Beyond juleps and hats – the Kentucky Derby

Dear Sports Fan,

What’s so great about the Kentucky Derby? Isn’t it just an excuse to wear silly hats and drink mint juleps?

Thanks,
Luke

Dear Luke,

You’re absolutely right. For many of us, the Kentucky Derby is an excuse to wear silly hats and drink mint juleps while being thoroughly confused by the arcane world of horse racing. There’s nothing wrong with that approach, in fact, I’ve been happy subsisting solely on silly hats and mint juleps on Kentucky Derby day for years. This time around though, I thought I would try to add a serving of understanding to my meal, just to make it more well rounded.

The Kentucky Derby is one of the three big races in the United States that make up the so-called Triple Crown of horse racing. It’s the first and most prestigious of the bunch. The 1.25 mile race been run every year since 1875. Its long tradition, somewhat rare in this country, is part of its appeal, but for the horses owners and racing fans, the biggest draw is money. The winning horse will get $1.24 million dollars and that’s without considering the largest source of money in horse racing: gambling. Betting on horse races is a tradition that certainly predates the Kentucky Derby and it’s still going strong. You should expect that over $125 million dollars will have been bet on the race by the time it begins. This year, the race will be televised on NBC. You can tune in at 4 p.m. ET for lots of talk about the race, the hats, and the juleps but the race itself will begin at 6:24. It’s probably a good idea to turn it on at least a few minutes early. The race only lasts two minutes, so turning it on a couple minutes late could be enough to make you miss the whole thing.

Rivaling even the silly hats as a Kentucky Derby tradition is, of course, gambling. I wrote a whole post about gambling yesterday with everything you need to understand how betting on horse racing works. This morning I added a second post, where you can test your knowledge through the gift of musical theater. It’s easy to bet on horse racing. It’s actually the only sport in the United States that is completely legal to bet on online. That said, it might be more fun to bet just with your friends. You can make up your own form of betting by using your (potentially newfound) understanding of odds. Pick horses and reward the winner based on the odds. If someone picks a long shot 40/1 horse and they win, maybe you all collectively pay for the next 40 beers or chicken wings they buy or maybe even a bouquet of that many roses. That will give people a good incentive to pick a favorite (likely to win but may only get them a couple of beers/chicken wings/roses) and equally a good incentive to pick a horse that is unlikely to win.

Another great element of horse racing is the names. Horses often have absurd names. There is a reason for this or at least an explanation. Horses have to have names that are not just unique but also easily distinguishable when race announcers say their names. Quick aside on race announcers. They are an amazing mix of auctioneer, square dance caller, and huckster. To get a feel for it, watch this call by Tom Durkin:

You can imagine that if horses had similar names, all hell would break loose as people who gambled a significant amount of money on a horse named The Rural Juror ran up to collect their winners only to bump into another group of convinced winners who had bet on the actual winning horse, The Plural Furor. As many limitations do, the strict prohibition on similar sounding names for horses had led to some wonderful comedy. Take, for example, this race:

However you decide to partake in the race today, do it safely and enjoyably!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Need to Know Sports: May 1, 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 1, 2015

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

Today’s Top Stories

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE DRAFT: The biggest story of the first round of this year’s NFL draft was that there wasn’t much of a story. People were expecting all sorts of surprise picks and trades. Really though, nothing all that surprising happened. Jameis Winston was picked first by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite having been accused but not charged with sexual assault in an intolerably sloppy and corrupt investigation. The other high profile quarterback, Marcus Mariota was picked by the team with the second pick of the draft, the Tennessee Titans although there are still faint rumors that he could be moved to the Philadelphia Eagles to be reunited with his college coach Chip Kelly before the season. Football fans will pretend not to be upset about everything happening so mundanely, but deep down, they’ll be disappointed.

OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER HIRE BILLY DONOVAN: The Oklahoma City Thunder are one of the most high profile teams in the NBA, thanks to the prodigious talent of their two stars, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. They were certainly the most high profile team with a job opening at head coach. Last night they announced that they would be bringing in one of the top ten most high profile college head coaches, Billy Donovan to be their new coach. In retrospect, this seems like an obvious move. Donovan has been very high profile himself, winning two straight national championships in 2006 and 2007, but his teams have struggled recently an his school remains one where football is more important than basketball.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – Well, I guess the Chicago Bulls really didn’t want to be the first NBA team to ever lose a series which they started by winning the first three games. As if to make a point, they won Game Six against the Milwaukee Bucks 120-66. That’s not a typo. So long Bucks, say the Bulls, who are on to play the Cleveland Cavaliers in the second round. Power forward Blake Griffin was virtually unstoppable last night, scoring 26 points and powering his Los Angeles Clippers to a 102-96 win over the San Antonio Spurs. That puts the series even at three games apiece and sends it back to Los Angeles for the deciding seventh game. Whether a basketball fan favors the Spurs or the Clippers, she will probably agree with you if you say that it’s a shame either of these teams will get eliminated in the first round.

National Hockey League – Everyone, and I mean, everyone — fans, coaches, announcers, the people selling popcorn and beer, even the players — thought the game between the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers was going to overtime tied one to one. Everyone, that is, except for Alexander Ovechkin who passed the puck to Capitals teammate Joel Ward who scored with 1.3 seconds left in the game. That was the dramatic end to the Capitals 2-1 win. In the first game of their second round series, the Anaheim Ducks absolutely clobbered the Calgary Flames 6-1. That type of score is rare in hockey, especially in the playoffs. People will tend to say that there’s no carryover from game to game — that the second game’s result won’t be affected at all by how Game One went but I always have a sneaking suspicion that I’d rather have my team lose 6-1 than 3-2 in overtime. Losing big is a calamity but it’s not nearly as angsty as losing on a bad bounce, call, or play in a close game.

