Sportswriting and Life, Part II
Posted: October 6th, 2008 | Filed under: Media | 63 Comments »
I spend quite a bit of my free time avoiding the show “Around The Horn.” It’s like my hobby. I believe I have seen more than 12 seconds of the show maybe four times in my entire life, and in each case there was a specific reason, meaning that I had very little control of the situation. I remember once I was in the hotel bar at the Oakland Marriott eating lunch and, full volume, it was on the bar TV. A couple of times I was in a baseball clubhouse and it was on and players were watching. Once I was at a friend’s house and he had it on. I’m pretty sure that’s it.
I cannot fully explain it: I have a visceral reaction to that show. It goes beyond me thinking it’s not a very good show. It cuts me much deeper than that. The best I can do to explain is say that, for me, it’s sort of like some sort of Twilight Zone television show where your friends are given guns and you have to watch them shoot each other in the face. Only less fun. But that’s just me.
My main point, though, is not to rip the show — I do have friends who are on it and even more friends who like it.* I’m pretty sure my brother Tony likes it, he often seems to ask me when I will be on the show (Memo to Tony: Never. Ever. You know, unless I need the money. Then, you know, shoot, after this they probably wouldn’t want me anyway).
*I feel a little bit like the Jason Sudeikis/Joe Biden character from Saturday Night LIve. “Many of the people on the show are dear friends of my mine even though they are mentally unhinged. They’re crazy, but if I was in jail I would not hesitate to call them. I think of them as brothers and sisters, only I find them to be quite insane.”
My point is this: The few times I have seen the show, I have marveled at how the Horn combatants seem to have such strong opinions about EVERYTHING. Yes, I do realize that’s the point of the show, and that even if you don’t actually have a strong opinion about something you are supposed to act like you do. And I also realize that this goes way beyond Around the Horn, this is our sports world these days, and, to a larger extent, our world, period. You have to have an opinion, a take, about everything, about the quarterback situation at San Diego State, the goalie competition in Raleigh, whether Reebok or Nike does more harm to college athletics and why Brad Faxon hasn’t won a major championship.
Still, these people on Around The Horn seem to be HOPPING MAD about the the Texans’ draft, they could not me more alarmed about Detroit’s payroll, they’re have a fit because the Lakers’ defense is not as good as it should be. Maybe that gets at what bugs me so much about the show. It doesn’t seem real to me. I feel like I’m probably a pretty opinionated person. I like peanut M&Ms more than regular, Mary Ann more than Ginger, window seats over aisle, wahtever. But there really are some things that I don’t know enough or care enough about to offer an opinion. And even more to the point, there are some sports issues — lots of sports issues, in fact — that I don’t think are black and white, up and down, Mariotti or Paige. Sometimes, I think, both sides might be right.
This came up this week, and it involved a player who I have come to realize is probably the most significant athlete I’ve covered in my career. I often think about how, growing up, I only watched and rooted for one Hall of Fame player, and that was Cleveland Browns tight end Ozzie Newsome. I mean, yeah, Frank Robinson played and managed for the Indians at the end of his career, and Gaylord Perry pitched in Cleveland for a few years when I was young, and Steve Carlton, Phil Niekro, Nate Thurmond, Joe Dellameleure and a few other Hall of Famers had stops on my childhood train. But only Ozzie was there for me, start to finish, playing at that remarkable Hall of Fame level when I was 10 and also when I was 18, offering me just the slightest peek into sports greatness, something I did not get to see much as a child of Cleveland.
So it has been for me as a sportswriter. I have written a lot of words about a lot of great players — Will Shields, Carlos Beltran, Jermaine Dye, Willie Roaf, Barry Larkin, Tom Glavine, Paul Pierce, Priest Holmes, Chase Daniel, Michael Beasley, Darren Sproles and so on and so on. Some of them may go to the Hall of Fame, some of them definitely won’t, but the thing is I did not cover any of them for start to finish. I’ve only covered one Hall of Fame career from start to finish. That’s Chiefs tight end Tony Gonzalez. I was there when the Chiefs traded up to draft him. I was there when, as a rookie, he was part of probably the best professional football team I have covered week to week, the 1997 Kansas City Chiefs team that went 13-3. I was there when he was a second year player who dropped pass after pass. I was there when he recommitted himself and became the best tight end in the NFL. I’m here with him now as he play elder statesman on an ungodly bad football team. I’ve been there with Tony through everything.
And I have enjoyed covering him. Tony is an interesting personality. He’s first a committed athlete — I suspect nobody, and I mean nobody on planet earth, has caught more practice passes than Tony Gonzalez the last dozen or so years. He is obsessive about it … if you look down on the sideline at almost any time during a game he is asking someone (a quarterback, a fellow receiver, a coach, a member of the chain gang) to throw him passes. He stays after practice every day, even now, to catch 100 or 200 extra passes. Like I say, he’s a committed athlete. But he’s also interested in more than sports, he likes to read things*, he has opinions about things, he’s a guy who is fun to have dinner with.
