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I know, it’s been a while. Things have been a little hectic plus, to be honest, there hasn’t been any one thing happening in sports the last 10 days or so that has made me want to jump to the keyboard and write.
The New York Times does a great job of covering the U.S. Open tennis tournament. There was a really good piece Tuesday morning written by Greg Bishop on exactly where American tennis is right now. Four American men reached the round of 16 for the first time since 2003—which is the last time an American man won a major title. (Andy Roddick).
Fine.
And Serena Williams is almost certain to win the women’s title, an amazing comeback after being out for almost a year following her foot surgery and the serious scare she got last spring when she ended up in the hospital because of blood clots.
I wish I could get more excited.
I think Serena is an amazing player. God knows how many majors she might have won if she had decided to stay focused on tennis. I don’t fault her for not doing that—she’s got a zillion dollars, she can do whatever she wants—but I have always been bothered by the way she and her sister never give their opponents credit on the rare occasions when they lose a match. And the entire foot-fault incident two years ago was disgusting on every level from Serena’s non-apologies to half-apologies; to her agent literally putting a hand on a TV camera after the match; to the Grand Slam Committee letting her off the hook; to ESPN basically covering up for her at every turn since the incident.
So, if Serena goes on to win as I suspect she will, I will take note of her greatness. But I really won’t care.
Once upon a time I liked Roddick. I especially admired his grace in defeat after his epic loss to Roger Federer at Wimbledon in 2009. Lately though, as his tennis has slipped, he’s become a pill. The way he behaved during HIS foot-fault incident last year wasn’t as bad as Serena’s but it wasn’t pretty. And he’s now taken to lecturing the media on what it should and should not think and say and write about the state of American tennis.
You want to shut the media up Andy? Win something.
I did make my annual trip to the Open last Wednesday. I got lucky—especially given the weather now—by being there on an absolutely perfect day. I wandered the backcourts for a while and only got into one brief tussle with security people. I was walking into what I thought was an entrance to the new court 17 to take a look at it when a guard—after I was several yards past him—said, ‘hey, this is an exit.’
I turned around and said, “there’s no ‘exit-only,’ sign.”
“Yeah well, I’m telling you it’s an exit.”
I walked out but couldn’t resist another comment. (Hey, it’s who I am). “Tell the USTA to spend 10 bucks on a sign. It will make everyone’s life a little easier.”
All of a sudden a guy in a jacket with a walkie-talkie came hustling over.
“Is there a problem sir?” he said.
“No problem,” I said. “You guys just need to spring for 10 bucks for an exit sign.”
“We don’t need one.”
“Apparently you do.”
I was tempted to stay and jaw with the guy for a while but decided it was too nice a day and I’d made my point. Sort of.
I made my way over to court seven and almost burst out laughing when I saw who was playing.
Ryan Sweeting.
For at least the last three years, maybe four, whenever I have been at the Open, regardless of the day, Ryan Sweeting has been playing on an outside court. I know his game almost as well as I once knew John McEnroe’s game although I’ve never seen him win a match. At least this year he got into the draw on his own and not through a wildcard.
Since it’s become a tradition I sat and watched Sweeting play for a while. He was playing someone named Daniel Istomin, who is from Uzbekistan and looked a lot like a young Miloslav Mecir—minus the beard and the almost mystical softball ground game that players found so baffling. Sweeting actually won the first set but then lost his serve at 4-all in the second and went down quickly after that. I look forward to seeing him again next year.
The highlight of the day—as always—was the chance to see my two favorite tennis people, Bud Collins and Mary Carillo. Bud is 82 now but the pants are loud as ever and he is still cranking out columns for The Boston Globe. He still gets fired up when he sees a young American player flash potential. His only concession to age is sitting in an aisle seat in the press room so he doesn’t have to climb over people getting to and from his seat.
Carillo is, well, Carillo. All kidding aside she should be the commissioner of tennis. She’s smarter than everyone running the game and cares about it more than any of them too. There was a story in The Times today about the fact that there are fewer top umpires at the U.S. Open than at any of the other majors because the USTA pay less than the other majors do.
The USTA’s response was to hide: The only person allowed to speak on the subject was the PR guy who basically said, “we’ve got enough good umpires here.”
