Author Archives: Kent Sterling

Ryan Dempster Fined $2,500 for Plunking A-Rod; Fundraising Ideas Abound

by Kent Sterling

Win this scratch-off game, and pelt A-Rod once per week!

Win this scratch-off game, and pelt A-Rod once per week!

When I read that Ryan Dempster was fined the very manageable amount of $2,500 for his fastball to the very selfish and non-contrite ribs of Alex Rodriguez, I thought, “Man, what a great fundraising idea!”  For $2,500, I might have one more legit fastball in the wing to unleash.

Then I started doing the math.  As I write this, the National Debt is $16,740,773,689,542.09.  That amount divided by $2,500 per comes to 6,696,309,475.  That is very close to the number of people on the planet.

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If everyone in the world could be organized into a series of lines that would allow a person to throw at A-Rod at the rate of one per second, it would take 212 years and two months to move through everyone.  A-Rod would likely never make it past day two of this stoning and only the first 25% would survive to reach the end of the line.

Back to the drawing board.  Trying to make lemonade with the lemons A-Rod and Ryan Dempster have provided is finally giving me a reason to use the math I learned in the sixth grade.

Purdue Must Make Its “You Oughta Be Proud” Video Public Again

by Kent Sterling

Had I looked like this, I would have sacked up. Sadly, my pimp look was more suburban stupid than urban chic.

Had I looked like this, I would have sacked up. Sadly, my pimp look was more suburban stupid than urban chic.

I wore a pimp outfit to school once.  Actually, it was pajamas with a sport coat over the top with a pair of boots and a wide brimmed hat.  There was no context for the stupidity – no dress up day or National Pimp Day to explain my idiocy, and as I stepped into the halls, I realized that what I was doing was potentially so memorable that it could define me forever among classmates and friends.

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As I ducked down a stairwell to hide, a guy I knew a little bit named Brian Jones followed me and asked what I was doing.  I told him that I figured out that my outfit was a critical error, and I was abandoning ship.  He said, “You need to own it.  You started the joke, now grow some balls and own it.”

Brian left, and I was left at the bottom of the stairs to ponder his sage wisdom.  I was ready to step into the hall when I remembered that for reasons best left unexplained I kept a spare pair of jeans and shirt in the radio room, so I ditched the outfit in favor of more traditional teenage garb.

But Brian’s advice stuck with me.  If you screw up, laugh along with everyone else.

Purdue students have evidently produced a fan video designed to engage students in the same way “This Is Indiana” does for Hoosiers.  It got a lot of talk and continues to, but the authors have removed it from public access on youtube.

It’s time for these erstwhile Spike Jonze’s to man up and accept their place as objects of mockery.  There is value in greatness as well as humiliatingly bad.  Anonymity lurks in the middle.  No one ever remembers the two star movies, but the zero star debacles?  There are film festivals dedicated to those lumps of coals.

Be proud of the scorn.  It’s not everybody who can captivate the state’s media so quickly, even if it’s through incompetence.  Sure, it might be painful to be “that guy,” but only if you allow it to be painful.

If you own your position as the person who perpetrated this catastrophe, you become known as someone with a sense of humor about yourself.  If you hide in a corner, you will be mocked forever as the boob who wouldn’t own your work.

Remember the “Boom goes the dynamite!” guy at Ball State.  He was the central figure in the worst sportscast ever contemplated.  That made him unique, and unique is good.  Unique turns you into a celebrity.  He shunned that celebrity, and now instead of remembering him fondly, we only remember the act – not the heroism of standing up to the harsh spotlight of fame through failure.  His video has been viewed 8,266,517 times!

I’ve seen it 100 times, and it still makes me laugh.  The kid is so earnest and flustered.  The “Boom goes the dynamite” moment is the one piece of almost graceful redemption in the 3:54 sportscast.  Maybe the Purdue video has that one shining moment, maybe not, but they should let us discover it.

