Report-ed!

The excitement and tension are palpable here in the Sports As Life Corporate Headquarters. Everyone will be gathered around televisions at 1pm waiting with baited breath because - it's Mitchell Report Day!

The feeling around the office is that we hope certain people (Roger Clemons - who, it's already been leaked, is on the list, and Alex Rodriguez) make the list - while others (Cal Ripken Jr and Ken Griffey Jr) don't show up.

There's something about the heroes of our youth getting labelled as steroid abusers and cheats that really doesn't sit well with any of us. Which is why we're hoping that the Report is mostly about players who have played in the last decade or so.

The NFL picks might be a little delayed this afternoon, as we'll be going over the Report like the Dead Sea Scrolls.

If Joe Carter somehow makes the list the 1992 World Series VHS tape is going in the garbage.

Tim McCarver Strikes Again

I'm starting to feel like I could make a career out of just re-telling Tim McCarver stories. I had another fantastic one all lined up for you today - but Bill Simmons beat me to it with his running diary of the Red Sox/Indians game last night. You can read the diary here - the story in question is covered in the entry from 10:05.

Somehow McCarver was baffled by the "startling fact" that lead-off homeruns lead to more multi-run innings than lead-off walks. This one wasn't quite as good as the pitch/thumb discussion from Monday night - but it was close.

The Fantasy Football stuff will be up later in the afternoon.

You Wanna Get Nuts... Let's Get Nuts! - Part 2

Because I know you're all wondering - no, I haven't heard back from Major League Baseball yet and I don't really expect to. But I have news. I found something from the Globe and Mail that I thought I'd share. It made me feel a little less crazy anyway. Some days I feel like Heston in The Omega Man when all those phones start ringing - everything else has gone crazy but I'm still sane, only everyone thinks I'm crazy because I'm the only sane one. If you've watched enough movies you know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, here is William Houston's Globe article from yesterday explaining the conflicts that Sportsnet has with the upcoming LCS's - read it here.

At least someone finally explained what was/is happening, now I'd just love to hear someone from Rogers explain why it's happening. My hopes are not up.

You Wanna Get Nuts... Let's Get Nuts!

One of my favorite quotes of all time. But we're not putting this in the 'favorite quotes' column, we're putting it in the 'fighting losing battles' column.

As some of you may recall, on Tuesday I printed the email that I wrote to Rogers Sportsnet about them not broadcasting the MLB playoff game from Monday night. There were a couple of comments wanting to know what Sportsnet's response was. Well, I found out today what their response was. And I don't think I'm crossing any legal boundaries by sharing it with you.

To refresh your memory, this is originally what I wrote to Sportsnet:

"I have a question for you, does Sportsnet have sole rights to broadcasting the first round of the MLB playoffs in Canada? If the answer is yes, next time could you actually broadcast the games? As someone who gets Sporstnet West I was unable to watch Cleveland eliminate the Yankees last night. Was the baseball game shown on SN East or Ontario? I realize that baseball is not as popular as hockey in this country but I think an MLB playoff game, especially a potential elimination game, would be more important than the Oilers 3rd game of 82. I can assure you that it was a very frustrating situation - I felt like a hockey fan in the U.S trying to find a game."

And today I received this response from them:

"Thanks for your recent e-mail. We certainly appreciate the feedback. Unfortunately, viewers with one Sportsnet channel watching hockey could not see the baseball playoffs. However, viewers with all Sportsnet channels had a choice between hockey and the playoffs.

Our apologies for any inconvenience that this may have caused."

I believe that's what they call an non-apology apology. Undaunted, I wrote back again this morning with this to say:

"While I appreciate that Sportsnet has to fulfill their obligation to the Edmonton Oilers, why was the baseball game not shown upon the conclusion of the hockey game? The Edmonton/Detroit game ended before the Indians/Yankees game was finished. So instead of the last 3 innings of the baseball game we got a re-run of the Best Damn Sports Show. And even if it was not possible to switch over to the baseball feed immediately after the hockey game ended, why was the game not shown on a tape-delay later in the night?"

