I don’t usually write about individual people in this space, so forgive me if this seems a bit out of place.
But there is a sad day for the sport of boxing coming soon.
Leslie Wolff, the personal and business manager of boxing legend Smokin’ Joe Frazier, announced this weekend that the champ (as most everyone called him) is fighting a “serious” battle with liver cancer and is receiving hospice care.
I write about Smokin’ Joe today because when I was a young sports publicist, I worked with him at least five or six times at various events.
We went on tours of TV and radio stations, hung out backstage at public appearances, talked boxing. He was one of my favorite athletes and celebrities I ever worked with and I enjoyed every interaction I had with him.
Smokin' Joe teaching me how to defend my pretty face from a punch at an event in 2004.
Wolff, his manager, is a total straight-shooter who never made a promise he couldn’t deliver on and would tell you when enough was enough. He protected the champ.
In front of crowds and behind the scenes, Frazier was always magnetic. He always took time to greet each person, even if he only had a second or two to hand out a personally-autographed photo (which he usually kept a stash of in his pocket). He had stories to tell that you wouldn’t believe if you weren’t 100% sure they actually happened.
At every appearance and in every interview, he gave as much as he could to the people. He dressed super-sharp and was always–and I mean always–in a good mood.
One of the giants of sport in the 20th century is falling.
Rest easy, champ. And face this new challenge with the same strength and dignity you have lived with.
ESPN has announced that the iconic theme song to “Monday Night Football” will not return.
The song, “All My Rowdy Friends,” was pulled after singer Hank Williams, Jr., compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.
That, sir, will make you some enemies.
After 20 years of “are you ready for some football?” ESPN will have to move on.
Williams claimed that the decision to pull the song permanently was his, claiming a violation of his right to free speech.
While I don’t know the ins and outs of the contract, I’m fairly certain that that decision was never his to make.
I grew up watching “MNF” and loving that song.
It’s sad to see someone’s politics get in the way of great entertainment. But when you compare a president you disagree with to a genocidal dictator, you’ve gone well past free speech.
I’ll always be ready for football, but I’m glad ESPN is taking a stand.
Search through this site and you’ll be hard-pressed to find name-calling. Strong opinions? All the time. Calling people out for dumb things? Hundreds of instances.
But name-calling, not so much.
But Zach Houchins is an idiot.
For those unfamiliar with his story: He was a baseball player drafted by the Washington Nationals earlier this year in the 15th round.
Shortly after the draft, his Twitter account was spread around and it had some naughty, naughty things on it.
From The Washington Post’s Adam Kilgore, who described it best: “In June, Houchins deleted his Twitter account, which included rampant epithets depicting African-Americans, many phrases objectifying women, an objectionable term to describe homosexuals and at least one epithet used to describe Chinese people.”
Yikes.
I was interviewed at the time by NBC 4 in Washington, DC, about social media and how he could fix this.
The Nationals will not sign Houchins, who will return to college in the fall.
He apologized to the team for his actions (which is a good thing), but his quotes about the situation are astonishingly stupid and show little true remorse.
Houchins, talking to Bill Lasden of MLB.com said, “I’m not a racist, not at all. … Four of my best friends, two of them are black, one of them was my roommate. He is probably one of the closest people I’ve ever been around. … Me and my four best friends became so close, it’s just how we talk. It wasn’t anything derogatory or anything like that. It’s just how we talk.”
More from Houchins (via Kilgore): “Honestly, in my eyes, there was no lesson to learn,” Houchins said. “It’s just what I said got blown out of proportion, and I paid the price for it.”
So you are allowed to use racial epithets filled with centuries of hatred because your roommate is African-American?
Really, there is no lesson to learn? You were drafted by a Major League Baseball team who now wants NOTHING to do with you because of what you posted. You could have signed a HUGE contract and now will go back to eating in the dining hall and there is NO LESSON TO LEARN?
Who blew what you said out of proportion? Every reaction I’ve seen has been quite reasonable.
You said stupid things and when you had an opportunity to show that you actually learned from the mistakes, you acted like an even bigger idiot.
For your sake, I hope your pitching arm gets you into the big leagues, because it’s quite clear that your mouth is keeping you out.
For over 100 years, baseball has judged pitchers using ERA (Earned Run
Nuke Likes ERIP
Average).
The time has come to stop using a baseless “statistic” as the centerpiece number pitchers are propped up against.
Stay with me here:
ERA is the only statistic in major sports that means nothing. It effectively measures nothing, whereas a slight alteration would provide much more insight into a pitcher’s effectiveness.
What is ERA?
From Wikipedia: “In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the mean of earned runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched. It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number of innings pitched and multiplying by nine.”
Why ERA is stupid
Batting Average tells you how likely a batter is to hit EVERY TIME UP. A player with a .250 average gets a hit one of every four trips to the plate, on average.
This is useful in guesstimating the odds of success in a plate appearance. 25% of the time, this player will get a hit.
ERA is completely speculative. It basically says “IF this pitcher pitched nine innings, this is how many runs he would give up.”
According to www.baseball-reference.com, in 2009, pitchers pitched complete games (nine innings…unless they only needed to pitch eight…) 152 times. Impressive…until you see that there were 4,860 games played that year. That translates out to 3.1% In 2010, there were 165 complete games out of 4,860 (3.39%).
So pitchers are graded against an event that happens less than 3.4% of the time?
That’s stupid.
And when you consider the age of relief specialists that sometimes come in for one inning or one batter, it gets even sillier. Certain pitchers may only compile 50 innings a year, so a stat based on nine-inning chunks is irrelevant.
Fixing the Problem
The solution is so easy.
So easy, in fact, that baseball is already halfway there!
WHIP, which measures baserunners per inning is a tremendous stat that can logically apply to starters and relievers.
Baseball should scrap ERA and replace it with ERIP – Earned Runs Per Inning Pitched.
Using this system, all pitchers can be compared on an apples-to-apples level. Starters and relievers – and swingmen that switch from the rotation to the bullpen – can have a relevant measuring stick.
Make the change, baseball, and use statistics the right way.
A few years ago my wife surprised me with tennis lessons and I shocked her with how bad I was at the game.
I appreciate the power and beauty of tennis, but it’s never been my favorite sport.
While my skills lack, I enjoy watching the game at its finest. Over the past several years, that has meant epic clashes between titanic players Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
With no exaggeration, they have been the greatest players of their generation. Federer the quiet “elder” statesman; Nadal the brash playboy.
However, tennis’ biggest tournament, Wimbledon, was won this past weekend by Novak Djokovic, a Serbian player who took the #1 world ranking even before he won the event.
It would be easy to bask in the glory of the biggest victory of his career, giving him a 48-1 record this season.
But he told reporters after the match that he was most proud of how he recovered from that one loss, a semifinal knock-out at the French Open by Federer.
That mindset is huge in success. Even the best players aren’t perfect. (Hint: substitute “players” with “companies,” “brands,” “campaigns” and “people.”)
Learning from setbacks is critical to long-term success, as it tests your skills, determination and focus.
“Failing” isn’t always the worst thing. Here’s why:
- You tried something new – or used an existing strategy in a new situation. Figure out what the disconnect was.
- Hopefully, you tracked what caused the failure. You can tinker with your strategy or execution to fix the issue if you know why things didn’t turn out in your favor.
- Like Djokovic, that notch in the loss column can be quite motivating. It can be the kick in the pants you need to keep you headed in the right direction.
Losing/failing stinks. It’s hard. It hurts. It’s embarrassing.
But keep this mantra in your head and you’ll be OK:
Work hard every day and be better today than you were yesterday…and just wait until people see what you are tomorrow.