Major League Baseball – The Washington Nationals unlikely comeback win against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday seems to have rattled something loose in the team’s psyche. Since then, they’ve been scoring a lot and not letting up very many runs. Tonight they beat the New York Mets 8-2.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Tampa Bay Lightning at Montreal Canadiens, 7:00 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The Lightning are still basically catching their breath from beating Detroit in Game Seven of their series two nights ago. The Canadiens have been breathing sighs of relief for a few days after first going up three games to zero and then losing two games in a row against the Ottawa Senators before finally winning in Game Six. Everything resets in the second round though, so we’ll see what happens.

Minnesota Wild at Chicago Blackhawks, 9:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: Whoever said that nothing breeds contempt like familiarity had never watched hockey. They were on to something though, because there’s truly nothing like the contempt built up by familiarity in hockey. This is the third straight year that these two teams from the Central division have played each other in the playoffs. Expect the blood to begin boiling by the second period of this game and not stop until one of the teams is eliminated.

NBA Basketball

Atlanta Hawks at Brooklyn Nets, 8 p.m. ET on ESPN: This is Game Six of the seven game series between the Hawks and the Nets and still no one has won a game on the other team’s home court. Brooklyn will need to keep that streak running or else they will be eliminated from the playoffs. With two or three of their key players suffering from nagging injuries, the Hawks will be determined to end the series tonight and earn themselves a few days of rest instead of playing another game on Sunday.

International Men’s Ice Hockey

USA vs. Finland, 10:15 a.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: Huh? What’s this? International hockey? Aren’t the NHL playoffs going on? They are, but so is the International Ice Hockey Federation’s (IIHF) World Championship in Prague. This hockey won’t be as good as the Olympics or the Stanley Cup but it won’t be bad by any means. Many of the best players from eliminated professional teams have made their way over to Europe to play for their countries. The United States team should be favored in this game, but not by much. Finland is a surprisingly powerful international men’s ice hockey force.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

Read Aaron Gordon‘s illuminating article in Vice Sports about how ESPN’s seemingly biggest failure ever is actually the foundation for their domination of the sports mobile space. Browse around Ken Belson’s New York Times survey of the 1990 NFL draft class and marvel at the wide range of life outcomes even among NFL first round draftees. Talking about retired NFL players, I loved learning about former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rocky Bleier from Sam Gardner’s Fox Sports article. Bleier was an active NFL player before he was drafted into the Army. Sent to Vietnam, Bleir was shot and wounded by a grenade in a single incident. After returning home, the Steelers kept him on an Injured Reserve as a courtesy, never expecting him to make it back to the league. He did. Great story. Travel from real guns to circus cannons in this fascinating article about human cannonballs by Robbie Gonzalez on io9. Take a deep breath and then plug your bithdate into Reuben Fischer-Baum’s interactive “How many pro athletes are younger than you” tool on Deadspin.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Hebi65.

Why do football fans get so excited about the NFL draft?

Dear Sports Fan,

Why do football fans get so excited about the NFL draft? The television ratings for it are always incredibly high but as far as I can tell, it’s just people talking in an auditorium. What gives?

Thanks,
Gabriel

Dear Gabriel,

Excitement over the National Football League draft is one of those elements of sports fandom that needlessly alienates people who aren’t sports fans. You’re absolutely right that watching the NFL draft seems totally crazy to non-sports fans. It is, as you say, “just people talking in an auditorium.” Yet for the more than 32 million sports fans who watch it, it’s one of the most exciting nights of the year, even if this year’s enthusiasm should be dampened by the first pick almost definitely being a rapist. The best way to understand the draft is as the ultimate piece of crossover fiction.

Here’s a topical analogy that might help explain the NFL draft phenomenon. The second Avengers movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron is coming out on Friday and it’s likely to be a blockbuster hit. I personally know lots of people who have already purchased tickets and made plans to get to the theater early so they can be sure of getting good seats. The Avengers is a team of superheroes that includes characters like the Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and the Hulk. Each of these characters has their own comic books and movies and in fact, they existed before the Avengers. Fans follow along with these characters individually. Part of what makes the Avengers movies so exciting is the coming together of these well known characters. How will they interact? Will they fit together well or will there be infighting? Who will take a leadership role? Who will fall back from their normal position in the spotlight to become a supporting character?

This is almost exactly the same thing that fascinates football fans about the draft. College football is an incredibly popular drama in its own right and its characters are well known to sports fans. The NFL draft is the moment when these characters get scrambled up and cross over to become a part of another, even more popular drama, the NFL. This sparks the same type of speculation and questioning as the coming together of the Avengers. How will a star college football player fit into his new NFL team? Will he become the new leader or learn to take a back seat? How will he interact on the field and off with the already established characters on that NFL team? In the highly competitive universe of NFL teams, will the addition of a new super hero tip the balance in favor of their new team?

If you’re not an Avengers fan, there are lots of other examples of the allure that this type of scrambling or crossing over in popular culture. The incredibly popular book and movie 50 Shades of Grey began as fan fiction built on top of (no pun intended) the world of Twilight. The excellent 1995 bank robbery movie, Heat, was much anticipated because it finally brought the actors Al Pacino and Robert Dinero, who had played father and son in The Godfather Part II (in different eras) together in a single scene. And of course, there are lots of examples of television show crossovers that people love or love to hate, the appearance of George Clooney and Noah Wylie on Friends chief among them. Even when or especially when the crossover never actually happens, the idea of a crossover is obsessively interesting. My own nerdy detective novel favorites are the theory that Rex Stout’s detective Nero Wolfe may have been the son of Sherlock Holmes or perhaps his brother Mycroft. I am sure there is an example in nearly every fictional world. What would happen if the Stringer Bell met Tony Soprano? What if Olivia Pope took Frank Underwood as a client? What if the Dunphys were transplanted into the post-apocalyptic world of The Walking Dead?

