Poor Jay Heaps

In the span of four games (albeit over two seasons), the New England Revolution defender has seen his penalty kick blocked to clinch the Houston Dynamo's MLS Cup title and taken a nasty elbow from Columbus' Andy Herron.

Annnnnd ... suspension!

Virginia Tech tributes

So far, two MLS teams have lined up to memorialize the Virginia Tech shooting victims: the Houston Dynamo, which is wearing a special jersey, and DC United, which has yet to announce its plans.

If it was up to me, I'd have DC in a full-on Virginia Tech kit for one game, with the United shield on the left chest. Of course, VT might object to a Sierra Mist logo on their shirt ...

Two things

First off, I've been doing a lot of work for Soccer New England lately. Check them out, and quick -- it's your last chance to catch head writer Andrew Hush before he moves on to really big things.

Second, this blogging really is a joy. No editors, no deadline pressure, and all the freedom in the world to add whatever multi-media junk I feel like. No wonder this is getting so popular. Photos? OK! Videos? OK! Podcasts? OK!

This rules.

So does this. I'm reasonably sure it's the Jumbotron feed from a big high school baseball game in Japan, but I have no idea:

Still on the Galaxy ...

Good stuff on Kanell17's Revolution Fan blog. I might have to steal the idea of the poll on the right side.

David Beckham writes like a 10-year-old

But you have to love the accent, and the sentiment.



... and the long version. "Ten lions, one stupid little boy."



... and the cameo. Amazing. "I was only trying to teach an old dog new tricks."

Most pointless "highlight" video ever?

I'd say so. Sadly, this is probably just the beginning -- get ready for 24/7 Kevin Durant and Greg Oden as soon as the NBA season ends.

57-1 ... wow

Bridgewater State College beat Newbury College by that score in baseball early this week. The record-setting game made papers from Florida to California, but I didn't see much outrage (I'm guessing that has yet to come) or decent reporting about it (other than, of course, my own).

I'm surprised on both counts, to be honest. Usually, situations like this end up in self-righteous screaming about embarassment, running up the score and sportsmanship. Here, all I've really seen is the same re-printed AP story. Odd.

To be shameless ...

Here (and here) are my MLS/Revolution season previews from The Patriot Ledger. Should be an interesting year, with Beckhamania!!!!! (If you're there, God, make Victoria Beckham sit in the press box) and the league's new TV deals.

Old-school "One Shining Moment"

Traditional montage from after the NCAA Tournament 20 years ago:

Speaking of Schilling ...

He's a worse sportswriter than he was a pitcher today.

Third inning starts with Sweeney flying out to center on a 1-0 change up. Gordon works another 7 pitch AB before freezing on a hanging split on the outside corner. I get Shealy to end the inning with a 2 seamer inside, for a GB to third. Gload grounds out on a split to start the second inning. Buck then hits a 1-1 2 seam FB down the LF line for a double.

How do you write a running game story when you played in the game?

Bloggers REALLY hate the Globe

And they're just taking the bait this time.

Dan Shaughnessy, the hated columnist du jour (du decade? du lifetime?), published a mock chat session on Curt Schilling's blog in the paper yesterday. Schilling, of course, fired back (has anyone so thick ever been so thin-skinned?) and was joined by the multitudes who are just happy their bloody-socked hero is typing RIGHT TO THEM, WOW!

Nobody is in the right here. Shaughnessy makes his point, but then proceeds to massivly over-make it, and is clearly only looking for a response. Equally self-centered Schilling provides it, calling the columnist a nickname invented by the same Wicked Sawx Dude! types Shaughnessy mocks. And the others (not that FJM -- a great read -- is necessarily among them) are just feeding the egos of a few guys who couldn't give a damn about them.

Everyone knew Schilling's blog would come under fire by reaction-minded "old media" types. Here's the thing: It's not real fire! Shaughnessy can be a great writer, but, here, he's essentially a bad guy in the WWF. The outrage he's getting is nothing but good for him, and the extra attention (as if he needs it) Schilling is getting is nothing but good for him. The people being angry at Shaughnessy and giving die-hard support to Schilling get nothing, other than a potential coronary.

If you don't like the guy -- the one writing the column, or the one writing the blog -- just stop reading. It's that simple.

Landon 3, Ecuador 1

Landon Donovan just added two more goals against Ecuador.

This isn't from today, but it fits:

Pinstripes!

Some thoughts while watching U.S.-Ecuador men's soccer:

- The USMNT jerseys (royal blue with pinstripes) aren't bad.
- Landon Donovan is actually ... good again. When did this happen?
- Clint Dempsey has had better days. So has DaMarcus Beasley.
- The field looks awful, but that's to be expected in a football stadium.
- Bruce Arena isn't getting any less arrogant.
- When do we start getting these games in HD? Come on, ESPN ...