*I mentioned in my column last week that after a game, he pulled me over and pointed out a book that he said “Barack recommended.” And I, being in my sports-writer mode said “Barack who?” We do run in different circles. Anyway, I did not mention the book in the column because I didn’t think people would care … but apparently they do because I got like 100 emails asking me to name the book. So, for the record, it was “My Losing Season,” by Pat Conroy. Another thing I did not point out in the column is then I asked Tony if he had recommended MY BOOK to Barack. He said no. Some friend.
Anyway, I like Tony a lot. He’s not perfect, of course. I think he has a bit of an ego, though I don’t think it’s a big as most great athletes I’ve come across. He does care about personal numbers and records; I suspect maybe you NEED an ego to be that good at professional football. All in all, I think he’s a good-hearted and thoughtful guy, also pretty self aware, and he wanted to become a great tight end and he became a great tight end.
All of which leads to the topic at hand. Last week, the Chiefs played Denver, and Tony Gonzalez was 50 yards away from breaking Shannon Sharpe’s tight end record for most receiving yards. And I should say that this record really meant a lot to Tony. He had already set the tight end records for most catches for a tight end and most touchdowns, and I know those were meaningful too, but I sensed that this was the big one, this was his Nobel Prize,* his Lifetime Achievement Award, his Pulitzer Prize. This was the record that made him feel that awesome sense of pride, that sense of “Wow, look at how far I have come.” I’m not sure how the record for most yards for a tight end plays across America — I suspect it didn’t lead SportsCenter — but that’s not important. The important thing is that this was the record that made Tony Gonzalez proud.
*I’ll probably get this wrong, but I was talking with my doctor about ulcers — you don’t want to know — and he explained that they now treat ulcers with antibiotics — somone proved that ulcers are caused by bacteria. And how did he prove this? By swallowing the bacteria and giving himself an ulcer. He won a Nobel Prize for it. That, my friends, is commitment.
Gonzalez invited friends and family to the game. He talked pretty excitedly about it. He really wanted to break the record at home, in front of the Kansas City fans he has spent his whole career playing for. I’m sure Tony feels like, in the end, he gave up some things playing for the Kansas City Chiefs. He has never played in a winning playoff game. He has never gotten even close to a Super Bowl. He was not surrounded by the glitz and glamour of New York or Dallas or San Francisco or New England. And I suspect that has bothered him at times. But, at the same time, I think he has loved playing in Kansas City because the fans are warm, and they care, and it’s like he became part of the family. He wanted the record at home.
OK, so that’s Tony Gonzalez’s side. Now, there’s the side of Chiefs coach Herm Edwards. The Chiefs came into that Denver game having lost 12 in a row. That’s a pretty astonishing losing streak, if you think about it. It’s the longest in Chiefs history and it’s one of the longer ones in NFL history. You can play math games and point out that a 12-game losing streak for an NFL team, with a 16-game schedule, would be like losing 120 games in a row in baseball, or 61 in a row in basketball or hockey. I mean, it’s not precisely the same thing but that’s a LONG losing streak.
And what chance the Chiefs really have? They came into the game having to go back to 35-year-old backup quarterback Damon Huard. Nobody on the Chiefs has any faith at all in Huard — this often seems to include Huard himself — but the only other option was a guy from Coastal Carolina with the bad-sports-movie-sounding-quarterback-name Tyler Thigpen.* And Tyler Thigpen, I do not exaggerate, is the worst NFL quarterback I have ever seen. He is the closest thing to an NFL team having a “Let’s pull our quarterback out of the crowd” contest. I do not say that to be mean to Tyler Thigpen, I’m sure he tries hard. I say that because his passes are consistently so far off target that even defenders cannot catch them.
*When Tyler Thigpen made his first appearance in a game, I instant messaged Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg. His response: “Come on, you just made that name up.”
So, really, the Chiefs only chance (they were 9 point underdogs AT HOME) was to hand the ball off to Larry Johnson many many times and hope for a few miracles. And, as it turned out, it was a good day for miracles. The Broncos played as if they had mistakenly left their talents back at the Denver Airport. They turned the ball over four times. They seemed utterly unable to grasp the concept that it would be good to TACKLE Larry Johnson. They just played lousy, and then the Kansas City crowd got into it, and the Chiefs played a bit above themselves, and, well, you know, this is why bad teams beat good teams in the NFL pretty often.
And Tony Gonzalez kind of got lost in it all. He did not catch a single pass in the first half. This has been a pretty common occurrence with the Chiefs. They will forget all about Gonzalez until they remember him. And when they remember him they will feed him three, four, five passes in a row, and you can almost hear the offensive coordinator thinking, “Say, you know, this isn’t bad, we throw him the ball, we get first downs, we should call these plays more often.” And then, next series, they will forget about him again.
