Again, I just can't resist one, last, fun, quick, easy and VERY ENTERTAINING post, courtesy of CNN. Out of some R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the office of the POTUS, I will lay-off - no pun intended - poking fun at "W" for a while. (Unless, of course, he does something really weird.)- (Note the video spelling of the word 'idiot.')
***
Before we get back to the "regular" programming, I would like to pay my respects to NYC Publicity legend Joey Goldstein. May he rest in Peace. See: HERE
Back to Ramble On...
Baseball season is nearly upon us. The World Baseball Classic is gaining some momentum. Here is an interesting Q&A with Dr. Harvey Schiller that was posted last week on a great new site called NY Sports Journalism.com.
By Barry Janoff
This will be a busy, and pivotal, year for baseball. Beginning in March with the World Baseball Classic, continuing through the MLB season and World Series in October and including the Baseball World Cup in September (which will be played throughout Europe with 22 teams, including the U.S.), supporters of the game will be working on efforts to have baseball reinstated as an Olympic sport. The International Olympic Committee in 2005 voted to drop baseball and softball following the 2008 Summer Games, and thus will not be part of the 2012 Games in London. The IOC is scheduled to vote on two of seven sports seeking Olympics Games reinstatement on Oct. 3, the day after it is scheduled to select the 2016 Summer Games venue (from among Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid). The others seeking reinstatement are golf, karate, roller sports, rugby and squash. Dr. Harvey Schiller has been president of the International Baseball Federation, the sport's worldwide governing body, since 2007. In this position, he is at the forefront of dealing with the political, financial, logistical and personal issues involved in getting baseball (and softball) reinstated. But the former executive director of the USOC is up for the challenge, having previously worked for two of the toughest bosses in sports (or elsewhere): Ted Turner when Schiller was president of TBS Sports, and George Steinbrenner when Schiller was CEO of YankeeNets. Dr. Schiller spoke about the challenges ahead with NYSportsJournalism.com.
NYSportsJournalism.com: Does it seem logical that there won't be baseball in the 2012 Olympics in London? Or is that confusing logic with politics?
Dr. Harvey Schiller: After Jacques Rogge was elected president of the IOC in 2001, one of his mandates was to try to reduce the number of sports in the Olympics. He asked for a review of all the sports that were on the program. My understanding is that there were a large number of older sports that, along with baseball and softball, were marked for possible elimination. People have told me that baseball and softball became victims of new sports versus the older sports, because [at the time] they were the two most recent sports added to the program [baseball became an Olympic sport in 1992 and softball in 1996]. So we got caught up in a lot of politics.
NYSJ: What is the IOC's concern regarding after-use of stadiums?
Dr. Schiller: They felt we weren't able to convert stadiums built for the Olympics into venues for baseball. But that is exactly what we did with the Olympic Stadium in Atlanta [built for the 1996 Summer Games], which was converted into a baseball stadium that is now Turner Field [and has been home to the Braves since 1997]. Looking ahead to 2016 and the four cities that are finalists to host the Summer Games and how they relate to baseball: Tokyo has a stadium [55,000-seat Tokyo Dome, where the Yomiuri Giants play] so you don't have to build anything, and the national pastime in Japan is baseball. In Chicago, you have two stadiums in the city [Wrigley Field and U.S. Cellular Field] that would bring in $30 million in revenue for the Olympics just from baseball. Baseball is pretty big in many cities in Brazil and Rio de Janeiro has some exclusive baseball stadiums. And for Madrid, games could be played in Barcelona, where baseball first became an Olympic sport, which would not be unusual.
NYSJ: It would seem that guaranteeing star players is a more difficult issue, especially for an event seven years away.
Dr. Schiller: In the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, of the eight teams that participated, five had absolutely their best players and the only team that did not have players off of the 25-man roster was the United States, which sent players off of the 40-man roster. So what we are doing, and what baseball commissioner Bud Selig has said, is that the roster will be the best players ever to participate from Major League Baseball. What does that mean? I can't answer that today because it's up to the players themselves to participate.
NYSJ: So you think the IOC wants the U.S. to guarantee an All-Star Game-type roster, which might be difficult in the middle of the MLB season?
