Part Of A Growing Entourage

In a rant about Jeremy Roenick, Jason Whitlock reveals some truth plenty of men are probably carrying around these days:

Me, jealous of professional athletes? I ain't that stupid.

I'm jealous of entertainers, the ones who appear to be free of societal expectations. I want to be Vincent Chase or Turtle or Johnny Drama or Eric. I wanna live the life HBO captures in the series "Entourage."

That's living. That's my fantasy, and the fantasy of every guy I know. The fact that Vince and his crew are cocky, spoiled and lazy doesn't enrage me at all. The fact that Ari is a greedy, unethical, grossly manipulative agent doesn't make the showbiz world seem less attractive at all.

Indeed, he's hit this one on the head. For some other thoughts on the show that I posted last September, click here.

Windy City Windbags

Detroit native Laura Demanski is getting tired of the Chicago White Sox announcing crew:

These guys I'm suffering now cloy in (admittedly unfair) comparison to [Ernie] Harwell—not to mention being some of the worst homers I've heard. The ones on the radio are, I think, more respected by the fans but share this tendency. I've seldom heard a Sox game in the car without them letting loose something along the lines of "if this Sox batter gets on and the player on deck hits a home run, we'll have a tie game." Or "if this guy hits a single in just the right location, the runner on first could score," rash speculation stated as if it's considered expert opinion. Sigh. Is it so hard to simply report what happens on the field? If that most unlikely circumstance occurs, does the Sox fan find it enhanced by having been predicted in about the same way a broken clock is right twice a day? Somehow I doubt it.

Sounds like they've gotten their degrees from the Tim McCarver school of broadcasting.

When you get a chance, embrace the pain.

Closed Captioning And Unintended Consequences

Just got a short note from my father I thought I'd share. Just as a reference point, he works for a company that sells closed captioning equipment:

One of the biggest advantages of Closed Captions is that you can mute the TV program and still follow the dialogue. Am watching Wimbledon, gratefully you can turn off the stupid grunts and screams coming from the two players and still get the commentators' comments. It sounds like a bad wrestling match between two wounded animals -- Williams and Sharapova.

Here's an technological advance I'm looking for: selective muting for sporting events. Hit the button, Tim McCarver's voice disappears, and all you hear are the stylings of Joe Buck. I think there would be a market for that.

UPDATE: Venus Williams wins. She'll get either Lindsay Davenport or Amelie Mauresmo in the final.

Trouble At The Turnstiles For The Nats

This morning, the Washington Post fronted a story recognizing that while the Washington Nationals have been a success at the gate so far in terms of tickets sold, team revenue is being curtailed due to the fact that the Nats have a slightly higher percentage of fans who buy tickets but fail to show for the games:

The Nationals sold an average of 32,019 tickets for their first 33 games, from their home opener in April through June 12, a pace that puts them on track to meet their preseason projection of about 2.5 million tickets for the season.

But the average number of people who attended those games was 24,679, according to data provided by the D.C. Sports & Entertainment Commission, which operates RFK. This figure, known as the turnstile count, is rarely divulged by professional teams but is closely monitored in the sports industry.

The rate of unused tickets at RFK was 23 percent, slightly higher than the 15 to 20 percent that a professional team should expect, industry analysts said. And the difference means less money for the city in taxes from parking spaces, hot dogs and all the other things fans buy at RFK.

So far, the higher no-show rate is being attributed to the large percentage of corporate season ticket holders who bought ticket packages, but aren't using them. Further . . .

The unpredictable aspect of how many fans use their tickets might make Wall Street leery of giving the city a good rate on bonds that are financed by tax revenue from the stadium sales, said Natwar M. Gandhi, the District's chief financial officer. He used this argument when he recommended that the city accept a private financing plan from Deutsche Bank. No decision has been made.

Which of course, would drive up the price of the new stadium before you can say, "eminent domain". How much more, of course, would be up to the folks on Wall Street.

Left unsaid in the article is one bitter truth that I mentioned last October: If the revenue collected from the stadium taxes doesn't cover the debt service, then the balance will have to come out of the District's general revenues.