The Purdue student(s) who crafted this unmasterful work have the kind of opportunity that doesn’t come around very often, and at the moment I’m writing this, it is being blown because the stones needed to claim it are nowhere to be found.

It’s not too late.

There are two kinds of F students – those whose sweat, bleed, and cry because they can’t remember whether Lee or Grant led the North in the Civil War.  Then there are those who just don’t give a damn and own their ignorance.  Not only are those in the second group more fun to be around, they’re usually much more successful.

Rappers from Purdue – to which group will you belong?  You might as well own it now as the horse is out of the barn, as they say in Tippecanoe County.

Someone made a copy of the video while it was live on youtube, and I’m not sure why anyone cares.  Nothing great, nothing terrible.  Of course, it’s embarrassing as these videos usually are, but not more than the engineering video produced by the same earnest crew.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkUrAXshzXg&feature=youtu.be

Indianapolis Colts – Rick Venturi Talks About Owner Jim Irsay, Preseason Football, and Jay Cutler

by Kent Sterling

The coach knows all, and he shares it below.

The coach knows all, and he shares it below.

Colts owner Jim Irsay is a bit of a puzzle wrapped in a riddle encased in an enigma, so trying to guess what he’s trying to do with his Twitter account is anyone’s guess.  When making a guess, it’s always good to talk to someone who worked with the mercurial head horseshoe for 12 years.

Rick Venturi knows Irsay in ways that few others ever will, and he shares his insight in the interview below. He also talks about the 2013 Colts – what can be expected during the remainder of the preseason and beyond.

When the former NFL head coach and defensive coordinator mentioned his friendship with Marc Trestman, I asked about Jay Cutler, and his future with the Chicago Bears.

As always, with Rick Venturi you get unique and informed insight unavailable elsewhere.  Listen to the interview below and tell me you wouldn’t want to hear that level of compelling content in Indianapolis or nationally on a daily basis.

Ball State Might Be the Best College Football Team in Central Indiana

by Kent Sterling

Pete Lembo has won everywhere he's coached, and now he might be ready for something special in 2013 at Ball State.

Pete Lembo has won everywhere he’s coached, and now he might be ready for something special in 2013 at Ball State.

College football fans in Indiana tend to focus on Notre Dame, Purdue, and Indiana.  Ball State is a bit like a forgotten neighbor kid who is never invited to play with the older kids on the block when it comes to conversations about football among fans here.

The Cardinals are not likely to catch the Fighting Irish in terms of quality of play, and sure as hell will never achieve their popularity, but the Hoosiers and Boilers might be had in 2013.

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The Ball State Cardinals under coach Pete Lembo beat Indiana 2011 and 2012.  This year, the Hoosiers aren’t on the Cardinals’ schedule, which is a positive move for the Cream and Crimson.  You can’t lose to teams you don’t play.  A Big Ten team should never lose to a MAC team, and sure as hell never twice in a row, especially when the campuses are roughly equidistant from Indianapolis the hotbed of recruiting in the state.

Brady Hoke got the program rolling back in 2008 with a 12-0 regular season mark before leaving for San Diego State and then Michigan, and now Lembo is doing the same thing with a senior quarterback who is likely to own all the records set five years ago by Nate Davis.

Keith Wenning is almost certainly the best college quarterback in Indiana, and Ball State will go as far as Wenning propels them.

Coming off a 9-4 campaign and trip to the Beff O’Brady Bowl, Ball State is looking for big things – as expressed in the interview below with Fox 59’s Jeremiah Johnson and me.

How Would America Respond to NCAA Violations If Johnny Manziel Was Black?

by Kent Sterling

Johnny Manziel - how could a kid who looks like this just be a sleaze who grabbed a bunch of cash?

Johnny Manziel – how could a kid who looks like this just be a sleaze who grabbed a bunch of cash?

