Sports

Live! Boxing! On Two Pennsylvania Fridays

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There are few events in the sporting world nowadays where it is easy for the fan to arrive at the set time and place without any preconceptions about the contest in question. Context, analysis, opinions: all are spewed at the media consumer, from the AP updates on college radio to the 11 o’clock news all the way through the iPhone implanted in your 15-year-old cousin’s right eye.

It’s somewhat refreshing, then, to attend an event with little prior knowledge, hoping only for good action. The average local boxing card, in my limited experience, is a good place to find athletic competition without any sort of preceding hype or spin, at least until you step through the doors of the club or gym. Once you get there, there are guys who’ll talk your ear off about the history and merits of a 35-year-old guy with a 10-12-2 record, but before, good luck finding much more than an online record and maybe a short interview or write-up on one of the many near-unsearchable boxing sites online. Even Golden Boy, one of America’s two superpromoters, can barely keep its website updated. The promoter(s) of a local event, who also often double as the hometown trainer, don’t have time for running a slick PR operation, what with hours in the gym and usually another job on the side.

The downside to the enforced information fast are nights like the recent Friday when I headed over to the Philadelphia Armory, expecting that arriving an hour after first bell would leave me with seven or eight fights still to come. After parking a long couple blocks away, between the Plumbers’ Union and some factory, then walking in through the mostly empty lobby past a kid hustling signed and framed posters of local sports luminaries (Rocky Balboa!) there’s a four-round fight beginning.

Afterward, the ring announcer starts calling out names: “There’s Isaiah Seldon (yes, son of Bruce), and there, where’d he go, there’s Tim Witherspoon—they were were scheduled to fight tonight…and where’d he go? Where’s he hiding? Oh, if you have not seen it, you have to look up this man’s first fight with Arturo Gatti, there’s Ivan Robinson hiding in the back. And we have Harold Lederman with us tonight!”

Nice as it was to have Harold there—his face peeking over the ring looks just as intent from fifty feet away as it does on TV—a couple fighters sitting with their girls in the fold-down high school gym-style wooden bleachers didn’t seem a good omen for the card’s durability.  Sure enough, after the eight-round main event that followed, the crowd started walking out; two fights was all I was getting this evening.

The action that did occur made the trip worthwhile. The main event was a lightweight rematch of a supposedly heated January draw between Camden’s Jason Sosa and Philly’s Angel Luis Ocasio; the extant footage online is , and so forming incoming opinion on the fight’s quality or Sosa’s claim that he was robbed because he “crossed the river” was impossible. This particular night, the fights were being streamed somewhere online—there was even a boom camera on one end of the floor, heavily wrapped in electrical tape, along with two cameramen in the ring.

What’s nice about your neighborhood fight card is that the fighters bring along some friends.  Sosa had several dozen supporters in T-shirts printed in a Cooper Black font rarely seen in these Internet design days, and though no one printed up shirts for Ocasio, he had a competing amount of vocal support. In a venue that is, essentially, a high school gym stripped of all banners and climbing ropes and basketball hoops, with all hard tile floors and concrete block walls, all these people who care can make the proceedings quite loud. There were a few stout white guys in ringside seats wielding a swing-around wooden noisemaker, its echoes clicked throughout the hall: one of them got so excited that he hit himself in the face with the thing.

Loudness is not the same as good acoustics, so the bald-domed rapper serenading Sosa during the ring walk could have been dropping rhymes of great brilliance or muttering in Elvish—I couldn’t tell you.  Dozens of smartphones shining their recording lights on the ringwalk, the boxers walking in through the riot gates set up to partition off the reserved and ringside seating from the bleachers, behind the ring girls in their tight red T-shirts and black compression shorts,  stumbling a bit on absurdly high heels.

The bell rings: Immediately someone screams “Hit him! Thank you!”

The two did a decent amount of hitting through eight rounds. I scored it six rounds to two for Ocasio. Sosa was the coming-forward fighter, but his jab didn’t seem to connect often and he rarely released his right. Most of the fight, Ocasio kept Sosa off balance and hit him with some decent body shots; he was quicker, but never really set up Sosa—he made a few vague feints in the second and third rounds, but never laid a trap. Sosa showed his style in the fifth,  going to the body aggressively and then tying up when his attack was spent, keeping Ocasio from dancing at all, and then in the eighth, Sosa looped a right that knocked an off-balance Ocasio into the ropes.

When the decision was announced—a majority draw, one judge giving the decision to Sosa—bull-shit became a common refrain, there were some boos, that sister-kissing deflation took over both sides of the gym.  In the men’s room,  the argument continued:

“They robbed the shit out of him, out of Jason ‘El Carnito’  Sosa” says one man who I didn’t look at because we were next to each other at the urinal.

“No, they robbed my nephew, man, Ocasio,” says a man washing up.

“Sosa knocked him down, man,” says the first.

“That wasn’t no knockdown,” says the second.

“Time for the trilogy,” says another.  He’s likely to be proved right. Try it again, and maybe one of them will crack.

The one four-rounder I did see at the so-called “Philly Barnburner III” featured the bantamweight prospect Miguel Cartagena, who won the award for best-dressed contingent, with a score or so in hand-made shirts emblazoned with the slogan NO FEAR, including one adolescent girl whose Elmo handbag and Elmo hat were accompanied by a spray-painted Elmo shirt, the puppet’s goggling eyes right above the textual declaration that she lacks any anxiety whatsoever.

Cartagena fought with some trepidation, never appearing to throw very hard, but he continually popped late replacement Luis Ortiz with left hooks and a twisting jab, even as he let his opponent back him into stanchions several times. His people finally yelled “GET OFF THE ROPES” in the fourth and final round.

After his fight, Cartagena walked up to talk to a friend who was leaning next to me on one of the gates.

I heard him say “He hit me in the back of the head; I started to get a headache, man.”

A few minutes later, the prospect off to work the crowd, his friend notices my notebook and asks me “What you going to say about Cartagena, man? For 19 that wasn’t bad, you know. That was his fifth fight.”

