The GBU: Rangers vs. Mariners

I managed to make it down to Seattle yesterday to catch the Mariners knock off the Rangers 5-3 [Lookout Landing], and thought I'd present a few thoughts on the game in classic GBU style. They follow below:

- The Good:
- Ichiro Suzuki: Ichiro was impressive as usual, going two-for-five while making several outstanding plays defensively. He scored from first with an impressive burst of speed around on a Jose Lopez double, and pulled off a nice unusual slide at home to boot, staying away from the tag while throwing his arm out and catching the corner of the plate. However, perhaps his best moment of the day was his RBI single; he took a swing and didn't get much on it, hitting the ball lightly to the pitcher, but managed to beat the throw to first with an impressive sprint. He's having an incredible season so far at the age of 35, with a career-best .480 slugging percentage, .873 OPS and 133 OPS+, a .362 batting average (second-highest of his career), and .393 on-base percentage (third-highest of his career). Ichiro's still got plenty to offer this team, and was a very deserving All-Star selection.

- Erik Bedard: The Mariners' Canadian ace turned in a strong showing, scattering three hits and two runs in five and two-thirds innings of work. Unfortunately, two of those hits were home runs, but it was still a rather impressive performance from him; he was almost unhittable for most of the day. He has a tremendous .263 ERA and a 163 ERA+ this year, and is responsible for a lot of the Mariners' success.

- Russell Branyan: Branyan didn't have a great game Sunday, but he wasn't bad; he went 0 for 4 with a walk and a RBI. He's been one of the best Mariners this year, though, batting .280/.382/.573 with a OPS of .956 and a OPS+ of 152, both team highs. He's been a tremendous addition to the team.

- Don Wakamatsu: Seattle's rookie manager had an tremendous day and showed why he's been selected as one of the coaches for the A.L. All-Star team. As Art Thiel of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer pointed out in a column Sunday night, Wakamatsu's been very effective at managing his personnel all season long. He was particularly impressive Sunday, as the Mariners' crucial fourth run came after he inserted fleet pinch runner Josh Wilson for Ken Griffey Jr. and pinch hitter Chris Shelton, a former Ranger who was only called up to the team on Thursday [Jim Street, MLB.com], for Ryan Langerhans. As Nate Mayer of Mariners Dock wrote a while ago, Shelton has some impressive potential; he may be a valuable presence for the team down the stretch. Wilson scored on Shelton's single, and that proved to be the winning run.

- Jack Zduriencik: No, the general manager didn't do anything of note Sunday, but he's played a large role in turning this franchise around, as Jerry Brewer pointed out in a Seattle Times column today. Moreover, he just made an incredible trade, dumping all-around liability Yuniesky Betancourt off to the Kansas City Royals for two pitching prospects. Rarely do you see a unified reaction to a trade, but almost everyone who's weighed in on this one thinks it's a steal for the Mariners and a horrible move for the Royals. Check out a few sample reactions from Joe Posnanski, Rob Neyer, Rany Jazayerli, Keith Law and Minda Haas and Zach Saunders.

- The roof: The Safeco Field roof is very impressive. It was raining lightly when we got to the stadium (about an hour ahead of game time for batting practice), so the roof was closed. Even with it closed, the sides are still open, allowing a good view of the city. Just before game time, the rain eased off, so they opened the roof; it went from completely closed to completely open in 10 minutes or so, which was most impressive. Later in the game, rain started to fall again, so the roof started to close and was completely shut in just a matter of minutes. For a city like Seattle with unpredictable weather and plenty of rain, this roof is just about perfect.

- The microbrews: Safeco has an impressive selection of beer, featuring several smaller local breweries as well as the likes of Miller and Coors. For someone like myself who enjoys expanding his beer horizons, this was fantastic.

The Bad:
- The post-game crowds: It proved next to impossible to get out of Safeco after the game thanks to massive presses of people. Happens everywhere, but still annoying.

- The prices: Like most ballparks, the tickets weren't bad but the food cost an arm and a leg. Still, that's to be expected these days.

The Ugly:
- The OBP: The Mariners have added a number of better on-base percentage guys this year [Geoff Baker, The Seattle Times], but they still have some absolute black holes in their lineup who never walk. On Sunday, they started Jose Lopez (hitting .256/.287/.428), Ronny Cedeno (.168/.227/.301), Rob Johnson (.203/.263/.336) and Jack Hannahan (.143/.143/.286). Those are some pretty appalling numbers.

- The Rangers' pitching: Like the Mariners' batting lineup, the Rangers' pitching Sunday was not impressive. Their starter was Dustin Nippert, who had a 7.36 ERA and a 60 ERA+ by the end of the day. After just three and two-thirds innings and three earned runs, he was replaced by Derek Holland (5.97, 75), who threw two and two-thirds. He gave way to Darren O'Day, who's actually one of the Rangers' better pitchers (1.93, 231) but allowed the crucial two runs (both earned). C.J. Wilson and Jason Jennings both saw a bit of work as well and were okay, but not spectacular.

The conclusion: Overall, it was a pretty good game and a lot of fun to watch. It was also quite meaningful, something that's been rather rare of late for us Jays' fans: the Rangers' losses on the weekend allowed the Angels to take top spot in the AL West, with Texas 1.5 games back and the Mariners only 4 games back. The AL West pennant race is going to be an interesting one to watch this year, as all three teams are in contention. It should be a great battle.

The folly of Geoff Baker's position on the Ibanez saga

I didn't write anything about the Raul Ibanez controversy [Jerod Morris, Midwest Sports Fans] yesterday outside of my Twitter feed, mostly because it was aptly handled everywhere else [links, in order, are Alana G, Joe Posnanski, Hugging Harold Reynolds, Rays Index and The Big Lead].

However, today saw some Canadian media types weighing in, and I thought their reactions deserved some coverage. First off, we have Geoff Baker. Baker's a Canadian guy who used to cover the Expos and Blue Jays, and now covers the Mariners for The Seattle Times. He's a good baseball writer, and I usually enjoy his stuff. Today, though, he produced one of the more annoying pieces on the matter, ironically enough on his blog. You know it's going to be bad as soon as you read the title, "The Difference Between Real Journalists and Basement Bloggers."

Baker does actually make some valid points. He has some good thoughts on the importance of accountability, and he's right that you have to be careful about what you're publishing. He also mentions his story about former Toronto Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson's embellished tales from the Vietnam War, which eventually led to Johnson's firing, and he's quite right that bloggers without any access couldn't break that kind of news all on their own, as they wouldn't hear the speeches that caused the controversy. However, if quotes about Johnson's speeches were reported as-is by the typical media types, it could easily have been bloggers who did some fact-checking and found that Johnson really was only a reservist; consider the crucial role of bloggers in covering a certain other reservist's experience during the Vietnam era. Fact-checking and investigative legwork is by no means limited to mainstream media types in our current era, and bloggers have more resources to conduct that kind of journalism than ever before; Baker is only fooling himself if he thinks that investigative work is limited to traditional media outlets.

Moreover, I take issue with how Baker talks about his journalistic training, discusses his previous career as an investigative reporter and implies that that experience is somehow necessary for handling stories like this one. It's part of a disturbing trend in the sports media where some sportswriters feel the need to claim that the experience they have covering other subjects makes them superior. Look, I've spent plenty of time working in the mainstream media as well and probably will be doing so again. I've covered everything from business to politics to arts in addition to my regular gigs writing about sports, and those experiences certainly have helped to inform my writing. However, I will never claim that mainstream media experience is necessary or that covering areas outside sports is necessary in order to be a good sportswriter. Sure, it can help, but you can do just as well without it as well. In some ways, frequently talking about all the work you've done outside sports plays right into the hands of those who criticize the sports section as the "toy department" of the newspaper; if your validation has to come from areas outside sports, how will you ever convince anyone that your work on sports is important?

