"Jeter 2... A Boomer View" by Dad

     Well, okay, there was Honus Wagner, who proved you could play shortstop and be an offensive force. But he was before my time… and my father’s… and his father’s. So who played shortstop between Honus Wagner and Derek Jeter?
     For the most part, they were defensive gymnasts – skinny, quick glove men whose offensive shortcomings weren’t just accepted, they were nearly expected.
     In the 50s, a golden era for New York baseball, the reigning shortstops were PeeWee Reese on the Brooklyn Dodgers, and Phil Rizzuto on the Yankees. PeeWee’s nickname says it all when it comes to describing size and power from the shortstop position. (He will, however, always be a giant in the eyes of those of us who care about racial equality, after this Southern guy famously put his arms around his new double play partner in 1947, Jackie Robinson.)
     As for Phil Rizzuto, there isn’t a less deserving player in the Hall of Fame, as much as we loved his play calling later as a Yankee broadcaster.
     In my own baseball-loving New York boyhood, the two reigning shortstops were Bud Harrelson on the Mets and Gene Michaels on the Yankees. Harrelson’s playing weight didn’t much clear 150, and he didn’t bat much more than 100 points above his playing weight. And Michaels’ nickname was The Stick, not because of his bat, but because of his build.
     In the 80s, defense was so prized at the shortstop position that the Cardinals traded the best hitting shortstop of his year, Garry Templeton, to the Padres for the lighter hitting but awesome fielding Ozzie Smith. That Smith ultimately hit as well as he did, and he turned out to be pretty good, was considered to be icing on the shortstop cake.
    So then we had Yount and Ripken, the first wave of shortstops who could hit, but they each were switched from shortstop to other positions by their early 30s.
    Which led to the late 90s Three Amigos – Jeter, Garciaparra, and ARod. Three hard-hitting shortstops who we were told would redefine the position, except that Garciaparra’s career was crippled by injuries and we all know about ARod.
    Which leaves Jeter as the guy who redefined the position – for the ages, and for the future. He proved that a shortstop could be big and strong, and still be quick and durable enough to play the position well, and well into his late thirties. (I’m rooting hard for his turn 40 year).
    More than anyone, it’s been Jeter who’s set the stage for Hanley Ramirez, and beyond Hanley for an amazing new generation that includes names like Starlin Castro, Andrelton Simmons and Jean Segura.        
    And along the way, Jeter has been a role model to warm the heart of every father of boys (yes, including me). Jeter’s is an amazing and important baseball story, and this dad and Met fan will miss him when the season ends.

"2gens Jeter... a millenial view" by CBoh

     Derek Jeter announced that he is retiring at the end of this upcoming season. He is the captain and the last man standing of those dominant Yankee teams of the 1990’s and early 00’s.  As a Mets fan, every bone in my body is programmed to hate everything Yankees. Their holier-than-you attitude, their no facial hair rule, their spoiled fan base and championship or bust mentality. They consistently field very hateable teams, for obnoxious payrolls, to get cheered on by fair weather fans. However, through all that hate, Derek Jeter managed to come out clean. Pretty much the closest thing to a universally respected athlete -- maybe not liked, but respected by all fan bases. He played the game the right way on the field and kept his life incredibly private off the field, no easy feat when you are young, rich, and famous in Manhattan. 

     On the field, he was one of the most clutch players to ever play the game.  The one play that sticks out to me when thinking of Derek Jeter was against the Oakland A’s in during game 3 of the 2001 ALDS.  I forget the exact specifics of the game but will never forget what happened. The right fielder misses his cut off man and Jeter comes out of nowhere from across the field to scoop up the ball along the first base line and blindly throw out Jeremy Giambi at home to save the game and the series.  Even as a Yankee hater, 10 year old me could not have been more impressed.  That was the play every Little Leaguer dreamed of making and practiced in their backyard over and over. Going above and beyond his duties on the field to make a game saving play in a crucial situation -- plays like that made Derek Jeter a very special player and deserving to be called Captain. 

