The Phitin Phils

The Philadelphia are back in the MLB playoffs again. Thats five straight years for the 2008 World Series. They are looking to advance to the NLCS for a fourth straight year this October. The Phils are 2-1 in those three NLCS series and 1-1 in the World Series. They fell to the New York Yankees in the 2009 World Series, and the San Fransico Giants in the 2010 NLCS. This years it seems as if they are back with a vengeance. They acquired starting aces Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt in the offseason to join Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay. Now the Phillies are sitting on top of the MLB, becoming the first team to clinch a playoff berth. Their record currently stands at an MLB best 95-51 and they are not slowing up as they look to win 100 games and clinch a NL East title, with 15 games currently remaining on their schedule. They hold a 11 game division lead heading into these next 15 games. Roy Halladay (2.34), Cliff Lee (2.44) and Cole Hamels (2.71) rank 2nd, 6th and 11th best respectively in ERA's. Halladay and Lee are also tied for 6th best in strikeouts with 211. lee also ;eads the MLB with six shutouts this season. But you cant forget about the Phillies hitters. Ryan Howard is always the stalwart of a group of great hitters. The Phila rank 9th in batting average (2.53), and tie for 7th in home runs (143). Howard has hit an MLB 6th best 33 home runs while teammate Hunter Pence ranks 11th for batting average with 3.12. The Phillies seem to be rolling through this season and into October and they don't seem to be slowing down. They look to fight all the way to another world series championship because they know they fell short in 2009 and 2010.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=310914118

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/batting/_/order/true

http://espn.go.com/mlb/stats/team/_/stat/batting/league/nl/sort/homeRuns/order/true

Peyton in the Neck

The Golden Child's consecutive streak of 227 NFL starts including playoffs, which now belongs to his younger brother Eli Manning, is officially done and the record. Peyton Manning may not get another start until next season after undergoing his second neck surgery since May and his third in the last 19 months. The Colts have only suffered two losing seasons with Manning at QB . He has lead them to two Super Bowls, in which he went 1-1, beating the Chicago Bears in 2006 & losing to the New Orleans Saints in 2009. The Colts will need Peyton in order to win. In 2008, they went 3-4 while he was injured and reeled off nine straight wins to finish the season at 12-4 when he returned. This year they have already fallen to 0-1 after a 34-7 loss to the Houston Texans. Everyone is unsure if the Colts can make it to the playoffs without Manning even though they have one of the NFL's top defenses. On Sunday, the entire team looked out of sync without him and the Texans blasted the Colts. Peyton better return and fast or the Colts will face their first losing season since 2001. Kerry Collins, a seasoned veteran, is at the helm in place of manning currently but he does not the have the chemistry that Peyton has with that team. The Colts seem to rally around Manning. However, as of now it seems as if the entire team is suffering from the pain in Peyton's neck.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=ap-colts-manning

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/6944302/indianapolis-colts-peyton-manning-more-surgery-neck

Dirk feeling the "heat"?

Dirk Nowitzki dazzled us in all in the 2011 NBA playoffs. His Dallas Mavericks, knocked out the Portland Trailblazers, defending champ, Los Angeles Lakers, and the explosive Oklahoma City Thunder on their road to the finals, where they faced the star studded Miami Heat. The Mavericks obtained the 3rd seed but were not the favorites in any of their playoffs matches. However they had one player every other team did not, NBA Finals MVP Dirk Nowitzki. The 7 foot tall German who is rated as one of the NBA's top five players, he had to play against the four who everyone ranks above him to obtain his ring, Kobe Bryant (LAL), Kevin Durant (OKC), and Lebron James & Dwayne Wade (Miami). However, Dirk did not dazzle in Germany as much as he did in the NBA playoffs. His German team recently was eliminated in the Eurobasket tournament by Lithuania, eliminating all hopes of Nowitzki representing his home country in 2012 London Olympics. It is even said that it might have been the last anyone will see of Dirk in a German uniform. Nowitzki averaged 27 points & 8 rebounds in the NBA playoffs, but only mustered up 16 points in the loss to Lithuania. Is he not the same guy knocked off the NBA's best so he and his Dallas teammates could hoist the Larry O'Brien trophy. Now in the midst of the lockout and his supposed last game in a German uniform is he looked at as the old Dirk? The guy who was soft and couldn't win when it mattered most. The Olympics are big to a country and Dirk could not rally his team to a bid like he did to get Dallas its first NBA championship. It seems as if the heat is on once again for Dirk.

