The Kentucky Derby

The Courier Journal gave Ralph Steadman their front page and he gave them three great prints (including the one above).

Since the race is today - thought this would be worth revisiting. Remember - when the going gets weird the weird turn pro!

And speaking of turning pro - fascinating read on the gambler who cracked the horse racing code. Beat betting on horses to the tune of about $1 billion!

Grantland

Grantland was shut down today by ESPN. This was a move you could see coming a mile away yet the Internet was abuzz today with the gnashing of metaphorical teeth. This opinion may be unpopular but I won't miss Grantland. Yes I feel awful for the writers, editors and others who lost their jobs today but I'm guessing Disney is handling out pretty generous separation packages.

ESPN's first foray into smart sports writing was 15-years ago with Page 2. They fielded an all-star line-up of Ralph Wiley, Hunter S. Thompson, David Halberstam and a young Bill Simmons. Ralph Wiley and Hunter S. Thompson passed away. David Halberstam lost his enthusiasm for writing about sports after 9/11. That left just Simmons.

He was a hot property and he felt ESPN did a poor job with Page 2 so he leveraged his contract negotiations with the World-Wide Leader to let him create Grantland. His vision was to create a place where young hot writers could write what they wanted about sports and culture. He brought in and nurtured some very talented writers - that cannot be denied. But the problem was too much hipsterism. In many cases these hot young writers seemed to be writing to impress each other (and Simmons) instead of the general sports-loving public. The page views for Grantland just weren't there. The site wasn't close to being as successful as Deadspin or The Big Lead - but that was OK with the Grantland staff because they looked down their noses at those base sites that catered to the unwashed masses.

I was a regular at Grantland for a while but mostly for articles by Simmons or Charlie Pierce. Once Simmons was let go - I basically just read Pierce's brain droppings at the site (and I'm guessing Charlie will be just fine after today). Sure I gave many other Grantland writers a chance but to be honest I found most of their articles pretentious. Sorry - that's just my honest opinion.

Today many people are comparing the closing of Grantland to the similar fate of The National. No offense but this is like comparing the 27 Yankees to the 1987 Pawtucket Red Sox. Ironically Grantland did a great job of chronicling "The Greatest Paper that Ever Died".

Bill Simmons' hands are not clean with today's closing either. His understandable wish to get some measure of revenge on ESPN played a part in today's shuttering of Grantland (a situation Deadspin did a nice job of describing).

So Grantland has closed it's doors today. But it honestly won't be missed by me.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- 12 things JK Rowling has revealed after the publication of last book. No real news here for big Harry Potter fans.

- Grantland has a look back at the failure of the Russian Sochi Winter Olympics.

- I just love this photo - Stonehedge's gardener mowing the grass 1955

- Cool - nice summary of places to go for free content for your iPhone, iPad, Kindle, etc.

- The 20 most popular Ted Talks

- Good on you JetBlue

Minnie Driver for Rom-Com Hall of Fame

I am not a Rom-Com (romantic comedy) type of guy (although I admit to being a complete sucker for You've Got Mail). However I have seen enough of the genre to be taken aback by Grantland's Rom-Com Hall of Fame: Champions and Challengers. About half way though the (long) article I kept wondering "when are they going to mention Minnie Driver?" But they never did.

I would argue that Minnie's three year run of Debi Newberry in Grosse Point Blank (1997), Skylar in Good Will Hunting (1997) and Jane in Disney's Tarzan (1999) was as good a run than anyone who made the list. Maybe she's not included because her career was like Sandy Koufax's but instead of retiring after the 1966 World Series she quit the major leagues and went on to pitch in the Pacific Coast League (nothing really memorable since Y2K).

Maybe it was the quirkiness of Minnie Driver and the quirkiness of her major roles that kept her from the list? But for people smart enough to see that Jerry Maguire was not a sports movie but a rom-com to not see that Good Will Hunting was also a rom-com at its heart is frustrating. An off the charts broken genius is healed by Robin Williams cracking therapy enough to chase the woman of his dreams is the basic plotline of Good Will Hunting. Sure Minnie Driver's character did not get jilted at the altar like many of the women on the list but in Grosse Point Blank she did get jilted at the senior prom! And Tarzan and Jane is one of the most historic romantic pairings in all of literature. People forget that Tarzan loses Jane in the original Edgar Rice Burrough's book. He gives her up to a lesser man because he thinks that's what will make her happy.

Quirky Minnie Driver should have made the Rom-Com Hall of Fame Challengers list! There I said it! How do you like them apples?

