A Sign At Bruins Practice

After an embarrassment last night, at least some Bruins fans are with their team.
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And today will be better than yesterday . . .

Today will be better than yesterday . . .

Let me start on a bit of tangent before I get to the main point of today's post.

The best thing to do if you want to be a great writer is to read. A lot. Read everybody, everything, all the time.

Legendary sports writer Red Smith once said, "I've had many writing heroes, writers who have influenced me. ...When I was very young as a sportswriter I knowingly and unashamedly imitated others ... But slowly, by what process I have no idea, your own writing tends to crystallize, to take shape. Yet you've learned some moves from all these guys and they are somehow incorporated into your own style. Pretty soon you're not imitating any longer.”

I do this as well. When I wrote my first novel (unpublished) I had just read all of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books. I did not copy the master of horror's plotlines but I believe I picked up some of his cadence and I definitely used a particular character’s first name to be my protagonists name.

Now that I am a sports writer, there are two men who influence me heavily. One of them is WEEI.com’s Alex Speier, but since he is a former boss of mine and potentially a future employer, I will abstain on commenting on him other than to agree with what the Boston Globe’s (and Sports Hub 98.5 anchor) Tony Massarotti once said to me; “he is very cerebral.”

The other writer, who looms a touch larger for me, is ESPN.com’s Buster Olney (Insider link). Really, he is the first thing I read in the morning and the days he does not have his baseball roundup blog are days that seem just a little empty.

In the last couple of days Olney has been signing off his blogs with the line “today will be better than yesterday.” He is doing this because his youngest sister, Amelia Lincoln, has been diagnosed with leukemia and has started treatment against the disease. Foremost, I wish Amelia, Buster and their entire family well. Let the light of the world guide your way.

Aside from that dreadful news, Olney’s tag line over has struck me. This has been a very odd week for me. It started on Sunday in Charlottesville, Virginia when a good friend of mine got married. Beautiful ceremony, good food, great people and some really bad dancing. The next day I packed up from my lengthy (perhaps too long) stay in Charlottesville and drove to D.C. to stay a night in my mother’s apartment before driving back to Boston to resume my normal activities.

During that Monday I learned that the investigative piece I had been working on for the New England Center For Investigative Reporting was going to run in the Boston Globe. Furthermore, I was told that it was going to run on the front page. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that the story was going to be a front page feature. I figured it would be somewhere in the Metro section. Not that it changed my reporting or motivation at all, I just did not think that I, of all people, would have my first bylined piece in the Boston Globe be a front page, above-the-fold blockbuster. I was astonished.

Tuesday came along and I found that the story was indeed the top story of the day. I had a full day ahead of me: drive up the East Coast on I-95 while dealing with the fallout that this type of story creates. It turned out to be quite interesting. I spent all of the state of New Jersey talking with various people with my Bluetooth headset, stopping frequently (because I WILL NOT text and drive) to send emails and texts and doing and to do interview about the story for WGBH Boston that later aired on NPR “All Things Considered.” I had another radio interview request that I turned down because the logistics of getting back to Boston and into their studio proved to be problematic. I finally got back, exhausted and hungry and went straight to sleep. All in all, it was a whirlwind.

That was Tuesday.

Wednesday and Thursday were different. I am currently an unemployed journalist and I have been hitting the job search hard. Yet, it does not seem like anyone is out there and paying attention. The odd thing about trying to find a job in this day and age is that most of it is done online. That means I send out a few resumes and applications a day and hope that there is someone on the other end listening and hope they like what they see. For the most part it is a rarity to hear back from these people. Usually not even a “we got your resume” automated response. Perhaps I am doing something wrong, but I do not think I am flubbing the process so egregiously that no body even sees what I send them. It is just the way it is.

So, each day that passes I run out of a little bit more of cash and watch my Blackberry for calls and emails. Each day that passes I feel like I am getting a little bit lower in the world, a little bit  . . . less. It was great to be the center of the media world on Tuesday, yet, on Wednesday, that was yesterday’s news. Literally.

It is not like I have not played this game before. Bored and broke, watching the bank account dwindle and figuring how to eat cheap. I mean, I am good at it, so much so that I am going to write a book called The Starving Bachelor (which my mother believes will be a river of money). Yet, this time it is different. I feel like I have done everything right – worked my ass off, have the talent to do whatever is put in front of me and kick its ass. The approach got me through 12 years in the culinary industry and two degrees. The problem now is that there are no more degrees to get, I have let the culinary world fall into my past and am focused on getting a job as a sports reporter (any reporter really, but sports is what I do). It is easy to feel sorry for yourself at these moments and for a solid 36 hours I felt like curling up into a ball and hiding. My car was towed on Thursday, sapping basically all my cash and there still no word on any job, anywhere.

I had a long conversation with my mother last night and she, as she usually does, listed the litany of things I need to do. It is not the “get a job” speech that uptight fathers give their deadbeat sons but rather a specific list of things that I need to do to more or less stay sane. The problem with this is that I have heard it all from her before. Yes, I understand and respect my mother for it but really, it is getting kind of old. Last night I read myself to sleep before 11:00.

This morning was different. I woke up and things did not seem so bad. I threw out a couple of more applications and waited till mid-morning for when Olney’s blog was posted. The lead topic was nothing ground breaking, just solid opinion on Adam LaRoche to the Diamondbacks and Jose Valverde to the Tigers. But there it was, right at the end.

Today will be better than yesterday.

I think it will be Buster. And tomorrow will be better than today.

And so it goes.

Sports Media - A Decade In The Sand

Editors Note - I do not like to write, talk or think about the issue of steroids in baseball. It makes me sick. Not only for the wringer it has put my favorite sport through but also the intense media coverage it now garnishes whenever there is sniff of a PED in the water. This after a near decade when almost the entire sports media put its head in the sand about the issue and chased the daily beat, championships, wins, losses and home runs. That is fun and rewarding work and quite a grind by itself. Yet, in my opinion, the steroids era could have been blown up by my media brethren much sooner than it actually did. If the players are culpable, management is culpable and the owners are culpable then so are the writers. 