"The Mandarin equivalent of Rush Limbaugh."

Over on ESPN.com, Jim Caple has a look at China a year and a half before the Olympics. Apparently, traffic is an issue.

You know that opening scene of "Office Space," during which Peter is stuck in traffic and notices he's being passed by an elderly man with a walker? This was worse. In 20 minutes we crawled perhaps one kilometer. And all the while, my driver squirmed in his seat and listened to the Mandarin equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. I have no idea what the broadcaster was saying, but he sounded so angry I can only assume he must have been bitching about the traffic.

"Power"? Yeah ... maybe ...

The transfer fee for Clint Dempsey is a little off and calling Fulham and "English (soccer) power" is borderline funny, but it's nice to see smaller American outlets pick up on the amount of U.S. talent going overseas these days.

Dempsey joined teammates Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra in a contingent of 14 Americans currently playing in the EPL. They are clearly making a statement that the USA is now a prime recruiting market for prestigious clubs in England. One such club is coming to Maryland to do just that.

Just for fun, here's Brian McBride scoring to beat Manchester United (with bonus foreign commentary!):

“Have you heard of O. J. Mayo?” the man asked.

From nyt.com, one of the best college basketball recruiting stories you'll ever read. Naturally, it's about O.J. Mayo:

“Why aren’t you at Arizona or Connecticut?” Floyd recalled asking.

The man explained that Mayo wanted to market himself before going to the N.B.A., and that Los Angeles would give him the best possible platform.

“Then why aren’t you at U.C.L.A.?” Floyd asked.

The man shook his head. U.C.L.A. had already won 11 national championships. It had already produced many N.B.A. stars. Mayo wanted to be a pioneer for a new era.

“Let me call him,” Floyd said.

The man shook his head again. “O. J. doesn’t give out his cell,” he said. “He’ll call you.”

Diving, set to music

The song here is far too catchy to not listen to constantly, even if Cristiano Ronaldo is as big a diver as there is in the Premier League.

Watch closely as he uses step-overs and dribble tricks 90 minutes a match, never once advancing on goal.

Mor(mon) goodness from Slate

Ever wonder what Mormon athletes wear under their uniforms? Explainer to the answer!

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints allows athletes to forego the traditional underclothes during games because they're impractical. Mormons are encouraged to wear the temple garments at all times, although they can swap them out if they're playing sports or going for a swim. (Hall of Fame quarterback and devout Mormon Steve Young used to take off his temple garments before each 49ers game.)

Speaking of Steve Young:

Doubt newspapers are in trouble?

Here's a pair of posts on subscribing to the New York Times from sportsjournalists.com that make it clear that even media professionals are doing things the "new" way:

How many of you do? It just seems like the right thing to do if you're in this business - or like to be a well-informed American. So I'm seriously considering it. I wish the Washington Post delivered nationally, too.

Why do you need to subscribe when you can get it free on line?

OK to report "mistakes"?

Last week was a tough one.

When we got word a star basketball player from a local team had been arrested (and subsequently benched) before a key tournament game, we knew the story had to be written. The coach made a tough (correct) decision, and we -- the regional paper -- could tell the story more fairly to the school, the player and the readers than the big ones, who hadn't yet found out about the incident.

Here's what came out of it, and here's a subsequent editorial.

Was reporting it the right thing to do? We think so; there were certainly enough meetings to try to decide. With luck, it's a lesson to schools and coaches everywhere -- not talking to the media only gives us police reports to work with, and police reports don't make for "positive" stories. If something happens, it's best to be honest and up-front. That way, both sides of the story come out as early as possible, which is best for all involved.

Italian soccer has never been less respected

So, what better to do than fight in European play?



Notice two Inter players being unable to tackle the ever-so-brave Valencia player around the 20-second mark. Ever since the World Cup, they can't even fight right. The Curse of Zidane?

Just because it's almost baseball season

Nothing drives ticket sales like a freak of nature.

Slate.com's Josh Levin on Sun Ming Ming, the ABA's 7-foot-8 main attraction.

Sun Ming Ming's Nighthawks debut, which attracted a standing-room-only crowd, proved that even the ABA can't screw up the King Kong marketing strategy. Nothing drives ticket sales like a freak of nature.

How long before he's in the NBA? Uh ... probably a while.

Borges: Wrong, sloppy and not Jayson Blair

(Click here to listen to this entry online.)

The blogosphere (which, up here in Boston, has never been much of a fan of the Globe's Ron Borges) might have claimed his job last week when this site reported immense similarities between a football notes column he authored and that of a Tacoma writer, Mike Sando.

Passages in Borges' piece are unquestionably, damningly similar to bits of Sando's writing, which appeared in print first. A few words have been changed, but it's in the typical style of plagiarism -- no difference in meaning, and only enough in language to potentially throw off a Google search.