Sure, because it’s okay to have second-rate umpires working the matches that aren’t at night or on TV right? It’s okay for Ryan Sweeting and Daniel Istomin to have second-rate umpires because they’re on court seven where I’m the only one guaranteed to show up and watch.
If Carillo had been in charge I promise you she would have answered the questions herself and probably would have said, “If that’s the case we need to fix it. We make millions on this tournament every year, we can re-invest a few extra bucks to make the umpiring as high class as possible for EVERY player—not just the glamour guys.
And I guarantee you she’d invest in an exit sign.
Oh, one more thing: For all the talk among the tennis apologists about how wonderful the game is, the only sessions of the Open that sold out were the weekends. The USTA was all but giving away tickets for the weekday and weeknight sessions. This is NOT The Legg Mason Classic, this is a MAJOR championship and they can’t sell it out most days. Not good.
******
Stephen Strasburg came back to pitch for The Washington Nationals on Tuesday a little more than a year after he had Tommy John surgery. Clearly, he hasn’t missed a beat. He was consistently throwing in the high 90s with control—40 strikes in 56 pitches. The kid is a freak. I just wish the Nats weren’t babying him so much on the mound (hell, they babied him last year and he got hurt anyway) and in the clubhouse where one pretty much needs a court order to say ‘hello,’ to Strasburg in anything but a formal press conference setting. He’s 23-years-old and he’s making millions of dollars. Time to start acting like an adult…
I’m going to be writing a weekly football column for The Washington Post this fall on Mondays. Looking forward to seeing all sorts of different games—NOT just the big name teams although I’ll obviously do some of that. This Saturday night I’m going to see Georgetown-Lafayette. (Hey, Patriot League stuff!). Georgetown’s an interesting story: It was forced to upgrade to Division 1-AA a few years back because you can’t have a D-1 basketball team and a D-3 football team. That’s made it tough. Two years ago the Hoyas were winless. Last year they were 4-7. I’m interested to see how much progress they’ve made since a year ago…
You may (or may not) have noticed that I’ve tried to resist the urge to take shots at ESPN lately, only because I think people roll their eyes when I do it all the time—not because they don’t deserve it. But I have to ask this question: If Sunday Night Baseball is, as ESPN claims, “baseball’s biggest stage,” just what exactly is The World Series?
Showing posts with label Stephen Strasburg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephen Strasburg. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Monday, August 23, 2010
Wide-ranging morning ---- Haynesworth, Strasburg, Zack Bolno, US Open tennis, Arjun Atwal, and the last note on rules officials
There was a lot going on this past weekend in sports. Lou Piniella retired. Vin Scully did not. (Thank God). Stephen Strasburg felt a twinge in his arm and everyone in Washington writhed in pain. Roger Federer won a tennis tournament. Serena Williams and defending men’s champion Juan Martin Del Potro withdrew from the U.S. Open. Fred Funk won an alleged major on The Senior Tour. (Are there any events on that tour that AREN’T ‘majors?’). Arjun Atwal, who was involved in a fatal accident in Florida three years ago won on The PGA Tour, the first player since Fred Wadsworth in 1986 to come through a Monday qualifier just to get IN to the tournament and then win.
Oh, and Albert Haynesworth is whining—which was apparently enough reason for the Washington Redskins to fire their PR guy on Sunday.
What a world.
Let’s start with the ridiculous—which is always the NFL team here in Washington. The Redskins should have conceded the folly of signing Haynesworth before training camp even started. It’s not as if Haynesworth was the first god-awful Dan Snyder free-agent signing, he was just the most recent and the most expensive. The minute Haynesworth refused to show up for mini-camps (or OTA’s or whatever the NFL calls them) that should have been a clear sign that he learned nothing from his embarrassing season a year ago, could care less about his teammates and was going to try to battle Mike Shanahan’s authority. Last I looked, Shanahan has pretty good credentials as both an authority-figure and as a coach.
We all know what’s gone on since. Haynesworth couldn’t pass the conditioning test he was required to take when he finally showed up for camp. He finally passed and began working out—occasionally. Then last week he didn’t work out, refused to speak to the media and the team said he had headaches. After he didn’t play until the second half in Saturday’s exhibition game, he whined that the team wasn’t telling the truth about his headaches and that he should have started the game.
