Southern Bookman

New York Times, the paper of record, shuts down sports department

The New York Times will subcontract its sports coverage to The Athletic, the money-losing web site it acquired for $550 million.

The Times' small squad of sportswriters will move to other departments to write about sports' intersection with business, culture, blah, blah, blah.

Once the Times had Red Smith, George Vescey, William Rhoden, Dave Anderson. They wrote about the beauty of sports.

The Times' shuttering of its sports desk continues a trend of newspapers giving up once core functions as print dies and the digital age advances into an uncertain future.

Here in Atlanta, the AJC now gets most of its arts coverage from the web site ArtsAtl. So much for a diversity of critical voices.

The Athletic began with a splash of venture funding, seeking to upend daily newspapers' sports coverage and hiring away local columnists and beat writers.

Former AJC columnist Jeff Schultz opines about Atlanta teams for the Athletic. Former AJC Braves writer David O'Brien writes about the team for the Athletic.

Under the new Times framework, Schultz and O'Brien's stories likely will run again in the AJC, if available from the Times' wire service.

Maybe the AJC won't even need to cover the Falcons, Braves and Hawks. The AJC can too depend on the Athletic.

Like other newspapers, the AJC has severely cut game coverage in its print newspaper, which now has restrictive early deadlines. I've slowly come to accept reading day-after game accounts in the digital AJC, under the now prevalent "five take-aways" format.

AJC beat writer Justin Toscano writes engaging feature stories and well as covering team news.

The AJC significantly boosted its print newspaper recently by again running box scores of major league games, as well as line scores. The newspaper's timely and informative stats section also runs a list of league leaders in batting and pitching. The newspaper even runs scores of minor league games.

It's fun to know how the Asheville Tourists and the Sugar Land Space Cowboys are doing this summer.

And how the Chicago White Sox's shortstop is hitting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Braves sonnet for Opening Day

Here's a poem for the Braves' opening day.

Let’s give a cheer for Ronald Acuna
from Stockbridge to Lake Allatoona.
Brandon Gaudin, welcome aboard,
we will savor every word.
Kevin Kraus will announce the name
of each player at each home game.
May Spencer, Charlie and Max
enjoy the pitch clock to the max.
Austin, Ozzie, Orlando and Matt
will bring power to each at bat.
Michael's stellar play in center
will let us forget the long, cold winter.
Let Sean Murphy emulate Dale,
bringing joy from Dacula to Austell.
To Brian Snitker, raise a glass
for leading the Braves with such class.
On Opening Day, again we dream
of another championship team.

Ernie Johnson Jr. brings Atlanta connection to TBS baseball coverage

Ernie Johnson Jr.'s not the voice of the Braves, but Atlanta fans see him as part of the team's history.

Recently lauded for leading TBS' "Inside the NBA" panel featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith, Johnson is playing a similar role during the network's National League playoffs coverage.

Johnson is presiding over pregame and postgame commentary by baseball greats Jimmy Rollins, Curtis Granderson and Pedro Martinez.

The classy broadcaster's appearance on TBS brings additional joy to Atlanta fans as the Braves make their playoffs run against the Milwaukee Brewers.

While Johnson has no connection to the Braves, longtime fans remember when his father, Ernie Johnson Sr.,  called Braves games on the network's predecessor, Ted Turner's Channel 17 Superstation, along with Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren. The Braves games were broadcast across the United States, building a national fan base that endures. Chip Caray, Skip’s son, calls Braves games during the regular season, now broadcast by gambling friendly Bally Sports.

The Johnson connection to the Braves-Brewer series also includes the city of Milwaukee. Ernie Johnson Sr. pitched for the Milwaukee Braves, contributing to their 1957 World Series championship.

After the Braves' thrilling victory over the Brewers Monday on pinch-hitter Joc Pederson's  three-run homer, Ernie Jr. showed his Atlanta connection when he asked hometown hero Dansby Swanson how he felt playing a few miles from Marietta, where Swanson grew up. An emotional Swanson recalled cheering for the Braves during his childhood.

The Braves and Brewers series also recalls the monumental career of Henry Aaron, who died in January. Aaron played 12 seasons for the Milwaukee Braves before the team moved to Atlanta, where he broke Babe Ruth's home run record and gained recognition as perhaps the game's greatest player. The perennial all-star finished his career with the Brewers, before returning to Atlanta as a Braves executive. In later years, Aaron was beloved in Atlanta for his business success and support for civil rights causes.

