Blogcritics Author: Dan McGowan

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Denver Gets Gully as Philly Prays for Oden

Dan McGowan — Wed, 20 Dec 2006 17:23:29 EST

I normally hate throwing the NBA and hip hop together because of the negative stereotype the comparison generates, but when Allen Iverson gets traded, exceptions must be made. Have there ever been three players on the same team more hood than Carmelo, J.R. Smith and now Iverson? Grab a big man from Cali and sign Master P to a 10 day and you’re talking about uniting a whole culture. These boys are going to break some records – namely most players on one team to sleep with Carmen Bryan. It’s just too bad they’re stuck in Denver, where ghetto is considered having just one NorthFace.Anyway, it would be absurd to think the Nuggets didn’t improve immensely, and it’s hard to believe they won’t eventually pass the Phoenix Suns as the highest scoring team in the league. The question of how Iverson will react to having to share the ball is fair, but a bit skewed. Yes, he’s a gunner, but having barely average players around him (even on the best 76ers teams) played a large role in his propensity for shooting.In Philly, the Sixers managed to get the three quarters for dollar they were seeking. Acquiring Andre Miller probably signifies the end of former UConn guard Kevin Ollie’s days playing 35 minutes a game. Miller is a talented player, but I think his point guard skills will be featured more if the team can win the lottery and draft Greg Oden. In the meantime, he’ll begin to understand more and more why Iverson enjoyed spending most of his time in Atlantic City. At least he won sometimes down the shore. The deal becomes a heist for Denver’s if the Sixers don’t get Oden however. If ever a team could fuck up having three first round picks, it’s Philly, who will probably end up with two tweeners and an offensively challenged big man. Here’s a crazy stat that really means very little, but proves they can’t even get lucky in the draft: Of all their second selections in the Iverson era up until Kyle Korver (who they traded for), not one player is on an NBA roster today.As for Iverson, I hope he gets to play for another championship. He’s too great a player to not win one. His leaving Philly is kind of upsetting. The Answer was in a class with the Jeters, Favres and Elmos of the world as stars who never switched teams in an era when moving around became commonplace.

Dan McGowan is a 19 year old journalism major from Connecticut. He loves to talk sports and has a true passion for writing, which is why he launched Dan's Take in November 2005. He is currently struggling to write his first novel, which will undoubtedly go unpublished and unread by millions, though he is not bitter.

Rutgers Did All That For The Texas Bowl

Dan McGowan — Sun, 3 Dec 2006 04:09:50 EST

The state of New Jersey will forever remember the night Rutgers shocked Louisville. Unfortunately, they'll also remember the failures that followed.A devastating triple overtime loss last night in West Virginia means the Scarlet Knights will not be headed to Miami for the Orange Bowl. Instead, while U of L helps the Big East win its second straight BCS game, the Knights are off to Houston to play a bottom tier Big 12 team still to be determined.Considering how far the Knights have come, it's hard to label them as choke artists. But the shoe might fit. As it turned out, last night should have meant nothing. If they didn't lose to Cincinnati, Rutgers would have punched its ticket last weekend following the Mountaineers' loss to South Florida. But they did. So then they found themselves in position to win in Morgantown, up three with under four minutes to play. But they didn't. Now they have only themselves to blame for everything that follows.It's very possible that falling short of the BCS will lead to Greg Schiano taking the job at Miami. That school had a down year. Rutgers had a dream season. But it's hard to tell the difference between the two when you look at their respective bowl games. Say they lose in the Texas Bowl. How much different will this season be than last? You can't keep stealing recruits from the top schools when you're losing pre-New Year's day post season games.Rutgers can take solace in one thing: At least Florida won. Had the Gators lost, all the teams that needed to lose for an unbeaten Scarlet Knights team to even have a chance at playing Ohio State would have.So hey, it could have been much worse.