When I filled in for Michael Grady last Thursday and Friday, Joe Staysniak and I didn’t take many calls, and there was one I didn’t take on purpose.  The call screen gave a name and the question he wanted to ask, “What if Johnny Football was black?”

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I avoided it for two reasons – I had never considered that question, and because Michael as an African American would provide a more interesting answer than I could.  Since I saw it on the call screen, the question of what my response would be if Manziel was a black man accused of profiting from signing autographs has rattled in my mind.

Manziel has become a bit of a hero to many who view the business model employed by collegiate athletic departments as outrageous.  The athletes earn the opportunity to go to school for free in exchange for agreeing to play a sport and signing over their rights to profit from their image.

Write a check for $20,000 to the Texas A&M Athletic Department, and you get to sit at Manziel’s table at a preseason dinner.  If the table seats 10, the school gets $180K.  Manziel gets to go to chemistry class without paying.

If someone would like to convince me of the justice in that deal, I’m all ears.  Manziel supposedly signed 4,400 items for autograph dealers, and only a thick wad of cash would motivate anyone to perform a task that mind numbingly tedious.

So, for the sake of discussion, let’s assume Manziel did all that he is accused of.  Now let’s assume he’s not a self-impressed rich white kid from the land of “Friday Night Lights,” but a poor black kid from Ohio swapping his autograph for tattoos.

When I heard about the Ohio State players who signed autographs and gave some jerseys and pads to a tattoo artist in Columbus, I thought Terrelle Pryor, Dan Herron, DeVier Posey, Mike Adams and Solomon Thomas were idiots for jeopardizing their eligibility over tattoos.  The morality play that I have concocted to explain Manziel’s decision paints the NCAA rule book as the bad guy, and Manziel as some rogue who unwittingly is causing a correction in the ongoing injustice of student-athletes owning their likenesses was absent from my thoughts.

I had no such narrative in mind for the Ohio State kids.  While I hope that has nothing to do with the races of the protagonists, it certainly does.  It’s easy to view the Ohio State group as disorganized knuckleheads because the compensation was ink for their signatures instead of cash, but the principle is the same.  It doesn’t take a deductive reasoning expert to see the similarities in the two groups of incidents.

In my mind, I don’t have a racist cell in my body.  I have never thought of the color of a person when evaluating his or her character, but without knowing Manziel or the ink stained fellows at Ohio State we tend to create a visual narrative in our own minds for each episode.

For the Ohio State kids, my mind takes those kids to a tattoo parlor that would fit very easily into an episode of HBO’s “The Wire.”  Manziel has become a combination of “Friday Night Lights” characters Tim Riggins and Matt Sarecen as the son of car dealer Buddy Garrity.

But that’s not all.  The scene where Manziel allegedly is met by the autograph dealer while with some friends in the Ft. Lauderdale airport where they landed on their way to the BCS National Championship Game.  That is straight out of “Entourage” with Vincent Chase finding a quick and easy way to get enough cash to pay for a wild weekend of fun.

If Manziel were a black 20 year-old, there is no question the little cinematic gem that plays in my mind would be radically different – not because of some insidious level of conscious racism in my soul, but because we judge what we see.  Same with the Ohio State player.  If they were white kids, the tattoo parlor wouldn’t be some poorly lit storefront in a bad neighborhood filled with boarded up buildings.  It would be well-lit in a decent area filled with tourists.  What we don’t see with our eyes, we concoct with our imagination.

The rule governing student-athletes being required to cede ownership of their images is a horrible overstep that has gone unchallenged for too long, and the race of the violators shouldn’t matter in the least.  But it does.

That’s a shame, but it’s the truth.

Chicago Cubs Aren’t Being Held to a Different Standard by Chicago Fans & Media – They’re Being Held to No Standard

by Kent Sterling

The microphones all eagerly await the next load of crap from a man who dispenses quite a bit of it.

The microphones all eagerly await the next load of crap from a man who dispenses quite a bit of it.

