Joe Posnanski: Lord of Lists

[johnmd20]

For those who have been able to move on from the Paterno mess, let me just say that having Pos post everyday on SoE about the baseball playoffs is like taking something great and making it...er, greater. Like the Olympics, he shines when he can has something meaningful and different from which to mine his material. His column on yesterday's play-in games doesn't disappoint.

Sports on Earth as a whole has been absolutely stellar, mainly because Posnanski is carrying the mantle with a copious amount of brilliant columns. This is what Grantland lacks, someone like Poz to lead the way and be a reason to visit the site on a daily or every other day basis. Simmons in his best era had a similar quality but he's not even remotely playing the same sport as Posnanski is right now.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I've read about a thousand articles on Pete Rose (for the record: I am, and always will be, a fan - I put him in a category with Manny Ramirez where I just don't want to hear about anything non-baseball), but Joe actually got me to read another entire long-form piece about him. I'm not sure I learned a thing, but I enjoyed the hell out of it.

This is wheelhouse stuff for Joe, and there's no newsy angle or reason to write another piece about Pete, and it's probably something his editor just asked him to do because he figured it would generate pageviews, but I don't care. It's still incredibly humanizing, which is one of the things Joe does best. Pete Rose hit and Joe Posnanski makes me care about things I didn't know I cared about. Both are as good as they come.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I'm surprised Rose didn't remember where Posnanski was from. Posnanski's "The Machine" was pretty much about Pete Rose.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I was thinking the same thing, but I'm pretty sure Pos wanted us to have that reaction and that he thought it was telling about Rose - he can remember stats like a savant, but people are a blur to him. I can't tell, though, if Pos not saying, "despite the fact that I wrote a book about the 75 Reds and have interviewed him a number of times," is some kind of humility on his part or because he thought it would sound crass.

He was pretty open about pimping the book back before he got grabbed by SI. Maybe USA Today doesn't take as kindly to him mentioning some of his other sources of income? Doesn't really make sense.

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

I thought Posnanski's "Jeter-era Yankees" bon voyage today was mostly a swing and miss.

The comparison of the two 18-year periods is really forced, considering you can extend the earlier 18-year period back by another 18 years and pick up another 8 World Series titles, and seems contrived to suit his purpose. And why is this the mouthpiece-falling-out moment and not the year they didn't make the playoffs after Torre left? Why are they more likely not to reload now than before? Because Mo is gone? Isn't Soriano basically just as good, the same way that Mo was just as good as Wetteland (BTW, just noticing that Rivera had a 5.51 ERA in 67 innings in 1995 - crazy)? They can't find a shortstop as good as Jeter going forward? Cano is broken forever now because he had a bad post-season? Granderson as Adam Dunn is now a bad thing? Isn't Joe the one who's always saying people don't appreciate one-true-outcome guys enough? CC is broken forever now? Gardner will never be a great lead-off guy again?

Oh, I get it. It won't be THESE Yankees. Okay. Jeter will be on the team next year, but it won't be Jeter's Yankees. Rivera will be back, but it won't be "the same." I get that they just got waxed, but pre-2009 they lost in the ALDS three times in a row. The Sox embarrassed them in 2004. They've been punched in the mouth plenty of times over the last 18 years and they keep getting up because Cashman is a good spender of lots of money.

Joe is usually so thoughtful, but this seemed hackneyed sentimental bandwagon riding. Everybody wants to thrill in the Yankees' demise (ESPN had four stories about the Yanks on the frontpage this morning, 1 about the Tigers, who, you know, actually won the series), but it all seems a little bit overblown to me. The beat the feel-good Orioles and then ran into a buzzsaw of pitching paired with a fluke injury and a collective team slump. Big deal. This isn't anything like Tyson getting knocked out by Buster Douglas to me.

 

[coremiller]

I thought Posnanski's "Jeter-era Yankees" bon voyage today was mostly a swing and miss.

The comparison of the two 18-year periods is really forced, considering you can extend the earlier 18-year period back by another 18 years and pick up another 8 World Series titles, and seems contrived to suit his purpose. And why is this the mouthpiece-falling-out moment and not the year they didn't make the playoffs after Torre left? Why are they more likely not to reload now than before? Because Mo is gone? Isn't Soriano basically just as good, the same way that Mo was just as good as Wetteland (BTW, just noticing that Rivera had a 5.51 ERA in 67 innings in 1995 - crazy)? They can't find a shortstop as good as Jeter going forward? Cano is broken forever now because he had a bad post-season? Granderson as Adam Dunn is now a bad thing? Isn't Joe the one who's always saying people don't appreciate one-true-outcome guys enough? CC is broken forever now? Gardner will never be a great lead-off guy again?

