May
2002
Just
a Fan: For pro sports fans, this is the busy season
By
Joe Emanski
Major League Baseball is in full swing. The NBA and the NHL have
begun the playoff season. NFL fans are currently poring over their
teams' latest draft additions. The Masters, golf's greatest tournament,
is just over, and the U.S. Open is on the horizon. Even Major
League Soccer has kicked off its annual money-losing extravaganza
that its owners and executives like to call "the season."
Sure, college sports are in a lull right now. But for pro sports
fans, there's no time like the present. And so, with no shortage
of topics to choose from, Just a Fan sets off on a whirlwind tour
of what to expect from this spring's athletic slate:
·
There's something about a beautiful, warm spring evening that
awakens in us the thought of simply setting out for a major-league
baseball game, buying a few general admission tickets, and relaxing
in the upper deck with some friends, a hot dog and a soda while
feeling like we're spending our spare time in a positive fashion.
I love the upper deck. I feel like there's no pressure on me to
watch the game there, but if I want to take a look, it's there,
and otherwise, I'm just sitting outside on a perfect night. And
it's not really as high up as people make it out to be. But if
you're really bent on the intimacy of the lower deck, the Trenton
Thunder are a hop and a skip away, and Waterfront Park is all
lower deck.
·
The Masters always heralds the real start of the professional
golf season. Any golfer who doesn't hit the links within two weeks
of watching the Masters on television isn't really a golfer. Bethpage
Black, the site of this year's U.S. Open golf championship, is
a course any of us can play-it's a public course. It's also so
long and difficult that it bears a warning to high-handicappers
that golf challenges are best sought anywhere but there. Having
heard poor Davis Love III whine that he was tired of having to
hit four-, five- and six-irons into the greens at Augusta last
month instead of seven-, eight- and nine-irons, expect Bethpage
Black to take a few big chunks out of the world's elite golfers
this June. Sometimes you wonder whether these guys really could
wrestle with the bumpy, imperfect rough at Mountain View Country
Club after all the time they spend swatting balls out of manicured,
two-inch "rough" on the PGA tour. The U.S. Open is "real"
golf conditions-something that the Tour's prima donnas don't like
and won't stand for most of the time.
·
If you're going to watch NHL hockey, watch it now. Though it may
be going too far to say that sudden-death overtime playoff hockey
is the best thing in pro sports, as some claim, it's still hard
to argue that few other sporting events can be counted on for
so much agonizing suspense. Hockey also has some great announcers,
from Mike Emrick to Gary Thorne, who really shine come playoff
time.
·
Speaking of announcers, this spring holds an unusual tingle of
excitement for Phillies fans, whose longtime announcer, Harry
Kalas, was finally named to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Say what
you want about Philadelphia sports fans-and in the next bullet,
I'm about to say quite a bit-they stand by their announcers, and
hearing Harry on the radio for the first time each spring is like
being welcomed into a comfortable place where you can't be harmed.
This summer, when Kalas goes into Cooperstown where his late friend
Richie Ashburn is enshrined, you might see an even larger sea
of red-clad Phillies fans than you saw for the ceremony in which
Ashburn and Mike Schmidt were honored together. The thing about
announcers is, players come and go, but announcers, who are usually
fans just like us, seem to be our lifelong friends. (Obviously
here I'm not talking about John Madden, because I don't have any
friends who shout and stutter all afternoon.)
·
This time of year, every NFL team is 16-0 until proven otherwise,
and it's likely that there is nowhere that this little fantasy
is indulged quite as often as it is in Philadelphia, where WIP
sports radio's all-Eagles-all-the-time format entertains the frenzied
passion of Philly's most rabid and reality-challenged fans. Remember,
these are the fans who once thought Ty Detmer was going to lead
the team past the Green Bay Packers and straight into the Super
Bowl. Um. No. Now, this particular Eagles fan is not going to
open his big yap about Coach Andy Reid's decision to let linebacker
Jeremiah Trotter and safety Damon Moore go, because I lambasted
Reid's personnel decisions a year ago, and the Eagles turned out
to be a better team despite not really having a half-decent veteran
receiver. I like young linebackers Quentin Caver and Barry Gardner
and I like Reid's ability to identify inexpensive players who
can fill big roles. Nevertheless, the possibility of seeing Trotter
face the Eagles twice a year as a Washington Redskin is not appetizing
in the least.
·
Meanwhile, in other massive-media-market sports radio news, expect
New York's WFAN radio talking head Mike Francesa to shoot down
every anti-Yankee call the station gets during his airtime. My
question is, when did sports talk radio become sports listen radio?
From ESPN Radio to The Fan to WIP, the radio dial has become inundated
with ego. Which is one of the reasons former Thunder assistant
general manager and announcer Tom McCarthy is such a pleasure
to listen to when he's hosting a talk show. It's possible that
Tom is the only talk-show host who actually welcomes callers to
express an opinion.
·
Oops-did I forget to mention the NBA? One of the best sports moments
in my life was being at Al E. Gator's in Oxford Valley for the
Sixers' NBA Championship Game One victory over the L.A. Lakers
last year with a hundred plus other Sixers fans. Unfortunately,
every other moment of that series ranks among my least favorite
memories. Since Magic and Bird, the NBA has embraced the marketing
strategy of promoting players first and teams second. The NBA
likes Nets fans to like Kenyon Martin, but it loves all fans for
loving-or hating-Shaq and Kobe or Allen Iverson or Reggie Miller,
because the real money in the big pro sports is in television
contracts. Even when my team is in the championship, I just can't
get into a "team" sport where individual players are
so dominant, and that makes the NBA the opposite of my cup of
tea. However, if you like it, then this is your time of year.
Enjoy it. Especially if you think that major-league baseball players
will strike this summer. This could be the best time we get for
a long time.
·
And finally, for me, this spring means getting married. This will
be my last Just a Fan column as a bachelor. But in case you doubt
that I can maintain my status as a sports fan in conjunction with
wedded bliss, keep this in mind: our honeymoon will be in San
Francisco, and we've already got Giants tickets.
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You can reach Joe Emanski at joe@trentondowntowner.com.
