Witness this video featuring Quake Live player, Shane “rapha” Hendrixson:
It’s a long video, but I guarantee you that once you start watching it you’ll be captivated. I had no intention of viewing past a couple minutes to get the gist of it, but found myself sitting through the entire video.
Young Mr. Hendrixson here has the articulation, poise, and humility that rivals even some of our best professional athletes.
I’m not trying to exaggerate here. I’ve seen my share of sports analysts and athletes give interviews and rapha’s performance in the above video leapfrog the vast majority of them. Just listen to him break down the mechanics and strategies of a high level Quake duel. It’s fascinating stuff that really brings to light how much strategy and planning that goes into the game, on top of the pure hand-eye coordination skills needed to execute them.
Compare this with any postgame interview of an NBA or NFL game. When was the last time you actually heard anything insightful from those “interviews?”
The kid even has the humility and maturity to acknowledge his opponent in a non-patronizing way (17:40 in the video) with no prompting from the interviewer. I’d wager that a good number of pro athletes including LeBron James could stand to learn something from rapha here, especially after last week’s debacle with “The Decision.”
Indulge me a bit for a semi-off topic post.
I really wish you could pick what kind of people you sat with when you buy tickets to a live NBA game. It’s something I think I would actually pay a small fee for the option to pick the type of crowd you are surrounded by.
I don’t know about you but I love to be around rowdy and fun people at sporting events especially if it’s a game deep into a playoff run. For me, the biggest reason to pay the money to attend a live game is to be around the energy of passionate fans who root for the same home team as you do. I want people to be heckling the opposing team and their fans, standing and cheering at the right times, and throwing out creative chants. If you don’t want to do any of those things, why bother spending the $80-$500 to come out to the game? You’d most likely get a better view at home on your TV plus you get announcers. (Obviously this argument is less effective the better your seats are. I’m assuming a ticket price that average people can afford.)
I’ve been very fortunate to be able to attend two Laker playoff games this year (1 game at each of the Suns and Jazz series) and Game 1 of the NBA finals last year. Now, I had seats in the upper deck because that’s all I could afford. You’d think that’s where the “true” Laker fans would be. The blue collar, rowdy “Laker Faithful” who saved up all year to be able to root for their team during go time. You’d think it’d be a riot zone up there with the heckling and potential drunken skirmishes with enemy fans.
You’d be wrong.
All three playoff games felt like a routine regular season game. There were empty seats around me every time. People didn’t even bother show up to a Western Conference Final game. Everyone around me acted nonplussed for most of the game. I felt almost embarrassed to stand up and actually show emotion after important plays. I was worried I’d have to turn around and apologize to people behind me for having the gall to obstruct their view as if it were the opera.
Now, there were definitely pockets of fun going around the upper deck of the arena. Dudes yelling random shit out, heckling the players, chanting “WE WANT BOSTON,” going nuts after dunks. It just wasn’t happening around me.
Which takes us back to my idea for crowd-type choice when buying tickets. Everyone wins out here. People like me who want to be passionate can be around each other and feed off the energy. The opera-goers can have their sedentary experience with the families who don’t want their kids hearing bad words. The Lakers/Ticketmaster make an extra $5 per person for matchmaking. (It’d be great for this to be a free service, but we know those bastards will invariably want moar moneyhats.) It’d just take some extra web/database tweaking on the ticket sales end.
Bill Simmons over at ESPN seemed to have a different experience than I did. But then again, he had comped tickets in the lower level. Maybe it’s a completely different experienced down there. Hopefully I’ll get to sample it one day when I make my first million. Maybe the upper deck at Staples for the Celtics/Lakers Finals going on now is everything I wanted a game experience to be. For now, though, I think I’m going to just stay home until either A) I get rich enough to sit with the celebrities or B) they let me choose what kind of crowd I want to sit with.
NOTE: This show was originally recorded a week ago, but due to some setbacks could not be posted until now. The Dirty Projectors show at the Troubadour is now sold out and some of the closer situations have been settled in the interim.
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EA’s looking to get into the fantasy sports market with the upcoming NFL season. The company’s advantage in the crowded fantasy sports marketplace is their ability to integrate functionality with game consoles.
And integrate they shall!
Although pricing has been unannounced, EA will be selling software on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network for users to follow their fantasy football teams. (the web-based game will be free)
The main three advantages for the game console applications are:
- Life drafting on the big screen if you have a local draft party – the game will upload the results to the web
- Easy import of your fantasy team into Madden 09
- Live scoring/team tracking
None of these features are revolutionary, but if the price is right it could be worth it if you have everyone over for a draft party. Importing your team into Madden should be possible to do manually and the live scoring is nice, but having to constantly flip from your console input to the TV input is going to be slightly annoying – I’d rather just have a laptop or iPhone nearby.
EA’s biggest hurdle is going to be convincing existing players/leagues to relocate from ESPN/Yahoo/Sportsline/etc. to the EA servers. With the main draw of the product essentially being a TV-output of the draft, I’m not so sure people make the leap.
View some more screenshots [easports.com]
Without any more ado, here’s my top ten entertainment experiences of 2007: Continue reading »
- a list of players with alleged evidence linking them to performance enhancing drugs prior to 2002
- the conclusion that prior to 2003, players, team executives, and MLB officials did not make a huge effort to make sure performance enhancing drugs were not used
- the conclusion that if the players union and MLB officials can agree to cooperate, they can lessen the the number of cases of performance enhancing drug use
- the recommendation that players named in the report not be punished for past actions
Obviously the most exciting aspect of the report is the list of players who have supposedly been linked to performance enhancing drugs. Unfortunately, the list is comprised of either evidence we have already heard before or hearsay. Mitchell’s report references the whole BALCO scenario from a couple years back, along with the more recent cases of players purchasing drugs via the internet. In both cases, the evidence was not considered concrete enough in order to convict players of wrongdoing. The more interesting allegations are of Roger Clemens and Andy Pettite. Former Yankees trainer, Brian McNamee admitted to injecting Clemens and Pettite with HGH and other performance enhancing drugs prior to 2001. Most of the evidence for the other named players are not more substantial than a “I heard that someone told him that he injected steroids.”