Oh, I get it. It won't be THESE Yankees. Okay. Jeter will be on the team next year, but it won't be Jeter's Yankees. Rivera will be back, but it won't be "the same." I get that they just got waxed, but pre-2009 they lost in the ALDS three times in a row. The Sox embarrassed them in 2004. They've been punched in the mouth plenty of times over the last 18 years and they keep getting up because Cashman is a good spender of lots of money.

Joe is usually so thoughtful, but this seemed hackneyed sentimental bandwagon riding. Everybody wants to thrill in the Yankees' demise (ESPN had four stories about the Yanks on the frontpage this morning, 1 about the Tigers, who, you know, actually won the series), but it all seems a little bit overblown to me. The beat the feel-good Orioles and then ran into a buzzsaw of pitching paired with a fluke injury and a collective team slump. Big deal. This isn't anything like Tyson getting knocked out by Buster Douglas to me.

Had the exact same reaction. He's exaggerating from small sample sizes and concocting a narrative where none exists. The Yankees had the best record in the AL this year, and got cold at the same time Detroit got hot. That's just unlucky. The could sign someone new to play SS while Jeter is out, bring back the exact same team, and still probably be favored to win the division.

Really the death of the Yankees as an "idea", where you expected them to win even when they were losing, where they were "gritty" and "clutch" and won by doing the small things and never beating themselves and who played the right way yada yada yada, was 2004. The mythology has been dead and buried ever since. Since then they've ceased to connect to any larger narrative and have merely been a very good baseball team that spent a ton of money to be just that.

 

[jon abbey]

Yeah, to add to all of that, while they do have some key free agents they might be losing, they've also got some key reinforcements coming back from injury, Rivera, Gardner (who essentially missed the whole year), and even maybe Pineda (I don't count Jeter since he played virtually the whole year).

They've definitely got some work to do, and the combination of most of their top prospects having disappointing years combined with their alleged adherence to a $189M budget for the 2014 season will make the next few years very tricky, but agreed that JoePos made more of this than it probably actually is/was.

 

[jon abbey]

Really the death of the Yankees as an "idea", where you expected them to win even when they were losing, where they were "gritty" and "clutch" and won by doing the small things and never beating themselves and who played the right way yada yada yada, was 2004.

Actually it was probably game 7 in 2001, the Angels crushed them in the ALDS in 2002 and Grady handed them the ALCS in 2003 in between.

 

[Dehere]

I sort of agreed with Joe's premise. This elimination did feel different from prior Yankee eliminations. But then I thought his reasoning went off the rails.

What feels different to me is that I'm not sure a majority of New Yorkers even LIKE the Yankees anymore. Something has changed in the relationship. The empty seats for playoff games in new YS. The caustic front pages of the Post this week. The appallingly low TV rating for Game 4 in NY (it was below an 8; a stunning rating for an LCS game even for a team about to be swept). I think the city has started to turn against the team and when Jeter and Mo finally retire, forget it. It's going to be a sour relationship for a while.

 

[johnmd20]

I sort of agreed with Joe's premise. This elimination did feel different from prior Yankee eliminations. But then I thought his reasoning went off the rails.

What feels different to me is that I'm not sure a majority of New Yorkers even LIKE the Yankees anymore. Something has changed in the relationship. The empty seats for playoff games in new YS. The caustic front pages of the Post this week. The appallingly low TV rating for Game 4 in NY (it was below an 8; a stunning rating for an LCS game even for a team about to be swept). I think the city has started to turn against the team and when Jeter and Mo finally retire, forget it. It's going to be a sour relationship for a while.

