Sporting Madness

There's been some interesting discussion lately about the prominence of ESPN's Bill Simmons from the likes of Paul Oberjuerge and Jason Fry . I've got some of my own thoughts on the topic, a few of which I talked about in my last post on Simmons , but I think there's room for a bit of a more detailed discussion on the successes and failures of different writers in attracting certain audiences. I prefer working with data to making wild guesses, though, and that's where I could use your help. When I think of broad-ranging sportswriters with substantial mainstream profiles, three in particular come to mind: Simmons, his ESPN counterpart Rick Reilly (formerly of Sports Illustrated ) and SI 's Joe Posnanski . I'm sure there are others out there, but these guys struck me as useful for a survey because they have similar profiles and exposure, but approach writing in very different ways. I've got a quick survey below on your impressions of these writers, an...

Still working on figuring out the best time for this feature. Any thoughts on when you'd like to see it? As always, let me know in the comments or via Twitter , Facebook or e-mail . Be sure to leave your submissions for upcoming editions as well! Video Of The Day: Relient K - Sadie Hawkins Dance I've always liked this song. For one thing, it's a nice anthem for us somewhat nerdy types. For another thing, it reminds you of the dangers of egotism; thinking you're a big deal usually is a prerequisite to a fall. My Links: - None of the stories I've written this week have been posted yet, but you can check out this video I did for The South Delta Leader on the opening of the new Canada Line transit system Monday: The Best Of The Intertubes: Hockey: - The great Tom Benjamin fills Greg Wyshynski in on the five reasons he loves hockey . Benjamin's long been one of my favourite writers, so it's pretty cool to see why he likes the game [ Puck Daddy ]. - Benjam...

This is a new daily feature I'm going to be running (and yes, I did steal the name ). The plan is to post a music video and a list of the most interesting links from the various sports I tend to write about each night. There will be a partial focus on the teams I tend to write about, but there will also be plenty of room for stories from around different leagues and other sports. Submissions and comments are welcomed, either in the comments section of the previous night's post or via e-mail or Twitter . Enjoy! Video Of The Day: To go with the efforts (led by Stephen of Stephen on Stuff ) to make Rush a trending topic, here's Rush with Limelight. My Links: - A piece I wrote on Y.E. Yang 's unexpected victory over Tiger Woods in the PGA Championship [ The Rookies ]. The Best Of The Intertubes: Soccer: - Duane Rollins weighs in on yesterday's Toronto FC win (which I live blogged here ) [ The 24th Minute ]. - Jason Davis has some good thoughts on the similariti...

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I'm taking off for a few days to go camping, so things have been somewhat light around here due to preparations for that. I do have a lengthy essay on sportswriting and Malcolm Gladwell scheduled to go up tomorrow morning, though, and I should be back with fresh content Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Until then, here's a few links to tide you over: My work: - A post on the Canucks' acquisition of Mikael Samuelsson [ Canuck Puck - A piece on the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair [ The Phoenix Pub ] - A piece on the Sedins returning and a few other signings [ Canuck Puck ] Other good pieces: - James Mirtle sees the Canucks as a team with cash still to spend [ From The Rink ] - Joe Posnanski on the Royals' lack of speed - Neate on the Raptors picking up Turkoglu [ Out of Left Field ]

Apologies for the horribly long absence; I had to spend most of the past week preparing for a move and then flew across the country yesterday. I'm back in the blogging saddle now, though, and have plenty of stuff planned here for the next few days. Until then, here's a link to two of the pieces I've managed to write in the meantime and some other pieces I've enjoyed reading recently. - A piece I wrote Monday at Canuck Puck on the Canucks' involvement in free agent rumours and laying out my blueprint for Vancouver's free-agency moves. - A piece analyzing the top 10 picks of the NHL draft I co-wrote over at The Rookies . - An interesting piece by First Derivative over at The Phoenix Pub on why the acquisition of Marian Hossa may hurt the Blackhawks thanks to the length of his deal. - Neate has a breakdown of the CFL players from the CIS ranks over at Out of Left Field . - A great piece from Joe Posnanski on the Royals' problems handling injuries. Th...

Our society is becoming more cynical and jaded all the time. Nothing is pure any more. You can't enjoy food without thinking about its calories and trans fats, you can't wholeheartedly support any political party when you're aware of their scandals and betrayals, and you can't even buy a coffee or a shirt without thinking about where it came from and who made it for you. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; after all, it tends to allow us to see the shades of grey I'm so big on and consider the consequences of our actions. Still, it makes it tough to feel sheer elation and exhilaration about anything. This transition from a shining ideological paradise to the dirty and grubby world of realpolitik has also happened in sports. Perhaps the best example is baseball's steroid era and the resulting Mitchell Report, the final illusion-shattering document I wrote about here . It's why people were so incensed about steroid use in baseball but willing to tolerate...