I don't take any joy in this news. Now that the Nats are here, I want to see them succeed. I've already been to four games this season, and will probably be going to a lot more. But it's still sobering to see that the warnings we heard in the run-up to approval of the stadium may very well come to pass after all.

UPDATE: A few days ago, Ryan at Distinguished Senators was wondering out loud why the first place Nationals couldn't draw more than 40,000 fans to their last weekend series.

Housekeeping Note

What once occupied this space was a report, that quite frankly, didn't have any credibility at all. I shouldn't have linked to it in the first place. In short, I was had, probably too willing to be had. It won't happen again.

My apologies to my readers, and to Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez, who have enough garbage to put up with without me peddling somebody else's trash.

Colby Cosh's Unassisted Triple Play

Lots of good stuff over at Colby's place for you to peruse. First, take a look at this NHL Draft Analysis, and who really has the best chance of snagging Sidney Crosby. And Colby, those of us from the Island think four straight Stanley Cups and 19 straight playoff series victories were well worth the antics of Billy Smith. As far as I'm concerned, we all paid the piper at Game Five of the 1984 Stanley Cup Finals in Edmonton.

It's been 16 years since Field of Dreams was in theaters around North America, but we're only now getting the inside story behind how the book it was based on, W.P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe. Be sure to visit the Minneapolis Star-Tribune to see what I mean.

And finally, if you're a fan of hockey, you can't really avoid picking up some knowledge of Quebecker seperatism. And for many Americans, that movement is embodied in the slogan we occassionally see on the license plates of La Belle Provence: Je me souviens. As it turns out, time and tide have changed the meaning a bit. And I guess I shouldn't be surprised, as others have appropriated it for their own purposes from time to time.

More Cuban On MGM-Grokster

GELF managed to get hold of Mark Cuban for a short interview on the MGM-Grokster case:

Gelf Magazine: Is this a major victory for the entertainment and recording industries?

Mark Cuban: No. It's a major victory for lawyers everywhere. The entertainment industries didn't stop anyone or anything. The amount of illegal file-sharing didn't change a bit because of the ruling, nor will the industry be able to change anything as a result of the ruling. They just got the right to sue some people—Grokster et al—who don't have any money. That's not a victory.

They may take license and try to sue technology companies that they feel present a threat to them. Honestly, that will be worse than suing students and grandmothers because it will be obvious what they are trying to do and it will rally all the technology companies, venture capitalists, businesspeople, and entrepreneurs against them because of the inherent threat to their businesses.

For a look at my post from earlier this week on Cuban's previous statements on the case, click here.

UPDATE: Martin Devon had some interesting related thoughts a few days ago.

Picture Of The Day

Courtesy of Dan McLaughlin.

Thanks Dan, this arrived by email when I really needed it.

Putin And The Super Bowl Ring

Now that the Cold War has been over for better than a decade, it's sometimes hard to remember just how high the tension could be racheted between the U.S. and Russia back then. By comparison, the latest international incident involving the former Soviet Union seems strange, and rather trivial:

Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?

Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin -- who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, said Russian news reports.

Kraft, who's on travel, couldn't be reached for comment. As for Putin, a Kremlin spokesman insists that the ring was a gift, sort of like Eastern Poland in 1939.

Currently In Development: Beer League

Thanks to Peter Leveque of Calgary for passing along the link to a proposal for a television "mockumentary" following the travails of a beer league hockey team.

Apparently, the producer is looking to attract the interest of a producer in Canada, and I'm not chary about pointing everyone in their direction. Be forewarned, the language on the trailer is NSFW.

Props To Reemer

One of the folks I've been fortunate enough to come across while sports blogging is Karim Mayan, aka Reemer. After a couple of years at ESPN, Karim now has "Bristol in his rear-view mirror," and has joined the crew over at Fox Sports Interactive in Los Angeles.

Safe to say, ESPN's loss is Fox's gain. Congratulations to Karim, and best of luck out on the left coast.