http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/09/12/dirk-nowitzki-germany-eurobasket/index.html

http://www.clipsnation.com/2011/9/11/2419744/eurobasket-germany-loses-fails-to-advance

Hurricane Shapiro XII

12 current University of Miami players have been discovered to had accepted improper benefits from booster Melvin Shapiro, who is currently serving jail time for a multi million dollar ponzi scheme. 8 of those players have been penalized with at least an one game suspension, while the other 4 simply had to repay the benefits they accepted. Of those 8 players, one happens to be the star quarterback, Jacory Harris. Shapiro also stated that many other Miami players dating back to 2002 had accepted benefits from him, including current Tampa Bay Bucs Tight  End Kellen Winslow Jr., who is a Miami legend. Now the question has become raised again, should players be paid for play? Athletics schedules control the athletes everyday lives. While they seemed to paid with a college scholarship, that is still not enough to maintain a healthy living while at school. What about their lives outside of football? Schools make million of dollars every year off athletic events and nothing is repaid to the athletes. not to mention they sell jerseys with the players names on them and the players still receive no benefits from that. While it seems like the players are just breaking rules, they are just trying to get money to maintain a living outside of athletics at school. Their violations are always unheard of until the person who gave them the benefits reveals all the secrets. The NCAA never discovers the violations themselves, they find out through sources such as ESPN and Yahoo Sports. Boosters are like hurricanes sweeping through and ruining players lives. When will the NCAA actually take more charge and weather the storm. You have to pay these athletes or there will continue to be violations.

http://sports.yahoo.com/investigations/news?slug=ys-wetzel_miami_suspensions_083011

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/6909795/ncaa-eight-miami-hurricanes-serve-suspenions-repayments

Introduction

I am Daivon Jackson, a sophomore from Philadelphia. I am a Sport Management major and Coaching minor. I am also a student athlete at Slippery Rock. I play both football and basketball. I made this blog in the spring semester of 2011 as a apart of my "American Sports in the 21st Century" class. Now i am continuing it for "Sport Communcation" class. I like to blog about the most controversial topics in sports, so you will be in for a sow. I look for to entertaining you with my blog post. When talking about sport I like to describe myself as the "Anti-Skip Bayless".

Money Hungry

How can you not settle on 9 billion dollars? That's the amount of money that the NFL has to split between the owners and the players. On March 15 and 17 we talked about sport and economics. Sport organizations generate billions of dollars because of things like TV contracts, media rights, and apparel rights. The big problem is when their agreements are up and they receive more money how do they manage to get themselves in a jam. it seems as if both sides are getting greedy and are making it very hard to split up 9 billion dollars. The players and owners have been in a heavy dispute since the labor contract expired back in FFebruary. it has gotten to a point where the NFLPA is even trying to stop rookies from partaking in the NFL Draft. While some rookies won t go to the draft many others say they will because it's a dream come true to be there. Why is it so difficult for a organization that generates so much money to split up that money? Because they can not split up the money the league will face a lockout. The greed for money is costing the fans. While the players and the owners argue about their money they forget about the fans who pay to see them play on SSundays. Economic problem in sports destroys the game for the fans.



