Meet the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team: Lori Chalupny

The 2015 soccer Women’s World Cup begins on Saturday, June 6 in Canada. The United States team is one of a handful of favorites to win the tournament and they’ve got a great story. Despite decades of excellent play, the team has not won a World Cup championship since 1999. That’s a whole generation of dreams denied and all the reason anyone should need to root for the team this year. To help prepare you to root for team and country, we’re going to run a short profile of every player on the 23-person roster. When female athletes take their turn in the spotlight, they often receive coverage that is slanted toward non-game aspects of their stories — marriage, children, sexual preference, perceived lack-of or bountiful sexiness, social media activity, etc. In the hope of balancing things out, just a tiny bit, these previews will strive to stay on the field, with only a little bit of non-gendered personal interest when possible.

Lori Chalupny

Position: Defender

Number: 16

National team experience: 100 appearances, this will be her second World Cup, and she has scored nine international goals

What to expect from Lori Chalupny: Lori Chalupny is a versatile veteran player who will come off the bench in this year’s World Cup. She can play any of the midfield positions but is most likely to be used as an outside defender. Fans of Chalupny might feel as though she’s being underutilized in this role and perhaps she is. Over the last three years, playing professional soccer for the NWSL team, the Chicago Red Stars, Chalupny has starred as a central midfielder, a defender, and even a striker. As recently as two years ago, Chalupny was considered one of the best players in the world. Either she is being underutilized or age and her unique history with the National Team (more on this later) may have caught up with her. At 5’4″, she’s not a physical defensive presence but she can get up and down the field, transitioning from a defensive to an offensive role quickly. That’s one of the primary skills asked of outside defenders by coach Jill Ellis, so it’s no surprise that’s what we’re most likely to be seeing her do.

Video: Although she plays defense now, Chalupny still has a well tuned scoring touch, as she showed on this corner.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Chalupny started every game of the 2007 World Cup for the U.S. Women’s National team. In 2011, she wasn’t even on the team. Now, she’s back. What happened? The obvious answer is concussions. After a series of concussions, the team and its medical staff decided in 2010 to drop her from consideration. They did not feel it was safe or smart to keep putting her out on the field. Chalupny disagreed as did the doctors for the series of professional teams she played for between 2010 and 2014. There seems to be some confusion about the mechanics of her getting back onto the team in 2014. The national team has received some criticism for not reconsidering her, considering that she has apparently not had a concussion since 2010, but its also possible that Chalupny had not applied to be back on the team. It’s a curious situation that smells political and I wonder if her role on the team is completely free from its aftermath. I certainly hope so. Moreover, I hope that she remains concussion free.

Links: Read about Chalupny’s reinstatement in an Equalizer Soccer article by Jeff Kassouf. Check out her US Soccer page, her website, and follow her on Twitter.

What to say if you have to talk about Deflategate

You remember Deflategate, right? The controversy before this year’s Super Bowl that revolved around whether or not the New England Patriots and their quarterback, Tom Brady, intentionally deflated the footballs they were using on offense beyond the NFL’s regulations. The hubbub died down for almost three months while the NFL’s investigation was ongoing. Then, this past week, it exploded again as the results of the report and then the NFL’s decision about how to penalize the Patriots and Brady were made public. The report focused on Brady and stopped just short of saying that he definitely ordered Patriots personnel to illegally deflate the footballs. Whether you think this is the best hot topic since sliced bread or the dullest subject since the weather in Singapore, you’re likely to take part in at least a few conversations about Deflategate over the next few days. Here’s a few common comments and how to respond to them.

This penalty is great! Cheating is terrible and should always be punished with righteous fury!

I guess that’s true, but there’s also a very strong sense within sports that some types of cheating is permitted or even admired. Have you ever heard the phrase, “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying?” That’s a sports phrase and it could easily be applied to minor cheating that’s accepted in sports. Here are some examples of acceptable cheating, just in football: wide receivers who put a little bit of sticky substance on their hands or gloves, offensive linemen who hold defensive players to keep them away from the quarterback, or even defenders who try to sound like the quarterback in order to throw the offensive line off their rhythm. All these things are officially illegal but we usually admire players who do this for being sufficiently motivated to win.

But we’re not talking about acceptable cheating, this is totally different!

I don’t think so. The NFL clearly wants quarterbacks to be able to customize the footballs they use on offense. If they didn’t, they would simply provide the footballs themselves instead of giving them to each team before the game to customize within a range of acceptable parameters. Modifying the football’s pressure is legal, the Patriots just did it too much — it’s an infraction of degree, not an original one.

Okay fine, maybe the original act wasn’t so bad, but Brady lied! He went in front of the American people and said he had nothing to do with this. Hypocrisy should be punished!

Hypocrisy is in some ways, the cardinal sin of our era. Our sense of morals has become so relative that we find it easier to condemn hypocrisy than any given act. This plays out most frequently in politics. A football playing holding a press conference may look like a politician holding a press conference but when it comes to hypocrisy, it’s entirely different. Politicians are and should be beholden to the public, we are their constituency and their employers, but football players are not. They’re under no particular job-related ethical obligation to tell the truth. Moreover, we actually expect players and coaches to lie all the time and condemn them if they don’t. For example, if Brady answered a question after a loss by saying that a teammate of his messed the game up by making a mistake and honestly sharing his frustration with that player, the sports media would come down hard on him for being a bad teammate.