I told him I was impressed, but thought he needed to sit down on some punches.

“He didn’t want to sit down,” said the friend, with a laugh. “That guy was strong. He hit him on the back of the head. That never happened before.”

My initial thought was that the truly elite prospects throw their heaviest leather against a fighter with a 2-10 record, but what do I know? At 19, there were plenty of nights I couldn’t sit down on a couch.

The next Friday, I didn’t make the mistake of showing up late for a card put on by King’s Boxing at Reading’s Reverb Club. The Reverb is a warehouse club: there are high ceilings and concrete floors; big screens strung up between rafters; a bar in the middle, with the ring off to one side. Ringside seating is about three rows of folding chairs; standing at the bar seemed the way to go for elbow room.

One guy in a Roger Waters “The Wall” tour T-shirt is talking in my general direction as the show is getting underway: “Forty bucks for this many fights, man. What a deal? Why aren’t there more people here?”

There were a couple hundred people in the club, but with everyone crowded around the ring and then a big old dance floor covered with a handful of bar tables, it looked emptier than it was.

My Floyd-loving friend proceeded to have a long discussion with another guy about street racing,  then he played some video poker, all with his back to the ring.  He should have watched the early smokers; the four-rounders were the best fights of the night.

The opener was a professional debut for a fighter named Jeremy Miller, of Baltimore, taking on the 30something local Cesar Gonzalez, winless in four pro fights. The fight was sloppy and pushy, but enthusiastic. Miller moved forward more, his torso always a little ahead of his legs, and so he got the decision. It could have gone either way—I had it for Gonzalez—but it didn’t matter which way it went, honestly, except to those involved.

The second fight was at 140, between Lancaster’s Rolando Chinea, twice a winner by KO, and a southpaw from Rochester, NY named Jamell Tyson, who had a losing record in nine pro fights. Tyson took the first round: from the bell it was obvious Chinea had more skills, but he was facing his first lefty and first fighter with more than one bout’s experience: the first time Tyson’s left snuck through Chinea’s face took on a “whaawhaaa” Urkel look for about three seconds. Chinea’s trunks said “Ironman,” an interesting claim for a guy coming in with four rounds of pro experience, but he did fight through a freeflowing headbutt-induced gash over his right eye for a deserved majority decision.

Then it was to the featherweights for another four-rounder between Philly’s Derrick Bivens and Harrisburg’s Josh Bowles. Bivens hadn’t fought since March of ’09, and Bowles made sure he looked it while sweeping the cards; Bivens was near a head taller, and the 5-foot-5 Bowles stayed in a crouch that made him a small target. The 25-year-old Harrisburg product might not have the power to become an elite fighter, but he has some excellent, subtle footwork, and he focused on the body well for a guy who was in the amateurs 14 months ago.

Two women from King’s go on next to put on a charity exhibition bout, unfortunately titled “for breast cancer” with no foundational qualifier.  One of the ring girls did support them, though, wearing shorts that say “GO GURLZ” bedazzled on the behind. Marie Robson must be very popular in the area, because, besides being  pictured in the program, there were a couple guys asking me “You know when the girl fight is up?” and then indicating their girlfriends to say that “her” friend’s fighting. Once the bell rings, I hear one of those guys screaming: “Stop screwing around Marie, go AFTER her!”

In the moments of relative silence that prevailed between some intermission singing, I overheard at least one pharmaceutical idea that I pass onto you at no cost:

“I’m at the age now where I don’t need Viagra but I can’t multitask. I’m going to invent something that does Viagara and FloMax. I’ll call it Niagara.”

There was then another decent four-rounder between two lightweight southpaws, Reading’s Frank DeAlba and Jersey City’s Andrew Bentley that went to the hometown guy as a split decision, then the six-round 154-pound co-feature, featuring 22-year-old Glen Tapia (12-0, 6 KO) of Passaic, NJ against Lancaster’ s Manuel Guzman, who, according to the gentleman standing over me at the bar, was a late replacement and usually fights at 140, and, I learn later, had lost his last six. Tapia’s punches from the get-go thud in a way no one else has on the night; he looks like a boxer, very cut, and he throws a straight punch. Guzman takes a forced knee after a wicked body shot early in the third and doesn’t get up; he’s well within his rights. A few locals yell “Come on!” at Guzman, but he earned all the paycheck he signed up to get.

Our main event of the evening was a fight at super welter between local Keenan Collins, a sparring partner for Kermit Cintron back in ’05 and ’06, and Charlottesville’s George Rivera. Not a great fight, not bad; each guy took a wide decision on one judge’s card and the third scored it a draw. Neither guy took over and threw enough punches, and both knew it afterward.

My attention through part of the final bout was focused on the photographer incessantly snapping at ringside; he had been there all night. The gentleman at my elbow informed me his name was Jeff Julian, and he’s been shooting since the Ali days. I’ll leave you with a link to his work from one night in Reading, rather than writing another 60,000 words or so.

Sports

2012 NBA Playoffs: Pacers Vs. Magic Gets An Extenzion

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Pacers vs. Magic, Game One, was a gut-scrambling watch for this native Hoosier. Well, duh, you say, Indiana lost to an obviously inferior team, at home, and it was really ugly, and it just proves that the Pacers aren’t ready to take the Next Step, and even if they do get by Orlando, a Miami series is going to be just no fun at all.

All very true, I’m saying it too. The Pacers should not have been beaten by a team led by Jameer Nelson, Jason Richardson (a middling third banana, at his peak) and the marvellously inefficient Glen Davis, and though the Enlightened part of my mind says there’s lots of basketball left to play, the Reactive part is lighting up with disaster scenarios: Ryan Anderson was awful! What if he gets going, too! and Nelson just obliterated George Hill off the dribble, and Darren Collison was pesky on defense, but only against Chris Duhon, and if Roy Hibbert can’t hit that jump hook over a fat 6-foot-8 guy, what’s he going to do against a real center after the Pacers give him $60 million this offseason, and WHAT THE BLANKETY BLANK DANNY a travel and over-and-back sequence in the last 30 seconds is a GREAT way to establish yourself in the national eye as a humble semi-star worthy of inclusion in those montage highlights that are the NBA’s canonization process.