The great Tom Benjamin found this site a little while ago, and I was intrigued. Basically, you type in a blog URL and it gives you a readout of the personality of the blog's author. I figured I'd try it with my site and some of the sites I read regularly. Results are below. For myself, Sporting Madness : "The analysis indicates that the author of http://sportingmadness.blogspot.com is of the type: INTP - The Thinkers." "The logical and analytical type. They are espescially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications. They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to unders...

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes." - Obi-Wan Kenobi , Star Wars: Episode III My biggest problem with the state of sports analysis today is that we seem to be moving away from the middle of the spectrum. Nothing exemplifies this more in my mind than Around the Horn , the ESPN talk show which basically features prominent journalists arguing with each other about sports. Moderator Tony Reali hands out points for different arguments, but the scoring seems to be based more on how vigorously you make your case rather than anything you actually say. The amount of people involved and the short time given to each segment also encourages participants to move away from subtlety in favour of absolutes. That doesn't mean it's necessarily bad; there's obviously a market for this kind of thing, and there are often interesting points raised. The problem is that the format encourages sensationalism and bold stands over critical analysis; why else would Jay Mariotti be a recurri...

Three of the football teams I follow all recorded important victories over the past weekend, but those victories couldn't have been more dissimilar. However, there were still common threads and themes between the three games. First, there was Queen's 43-16 win over Western [myself, Queen's Journal ] Saturday. This was particularly interesting, especially when you consider that Western was favoured by many going in. However, the score was rather deceiving. Queen's offence was missing in action for most of the day, and only created 295 net yards and 18 first downs against Western's 510 net yards and 33 first downs. The lopsided victory was mostly due to the excellent field position Queen's offence was given by Western's 12 turnovers and inability to convert in the red zone. The strong efforts from Queen's defence and special teams also came in handy in terms of field position. The game was also made more of a blowout by Western head coach Greg Marshall...

There's been quite a bit of controversy over the Queen's Athletics and Recreation Department's recent decision to refer to their teams as the "Queen's Gaels" from now on instead of the traditional "Queen's Golden Gaels". For dead-tree edition background on the story, check out my piece in today's Journal or the article Jordan Press wrote for Monday's Kingston Whig-Standard . There's also some solid pieces of the Out of Left Field variety, including Neate 's initial post on the rebranding and name change, Neate's post on Monday's football game (which includes some reaction to the name change and Duane 's first upset comment on the matter), a satirical press release written by Duane about the next logical step, dropping the "Thigh" from the Oil Thigh*, and Duane's post today suggesting that this is all part of "the modern marketers' pathological need to control every aspect of everything....

The whole kerfuffle around the Olympics' lip-synching switch, pre-taped fireworks and "volunteer fans"–which got a nice front-page expose from Bruce Arthur in the National Post this morning-better reveals the true nature of the Beijing Olympics and China than most of the coverage so far. If you're one of the five people living under a rock somewhere who hasn't yet heard about this, here's the basic run-down. During the opening ceremonies, the Chinese featured a song entitled "Ode to the Motherland" that was sung by seven-year-old Yang Peiyi, but lip-synched live by nine-year-old Lin Miaoke because Yang's face was apparently too round and her teeth were too crooked. Not content with this masterpiece of propaganda, they then inserted pre-taped fireworks footage into the montage of live fireworks to add to the event and sent in volunteer cheer squads to fill some of the empty seats. This trifecta of deceptive maneuverings shows us plenty about C...

It sounds like the days of John Gibbons as the manager of record for the Toronto Blue Jays may be numbered. Consider the opening paragraphs of Jeff Blair's Globe column after today's 5-2 win over Kansas City: "John Gibbons had to do something because, let's be honest, there will come a time when the decision making is taken out of his hands. He knows it, and has become increasingly open about how much longer he will or won't have to manage the Toronto Blue Jays. He's down to the short strokes, in other words, so it was only right and proper that he pull off a massive lineup shuffle Sunday." This time, the lineup shuffle worked, the Jays came through with some key hits and the Royals gave them the game with several terrible errors. Thus, Gibbons may stick around for a while longer, but you can bet he's still on a short leash. I'm not entirely convinced firing him would make a huge difference, though. Granted, Gibbons has made several very questiona...