Dr. Schiller: What I really think President Rogge wants is not that we have 25 players off the 25-man rosters but that, as in tennis in Beijing, when Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were there, he wants a couple of major stars. At the meeting we had with the IOC in Lausanne, Switzerland. in November, one of the questions was, "Will you bring your stars?" My reply was, "We have 30 [MLB] teams. The starting rotation has five pitchers, so that's 150 pitchers. So you tell me which are the stars. I can't define that [seven years] from now." A good example is Curtis Granderson [of the Detroit Tigers], whom we took with us to the IOC presentation. In today's world he is certainly a valuable player, but he doesn't get the attention that Derek Jeter gets. In my view, Curtis is a star and would be a great representative of this country.
NYSJ: Was it a surprise when baseball was voted out?
Dr. Schiller: It was a surprise, and part of the surprise was that because baseball and softball are U.S.-based sports that there might at the time have been an anti-American feeling. If you look at the seven sports that are being considered for reinstatement, baseball and softball [were voted out] by one or two votes while the others lost by 60, 70 votes. But I don't want to make light of that because this is a new world and you never know how IOC members will vote.
"The reaction was good. They know it's within their best interests to get back into the Olympic program. The big [issue] is getting the best players in there." - Schiller
NYSJ: Is this a pivotal year for baseball to prove itself, if that is the term, to the IOC, with the World Baseball Classic, the Baseball World Cup and MLB itself all offering the IOC a first-hand look at the globalization of the sport?
Dr. Schiller: Certainly. The WBC is a major media event and will be shown in more than 200 countries. The most important part is that the 16 participating teams have the opportunity to train and compete at the highest level. So teams from South Africa, Italy and the Netherlands go to spring training and get to play against MLB players. It is unique in sports. That would be like a team in the World Cup coming into London to train against Manchester United.
NYSJ: What type of support are you getting from marketers and potential sponsors?
Dr. Schiller: We are very fortunate in that we have the full support of Major League Baseball, which in turn is able to deliver support to us through marketers who work with MLB.
NYSJ: Regarding steroids, do you see a double standard, where baseball players such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and Mark McGwire who are linked to banned supplements are ostracized but stars in other sports with similar situations are not?
Dr. Schiller: It's complex. Baseball is so proud of its records. The nature of baseball is nine against one and one against nine. And when you measure it that way it is unique among team sports. The love of the game around the world focuses on individuals. People relate to individual players and have grown up with them. Whether it was Jackie Robinson or Mickey Mantle, that was your guy. When you grow up you realize players have their flaws. But when you are 10 or 11, you don't want to hear [anything negative]. In some other team sports, people don't seem to care as much about that in the long run. Baseball is the only sport on a national basis that you are going to read about every day. In the middle of summer, you won't see a lot of NFL stories. But in the middle of the NFL season, there were headlines about baseball players being signed, being traded, every day.
NYSJ: You recently attended the MLB owners meeting and presented them with an update on the Olympic situation. What was their reaction?
Dr. Schiller: The reaction was good. They know it's within their best interests to get back into the Olympic program. The big [issue] is getting the best players in there.
NYSJ: President Obama has already given his support behind Chicago hosting the 2016 Olympics. Will he support the return of baseball to the Olympics as well?
Dr. Schiller: Yes. We have been working with his people. At the IOC meeting in November we used as part of our presentation a photo of him throwing out the first pitch at a Chicago White Sox game wearing a White Sox cap.
NYSJ: With ten being the highest, how would you rate baseball's chances of being reinstated for 2016?
Dr. Schiller: A ten, of course.
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Confessions of a Blogger. See this interesting article from Boston.com, posted last week:
My Blog Ate My Career
I'm perfectly qualified for a job -- just don't look me up online.
By LINDA KEENAN
If this were Facebook, my status update might read this way: "Linda is . . . terrified that her reckless blogging and social networking has rendered her utterly, irrevocably unemployable." In another life, I was a CNN head writer and senior producer. These days, Google my name, and in a few clickety clicks, you'll find a sorry list of intimate grotesqueries I've catalogued about myself for all the world to read.
I would like to work again full time. And if I were applying to be, say, Flava Flav's girlfriend or an unhinged Real Housewife on Bravo, I might well prove qualified. But would I blame a proper boss in this brutal job market for ignoring me because of my online shenanigans? No. The fact is: I wouldn't hire me either. Further, I'm not sure I'd let me in the PTA, or even near my kid. An employer typically looks for someone trustworthy, helpful, courteous. My attributes, etched forever in the digital record, read like a perversion of the Boy Scout Law.
Disloyal I compared some unnamed news anchors I had worked for to my toddler -- discussing their flatulence, their bald spots, their screaming red-faced tantrums -- and declared my toddler more mature.