However, the worst part of Baker's article was still to come. Consider this quote:

"Now, can the blogger who wrote about Ibanez say the same thing? No, he cannot. Because he never really takes a position.
He throws some innuendo out there, under a provocative headline, then couches it with a bunch of well-researched statistics on park factors, and the like. Makes it all look like a fact-finding mission.
But come on. Baseball is a game played by men. When you cover this sport for a while, you realize that these "issue'' pieces some writers try to hide behind when they passive-aggressively go at a different topic really won't fly. Everybody knows what the "elephant in the room'' is beforehand. So, no matter how much research you couch it under, the real issue is what everybody -- especially media-seasoned ballplayers -- is going to focus on.
And in this case, the blogger really didn't have a leg to stand on. That much was clear when he was eviscerated on national television by Fox Sports columnist Ken Rosenthal, a longtime baseball writer for the Baltimore Sun. I've seen some commenters to various fan blogs the past 24 hours try to say the blogger "held his own'' but let's get real. It was ugly. I give the blogger -- I won't mention his name because I'm reluctant to give him his 15 minutes -- credit for going on with Rosenthal. If it was me on the air instead of Rosenthal, I would have torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way. Maybe even worse. I know Rosenthal and spoke to him at the ballpark yesterday after his ESPN appearance with said blogger. When you go on TV and radio a lot, you learn how to destroy people like the inexperienced blogger on-air. It was like that Korean dude pounding on Jose Canseco in Japan the other day. "

This is absolutely ridiculous in my mind. First off, refusing to mention Morris by name or link to him comes off as childish pique consistent with the holier-than-thou attitude Baker demonstrates throughout his piece. Second, Rosenthal hardly came off as the victor in that interview; he looked as crazy as Buzz Bissinger during his infamous anti-blog meltdown. In some ways it's good that Baker says he would have "torn the blogger to shreds in much the same way"; it clearly demonstrates what side he's on, that of the old-media types scrambling to tell the bloggers to get off their lawn. Notice the language as well; it's not about convincing someone through debate or persuasive arguments, it's about tearing them to shreds. Baker and company feel threatened by the bloggers invading their traditional turf, so they rise up to try and destroy them instead of working with them or debating them.

Baker also selectively ignores the faults of the mainstream media, as he demonstrates with this bit:

"And that's why you see mainstream media taking fewer potshots than bloggers. Because at the end of the day, reason and fairness has to win out. Nobody's perfect. But it's always better to err on the side of caution -- and do a little more legwork -- than to have Ken Rosenthal destroying you on national TV, when your only defense is mere cliches and half-hearted insinuations."

I'm pretty sure there have been lots of speculatory pieces around steroids in the mainstream media as well, Geoff. It's the result of the steroid era; no one can be viewed as completely above suspicion at the moment, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Mark Bradley details here. In fact, Morris gave Ibanez a lot more credit than many would; he sought to present a detailed statistical case for other factors that could be involved in his increased production. Clearly, though, because he's a blogger, if he writes it, it's irresponsible speculation. If someone writes that exact same piece for, say, the Seattle Times or Sports Illustrated, do you really think Baker and his camp would be so upset about it? What about if some of the Around The Horn talking heads yell about it without any subtlety or nuance in typically exaggerated fashionr and go further with their insinuations than Morris did? I don't think Baker and co. would be too upset in either case, as similar stuff has shown up in newspapers all over the place and Around The Horn frequently covers steroid stories. What they're concerned about isn't the content, but rather the source. It's apparently all right with them if you suggest this stuff if you're inside the mainstream media camp, but if you're outside the walls, they'll rip your throat out for daring to bring it up.

Fortunately, there are plenty of great writers in the traditional media who don't subscribe to the Baker-Bissinger school of thought. They do an excellent job of reaching out to and engaging readers and bloggers without any of the protectionism of their turf or attacks on bloggers that Baker and Bissinger have displayed; a few examples from include Jeff Blair of The Globe and Mail and Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star. Unfortunately, there are still many who share the "get off my lawn" views put forth by Baker and Bissinger. That makes these words from Will Leitch, written last year after the Bissinger incident, seem rather prophetic:

"Buzz is not alone. Sure, he might be metaphorically alone, raining spittle on the imaginary demons that clearly haunt him. But if you don't think that almost every single person — with obvious, clear exceptions — who was on all those panels last night didn't come up to him afterwards and give him a fist pound and a "yeah, we really struck back tonight!" well, you weren't there. This really is what many of them think. Though most are a little calmer about it."

It doesn't have to be like this. The traditional sports media and the blogosphere have a lot in common, and they can work well together. It doesn't have to be an adversarial relationship; if both sides can mention each other in civil fashion from time to time, that benefits both them and their readers, who are exposed to more perspectives. It doesn't have to be a turf war, either. Why confine investigative reporting to newspaper staff, or opiniated pieces and sabermetric analysis to bloggers? Given the troubling economic times we're in and the resulting downturn in advertising in mainstream media sources and on blogs, both sides would be wise to heed Benjamin Franklin's famous advice: "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

One final note on Baker's piece; what bothers me even more than any of his criticisms of the blogosphere is his blasting of Morris for not going far enough. As he writes, "But when you go all-in, you've got to go all in. He didn't do that. When you write about topics like killers, or Hell's Angels, or major leaguers and steroids, you can't pussy foot around. You've got to go at it hard, directly, with no b.s. and be able to defend yourself afterwards. This blogger couldn't because he went in only halfway. He tried to raise the "steroids issue'' then claimed he really wasn't pointing a finger at Ibanez."

As long-time readers of this blog will know, I can't stand this kind of all-or-nothing approach. It's the black-and-white, with us or against us school of thought that has caused so many of the world's problems. It isn't a world of absolutes, it's one filled with shades of grey and subtleties. Ignoring those details in favour of making an overwrought, absolutist argument is a dangerous path to walk; sure, it will bring attention and create controversy, but it takes us away from what's really involved. I'd much rather see well-thought-out arguments that present both sides like the one Morris advanced than bombastic diatribes like the one written by Baker.

I'll have more later on the discussion of the matter on the Canadian radio/TV show Prime Time Sports this afternoon.

Update: 10:08 PM: Great stuff from Craig Calcaterra on how Baker's violated his own standards in the past by suggesting that the 2004 Mariners'lack of offensive production was thanks to stricter drug testing. Link via Neate Sager.

MLS: Vancouver and Portland rekindle West Coast rivalry

Today's announcement [Jose Romero, The Seattle Times] of Portland as the 18th MLS franchise could mean great things for the league, especially considering how Vancouver was named as the 17th franchise [Marc Weber, The Province] on Wednesday. Of course, there are many great reasons behind this pairing, but one of the most interesting is the history between the cities. Way back when Duane first called the race for Vancouver and Portland on March 3, his MLS source stated that the decision was made due to "stadium plan, political support and geographical factors". The stadium plans and political support are obviously crucial, but much ink has been spilled about them already, so it's those geographical factors that deserve further examination.

Vancouver, Portland and Seattle have had a natural soccer rivalry since the days of the old NASL, and that rivalry has carried on through the USL; all three cities had USL teams from 2001-2008, rekindling the old flame. Moreover, the geography of the region is well-suited to rivalries; it usually takes about two and a half hours to drive from Vancouver to Seattle and just under three hours to go from Seattle to Portland. Thus, there's been plenty of travelling support for all of these teams at the USL level, and that tends to make the games much more interesting. One of my favourite Whitecaps games last summer was their 2-1 victory over the Timbers, complete with about 30 Portland fans who made the six-hour trek north for the match armed with drums, horns and high spirits. A good crowd of away supporters adds a lot to a match and galvanizes the home fans, so that was great to see. Imagine how much more exciting those trips will be with all three teams in MLS.

Rivalries are crucial to building, expanding and selling sports in this day and age. There's a big reason why Arsenal-Tottenham or Real Madrid-Barcelona clashes are much more anticipated than your typical game. It's not just soccer, either; the Yankees and Red Sox have driven much of Major League Baseball's popularity, the regular Maple Leafs-Canadiens clashes in the 1950s and 60s helped Hockey Night in Canada take over the Saturday night airwaves and the Lakers and Celtics were a huge factor in the rise of the NBA. Those matchups draw huge amounts of fan and media interest, which leads to more people in the stands, more viewers of the TV broadcasts, more rights/advertising fees and dramatically increased profits.

However, MLS has had a tougher time developing rivalries. Yes, there still are plenty of hated opponents for each team, and I'm sure the readers of this blog could provide quite the list. The problem is that most of them haven't really jumped from the sphere of the diehard fans to the sphere of the general public, which is what you need to see real economic benefits from rivalries. Like in other sports, the hardcore supporters will often tune in to each and every game their team plays regardless of opponent, but the Yankees-Red Sox or Celtics-Lakers clashes go beyond that and reel in members of the general public who may not even follow the league or the sport all that closely.