It’s hard to know who to be more pissed off at – the idiots who continue to pay retail to watch horrible baseball in Wrigley Field, or the morally bankrupt ownership who continues to charge among the highest prices in baseball for a product they know is incapable of a reasonable facsimile of success.

By listening to fans and media in Chicago, you would think that winning is impossible for the Cubs without another three years of losing.

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The media applaud the incredible work done by the Cubs brass to sign four of the top 23 international prospects – including the top two – while the team is an overwhelming failure for the fifth straight season.  They mention quietly that Eloy Jimenez, Erling Moreno, and Gleyber Torres are 16, and top scouts are unsure what their ceilings are or when they might reach the majors (2018 is the most optimistic estimate).  Jen-Ho Tseng is 18, and my guess is that he’s two years closer than the other three.

Comcast Sports Chicago shows home runs hit by prospect Javier Baez in AA as though his runs count at Wrigley Field today.  Jorge Soler is injured, and fans talk about how this will delay the resurgence of a franchise that has played in the postseason in back-to-back seasons only in years ending in 07 and 08 (1907 and 1908; 2007 and 2008) in the last 106 years.

So as we move toward the 10th anniversary of the most disappointing moment on a long list of disappointing moments for a franchise whose brand is the very embodiment of disappointment, the dynamic duo of Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer are setting a miraculous standard of soft-selling that is designed to extend their contracts rather than to bring championships to a 100 year-old building that has never experienced one.

That seems to be fine with everyone.  Does the acceptance of losing by the team doing the losing absolve them from justifying wildly aggressive ticket prices as they relate to success?

The Cubs are on a pace to lose 92.178 games this season after losing 101 games in 2012.  Never before have the Cubs lost more than 193 games in any two consecutive seasons – ever.  As bad as the Cubs of the College of Coaches were, they never lost like this era of Cubs might.  As horrible a team as the Cubs had in 1999-2000 and 1974-1975, they never lost 194 games.  Only once have the Cubs lost 90+ games for three straight years – 1960-1962.  That appears to be a likelihood in 2011, 2012, and 2013.

The Cubs front office is applauded by fans and the media for trying something radical – like losing – as though losing has never happened before to the Cubs.  No, losing has been tried – in spades.  Maybe this is the first time it has become a strategy that is openly discussed, but there have been decades of losing through incompetence that sustained a routine of heartbreak unrivaled in the history of sport.

The supossed young core around which the Cubs will build – Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo, Jeff Samardzija, and Edwin Jackson – have been awful.  Shouldn’t someone be held accountable for the current train wreck before we celebrate a 2019 World Championship six years early?

Yet Cubs fans and the media are ready to host a parade for Theo and Jed – the duo who finally made hope impossible to justify to a fanbase whose willingness to hope in the face of all logic is their only redeeming virtue.

If longtime Chicago Ford dealer Bert Weinman sold cars by claiming the highest prices and lowest quality, he could open a showroom where the Cubby Bear is and make millions.

I know exactly where I sat for each of the dozens of Cubs games my Dad took me to.  I know where I sat to watch games with Nick Anson when we were in high school.  The first day our son was allowed to leave our apartment after he was born ill, my wife and I took him to a double header in which – not surprisingly – the Cubs were swept.  I know exactly where I sat with Bill, Larry, and other friends in Chicago on so many great afternoons and nights I can’t count them.  I mention all that to let you know that Wrigley Field is among my favorite places on the planet.

But I can’t in good conscience watch a game at 1060 West Addison because the evil men running the show are frauds.  The owner is a liar who threatened to leave Wrigley Field when he had no interest in doing so.  Wrigley Field is the only asset drawing fans through turnstiles, and without it the Cubs would be the Miami Marlins.  He also guaranteed a championship if updates to Wrigley were approved.  Choose the story that resonates best.

The president and GM are allocating resources to sign school kids whose minor league development will last well into their second contracts.  Over three million per year with no chance of winning until year five at the earliest is a hell of a deal for Theo.