Eric And The Book Meme

When Skip Sauer asks a question, how can I refuse to answer? So here are my answers to the book meme that's been rocketing around for a couple of weeks. Like Skip, I'll focus on sports titles, but I'll also be sure to toss in odd titles from other genres when necessary.

1. How many books?
Sports titles, probably around 150. Overall, it's pretty hard to know, as most of my library has been boxed up since my last move because I only have one bookcase. So I guess 500 altogether.

2. Most recent purchase
Boys Of Winter by Wayne Coffey, where the former New York Daily News sportswriter recounts the story of the 1980 U.S. Men's Olympic Ice Hockey Team. I enjoyed it, but for some reason, I found the HBO documentary Do You Believe In Miracles, as well as the Kurt Russell vehicle, Miracle, to be far more compelling than Coffey's book.

3. Currently reading
Just inhaled Drama City, the latest from George Pelecanos, producer of The Wire. The most recent sports titles were The Punch by John Feinstein; The Devil Wears Pinstripes (painful to read, even for a confirmed Yankee hater like me) by Jim Caple; The Bad Guys Won by Jeff Pearlman; The Game by Ken Dryden and Juiced by Jose Canseco (Canseco recounting how he brought his agent along on a date with Madonna is a classic. He thinks he's Rico Suave, but he's really Pobre Gauche.)

4a. Five books that "meant the most"

Bums by Peter Golenbock. No, I have not read Boys of Summer by Roger Kahn. Yes, I know this book is near heretical because Golenbock is a self-described Yankees fan. Still, Bums was my first detailed introduction to the team my father grew up rooting for, and has provided grist for endless hours of baseball conversation between us. Read Bums and you'll never forget Pete Reiser.

Hockey Sur Glace by Peter LaSalle. Even though this slim collection of poetry and short stories came and went without much fanfare, it will always have an honored place on my shelf. If you're a hockey fan, try to find a used copy for sale, as the story of Le Rocket Negre is worth the price alone.

Football Against The Enemy by Simon Kuper. I guess I could have dropped Hornby's Fever Pitch in this slot, but Kuper provides a more ecumenical experience. In the years running up to the 1994 World Cup, he planned a trip around the world on a shoestring budget and managed to get anywhere and everywhere that Football (Soccer) really matters. You'll meet a former East German man whose love for his football team led him to be followed by the Stasi. You'll meet mobsters in post-Soviet Russia who control professional sports in that country. And there's even time for dive into the sectarian ugliness of the Celtic-Rangers rivalry. If you're an American who would like a breezy, but substantive, introduction to the international game, Football Against The Enemy is for you.

A Civil War by John Feinstein. One year in the life of the Army-Navy football rivalry. America is lucky to have men such as these.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. Sure, everybody has read it by now, but it was a real revelation for me (Always be open to new sources of information). It profoundly affected the way I work and blog, and continues to every day of the week.

4b. The Worst Sports Book Of All Time.
Oh Baby I Love It! by Tim McCarver. Like being stuck in an airport bar with the Fox broadcaster during the blizzard of the century. Now some books, like Canseco's Juiced, are so bad they can actually be entertaining on a certain level. Not so with McCarver. Rushed into print in the wake of the Mets victory in the 1986 World Series, everything about this book is slapdash, right down to cover photo of McCarver leaning on a bat on the first baseline at Shea Stadium wearing a sport coat and tie. What's wrong, couldn't get the rights to even one photo of McCarver on the mound with either Bob Gibson or Steve Carlton?

5. Who gets next? Baseball Crank, Chris Lynch, Tom Benjamin, Chris Neddham and Steve MacLaughlin.

"They're always rip-offs."

Thanks to Colby Cosh for unearthing an old interview with John Lennon on the real deal when it comes to charity concerts.

More Bad News From The Supreme Court

You have to admit they've been on something of a roll lately:

Internet file-sharing services will be held responsible if they intend for their customers to use software primarily to swap songs and movies illegally, the Supreme Court ruled Monday, rejecting warnings that the lawsuits will stunt growth of cool tech gadgets such as the next iPod.