How can the NFL suspend Tom Brady twice the number of games for deflating footballs than they originally tried to suspend Ray Rice for assaulting his fiancee?

For starters, it’s pretty clear the NFL acted idiotically in only originally suspending Ray Rice for two games. Two wrongs wouldn’t make a right, so why should we compare the two situations? Secondly, it is reasonable for a football league to punish players more severely for things they do that affect football than they would other infractions. Running a red light is far, far more dangerous than pass interference but that doesn’t mean the NFL should assess a larger penalty to a player who gets a traffic ticket than one who commits a foul on the field.

This penalty is a travesty. The report only concluded that Brady probably knew about the deflation, not even that he definitely knew or ordered it. How can they punish him?

Hold on there, the NFL is not a court of law and Brady is not on trial. Principles like “beyond a reasonable doubt” and “innocent till proven guilty” don’t apply here. Brady is an employee of a company (the Patriots) that is part of a confederation of similar companies (the NFL). They can basically do whatever they want and it’s perfectly legal. Brady, as well as the other players in the NFL, are part of a union that collectively negotiates for how, when, why, and how much the NFL can punish players. They will almost definitely be appealing this penalty and they have a pretty good chance of getting it reduced. There’s no real victim here, it’s a dispute between a powerful employee and a powerful employer.

Appreciating styles in basketball: Memphis vs. Golden State

There are a few mathematical ways of comparing the complexity of board games. One method, called Game Tree Size, tries to quantify complexity by counting the total number of possible games that could be played. If you use at this method, Stratego shows itself to be the most complex game, perhaps because players can set up their pieces to start the game in many different ways. A couple positions below Stratego comes Go, the 4,000 year-old Chinese game, and then much lower down, Chess. As you would expect, the simplest games measured is Tic-tac-toe. Board games are not fun in direct proportion to their complexity — you’re not going to hear me say that Stratego is a better game than Chess just because it’s more complex — but it is an important factor. It’s good to feel like it’s possible to get better at a game, even to master it, without being forced into a single strategic direction. If a game is simple enough to have a clear winning strategy, then once you figure it out, it soon loses its appeal.

This is one of the reasons why sports are so much fun to play and follow — they are virtually infinite in their complexity. I can’t imagine how you’d even begin to calculate the complexity of a sport like basketball. Not only are there ten players on the court at a time, free to move anywhere in a large three-dimensional space, but each of them is an actual person, with her own abilities to see, move, shoot, or pass. That’s one reason why it was somewhat disconcerting to watch the NBA regular season this year. It seemed like teams had “solved” basketball and found a truly ideal way to play. Not ideal from an aesthetic point of view, but from a winning one. The formula, epitomized by the Houston Rockets, seemed to be, shoot nothing but three-pointers (ideally from the corner) and layups. During the playoffs this year, it’s been wonderful to see that there are still different ways of winning, that basketball has not (and probably never will) been solved. No playoff matchup exemplifies this better than the series between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Golden State Warriors.

The series between the Grizzlies and the Warriors is currently tied at two games apiece. These teams have beautifully contrasting styles that are easy to see and appreciate. Put simply, the Warriors play based on the idea that three points is more than two while the Grizzlies principle is that scoring is easier when you’re closer to the basket. The great thing is that both of these theories are correct! Both teams have an almost ideal fit between their best players and the way they play. The Grizzlies are the more physical team, the Warriors the more balletic. The Warriors best players are Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Curry is 6’3″ and 185 lbs and Thompson is 6’7″ and 205 lbs. Both can shoot almost inhumanly well. The Grizzlies best players are Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph. Gasol is 7’1″ and 265 lbs. Randolph is 6’9″ and 260 lbs. Both are among the best in the world at bullying their way close to the basket and then scoring from within the forest of arms trying to block them.

You can probably see the difference in styles just by watching these teams play but here are some numerical ways of showing it. During the regular season this year, Memphis scored the most points of any NBA team from the paint (close to the basket). To be fair, Golden State was also pretty good at this. Golden State was second in number of three pointers made, Memphis was second to last. Another excellent way of distinguishing the teams is by looking at shot charts that show where and how well teams or players shoot. I put together a few to look at using a great tool built by Austin Clemons. The first two show the Grizzlies and Warriors as a whole, the second two, just the star players already mentioned. Notice how many more of the Grizzlies shots come from in close and how many more of the Warriors shots come from beyond the three point arc. These differences become more dramatic when just looking at the star players.

Perhaps the most poetic way of understanding the difference between the two teams is by letting Grantland writer and narrative basketball poet, Brian Phillips help us understand. Phillips recently wrote articles about both teams. In his article on the Golden State Warriors, The Rise of Steph Curry, Phillips describes the subtle genius of Golden State’s most prolific and prototypical scorer:

He [Curry] just kept hitting shots, in his own little bubble of imperturbable cool. He had a gift for finding the little cracks, the little aerial wormholes only players with a certain kind of daredevil vision are ever able to see. He’d run off a screen, curl to the top of the key, catch the ball, pivot: swish, over a skyline of outstretched arms. Plant in the corner, catch the ball, flick a tiny hip-fake: swish, as his defender went rocketing past him… Curry exists on the plane where the impossible and the rational coincide — disarmingly natural. Smooth, even.