Rutgers Win Dooms Big East's BCS Championship Chances

Dan McGowan — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 01:33:57 EST

Successful college football in Jersey was once a far-fetched dream. After Thursday night, it's a dreadful reality for the Big East.Rutgers' stunning -- and that's not saying enough -- 28-25 win over Louisville all but confirms that the black sheep of BCS conferences will not send a team to the national championship game, even if the Scarlet Knights win out.This isn't even about the undeniable need for a playoff in college football. That's not going to happen. It's about the Urban Meyers of the world that voiced their disgust with Louisville possibly playing in the title game. It's about all those coaches that didn't speak out, instead using a top 25 poll to state their opinion. It's about Jason Whitlock, who still voted the Cardinals 10th on his writer's poll ballot even after last Thursday's win over West Virginia.All of them were right. The Cardinals do not deserve to play for the national championship. But if it wasn't for last night, they would have been there Jan. 8. No one outside of a few columnists trying to be different actually believes Rutgers is BCS Title Game worthy. But a team that could have finished second in the country would have been.Now Florida, Texas, and USC and all of the "stronger" one-loss teams can breathe easier. One of those schools will back into the title game without having to worry about some unbeaten Big East team, no matter what Rutgers' record is.In the long run, a strong team from the biggest media market in the world will be help the Big East thrive. The future of the league is promising.It's the present that's looking cloudy.

ACC Football Has Fallen On Tough Times

Dan McGowan — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 09:44:27 EST

It's no secret that ACC football has lived off the success of Florida State. From 1991-2000, the Seminoles won two national championships, appeared in three BCS title games and finished in the top five every year. Over that same span, only one other team from the league (UNC in '96) finished its season in the top ten. The epitome of top heavy.Ironically, the league is now faltering and it has nothing to with FSU being down or a lack of depth. In fact, it's the exact opposite. The ACC has become too good for its own good. When Miami, Virginia Tech, and Boston College left the Big East to join the league in 2004 (BC began play last year), a super-conference was born. With the Hurricanes and Hokies as perennial national title contenders and BC good for a top 25 finish every year, cupcake schedules became nonexistent. Now, with teams like Georgia Tech and Wake Forest stepping up, it's becoming impossible not to slip up. Unlike in basketball, where a strong conference prepares a team for March, only dominance prevails in college football. Only perfection really. That's how mini-dynasties are born. Today USC has what Oklahoma had a few years ago, and what Nebraska had before that. Undefeated seasons put you on the map. It's also no mistake that while these teams flourished, they had no more than one team in their respective league to mount a serious challenge. How can any team in today's ACC go undefeated? Mini-dynasty? What school is going to be able to control the league for even one year, let alone two or three? It's just not going to happen.It's going on six seasons since an ACC team has even appeared in the BCS title game. It was FSU and they lost. From the looks of things, the league might never get another chance.

Why Children Hate Adults: Elementary School Bans Tag

Dan McGowan — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:10:29 EDT

To quote my cousin from Canada who occasionally drunk dials me, "Fuckin' yanks."An elementary school in Massachusetts has decided to ban chase games, like tag or touch football, because they are worried about parents holding the school liable for the injuries their children might sustain while taking part in these devil worshipping activities.As if children in this country aren't outrageously obese already, now they're overweight parents want them to be fat little pussies as well. Make no mistake about it; this is just as wrong as banning books that contain mildly abusive language or the occasional sex scene. The only reason parents approve things like this is because they are too busy or outrageously lazy and don't want to deal with anything going on in their child's lives.With books, it was the horrifying thought of their children running around calling each other bitches and having wild orgies that got to them. You know, if you eliminate the source of these thoughts, then maybe daddy can enjoy his beer and watch Dog the Bounty Hunter without having to bother telling his kid that that it's wrong to swear or have sex until they're grown up.Now, parents are essentially ridding themselves of unnecessary first aid work. Eliminating play time injuries in school means that any injury a kid does come home with will result in a nice new Lexus for mommy.It's simply preposterous.I'm all for the playground being pro-choice. If the girls want to play jump rope or a fat little pussy wants to be a fat little pussy, let them. But let's not a whole generation of children spend their lives on the sidelines. Who will we watch on television?