This was a piece I wrote not long ago while attaining my Master's in Journalism at Boston University. With McGwire's recent "confession" I figured that this would be as good a time as any to publish it. This is not an actual piece of journalism but rather an essay on the matter of the sports media and accountability in the steroid era.

Dropping The Ball: Lost Decade For The Baseball Media

When a historian writes the book about the culture of sports journalism in America for the first decade of the 21st century, a fair amount of the discussion will revolve around one date – March 27, 2006. That is the date that Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle released the book Game Of Shadows, which detailed the use of performance enhancing drugs by the greatest baseball player of the generation, Barry Bonds.

It was a pinnacle moment in the profession, a shift from an almost decade long trend of selective ignorance to a hyperactive media storm of speculation. Reporters, even those in the sports department, are the watchdogs of society. The Forth Estate is responsible for keeping tabs on people in power and the players of society, yet from 1998 until the mid-2000s, despite the steroid issue staring them right in the face, the baseball media turned a blind eye.

The issue steroids in baseball started in 1998 when it was reported by an Associated Press reporter Steve Wilstein. He was covering one of the most dramatic seasons in the history of American sport – the single-season home run record chase by sluggers Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. Wilstein found a bottle of androstendione, a body building supplement, in McGwire’s locker and reported it. Almost immediately he was pilloried by the rest of the media for tarnishing one of the most magic summers in baseball history.

“A number of baseball beat writers were put off by the story because it took a shine off of baseball's great summer," Wilstein said in an interview with Editor and Publisher in 2005. “"It was a great story for them, guys hitting home runs, in McGwire's case, farther than anyone had seen” (Strupp, 2005).

It was not until Jose Canseco, a star baseball player turned industry pariah, published his tell-all book about steroid use in the game, Juiced, in 2005 that the baseball media was forced to confront the issue head on.

“I think the baseball media should have been more attentive to the issue," said Wilstein, said. "All of us who cover baseball as a beat writer or a columnist should have been more suspicious of this, at least since McGwire, and probably before '98."

The theme of the era before Fainaru-Wada and Williams started reporting on Bonds and BALCO (the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, a “sports nutrition center” in Birmingham, California) can be summed up in the lede to Allan Wolper story “Ethics Corner: Reporters Lament Steroid Secret:”

"It was the good old boy's network at its worst. It was a confidence kept by the men who played the game, the trainers who massaged their muscles, the doctors who gave them their annual physicals, and the writers who glorified them. It was The Steroid Secret" (Wolper, 2005).

“The Steroid Secret” phenomenon can be attributed to a variety of factors. Sports writers, especially baseball writers, are some of the most overworked reporters on any beat. The days are long and the season seemingly never ends. As such, it is easy to get caught in the daily routine and the companionship of the people they spend so much time around. As Wolper called it, the “good old boy’s network” combined with a general complacency of the beat led to a collective blind eye. At the same time, starting with the McGwire and Sosa home run chase, major league baseball saw a decade of unprecedented financial growth from a little more than $1.5 billion in revenue following the strike of 1994-95 to more than $6.2 billion in 2007.

With the whole system flush with cash, from franchise owners to players to the media it was easy to for reporters to turn a blind eye. The storylines were impressive, from McGwire’s 70 home runs in 1998 to Bonds’s 73 in 2002, it seemed like there was a new golden age of baseball.

"Then came BALCO, which, as the story goes, was stumbled upon by almost by accident. The Bonds probe began in 2000 in an almost innocuous fashion. That was the year a federal investigator named Jeff Novitzky . . . expressed wonder and not a small degree of suspicion over Bonds' amazing size and strength, as he watched the black athlete working out at a Burlingame, California gym. 'Do you think he's on steroids?' Novitzky reportedly asked a state agent one day, who also exercised at the gym. 'I think they're all on steroids,' the agent told him. 'All of our top major leaguers'" (Neil, 2006).

The casual wondering of a federal investigator led to a 2002 raid on BALCO labs which ended up (quite a bit later) turning up the names of Bonds and then-current New York Yankees slugger Jason Giambi as clients. Yet, despite the cumulating evidence in the mainstream (and non-sports) media and the ballooning of baseball players and their stats, the real storm would not come until two years later until Game of Shadows was published. The storylines were a series of whispers and innuendo attaching the names like pitcher Jason Grimsley and Bonds to BALCO owner Victor Conte. Yet, nothing concrete ever came out.

Why was this? Were reporters too busy covering the day-to-day grind in an industry that had started to lose its own revenue stream? The decay of the traditional media business structure has led many publications to cut back on expensive investigational reporting units and what was the baseball beat really? Just another bureau in the sports “Toy Department?” At the time the Spot Light team at the Boston Globe was busy looking at finances in “The Big Dig” along with sexual abuse by Catholic priests. At the same time it cannot be overlooked that The New York Times company, which owns the Globe, also owns a 17.5-percent stake of the Boston Red Sox, a significant foothold in the burgeoning revenue stream of Major League Baseball. There were similar stories at the time, like the fact that another major American newspaper, the Chicago Tribune Company was the sole owner of the Chicago Cubs. It is notable that neither of the papers published significant investigative stories on the steroid issues from 1998 to 2004 while the San Francisco Chronicle, unassociated with any professional sports franchise, went full tilt into the BALCO case.

Ethics in journalism is not supposed to be influenced by economic factors. At the same time it is easy to wonder if the San Francisco Chronicle thought they could sell more papers by pursuing the steroid-scandal while the Chicago Tribue and Boston Globe (hence, the New York Times which has the largest investigative staff in the world) were content with covering the daily occurrences of their teams and not rocking the boat which might have the consequence of alienating its readerships.