You make a really good point and I think that is what Joe was trying to say, although he didn't say it that well. The Yankee team with the core Mo, Jeter, Posada, Bernie, and Andy P is gone and it ain't ever coming back and that reality is officially setting in. Now it's a lineup of highly paid mercenaries(tex, CC) and assholes(Arod) who aren't beloved in any way whatsoever. In fact, they are reviled. Say what you will about the Yanks of the late 90's, they were legit teams who played their best baseball when the stakes were highest. Year after year. Even in the years where they didn't win,(2001, 2003) they were a couple of hits away from pulling it out. During that time, they never bowed out of the post season like they did this year. First sweep in over 30 years. They scored like -11 runs. And they completely laid down on Thursday. It was beautiful. But I can't say I've seen a Yankee team lay down in 20 years.

I think it all started with the high priced seats at the new, and utterly SOULLESS, Yankee Stadium. I think that's why the public opinion has turned against them so badly and why the Post feels comfortable enough to print that despicable cover on Friday. They know people will agree. In a time when money has been difficult to make, Yankee Stadium egregiously wrested money from any and all fans. Those $2,500 front row seats were the epitome of greed. And it turned a lot of people off. This isn't MSG, with 18,000 seats and less games, it's 50,000+ and 81 games. You can't price those things the same and the Yankees did. And they priced so many people out of the stadium, even when the prices were ridiculously cheap, like they were on Stubhub for these playoffs, nobody cared enough to go. It's absolutely stunning, tickets going for 20 dollars in an elimination game. But you couple a soulless stadium with high priced seats and a very unlikeable team, you get empty seats.

But I agree with Joe P in that the Yanks have more issues now than they have had since 1993. They can spend the money, but it might not be enough with this aging lineup of guys who aren't hungry and have already been paid. Next year might be pretty rough on them. I sure hope so. But even if they turn it around, it will be a completely different team altogether to the team that took over the city from 1996 to 2009. That, of course, is inevitable with time.

 

[johnmd20]

Patrick Hruby chimes in on Lance, saying we should have known better. But but but Pat, we did know better. Anyone who isn't a naive idiot knew Lance was doping. There was no other explanation. The entire sport hasn't had a clean winner in anything in two decades. But somehow the one guy who was the best of them all was clean? Please. I cannot believe in today's day and age, anyone would defend the cleanliness of any athlete. They aren't clean and pretending they are is laughable.

Column here:

People are angry at Armstrong. Maybe they shouldn’t stop there. After all, his greatest sin wasn’t doping. Or lying. Or even being a bully, small and petty and cruel. Armstrong’s greatest sin was being human, only doing so in a way that made it easy for the rest of us to think otherwise. To fool ourselves. Armstrong was on drugs. He also was on his bike. What were we on? The same thing we’re always on. Self-delusion.

What a tool Hruby is to play this, "We were deluded and it's explainable," card as if it's some heroic way to look at sports. It isn't heroic, it's stupid. They are all doing it and probably are still doing it today, just with better science. Follow the money Pat, follow the money.

 

[Spacemans Bong]

I think the bullying, especially towards female members of his team, is much worse than doping. I've used this line more often than Henny Youngman asked an audience to please take his wife, but how can anybody think you can cycle around fucking France in three weeks and be clean?

I think it all started with the high priced seats at the new, and utterly SOULLESS, Yankee Stadium. I think that's why the public opinion has turned against them so badly and why the Post feels comfortable enough to print that despicable cover on Friday. They know people will agree. In a time when money has been difficult to make, Yankee Stadium egregiously wrested money from any and all fans. Those $2,500 front row seats were the epitome of greed. And it turned a lot of people off. This isn't MSG, with 18,000 seats and less games, it's 50,000+ and 81 games. You can't price those things the same and the Yankees did. And they priced so many people out of the stadium, even when the prices were ridiculously cheap, like they were on Stubhub for these playoffs, nobody cared enough to go. It's absolutely stunning, tickets going for 20 dollars in an elimination game. But you couple a soulless stadium with high priced seats and a very unlikeable team, you get empty seats.

The thing is MSG is pretty democratic. You're all in one bowl. The old stadium was like that too. There were about four luxury boxes, there wasn't really a club section (did that second level have any perks? I don't think it did) and even bigshots like Giuliani or Paul McCartney sat in box seats among the general crowd. The only guy who didn't was Steinbrenner himself and that's because the fans have beat him up for the first 20 years of his ownership. Half the stadium sat in the huge upper deck and no stadium in the world is going to have an upper deck of chi-chi dilettantes who don't care about the score because you're sitting too high up to be seen by TV.

