Long road back: Baltimore Sun editor heartened by support after suffering brutal attack

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Jonathan Fogg starts an entry in his new blog: “One week ago tonight, my life changed forever.”

Fogg, who works on the Baltimore Sun sports desk, was attacked during a robbery. From Pamela Wood’s story:

Jonathan Fogg, 30, was returning home from work at about 1:40 a.m. Jan. 14 when he was attacked, police said. The assailant struck Fogg in the head with a brick. His injuries include skull fractures, gashes on his head, missing and damaged teeth and broken fingers.

The good news is that Fogg isn’t in this alone. Fogg’s family set up a site to help pay for the considerable treatment that won’t be covered by insurance. On the site, Melissa Fogg Castone writes about the wonderful outpouring of support thus far:

One week ago today, after a snap decision to try to seek out some good out of a horrific situation, I created this page. Since that time, almost 700 people have donated almost $27,000 to Jon’s recovery, and the story has been shared over 1,400 times via social media. Jon’s story has appeared on the ABC, CBS, and NBC news stations in Baltimore, in newspapers, and in online news sources. Never did our family think that our reach would extend this far, but we are so grateful to all of you that it did.
We have decided to raise the goal one last time: to $30,000. Preliminary estimates for Jon’s dental reconstructive work are $20,000 alone, so we hope to raise as much as we can. These donations will be used for Jon’s future medical/dental expenses as they relate to his injuries. If we meet the $30,000 goal, I can guarantee that we will still be as shocked as we have been with the entirety of this campaign. We will continue accepting donations above and beyond this point, but we will no longer raise the goal after tonight.

On his site, Fogg writes:

This guy (who has been arrested) didn’t know what he was messing with when he decided to go after me last week. He thought he was targeting one person, but what he failed to realize was that he was going after all of Baltimore. And Baltimore has always been known for defense. I’m proud of, and humbled by, your support.

It really shows the power of social media. Here’s hoping a speedy recovery and return to work soon for Jonathan.

 

Weekend wrap: Erin Andrews is Kim Kardashian of sports TV? Musburger’s uncertain future; vintage call of ’65 NFL title game

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Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media…

Erin Andrews: Jeff Pearlman, writing on his blog, does a takedown of Erin Andrews. He compares her to Kim Kardashian. Too harsh?

The thing is, Erin Andrews has done nothing wrong. She was born pretty, she was a college athlete, she speaks well and she likes sports. If someone wants to pay her huge amounts of money for that, well, so be it. She’s the Kardashian of televised sports—and being a Kardashian has worked out pretty well for the actual Kardashians. The problem comes when something like the Richard Sherman situation arises, and Fox’s sideline star looks overwhelmed and out of her league and lost. Bonnie Bernstein (the gold standard, in my opinion), fires right back—hard. So does Jim Gray—confrontational, edgy, oft-hated—but a guy who doesn’t digest an athlete’s nonsense with an crooked smile and a “Back to you, Troy …”

Sigh

Rare TV audio: Classic TV Sports has vintage audio of the 1965 NFL title game with Ray Scott, Ken Coleman and Frank Gifford. There’s more on the site with a complete analysis. Very cool.

Network shilling is nothing new. At the 11:15 mark of the 4Q video, Coleman does a promo for the CBS telecast of the meaningless Playoff Bowl (a consolation game between 2nd place teams) and hypes it as a “big one”.

Brent Musburger: Richard Deitsch at SI.com reports that Musburger isn’t pleased with how he’s being treated at ESPN. And if the network makes the change, who will replace him as ESPN’s lead voice on college football.

As first reported by James Andrew Miller, Musburger has been offered the job of lead college football announcer for the upcoming SEC Network, which debuts at the end of August. It is unclear whether Musburger will take that offer, as some sources I spoke with noted he is unhappy with how the process is shaking out. What seems clear is that Musburger is being pulled from the lead announcer spot for ABC’s Saturday Night Football, which is ESPN’s top game each week. (Musburger, via ESPN PR, turned down an interview request from SI.com. “He isn’t doing any interviews on the subject,” said an ESPN spokesperson.)

More Brent: In a college football roundtable at Awful Announcing, Musburger’s future is among the issues discussed.

Fang: I don’t agree with this and Brent may have an age discrimination case if he so desires. Brent still has his fastball and shows no sign that he’s slipping. ESPN is caught between a rock and a hard place as Chris Fowler’s contract is expiring this year and it wants to keep him happy. He’s been with the network since the late 1980’s. According to two published reports, Brent has been offered the top spot at the SEC Network, but has yet to accept it. Brent deserves to bring ESPN into the College Football Playoff era, but it appears he won’t have that opportunity.