Chipping Away at the Yankee Empire: Down Goes Matsui

Dan McGowan — Fri, 12 May 2006 13:04:55 EDT

After playing in 1,768 straight games between Japan and the United States, Hideki Matsui was starting to look like he needed a few days off. Now, he'll get three months.The Major League record for consecutive games played to begin a career ended at 518 when Matsui broke his left wrist attempting to catch a Mark Loretta fly ball in the first inning of the Yankees 5-3 loss at home to Boston last night. With its left fielder joining right fielder Gary Sheffield on the DL, New York now has to find a way to keep injuries from causing the season to fall by the wayside. From the looks of things, that won't be easy. The Yankees will now look to prospect/horror show Melky Cabrera, sissy armed/nearsighted Bernie Williams, and the bat-less wonder kid Bubba Crosby to combine to shore up its depleted outfield. They might me be better off handing a jersey to Paul O'Neil. At least he throws tantrums well.With Alex Rodriguez still struggling, Jason Giambi is the only run producer in what was supposed to be a nightmare of a lineup. A lineup with Bernie, Bubba, Miguel Cairo, and Jorge Posada now looks like a pitcher's wet dream. Never mind the pitching, which has an ace that hit the backstop twice in seven pitches the other night, and a bullpen that can't even get the ball to its best guy. The schedule won't do the Yankees any favors either. The team hosts Oakland and Texas for seven games before taking the subway over the Shea Stadium to play one of the best teams in baseball. Follow that up with a three game set in Boston and 19-13 could become 24-23 in a hurry.

Jeffrey Maier is Jeffrey Maier in I Hate Jeffrey Maier

Dan McGowan — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 19:52:35 EDT

In what might be the greatest senior thesis of all time, a Wesleyan University film student made a nine-minute movie about an obsessed Baltimore Orioles fan that realizes he would be going to school with the kid that ruined his favorite team's season in 1996. The student, Lizz Morhaim, decided to have a boy play the part of the infatuated fan, although the character definitely exemplifies what she felt about Jeffrey Maier ten years ago. Because Maier also goes to Wesleyan, he agreed to be in the movie, playing himself. The details of the movie aren't really clear but if I was Morhaim, I'd go with the Back to the Future theme. Imagine what would happen if you could go back in time and infect Maier with chicken pox so he couldn't attend that game one of the ALCS that year. Think about it ... Derek Jeter may have never become the most clutch player in playoff history. He would have flown out in that spot and the fans at Yankee Stadium might have started booing. Maybe a young Jeter, unable to handle the crowd, would have become a precursor to Ron Artest and attacked a boozed up fan. Within months, he could have been dealt to Kansas City, hitting a quiet .300 for the rest of his career on a dismal team. Atlanta probably would have won the World Series for the second consecutive year, negating the theory that they are worst playoff team in sports history. Brady Anderson's downfall may have had a lot to do with Maier as well. Maybe Anderson would have stayed on the juice because of his belief that his team could compete in the AL East as long as he continued to hit 50 home runs a year from the leadoff spot. Realizing he had a partner in his cheating scheme, Rafael Palmeiro wouldn't have left for Texas, where he proceeded to put up the best numbers of his career. With Anderson battling for Mark McGwire's single season homerun record, Mike Mussina would have never been bought out by New York. All of this over a kid that made a lucky catch. You see what you did, Jeffrey?

Top Heavy NBA Lacks Possibility

Dan McGowan — Fri, 7 Apr 2006 09:03:26 EDT

The beauty of sports is that it's okay -- and usually more fun -- to be wrong. Let me explain. As sports fans, we all feel the need to play expert and make predictions about everything from who will win the World Series to how many sexually transmitted diseases Michael and Marcus Vick have between them. Just like the Mel Kipers and Barry Melroses of the world, we are almost always wrong. Just too many things can happen in any given sport. Every league will provide its share of upsets. Every league that is, except for the NBA.As the league's final regular season games come to a close, it is apparent that only two teams have a realistic chance to even reach the NBA finals. Trust me - you don't need Stephen A. Smith to tell you who they are.In the East, Detroit is so much better than everyone else that it's boring. I'd rather watch the Knicks for comedic value alone than see the Pistons paste the Miami Heat every night. Last night, Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal scored 29 and 28 points respectively in their loss to Detroit. No one else scored above six for the Heat. That's right. Udonis Haslem, Antoine Walker and Gary Payton all played more than 32 minutes; none of them managed to make a couple lay-ups and a few free-throws. Six. And that's supposed to be the second-best in the Eastern conference?Out west, you have San Antonio at the top and two teams hoping they can at least make the conference finals competitive in Dallas and Phoenix. At least the Mavericks are decent. In fact, they are much better than Miami. They are sort of like Ewing's Knicks compared to Jordan's Bulls. They will probably give the Spurs a run for their money and fall just short. The Suns, on the other hand, think every game is the first half of an All Star game. They can score 130 points a night but they might give up 150. After that, there's nobody in either conference. That's what's missing in the NBA. You're not going to find a George Mason in either conference. You're not going to see a crazy Cavaliers/Lakers match up. It just can't happen. It's not so much that the Pistons and Spurs are even that much better than everyone else. It's just that everyone else stinks.Until the middle of the pack teams can challenge the top teams, the NBA will remain almost unwatchable.

