Box Score Beat

Just Click It — 6/28/09

Posted on 28. Jun, 2009 by Collin Orcutt in Just Click It, MLB, NBA, NFL

Fresh off having my heart broken by Team USA in Brazil’s second half goal deluge (and still unsure what to make of a post Michael Jackson world), I’m in need of cheer, and perhaps you are too. Here’s a quick list of some good sports journalism to help:

• To begin, some YouTube fun. These two videos of minor leaguer Josh Womack have been floating around all over the net, but on the slight chance you haven’t seen them yet, here is a baseball player’s answer to Tiger Woods/the Nike Freestyle commercial (well, maybe that’s a little exaggerated, but still). Videos one and two.
• The NBA Draft is one of the best events for a basketball fan, but usually one of the worst for journalism. What exactly are you going to write about an event that is literally people having their names called–especially when its potential story lines have been tread into the hardwood weeks prior to the actual night? Most sites/writers either do a running journal on the night’s occurrences (Googling “NBA draft live blog,” for example, returned 29,000,000 hits just now) or give each team grades on their selections post-draft. Despite the journalistic overkill, there were a few pieces that I found worthy of sharing. The first is a humorous piece by Ty Hildenbrandt where he bestows fake awards to the players. I know, it’s not a groundbreaking idea, but his is well executed and made me laugh out loud early in the morning a few times.
• The second comes from, somewhat surprisingly, Deadspin. They asked a body language expert to analyze the handshakes of 20 different players, with an accompanying slideshow. Gimmicky and fascinating.
• Darren Rovell  lists the salaries of the lottery picks in the draft, but more interestingly, sheds some insight into the salaries of these players’ agents as well. Hint: they’re not what you might think.
• One more draft link. If you followed the night, you know that David Kahn, the new President of Basketball Operations for the Timberwolves, caught flack for drafting point guard after point guard. It quickly became a self-perpetuating joke about the Wolves’ continual failings as a franchise. Celtics blog Reds Army offered a different perspective on Kahn’s thought process, though, and I’ve got to say, it seems plausible.
• Stepping away from the draft, Seth Davis wrote about a side effect of the college basketball coaching carousel. Many of the pre-coach swap players try to transfer (rather than risk being cut from the team in some cases) — but not all of them are granted permission to do so. It’s a worthwhile glimpse into the big business that is D1 basketball.
• Lastly, a second link from Deadspin (I know, I’m a little amazed too). Deadspin can be pretty nasty to both athletes and journalists, few moreso than Rick Reilly. I’ll be up front, I’m not a huge fan of Reilly’s current stuff either. I think the majority of his ESPN.com work is formulaic and corny (then again, who am I?). But regardless of whatever Deadspin and I agree upon about Reilly, there is little question that he possesses writing chops. In homage to this fact, Tommy Craggs lays out five excellent Reilly features from before his back page days at Sports Illustrated. I haven’t made it through all of them yet, but they’re on my short list. They should be on yours too.