There is also the question of race. The pursuit of Bonds was the catalyst to further media examination of the steroid scandal which ultimately led to Major League Baseball appointing former Senate Majority leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner George Mitchell as the head of a special investigative commission into steroid use in the game. Black authors and journalists wondered, fairly or not, if the fact that Bonds is an African-American was why he was being singled out.

In fact Jonathan Littman specifically pointed to racism as the driving force behind the BALGO investigation. McGwire "essentially gets a free pass," the journalist told Knight-Ridder in 2004. "He's not under near the scrutiny as [Bonds]." Why? "Because, I think, Mr. McGwire is a white guy" (Neil, 2006).

Though it is important to acknowledge that race may have been a factor the argument may not hold a lot of weight. Sosa, who has subsequently been tied to steroids as well, is also a dark-skinned athletes (Sosa is originally from the Dominican Republic) and there was no other person more closely tied to McGwire the Cubs right fielder.

The media storm took off after Game of Shadows and it seemed that the entire industry was trying to make up for eight years of apathy and ignorance. The day the Mitchell Report was released ESPN ran a day long special to cover nothing but news related to steroids in baseball. In the last couple of years there has been a smattering of stories, mostly tied to a 2003 list of MLB steroid drug tests that were originally supposed to be anonymous. The list, which reportedly has 103 players, has been leaked and from time to time a prominent player’s name will be released. Every time that happens the media coverage of that team and that player jump to chaotic proportions. I have written in the past that “The List,” should be completely released. Hence the media storm involved with the release would be resolved all at once. As it stands now, with slow leaks coming every couple of months the game of baseball and the baseball media suffer from a series of slow, embarrassing slashes.

As a sports reporter who has been trained as an investigative reporter I have started my own, early, investigation into the source of the leak of the “The List.” As of yet I am still in the early stages of my research but it is my hope that a story uncovering the leak would bring a cap to the roller-coaster of steroid coverage that has defined the last decade. I believe it would be a cathartic moment for the industry. The goal would be to cap the era once and for all with media transparency that was lost when the era began.

Neil, H. (2006). The Barry bonds probe and the shadow of race. The Black Scholar, 35(4), Retrieved November 25 from http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.ezproxy.bu.edu/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790ef048455c0eadfff1b5bdb26ffce9b4bf776de2c55277a92fe1661d08d3cc4a8a&fmt=H


Strupp, J. (2005, March 18). Sportswriter Who Broke '98 McGwire 'Andro' Story Slams Steroid Coverage. Retrieved November 28, 2009, from http://www.allbusiness.com/services/business-services-miscellaneous-business/4674052-1.html


Wolper A. (2005, August 1). Ethics corner: reporters lament the steroid secret. Editor & Publisher, Retrieved November 24 from editorandpublisher.com

Sunday Notes - BC Basketball, Mike Lowell and the Pats

About a foot of snow has fallen in the Boston area but that has not stopped the intrepid Sports Chutney reporting staff from making it to Chestnut Hill to cover the Boston College v. Bryant University basketball game this afternoon. BC needs a bounce back game after tough losses to Harvard and Rhode Island and the 0-10 Bryant Bulldogs may just be the thing needed for the Eagles to regain some mojo.

A couple thoughts on the Mike Lowell for Max Ramirez trade falling through. Lowell is going to need thumb surgery which he will have later this week and keep him from doing baseball related activities for the next 6-8 weeks. This is bad news all around. The injury will keep Lowell (and his $12 million dollar salary) on the Sox payroll for the foreseeable future which will make it all the more difficult to acquire a third baseman as a defensive upgrade at the position. As it stands right now it looks like Boston will move Kevin Youkilis over to third and have Casey Kotchman play first base with Lowell as the first man off the bench for the most part. Thumb and wrist injuries are not good for batters (especially infielders) and if it saps Lowell of power at the plate he will become basically useless to the Sox until he proves that he can drive the ball. 

In turn the Sox miss out on catching prospect Max Ramirez. Of the stable of Texas catchers, Ramirez has been buried behind Taylor Teagarden and Jarrod Saltalamachia and as such he remains viable trade bait if the Rangers want to go get a power bat, as they attempted to with Lowell. The Sox were concerned about his wrists, a common injury for young hitters (see Dustin Pedroia and Jed Lowrie) and if the injury causes Ramirez to lose his power stroke than he is also completely worthless to the Sox as his defense behind the plate is average at best. The trade would have been a decent way for the Sox to get Lowell out of town and add potential and depth at the backstop position. Alas, it is not to be. For now at least. Do not be surprised if there is a move concerning Lowell during Spring Training though.

As of this moment the Patriots are leading the Buffalo Bills 17-10 with 3:02 left in the fourth quarter. I like to see the Patriots forget the fact that they are supposed to have a high and mighty offense and go back to winning games of the 17-10 variety. Before Tom Brady became Tom Freaking Brady the way the Pats won was with decent defense and the ability of the offense to score just enough points. As far as I am concerned, that is Patriots football. This incarnation of the team does not have the same defense that the teams earlier in the decade had, but it has been good enough against the mediocre teams of the last two weeks and it looks like the Pats will be inline for a division championship in the next couple of weeks. Once the playoffs start, who knows what will happen?

Sports Week - A Cold Day In Boston

While a fair portion of my media brethren are having fun on the ice at Fenway Park, I figured I would give a link list to some of the stories percolating this week in my initial Friday Sports Thoughts column. It is freezing here in Boston, by the way. The weather app on my Blackberry Bold 9000 this morning said it was 10 degrees, yet felt like -8. Probably will not be doing much outside today. I am going to go a little Rob Neyer/Buster Olney on you for this. . . .

• The Boston Red Sox are pushing the limits of the competitive balance (luxury) tax. Alex Speier WEEI.com.

From Speier -
In 2010, the CBT threshold increases from $162 million to $170 million. As a result of that substantial number, many anticipated the Sox might go berserk in dispensing cash this offseason.

