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Stephen H. Provost is an author of paranormal adventures and historical non-fiction. “Memortality” is his debut novel on Pace Press, set for release Feb. 1, 2017.
An editor and columnist with more than 30 years of experience as a journalist, he has written on subjects as diverse as history, religion, politics and language and has served as an editor for fiction and non-fiction projects. His book “Fresno Growing Up,” a history of Fresno, California, during the postwar years, is available on Craven Street Books. His next non-fiction work, “Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street,” is scheduled for release in June.
For the past two years, the editor has served as managing editor for an award-winning weekly, The Cambrian, and is also a columnist for The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
He lives on the California coast with his wife, stepson and cats Tyrion Fluffybutt and Allie Twinkletail.
Ruminations and provocations.
Filtering by Category: Sports
Trump is like a quack doctor who ignores the cause of a disease (racism) so he can treat the symptoms (violence) with painkillers (“law and order”) that are intended to mask the problem but only end up making it worse. Then, when the patient dies, the doctor says it’s because the patient didn’t take enough painkillers.
Read MoreMore interesting than the badly biased debate over who’s the GOAT … is the question of who’s the most influential NBA player of all-time. Who had the biggest impact on the game? Who changed its course the most? I asked myself that question and came up with a list of 13 players who were so good, so innovative, that they fundamentally changed the game. Here’s my list, from No. 13 to No. 1.
Read MoreTrash talk is verbal abuse, nothing more. It’s aptly named, because it’s really just garbage, and we’d all be better off just leaving it curbside for the trash collector to pick up and bury it where it belongs: In a landfill. It’s toxic waste.
Read More
Before I did anything else for a living, I was a sportswriter. (Well, I washed dishes at a pizza place for three months, but I don’t count that.) And I’ve been following alternative sports leagues for most of my life, so naturally, the XFL drew my interest – just as the Alliance of American Football did last year.
I was bummed when the AAF folded eight weeks into its only season, just two weeks shy of the playoffs. I felt cheated. I live within driving distance of the Carolina Hurricanes, but I haven’t been to a single game of theirs because I’m still disgusted that their owner’s the guy who pulled the plug on the Alliance.
That said, I think I like the XFL better. Does that mean it has a chance to succeed where the Alliance and other offseason football leagues (WFL, USFL, Arena Football) ultimately failed? I think so. But how much of a chance? Read on.
The XFL, like the AAF, is putting some of its eggs in the gambling basket, hoping that point spreads and over-under odds will stoke viewers’ interest. Sports fans love to gamble, and the XFL itself is gambling this will draw them in. It might.
The odds shift during the games, and the announcers make note of them, reminding viewers they can still get in on the action. This is either intriguing, if you like to gamble, or annoying as hell if you don’t and have tuned in just to watch football. I’m in the latter camp, so it doesn’t interest me, but it could build the kind of sustained interest the league needs to survive.
Obstacle No. 1: People don’t know as much about the teams or their players as they do about an established commodity like the NFL. And gamblers tend to be less willing to part with their money over unknowns.
Obstacle No. 2: If the XFL lasts more than one season, the odds are (pun intended) the commodity will remain in flux because players will be coming and going. That’s how it works in minor league baseball, and the XFL is, for all intents and purposes, a minor league – players view it as a potential stepping stone to the big time, not a place they want to hang their hats indefinitely.
A few weeks into its first season, it’s already obvious the XFL has something the AAF was never quite able to establish: a professional look. It may be a minor league, but it looks a lot more like the NFL than the Alliance ever did.
There are a few reasons for this. First, it’s playing in prime media markets. Alliance teams were scattered in places like Salt Lake City, Birmingham and Orlando. No offense to those three cities, but they have precisely one big-time sports franchise among them (the Orlando Magic in the NBA). The XFL, by contrast, is in nine current NFL cities and one former site (St. Louis).
This means two things: First, it looks like it’s a top-tier endeavor, and second, it’s banking on sustaining interest that’s already there, thanks to the NFL, immediately after the NFL season ends.
There’s already talk of expansion, as there inevitably is with new leagues. But the league needs to make sure its founding members are stable first. Remember the World Football League, where franchises pulled up stakes overnight and moved (from Houston to Shreveport, New York to Charlotte) or folded altogether? That kills credibility. The USFL made the mistake of expanding too much too fast.
If I were the XFL, I’d look at maybe two sites for expansion if things are stable after Season 1. Prime candidates? I’d look the Bay Area, which is losing the Raiders and was the top attendance market for the XFL in its first incarnation. (The San Francisco Demons averaged 35,000 fans, more than any current XFL team is drawing.) I’d also consider San Antonio, the Alliance’s top draw, although a third team in Texas might be a bit much.