So toward the end of the game, the Chiefs remembered Gonzalez. He caught the big touchdown pass — a prototypical Gonzalez catch. The ball was overthrown, he went back, he leaped, he caught the ball with two hands, he fell to the ground, he held on. Later, he made a nice 23-yard catch that put the Chiefs into field goal range — a field goal that would, more or less, ice the game.
So there’s the situation: The Chiefs were in field goal range with a chance to put away their first game in almost a year.
Also: Tony Gonzalez was three yards away from breaking the record that means the world to him.
So, now, what do you do? First, I’ll tell you what happened: The Chiefs ran the ball three straight times and kicked the field goal that put the game away. The Broncos scored quickly, they onside-kicked, and the Chiefs recovered. Then the Chiefs ran the ball into the line a couple of times, and Larry Johnson broke loose for the icing-on-the-cake touchdown. The game ended, the Chiefs won, everyone was happy. Tony Gonzalez, though, was still three yards short of the record. He left after the game without even talking the press, a very unusual move for him. He later explained that he was upset, and he did not want to say anything that would take away from his team’s victory.
And here’s what I mean by the Around the Hornization of our sports world. Apparently you are supposed to take sides. It seems like eveyrone in town did. The two sides, in case you are wondering, are:
1. Tony Gonzalez got screwed. He had dedicated his whole career to the Kansas City Chiefs and they would not even throw him a perfectly safe three yard pass to allow him to break the record at home during a big win in front of the home fans.
2. Tony Gonzalez should pipe down. How can anyone be so selfish as to want to put a meaningless individual record in front of his team? Did he even realize that the Chiefs had not won in 12 games?
Here’s my problem: I think they’re both right. I perfectly well understand why Tony Gonzalez is angry. There is no doubt in my mind that a professional football team should be able to throw a little 3 or 4-yard pass to the greatest pass-catching tight end in the history of pro football without fear of it getting intercepted or fumbled. I think this reflects on Herm Edwards’ utterly conservative nature; he’s famous for saying that you play to win the game but he actually plays not to lose. And that’s OK. Most coaches and managers, I think, play not to lose.
On the other hand, I understand why Herm Edwards would not throw the ball there. When you lose 12 in a row, you have to win, I mean you HAVE to win, you cannot put anything, I mean anything, in front of that. Remember: Edwards has seen some pretty ridiculous things happen in the NFL — Edwards was the guy who recovered and returned the famous Miracle at the Meadowlands fumble, and I suspect that has branded him for life. In Edwards mind it was much, much safer to hand off to Johnson than make the little throw to Gonzalez. And when your last victory was last October, you play it safe. Gonzalez certainly understands this too.
I really do think they are both right n their own ways. And so when my doctor says, “Man, Tony Gonzalez should know that the only thing that really matters there is winning the game,” I think, “Yeah, that’s a fair point. Herm was just doing what he felt he had to do to get the victory.”
And when the guy on the plane next to me says, “Man, Herm Edwards has no respect for Tony Gonzalez, he has given everything to the Chiefs and they wouldn’t even throw him a three yard pass,” I think, “Yeah, that’s a fair point too, it was just a short pass, the Chiefs could certainly have done that without risking much, and anyway the Chiefs stink and Gonzalez keeps playing like a pro and he deserved it.””
Fair points all, though “Fair Points all,” is probably not something that makes for good radio or commentary, I guess. I sometimes think that there is less room for both sides in our crazy sports culture now. Have a take. Choose a side. Make some noise. In the end, Tony Gonzalez broke the record in Carolina. He broke it on a six-yard pass on third-and-16 at the beginning of a dreadful 34-0 blowout loss. There was an announcement made, and there might have been some polite applause, though you could not really hear it through the press box glass. I felt badly for Tony … he deserved more than that. If you break your record in the forest, and nobody notices, does it make a sound? But I understood why it happened too. Sometimes, I figure, everyone tries to do the right thing, and the wrong thing happens.
It makes me think of a great scene in Fiddler on the Roof*. Two men are arguing about whether or not they should pay attention to the terrible news happening outside their town. Tevye the milkman, the main character, says to the first guy, “You’re right.” Then he says to the second guy, “You’re right.”
“He’s right AND he’s right?” a third person says. “They can’t both be right.
To which Tevye says, ”You’re right too.“
Wouldn’t make for much of an Around the Horn.
*I suspect I’m the only sportswriter in America to write THOSE words today.
Loading ...
I was just having this discussion with a co-worker.
My point in an ABSOLUTE NOTHING YEAR get Tony the 3 yards in a big win at home.
Go Luca and secondly Clamenza (especially in GF II) great characters.
Hey Joe, I go to law school here in WI with Dan Lewerenz, who worked 15 years for AP and says he knows you and Margo. He also said you were the greatest sportswriter of all time. When I found out he knew you, I just about fell over.
Sorry to be so fanboyish.
Joe Blog and my favorite musical? What a great day indeed!
I agree with your take on Around the Horn. I sometimes get the feeling that these guys talk beforehand to make sure that at least one of them is on each side of an argument
Tony Reali: “Woody, what are your thoughts on the subject?”
