Why the Canadian Football League just does not appeal

Yesterday the Calgary Stampeders won the 96th Grey Cup from the Montreal Alouettes in Montreal in front of 66,308 screaming fans. It was the second largest Grey Cup crowd in the championship's historic existence.

I was having a nap.

The Stamps had something of a vendetta against the Als - - they had been slighted by the CFL when they received no awards, while the Als had been met with critical acclaim. Although the Stamps' QB Henry Burris had had a career season, the Als' Anthony Calvillo was given the nod for Most Valuable Player in the CFL's regular season. The Stamps played with a passion rarely seen in any sport.

Or so I'm told. I was watching Charlie Wilson's War.

As you can tell, the CFL just does not appeal to me. A shocking but true fact as I am their ideal target audience. After all, I'm a middle class male between the ages of 18 and 45. Everyone wants my attention. If I may be so bold: I am the perfect CFL demographic. I love sports. I love football. I love Canada. I'm an ardent fan of all things Torontonian, and would naturally become a hardline fan of the Argos.

But the CFL just doesn't stick with me.

I absolutely love Canadian football, at least on paper. I think the game and rules of the CFL are far superior to the American game with higher scores. The three downs emphasize efficiency and speed, while the bigger field lets individual players shine. Unfortunately, most of the best football players in the world play in the NFL or NCAA. The cream of the crop in the CFL are always in danger of being scooped up by an NFL team for more money.

What immediately ruins the CFL for me are the television broadcasts. The production values are so low, and in particular, the commentators are so bad, that it is almost impossible to watch. On TSN's SportsCentre, the CFL analysts were interviewing a jubilant Henry Burris who was holding the Grey Cup at the table. Former CFL Quarterback and current grillmaster Matt Dunigan asked him how he felt after winning the championship and the Grey Cup MVP trophy. Seriously. Do we expect anything other then happiness from Burris? Is he going to break down into tears and apologize for an interception earlier in the game? Come on. He's won the championship, the MVP, and has a huge grin plastered on his face. Ask a tougher question.

The CFL has to operate on the assumption that there is little familiarity with the game, its players, and even its teams. At the same time, they have to make sure they do not condescend to the fans. I appreciate it's a fine line to walk, but it's a reality of sports today that all fans will become familiar with their product on television. If your television product isn't informative, entertaining and polished, people will flip the channel to something that is. The CFL is admittedly up against some tough competition in the form of America's National Football League which is as slick as it comes, but Chris Schultz meathead-esque explanations of plays can surely be refined.

Book Review: Everything They Had by David Halberstam

I am trying very hard to fill out my collection of sports writing books. I want to be able to get a feel for all the different kinds of writers out there. Old, new, and different. To that end, I've read Stephen Brunt's Searching for Bobby Orr, John Feinstein's Living on the Black, Sam Sheridan's A Fighter's Heart and the classic Friday Night Lights by H.G. Bissinger amongst many others.

They've all been very different, but enjoyable reads. Friday Night Lights stands out amongst the rest for the sheer intensity of the narrative, but they all had something to offer. A Fighter's Heart was surprisingly philosophical and sophisticated. Searching for Bobby Orr had a dark sense of mystery as Brunt tries, and in some ways, fails to illuminate Bobby Orr's life. Living on the Black is educational but light fare, despite the bulk and thickness of the book.

Everything They Had is, again, very different from these other books. It's not one continuous narrative, but a collection of articles and essays by Halberstam through out his life. The text smells of cigar smoke and Old Spice. Many of the stories amount to "things aren't the way they used to be, and I'm not sure I like it." But there's also a real sense of nostalgia, particularly articles like "The Good Old Days - for Baseball Owners" and "Maybe I Remember DiMaggio's Kick". Many of his most recent articles address Halberstam's post-9/11 reality, and how for him sports no longer hold the power they once did. His work has been dated by the passage of time. For example, as he writes in praise of Pedro Martinez, he talks about the astonishing longevity of Roger Clemens. Obviously, Clemens has been discredited thanks to the Mitchell Report. Similarly, he writes in praise of Steve Belichick and how he instilled such an impressive work ethic in his son Bill, the coach of the New England Patriots whose name has been tarnished by accusations that he video taped other teams' practices. However, this is not a criticism of Halberstam. Hindsight is 20/20, and Halberstam was writing in what were less cynical times.