This perception was based in part on a misunderstanding: the Sox have been portrayed as having carried a $122 million payroll in 2009, and so the idea that the team would near the CBT threshold seemed outlandish. But that $122 million figure had nothing to do with the Sox’ payroll as calculated for CBT purposes.

It always seemed funny to me last year when people said that the Sox were scaling back on spending. The Sox may have had a $122 million major league payroll, behind the Yankees, Mets and Tigers, but they also ancillary costs that did not show up on the major league roster such as $3.3 million for Junichi Tazawa and $8.25 million for Jose Iglesias. Then take into account that, better than any team in baseball, the Sox are able to spread money over their mistakes to minimize them.

Boston ate money to ship Julio Lugo and Mark Kotsay last year and that just scratches the surface of what the Red Sox tend to do in terms of painting their mistakes. Through the Theo Epstein era he has coated over the Sox arrivals and departures with dollars, such as when they paid the rest of Manny Ramirez's 2008 salary or when they made the Byung-Hyun Kim for Charles Johnson trade that was essentially a $10 million for $10 million dollar contract swap. Johnson was cut (and paid) minutes after being acquired. The same thing happened when the Sox shipped Edgar Renteria out. Yes, the Sox went bargain basement last year with the singing of John Smoltz, Brad Penny and Rocco Baldelli, but that was after Mark Teixeira decided that $170 million was not enough to play in Boston. Boston has the capability to put together a $205 million dollar roster like the Yankees but doing so would significantly weaken its ability to be flexible when it is time to cut-bait and move on. The Yankees have this ability as well and the difference in markets is that the denizens of the Bronx can have a $205 million payroll AND pay over their mistakes as Boston does.

• Scott Olsen non-tendered and then resigned by the Washington Nationals. - Chico Harlan Washington Post.

From Harlan --

The Nats this afternoon made official the signing of lefty Scott Olsen to a one-year deal. It's a pretty shrewd move by GM Mike Rizzo, if you ask me. Basically, by non-tendering Olsen on Saturday and re-signing him Sunday, the Nats reduced his 2010 salary from $2.8 million (that's a rough estimate; it would have fallen somewhere between $2.24 and $3 million, probably) to $1 million. If Olsen turns out to be healthy -- and what a bonus that would be for Washington -- then his salary will swell to just shy of $4 million because of incentives. And even $4 million for a 25-year-old lefty who makes 30+ starts sounds reasonable. Bottom line: Either the Nats save $1.8 million, or they pay the fair going rate for a healthy pitcher. This is one of those rare cases where both parties should feel comfortable.

Here I go about the Nationals again, but I do I kind of like watching the side show as this team maneuvers about at the bottom of the National League East. I agree with Chico here and I am starting to like general manager Mike Rizzo a little more as he progresses in rebuilding the Nats. He is still digging out of the absolute mess that Jim Bowden left him, but so far it has not all been bad. Not that it has been great, but not entirely bad. On a side note, I was an early advocate of Bowden taking over the GM duties in Boston during that brief period when Epstein took a hiatus from the job after the 2005 season. Good thing that never happened.

What Rizzo was able to do here is save the Nats some money and retain a pitcher who still is young and has upside that will provide some valuable innings in D.C. next year. Even if Olsen only pitchers 160 innings next year, you would have to think that would be a more productive 160 innings than anything that known innings-eater Livan Hernandez would give them. The flip side to this is that the Nats also non-tendered Mike MacDougal, an effective reliever who was pretty good for them last year. MacDougal is coming off of hip surgery and what the price that Washington would have paid to keep him would not make a lot of sense for the team. Middle to late inning relievers are, as the saying goes, best to be picked up in minor trades or off the waiver line. A team like the Nats does not really need a great bullpen at this point because they do not have a high prospect of actually winning many games. Hence, why pay for a mildly expensive reliever when someone (who may be healthier) will probably be available when the time comes for the Nats to seriously rebuild the bullpen stock. The bottom line here is that the Nats should be focused on putting together a rotation that can get the team through 162 games. Olsen will help with that while a guy like MacDougal was unnecessary. That, and Rizzo saved a couple of million that he could use to go get Jason Marquis.

• Peter King on Dale & Holley talking about two undefeated NFL teams. WEEI.com.

From King --

So, going forward, I think the players really want to go for it. I talked to Dallas Clark on Sunday and he was saying all the politically correct things. But, there is no doubt in my mind that the players want to go for it. It is the same way in New Orleans. Talking with Jonathan Vilma this week, he said that their goal is to win the Super Bowl and not to go 16-0 but you know if they are in a room with the coaches and Sean Payton asks them what they want to do, you think Drew Brees is going to say that starting next week I only want to play one series? It is poppycock. He wants to play and go 16-0.

I have been meaning to find a way to discuss this hole two teams undefeated schpiel for a while now. So, since I have the honor of transcribing Sports Illustrated's luminous NFL scribe weekly interview on WEEI's Dale and Holley Show, I figured this would be a good opportunity to talk about it.

My initial thoughts on either the Saints or the Colts going 16-0 are selfish. I grew up in New England (during the dog years when they would play the Bengals in "The Toilet Bowl") and I thought that the 2007 year would be one for the ages. It is, regardless of what happens, but for not one, but two teams to come out two years later and match that would really break my heart. When covering sports I really try to stay objective as possible when but, really, I do not cover the Patriots on a day-to-day basis and probably never will. I have to admit, when the Giants won the Super Bowl that year, I threw a fit and promptly drank half a fifth of my mother's Grey Goose vodka and passed out on her couch.