Woody Paige: “I MOST assuredly would rather die by drowning.”
Jay Mariotti: “Are you kidding me? Nuclear attack is clearly the way to go!”
Tim Cowlishaw: “I am going to have to go with the guillotine. They really knew how to kill people back in the day.”
Man, I did not mean to write “were” there. Are, Joe. You ARE the greatest sportswriter etc., etc.
Joe,
Good article, it really hit home. While I’m not on the Obama end of the spectrum, I can appreciate how there are different sides to an issue and you should not automatically impute bad motives to people who disagree with you.
Congrats to Tony Gonzalez! Even though I am not a KC Chiefs fan, I’ve always had a lot of respect for how good a player Gonzelez is (and has been in the past). Here’s hoping he can stick around long enough to see a playoff win (if not more)
To reiterate my point, I wouldn’t blame Tony for retiring now. I understand the competitive nature in professional athletes driving them to play longer than they need to, but this team is so bad that there’s nothing that can be done to get anywhere near the playoffs in the next three years. They’re abysmal, and their faults start at the top. Even a complete turnover in coaching (which really does need to happen) and administration will not achieve what needs to be done in a time frame that will realistically give Tony a chance to win a playoff game. It’s really sad, but if he did what Barry did and left the team that couldn’t put it together for him, it would be completely understanding for him.
Gonzo should have been fed the ball earlier in the game. I wasn’t thinking about the record at the time, but mid way through the 2nd quarter I realized he didn’t have a pass thrown his way yet. Seemed like they were forcing the ball to Bowe. Seems like they could have gotten in another pass before the field goal. The fanbase needs everything we can get to cheer about this year.
Joe, could you give Clarkie boy a call and tell him this Herm thing isn’t working out. Tell him we need to hire Cowher and I don’t care who replaces Carl as long as he is gone.
Around The Horn is painful to watch, much less hear in the background when you have the tv on ESPN and are in another room. Usually it’s either Paige’s or Mariotti’s voice that inevitably grates on the innards of my skull and forces me to find the remote and change the channel. It truly is another ESPN creation of style over substance.
And by the way, anymore it should be called BSPN.
That guy about the ulcers was featured in a 60 Minutes episode, and he was ripped over and over by other doctors for his discovery. They refused to believe him because it went against “standard” medical practices. In fact, they almost treated him like the target at elementary school recess. He probably swallowed the bacteria out of desperation, sort of that same kid who eats fried worms at recess so everyone else leaves him alone.
But it does make me wonder how many other great discoveries or great things are out there that get stomped into the ground because it doesn’t follow the general line of thinking. That’s our Mister Rogers thought of the day.
By the way, My Losing Season is a great book. It’s my second favorite Pat Conroy book behind Lords of Discipline.
Thanks for writing these sportswriting and life columns. I’ve always wondered how sports writers are able to write highly critical pieces about athletes, owners and gm’s while following them day by day. For that matter trying to maintain objectivity when you spend so much time in the clubhouse.
About ESPN. I really wish an alternative sports network will be able to challenge their dominance. I can’t watch any of their programs anymore. It’s filled with nothing but shouted words and 50 year old men screaming stupid catchphrases. In this day and age, when we can get wonderful sportswriting from any market in the country, I can’t justify watching sports tv that’s directed at twelve year olds.
Oh, and I have to side with Herm Edwards here. He is paid a lot of money to win football games. This team is obviously not good enough to win many of them. He cannot in good conscious take a chance at losing a game to pick up a record that is, quite frankly, meaningless in the context of winning football games this season. But if Edwards had tried to throw late and somehow lost the game, he should have been fired for being unable to see the forest for the trees.
Of course, they should have made every effort to get him the record earlier, when it could have had a positive influence on the game and satisfied everyone. But late in the game. He has to run. He owes it to the people who are paying him millions of dollars.
This is a great post, Joe. Good work.
Not sure this is the right place for this (couldn’t find a post on the Godfather poll): Do you need two different categories for Michael? Michael in GFI is my favorite character. I hate him in GFII. Of course, that’s the point, and just proves how great Pacino was.
Joe,
While I wanted to blast Herm for not making a concession to Gonzalez’s chance for the record, I grudgingly acknowledge that he must have thought what he was doing would make a difference, right?
It’s not that Herm goes out there and says, “I’ve been doing the exact same thing for seasons now: I know it’s gonna suck, so let’s get out there and SUCK!” It might *seem* like that to everyone else in America, but I’m pretty sure that’s not what he’s actually doing. He’s got to be tweaking things a little bit, trying to find a difference-maker. And he’s got to believe that one difference can change everything, otherwise that means admitting to himself that he’s an irrelevancy.