In my mind, there's a good chance that Vancouver-Seattle-Portland could have the potential to draw in those casual fans, certainly on a local level and perhaps on a larger scale. There are several crucial reasons why. For one, these cities all have a significant population base of their own but also have the potential to pull in fans from their suburbs and the remainder of their state or province. Another key point is that each city only has one to two other professional teams competing for media and fan attention in season; the Canucks (NHL) and Lions (CFL) in Vancouver, the Seahawks (NFL) and Mariners (MLB) in Seattle and the Blazers (NBA) and Beavers (Triple-A baseball) in Portland. Most of those seasons don't overlap significantly with MLS; the NHL and NBA are there for the first couple of months (depending on how far your team goes into the playoffs), while there's a bit of NFL overlap at the end of the season. Baseball and the CFL bring more of an overlap, but the CFL is one game a week which can be avoided with careful scheduling (and that's made easier by the shared MLS/CFL stadium) and there are so many baseball games in a season that an individual one doesn't usually get a huge amount of attention or coverage.

Even more important is how all of those other teams are in separate leagues. Seattle, Portland and Vancouver have long been rival cities, but soccer is now the only professional sport where they can duke it out for bragging rights (thanks to the long-ago departure of the NBA's Grizzlies from Vancouver and the more recent exit of the Sonics from Seattle). By contrast, New York and D.C. probably have one of the stronger rivalries in MLS, but that rivalry has less ability to draw outside attention as those cities battle in baseball, basketball, football and hockey as well.

Also key to the equation are the supporters' clubs. All three cities have long had passionate and organized fanbases, and those groups can do a lot to promote a rivalry. As I mentioned earlier, they aren't too likely to bring in extra income on their own for these games (as many of them will be there regardless of the opponent), but if they get fired up for these games, that can add to the passion and intensity surrounding them and spill over into the general populace. It's a common human reaction to get excited about something if there are other people passionate about it.

One final point in favour of these rivalries working on a large scale is the pre-existing media interest. Soccer has been recognized as a key sport in each city for some time now, and the papers (particularly The Province (which even runs soccer columns from Whitecaps GM Bob Lenarduzzi every Friday), The Seattle Times and The Oregonian), radio stations and TV stations have picked up on that. There's always been good coverage when these teams have played each other in the USL; expect that to be taken even further when they're played out on the MLS stage. It remains to be seen if these rivalries can be sold on a national level, as that hasn't historically worked too well in any sporting league. With the large and passionate fanbases in each city, anything is possible, though. In any case, the rivalries will certainly be big in each of the three cities and likely in those states and provinces as well; that's a great starting point.

This is not an isolated view, by the way. Consider Lenarduzzi's comments to Marc Weber of The Province when Vancouver's successful bid was announced Wednesday; he said that he'd love to see Portland in with the eighteenth slot even over a Canadian bid like Ottawa and specifically referred to the old NASL rivalry.

"As much as I’d like to show my national colours, it would be absolutely unbelievable if it could be Portland so that we could recapture that rivalry we had in the late 70s and early 80s [in the NASL].”

Back in February when I laid out the case for Vancouver in MLS, one of my key arguments was the ready-made rivalries with Seattle and Portland (and also Toronto). There were plenty of other reasons to give Vancouver and Portland expansion franchises, including the finances, the ownership groups and the stadium plans. However, the rivalries may be one of the most important factors in the growth of the game on the West Coast, and they may prove a key selling point for MLS.

[Cross-posted to The 24th Minute]


Update: 4:38 P.M.: Don Garber apparently also shares my line of thought. From Weber's story yesterday:

"MLS commissioner Don Garber said he's excited to recapture that derby feel from the NASL days.

'The passion in the NASL was the Northwest rivalry," he said. 'We're going to be able to replicate that with Vancouver and Seattle, and if Portland comes in you get that trifecta. That was a big part of what intrigued us and what excites us.'"

Weber also has a piece today about the excitement in Seattle and Toronto thanks to Vancouver getting in.

Sonics reaction: the morning round-up

As I wrote in my Out of Left Field post on the Sonics settlement earlier this morning, there are only two scenarios by which this abrupt reversal on the city's part makes sense in my mind. The first is that they've actually obtained a more substantial guarantee of a replacement team than was indicated in the settlement deal: the second is that they were hornswoggled into accepting a bunch of cash and a number of vague promises for the future in return for their franchise.

This second, more depressing scenario, which I picked as seeming more likely at the moment, seems to be the predominant belief in Seattle for the present. As columnist Steve Kelley of The Seattle Times wrote today:

"Basketball died in Seattle Wednesday afternoon. It died because too many people who should have cared didn't. It died of neglect. It died because all of the powers-that-be stopped paying attention. ... Basketball is dead, and don't look for any miracle resurrections. Chances are good that an entire generation will grow up in this town without the NBA to watch."

Jim Moore of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who generously took the time to speak with me earlier in the day, relates a great interview with writer Sherman Alexie in his column:

"I can't believe this is even happening."
Neither can Sherman Alexie, the author and Stranger contributor and witness who testified during the Sonics trial on the fans' behalf. The longtime season-ticket holder likened the players to Greek gods, and now they're gone.
"There's death and divorce, No. 1 and 2 in terms of stress and grief, and this is No. 3," Alexie said.
A year and a half ago in his Death Watch series of Stranger columns about the Sonics, Alexie said he cried 20 times since the sale of the team to Clay Bennett and the Oklahoma City group. Many more tears were shed Wednesday night.
"The Sonics were indigenous to the city," he said. "They were created here, their entire history existed here, and now they've died."
Alexie recognizes that the settlement made economic sense, but said: "I didn't realize that was our fight. The court case was never about that. The city decided to put a monetary figure on the love of the game and love of the Sonics. I didn't expect that to be an issue."

Moore's Post-Intelligencer colleague Art Thiel is also unhappy:

"Now we know the price of possession.
Now we learn the cost of neglect.
The 'man possessed,' Clay Bennett, showed that he will do just about anything to gratify himself and his fellow Oklahomans by offering another silly payment for NBA ball, yet one the Seattle political leadership lacked the guts to refuse.
Obliterated for cash is 41 years of sports and civic history. So much for the city's passionate courtroom argument that the pro basketball team was of irreplaceable value.
New York, if you fancy the Space Needle, bring your checkbook and a really big hacksaw. We'll deal. As with the Sonics, it's privately owned and not used by a majority of voters, and its structure is a World Fair relic that maybe could use an upgrade.
To paraphrase a famous punch line by Winston Churchill, we know what we are. We're just quibbling over price. ... As for the additional $30 million due in 2013 if Bennett hasn't helped get another franchise for Seattle -- please. Bennett being forced to help Seattle scrounge a team is like hiring Yosemite Sam to be an anger-management counselor.
Besides, as Bennett has proven throughout this sordid affair, $30 million to him and his petrol pals is like $100 to the rest of us. They'll make that in the next month's gas-price gouges, and won't have to pay it for five years. And how about that five-year wait? In today's economy, is anyone betting on anything five years out?
The notion that the NBA will create an expansion team -- probably in tandem with a second city, for a scheduling- friendly 32-team league -- is based on two wafer-thin assumptions: That the national domestic market will be flush, and that the 2009 Legislature in a declining economy will authorize tax money to trick up KeyArena on spec, as opposed to the three other times it said no when the economy was good and Seattle had a team. Good luck with that."

Seth Kolloen of Sports Northwest Magazine and Enjoy the Enjoyment, who generously took the time to do an interview with me the other day, weighs in on the NBA's illusory promises:

"This thing about how "the NBA agrees that a renovated KeyArena is an acceptable facility" is silly. It doesn't matter what the NBA says--it matters what an owner says. An NBA owner could play in the Ingraham High gym if he felt like it (ok, not really, but you get the idea)."

Constable Echelon over at Hotdog & Friends discusses both the despair in Seattle and the league-wide implications of this decision (language warning, if you care about that).

"I’m currently studying a little revolutionary era France. I’ll admit it’s always been a little hard to wrap my head around the idea of a society so unjust that the only recourse for the common man was to take to the streets, round up those responsible, and cut off their heads. I imagine that insatiable bloodlust started with those people feeling like I feel right now.
Obviously I’m being dramatic. It’s just a basketball team. In theory I’ll get over this.
I know that professional sports owners don’t care about me. I’m poor. I have maybe a couple hundred bucks a year to give them. My chief benefit is the ambience I help provide for the people in the suites. They only care about me when I’m the only exploitable revenue stream, and if a team is counting on regular fans to keep it profitable they are fucked.
...
The current NBA business model requires a massive amount of public money to keep teams profitable. Someone has to pay for Kenny Thomas’s contract, after all. Now Seattle has provided a delightful example for the league to scare the shit out of other markets with. We’re a nicely above average region replete with affluent demographics that’s out of the way enough that people don’t get too outraged at how we’ve been treated. If the league doesn’t care about our 41 years of rock solid fan support and consistently winning basketball teams, what hope does anyone have?"