I have two words for Haynesworth: SHUT UP. I have two words for the Redskins: CUT HIM. Sure, they’re going to take a huge financial hit but there’s an old saying about being penny-wise (okay in this case $21 million-wise) and pound foolish. The Redskins are trying to be good again; trying to get past all the embarrassments of recent seasons. This guy is a pox, who is likely to be unproductive. The sooner the Redskins get rid of him, the sooner the team can move on and focus on the future.
In the meantime, after Haynesworth mouthed off on Saturday, Redskins PR director Zack Bolno got fired on Sunday. For the past two years, most people who have to cover the team will tell you Bolno has been a voice of reason and (gasp) cooperation in a sea of stonewalling built by Snyder, former GM Vinny Cerrato and martinet-bully PR guy Karl Swanson. Cerrato and Swanson are finally gone but Bolno is being made the scapegoat for SOMETHING and it is clearly the team’s loss. Of course if the team wins, no one other than the people who know Zach (I got to know him when he was the Wizards PR director) will care.
The other Washington story is, of course, Strasburg. When he clutched his arm after pitching 4 and one-third shutout innings in Philadelphia on Saturday, you couldn’t help but go, ‘Oh God no, here comes surgery.’ It is now likely that bullet has been dodged but the Nats are also likely to shut him down for the rest of the season. After all WHY take any risk with him? The team is going nowhere, he’s proven he can pitch very well at the big league level already. The only reason to pitch him at all would be ticket sales and the Nats are smarter than that. If you pitch him now and God Forbid something happens, you will regret sending him out there forever.
On the tennis front: I think there’s a very good chance Roger Federer is going to win another U.S. Open. Del Potro has been hurt most of the year, so his withdrawal is no surprise. Rafael Nadal, as always seems to happen this time of year, is struggling on U.S. hard courts. Andy Roddick has had a so-so summer at best. In fact, the hottest player on tour this summer has been Mardy Fish, who lost a very good three set match to Federer in Cincinnati yesterday after beating Roddick for the second time in the last few weeks in the semifinals. For once, the Open is wide open. Someone like Novak Djokovic could get hot or Roddick could get on a roll in front of the New York fans.
As for the women, I don’t know, I think Chris Evert is the favorite now. Maybe Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf? With Serena Williams out—foot surgery after she stepped on some glass—Venus Williams having been invisible all summer, Maria Sharapova who-knows-where with her game, Justine Henin out hurt (again) and defending champion Kim Clijsters looking shaky ANYONE can win. Billie Jean King maybe. Now that would be a story.
Arjun Atwal is a remarkable comeback story—sort of. Certainly coming back from injuries that caused him to lose his PGA Tour card and to go through a Monday qualifier—players call it a ‘four-spotter,’ because there are four spots in the field open, often with more than 100 players trying for them—to win his first tour event is remarkable.
But Atwal’s story is a little murkier than that. He had made a very good living playing around the world after leaving India as a teen-ager and had moved to Orlando, where he often played at Isleworth with Tiger Woods. On a March afternoon in 2007, after playing nine holes with Woods and John Cook, he was driving home on county road 535 when a car—driven, as it turned out by another Isleworth resident—fell in behind Atwal.
The police believe to this day that Atwal and the man began racing. Apparently CR 535 was infamous for street racing. Atwal has admitted to going 85 miles per hour. The police say it was more like 94. The other man apparently got up close to 100. Both lost control on a curve. Atwal lived. The other man did not. Police wanted to charge Atwal with vehicular homicide but the Florida attorney general decided that making a case in court that Atwal was the CAUSE of the accident would be difficult.
There seems to be little doubt that Atwal was guilty of stupidity and was incredibly lucky to live and not go to trial—or to jail. He has told other reporters that as bad as he feels about what happened he knows he “did nothing wrong.” Maybe he’s talking—as instructed by his lawyers—about the death of Mr. Park, the other driver. Clearly he DID do something wrong based on the speed he was going so it is difficult to make his win on Sunday as much of a feel-good story as it might otherwise be.
I mean, good for him, hanging in through the injuries and the Monday qualifiers and the guilt he must feel after the accident. But, on a wholly different level, like his friend Woods, Atwal must bear some responsibility for the difficulties he went through after his accident. Totally different story—obviously—in fact one far more tragic.