When writing about the Grizzlies, Phillips choses to focus, not on either of the Grizzlies big men, Gasol or Randolph, but instead on Tony Allen, a defensive specialist who has become an internet sensation during these playoffs. Allen, whose nickname is “The Grindfather” inspired Phillips to write The Grindfather’s House: Welcome to Tony Allen’s Playoffs. Here’s an excerpt:

Watching Tony Allen in 2015 is impossible not to enjoy. He’s like a combination of a professional wrestler, an elite superhero sidekick, and the dad from Finding Nemo… What Tony Allen does? It does not look fun. Murderous man-to-man defense, hyper-vigilant awareness of passing lanes, a willingness to chase your man from one end of the floor to the other, the tenacity to grind for 48 minutes against the other team’s best player … none of this looks remotely enjoyable.

Now that you’re armed with an understanding of how these two teams try to solve the game of basketball in entirely different but equally successful ways, see if you can witness it yourself in one of their next games. They’ll play each other on Wednesday, May 13, at 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT and Friday, May 15, 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. If neither team wins both of those games, a deciding Game Seven will be needed on Sunday, May 17 at a time to be determined. Enjoy!

Meet the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team: Morgan Brian

Morgan Brian

Position: Midfielder

Number: 14

National team experience: 27 appearances, this will be her first World Cup, has scored four international goals

What to expect from Morgan Brian: At 22, Brian is the youngest player on the United States team. She played college soccer at the University of Virginia and won the Hermann trophy, given to the best college soccer player, in each of the last two years. She was the number one pick in this year’s National Women’s Soccer League draft. In short, she’s a rising star. One of the most interesting things about the biggest competitions in the world, like the Olympics and the World Cup, happening only once every four years, is how players react when the tournament catches them at an awkward stage in their career. If the World Cup were played in 2017, Morgan Brian would probably be the driving force of the U.S team. As it is, she’s being asked to fit in with more established players in a midfield stuffed with talent. Even so, Brian has managed to put her mark on the team. She’s played in every game so far this year and started all of the meaningful ones. Although she was a prolific scorer in college, in the context of the national team, she’s played a more defensive or holding midfield position. It’s not a natural fit for someone of her size (5’7″ but so slight that her college teammates nicknamed her, “Plankton”) but she’s more than held her own. When you watch the team, you probably won’t notice Brian, but she’s an essential part of the glue that connects defense to offense and makes sure nothing slips through.

Video: As you can see from these highlights, Brian stands out as clearly the best player on the field when facing college competition.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Nothing that I can find. This is a well coached young player who answers questions about how she gets an edge on her opponent by saying “to always work hard and bring the intangibles.” Sorry! She’s great at soccer and that’s about it, so far.

Links: Read about Brian in an Equalizer Soccer article by Ray Curren and an ESPNW article by Graham Hayes. Check out her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

Meet the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team: Shannon Boxx

Shannon Boxx

Position: Midfielder

Number: 7

National team experience: 190 caps, played in three previous world cups, has scored 27 international goals

What to expect from Shannon Boxx: Unless something goes terribly wrong, Boxx will be playing a supporting role at this year’s world cup. In her prime, Boxx was a dominating midfielder who could just as easily shut down opposing attacks as score goals. Now at 37, she’ll look to use her experience and rangy 5’8″ frame to make things difficult for the opposition when she’s in the game. She can still close down on an attacker quickly and punish them physically. In most of the team’s recent games, Boxx has either come on between the 75 and 80th minute. In the World Cup, with fewer subs and higher stakes, I would expect her not to play as much, if at all, but it’s nice to know that the team has someone with her experience on the bench, who will be ready if needed.

Video: Here’s a typical offensive Shannon Boxx play. She gets her head to the ball, stays in the play, and gets her head onto the ball a second time to score.

Non-gendered personal interest item: Boxx has had lupus for more than a decade. Lupus is an autoimmune disease that affects skin, joints, and energy level, all things that are pretty important for a top-flight athlete. It’s pretty amazing that she’s been able to play through the disease. Recently she’s become an advocate for sufferers of lupus. You can read an article she wrote about living with lupus and what can and should be done for people with lupus here.

Check out her US Soccer page and follow her on Twitter.

Need to Know Sports: May 7, 2015

I’m introducing a new thing this week. It’s called Need to Know Sports and its a daily email that answers the question, “What do I need to know about sports today?” Whether you’re someone who needs to know everything about sports to feel alive or someone who views sports as being strictly on a need to know basis, this is a good way to start your day.