Still, is Borges a classic plagiarist? It's touchy.

According to the Globe's March 6 mea culpa, "Borges is a subscriber to an online notes exchange used by NFL writers, who share information with one another in advance of Sunday notebook columns that run in many newspapers." I've talked to someone who makes his living covering the Patriots about this, and he told me that using information from such services, where writers voluntarily post raw information and sometimes entire notes entries, is wide-spread and acceptable. Apparently, the catches are simply:

1. Don't rip off someone else's lede item and use it as your own.

2. Don't use something verbatim, especially if it could make it into print.

So, yes, Borges was painfully sloppy in his writing and reporting. But, at the same time, he didn't simply pop up a browser, search for "Seahawks News" and put what he found into print. Call him a bad reporter, just don't call him a plagiarist.

More hoops mistakes

The Sharon (Mass.) High boys basketball team got a phantom basket in its win over top-seeded Whitman-Hanson in last night's Division 2 South Sectionals game. I was there, and it was ugly -- the story goes into more detail.

Is it me, or are there more catchable mistakes being made in this year's winter tournaments (nation-wide!) than ever before?

"Laurie, I can't find the death warrants!"

Why would you do this to yourself?

Billy Wilson, aka Mr. Mouse (don't ask), started the Tough Guy 22 years ago as a way to spice up cross country runs. Rather than a simple run through the local fields, Wilson added an ever-increasing number of paramilitary obstacles to a course designed to test the competitors' limits of endurance and pain. "In the first three years," he says, "I thought, 'Wow, I'm gonna face a judge that says, "You sent 365 men to their death."'

A few years old now

But, as basketball season ends, this is still a great story.

Why to follow the rules:

Administrative mistakes have knocked high school basketball teams out of state tournaments in areas I'm familiar with, and places I've never been. Both these errors should have been caught, especially in Jersey.

Shabazz, which had won 56 consecutive games against in-state competition, was forced to drop out of the sectional tournament after state officials learned the team had played its 27th and 28th games at the Essex County Tournament last weekend. State guidelines limit teams that play in three tournaments during the season to 26 total games.

Hopefully both cases are lessons to athletic directors everywhere.

What's the Lexington line?

Seventy-one people have entered the MIAA's boys basketball prediction contest, which is linked off its tournament pages. Whether that many entries is a good thing (hey, it's popular) or a bad thing (uh ... it's a high school hoops bracket) remains to be seen.

Who's sucking up?

Jeff Pearlman's recent ESPN.com piece the differing career paths of Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey Jr. isn't exactly germane to this blog as a whole. But there was one line -- two words, really -- that bugged me, and should bug an awful lot of writers and readers.

In his column, Pearlman composes a mock story by "Joe Schmoe," a fictional writer who, apparently, doesn't realize that the cool kids are supposed to hate Bonds. In fact, poor Schmoe is so out of the loop that Pearlman lists his affiliation as "Baseball Suckup".

Schmoe's sin? Pearlman has him writing this:

After years of alienation, Barry Bonds seems to be having more fun than ever. Now nearing the end of his career, he appreciates the game like never before, and has attacked spring training with a renewed vigor.

"You can just see the difference," says Biff Sniff, a Giants teammate. "Barry is relaxed and at ease. He's just one of the guys."

Hacky? Absolutely. Misinformed? Probably. But Suckup? Suckup? Hardly.

Pearlman, of course, wrote "Love me, Hate me: Barry Bonds and the Making of an Antihero". And he's certainly no stranger to the Giants' anti-social superstar in his ESPN.com Page 2 columns. So, naturally, he's often at the head of the Bonds-as-enemy-of-humanity bandwagon -- more vitriol toward the erstwhile left fielder equals more cash in his pocket.

But neither that nor the fact that he's at least tried to avoid the kneejerk righteous indignation that plagues sports writing in other circumstances seems to explain why his mindset in his latest column is to call anyone who doesn't bash Bonds a "Suckup." We get it -- he cheated. We get it -- he seems to try every year to rehab his image in Spring Training, only to quit as soon as the first pitch is thrown in San Francisco. We get it -- he's a bad dude, and people don't like him. Really, though: Does the world need another "BARRY BONDS SUCKS!" story? Do we really not have enough? Misguided as the attempt may be, is anyone who attempts to show another side of the slugger a Suckup, as long as he tries honestly?

This applies to all writers, on all levels. I cover MLS' New England Revolution, and I don't like all of the players on a personal level. I think a few of them are jerks, and I know the feeling is shared with others in the press box. Some of us have pointed it out in print. What's the point, though, in simply piling on with more "He's mean and doesn't like to talk to me" columns? It's no more original than writing about how Barry Bonds is ruining baseball and should be banned.