     Off the field Jeter never opened his mouth and give anyone a reason not to like him. He has lived his life the way every person who was thrown into money and fame would dream of living it.  He parties with models but never puts himself in compromising situations. He is respectful and smart with the media. He never talks about himself as a brand like so many athletes do today.  He is a tough guy to not respect both on and off the field. 

     Matt Harvey keeps saying he wants to be the next Derek Jeter in the way he handles the New York media, but in his young career has not handled himself in the Jeter mold, making some questionable decisions with both the marketing of himself and the handling of the media. I dream of Matt Harvey becoming a dominant New York Met for the next decade and to only hear stories of his dominance on the field as we did with Jeter. 

     Jeter announcing his retirement a year early is the first thing he has ever done that I have disliked.  I was sick of the Mariano Rivera retirement saga about two seconds into it, and having to relive another Yankee farewell tour is going to make this baseball season even more miserable. However, if one player deserves a year long celebration of himself, I would concede that Jeter is that man. 

"Rotisserie Baseball... I Love The 80s" by Dad

     Rotisserie Baseball dates back to about 1981. You may now know of it as fantasy baseball, but more on that later.

    

     A league called the Universal Baseball Association, or UBA, dates back to 1984.

    

     I have been playing in the UBA since 1986. So while I won’t claim to have been present at the creation, I was just 3 blocks south and 5 years late. There can’t be more than a couple of hundred guys who have played this fanatical game longer than I have. In fact, I do believe that the UBA founder actually has an aging sheet of paper, laced with the requisite faux self-importance, certifying the UBA as one of the first ten, or dozen, or hundred, rotisserie leagues ever formed, and signed by the game’s inventors.

     A (very) little history first.  The game was named Rotisserie Baseball because it was conceived by a bunch of Manhattan magazine guys (and one woman) at a restaurant called La Rotisserie Francaise. As I recall, it was on Third Avenue at 52^nd Street. I worked back then at an advertising agency on Third Avenue and 49^th Street.  I don’t think most of us can claim to have heard of this game until 1983, when the founders published a very entertaining rulebook that included a history of their first few seasons. These were, remember, magazine writers and editors.

     Apart from developing the rules, known now by millions, they also created a legacy involving showering the season’s winner with Yoo Hoo, a watery chocolate drink once hawked by Yogi Berra, and oddly clever team names. These were, remember, magazine guys. They were not, however, clever enough to have figured out a way to monetize this huge, game-changing, world-changing creation. They own the rights to the name Rotisserie Baseball, and apparently not much else.  This is why the world at large now plays something called fantasy baseball, no royalties required.

     Fast forward, no doubt on a VHS tape, to 1984. One of my ad agency’s music directors, and a great baseball fan, founds the UBA.  He was also quite well-read, and those who are similarly well-read will already have noted to themselves that The Universal Baseball Association is the title of a terrific Robert Coover novel about a boy who invents… an imaginary baseball game. The original UBA comprised the founder, a couple of other guys in our agency’s creative department, and a bunch of New York studio musicians who had a lot of time on their hands between gigs and sessions. These were very good music guys. One was in one of the incarnations of Blood, Sweat and Tears. Another was in The Knack, but only after “My Sharona.” Still another was one of the great jazz trombonists in New York – sadly, he passed away a few years ago. And one is still in Conan O’Brien’s band.

     None of them are still in the UBA. It is today a league of younger guys whose jobs I’m not really for the most part clear about. I do know that they are ferociously well-informed baseball guys – one is even the editor/director of one of the best fantasy baseball info sites, called Fake Teams. Check it out sometime.

     But I digress, because what I want to do now is describe what playing roto ball was like in the prehistoric, pre-web days.

     First, stats, because this game is nothing if not stats-driven. The bible, small b, was USA Today. This was where we each turned each morning to see how our team had done.  Many of us kept a notebook in which we would update, by hand, our stats for that week. Once a week, we would get a tally of stats from our crack stats service, comprised of standings and roster moves for the week that had actually ended three or four days before this all came in the mail. Or by snail mail as it’s now snidely, snarkily called.