Now that that’s out, happy thoughts must prevail. There are very few sweeps of seven-game series, and the Pacers are playing a club that’s done a good deal more in May and June recently. Chris Mullin, in all of his Brooklynite eloquence, said several times of Indiana “that’s a tough step, going from an eight to a three-seed.” The tougher step, though, is winning a series. And then two, or three, or four. Playoff basketball is an entirely different entity than the regular season, and what Indiana has yet to learn (and Memphis, too, after their devastating giveaway Sunday night) is that getting buckets in the last minutes can’t be a chuck-it-up-there affair. You gots to dance the same steps that got you there, and those, especially against this Orlando team, include going through Hibbert and David West. Otherwise, you get the same sort of late offensive incompetence that plagued them in that quite close first round five-game series last year against Chicago, saying “Granger’s our best player, give it to him” while conveniently forgetting that he’s not much of a creator.

Also, Paul George had eight points, and two open 3s rim out in the closing minutes. He turns 22 on Wednesday; then the Pacers will be OK.

In all, this was already the Public Access series coming in, particularly without Dwight playing-Games Two and Three are on NBA TV, if you need proof-and the level of play was appropriately Dr. Steve Brulesque.  Thus, the lead-in commercial on ESPN was apropos: I give you Jimmy Johnson talking about improving his nether regions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF7peOWD0ws

Sports

2012 NBA Playoff Preview: Indiana Pacers vs. Orlando Magic

A knowledgeable NBA fan could have predicted in the preseason that the Pacers and the Magic might finish as the third and sixth seeds in the Eastern Conference, respectively. What many would have failed to predict is that the Pacers would be the host to the Magic in the first round of the Playoffs. Currently, there may not be two more divergent teams in the entire NBA playoff field. The Indiana Pacers on one hand, have exceeded the expectations of most analysts, and have a vapid fan base more consumed with off-season football melodrama than on the court execellence. While the Orlando Magic have come apart at the seams as a franchise, polarized by a season long soap opera most noted for the roller coaster trade-winds surrounding Dwight Howard.

Indiana finished 42-24 in this compacted 66 game season, with five more wins than all of last season, quietly demonstrating the tremendous growth of a ball club ready to contend. Last season’s grueling five game series against the top seeded Chicago Bulls in the first round of the playoffs laid the foundation for the success the team has experienced this year. They return to the playoff stage a deeper, more efficient, and better defensive team than a year ago, with six players averaging double figures, and a tenth overall ranked scoring defense. In a normal 82 game NBA season, the Pacers were on pace to win 52 games, eight more wins than in any of the previous seven seasons, and their best since a franchise record 61 in 2003-2004.

The current state of the Orlando Magic franchise is not one that coincides with the fun-filled, exciting ethos of the city’s famed Walt Disney Resort. There is no question though, this season has been filled with mickey-mouse antics, from rumored deals to the Lakers, Nets, and Mavericks for soon to be free agent franchise center Dwight Howard, to unscripted tell all interviews by embattled coach Stan Van Gundy about his impending firing. Further sowing the seeds of this season of discontent, Dwight Howard has been sidelined with a season ending back injury that significantly curtails the chances of the Magic to advance past the first round for the first time since the 2006-2007 playoffs. The Magic won the season series against the Pacers 3-1, in part because of their scoring defense (93.4), none of which matters now without the 3-time defending Defensive Player of the Year.

X-FACTORS

INDIANA

The front court size of Indiana will be of greater importance in these playoffs without Dwight Howard on the floor. That is the obvious. Indiana is one of the biggest teams in the league with significant length in the post and on the wings. But, the difference in just how well this oiled machine runs will depend on the point guard play of George Hill, Darren Collison and Leandro Barbosa. Collison and Hill have been the starters, with Hill taking over the starting job in the last month of the season. Indiana has gone 7-2 in that span, facing the Sixers as their only playoff foe, with whom they split two games. Hill figures to log the most minutes going forward, but Collison and Barbosa will play significant roles off the bench, depending on the game tempo and matchup. Another key factor in the Pacers chances of moving to the next round could be the play of Paul George. On good nights, George can do a lot of things well, from rebounding to attacking the rim with ferocity. His shooting percentage has generally been better against the Magic, and without Howard clogging up the middle, put backs and drives to the bucket may come a little bit easier for the second year guard.

ORLANDO

Built around their franchise center, the Magic offense is predicated on spacing for open perimeter shots. Third year forward Ryan Anderson had his best season yet, leading the league with 166 three pointers, and is in strong consideration for the Most Improved Player award. JJ Redick has also stepped up his game in the absence of injured Hedo Turkoglu, scoring 14.5 points a game, while shooting 45% from behind the arc in 22 starts. While the open looks may be more difficult to come by, especially when you factor in the opportunistic defense of the Pacers (15 forced turnovers a game), Orlando is still capable of moving the ball quickly enough to get good shots. Anderson and Redick will both have to do a better job of creating their own shots in this series if they hope to make up for the scoring loss of Howard. Glen “Big Baby” Davis will also play a pivotal role for Orlando, as their lone inside presence without Howard. More than anything else, the question regarding Davis will his ability to handle the increased minutes against a physical and deeper Indiana frontcourt unit.

PREDICTION

Pacers in six. Well, I wondered how many times I would mention Dwight Howard despite the fact that he isn’t playing. Doing so as many times as I have, underscores his value to the Orlando Magic franchise, and ultimately their chances at winning this series. Having led his team in scoring, rebounding, steals and blocks this season, there is no question that his presence, or lack thereof will be the ultimate deciding factor. Indiana will almost certainly attempt to attack Orlando in the paint behind aggressive play from Roy Hibbert, David West and Tyler Hansborough. They should ultimately be successful in doing so, as the Pacers perimeter players will also have less fear of penetration into the middle of the paint for easy layups and dish offs. The leading scorer for the Pacers, Danny Granger has gotten his game together after struggling in the early season. Look for his play to also elevate in this series, especially in clutch situations.