Tavarez, Farnsworth Could Push Rivalry to Whole New Level

Dan McGowan — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 08:40:09 EST

In the professional sports pecking order of brawling ability, baseball players fall somewhere ahead of curlers but far behind any of the real sports. They barely pack a decent push, let alone a punch.Of course, there are exceptions and now two of them have been thrown into the most heated rivalry in all of sports, Red Sox and Yankees.With Julian Tavarez on the Sox and Kyle Farnsworth in pinstripes, the opportunities for the best post-Zimmer on his ass brawl between the two teams seem endless. The remote possibility of watching two pitchers that can throw down going at it is reason enough to tune in.I can't tell you how much I hope we see this happen this year. Picture the scene. A-Rod yelling at Varitek, Wells fraternizing with Jeter, Manny thumb wrestling Damon, and two warriors battling to the death in the middle. The best part is Tavarez and Farnsworth have two very contrasting styles that could help everyone decide the age old question: street fighter or wrestler?Tavarez is the former. Just yesterday he threw a nice sucker-haymaker at Tampa Bay's Joey Gathright, while Gathright was on one knee. The punch knocked his helmet off but no further damage was done. When Major League Baseball suspends him, it will be the fourth time he has been disciplined for fighting. He has also been suspended for cheating.In 2001, the Giants' Russ Davis charged at Tavarez and was greeted with a Jackie Chan-esque kick and was suspended and forced to take sensitivity classes. Sometime after the suspension, Tavarez pointed out that all Giants fans were gay. The pitcher has gone at it with the Devil Rays before and has fought Mike Matheny. Apparently, Tavarez also has an affinity for head hunting, though he usually misses. Among those he has tried to kill are Matheny and the Houston Astros' Jeff Bagwell.Farnsworth happens to beat more of a tackle, take it to the ground and choke you out type of guy. He would probably do well in the UFC.Forget that he has thrown 101 MPH; Farnsworth is known for laying out Cincinnati Reds' pitcher Paul Wilson in 2003. A highlight that anyone who watches ESPN has seen 20 times, Farnsworth slowly walked toward the charging Wilson and proceeded to treat him the way Ray Lewis might treat a high schooler going across the middle. Last season, he did the same to the much smaller Kansas City Royals' pitcher Jeremy Affeldt.So who wins?I'm taking Tavarez. He has actually fought athletes, not just pitchers the way Farnsworth has done. It would be very close. Obviously, if Farnsworth takes it to the ground, my pick might be in trouble. If that happened, I wouldn't be surprised to see Farnsworth take a little pine tar to the face, blinding him just enough for Tavarez to judo chop his way to victory. Tavarez' tantrums - Boston Globe Kyle Farnsworth - Wikipedia

March Madness: Connecticut's Season Was Somehow a Disappointment

Dan McGowan — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:28:31 EST

Forgive my disparagement, but I hate this version of Cinderella.When Denham Brown's lay up attempt at the end of regulation hung on the rim and went in, I immediately thought UConn, despite all its recent success, was a team of destiny. They didn't even belong in the final eight. They should have lost to Washington. They should have lost to Albany and Kentucky last weekend. But they didn't. So now in overtime of the regional final, the Huskies were going to start playing. For the time in weeks, they were going to put it altogether. They were going to win.But they didn't.Instead, George Mason played better in the extra period than it played all game. The amazing run that saw one of the last teams in the field of 65 defeat the past two national champions continued for the Patriots and ended for the most talented UConn team ever.Most talented? Easily. The best? Not even in the top five.This was on one of the first teams at Connecticut that didn't respond well to Jim Calhoun's antics. You have to almost be mentally invincible to play for a tyrant like him, and most of the kids who show up in Storrs are or learn to be.But this team didn't.Rudy Gay, who had one of the best games of his career in what was probably his last, was not like the stars before him. He was missing the Ben Gordon, or Rip Hamilton or Ray Allen in him. Josh Boone couldn't handle Calhoun. Even the guys that had been there for four years hardly adjusted to his harsh demeanor. Here was a group that had won everything. From pre-season to post, the last three years were pretty successful. They had been through it all and next year will most likely be unrecognizable by the average fan. This was a team that was beyond prepared for this season. They were supposed to know what it takes to win.Yesterday, unfortunately, they didn't.