As long as the attempt is honest, there's nothing wrong with trying to find another angle on a difficult story. Of course players' personalities should come through in print -- that's why we're in the locker room in the first place. But, positive or negative, every story that's told (and overtold) enough times becomes hackneyed and cliche. And, once something has been done to death, it's our job to do something different. Chastising a writer for daring to try something different (again, as long as it's truthful and real) is counterintuitive at best, and harmful to sports journalism at the worst.

Tips for coaches

Full disclosure: I’ve never coached a game in my life.

I’ve played under plenty, in a half-dozen-odd sports, both team and individual. But, formally, I’ve never once picked up a clipboard or written out a lineup card or dealt with an overbearing parent.

I grew up the son of a Pennsylvania high school basketball coach, so I know the kind of hours the job entails. But, again, I’ve never done it myself.

What I have done is covered coaches for newspapers and magazines. Plenty of coaches in plenty of sports. Some, I’ve genuinely liked. Some, not so much. Hardly any, though – especially the younger ones – knew a great deal about the particular in’s and out’s of dealing with us sports media-types.

Horror stories abound: the “just a score” phone calls, the tongue-lashings after innocuous stories and, on occasion, the complete lack of information of any sort. Some of the nicest, most honest headmen I’ve dealt with have been among the most clueless in how to help me do my job – which, when covering prep sports, is essentially promoting each coach and his charges. So, to try to facilitate the process on both ends, here’s a quick checklist for coaches at all levels on dealing with the media, straight from the source:

1. We’re not out to get you. While there are some bad apples in the sport writing bunch, we, for the most part, prefer to dwell on the positive – it’s more fun (and easier) to write. Dirty little secret here: If you’re decent and genial to us, we’ll be the same to you in print. Nice guys make for nice copy and, unless you’re out-and-out awful to us, we like you. A little decency goes a long, long way.

2. Personally, we don’t care who wins. I don’t mean that as a grandiose statement on how the media tries to be “unbiased” and “Fair and Balanced” – I simply mean that, in half-a-dozen years, I’ve never seen someone out-and-out root for a team to win or lose for personal reasons. There’s nothing more ridiculous than phone calls telling me we’re OBVIOUSLY biased toward team X or team Y because of reason A or reason B. Chances are, we’ve gotten the exact opposite call at some point.

3. Access and information from you lead to copy inches from us. It’s not rocket science that it’s easier to write about a team that I know a lot about, and, with some three dozen schools in my paper’s coverage area, the only way we find out a lot is straight from the source. One of your kids is having a great year? E-mail us stats! Kid coming up on his 1,000th point? Call! Close to clinching your first league title in a decade? Let us know! We can’t write about what we never knew about. The Red Sox pay a lot of money to media go-betweens; as a high school coach, the job is yours. If we know about it, we will write about it, and that’s to both of our benefits.

4. Make yourself available. If we have your contact information (home phone, cell phone and e-mail address), it’s that much easier for us to get your voice out there. There are a few dummies who will bug you during dinner or late at night, but, for the most part, we’re not going to be waking up your family with 1 a.m. phone calls. And no, we won’t give it out to the public, even if someone asks.

5. Get us your results, win or lose. There are no coaches we respect more than those we hear from after every game, meet or match, regardless of the score. They’re the ones who get the publicity, and whose kids consistently get the recognition in print (and, perhaps, a little extra pull in our award selections). Conversely, we absolutely look down upon coaches who only get us scores and highlights during hot streaks and winning seasons.

6. Be complete, and be ready. When you call/e-mail/fax in information, try to have first and last names and any relevant stats ready. Getting your kids’ names in the paper shouldn’t be a painful or time-consuming process for either of us. It’s as simple as reading off a score sheet and spelling out the difficult stuff.

7. When we’re wrong, correct us. The worst mistake in a newspaper is one that’s repeated, day after day. If we screw up a name/misstate your record/give the wrong kid credit for a goal/any of the other myriad mistakes we make, let us know. It’s your right, and we won’t hold it against you.

More Blade

The Blade has another Web show! Sadly, this one can't be bothered with Provo High.



It's more than dull to a non-BYU fan, but at least "Game On" has the little things. You know ... production values, relatively relevant guests, that kind of stuff. And, of course, the host rocks.

The politeness ... it burns ...

Youtube celebrity isn't easy to come by.

Anybody can set up a camera and film themself doing -- or discussing -- anything. Of the millions of the videos on the site, only a few draw wide attention, and those are usually about Anna Nicole Smith.

These guys deserve to be:



From what I can gather -- amid the odd facial expressions, friendly banter and utter dearth of charisma and humor -- "1-on-1" is two sports writers from Utah's Daily Herald going at it, "PTI style regarding high school athletics in Utah Valley."

