Seventh Inning Stretch
Baseball can be considered really exciting or extremely boring. It all depends on who you talk to. Personally, I find that, in general, the sport is pretty boring. That doesn’t mean that it is a bad sport though. You just have to be careful to take baseball for what it is. There is nothing in sports that better illustrates what it is than the seventh inning stretch.
Think about it for a second. What happens in the middle of the seventh inning? The fans all stand up and sing a classic song. They stretch. The fans. It seems to me that this was started because people were falling asleep in the middle of games, and the home team wanted to give the fans a reason to cheer. Well, let’s see what the real origin is from the always correct Wikipedia:
The origin of the seventh inning stretch is said to be in the story of Brother Jasper of Mary, F.S.C., the man credited with bringing baseball to Manhattan College in the late 1800s. Being the Prefect of Discipline as well as the coach of the team, it fell to Brother Jasper to supervise the student fans at every home game. On one particularly hot and muggy day in 1882, during the seventh inning against a semi-pro team called the Metropolitans, the Prefect noticed his charges becoming restless. To break the tension, he called a time-out in the game and instructed everyone in the bleachers to stand up and unwind. It worked so well he began calling for a seventh-inning rest period at every game. The Manhattan College custom spread to the major leagues after the New York Giants were charmed by it at an exhibition game, and the rest is history.
Now that we know what is considered to be the truth, we can dissect the amazing song. If there was only one thing that baseball should be known for, it is the completely horrible songs that teams and the league come up with. Just go to Chicago and you’ll know what I’m talking about. I’m not sure which song is more cheesy and brutal. I think I would have to go with the Go Sox Go song. In any case, my point isn’t to bash these songs, it is actually to praise them. For, what other chants/songs are there that can bring grown, drunk adults to the feet to sing. There are probably three outside of baseball, “Don’t Stop Believing,” “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and “Sweet Caroline.” The song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” is such a classic that you are abused if you don’t sing along. That is what is so amazing about this whole tradition. Fans at the game are forced to stand up and sing. Other than a few cults I know about, there aren’t many public places that can bring people together like this.
P.S. That picture comes from chalifours.com as a gift bouquet. What an awesome gift!
We’re Back
Well, we are back so now you have another place to listen to us ramble. Great huh? So, what should you expect?
- Less analysis – Look, if you want “expert” analysis please head over to ESPN.com, foxsports.com, etc. I have no credentials to tell you what to think, and I really don’t think anyone should care about my opinion on gameplans and such.
- More fun – This site has always had the goal of being fun. What does that mean? We are going to a purely list driven blog. Think of this site as an list of why sports is great, or why we are “linked on sports.” I get it! For an example look at the post below when we were testing this thing.
So, sit back and tell your friends that LinkedOnSports is back. Sign up for our feeds if you’re into that sort of thing. Sign up for our daily emails if you’re into that sort of thing. Shoot us an email with any ideas or comments at email@linkedonsports.com.
Let’s do this thing!
Where Have We Been?
Moving, busy, getting organized. Don’t worry we’ll be back with a bang in under a week. In the meantime, keep on linking!
We Love Baseball – Baseball Caps
You may say that a baseball cap has nothing to do with the actual sport. That may be a valid point, but with this first edition of why we are linked on sports (haha, get it?!), I figured I would go out on a limb. Listen, I understand there are hats for just about everything. Baseball brings out that different type of fan though, and that fan is discovered through the use of baseball caps.
More than any other sport, you are allowed to wear these caps for absolutely no reason. Seriously. If you wear a Titelist hat, well, you are playing golf, and you most likely think that you are way better than you really are. Hats from baseball, however, are used for anything, and anyone can wear any team they desire. It has become more of a fashion statement, which is pretty weird.
Let me give you an example. I see a lot of New York Yankees hats around. I’m sure there are a lot of Yankees fans around, but I’m also pretty sure that a lot of these people wearing the hats don’t give a shit about the actual team. This would all be good and dandy if the point of this type of merchandise wasn’t to show your true colors. You don’t see people in Chicago walking around with New York Jets hats (unless they are from Wisconsin and they had adopted the Brett Favre Jets). Baseball teams are just different though. For some reason it is not considered weird to wear a hat of a team you have absolutely no affiliation with.
It’s an interesting phenomenon to me mostly because it is only baseball that it seems to be true of. Do you wear baseball caps just for the hell of it? Are you like me and want to rip off the Yankees hats off of people’s heads when you know they don’t care about the Yankees?