King said that he foresees the Colts resting their players in the final two weeks, which they did not do last night when they came back in a shootout against Jacksonville. The Colts have been in this territory before (under Tony Dungy though, not Jim Caldwell) and I would lay good money down that Bill Polian has Peyton Manning and company rest in significant portions of the next two games. The Colts really have nothing to prove anymore. Peyton Manning is a god on the football field, they have won more regular games this decade than anybody and the playoffs can be a crap shoot. On the other hand, the Saints should go for 16-0 as hard as they possibly can. New Orleans has just about always had a dismal football team and given the recent history of this decade (ie, Hurricane Katrina) it would be a feel good story for the perennial also-rans to come out of nowhere and go undefeated. Drew Brees is probably the second best quarterback in the league right now (behind Manning but ahead of Tom Brady) and the team is fun to watch. As much as I want the Patriots 16-0 to live, untarnished by outside forces, forever if there was a team that I would not mind doing it the Saints would be it.

A couple more odds and ends -

• Rest in peace Chris Henry -- With all the stuff he put himself through, it is easy to forget that he was just two years younger than me.
• Lee to Mariners, Halladay to Phils -- I am not sure this makes sense to me regarding the Phillies getting Halladay over Lee, but I really like what the Mariners are doing right now.
• Adrian Gonzalez to the Red Sox? -- I would say that a deal with Clay Buccholz and Michael Bowden and maybe Lars Anderson would be good for both teams. If the Sox have to give up Casey Kelly and/or Ryan Westmoreland in addition to Buccholz then do not pull the trigger. This is really a discussion for a whole other post.

That is it for the Sports Chutney Sports Week wrap. What do you think? What topics interested you this week? Feel free to join the discussion in the the comments section.

Payroll Disparity - The Nationals Pitching Deficit

I have the Washington Nationals on the brain. Why am I obsessing over the worst team in Major League Baseball? I prefer not to go into specifics, but let's just say they make for an interesting case study and provide an opportunity for me to exercise the baseball obsessed side of my brain, something that I have not been able to do for a while.

The problem with the Nats is simple -- they have no pitching. The fact is so painfully obvious that it hardly is worth mentioning. Name an important pitching stat and the Nationals were either last in the league or near the bottom.

ERA: 5.00 - 28th

Walks Allowed: 629 - 30th

Strikeouts: 911 - 30th

K/BB: 1.45 - 30th

Fielding Independent Pitching: 4.82 - 28th

*Note - In ERA and FIP only the Brewers and Orioles ranked worse.

What do these stats tell you? Well, it means that Nationals pitchers do not miss bats and give up far too many walks. That is a cardinal sin in baseball. The personification of the pitching woes is nominal "ace" John Lanaan. The young lefty's FIP is not far off that of the team as a whole at 4.70. Yet, that is not reflected in his ERA which was a respectable 3.88 in 2009. Lanaan's K/9 was a very low 3.88. It is usually not very good if you strikeout rate equals your ERA, though it is an interesting coincidence. Lanaan's BB/9 was 2.97 which is mediocre to bad which brought his WHIP to 1.35, also mediocre to bad.

And this is the best pitcher on the team.

Now, that may not be true in the very near future as phenom Stephen Strasburg and fellow first round draft pick from June Drew Storen come of age, but it comes down to the young leading the younger in an attempt to climb out of the cellar towards the light of respectability.

OK, so the Nats pitching woes are a given. Yet, when I did a little more searching I found an interesting factoid. In 2009 the Nats payroll was $61,455,049, good for 26th in the league. It is what it is. The interesting part is the allocation of that $61.45M -- 80.22 percent was spent on position players. That is $49,299,240.30 (or so) spent on men playing the field.

Which means that the ENTIRE Nats pitching staff last year was paid $12,155,808. To put that in perspective, last year Brad Lidge made $12.5 million.

Um, is it just me or does this seem like a case of misplaced priorities?

Now, Washington's offense was not as bad as the pitching. At the same time, it was not head over heals better as it was 21st in the league last year in runs scored. Ryan Zimmerman is a stud and Adam Dunn is the prototype player for a sabermetric based lineup. Add some decent on-base percentage guys and another slugger and Washington has the potential for an above average offense. Not stellar, but above average. A team can win with an above-average offense if the run-prevention side of the equation makes up the difference (see Seattle Mariners), yet the Nationals pitching is atrocious and was not greatly helped by a defense that is pretty much in the exact middle of the league.

Let's look at the broader perspective. The Nationals options are to wait for Storen and Strasburg to become full time studs and fill in the roster around them, which probably means another year or two of absolute misery in D.C. or they can make a vie for a slightly below average team next year by going out and getting a couple innings-eaters who can help make up for the payroll disparity. Or, they can do both, which is what I would suggest. Go out and sign Jason Marquis to a three year deal and see if Jon Garland will sign a stop-gap two year deal. Wait for next offseason and go after one of the top end starters that will be in the free agent pool. Going into 2011 the Nats could have a rotation that looks something like 1) Strasburg 2) free agents from next year, like Brandon Webb 3) Jason Marquis 4) John Lanaan and 5) Garland or Storen (who might end up more valuable in the bullpen) or the next best piece from the minor league desert that is the National's farm system. That would be a respectable rotation and would help the payroll disparity and probably win a significant amount more games than the 59 they mustered last year.

The bottom line is that the Nationals need to spend more of their bottom line on the mound. Even mediocre pitchers like Marquis and Garland would be an improvement from what they have been running out there. A youth movement is a good thing if you have the talent like the Rays or the Rockies. In terms of financial resources, which the Rays and Rockies do not have, the Nationals should be able to add another $20-25 million to the payroll and add some arms and at least make a climb towards respectability.

If not, there will be a paucity of curly W's in our nation's capital for years to come.

Baseball Winter Meetings Trade Show Photos

So, every year the Baseball Winter Meetings has a trade show where vendors hawk their baseball wares to minor and major league baseball buyers. It operates like any trade show, lots of booths, some games, free samples. It was good stuff. I spent most of my time stalking the Baseball America booth but here is a slide show of some of the other things we saw while we were in the Indiana Convention Center. Check it out.

