A baseball collapse so historic that it brings Pedro Gomez to Atlanta is never good but it makes for good sports talk radio. The Atlanta Braves blew an 8.5 game lead in the National League Wild Card race, bowing out to the Cardinals after a loss in the final game of the regular season. Normally in a town so driven by football that one radio station claims “Football Lives Here” and talks NFL and college football 365, the Braves dominated the radio airwaves for the final week of the season. Unfortunately for Braves fans, it was for the wrong reasons. Driving around listening to the radio it was amazing to hear baseball talk, baseball talk and more baseball talk. Braves Country was FINALLY fired up, but most of the callers were of a curious nature. You had some Braves fans calling in saying they “knew what was going to happen,” i.e., a Braves’ choke. You had some Braves fans calling up bemoaning the collapse before it was complete and then you just had fans calling up saying the Braves were terrible. Some passion yes, it is just a shame that the passion was 95% of a negative nature. I am not wishing the comments had been positive, I just wish the situation was different and the Braves had been playing the role of the Cardinals and the response would have been the same. Sadly in this town, baseball only drives negative calls.
Just days after Atlanta radio callers threw dirt on the Braves franchise, Falcons fans were calling up to complain over a road victory against a team that won a game in the playoffs one year ago. Falcons fans/callers, what more do you want? Wins aren’t good enough? Especially on the road? Especially against a team that won a playoff game one year ago? Especially one week after you lost to a division rival? Come on now. You don’t need to call up and slap the coaches on the back. There was plenty wrong in the game. However as the immortal Herm Edwards once famously quipped to a reporter, YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME. The Falcons won the game. A road game. Give some credit where it is due. Oh the Seahawks aren’t very good? Last time I checked, professionals still play for Seattle and that stadium offers its team one of the best home field advantages in all of sports. Big win for Atlanta.
The Sporting News has me a bit confused in its latest issue. I was reading its NHL preview and Craig Custance wrote a piece on the former Atlanta Thrashers-turned-Winnipeg Jets, saying that the franchise is building a contender. The interesting comment was found when Custance quotes new Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff and the GM says “There’s no anonymity in Winnipeg.”
Custance writes “Its quite different from Atlanta, where the franchise’s anonymity was one of the reasons it was allowed to leave. Half the city barely knew the Thrashers existed.”
OK, so our city didn’t get behind the Thrashers. That possibly had something to do with poor team management and owners that didn’t seem to know anything about hockey and superstar players that wanted to leave every chance they got.
Later though in the issue of The Sporting News, soccer expert Brian Straus suggests that Atlanta is a possibility for MLS expansion. Apparently MLS is keen on the idea of Major League Soccer returning to the Southeast, despite Miami and Tampa contracting clubs throughout MLS’s early years and Straus suggested Atlanta. Can TSN please explain to me how soccer, about 12th on the list of all major sports, is going to make it if the NHL cannot? Why would TSN chose to bash Atlanta on one page and then 13 pages later say that Atlanta is a great sports town and should have another major league team? Are we good or bad? I am confused TSN. Clear that up for me, would you?
The AJC’s Mark Bradley got a shot in on the Falcons last week during an appearance for ESPN. ESPN’s SportsCenter interviewed Bradley once and 680 The Fan’s John Kincade during afternoon SportsCenter shows over the Braves collapse and Bradley did his best Dan Shaughnessy impersonation with a “we’ll never win” act before he dropped a “well now the town can get back to preparing for the Falcons not to win in the playoffs” line. Good work there Mark. And after I gave you some kind words a few weeks back in this very column.
When Lou Holtz started with ESPN, he was unwatchable and unlistenable. I remember wondering when his contract was up and guessing whether or not ESPN would just pull the plug on the former Notre Dame (and multiple other teams) coach. Eventually ESPN found a zone for Holtz and while still unlistenable, he does add some value to his broadcast time. For a local parallel, 680 The Fan has a similar problem with Leo Mazzone. When he first started he was hard to listen to when the topic wasn’t baseball. Even when it was baseball, it was difficult sometimes. During the season, Mazzone adds a nice voice to the Braves conversation, a little too rosy sometimes but the show does a nice job of addressing that. Now that baseball season is over though, I wonder how Mazzone will do until next spring. Will he continue to simply add, “hmmm” comments during interviews? Will he continue to waste time in those same interviews, changing the topic to ask randomly about Notre Dame? Will he continue to sound like he is reading questions that someone wrote for him to ask so he won’t veer the conversation towards Notre Dame. I used to love watching Leo rock back and forth in the dugout during the Braves’ glory days. I want it to work on the air. It isn’t yet.
Can You Believe He Said That
“Bosher will cost the Falcons a game before the season is over”
That was the sentiment on Mayhem in the Am on the Falcons Flagship 790 The Zone the morning after the win over Seattle. Chris Dimino and Nick Cellini were talking back and forth about the Falcons shortcomings in the Seattle game and the punter’s name came up. If a problem with the punter is the biggest issue you have, life should be good. But I guess you need something to complain about.
No comments:
Post a Comment