San Diego would be a great market if the Chargers’ betrayal hadn’t soured so many fans there on football in general, as witnessed by the tepid interest in the Alliance’s Fleet. One mildly hopeful sign for the XFL: the Los Angeles Wildcats drew 14,000 fans to their first game at Dignity Sports Park, where fewer home fans than road-team boosters showed up to watch the Los Angeles Chargers.
The XFL also seems more like the big time because it’s on major television networks like ABC, ESPN and Fox. That’s something most spring football leagues can’t say. And all four of the league’s games are televised every week to everyone with access to those networks. That’s something even the NFL can’t say.
I remember when the old WFL was consigned to something called the TVS sports network, a syndicated outfit. It wasn’t exactly prime time. The USFL had a better deal, but left a four-year contract with ABC on the table to pursue Donald Trump’s (yes, that Donald Trump) ill-conceived fall strategy of competing head-to-head with the NFL in 1986.
If the XFL can keep its current television deal, it’s got a leg up on most of the leagues that came before it. That, of course, requires that it continues to get decent ratings, something the Alliance failed to sustain.
The XFL, like most alternative football leagues, has a few gimmicks designed to make the game more interesting. Unlike some of those other leagues, it’s chosen some good ones.
The main goal is to make the game more exciting and high-scoring, which is kind of the opposite of what the original XFL did (the idea there was to make it a sort of smash-mouth little brother to pro wrestling, minus the fixed storylines).
Teams have to kick off from the 30, and kickoffs into the end zone are brought back to the 35. If they go out of bounds, the ball comes all the way back to the kicking team’s 45! Punts outside the field of play are similarly discouraged, making it more likely teams will go for it on fourth down.
There’s also a cool 3-2-1 option on points after touchdown, which helps keep games within reach for trailing teams and adds an interesting element of strategy. The one thing coaches don’t seem to have figured out yet is that a 3-pointer from the 10-yard-line may be easier than going for 2 from the 5: You’re likely to throw for it in either case, and if you’re at the 10, you’ve got more real estate for receivers to run their routes.
Another cool innovation is that the clock stops after every play in the final two minutes of each half, which gives the trailing team a better chance of coming back to win – and keeps viewers engaged until the end. Up until that time, however, the play clock is just 25 seconds, which speeds up the game (although it probably tires out players a lot faster).
Despite all this, games haven’t been wild scoring affairs, largely because the teams didn’t have much practice time before it got started and the talent level just isn’t what it is in the NFL. Imagine what Drew Brees or Aaron Rodgers would do with these rules. You might see a score like Saints 64, Packers 59.
League founder Vince McMahon of WWE fame is loaded, and he says he’s willing to pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the league.
If he does, that could help the XFL weather any early difficulties.
But that’s a big “if.” McMahon pulled the plug on the XFL after just one season the first time he tried this, back in 2001. And just last year, Tom Dundon swooped in and promised a $250 million infusion for the Alliance – only to renege and leave the AAF high and dry. I get it. Even guys with a lot of money don’t want to waste it (unless your name’s Bloomberg and you’re running for president).
But the point is, big money is no guarantee of success for spring leagues. On the other hand, not having big money is pretty much a guarantee of failure. So the XFL still has an advantage, at least for now.
With all that going for it, the XFL has got to survive, right? Not necessarily. In fact, it probably won’t. Call me a cynic, but the league has two very big things going against it.
Alternative sports leagues just don’t make it. Yes, there’s the old AFL, but it didn’t survive on its own – it forced a merger with the NFL (its predecessor, the AAFC, did the same thing). The WNBA is doing well, but it’s bankrolled by the NBA. The first women’s pro basketball league had exciting stars like Ann Meyers, the high-scoring Molly Bolin and Nancy Lieberman, but it lasted only three years.
The sports landscape is littered with alternative leagues that didn’t make it. The WFL, USFL, Federal League (baseball), Major Indoor Soccer League, Arena Football League, National Bowling League... The list goes on and on.
Why should the XFL be any different? You might point to the reasons above, but then there’s the reason below:
More now than ever before, they’re limited. In the Twitter world, people glance at something for a few seconds, and if it doesn’t hold their interest, they’re on to the next thing.
The Alliance learned that last year. It had a lot of interest the first week, but after that, TV ratings fell off a cliff and attendance was lackluster. There was a time when Arena Football had a sort of cool cachet, back in the ’90s when future NFL Hall of Famer Kurt Warner was slinging passes for the Iowa Barnstormers, but it dwindled to four or five teams before vanishing last year. Hardly anyone even noticed.