Podcast: Nick Gagalis - Job Seeker

Here is more from the PBEO Job Fair at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Indianapolis. This is an audio piece where Sports Chutney followed around Nick Gagalis, a Boston University graduate who is seeking a job in broadcast in minor league baseball. Nick was very cooperative and turned out to be a great interview. To download the podcast, click on the link below.

Nick Gagalis - Job Seeker

Young & Looking For a Job in Baseball? Good Luck.

I am going to have a couple of posts today wrapping up my thoughts and times at the Baseball Winter Meetings in Indianapolis. The first post is on the subject that so many young job seekers want to know -- How do I get a job in baseball?

Well, to be honest, there is really no sure fire way to break down the door. But at the PBEO job fair this week the skills and job seeking techniques that will come in handy if you are to try. Some of these are standard techniques and some are more baseball specific.

Before going for that first application:

• Make sure you know what you want --

The answer to "why do you want to work for team X" should not be A) I love baseball and I am a big fan. B) I thought it would be cool to work for a baseball team. C) I am just trying to get my foot in the door.

- They do not care if you are a fan. They want you to WORK.

- It is cool to work for a baseball team. They know that, they work for baseball teams.

- Of course you are trying to get your foot in the door. This response tells them nothing about you.

Working is sports is just that. WORK. Whether you are the media or the intern working your way up, do not expect a pleasant summer rolling in the left field grass. When I say "know what you want" it means you should know what kind of job in baseball you want and custom yourself accordingly. The first internship is the hardest to get and most minor league teams want you to be able to sell the product coming out of the stadium. Sales is easy to learn, tough to master but it helps if you have had a job in some type of retail, sales, phone calling center type of thing before. If you want to get into public or media relations, make sure you know what PR and MR people actually do and then find a way to produce some work (like daily stat packages) that shows them that. In the MR case, a love of journalists would also help (no, I am not asking for any love, I am just saying.)

• Tailor Yourself For The Position --

Are you still in college and decide you want to work in baseball? Make sure you do your research and find out exactly what you want to be doing in terms of credits and course loads that will make you an attractive candidate. The cross-pollination method of undergraduate education should also help. Are you in marketing or management? Go take a journalism or writing and rhetoric class. English major? Get your head out of Flaubert and go take a marketing class. My particular problem is that I never really got to know the full procedures of business and business terms. Yes, my time as a chef taught me how to market myself and my restaurant but ask me exactly what an integrated market strategy is and I would not have an answer. Chances are I know what that actually entails but the verbiage is lost on me and as such if that question were to come up in an interview I would be at a loss. The de facto host of the PBEO job fair this year, Seamus Gallivan, had some interesting things to say about the type of mindset you need to have to get a job, any job really, but specifically one in baseball. The Three P's

- Passion - Drives you.

- Persistence - Pays offf

- Poise - Gets you where you want to go.

• Get Experience --

Yes, I know, this is easier said than done. If you are a writer or a wanna-be media person the best advice is to just start writing. Write for multiple platforms. That means: start a blog, go engage on Twitter and find a general sports blog that is looking for writers and show them you are passionate about a team and create some examples of writing for them. Look at sites like StudyofSports.com. They want insightful and knowledgeable fans to produce as much content as humanely possible and sites like that are out there, everywhere. Go check CraigList and I bet, if you are persistent (there is that word again) you will be able to get somebody to give you a chance to write. It won't be much and you won't get paid, but it is a start. None of this will fall in your lap.

Life experience also helps. Go get a job. Go on a road trip and get horribly lost to the point where you are actually frightened and then find your way back. Go to an event that you did not think you could get to or afford and just find a way in and see how you handle it. You never know how resourceful you can be until you are in a little over your head and have to figure your way out by yourself.

• Be Aggressive, Be, Be Aggressive

Ready to start selling yourself? Good, because this is the first lesson in sales -- sell yourself first and the rest follows. Persistence and passion are the first things you should think of here. Your passion will get you to the spot you need to be (like the PBEO job fair) but once you get there you need to be the everywhere, everything person. That is persistence. It will get you noticed and help keep you on the radar. This goes with any job -- If you have put in an application and you have not heard, go back to the folks and mention that you are still intersted and would love to hear from them. Give them a call, a visit, an email, a tweet and a business card. Do not be overbearing, but polite and persistent. Know how to conduct yourself in a professional manner without seeming like a pissant, ie poise.

• You Are Not Alone

Everybody and their dog wants to work in sports. Sometime, the dog is the one that gets the job.

• The life may not be for you.

I hate to burst the bubble, but a life in baseball may not be your bag, baby. Especially in the minor leagues. It is low paying with lots of work and a steep uphill progression for certain types of jobs. On the major league level you have to be damn good to even be considered, let alone hired. On the media side, it depends what you want to do. If you are a tech, make sure you have content gathering, editing and production skills. If you are a writer make sure you just write and then try to make connections to people in the industry. They won't be able to offer you a job, but they can help point to where you might need to be to get one. At the same time, reporters are not all that highly paid either. You have to love sport and love to write and ask questions and be aggressive. Gain the experience then take the next step.

Those are just some thoughts on what we learned this week in Indianapolis. Check back later in the day for some more examples of what happened at the Baseball Winter Meetings

Monday In Indy For The MLB Winter Meetings

It was quite the first day at the Winter Meetings. Taking part in the PBEO job fair is a continuous, but rewarding, grind. Had a meeting with the Tacoma Rainiers for a great job working with the game day program and hope for more meetings tomorrow. Went and worked the lobby at the Marriott Hotel, where most of the actual MLB stuff is going down. Heard a couple interesting rumors or opinions there.

-Talked to a couple old time scouts who think that the umpire system in MLB should be changed while adding an extra umpire to game day crews. Add that with a 10-percent performance clause and it would mean that, finally, umps in the MLB would be held to a higher standard than they are today. Relatively decent idea, I thought, if only there was not that pesky problem of the umpire's union.

