New York Sportswriters Missing Forest Through the Trees

Dallas Stars' brat-bully Sean Avery calls his ex-starlets -- now dating other NHL-ers -- "sloppy seconds," and his team, the league, the sports pages, sports talk radio and the civilized world rages for days and days with in-depth "analysis."

Here's what's missing: The New York Rangers who dumped the miscreant Avery in the offseason are in first place in the Atlantic Division with the most wins in the NHL. The Stars, with Avery, are in last place in the Pacific Division. (The Rangers also lost their big "star" Jaromir Jagr to the Russia leagues, but somehow they're playing better without him. Imagine that.)

The Knicks -- the laughing stock, the abyss of the NBA -- got a new coach who cleaned house and courageously, in a principled manner benched the team's top malingerer, Stephon Marbury. For years, Knicks fans and Knicks writers piled on about how Marbury was a team cancer, how me made every team he goes worse not better. And they were right. But come the start of this new season, with this new coach who did with Marbury what should've been done a long time ago - what the writers had been begging the Knicks to do -- all the writers can obsess about is what will the team do about poor, isolated Marbury. Here's what's missing: The Knicks - totally without Marbury -- are playing the best basketball they've played in several long years.

New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress, a great talent who has been disruptive and distracting to his team all season long, moronically shoots himself in the leg at a night club. Today, you can't talk sports in New York without hearing about this.

Here's what's missing: The Giants have dominated the NFL. They're 11-2, winning most of their games sans the self-centered Burress. Their loss to Philadelphia last week was not because of Burress but because in the NFL it's hard to win every week, even as good as the Giants are - and they're very good. In fact, they've been winning all season without they're two top pass rushers from last year, Osi Umeinyora and Michael Strahan. How?

When will sportswriters return to writing about the actual sports they cover? Doesn't anybody want to know how D'Antoni's system is making the Knicks, as depleted as they are, play much improved basketball beating Eastern Conference power Detroit last night? Or would that require a basketball writer to actually analyze the game of basketball?

It is not miraculous to me that the Giants won the Super Bowl last year with brooding superstar Jeremy Shockey on the sidelines or retired All-Pro, All-Me running back Tiki Barber hurling insults from the broadcast booth. It's logical.

The game -- the sport -- is bigger than any one player. The game is also more interesting. The sports industry has been selling so much off-the-field garbage for so long, that it forgets to sell the thing that really matters. Individual players come and go. We won't and we don't miss them. It's the game that we come back to.

For an entire year, Michael Vick dominated the news. Two seasons later, Matt Ryan is leading the same Falcons to winning record, a possible playoff appearance and likely Rookie of the Year honors. How is he doing it? How are the Vick-less Falcons, a team just a short time ago so invested in one player's persona, playing so well without that one player? I wish someone would write more about that.

In the meantime, I point you to the most intelligent, football-(the game itself, not all the other crap)-centered suggestion to come along in few years. It's from Mike Lombardi of the National Football Post: He asks football writers to cast their NFL MVP votes for the five New York Giants offensive lineman. It's a great idea. You might say revolutionary. But it what it would require is even more revolutionary: Football writers focusing on football.

Comments

[Nommo]

The Giants win because they execute. Football is about making the play. People who focus on so-called "superstars" often forget the game they play. Sunday's loss was about not making the play.
You need only players who can play and are not mistake prone. The bounces take care of themselves.
Both Tiki and Shockey were way overrated. They both had problems holding on to the ball in critical moments.

The Knicks are at least, watchable. Nate Robinson is the most fun since John Starks and if they can just blow that front office stench into oblivion, good ball may just be on the horizon for Gotham.

Michael Vick had the misfortune of being an athlete among a real motley crew. You had to wonder how long it would take the Falcon's brain trust to figure out that a few players who could play with him might help things in Atlanta.

So Sabathia is going to put on the pinstripes.

The NFL should issue holsters. It was a movie, fellas.

[RobinSeattle]

Because of the word limit here on HuffPo, I had to leave the following out of my post below:

Admittedly, at no time has pro sports been the All American exercise it was often cracked up to be and we only know more at present because writers are more willing to reveal the peccadilloes of those they cover and there is more competition from media outlets for sensational tidbits. But they still don't give us everything and they are, according to one MLB exec, "hardwired to make heroes" out of the folks they are supposed to be covering objectively.

I know this for a fact that most sportswriters aren't that concerned with drug use by players, be it steroids or speed. But they say something entirely different to the public because their employers demand it so that they don't look like they are endorsing illegal narcotics. So the drug question is largely being discounted or sequestered as "I don't really want to deal with that" by sportswriters and reporters until they are almost dragged kicking and screaming to say something about it.

That makes pro sports and the journalism surrounding it even less savory than what we are treated to now. It is such a carnival of hypocrisy and prevarication that you have to question whether being exposed to pro sports is good for your kids and American culture in general.

I'm interested in your reaction to this.

[Dave Hollander - Huffpost Blogger]

I don't expect pro athletes to be angels. I don't expect them to make wise political statements. Mostly what I care about from pro athletes is the way they play. That doesn't mean whether they are gifted physical specimens but whether and how they exhibit their human qualities in competition -- heroism, defeat, grace under pressure, humility, a will or iron, mental toughness. If publishers and editors demand that their sportswriters cover all the other stuff -- contracts, scandal, drugs, sex -- then that's what you'll read and hear. But that's not sports. That's not why I turn to sports.

I think those editors and publishers, when it comes to pro sports, ought to change their emphasis.

There is scandal in every aspect of human life -- art, business, politics and sports. Sports offers a worthwhile diversion from real life. We should take that ball run with it.

[RobinSeattle]

"The New York Rangers who dumped the miscreant Avery in the offseason are in first place in the Atlantic Division with the most wins in the NHL...."

They aren't discussing this in the U.S. because nobody cares about hockey here. By the way, who is now broadcasting pro hockey on tv now? The Home Shopping Network? Pat Robertson? Unless you live in the northern tier of America and get the CBC, you wouldn't know the sport even exists.

On Marbury, there is only so much you can say about this. Most writers believe, from what I have seen, that he had his exile coming. But it is also a legitimate story as to how your prototypical narcissistic pro athlete is now shunned and how this may affect him psychologically. Sportswriters prefer to write about personalities over the teams themselves and the Marbury situation is tailor made for that.

As for the NY Giants and their dominance in the National Coverup League (so many players now carry guns that the Detroit Lions motto will be changed to "we pack heat in defeat"), there is no story in stating the obvious. The media, being what it has always been, focuses on the sensational and the Burris incident is that. It is tedious as all get out, but they gotta fill up all that air time with SOMETHING and it ain't gonna be hockey.

There is a story YOU are missing, but I will elucidate that in a followup post.

[Dave Hollander - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm looking forward to you elucidation.

[lisakaz2]

Good post. I feel bad for Burress myself but don't disagree with the analysis. I thought he'd get his head on straight but he hasn't. The Giants lost because the Eagles were a desperate team -- and desperate teams usually win.

[UncleDave]

'desperate teams usually win' Really? See 'Lions,Detroit'.

[rmm4402]

Well said. Good luck in making it happen.

I hate celebrity culture and the baggage it brings with it.

Your absolutely right - the game(s) are bigger than them all.