The Pride and Shame in Being a Fan and a Writer

The LA Sports blog is undergoing some changes, some growth and some development… no it’s not puberty, although I sometimes wonder if Jeff shaves, if I had to guess I’d say no. Also no, we are not all appeasing Matt Berson and converting to Judaism, no matter how many of their holidays we use as excuses for time off. If those loaded words I began with don’t mean crap to you without a bit of context let me fill you in. The other two writers on staff are doing big things in our local university area. Matt created the “Rec-Sports Newsletter” last year with our friend Farva and the publication has exploded. From a 2 page bi-monthly pilot newsletter it has grown into a UC Santa Barbara supported and privately sponsored university publication. Matt and Farva hired our other LA Sports Blog writer Jeff to join the squad; I can’t blame either of them because it is a paid writing position. This might lead you to ask “what about you Nate, why aren’t you on the staff”? That’s a good question; I’m not currently enrolled at UCSB that’s why. So Matt and Jeff will do special pieces for the LASB from time to time but for the most part they will do their Rec-Sports Newsletter which can be accessed at www.recsportsnews.com

It’s been a depressing week to cover LA Sports, with USC and UCLA coming off losses the only peace can be found in the fact that the Orange County Angels have been eliminated from the playoffs, good riddance. Oh and for goodness sake

The Lakers have started pre-season workouts and exhibitions in Hawaii, while the Clippers have set up shop here in Santa Barbara. We had plans to send a reporter to cover the Clippers camp at Santa Barbara City College, however those plans were reconsidered after we sent Farva to interview Mike Brown, Cleveland Cavs head coach for Rec-Sports and his best question was “Is LeBron James really any good”? We apparently aspire to be Jim Gray around here.

The important thing about this is that the Lakers look pretty good with the return of D. Fish being the catalyst for a much improved ball-handling unit. Javaris Crittenton looks like a player who has been in the triangle his whole life. This shouldn’t be surprising because he and Dwight Howard won a state championship in high school running the triangle through Howard, led by Crittenton. What is surprising is how good Crittenton is at making plays on his own, taking on defenders and penetrating thus vastly increasing his options with the rock. Kwame still has tiny hands but the return of Chris Mhim will reduce the minutes we put at-risk having Brown or the depressingly soft Andrew Bynum (he’s a MAN and a professional athlete, I’ll call him soft.) It’s not so much Bynum’s personality that is soft, it is unwillingness to lay claim to the key on both ends of the floor, establishing himself as the dominating presence on the floor. Can this change? Yes, but this season is a make or break season and we will see if he is making significant process in the first 20 games.

Circling back to USC I boycotted watching them this week as I was so disgusted by last week’s mediocre effort against the Cardinal that I didn’t want to be subjected to the Mark Sanchez show, a QB who’s only play of note before this game since graduating from Mission Viejo High School is being accused of sexual assaulting a girl. The charges didn’t hold up, but Sanchez did as he did just enough to help #10 USC defeat Arizona 20-13, led by Sanchez’s game winning 4th Quarter TD pass to Fred Davis.

I can’t believe I just wrote the preceding paragraph about USC. The team that has since ’02 produced Palmer, Lineart, Fargas, Cassell, Bush, White, Mike Williams, Lufa Tatupu and TP42 himself is struggling to beat Arizona in the middle of October with a back-up quarterback that looks painfully average for a top tier D-1 program. Matt Cassel sat behind Palmer and Lineart, never able to call the Trojan offense his own, yet he was still so talented that he was drafted by New England in the 6th round. I don’t think Sanchez, or John David Booty for that matter would go in the 6th round of the World League draft.

That’s enough, I can’t bash anymore, I don’t think I can do much better then saying Booty and Sanchez wouldn’t make the world league, even Kevin Kiely played in the World League, although he pretty much stunk the joint up himself, at least he has Emmys in broadcast journalism. (This is like the Pulitzer equivalent to winning for best writing by a writer who doesn’t really do writing. That’s not fair, that should only be said about TV “Journalist” where Kevin has done a lot of hard-hitting stuff on the radio. So although the awards are justified and deserved, they hold little weight.

Is there anything you’d like to see more of, or changed about LASB let us know, we love your feedback when we get it, expect for those AGM guys… nah just playing. I assume by the low number of votes I get for my pieces that either A. The guys there don’t like my writing or B. They aren’t interested in LA Sports.

Here they come…. The Random Rants:

-The writer who compared the passionate and big-hearted Mike Hart to that of the heartless and money chasing A-Rod was displaying is lack of common knowledge. Moreover comparing a PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL PLAYER who plays like Cal Ripkin but has the heart of JD Drew to a COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYER who plays like DeShaun Foster and has the heart of Beowolf ready to lead his troops into war is like comparing an autistic music artist to Picaso, they are judged completely differently. And I think A-Rod might be slightly autistic, just a hunch.

-Yea that was a Beowolf reference, what’s more appalling to me is that there is a Beowolf moving coming out soon. Are we lacking so much creativity and work ethic in this nation that we are reaching that far into the Shakespeare play list? Seriously, Beowolf, what’s next King Henry VIII?

-People who were complaining about USC dropping to #10 in the polls are people who don’t watch USC or haven’t watched them in the last 5 years. When looking at the last 5 years of USC teams that were ranked #1-5, all of them are head and shoulders better then this team. Hell if you look at the teams ranked #1-5 this year I’d say they are all currently better teams top to bottom then USC, but then again what do I know, I just watch them every week. (Expect for this last one when I boycotted)

I’m over it, enjoy until next time.
E-mail: LASportsblog@gmail.com