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captainsblogAnd Bristol, Connecticut is best when ESPN leaves editorial control in the hands of its creative people. Such as this simply wonderful short-subject done in its 30 for 30 series. This one's only half that, but it's more a story of the mind than it is about sports:
It's all the more touching on this end because it's about a player who became most famous for his days with the Mets. Even Eleanor remembers him, if only for his memorable name- Mackey Sasser. This team has always had great names on the roster- from Hobie and Choo Choo and Marvelous Marv at the beginning; to Butch Huskey, the Best Baseball Name Ever in the 90s; and in their in-between glory years, a crop of characters including Doc, Straw, Mex, Mookie, The Kid behind the plate, and, yes, Kid's backup:
Mackeysasser.
That's how my friend Dennis's oldest child pronounced it as a toddler, and it translated to us and eventually to Emily as Mackey's skills began to crumble.
They called it a version of the golf malady known as "the yips," only in his case it became "the taps"- because Mackey would repeatedly tap his mitt while trying to get the ball back barely 60 feet from behind the plate back to the mound. He could still throw quickly and accurately twice that distance to throw runners out at second, but that was reflex action; throwing back to the pitcher was too routine, and he thought about it too much, and that's what did him in as a fielder.
The Mets tried to fix the condition, strictly as a matter of physical therapy and it never worked, but it took decades after his mid-90s retirement before sports psychologists finally succeeded in fixing the person. It's a remarkable study of how fragile the mind-body connection is, and how delicate a process it is to fix it when it breaks down.
Good job, ESPN.
----
Now hold the rest of the applause, for when the networks's suits rather than its talents are calling the shots, ESPN can be horridly, horridly bad in its judgment.
One of its on-air personalities, Bill Simmons, did an offsite podcast for a site called Grantland, on which he out-and-out called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar for his handling of the Ray Rice suspension. I learned today that ESPN suspended Simmons from all of its platforms for three weeks for daring to criticize the spokesperson for one of its billion-dollar content providers. That's 50 percent longer than the wrist-slap of a punishment that Rice himself got before the dirty laundry from the elevator came out.
The network has kowtowed to the Shield before, particularly in its coverage of concussion-symptom issues being faced by current and retired players. ESPN had co-produced a PBS documentary on the subject, but it mysteriously wiped its logo and credits from the finished product when it ran on Frontline last year. Once again, the wall between the "editorial side" and the "business side" has become as thin and stinky as a piece of toilet paper.
I wonder what one of the 30-for-30 directors would do if Bristol tried to censor their content in this same way. One thing I'm almost certain of: I'd never see the finished product on Cable Channel 26.
It's all the more touching on this end because it's about a player who became most famous for his days with the Mets. Even Eleanor remembers him, if only for his memorable name- Mackey Sasser. This team has always had great names on the roster- from Hobie and Choo Choo and Marvelous Marv at the beginning; to Butch Huskey, the Best Baseball Name Ever in the 90s; and in their in-between glory years, a crop of characters including Doc, Straw, Mex, Mookie, The Kid behind the plate, and, yes, Kid's backup:
Mackeysasser.
That's how my friend Dennis's oldest child pronounced it as a toddler, and it translated to us and eventually to Emily as Mackey's skills began to crumble.
They called it a version of the golf malady known as "the yips," only in his case it became "the taps"- because Mackey would repeatedly tap his mitt while trying to get the ball back barely 60 feet from behind the plate back to the mound. He could still throw quickly and accurately twice that distance to throw runners out at second, but that was reflex action; throwing back to the pitcher was too routine, and he thought about it too much, and that's what did him in as a fielder.
The Mets tried to fix the condition, strictly as a matter of physical therapy and it never worked, but it took decades after his mid-90s retirement before sports psychologists finally succeeded in fixing the person. It's a remarkable study of how fragile the mind-body connection is, and how delicate a process it is to fix it when it breaks down.
Good job, ESPN.
----
Now hold the rest of the applause, for when the networks's suits rather than its talents are calling the shots, ESPN can be horridly, horridly bad in its judgment.
One of its on-air personalities, Bill Simmons, did an offsite podcast for a site called Grantland, on which he out-and-out called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar for his handling of the Ray Rice suspension. I learned today that ESPN suspended Simmons from all of its platforms for three weeks for daring to criticize the spokesperson for one of its billion-dollar content providers. That's 50 percent longer than the wrist-slap of a punishment that Rice himself got before the dirty laundry from the elevator came out.
The network has kowtowed to the Shield before, particularly in its coverage of concussion-symptom issues being faced by current and retired players. ESPN had co-produced a PBS documentary on the subject, but it mysteriously wiped its logo and credits from the finished product when it ran on Frontline last year. Once again, the wall between the "editorial side" and the "business side" has become as thin and stinky as a piece of toilet paper.
I wonder what one of the 30-for-30 directors would do if Bristol tried to censor their content in this same way. One thing I'm almost certain of: I'd never see the finished product on Cable Channel 26.