Aaron was also known for connecting to new generations of players. Today's Braves and Brewers are carrying on the two cities' deep baseball histories.

 

 

Keep Masters free from politics

I've been amused by the misguided campaign for a Masters protest of Georgia's voter suppression law.

Even sophisticated writers like the Atlantic's Jemele Hill have the misconception that the PGA tour runs the Masters, as Major League Baseball does the All-Star game. The PGA has nothing to do with the tournament. The annual "tradition like no other" is put on by the private and exclusive Augusta National Golf Club.

Some even called for the Masters to be moved, as Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred switched the all-star game from Atlanta to Denver. That will never happen. The Masters would no longer be the Masters if not played at Bobby Jones' hallowed course.

No sporting event is more defined by its venue than the Masters is by Augusta National. The U.S. Open, PGA and British Open move to different courses each year. The Masters is always played at Augusta National. The tournament is intertwined with the Amen Corner, the Green Jacket, legendary holes like the par 3 12th.

Masters Chairman Fred Ridley at his news conference Wednesday supported voting rights without directly opposing Georgia's law. Like voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams, Ridley also opposed boycotts. As Ridley said, many average Augusta residents benefit from the tournament. Some pay their mortgages by renting their homes for the week.

There's no doubting Augusta National's continuation of the Southern plantation myth. Founding Chairman Cliff Roberts, a notorious racist, resisted inviting black players to participate in the tournament for years. The club also fought efforts to open its membership to blacks and women, once putting on the tournament without TV commercials to head off corporate boycotts.

I've poked fun at the club's pretensions, like calling the fans "patrons" and mandating CBS Television's reverent coverage.

But I've loved the tournament since childhood. A bunch of wealthy Republican 1-percenters run the event, deigning to let us plebeians watch it on television. But the tournament celebrates golf, sportsmanship, competition. The Masters is an arcadian fantasy of true sport, which should be free from politics.

GOP's suppression of black voting rights leaves limited options for MLB All-Star Game site

Moving major league baseball's all-star game out of Atlanta brought the "midsummer classic" its largest national attention in years.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred made the right choice in moving the All-Star game because of Georgia's law to suppress black voting rights.

Sadly, the baseball all-star game's interest among sports fans has dwindled for years. Once the National League and American League all-stars competed to win, but now the event is a meaningless exhibition.

Manfred's announcement contrasted with the NBA's insistence on holding its all-star game a month ago in Atlanta, against the initial trepidation of LeBron James and other stars.

The NBA game was played without fans and the usual onslaught of visitors. The Georgia Legislature had not yet approved the voting legislation, which Gov. Brian Kemp quickly signed into law. However, even more restrictive voter suppression bills were circulating, met by the NBA's silence.

Baseball traditionalists remember when the all-star game lineups were filled with black stars, like the NBA showcase is now. But fewer and fewer blacks play in the major leagues, making the game a nearly all-white affair.

Manfred and MLB must choose among a dwindling number of suitable states because of the GOP’s national effort to strike out black voters. That’s the Republican cancel culture.

Kansas City has the black baseball museum, but Missouri might approve its own anti-voting law. Texas, Michigan and Florida are out too. Some suggested Mobile, the home of perennial all-stars Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, but Alabama is the reddest of states, and Amazon battles a union push by mostly black workers in Bessemer, Ala.

To honor Jackie Robinson, Brooklyn would be appropriate, but the site of Ebbets Field is now a housing complex. Robinson would have hated for Yankee Stadium to be awarded the game, but the Mets have claimed the Brooklyn Dodgers' legacy, along with that of the Dodgers' bitter foe, the New York Giants.

For a more direct connection, Brooklyn's Cyclone Field, the home of the borough's minor league team, would be an off-beat choice.

Last year's all-star game in Los Angeles was canceled because of Covid, and Los Angeles hosts the game next year, which likely will preclude the home of Robinson's franchise from having the game this year. Forgotten is that the Dodgers destroyed the Mexican Chavez Ravine neighborhood to build Dodger Stadium.

It's sad that outside of a dying number of baseball traditionalists, few fans would care if the game were canceled this year as well. Or forever.

Washington Post columnist Kevin Blackistone, who began the push to move the all-star game from Atlanta, acknowledged on the ESPN gab-show "Around the Horn" that the newspaper he writes for is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who's brutally sought to crush the Bessemer union movement. 