I'm obsessed with it. It's perhaps the most inane thing I've ever seen, and I can't get enough.

1-on-1 has everything. Bad nicknames? Check -- they're "The Blade" and "The Zuke." Arguments that tend to take the form of deciding which team is "really good" and which is "really, really good"? Check. Extensive wardrobes? Check-and-a-half. Slightly different shirts ahoy!

Thrill as The Zuke sports a long-sleeve version of his grey polo:



Marvel at The Blade's best sweater, with bonus plaid (and a highlight!):



You can even play along, at beatthezuke.com. I know I'll be trying. Go Provo!

Jerry Miller, in high def

There isn't a major paper in the country (so far as I know) that doesn't use headshots of its columnists. It lets readers know who's "talking" to them, and certainly strokes an ego or two. But, generally, they're small.

Daily Progress (Charlottesville, Va.) school sports blogger Jerry Miller's isn't. And, if the massive photo isn't enough, his tagline is roughly the length of a Dickens novel.

Jerry Miller is the High School Sports Editor at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville and hosts three radio shows in Virginia: football infused “Shuman Says” and John Wooden inspired “In the Paint,” which are both aired statewide on Saturday mornings, and Charlottesville’s own “SportsRap,” which is aired Monday, Tuesday and Friday afternoons at 3 p.m. and Saturday mornings at 10 a.m. on WKAV 1400 AM. Contact Jerry at jmiller@dailyprogress.com

Hooray, self-promotion!

(Adam Smartschan is a writer for The Patriot Ledger in Quincy and doesn't host any radio programs, though he occasionally appears on some. Contact Adam through the comment section of this post.)

Killing a cop tends to offset winning the World Cup

Slate's Robert Weintraub has an interesting take on why Italian soccer is unlikely to undergo the same resurgence as the English game a few decades ago.

There's also a fundamental difference between the hooliganism in Italy and England. The U.K. version is essentially gang warfare—where you are from and the colors you're wearing are all-important. English violence is fighting for the sake of fighting, not for any particular cause other than pub glory and bragging rights.

The Italian ultras (the catch-all phrase for rowdy fan groups) are politically motivated. They're often aligned with a particular movement, be it communist, fascist, or center-right. The political parties and the clubs are commingled to the extent that it's difficult to tell where one begins and the other ends—since most Italian teams are publicly held and traded, the ultras often literally own the clubs.

AI on the football field

I've seen a lot of high school football players in the last decade or so. None have been as good as Denver Nuggets guard Allen Iverson apparently was.

Talk about putting in time

The Weston High girls basketball site is keeping up-to-date records and potential tournament brackets for Eastern Massachusetts basketball teams. His work is definitely appreciated -- coaches have told me they're looking at it regularly, and one, talking about the time the webmaster must put in, said "He must not have a job."

Whether he has one or not, it's a special endeavor.

'Round more ice than a hockey skate

No better time than a National Team win to post everyone's favorite rapping US player, Clint Dempsey. On the same note, no better time to shamelessly plug some archived MLS stories of mine.

MLS schedule out

... and Beckham will play in almost every market.

Check out all the national TV coverage!

Speaking of TV, ESPN did a knockout job on tonight's US-Mexico match, with a few exceptions.

Good: Skycam. Nothing wrong with 19 different overhead views of Jimmy Conrad's goal.
Bad: No HD coverage. I was hoping that would change after the Denmark game.

Good: Five commentators.
Bad: One of them was Bruce Arena.

Good: Plenty of mics on the 63,000-strong crowd.
Bad: Gotta get a camera position where confetti isn't flying all over the screen for the last 15 minutes. Unless it's HD confetti.

At least Peyton Manning won't win the MVP

The U.S. Men's National Soccer Team hosts Mexico at 7 p.m. tonight on ESPN2.

Rex Grossman will somehow choke in the second half.

Still on the schools ...

It's National Letter of Intent Day (when the bulk of early-committed recruits sign with colleges), and scout.com is doing a nice job with its coverage. They're trying hard to put together a comprehensive list of each school's football recruits, and appear to be updating their signing class rankings every two hours.

Just in case you were worried about how the Temple Owls will look in a few years, their class was ranked 69th as of 11:27 a.m., with their top recruit a 6-0, 200-pound running back named Joe Jones from Hollywood, Fla. who runs the 40-yard dash in 4.50 seconds, hadn't yet signed a letter of intent and committed to the school on Feb. 5. He went to South Broward High School in Florida and is the 51st-highest ranked running back in the nation. Why, I ask you, wouldn't you want to know these things?

More Mayo

ESPN.com's Pat Forde seems to share some of my thoughts on O.J. Mayo.

Cheap commercial time!