     The other important thing about USA Today was that no claim could be made, or roster move approved, until the player’s or players’ own actual movement had been duly noted in the pages of America’s national newspaper. If you simply heard on the radio that the Reds had called up a catcher from Triple A, you couldn’t act on it until USA Today had published that fact.

     Another thing to note about no ‘net is that the huge amount of information to be found online was actually hard to dig up back then. The game today is one of making good guesses and sound judgments based on a ton of info that everybody has. Back then, proprietary info could be a huge trading advantage.  If you knew that the Padres were thinking of making a change at closer, that was a great piece of intelligence. But how could you get that before it appeared in USA Today or that other key source, The Sporting News? Here’s how: We all surreptitiously hit out-of-town newspaper stands. There was one just north of the main branch of the public library, on 43^rd Street just west of Fifth Avenue. Many a rainy night, I dropped ten bucks on papers from places like Cincinnati, Houston, and San Diego.

     And weekend box scores? USA Today didn’t publish on weekends, leaving us all to figure out what local papers were most likely to have even west coast box scores. The New York Times was hopeless, The Post was a little better. The Bergen Record was quite good.

     So now, say you think you have a trading advantage, or simply a need to unload some spare offense for some pitching. How did we trade without email? By phone, of course.  We would close the doors to our offices – yes, we had offices back then – and barter over lunch or between meetings. I would have piles of phone message note sheets with cryptic notations like:

CALLER: The Compozas

MESSAGE: Steve Sax?

     It could have been a message from a music production company, a completely legitimate business hours message in an ad agency. But it wasn’t.

     And when I speak of phones, of course I mean land lines. I have no idea how much of my phone bill went to roto ball trades, or how many quarters I dropped into pay phones. But I do believe that pay phones were no less important to roto ball players than they were to Superman.

      Today, the game is a web-based information extravaganza, and that happy fact is what has kept me playing. It’s also of course why fantasy sports have exploded. There aren’t ten million maniacs willing to walk in the New York rain to buy an Atlanta newspaper.

"An Appreciation of Nate Robinson" by CBoh

     The Knicks have gone through one of the worst stretches in NBA history. And my life as a Knicks fan has been filled with losing seasons, botched lottery picks, terrible ownership, and Isaiah Thomas, way too much Isaiah Thomas. To get through this streak that's been mediocre at best and downright pathetic at worst, Knicks fans have had to find enjoyment in the small things. One of these small things that brought so much joy to the depressed Knicks fans was Nate Robinson – actually, literally small. 

     Listed at 5’ 9” but actually probably closer to 5’ 7”, Nate Robinson is pound for pound the most exciting player in the NBA. During one of the darkest eras in Knicks history, Nate Robinson gave the fan a reason to tune in. According to new analytical stats, Nate Robinson’s style may not be considered super effective or conducive to winning, but hey, the Knicks from 2005-2010 didn’t exactly embody those traits either. Nate’s size (tiny), personality (huge), and ability to heat up at a moments notice (breathtaking) made the Knicks bearable to watch, hoping to see Nate put on a show. 

     Nothing in that time period was more exciting than seeing Nate hit his first shot, then his second, then a crazy, irrational, running three pointer 5 seconds into the shot clock, and you knew he was on, he was zoned in and it was going to be the Nate show. You began to text every other depressed Knicks fan that “Nate’s going off” and you would forget Isaiah was the coach, Dolan was the owner, and Eddy Curry was being paid millions of dollars, and just get to enjoy a man four inches shorter than me dominate a game of giants. 

     His stats from that era do not even come close to painting a picture of the enjoyment he brought to the fans during a time that lacked much to be excited about.  In an era of Dolan/Thomas darkness, Nate was the small glimmer of light that as a Knicks fan I will be eternally grateful for. 

