Well this won’t be quite as good as that, but it’s still funny. Or gross. Depends on your mood.

Andy Murray extended the drought British men have faced at Wimbledon to 76 years after a third consecutive semifinal loss at the tournament. He lost to Spain’s Rafael Nadal, who is the second Spaniard in as many matches to give him trouble.

Earlier in the tournament, when Murray was scheduled for face Lopez, news tore through the media about Murray’s mother Judy having the hots for her son’s opponent, having referred to Lopez as “Deliciano” on her Twitter feed a week before. There’s no need to get into mothers using social media. Nothing good ever happens when mothers and fathers start running in the same circles – virtual or otherwise – as their children. This instance wasn’t any different. It just can’t be helpful for bookies to place 10-1 odds on your mother blowing your opponent a kiss at some point during the match. Athletes don’t think like us regular folk. They’re far more tuned into the task at hand than we would be. They’ve had more practice, they most likely have more of an emotional armor than the average non-athlete. Still, a mom is a mom and most athletes would never assume their own mothers would ever be part of a story, or part of a bookmakers betting package.

Extramarital affairs from American athletes are interesting in a “the-crazier-the-better” sort of way, but Asian extramarital affairs? Those are just plain educational. And literally extramarital – as in there’s an extra marriage in the mix.

To my point about these affairs being educational, did you know that Pakistani marriages may be legally executed over the phone? No, I didn’t think you did. Or that a “nikahnama” is a document binding two people in wedlock? Two for two.  How about the idea that when members of the opposite sex send pictures of themselves to people they’ve never seen, the pictures are often, um, less than reliable?

Oh, that you’ve heard of, huh? Well two-out-of-three ain’t bad.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Shoaib Malik has been enmeshed in an odd investigation into an alleged marriage to and Indian woman. It’s been well-publicized that Malik is engaged to tennis’  first Indian WTA tour title winner, Sania Mirza, but that’s not the Indian woman causing the investigation. Ayesha Siddiqui is the woman in question. Allegedly, he’s been married to her since 2002.

Mirza’s family must love the post cards she sends home.

“Dear family, so I’m wearing skirts in public these days. Best to you and yours.”

“Dear family, I decided not to marry my childhood friend after all.  Turns out I’ve met the captain of Pakistan’s cricket team and I fancy him a bit more. Nothing can go wrong there, I’m sure. Pet the cats for me.”

“Dear family, looks like Shoaib already married an Indian woman eight years ago. Also, my wrist just isn’t fully healed and my tennis career is floundering. Send kebabs.”

Siddiqui herself brought the tele-marriage to the public forefront last week, demanding a proper divorce before Malik’s marriage to Mirza. Either that or a ton of money from the lawsuit she threatened (which, if she won, would probably also end in a proper divorce).

So is Malik married?

Newspapers printed a copy of the alleged wedding 2002 agreement. It appeared to be signed by both Malik and Siddiqui, but not – as legally required – by any witnesses.

In an interview with The Times of India, Malik said he began a telephone relationship with Siddiqui in 2001 after she sent him photographs.

Malik admitted to the newspaper that in 2002 that he signed a “nikahnama” (wedding agreement) “thinking the girl I was marrying was the one in the photographs.”

But “the girl who was accepting the proposal was someone else,” he said, without giving further details.

In a bizarre twist, Malik claimed he had spent time with Ayesha Siddiqui’s “elder sister” who told him that Ayesha would not meet him as she had put on weight. Malik said he now believes the “sister” was actually Ayesha herself.

Chalk it up to cultural differences, but can you imagine the captain of any team on any professional sport in America messing around with a date offering nothing more than telephone conversations and some jpegs?

Siddiqui’s story, for her part, is that Malik refused to acknowledge the marriage not because he’d never actually met her, but because his cricket mates said she was too fat. Too fat to what, none of the reports were able to say.

Malik was scheduled to marry 23-year-old Mirza on April 15. Expect delays.

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

Sports fans love to argue, and there’s no better way to start an argument than a systematic ranking of the teams. You can find these rankings for nearly every sport. There’s NASCAR power rankings, Tennis power rankings, WNBA power rankings, and why the heck not, even reality television power rankings.

