Sports Media Review by Jonathan Weiler

Tuesday, October 3, 2006
11:44:00 AM EDT
I know I am little late on some of these items, but I was observing Yom Kippur and am otherwise scrambling to catch-up. 

1) From the backlog of “Quite Frankly” on my DVR: following Jeremy Shockey’s highly publicized comments after the Giants humiliating 42-30 loss to the Seahawks a week ago Sunday. Shockey was quoted as saying that “we got outplayed and outcoached and you can write that down” and was widely vilified for the comments. Stephen A. had this to say on last Wednesday’s show:

“Now wait a minute, do we live in a society whose culture makes it OK to blame the player for everything, while boneheaded coaches get a free pass.” Stephen A. also rejected the idea that Shockey should have kept his criticisms “in house,” nothing that “the Giants’ coaches didn’t hesitate to throw their players under the bus, by criticizing them after the game. 

First of all, allow me to agree with Stephen A. 1000% here (yes, I meant to type the extra 0). Second, I find it fascinating that Stephen A. used the introductory “do we live in a society…” for his comments. 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times in the past twenty years, that intro has been a set up for lamenting the break down of proper authority, the lack of respect of the modern athlete for his superiors, and the fact that the “inmates” are now running the asylum. Stephen A’s broken new ground here.

Giants’ coach Tom Coughlin, who has an increasingly oxymoronic reputation as a “disciplinarian” is fond of saying, in response to criticisms of the Giants’ performance: “we had a good game plan, we just didn’t execute.” What else is that but a statement that “the coaches came up with a great game plan and the players screwed it up.” Stephen A. pointed out last night that though Shockey has a loudmouth reputation and therefore little credibility, two other Giants – Osi Umenyiora and Tiki Barber – have specifically criticized the Giants’ coaches for inadequately preparing the players for upcoming opponents. And, both Barber and Umenyiora are quiet, respectful and well-respected guys. 

2) Last Thursday night, Suzyn Waldman, the Yankees’ color commentator on WCBS radio, praised Orioles’ catcher Ramon Hernandez. Hernandez has had a fine year behind the plate, but Waldman was praising the O’s backstop for his excellent work with the O’s young staff.  Other than the Royals, no team in baseball gave upmore runs than the O’s, who had a staff ERA of 5.35 and led the majors in homeruns allowed. As a group, in short, Orioles’ pitching was horrible this year. I give any catcher credit for making it through a full year in one piece, and the O’s mound corps was bound to be horrible regardless of whom was behind the plate. But, seriously…

3) Beano Cook was on Fox Sports Radio this weekend and said that he was either going to vote for Troy Smith or Brady Quinn for the Heisman. This drives me absolutely bananas. First, because it’s bad enough that the national champion in college football is determined, to a non-trivial degree, by where the top teams start the season, before they’ve played a down of football. To compound this by turning the Heisman trophy winner into a political contest where starting position and reputation also decisively influences the final outcome is just absurd. There is only other set of individual awards in sports that gets the attention that the Heisman does, and that’s the Cy Young and MVP awards in baseball. And, it’s unthinkable that MVP voting, for example, would be substantially shaped by a guy’s reputation at the start of the season. No one even begins discussing the leading contenders for those awards in earnest until September. That’s sensible – because September is the end of the baseball season. That the same conversation starts in September in college football is ludicrous. 

Furthermore, only because the Heisman is gamed this way could Brady Quinn be one of Beano’s top contenders. Quinn’s team has played two good defenses so far – Georgia Tech’s and Michigan’s. He was thoroughly mediocre against the Yellow Jackets and his team managed just fourteen points. Against Michigan, Quinn simply got his ass kicked – he was a deer in the headlights, and played a dreadful game. He’s put up some big numbers in other games this season and he might end up having a big season, but if Quinn hadn’t been great last year (which he was), and wasn’t playing for Notre Dame, he would not be in this conversation.

As I have mentioned before, people wrongly believe that there is a pro-New York bias in award voting. The actual evidence shows quite the contrary.   There is, however, an indisputable pro-Notre Dame bias at work here (see Tim Brown: 1987).

Baseball Playoffs start tonight. I'll be watching closely, naturally.

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