Petitioning Fox: Give Vin Scully The World Series Mic

Posted by Seth in TELEVISION on 06-24-11    No Comments


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There’s a digital-age movement afoot to give an old-school media icon one last hurrah.

A young man named Matt Falkenbury, co-founder of a New York Mets blog called The Daily Stache, has started an online petition trying to convince the Fox TV network to allow Los Angeles Dodgers announcer extraordinaire Vin Scully to call the World Series this October. More than 6,000 people have signed it so far.

Including me.

For all of the technological advances that have changed the way we consume sports content, there is still no substitute for a play-by-play announcer who acts as your companion and narrates the action. Someone who doesn’t tell you what to think, but observes everything along with you. Someone who speaks without snark or schtick. Few of those announcers exist anymore, but that’s who Vin Scully is, and it would be a wonderful tribute to him and a wonderful treat for fans if he could do it on a national stage one more time.

Scully is in his 62nd year of doing Dodgers’ games, and he’s planning to retire after the season. For generations of baseball fans, his lilting voice, his gift for storytelling and his skill for — of all things — knowing when not to speak have defined baseball broadcasting. To wit, just listen to the last half-inning of his legendary radio call of Sandy Koufax’s 1965 perfect game.

Scully has called the World Series on national TV several times. In the 1960s and 1970s, when NBC had the national TV rights, the network used to let the home team announcers work portions the games. So when the Dodgers made the World Series in 1965, 1966 and 1974, Scully got national exposure. In the 1980s, NBC brought him on to do its national broadcasts, and he worked three more World Series. He called the dramatic 1986 victory by the Mets over the Boston Red Sox, which was so good, it’s even entertaining when it’s set to a re-enactment on the old Nintendo game, RBI Baseball. He was there to call Kirk Gibson’s iconic home run that ended Game 1 of the 1988 Series.

And if you’ll forgive me a fanboy moment, in the finest Scully tradition, I’ll relate my favorite Scully call. It came in the 1984 Series on another Gibson home run. Playing for Detroit at the time, Gibson came to the plate with runners on second and third in the eighth inning of Game 5 to face San Diego’s Hall of Fame closer, Rich Gossage. Padres’ manager Dick Williams came out to confer with Gossage about what to do. With first base open, an intentional walk seemed like a no-brainer. All the while, Scully related a story about how Gossage had struck out Gibson on three pitches in Gibson’s very first major league at-bat in 1979.

Gossage talked Williams into letting him pitch to Gibson instead of giving him a free pass. And Gibson blasted Gossage’s second pitch into the upper deck in right field in Tigers Stadium for a three-run homer that gave Detroit an 8-4 lead, effectively ending the clinching game of the Series. From the crack of the bat, the ball was so obviously hit out of the park that Scully said simply, “And there it goes!”

And then, for about the next 3 minutes, he said nothing else.

NBC’s viewers saw Gibson rounding the bases, heard the delirious crowd in Detroit and then watched as Gibson returned to the dugout, high-fiving his way down the line. Lance Parrish, the Tigers’ next batter, struck out. Through Parrish’s entire at-bat, Scully said not a word. Viewers saw Gossage’s pitches to Parrish, and then were taken back to Gibson in the dugout, who eventually worked his way to where  the Tigers’ ebullient manager Sparky Anderson was standing. And you saw Anderson stick a finger in Gibson’s chest and could read his lips plain as day, as he told Gibson, “They weren’t gonna throw to you … they didn’t wanna throw to you.”

When Parrish struck out, taking the edge off the crowd noise, Scully returned to the mic, saying, “I have a feeling that Rich Gossage talked Dick Williams into letting him pitch to Gibson. And that is a decision that will haunt the Padres all winter long.”

Apart from Scully’s important place in baseball history, it helps the cause that many fans have grown weary of Fox’s team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, who have called 13 World Series since 1996. Buck, quite frankly, sounds bored when he’s doing baseball. He’s much better on Fox’s football package.

We don’t know if Fox will see fit to put Scully the national stage once again. But it would be a classy move. Here’s hoping it happens.



Geeks Turn Twitter Into TWESPN

Posted by Jonathan in INTERNET on 06-24-11    No Comments


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via MIT Technology Review

You know the  nerds have waaaaay too much time on their hands when they start figuring out ways to turn Twitter into live play-by-play.

But that is the state of things.

Researchers from Rice University and elsewhere have published some decent research that shows it is possible to sift through the mountain of crap that is Twitter and come up with meaningful live sports content .

One researcher, Siqi Zhao, according the MIT Technology Review, found that Twitter provides a remarkably accurate sports experience when filtered properly.