But what’s so powerful about them? Aren’t they just an ordered ranking of the teams followed by little blurbs? Why hasn’t anyone put a different word in front of rankings before, like “Virility Rankings” or “Moxie rankings. It’s always power rankings … but some are more powerful than others.

There’s never been a thorough examination of this power ranking phenomenon, so we here at SportScape took it upon ourselves to officially power-rank which site has the most powerful power rankings.

Pretty meta, huh?

Quality power rankings really only boil down to four things:

1. Some little writeup before the rankings that either mentions a trend or something interesting about several teams.
2. An accurate and thoughtful ranking of all the teams, in order of their power.
3. Some sort of additional writeup on each team, possibly detailing their ranking of power.
4. Putting it all together in a visual package that’s not painful to the eyes.

With that, we have ranked 10 of the Internet’s most widely-read Power rankings. They’re charted 1 through 10, according to – what else – their power.

Sports Illustrated NFL Power Rankings by Don Banks
It’s exactly what you’re looking for in a power ranking. There’s always a solid writeup to lead into the rankings, followed by a paragraph on each team. And with a nice layout, it’s probably the easiest to read among its power ranking brethren. Granted, it’s not the same without Dr. Z’s voice, but it still stands as the gold standard of power rankings.

ESPN NFL Power Rankings by a panel of experts
ESPN mixes the power ranking structure up a little. Instead of one writer giving one voice, the rankings are decided by a panel, who then contribute thoughts on the various teams. Their voice is noble, but there’s not consistently good insight on each of the team’s comment.

CBS Sports Power Rankings by Pete Prisco
This is what we’re talking about when it comes to power rankings. There’s an excellent lead-in to the rankings, followed by good analysis on each team. And if you click on the “trends” button, you can see exactly what was said about each team on various weeks. This is an excellent take on the power rankings phenomenon, and should be applauded.

Yahoo! 32 Questions with Mike Silver
Mike Silver’s writeup isn’t technically a power ranking, in fact you won’t find those words anywhere in his column. But following his intro is a veritable ranking of the teams, followed by one pertinent question per club. So should it count in these rankings? Well, since it performs the same function, we say yes. And Yahoo gets credit for managing to avoid calling it what every other site in the world calls it.

AOL Fanhouse NFL Power Rankings
Solid.

Not fancy or outlandish. Just a good intro and per-team analysis, nothing more or less.

NFL.com Power Rankings by Jason La Canfora
This is probably the most stripped-down rendition of power rankings out there. It’s simply a one-sentence intro followed by one-sentence write-ups on each team. No logos, table or measure of where a team stacked up last week. The writing is great, but where’s the production value?

USA Today Power Ranks (fans chime in against experts)
USA Today melds a couple of approaches, as both fans and a panel of experts vote on the rankings. But again, there’s no real intro to the rankings and no more than a sentence of analysis on each team. I guess that’s what we should have expected from the fast food of newspapers.

NBC Sports Power Rankings presented by Pro Football Talk.com
There’s nothing technically wrong with these rankings. But there’s no pre-ranking writeup and very little analysis on each team. I know Mike Florio runs the entire site from his basement, but he can do better.

Bleacher Report NFL Power Rankings by Jordan Schwartz
This is only one of about 5,293,583 NFL power rankings you can find on Bleacher Report, but that doesn’t make it any less solid. Nice intro, fine write-ups on each team. Could do more in the way of packaging, but at least he didn’t opt for a slideshow like other BR writers.

Fox Sports Power Rankings
Nice layout and good commentary on each team, but it lacks a good intro that introduces any sort of theme or trend. And while the piece is penned by an author, it seems like it was spat out of a machine.

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Logos courtesy of Flickr

You’ve no doubt heard of

It would have taken a lot of preparation to fool people up to this point. Noticing that a female has underarm hair, extra fuzz on her lip or a muscular body is more likely to develop into unneccessary cruelty toward a teenage girl than it will solid detective work.