The Orlando Magic should have a glimpse or two of success and past glory against an Indiana team with less playoff experience in this series. Assuming that the aforementioned shooters Anderson and Redick are able to get open consistently, and Jameer Nelson, Jason Richardson and Turkoglu are able to use their experience to drive the lane and kick the ball out successfully. Unfortunately a lethal combination of front office turmoil and the loss of their franchise player to injury, the Magic have been given little chance to win this series. Stan Van Gundy will have to rely on every bit of coaching knowledge and game plan trickery that he can muster just to keep this series competitive. That will be a very tall order for such a short turnaround.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/John Raoux
Sports

2012 NBA Playoff Preview: Los Angeles Clippers vs. Memphis Grizzlies

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Am I excited for this Clippers-Grizzlies series? You betcha. The regular season’s been ugly, and it was best to tune out for a while, but now we have Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and the 30-foot bricks of Mo Williams on one side, set against Zach Randolph’s shambling post game combined with Gasol the Younger’s finesse and whatever praises or curses you want to lay on Rudy Gay. There’s intrigue in Chris Paul taking on the long arms of Mike Conley and Tony Allen, suspense in the question of whether Z-Bo can run the floor. He did this time, but will he get back again?

These are not your father’s Clips nor Grizz, not even the same teams from a couple years ago. Memphis beating the one-seed Spurs last year in six games was the franchise’s first playoff series win ever, after they were swept in three straight first-round series from 2004 through 2006. The Clippers won their second playoff series ever in 2006, and are returning to the postseason for the first time since this year. Both teams are talented, with young stars, with plans in place for the future.

And yet, for all of this anticipation of Good Basketball, I feel anxiety for these two teams, much in the way a poor mother worries about her late-blooming bucktoothed daughter dating a broker at Goldman Sachs, or foreign policy wonks concern themselves with the one crazy uncle of Banana Republic Z’s most recently installed dictator-for-life: The fall back to Cold Hard Reality is only a missed step, a misfired shot away.

Maybe it’s just my basic jersey biases coming through, but it’s strange to see these two teams in the playoffs and expecting success. Becoming a winning team is a precarious process, one that must be renewed every 48 minutes, and these two teams still have two of the worst owners in the league in Michael Heisley (Grizz) and the abject Donald Sterling (Clippers). Bad ownership always trickles down, eventually. For L.A., their hopes for now and at least next season rest on the finest Carolina pulled pork shoulder currently holding together Chris Paul’s knees, and his supporting cast, besides Griffin, can’t be called stellar. In Memphis, the Grizz are creeping up the attendance standings (20th this year), and there’s plenty of precedent for the NBA doing very well in single sport cities, but it takes years of winning and likable guys to keep the building rocking. Becoming a Portland or Utah doesn’t necessarily require repeat Finals wins, but it does take the hope that it could happen this year, or the next. This core has come together nicely, but if say Gay and/or Gasol don’t take the Big Step into elite status, does a front office that sent away Kevin Love (for the admittedly alright O.J. Mayo) and drafted Hasheem Thabeet (which will, in a decade, look worse than Darko if only for the sheer volume of talent that went after No. 2 overall in 2009) have the knowhow to retool on the fly like the best organizations?

Worry, anxiety, distress about the future, though–these are not thoughts for playoff time. Not when there’s as much talent as there is in the NBA right now. The Clippers and Grizzlies are playing what should be a competitive, important playoff series: what more evidence do you need for the State of the Game than that?

A Possibly Important Variable That’s Not So Obvious To You, Common Observer

If this incarnation of the Clippers is to compete for a championship, DeAndre Jordan has got to play more than 27 minutes a night, and he’s got to be a true $10 million big man. Blake Griffin is a pretty terrible on-ball defender, and Jordan isn’t so hot, either, but the latter has to play defense out there–his 7.2 ppg isn’t exactly off self-created offense. Jordan has rebounded well this year on both ends of the court, and blocks shots well from the weakside; none of that matters in the playoffs if you can’t keep the opposing big man from scoring on the block. Memphis will be throwing it down low to Gasol and Randolph a lot.

Prediction

Grizz in 6. Chris Paul’s pretty great at his job, and there’s been times when it has all come easy for the Clips this year, but not enough so that I think they can get by this Memphis team. San Antonio will be thrilled to see them, I’m sure.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Sports

The Promoter: The Boss Hogg Gang

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The Promoter could tell you that the long layoff this column ends was due to prioritizing, distractions, the monetarily uncompensated nature of this gig, and maybe just a wee touch of sloth, or if you want to minimize the moral judgment inherent in that word, a case of the old postmodern malaise.

As a window into the boxing world, however, we feel obligated to offer an excuse worthy of the modern Sweet Science: Let’s call it a “strained left middle knuckle” on top of some “serious dehydration resulting from a long Tuesday night.”

Alas, it’s been a slow start to the 2012 boxing year, and inspiration to write my way through these  serious physical obstacles has been lacking. The premiere early-year matchup, February’s rematch of welterweights Andre Berto and certified crazy-talker Victor Ortiz, was postponed to June.  Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao still aren’t getting together, and there’s been what feels like a good deal more controversy over scores than heated fights.

Even in dirty dealings, though, we must find some charms.  A studied, screw-it, too-cool cynicism is useful as one waits for something good to happen, but use it every day and you become a graying Jon Stewart: flinging your hands in every direction in response to all stimuli, and maintaining a following because there continue to be people who don’t remember that the time when you were allowed to merely point out a headline for a laugh passed after the late Clinton administration.  And if you just get angry every time something bad happens, well, we need your indignation for Change to occur, but good luck keeping the fire going anywhere other than Facebook after baby number two comes along.