     Nate has bounced around the league, winning the affection of every fan base of every team he has played for, including on the national stage during the last playoffs for the Rose-less Bulls. But for a New York fan Nate will always be a Knick. In one of Gotham’s darkest moments he may not have been the hero we deserved but the hero we needed. He was our kyptoNATE. And that is why he will always be my favorite Knick ever. 

"Why College Basketball and Football Are a Sham" by Bojo

Imagine a situation where a professional organization wanted to willingly pay someone tens of millions of dollars for their services, and that person wanted to willingly provide their services to that organization. And everything was completely kosher from both a moral and legal standpoint, yet still neither party could enter into that deal.

Sounds somewhat…un-American, I might say.

Yet that is exactly what happens every single year with big-time college football and basketball, which over the decades have warped into (or always were) the farm systems for the NFL and NBA.  I don’t have to remind anyone that considers themselves even a casual sports fan that this system has become more and more exaggerated in its unfairness over the years. Large television deals and ticket sales bring in countless millions to universities, who in turn pay their athletic department members incredibly well. The professional sports teams get their farm systems, at no cost. Everyone wins except the athletes, somewhat per usual.

The NFL and MLB have their own, distinct, professional “minor” leagues, where players are paid, and are not burdened with the ‘amateur’ tag by any governing body, allowing them to make that money. There are a number of advantages to this. Specially talented players like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper in the MLB can bypass the entire process and head straight to the big leagues (and make the big bucks they rightfully are able to earn), while there is still ample room for the less prodigious players to develop into MLB level talents, while actually earning money along the way.

I think that is the proper system, or at the very least, you can’t bar athletes like Jadeveon Clowney and Jameis Winston from making money that NFL teams are ready to pay them. Two years ago, Clowney would have been a top ten pick. In last year’s NFL draft, he would have gone number one overall. In 2013, his performance suffered, probably at least in part to the fact that he is a human being and not a football-playing-robot, and thus, injury had to be at least partly in the back of his mind. And while yes, these athletes can and do take out insurance policies on themselves, a one time payment of 1-5 million dollars is nothing compared to what a decade-long NFL career can yield. 

One of the major arguments against high school athletes heading straight to the pros come in the forms of the Sebastian Telfair’s, or other players whose athletic careers have not panned out as planned. However, just because some players have failed, does not mean we should leap as a society to prevent, somewhat arbitrarily, someone from earning money that they are capable of earning. It goes against a lot of principles this country is founded on.

In terms of alternatives, I would have to defer to someone infinitely more informed on the subject than myself, but all I know is that preventing basketball players even a year, and preventing football players three years from earning money that they otherwise would be earning, is unfair, and un-American. It should end.

As I write this, I can’t help but make the mental leap that the predominantly white sports of baseball and hockey have systems where players can leap from high school to the pros or paid minor leagues, while the predominantly black NFL and NBA do not. But that too might be a discussion for some more intelligent and informed than myself. 

MeloDrama by Dad and CBoh

Dad: 

I think the Knicks should never made made that Anthony trade 2 years ago next month.  The Donny Walsh Knicks were improving, playing well together, and fun to watch.  Felton was playing great point guard, Chandler looked like the perfect 6th man, and Gallanari like a star in the making.  Suddenly, they were gone, PLUS this year's first round pick, for Anthony and some old men.

This year's Knicks are an obvious train wreck.  Not Melo's fault, but whole game is 3 guys standing around waiting for him or Smith to take some awkward 20 footer.

I also think they should trade Melo NOW since he seems to want to walk at year's end. 

CBoh:

In Defense of Melo:

The NBA is a star driven league, and to win a championship a star player is needed. The only team in recent memory to win a championship without a superstar is the 2004 Detroit Pistons, which was one of the most talented, unselfish starting fives ever assembled. 

And there is no doubt Carmelo Anthony is a superstar and a top-10 player capable of leading a team to the championship.  The Knicks have the star.  It is instead the incompetency of a front office unable to build a suitable roster around him that leads to consistent embarrassment. 