Not watching the Super Bowl? That's a little weird. But check out the awesome sports programming up against it tomorrow:

ESPN: ISU European Figure Skating Championships (It was taped Jan. 23-28 in Warsaw, so it must be good!)
ESPN2: World's Strongest Man marathon (These come from Sanya, China. It's a poor man's Warsaw, if you ask me.)
NESN: Charlie Moore (Fishing. Joy.), then Boston vs. New York Poker.
FOX Sports: Assorted college basketball (Including the Ohio at Bowling Green women's game and San Francisco at Gonzaga. It's Northwest-tastic!)

My college essay-esque manifesto

I was recently asked to come up with a few new, different ways of covering sports or packaging sports coverage in newspapers and online. Might as well post them here ...

The business is changing fast, and we need to adapt (or change entirely) to keep up with the new, 24-hour news cycle.

For me, that doesn't just mean offering the same old content faster. It means giving readers more -- more than they can get from a blog, more than they can get from TV and more than they can get even from the papers that aren't willing to wise up. And as much as the internet provides competition for newspapers, it also gives us "traditional" media-types a fresh, blank canvas, unfettered by the cost of newsprint and ink and a truck's ability to get a physical product somewhere.

Of course, I don't mean we should neglect what has always been our No. 1 project -- the paper itself. Quite the contrary, in fact; I think the printed and virtual products can complement each other nicely. So, my first idea:

- Use the paper as a lead-in to the website, where space and the type of media used aren't restricted. But, on the web, there is space, and (between a talented staff and wire services), there's always high-quality content. It wouldn't take many more words than needed by a traditional tagline to direct readers to "paper.com/(whatever)", where longer versions of text, extra pictures and audio and video of sources or events could be posted. Think of it as a more frequent, less intensive version of ESPN's E-Ticket feature. The paper itself would remain the viable and strong product it is now, but truly intrigued readers would have access to as many web-based extras as they'd like.

Getting readers to the paper in the first place is increasingly difficult. With so many of what I call the "mundane facts" well-known to people long before the printed product hits the honor box, we have to give them a reason to keep coming back. So, secondly:

- Adopt more of an "evening paper" mentality in story choices and writing. Give people what they can't get anywhere else -- to put it in more concrete terms, take a traditional sidebar and a traditional gamer, mash them together, and turn the end result into what runs. Though limited space makes it tough, it's not impossible to feature-ize just about any story. Consistent use of unique, interesting angles in combination with the accurate basics is what makes a writer's game stories must-read material.

Blogs and web journals have given anyone with a computer and an internet connection the kind of voice that used to be reserved for newspaper columnists. Just presenting in absentia opinions about national topics isn't enough anymore -- some 300 million people in the U.S. alone are capable of doing so right now. Therefore, we should:

- Use our "insider" status as journalists to the advantage of our readers. While it's easy to use columns and commentaries as soap box pieces, it's no longer entirely effective. Anyone can do so, and there are plenty of smart people with sports blogs. Instead, the relative few with press passes should advertise what they are -- insiders. There aren't many people who can talk with the occupants of the Mets' or the Giants' locker room every day. Those who can should use the access to improve their columns with special, privileged material. These days, anyone can write what he thinks about sports. Only a few can find out what those who actually play the games think. That's what we need to be writing.

Referees are bad actors

Don't know how many have followed the story, but prep hoops star O.J. Mayo is in a spot of trouble.

He shouldn't be. Unfortunately for the referee he "knocked over," WSAZ in West Virginia has posted a home video of his ejection on its website here. It's the third link down, called WEB EXTRA. Nothing like video on the 'net to get the real story out -- here, clearly, the ref wanted to grab his day in the spotlight by taking a seat on the floor.

Watch the official go down (and to the left ... down, and to the left ...) at the 42-second mark. It's pretty much the worst dive since this one.

Speaking of O.J. Mayo, everybody gets that he's still a senior in high school, right? Sure, he's tall and talented as hell. But ... still a senior in high school. He already has his college scholarship assured, and missing two games that don't seem to affect his team's bid for a state championship probably won't hurt him. Why are his handlers suing here, and turning the case into a national spectacle? The suspension is ridiculously, obviously, but just let it go.

I suppose the opposite argument is that his playing fewer games would equal fewer Youtube videos of him.

Not everybody is listening

Posting under a name that isn't far from his real name, "kpear75775" laces into a reader who complained about boston.com's mandatory registration. A little much, here, "kpear". You really think this isn't costing you readership?

You are unf'inreal. You expect someone to just give you their product for FREE, no strings attached. What do you do for a living? Do you give stuff away like you expect newspapers to do? The Globe among many other papers gives their content away for FREE. Like many other newspapers, in order to get FREE content, you need to register some basic information. You dont' want to, then fine, no FREE information for you. Honestly, how much of a loss do you think it is for the people on Morrissey that you won't visit the page? You weren't paying for a damn thing in the first place. Absolute joke, why don't you become that guy that calls every night looking for scores from 5 different games. CHEAP, plain and simple.

