And Here's the Proof Burn moving back to Cotton Bowl for '04 - Dallas Morning News Burn will return to Cotton Bowl in '04 - Star-Telegram Fire vs. Hottest Team in MLS Fire squares off against surging Revolution - Chicago Daily Herald Revs ride hot streak into showdown with Fire - Chicago Sun Times Red-hot Revs set to offer tough test - Chicago Tribune New playoff format an improvement but still dilutes home-field advantage - Naperville Sun Revitalized Chicago rolls into final - Dallas Morning News Beasley on Revs' radar: Fire midfielder's remarks not forgotten - Boston Herald Playoffs nothing new for Llamosa - Boston Herald No second chance this time around - South Coast Standard Times Bench brings out best in Revs for playoff run - Eagle Tribune Revs-Fire matchup may hinge on offense - ProJo Nicol's worth is truly priceless - Boston Globe SJ-KC San Jose's Onstad a keeper - KC Star The Bay Area's invisible success story - Mercury News Different routes to playoff success - USA Today Weekend Previews - Washington Post (small) Soccer: Walker gives Earthquakes a jolt in MLS - Rochester Dem and Chron Complaining about it won't help, but it's frustrating as hell that the SJ-KC game is getting as much covereage in Rochester as it is in SJ. Top 100 Southwest Missouri Athletes (Jackie Jewsbury) - JOck 98.7 Other Teams that Will Never Have to Play at Southlake Again Staff decisions will be weighed - Denver Post Mathis’ future filled with opportunities - Daily Record Rongen Finalizes Roster - LA Times MLS bottom clubs hunt success - CNNSI Metros Done - NY Sports Express This is what gets coverage in the Bay? A new Stealth attack Upstart pro team trying to fly in under the radar - SF Gate
Lots to comment on today, I'll just pluck out a few articles. Great column by Bob Ryan. Knowledgable, insightful... yes, that Bob Ryan. I made these comments on the Revs' boards earlier, but they bear repeating here... Cover up the byline, and it looks like a good, honest, knowledgeable assessment of the Revs' season to date, entering the do-or-die game against Chicago tonight. Even if you don't cover up the byline, it still does. Would have never guessed that was a Bob Ryan piece, given his past reputation. I'm saying this as a neutral supporter, but perhaps we need to give props to old curmudgeons like Bob Ryan. Perhaps he knows more about the Revs and the sport of soccer then he's been letting on. Nice follow-up by Ann Killion, after her Quakes column last week in the lead-up to the second-leg match against L.A.... And it's a good, fair assessment of what lies ahead after the Miracle on 7th & Alma Streets (a.k.a. Spartan Stadium, and those are my words). Fair amount of hyperbole in there, but Killion paints a picture that puts it all in its proper place. Beg to differ with you, to an extent. Seeing that there's been five articles in the Mercury-News in the last seven days beginning with the lead-up to the second-leg first-round match at Spartan, including Ann Killion's column today and the match report in Monday's edition, that's a vast increase in what that paper usually does. Give them credit for paying attention as to what's going on. http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/soccer/ Factor in the papers in Oakland and San Francisco, and the coverage has been quite good this week. Which leads into this, on the flip side of things... Third paragraph, with the context of indoor lacrosse coming to San Jose Arena next year... The game has about as much tradition around these parts as ice fishing, and it enters a saturated sports arena that includes pro and college basketball, pro hockey, golf and the buildup toward the baseball season, not to mention the remnants of the NFL season. Huh? No mention of pro soccer, and the San Jose Earthquakes? The San Francisco Chronicle has been doing a fair job this week with their MLS playoff coverage and on the Quakes in particular, but somehow, Jose L. Ortiz must've missed the memo. Oddly enough, he mentions the demise of the CyberRays a couple of paragraphs later.
Re: Re: 11/14 Not Complete Idiots Anyway... True. But... I do realize the game is tomorrow, but to see the disparity between the Fire-Revs and SJ-KC coverage is sad. From my perspective, SJ's coverage is the worst in the league (although DC's formerly great coverage did seem to falter this year too) and leading up to tomorrow's game, I expected more articles today. You are right, though, that this week hasn't been bad. And, as I said, my bitching on BS doesn't do anything. Approaching hostile territory - Boston Globe
Re: Re: Re: 11/14 Not Complete Idiots Anyway... Yeah, about to the tune of a fart in a rain barrel, as my mother would say. But here's my observation... The Fire and Revs play today, so naturally there's a high volume of stories and coverage about that game in the teams' respective markets. I would expect a higher number of articles in all Bay Area papers tomorrow when the Quakes and Wizards play. Just the nature of the beast, that's all... it's more of a gameday-driven mentality in the Bay Area media, always has been, especially with soccer. However, I was hoping to have seen any kind of articles at all today as a complement in either the Chronicle, the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times, or any of the other Bay Area papers. In the Bay Area, it's a matter of striking when the iron's hot, now compared to earlier points in the season, which really is quite unfortunate. And as a former Bay Area resident, I lived there for 30-odd years before moving to Australia, I know all too well about the bandwagon mentality of the general sports public there, and a good deal of that can be placed as blame on the local media there itself, under the whole "people are sheep" argument. There are a gazillion different ways we can analyze this, and any of a number of them could be right, or at least form good arguments for them.
One of the Boston papers brought in the Patriots, but I'm a little disappointed nobody went after the Fire-Revs match with the "Chicago or Boston can reach the finals after both of their baseball teams choked" storyline. Although I haven't been watching the stories *that* closely. And, obviously, I wouldn't quite phrase it like that, more that area fans have another team to pin their regional hopes on after those disappointments. And it's just that I would have liked to see it, not that it's a bad thing nobody did it. Later, COZ
Revolution in Soccer - Sports Commentary Bill Littlefield, National Public Radio (WBUR) http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wbur/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=569070