There are a couple of catches. For the system to work, you need to know search words to look for  in advance: “goal,” “score,” “kick,” etc. For new events like “meltdown,” “pregnant housekeeper” and “naked Facebook pictures,” the system does not perform well.

Still, it is interesting to see how the destructive tendrils of the web are sneaking into sports. Twitter it seems, like the rest of the digital mob, will not be controlled.

Here is a link to the study and the MIT story.



Replacing Those Broken Ankles

Posted by Anthony Mowl in ALL, GENERAL, Uncategorized on 06-23-11    1 Comment


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For as long as sports have been around, athletes have been breaking ankles. Who can forget Michael Jordan breaking Vince Carter’s ankles when he was 40, or how about the time Allen Iverson pulled a double and broke two ankles with one move? The And1 street basketball tour has an unwritten rule during games: Get your ankle broken and you’re thrown out of the game.

Fortunately for Vince Carter and anyone else who has ended up flat on their ass, there’s a new technology in medicine that’ll put these people back on the floor. Podiatry surgeon Dr. Gerald Mauriello Jr. at the Advanced Orthopedics and Sports Medicine Institute came up with the Scandinavian Total Ankle Replacement system (STAR), a technology approved by the FDA just last year. The total ankle replacement has been in use around the world but only recently has the procedure been approved for use in the United States, likely in response to the increasing number of players thrown out of And1 basketball games.

The STAR procedure was developed to help those with severe arthritis and uses similar technology and materials used in knee and hip replacements. Patients who undergo the surgery usually walk normally and can hit the golf course or go hiking shortly after the ankle replacement. In a press release, Dr. Mauriello says that the STAR Ankle closely replicates the natural movement of the human ankle and has been proven to be a superior alternative to joint fusion procedures. Although the procedure probably hasn’t been used in younger professional athletes yet, it would be interesting to explore whether this is a viable alternative for saving someone’s career.  Who knows, we might see Brett Favre come back again and again if he decides to replace his ankles.

The only downside to the procedure is that it would not be able to fix your ego, a totally different matter. Here’s one more clip for good measure. My regards to the Denver Broncos defense.



Dude, That’s One Hairy Surfboard

Posted by Anthony Mowl in EQUIPMENT, Uncategorized on 06-20-11    1 Comment


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I think I should start investing in companies that make accelerometers. They’re finding their way in just about anything that moves, even where you’d least expect it. Surfing is one of the purest sports you can find, just a surfer on a board feeling the waves beneath them. It used to be the only thing a surfer needed was a wet suit and bare feet. Now, surfers might have to bring an extension cord and a power outlet to to the beach so they can charge their surfboard.

The dudes over at Pukas surf must have broken their boards on a nasty wave, because they tossed their old surfboard. They teamed up with tech company Tecnalia in an effort to gadgetize surfing and came up with a whole new surfboard, the Surfsens. The Surfsens project packs a surfboard with what seems to be the standard cache of toys for any new invention; GPS, accelerometer, and a hard drive that wirelessly sends data to Tecnalia’s proprietary interface in an effort to “change feelings into facts and figures.” Facts and figures? While surfing?

The Surfsens project is initially being used to build better surfboards by measuring torque and flexibility and gauging surfers’ performances on different types of boards and seeing which settings work best. I’m certain there will be major improvements in surfboard design thanks to the data from the Surfsens. Using an electronic surfboard to build better boards sounds logical, but it may not end there. As if surfboards weren’t expensive enough already, developers want the juiced up board to become the standard. They hope a version of the Surfsens will eventually be used in competition. Now, I’m all for innovation, but I don’t want to see judges base their scores on data sets that measure a surfer’s performance. This is where the line between improving a sport and overdoing something gets crossed.

Surfing used to be cool, tanned dudes taking a drop down the face of a wave and hanging 10. For the sport to be reduced to bits of code is one thing. But the idea of having pale nerds at the beach with their laptops potentially chasing the bikini beauties away? Now this, I take offense to. Let’s keep the computers off the beach, and keep surfing as natural and gnarly as possible.



Funny Car Speed Record Hits 316.45 MPH

Posted by Dan in EQUIPMENT on 06-20-11    No Comments


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Evan's Completely Unrelated Photo Of a Car Wreck

Now I know autoracing is usually more of a Blum thing, but I felt I had to shout out to Robert Hight, who set a funny car drag racing speed record in Bristol at the Thunder Valley Nationals.

He ran a record 316.45 mph and he didn’t die or wreck in his Ford Mustang.

