Run Run Run

The Boston Marathon is less than a week away and yet for some reason I feel like it hasn't received the media coverage it usually gets each year.

Yes, the signs attached to street lights lining the city streets are billowing in the wind and I know a couple of people who have mentioned that they will be running, but the media coverage leading up to the event seems to be a bit lackluster.

I'm not sure why. Maybe in my cloud of co-op job searching, finals studying and last minute homework assignments, I haven't been reading the paper as much. Or maybe I'm right and the coverage has been nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe it's coming.

But if you really look for it, you can find great stuff. I guess I'm just not used to looking. Boston.com has great coverage and a whole page packed with information. They have photo galleries, an interactive map of the course, history, guides and everything you could possibly need. It's a great package.

I'll definitly being watching on Monday. But until then, I will be waiting for the story that appears every year on the evening before the big race: the runners eat pasta and carb up prior to the 26.2 miler. Every. Single. Year. You have to love the media for their often predictable or favorite story lines. Let's just hope it comes this year!

Photo made available by Wikimedia Commons.

NFL Does Good

Wonder where all of those millions of pre-made "New England Patriots: Super Bowl Champions" shirts went? Well, I now know the answer and it's a good one.

It seems the t-shirts, hats and the rest of the gear are sent around the world to people in need. As much as I wish the people were wearing Giants garb, it's nice to see that the NFL is giving back and not just throwing away.

Check it out here and check out the ESPN.com video below.

More Than Just a Ball

Try not to tear up when you read this piece about Theresa Marie Freitas, a mentally challenged cancer patient, who lives for everything Red Sox.

From the article:

Three years ago, they sat Theresa Marie down in an office at New England Medical Center and told her she had ovarian cancer. Theresa Marie is mentally retarded but she isn't stupid.

"Am I going to die?" she asked.

She got sick and wouldn't do the chemo. Her physician, Katie Wakeley, made a deal: If Theresa Marie would do the chemo, she'd get her some tickets.

Theresa Marie Freitas was 41 years old when she went to her first and only game at Fenway Park. It rained like hell. There was a three-hour delay. She wouldn't leave her seat. The Red Sox won.

She goes for chemo three times a month, and Wakeley went to check on her while she was hooked up to an IV. Theresa Marie had a newspaper spread out and was studying a box score, taking notes. She asked the doctor to come back later, when she wasn't so busy.

Many may see sports as trival, but Freitas sees them as a reason to wake up in the morning. I see them as something I couldn't live without. Many might see sports journalism as trival as well. But Freitas, a woman who is fighting for her life, reads the box scores everday. To me, that makes sports journalism just as important as what is featured on the front page.

Watch Out for the Black Cat

Are you superstitious? I am and I think that many sports nuts are. It's kind of a way of making you feel like you have something to do with your sports team and allows you to feel like you are in someway participating in the game. Wearing a certain jersey ( and in some cases not washing it,) sitting in certain chairs, crossing your fingers.... the list can go on and on.

Sometimes I think people think I'm crazy when I yell that they need to sit back where they were sitting when the game first started and the team was playing well. They usually rebut with the logical, "Casey, it doesn't matter where I sit, the team is going to play the way they are going to play no matter where I sit." It makes sense, but I usually beg them to change seats. When the team comes back to win the game, I usually make a point to let them know they changed the outcome of the game. If the team loses, they had their legs crossed and in the first half they were indian style.

Typing that out... I feel like I nut. But reading this article, it makes me seem a bit less crazy.

Do you have any crazy superstitions?

Beat the Streak

I've only played one day and I'm already obsessed and on the hunt for 1 million dollars.

MLB.com is doing this awesome fantasy-esque competition called Beat the Streak. The premise is simple. Each day you pick a player that you think will have a hit that day. The site shows you the pitching/hitting match up and you choose who, it can be any player in the league, you think will produce a hit. One hit- that's all you need. The next day you do the same thing. You can pick a different player everyday if you want. There is really no restrictions to who you pick, just that you have to pick someone. Your streak continues until the player you selected doesn't produce a hit and then your streak ends and you start all over again. The objective is to have a streak of 57 games. The MLB hit streak was set in 1941 and is 56 games.

The competition was started in 2001 and more than a million fans participate. The furthest that anyone has gotten is 49 games. They also have Home Run Beat the Streak, which I am also participating in. It is the same kinda drill except you pick home runs as opposed to hits. You also don't win a million.

I think this a really cool alternative or addition to fantasy baseball, which is fun, but if you're serious about it, time consuming. This takes a few minutes and is fun to watch for when your checking scores or watching ESPN.

