Bethlehem Says

For Tablet, I got to do a profile of Al Rosen, the Indians slugger who probably should be a lot more highly-regarded than he is. After 10 or 12 minutes of prime material, Rosen said “But you’re not going to print all of this. We’re just talking now, like two friends.” It offered a remarkable insight into the relationship between athletes and the media, circa 1956. Rosen knew he had given me enough to write the story, and then gone the extra mile to lend it some shading. His clarification was the equivalent of “background”. But the language he used at that moment, and the assumption of mutual respect, even trust, were relics from another era.

Grantland launched, and as a prominent member of the “writing about sports is a deep and meaningful activity fuck you Boomer” community, I feel obliged to comment. Some disclosure: Early on, when Grantland looked like it might be a writer’s utopia, I made my interest known. Nothing ever came of it, and I’m fine with that, especially given the recent revelations about the limitations, and expectations, inherent in this project.

Nevertheless, I was expecting to find a much different Internet when I emerged from my therapist’s office at 10AM, Pacific Time. There were a few jokes in my timeline, many of which I could have predicted in advance. Other than that, though, it didn’t seem like, to paraphrase one friend, there had been any need to gird my loins in advance (I already have every STD in the book, anyway). For a launch that got its own Doomsday clock, Grantland’s sure was weak. Maybe I don’t know how to make a splash on the web; understand how slowly people read; or get the true value, and elegance, of negative space. Mostly, I wanted more than two features, a preview of a blog that appears to not yet exist, and the introduction to the Grantland oral history, on the way from Miller and Shales in 2057.

You’ve probably already formulated your own opinions about the design, the advertising, and maybe the content itself. My main gripes, other than being robbed of a Major Cultural Event, are more esoteric.

I don’t get opening with Simmons, Klosterman, and Chris Jones. Actually, I do; it’s the site’s two biggest names, and probably the most high-profile contributor. To the extent that Grantland did make a bang, or a dent, today, it was with that star power. However, Simmons was adamant about hiring “unknowns” who would be turned loose to “do their thing” and rise to prominence under his watchful gaze. The preview pieces from Katie Baker and Molly Lambert fit that bill; that was the site’s opening salvo. And then today, just the good ol’ boys. I wonder if the ambivalent response to those first two offerings inspired a change of course … or if some suit at ESPN was sick of being told that indie cred is a brand-building virtue.

I also sort of resent the perpetual cat-and-mouse game today seems to set us up for. After the previews, many suggested that we suspend judgment until the actual launch. Today scarcely represents any kind of cornerstone, or solid foundation for critique. I get that Grantland is an enormous project that, even if it weren’t were ESPN’s meddling, would take months to really hit its stride.

But as a reader, I’m wary of being coerced into a holding pattern, or being told that I’m a feral prick if I seek to draw any conclusions before the appointed date (Launch 2?). Grantland isn’t process, or becoming; it’s a major market initiative by a company flush with cash, and whether as art or commerce, should be able to at least make its intentions clear (no, telling isn’t the same as showing). I respect its right to grow and find itself organically. At the same time, at some point its identity has to become fair game. That’s not just about would-be critics, either. It’s about keeping the loyalists awake and charged, too.

Last night I saw Steve James’s latest, The Interrupters. Predictably, it’s hard, well-done, and raises as many questions as it answers, which is the point with his films. In one scene, a 17 year-old recently released from prison goes back to the scene of an armed robbery to apologize to his victims. No one comes away feeling good about the meeting; it’s hardly what you might call “redemption”, or a feel-good scene. But it brings some closure, and allows everyone involved to concentrate on fixing the present, instead of remaining stalled in the past. It’s a time-honored technique, as is the one-on-one moderating that Chicago’s CeaseFire uses to head off confrontations before they escalate into violence. But when most of the city’s murders are, as the film notes, interpersonal and not gang-related (structural) in nature, this approach makes sense. No matter how obvious it may seem. Well, obvious once you get moderators out in the neighborhoods whose own checkered pasts gives them the authority, and access, to intervene.