*****
One final note: I couldn’t help but notice that some posters STILL think that there are waking rules officials only with SOME groups at majors championships. That is flat out wrong: At the U.S. Open, British Open and the PGA every group for all four days is assigned a walking rules official. The Masters does not assign a walking rules official to ANY group because of its tradition that no one goes inside the ropes except caddies, players and TV camera and sound men. Dustin Johnson had NO advantage over anyone on the golf course last Sunday. In fact, he had a disadvantage because David Price, his rules official, failed to warn him he was in a bunker as a good official would have done. I am really tired of hearing the apologists say he wasn’t ‘obligated,’ to do so. No he wasn’t. Often in life what is right is not what you are obligated to do it.
Even if you disagree with that opinion, let’s keep our facts straight. Everyone had a walking rules official that day. Johnson just drew the short straw when he was assigned Price.
Oh, and Albert Haynesworth is whining—which was apparently enough reason for the Washington Redskins to fire their PR guy on Sunday.
What a world.
Let’s start with the ridiculous—which is always the NFL team here in Washington. The Redskins should have conceded the folly of signing Haynesworth before training camp even started. It’s not as if Haynesworth was the first god-awful Dan Snyder free-agent signing, he was just the most recent and the most expensive. The minute Haynesworth refused to show up for mini-camps (or OTA’s or whatever the NFL calls them) that should have been a clear sign that he learned nothing from his embarrassing season a year ago, could care less about his teammates and was going to try to battle Mike Shanahan’s authority. Last I looked, Shanahan has pretty good credentials as both an authority-figure and as a coach.
We all know what’s gone on since. Haynesworth couldn’t pass the conditioning test he was required to take when he finally showed up for camp. He finally passed and began working out—occasionally. Then last week he didn’t work out, refused to speak to the media and the team said he had headaches. After he didn’t play until the second half in Saturday’s exhibition game, he whined that the team wasn’t telling the truth about his headaches and that he should have started the game.
I have two words for Haynesworth: SHUT UP. I have two words for the Redskins: CUT HIM. Sure, they’re going to take a huge financial hit but there’s an old saying about being penny-wise (okay in this case $21 million-wise) and pound foolish. The Redskins are trying to be good again; trying to get past all the embarrassments of recent seasons. This guy is a pox, who is likely to be unproductive. The sooner the Redskins get rid of him, the sooner the team can move on and focus on the future.
In the meantime, after Haynesworth mouthed off on Saturday, Redskins PR director Zack Bolno got fired on Sunday. For the past two years, most people who have to cover the team will tell you Bolno has been a voice of reason and (gasp) cooperation in a sea of stonewalling built by Snyder, former GM Vinny Cerrato and martinet-bully PR guy Karl Swanson. Cerrato and Swanson are finally gone but Bolno is being made the scapegoat for SOMETHING and it is clearly the team’s loss. Of course if the team wins, no one other than the people who know Zach (I got to know him when he was the Wizards PR director) will care.
The other Washington story is, of course, Strasburg. When he clutched his arm after pitching 4 and one-third shutout innings in Philadelphia on Saturday, you couldn’t help but go, ‘Oh God no, here comes surgery.’ It is now likely that bullet has been dodged but the Nats are also likely to shut him down for the rest of the season. After all WHY take any risk with him? The team is going nowhere, he’s proven he can pitch very well at the big league level already. The only reason to pitch him at all would be ticket sales and the Nats are smarter than that. If you pitch him now and God Forbid something happens, you will regret sending him out there forever.
On the tennis front: I think there’s a very good chance Roger Federer is going to win another U.S. Open. Del Potro has been hurt most of the year, so his withdrawal is no surprise. Rafael Nadal, as always seems to happen this time of year, is struggling on U.S. hard courts. Andy Roddick has had a so-so summer at best. In fact, the hottest player on tour this summer has been Mardy Fish, who lost a very good three set match to Federer in Cincinnati yesterday after beating Roddick for the second time in the last few weeks in the semifinals. For once, the Open is wide open. Someone like Novak Djokovic could get hot or Roddick could get on a roll in front of the New York fans.
As for the women, I don’t know, I think Chris Evert is the favorite now. Maybe Martina Navratilova or Steffi Graf? With Serena Williams out—foot surgery after she stepped on some glass—Venus Williams having been invisible all summer, Maria Sharapova who-knows-where with her game, Justine Henin out hurt (again) and defending champion Kim Clijsters looking shaky ANYONE can win. Billie Jean King maybe. Now that would be a story.