In my lifetime, the Cubs have been woeful, mediocre, five outs away, pathetic, thrilling, and moving.  I’ve laughed, cried, and died just a little bit at Wrigley Field.  As a Cubs fan, I’ve been disappointed, excited, bored, and tortured.  But I never felt cheated until Tom Ricketts bought the team.

I knew that being a Cubs fans was a choice that came with risks – like never knowing what it was like to celebrate – but I never felt duped or stupid until Ricketts spoke of living across the street, guaranteed championships, or abandoning Wrigley Field.

There is no doubt that Ricketts is a smart man, but he has one fatal flaw – he thinks Cubs fans are all idiots.

I wish one person in Chicago would stand up and say so.  Where’s Mike Royko when we need him?

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The Many Problems with Fox Sports 1 Allow ESPN to March Confidently

by Kent Sterling

Fox Sports 1 wants you to care about what Andy Roddick thinks about the LA Dodgers.

Fox Sports 1 wants you to care about what Andy Roddick thinks about the LA Dodgers.

“It’s the content, dummy!”  That’s what I would yell at the programmers who have launched Fox Sports 1 as a  supposed competitor for the massive national sports audience share owned by ESPN.

So far, I would be surprised if they can catch NBC Sports Network.

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Fox Sports 1 is a train wreck, and that isn’t going to change because the execution of the product shows perfectly the wrongheaded priorities of those in charge.

The information is wrong, and the analysts are ridiculously miscast.  As I watched tennis great Andy Roddick and former point guard Gary Payton discussing the incredible run of the Los Angeles Dodgers, I thought of the 1992 vice presidential debate between Al Gore, Dan Quayle, and James Stockdale.

Stockdale earned a Medal of Honor and four Silver Stars during one of the finest military careers in American history, but was so woefully miscast as a vice presidential candidate that during the debate, his opening statement began with two appropriate questions, “Who am I? Why am I here?”

Roddick might have wondered who in the audience gave a damn about his thoughts on baseball, and the answer might have sent him from the set in tears.  ESPN rolls with baseball analysis from John Kruk, Tim Kurkjian, Curt Schilling, Doug Glanville, Bob Holtzman, Jon Schiambi, Rick Sutcliffe, and others.  Nowhere on the list is Jimmy Conners, Lee Trevino, or Wayne Gretzky.

That’s because what ESPN knew from the beginning is that unique content is king, and the ability to offer it will always attract viewers.  Content creates stars, not the other way around.

You would have though Fox might have figured that out with “American Idol.”  The original featured four mostly unknowns in Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul, and Ryan Seacrest.  That show turned all four into stars.  Since the show has been recast with stars like Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban, and Steven Tyler, the content has suffered, and so has audience satisfaction as reflected by ratings.

The execution of what Fox should be doing well has been lacking as well.  In one five minute span on Saturday night, at least three were obviously wrong.  I would recommend “Find the Graphic Goof” as a drinking game, but no one could stay conscious through the first 45 minutes of drinking every time an inaccurate graphic was revealed.

  • Fox Sports 1 showed the home run hit that afternoon by Miguel Cabrera – his 39th.  This was at 11p, and the graphic for AL leaders showed Cabrera with 38.
  • For the NL RBI leader graphic, Fox Sports 1 identified a picture of Jay Bruce as Freddie Freeman.
  • NL ERA leaders showed a picture of Adam Wainwright, but ID’ed him as Patrick Corbin.

Five minutes of that with Roddick slicing and dicing the Dodgers was enough to put me off this product forever.  With apologies to The Who, “Meet the new Fox, same as the old Fox.”

The old Fox Sports gathered as many big sports names and hot chicks as they could squeeze under one roof, and turned them loose.  It was an unholy mess.  Ditto this, but with the bizarre addition of Regis Philbin.  I wonder what Regis would have told people when he was the second banana on the Joey Bishop Show almost 50 years ago if someone told him that in 2013 he would be the host of a sports show on TV.