Mr. Baker at SonicsCentral blames the political leadership for selling out.

"No team for the fans, cash for the city, an IOU from Clay Bennett if we cash the IOU from the State of Washington, nothing for the fans.
We were screwed. That offer was not going to get worse with time, and with a court win, they took money from somebody that has money, but the mayor, Mayor Nickels, said it wasn’t about the money in his testimony; it was about enforcing the lease, and retaining NBA basketball in Seattle; neither happened.
Thanks for almost rising to the challenge Mayor Nickels.
I hate Clay Bennett, I watched him lie, and now I watched Mayor Nickels let him get away with it."

And now, some reaction from the rest of the league:

Henry Abbott of TrueHoop talks about how this case affects the fans.

"It was never, in my mind, an Oklahoma City vs. Seattle thing.
It's an owner vs. fans thing.
Sports operate in a bizarre realm. The fans, who are the paying customers, provide the revenue, passion, and love that make any league worthwhile. But those same fans who are such an essential part of the franchise have no legal standing at all. They have no signed agreements. The team has no obligation to them at all.
So fans are, legally, vulnerable. And although everyone acknowledges they are central to the enterprise, they can be trampled by owners, who pay for the right to do what they would like with a team.
I'm from the school of thought that says just because you have the tiger by the tail doesn't mean you must yank. I'm for respecting the people involved, even if you can get away with hurting them. That's character.
Instead we have something that's something like the worst marriage ever, back in the days before women had rights at all. Both partners play key roles, but one can lie, cheat, hit, and all the rest of it, while the other can only be stoic."

John DeShazier of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, who understands how close his own city came to losing their team to Oklahoma, despises the way Seattle fans were treated.

"It's business, so it doesn't have to be nice, neat and topped by a ribbon.
It's business, so it can be packed full of half-truths and outright lies, with passions strewn throughout a city and region and fans left to feel used and ignored.
It's business. But that doesn't mean it's not heartless, disingenuous and undeserving what Clay Bennett and his Oklahoma City ownership group did to Seattle. It doesn't mean we should turn a blind eye and thank the heavens it wasn't New Orleans that was preyed upon by a group of men who attempted to deceive so often and so poorly, they comfortably would have fit on the witness stand for the BALCO grand jury. ... But in the history of moves -- from the Colts sneaking out of Baltimore in the dead of night, to Art Modell dragging his Cleveland Browns franchise to Baltimore, to the Grizzlies moving from Vancover to Memphis and the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans -- few have been more littered by deception from an ownership group.
It's business, so at the end there's no guarantee everyone will be holding hands and singing.
But that doesn't mean anyone should feel comfortable with how this deal came about, doesn't mean anyone deserves what Seattle got, the way Seattle got it."

By contrast, Berry Tramel of the Oklahoman (a paper owned by Clay Bennett's inlaws), is gloating and encouraging Oklahomans to feel no shame.

"When the Sonics come to Oklahoma City, most everyone west of Spokane and lots of folks east of there will look at OKC and quote Gomer Pyle.
Shame, shame, shame!
Shame on Oklahoma City for swiping the Sonics from the loving arms of Seattle. Shame on Oklahoma City for not waiting on an expansion team.
Don't buy it. Don't listen to it. Don't let anyone spoil your celebration. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty.
Because here's what major-league ballteams do.
They move. Always have, always will. ...
If the NFL can leave Greater Los Angeles, where's the calamity in the NBA leaving Seattle?
The Seattle crowd likes to warn Oklahoma City that if Clay Bennett can put the screws to Seattle, he will do the same thing to his hometown.
Maybe. Maybe not. Frankly, I'm not all that interested in a history lesson from a city that built a new palace for the Seahawks and a new palace for the Mariners and then wants to start lecturing other cities, warning them about the dangers of giving into disgruntled franchise owners."

There are still a few voices with a bit of optimism, suggesting they believe in the first scenario or at least think settlement was a better option than continuing to fight it out. Among them is Kelley's Times colleague Jerry Brewer, even though he still casts severe doubts on the success of this strategy in today's column:

From M-V-P chants to M-O-U rants. Oh, how the Sonics have fallen. The city, after exhibiting a chest-poking resolve to keep the Raiders in their KeyArena lease, folded. Once intent on letting the Sonics go only with a guarantee that NBA basketball would return to Seattle, Mayor Greg Nickels settled for a tub of cash and a promise from the NBA to be nice. David Stern won't shoot spitballs at Nickels anymore. Stern will keep the mayor updated on relocation or expansion opportunities ("Um, sorry, mayor, nothing yet. Call back next century, OK?"), and he won't curse after hanging up the phone. ... Perhaps if all parties had negotiated with sincerity and purpose from the beginning, this predicament could've been avoided. In the end, the city stopped playing hardball because it couldn't win with that approach. Not with Czar Stern leading the NBA. So will diplomacy yield better results? Who knows? Right now, it's just awkward seeing the combatants refraining from sticking their tongues out at each other.

By contrast, John McGrath of the Tacoma News-Tribune appears to be a confirmed believer in the first scenario, and he's sure the city will get another team in the near future:

"But once you have concluded the grieving process, understand this: The NBA is coming back to Seattle, coming back to KeyArena, coming back in green and, yes, in gold.
A franchise owned by Oklahomans who envision the dour, robotically efficient San Antonio Spurs as the model of pro-basketball success is leaving, to be replaced by a franchise owned by Seattle businessmen who’ve got this intriguing notion that the winning and consistently entertaining Sonics teams of the George Karl era might be a more pertinent blueprint.
The Sonics will return because the city of Seattle backed out of a fight that would’ve rendered the “winners” as bloodied and battered as the 1950s middleweight boxer who prevailed over Jake LaMotta in a split decision.
Beyond draining tens of millions of dollars – pocket change – from the bottomless bank account of Bennett and his buddies, forcing the Oklahoma owners to fulfill the final two years of their team’s KeyArena lease accomplishes precisely what?
It sours fans, further poisoning pro basketball’s already toxic climate in Seattle. Two seasons of Spurs Lite was tough enough. Can you imagine two more seasons?
More important, two years of attempting to humiliate Bennett – a man I sense is constitutionally incapable of saying “pardon me” after spilling his coffee on a fellow first-class airline passenger, much less humiliation – forever dooms Seattle’s chances of reconciling with the NBA.
Sure, the league is run by a commissioner, David Stern, whose every breath contributes to a smug alert. When he spoke on behalf of Bennett’s half-baked campaign for a thoroughly modern, $500 million arena in King County, Stern championed the proposal less as an opportunity than a threat.
If the Sonics leave, he said in so many words, Seattle can kiss the NBA goodbye.
The posture was firm, the rhetoric inflexible. More recently, behind the scenes, Stern was quite more amenable to a truce with Seattle: Let this team go, we’ll have your back the next time there’s a franchise-relocation opportunity.
As city of Seattle attorney Tom Carr, speaking to KJR a few minutes after the settlement-disclosure press conference, put it: “Having the NBA pleased with you is a lot better than having the NBA mad at you.”
In other words, suck it up, and try to consider David Stern less as the czar of an evil empire than a friend of the disenfranchised.
Just a hunch, but I’m predicting an NBA team calling itself the Sonics tipping off at KeyArena for the 2011-12 season."


Let's hope he's right.

And the Sonics are gone...

Well, the details of the Sonics settlement have finally come out [Sharon Pian Chan and Jim Brunner, The Seattle Times], and it looks like they will in fact be moving to Oklahoma City sooner rather than later in exchange for $75 million dollars ($45 million if the city gets another NBA team within five years). That's much better than the $26.5 million Bennett offered in February before the trial, but it leaves me with plenty of questions for the city. Their whole case revolved around the idea of "specific performance", the idea that money alone could not replace an NBA team. What about the passionate testimony from writer and fan Sherman Alexie? What about Mayor Nickels' testimony [Greg Johns, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer] about being an eternal optimist, where he said "A lot can happen in two years?" What about the testimony from economist Andrew Zimbalist, who said he couldn't put a dollar value on what the Sonics bring to the community? What about the city's arguments, repeated over and over, that you can't replace the team with money? It seems to me that they've gone back on their entire arguments and decided you can quantify the team's value after all. The city will surely claim that this was the best possible option, but if they had had the guts to wait for Judge Pechman's ruling, the team might not have left at all. They took the safe route out, and sold the Sonics down the river (or perhaps one of the east-west highways) for 75 million pieces of silver. Betrayal is certainly more profitable these days.