Just like fantasy football is a nerdy statistical role playing game disguised as sports, the NFL draft is a combination of crossover fiction, fan fiction, and super-hero team comic books surrounded by a sportsy shell. We might not all be into the exterior shell but we can all understand the appeal of what’s within.

Thanks for your question,
Ezra Fischer

Need to Know Sports: April 30, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 30, 2015

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

Today’s Top Stories

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE DRAFT TONIGHT: The National Football League’s premiere offseason event, the NFL draft begins tonight at 8 p.m. ET. The 32 NFL teams in the league take turns choosing players roughly in the reverse order of last year’s standings. Only the first round of the draft takes place tonight, so just the first 32 picks. This year’s draft is marred by the fact that the person who almost definitely will be picked first is almost definitely a rapist. I wrote in great length about this yesterday and the post was quite popular. I wouldn’t say it went viral, but it had a slight sniffle.

BASEBALL GAME IN BALTIMORE PLAYED IN EMPTY STADIUM: Due to the continuing protests in Baltimore, Major League Baseball made the strange decision to go ahead with the game between the Chicago White Sox and Baltimore Orioles but not to invite any fans. This was the first time in the 145 year history of the league that a game had been played with no fans. Whatever MLB’s thought process was in choosing to deal with the situation this way, the spectacle of a game in an empty stadium received a lot of attention. Peter Schmuck of the Baltimore Sun suggested that the game served as notice that things have not returned to normal in the city yet but that life must go on. Fortune.com and Breitbart.com disagreed about the financial implications of the game, with Fortune suggesting that the Orioles “don’t stand to lose much money” and Breitbart arguing that the “surreal ghost town game” was a harbinger of bad economic times to come for businesses in the city. Finally, there were those like Ann Killion of SFGate that suggested the game was “a symptom of damaged society.”

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – The Atlanta Hawks won 107-97 over the Brooklyn Nets. This continues the pattern of the home team in this series winning every game. The Hawks jumped out to an early lead in the first quarter and the Nets were never able to actually catch up, despite many surges that saw them tantalizingly close. The next game, Game Six of the series, will be in Brooklyn on Friday night. The Memphis Grizzlies eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers from the playoffs last night by beating them 99-93. The Trail Blazers season has seemed doomed for the past couple months, ever since an important player on their team blew his Achilles heel. The Grizzlies will now get a few days to rest up and heal their own wounds before the next round.

National Hockey League – The Tampa Bay Lightning eliminated the Detroit Red Wings in a 2-0 game. This result is not surprising. Really only a giant blow-out would have been surprising in a series between such evenly matched teams. With this game, the first round of the NHL playoffs has ended. No rest for the wicked (or the hockey fan) though, the second round starts tonight for teams that won their first round series. The Red Wings enter an offseason of uncertainty, with the possible loss of their long-time coach, Mike Babcock.

Major League Baseball – Boston sports fans do nothing better than freak out, which is why this Red Sox season has been right in their wheel-house. Nothing for them to freak out about today though, after their team handled the Toronto Blue Jays easily, 4-1.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Washington Capitals at New York Rangers, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The second round of the playoffs begins tonight with this game. The Capitals are coming off a breakthrough Game Seven victory over the New York Islanders. The Rangers have been waiting around a few days since beating the Pittsburgh Penguins to see who they would play. The Capitals best player is Alexander Ovechkin, the game’s best pure scorer. The Rangers best player is Henrik Lundquist, one of hockey’s best goalies. So, this is set up to be an exciting series.

Calgary Flames at Anaheim Ducks, 10 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: The Western Conference gets its first second round game with this matchup. It’s hard to imagine a larger contrast between these two franchises. There’s the obvious things, like Canada vs. the United States, cold weather vs. hot weather, but the teams themselves are also quite oppositional. The Flames are an attractive bunch to casual fans. They’re young, largely unknown, and overachieving. The Ducks have been very, very good for a long time but rarely win. That’s a recipe for casual fan boredom. Let’s pull for the Flames, shall we?

NBA Basketball

Chicago Bulls at Milwaukee Bucks, 7 p.m. ET on TNT: The Bucks were down 3-0 in this series but have won the last two games to push the Bulls into an uncomfortable Game Six. If the Bulls lose this one, they’ll be stepping into an extremely high pressure situation in Game Seven. No NBA team has ever lost a series once they claimed a 3-0 game lead.

Los Angeles Clippers at San Antonio Spurs, 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT: For the first time, this series, which has been the best series in the first round, could come to an end based on the outcome of a single game. The Clippers travel to San Antonio down 3-2, knowing that a loss will send them packing for the summer. Some teams might be complacent in Game Six, knowing they could lose the game and still win the series, but the Spurs are too wise and well coached to fall into that trap. Expect them to come out firing on all cylinders.

MLB Baseball

Washington Nationals at New York Mets, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable: This is a true through-the-looking-glass game. The Washington Nationals came into the season with championship hopes (or even expectations) while the Mets fans were hoping their team would just be half-decent. Both teams have defied their expectations. The Nationals have been mediocre at times and terrible at times, while the Mets’ success is the story of the year. Even the pitchers are polar opposites. The Nationals pitcher, Stephen Strasburg was drafted number one overall while the Mets Jacob DeGrom was a ninth round selection.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

GoDaddy, the shameless advertising machine that also sells internet domains and related services announced that it would no longer be sponsoring NASCAR. This could mean bad things for the sport or just business as usual. Hard to say. The day after an unfortunate tweet reminiscent of The Godfather’s famous horse’s head scene, the social media manager of the Houston Rockets has been fired. 75% of sports fans will think this is a ridiculously outsized punishment for a minor infringement. If you’re looking for footbally things to say about the NFL draft in addition to the major cultural story covered in our top stories section, I like NJ.com’s idea that the success of the Philadelphia Eagles draft as orchestrated by coach and GM Chip Kelly will be a referendum on combining those two positions. There’s also an excellent article on MMQB by a potential draftee’s mother about what it’s like to be a football mom. To end with a chuckle, read either of these two sports related xkcd comics.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Sponchia.