Of all the crazy hires on Fox Sports 1, the sanest might actually be Regis.  More than anything else, Regis is a broadcaster, and Fox Sports 1 needs broadcasters to drive the train and help the dozens of disparate parts to  be the best version of themselves.  For many years, Regis helping Kathie Lee Gifford’s personality approach likability.  Anyone who can do that has great on-camera value.

The only network to launch during the past decade who did it right is the MLB Network.  They understood from jump street that content creates stars, and so they hired people who can present unique content in an entertaining way.

The NFL Network can be hard to watch.  There are members of that team that seem to exist only to cackle at the antics of others, and that inside communication can be annoying.

Let it never be said that I am only willing to reveal easily defined problems.  Here is a list of must-dos for any network launch:

  • Always launch quietly.  The temptation to go way over the top with relentless “Coming August 17th!” messaging to open with a bang is almost impossible to resist.  That the bang might be viewer satisfaction hitting the floor as they watch a product that is not ready for mass consumption should temper enthusiasm.  Get good before telling people how good you are.
  • Hire performance, not Q ratings.  Everyone is unknown at some point, so don’t sweat recognition scores.  Hire the most compelling people, and make sure they have everything necessary to perform with confidence.
  • Support staff is as critical as on-air talent.  A great product requires great producers, so don’t cheat the prep process by hiring cheap, lazy, or ill-informed behind-the-scenes talent.  There is no faster way to improve a show than hiring a great producer, and no quicker way to kill it than by hiring a bad one.  The person or people who assembled the inaccurate graphics never should have been hired by Fox Sports 1, and absolutely should be fired.  The person in charge of hiring those positions should also be canned.
  • Be patient.  Talk products are going to take some time to coalesce, so expect to experience some growing pains.  That growth is best done with minimal exposure.  ESPN was a bizarre little network for the first three years it was on.  They made it up on the fly, and mistakes outnumbered victories, but they kept the wins and learned from the mistakes.  They didn’t launch like they exist today.  They had Tom Mees, Lou Palmer, Chris Berman, George Grande, and Jim Simpson doing all kinds of weird stuff.  Not only does the product take a couple of years to find itself, it takes viewers longer than that to recognize the quality.  How many people were talking about “Breaking Bad” after season one?  How many people are talking about it five years later?

The painful (for Fox Sports 1) truth is that there is no market for another all-sports network.  There is virtually no meaningful play-by-play up for grabs, and ESPN already has ESPN2, ESPN News, and ESPNU.  Each major professional league has its own network, and do the major collegiate conferences.

Everyone wants to find a way to mimic ESPN’s ability to monetize cable and satellite subscribers.  Two-thirds of ESPN’s gross revenue comes from subscription charges, and who wouldn’t want to wake up on the morning of the first day of your fiscal year nearly 70% of the way home?

Catching ESPN is likely impossible, and Fox knows this better than anyone, because ESPN pushes itself hard to fortify itself against all potential attacks as part of its DNA.

Ryan Dempster Does Right Thing in Drilling ARod, and Oddly, So Does ARod in Drilling a Dempster Fastball

by Kent Sterling

Alex Rogriguez winces as a Ryan Dempster fastball connects with his ribcage.

Alex Rogriguez winces as a Ryan Dempster fastball connects with his ribcage.

New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez is not just a cheater, but an ass.  Not only did he use PEDs, according to Major League Baseball’s investigation, his representatives have reportedly named names of others who used PEDs, and he continues to fight a suspension that is just.

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He continues to play for the Yankees until the appeal of the suspension is heard and ruled upon, so Boston Red Sox pitcher Ryan Dempster stuck a 92 mph fastball in his ribs last night during Rodriguez’ first trip to the plate in the top of the second inning.  Good for Dempster.  That’s baseball.