Blackistone so far hasn't called for a boycott of Amazon.

 

 

 

 

Covid-19 surge makes college football season unlikely

College football this autumn looks increasingly doubtful.

The Big 10 announced Thursday that only conference games will be played, and the Ivy League scrapped its season. Big 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren admitted that football is endangered.

Other power conferences are expected to follow the Big 10, which left open the possibility of canceling its entire season.

The benefits of the Big 10's move are puzzling. Within the conference, teams still have to make long road trips, increasing their risk of Covid-19 exposure. Ohio St. now won't travel to Eugene to play Oregon, but will go to East Lansing, Mich., Champaign, Ill., and State College, Pa.

All of the major conferences span huge geographical areas. If the aim is to protect players' health, rather than save money, a national rush to inter-conference play won't reduce the travel danger.

For example, an ACC move to inter-league play would scrap Georgia Tech's annual game with Georgia, 80 miles away. But the Yellow Jackets would still take long trips to play ACC foes Pittsburgh and Syracuse.

If the major conferences follow the Big 10, athletes and coaches will still risk their health traveling long distances.

With the Covid-19 pandemic worsening, the college football season should be postponed, as the Ivy League has done.

 

 

 

Baseball finds something exciting: a 60-game season

Perhaps a 60-game season is what baseball needed all along.

That foreshortened season will begin in late July, after baseball players capitulated to an order by Commissioner Rob Manfred. Why Manfred didn't take such action weeks before was not reported.

Baseball never got interesting until August or September anyway. Good clubs often coasted for the first half of the season, with mediocre teams pretending to have a shot before fading. After the excitement of opening day, baseball sunk into a tedious schedule. Many casual fans didn't follow the season until late summer.

The 60-game run promises to generate interest among fans desperate for sports during the coronavirus pandemic. The top clubs will have to play in earnest from the get-go. Bad teams will have more of a chance to make the playoffs. With more clubs in contention, there will be fewer of those dreadful, meaningless dog-day series between teams without hope.

Teams will play in empty stadiums, with more interleague regional games to reduce travel as the pandemic surges. League structures will remain intact, with the same playoff schedule as before. All teams will use the designated hitter. Farewell, National League baseball.

In another innovation despised by baseball traditionalists, a runner will start on second base in extra inning games. How that will be scored remains unclear. Designated runner?

Players will report for "summer training" July 1, with opening day July 23 or 24. The abbreviated training likely will have an effect, with starting pitchers going even fewer innings.

The resurgent pandemic can still derail baseball's plans. Several teams have closed training facilities after covid-19 breakouts. A few players in quarantine could cause teams to cancel their seasons.

As the owners-players dispute threatened to scrap the pandemic-disrupted season, I was among disgusted fans who no longer cared if the game ever came back.

But, hey, that Braves-Rays rivalry could be something.

 

Vin Scully retrospective shows baseball's lost greatness as game courts disaster

The MLB Network's Vin Scully retrospective Monday night intensified the sadness of this year without baseball.

With fulsome commentary by Bob Costas and Tom Verducci, the TV special replayed Scully's famous calls during his 67-year career announcing Dodgers games and the World Series on national radio and TV.

As players and owners escalated their dispute over returning from the coronavirus shutdown, Scully's narratives revealed the former national pastime as a relic of the past.

Baseball's impasse worsens while the NBA, the NHL, soccer, the PGA, the NFL and college football head back to play. The confrontation recalls former labor breakdowns that wrecked baseball's popularity.

When Scully as a 25-year-old described Yankees pitcher Don Larsen's perfect game over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1956 World Series, baseball stood atop the sports landscape. As the NFL and the NBA rose in popularity, baseball squandered its national appeal with slower play, drug scandals and disastrous labor disputes. Now, with fans hungry for sports after the pandemic shutdown, baseball once again rushes toward disaster.

After the pandemic scuttled opening day, major league baseball dreamed of making a dramatic return on July 4 and playing an 80-game season.But the disagreement over player salary cuts, TV contracts and free-agent signings has jeopardized the game's return.

Scully's narratives of Larsen's masterpiece, Henry Aaron's breaking Babe Ruth's home run record, Sandy Koufax's perfect game in 1965 and Kirk Gibson's dramatic home run in the 1988 World Series evoke moments when baseball captured the national imagination. As baseball's nuclear standoff worsens, those broadcasts seem like museum pieces of a game whose time has gone.