Sonics: How bizarre is this?

Now that's highly unusual: The Seattle Times is reporting [Jim Brunner and Sharon Pian Chan, The Seattle Times] that the Sonics and their owners have apparently agreed on a settlement, only hours before Judge Marsha Pechman was supposed to issue her ruling in the case. The timing of this is bizarre, as I don't see what either side has to gain by settling now. For the city, their aim throughout has been to try and enforce "specific performance" to make the team play at least two more seasons in Seattle, so it wouldn't seem to make sense for them to take a cash buyout at this stage when Judge Pechman might have ruled in their favour, and it's hard to imagine Clay "Buccaneer" Bennett agreeing to the Sonics staying in Seattle any longer than necessary. The other odd aspect to the timing is that both sides have already been fighting dirty: often, settlements are reached in cases like this one to try and prevent incriminating information from coming out in court, but it's hard to picture what else could come out in this one: we've already had scandalous e-mails, "Machiavellian" PowerPoint presentations and enough mudslinging for a federal election. If the Sonics were able to secure a buyout of the lease, then this makes sense for them, but I have no clue why the city would agree to that before at least finding out Judge Pechman's decision. There's apparently a press conference at 5 p.m. today: I'll have more details as they come out.

Update: 4:09 P.M. ET. The settlement is confirmed via an order from Judge Pechman, but still no details to be found.

On the Ground: Steven Pyeatt

Photo: Steven Pyeatt of Save Our Sonics. [Photo from http://stevenpyeatt.com/].

As part of the preparation for Judge Pechman's decision [Greg Johns, Seattle Post-Intelligencer] later today on the future of the Sonics, here's the next installment of On the Ground, featuring an interview with Steven Pyeatt, the co-founder of Save our Sonics. Steven has been one of the most influential figures in the fight to keep the team in Seattle, working with co-founder Brian Robinson and the impressive team they've pulled together (including former Sonics star Slick Watts). He's helped organize rallies (including the one I covered), e-mail and letter-writing campaigns, and much, much more. If the Sonics do survive in Seattle, his efforts will be a large part of the reason why. There's an excellent Seattle Times profile on him by Ashley Bach. Anyways, here's my questions and his answers.

Q: What’s the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there’s a chance to keep the franchise, or are they resigned to losing it?

A: The mood is mixed. A segment is so upset with the NBA that they will stop following the NBA if they abandon this market, a large segment is still focused on doing whatever it takes to keep a team here, and some still don’t realize that the relocation approval was conditional and for this year only. That segment doesn’t realize that this isn’t a “done deal” but when they learn that they tend to get back on the “Save Our Sonics” train.

Q: Do you think the rallies and popular expressions of support will make any difference in the end?

A: Going into this deal, Brian and I honestly thought the fan movement was a valuable piece of the puzzle but in the end would have little effect on the outcome. What has amazed us is how much the “Save Our Sonics” effort has impacted the situation. We have flooded elected officials with emails whenever this issue is on someone’s plate, gathered more than 300 people to travel to the state capital with just a few hours notice, taken over the Governor's campaign kickoff event, and had over 3000 people come to the rally at the courthouse to start the trial (we were hoping just to break 1000). The people have stepped up so much it is humbling to be a part of this movement. The claims by Bennett that no one cared couldn’t be heard over the chants of “Save Our Sonics” echoing through our downtown.

Q: What do you think was the city’s strongest argument or piece of evidence presented during the trial?

A: The testimony by Virginia Anderson (former director of Seattle Center) and the people in charge of running Key Arena did fantastic jobs in their testimony. They destroyed any claim that Key Arena was not a viable facility, that the relationship between the team and the city was dysfunctional, or that there would be no way they could continue “business as usual” through the end of the lease. This is a key part of the case because the judge would not want to continue the relationship if it looked like the next two years would be nothing but bickering over what kind of hotdogs to sell or how often to sweep the floors.

Q: What do you think was PBC’s strongest argument or piece of evidence presented during the trial?

A: PBC’s legal team was amazing. Considering they took on a client that had no case they actually were able to at least present something that would cause people to think. They did an excellent job of embarrassing the Mayor, and the private parties that were working to keep the team here, but in the end they had nothing that showed that the city did anything to undermine the ability of PBC to perform on the lease. Coupled with Clay Bennett compounding his lies by piling on more unbelievable statements it is going to be very hard for a judge to find any reason to let PBC out of the lease.

Q: Is there anything you think the city could have done better during the process leading up to the trial? If so, what?

A: I was very impressed by the effort of the city in this case. They left no stone unturned and really did a great job of “getting the dirt” on Clay Bennett, David Stern, and the rest of PBC. We all wanted to see Stern on the stand but the court in NYC blocked it saying that the city got the information they needed from others and in the end they had so it wasn’t that they could have done better, but we sure wanted to see him come unglued on the stand.

Q: What about during this trial?

A: I would have liked to see them follow a line of questioning with Nick Licata, the President of the City Council when the city adopted our Initiative [ed's note: Seattle Initiative I-91, which strictly regulated the public funding of sports arenas] as an ordinance, that showed that the ordinance was a result of public pressure and a complete change in the level of support from the city. It was portrayed by PBC as an attempt to lock PBC in so they could bleed them when in reality it was the people demanding that the city enforce the lease to buy us time to get a deal done to keep our team. In the end that is nothing but nit picking on my part. The key to winning the case was showing that the lease was clear in its terms, that Bennett knew those terms before he bought the team, agreed to honor those terms when he bought the team, and that the losses would not cause him undo harm if required to honor the contract. The city did a fantastic job of getting the important parts into evidence and defended the lease well.

Q: If Judge Pechman rules in favour of PBC buying its way out of the lease, do you think there is still any hope for keeping the team (i.e. appeal, the Schultz lawsuit, or something else), or will that mean they’re definitely gone?

A: Yes, there is still hope. There does not seem to be any way this team gets to move for this upcoming season without a negotiated solution and that requires a team named the Sonics in Seattle long term. If the legal process continues to play out this team will not be moving before the end of the lease no matter what happens. If that road continues there is a significant risk that Clay could lose the team and no smart businessman would ever take that risk when there are options for “Win/Win” deals out there.

Q: If the city is allowed to enforce the "specific performance" clause, do you see the Sonics remaining here any longer than 2010?

A: Yes. We think that two years of “lame duck” status is more than just losing $60 million, it is hard to the league and their revenues and supporters that they cannot endure. In January we will have a funded Key Arena expansion package and with local ownership ready in the wings we see no way the NBA wouldn’t want to resolve this for everyone.

Q: If the team leaves, do you see Seattle ever getting another NBA franchise? If so, what timeframe do you think is likely?

A: Eventually, but that means building an arena on spec and having a lot of work to find a team and a deal that a local ownership group is willing to do. We are very proud in Seattle of having all “home grown” teams. We never “took” a team from another city and see that as a point of pride. Expansion would be preferred because we wouldn’t have to put a another city though what we have just dealt with.

Thanks to Steven for taking the time to answer these questions in such detail: there's obviously a lot on his plate at the moment. Here's his bio paragraph:

Steven Pyeatt is a Kirkland area businessman who was born and raised in the Seattle area. Steve has been active in his community in both grassroots political and charitable organizations including 15 years as a Football Official. He was a candidate for King County Council in 2005 and has served on commissions for King County and the City of Bothell. In addition Steve was active in the regions effort to keep the Seahawks in Seattle in 1996. During this successful 14 month campaign, Pyeatt organized more than 950 members and coordinated significant lobbying of our local business and political leaders.

On the Ground: Seth Kolloen

Photo: Seth Kolloen, the executive editor of Sports Northwest Magazine and founder and sole proprietor of Enjoy The Enjoyment. [Photo from Enjoy The Enjoyment].

One of the rules of journalism in general is that you get a better story if you're at the event instead of writing about it from afar. That's why large papers have bureaus all over the world, and also why they have beat reporters travel with teams instead of watching the games on TV and writing about them from home. I've found this to be true with my own writing at the Journal: when I've taken road trips with teams, I can usually come up with something much more interesting than if I just phone the coach afterwards and ask questions based on the game summary.

As with any rule, this has exceptions: Will Leitch made a very nice career out of not going to events over at Deadspin, and I'm sure his successors A.J. and Rick will keep that trend largely alive. It's quite possible to do great things without personal coverage, but still, on the whole, I think there's a fair bit to be said for being there in person. That's why I decided to get up at 3 a.m. and make the long drive down to to Seattle the other week for the opening day of the Sonics trial and the rally that followed: I could have just written my column from afar, but I think I got a much better understanding of the issues around the proposed relocation from spending a day studying it up close and personal.