Your average sort of scandal was on display this past weekend, as Action Star Brandon Rios missed the lightweight limit and then did approximately zero to earn a win against the lesser-known and not very exciting Richard Abril. The favored fighter wins, the commission (Nevada, in this case) says “Oh, it wasn’t that bad,” the losing team protests, and presumably, nothing happens.

Appreciating boxing’s foibles as a higher and darker level of comedy requires cartoon villains and more surreal situations than a simple scoring screw-job, though.  (Also, it helps to have a willingness to put aside the fact that these men (and sometimes women) are putting their bodies and lives on the line and getting screwed).  One “Jackass” type example of such absurdity is last August’s fight in which Joseph Agbeko suffered about 700 balltaps–in that case incompetent referee Russell Mora did take a demotion to the 4-rounders for a while, but he was back on TV this winter.

Most of the Big Screw-Jobs lately have come from Texas.  Texas is a pretty great place to hold a fight for promoters, who like making money.  There’s plenty of big markets there, with lots of nice venues, and lots of rich folks, and it’s really close to Mexico, a country that still likes boxing enough to tune into big fights like they’re Super Bowl commercials.  Texas also boasts the best (worst) characters in the sport of late, and the most Pythonesque endings.

Take the James Kirkland-Carlos Molina fight from March 25.

Through most of 10 rounds, Molina negated Kirkland’s power with lots of wrestling, which was boring, but referee Jon Schorle did nothing about it.  Right before the bell sounded in round 10, Kirkland dropped Molina on a left to the chin.  Molina stood up; Schorle gave the count; the bell had rung.  Then Schorle decided he had to stop the fight, since according to the rules Molina’s cornerman coming through the ropes for a second when the count was still going, after the bell had rung, was grounds for disqualification.  Schorle was forced to stop the fight, or so said the announcement.

Here’s the from-the-rules doubletalk:

‘As special and unique circumstances arise in the sport of boxing, not all of which can be anticipated and addressed explicitly in these Rules and Regulations, the President of the WBC, in consultation with the WBC Board of Governors, has full power and authority to interpret these Rules and Regulations, and to issue and apply such rulings as he shall in his
sole discretion deem to be in the best interests of boxing.’

Q.E.D., indeed.

In a just universe, the fans would get to see that fight finish. Can Kirkland finish him?  Can Molina hang on?  Instead, there was a stoppage on a technicality that wasn’t even properly enforced.

So we can complain (and you should), but that’s not a coping mechanism.  My method for dealing with the clowns in the smoke-free backrooms is imagining them as something like Boss Hogg in “The Dukes of Hazzard:” hatching all sorts of plans to rob widows of their property and extending credit to carnies while mixing drinks out of beer mugs and smacking around Sheriff Rosco.

Someday (I do hope) boxing will find its Good Ole Boys who’ll do some serious harm to the way it works.

Not all was gloom in this first quarter of 2012.  Juan Manuel Lopez and Orlando Salido put on a great fight in early March, with Salido earning another win with a 10th round stoppage.

The 9th round is the current frontrunner for Round of the Year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm8KocyaAA0

And there’s good stuff a-coming!  Floyd Mayweather took about the best fight sans Pacquiao he could, taking on Miguel Cotto on May 5th, which will again be a crazy sporting day what with the debauched Kentucky Derby and all manner of NBA and NHL playoff action.  Some rich guy sometime needs to take the May First Saturday challenge and hit as much sporting action as he can, dropping out of helicopters to sit courtside and trackside and ringside like drivers who do the Indy 500-Coca Cola 600 double on Memorial Day weekend.

Until next week (maybe!), keep your dukes up.

Photo credit: CBS
MLB

Big Ass MLB Preview 2012 – St. Louis Cardinals

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Last season: 90-72 (2nd in NL Central, 6 GB; Won NL Wild Card)

2011 Playoffs: Beat Philadelphia in NLDS, 3-2; Beat Milwaukee in NLCS, 4-2; Beat Texas in World Series, 4-3

Kyle Lohse had a 3.39 ERA in 2011. Skillful pitching, or black magic? You decide. (Photo: Associated Press)

Josh says: It used to be, when people knew other people were messing with the supernatural, they did something to stop the hijinks. The very survival of the village and its sustenance-farming economy was at stake; no one could trifle with the possibility of taking away a peasant’s eternal reward and live to cackle at the demonic tale. So Joe and Genevieve Six Rows Of Corn did the right thing: If s/he looked like a witch and weighed like a duck, they burned him/her. Or drowned him/her. Most likely, they did both (in some order), along with a whole slew of other tortures that even pay cable would censor in these soft days.

And we are soft in these “everyone’s a sunbeam, no one’s a witch” politically correct times, for we see evil users of black magic and let them complete their careers without even one good stake-burning. Instead of salting the fields where they grow their noxious herbs, we allow their cauldrons to bubble merrily all spring and summer until the brew is complete: Another above-average season from Kyle Lohse, and another World Series win.

What else can explain a Cardinals’ Series win but extrarational intercession?  No positive human thought or action can be praised.  Would you laud John Mozeliak for trading Colby Rasmus for two months of Edwin Jackson and 50 at-bats from Corey Patterson (a punishment worse than a PED suspension)?  Will you say “What a blessing that Tony LaRussa cannot use a telephone, for if we had not lost a Game 5, there could not have been a clinching Game 7!”?

Their second baseman was a squirrel!  Yadier Molina has a jugular vein covered in Oriental symbols!  Adam Builder-of-Hay-Wagons was out the whole year. Ryan Theriot played a lot, and sucked, and they still won. Lance Berkman produced a .301/.412/.547 line. He was fat, and old, and ugly, and playing the outfield for the first time in a decade, and gave them almost 600 plate appearances.  How much more proof do we need?

The question, now, is whether the Cardinals, without LaRussa and Dave Duncan and that Pooholes guy, can continue to defy nature and win baseball games.  In comes Carlos Beltran, and if the dark magic is working, he’ll give them a minimum .300/.400/.500 line and 150 games. If not, if the evils were all contained in Tony’s fuzzy red nose, Beltran will likely shatter on a chalk line before April is over.  If Wainwright returns, less than a year removed from Tommy John surgery, and starts spinning webs of deception over opposing hitters’ eyes, we’ll know that the Dutch-owned American light lager presumably still allowed in the clubhouse has some sort of magic in it that can’t be captured by an accurate Born-On Date.