http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6205936

Uncle Toms are the Thorn in Rose's Side

On April 5 and 7 we got the chance to talk about race and ethnicity. Since the release of Michigan Fab Five story in the ESPN 30 for 30 series, Jalen Roses comments about Duke and Coach K only recruiting "Uncle Toms" have been the topic of discussion in the media. The Fab five were the media big money maker back in the early 90's because the did exactly what no one wanted them to do. Rose and his Michigan freshman teammates were all from poor neighborhoods and Duke had black players like Grant Hill that were from well off families. Rose felt like Coach Kdidnt have interest in having players like himself. Roses comments were said to be racist and unnecessary. However, he has said numerous times that he does not feel that way currently, but that was just how he felt back when he was in school. Grant Hill and Coach K have both spoke out on his comments and defended their university and program. Roses comments were just a hint of racism in sport even though it may have been not intended to offend anyone but it is how he saw Duke at the time. The video above show Roses comments.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=6224395

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/jalen-rose-clarifies-uncle-tom-comments-made-in-fab-five-documentary-031711

Too Hot 4 TV

On March 22 and 24 during class we focused on sport and the mass media. On the 24th we actually dug deep into sexism in the mass media relating to sport. the main question was why must women in sports present themselves in a sexy manner. The answer was simple... sex sells. because women are not as athletic and fun to watch as men the must appeal to the audience in a way that makes them interesting. That has even been the case with the worlds best female tennis player, Serena Williams. Williams has been the topic of discussion recently because of raunchy Topspin 4 trailer. The trailer has been banned and has caused quite a stir. Is sexism in sport however optimizing the way the mass media views all  women?  The fact that we must see women flaunt around in sexy outfits in order to become interested in the player they are is ridiculous but where would these women be without ads like the Topspin trailer. the video above highlights the controversy.

http://urswurve.com/2011/03/25/banned-serena-williams-top-spin-4-video-game-ad/

Technical Kyptonite

Its not a bird or a plane that you hear, that sound is the whistle of the referee giving Superman, Dwight Howard, another technical foul. This post again focuses on deviancein sport. Techinical fouls in the NBA are probably the worst penalty you can recieve. You have to outrageously violate the rules the obtain a technical and Superman has found his kryptonite. Dwight howard has rang up an astounding 18 techs this season. According to NBA rules you must serve a one game suspension once you hit 16 techs and you will receive a one game suspension for each one you receive after that. howard is hurting his teams chnances at success by receiving somany technical fouls. For some reason Superman must run his super mouth whenever he feels something isnt fair and it isnt working to his advangtage. The main question that arises is "what more can the NBA do to stop this problem?". The technical foul has become Howards kryptonite and he better change his ways soon or else he will kill his team during the upcoming NBA playoffs.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/627266-detroit-tigers-stevo-poulin-dwight-howard-and-saturdays-top-sports-buzz/entry/50833-dwight-howard-technical-fouls-are-supermans-only-weakness

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6332282

Manny Being Manny?

During class on March 29 and 31 we focused on deviance in sport. Deviance in sport may come in various categories including Performance enhancing drug use to breaking direct rules of the game that the athlete may play. The biggest problem in modern day pro baseball is the use of P.E.D.'s. Many MLB players have been under the radar in recent years. The most successful players are normally the ones who are under the radar because of their jumps in statistical areas. Recently it has been reported that Manny Ramirez has retired because of his problem with P.E.D. use. Manny, who arguably has the biggest personality in baseball,   announced his retirement shortly after a positive test. P.E.D. use us the biggest act of deviance in pro sports. After a certain number of violations you can receive a lifetime ban. This was Manny's second time being caught and  he faced a 100 game suspension and the next violation would have been is lifetime ban. many people believed that he is taking the easy way out by avoiding his suspension but just being the old Manny that he is, he doesn't care what anyone of thinks of him and felt he did whats best for him. That's just Manny being Manny.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6310125

The Social Sport Network

We all know that sport is a social phenomena but now it has ties with social networks. In class on January 20th and 25th we talked about why we should study sport. The fact is simple that sport is leaking into our everyday lives. We are beginning to live sport here in the U.S. According to Coakley and class discussion 1/10 of the worlds almanacs is devoted to sports, 15% of major network TV is devoted to sport, and 1/4 of space in The USA Today is occupied by sports. In a recent report by ESPN (link at bottom) Action Sports have signed an contract with social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. Skateboarder Tony Hawk leads all action sport athletes with 2.3 million followers on Twitter. Sport Marketers figure that with the growing popularity of social networks that they can get across messages of products and broaden their sales.It has been said that over 1 billion people per day are logged into Facebook and Twitter. Sport companies are using a growing social phenomena to expand its market. They can generate triple the money that was spent on paying the social networking sites for advertisements fees.