Covering Super Bowl: Deitsch at MMQB talks to veteran reporters on what it is like to cover the Super Bowl circus.

Werder: For me, the most frustrating element of Super Bowl week is that while you have access to all the players and coaches for several days, there is almost no opportunity to speak with prominent players individually or in small groups, or to develop a logical line of questioning that’s usually necessary to extract something of value. It’s also unnerving to be responsible for covering a team at an event of this magnitude when the story of the day might exist anywhere in the room and be delivered at any time. Richard Sherman is going to be closely followed—especially after his remarks following Sunday’s game—but the quote everybody wants could come from any of his teammates from somewhere across the room in the presence of other reporters working for prominent newspapers, TV networks or websites without me knowing until after media access has been completed.

NHL Revealed: Steve Lepore at Awful Announcing does a Q/A with Ross Greenburg on NBC SN’s new NHL show.

Steve Lepore: You obviously have an extensive history in working on shows like this, but was there anything about the actual production of this as you went about it?  

Ross Greenburg: I think when we announced that we were gonna follow the nine teams that are in the [Stadium Series] through those games and the Sochi Olympics, and do a behind-the-scenes on the NHL and what happens to those star players when they transition… it’s one thing to say it, and it’s another to actually do it. 

It’s been an awesome task to send out multiple crews around North America and get the access from all the nine teams in order to execute on the vision, and that’s a tall task but my co-executive producers Julie Bristow and Steve Mayer, they put together a heck of a team. We’re getting closer to episode one and we’re pretty proud of what we’re delivering. 

We definitely fulfilled the promise that we’re going to take people inside, it isn’t the first time, but we’re going pretty deep. We’re seeing babies born in the hospital, we’re getting a pretty sentimental night with Martin Brodeur in Montreal in this first episode. He’s reunited with his family after the recent passing of his dad, and goes on the ice and plays a pretty spectacular game for the Devils as they beat Montreal, a typical Martin Brodeur stage toward the end of the game.

We’re everywhere we want to be, and I think we’re everywhere the viewers want us to be.

Super Bowl restraint? Michael Bradley at the National Sports Journalism Center asks for the impossible: toning down the hype for a Super Bowl week in New York.

It will be an excruciating process, and weariness with the Sherman story should set in by about next Monday. There will likely also be many cries of “enough!” regarding the coverage of Manning, because talk of his legacy, his place in history, his health, his record-setting season and his future will be ubiquitous. Then there are his myriad car and pizza commercials, which are likely to occupy entire half-hour blocks of programming.

It would be great if there were some restraint exercised leading up to the game. Talk football, for sure, but try not to manufacture outrage and anger. These teams have no beef with each other. Trying to create one is the worst kind of “journalism.”

Podcasts: Sports-Casters is back with a new Podcast that includes an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins. Fang’s Bites has a podcast with ESPN book author James Andrew Miller.

Andrew Catalon talked curling in an Awful Announcing podcast.

 

 

 

 

Outdoor hockey games: Brilliant move by NHL, NBC to fill NFL void

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I am a bit concerned that having so many outdoor NHL games will wear down the novelty of these events. However, it is brilliant marketing by the league and NBC to schedule two of these games this weekend.

With no real football to speak of–the Pro Bowl doesn’t count as real football–the NHL and NBC should gain many non-hockey viewers looking for alternatives with their remotes. There will be appeal to see how you can pull off an outdoor game at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night. Then the outdoor game on Sunday at Yankee Stadium will provide a sneak preview for how cold Roger Goodell and his pals will be in watching the Super Bowl the following week.

The NHL and NBC wouldn’t generate nearly the buzz or ratings with two regular-season indoor games this weekend. So a tip of the cap to those in the marketing department.

Here’s what NBC said about the games during a teleconference this week:

Jeremy Roenick (working both games): Being at Dodger Stadium, I think, is epic for the National Hockey League and I think it’s epic for NBC. It’s going to be interesting — the elements, playing in those elements — I think people are going to be really energized and excited to see that kind of game and our kind of broadcast put over the airwaves — which is going to be totally different than we saw over in Detroit with the Winter Classic.

Moving on to Yankee Stadium — it’s going to be a long flight. But again, I think Doc put it perfectly. Such a perfect place to have a game like this in such, I think, a historic — not so much building, but just the overall – the history behind the Yankees and being in New York.

NBC executive producer Sam Flood: The only concern now is how bright the sun will be on Sunday because it’s going to be a beautiful, cold, sunny day and we just got to make sure that the eye black under the players eyes so that they can see the puck and look as mean as the NFL players.