The XFL’s attendance has been only marginally better than the AAF’s so far, and McMahon’s deep pockets will only sustain it for so long. The fact that the hoped-for scoring binges haven’t materialized is another worrying sign. But even high-scoring games didn’t save Arena Football.
I’ll probably keep watching the XFL this season, just because I enjoy football and I’m fascinated to see how this all plays out. I’m just not sure if there are enough oddballs like me out there to keep the league going.
I hope so, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Featured photo of a New York Guardians XFL game at Met Life Stadium by Ajay Suresh, used under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
Major League Baseball has lost all credibility.
Many are applauding MLB for its “harsh” judgment in suspending the Houston Astros’ general manager and manager for a year, and praising the Astros’ owner for firing them.
Fine.
But the Astros are still being recognized as the 2017 World Series champions. This one fact renders any other censure or punishment virtually meaningless.
Think the New England Patriots spying on opponents’ practices is bad? This makes the Patriots’ transgressions look like stealing candy from a drugstore, compared to a bank heist. This didn’t happen in practice; it happened in an actual game.
Here’s what the Astros did to their opponents: They used the centerfield camera to steal the catcher’s signs to the pitcher, which indicate what pitch is coming next. Then, they relayed that information to their batters, who knew what pitches to expect.
This is like using a hidden camera to see another player’s cards in a poker game. Try that at a casino and you’ll get banned for life. If you’d have tried it in the Old West, it would have gotten you a gunfight at high noon.
But MLB won’t allow the Dodgers to even make a statement about it. It’s issued a gag order against the team, forbidding it from even commenting.
In light of all this, it’s a travesty that the Astros get to keep calling themselves “world champions.” But almost as offensive is the rationale being used to justify it: a supposed precedent set in the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which the heavily favored Chicago White Sox threw the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds – intentionally playing poorly in exchange for money from a gambling syndicate.
Bob Costas relayed this argument when he appeared on CNN: “Look, we know that the 1919 Chicago White Sox ... threw the World Series, but the record books still say that the Cincinnati Reds are the 1919 World Champions.”
But this isn’t just comparing apples to oranges, it’s declaring rotten apples to ripe oranges.
In case the distinction isn’t obvious – and it should be to a second-grader – the Cincinnati Reds did nothing wrong that would have justified stripping them of the title. The White Sox were the guilty party. They gave away the Series, and punishing the Reds for the White Sox’s transgression would have been ridiculous.
In the 2017 World Series, the exact opposite occurred. Unlike in 1919, the winning team was the guilty party. Costas is right about this much: You can’t penalize the Reds for winning when they did nothing wrong. But he’s dead wrong about comparing the Reds and the Astros, because unlike the Reds, the Astros are the ones who broke the rules.
In fact, the 1919 Reds have more in common with the 2017 Dodgers than they do with the Astros. The Reds and Dodgers both played by the rules. One team won and deserved to keep its title; the other team lost and deserved better. Much better.
The Costas argument is a sham. The truth is much simpler: Major League Baseball doesn’t want to endure the embarrassment of proclaiming the Dodgers 2017 champions, or at the very least, vacating the title by stripping the Astros of their crown.
Precedent? Just look at the 2005 Orange Bowl, in which USC destroyed Oklahoma 55-19 in a battle of unbeaten teams. The NCAA subsequently found that USC had used an ineligible player, running back Reggie Bush. Bush didn’t score a single touchdown in the game and wasn’t even his team’s leading rusher. But the NCAA forced USC to vacate every game that season in which Bush played a single down – including the Orange Bowl.
If the NCAA can do it, so can Major League Baseball. But it won’t. It won’t even allow the Dodgers organization to comment on its decision not to vacate the Astros’ pseudo-championship.
Major League Baseball wants to think it’s getting tough by issuing long suspensions and a “maximum” $5 million fine (a pittance for any major professional sports team in this country).
It’s not toughness. It’s cowardice.
Unless the Astros are forced to vacate the title, anything else MLB does is just window dressing designed to make itself look good.
The Dodgers deserved better. Fans deserve better. The game deserves better. We all deserve better.
Photo: Astros Manager A.J. Hinch, sporting cool shades in 2015, apparently thought it was also cool to use technology to steal signs. He’s been suspended and fired as a result, but the Houston Astros got to keep their title. Photo by Eric Enfermero, Creative Commons 4.0 license.
I’ve got a lot of reasons to root against the Patriots, including the fact that they’re playing my Rams in Super Bowl El-Triple-I. But I’d be rooting against them just as hard if they were playing the Saints. Or the Eagles. Or any of the 29 NFL teams whose names don’t rhyme with Hatriots, Tratriots or Deflatriots. I’ll tell you why in a moment. But before we get to that, I’d like to start out with some of the things that don’t factor into my loathing of this particular team.
