The Sternberg Effect
Baseball
A Second Chance for Cheating: Only in Sports
The realities of professional sports don’t even come close to the realities of reality. Really. Melky Cabrera, who up until this past season was a marginal player at best, got caught — and admitted to — taking steroids. He was served up a 50-game suspension and was kept off the World Series champion San Francisco … Continue reading
Thank You, Yankees
The Yankees season comes to an end, but there’s really no reason to be upset. Continue reading
Welcome to the No-Hit Club, Mets
The Mets’s no-hitter is what makes baseball great. Continue reading
Loose Thoughts on Sport Work Stoppages
Should the NBA forfeit its season, my generation will have witnessed 2 of the 4 major US sports to lose a season due to labor disputes. The NHL lost the 2004-2005 season. Unfortunately for fans, this is a recurring trend over the last 30 years. Since 1982, all 4 major US sports have sustained work-stoppages. Baseball: 1981, 1994-1995; Football: 1982, 1987, 2011; Hockey: 1994-1995; 2004-2005; Basketball: 1998-1999, 2011-2012. Continue reading
42
Yesterday, April 15th, was, as noticed on here, a day that has a significant amount of history to it. One thing left of that list, was that it was the day that Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. To honor Jackie’s influence in baseball, Major League Baseball retired his number, 42, several years ago and has proceeded to have its players wear number 42 every April 15th.
The only active player who gets to wear 42 every other day of the year is the incomparable Mariano Rivera. But, interestingly, the number 42 has a certain significance in baseball history.
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The Fate of US Soccer?
With the World Cup now complete (and apparently determined by a cephalopod mollusk), the question many in the US are asking is: will the success of the American team yield positive results for MLS (or even American soccer in general)?
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It’s All About How You Relax
I am not an athlete. When I was younger I was athletic, but make no mistake, I was not an athlete. I could hold my own in hoops, played baseball for 3 years for my high school and could throw a football, but I knew early on in life that sports would never be more than a hobby. Sports was an outlet for me to learn about rules and morality and systems. A lot of systems.
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Perspective at the Park
A couple weekends ago, a bunch of my close friends got together in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to do some of the things we’ve been doing together for more than 20 years: BBQ, argue, play whiffle ball, make fun of each other, argue, throw the baseball around, argue, complain, make fun of each other, BBQ. Essentially, we revert to our 10-year-old selves.
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Three Laws of Social Media
This post originally ran on the Huffington Post
Social media. Two average-sized words that carry a tremendous amount of meaning. However, we have yet to create a working operational definition for social media…
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How I’m Becoming A Real Person
Last week, I participated in a Web 2.0 panel about trust and journalism with Dan Patterson of ABC News and Jen Nedeau of Air America. This was the first panel I’ve sat on and as I look at the past year or so, I’m starting to see a clearer picture of how I’M quickly becoming … Continue reading
The Great Debate…Or Not
Democracy is messy. It’s a truth that we usually ignore because democracy is usually wrapped up in red, white and blue balloons, tiny American flags and the occasional hanging chad. But as we see, night after night in some VFW hall or some community college classroom, making sure everyone has their voice heard is a … Continue reading
MJ -My Generation’s First American Idol
People die every minute of every day. It’s a sad, yet unavoidable fact of life. As a species we have developed coping mechanisms to honor and remember those in our lives who have touched us – emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, etc. And when someone famous dies, these coping mechanisms turn from private to public support. When … Continue reading
MLB and steroids: A Messaging Issue
I wrote this in January of ’08, right after the Mitchell Report (which we all know was a waste of time and money) was released, for a former employer (of which, I’m not sure it even was published). With new allegations of Alex Rodriguez’ apparent steroid use, I thought Major League Baseball and communications people … Continue reading
The 500 million dollar signings
I was touring the nation’s largest residency the last week of December when I received a text message from my stats-obsessed cousin that the Yankees have signed Mark Teixeria. I let out a little whoop and the other visitors at the Biltmore in Asheville, NC looked at me like I was, well, a damned yankee. … Continue reading
The Religion of Baseball
The Yankees just won their 85th game of the season, which also happened to be the last game at the venerable Yankee Stadium. If you watched ESPN today, you could be forgiven if you thought that this was Game 7 of the World Series. For a sport that was once lampooned as being too prissy … Continue reading
The Sternberg Effect 