The truth is, our ultra-sexist society often supports women’s sports as long as they don’t encroach upon a man’s ideal of how the athletes within those sports should appear. It’s cool if Gina Carano is the Women’s MMA champ, but if “Cyborg” Santos is it then I’m going to start blaming it on her hidden stock of man-parts. There can be no other explanation.

If Maria Sharapova wants to grunt her skinny blonde skirt into another Grand Slam championship – so be it. But if it’s Serena Williams rifling serve after serve past opponents, clearly we have a tranny on our hands.

Why are we only discussing the potential of men posing as women? Male athletes, on average, make more money than women, get more coverage than women, have more fans, more opportunities, more leagues … Stephon Marbury made twice as much last year as the entire WNBA’s player roster last season. How do we know more skilled female athletes aren’t trying to upgrade into these situations? How do we know there aren’t women posing as men? We don’t. But that shouldn’t stop us from having a good old fashioned witch hunt, now should it?

Grab your pitchforks and torches and follow me after the jump to gander at the most likely candidates of female athletes posing as males.

David Eckstein
Look at this picture. Eck is, like, a foot shorter than 6’3″ Albert Pujols. Also, he sounds like one of the members of the Lollipop Guild.

Shaun White
No one with hair that luxurious and a butt that narrow could possibly by a man. He posed without a shirt on the cover of Rolling Stone several years ago, but no one actually saw details of his torso because his pale skin blinded everyone. Artists had to go in and Photoshop a little boy’s chest into the blinding light left in the photo. Not a bad ruse, Ms. White. Not bad at all.

Patrick Kane
Okay look, Kane is either a 12-year-old boy or a woman, either way he’d be perfect to play the lead in “Peter Pan.” No man is so fiscally controlling that they’d be compelled to punch out a cabbie for $1.20. Someone’s got to keep track of the checkbook and it certainly wasn’t going to be Kane’s cousin James.

Baron Davis
Big doe eyes, short stature, no rational fear of the damage his driving could cause to people nearby … Yup. Sounds like a woman to me. Also, look at that beard. No one with that much facial growth is without secrets. He’s covering up something with that beard and my guess is that it’s a vagina.

Lance Berkman
Until about 2006, I thought Sonny and Cher’s lesbian daughter played first base for the Houston Astros. Berkman perpetually looks as if he’s wearing eye shadow.

Eli Manning
Archie wouldn’t settle for 2-of-3 boys, so he taught Ellie to keep her mouth shut and her head down. Ellie’s gotten pretty good too. The only times he betrays his gender is when he lets out those girlish yelps as he’s getting sacked (New Yorkers pretend they haven’t heard it, but they have). Oh, and that perpetually dumbfounded look on his face … that’s the look every woman has had after seeing Jeff Feagles exit the shower.

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Movie poster and Berkman photos courtesy of Flickr
All other photos courtesy of Yahoo! Sports via AP

On the other hand, I have a hard time believing all girls, in a country that I’m pretty sure is responsible for introducing the unibrow into society, are knockouts. So I’d like to take this moment to look back at some famous Russian women, not for their standout contributions in leadership, the arts or education, but for how they’ve contributed to the physical gene pool.

Catherine II (Catherine the Great)
Not much of a looker here, and I’m guessing the fact that she, uh, really liked her horse and that she technically died on the pooper like Elvis aren’t exactly helping the attractive factor.

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Ayn Rand
Come on, just look at that sweet face and…tell me this girl didn’t get called Man Rand. Nothing against her literary accomplishments, but is it possible she felt the need to write 1,100 page novels because she certainly wasn’t about to win the masses over with face time?

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Nadia Petrova
Well maybe this is just because we’re reaching too far back in history. Maybe characteristics have improved. To which I give you Exhibit C, Nadia Petrova, currently 10^th in the WTA Tennis Rankings and someone I’d consider pretty “current” as far as looks go.

Which is not very fair. But that’s just a bad angle, right?

Uh…and this one too? Really, what is going to finally drive the point home here?