When you post, which you are you?

The Masslive forums themselves are a topic for another day (er, night), but some recent exchanges on their Eastern Mass. boys basketball board got me thinking. More than a few writers post on the forums under something close to their real name (including me, "AJSmartschan"), and their identities are hardly hidden. Some have been drawn into argumentative discussions.

A message board devoted entirely to a single local high school sport is (clearly) populated entirely by fans of that single local high school sport. When part of a sports writer's job is to report on that particular game in that particular locality, his participation on the message board brings him into direct and sometimes confrontational contact with a relatively large and wholely concerned percentage of his readership.

The last thing we in the media need is the expansion of the public's general and largely understandable misunderstanding of us and our job. Thus, I believe writers need to interact with their readers in order to connect with them on the page and (perhaps more importantly) tear down some of the inherent mistrust that's been built up over the years. Opaqueness is self-defeating, and only makes a reporter's life harder. But is there a line? That is, is posting more than links to your own stories and those of your colleagues, scores and the like on a forum devoted exclusively to fans OK?

It's touchy. Opinionated discourse is one thing -- god knows there's enough of it on sports talk radio, pregame show X and postgame show Y -- but the relative anonymity of an unmoderated internet forum can lead to scary, scary things. What if other writers -- at least five of whom post on Masslive -- started posting in threads about "the best players in the state", or "the best team in Division 2 South"? What if one chimes in on a coach's offseason firing? When you're typing as "cforsberg" or "AJSmartschan", and not Chris Forsberg or Adam Smartschan, are you you? Are you you, the writer? Are you you, the sports fan? Content that appears in a paper or on its website can reasonably be judged to have been "approved" on some level by the organization; when a writer posts on a forum, it's unclear who he represents. Further, arguments on these kinds of boards escalate quickly. Someone who makes his living expressing himself through writing has to be especially careful to hold his tongue (fingers?), lest the quality of his real work be tinged.

Some groundrules all of us reporter-types would be better off following:

- Identify yourself; no good comes of a writer, editor or any other media professional posting anonymously.

- On the same note, be clear if you're posting personally or as a representative of your outlet. "Readers" are called that because they read stories and articles, not minds.

- Keep it positive and informative. I limit my Masslive posting to links to relevant pieces authored by me and other Ledger staffers and information asked for by others; a list of All-Scholastics, perhaps, or a team's record.

- There is no need to argue, fight or bicker online, ever. Doing so only (at best) reduces your personal readership and (at worse) harms the paper, magazine or website you represent.

Disclosure and interaction are both good things. Knowing how to keep one's decorum and professionalism intact is even better.

(And yes, I am aware of the fantastic potential irony of putting this entry on my personal blog. Key word here: personal. This is just me.)

ESPN E-Ticket

Not many organizations have the sports news-gathering budget of ESPN these days, so long, multi-layered presentations aren't in the plans of many.

After seeing this on the front page of ESPN.com today, I wish more did.

A novel concept from Newsday

Long Island Newsday's school sports section is the third link that appears on Google when searching for "High school sports," and they deserve it. And not just for having links to the paper's coverage of "H.S. Bowling" and "H.S. Riflery".

Delving in, the paper's prep sports site is pretty awesome. There's a lot done right here; from the easy access to individual schools' schedules, photos and scores on the right side of the front page (none of these are typically easy to find) to this list of college commitments by current and former school student-athletes. Yes, Newsday ... I was interested in knowing Whitman's Caitlin Young went to the Air Force Academy for fencing in 2004!

Perhaps the best part of Newsday's commitment list: It looks to be almost entirely user-created, with a link to send e-mail alerts of athletes' school choices. Just today, I spent 10 minutes responding to a message board post asking where local girls soccer players went to school ... if my paper had this page, I could've sent a link, rather than cutting and pasting snippets of All-Scholastic capsules. Free, informative copy that will save me time? Sign me up.

I'm a former cyclist

so I'm biased, but Podium Cafe does an awful lot of things right. Sure, it's all but incomprehensible to anyone who doesn't follow pro cycling, but it certainly makes for diverting reading for someone who's followed it.

A dad and a former Hawaii quarterback

Interesting "soccer convert" column from the University of Buffalo's "Spectrum" newspaper.

Great sentiments, Joe. Just a few things:

Well I haven't started spending Euros yet but that was one of the best sporting events I had ever seen. The game went for a scoreless 90 minutes, then a scoreless overtime, then in the second overtime the Revolution's Tim Twellman netted what was sure to be the game winner. Seventy-one seconds later Houston's Timmy Chang retaliated with a goal of his own.