This was the reply I received to that email:

"Viewers with all Sportsnet channels could watch both hockey and baseball in their entirety. However, due to programming commitments, we could not join the baseball game in progress after hockey.

Our apologies that we cannot assist you further."

Clearly my feedback was welcomed by Sportsnet. If you actually squint hard enough between the lines you can see where they say, "It's your fault you couldn't see the game because you don't buy all our channels - now please stop bothering us, we have to get back to professionally messing up Jim Lang's hair."

I'm now on a quest to find out how this baseball game slipped through the cracks. To quote Frank Costanza, "I feel reborn, like a phoenix rising from Arizona!" So I decided to email Major League Baseball this afternoon, just to see if they would have any response to this situation. Here's what I wrote:

"I am a resident of Western Canada. As such, it turns out that I was not able to watch Game 4 of the Indians/Yankees. Not because I do not subscribe to Rogers Sportsnet - I do. I have emailed Sportsnet over the past few days expressing my amazement. Their reply was basically that it was my fault I could not see the game because I do not subscribe to all of their channels. I think that those who have the rights to broadcast these playoff games should actually put them on the air."

Bear in mind that the MLB website has a 500 character limit on their feedback forum, so it's incredibly hard to make a point in that limited space. But I did my best.

So we'll see how all of this turns out...I'm guessing with a corporate form-letter of some sort.

I'll tell you this though - this experience does not make me want to subscribe to all the Sportsnet channels just so I don't miss anything in the future. Quite the opposite actually.

And might I add - we want ESPN.

Meh...

I'm bored - I'm not going to lie to you.

So bored that I'm watching the live scoring of the Phillies/Rockies playoff game on ESPN.com. This is not a live picture of the game - basically a live box score. Now that's bored.

I'm also looking up costs and waiting times for rotator cuff surgery. Thanks to the new Nintendo Wii system I have (and the baseball game that comes with it) I can barely lift my arm above my waist. In baseball circles I'm suffering from what's known as a 'dead arm' - my shoulder is rotating between numb and throbbing.

If you've never played a Wii you'll think I'm just being a baby. If you have, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I really don't have much of anything to say.

I felt obligated to post something today... and unfortunately this is what you're getting.

I'm actually looking forward to watching some playoff baseball tonight. Not much of a baseball fan in the regular season but in the playoffs the games seemed to get plugged into a 10,000 watt generator and I get sucked in.

In fact, I'm much more excited about watching baseball tonight than I am about watching hockey.

I really have no interest in seeing any particular team win. I'm happy as long as the Yankees and to a lesser extent, the Red Sox, lose.

Maybe I'll jump on the Cubs bandwagon - I wouldn't mind seeing them win.

Well that's it, I'm gonna go do... something. Watch for this week's Sweet, Sweet Fantasy Baby later today.

Some Thoughts on Baseball Before I Leave You

First of all, the Sports Desk is going to be closed for about ten days as of today. Have no fear we will re-open for business upon my return from holiday. In the meantime I wanted to leave you with a few thoughts about baseball to mull over in my absence.

Firstly, Barry Bonds is now 10 home runs shy of baseball's most hallowed record, Hank Aaron's all-time home run record. It's now 755 for Aaron and 745 for Bonds. I'm really hoping that Bonds does not break the record in the next 10 days but it is definite possibility that he will. It is pretty sad that baseball's biggest cheater is going to break baseball's biggest record.

Now there has never been any proof that Bonds cheated and took performance-enhancing substances (steroids) but I think the circumstantial evidence speaks for itself. Look at the picture to the left. On the left of the split is Barry Bonds, circa the early 90's, when he was approximately 30 years old. On the right of the split is Barry as he appears today, nearing age 44. As medical science can probably confirm it is nearly impossible for an increase of this magnitude to occur naturally in a man of middle age. The difference in the 'two' Bonds is just staggering when you look at them side by side like this.