As cruel as it might seem to be, to Gonzalez, he’s got to be hoping that a win catalyzes the team, fires them up and puts them on the upswing for this year and the next (which benefit Gonzales as much as anyone else). For Herm not to want and NEED the win would mean that he thinks it makes no difference and that *he* makes no difference. Most people don’t recognize the falseness of their own hopes, or their own hubris or obsolescence, which is why you need GMs and owners (or the sons of owners) to fire them. For Herm not to think the win meant everything, either the Chiefs would have clinched the division already, or he wouldn’t be the sort of person with conviction enough to have become an NFL coach in the first place.
One could argue that ESPN has bastardized sports coverage the way MTV bastardized the music business. At the very least, over the years SportsCenter changed the behavior and culture of athletes’ behavior on the field. They began looking for the cameras and playing to them. Highlights and great performances began to lose their appeal and started to be replaced by manufactured spectacles that were premeditated and designed to get face time on SportsCenter. Not long after the transformation had become visible on the playing field, we then had to watch the ESPN anchors attempt to become celebrities. In recent years we have actually been subjected to commercials that advertise and promote sports anchors as the reason for watching SportsCenter. Hype gets over-hyped, real drama gets the life wrung out of itself, and the great moments and players of today are nauseatingly dissected and compared to achievements of the past in an attempt to define their relevance in sports history. Soon there will be cameras on the helmets of football players, if not on the ball itself. Don’t be shocked when ESPN and the NFL Network merge…eventually there will be no escape from the Stuart Scotts and Chris Bermans of the ESPN Kingdom.
Thanks for the great post Joe. I have hated Around the Horn since day one. Every now and then I will turn it on thinking that I must be missing something since it has now been on for so long. Unfortunately it is always still the same boring talking heads shouting over each other and being moderated by a plastic ESPN “talent”. What a joke. I think ESPN is the new MTV. It was great when you could turn on MTV and just watch music, then they started producing there own shoes and it lost its value. ESPN has become about its personalities and not about sports. I still catch some Sportscenter every now and then and there are a few other shows, but mainly it is the same tired head talkng over and over. Thanks for giving us a great alternative. Keep up the great work.
Around the Horn is on at, what? 330pm? The only people home to watch that are 12-year-old boys with no sports practice to go to. It’s an awful show.
I agree with you on the Gonzalez thing. Sure the win was the most important thing, but you had to feel for the guy not breaking it at home. I mean he wanted to celebrate in front of Chiefs fans. I hope the Chiefs recognize him properly at the next home game. Perhaps that would make up for it.
Well, Joe, would you fill-in on PTI if they asked?
Completely unrelated to what you wrote (Around the Horn? Isn’t that where Richard Justice gets to pretend he knows anything about sports? Like in that raggedy column of his?)
I was talking with a big Cardinals fan buddy of mine the other day, and he said that Albert Pujols is the best player he’s ever watched play. Now, he is 21 years old, so that’s not that staggering an admission. I’m 37 and Albert Pujols is probably the best I’ve ever watched play too.
So, in case of you, Joe, or you, my fellow commenters, who is the best player you ever watched play? And how old are you (Sort of, approximately.)
I’m kind of wondering how old you HAVE to be to have watched a better player than Pujols play. And, ofcourse, the ensuing arguments on whether Pujols is actually better than player X.
(Note, if any of you says Bonds, I will frown angrily at your comment.)
J. Robin Warren first linked gastric ulcers with bacterial infection (Helicobater pylori). He observed that antibiotic treatment appeared to cure the ulcers and prevent their recurrence.
He mentions the skepticism from the scientific community in his autobiography published on the Nobel website:
“After our initial publications in 1983–84, a wealth of further studies appeared, most of them apparently just repeating our work, with similar results. No one proved we were wrong. Yet in spite of this, no one but patients and local general practitioners appeared to believe our findings. Many patients demanded treatment, and some GPs were very keen to treat them. Otherwise, it seemed that only our wives stood beside us.”
The guy doing the “self-experiment” was collaborator and co-laureate Barry J. Marshall.
Again, from his autobiography at the Nobel website:
“Becoming increasingly frustrated with the negative response to my work I realized I had to have an animal model and decided to use myself. Much has been written about the episode and I certainly had no idea it would become as important as it has. I didn’t actually expect to become as ill as I did. I didn’t discuss it with the ethics committee at the hospital. More significantly, I didn’t discuss it in detail with Adrienne. She was already convinced about the risk of these bacteria and I knew I would never get her approval. This was one of those occasions when it would be easier to get forgiveness than permission. I was taken by surprise by the severity of the infection. When I came home with my biopsy results showing colonization and classic histological damage to my stomach, Adrienne suggested it was time to treat myself. I had a successful infection, I had proved my point.”
I suspect you’re the only sportswriter in America to write those words in a long, long time.
There’s no one named “Savino Stallone” in the whole world
I too have wondered if some show at least can compete with ESPN. I don’t think another network would work, because the pressure to compete across the board would be so intense, that they would end up being the same as ESPN. But I wonder if a show that was committed to intelligent sports analysis could focus on one part of the ESPN demographic and fill a niche.