Tim Twellman is Taylor Twellman's father, and the Dynamo/USMNT striker is Brian Ching.

Names aside, it's a nice piece to see.

One of them is clutch

The U.S. Men's National Soccer Team opens its 2007 schedule against Denmark at 4:30 p.m. Saturday on ESPN2.

Judging by just about every second of ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNnews and the Cartoon Network I've seen this week, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will somehow influence the outcome of the match.

Boston blogging

A quick plug here for Danny Ventura and Jim Clark's Boston Herald school sports blog.

They're some of the hardest-working prep writers around, and deserve all the readership and respect they get. Their blogging and daily coverage is as good as it gets in Massachusetts.

(Everywhere except the South Shore, that is.)

The English press: Always good for a laugh

American coverage of the Beckham deal looks especially good compared to the play the story got in England.

Here's some real headlines, courtesy of Google News, from a variety of U.K. publications and sites:

Victoria Beckham to become American bag lady

David Beckham interested in Scientology; Victoria Beckham not so much

BECKS IN £140M BLING TRIAL

David Beckham 'to make it big as Hollywood actor'

Speaking of Beckham ...

A few days late, but here's some of Colorado Rapids coach Fernando Clavijo's comments to me on the signing last week:

When you bring a character and a player of that magnitude, it helps the credibility of the game. We're not bringing in a guy who's 38 years old; he's in his prime ... He chose MLS and the Galaxy, and that's tremendous for all of us. ...

I'm very excited, not only for having him, but to see the direction the league is going. ...

The old NASL, which I was a part of, never knew how to take advantage of that. I think the structure of the ownership and the leadership we have today in the clubs is better. They're very knowledgeable people. They've seen the past and the mistakes that were made, and they're not going to commit the same mistakes. The ownership today knows exactly what they want, and they know where they're going.

He's in a movie called "Astérix aux jeux olympiques"

A confession: Major League Soccer's acquisition of David Beckham scared me.

It wasn't just because the reported $250-million deal turned my one day off last week into a frenzied six-hour cell phone fest. (The result can be found here.) In all honesty, I was simply dreading a new run of the "Soccer is too boring/slow/low-scoring/Communist to find an audience in the US!" stories, columns and "Around The Horn" commentaries that accompanied June's World Cup.

Instead, the American media's Beckham Blitz has been shockingly well-informed (These guys aside). Sure, plenty of editors decided "Spend it like Beckham!" was a clever, witty headline. But, for the most part, few derided the signing as the wail of a dying league (it's not), or the reincarnation of the ill-fated NASL (again, not). While some tried to pass judgment on whether the economics of the deal made sense, most at least got the facts straight -- that the Los Angeles Galaxy and parent company AEG are paying a relatively tiny amount of the quarter-billion dollars Mr. Posh Spice could earn over the next five years. And, again for the most part, debate over the 31-year-old Brit's skills on the field was intelligently centered, rather than leaning on the over-simplified, opposite crutches of "Beckham sucks!" and "Beckham is God!"

Let's hope it continues when 90-odd percent of American sports fans discover the Londoner who's become synonymous with overseas soccer talent isn't much of a goal-scorer ...

Red Smith and Daisuke Matsuzaka's translator

There's an odd give and take to writing about -- and, by proxy, watching -- sports for a living.

(Something resembling a living, anyway ...)

You get into the business after reading Red Smith's descriptions of Wrigley Field, or seeing Grantland Rice elevate Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden into famine, pestilence, destruction and death. The events are history, the teams are institutions, the players are bigger than life; the writers make them that way. The writers. Taking what every man, woman and child eats and breathes, condensing it, synthesizing a little and turning out canon on the boys of summer. They see what all want to see but few get to, their import magnified daily on newspaper pages and in the minds of thousands who live and die with the games on which they are the ultimate arbiter. World Series, Super Bowls and Finals -- with a capital "F" -- are their offices.

Real life is different. Reporters start by covering the "little" stuff: Prep sports, college action and the odd minor league game. Trips to NFL training camps and promotional appearances by Jim Palmer -- no kidding -- seem like treats, rather than the chores they are to the old pros.

Eventually, though, the "little" stuff becomes the big stuff. It's the high school games and alternative features that keep people turning the pages, not the re-hashed wire reports that a sad majority of big four (five?) coverage has become. It's the always-accessible Mount Lebanon High School and East Stroudsburg University and New England Revolution players and coaches that give the original stories, not just Daisuke Matsuzaka's unintelligible (but still quoted ad nauseam) translator.

They make sports sections and websites special and unique. They deserve to be covered professionally and fully, and to know how to deal with those doing the covering. Over the coming months, I'll try to give that and more in this space.

Because every game is special.

Because, to someone, every game is a Super Bowl.