Why does no one seem to care that the #1 pick in the NFL draft is almost definitely a rapist?

It’s not hard to place what’s wrong with the National Football League draft happening on Thursday, April 30: the first player selected will almost definitely be a rapist. Not everything about the draft is so easy to figure out. It is hard to understand why the team with the first pick, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, would make this choice. There are so many other decisions they could make that would be easily defensible from a football perspective and would not involve hiring someone who is almost definitely a rapist. It’s also hard to understand why journalists and media organizations of all shapes and sizes are either ignoring this fact or are merely motioning towards it with weak and insulting euphemisms like “off the field questions.”

The man who will almost definitely be made a millionaire when his name is the first called on Thursday night is Jameis Winston. Winston spent the last three years at the University of Florida State where he played quarterback for the school’s football team. He was part of the team in 2014 when it won a national championship and he became the youngest player ever to win college football’s most prestigious individual award, the Heisman Trophy, in the same year. He is also almost definitely a rapist. On December 7, 2012, a freshman student at Florida State told police that she had been raped. She would later identify the man who raped her as Jameis Winston and much later, when his DNA was tested and compared to some found on her clothing, there was a positive match. The comprehensive report on this crime and the subsequent investigation or lack thereof was written by Walt Bogdanich for the New York Times. Its conclusion is that “there was virtually no investigation at all, either by the police or the university.” That doesn’t mean that Winston did not rape this woman, just that the state prosecutor in charge of the case decided they didn’t think they could get a conviction. In fact, that prosecutor, Willie Meggs has publicly said, in response to being asked whether he thinks that Winston sexually assaulted the woman, “I think what happened was not good.”

We have a principle in this country that proclaims people are “innocent until proven guilty,” but that’s a legal principle, not a cultural one. “Innocent until proven guilty” makes sense as a legal rule because we generally believe that wrongfully imprisoning an innocent person is a worse miscarriage of justice than letting a guilty person go free. I believe in “innocent until proven guilty” as a foundational principle of law but I don’t think it means that we should blindfold and mute ourselves to a person’s actions simply because they were not convicted of a crime. From reading the New York Times expose, we know about the insufficient and probably willfully corrupt way the police and university officials handled the case. From reading Daniel Roberts wonderful piece in Deadspin, we know that the odds of being falsely accused of rape are “about the same as your odds of being attacked by a shark,” and that’s without factoring in that Winston was the most important football player in a corrupt and football crazed city. Winston is almost definitely a rapist.

Winston is almost definitely a rapist and I don’t think there’s actually much debate about the fact. So why won’t anyone say or write those words in the context of the NFL draft? The NFL draft is the signature offseason event for the most popular professional sporting league in the United States. It’s viewed by over 30 million people. Last year more than 9 million tweets (that’s up to 1.2 billion characters) were sent about the draft. Pre-draft media coverage is intense and focused largely on a form called the mock draft. In a mock draft, people predict what is going to happen during the draft — which teams are going to select which players. Virtually every mock draft this year predicts that Jameis Winston will be the first pick of the draft. Virtually none of them mention the fact that Winston is almost definitely a rapist. Some ignore it completely or some use euphemistic and infuriatingly demeaning language to refer obliquely to it. Below is a selection of mock drafts. (I chose somewhat randomly, but I did not exclude any for having mentioned the fact that Winston is almost definitely a rapist.) Many of these organizations have published excellent articles covering Jameis Winston as likely sexual assault perpetrator but in the context of the NFL draft, that work seems to have gone missing.

NFL.com mock draft by Charlie Davies: My top-ranked QB. Despite all the issues that surround him off the field, the Buccaneers feel good about their background checks and will make him their latest franchise QB.

CBS Sports mock draft by Rob Rang: Though questions still remain about Winston’s maturity, from purely a football perspective he is an excellent match in Tampa Bay…

ESPN mock draft by Todd McShay: No surprise here. I have Winston as the top-ranked player on my board, and I believe he will be the first overall pick by the Bucs on April 30. Tampa Bay has to get its quarterback of the future out of this selection, and while Winston does bring with him some off-field risks, I give him the edge as a player over Marcus Mariota. In the areas that matter most in projecting QBs to the next level — including reading defenses, going through progressions, anticipating throws and delivering the ball accurately — he’s one of the best prospects I’ve evaluated in the past 10 years.

Newsday mock draft by Nick Klopsis: …signs point to Winston more recently… As long as the Buccaneers have done their homework into Winston’s well-documented off-field issues, his name likely will be the first one called April 30 in Chicago.

New York Times mock draft from the Associated Press: Player character and behavior should be even more of a deciding issue in this year’s draft. The Bucs, desperate for a quarterback, say they are convinced the guy they choose is not a bad apple and is a great prospect.

Washington Post mock draft by Mark Maske: …Winston’s off-field issues must be considered when making such a franchise-defining decision. But Winston is the more NFL-ready QB and it would be a significant surprise at this point if the pick is not Winston.

The MMQB mock draft by Peter King …Always got the sense the Bucs wanted to pick Winston, then went through the investigative process to see if there was some great reason not to. They couldn’t find one…

[editors note] With no sense of irony, King starts his column with a long discussion of another prospective NFL draft pick, Shane Ray, and how his recent traffic violation and marijuana possession charge is likely to end with his being picked significantly later than he would otherwise have been. No mention of rape though.