http://sports.espn.go.com/action/news/story?id=6175659

For Barry, Politics and Sport Dont Bond

In class on February 24 and March 1st we focused on Sport and Politics. The main question was should politics be involved in sports. MLB Home run record holder Barry Bonds has recently plead not guilty for a fourth time for perjury charges. Bonds is set to go on trail for lying to a Federal Grand Jury about his steroid use. Bonds steroid use came into light in the 2003 BALCO steroids case. Bonds competed many years after that case and retired from the MLB at the end of his 21st year in 2007. Bonds case was just one of many that lead to the Mitchell Report released in 2007 by Senator George J. Mitchell after he conducted a 21-month investigation on performance enhancing drug use in baseball. Many current and former players had the same issues of admitting to using steroid just as Bond has. Some have confessed after initially denying it but have eventually admitted it. Coakley says that Politics safeguards the public order on sports and also promotes the prestige and power of a community or nation. using steroids is illegal in all major U.S. sports and is a sign of cheating and destroys the image of sports all across the world. While it seems as if politics are beginning to abuse to its power in sports, it is also the same thing that keep sport together. The article below highlights Bonds recent case of pleading not guilty to perjury.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6171845

Blackhawks Take Flight In Disney

On February 10th and 15th we focused on youth sport and the effect it has on the youth in our country. According to Coakley football is one of the most popular youth sports with 8.9 million competing in tackle football annually. In December of 2010, The North Philadelphia Blackhawks captured the 2010 120lb Pop Warner title after advancing to the title game as the 105lb squad a year before. Their ticket was punched to Disney but there was just one problem... How would they get there? One of the major problems in youth sport is the cost. In Pop Warner there are bases expenses that get the kids through city and regional play because the travel expenses aren't much but there is nothing that covers a trip to Disney if they make it. Philadelphia Mayor, Michael Nutter, worked up $26,500 to send both the Blackhawks and 150lb Frankford Chargers to Disney. Organizations all over the country donate or sponsor many different youth sport teams. Sponsorships from organizations is what keeps most youth sport organizations running because it cost a lot to maintain the expenses of travell, venues and food and drinks for the athletes. The links below highlight the Blackhawks win and the sponsorships that sent them to Disney.

http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/sports/North_Philly_Blackhawks_Win_Pop_Warner_Super_Bowl_Philadelphia-111760344.html



http://cityofphiladelphia.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/mayor-nutter-announces-funding-for-local-pop-warner-football-league-teams/

Bullseye Buckeye

On February 22nd we discussed Intercollegiate Sport. We talked about the history and the issues facing intercollegiate athletics. In December 2010, five Ohio State football players were suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season by the NCAA for violating NCAA rules. The five players are star QB Terrelle Pryor, RB Dan Herron, WR Devir Posey, OT Mike Adams, and DL Solomon Thomas. All but Thomas are starters. The players sold items such as their Big Ten championship rings and OSU Sport Apparel that are only given to players in exchange for tattoos. Student-athletes are not allowed to benefit from their status to receive things that require money or direct money from anyone. However, the universities benefit from what these athletes bring to the table every time they step on their respective playing fields. This article below is from the NY TImes and relates to the things we discussed in class and the things discussed in Coakley because according to Coakley universities with Division 1-A football teams generate $35,400,000 in media revenue in 2006. Universities also benefit form Bowl money $230 million is to be divided by 68 teams. However, 75% of that goes to only ten teams and leaves 58 teams to split the rest. Universities are allowed to generate millions of dollars off athletes but it is against the rules for athletes to generate money off a university.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/sports/ncaafootball/24buckeyes.html