Arjun Atwal is a remarkable comeback story—sort of. Certainly coming back from injuries that caused him to lose his PGA Tour card and to go through a Monday qualifier—players call it a ‘four-spotter,’ because there are four spots in the field open, often with more than 100 players trying for them—to win his first tour event is remarkable.
But Atwal’s story is a little murkier than that. He had made a very good living playing around the world after leaving India as a teen-ager and had moved to Orlando, where he often played at Isleworth with Tiger Woods. On a March afternoon in 2007, after playing nine holes with Woods and John Cook, he was driving home on county road 535 when a car—driven, as it turned out by another Isleworth resident—fell in behind Atwal.
The police believe to this day that Atwal and the man began racing. Apparently CR 535 was infamous for street racing. Atwal has admitted to going 85 miles per hour. The police say it was more like 94. The other man apparently got up close to 100. Both lost control on a curve. Atwal lived. The other man did not. Police wanted to charge Atwal with vehicular homicide but the Florida attorney general decided that making a case in court that Atwal was the CAUSE of the accident would be difficult.
There seems to be little doubt that Atwal was guilty of stupidity and was incredibly lucky to live and not go to trial—or to jail. He has told other reporters that as bad as he feels about what happened he knows he “did nothing wrong.” Maybe he’s talking—as instructed by his lawyers—about the death of Mr. Park, the other driver. Clearly he DID do something wrong based on the speed he was going so it is difficult to make his win on Sunday as much of a feel-good story as it might otherwise be.
I mean, good for him, hanging in through the injuries and the Monday qualifiers and the guilt he must feel after the accident. But, on a wholly different level, like his friend Woods, Atwal must bear some responsibility for the difficulties he went through after his accident. Totally different story—obviously—in fact one far more tragic.
*****
One final note: I couldn’t help but notice that some posters STILL think that there are waking rules officials only with SOME groups at majors championships. That is flat out wrong: At the U.S. Open, British Open and the PGA every group for all four days is assigned a walking rules official. The Masters does not assign a walking rules official to ANY group because of its tradition that no one goes inside the ropes except caddies, players and TV camera and sound men. Dustin Johnson had NO advantage over anyone on the golf course last Sunday. In fact, he had a disadvantage because David Price, his rules official, failed to warn him he was in a bunker as a good official would have done. I am really tired of hearing the apologists say he wasn’t ‘obligated,’ to do so. No he wasn’t. Often in life what is right is not what you are obligated to do it.
Even if you disagree with that opinion, let’s keep our facts straight. Everyone had a walking rules official that day. Johnson just drew the short straw when he was assigned Price.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Strasburg debut – really glad I went; Nats putting pieces together to make baseball fun in Washington
There are certain moments when you walk out of an event and say very simply: I’m glad I was there. Last night, at Nationals Park, was one of those nights.
Stephen Strasburg’s debut with The Washington Nationals was one of the most hyped events in Washington sports history. It was such a big deal that the guys on sports talk radio stations actually stopped talking about the Redskins for more than 15 minutes. In a town where getting anyone other than the core 15 to 20,000 fans to pay attention to the Nationals, everyone was talking about them for a solid week leading up to Strasburg’s ballyhooed arrival.
I have become one of those people who actually prefers quiet nights when the ballpark is half full and the press box is two-thirds empty. I’d rather not deal with the hassles that come with sellout crowds or major media events. (I guess this is a sign of getting old). But there are some things you have to go see if you have the chance to do so and this was one of those things.
So I went. I’m really glad I did.
It was absolutely impossible for the kid to live up to the hype that has followed him since he was drafted by the Nats a year ago. Every step on his road to DC has been chronicled in almost agonizing detail from the soap opera contract negotiations (with Scott Boras as your agent all negotiations are going to be drawn out soap operas) to the progression through extended spring training, the Arizona Fall League, spring training, Double-A Harrisburg and finally Syracuse in Triple-A before making the most anticipated arrival Washington has seen since Barack Obama showed up on January 20th, 2009.