The Core 4 are gone and people hate the team, and ticket prices are larcenous for all except a few sections of seats. It's likely that people care about that more than the moat, or the fact you're pretty much banned from huge sections of the stadium unless your income is well into the six figures. But considering the way the Yankees (and Mets) nakedly chased the hedge-fund ticket bloc and fell flat on their faces and the poor attendance both teams are getting it's hard to think the two teams couldn't have built new stadiums that are better than what they have now.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I know that Gary Sheffield is about as popular as rug burn around these parts, but Sports on Earth has a fascinating article on him.

It's really well written, Sheffield is candid as hell and there's a really nice flow to the piece. It might be one of the best, most interesting things I've read online in the last few months.

 

[OzSox]

Hopefully those who stopped reading Joe because of the Paterno stuff have come back to him. Otherwise, you're missing some tremendous work. The latest example is today's brilliant piece on baseball broadcasting and Bob Costas.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

He's still posting separate pieces on his blog as well...not that I'm a Springsteen guy, but I thought he nailed this one the other day:

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/baseball-and-bruce_23.html

 

[joyofsox]

Costas thinks there are things that have been lost in modern baseball broadcasting: subtlety; story telling; a genuine effort to allow the rhythm of the game to emerge without overpowering it with bustle and replay and sound.

Not all the time. I recall more than one game in which Costas suddenly got on a soap box about some issue or another in the 8th or 9th inning and his pompous pontificating immediately overshadowed the entire game. And he would not shut up until he had made all of his points. (I wondered what would happen if the game ended before he was done. Would he keep lecturing?)

I do look forward to more parts of this series from Joe, though.

 

[Dehere]

He's still posting separate pieces on his blog as well...not that I'm a Springsteen guy, but I thought he nailed this one the other day:

Joe Posnanski is my all-time favorite sportswriter.

Bruce Springsteen is, without exaggeration, one of the most influential people in my life outside of my immediate family.

But I tried and I couldn't get through this piece. I'm done. I just can't take anymore lionization, deification, appreciation, deconstruction, regurgitation, or anything else-tion of Bruce by sportswriters. I'm sure it's a good essay because everything Joe writes about Bruce is somewhere between pretty good and incredible, but I've filled my lifetime quota.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Springsteen thing is pretty good. I wonder if he'll play it tomorrow in Hartford. I'll report back!

 

[cromulence]

Joe Posnanski is my all-time favorite sportswriter.

Bruce Springsteen is, without exaggeration, one of the most influential people in my life outside of my immediate family.

But I tried and I couldn't get through this piece. I'm done. I just can't take anymore lionization, deification, appreciation, deconstruction, regurgitation, or anything else-tion of Bruce by sportswriters. I'm sure it's a good essay because everything Joe writes about Bruce is somewhere between pretty good and incredible, but I've filled my lifetime quota.

Not sure how old you are but as someone in their mid-20s who isn't a hipster I've been feeling this way for a long, long time (outside of the whole liking Springsteen thing). I've concluded it's a generational thing - when he did the Super Bowl halftime show, my mom and step-dad thought he was fantastic. I thought he was laughably horrible. To each his own.

 

[Leather]

Well, just because the Halftime Show was horrible doesn't mean Springsteen is horrible. And it was pretty horrible. But that's not really the point.

I think Peter King owes Joe an apology for stealing the Springsteen "thing" and basically shitting all over it. Joe has been writing about Bruce for at least 4 years now, and I can appreciate it (even if he has been repeating himself a bit lately) because I think Joe thinks about these things and legitimately cares for Springsteen's music. I'm not saying that makes his writing any better, necessarily, but it's coming from the heart and while I roll my eyes a little bit, it's alright. And in this particular case, there is a Springsteen song being used for the MLB Playoffs, so it's appropriate that Pos bring him up again.

King, and other assorted writers, draw on Springsteen as a crutch when they have nothing to say. It goes without saying that Peter King isn't a serious Springsteen fan, although for the past six months he's decided he'd like to be regarded as one. His Springsteen writing is just vapid and pointless (indeed, it merely serves as an excuse to NOT write about football), and it makes me angry, because I am a pretty big Springsteen fan, and I hate to see people get turned off to him/his music on the basis of some idiot giving mindless praise. If some moronic asshole I knew kept saying "ERNEST HEMINGWAY IS THE BEST AUTHOR EVER....GOT TO READ ANOTHER HEMINGWAY BOOK YESTERDAY, WOW!....FAULKNER IS GOOD, BUT HE'S NO HEMINGWAY!" I'd sure as shit be disinclined to ever read any Hemingway ever again, so I can't blame people, but it still bugs me.