Doc Emrick on playing in Yankee Stadium:  Selfishly I wish we were still in the old stadium because there would be a lot more history that I wouldn’t have to qualify by saying over in the other parking lot where the old place was. But those are just phrases that are easy to rule out.

Flood on having too many outdoor games: And in terms of the number of games we’ve got to see how this plays out this year. The NHL obviously is going to study it and see how it plays and we’ll look at the ratings and we’ll look at where we all are and I think we’ll all have a good sense of it.

But until you try something you don’t know how it’s going to be so it’s not worth guessing whether it’s the greatest thing ever or maybe we’ve gone too far, we’ll see and hopefully it’s the greatest thing ever and we continue to have some fun like this but we’ll get to the right place.

Posted in NHL

Strahan defends Sherman’s postgame rant: Comments about him a lot worse

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I’m still surprised at all the shock and disgust over Richard Sherman’s postgame interview with Erin Andrews. I’m more surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

They take place almost immediately after games, when players have been jawing and trying to kill each other for 60 minutes. There are highly combustible moments, and it should be expected that more than a few of them will explode when somebody sticks a microphone in their face in these situations.

During a Fox Sports conference call yesterday, Michael Strahan defended Sherman. He understood the emotions that the Seattle DB was feeling at that time.

Strahan had some telling comments.

Said Strahan: “A lot of backlash unfairly came toward Richard [Sherman] because everybody wants to know what it’s like and wants to be on the inside, but when they get a glimpse of it, they get scared of it and they want to criticize the guy who did it. Richard is a good guy, he’s a smart guy, and he’s an inspirational player to a lot of kids who are going through some bad situations and growing up in not the best neighborhoods, but he made it out …

“Off the field, that’s not Richard, but on the field it is. When you see that side, you can’t complain, you can’t be scared, because when he’s on the field, he has to have the utmost belief in himself. We all did at that time when we were playing, because if you didn’t (don’t), you’re not (weren’t) going to survive out there. I don’t fault him at all. The comments about him are a lot worse than anything he ever did.”

Indeed, this wasn’t about sportsmanship. It was about being in the heat of the moment. Sherman clearly was still playing the game.

It made for great, brutally honest TV. Deal with it.

And now on to Super Bowl week.

 

 

Posted in NFL

Vince Lombardi, high school coach: Must-read ESPN.com piece on roots of a legend

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If you’re looking to fill the football void this weekend with something more substantive than watching the Pro Bowl, read this wonderful piece on the roots of Vince Lombardi in ESPN.com.

Ian O’Connor, a gifted writer, attended the same New York high school where Lombardi got his start as a coach. In fact, remarkably it was his only head coaching job prior to taking over the Packers.

O’Connor organized a meeting with several of the surviving players who were the first to experience Lombardi’s greatness. The presentation includes videos of their discussion.

O’Connor writes:

They can tell you how he could gauge a student’s untapped potential within a week or two of class time, and how he understood the necessity of building up any player he’d spent a stormy afternoon tearing down. So these are the stories from some of the oldest Lombardi Saints, ages 84 to 91, many of them still living within a short drive of the high school that shut down in 1986, and of the grand old Gothic church Lombardi attended every day. Some told their stories over the phone, some at a gathering at a New Jersey restaurant. The stories belong to men who played football and basketball for him, and to a woman who played six-on-six basketball for him and who still sounds ready to run through a wall on his command. They still hear him as if he were standing before them, spittle flying, his voice loud enough to be heard over the jitterbug music playing on the cafeteria jukebox at lunchtime.

Yes, Vincent Thomas Lombardi is very much alive to these oldest living Saints.

In an interview with ESPN’s Front Row, O’Connor talks about writing the story.

What surprised you most about Lombardi throughout your research, interviews and writing for this piece?
I don’t think I realized just how good of a basketball coach he was, even without complete command of the Xs and Os of the sport. Lombardi shaped his teams through the force of his personality, and he did win the only boys basketball state championship in St. Cecilia history for a reason. I also didn’t realize he helped out with girls basketball. One of his players, Rosemary Maroldi Diemar, a delightful 89-year-old woman, said her team felt that losing was never an option when Lombardi was around. Of course it wasn’t.

All in all, you will find the entire package more satisfying than watching a bunch of guys play touch football in Hawaii.

Posted in NFL

Sportswriter Chuck Culpepper on reaction after disclosing he is gay: Overwhelmingly positive response

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Last year, Chuck Culpepper, the fine columnist for Sports on Earth, wrote for the first time about being gay. I did a Q/A with Chuck on his decision to write about that part of his personal life.