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- Grantland did a short video on Porn Star Karaoke this week. I mentioned Porno Karaoke at Sardo's back in 2005. Grantland please try and keep up.

- Jerry Seinfeld wants people to know he doesn't support murder-for-hire even if you have a really good jumbo shrimp basket.

- I want one of these

- The original Michelin Man 1910

- Just how dumb are MSNBC's hosts? This dumb.

- Wonder if Denver rental car agencies can list this as one of the official job benefits? I imagine that housekeepers at Denver hotels are getting similar benefits.

- More scientific evidence that Bigfoot is as real as Babe the Big Blue Ox.

Putt-Putt Perfection

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Compelling look at an accomplishment I didn't even know existed even though like most American males I've played miniature golf dozens of times in my life.

Woody Allen

Let me say this right up front - I think Woody Allen is a fucking creep.

Like many I thought his early movies like Sleeper were funny but he stopped being funny a long time ago and I never bought into his pseudo-intellectual artiste crap. Interiors may be the single worst move I've ever seen. It is mind-bending to me that people still defend this real world Uncle Roy because of the artistic merits of his movies. I hope those defenders read this Esquire article about Woody hiding his creepiness is plain sight in his movies.

Or maybe read the last paragraph of this 1976 People interview and see how enjoyable Manhattan remains as a movie. An interview in which he announces his predilection to pre-pubescent girls which happened a decade BEFORE he "allegedly" molested Dylan Farrow.

Of course Woody, like Roman Polanski, will still have his Hollywood defenders. Craven souls who defend Allen out of hopes to someday work with the master. I would love a SNL-like skit where the Alec Baldwins of the world after an audition would have to allow Allen to over-night babysit their children at his Manhattan-Land Ranch  in order to get a part. Sadly I think we know that plenty in Hollywood would probably be only too happy to take that risk if it meant even a chance of furthering their careers.

Perhaps the best take I've seen on this creep was by Molly Lambert at Grantland. Well worth the read - if your stomach can take any more reading about the fucking creep named Woody Allen.

Rock Documentaries

Bill Simmons today devoted a lot of words to Showtime's documentary The History of the Eagles directed by Alison Ellwood (who also directed a 30 for 30 feature for ESPN which may explain in part some of the effort by Simmons). I've watched this documentary a couple of times and fall prey to watching it pretty much each time I see that it is on. I enjoyed Simmons' piece but The History of the Eagles - as good as it is may not be even the best rock documentary I've seen in the past 24 months.

Other titles I'd put in the running include:

- Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (directed by Peter Bogdanovich). Very interesting history but 239 freaking minutes long.

- Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten. Very under-rated flick about a man with more charisma than all the members of the Eagles combined.

- George Harrison: Living in the Material World (directed by Martin Scorsese). This was a two-part HBO special. Harrison was always my favorite Beatle. I would have to place this at the top of my list just because I found Harrison so fascinating a person.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

OK I'll say it! The verbose Charlie Pierce is not a good fit with the MTV raised target audience of Grantland. And this is coming from a Charlie Pierce fan. Just too wordy - makes ESPN readers feel like they are taking SAT verbal tests... Joshua Chamberlain was a hero of Gettysburg and other Civil War battles but his body paid an awful price... The Red Sox gave call up Brock Holt number 26. This is another nail in the coffin for anyone who thinks the team has plans ever to retire that number for pariah Wade Boggs... I cannot remember a year I cared less about the All-Star Game. Or who may have been snubbed in the selection process... Small Town Dumps would be a good name for a band... Spes Mea Veritas (Hope is My Truth) could be a good motto for the Obama Administration (since truth obviously is not their truth)... The Emei mustache toad grows spikes on its lips for a few weeks so it can fight over girls. In the future I can see certain humans altering their DNA to do the same. And I can see SPIKE broadcasting Mustache Fights (and God help me - I can see myself watching it)... Israel should claim responsibility for the coup in Egypt just to mess with all the haters like Mel Gibson who claim they are responsible for all the wars in the world... They call it Online Dating but if you don't meet in person it is not really dating at all...

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting and thought I'd share.

- One of the many reasons to like Terry Francona (and good sport Don Orsillo)

- The Evan Gattis story keeps getting cooler and cooler

- Speaking of cool stories - it doesn't get much better than Chris Colabella's finally making it to the Big Show

- Heh Heh

- Searching for Dwight Howard. I've long held that Dwight Howard is the most over-rated player in the NBA. Whoever signs him will come to regret the decision.