“We made eight great runs, and when we needed it the most, Jimmy (Prock, crew chief) pulled it off. I’ve never set any kind of a record before so that’s pretty cool, too,” Hight said. ”I know there are no points for a speed record, but it’s still cool to have”

Which is what makes drag racing the fabulous near pointless techno-exercise it is.

I’m getting the specifics on his engine setup right now and will have more info the podcast returns this week! (No that is not his car, but it is a pretty badass picture taken at the same event.)



Now Your Car Is Talking Baseball

Posted by Seth in MOBILE on 06-16-11    No Comments


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Ford unveiled a new feature for cars equipped with the Sync entertainment system: fantasy baseball player updates.

A couple of verbal commands from you and the Sync system will read you a rundown of the hottest players in the National and American Leagues. You can check out a demonstration of it here.

Now, before you get too excited, it doesn’t seem like this will be all that useful to most fantasy players. More than likely, players on hot streaks are already taken in most fantasy leagues. And here’s hoping that some schmo driving his car doesn’t grab his smartphone and try to look at his league’s free agent list while he’s driving. Hey, if Ford could make a Sync app that could help you make free agent acquisitions by voice command, that would be cool.

But it is a neat little feature that, at the very least, can help you keep informed about who’s playing well. This might be even more useful for fantasy football, since the games are only once a week and making smart roster moves can make a big difference. The baseball updates will give you weekly leaders, which doesn’t help too much if you’re in a league that allows daily transactions.



Apple Patent To Keep Game Recorded Content Out Of The Digital Slum

Posted by Jonathan in STADIUM on 06-16-11    No Comments


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via finpol2

Well, it looks like this sort of innocent picture at a stadium going to go the way of the music industry.

Several Apple researchers have filed a patent that will limit the use of video recorders in public spaces.

Several sites, including CNET, have reported that Apple has begun the process of controlling the intellectual property around the notion of managing infrared systems cameras use to focus on their subjects.

The idea is, public locales will be able to sense that a picture is being taken using an Infrared signal, and then monitor the quality of the copyrighted material in that area. If something of value, say a movie, image or game is nearby, the system will prohibit the device from making a recording. Slick.

Honestly, I think it sounds like a great idea.  Since it can finally bring some value back to digital content.

Link to United States Patent Office

 



The UA E39: Making Clothes Statistically Relevant

Posted by Anthony Mowl in EQUIPMENT, Uncategorized on 06-15-11    3 Comments


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Mark Twain said, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little to no influence on society.” But Mark Twain had no idea that Under Armour clothes would someday make the athlete.

Innovators at UA came up with what they call “the Bug,” a circular device about half the size of a hockey puck and houses a computer, hard drive and accelerometer that goes into a UA compression shirt. Together they make up the UA E39.

What the UA E39 does, according to one of the people who developed the device, is “measure your potential.” But I think it does more than that. It adds a whole other coolness factor that will make even guys like Allen Iverson excited to go to practice. The Bug will measure and instantly send to your computer or mobile device data such as your heart rate, breathing rate, skin surface temperature and accelerometry. The UA E39 was recently unveiled at the NFL Combine where scouts raved about the technology. It clocked 40-times with pinpoint precision and measured the G-Force power of athletes as they burst during drills.

There are still some bugs to be worked out (pun intended). For instance, a player’s speed is measured using GPS, but isn’t as accurate indoors. While Under Armour works on these kinks before its 2012 release, it’s hard to argue that this isn’t going to change how athletes will train. It makes even the most informal practice session packed with data for athletes and coaches to review and analyze. Even team doctors and trainers can monitor an athlete’s body in real-time to make intense sessions safer. More importantly, it levels the playing field.

Previously only professional athletes or major college programs had access to this type of data, and it was only made possible by covering the athlete in wires and putting them on a treadmill in a lab. Now anybody can generate this data and use the UA E39 regularly whether they are doing sprints, shootarounds and drills by themselves or during a formal practice session.

For the more recreational athlete, the applications are endless. I can imagine my flag football league awarding prizes for the fastest player in the tournament, or television networks reporting on G-forces during a game should the UA E39 find its way into shoulder pads. It would add another dimension to watching games. I can’t wait to see how nervous a rookie is before their first playoff game, how a kicker’s heart rate measures up when he’s about to attempt a game-winning kick, or which quarterbacks really do have ice in their veins when leading a fourth-quarter comeback down the field.

As for the second half of Mark Twain’s quote, some things never do change. Thankfully, naked people still have little to no influence on society.

What do you think? What other cool uses can you think of for the UA E39?