You watch Neyer and Keri do their 5 minutes on ESPN news and you think, there’s got to be room for 30-60 minutes a night of this stuff that some people would watch.
I’m 53, and first started watching baseball pretty seriously in the mid- to late 60s. So I saw Mantle when he was pretty well past it, but Willie Mays was still was somewhat close to his peak ability. Aaron and Frank Robinson would also have to be in the mix. And pre-steroid Bonds (sorry) and ARod as well. That’s my short list. But I’m a Cardinal fan, so I’ll go with Albert.
In any other season I would be a lot less on Tony G’s side. But we came into this year knowing we were going to be horrible, playing every rookie we can, letting every possible veteran free agent go, experimenting with Tyler freaking Thigpen, etc. etc. etc. We’re not playing to win anything *this year*.
Yet we’re asking Tony G and the other vets to still play their hearts and risk personal injury for not much reason other than stats. Tony has been the consummate professional, team first guy his entire career. While guys like LJ whine and moan and get all the attention, lest they show up “uninspired”.
Tell me what else Tony has to look forward to in his Chiefs career? 3-4 more years of another 5-year rebuilding plan? The way that team looked yesterday, we’ll be lucky to sniff the playoffs before he retires. At least give him a chance to have the fans pour out their love and appreciation for him.
Imagine if Herm had the brains/balls to fake to LJ, roll out to Tony on 1st and 5 for the game clinching TD. The whole freaking Broncos defense would have swarmed to LJ. Huard could have gone down in bounds if the pass wasn’t there.
Herm was just too scared/typically visionless to risk not getting his personal monkey off his back. You can’t have it both ways Herm. You can’t experiment with every rookie, then turn around and say your HOF tight end who has given everything he has to this team doesn’t deserve a tiny bit of accommodation.
Joe
I had the “privilige” of living in LA for about 5 years back in the early 80’s. Having been a sports nut my entire life I was aware that Jim Murray wrote for the LA Times so I picked up a copy every morning on my way to chow. I can’t say your style is like his, frankly I can’t remember, but whatever he wrote about instantly became interesting and more enlightining. You may the Jim Murray of my generation.
In regards to Herm and Tony, I think it is more of a testament to Herm’s utter incompetentance (could ya put spell check in this someway??) and that of his staff. How do they not throw Tony the ball in the first half and then late in the game when he knew Tony was close? Does he have so little faith in Damon that he couldn’t trust Damon to throw one away if it was called for Tony and he was covered? (Run on sentence, sorry master) I think Herm wants to run Tony off so we can get an extra fourth round pick down the line, then draft another wide receiver who can’t play. Think about it, we have two QB’s on our active roster that were so highly thought of that other teams waived them, and one named Brodie who probably would be on someone’s practice squad if we hadn’t blown a 3rd rounder on him. Can’t you just hear the converstion between Carl and Herm, ” WE WILL START BRIODIE, RIGHT Herm? “Um yes Mr. Peterson”
I really went back and forth all week on the Tony deal, kinda coming down on the side that Tony was a bit selfish, but after watching how poorly Herm had the team prepared for the game at Carolina, I really have flip flopped. Herm is really a dope, do it for Tony and do it for the faithful fans who go out there every week. If part of the game plan doesn’t include getting Tony 6-10 touches a game, then someone realy is clueless about what it takes to “Win the Game” likes Herm says.
Unfortunately, your readers seem to be completely missing your point about “Around the Horn,” and one reader even called it an awful show only 12-year-olds watch.
Exaggeration, much? Maybe you should take a note from JoePo.
“Around the Horn” has some really witty and talented sportswriters and personalities on it, such as Tim Cowlishaw, JA Adande and Michael Smith. Tony Reali is a really engaging host, too.
It also has blowhards who take positions on things just to take position on things, often exaggerating to make points just as your readers are doing with the “Around the Horn” feedback.
And seriously, Joe, if you ever met Kevin Blackistone, I doubt you would call everyone on around the horn hopping mad screamers.
Editor’s note: I have met Kevin Blackistone many, many times and consider him a good friend and an excellent journalist. I’m pretty sure I also have never seen Kevin on the show. Knowing Kevin, I’m sure he’s a calming influence. And I want to make clear again that I have absolutely nothing against Around the Horn … it has put money in the pocket of some of my best friends, and I’m sure there are some excellent points brought up. It’s just not for me.
And for the record, Sonny was the best Godfather character by a country mile.
Three yards, the best tight end in football, the worst season in chiefs history I say throw the ball.
They should have featured him in the first half, gotten the record out of the way, heck, why not throw it as often as you can to one of the franchise’s great players? They are allowed to feature him in the game plan, no?
But I guess that’s why they are where they are.
And I avoid Around The Horn too. The bad thing about PTI is that it has spawned all these awful yelling shows.
Creston:
Barry Bonds, 19
his obp was freakin .600 one season
And are you from Houston as well?