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Subject: Need to know sports: May 7, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

DEFLATEGATE RETURNS: Remember that big bruh-ha-ha before the Super Bowl about how the New England Patriots may or may not have (but probably did) illegally deflate the footballs they were playing offense with in their AFC Championship game against the New England Colts? Well the official NFL investigation finally published their findings yesterday. After three months and 243 pages, the NFL’s conclusion is pretty much what we started out with. The Patriots, quarterback Tom Brady in particular, “more probably than not” broke the rules by intentionally deflating footballs. While some of the reaction to this release has been a condemnation of Brady and the Patriots as cheaters, even more of it has been making fun of the NFL for being the type of overly officious organization that needs a 243 page report created over three months to confirm the obvious. The next step will be the NFL deciding how to punish Brady and the team. That will generate another big offseason football story soon. If you want to read the whole report (and apparently there are some very funny txt message conversations in it) you can find its full text here.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – Things evened up in the NBA Playoffs last night. The Cleveland Cavaliers, who had lost Game One of their series against the Chicago Bulls, beat the Bulls 106-91 to even up the series 1-1. The Houston Rockets had the same scenario against the Los Angeles Clippers and came away with the same result, winning 115-109. This sends both series to the lower seeded home court for Games Three and Four with the series tied 1-1.

National Hockey League – The Montreal Canadiens 2-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Lightning are now up 3-0 in the series and are only one win away from advancing. The Canadiens are one loss away from being swept. Hockey is the one sport where coming back in the playoffs from down 3-0 is actually somewhat common — maybe it happens once every two years — but it still seems like the Canadiens would need a miracle to stay alive. In the other Eastern Conference series, the Washington Capitals took a three games to one lead against the New York Rangers after beating them 2-1 in a game that featured a rare playoff fight.

MLB Baseball – It’s a mixed bag for the New York Yankees this year. They’re in first place, which most people did not expect to happen, but one of their important pitchers, C.C. Sabathia has yet to win a game. He’ll have to wait another week or so after pitching last night against the Toronto Blue Jays and taking the loss in a 5-1 game.

Champions League Soccer – The dream matchup between Barcelona and Bayern Munich lived up to expectations in some ways and not in others. It was an exciting game, full of incredible skill. Where it fell down was in creating a suspenseful second game between the two teams — after Barcelona scored three goals in the last 25 minutes of the game, to win the game 3-0, there seems to be almost no doubt about which team will advance to the finals this year.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Montreal Canadiens at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: There’s no rest for these teams who just played last night. It’s hard to tell who that will help. Will the Lightning, up 3-0, benefit from Montreal not having time to regroup? Or will the Canadiens use the strength desperation gives them to overcome a fatigued Lightning?

Chicago Blackhawks at Minnesota Wild, 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The Wild are also facing elimination tonight, down 3-0 to the Blackhawks. Losing in four straight games to the hated Blackhawks would be a sorry way for the Wild to end their year. I’m hoping they can pull out a victory tonight for their fans at home.

NBA Basketball

No playoff action tonight. Weird. The NBA does sneaky stuff with their playoff schedule to get their best games on during the weekend.

MLB Baseball

Chicago Cubs at St. Louis Cardinals, 1:45 p.m. ET on regional cable: Believe it or not, despite their being 11 games on the MLB schedule today, this is the only one between two winning teams. It’s a traditional rivalry too, although it’s hard to have a real rivalry when one team (the Cardinals) has a history of success and the other (the Cubs) hasn’t won a world series in over 100 years. Cubs fans had high hopes this Spring that this would be the team to break the streak of losing and it still could be, but not if the Cardinals, who have a league leading 20 wins, continue to play so well.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

It’s hard to believe the story of Mike Burke who went from college football player to soldier to spy to hollywood consultant, back to spy, to the circus (really) to television before finally becoming the president of the New York Yankees. Read this editorial written by a Rutgers senior, Joe Rivera, who argues for the return of the college’s crew program to Varsity status. Barry Bonds became one of the biggest villains in sports by taking performance enhancing drugs and annoying teammates and journalists alike with his arrogance but this is actually a pretty nice post-career profile about his newfound passion of cycling and the support he gives to a women’s professional team.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Sponchia.

Need to Know Sports: May 6, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: May 6, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

There’s really no giant headline today beyond yesterday’s games and today’s too. There is this, but it’s not a giant, blockbuster story:

ISIAH THOMAS BACK IN MADISON SQUARE GARDEN: Isaiah Thomas was an all-star NBA player before he was a terrible, terrible coach and general manager for the New York Knicks. He was fired in 2008 amid reports of his sexual harassment of women who worked for him that were later confirmed when he was found guilty in a lawsuit. Yesterday news broke that James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and their WNBA counterpart, the New York Liberty, wants to hire Thomas back, this time as President of the Liberty. This seems almost spit-takingly insane to me, as it does to many people. Forget that he was a disaster working for the Knicks before, he also seems uniquely unqualified to run the operations for a women’s sports team given his well-established history as someone who has sexually harassed female employees. Kate Fagan and Jane McManus wrote a point-counter-point article on ESPN that will tell you more about this story.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – The Washington Wizards played Game Two of their series against the Atlanta Hawks without their point guard and best player, John Wall. It showed. The Hawks beat the Wizards 106-90 to tie the series at one game apiece. The number one overall seed in the NBA playoffs, the Golden State Warriors finally lost a game, 97-90 to the Memphis Grizzlies. At times it’s seemed like the Warriors path to the title was becoming more and more frictionless, but last night was a bump in the path. How big remains to be seen.