- Possible three-way trade between the Diamondbacks, Yankees and Tigers. I bet this has been reported already but it would have Max Scherzer and Austin Jackson going to the Tigers, Edwin Jackson to the D-Backs with Ian Kennedy and the Yankees getting Curtis Granderson. Probably a couple prospects mixed in there as well. Consensus? If this trade was made then the Tigers would be cleaning up, contingent on Scherzer living up to his ability.

-Not too much cooking on the first day and deals may not come in rapid succession this week. Jason Bay in a holding pattern and that makes Matt Holliday the same. Rafael Soriano of the Braves accepted arbitration which will make him one of the most expensive setup men in baseball.

-Scott Boras has not yet shown up to "hold court." Betting he does that tomorrow in the afternoon or around lunch. Has to get the media worked up first, as always.

There is a ton more where that comes from. Saw Ozzie Guillen signing a White Sox fans hat and hoodie, graciously. Tommy LaSorda wandered by. Accidentally mistook Brian Daubach for somebody else entirely. Saw former Boston ESPN890 (now defunct) talk host Mike Salk, now with ESPNRadio Seattle, which was great. Salky is always good people.

Well, that was the day in Indianapolis. More to come when we got it at Sports Chutney.

Layout Designs From The Winter Meetings

I put together a couple quick layouts if there was ever a "Sports Chutney: The Magazine." Just a couple of things from the what is currently trending on Sports Chutney, ie the Baseball Winter Meetings and our friend Nick Gagalis. Enjoy.

Tracking Nick Gagalis At The PBEO Job Fair in Indianapolis

So, we are here in Indianapolis for the Major League Baseball Winter Meetings (or just the BWMs) and we are tracking our friend Nick Gagalis as he runs around town and the Indiana Convention Center for the Professional Baseball Employment Opportunites (PBEO) job fair. Gagalis graduated from Boston University with a degree in broadcast journalism and has been doing some play-by-play stuff in the Cape Cod League and is now trying to grab a job with a minor league team for next season. Sports Chutney caught up with Nick in his hotel room at the Hampton Inn to ask how the first day went. Check out the Qik live stream from the Blackberry Bold 9000 to hear what Nick has to say.

Kings Of Belmont Rocking Video w/ Travis Elliot

Alright, so I just found this video of some old friends of mine doing a song called "Git-r-Done." They are called the Kings of Belmont and they hail out of Charlottesville, Virginia. I believe their next show will be at the newly renovated Jefferson Theater on the Downtown mall in C-Ville on December 4th. If you happen to be in Central Virginia this Friday, check it out. If not, just watch Travis (vocals), Ross (guitar) and Aaron (keys) on this video.

Git-r-Done by The Kings of Belmont w/ Travis Elliott

The Kings of Belmont | MySpace Music Videos

Complete Archive Of Work

Hey there Sports Chutney followers,

I have just completely updated my archive of articles on my personal website. Includes work from WEEI.com, Study of Sports and The New England Hockey Journal (among others). If you are curious of where I have been and what I have been doing, go check it out.

The Archive

Sports Chutney will be getting a bit of a relaunch in mid-December. Coverage of local Boston sports, lifestyle and society will be featured along with opinion and analysis on tech trends. A new section: The Starving Bachelors Guide will also be launched around that time.

For now, Sports Chutney is heading to the MLB Winter Meetings this weekend and next week. If you are going to Indianapolis, I hope to see you there.

Enjoy,

Sports Chutney

Apocalyptic - 2012 News Feature

2012 Apocalyptic -

We created a news feature based on the 2012 end of the world prophecy. Check it out. Feel free to leave comments with questions that can either be answered from our research or about our methods of production.

Cheers!

-Sports Chutney

Apocalyptic - 2012 News Feature from Dan Rowinski on Vimeo.

Forgotten Miracle Press Release

So, here is the press release from the blog at Forgotten Miracle. Note, I believe that Buccigross quote came from my story in the New England Hockey Journal about the Boston showing of the movie. I will check back up on that and update you later.

Here is the press release:

1960 U.S. Hockey Gold Medal Team 50th Anniversary Honored in Documentary Film

Posted by: Forgotten Miracle In: Blog

== OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE ==

NOVEMBER 23, 2009 – A new documentary film celebrates the gold medal run of the 1960 U.S. Olympic hockey team. Forgotten Miracle tells the story of the unheralded team’s unexpected first place triumph in the Squaw Valley games. The release coincides with the 50th anniversary of the VIII Winter Olympiad.

Featuring rare archival footage of the first televised Olympic Games, illustrated reenactments and interviews with team members, coaches and experts, Forgotten Miraclereveals the seldom-told tale of America’s “other” hockey gold medalists.

The feature-length film is directed by Tommy Haines and Andrew Sherburne, creators ofPond Hockey, a 2008 documentary illuminating the world of outdoor hockey. ESPN’s John Buccigross called Pond Hockey “the best and purest hockey movie ever.”

Forgotten Miracle features interviews with stars of the 1960 team, including coach Jack Riley, brothers Bill and Bob Cleary, defenseman John Mayasich, brothers Bill and Roger Christian and standout goalie Jack McCartan. Detailing the quiet rise of American hockey in the 1950s—a time dominated by the Canadian and the Soviet dynasties—through the 1960 Olympic triumph, the film reveals a lost chapter in America’s hockey history.

Forgotten Miracle is presented in association with USA Hockey, the national governing body for the sport of ice hockey in the United States.

To view the trailer for Forgotten Miracle visit www.forgottenmiracle.com. For more information on USA Hockey and the 2010 Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey team, visit www.usahockey.com

For additional information or interview requests, please contact Andrew Sherburne atandrew@forgottenmiracle.com.

The 1960 U.S. Olympic Hockey Team: Forgotten Miracle

1980 may have been the "Miracle On Ice," but really, the first miracle happened 20 years earlier. That is what the new documentary Forgotten Miracle is all about. I was the interviewer for the East coast contingent of this movie, including coach Jack Riley and the Cleary brothers. I will have much more on the subject later, but for now, click on the link above and check out the trailer below.