Unfortunately, the demands of regular work meant I had to follow the rest of the trial from B.C., but I was still able to keep up with it, thanks to the excellent coverage from local media sources like the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Still, I'm sure I would have been able to cover it even better if I had the time to be there all week.

However, there is another alternative to get a better sense of these situations: talking to those who are there. In this particular case, most of the local media types there probably have a far better understanding of the details than myself, as they've been there as the situation's developed. In general, though, talking with other journalists can reveal a lot more about a situation than just what they can fit in their stories or pieces: I know from my own experience in the media that much of the best stuff often gets cut due to space, angle or other concerns. Ever wonder why so many print journalists get invited onto radio or TV shows to discuss specific issues (not just in sports, but in every type of media coverage)? I'd venture that the primary reason isn't usually because of their looks or the sound of their voice: it's because it's their job to be well-informed, and thus, they often have interesting things to say.

That's why I'm kicking off a new and hopefully recurring feature on this blog, entitled "On the Ground." I'm hoping to run it whenever there's a city-specific issue I'm writing about to compare local perspectives with my own detached one. The idea is to get in touch with local types (usually from some form of the media, but not always) who have detailed knowledge of what's going on, grill them with a bunch of questions and post the questions and answers here. If you're interested in being featured in this segment in the future, drop me a line .

We'll start things off with the Sonics trial. Judge Marsha Pechman is set to hand down her verdict later this afternoon, so to lead up to that, I present the first series of "On the Ground" interviews with Seattle types, all of whom I asked the same set of questions. First up: Seth Kolloen, of the excellent Sports Northwest Magazine and Enjoy the Enjoyment. My questions and his unedited answers are below. There's a lot of great stuff from him in there.


Q: What's the mood like in Seattle? Do people still feel there's a chance to keep the franchise, or are they resigned to losing it?

A: Casual fans pretty much assume the team is gone. There's a small cadre of dedicated fans, led by the amazingly effective Brian Robinson and Steven Pyeatt at SonicsCentral.com/Save Our Sonics, who are closely following the case and holding out hope that one of these court cases will prove out.

Q: Do you think the rallies and popular expressions of support will make any difference in the end?

A: Depends on what you mean by "the end." The rallies definitely forced local politicians to try to hold the team to their lease--the last thing politicians want is a highly organized, motivated, angry group against them. Save Our Sonics threatened to disrupt our incumbent governor's reelection kickoff, so she met with them the day before to get on their good side. So if the city wins the court case, and the team stays for two more years, it will have been the fans who did that...if that forces Bennett to sell, you can thank the fans. But, more than likely, whether the Sonics stay hinges on Howard Schultz' seeming longshot case to force the team to stay, and the outcome there won't have anything to do with the fans.

Q: What do you think was the city's strongest argument or piece of evidence presented during the trial?

A: For their case, it's simply the language of the lease. The lease clearly spells out that "specific performance" is required--meaning that the team isn't supposed to be able to get out of the lease with any kind of cash settlement.

Q: What do you think was PBC's strongest argument or piece of evidence presented during the trial?

A: That the city was involved in a plan to undermine their own tenant and force them to sell, now being called the "poisoned well" argument. It was sort of an odd situation where both sides' testimony was completely full of shit: You had PBC saying "Why would we ever talk about moving the team to Oklahoma City? What a crazy notion!" (b.s), and the city saying "Try to undermine PBC and force them to sell? What an awful idea!" (also b.s.). If the judge rules that the city and the PBC have an irreparably damaged relationship, she may let the team out of the lease.

Q: Is there anything you think the city could have done better during the process leading up to the trial? If so, what? What about during this trial?

A: They could've been a little more discreet with their plans to try to force the PBC to sell, but considering how fast the situation was moving, that's almost hoping for too much. If the city and lawyers and consultants had only met face to face, with no notes or something, they never could've gotten anything done. During the trial--much was made of the judge being tough on the city, but I think if you're a judge deciding a case in which your own city is a party, you almost have to err on the side of skepticism, if only to make the decision more likely to stand up on appeal.

Q: If Judge Pechman rules in favour of PBC buying its way out of the lease, do you think there is still any hope for keeping the team (i.e. appeal, the Schultz lawsuit, or something else), or will that mean they're definitely gone?

A: If the city loses, I think the team is gone. The city would have to seek an injunction to keep the team here, but, more importantly, they'd have to put up a bond to pay for any losses the team incurred while staying here during the appeal--estimated in the tens of millions. I think at that point, non-basketball-fans would say, "hey, wait--why are we paying for this again?" And if the team moved, the remedy hoped for in Schultz' case, to "unwind the sale", would be more undoable. Plus the Schultz case is going in front of the same judge--if she ruled for PBC here, it's hard to imagine her ruling against PBC in an even more difficult to prove case.

Q: If the city is allowed to enforce the "specific performance" clause, do you see the Sonics remaining here any longer than 2010?

A: Possibly--if Schultz wins his case, and/or if the NBA don't want the black eye of a lame duck team, and they and the city work something out.

Q: If the team leaves, do you see Seattle ever getting another NBA franchise? If so, what timeframe do you think is likely?

A: Maybe, but I think it would be a disaster--at least at the start, just like Charlotte has been. The NBA's percieved heartlessness here has turned off so many fans, I think they'll be leaguesona non grata for at least ten years. And for the youngsters, you've got the resurgent Trailblazers right down the road, who not only have Nate "Mr. Sonic" McMillan as coach, but local boy (Garfield High, my alma mater, what what!) and University of Washington star Brandon Roy as their star player.

Thanks again to Seth for taking the time to do this. Here's his bio paragraph, written specially at my request:

For Seth Kolloen, executive editor of Sports Northwest magazine and founder and sole proprietor of EnjoyTheEnjoyment.com, a Sonics game at the Kingdome was the very first pro sporting event he saw live. During the 1996 Sonics/Bulls finals, he convinced the managers of the chain drug store where he worked to set up a portable TV near the checkout counter so he could watch the games.

Hope you enjoyed this new segment: be sure to post suggestions or thoughts on it in the comments, or e-mail them to me directly. More of these to follow later today!

Soccer: Congrats to Canada

(Photo from Ness at MLS Seattle: you can read his game recap here)

The Canadian national soccer team turned in a great performance against Brazil Saturday night in Seattle. They eventually fell 3-2, but they certainly proved that they deserved to be on the same pitch as one of the world's best sides (Brazil is currently ranked second in the world), something that even the stoutest Canadian fans might have questioned during the lean times. Really, the difference in the final score was only due to an ill-timed back pass from midfielder Julian de Guzman, who certainly shouldn't be treated too harshly: he had a brilliant game all around and scored a lovely second goal for Canada, proving why he's a deserving member of the side. Now, if only his brother was available as well...

Still, the overall impression from the game absolutely has to be positive. Canada also could have had another goal if Issey Nakajima-Farran hadn't missed an empty net on a breakaway: he chipped Brazilian keeper Julio Cesar brilliantly, but put the ball wide of the target. Overall, the Canadians, ranked 62nd in the world, hung right in there with a top-class Brazilian squad sixty places above them. This was by no means a throwaway side, which makes Canada's performance all that much better: it provided something frequently lacking in Canadian soccer, a real reason to hope. Consider de Guzman's post-match comments to Jim Morris of The Canadian Press:

"It shows Canada has taken it to another level," said de Guzman, who also scored a goal, forced the Brazilian keeper to make a good save on another shot, and was one of the best Canadians on the pitch.
"I think this is the best team we have ever fielded. We have something going for us."

Obviously, this bubble's too good not to pop. With that in mind, let's take some imaginary questions from the critics, who will undoubtedly spring up out of the woodwork within a couple days to dismiss the meaning of this match and crush the hopes of our nation of soccer fans once again.

Q: Mr. Bucholtz, you say that Canada was truly in the match and didn't look out of place. How do you defend yourself against charges of pure homerism?

A: An excellent question. Sure, I may be a little biased, but you don't have to believe me on this one. Consider the lead paragraphs from the aforementioned Mr. Morris' story:

A strong performance against one of the best soccer teams in the world shows the potential and promise of the men's national team as it ramps up for World Cup qualifying play.

Canada held its own in a 3-2 loss to Brazil on Saturday night in an international friendly played before over 47,000 fans at Qwest Field. If not for a bad pass by midfielder Julian de Guzman late in the game, and a miss on a clear breakaway by Issey Nakajima-Farran in the first half, the Canadians could have walked off the pitch with a tie, or maybe even the upset.

