The Death of a Blog

I'm killing my other blog. It was meant to contain my brilliant sports commentary, my glittering insight, and things of this nature. As a name, "My Own Sports Page" was a tad grandiose, and the content never lived up to the tag - mostly because there wasn't very much of it. The blog header announced the Page's arrival - "Conceived, launched, written, edited and read by me – a former low-level sports journalist of no consequence and one-time sports information assistant of absolutely no regard." I hired myself,perhaps foolishly, as editor, reporter, columnist, and paperboy. Since I have not made a new entry there since February 18 I am now firing myself from all these jobs.

You know how when someone dies their body loses control and lets all their piss and shit pour out? A life passes before eyes and then a big smelly mess is made. That's what is happening with the blog that once existed at My Own Sports Page. The three entries below were all that I managed to blog out. "Thirtysomething," "Notable NBA Numbers," and "Token NHL Blurb."

http://myownsportspage.blogspot.com/ is dead.
Long live http://amateurthinker.blogspot.com/.

THIRTYSOMETHING?
ENTRY FROM 10:28 AM ON FEBRUARY 18, 2005
As the league's luminaries gather in Denver for this weekend's All-Star spectacle, there were only two games played last night. I even looked at the CBA and NBDL boxscores from last night, and found little of note. Scans of www.eurobasket.com, www.fiba.com, and www.euroleague.net also yielded nothing.

Thirtysomething?
Dallas' 119-113 win at Phoenix included a troika of thirty-point efforts: Michael Finley (33), Josh Howard (30), and Amare Stoudamire (31). Just another high-scoring affair for those two squads, you say? Perhaps. It also may have been related to the pending guest appearance of Mel Harris on next week's episode of the West Wing. She's the actress who played Hope on the ABC drama thirtysomething. Then again, maybe not.

NOTABLE NBA NUMBERS
ENTRY FROM 7:55 PM ON FEBRUARY 17, 2005
Chicago 121, Toronto 115

The Bulls hit season highs in points (121), field goal percentage (.579), and games over .500 (3) in their second win in as many nights. Despite a season's best 115 points the Raptors never held a lead. Both teams shot over .500 from the field and from three, and topped .800 on free throws. If only for the symmetry of the numbers, and the players behind them, this box deserves a second look. Each half of the box score included the following.

A starter drafted in last year's lottery score 28 points (Hinrich #7, Bosh #4)
A second starter score 25 points (Curry, Rose)
A third starter score 20 points (Deng 20, Alston 21)
Reserves who played collegiately at UConn score 17 points (Gordon, Marshall)
A starter who played only one college season in the ACC make 10 free throws (Deng [Duke 2004], Bosh [Georgia Tech 2003])
A starting second-round draftee with 8 assists (Duhon [#38 in 2004], Alston [#39 in 1998])

Also notable from last night:

Dueling Stiffs Produce Double Doubles
Portland's Joel Przybilla (18 pts, 17 rebs, 6 bs) and Indiana's Jeff Foster (14 pts, 17 rebs, 1 bs) post unlikely numbers in the Pacer's 95-87 triumph.

How Not To Defend The Paint
Golden State and Seattle combined for 104 points in the paint in the Warriors' 117-110 road victory.

Many Doubles
Jason Kidd notched a triple-double with 19 points, 11 boards, and 10 helpers, Chris Webber collected a double-double in the form of 12 points and 10 rebounds, and both teams held double-digit leads (13 each). The Nets held on 96-85 in a game that included 17 ties and 12 lead changes.

TOKEN NHL BLURB
ENTRY FROM 6:19 PM ON FEBRUARY 16, 2005
Having only seen one National Hockey League game in person, fewer still on television, I'm not really affected by today's declaration that the league will not have a season. Field hockey I have seen repeatedly, and even been paid to do so. Same with women's lacrosse, tennis, cross country and track and field. It is neither sexism nor ignorance that feeds my disdain for these sports. After keeping statistics, writing game programs, and contributing to recruiting guides, I lay claim to educated disdain for most of what the NCAA officially terms "non-revenue sports." I know more than enough about those sports to know I don't like them. Not so with ice hockey. That which I do not know about the sport of Gretzky could fill the Toronto Sky Dome. Cancel the season, play an abbreviated schedule, switch to full-contact curling - big deal. Too bad for hockey fans but not for me. Salary cap, player concessions, cost certainty - so what? Do what you will, NHL. Except for one thing - the timing.

I take issue with the league making its news public today, which is the first day of this weblog. My new blog dedicated to sports. Why not tomorrow? I could have written about pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training, how strange Kevin McHale looks as a coach, or why the Illinois men's basketball team won't win it all. Instead, the NHL turned out the lights this very afternoon. By doing so, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has forced me to do something I am neither inclined to do nor skilled in - writing about hockey. Even though the one game I saw included Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr, I just had to Google both of those names, plus Gretzky, to find their correct spellings. Further degrading my hockey knowledge is the fact that one of the teams in that game, the Hartford Whalers, no longer skates. I couldn't attend my second NHL game there if I wanted to. Attending that game was fun, and I'm not completely sure why I didn't take to hockey. The arena in Hartford was attached to a shopping mall, and the vendors sold great ice cream in the stands. Walking out into the arena to see the ice was something special. How clean, white and bright it was. The players gliding across the smoothness, my guides telling me to watch behind the puck so I could see the body-slams. It was my effort to branch out of basketball, baseball and football, but it just didn't stick. Couldn't get into it on teevee, and I reverted to not caring.

Whatever was missing must not have effected just me, since the team no longer exists. It moved somewhere in the southern United States, right? Was it Charlotte? Like I said, I know puck about hockey, but that seems like quite the bad move, eh? Doesn't hockey belong in cities with attributes one would associate with the sport itself? Chicago's broad shoulders; New York's swagger; Quebec's small-town feel; Vancouver's grandeur; Boston's grit. Hartford makes me think "Insurance Capital Of The World," mostly because the city's tourism marketing touts it thus, and Charlotte makes me think of tobacco smoke. Hartford, though, is cold and situated in the northeast, two things Nashville and Miami and Raleigh are not. Hockey in the south? Next thing you know the league will be losing millions of dollars, dropping market share, and cancelling entire seasons.

© 2005 by justin michael cresswell