In other baseball news, the Toronto Blue Jays are entrenched in last place in the A.L East and have the potential to be historically bad. They have lost 8 games in a row and if they lose tonight to the Red Sox they will fall 10.5 games behind first place. And I'll tell you right now, if they lose tonight, they are finished - done like dinner. I know there's still like 130 games left in the season but they way they look, they're out of the playoff picture already. I suppose that's what you get when you have a lineup build for power that isn't hitting or scoring runs and a pitching staff (beyond Roy Halladay) that is just laughable. I guess not picking up a marquee pitcher in the off season was not the best career move for Jays GM J.P Riccardi. If this losing lasts much longer, I don't expect Manager John Gibbons will be around by the time I get back.

The last baseball item is Pinch Hitter-related. The bar has now been set a little higher. My new high-score is 46,263 and change, so top that (when I posted that score I had it up over 71,000 but a crushing strikeout ruined everything - I was waiting for an off-speed pitch and he blew the fastball right by me).

Oh and the 70 second solitaire win is an impossibility. I can't even get through the deck once in 70 seconds.

See you in 10 days.

Thursday Headlines

Here are some headlines we would have liked to have seen this morning after the first night of the NHL playoffs:

SIDNEY CROSBY SCORES FIRST NHL PLAYOFF GOAL!!!

But Penguins lose 6-3 and goal comes in last minute of game with Pens on power play.

- Ok, so maybe that's a little wordy for a headline but it sums things up fairly well I thought. Nobody gets more media attention than Crosby (whether he wants it or not, and whether we want to hear about it or not) but this is all getting to the point where people are starting to turn against the kid just because they're sick of hearing about him and seeing his face everywhere. Enough already! Everyone knows he's a great talent, just let us enjoy watching hockey and just let him play hockey.

BOB COLE OPENLY CHEERS FOR PITTSBURGH, ANNOUNCES HOCKEY GAME.

- I understand the need to promote the superstars of the game, but this is getting ridiculous. It's gotten to the point where I just mute the TV and listen to my iPod while watching games on TV. Can't we just say enough is enough already? Bob Cole is without a doubt the best voice in hockey history. Well at least that my generation has heard, having never had the chance to listen to Foster Hewitt, except in this clip.

(It's 10 minutes long, so to just get the good stuff, let the clip load and then skip ahead to about the 6 minute mark. I love that the Canadian bench basically emptied - including Canadian goalie Ken Dryden coming all the way down the ice to celebrate - when Henderson scored, even though there was still about 50 seconds left in the game. I also love the guy on the Canadian bench, I think it's Harry Sinden, giving the F-you to the Russian crowd. It still gives me chills and it was 8 years before I was born)

But it's time for Bob to step aside. Never mind the fact that Bob openly cheers for the Toronto Maple Leafs while broadcasting their games on our publicly-funded CBC, because he is certainly not the only person on that network guilty of biased commentating. But last year's Stanley Cup Finals, where he didn't know more than half of Edmonton's roster and couldn't pronounce their names should have been his swan song. The people outside of Toronto who watch hockey on CBC deserve better than this. The heir apparent, Jim Hughson, is waiting in the wings and is ready to take over the main broadcast. Surely Bob Cole must be almost 80, I think it's time to pass the torch.

(Ok, I just looked Cole up on Wikipedia. I said he was almost 80 for dramatic effect but holy crap, he's 74. Also, I didn't know that he skipped the Newfoundland teams at the 1971 and 1975 Briers.)

ZEBRAS IN THE WILD PRONE TO CONSTANT WHISTLE USE.

- This is really what every real hockey ran feared isn't it, that the refereeing would be radically inconsistent in the playoffs? About a month or so ago the whistles went away, so to speak, and we saw games being called as we normally see playoff games called - very few penalties and letting the players play. But last night we saw that the NHL has obviously mandated that penalties be called by early-season standards. In the 4 games played last night there were 63, yes SIXTY-THREE penalties called. 22 in the Ottawa/Pittsburgh game, 17 in the Nashville/San Jose game, 15 in the Vancouver/Dallas game and 9 in the Anaheim/Minnesota game. The only total that seems reasonable to me is the 9 from the Anaheim/Minnesota game. All we can do is hope this trend doesn't continue. Nobody wants to see an endless parade to the penalty box or games and series being decided by power plays called on a referee's whim. Just let them play.