Halberstam's writing doesn't focus on the games themselves. Indeed, I can't think of a single statistic he cites. Rarely does he provide even a specific date for an event. The minutiae of the games are covered with broad brush strokes. The real focus of his narratives, his tales, are the people. The athletes lives, who they are and what they've experienced are Halberstam's preoccupation. Stories about Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and especially Jackie Robinson abound. In all honesty, he covers the three of them so much, his stories begin to repeat themselves and run together in my memory.

It reads like a conversation with your grandfather.

But that, is a good thing. A great thing, even. Halberstam is one of the great American journalists of the twentieth (and twenty-first) centuries, and to see him at work is excellent. His style is very different from anything I've read and really creates a sense of timelessness not just to his favourite sports, but to all his sports. As dated as some of his references may seem, they also ring true. As his father loved Christy Mathewson, he loved Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson and contemporary New Yorkers love ARod and Derek Jeter (okay, maybe not). Because his tone is so conversational, you can forgive the repetitive nature of the book, and enjoy the true love and craftsmanship in every article.

The Case for Roy Halladay to win the Cy Young

On Friday, left-hander Cliff Lee of the Cleveland Indians won the American League Cy Young Award, the annual award handed out to each league's best pitcher. While I don't doubt his 22 wins and only 3 losses were impressive, I think the Cy Young Electors made a mistake. They should have given it to Roy Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays.

In 2008 Halladay and Lee were actually quite similar statistically:

Cliff Lee went 22-3 with a 2.54 ERA, a 1.11 whip and had 170 strikeouts.
Roy Halladay went 20-11 with a 2.78 ERA, a 1.05 WHIP and had 206 strikeouts.

Where Lee had a better won-loss record and ERA, Halladay is a strikeout artist and put fewer men on base.

But the Cy Young isn't just about wins and losses - - after all, closers like Eric Gagne have won it - - and there is more to baseball then just statistics.

Halladay led the league in complete games, with nine. That kind of consistency is crucial for a long season because it gives your bullpen an unscheduled day off. It also gives the entire team a sense of confidence, that they can rely on him to carry them through the game. Cliff Lee, who struggled mightily the previous season (5-8 record, 6.29 ERA) always had a sense of doom about him, even as he had a career season. Halladay's ability to finish a game is actually quite an accomplishment. In fact, Halladay had more complete games then the entire pitching staffs of any other team in the American League East. He had more complete games then the combined staffs of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Halladay did not have run support from his team. He had four games where he lost by a run, and two no-decisions where the Jays lost by a run. One heartbreaking day in late April Halladay lost 1-0 to the Boston Red Sox after pitching 8.2 innings. The key play was when Gold Glove-winning centre-fielder Vernon Wells' made a fielding error in the ninth inning. With the slow David Ortiz on second, Kevin Youkilis hit a single to centre that Wells picked up and then dropped, giving the lumbering Ortiz enough time to round third and head for home. If you make half of these one-run games go Halladay's way, he has a 23-9 record and an even stronger case for the Cy Young.

I know Woulda-Shoulda-Coulda is a dangerous game to play, but Halladay put in a career season that was only marred by Lee's impressive turnaround from the 2007 season. Granted, some sports writers did acknowledge Halladay's contributions to the Blue Jays, and he finished in second in the Cy Young balloting. However, if you put a premium on consistency and ability to raise a team up, Roy Halladay is your man for the 2008 American League Cy Young Award.