Mobilewalla Scores With Sports Apps Rankings

Posted by Silissa Kenney in GAMING, MOBILE on 06-14-11    No Comments


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You know what the world desperately needs more of? Apps. I mean, there’s only  around 700,000 apps, according to Anindya Datta, founder and executive chairman of Mobilewalla, a web platform that compiles and ranks all the apps on the market. Scores are based on an algorithm, “which computes ratings in each store plus the volume and sentiment of the social media conversation.” With Mobilwalla you can find the best-rated apps f0r each category and platform. I played some of Apple’s top scoring sports game apps and found some winners, and some losers.

Touch Hockey FS5 (Free) Score: 98/100

This was my favorite. Who doesn’t love air hockey? With Touch Hockey FS5, the puck glides around the screen just like it does on a real air hockey table. It’s fast and responsive and you can play with friend with Bluetooth or WiFi. It also has three levels, instant replay and awesome sound effects. You gotta love that clicking, smacking sound of the puck knocking around the table, I mean screen.

iBowl Score: 96/100

This bowling app is more interactive. You touch the screen’s “bowl” icon, while tilting the device forward than back to send the bowling ball down the lane. You can place the ball along the top of the lane to hit those split pins. You can compete in bowling tournaments over the internet. I wanted to like this one, but found it a little clumsy and repetitive. I know, that’s the nature of app games, but this one just got boring.

Finger Sprint Score: 96/100

I’m sorry, what?  The game is basically exactly what it sounds like. The image on the screen is a straight track. Then you “run” with your fingers. I ran 1 mile in 6.94 seconds. Ok. Really, I don’t know what to say about this one. I feel like I must be missing a cool gene that would allow me to see why this game scored a 96.

Arcade Hoops Basketball Lite Score: 95/100

You know how much fun it is to go into an arcade and play that basketball game where the balls just keep rolling at you, and you shoot as many as you can in a given time? This is the app for that. I haven’t played one of those in ages, but this app evokes that same eager excitement, albeit in a really compact way. You have a funny looking pair of hands on the screen, grabbing basketballs at your command and tossing them as quickly as possible. You can even play music from your iTunes library while you play. This just might be the laziest way to play basketball, but it’s fun.

Now get to gaming and let the time wasting begin.

 



Love To Run? Let Me Count The Ways

Posted by Anthony Mowl in EQUIPMENT, MOBILE, Uncategorized on 06-13-11    2 Comments


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Not only are Americans getting fatter, but we’re also getting slower.

The last time an American won the Boston Marathon was Greg Meyer in 1983, and it doesn’t seem like we can win a Tour de France without some type of doping scandal. App makers are coming up with ways for us to use our iPhones to motivate us to get off the couches and start running and cycling. Let’s face it, we can’t do anything without an app these days, can we?  Fortunately, there are plenty of free apps that’ll help you find inspiration to hit those trails.

The Nike+ iPod app works with sensors in Nike+ shoes and tracks your speed and distance while running. It lets you set workout times or distances and has words of inspiration from athletes like Lance Armstrong, who tells you when you’ve had a great workout at the end. Sensors cost about as much as dinner for two at Chipotle and a six-pack of beer, which likely explains why other shoemakers haven’t caught on yet.

RunKeeper was the first free GPS tracking app for runners and cyclists. It lets you keep track of your route, time and average speed and post your workout on social networking sites. It uses the GPS feature on your phone so you don’t have to buy any hardware, and can save your money for snacks. Long distance runners and cyclists couldn’t use RunKeeper because it would drain the battery by the time they’re halfway through a marathon. I wasn’t able to reproduce this issue and haven’t experienced this problem myself because I’m not able to run long enough, not by a long mile. I’ll try again without the beer next time.

Map My Tracks markets itself as a solution for the battery-draining apps. It calls itself a “light-weight, low-power app that is designed to make live tracking at long distance events a viable option.” It only saves on the battery because it turns the GPS on periodically and fills in the blanks, as opposed to RunKeeper which hums throughout your entire workout. While Map My Tracks targets the hardcore runners and cyclists, it’s also designed to be a social tool for supporters and organizers to track event participants.

All this innovation is fine, but it probably isn’t going to help us get off the sofa or take back the Boston Marathon. People who can’t run don’t need another app to tell them how quickly it takes them to get out of breath. And the last time I checked, there was no GPS coverage in the Kenyan desert. There’s some other trick up Kenyans’ sleeves. Maybe it’s that they don’t have Chipotle’s “burritos as big as your head.” What we truly need is an app that’ll let me write safely while I run or bike. Now that would get me moving.