Oral History of the 2003 WSOP

Excellent behind the scenes look at the game changing 2003 World Series of Poker. Three quick thoughts on the article:

1. Not a fan of people who complain that Chris Moneymaker got lucky. Every WSOP winner not named Stu Ungar was lucky. That's the way it is in poker. You have to win all the coin-flips and get a lucky two-outer to be champion.

2.Sad to hear that winning the WSOP and becoming a poker pro basically cost Moneymaker his marriage. That's tough.

3. This would have made a great 30 for 30 except ESPN already owns the rights and I'm guessing the poker folks probably wouldn't want to share with Bill Simmons 30 for 30 folks.

Don King

Excellent article on Don King who was once one of the most powerful men in sports but is now all but forgotten.

When's the last time you thought about Don King? When's the last time you thought about boxing? I've become ambivalent about both. I always thought boxing was crooked - not so much what happened in the ring but outside - from the promoters like King keeping certain fights from happening to judges ringside giving scorecards which were indefensible to anyone who watched the same fight. Now I don't really think of boxing - or Don King - at all.

The article was a good reminder of what once was. I couldn't help but wonder if we are better off without boxing and people like Don King?

Patriots Office

Fascinating look at how the New England Patriots offensive scheme evolved and works.

Article can get pretty technical at times. I wish more articles did that.

A Status Update of Poker in the US

I'm a sucker for a good poker article and Jay Caspian Kang wrote a very good one for Grantland.

The article combines the status of Poker Stars taking over the assets and debt of Full-Tilt Poker with the story of the One-Drop Million Dollar Buy-in. Good read for any poker geeks out there.

Michael Keaton

Very interesting Grantland interview of Michael Keaton.

Very enjoyable read. Grantland should do more of these.

Mad Men Season 5

Two Three interesting articles on Mad Men Season 5.

Toxic Fog - Mad Men's Fifth Season recap over at Grantland.

Alan Sepinwall has an interview with Matthew Weiner that's worth the read.

EDIT: Ken Levine also has a Season 5 Recap posted

Bill Belichick an Anarchist? Ummm - NO

Charlie Pierce can really turn a phrase which helps to make him a fun writer to read. But the problem isn't how Pierce is saying something - it is the something he tries to say. In his latest Grantland offering Charlie Pierce puts forward the idea that Bill Belichick is the NFL's last anarchist. Ummm - NO!

Anarchists don't have a uniform way of doing things - the Patriot way. Anarchists aren't known for requiring people to just do their jobs. Any personal flair or on-field demonstrations of individuality are normally swiftly dealt with by Coach Belichick.

Bill Belichick isn't an anarchist. The very idea is stupid but that doesn't jive with Charlie Pierce's thinking. Describing Belichick as he is wouldn't allow Pierce to utilize his beloved quotes from Leftists such as Emma Goldman or Bob Dylan.

It is this mindset that will be the doom of Grantland. These people are writing more for each other than for a paying audience. It is a giant echo-chamber. The problem is the readers can only be sucked in so many times. For instance I was sucked into listening to the podcast of their TV critic guys mostly because they were going to talk about Justified. Problem is one of the critics couldn't get into Justified because he thought there was too much shooting - on a show about a US Marshall with a Western gunslinger mentality - too much shooting. Really. And the other critic agreed with him. Needless to say - you won't find me wasting any more time with those podcasts.

Grantland was a great idea. It was supposed to be this place you'd check every day because of the great content. But I'd guess I might check it once a week now (if that) because I already know what I'm going to see. What's the point of reading an article on Grantland if it is just the same viewpoint rehashed over and over?

Charlie Pierce Attacks Tim Tebow's Faith to Make Charlie Feel Good About Himself

Charlie Pierce has an attack piece on Tim Tebow up at Grantland. The piece has almost nothing to do with sports. The piece has everything with Charlie Pierce's need to portray himself as some sort of morally superior person.

I must say that a certain amount of cowardice is involved here in waiting till Tim Tebow lost to go after his religious beliefs. Charlie Pierce comes off like the Edward G. Robinson character Dathan in The Ten Commandments shouting, "where is your God now?" It was also most unseemly to invoke Christopher Hitchens in this piece because of that. Hitch would never have waited till a loss to say what he thought had to be said - but Charlie Pierce waited. Yet still the cool kids will call him brave for doing it.

Pierce criticizes Tebow's brand of Christianity. He says that this "particular splinter has a long record in America of fostering anti-Enlightenment thought." If I was to go after Enlightenment thought the way Charlie Pierce goes after Tebow's faith then you would read a screed about Guillotine's and the French Revolution which with all its bloodletting was the most tangible outcome of the Enlightenment. The most tangible outcome of Tebow's ministries in the Philippines will probably be a new hospital.