 

[nattysez]

Pos had a run of tweets the past few days that rubbed me the wrong way:

I live San Francisco. Love it! But being told "We don't sell Diet Coke" gets a little old after a while. Organic cola = gross.

http://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/274257784181231616.

So he's branding the whole city of SF based on, as far as I can tell, one experience. This is classic Peter King behavior. The responses to this tweet were a deluge of "what the hell are you talking about?" So he responded:

Here at Slanted Door. No Diet Coke. Rest my case.

http://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/274266220872728576

Slanted Door is a very upscale restaurant located in the heart of the Ferry Building in SF, which is largely an organic market. Instead of realizing that maybe he's just at a place a bit too fancy for his tastes, he defends a statement about all of SF by saying "I'm at one place that has a certain characteristic, so my saying this characteristic is true of most of the city is defensible."

Then today, after news of the KC murder-suicide breaks, he tweets:

His Wikipedia page has already been hacked disgustingly. Technology. RT@MySecondEmpire Chiefs player's name has surfaced online.

http://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/274906030415175681

No issue with this, but then someone points out that Wikipedia wasn't "hacked" -- it's an open forum to which anyone can contribute. Pos responds:

You obviously didn't see the original hack. RT @hansenry it wasn't hacked. You realize how Wikipedia works right?

http://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/274906596809785345

So it's pointed out that saying Wikipedia was "hacked" was wrong, and his response, instead of trying to understand why he was wrong, was to insult the person who tweeted at him. Again, a small point of semantics, but the tone here is much different than what I'm used to from Joe.

Then this:

Looking like really, really good Bruce seats in Oakland. http://instagr.am/p/SrcLBgDVVv/

https://twitter.com/JPosnanski/status/274716008957227008

I think this is fine, but I could see some people feeling a bit annoyed that he was trumpeting how good his seats were. If Peter King did this, I'd be annoyed.

So these are all really small things, the last one not even clearly an issue, but something about this series of tweets really rubbed me the wrong way. The self-deprecating, curious tone of most of JoePos's writing was replaced with arrogance and a misplaced self-assuredness. It's probably nothing, but Peter King and Simmons both went from being well-liked writers to being despised by many, and I think this kind of stuff is why.

 

[Leather]

I don't consider tweets to be on par with what a writer puts in his columns.

When Posnanski's breaks away in the middle of a column to go on, at length, about some mindless gripe he has about the lack of diet coke, he can be fairly compared to King.

I don't think his comments are bad at all (and I think it's clear that the Slanted Door comment was made BECAUSE it's an upscale restaurant, as in "If I can't get it here, then I give up."), but they are exactly the type of thing that people put on twitter every day.

I think you're beef is less with Posnanski's and more with the aesthetic of Twitter.

Oh, unless you're Peter King, in which case you use Twitter to self aggrandize, be sanctimonious, and make childish rejoinders to slights.

 

[Lose Remerswaal]

Anybody can get those seats at a Springsteen concert if your TM Tao is strong.

 

[BannedbyNYYFans.com]

Pete Abe, Joe Pos, Sean McAdam, and Peter King. That's one strong dose of eye candy for the ladies at a Springsteen show.

 

[Foulkey Reese]

His Wikipedia page has already been hacked disgustingly. Technology. RT@MySecondEmpire Chiefs player's name has surfaced online.

Less disgusting than what JoePa turned a blind eye too. Those tweets, as well as his behavior during the scandal make him look like a complete asshole.

 

[Spud]

[sup]If he continues to write stuff like this, I'm willing to be a little bit more forgiving on the question of whether he's getting too taken with himself: [sup]http://joeposnanski....erruptions.html[/sup][/sup]

 

[Bergs]

[sup]If he continues to write stuff like this, I'm willing to be a little bit more forgiving on the question of whether he's getting too taken with himself: [sup]http://joeposnanski....erruptions.html[/sup][/sup]

He is just so fucking good at what he does.

 

[Batman Likes The Sox]

A really interesting post about the best players of all time per the Topps Numbering System. One way about thinking which players were the most popular or considered to be elite for the most years since Topps has put out card sets.