Tonight I have Dustin Pedroia of the Red Sox with a hit and Derrek Lee of the Chicago Cubs with a home run.

Wish me luck!

The image above is by (cc) Erik Jaeger and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Celebrity Sports

I, like the rest of the world, read celebrity news on frequent occasion. But if you told me that Mike Lowell was hanging out at GameOn! and Leonardo DiCaprio was dining at Capital Grille on Newbury Street, you can bet that I would be throwing on my Lowell t-shirt and running to the restaurant which serves wings, not filet mignon.

For this reason, I love reading about where the local players are being spotted, and the best place to find this info is the Inside Track in the Boston Herald. The feature Tracked Down lets you know who was where when.

I love reading where the players are, mostly eating, in the city. Who knows why I really care. I have never been to Sonsie, although it seems like you can see everyone from Mr. Brady to Mr. Garnett there, and I may never go. I guess it's the same reason people care about Britney Spears. Athletes are my celebs and who said there is anything wrong with that?

Last year, I waited in a crosswalk while Daisuke drove by. He waved- I wanted to jump on his car.

The image above is by (cc) FredoAlvarez and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Where in the World is...Barry Bonds?

Barry Bonds. Yeah, remember him? The baseball player who broke Hank Aaron's home run record? Bonds isn't playing and to the visible eye of the sports media he may never again.

ESPN.com featured two great stories: one asking why Bonds is no longer playing and the other discussing his legacy.

This is a great story topic and the site offers coverage on the topic in two different ways. The first is the news story format written by Jayson Stark and the second is the commentary of Bill Simmons.

I think this is a great example of how a news story doesn't always offer more insight or information than a column. Maybe it's me, but after reading Simmons article I felt more informed even though there wasn't that much information. Stark's article seemed to drag on.

Why? Most sports fans know all about the Bonds situation, his stats and his history chasing the home run record. Sports consumers were inundated with coverage about Bonds during the span of the past couple of years. Oh and do I have to mention that Bonds did steroids? When reading an article we don't need to hear the predictable quotes about why he isn't playing and the reasons.

Simmons assumes we know and makes something of it. I'm not condoning making assumptions, but if a reader is reading a column on ESPN.com, you have to- ahem- assume that they know their sports just a tad. Bottom line: I learned more from Simmons than Stark and it was because his opinion was something valuable on this topic and I just didn't need anymore Bonds news.

It just goes to show that there is never a formula. Sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. Sorry Stark, you lose on this one.

P.S. This could be biased because I am an admitted Simmons-acholic. Did I mention that Simmons started out as a blogger?

It Gets Better...

Yesterday I included a link about the girl who was attacked by a hawk at Fenway Park. Now it's being considered an omen.

Read this to learn why!

The Dangers of Fenway Park

It looks like there is more to fear at Fenway than just a foul ball to the head!

Jumping on the Bandwagon?

I don't usually blog much about the Celtics. I love all sports, but as the blog accurately reflects, I am much bigger Pats and Sox fan than any other. But I have found, as I have been writing my final on Celticsblog.com, that I'm finding the game fascinating.

I have never been sold on the actual game of basketball and the constant whistle blowing is something that has always turned me off. Oops- you touched him, stop the game and get to the line. YAWN. And then we have the opposite effect- the superstar effect. I have always said that watching a regular season basketball game is like watching the All-Star game every night. One or two superstars on each team which results in big dunks and not much teamwork.

Well, I think I may be wrong. I don't say that often so bare with me, but I'm starting to enjoy the game more and more.

When you don't follow a certain sport and then your city's team gets good, many hop on the bandwagon. I detest pink Pats jerseys worn by people who know nothing about the team beside their record , so am I starting to see a Celtics bandwagon fan when I look in the mirror?

Nah. I'm not really a fan, but I am enjoying watching this team. I have seen things like teamwork, aggressiveness and pure athleticism that I claimed didn't exist anymore in the NBA.

The Celts are back and the city is wearing green, and not just on March 17th. It's a good feeling, even for me. The Celtics won again tonight and tied NBA history. I like it. Will I watch the next game, probably not, but I will check the post game recap and see how the boys in green played. Is this where my trek to Celtics fan begins? I'm not sure. Am I a fan? Nope. Am I interested? Definitely.

Newstrust

Want to know about and read news stories that other people find interesting, relevant or educational? Check out Newstrust.net, a site that allows users to share stories and rate them.