What the Knicks gave up for Carmelo, while all players I like and whose leaving the Knicks upset me, have not proven to be anything but solid role players. Even worse, they were role players who were due to be given pay raises very shortly after being traded.  It would have been impossible to sign Carmelo the following summer and still be able to keep Gallinari (who got four years for 42 million) or Wilson Chandler (who got 5 years for 37 million).  Beyond that, Timofey Mozgov has been proving this season to be a decent rim protecter who is best known for having Blake Griffin leap over him on a monster dunk that is still sometimes played on Sportscenter. Nobody there is winning you a championship. The Nets gave up more to get Deron Williams, who is far more of a selfish, egotistical, me first, coach killing player than Carmelo has ever been. 

The problem with the Knicks is the front office, which has surrounded him with offensive, shoot-first players. It is unfair to label Carmelo selfish or lazy. He has absolutely been carrying the Knicks with Chandler down, putting some heroic performances up. He is the best isolation scorer in the game and a hugely underrated offensive rebounder and passer. The Knicks roster may not be talented enough to challenge the NBA elite, but you cannot blame Melo for anything. Besides, their recent winning streak  has shown that when the Knicks play hard and smart, Carmelo is capable of leading his team unselfishly. 

"Tom Really Was Terrific" by Dad

     It’s not the 311 wins, or the 3 Cy Youngs, or 3,640 Ks, or career 2.86 ERA, as amazing as those numbers are. 

     It’s not the 1.121 career WHIP, or the incredible 11 Wins Against Replacement (WAR) in 1973 – stats that didn’t even exist back then, and wouldn’t for another two decades.

     It’s just that at a certain time and place in my life, sports fandom was all about Tom Seaver. Walt Frazier was awesome, and Joe Namath completely cool, but if you were a junior high baseball fanatic in Connecticut in the late 60s, and a basically straight arrow, high achieving kid, Tom Seaver was your go-to sports hero.

     Mr. Clean Guy from California, living in Greenwich, CT with a knockout blonde wife always referred to by reporters and announcers as “the lovely Nancy Seaver,” he was the guy we all would have preferred to be instead of the acne-challenged wiener tweeners (another word that didn’t exist then) we knew ourselves to be.

     Tom Seaver simply showed up at Shea in ’67, won the Rookie of the Year award, and then spearheaded the Mets quick climb to a 1969 World Series championship.  No one who watched that ’69 season will ever forget it, especially the night an obscure Cub named Jimmy Qualls broke up a Seaver perfect game in the 9^th inning.  Your uncle, my kid brother, who watched that game with me on our single color TV, will never get over it.

     As nearly perfect as that game was, what Tom and the lovely Nancy did after the Mets won the Series struck my young soul as actually perfect.  They took out an ad in the New York Times saying something to the effect that, “If the Mets can win the World Series, why can’t we find a way to get out of Viet Nam?” As much as our dads hated that ad… that’s exactly how much we loved it.

     And as Tom Terrific and I have aged, he’s never let me down.  In a joint interview with Johann Santana a few years ago, he said something like this to Santana, ”I love the way you fight for wins.  I’m don’t like the way today’s pitchers say that their job is just to keep their teams in the game.  No, your job as a pitcher is to win.  If your team scores three runs, you give up two.  If your guys score two, you give up one.  And if your guys score one, it’s your job to pitch a shutout.”

     I really like that.

     There’s another Seaver story I love.  In 1968, the year of the pitcher, Bob Gibson finished the season with an incredible 1.12 ERA, which was one of the prime factors in baseball lowering the pitcher’s mound from 15 inches to ten in order to make a pitcher’s life harder.

     Every summer, for decades now, Seaver and Gibson meet for a drink at Cooperstown during induction weekend.  And every time, the first thing Seaver says to Gibson is, “It was all your effing fault.”

     So that’s Tom Seaver, one of the few idols I still have.