At age 35 and appearing to be headed into the twilight of his career, Lance Berkman was a huge part of the Cardinals' 2011 World Series run. (Photo: Associated Press)

Get your pins and dolls ready, and your stakes, and save up all the kindling you can.  It takes a special sort to light torches for the elimination of an evil as subtle as the St. Louis Cardinals.  Hate the Yankees all you want for their money and power–sure, we’re all broke, and who is actually from New York City?–they deserve our resentment.  But this humble ballclub? Hailing from a declined Midwestern city more crime-ridden than most, with tenuous claims on styles of barbecue and music long ago absorbed and improved by its neighbors and a few halcyon years in the forgotten Gay 1890s when people thought St. Louis was really the future’s Place To Be–it takes a certain type of red-eyed rage to recognize the dangers the Cardinals pose.

May the Cardinals sink, so that they must burn.

Worth watching: Tyler Greene and Matt Carpenter are white men who play the middle infield for the Cardinals. Joe Buck will realize during an August game against the Cubs that he is calling not just any stupid baseball game, but one that involves his father’s club, and so Buck will skip the fifth-inning Ambien that, to his credit, is the only thing that gets him through three hours with Tim McCarver, and he will get all weepy over the American Pastime as it is played in this Midwestern city, and one of these two mediocre middle infielders will be the receiver of his greatest slobbering praises, since Hometown Hero David Freese will be 0-for-28 in his last six games and hitting .227 on the year.

Featured Image Credit: Associated Press

MLB

Big Ass MLB Preview 2012 – Houston Astros

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Last season: 56-106 (6th in NL Central, 40 GB)

2011 Playoffs: Did not qualify

Josh says: Our language, the American English one, is utterly debased.  It happens to language, getting all messed up.  Yet the way we speak now is more vulgar and less meaningful than at any time in our Republic’s history.  Overcome by stimuli, we say that the cat is AWESOME (i.e. inspiring fear and trembling in the presence of greatness); we say the guacamole was EPIC (and thus deserves an versified celebration from our best poets); the most recent “Star Wars” re-re-release was the WORST THING EVER (which could be true).

So the words I use might be somewhat devoid in power, but I do not exaggerate from even Internet dictionary definitions when I say the Houston Astros are going to be abysmal, awful, no-good, roadkilled-skunk-in-the-July-Texan-sun-stinking bad this year.

Knowing that the Astros are going to be real bad without actually knowing a bit of offseason news pertaining to that team, I planned on talking about the one time I went to Houston and missed my exit and drove 15 miles before I realized I’d passed like six Best Buy signs and it was probably time to turn around.  Then I would conflate that experience with the stereotypical outsider’s view of Houston’s sprawly driving culture which presumably leads to lots of human isolation and anonymity, and BAM, there’s your metaphor for the 2012 Astros roster, seeing as how you could drive into a Whataburger and get your fast food handed out to you in a paper sack by 25 pairs of hands and not realize they were actually a professional baseball club just volunteering there for the day to help out some Girl Scouts.

This is a team that, during Spring Training, just sent two Major League players named Jason Bourgeois and Humberto Quintero to the Royals in exchange for an A-ball prospect and the ever-present Player To Be Named Later.  Guys who were blocking their prospects(?) are going to be bench filler for the ROYALS, they’re so deep in the pit from years of Win One for the Aging Grocery Distributing Billionaire mode, and exacerbated by the GM reign of Not Afraid to Trade (to the Phillies) Ed Wade.

Instead of perpetuating stereotypes, however, I did due diligence and asked my friend who lived in Houston for a while about the place and she told me that among all the sprawliness there are  enclaves where the big, breezy, wrap-around Southern houses still exist, all clapboards and bright paint, and so not all is faceless consumer marketing.

In the spirit of finding a few analogous bright spots for this Astros season I opened up their roster and started clicking around.

Jordan Schafer? Heard of him, the starting center fielder, acquired from the Braves for Michael Bourn, right?  He should be good….when he gets that 2011 .242/.309/.315 line up, just a bit.  He’s only 25. Brett Wallace? He’s been the trade chip for a while now. And he….might break camp with the team.  Fernando Martinez was really valued by the Mets, and the Astros had to give up a lot of…..time faxing in paperwork to get him off the waiver wire.  Maybe Carlos Lee dieted over the offseason.

All right, so, in what is now, again, a pitching-oriented game, the ‘Stros have three decent-to-maybe-good starters in Wandy Rodriguez, Bud Norris and  J.A. Happ.  So it’s unlikely they’ll approach the depths of the 43-win ‘03 Tigers or the 40-win ‘62 Mets.

That’s all there is to say about the 2012 Houston Astros.

Worth watching: New owner Jim Crane realized that he was in Texas and he shouldn’t listen to Internet Advocates, because Houston’s going to wear their throwback Colt .45 uniforms a few times this year, complete with long-barrel six-shooter.  Hopefully they break out the rainbows, too.

Featured Image Credit: Pat Sullivan, Associated Press

MLB

Big Ass MLB Preview 2012 – Chicago Cubs

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Last season: 71-91 (5th in NL Central, 25 GB)

2011 Playoffs: Did not qualify

Josh says: Cubs fans needn’t worry: 2012 will not be the year that their club makes the jump from “lovable” losers to another one of those boring, winning, self-satisfied Big City teams that fill the stands with baseball ignoramuses and their pink-hatted girlfriends (though they draw a lot from that crowd already–the Lakeview Real Estate Tycoons are Lee Elia’s New Fifteen Percent).

The Cubs are hoping Theo Epstein, their new President of Baseball Operations, can turn around 105 years of futility. (Photo: Associated Press)

The bargain-bin Astros will be the only buffer between the Cubs and the basement of the NL Central this season, and when Houston departs for the Junior Circuit next year the Cubs will splat right down the stairs and stay for at least a year.