Newstrust “provides quality news feeds, news literacy tools and a trust network to help citizens make informed decisions about democracy,” according to its Web site.

The idea is for readers to point out good and bad examples of journalism and articles. They will then rate the stories accordingly. I tend to be critical, I mean, do people really even know what they're talking about? Will people just mess with the system? The cynicism is something to keep in mind because trust isn't always foolproof, but as a general rule it tends to work. For every funny guy messing with the system there is usually ten others that want to see the site work. People seem to really like the site, but is it something that would appeal to me?

The first thing that I did when I took my first look around the site was to search for sports related articles. Let’s just say the site didn’t have much to offer. As a whole, I really liked the Web site. Its layout is easy to follow and the main premise is pretty simple. But no sports news?

There is one easy solution. Contribute! If you don’t see something that would interest you on the site, then there are probably others that are missing it too. So it’s simple enough, but here is the problem, I don’t think that I would ever contribute to a site like this and it’s not because I don’t care. I’m just not one to comment at least in public way. I may come to the site and read the articles, but I don’t think I would often rate anything. I’m not a lazy person; on the contrary, I’m a busy person. I’m the type that likes to read something and move on. If I find it extraordinarily moving, perhaps I would pass it on to a friend, but that’s all I would really do.

I’m trying hard for this not to be negative, I just honestly don’t think that at least in this part of my life, that I would ever be too actively involved in a site like this. When I read news online I rarely if ever comment so I don’t think I would ever go to this site for the sole purpose on rating a story. But I’m open to the idea and of the many sites that have this concept; I think Newstrust is going in the most productive direction. This week the creator if Newstrust is coming into our class to give us the in-depth run through and I’m excited to see what he has to say. Can he turn me into a user?

X-treme Sports

I have never really followed what are considered "X-treme Sports" like snowboarding, moto-cross racing, BMX , skateboarding and the rest. But when they are on TV there is something about them which results in me not being able to change the channel.

Well the Snowboarding U.S. Open was held in this weekend in my home state of Vermont so I checked out the coverage.

EXPN.com covered the competition and featured a photo gallery with some amazing photographs. The clarity and resolution is crystal clear and the black background makes the colors pop.

I wish there were a few more photographs, but the ones they have, I personally think are really impressive. Plus, it's nice to see home sweet home as well.

A Quiz You Might Actually Want to Take

I'm not a big fan of quizzes or tests. I mean, who is? But do enjoy fun sports quizzes where the outcome doesn't really matter and you learn something.

A lot of news/sports media organizations use polls to visualize reader opinion, but not a lot use quizzes. I have encountered some, but if I knew there was a weekly quiz on Boston.com or BostonHerald.com that tested my smarts on a certain sports subject, I would be sure to take it.

A sports quiz might be a great way to draw in readers and make an article or feature interactive. What if there was a prize or a reader hall of fame based on points? People would sign up and compete each week, answering questions and logging points. At the end of a certain amount of time, the participants with the top 5 scores win tickets to a local game. Something like that would be great.

I'm not an expert, but I know you would have to figure out the kinks. But some kind of game/contest would a great addition and a way to draw readers to your Web site. Better yet? Do it in the newspaper, but advertise it online, potentially bring online readers to buy the paper on the day the contest is run. Sounds far fetched? Well, everyone loves trivia and some may go a long way for bragging rights and tickets to a Celts game.

Check out a quiz I made. Kinda cool and not too hard!

It's Official: Bracket Busted

I picked Tennessee.

That's all.

Play Ball!

Did you get up?

I did and let's just say I am not a morning person. Tuesday morning was a breeze. I woke up before my alarm, which was set for 5:45am and got myself ready to watch the first regular season baseball game of the 2008 season. This morning was a bit more of a challenge. But was it worth it? With a doubt. Absolutely. Yes.

Tuesday was a game that baseball fans wish for and today was one that I wish had gone the other way. But more important than the scores was the experience. The night before the opener, after announcing that I was heading to bed because I had an early morning ahead of me, I had someone ask me why I would ever get up that early to watch a game.

"It's just a game," he said as he looked at me in confusion as I explained the scary (for any college student) fact that I would be waking before dawn.

But that's not true. I defended myself by jumping up and down exclaiming that it’s baseball season and I’m a real fan, but if I could sit down and explain why I did, this here is what I would preach.

1. I’m a Red Sox fan. I love the team and I love sports. I hate missing games and missing two in a row, including the season opener, shouldn't even be an option. I’m not just a Sox fan at 7:05pm, but at 6:05am as well.