It is totally inappropriate of me to stick Rick Reilly in a post about teen violence and making the world a better place. But if The Interrupters showed that on-site penance is powerful even if we see it coming, we might have to make an exception for journalism. Early last week, I guess, Reilly wrote about how the Heat are proving everyone, including him, wrong. He reiterated all the times he, and others, had bagged on Miami, before eating some crow, reveling in it, and comparing this “I told you so” to other times it’s happened. Somehow, though, it seems inadequate. It’s one thing to commit a crime and then go back, two years later; that’s two singular occasions, equal and parallel, separated by time and toll. Reilly’s mea culpa is more like those after-the-fact corrections in print media, or the Republican strategy of lying, then maybe recanting once the news cycle has had a chance to disseminate falsehood.

I am by no means equating the Heat with politics or urban problems. The substance of Reilley’s column (ugh), though, goes well beyond being right or wrong about the outcome of sporting matches, and crosses over into truth and fairness—not so different from someone confronting the consequences of his past behavior. Reilly is looking, in one fell column, to make up for everything he and his right-seeming colleagues have said this season. Months and months and months of it. It shouldn’t be so easy. For this to be genuine, or mean a thing, Reilly needs to log just as many “oops” pieces. Of course, he’s hoping that things will turns around after one game of the series, so he can go back to his old ways. Otherwise, if the Heat have made him “eat crow” or “told him so”, is it any more than a technicality for him to acknowledge so? Was Reilly wrong and full of shit all along, or is he just inescapably out of step with the news-cycle for the time being?

ROYAL WEDDING TIME. I’m surprised at how easily I agreed to stay up all night watching this. In all honesty—no bullets here, please—I’m half-expecting to click it on and find a World Cup match. I’m not sure if that reflects poorly on my appreciation of soccer, proving it to be oh-so circumstantial, or has the makings of some dopishly advanced reading of major European cultural events, sports or otherwise. Also, as is fast becoming the theme of this blog, they all look the same.

Maybe I’m willing and eager because, if the stars align as expected, I will miss any and all live basketball tonight. We’re supposed to go to a screening of Cutter’s Way tonight, and while I should have time to squeeze in a thorough DVRevisit of Lakers/Hornets between homeless Jeff Bridges, late work, and royalty fixin’ to breed, it’s not the same. And frankly, after last night’s orgiastic full slate of playoff action, I don’t know if my basketball muscle can stretch any further. Sometimes I finish a book, slap it down on the nightstand, and immediately pick up another. At those moments, I am a total asshole who cares little for myself, others, or the fate of culture in this universe as anything more than disposable ironies or quips of information.

There is such a thing as basketball overdose—the NCAA shields us from it with its low-grade product, and the NBA rarely hits us this hard, this fast, with so many different compounds. These playoffs, though, aren’t just the best first round in years—they’re the only first round ever to, as a whole, warrant a blue ribbon. Am I mentally and physically prepared for what may be Chris Paul’s last stand, when his playoff showing has been mass theology (as compared to the Grizzlies materialist shake-and-shimmy)? Yesterday, we were treated to the young gunz Sixers winning the battle of style against Miami, and handing Mr. Moral Victory Doug Collins another emblem for his sash; the instant classic that many missed between the Spurs and Grizzlies; and Thunder/Nuggets rising up to meet its own promise, then obliterate that hope as Durant reminded us, you know, what he’s all about.

Maybe I’m lacking in fan fiber for not wanting to think too much about hoops today, but I could these accusations around: Overkill yields numbness, and once you lose those sensors, exactly what are you left with on the television screen?

A brief word about NBA-TV: One, I am fairly certain they used the Grizzlies feed on purpose. Bad as it is, there likely would have been a mass living-room riot if Sean Elliot had called that game. And, on the question of “Z-Bounds”—I had, in fact, watched the Grizz on League Pass, and yet somehow, that phrase never registered. Local broadcasts are supposed to be all uneven, warbling, and likely corny as fuck. When they’re shifted to NBA-TV during the regular season, maybe you raise an eyebrow, or giggle a little, but still, you understand them as provincial. Homers like Elliot or Heinsohn make me death, and yet really, what expectations do you have? Bringing them out into the harsh light of the playoffs, though, is really too much.