The Big Lead mock draft by Jason McIntyre: Hasn’t changed. Wouldn’t be my guy.

“Issues,” “maturity,” “character and behavior,” “not a bad apple,” “background checks,” and “off-field risks.” That seems to be how NFL teams think about the potential problem of drafting someone who is almost definitely a rapist. To be clear, this is not just how football teams think about picking a player, this is how multi-million dollar businesses are thinking about the hiring process for one of their key employees. That’s reprehensible, especially if you combine that with the well documented fact that NFL teams are notoriously bad at predicting the success of quarterback hires. If you have a high profile hire to make and know that your organization and its 31 competitors have a long history of struggling to hire well in this position, why would you choose to hire the guy who is almost definitely a rapist?

There are so many other things the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could do with the first pick of the draft. They could take another quarterback like Marcus Mariota, from the University of Oregon, who also won a Heisman trophy during his college career. Or select a player who plays another position, like defensive tackle Leonard Williams who is said to be the most reliable player in the draft. Or trade the pick to another team and let them employ the rapist. In an highly competitive entertainment industry where success is based not just on winning but also on inspiring a base of people to literally wear your employees name on their backs, why would you hire someone who is almost definitely a rapist?

There’s very little we can do about this before Thursday. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have already made up their minds about who to hire and Vegas is so certain that it’s Jameis Winston that they’ll only give you $100 if you bet $1,000 with them. That’s about as certain as something can be before it happens. Sexual assault is an enormous problem in this country and having our biggest sports league so blatantly ignore it deters people from taking the problem seriously. The best thing we can do is refuse to hide behind euphemism. If you want, you can follow Keith Olbermann’s call to boycott the NFL Draft. My preference is for you to go to a draft party or a bar where people are watching the draft or turn it on in your own house, and when Jameis Winston’s name is called, turn to the people next to you and say, “That guy is almost definitely a rapist. I wouldn’t hire him and I don’t think a football team should either.”

Need to Know Sports: April 29, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 29, 2015

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

Today’s Top Stories

NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE REVOKES NON-PROFIT STATUS: The National Football League announced yesterday that it was dropping its tax exempt status and would in the future be filing and paying taxes as a for-profit company. While it sounds totally crazy that the league was ever considered a tax-exempt non-profit, it’s actually not, or at least not as much as it seems. What we think of as the NFL is an association of 32 football teams who play within a single structure. Each team is an independent company with its own owner or owners. These teams share equally in all of the money the league makes. The entity that had been considered a tax exempt non-profit was just the central office that helps coordinate and run the league. Now, given the size of the NFL, that’s still a material task that involves lots of money, but you could see how it could be described as non-profit. It’s job is not to make money, it’s to facilitate the making of money. Whether or not you buy that logic, the actual effect of this change will be that the league’s critics will no longer be able to criticize them for this and (and this is important) it will no longer have to file public financials. This means that high-profile NFL officials, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, most visibly, will no longer have their salaries made public. So while this seems like a step forward, it may actually be a small step backwards if you believe in transparency and accountability. Read Aaron Gordon in Vice Sports and Ken Belson in the New York Times for more information.

BASEBALL GAME IN BALTIMORE TO BE PLAYED IN EMPTY STADIUM: Major League Baseball announced that today’s game between the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox will be played but without any fans in the stadium. This follows the postponement of the two previous games scheduled between these teams which were supposed to be on Monday and Tuesday but will instead be played in May. The idea of playing a game with no fans allowed is not a new one, in fact it’s reasonably common in international and European soccer, but in that context it is done as a penalty for fan misbehavior, either violence or racism. In the United States, it’s basically never done. The only times that the New York Times could find were a 1989 basketball game played without fans because of a measles and a 1998 baseball game without fans in order to protect them from a potentially dangerously crumbly stadium. I honestly don’t know what to make of this decision other than that it seems like it will tie the league to the protests in Baltimore more firmly than canceling another game would have. Whether it is viewed as baseball siding with or against the protests, I’m not sure.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Basketball Association – The Houston Rockets won 103-94 over the Dallas Mavericks. This win ended the series and Dallas’ season. Mavericks fans will be shaking their heads, but that’s nothing new, they’ve been doing that for three straight months now, ever since their team made what turned out to be a disastrous trade to bring Rajon Rondo in from Boston. Rockets fans will have celebrated wildly last night and will now be pretending like winning in the first round is no big deal, they want to win it all. The San Antonio Spurs beat the Los Angeles Clippers 111-107 to take a 3-2 lead in their first round series. People will be talking about a non-controversial but critical goaltending call in the final seconds of the game but what they should be talking about is a vintage performance from all-time great Tim Duncan who led his team in points, rebounds, and steals, despite being 39 years old. The series now returns to San Antonio for Game Six with the Spurs having a chance to end the series on home court.

Major League Baseball – It’s no surprise that in a game featuring two of the best pitchers in the world, there wasn’t much offense. The San Francisco Giants won 2-1 over the Los Angeles Dodgers thanks to a single home run by Buster Posey. That’s how close the margins of victory are likely to be when Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner faces Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw. The Chicago Cubs continued their great start to the season by beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-2. The Cubs scored three runs in the second inning and never looked back. They led, the entire game.