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-topps-numbering-system.html

Spoilered for people who want to guess at the top 10:

Spoiler

10. Pete Rose
9. Nolan Ryan
8. Mickey Mantle
7 (tie). Henry Aaron and Barry Bonds
5. (tie) Rod Carew and George Brett
3. Willie Mays
2. Alex Rodriguez
1. Reggie Jackson

 

[JimBoSox9]

A really interesting post about the best players of all time per the Topps Numbering System. One way about thinking which players were the most popular or considered to be elite for the most years since Topps has put out card sets.

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-topps-numbering-system.html

Spoilered for people who want to guess at the top 10:

Spoiler

10. Pete Rose
9. Nolan Ryan
8. Mickey Mantle
7 (tie). Henry Aaron and Barry Bonds
5. (tie) Rod Carew and George Brett
3. Willie Mays
2. Alex Rodriguez
1. Reggie Jackson

He's officially the modern-day Gammons to me. I haven't read anything that interesting about baseball in the Globe in a decade.

 

[Spud]

Does anyone have any information about Joe leaving Sports on Earth?  He is no longer listed as a writer and hasn't posted anything there in quite awhile.  Meanwhile, he's been posting frequently on his own blog.  I searched news stories for him and found a link to Awful Announcing and a headline saying that he is going to NBC.  I can't open the link, however, so I didn't post it here.

 

[johnmd20]

Does anyone have any information about Joe leaving Sports on Earth?  He is no longer listed as a writer and hasn't posted anything there in quite awhile.  Meanwhile, he's been posting frequently on his own blog.  I searched news stories for him and found a link to Awful Announcing and a headline saying that he is going to NBC.  I can't open the link, however, so I didn't post it here.

 
It was discussed in the Sports on Earth thread. He's gone from SoE and is going to NBC.

 

[Spud]

It was discussed in the Sports on Earth thread. He's gone from SoE and is going to NBC.

 
Thanks.  Missed that discussion.

 

[touchstone033]

You've got to wonder what's going with Poz and his jumping around to different organizations. This is -- what? -- his third significant move in the past couple of years? I mean, why would you give up a SI gig so quickly? And he was so excited (apparently) about SoE...and then he jumps ship for NBC just a few months later. Just...odd.

 

[The Talented Allen Ripley]

$$$$$

 

[MyDaughterLovesTomGordon]

He's definitely in a holding pattern of some sort. The blog posts have mostly been regurgitations and those "birthday" posts. Almost nothing on current events. When's the big NBC debut? I can't find anything online.

 

[Trlicek's Whip]

You've got to wonder what's going with Poz and his jumping around to different organizations. This is -- what? -- his third significant move in the past couple of years? I mean, why would you give up a SI gig so quickly? And he was so excited (apparently) about SoE...and then he jumps ship for NBC just a few months later. Just...odd.

 
Couldn't tell if this was a purposeful Peter King reference, but nicely done. 

 

[JimD]

$$$$$

 
Probably stability as well.  Newspapers are dying.  SI unsurprisingly seems to be struggling as a print publication, it hasn't found any success in convincing subscribers to embrace its digital edition, and it failed to leverage its brand in the Internet age and consistently lags behind ESPN as an online presence (it's a commodity alongside Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports and others, IMO).  Maybe SoE didn't live up to his expectations - it's a great idea in concept but could be easily dropped by its parents (USA Today and MLB) since it is an independent site not really tied to either.  NBC Sports probably looks a lot safer than any of those places.

 

[gtg807y]

Guess now it's officially official: 
 
NBC Sports welcomes Joe Posnanski

 

[Brianish]

His first effort is a retrospective on A-Rod, which strikes me as well below his usual standard. 
 
http://www.nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50877666
 
It's mostly a narrative of the major stages in A-Rod's career with some thoughtful commentary interspersed. He usually builds his work around a much bigger idea, and lord knows there are plenty of those intersecting in A-Rod. Kind of disappointing he didn't do more with it. 

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

So this is going to come off as petty bitching, but now I have to add another site to my daily routine? I already go to his blog, I've become accustomed to going to SoE and now I have to check out NBC Sports too?
 
I wish that the dude would stay in one place.

 

[Phil Plantier]

Or at least post links on his blog.

 

[Muddy Chicken]

I think that it's worth it for Joe, he's very talented. One of very few that I'd follow to other sites.