First off, Tom Brady’s wife is apparently some sort of model. Big whup. I couldn’t care less. I’d never even heard of his wife before someone brought it to my attention that he was married to someone in that particular profession, and I don’t know anything about her. But regardless, I’ll take my wife over his any day of the week. He should be jealous of me.
Next.
They play in Boston (well, Foxboro, but close enough). I’ve never there, but it seems like a pretty cool place. I like cooler climates, the history is amazing and (I’ve been told) so are the fall colors. Besides, how can you not like a city that’s half an hour’s drive from Salem?
Brady’s “chiseled good looks.” I’d rather look like Jason Momoa. Come to think of it, I’d rather just look like myself. I don’t have to wear sunglasses to look cool.
The Red Sox beat my beloved Dodgers in the World Series this year. Sorry. Try again. I happen to like the Red Sox. How can you not love the Green Monster? Fenway Park has to be the most awesome ballpark in the American League, if not all of baseball. The Sox also get some extra love as the nemesis of the evil New York Yankees, whose late owner (George Steinbrenner) would have been remembered as the most obnoxious sports executive off all-time if it weren’t for one Donald J. Trump. More on him shortly.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to the heart of the issue. Regardless of the above, there are some real, bona fide reasons I hate the Patriots. Even more than I hate the Dallas Cowboys, with their pretentious “America’s Team” B.S. and their holier-than-thou good ol’ boy owner. Even more than I hate Alabama’s football team, with its built-in recruiting advantage relies on a corrupt system to maintain its advantage – a system that favors Power 5 schools over everyone else in a blatant and unapologetic money grab.
Those reasons include the following:
1. Tom Brady’s Trump love: “It’s pretty amazing what he’s been able to accomplish.” (Like six bankruptcies? Exploiting workers? Firing people on a reality show? Running another football league into the ground? Truly amazing, Tom!) When a MAGA hat turned up in his locker, he claimed it “found its way” there, as though it had a brain and two legs. Brady says Trump “always gives me a call” and offers him motivational speeches. On what, I wonder. How to kiss women and grab their genitals without permission? How to run a football league into the ground? How to declare bankruptcy and leave others holding the bag for your mistakes? How to cheat and still look like a winner? Hmmm. Brady says Trump “obviously appeals to a lot of people, and he’s a hell of a lot of fun to play golf with.” If that’s your basis for liking someone, you need to go rent Shallow Hal.
2. Robert Kraft’s Trump love: According to Brady, it was the Patriots owner who put that MAGA cap in his locker. Kraft says he likes Trump because the guy went to his wife’s funeral after she died of cancer and called several times to express his condolences. Sounds like a genuinely nice gesture ... until you realize this is the same guy wants to cut off health care access to millions of other Americans who can’t afford it, even though they’re suffering from cancer (and other conditions), too. But they apparently don’t matter because, for one thing, they’re not Kraft’s wife and, for another, he can afford it. (Just a head’s up, Mr. Kraft: Narcissists and sociopaths can be very ingratiating.)
3. Bill Belichick’s Trump love: The Patriots coach is notorious for being gruff and unapproachable, at least by the media. He seldom smiles and often refuses to answer questions because he wants to control the narrative. Sound familiar? Maybe that’s why he penned a downright gushy love letter to the Trumpster on the eve of the 2016 election that, not surprisingly, also contained a dig at the media: “Congratulations on a tremendous campaign. You have dealt with an unbelievable slanted and negative media, and have come out beautifully – beautifully. You’ve proved to be the ultimate competitor and fighter. Your leadership is amazing. I have always had tremendous respect for you, but the toughness and perseverance you have displayed over the past year is remarkable. Hopefully tomorrow’s election results will give the opportunity to make America great again. Best wishes for great results tomorrow.” The letter contains so many superlatives – “amazing,” “tremendous” (twice), “beautifully” (again, twice), “great,” “remarkable” – that one might suspect Trump himself had written it ... if Trump had such a varied vocabulary. As it is, Belichick admitted he penned the letter. Not something to be particularly proud of.
(Are you sensing a theme here? Well, there’s a lot more to it than just the team’s Trumpiness. Read on.)
4. Playing the victim ... Poor Tom Brady. According to him, “everyone thinks we suck.” Hey, Tom, you’ve won more Super Bowls than any other team in this millennium, and you’re trying to win people over by claiming you’re the underdog? Get a clue: NO ONE is going to support the Patriots because they’re a supposed underdog, any more than people would have supported Mike Tyson against Buster Douglas if he’d had the audacity to depict himself in those terms.