I suppose there is some good reason why the NBA can’t alter its national games without weeks and weeks of warning, and it likely involves rights and money—not just logistics. And I’m by no means a fan of the national crews. Still, it just looks foolish when a game that big, and that eagerly anticipated, is left in the hands of the “Z-Bound” guy. It’s charming, I guess, when the right team wins, but it only highlights how out of their league these local crews are—and how badly they stand out when the NBA enlists them, unwittingly, to take center stage. There, that’s my excuse for never noticing “Z-Bound” before last night. Or at least not retaining it.

I write about Kenny Smith, and his miraculous new projection toy, with a heavy heart. Last night, the Inside the NBA gang revealed their newest gag: Kenny cringes at a vaguely homoerotic acrobatics show (Staples at halftime); Charles takes it easy and reminds us of his infinite heart of tolerance; Kenny mistakes “time out” for “pause” before correcting himself, then hammers it home with a tweet and an LOL. Granted, overly-muscled Slavs contorting each other in bulging gold briefs certainly warrants some comment. It would just be nice if the league’s resident “cool dads” could have handled it with their usual combination of snark and earnestness—or at least realized that, after Kobe’s misstep, uncomfortable catharsis probably wasn’t in their best interest.

But that’s not what I want to talk about; nor I do have any interest in calling for Kenny’s head (or his Keys, or his Pictures). One of the most exciting developments of the 2011 playoffs has been the arrival of Kenny’s latest tool for detailed analysis, an exercise in literalism, grandiosity, and high-tech silliness that’s really too funny to not have a form or brand attached to it. I suppose it’s an extension of “Kenny’s Pictures”, and the quick-on-his-feet Smith christened it “The Picture Show” last night. I had tried desperately to get “The Temple” or “Kenny’s Temple” to catch on in the Twitter-sphere (which is to desperation what Venus is to toxic gases). But it also calls to mind the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, the curtains drawn back at an palatial old theater, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, mega-church evangelists, and this year’s celebrity game, where Eric Gordon donned a costume and acted out a scene from Gladiator in front of a green screen. It is at one toweringly stupid, instantly accessible—I just bought an iPad for a baby, btw—and maybe, despite it all, immortal. This could be TNT’s Gone With the Wind.

What’s so peculiar about The Picture Show is how little it accomplishes, at least in terms of what we’ve come to expect from this kind of gimmick. Technology has generally served to enhance the viewing experience, allowing us to see the game through the eyes of an expert by slowing time, zooming in, and scribbling all over a Telestrator. It makes us better, smarter fans, and in the right hands, provides a reason to not watch games on mute. The Picture Show, though, just gives us a life-sized Kenny inserting himself into the action to point at shit. There are very few pauses or slow-motion indulgences. Kenny stands there, in the middle of it all, and yells. It’s a distant cousin of an earlier feature, where the crew would get up out of their chairs and pretend to coach each other. While unmistakably technical and instructive, it also had obvious limitations—i.e. it demanded the viewer correlate these out-of-shape buffoons in suits with the game in progress. The Picture Show has no drawbacks. The game is present, a hallowed object blasted out at us from megaplex-sized screen, and Kenny is its high priest, wandering about to simply point out that, literally, he walks among it still. It’s a walking tour of the heavens, and only Kenny can ascend those steps and part those curtains.

Somehow, the best comparison I can think of is Longreads. Is it tradition, with all its lofty mystique, colonizing technology, or technology co-opting the past to uncertain ends? In writing, the past is shit previously considered too long to survive on the web. In basketball, it’s a way of seeing the game that depends on life-sized figures and an informant standing amongst them. What interests me most is that, in both cases, there’s a distinct sense that something well-branded and prestigious is being accomplished. Well, at least that’s what I want the Picture Show to be. If the name sticks, and that walk up the steps becomes ritual, it might be getting there. The question is, does a sports fan really crave distinguished atavism?