2. In 20 years when my child asks me about the Sox playing their 2008 opener in Japan, I will say I watched it. What if Dice-K wins the Cy Young and they credit it to him being able to play at home one final time? I will have seen it happen. What if the Sox win the 2008 World Series? The commemorative DVD will show the historic season opener. I will have already seen it. What if the MLB decides to ban international play due to the cumbersome stress travel has on player health? I will have seen the last game. Will any of these things happen, most likely not, well maybe the winning it all again statement, but if they do I can say I watched it.

Sports are about memories. You watch history take place, making memories and having fun while you do it. And maybe not to all, but to me memories are made all the time, even at 6:05am.

Ready to lose some Zzzzzz's?

The Sox are in Japan! Although it was a bumpy road getting there, our city's favorite ballplayers are in Tokyo and are preparing for their first regular season games.

The city of Boston is ready for baseball. The Celtics are tearing through the NBA without regard and the Bruins are hoping to make it to the playoffs, but there is a certain sports energy that is missing from Beantown, and that energy comes from the much missed baseball season.

But there will be a difference at the start of this season. Let's just say you probably won't be getting your friends together for beers and peanuts. Since the Sox will be in Japan, loyal fans will have to wake up at 6am to watch their hometown heroes and defending champs start the season off.

Away games are tough, but an away game to Japan is even tougher. I think the trip weakens the Sox a bit, not for the long run, but for the first week or two. That said, I can understand the value of spreading the MLB brand across the world and forging deeper relationships with the Japanese organizations that end up cultivating some of the best players in Major League Baseball.

As Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president, said in an official MLB.com press release,

"It comes at a good time for us, because we want to express our gratitude to the Japanese baseball world for the contribution their two pitchers made to our World Series championship."

So the season is upon us and the city of Boston will likely be awake a bit earlier than usual. I know that it's going to be rough couple of mornings for this not so early bird. But in the end, who cares? It's baseball season!

P.S. Did you hear and is this really such a good idea? But more on that after the holiday weekend...

Baseball Briefs

1. The Sox released catcher Doug Mirabelli. Mirabelli's primary job on the roster was to catch the wobbly knuckleball of starter Tim Wakefield, but since Mirabelli has been unproductive at the plate, the Sox decided his time was up. Kevin Cash, who has proved he can catch Wakefield, will take over Mirabelli's place behind the plate.

2. Josh Beckett will not be going to Japan and Daisuke Matsuzaka will start the first game in Japan. Jon Lester will start the second.

The countdown has begun. One week until the start of the season!!!

Wanna know what I heard?

News is often spread by good old fashion word of mouth. It's not unusual to hear sports news before you even get a chance to check out ESPN.com or watch SportsCenter for the day. It's a common occurrence to have someone say to you, "Did you hear about so and so?" or "Guess who got traded?" Now there is a Web site where you can do just that, but instead of sharing the news with just your friends, you will be sharing it with hundreds of online readers.

9neighbors.com is a new Web site where users can submit news stories and then users can vote on the stories they find important. Users can share information about their city or share a particular news story that they find interesting. Then users can vote for stories that they think are interesting, helpful or in any way newsworthy. The site's focus is the Boston area and is currently covering the towns Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline and Newton.

And it wouldn't be a Boston area Web site if sports didn't find their way into the mix. Out of the top five streams on the site, two of them are sports related, the Celtics and the Red Sox. Most of the posts are links to Boston.com and articles on their sports page, but it is interesting to see what readers think is the most important or interesting part of current sports news. Check it out and maybe it will lend you some information so you can say, "Hey, wanna know what I heard?"

I'll have a degree, but will I have a job?

Let's take a little break from sports coverage and take a deeper look at the current state of print journalism and what the future has in store. Tomorrow I’ll be sure to report on some sports headlines: Mirabelli’s gone, Beckett’s a no go for Japan and much more.

Since I came to college and entered the journalism school, class discussions have constantly focused on the state of journalism and in particular print journalism. It isn’t breaking news to anyone that newspapers are in trouble. People are losing jobs and departments are shrinking, if not disappearing all together. The advent of online news outlets, where you can pick and choose your news and customize your news-gathering to fit your needs, has completely shook up the money making print paper. Everybody knows this and the dialogue about it is abundant, but necessary.