Now it is a year later, and Jeff Pearlman on his site did a Q/A with Chuck. He talked about the reaction.

By the time I did get to it, any discomfort about it had shrunk to minuscule, and I had just spent a lot of time in Boston with a friend I am so lucky to know, Steve Buckley, Boston sports-media superduperstar. I had ridden with him to Foxboro for the Ravens-Patriots AFC Championship Game, the game that led unexpectedly to the brief conversation with the Ravens’ Brendon Ayanbadejo, which prompted the sudden decision to write the column. Steve had written his similar column in January 2011, and he had stressed to me that he had heard from so many people who said it had helped them. If there was one kid out there who happened upon it and derived even a jot of sustenance from it, then there’s a responsibility to write it, and so on.

Athletes didn’t factor into my decision as much as for Steve. He’s a Boston mainstay in a city he cherishes. I’m a nomad who has ended up living, by chance, in 12 cities since college. He has a marvelous home life, with three chocolate Labrador retrievers he shares with an excellent next-door neighbor. I once traveled so protractedly that in my apartment, a cactus died. He appears regularly amid certain teams. I hopscotch.

He got overwhelmingly positive response as did I. In fact, I’m floored at the bullet-train change in the national feelings on the issue. I never expected to live in this tone of country. I would say the leading complaint you get nowadays is that some are tired of hearing about the issue, but in a free society, we’re all tired of hearing about something. Just for starters, I’m tired of hearing about Justin Bieber.

 

Fox producer cut Sherman because it was ‘getting dangerous’; supports Andrews

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During a conference call today, Fox Sports producer Richie Zyontz explained why he abruptly cut away from the now infamous Richard Sherman interview with Erin Andrews.

“I saw a train coming down the tracks,” Zyontz said. “It was compelling television…It started crossing over a line that I did not want to see us go. Erin handled it very well, but I kind of said, ‘Let’s end this thing.’ He’s a good guy, an intelligent guy, an emotional guy and it was very compelling  to watch. But it started getting a little dangerous for us.”

That’s what I figured. It still is remarkable that Sherman could go off like that and not go on a F-bomb barrage.

However, Zyontz couldn’t be sure the language would stay within the acceptable realm for network TV. If Sherman did start unleashing the naughty words for all those young kids to hear, Fox would have been obliterated. Hence, he pulled the plug.

As for Andrews, under the circumstances, there wasn’t much else she could do.

 

 

Comeback analyst: Peter Kostis returns to CBS telecasts following recovery from colon cancer

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It’s much too early to determine the comeback player of the year in golf, but that’s not the case on the broadcast side.

Great to see Peter Kostis back on CBS’ golf crew for its coverage of the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego. He had been out since last May after undergoing surgery and treatment for colon cancer.

Kostis had hoped to be back for the PGA Championship in August, but it didn’t work out. Recently, though, he was given a clean bill of health, making him ready to go for 2014.

Kyle Porter at CBSSports.com reports:

So last year when he had surgery for colon cancer on May 21 and the ensuing preventive chemotherapy that would accompany it, well, he didn’t realize how much he had to learn.

“I don’t know that anybody ever knows how good they can be at something or how well they can succeed at something until they face adversity. How you handle it determines who you are,” Kostis said.

Golf is so primarily about trust. Trusting the golf swing, trusting the putting stroke, trusting your yardages, trusting the process. It seemed like such a transferrable lesson for Kostis to apply to his fight against cancer given that it was something his students were always trying to do.

Trust.

“I kind of had always had that mindset, that [having a doctor me tell me I was cancer free] was going to be the conclusion of this process,” Kostis said.

Kostis’ CBS colleagues are thrilled about his return to duty. Yesterday, I asked them about Kostis on a conference call.

“As you know, it’s very tight family out here,” said Jim Nantz. “We do a lot together (on and off the course). Last year, we had a member of our team missing. So we’re happy to have Peter back.”

Besides his on-course analysis, Nantz says Kostis, a noted instructor, is the best in the business in breaking down and explaining a player’s swing.

“I have been over-lessoned in my life,” Nantz said. “Peter has this knack when he sees someone swing once, he can tell you so succinctly what the player did. And he can do it in simple terms. He does it better than anyone ever has. It is a gift.”

 

 

 

 

Did Lolo make bobsled team because of NBC?

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Do ya think?

Selena Roberts, writing for Sports on Earth, contends that Lolo Jones’ appeal, rather than ability, was the likely reason why she made the U.S. Women’s bobsled team going to Sochi.