National Hockey League – Oh, Minnesota Wild. I want you to be good, so badly. You’re the closest thing the United States has to a Canadian style, hockey means everything state and yet your NHL team just cannot beat the Chicago Blackhawks. Last night, the Hawks beat the Wild 1-0 to take a virtually impenetrable 3-0 lead in the series. The Calgary Flames beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-3 in overtime to keep their dream and the dream of having a Canadian Stanley Cup winner alive. The series is now 2-1 in favor of the Ducks but that’s a lot better than 3-0.

MLB Baseball – 41 year-old Bartolo Colon remains amazing for the New York Mets. He pitched 7 and 2/3 innings last night and only allowed a single run. The Mets were able to score three and only let in one more after Colon left the game. That’s all the ingredients necessary for a 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles.

Champions League Soccer – I wrote in yesterday’s post that Real Madrid was probably feeling lucky having drawn Juventus as their semifinal opponent instead of Barcelona or Bayern Munich. Well, I guess ‘be careful what you wish for’ is the lesson to be learned after Juventus beat Real Madrid 2-1.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Montreal Canadiens at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7 p.m. ET on USA: Down 2-0 in the series, having lost both of the first two games in Montreal, the Canadiens and the whole province of Quebec will be in mourning if their team cannot find a way to win this game.

New York Rangers at Washington Capitals, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The Rangers have played eight games in the playoffs so far and every single one of them has been decided by a single goal. That’s a hard way to win and it’s starting to show. They’re down two games to one against the Capitals.

NBA Basketball

Chicago Bulls at Cleveland Cavaliers, 7 p.m. ET on TNT: The Bulls sauntered into Cleveland and won the first game of the series. The Cavaliers may be in trouble, but they’ve got basketball’s best trump card, LeBron James. I’d be surprised if LeBron didn’t score over 35 points tonight. The question is — will it be enough?

Los Angeles Clippers at Houston Rockets, 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT: The Clippers are another road team that won the first game of their playoff series. Winning the first game on the road pretty much turns the second game into as close to a nice-to-have as you can get in the playoffs.

MLB Baseball

New York Yankees at Toronto Blue Jays, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable: Baseball believes it has a speed problem — it’s games are too slow. If you agree, this would be a good game for you to watch. The Blue Jays pitcher who’s pitching in this game, Mark Buehrle is amazingly quick. He pitches, gets the ball back from the catcher, and pitches again. It’s great.

Champions League Soccer

Bayern Munich at Barcelona, 2:45 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1: This is a massive soccer game. The game involves two of the most scintillatingly beautiful and talent laden soccer teams in the world. The plot revolves around Bayern Munich manager, Pep Guardiola. Guardiola was a long-time Barcelona player and later an extremely successful Barcelona manager. He’s a winner wherever he goes but the question is, which team has more Pep in them? His old team or his new team?

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

Talk about a busman’s holiday, retired baseball player Kyle Farnsworth has resurfaced playing on the defensive line of semi-pro football team in Orlando, Florida. If you’ve got half an hour on a train, bus, or plane, read this moving and deeply confusing ESPN article by Wright Thompson about legendary baseball player, Ted Williams’ daughter, Claudia Williams, and the difficult emotional and physical legacy she lives with. From Sarah Lyall comes the New York Times tale of a 1965 high school football game that continued on despite a school building burning to the ground just a few dozen yards from the field and the photo that made it famous. Ken Dryden, a great former NHL goalie and contemporary author, writes an article about Carey Price, the man who currently plays goalie for the Montreal Canadiens, Dryden’s old position.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Eduardo Davad.

Need to Know Sports: May 5, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: May 5, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

CHICAGO TAKES GAME ONE FROM CLEVELAND: The most intriguing game on yesterday’s sports lineup was Game One of the NBA series between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls. That these teams would meet in the playoffs has seem fated since the day LeBron James announced he was returning to Cleveland and fans have been anticipating it ever since. The plot became even more compelling when the Cavaliers lost two key players: Kevin Love to a shoulder injury which required surgery and J.R. Smith to a suspension. This focused the narrative even closer on LeBron James and whether his personal brilliance would be enough to carry his team past the Bulls. For one night at least, the answer was no, as the Bulls beat the Cavaliers 99-92.

THE FLOYD MAYWEATHER VS. MANNY PACQUIAO STORIES ARE ROLLING IN: Despite the pedestrian nature of the fight itself, the atmosphere around the fight and the stories that have sprung from it are quite enjoyable to read. This isn’t surprising. Most of my fondness for boxing comes from having read about it, not actually witnessed it. Maybe that’s the secret to enjoying this brutal sport — don’t watch it, read about it. If you do choose to do that, here are three stories to read: Eric Nusbaum’s Vice Article in which he concludes from having seen the fight first-hand, that it was “only the Fight of the Century until they got in the ring.” Bryan Curtis of Grantland asks, “Has there ever been a once-in-a-lifetime sporting event that made everyone feel worse than Mayweather-Pacquiao?” Grantland also sent writer Rafe Bartholomew to watch the fight, not in Vegas, but in the Philippines where Pacquiao is a congressperson and the country’s biggest celebrity.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – As covered above, the Chicago Bulls beat the Cleveland Cavaliers, 99-92. The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Houston Rockets 117-101 in Game One of their series last night. This was despite playing without their point guard and arguably their best player, Chris Paul. Line: Sometimes missing an important player for one game can provide a spark. It’s missing him for the second and third games that’s more difficult. When will Chris Paul be back?