Here’s my take:
Grandfather: I was there when the Chiefs beat the Broncos in an otherwise entirely unremarkable season.
OR
Grandfather: I was there when Gonzalez proved he was the best tight end to ever play the game.
———————————–
I think I’d rather have the second.
the glitz of New England? have you ever been to Foxboro?
Joe,
How many Barack’s do you know? If someone said that they had been given something by Barack, you kind of know who it might be.
AFTER you buy the Soul of Baseball, and AFTER you place an advance order for the Spring 2009 release of Joe P.’s book on the Big Red Machine, THEN I recommend you buy/borrow and read My Losing Season.
I was never better than a JV starter/Varsity benchwarmer catcher, but as a Democrat and an English major from the Naval Academy, I found it fascinating to hear Pat struggle for self-identity in the military environment at the Citadel.
As a slap-hitting, great-hands, no-arm backstop, I loved the accounts of the quintessential grinder, the team-first, defensive specialist point-guard, playing Division 1 basketball.
As a fan of The Great Santini, it was fascinating to hear non-fiction accounts of the inspiration for the title character.
And I suspect there are many readers of this blog who have in their past a disciplinarian coach that inspired fear, loathing and some strange sort of affection that will never be forgotten.
It’s no Soul of Baseball (what is?), but it’s a really nice read.
2 things
1-Is it just me or has ESPN spent the last two Monday night sportcenter’s hyping the game they just telecast as opposed to spending more time on season ending series and playoff baseball?
It looks to me like they dedicate abnormal amounts of coverage to games they carry. Generally speaking I have nothing against pumping your own product, but when you are supposed to be journalists…
2-Creston
Are you nuts.
It’s Barry Bonds.
I fully expect him to be the greatest living ballplayer till the day he dies.
200+ walks in a season.
Over 50 intentional walks in a year.
7 mvp’s.
It’s not even close.
I grew up in the late sixties and early seventies when power numbers were down.
I missed Mantle, Mays and Robby so I didn’t have any context there.
For most of my life I would have said that Sandberg was the best all around player that I had seen.
But he can’t hold a candle to Bonds.
The only one close is Alex Rodriguez, and as great as he is, his best seasons don’t touch the Ruthian heights that Bonds has ascended.
Usually I’m on board with you, Joe. But here I disagree. Sometimes things just aren’t “meant to be”. No one ever siad that life is fair (no one over the age of 40, anyway).
Just like Ted Williams never winning a World Series or Ray Bourque never winning a Stanley Cup (I don’t recognize the Colorado thing) or John Hanna never winning a Super Bowl, Tony Gonzalez has no right to expect to break some sort of individual record at home.
He broke the record the following week, right? Where’s the mini-tragedy? You complain about the ESPN effect, but then you go ahead and inflate the importance of Gonzalez accomplishemnt, not that it isn’t noteworthy, but it also doesn’t have to be perfectly choreographed.
Why does he “deserve” anything? He plays the game hard for a lot of money. That should cover it.
Also, Joe knows a lot about a show he never watches.
I hate around the horn too.
All the Chiefs have to do is have a nice ceremony for Gonzalez breaking the record before the next home game. Problem solved. He gets to celebrate with the home crowd.
I think way too many people put way too much value on records, and it’s too bad Tony puts so much value on this one, but it’s his right to do that and to do whatever motivates him to be the best ever. So he should get to celebrate it with the fans before the next home game.
He did get the record anyway, it’s not like this was the last game of his career or anything. And everyone who is reasonable already knew he’s the best tight end anyway. One more 3-yard catch two weeks ago wouldn’t have changed that.
If the Chiefs don’t have a little ceremony for him before a home game, then they should be ripped for that. But not for trying to win a game. They are so bad at football, but they shouldn’t be criticized for trying to win. That’s the whole point of the game.
They should care more about winning, not less. And they should prove that they really care about winning by finally getting rid of the GM For Life.
I’ve found that, generally speaking, a person’s vehemence of opinion on a topic is inversely proportional to their knowledge of that topic.
I feel very strongly about this
Had to go with Clemenza, what Stallone??
for KC peole that like around the horn, try listening to Kevin Keitzman on the radio. You will love him.
Jake,
I know Savino Stallone personally, and sir you are no Savino Stallone.
Joe, btw, Savino reads your blog religously. And has some free time if you would like to interview him for one of your columns, especially if has to do with a Yankee’s fan take on the Tony G situation.
I caught ten seconds of Around the Horn today, just enough time to hear Bill Plaschke assert, with an astounding stridency, that Misty May-Treanor should never have gone on Dancing With the Stars (where she apparently ruptured her Achilles) because the hardwood floor does not give like sand.
Point to Posnanski.
I hate baseball tonight almost as much as around the horn. A hour long show about baseball but they won’t show highlights or give good stats for all of the games. Those hosts on that show are terrible.
Is Tyler Thigpen as bad as Alex Smith? (Speaking as a 49ers fan who grew up on Joe Montana and Steve Young and now pines for the glory days of, um, Tim Rattay.)