Forgotten Miracle Trailer from Forgotten Miracle on Vimeo.

What Bowl Game Does Boston College Get?

I have been trying to puzzle this for a little while now after reading Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel's predictions for college bowl games. As a Boston College beat reporter for WEEI.com, I am naturally curious as to where the team I cover will end up. So, I dug into my ACC notes and tried to figure it out.

Mandel has the Eagles playing in the Meineke Car Car Bowl in Charlotte, North Carolina on December 26th. At first I liked the pick, though for selfish reasons only. If I go to Charlottesville, Virginia to see my family for Christmas then Charlotte is an acceptable destination that I could drive to the next day. Then I looked up the order of selection for the ACC bowl games and it did not seem to make sense. Here is the order of the bowl selections:

ACC Championship winner:

FedEx Orange Bowl

Then:

1: Chick-fil-A Bowl, Atlanta

2: Konica - Minolta Gator Bowl, Jacksonville

3: Champs Sports Bowl, Orlando

Four through six are decided "by preference" of the bowl invitations. Though, in order of financial payouts, it goes. . . .

4: Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl, Nashville

5: Meineke Car Care Bowl, Charlotte

6: Emerald City Bowl, San Francisco

7: EagleBank Bowl, Washington, D.C.

8: GMAC Bowl, Mobile, Ala.

First, if you are an ACC fan, then forget about the EagleBank and GMAC. There is no way that the conference is going to have eight bowl eligible teams. Now, let's look at where Mandel thinks the six other ACC teams will fall.

Orange Bowl: Georgia Tech

-This is probably right, unless Boston College or Clemson finds a way to knock them off in the championship game, which I do not see happening.

Chick-fil-A Bowl: Clemson

-This is assuming that the Tigers can win out and take the ACC Atlantic title before losing to the Yellow Jackets. The Chick-fil-A, Gator and Champ Sports bowls can pass on the ACC runner-up this year if they choose but it cannot fall further than the Music City bowl.

Gator Bowl: Miami

-Big school, big program having a good year. Cannot see why the Gator Bowl would not like having a team from Florida.

Champ Sports Bowl: Virginia Tech

-Pending further unexpected stumbles, the Hokies will probably finish behind Miami and Georgia Tech and be a strong third in the conference. If they lose one more it could be Meineke.

Music City Bowl: North Carolina

-Alright, this is where I get confused. The Tar Heels (6-3, 2-3 ACC) are not going to have as good a conference record as Boston College (6-3, 3-2 ACC) unless North Carolina can win out, which would include a victory at Alumni Stadium on 11/21. The Tar Heels have a great defense but no offense so I just do not see them winning out the conference. Though, if the Eagles can get past the Heels, they just have poor Virginia and Maryland teams to squeeze by on the road. It is possible.

Meineke Car Care Bowl: Boston College

- This is where the idea of "preference" strikes me as odd. Mandel seems to think that the Music City Bowl would prefer North Carolina, which is probably true given the notion that the Tar Heels are located much closer to Nashville than Boston College. Eagles fans also do not travel all that well (they do not even sell out Alumni) but wouldn't it make far greater sense for North Carolina to play close to home in the Meineke?

Emerald City: Wake Forest

Assuming it wins enough games to be bowl eligible, why not? Florida State (which just lost Chris Ponder for the rest of the year) would fall into this category as well. Possible that neither will do it. Or both.

*Note: Duke, by some strange miracle, might become bowl eligible this year and may sneak into EagleBank or GMAC.

These predictions are based on the assumption that Georgia Tech will beat Clemson in the ACC championship game. As it stands right now, there is a good chance of that. Boston College would need to win out and Clemson would have to lose one more conference game for the Eagles to have a shot and hence, the Chick-fil-A bowl (in the Georgia Dome which would make for an interesting Boston College/Matt Ryan storyline). Is that going to happen? Well, probably not, but the denizens of Chestnut Hill can hope.

It all gets kind of subjective at this point, trying to predict what bowl invitations will go where. Strange things happen in NCAA selection processes, that is the way of it. Though, outside of an trip to Tampa for the championship, Boston College will play in either the Champ Sports, Music City or Meineke bowls. In my mind I would guess the Music City based on record and prestige of the program, but I could be wrong. Then again, it is kind of trivial to argue over one spot in the bowl selection process. Oh well.

Make sure to check out all of my Boston College coverage at WEEI.com in The BC Blog.

Sports Chutney Is Going To the 2009 MLB Winter Meetings

That is right folks, your humble author will be attending the 2009 MLB Winter Meetings in Indianapolis. The express purpose for this trip will be to see what is available in the world of baseball jobs at the PBEO job fair, though there will be opportunities to break stories. Make sure to follow me on Twitter at Dan_Rowinski for all the updates from the Indiana Convention Center.

#Mediameltdown? Really, who is the one melting down?

I am sure a lot of you have seen Deadspin's coverage of the Steve Phillips affair and the subsequent "outing" of other alleged affairs at the ESPN offices in Bristol. I am not going to go into the affair itself. Really, I just have one thing to say: the hashtag #mediameltdown? Really? Is AJ Daulerio trying to infer that ESPN is having a media meltdown?

I would think that it is quite the opposite. With Deadspin's coverage, it seems that they are the ones that had the actual meltdown. ESPN lawyers could probably have a field day with Daulerio if any of this is proven to be libelous material. Then, we might not have a Deadspin anymore, which will be a shame. They do good work over there and I would like to see them keep it up but do they have the money to withstand a series of lawsuits by The Word Wide Leader? I doubt it.

Daulerio's antics could cost him his website and really makes a lot of us blogger/journalists look really bad. That is the real crime here.

Note- All opinions on Sports Chutney are those of Dan Rowinski and do not reflect the opinions or policies of WEEI or WEEI.com.