It isn’t that NBC was involved in the decision. Rather, the selectors knews that Lolo would generate much more publicity for the women’s bobsled team than a more qualified candidate.

Noting that Lolo has 374,000 twitter followers, Roberts writes:

In close calls in Olympic sports, where some teams leave wiggle room in the rules on judgment day, U.S. Olympic officials tend to rely on Q scores. In figure skating, the close call went to Ashley Wagner over Mirai Nagasu despite the results at U.S. Nationals. This is what’s best for the team, skating officials said, a theme repeated by bobsled leaders, all echoing the same phony jargon that the Karolyi clan uses when choosing the last gymnast for U.S. teams.

The Karolyi Method of subjective selection — honed by Bela and Martha as the relentless pushers of pixies — has always been designed with NBC in mind. It was U.S. gymnastics leaders who lured the Karolyi duo back into the fold after their 1996 Atlanta Games miracle team began slipping from relevance without them just three years later. As I reported for The New York Times in 2000, U.S. gymnastic officials acknowledged, in private, feeling the pressure to deliver for the peacock network, which hoped that the preening Bela would carry its coverage in Sydney in 2000. The team disintegrated, but the wreckage was a ratings hit.

NBC plays an unspoken role in the team politics of the Games. In 2002, as the marketed bobsled duo of Jean Racine and Jen Davidson — supposedly best friends forever — was scoring endorsement deals with Got Milk? ads and landing cereal sponsors, they jarred the media by splitting up just weeks before the Salt Lake Games. Mean Jean, as she became known, dumped Jen from the sled. At the time, Brian Shimer, a bobsled team fixture before he became the current U.S. men’s coach, told a reporter of the breakup, “I saw it coming. I just sat back and knew this was going to get good.”

Yep, get ready for another round of Lolo stories from Sochi.

 

It wasn’t just Grantland: Why did so many top journalists initially not see problems with Dr. V story?

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My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana University is on the fallout from the Dr. V putter story in Grantland.

Here’s an excerpt.

********

I’m fortunate, I guess.

For various reasons, I didn’t get around to reading Caleb Hannan’s story in Grantland on “Dr. V,” the mysterious inventor of a radically different putter in golf, until Sunday night. When I finally did read the entire 7,700-word piece, it was through the prism of criticism that had erupted since late Friday. My experience was markedly different than others.

If I hadn’t gotten sidetracked from reading the story on Wednesday, shortly after it was released, I likely would have been among the people spreading the word about this “gem” at Grantland. So I was spared from having to go back and retract my endorsement once tougher scrutiny cast the piece in a different light.

Others weren’t as lucky.

What stands out for me is the number of journalists, superb journalists, who initially had no problem with Hannan’s reporting and writing of this piece. In his apology on Grantland, editor Bill Simmons wrote, “The piece had been up for 56 hours before the backlash began.”

Think about that. 56 hours. The story was out there for two-plus days before it went from gold to meriting a mea culpa by the editor.

I initially heard about the story while listening to sports talk radio in the car. Dan Bernstein of WSCR-AM 670 in Chicago, hardly a golf guy, talked up the story on his show, directing listeners to his Twitter feed to find the link. Even though Bernstein and I once had differences, I consider him one of the smartest people in sports talk radio. If he is recommending a story of this nature, I want to read it. I’m not singling out Bernstein. Rather, this is an example of the initial reach of this story.

Indeed, when I got home, I saw similar words of high praise throughout Twitter from many people I respect in the business. The names have been well documented.

My point is that Grantland and its editors weren’t alone in failing to detect the ethical questions in the story. Many others were just as culpable with their endorsements.

How is this possible? Bruce Arthur, a columnist for the National Post in Canada, had this explanation. After initially lauding the story to his 144,000 followers on Twitter, he pulled back. In a tweet, he talked about being “mesmerized by the storytelling,” adding, “but I didn’t think it through.” In another tweet, he said: “The story was fascinating, even irresistible at first, and well-pursued. But.”

Richard Deitsch of SI.com had a similar view in his Monday column: “I think I was so enthralled by the reporting and whodunit aspect of the tale – and the skill of a talented journalist – that I failed to recognize some vital issues about the piece.”

Indeed, as journalists, we all had admiration for the highly unusual nature of the story and the reporting by Hannan to uncover the false credentials of the inventor. And then in the end, we learn this woman scientist had once been a man. As Arthur said, it was mesmerizing if you looked at it from merely that perspective.

*******

Here’s the link to the rest of the column.