British Premier League Soccer – By losing 1-0 to Hull City, Liverpool really hurt their chances of finishing the year as one of the top four teams in the league and earning a coveted spot in next year’s Champions League. By beating Liverpool 1-0, Hull City significantly aided their own chances of finishing the year above the bottom three teams who get relegated to a lower league. It was a big loss for Liverpool and a big win for Hull City.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NHL Hockey

Detroit Red Wings at Tampa Bay Lightning, 7:30 p.m. on NBC Sports Network: Thanks to a Tampa Bay victory in Detroit two days ago, the series is tied at 3-3 and hockey fans get to glory in yet another Game Seven. This one should really be no surprise, since the General Manager and architect of the Lightning is a former captain of the Red Wings who spent his entire 21 year career in Detroit. Everything he knows about hockey, he learned in Detroit, and he learned nearly everything. This edition of the Red Wings will have to win a Game Seven on the road without veteran defensive leader, Niklas Kronwall who is suspended after an illegal hit in Game Six. If any team can do it, they can, but it’s gonna be tough.

NBA Basketball

Brooklyn Nets at Atlanta Hawks, 7 p.m. ET on TNT: There’s a cliche in seven game playoff series that the “series doesn’t start until a road team wins a game.” If this is the case, then despite this being the fifth game of the series, it remains unstarted. The Hawks won the first two games which were in Atlanta and then the Nets won Games Three and Four in Brooklyn. Of the three remaining games, two are in Atlanta, so if this trend continues, the Hawks would advance.

Portland Trail Blazers at Memphis Grizzlies, 9:30 p.m. ET on TNT: The Grizzlies were up three games to zero in this series but lost Game Four, on Monday by a score of 99-92. In most series, the team that won the first three games would view a Game Four loss as just a small bump in the road. The only thing that suggests this might be a big bump is that the Grizzlies lost their starting point guard to a facial injury in Game Three and he’s likely to be out for a long time. Another loss here and Grizzlies fans will begin to get very, very nervous.

MLB Baseball

Toronto Blue Jays at Boston Red Sox, 6 p.m. ET on regional cable: It’s Game of Thrones season again and it’s hard to resist the lovable Blue Jays pitcher, R. A. Dickey, who uses the fantasy show’s theme song as his walk-up music before batting. He won’t get a chance to bat in this game, since the home team, the Red Sox, play in the American League where the designated hitter (DH) rule is in effect. The DH rule means that pitchers don’t ever need to hit.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

ESPN has sued Verizon for testing out a new, partially unbundled approach to television pricing. Verizon was testing a new program where they would allow customers to choose theme based channel packages. Channels like ESPN have an interest in continuing to be bundled with virtually every other channel so that they can benefit from virtually any interest instead of just being purchased by sports fans. I favor bundling philosophically because it forces the majority to subsidize minority content that might not otherwise be profitable and therefore created. I’m curious to see what will happen in this legal battle of heavyweight companies. Retired baseball legend Kirk Gibson who hit one of the most famous home runs in World Series history in 1984 announced that he has Parkinson’s disease. If you’ve ever wanted to look behind the scenes at the NHL, here are two articles to read: the first is from Paul Brownfield of Vice Sports who spent a night watching playoff hockey with the members of the league’s department of player safety; the second, from Sean Leahy of Yahoo’s hockey blog, Puck Daddy, is an ode to the now former home of the New York Islanders, the Nassau Coliseum.

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo by Eduardo Davad.

Need to Know Sports: April 28, 2015

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Subject: Need to know sports: April 28, 2015

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

Today’s Top Stories

ROUGH PLAY IN BOSTON, DAY 2, THE FALLOUT: Yesterday everyone was talking about the rough play in Game Four of the Cleveland Cavaliers sweep of the Boston Celtics in the NBA Playoffs. Today they’ll be talking about the collateral damage in terms of injured and suspended players. On the Cavaliers, the biggest loss is Kevin Love, their third best player, who has a dislocated shoulder and has already been ruled out for the next round of the playoffs. That’s at least two weeks, so you know it’s a major injury. For a detailed analysis of the injury, check out Jeff Stotts on his basketball injury blog, In Street Clothes. The Cavaliers other loss is to suspension. J.R. Smith, who basically punched a Celtics player, was given a two game suspension and will miss the first two games of the next round. The Celtics, were eliminated from the playoffs in the game on Sunday, so their loss of Kelly Olynyk to a one game suspension is a non-issue. The good news is that Jae Crowder, the guy who got punched by J.R. Smith, only has a sprained knee and nothing worse.

ORIOLES GAME POSTPONED IN BALTIMORE: When real life and sports intersect, it’s sometimes good to see sports give way. That’s what happened yesterday in Baltimore when the baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox last night was postponed due to the protests in the city. The Baltimore Sun noted in their article on the topic that this was the first non-weather related postponement in Baltimore since the week following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. It’s worth reading up on the situation in Baltimore from more hard-news sites than this one, but for a sports perspective, read a statement from the Orioles Executive Vice President (and son of the owner) John Angelos. It’s pieced together from Twitter, so it’s not the best writing, but the sentiments are good and seem to come from the heart.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Hockey League – The Washington Capitals won 2-1 over the New York Islanders in a climactic Game Seven. This is a giant step forward and a big relief for the Capitals, who have a reputation for falling apart in the playoffs and especially in Game Sevens. For the Islanders, the loss is particularly jarring, because it means they’ve played their last game in their long-time Long Island home stadium, the Nassau Coliseum. Next year, they move to Brooklyn. The Tampa Bay Lightning won 5-2 over the Detroit Red Wings to force a Game Seven in that series as well. That game will be on Wednesday night and is must-watch television. There won’t be any NHL playoff games tonight, so take a deep breath and prepare for Wednesday.