AJC columnist Mark Bradley on Tuesday expressed hope that the players and owners will somehow muddle to an agreement for a truncated season and playoffs. Bradley cited ESPN baseball reporter Tim Kurjian's pessimism over whether baseball will return.

Scully's career tracked the decline of baseball's popularity. A lost season will be the last out for the game.

 

 

 

 

 

College football's return unsettled

The return of college football next fall looks more and more doubtful.

NCAA President Mark Emmert recently said that football won't be played if students don't return to campus. Football "student athletes" wouldn't have even rudimentary classes to attend.

But he seemed to leave loopholes for big-time powers coming back. Would players be able to return to practice by taking online classes?

The Cal State University system announced this week that its campuses will remain closed, and classes will be given online only, with a few exceptions such as biology labs. The system said that sports will be halted without students on campus.

Three Cal State schools: Fresno State, San Jose State and San Diego State, play Division I football in the Mountain West Conference, which has said that resuming play depends upon students returning to school. Fresno State said agricultural classes in the field might be sufficient for football to kick off.

The big question is whether the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Pac-12 and Big 12 find some way to play games, even without students in classrooms. If so, football powerhouses would have even less justification for claiming their main purpose is education, rather than big-time sports. The University of California System, with Pac-12 heavyweights Cal-Berkeley and UCLA, will announce reopening plans this week..

Even if the big schools play, they are unlikely to do so before fans packing stadiums. Bands and cheerleaders probably won't be there either.

The college season might be halted abruptly if even one player tests positive for Covid-19. With cramped locker-rooms, the virus could spread through an entire team.

Football writers reported that the season might be delayed until spring 2021. So much for track, softball and baseball. Would football begin after March Madness and the Final Four, if they come back? Imagine the Rose Bowl on Independence Day.

Some pointed out that moving football to spring would disrupt players' NFL prospects. My god, the NFL draft might even be endangered.

Even before the coronavirus, football powers were fighting declining interest among students, especially when playing weaker opponents. Kids prefer drinking in the Frat House and watching on TV as Big State U hangs 60 on some hapless school no one had ever heard of before.

As the college football season appears increasingly doubtful, the NFL seems hellbent on playing, even before empty seats. The NBA is moving toward resuming play, with Florida and Arizona announcing they would host games.

If Major League baseball, the NBA, college football and the NHL remain sidelined, the already dominant NFL could be the nation's only game. But will players agree to return and risk infection?

Meanwhile, the PGA is rushing to return to action, without fans. Now players who miss the fairway won't have to worry about hitting spectators or moving back the crowd to hit a shot around a tree.

As South Korean baseball grows popular among deprived fans, MLB keeps pushing nutty schemes to resume play. But players fear MLB is using its reopening plans to impose a salary cap like other leagues have. For now, shouts of "play ball" remain dubious.

If sports are lost this fall, gamblers will resort to placing bets on when the leaves turn color.

 

 

Farewell Jimmy Wynn, the Astros' "Toy Cannon"

Growing up in Baton Rouge, I spent many a hot and humid summer night listening to Houston Astros games on the radio.

The Astros fielded horrible teams in the 1960s, although they had players like Rusty Staub, Joe Morgan and Bob Watson, and pitchers like Mike Cuellar, Don Wilson and Larry Dierker.

They also boasted a center fielder who like Willie Mays wore No. 24, Jimmy Wynn, "the Toy Cannon." The 5-9, 165-170 pound Wynn earned that nickname because of his prodigious home run blasts. Once, he hit a ball out of Crosley Field, home of his hometown Cincinnati Reds.

In 1967, playing for a last place team without a strong hitter behind him, Wynn registered one of the greatest power seasons in Major League history, hitting 37 home runs and driving in 107 runs while playing home games in the dead-air Astrodome.

Wynn, who died last week at age 78, was the Astros' biggest star before faltering under the pressure to hit home runs in the Dome. Traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, he enjoyed several standout seasons before finishing his career with the Yankees.

When he arrived in Houston, Wynn was acclaimed as a can't miss superstar who like Mays possessed power, speed and a strong arm. Wynn never reached those heights. But when he came to the plate as I listened, excitement stirred in the Louisiana heat.