National Hockey League – The Washington Capitals beat the New York Rangers, 1-0 in another one of these low-scoring playoff games that’s becoming the norm this year. This puts the Capitals up 2-1 in the series. Line: “Game one (when the Capitals scored a goal with less than two seconds left to win the game) was a killer. It just feels like the Caps have the upper hand.”

International Men’s Ice Hockey – USA/Russia – Do you believe in mild surprises? That’s what happened today as the USA beat Russia 4-2. Russia never led the game but they were coming on in the third period and it felt like if they had had another 20 minutes, they might have caught up. It’s just the group round of the tournament, so these teams may meet again. Line: “This US team is an interesting mix of veteran NHL players and up and coming college or junior players. They’re fun to watch and root for!

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Chicago Blackhawks at Minnesota Wild, 8 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: This is it for the Wild. Okay, it’s not really it, it. If they lost this one, they wouldn’t be eliminated from the playoffs, but they might as well be because they’d be down 3-0 to the team that’s knocked them out of the playoffs in both of the last two years.

Anaheim Ducks at Calgary Flames, 9:30 p.m. ET on USA: The Flames are in the exact same position as the Wild. Lose and they’ll be down 3-0. Win and they’re right back in the series.

NBA Basketball

Washington Wizards at Atlanta Hawks, 8 p.m. ET on TNT: The Wizards shocked the Hawks by winning Game One of this series in Atlanta. They’ve now won five games in a row and haven’t lost in the playoffs. The Hawks, brilliant in the regular season, have been anything but that in the playoffs so far. Is this the night the Hawks recapture their mojo? We’ll see.

Memphis Grizzlies at Golden State Warriors, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT: The big story of this game will be whether Grizzlies point guard, Mike Conley Jr. can play. If he does, he’ll be playing with a mask to protect his broken face. Some players have seemed to take power from these masks, so much so that at least one player, Rip Hamilton, wore his mask for the rest of his career.

MLB Baseball

Baltimore Orioles at New York Mets, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable: Is the bloom starting to fall off the rose that has been the Mets early in the baseball season? They’re still in first place of their division but they’ve lost five of their last six games. They’ll be trusting 41 year-old Bartolo Colon with the start against the Orioles.

Champions League Soccer

Real Madrid at Juventus, 2:45 p.m. ET on Fox Sports 1: In the draw to choose opponents for the Champions League semifinals, three of the remaining four teams, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, and Real Madrid were probably all hoping to play Juventus. It’s no big insult to the italian team but they’re just a tiny cut below the other semifinalists. Real got the lucky draw but today we’ll get our first chance to see just how lucky it was. Juventus is no joke and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them pull an upset today on home soil.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

If you’re looking for a little rage this morning, read Jane McManus‘ jaw-dropping and yet totally expected column about how shoddy NFL teams’ vetting process for draftees is… still, even after last season’s Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson fiascos. Meanwhile, somewhere in Pennsylvania, a sporting goods store is offering $10 insurance on any Eagles jersey they sell. If the player gets traded or cut, you can get another jersey for 50% of the normal cost. It’s a bad deal, but good commentary on the hyper-active Eagles’ offseason. Aaron Gordon of Vice Sports did a highly unscientific (and slightly tipsy) analysis of the words used by NFL draft analysts/commentators during the draft. Surprise, surprise, there’s a revealing racial bias. Check out this interview with one of the people behind the documentary, Bounce. It made me want to see it, what about you?

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo of Bert and Earnie by See-ming Lee.

Need to Know Sports: May 4, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: May 4, 2015

Dear Sports Fan,
What do I need to know about sports today?

Today’s Top Stories

THIS PAST SATURDAY WAS A SUPER SPORTS DAY: Two days later, the sports world will still be buzzing about Saturday, one of the biggest days of sports in recent memory. The highlights of the day were the Kentucky Derby, Game Seven between the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs, and the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. Although some people, The Big Lead’s Ty Duffy among them, might argue that Saturday wasn’t all that exciting, most fans will be gleefully talking today about where they were, what they watched, and who with.

The Kentucky Derby was exciting but not surprising. The favorite, American Pharaoh, won the race. While everyone loves an long-shot winner, having the favorite come through like this gives horse racing fans hope for the elusive Triple Crown winner, something that we haven’t seen since Affirmed won all three relevant races in 1978.

Game Seven between the Spurs and the Clippers lived up to its billing, 100%. It’s hard for me to imagine that anyone who saw that game on Saturday won’t simply be gushing in praise for both teams and for the show they put on. I was disappointed that the Spurs lost. It may mean the end of an amazing era of basketball in San Antonio, but they did win the championship last year, so it’s not like they have many regrets.