Sexist I wrote that Sarah Palin's recipe for Middle East peace was Tater Tot Casserole.
Petty I resolved this New Year to fire 10 Facebook friends for non-responsiveness.
Sanctimonious I decided to get my next Pap smear done by a Sikh doctor, in a purely political act, after hearing that other patients were unjustly scared of him and his turban.
Histrionic I accused my husband of having spiritual intercourse with his beloved snow blower.
Disrespectful I surmised that the only thing Hillary Clinton and Rocky Balboa might have in common is that they can both break thumbs.
Unneighborly I said a nearby home with wildly overgrown grass needed what I called a "Lawnzilian," the landscape version of the scorched-earth Brazilian bikini wax.
Insensitive After watching an aging, ailing cigarette addict on YouTube, I declared that while I had done some things I wasn't proud of, smoking through a trach hole wasn't one of them.
Unstable I declared myself an "out and proud suburban pill popper" and joked about helping myself to an "extra slice of Klonopin" for dessert one very bad night.
Lazy/Pathetic I admitted to lolling around, moonily watching YouTube clips of Ice Castles, Yentl, and the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. Pugilistic/Hyperbolic I accused Al Gore of killing Christmas, for helping to turn my son into a tiny eco-terror. My boy kept shutting off our tree, wagging a little finger at me about wasting power.
Polyamorous I said I would gladly apply to be Bill Paxton's fourth wife on the polygamist soap opera Big Love. I declared my irrepressible longing for comedian Russell Brand, actors Jon Hamm and Hugh Laurie, and legal whiz Jeffrey Toobin. (I know, go figure. The heart wants what it wants.) I said I wanted to have a million of 1982 Bono's babies. (2009 Bono, not so much.) I also said that various women I admired were turning me gay, which proved me to be both polyamorous and cliche.
Just Plain Mean I wrote a satire piece about Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke failing to stimulate the economy and resorting to Cialis.
Now, if I were in my 20s, this might all be filed under the things the "yoots" do these days in the digital era. But I'm old enough to remember analog, Atari, Bill Clinton. A boss has every right to judge me by what I've put out there. So does my son. I can see him, a decade from now, reading this stuff, with that defeated look that you see sometimes on Jerry Springer when kids try to get their dissolute mothers to stop acting like overstuffed teenage tarts. And I can hear him say, "For God's sake, Mom, stop talking about your cervix, step away from that computer, take those horrifying pictures down, grow the hell up, and get a job."
If only I could.
***
These Days?
We're all wondering what will happen in the world.
The new President. The financial crisis. The war(s).
High costs.
Energy concerns.
Lost jobs.
Retail stores closing each and every day.
Duane Allman had it down:
These Days
Well I've been out walking
I don't do that much talking these days
These days
These days I seem to think a lot
About the things that I forgot to do
For you
And all the times I had the chance to
Well I had a lover
I don't think I'll risk another these days
These days
These days I seem to be afraid
To live the life that I have made in song
But it's just that I have been losing
For so long
***
These days I sit on cornerstones
Count the time in quartertones 'till ten
My friend
And now I believe I've come
To see myself again
***
These days I sit on cornerstones
Count the time in quartertones 'till ten
My friend
Please don't confront me with my failure
I'm aware of it
***
U2 will release their new album today. Here is some news from their site:
Get On Your Boots, the first single from U2's new album No Line On The Horizon, will be released as a digital download on February 15th with a physical format to follow on February 16 through Mercury/Universal (UK).
Produced by Brian Eno, Danny Lanois and Steve Lillywhite, sessions for No Line On The Horizon began in Fez, Morocco, and continued at the band's Dublin studio, New York's Platinum Sound Recording Studios, and London's Olympic Studios.
Released on March 2nd (March 3rd in the US), the album will come in a standard format with 24 page booklet and in digipak format. The digipak includes an extended booklet and the album's companion film "Linear" by Anton Corbijn. A limited edition 64 page magazine will also be available, featuring the band in conversation with artist Catherine Owens, and new Anton Corbijn photographs. No Line On The Horizon will be released on 180gm vinyl. (More on the formats below)
The album cover artwork is an image of the sea meeting the sky by Japanese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto.
Here's the full tracklisting:
1. No Line On The Horizon
2. Magnificent
3. Moment of Surrender
4. Unknown Caller
5. I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight
6. Get On Your Boots
7. Stand Up Comedy
8. Fez - Being Born
9. White As Snow
10. Breathe
11. Cedars Of Lebanon
-30-
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