And yet, he DID live up to the hype—and more. He threw one bad pitch, and it really wasn’t THAT bad, a change-up that Delwyn Young hit into the rightfield bleachers for a two-run home run in the fourth inning. After that, he completely shut the Pirates down the rest of the way, retiring the last 10 batters he faced, EIGHT on strikeouts. He struck out the last seven hitters in a row and came out to a standing ovation after throwing 94 pitches in seven innings.
His fastball hit 100 a couple of times and he was consistently between 97 and 99. His off-speed stuff was dazzling. But here’s what was really amazing: He walked NONE. He’s 21, he can throw four pitches and he has extraordinary control. Wow. Even some of the skeptical old baseball writers I was sitting with were open-mouthed by the time he was finished. I was too—and I’m usually one of those guys who pulls for the underdog, not the guy with the $15 million contract and Scott Boras as an agent.
What’s more, I’ve been hearing about Strasburg’s aversion to the media almost since day one. On his first day at extended spring training, Strasburg whined about having to talk to the media. I wrote a column for The Washington Post saying he better get over the notion that he was too big or too good to talk to the media because it was now part of his job.
I got a phone call the next day from Stan Kasten, the president of the Nats. I’ve known Stan a long time and we give each other a hard time frequently but I like him. He’s smart and he’s funny and he always returns a phone call.
“You’re wrong about Strasburg,” he said. “He’s a good kid. He doesn’t think he’s too big to talk to the media. He’s just shy.”
I was skeptical. That’s the way I am, especially when I sense guys are being coached to not say anything (often true of Boras players) or want the perks of stardom but not the responsibility. During the run-up to Strasburg’s arrival, The Washington Post covered everything he did. Dave Sheinen, The Post’s superb baseball writer, chronicled every game he pitched, every move he made. It wasn’t easy for Sheinen since he had no real access to Strasburg and had to get most of his insights into him from others. If you put me in a situation like that, where you can’t walk up to a guy in the clubhouse and chat with him casually, I’d get frustrated.
Sheinen’s a lot more patient than I am. What’s more, he told me that in spite of that, he liked the kid, that he really WAS shy and a little bit embarrassed by all the attention. What’s more, his teammates seemed to genuinely like him, which is always an important test for a star. Eddie Murray was never media-friendly but everyone in the Orioles clubhouse always swore by him as a teammate. You had to respect that about him even when he was growling at you.
My guess, based on last night, is that Strasburg isn’t a growler—although clearly talking to the media is never going to be his favorite sport. Kasten said before the game that as time goes on and the media requests go down—there were more than 200 accredited media at last night’s game making it feel like a postseason game on the field and in the clubhouses beforehand—the team will sit down with Strasburg and explain to him that the time has come to loosen the reins. It is a long baseball season. My guess is he’ll come to know the beat writers and a few other people and loosen up a little. He comes across as genuinely shy.
That aside, he is very clearly the real deal. You can talk about how lousy the Pirates are—and they are, especially with Ryan Doumit out of the lineup as he was last night—but Strasburg is going to pitch well against anyone and everyone. Sure, he’ll have some bad nights the way every pitcher does, and he’s not going to go 16-0 (I don’t think) the rest of the season.
But there is no question he has everything it takes to be a truly great pitcher as long as he stays healthy. Just as important he can give life to a franchise that has desperately needed some life the last four years. The Nationals do have some other pieces in place: Ryan Zimmerman is an All-Star; Adam Dunn and Nyjer Morgan are solid players; Pudge Rodriguez can still call a game as well as anyone and Ian Desmond has a chance to be an outstanding shortstop. There are some other young pitchers in the organization, notably starters John Lannan and Jordan Zimmermann (who has been injured but is close to coming back) and Drew Storen, the future closer, who was drafted the same day as Strasburg and arrived in the big leagues a couple of weeks before Strasburg.
Storen is the son of Mark Patrick, a very talented sports-talk show host in Indianapolis who I’ve known for years. Storen is the complete opposite of Strasburg when it comes to the media and hoopla. Before the game last night I was talking to him in the clubhouse and I said, “I guess you’ll be glad to get tonight behind you, huh?”
Storen laughed. “I love this stuff,” he said. “To me it’s all fun. The more the merrier.”
That’s another reason I think Strasburg is going to do very well. He’s got great talent, he’s part of an improving young team and he not only has a designated closer coming along with him but a designated spokesman.
Washington may actually be a fun place to be in the coming weeks, months and even years. When it comes to baseball, like Storen said, the more the merrier.