National Basketball Association – There were two teams facing playoff elimination yesterday and both of them won and will live to see (and play) another game at least. The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Chicago Bulls 94-84 and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Memphis Grizzlies 99-92. The Bucks are now down three games to two in the series while the Trail Blazers are down three games to one. Still, I’d give the Trail Blazers a better chance (still not good though) to come back and win the series, because the Grizzlies have suffered some serious injury losses. The Brooklyn Nets beat the Atlanta Hawks 120-115 in overtime. This evens their series at two games apiece. It’s a surprising result given that the Hawks had by far the best record in the Eastern Conference this season and the Nets just barely made the playoffs. If you want to sound smart and a little smarmy, you can point out that the Hawks don’t have a star player and suggest that no matter how good a team works together, without a star, they are prone to playoff losses.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NBA Basketball

Dallas Mavericks at Houston Rockets, 8 p.m. ET on TNT: This might be the last game of an era in Dallas. With their team down 3-1 in the series, a loss tonight would end the season and could end the career of Dirk Nowitzky, a great player and fan favorite who has played for the Mavericks since 1998.

San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Clippers, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT: This is the best of the eight first round series in the NBA. It’s tied 2-2 and both teams feel, with good reason, that if they can win this series, they have a legitimate shot at winning the championship.

MLB Baseball

Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs, 8 p.m. ET on regional cable: There’s something about both these lovable losers that makes me want to feature them in my forecasts. I’m not sure what it is, something about tradition and pathos mixed together.

San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers, 10 p.m. ET on regional cable: This baseball game is the rare early season one that might be good enough to tempt even a neutral or casual fan. The two pitchers in this game are among the very best in the world: Madison Bumgarner for the Giants and Clayton Kershaw for the Dodgers. In the past, Kershaw has been better during the regular season but Bumgarner holds the trump cards of having been better in the playoffs and having the better name.

BPL Soccer

Liverpool at Hull City, 2:45 p.m. on NBC Sports Network: You’d think a game between the fifth best and fifth worst team in a league wouldn’t be interesting, but because the top four teams in the Premier League get coveted spots in next year’s Champions League and the bottom three get relegated to a lower league, this game is vitally important for both teams.

Verisimilitude (or How to Sound Like a Sports Native)

David Aldridge’s weekly NBA column contains some amazing gems from an interview with nerdy NBA player, Brook Lopez, including his thoughts (and fears) about time travel. Read Johnathan Gilbert’s New York Times introduction to the strange sport of Footgolf and the Argentinian athletes who dominate it. NBA coach Rick Carlisle literally taped his mouth shut during a press conference two nights ago as a silent (and prop based) comedic protest against what he thought was unfair refereeing towards his team. Watch the video on Deadspin here. Talking about video, ESPN2 aired live coverage of a video game tournament and people freaked out a bit. Gamer site Kotaku wrote about it. To feel good about the world, watch this SB Nation video of widespread collusion in a Kansas University alumni football game to let 89-year-old former Kansas running back Bryan Sperry score a long touchdown. It’s amazing and I hope I can run like that when I’m 89!

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

Photo of Bert and Earnie by See-ming Lee.

Need to Know Sports: April 27, 2015

I’m introducing a new thing today. 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: April 27, 2015

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

Today’s Top Stories

ROUGH PLAY IN BOSTON: LeBron James and his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, advanced to the next round of the NBA basketball playoffs yesterday by beating the Boston Celtics 101-93 for their fourth win in a row. Winning four games in a row in a seven game series is called a sweep and it usually means that things went smoothly for the winners. That’s not the case for the Cavaliers who may be missing two of their key players after a series of rough and possibly dirty plays in yesterday’s game. Kevin Love got tangled up with Boston Celtic, Kelly Olynyk, in the first quarter of the game and ended up with a dislocated shoulder. Ouch. Later in the game, J.R. Smith, a Cavalier who is known to be a bit of a lunatic, swung his fist backwards wildly and connected with the head of Celtic, Jae Crowder. While falling to the ground, stunned, Crowder injured his knee and, after being helped off the court, was not able to continue playing.

There are four main opinions to have about this, none of them incredibly nuanced, and if you talk to sports fans today, you’ll probably hear all four.

The Celtics are full of dirty players and are an abomination to the sport of basketball.
The Cavaliers are full of dirty players and are an abomination to the sport of basketball.
What happened yesterday was terrible. That type of play is not what basketball is about.
What happened yesterday was great! That type of play was totally common in the 1980s when basketball was a great sport. Since then, it’s gotten way too sanitary to be truly enjoyable.

Feel free to take any of these positions in a sports conversation today. Or choose ONE of the top two and ONE of the bottom two. People will also be speculating about who should and will be suspended.

THE HEAD INJURY CRISIS COMES TO SOCCER: The concussion and brain injury crisis reached beyond American Football and reared its ugly (yes) head yesterday in a high profile British Premier League football game. During the first half of a game between first place Chelsea and third place Arsenal, the Arsenal goalie came out to defend against Chelsea player Oscar and their heads collided violently. Oscar seemed to have been unconscious in the air and was certainly out for some time after he hit the ground. Nonetheless, he returned to play and made it until halftime when he was reassessed and then sent to the hospital.

One of the major problems with addressing head injuries in soccer is that, unlike football or hockey, substitutions are severely limited. Teams are only allowed three total substitutions during a game and if a player has to be assessed for an injury, their team must play with one fewer player until she either returns or is replaced by a substitute. Once substituted, a player cannot return in that game. These rules make it extremely likely that players with brain injuries, even obvious, spectacular ones like today, will play through them instead of being assessed and treated. While a lack of immediate reform on this point seems insane, remember that these injuries have been happening for more than seventy five years and it’s only seemed insane to a majority of viewers for the past five years or so. Add to that the complexity of trying to negotiate a rule change between a dozen or more country-based leagues in Europe, and the slow pace of change is more understandable. Still, every injury like today’s will help push the soccer and sports world towards reform.