However, we have no way of knowing whether Clemens, Pettite, or any one of these players actually used performance enhancing drugs because they have never tested positive for any sort of doping. In fact, most of the drugs in question are not currently detectable by any means. The best thing we can do is finger point and say “This dude (who is probably saying what he has to in order to not go to jail) says he injected you.” In addition, the conclusions of the report, while they needed to be reiterated, were not exactly as enlightening as when the apple fell on Newton. Anyone with half a brain now can see what baseball was doing wrong in the late 20th century-early 21st century.
In other words, this whole report was a waste of time.
Read the Mitchell Report in its entirety [mlb.com]
Apologies for the tardiness on writing about this, but I’ve had other pressing things to do lately.
A couple of days ago, the Anaheim Angels traded Gold-Glove winning shortstop Orlando Cabrera for Chicago White Sox starting pitcher, Jon Garland. As an Angels fan, the only way this deal makes sense is if this was to acquire trade chips to flip a bigger deal down the road. I’m clinging onto that belief, because as it stands it does nothing to fix the problems of the team, namely hitting. The Angels aren’t getting bounced in the first round of the playoffs every year because of terrible pitching, they’re getting bounced because the dudes simply can’t hit in the postseason. Watching the games last season, Cabrera was the second most clutch guy in the lineup last year behind Vlad. He batted .302 and won the Gold-Glove at shortstop. Don’t get me wrong, Garland is an above average pitcher, but the Angels have a gaggle of above average pitchers. Between Lackey, Escobar, Weaver, Saunders, Santana, and Mosely, there just isn’t room in the rotation for any more pitchers. Especially at the expense of a key batter.
If this deal gives us what it takes to land a Miguel Cabrera that’ll be perfect. I can deal with Erick Aybar at short if it means a huge bat like Miguel Cabrera is batting behind Vlad. On the other hand, I sincerely hope Tony Reigans isn’t thinking about Miguel Tejada as the power solution because he is as powerless as the Queen of England these days.
(Also, my mind is trying to put the names of these players in a transitive Frankenstein. Orlando Cabrera Cabrera Miguel Miguel Tejada. Is there a player named Orlando Tejada?)
Angels Trade Cabrera [ESPN.com]
Hard-throwing Detroit Tigers relief pitcher, Joel Zumaya, can’t seem to catch a break. He injured his shoulder severely while trying to help evacuate his parents from the California wildfires last week. ESPN reports that Zumaya will be sidelined until at least the middle of the 2008 MLB season. Last year, Zumaya missed the last three games of the ALCS and all of the World Series because of an arm injury due to playing Guitar Hero.
Frankly I’m surprised he didn’t injure himself again on the recently released Guitar Hero III. That Slipknot song on level 7 is complete and utter bullshit on hard difficulty. On the bright side for Mr. Zumaya, Rock Band comes out in roughly three weeks. Not having to worry about baseball until March means he can rock out all he wants.
Then again, I’m sure thousands of Tigers fans and fantasy baseball players out there are PLEADING for Joel to take it easy on the rhythm games. Todd Jones and his adventurous 4.26 ERA seasons don’t exactly inspire confidence.
Zumaya Injured [ESPN.com]
How Lebron’s Choice Is Like An Apple Keynote
Then again, it kind of is a no-win situation for Lebron isn’t it? Choose to stay at home in Cleveland and he gets railed for running to stand still. Choose to go anywhere else and he becomes Ohio’s Judas for All Eternity.
It’s truly amazing that no one has gotten advance knowledge of his final decision, especially in this day and age of twitter, SMS, and instant broadcast media. In fact, one could say LeBron’s been almost Apple-like in keeping his most valued secret. (Well, prior to this year’s BarPhone scandal anyway.)
Think about it, how much speculation does the internet generate before every Apple keynote nowadays? It’s a goddamn free for all out there. Anything within reason gets blogged, tweeted, shared, much like all the different free agent scenarios thrown about with LeBron the past week. Why do we do this?
Because we love this shit.
We love speculation and we love drama. It’s in our DNA as red-blooded humans. We eat it up. It’s fun to analyze every little clue thrown to us. We’ve even made pseudo stars out of the best “detectives” out there. I’m sure Brian Windhorst over at the Cleveland Plain dealer has massively increased his audience lately, becoming the Jon Gruber of the sports media world.
Do you remember what Apple revealed at keynotes prior to the iPhone announcement in 2007? Yeah, neither do I. How about E3′s before the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii were announced in 2006? Mmmhmm.
Now, we expect the spectacular announcment every year during those shows. We want the circus of rumors, gossip, and speculation to culminate in an orgy of event live tweeting and blogging. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the planned TV announcement special becomes the norm for any superstar free agency decision in the future. As American Idol and reality TV have proven over the years, we’re willing to sit through “results” shows where we watch 59 minutes of fluff to get to content that could be over with in one minute. Why wouldn’t LeBron do what he did? There’s already a precedent for it out there.
Personally, as someone who doesn’t have a particular rooting interest in where LeBron goes, I kind of want him to go somewhere else. I want the NBA landscape to be changed. I want to participate in the avalanche of Twitter posts and comments troll hate. More importantly, I want my fascination over this dog and pony show to have been for something. Because what’s shittier than sitting through an Apple keynote only to find out that they’re just selling faster Macs?