****
A note here to Gordon who has been a dedicated and well-worth-reading poster almost since the blog began: With all due respect, there was one reason I wrote the blog on Monday about Coach Wooden and Red Auerbach and Morgan Wootten: I’d already written a column strictly on Coach Wooden that was there to be ready by everyone. Believe me it had nothing to do with book sales especially since I wrote the Red book seven years ago. It’s still in print and it might sell a couple hundred copies a year—I honestly don’t know the numbers—but believe me, bringing it up had nothing to do with trying to sell any books, it had to do with trying to tell a story.
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John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
Stephen Strasburg’s debut with The Washington Nationals was one of the most hyped events in Washington sports history. It was such a big deal that the guys on sports talk radio stations actually stopped talking about the Redskins for more than 15 minutes. In a town where getting anyone other than the core 15 to 20,000 fans to pay attention to the Nationals, everyone was talking about them for a solid week leading up to Strasburg’s ballyhooed arrival.
I have become one of those people who actually prefers quiet nights when the ballpark is half full and the press box is two-thirds empty. I’d rather not deal with the hassles that come with sellout crowds or major media events. (I guess this is a sign of getting old). But there are some things you have to go see if you have the chance to do so and this was one of those things.
So I went. I’m really glad I did.
It was absolutely impossible for the kid to live up to the hype that has followed him since he was drafted by the Nats a year ago. Every step on his road to DC has been chronicled in almost agonizing detail from the soap opera contract negotiations (with Scott Boras as your agent all negotiations are going to be drawn out soap operas) to the progression through extended spring training, the Arizona Fall League, spring training, Double-A Harrisburg and finally Syracuse in Triple-A before making the most anticipated arrival Washington has seen since Barack Obama showed up on January 20th, 2009.
And yet, he DID live up to the hype—and more. He threw one bad pitch, and it really wasn’t THAT bad, a change-up that Delwyn Young hit into the rightfield bleachers for a two-run home run in the fourth inning. After that, he completely shut the Pirates down the rest of the way, retiring the last 10 batters he faced, EIGHT on strikeouts. He struck out the last seven hitters in a row and came out to a standing ovation after throwing 94 pitches in seven innings.
His fastball hit 100 a couple of times and he was consistently between 97 and 99. His off-speed stuff was dazzling. But here’s what was really amazing: He walked NONE. He’s 21, he can throw four pitches and he has extraordinary control. Wow. Even some of the skeptical old baseball writers I was sitting with were open-mouthed by the time he was finished. I was too—and I’m usually one of those guys who pulls for the underdog, not the guy with the $15 million contract and Scott Boras as an agent.
What’s more, I’ve been hearing about Strasburg’s aversion to the media almost since day one. On his first day at extended spring training, Strasburg whined about having to talk to the media. I wrote a column for The Washington Post saying he better get over the notion that he was too big or too good to talk to the media because it was now part of his job.
I got a phone call the next day from Stan Kasten, the president of the Nats. I’ve known Stan a long time and we give each other a hard time frequently but I like him. He’s smart and he’s funny and he always returns a phone call.
“You’re wrong about Strasburg,” he said. “He’s a good kid. He doesn’t think he’s too big to talk to the media. He’s just shy.”
I was skeptical. That’s the way I am, especially when I sense guys are being coached to not say anything (often true of Boras players) or want the perks of stardom but not the responsibility. During the run-up to Strasburg’s arrival, The Washington Post covered everything he did. Dave Sheinen, The Post’s superb baseball writer, chronicled every game he pitched, every move he made. It wasn’t easy for Sheinen since he had no real access to Strasburg and had to get most of his insights into him from others. If you put me in a situation like that, where you can’t walk up to a guy in the clubhouse and chat with him casually, I’d get frustrated.
Sheinen’s a lot more patient than I am. What’s more, he told me that in spite of that, he liked the kid, that he really WAS shy and a little bit embarrassed by all the attention. What’s more, his teammates seemed to genuinely like him, which is always an important test for a star. Eddie Murray was never media-friendly but everyone in the Orioles clubhouse always swore by him as a teammate. You had to respect that about him even when he was growling at you.