There is room for frontier justice in baseball, and Dempster as one of the best men in the game is the perfect judge, jury, and executioner to let Rodriguez know that not only is all not forgiven, forgotten, and normal – there is lasting resentment seared into the hearts of ballplayers for Rodriguez’ behavior.

Rodriguez is a pox on the game, and regular reminders that he has no business on a diamond are warranted.  If Commissioner Bud Selig can’t keep Rodriguez from playing, then pitchers can make it miserable for him.

A lack of respect for the games requires a consequence, and Dempster brought it as best his 36 year-old right arm could.

Rodriguez appeared stunned, hardly surprising given his relentless squirming and wriggling to avoid the penalty for the self-centered mopery represented by using PEDs.  Then he righted the ship, made a great swing in the top of the sixth, and hit a rocket deep into the Boston night for a home run.

That’s baseball.  There is no need for Joe Torre or Selig to insert themselves into this fracas.  Dempster acted, and Rodriguez reacted.  Each loudly made his point, and the conversation ended with Rodriguez getting the last word.

Baseball is a men’s game played by tough guys who have a strong set of beliefs.  Those beliefs have led Dempster to work harder raising money for charity and to give special children smiles than the combined work of most entire rosters, so if Dempster felt the need to reach back for a little extra to remind Rodriguez that there are people in the game who know a weasel when they see one – good for him.  Dempster has built enough equity to make that play if he feels it’s necessary.

And while we’re passing out plaudits, I liked Yankees manager Joe Girardi busting a gasket all over home plate umpire Brian O’Nora when he issued warnings to both benches after Dempster’s fourth inside pitch finally connected.  Girardi was passionate in his defense of a ballplayer he could easily and justifiably abandon.

Ironically, Girardi called for Dempster to be suspended during his postgame media gathering, “”I’ll be really disappointed if he’s not suspended where he misses a start. They have a lot of days off and you could finagle something, like if he took the suspension tomorrow if he got suspended he wouldn’t miss a start. It has to cost him something.”

“It has to cost him something,” probably captures the thoughts ringing through Dempster’s head as he made the decision to hit Rodriguez.

The Red Sox and Yankees have seven more games against each other this season, and while these relentless ESPN broadcasts of Yankees vs. Red Sox games are an annoyance to the rest of the country, the next one will be must-see-TV.

Justice was served last night, but the trial likely isn’t over.

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Colts Win 20-12, and Irsay’s Tweets Had Nothing to Do With It

by Kent Sterling

imagesJim Irsay’s tweets were no more meaningful to the result of tonight’s win at MetLife Stadium than the super fan in Eagledale who watches from the same barcalounger in his lucky and faded Tony Siragusa jersey.

The Colts won for a few reasons – the defense didn’t allow a touchdown, and Reggie Wayne caught a deflected sure-thing-interception in the end zone for a touchdown.

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Quarterback Andrew Luck finished the game 9-of-13 for 107 yards, two TDs, no picks, and a quarterback rating of 133.7.

The Giants ran two more plays for three more yards, and had the ball for 10 more seconds.  This was a close game – a really close game – the kind of game the Colts won again and again last season on their way to an 11-5 record, and now there is a crazy reason from Jim Irsay to take credit for it.

His tweet after last week’s meaningless loss to the Buffalo Bills was ill-conceived and unnecessarily peeled back the curtain of managerial communication in the front office:

There is a tendency to see a cause and effect between our actions and the result, regardless of the absurdity of the connection.  Cubs pitcher Travis Wood had a no-hitter into the fifth inning earlier this year, and broadcaster Len Kasper called attention to it.  I sent him a tweet that thanked him for jinxing it, and the next pitch was lined in center for a base hit.  Kasper said he was getting killed on Twitter, and refused to apologize.  CBS Jim Nantz mentions the number of times in a row an athlete does something, and the next time the guy misses.  I was absolutely certain that the playing of Van Halen’s “Jump” was the cause of every bad thing that happened to the Cubs in the 1984 National League Championship series.