Flo-
Touche. Give my regards to Pasta Fagiole…
Jeremy,
The distance between Tyler Thigpen and Alex Smith is greater than the distance between Alex Smith and Joe Montana.
And this is written by someone who was a six year old kid in the bleachers for the 1979 Cotton Bowl.
So you hate around the horn because they actually try and have an opinion on something to run a successful show? personally i see that as a terrible reason
look, i like the show because it covers both sides, thats the beauty of it. If you think certain issues have two sides and you want to split both sides, thats fine i fall in that category too! Just because they aren’t “allowed” to or whatever is a real bad reason to hate a show. You probably haven’t given the show enough of a chance. I dont agree with everything everyone says, thats whats fun about it, tune in to see what sportswriters have to say on dumb topics everyday just to see how they react to certain issues. I think it makes it genius. Its kind of like a real reality show without the crap written in all the time (just sometimes). again, you obviously don’t watch it much if you don’t like it, so how can you know what happens everyday.
if you dont like it, dont watch it. But that doesnt make it suck, I like you overall posnanski, but its somewhat unprofessional and arrogant to think you’re above a TV show so much you can trash it like you did.
and to all the people on here that “hate” a show they’ve seen a handful of times is somewhat crazy. who cares if some of their opinions (like may-treanor and the wood floor) are a little whacky, doesnt make it any less interesting.
I love the point(less) scoring system in ATH, in a manner that it proves how inane the whole endeavor is in general. And Jake, we get it, you read FJM – Joe linked to that article in particular, so you do not need to quote from it verbatim.
I remember the big uproar from the Vikings when the Chiefs picked him up off waivers when the Vikings tried to sneak him through to put him on their practice roster. It appears to be much ado about nothing. Thank you, Chiefs.
“Him” would be Thigpen, of course.
i want to add that around the horn is a show I DVR and use to get news about sports day to day. Sportscenter (especially sportscenter), nfl live, and certain other shows are the real garbage on that network. I personally dont mind guys yelling at each other like PTI and ATH its actually kind of hilarious at times, if you dont like it then dont watch it. They make fun of themselves all the time joking about how its “the show of grown men yelling” or other plays off that. It’s not like they don’t know whats going on.
And I dont mean to sound like posnanski is just an arrogant sportswriter, that was too harsh. However it would be better if you didnt assume you know exactly what happens on that show day to day when you can count the amount of times you’ve watched it on one hand. It’s unfair. Ask Kevin Blackistone (one of my favorite personalities on there) what his opinion of your opinion is joe, you might get an interesting answer.
Shouldn’t the Around the Horn fan be typing in all caps?
I used to love PTI and hate ATH, but now it’s the opposite. I think it’s because ATH replaced Max Kellerman with Tony Reale (an upgrade of about 10000000%), and PTI hardly has Wilbon and Kornheiser together anymore. Actually no, the real reason is because both shows talk about the same subjects but ATH is on first.
Re ATH: I agree the show sucks (it often seems as if the participants on ATH are “assigned” to certain positions), but I still turn it on if I remember. I do not know why, except that it’s a precursor to PTI, & TK/MW are always enjoyable.
Re Creston’s Question: certainly we’ve all answered this a thousand times, but anyway, I guess the best I’ve ever seen play would be Tom Seaver, although I don’t remember it as well as I wish I did.
Aroundthehornfan: if you read more carefully (or think about things a bit more), you’ll understand how JP illustrates his point about Gonzalez & the multiple simultaneity of “correct” opinions through the ATH thing.
I have NEVER seen Tony G pout the way LJ does! You can call every single offensive play, they are so predictable! Tony has NEVER gotten the respect he deserves! He is NOT part of the “Good ole boys club”, and I believe that is the reason they are canning him! Why not get rid of the “pouter” who is always threatening to leave, and the 2 “pretty boys” that call themselves QB’s, who really just like sitting on the sidelines in their pretty red uniforms, and collecting a paycheck! KC DOES NOT DESERVE TONY GONZALEZ!!!
Oh yeah, why not get rid of the REAL problem, Carl Peterson??? If he was more concerned with building a professional, winning team than his “good ole boys club”, things would be a lot different! Why not boycott them until they start respecting the fans and the right players, and stop putting up with yet another year of “rebuilding!” Give me a freaking break! 1970 – that is long enough! Make them give us something for our money and support!
Hi Joe,
My problem with the play calling is they could have thrown the ball to Tony in the FIRST half. That is why Herm’s explanation holds no water for me. Throwing to him in the first half, even a couple of times would have nearly guaranteed he would have had the record by the fourth quarter.
[...] Mambelli “biografia”…Pardon the Competition: ESPN Turns Sports Talk Into a Game |…Sportswriting and Life, Part II » Joe Posnanski…WHERE’S THE LOVE??? « Sportmedia14’s Blog…UFC 91 video: Dana White on ESPNs [...]