 7 episodes. She was born in Columbus, Ohio, was raised in Ann Arbor, Michigan (How’s that for a college football debate?) and went to Yale. She’s written two young adult novels (under the name Cherry Cheva…tough to put that entire name on the cover of a book) and was recently promoted to co-producer on Family Guy. Good to know! Don’t you feel smarter now?
That’ll do it for today’s 20 Questions. As always, thanks for reading, and if anyone has a question that they’re dying to get out there, send us a message here at Storps and I’ll think about adding it as a guest spot for the next edition.
July 20, 2010 · Filed under MLB, Pop Culture, Uncategorized
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