My guess, based on last night, is that Strasburg isn’t a growler—although clearly talking to the media is never going to be his favorite sport. Kasten said before the game that as time goes on and the media requests go down—there were more than 200 accredited media at last night’s game making it feel like a postseason game on the field and in the clubhouses beforehand—the team will sit down with Strasburg and explain to him that the time has come to loosen the reins. It is a long baseball season. My guess is he’ll come to know the beat writers and a few other people and loosen up a little. He comes across as genuinely shy.
That aside, he is very clearly the real deal. You can talk about how lousy the Pirates are—and they are, especially with Ryan Doumit out of the lineup as he was last night—but Strasburg is going to pitch well against anyone and everyone. Sure, he’ll have some bad nights the way every pitcher does, and he’s not going to go 16-0 (I don’t think) the rest of the season.
But there is no question he has everything it takes to be a truly great pitcher as long as he stays healthy. Just as important he can give life to a franchise that has desperately needed some life the last four years. The Nationals do have some other pieces in place: Ryan Zimmerman is an All-Star; Adam Dunn and Nyjer Morgan are solid players; Pudge Rodriguez can still call a game as well as anyone and Ian Desmond has a chance to be an outstanding shortstop. There are some other young pitchers in the organization, notably starters John Lannan and Jordan Zimmermann (who has been injured but is close to coming back) and Drew Storen, the future closer, who was drafted the same day as Strasburg and arrived in the big leagues a couple of weeks before Strasburg.
Storen is the son of Mark Patrick, a very talented sports-talk show host in Indianapolis who I’ve known for years. Storen is the complete opposite of Strasburg when it comes to the media and hoopla. Before the game last night I was talking to him in the clubhouse and I said, “I guess you’ll be glad to get tonight behind you, huh?”
Storen laughed. “I love this stuff,” he said. “To me it’s all fun. The more the merrier.”
That’s another reason I think Strasburg is going to do very well. He’s got great talent, he’s part of an improving young team and he not only has a designated closer coming along with him but a designated spokesman.
Washington may actually be a fun place to be in the coming weeks, months and even years. When it comes to baseball, like Storen said, the more the merrier.
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A note here to Gordon who has been a dedicated and well-worth-reading poster almost since the blog began: With all due respect, there was one reason I wrote the blog on Monday about Coach Wooden and Red Auerbach and Morgan Wootten: I’d already written a column strictly on Coach Wooden that was there to be ready by everyone. Believe me it had nothing to do with book sales especially since I wrote the Red book seven years ago. It’s still in print and it might sell a couple hundred copies a year—I honestly don’t know the numbers—but believe me, bringing it up had nothing to do with trying to sell any books, it had to do with trying to tell a story.
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John recently appeared on The Jim Rome Show (www.jimrome.com) to discuss 'Moment of Glory.' Click here to download, or listen in the player below:
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John's new book: "Moment of Glory--The Year Underdogs Ruled The Majors,"--is now available online and in bookstores nationwide. Visit your favorite retailer, or click here for online purchases
The Golf Channel will be airing a documentary based on the book "Caddy for Life: The Bruce Edwards Story," with the premiere showing Monday, June 14 at 9 p.m. ET.
Monday, August 31, 2009
John's Monday Washington Post Article...
Here's my column from The Washington Post today, covering the Nats newest, Stephen Strasburg.....
Let's begin today with Stephen Strasburg's opening line to the media after his first 45-minute workout on Sunday as an employee of the Washington Nationals: "I thought I'd get a little bit of peace out here, but you guys are following me everywhere. It's something I guess I gotta deal with. I guess it just goes with the territory."
Yes it does. It goes with the territory when you're the No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft and when you are seen as the potential savior of a woebegone franchise. Athletes with special gifts can expect scrutiny -- sometimes over-the-top scrutiny.
Click here for the full story.......For Stephen Strasburg, the Missing 'Peace'
Let's begin today with Stephen Strasburg's opening line to the media after his first 45-minute workout on Sunday as an employee of the Washington Nationals: "I thought I'd get a little bit of peace out here, but you guys are following me everywhere. It's something I guess I gotta deal with. I guess it just goes with the territory."
Yes it does. It goes with the territory when you're the No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft and when you are seen as the potential savior of a woebegone franchise. Athletes with special gifts can expect scrutiny -- sometimes over-the-top scrutiny.
Click here for the full story.......For Stephen Strasburg, the Missing 'Peace'
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