The boxing match was overshadowed by its controversies. I would expect that most people who dropped $100 to purchase the fight on pay-per-view will be disappointed. Due to technical difficulties on the part of cable providers in actually getting the pay-per-view feeds to the people who bought them, the fight didn’t start until almost midnight, ET. This must have been infuriating to people whose feeds weren’t working and deeply annoying to everyone else. The fight itself went pretty much as most reasonable people thought it would. Neither boxer was able to knock the other over or out and after the full twelve rounds, Floyd Mayweather won in a unanimous decision.

You may have noticed that I left the NFL draft out of my list of highlights. Rounds 4-7 were on Saturday too. I’m sure lots of important stuff happened, but only hardcore NFL fans were paying attention, and no one can accurately make sense of which teams improved the most.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – The Washington Wizards won their game against the Atlanta Hawks, 104-98. The Hawks came out of the gate fast — scoring 37 points in the first quarterb — but then things got progressively worse for them as the game went on. This was Game One of the second round playoff series between the two teams. Atlanta was the better regular season team but they struggled to defeat the eighth seeded Brooklyn Nets in the first round while the Wizards were busy sweeping the Toronto Raptors. The Wizards have still not lost a game in the playoffs this year but they did suffer what seem to be minor injuries to several important players in this one. Like the Wizards, the Golden State Warriors also remain undefeated in the playoffs after their 101-86 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies. This was also Game One of their series. The result is not unexpected, the Warriors are the #1 seed in the West and the Grizzlies are still missing their starting point guard, Mike Conley Jr. Conley has not played since he broke bones in his face during the first round, although he did warm up for this game. That’s a good sign for Grizzlies fans.

National Hockey League – Montreal Canadiens fans are understandably devastated after their team lost 6-2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning. This was the second of two games in Montreal to start the best-four-out-of-seven game series and the Lightning won them both. That doesn’t bode well for the Canadiens’ chances of advancing. A lot of words will be written, French (and English) will be spoken, and angst will be felt before Game Three on Wednesday. Nothing is settled yet in the series between the Minnesota Wild and the Chicago Blackhawks but it sure feels like it is. After two straight victories by the Blackhawks, one last night by the score of 4-1, and with the knowledge that this would be the third straight year the Blackhawks would knock the Wild out of the playoffs… there’s a sense of tragic inevitability growing. As bad as it looks for the Wild, it looks even worse for the Calgary Flames. They lost their second game against the Anaheim Ducks 3-0 last night. Add that to their 6-1 loss in the first game and it just doesn’t feel good. One of these teams, the Wild or the Flames will probably at least rally to make a fight out of their series, because that’s what often happens in hockey, but it’s hard to imagine this morning.

Major League Baseball – “You score six, we’ll score six.” That’s more or less what the Cleveland Indians said to the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday. The Blue Jays must have been feeling good after a fourth inning when they scored six runs. That feeling soured just a few minutes later when they gave up six in the fifth. Easy come, easy go, I guess.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

New York Rangers at Washington Capitals, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: These teams look so even after their first two games that I’d be surprised if this series didn’t go the full seven games. If hockey were a card game, both these teams would have one wild card each. The Rangers wild card is their goalie, Henrik Lundquist, and the Capitals’ is a scoring winger, Alexander Ovechkin. Even the wild cards cancel out. This series is going seven.

NBA Basketball

Chicago Bulls at Cleveland Cavaliers, 7 p.m. ET on TNT: Before the season started, these teams and their fans suspected that the other would be the biggest obstacle to winning the East and getting to the NBA Finals. Six months later, they seem to be right, even if they are meeting in the Eastern Conference semifinals instead of the finals. All eyes will be on Cleveland to see how they adjust to the loss of Kevin Love, out for the playoffs with an injury, and J.R. Smith, suspended for two games.

Los Angeles Clippers at Houston Rockets, 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT: It feels like the Clippers just won the championship — that’s how big their series against the San Antonio Spurs seemed. Actually, they just won a first round series, and their challenge in the second round may be even bigger. The Rockets team is built around James Harden, one of the savviest players in the league. Harden will drive to the basket over and over and over again, forcing the Clippers to stop him (unlikely) foul him (unwise) or concede entirely (not going to happen.) It should be a fascinating series but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Clippers can’t emotionally get up for the first game tonight.

International Men’s Ice Hockey

USA vs. Russia, 10 a.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The last time these two national teams played was the 2014 Olympics in Russia. Although both teams left that tournament disappointed, the game they played against each other was one to remember. The U.S. won in overtime as T.J. Oshie became briefly a household name for his shoot-out prowess. This time it’s the lesser known International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) World Championship in Prague.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

The USA beat Jamaica in a 4 x 100 relay for the first time since 2007. It’s actually almost creepy to watch video of Usain Bolt losing a race, but it’s possible his teammates had him starting so far back that even he couldn’t catch up. Farther North, in Montreal, some hockey/tech crazed person has programmed his living room to freak out when the Canadiens score a goal. Unfortunately the Canadiens haven’t been scoring a lot of goals lately. In fact, no one in hockey has, a fact that Jack Todd wrote about in the Montreal Gazette. Verne Gagne died at 89. Gagne was one of the most famous professional wrestlers. His career spanned four decades, from the 40s to the 80s. Read the New York Times obituary.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo of Two Rhesus Macaques at Blijdorp Zoo, Rotterdam (Netherlands) by Jinterwas.