5. ... while, at the same time, boasting about how wonderful they are. Julian Edelman had T-shirts made up daring haters to “Bet Against Us.” Sorry, Julian, but you can’t have it both ways.
6. Deflategate. Brady’s denials on this were the most convincing since Bill Clinton’s “I did not have sex with that woman.” But he could have quoted Nixon directly and just said, “I am not a crook.” Instead of footballs, it would be nice if someone had deflated the Patriots’ oversized egos.
7-46. Spygate. This claims a full 40 spots, and rightfully so, because that’s how many times Belichick & Co. stole their opponents’ signals during games between 2000 and 2007, according to ESPN. The network reported that “Patriots staffers would dress like media members, covering team logos on their clothing or turning sweatshirts inside out to hide their team gear. They would also wear badges, credentials marked for Patriots TV or Kraft Productions. ... Patriots employees would go through a visiting team’s hotel looking for playbooks and other materials left behind. They would also send a staffer into an opponent’s locker room to steal play sheets with the first 20 scripted plays on them.” This is probably worth more than 40 spots, to be honest, because it’s the biggest reason I hate the Patriots.
47. They don’t have to cheat. Spygate and Deflategate would have been bad enough if the Detroit Lions or Cleveland Browns had done it. But at least they would have had an excuse to look for an extra edge: They’re bad. The Patriots don’t even have that excuse. They’re a good team, which makes it even less forgivable that they would so flagrantly flout the rules with such downright devious behavior. They didn’t need to deflate footballs to beat the Colts, but they did it anyway. They’re like the thief who steals a man’s cash out of his wallet, then demands the picture of his family, too, just because he can.
48. Denial. The Patriots, of course, denied doing any of this, dismissing the ESPN report as a collection of “myths, conjectures and rumors” that were assembled “rather than giving credit for the team’s successes to Coach Belichick, his staff and the players for their hard work, attention to detail” blah, blah, blah. Sounds like something directly off the desk of Sarah Sanders. The only difference: “myths, conjectures and rumors” were used instead of “fake news.” As in Kraft’s letter, quoted above, the breadth of the vocabulary used here is the only distinction worth noting.
49. They get away with it. Despite all this, the NFL continues to treat the franchise like its golden child. Imagine if this level of cheating had been uncovered by the NCAA, where teams can be stripped of championships if a single player accepts a free dinner from a booster or dares to even talk to a professional agent can cost a school its national championship. Imagine if Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball’s first commissioner, were in charge. This is the guy who banned star players who were acquitted in court on charges that had nothing to do with baseball (Benny Kauff) and who hit .375 in the World Series (Joe Jackson) over mere allegations. Brady’s four-game suspension was a slap on the pinky in comparison. If Landis were in charge, Brady would be out of football. So would Belichick. But Roger Goodell has a different approach. According to one report, he called Rams head coach Mike Martz – whose team lost a Super Bowl to the Patriots during the Spygate era – and asked him to stop talking about it and write a statement saying he was satisfied with the league’s investigation in order to avoid further inquiries by Congress: “If it ever got to an investigation, it would be terrible for the league.” And the Patriots’ ill-gotten championships are good for the league? Really?
50. They always seem to get the calls. Even when they don’t deserve them, and especially when the game is on the line. That bogus roughing-the-passer penalty against the Chiefs was just the latest in a long line of “lucky breaks” the Patriots have received courtesy of the officials. There was also last year’s ridiculous call that gave them a win over the Steelers after the officials overturned an obvious Pittsburgh touchdown: The receiver clearly had possession and the ball broke the plane of the goal line before it came loose. Then, way back in 2001, there was Tom Brady’s fumble that would have given the Raiders the ball ... except officials overturned it based on a “tuck rule” that has since been abolished because it was such a disaster. In a 2018 playoff win over Jacksonville, the team was penalized just once, the fewest in any playoff game since 2011 ... when the Patriots (naturally) drew just one flag in a win over the Ravens. But the evidence isn’t just anecdotal. From 2011 to 2017, the Patriots were penalized 13 percent less than their opponents; in the playoffs, they were penalized 25 percent less – for 35 percent fewer yards. And most of the difference happened during close games. This isn’t proof that the league is consciously favoring the Patriots, but it’s pretty obvious that they are being favored. Yet another reason to hate them.
So, there you have it. If you need some more reasons, I’m sure you can come up with your own. If you still like the Patriots, I’m afraid you’re beyond help. If Brady’s next endorsement deal is with Kool-Aid, feel free to drink some. I’m sure it will taste real good to you going down.