So, you may ask why this makes the list of why we are linked on sports (it never gets old). It seems to me that this trend is occurring because baseball has had such an impact on society. It’s not like the hat is a new concept. Baseball has just transformed their logos into something more than supporting the teams. It is actually just supporting the MLB brand.
The Fantasy Football Personalities
Here’s a fun list of the eight personalities at every live draft. I can appreciate most of them. The girlfriend has yet to break into any of my fantasy football leagues. I think this is a good thing. But then I think it would be nice for her not to think I’m crazy when I agonize over lineups every Sunday morning. My favorite is the Confusionist. The “is (insert name here) taken?” question gets asked about 20 times in my live draft, and it never gets less annoying. It’s not like I don’t do it too, but it’s more annoying when others do it. Enjoy.
8 Personalities at Every Fantasy Football Draft [FF Forecast]
Artest Reenacts Palace Brawl
I found this video over at Fanhouse and I’m not sure if it makes me like Ron Artest more or hate him more. He just seems like a jackass. But it is funny how he screwed the Pacers franchise because of this story!
And Steroids Are Back…
…stronger than ever. The beginning of the end is here folks. The 2003 list is slowly leaking as we all assumed it eventually would. Great.
Here we go … Lawyers with “knowledge of the results” of MLB’s 2003 steroid tests says that both Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz are among the players who tested positive for performance enhancing drugs.
What’s there to say anymore? It’s not like it’s surprising I guess. In all seriousness, I don’t really care. It doesn’t affect me, but it still sucks to see our ideas actually come true. Great.
Lane Kiffin Putting Up Billboards
I’ll believe it when it actually happens, but oh boy this could get good!
Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin announced plans for an advertising plan last week while addressing his audience at the SEC football media days. More specifically, he said a “billboard will be going up” in Florida next month.
He’s been given a lot of crap since becoming UT’s coach, but this is pretty awesome. Don’t get me wrong he clearly is insane, and I would never want him as MY coach. Still, from an outsider perspective you have to love the antics. My favorite of the authors ideas is this one:
Suppose UT loses by a lopsided margin to the Gators this September. Monday’s billboards in Florida and LA could read: “We need help. Are you man enough to Volunteer?”
The Ultimate “We Love Sports” List
Sorry to our 8 loyal visitors for not being around yesterday. I do have a job and the co-creator of the site, *coughDANcough* doesn’t do shit around here anymore so it was an off day. I’m sure you guys were devasted refreshing your RSS feeds all day! But, I’m back. Hopefully we will have a new Inner Ramblings today from Austin, which should cheer everyone up.
In other news, a new feature will be starting soon, but we could use your help. The site is called “LinkedOnSports” so it felt appropriate to start explaining why. So, each week, 3-5 of the days a sport will be featured with a post about one of reasons why we love that sport. It will be an ongoing list that will last FOR-E-VER. Where do you come in? Well, just comment, email, text, twitter, facebook us with reasons why you love a specific sport. Pretty simple. It will all start next week. Our first featured sport will be in honor of summer being a brutal time of year for sports because we are stuck with just BASEBALL!!
Send us your reasons why you love baseball and you may just see it as one of the first five ever recorded on LOS! Now, get back to work.
Oh, and fuck you Brett Favre.
Greatest Hole-In-One Ever?
This may be the most amazing shot I’ve ever seen. Pure luck by Leif Olson, no doubt, but amazing nonetheless. Enjoy!
Lifetime Bans Mean 20 Years?
Look, I really couldn’t care less one way or the other in terms of how it affects my life, but the ESPN story about Bud Selig considering the reinstatement of Pete Rose confuses me.
“I think a lot of the guys feel that it’s been 20 years now for Pete, and would lean toward leniency and time served,” an unnamed Hall of Famer said, according to the Daily News.
There are a couple of issues. One, he was banned. Period. That’s the way it is. He did something that was awful, gambling on games, and the league chose to take action. Why is this even up for discussion? Two, if he is reinstated and consequently voted in then we are going to have great controversy in baseball. Suprise!
We will have to spend a year debating which is a worse offence, steroids or gambling. I can see it on sports radio right now. I don’t want to hear that debate. Let’s just save our energy by upholding the original ruling rather than feeling bad for the guy.