Q: Ah, but he writes for the Canadian Press! Clearly, he's got the same bias you do!

A: How dare you impugn the integrity of one of our sacred cows of journalism? Never mind, I expected this from you critics, so I present further corroboration:

- From Jim Jamieson of the Vancouver Province, a very experienced soccer writer who's usually on the Whitecaps beat, in his article entitled "Canada refuses to take back seat":

"It was also a tough result for Canada, which had enough chances in the first half to be up a goal or two on Brazil when the score was tied 1-1."

- And, some American third-party musings. From Jose Miguel Romero, the Seattle Times writer who frequently covers the Sounders:

"Saturday night in Seattle was supposed to be Samba Central, Brazil's place to party and deliver a pounding on the pitch.
Only someone forgot to tell Canada's national soccer team it was the poundee.
The Canadians almost spoiled the celebration of Brazilian soccer at Qwest Field. Almost. Brazil survived by a 3-2 final score, keeping intact its reputation as arguably the globe's preeminent soccer power in a match that thrilled the 47,052 who witnessed it."

- From esteemed Seattle Times columnist Steve Kelley in a piece entitled "Brazil brings out the beautiful":

"For much of the first half the all-red Canadian team had the best of the run of play.
Canadian striker Rob Friend tied the game in the 10th minute, heading in a long, lovely service from Mike Klukowski. And a half-hour in, after some prestidigitous ballhandling from MLS All-Star Dwayne De Rosario, Issey Nakajima-Farran had the Brazilian keeper, Julio Cesar, down, but missed a wide-open chip shot."

- From Gregg Bell of The Associated Press in an article entitled "Brazil survives Canada 3-2":

"The No. 2 ranked team in the world continually gave up prime scoring chances to Canada before Robinho scored the go-ahead goal in the 63rd minute off a gift giveaway pass. Brazil then held on for an entertaining 3-2 victory Saturday night, the first of two exhibitions in the United States before its World Cup qualifying resumes.
Brazil looked vulnerable playing without injured star Kaka, the reigning FIFA World Player of the Year who had arthroscopic knee surgery last week, plus marginalized veterans Ronaldinho and Ronaldo....
Canada nearly tied the game twice late. Star Dwayne De Rosario, who plays for Houston of MLS and has been demanding for years that his national team play games like this against world powers to accelerate its improvement, had an open chance inside the penalty area in the 80th minute. But his rushed shot sailed far over the crossbar and into the second deck of seats.
And in the 84th minute, Tam Nsaliwa dribbled between three Brazilian defenders to get open about 20 yards in front of the goal. But his shot hit the outside of the net."

- From Laurence Moroney of MLSnet.com (no, not the New England Patriots running back), a piece titled "Canada fights valiantly in loss to Brazil":

"Despite being separated by 54 places in the FIFA World Ranking, Canada twice fought back from a goal down before valiantly going down to a 3-2 defeat to Brazil in an international friendly on Saturday evening at Qwest Field.
Featuring three MLS stars in their starting lineup -- goalkeeper Pat Onstad and forward Dwayne De Rosario of the Houston Dynamo and defender Adrian Serioux of FC Dallas -- Canada, which hasn't been to a World Cup since 1986, gave the five-time world champions all they could handle."

(Note: one issue with this piece; second to 62nd is 60 places, not 54.)

Hmm... doesn't sound too lopsided at all, does it?

Q: Well, clearly it was an inferior Brazil team. How can beating the scrubs prove anything?

A: Please. Sure, there was no Kaka, but he was the main omission: Ronaldinho has been in poor form lately even before his injury, and Ronaldo is spending more time at McDonalds than he is on a soccer pitch these days. There was plenty of talent in the Brazilian side, including the brilliant Robinho and Adriano up front, young star Alexandre Pato (who I got a chance to see in Montreal at the U-20 World Cup last summer, and who's certainly one of Brazil's best up-and-coming talents), and several other players who featured prominently in their 2006 World Cup campaign. Most FIFA countries would kill to have any one of these Brazilian players.

Q: How can you consider this a big accomplishment? It's a friendly, and friendlies don't mean anything! (Note: Out of Left Field's resident soccer writer Duane Rollins may throw this one out, as he's tried to use it on me before. It will be interesting to see if he uses the same logic to argue against a team he supports instead of for one. UPDATE: He did indeed use this logic again, so points for consistency of opinion: I can respect that, even if I don't agree with it)

A: The main problem with friendlies is the name. In fact, they are usually anything but friendly, and there is always plenty on the line. The younger players who get the cap want to impress their manager, while the veterans have to turn in a good showing to keep their spot. Soccer features a massive competition for places: you can only have 11 players on the pitch, and at least eight of them will play the full 90 minutes in club matches and international competitions. The size of the bench can vary from league to league, but FIFA's own rulebook states that the maximum number of substitutes on the bench is seven in any official competition. If you go with that maximum, that's 18 players in any particular squad at one time, and only 14 of them (at most) can appear in any one match. Most club sides have several more players named to their first team to provide depth, different tactical options and relief in case of injuries, or just to flaunt their wealth in the case of a certain London club (whose first-team roster currently boasts 26 players). When you factor in the talent on the reserve team, the young players in the academy system and the players out on loan, the crunch for playing time becomes even more pronounced. Thus, every time you step on the pitch, it had better bloody well be meaningful for you, or you'll soon find your spot on the pine stolen by some young whippersnapper who doesn't care that it's "just a friendly".

This is even more significant at the international level: yes, you can use more substitutes in international friendlies, but the squads are even bigger as a result. The key element that makes it so vital for players to consider international friendly performances as essential is the even-wider pool of players. Avram Grant only had to choose from 26 first-teamers: Fabio Capello could potentially choose any Englishman playing anywhere under the sun (or even those whose parents are English). Much of the country is watching, and fans from every club have their own players to argue in favour of. Think fantasy sports are big Stateside? That's nothing compared to the weekly "Pick the England squad" game carried out in pubs, offices, coffee houses, fish and chip shops and any other place you could think of. The English newspapers and tabloids devote more type to the various candidates than they ever would for an election. With that kind of attention on you and that kind of talent waiting in the wings, you're damn well inspired to put in a bloody good performance whenever you get the chance to step on the pitch.

England's the most extreme example, but you can bet those Brazilians who took to the pitch Saturday night had a lot to prove as well. Brazil is a soccer factory that churns out amazing players, and you can bet they want to don the blue and gold for their country. That's a tough club to crack, though, and some very good Brazilians have adopted other countries as their own after they couldn't make the national side (one example here). There are also big financial benefits to being an established international player: as I understand it, non-EU players must have played in three-quarters of their country's international matches and their country must be ranked 70 or better in the world for them to gain an EU work permit, required to play in the European leagues where the big money is. Exceptions are always made, of course, but being a regular fixture in your country's side can dramatically increase your earning power, and you can bet all the youngsters vying for your spot know that too. Satchel Paige's famous advice is very applicable to those competing in international friendlies: "Don't look back, something might be gaining on you."

International friendlies also play a role in determining the FIFA World Ranking. Their importance has been diminished under the new system, but they still count, and that ranking comes in pretty handy when looking for a qualifying berth. Moreover, they serve as key "tune-up" matches to prepare for the grueling qualification process for the World Cup or the confederation championships. Yes, they aren't as important as an actual in-competition match, but they certainly aren't meaningless to the players or the managers involved, so there's no reason for journalists and fans to dismiss all friendlies as unimportant. Want further proof? Consider these comments from Canadian midfielder Dwayne De Rosario to Don Ruiz of the Tacoma News-Tribune.

“In terms of my play, friendlies are a thing of the past. Teams go to get results. The thing about friendlies is that they still go against your world ranking. Any time you have a chance to play a country internationally, the main focus is getting the result because it helps your ranking. The better rank you are, the better off you are. It’s a friendly to put it nicely, but the players know it’s going to be a battle. It’s a game that both teams want to win. I think Brazil is looking to just go and spank a team, which will build their confidence to prepare for their World Cup qualifier. We’re going in there to get a result, to get a win. Most importantly, it would be nice to get a win, say you beat Brazil, and build our confidence for our World Cup qualifier coming up in June. As a professional athlete, it’s not going to be a friendly. There’s nothing that’s going to be friendly about that game until after it’s all said and done. On the field, it’s business. We want to represent Canada well, and they want to represent Brazil well.”


Q: How important can this be if it was held in the U.S. and wasn't even televised until the next morning?