I happen to agree with Teddy Roosevelt who was not keen on those who worked to convert others to their religions. He didn't like it because first the proselytizer would have to destroy the person's existing beliefs to get them to accept the new beliefs. Pierce makes the argument that's what Tebow and his family are doing in the Philippines which - as Pierce points out - is already 95% Catholic. I wonder if the Jesuit educated Pierce would like to extol the methods used by the Catholic Church in gaining such a plurality. Of course Pierce won't do that but at the same time he won't ruin his straw man argument either.

When you get right down to it this is article by Pierce is just another case of a person trying to drag down - nay smear - another just to try to feel better about themselves.

Chuck Klosterman, Blind Faith and Tim Tebow

I've been meaning to comment on this piece on Tim Tebow by Chuck Klosterman for some time. I think the idea of asking "What if Tim Tebow was a bad person?" is a good premise for an article. Comparing people who are Christians to people who believe a certain guy is a murderer? That's not clever - it's actually insulting to Christians if you stop to think about it. But that's the problem at Grantland - nobody stops to think about anything. It is not the oozing condescension that made this article memorable for me. It was the insertion of politics into a non-political "sports" article:

Throughout the 20th century, there were only two presidents who won reelection with a bad economy and high unemployment: FDR in 1936 and Reagan in 1984. In both cases, the incumbent presidents were able to argue that their preexisting plans for jump-starting the economy were better than the hypothetical plans of their opponents (Alf Landon and Walter Mondale, respectively). Both incumbents made a better case for what they intended to do, and both enjoyed decisive victories. In 2012, Barack Obama will face a similar situation. But what will happen if his ultimate opponent provides no plan for him to refute? What if his opponent merely says, "Have faith in me. Have faith that I will figure everything out and that I can fix the economy, because I have faith in the American people. Together, we have faith in each other."

The guy arguing, in effect, against blind faith is himself placing blind faith in Barack Obama with zero to back it up. Klosterman placing Obama into a comparison with FDR and Ronald Reagan? This would be like inserting a comparison of Tim Tebow to Roger Staubach and John Elway midway through the article with nothing to back it up. FDR and Reagan? Jimmy Carter and Benjamin Harrison are more like it. Klosterman literally projects the GOP having an argument of, "Have faith in me. Have faith that I will figure everything out and that I can fix the economy" when that is the EXACT re-election platform Obama will have to take because - well because Obama has objectively been perhaps the most ineffective Chief Executive in the history of the US. The fact that this gets inserted into the middle of a story on Tim Tebow is Exhibit A of the Groupthink that will be the downfall of Grantland. Why go to read any of the articles when you already know the slant and the snark all of the articles will have in common?

Malcolm Gladwell - The Nets and NBA Economics

Malcolm Gladwell had what was a very interesting look at the history behind the Nets move to Brooklyn - a move which Gladwell explains was in essence was a real estate land grab.

Gladwell had me until he brought up marginal tax rates late in the article. Gladwell writes, "Up until the 1960's, the gap between rich and poor in the United States was relatively narrow." I'd argue that Gladwell must not have ever been to Newport, RI or studied the Gilded Age in any history classes he ever took.

He continued, "In fact, in that era [the 1960's] marginal tax rates in the highest bracket were in excess of 90 percent. For every dollar you made above $250,000, you gave the government 90 cents." As you can see from this chart the top rate was 91% in 1960 but by 1970 that top rate was reduced to 71.75%. I hate to nitpick but when the facts start to be squishy like this it makes me start to question the other facts presented.

"Today - with good reason - we regard tax rates that high as punitive and economically self defeating." Well duh!

"It is worth noting, though, that in the social and political commentary of the 1950s and 1960s there is scant evidence of wealthy people complaining about their situation. They paid their taxes and went about their business." The wealthy people didn't complain about their situation? So I guess that top rate just magically reduced itself from 91% in 1960 to 71.75% in 1970 without nary a rich guy making a single complaint to legislators or lobbyists. How can a smart guy like Gladwell be this historically naive?

"The rich have gone from being grateful for what they have to pushing for everything they can get." Sounds like Gladwell longs for the days of John Rockerfeller who got his start war profiteering in the Civil War before systematically crushing all competition to his Standard Oil or maybe pushovers like JP Morgan. The article went from interesting to naive to silly in just one big paragraph of historical ignorance.

Which was too bad because it really did start off as an interesting article on the Nets move to Brooklyn.