It’s okay, though, because the Cubbies are rebuilding. If the Goat or the Black Cat or the Bartman have lost their mystical power over the North Siders, with Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer established in Wrigley’s cramped front office, the rest of the division should be frightened…in 2015.

Today, Alfonso Soriano’s $136 million Hopscotch Happening (now featuring sub-.300 OBPs!) continues in left through 2014, and maybe they’ll extend the middling Matt Garza, but Garza (or his agent) has a very high self-worth. Starlin Castro turns 22 this week, is under team control through 2017 and has a nice bat, but plays Hanley Ramirez-like defense.  David DeJesus will be usefully forgettable, and Marlon Byrd will get paid another $5 million to be an affordable center fielder who is great trade bait (says everyone) but who no GM ever seems to want.  Carlos Marmol will continue to impersonate a bourbon-laced Jackson Pollock in the final inning , and Kerry Wood must really like being able to walk to Second City openings from his Old Town pad, because he’s back to give the Cubs 50 decent innings and cause about 5.73 million “He COULD have been CLEMENS” sweats in fans.

Those are the guys that you might have heard about. Oh yeah, and remember when Geovanny Soto was Rookie of the Year? And Ryan Dempster is now a guy who throws 200 innings, instead of a guy who throws 200 good innings.  Reed Johnson will fill the Hustlin’ White Guy role.

Anthony Rizzo is one of Chicago's best prospects and could force his way into the lineup this season. (Photo: Matt Kartozian, U.S. Presswire)

There is no Sean Marshall, sent to Cincinnati for a maybe-back-end-of-the-rotation guy in Travis Wood, a decent second base prospect in Ronald Torreyes, and Dave Sappelt, one of those adorable fifth outfielder types who is actually the size and physique of you or me. The Pirouetting Kosuke Fukodome is gone. So too Carlos Zambrano, who has taken his crusade against Gatorade to Miami, and Aramis Ramirez made the drive up to Brat&BeerWorld for $36 million. But there’s reason for a Cubs fan to be excited going forward, even those who thought that Jim Hendry was a competent baseball executive.  While presumptive starting first baseman Bryan LaHair is your typical Hendry-era prospect (28, picked up on the cheap from another organization, was really great  in Iowa last year [see Jake Fox]), Hoyer brought along 22-year-old stud first base prospect Anthony Rizzo from the Padres in exchange for Tyler Cashner, who was merely a reliever. Reportedly, the team has also signed a couple of Cubans: the 19-year-old hitting prodigy Jorge Soler and a 21-year-old lefty called Gerardo Concepcion.

However, those hopes are still far away.  The truth remains that in a world where the division’s front offices are all about even–and the remainder of the Central is being run very well right now, every team a threat to turn into the small-market success that was the past decade’s Cardinals–Chicago’s absurd superiority in market size should have the Cubs thinking in dynastic terms.

Yet, this year (and next year, and maybe for three more, or another 104) the Cubs will persist in being the Cubs.

Worth watching: Wrigley has some of the hardest-assed ushers in the game. April, 35 degrees, home team down 12-4, most teams will let you into everything but the cushy, free-drinks seats. Not the Cubs. Fortunately, most of their ushers have been on Social Security since FDR introduced it. The Lady With the Oxygen Tank, God love her and I hope she’s still there, is usually on the first base side and is your best bet for getting into the front rows. Chris Volstad is an interesting reclamation project. If you want to get into the bleacher bums’ spirit and insist on a mixed drink (rather than being a grown-up and packing a flask), bring it in a sealable pop bottle. Even if the door people do see the broken seal and drop it in the can with a disapproving stare, you can pluck it right out, no problem, and still have a way to make Cubs Baseball bearable.

Featured Image Credit: Associated Press

MLB

Big Ass MLB Preview 2012 – Chicago White Sox

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Last season: 79-83 (3rd in AL Central, 16 GB)

2011 Playoffs: Did not qualify

With Ozzie Guillen headed south to Miami, Robin Ventura gets the call to manage the White Sox in 2012. (Photo: Associated Press)

Josh says: There are people in this world who do not like surprises.  They want life to be predictable, habitual, controlled, and though life throws its curveballs, they still know that at 7:20 a.m., give or take 90 seconds, Smiling Mikey will be staring across the table as the bowl of Life cereal goes down the gullet.

For the poor Life-eating folks who are pro-White Sox, we’ll keep this preview in expected territory:  Any discussion of the South Siders in 2012 begins with one Kenny Williams, General Manager and all-around Surprise Maestro.  There isn’t another franchise in American pro sports where the GM has such a cult of “What in the Sam Hill is he doing next?” surrounding him, and now that Ozzie Guillen has left for Miami, Williams’ erraticism rules all at U.S. Cellular Field.  The whole appeal of Robin Ventura, according to the beat writers, is his gritty calm, getting noogied by Nolan Ryan notwithstanding.

Maybe Kenny will blow it up! Maybe we’ll go for it all!  The man let Jim Thome walk four balls at a time up to the goshdarned Twins for a paltry $1.5 million.  He claimed Alex Rios off waivers and traded for Jake Peavy, with middling success.  He gave up Daniel Hudson to rent Edwin Jackson.  And he won a World Series with a staff led by Jose Contreras.

This offseason was no more scrutable than others.  Carlos Quentin was sent to San Diego for a couple of maybe-but-no pitching prospects after Williams signed John Danks to a big extension as rumors swirled around Gavin Floyd, and after trading closer Sergio Santos, under team control through 2017,  for a No. 4 pitching prospect.

Williams, after the Santos trade: “It is the start of a rebuilding. And you guys know I have not used that word in 12 years. But it is the start of a rebuilding. Now, is it the start of falling-domino rebuilding? No. Absolutely not.”