I tuned in to “Radio Boston” WBUR 90.9 and listened to a program which explored the question, “What’s the future of Boston newspapers, and Boston news media?” It was hosted by David Boeri and featured commentators Stephen Kurkjian of The Boston Globe and Dan Kennedy, journalism professor at Northeastern and Media Nation blogger. The focus was on Boston media, but of course it also pertains to national media as well. Here are a few things that I found interesting and jotted down:

1. There is the same number of news consumers as there has always been; they just aren’t consuming news in the same way.

Although this was a very simple and maybe obvious point, it really hit me. We constantly talk about newspapers losing readership, but we forget that people still want to read the news, they are just going to other places to find it. I am the perfect example. I love to read the news, but there are few times that I actually buy the paper. I can get all of my news for free online and I can check several media outlets. I would say that I am a Boston Globe reader, just not in the traditional sense. They haven’t lost readership, their readers are just going to their Web site. Newspapers need to find a way to make readers want to read the print paper again or they have to….


2. Find a way to make the newspaper’s Web site profitable.

If the medium where consumers get their news is changing, then it needs to be profitable, because if it isn’t -dun dun dun- news will fail to exist. The problem may not be that dramatic, but big wigs at newspapers need to get a handle on web advertising and try to find a way that it can make money. Martin Baron, the editor of The Boston Globe, called in to the show and said that they [members of the Globe staff] are trying to figure this out. He said that the Web site is generally new, 11 years old, and doesn’t bring in money. It is something they are still trying to figure out. Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at The Poynter Institute, writes about the profits of newspapers and websites. Check out this article in which he accesses newspapers and news sites profits in 2007 and this one where he analyzes a new 2008 study of advertising and news profits.

3. Change and adaptation is key.

There was a lot of talk about The Boston Globe, which makes sense since it is the major newspaper and media outlet in the Boston area. The commentators spoke about the way the paper has changed with the times and become a local news focused paper, when at one time it had much more national coverage. Buyouts and layoffs resulting in cuts in national and international departments and bureaus might be partially to blame for this change, but the Globe is doing the best thing for the paper. People can get their national news from any news site online, but they can only get their local coverage from their local paper. This guarantees readers in some capacity,online and/or print. For example, I am a huge Boston sports fan. I read the Globe everyday because that is where I can get the best Boston sports news, which I can't get anywhere else. They have changed their focus over the years, according to the commentators, but it is only for the better.

This was a very insightful discussion, one that journalists are having everyday within their own newsrooms. If the discussion continues, perhaps an answer will come or it might just need to sort itself out. The silver lining is that people want news and that will never change, we just need to find a resourceful way to give them what they want and see both parties prosper.

Bye Bye Brown

All sports have salary caps, it's just all in the details.

Baseball has a salary cap, which many don't know, but it is a "soft cap" which means that a team can spend over the cap, but they have to pay a luxury tax on the extra money they spend. Each year teams with a lot of dough like the Yankees and the Red Sox, spend more than the cap. Who cares about a cap when the owners have more than enough money to do so? The cap doesn't mean much to the millionaires that own the teams. Don't get me wrong, there needs to be a brain in the heads of the people with the money and the teams still choose who they want to spend money on, but there isn't much scrambling or deciding who is more important than who if you can pay for everyone.

The NBA and NHL also both have caps, but both include exceptions when resigning a player that is already on the team. So technically, the teams can both spend more if the opportunity presents itself.

And then there is the NFL. The NFL has a "hard cap" in which no team can pay more than any other. There is a set limit, the upcoming season's limit is $116 million, and no team can go beyond it. Never. No exceptions.

That said, it's hard to have a franchise player in football. There is too much shuffling under the cap, trying to figure out who the team can afford and who is worth what. Sometimes good players and hometown favorites go even if they and their fans hope they are there all of their careers.

So why all the salary cap/franchise player talk? According to The Boston Globe, the Patriots are choosing to forgo offering veteran wide receiver and one of the few franchisers in the game right now, a place on the team next year. Brown, who was drafted in 1993 by the Pats, was told by the team that they don't have plans to keep him and that if he plans on playing next year he should begin looking to other teams.

Troy Brown is a class act who has been in the league for 15 years now. He has discussed retiring before, but now with the Pats cutting ties, it looks like the retirement might happen sooner than later. I personally would like to see Brown retire as a Patriot. He is a standout player and human being, who took less money to play in New England a few years back. He belongs in New England and gave Pats fans unbelievable memories.

We will see what Brown does, he could always continue his spectacular career with another team, but it's sad to see him leave the Patriots. Number 80, with his quick feet, versatility and love for the game, will always be a Patriot in my eyes.

Photo (cc) by Barry Chin of The Boston Globe, and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.