A: Ah, finally a criticism that hits the mark. Yes, the lack of television coverage was a problem: you would have thought Fox Sports World Canada or Setanta might have picked this one up, or even the Score. CBC was busy with their snoozefest of a Stanley Cup Final (where the most exciting bit of the whole broadcast was the aforementioned Bettman-MacLean interview), Sportsnet had a Blue Jays game (a pretty good one, which I abandoned the Titanic, er, the NHL to watch) and TSN couldn't care less about soccer (as we're frequently reminded whenever they pre-empt the Champions League for golf or curling).

Aside: Nothing annoys me more than TSN, my usual favorite of this country's motley crew of sports networks, buying the rights to one of the most desirable properties on earth and then replacing it with golf or curling. At least the curling is usually minorly important: once this year, they decided to show the freaking Par-3 Competition at the Masters (which wasn't even part of the tournament) on the main channel and bump the Champions League quarterfinals to the digital-only alternate feed. If I hadn't had access to the alternate feed, I probably would have thrown something through the TV, but even so, I only got to watch one of the two quarterfinals played that day.)

Anyways, it would have been great to see this on live television, especially after CBC's Soccer Day in Canada programming (which I watched from start to finish) earlier that day. Soccer Day in Canada was pretty good (the best part was the Dave Bidini documentary Kick in the Head, about soccer in Toronto), the afternoon Toronto FC game was great, and this friendly would have been a perfect nightcap. Oh well, we can't get perfection all at once, or there would be nothing to strive for.

The location is also a compromise. Sure, it would have been better to have the match in Canada, but Seattle has a great stadium for these kind of matches at Qwest Field (I saw Manchester United - Celtic there in 2003 and Real Madrid - D.C. United there in 2006). It's close enough to Vancouver that a significant amount of Canadian fans were able to make the trip, and there's certainly plenty of support for high-quality soccer in the area: 47,052 fans showed up. In any case, it's better to have it there than BMO Field, where less than half as many people could have seen such a great match. Edmonton's a possiblity, but it's nice to see some of these matches come where West Coast fans can see them.

Anyways, I'll try to rein in the enthusiasm a little bit. Sure, there's still a long way to go, and the Canadians have a very tough draw in the qualifying stage for the 2010 World Cup: if they get past St. Vincent and the Grenadines (likely), they'll have to face Jamaica, Honduras and Mexico in the group stage, with only two teams advancing. What this game (and the previous strong results at last year's Gold Cup) shows, though, is that we can play with the best. The gap is narrowing, and we've got what's possibly the best side ever to play for this country (not counting the 1904 Olympic gold medalists). If that's not reason to see a glimmer of optimism at the end of the long, dark tunnel, I don't know what is. Let's just hope that glimmer doesn't turn out to be an onrushing train.

Update: Related pieces:

- Ben Knight has a great take on this over at On Soccer.
- Duane Rollins disagrees with me on the importance of friendlies, but his take is still well worth a read.

Sonics: The unravelling

Things are looking better and better for the Sonics. The array of lawsuits against their ownership are demonstrating that even more evil lurks in Clay Bennett's computer than previously thought. As I wrote a while ago, "Given that the e-mails came out of discovery in the city lawsuit, who knows what other dirty laundry might show up to aid the various cases for keeping the Sonics?" Some more dirty laundry has in fact come tumbling out of the closet, which should push the credibility of Bennett and his group into negative numbers if it wasn't there already.

The best of the newly-released e-mails, which came as part of Howard Schultz's lawsuit to unwind the sale, showed that two days before he bought the team, Bennett was already contemplating a "sweet flip" to obtain another team and move them to Oklahoma City if by some chance an arena solution materialized in Seattle. ESPN legal analyst Lester Munson had a great column stating that the new information gives Schultz a substantial case (thanks to Seth Kolloen for the link). As Munson writes, "The allegations against Bennett and his group are serious and seem to indicate a fraud at the time of the sale. The chronology of the e-mails is compelling evidence that will allow Schultz to push Bennett and his group into a bad corner." This might even be enough to make fighting this lawsuit out all the way better than using the leverage it provides, as I advocated previously, but there's still the risk of a loss taking away all the city's bargaining power, and you can bet that the NBA won't be in a hurry to negotiate with a city that tried to take it out in court.

The best aspect of Schultz's lawsuit is that it advocates revoking the sale and turning the team over to a "constructive trust," administered by a judge, which would then sell the franchise to local ownership. Thus, Schultz isn't in it to get the team back, which strengthens his case: it allows him to argue that the sale was fraudulent without him benefiting if it is voided. Munson called the "constructive trust" language "a brilliant idea," and considered it one of the key components in making the case "more than a public relations stunt."

Another fantastic e-mail that came out later in the week showed that the NBA itself questioned Bennett's "good-faith efforts" after Aubrey McClendon's ill-advised comments to the Oklahoma Journal-Record. The Seattle Times has a great list of the key e-mails that have been released so far: reading those, it becomes even harder to understand David Stern's assertion that "Clay, as the managing partner and the driving force of the group, was operating in good faith."

As more information comes out, it's looking increasingly likely that there's still a chance to keep the Sonics in Seattle, particularly with the Schultz lawsuit. Hopefully, this will prove that pro sports franchises and their owners can't just selectively pick and choose which laws to adhere to. This kind of blatant lying to facilitate a potentially fraudulent purchase wouldn't be acceptable in the corporate world, so it shouldn't be acceptable in the sports world. The sad thing is, though, this situation was pretty obvious ever since Schultz sold the team to Bennett. Just about everyone knew he would do anything to get a team to Oklahoma, but if he hadn't slipped up by revealing such in detailed and indiscreet e-mails, he'd likely already be there. This should serve as a warning to sports fans everywhere: be very, very careful with out-of-town owners, particularly if they have interests in another market without a team. Many of them will try to move, and it's unlikely that they'll all prove as incompetent as Bennett has.

Despite all this incriminating evidence about Bennett's intentions that should cause concern among NBA management, Stern is still sticking to his guns about moving the team. That demonstrates that this isn't entirely about relocation, or media markets: it's really about the public paying for teams' arenas, a huge goal of Stern's. Oklahoma City is willing to throw public money at the NBA, while Seattle is more reluctant: in Stern's view, that seems to make up for its other obvious deficiencies, such as being the country's 45th-largest media market. As Henry Abbott pointed out in this excellent TrueHoop piece, "Right now, the way it commonly happens is that teams ask for a sweetheart deal, and if they don't get it, they leave for somewhere that will give a sweetheart deal. All that happens with the blessing of the NBA, an organization that serves the owners." The lawsuits, the incriminating information, and the court proceedings will undoubtedly help the case to keep NBA basketball in Seattle, but in the end, the city and the state will still have to come forward with some money. It doesn't have to be a ridiculous plan like Bennett's $500 million arena in Renton: the Ballmer alternative keeps sounding better and better, but in the end, there will still need to be public money involved. The amount, the source and the terms are up for debate, but public funding of arenas to some degree is a necessary evil these days: if your town isn't willing to pony up the cash, some other city inevitably will.

Related:
- Henry Abbott has more on how this case is casting a shadow over an otherwise great playoffs.
- Abbott on how Aubrey McClendon's honesty makes him "4% more likable than the other owners" (a comparison to Josh Howard recently admitting to smoking marijuana).
- A hilarious-in-retrospect October 1, 2006 piece from the Tacoma News-Tribune's Frank Hughes, which features Clay Bennett serving lamb testicles to unsuspecting Seattle businessmen (is that ever a metaphor!), and also the following paragraph: "Ask anyone who knows Clay Bennett, and most say he is straightforward, a "straight shooter" as they say down here. He might not always give you an answer, they say, but he does not lie. He is a tough negotiator, but fair. He knows when he has leverage, and is not afraid to use it to his advantage, but does not necessarily take advantage of people."
- Seth Kolloen on Clay Bennett's inferiority complex over at Enjoy the Enjoyment.
- Greg Johns of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on how the city plans to pursue its lawsuit.
- Seattle Times columnist Jerry Brewer has a hilarious mock e-mail exchange with David Stern and Clay Bennett.
- The Times' Percy Allen has a good piece on Richard Yarmuth, Howard Schultz's lawyer, who was involved in the city's lawsuit against the American League after the Pilots left town that resulted in the league granting the town the Mariners franchise (the same lawsuit current city representative Slade Gorton spearheaded).
- A post at Hotdog and Friends showing that Bennett was happy to hold a gun to Oklahoma legislators' heads as well. They also have a good post on how David Stern defies logic. (Thanks to Deadspin for the link).