That the song was undoubtedly being played at some point somewhere during every pitch wasn’t lost on me, but when they fired it up in Walnut Knolls D-Building, Steve Garvey went deep, a grounder went through Leon Durham’s legs, and San Diego celebrated.

The Colts were a better team tonight than they were last Sunday, but the Colts will still be 0-0 until pads crack with purpose on September 8th against the Oakland Raiders.

On August 18th, it still feels better to win than lose, but as long as it’s true that the Colts went 4-22 while following that wretchedness with regular seasons of 75-21 and a 1-1 record in the Super Bowl from 2005-2010, the preseason is totally without predictive value.  And it is true.

As I’m writing this, Irsay felt compelled to weigh in:

Losing in the preseason served the Colts very well during that era.  I would argue that overreacting to losing (or winning) is a far more destructive behavior than accepting an occasional loss with good humor – even at checkers.

The point those who’ve been critical of Irsay’s initial tweet – the one posted first in this post – is that it’s fine being pissed off after a loss like the Colts suffered at the hands of the woeful Bills as long as you don’t air dirty laundry in public.

That’s what Jerry Jones does in Dallas, and while it has made Jones a huge celebrity and the face of the franchise, it has caused distraction in the franchise, and distractions are not productive.  The Cowboys have defined mediocrity over the past 15 years, and the reason stares back at Jones every morning when he shaves.

If nothing else, Irsay is giving the preseason a context that makes it more entertaining, and for that I thank him, but stop with the pithy tweets.  They might not hurt your team, but they sure as hell won’t help.

Only my family wearing their lucky Colts hats during every game, and switching seats every time an opponent scores can push the Horseshoes to victory.

ESPN’s Herm Edwards Needs to Have a Talk with Colleague Skip Bayless

by Kent Sterling

Oh boy.

Everyone makes mistakes, but given that the Seattle Seahawks migrated to the NFC West more than ten years ago, it’s a little odd for a guy like Skip Bayless to not recall what teams are in which NFL conference.  He’s paid a lot of money to know stuff like that.

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Especially when the Seahawks made it to the divisional round of the playoffs last year, losing a very exciting 30-28 game to the Atlanta Falcons.

Knowing everything is hard.  I need to look things up periodically because being right is important to me.  I want readers and listeners to believe that I know what the hell I’m talking about, and one mistake can erode trust very quickly.  That’s especially true when the person who errs is as pompous a performer as Bayless is.

I made a fairly big mistake once when I wrote that Dwane Casey sent an Emery envelope to recruit Chris Mills, and was punished for it.  I was right that Casey was penalized, but he subsequently sued and won a settlement because he never actually did the deed.  Thankfully, Casey contacted me and corrected my error.  Yikes – not a good day.  No one is perfect.

When the picture on your twitter home page features a sign that reads, “Why doesn’t anyone ever admit I’m right?”, you need to be factually correct as you espouse occasionally strange opinions – especially in a forum as transportable as Twitter..

Bayless is a flamethrower who obviously doesn’t always believe what comes out of his mouth.  He is a professional arguer who is equally adept at presenting either side of a debate with feigned passion.

Eventually, people catch on and realize that the moral compass that defines the feelings of most hosts is simply not any more present in Bayless than it is in a paid mouth like Jay Mariotti.  That will prompt those who don’t care much for that style of performance to share and share and share the tweet with their negative assessment of Bayless.

Bayless will survive this lapse despite allowing the tweet to continue to live on his feed 15 hours after it was posted because despite his role as a noisemaker opposite Stephen A. Smith on ESPN’s First Take, he’s a very gifted writer.

The people who dislike Bayless will see this as a confirmation of their feeling of ill-will, and those who like him won’t pay any attention to a brain fart.

In the meantime, Bayless needs to make sure he’s accurate, or as Herm Edwards consistently advises, “Don’t press send.”