NHL FANS WEEP FOR GOOD OLD DAYS.

-In, what can only be described as a horribly misguided attempt to make the game seem cooler and more hip, NHL.com has given us "celebrity" blogs for the playoffs. And trust me, they are using the term celebrity in the absolute loosest sense of the word - as I'm not entirely certain that the bass player from Nickleback constitutes a celebrity, or how about professional wrestler Edge. Honestly, I can't say any more about this... they're just making it too easy, it's not even fun anymore. Oh, I should mention too that rapper Lil' Jon, who was famous for about 17 seconds 3 years ago, has a blog on there as well.

But here are the links so you can make up your own jokes about the NHL:

http://fans.nhl.com/Groups/Celebrity_Blogs_About_Western_Conference_Teams/
http://fans.nhl.com/Groups/Celebrity_Blogs_About_Eastern_Conference_Teams/

I'm Outraged...

...what a shock.

So if you happened to see the front page of today's Globe and Mail, you saw the controversy over the Toronto Blue Jay's new commercial, which features new designated hitter Frank Thomas getting in a pillow fight with two kids. You can view the ad here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMdelLmvUf0&NR=1

I think it's a decent commercial, not fantastic but probably better than most. However, the agency that governs broadcasting on private television stations thinks otherwise. Apparently this commercial violates their stringent standards on real-life depictions of pillow fighting. (Actually according to the Television Bureau of Canada, the commercial wouldn't be aired until the kid getting knocked off the bed and the thud sound was taken out.)

According to the TBC's website, "it is imperative to keep the best interests of young children and youth in mind when producing commercials. Because children and youth are very impressionable, commercials should not contain any visual or audio portrayals which are detrimental to their well-being." (Quote taken from globesports.com, you can actually read the Globe's story here.)

Ok, my first problem is HOW IS THIS FRONT PAGE NEWS IN A NATIONAL NEWSPAPER!! Surely there are more important things going on in Canada and the world than this, and there are.

But my real problem with this whole situation is that this is the STUPIDEST THING I HAVE EVER HEARD OF!! Are we as a society so terrified of any and every one's delicate sensibilities being offended that we can't even run commercials depicting children being knocked off beds onto floors during pillow fights? (And based on the evidence in the commercial, the kid is obviously uninjured and pain-free. Now if he had come up screaming and holding his shattered arm or a bloody stump it might be a different story.)

There is no doubt in my mind that being knocked off the bed a couple times would do kids some good. But if people are going to start abusing their kids because of this commercial, they they're too stupid to be alive let alone procreate and they should have their children taken away just on general principle, never mind because of child abuse.

Now I'm all for protecting kids from child-molesters, on-coming traffic and Rosie O'Donnell but kids falling off things, getting scraped up and getting hit in the chest with pillows swung by former AL home run champs is what being a kid is all about. I have no desire to get into a huge sociological debate on the sports page, but kids are coddled way too much...and that commercial is kinda funny and original, and original advertising is hard to find.

But it's not just the protecting of kids that's the problem, we're just entirely too sensitive about everything now...

Like this, can someone please tell me why this needed to be censored:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTHksQR1uwk

The TBC said that this commercial could not be shown on private broadcasts (basically everything but CBC) with out a 'Dramatization' being added to the bottom.

Now this is even more ridiculous than the Frank Thomas situation. Who on the face of the Earth is stupid enough to think this is an appropriate way to deal with trash? Would anyone, anywhere think that this was real if 'Dramatization' had not appeared on the bottom of their television screen, telling them they shouldn't throw their garbage at the trash collector?

The sad answer is probably yes.

But why is everything, everywhere catered to people of this ilk? Should we not be trying to raise the level of discourse in this country and not always catering and worrying about the lowest common denominator? It's pretty obvious we're terrified that someone, somewhere might get offended by a kid getting knocked off a bed or that some cement-head might try to throw his trash like a cut-fastball.

This is all just so stupid.

I'm still outraged.