Best, then, that expectations are tempered for the 2012 season.  Rebuilding without knocking over dominoes indicates a level of play close to last year, which shouldn’t be hard to maintain for a 79-win team that outperformed its run differential.  Paul Konerko can still hit. A.J. Pierzynski will likely still have an almost-league-average bat coupled with terrible defense behind the plate. Danks, Floyd (if he’s not traded), a healthy Peavy and youngster Chris Sale could form a decent rotation, and the bullpen is okay.  If everyone else does the same or a little better than last year, the Sox can win maybe 80 games if they’re lucky again,  thanks to a bad division.

But! Yet! However! This team could surprise.  In a good way, Life-eaters.  No, it’s not likely that they keep up with the Tigers; but with two Wild Card spots and a couple of injuries to any or all of the Red Sox, Yankees, Rays, Angels and Rangers, the White Sox might be sitting there to take advantage.  A playoff spot in 2012 would be a Big Surprise, and it would require Adam Dunn to be at least average, and certainly better than his .192/.292/.277 2011.  More Big Ifs for the Pale Hose include long-touted prospects Dayan Viciedo (right field) and Tyler Flowers (catcher) producing, utilityman Brent Lillibridge giving them a similar line to his .845 2011 OPS in more at-bats, and the double-play combo of Alexei Ramirez and Gordon Beckham reverting to their rookie years, when both were above-average hitters.

Then Kenny Williams lands a Huge Surprise at the deadline, and you can Put It On The Board, YES, the White Sox have another unlikely shot at the Series.

Worth watching: If you have MLB.TV access, White Sox color guy Hawk Harrelson is the Greek idol of homerdom.  No, he’s no Uecker or Scully, but he’s grumpy in a fun way and has catchphrases all the way to Kankakee.  Lots of people hate him, naturally.  If there is an Adam Dunn revival, The Cell is a home run hitter’s dream park; a vintage Dunn and age-defying Konerko would be one of the better 3-4’s in the American League.

Featured Image Credit: Associated Press

Sports

The Promoter: A Brave New 2012

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There’s nothing death-and-taxes about the boxing game. It doesn’t even afford us the courtesy of a simple, encapsulable season that scribes can break down with a list of winners and losers to be; there’s no divisions and conferences and championships, no best bargains or silliest signings.

There is no offseason; there’s always a fight to watch, no matter how obscure.

Yet January’s a slow month for the sweet science, we need something to talk about, and there’s nothing I can add to the Muhammad Ali birthday tributes.

So, by default, it’s time for some irresponsible prognostication. We’ll do a few near-certainties, and mostly talk about the best case scenarios, the coming Good-if man is still alive.

For those needing social media attention, retweet this column with an “@” aimed at one of the boxing rumor sites and it’ll probably get reported as a “deal in the works” item within a half hour. The Internet’s so much fun.

Beginning with the big fishies…

Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao will meet in November

The Twittersphere is alight these days with Mayweather calling out the Filipino. Floyd’s jail stint, originally scheduled to start this month, has been pushed back to accommodate his May 5th reservation at the MGM Grand. If only landlords let us commoners delay rent payments for dates with the Golden Corral Chocolate Fountain. Other possible opponents for both men come with far less intrigue. Yet the long-desired #1 vs. #2 fight won’t happen this spring.

The night before the contracts are to be signed, Evil Promoter Bob Arum will release an old video of Manny singing John Lennon in English, with Tagalog subtitles that say, in effect, Sarangani, my homeland, YOU SUCK I HATE YOU DIE, PLEASE.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlmCHrNFRkE

The resulting need for political damage control scraps the spring encounter, and Pacquiao ends up beating Miguel Cotto in a close June bout, while Floyd uses nothing but open-handed slaps to beat Mexican wunderkind Canelo Alvarez on points, on Cinco de Mayo.

After the protests in always volatile Mindanao die down and Mayweather gets free, there will be no excuses: The fight will take place November 3. Ron Paul’s independent presidential campaign will outbid all Vegas casinos, and hold the fight equidistant between Las Vegas and Manila on the recently purchased U.S.S. End The Fed, a former naval aircraft carrier serving as the pirate radio headquarters and party boat for 20,000 of the Texas congressman’s most righteously bearded 20something antiwar weed-smoking dudes.

The “Mission Accomplished” banner unfurled at fight’s end, no matter who wins, will be delicious in its irony.

The Klitschko brothers will fight for all the Commie marbles

It’s been a long, long, (indeterminable without Wikipedia’s help) time since the two Ukrainian “brothers” didn’t knock around halfassed contenders to defend their variety of heavyweight belts. Not one, but two Dragos have been beating the hell out of American heavyweights for years. I hope that you’re appropriately ashamed (fellow U.S. citizen and probable Eighties child who thought the Cold War happened in Canada).

Like any good product of Marxist dialectics, though, the Klitschko contradiction will resolve itself this year.

After Mrs. Heroes & Wladimir split this spring, citing “continental issues” i.e. philosophical differences w/r/t Wladimir being a FREAK, the often underaggressive champion decided to get his DNA analyzed. Results resulted, and it was found that there are in actuality 307 Klitschko “brothers,” the last great gasp of the Soviet labs, and any memory the heavyweights have of a shared childhood is merely the product of hallucinatory imprinting that would’ve been just awesome, man, if Solidarity hadn’t got all up in the way, you know.

Vitali will beat his little “brother’s” ass.

Madness in the middling weights

The Klitschkos will be a big story, but the big talent and money in boxing is in the 140 through 160-pounders. There’s a slew of guys who can fight, because for some reason even the most heavily muscled or quickest of that approximate size don’t have a whole lot of other athletic options in sport.

New HBO Sports headman Ken Hershman will recognize this market opportunity and get together the biggest bracket ever to happen in the sweet science, seeding a slew of average-heighted action stars into a 32-fighter tournament, including pound-for-pounders Juan Manuel Marquez and Sergio Martinez; the brutal Brandon Rios, Marcos Maidana, and James Kirkland; Mexican stars Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.; and some British guys. Or so a boy can dream.

The General Public will demand the winner faces the Mayweather-Pacquiao victor. It will never happen.