 

[DaubachmanTurnerOD]

His first effort is a retrospective on A-Rod, which strikes me as well below his usual standard. 
 
http://www.nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/50877666
 
It's mostly a narrative of the major stages in A-Rod's career with some thoughtful commentary interspersed. He usually builds his work around a much bigger idea, and lord knows there are plenty of those intersecting in A-Rod. Kind of disappointing he didn't do more with it. 

 
 
I had the same reaction to the A-Rod piece: it had a flavor of Joe's standard fare, but was ultimately bland and missed the mark.
 
Is the assumption that SoE will fold soon, or do people expect it to carry on without him?

 

[DeJesus Built My Hotrod]

It seemed like he mailed it in on that ARod piece.  The subject is so complex and controversial.  Alex Rodriguez might just be the most widely loathed sports superstar ever and yet all we get is a step by step narrative of his fall from grace.  
 
I would have preferred Joe to take more time on the subject and, if possible, get some direct (anonymous) quotes from former teammates about the good and bad of playing with ARod.   Something more in depth and well rounded would have been preferable to using his buddy Baird and citations from other pieces on ARod.  
 
As this thread has illustrated time and again, Posnanski can be a victim of his own greatness.  This article is a prime example.

 

[JimD]

You guys are way too harsh.  The A-Rod piece wasn't his best work but I thought it was an interesting premise and a solid read.

 

[nattysez]

JoePos on Theo: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/51282651/ns/sports-baseball
 
Kind of a pedestrian outing -- hasn't this article already been written about Theo 250 times?
 
Related: Cubs writer calling out Pos a bit.

 

[Foulkey Reese]

This is Pos at his absolute worst imo. Almost embarrassingly over the top.
 
 

MESA, Ariz. - The great thing about being a
super hero is that you get to disappear into a secret identity after you save
the world. You can put your hands on your hips, stick out your chest, and
announce: “My work here is done.” And then you dash off, maybe to the Fortress
of Solitude or the Bat Cave or an invisible plane, but eventually you take off
a mask, put on glasses, do something with your hair, and melt into the
tranquility of your secret identity.


And nobody asks you when you’re going to
save the world again.


* * *


This is the story about a boy who keeps
trying to save the baseball world. He didn’t know that would be his fate. He
only knew he loved baseball. He wasn’t especially good at baseball. He just
loved it. His whole family loved it. Heck, everyone he knew loved it. The boy
grew up in Boston — Brookline, to be precise — so his love of baseball filtered
through the Boston Red Sox, and the inevitable heartbreak they caused. He was 4 when
Bucky Dent hit the home run that broke Boston’s heart. He was 12 when
the baseball
dribbled through Bill Buckner’s legs.

 

[mauf]

Pos is writing for a national, general-interest audience, so it's not surprising that he didn't say anything about Theo that SoSH regulars didn't already know. I thought it was a solid piece for what it was.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

I've never heard of another team putting out a book for everyone in the organization from top to bottom to follow. I know the Orioles under Weaver had "The Oriole Way" that they installed, but as far as I'e ever heard, they only had a few things written down, a small manual, not a thick book.
 
And every team talks about installing a system like that, but I haven't heard of teams formally putting it down in book form like that. That seems like more of a commitment to actually installing an organizational system than I've heard of before.
 
I thought that was interesting, and was new to me, at least.

 

[John Marzano Olympic Hero]

I've never heard of another team putting out a book for everyone in the organization from top to bottom to follow. I know the Orioles under Weaver had "The Oriole Way" that they installed, but as far as I'e ever heard, they only had a few things written down, a small manual, not a thick book.
 
And every team talks about installing a system like that, but I haven't heard of teams formally putting it down in book form like that. That seems like more of a commitment to actually installing an organizational system than I've heard of before.
 
I thought that was interesting, and was new to me, at least.

 
When he was hired by the Diamondbacks as their first manager, Buck Showalter had a 200-page book on the D'Back way. From how to wear your uniform to what to do in certain game-time situations, Buck covered it all. Some writers fell all over themselves talking about how prepared Showalter was and how he was teaching Arizona how to do things "the right way". 
 
Of course, when Buck was canned some of those same sportswriters were saying that book was an example of how he was an uptight control freak who didn't treat his players like "major leaguers". 
 
I always wanted to see that book.