The unanimous decision sends the case back to lower court, which had ruled in favor of file-sharing services Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. on the grounds that the companies couldn't be sued. The justices said there was enough evidence of unlawful intent for the case to go to trial.

File-sharing services shouldn't get a free pass on bad behavior, justices said.

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by the clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice David H. Souter wrote for the court.

I'm not going to do much else other than link to something that Mark Cuban wrote over at Blog Maverick back in January:

With all the home movies we are creating and saving on our computers. All the digital pictures of our families and friends. All the personal music created at home. All the corporate data and presentations. All the books, software, newsletters, newspapers, discussion forums, blogs, websites and emails that are created and saved digitally. How big a percentage could music and movies be ? 1/10 of 1 percent? At most ?

Every single one of these items can benefit from the distribution efficiencies created by Peer to Peer networks. Every person and company in this country that wants to exchange digital data can benefit from peer to peer technologies. Just because the uses aren’t prevelant or obvious to some today, doesn’t mean they won’t be in 1, 2, 5 or more years from now.

In the MGM vs Grokster case, the fewer than 50 companies who control less than 1 pct of all digital information are trying to take control of innovation in the technology industry and pry it away from the rest of us.

Everything our imagination creates and touches that can be made digital is at risk if Grokster loses.

What innovations will be condemned by law before they have a chance to come to market because they could have an impact on Hollywood and the music industry? We have no idea and that is a very scary prospect

Now that very scary prospect has come to pass. And the American technology sector and the economic growth it provides are potentially at risk. Here's Cuban again, this time from last March, when he revealed that he was helping the Electronic Frontier Foundation to fund the Grokster defense:

It won’t be a good day when high school entrepreneurs have to get a fairness opinion from a technology oriented law firm to confirm that big music or movie studios wont sue you because they can come up with an angle that makes a judge believe the technology might impact the music business. It will be a sad day when American corporations start to hold their US digital innovations and inventions overseas to protect them from the RIAA, moving important jobs overseas with them.

That’s what is ahead of us if Grokster loses. That’s what happens if the RIAA is able to convince the Supreme Court of the USA that rather than the truth, which is, software doesn’t steal content, people steal content, they convince them that if it can impact the music business, it should be outlawed because somehow it will. It doesn’t matter that the RIAA has been wrong about innovations and the perceived threat to their industry, EVERY SINGLE TIME. It just matters that they can spend more then everyone else on lawyers. That’s not the way it should be.

But thanks to the Supreme Court, that's exactly the way it is now.

More On George Soros And The Nationals

Just moved on Drudge:

Despite the Washington Nationals' successful start to the season, to some Capitol Hill Republicans there is a dark cloud on the Nats' horizon: the potential that their newly adopted home team could be purchased by billionaire financier George Soros!

Soros has joined an ownership bid being led by entrepreneur Jonathan Ledecky that is angling to take over the Nats, who are currently owned by Major League Baseball.

ROLL CALL reports: Soros pumped more than $20 million in the last cycle into groups seeking to unseat President Bush and elect Democrats and relates that the very prospect that Soros could have a stake in the team is enough to irritate Congressional Republicans.

I posted about this earlier this month, and I can't say I'm terribly surprised.

UPDATE: Radley Balko is outraged. Jeff Cooper too.

NHL Carnival Update

I'm happy to report that Steve Ovadia of Puck Update has agreed to host the third edition of "The Carnival of the NHL" -- the periodic tour of the latest and greatest from all of the hockey blogs on the Web.

But given the relative dearth of news these days, Steve and I have agreed to hold off for about three weeks in hopes we might launch the next carnival somewhere in the vicinity of aresolution of the labor situation. So sit tight, and we'll be fixing a specific date sometime soon.

In the meantime, I'm not sure "Carnival of the NHL" is a terribly compelling name. So, if you have a suugestion for an alternative title, send it to me here at Off Wing. As an added bonus, I've got a cache of "Quit Puckin' With Our Game" magnets to give away. Just send your entry to me ASAP, and I'll give every entrant a free magnet as a prize until I run out of stock. Thanks to our friends at "Quit Puckin'" for the swag.