Yesterday’s Games, Today’s Conversations

National Hockey League – The first round (of four) playoff series in the NHL are coming to an end. Yesterday’s two games eliminated two teams and advanced two others to the next round. The Minnesota Wild won 4-1 over the St. Louis Blues. The Blues have now lost in the first round of the playoffs for three years running. This either means they are fatally flawed underachievers OR victims of the random small sample sized experiment that the playoffs are. The Montreal Canadiens finally ended the Ottawa Senators magical run over the past two months by beating them 2-0. The Senators were way down in the standings and not expected to even make the playoffs but no magic will soothe the burn of having lost to their neighbors and rivals, the Canadiens.

National Basketball Association – Los Angeles Clippers won 114-105 over the San Antonio Spurs: The most highly anticipated first round matchup in the NBA is turning into the league’s most competitive one. The Spurs are the defending champions but they come into this series as the underdog. Now tied at 2-2, the series returns to Los Angeles for game 5 and, if needed, game 7. You’d think this would give the advantage to the Clippers but my money is still on the Spurs. Quick soundbite if you want to sound savvy — point out that home-court advantage has been slowly disappearing this year and say that this lessons the advantage the Clippers once would have had. The story of yesterday’s game was the excellent play of Austin Rivers, son of Clippers coach Doc Rivers. Doc traded for his son part of the way through the year, a move which was widely scorned by fans and sports writers, but for one day at least, those critics will have to eat their words.

Today’s Sports Forecast

NBA Basketball

Atlanta Hawks at Brooklyn Nets, 7 p.m. ET on NBA TV: Atlanta leads the seven game series 2-1 but Brooklyn won the last game convincingly. Atlanta lacks star power and Brooklyn lacks the ability to play beautiful basketball.

Milwaukee Bucks at Chicago Bulls, 8 p.m. ET on TNT: The Chicago Bulls lead this series 3-1. With the game in Chicago and the Bulls firing on all cylinders, there’s little drama to be found here.

Memphis Grizzlies at Portland Trail Blazers, 10:30 p.m. ET on TNT: Memphis is up 3-0 in this series. Portland may with this game but they almost definitely won’t win the series.

NHL Hockey

Tampa Bay Lightning at Detroit Red Wings, 7 p.m. ET on CNBC: Down three games to two in this series, all the pressure for this game is on the Lightning. Lose and they’re eliminated from the playoffs. Win and they get to fly back to Florida to host a deciding Game Seven on Wednesday. The Red Wings are a veteran team and while they’d prefer to win this one, they won’t be afraid to go on the road and win game seven.

New York Islanders at Washington Capitals, 7:30 p.m. ET on NBC Sports Network: This is by far the most exciting game on the sports calendar for today. This is game seven of the series between the Islanders and Capitals. Each team won three of the first six games, so this one is for everything. Game sevens are better than single elimination tournament games, like you get in March Madness, because the stakes are the same but the tactical and emotional plots have had six games over the past two weeks to build.

Verisimilitude

Read The Economist’s obituary of cricket legend Richard Benaud. Benaud was an incredible Australian cricket player who followed up his long playing career by becoming one of the most well known cricket television commentators. I loved learning a little about Benaud’s life and admired his decision to leave commentating in 2005 when the rights to televise cricket were bought by a cable channel. Benaud felt that “the joy of watching cricket should be free for everyone.” I laughed out-loud at the description of his commenting style as “almost prissily bipartisan.”

Glory in Bruce Ely’s amazing photograph of Portland Trail Blazers, Robin Lopez, and Memphis Grizzlies, Zach Randolph preparing to snag a rebound.

RoLo working against Zach Randolph pic.twitter.com/cumt17JMX9

— Bruce Ely (@bruceely) April 26, 2015

Thanks for reading,
Ezra Fischer

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

What happened on Thursday, April 24, 2015?

In the world of the hopeful, the Pirates are the king: At least for a day. The Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates, both teams who have lost for a long, long time and who are more hopeful this year than ever, played yesterday in a matinee baseball game. It was a good one. The Cubs led 4-2 after five innings but lost the lead sixth and then the game in the seventh both to RBI hits by Gregory Polanco. On the Cubs side, Kris Bryant, their star-studded rookie got his first start in his second game and has still not gotten a hit.
Line: If things go the way we’re used to them going, the Cubs and the Pirates will be a nice story until around August and then the Cardinals will turn it on and leave them in the dust.
Lightning strikes three times: The Detroit Red Wings were securely skating to a 2-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning before the Lightning struck three times in a row to win the game. Their first goal came with less than seven minutes to go in the game, they scored a second to force overtime with only a smidge over four minutes left. In overtime, it only took two minutes and 25 seconds for Tyler Johnson of the Lightning to end the game with a bad angle shot into an open net created by a rare overtime three on one break.
Line: The Red Wings will be shaking their heads all the way to Game Five in Tampa Bay.
Predictable results, unpredictable means: The NBA playoffs this year, as they often are, have been characterized by favorites winning. All three favorites won again last night but two of them needed overtime to do it. The Chicago Bulls beat the Milwaukee Bucks 113-106 in double overtime to take a 3-0 lead in their series. The Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Pelicans 123-119 in single overtime but needed a heroic 39 point fourth quarter just to erase a 20 point deficit and get there. Likely MVP, Steph Curry had 40 points including an incredible last second three pointer.
Line: You’d believe the results but if you hadn’t seen the games (or the highlights,) you wouldn’t believe how they happened.

Sports Forecast for Friday, April 24, 2015

Sports is no fun if you don’t know what’s going on. Here’s what’s going on: In today’s segment, I covered:

MLB Baseball – New York Mets at New York Yankees, 7 p.m. ET on regional cable.
NHL Hockey – Ottawa Senators at Montreal Canadiens, 7 p.m. ET on CNBC.
NBA Basketball – Los Angeles Clippers at San Antonio Spurs, 9:30 p.m. ET on ESPN.
And more!

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