Erin Andrews Situation Is Nobody’s Fault
We all knew Erin Andrews was popular among sports blogs, but who knew that this video of her at a hotel would turn into a race vs. blogs vs. maintream media debate! Jason Whitlock did:
Deadspin has been the world-wide leader in sexually objectifying Erin Andrews (ESPN actually trails Deadspin in this category) and in invading the privacy of athletes and members of the sports media, so it is not all that surprising that its editor, AJ Daulerio, would throw the match on gasoline poured by a peephole pervert.
Whitlock goes on for a few paragraphs to completely bash the founders of Deadspin. I have no affiliation with them (obviously, this site would be a lot bigger if we did) other than I read it often . Still, I feel like Whitlock is pretty of base with his analysis. Here’s why:
- AJ Daulerio, the editor of Deadspin, ran the initial story that helped it gain viral popularity. Let’s be honest with ourselves, can we blame him? I’m not going to sit here and say that if the video first fell into our lap that we wouldn’t have posted it. The fact is that if he doesn’t run it, someone else will and, in a matter of hours, Deadspin will be nothing more than riding the coat tails.
- The Erin Andrews fascination, to me at least, seems like more of a joke than anything, and I don’t think mainstream media gets that. I could be off base here, but when Deadspin ran the stories about Andrews busting her chin open do we really care about this? No! But, it is funny because of the mock obsession guys have with her. So, Deadspin, and other sites, ran these stories as somewhat of a joke of how obsessed people are. Most of the articles about her are sarcastic anyway. Whitlock makes it sound like the blogs of the world are defiling her by posting about things like her chin getting busted.
- Whitlock thinks there is a “rule book” in sports media. You know what? There is, in your section of the media. Welcome to 2009 where blogs don’t have to adhere to those rules so guess what, watch your back. Deadspin and sites like ours are made to entertain. Thousands of people come to these sites to hear different things than what ESPN is (or isn’t apparently) reporting. Sports blogs are not created to hurt sports stars or media people; they are created to bring these people back down to Earth. Just because someone is a professional athlete doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be called out when they fuck up. And, they do fuck up, which is funny to people who aren’t professional athletes. Maybe Whitlock doesn’t get this, but us ‘normies’ are jealous of these people, so it’s fun to see when they fuck up. That’s the price you pay for holding out because you don’t like your $25 million contract to do something that we would give anything to do.
- I’m not saying that personally I would feel comfortable reporting on a lot of the things Deadspin does. But, that may be a big reason (among many others) why LOS is not as popular as Deadspin.
Where was Whitlock right?
- I completely agree that some mainstream media sites are unfair with what they pick and choose to show. The Pacman video he mentions should have been treated the same as the recent Roethlisberger incident. Most mainstream sites have their own agenda and ESPN is clearly attacked for most of the stuf they do.
- But, this is not a race thing, which seems to be what he is referring to. There is no reason for ESPN to cover the Erin Andrews story whether she is white or black. There is not much more of a reason for Whitlock to write about the story. It is not sports, it is entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a horrible form of entertainment, but it’s no different than the defaming that Jon & Kate get from their gossipy lives. Furthermore, Erin Andrew is an ESPN employee so they have nothing to gain from this. So, if you want to complain about Roethlisberger vs. Pacman, that is perfectly valid. But this Andrews story is nothing to ESPN, and should be nothing to FoxSports, CBSsports, and SI either.
- This begs the question, ’should a site like Deadspin run stories like this?’ Well, I would say that it is much more relevant for them than any other sites. This has nothing to with white or black. It has to do with a very popular, good looking sideline reporter. If she was black, I would contend that this would be treated the same. I could be wrong, but there are times that race is the issue, but this, to me, is clearly not one of them.
So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with a blurry line between what should be reported on the internet and what is actually reported. To be honest, I don’t see how what Deadspin did was any worse than calling Steve McNair out for being shot, or Serena Williams for being lazy. All Deadspin did was speed up the process of the video getting out in the public eye. It was going to happen eventually, and, yes, Daulerio was smart to put it up asap. In the end, what we do is for fun, but what they do is business. And the media has never been known for having great ethics concerning the breaking of popular stories.
To answer the question the title bears, nobody is to blame except for the creep who took the video. It is not the blog’s fault. It is not college guy’s fault. It isn’t Erin Andrew’s fault. This story consists of nothing else than a creepy guy doing a dispicable thing. That’s it.
Whitlock: Who’s to blame for Erin Andrews scandal? [FoxSports]