Why is the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao scandal erupting now?

Mere hours before the most highly anticipated boxing match of the decade, a scandal erupted. Two prominent journalists from ESPN and CNN have had their press credentials, those magical passes which grant them access not just to the arena but to the fighters themselves to ask questions before and after the fight unexpectedly revoked. Fellow journalists around the world and internet have rallied to their defense. #boycotthefight began trending on Twitter. What’s the fuss about? The short answer is that the two journalists in question are women and the fighter who is being blamed for pulling their credentials is a well known abuser of women. The long answer? Well, about that long answer…

As with many situations in life, it’s helpful to tell one of my father’s jokes.

A person from a big city is visiting some friends of theirs who live in a tiny town. She gets in at night and enjoys a few hours of sitting by the fire and drinking beer while letting her friends regale her with all the scandalous goings on of their small town. She learns about the Smith’s strange sexual proclivities, the Borden’s habit of sleep driving, that Dan Trent is cheating on his wife with his dental hygienist, and many many more stories. In the morning, the big city visitor awakes, refreshed after a good sleep. She walks down to the breakfast table where her hosts are already eating. They’re laughing at something in the local paper. The visitor asks what it is. She’s told that the local gossip columnist has printed a story outing Dan Trent as being a cheater. The visitor says, “but that’s not news, you told me everyone in town already knew about that. Why do they bother printing it and what’s so funny about reading something you already know?” Her friend wipes the tears from his eyes and says, “Yes dear, we already know everything, but we still like to know who got caught!”

Classic Dad joke. Not funny, per se, but useful nonetheless. The problem with the presently erupting scandal is that we already knew that Floyd Mayweather was a misogynist, egotist with a long history of abusing women. Why should it matter now that he “gets caught.” That’s all this is — it’s society “catching” someone for something we already knew about. On one hand, this is good. The more abusers we collectively shame, even if we can’t lock them up, the better. On the other hand, manufacturing outrage now feels hypocritical — as if revoking press passes were some how worse than abuse.

For background on Mayweather, please read some or all of these articles, they are both wonderful writing and much needed journalism. Thanks to those who wrote them.

The Boxer and the Batterer

by Louisa Thomas for Grantland

If you only read one thing about Floyd Mayweather or this fight or boxing in general or just anything at all this weekend, this should be your choice. Thomas writes a completely engaging, objective, and most of all, true story about the contradiction of a man whose boxing success has been built by controlling his rage within the ring, who expresses his rage freely on the faces and bodies of women in his life.

On Saturday, Mayweather will take on Manny Pacquiao in a fight that has quickly become the biggest, most important event in recent boxing history. What’s so striking to me isn’t the spectacle of it but the dissonance around it. A sport that is increasingly marginal is dominating SportsCenter. A fight in a stadium that holds only 16,800 and is available only on pay-per-view could generate $300 million. A boxer who wins like a dancer allegedly beats women like a pugilist.

What are you supposed to do with this?

This Is How Las Vegas Protects Floyd Mayweather

by Diana Moskovitz for Deadspin

A long, exhaustive, and brilliant investigative attempt to counteract Mayweather’s refrain that if he had really abused women, there would be pictures of it.

There are pictures, though. In at least two cases of domestic violence, official records show pictures were taken. In one case, a police report explicitly says that the photos show a victim’s injuries. But authorities in Las Vegas, a city poised to make millions off Floyd this weekend, have either destroyed the photos or haven’t released them.

This is perhaps the cruelest part of the victims Mayweather chooses. They’re mostly women who have emotional relationships with him, sometimes even children with him. They still care for him, despite the bruises, concussions, and death threats, because domestic violence is a cycle of power and control that is difficult to escape. Like many domestic abusers, Mayweather wins them back with apologies, lavish gifts, and promises he’ll never do it again—taking advantage of his power and control over them—and then hits them again.

The same feelings that make it so hard to break out of an abusive relationship make it hard to release the surest proof that Mayweather beats women. It’s easy to throw everything you have at a stranger on the street who slugs you in the face. It’s not easy to do the same with the father of your children.

Floyd Mayweather Bans Michelle Beadle, Rachel Nichols From Covering Bout

by Daniel Roberts for Deadspin

The best article (at this time) about today’s scandal.

Stop and process this for a moment. Showtime has denied press credentials to two of the most prominent reporters for three of the world’s most important television outlets, including HBO, which is co-producing the fight, and ESPN, which has invested huge chunks of its prime schedule this week promoting the fight in infomercial-like fashion.

While it is Mayweather’s team that is pulling the strings, it’s Showtime that owes the world an explanation. Why have they continued to sanitize their coverage of Mayweather’s history of domestic violence while continuing to unhesitatingly promote other aspects of his outside-the-ring lifestyle? Why did they allow Mayweather to air a one-sided self-produced infomerical in which he denied any responsibility for his convictions? Why are they blackballing important female journalists for having the temerity to question Mayweather about what everyone else seems to recognize is a legitimate topic…