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I’m not even out to argue that U.S. women are the most attractive, I’m just having a problem understanding what’s wrong with shunning this …

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… Knowing you could have doomed yourselves to a life of this instead.

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

After winning Wimbledon two weeks ago, 15-time Grand Slam champ Roger Federer was given a timely spot from Nike congratulating their endorsement face of men’s tennis using other such Nike stars as John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Serena Williams, Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan. The “Love Fifteen” campaign is also a nod to a 2007 ad that highlighted Federer’s background and early life. Both commercials are just two instruments in the symphony orchestra that has been Nike’s athletic commercials in the last 20 years. So because it’s the slowest part of the year and because I feel like it, let’s look back at Nike’s 10 best commercials.

Click the pics after the jump.

10. “Chicks Dig the Longball” (1996)

This ad solidifies Greg Maddux as the best geek-pitcher in baseball history. I’m hoping Tom Glavine at least felt a little uncomfortable asking his teammate if he’s “getting bigger” while naked in the sauna.

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09. “Enjoy the Weather” (2001)

How did no one bring up this commercial after Lance Armstrong said Stage 7 of this year’s Giro d’Italia was way too dangerous? Woulda been ballsy.

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08. “Bo Don’t Know Diddley” (1989)

Someone forgot to send the Great One the memo about not being racist in Nike ads. If Bo can hit a 95 mph fastball, uh, I’m pretty sure he can skate Wayne. Racist.

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07. “Defy” (2006)

This spot best captures Nike’s ability to also illustrate moments in sports and not just the players within them. Here is a collection of athletes suspended in mid-air at different times in different sports.

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06. “Leave Nothing” (2007)

Quick! Name a more intense commercial. You can’t do it. Now take a deep breath and take a guess whether Steven Jackson makes it across the goal line.

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05. “The Spike & Mike Show” (1987)

When you think of Nike, you think of my main man, Michael Jordan. And a lot of why you think of him was because of everybody between ages six and 56 repeating the mantra: “Money, it’s gotta be the shoes!” Still the best pair of Jordans Nike ever made.

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04. “Fenway’s Generations” (2004)

This spot, which was shot and edited in one day, brings a familiar idea into a timely and visually interesting ad. Alas, Nike gets docked a few points for inadequately representing how obnoxious Sawx fans have become over the last few decades.

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03. “Huarache 2K4 Evolution” (2004)

I don’t remember seeing this on television, but it’s possible I just blocked it out of my memory because I hate sandals (especially when they’re from South America) and I just mistook this look at the Huarache evolution as something benign. It’s not, it’s mesmerizing, which is hard to gleam from a sandal.

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02. “Let Your Game Speak” (2006)

Easily Nike’s most cleverly executed spot. It shows off a culmination of everything Nike has learned to do well: Promote a top athlete, subtly orchestrate a viewpoint, encapsulate small moments of sports, while simultaneously adding to the mystique of those moments … plus maximum use of slow motion.
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01. “Trick Shot” (1999)

The beauty of this ad is that it’s all Tiger Woods. It’s not clever, it’s not moving and it’s not slick … because it doesn’t have to be any of those things. An Nike knew that, because Nike is the Tiger Woods of athletic-wear. Now do you get it? See? They belong together.

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All screenshots courtesy of YouTube

]]> http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/18/the-10-best-nike-commercials-of-all-time/feed/ 0 http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/15/in-the-tweet-of-the-moment-how-bad-is-in-game-twittering-really/ http://blog.sportscape.tv/2009/07/15/in-the-tweet-of-the-moment-how-bad-is-in-game-twittering-really/#comments Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:57:21 +0000 Adam http://blog.sportscape.tv/?p=1334 Has anything gotten more free press in the last year than Twitter? Quick answer: no. And Twitter's leading PR reps in that time have been professional athletes, which is really weird if you think about it. No one wants to hear what athletes have to say, why the sudden interest in what they have to write tweet?]]>
Has anything gotten more free press in the last year than Twitter? Quick answer: no. And Twitter’s leading PR reps in that time have been professional athletes, which is really weird if you think about it. No one wants to hear what athletes have to say, why the sudden interest in what they have to write tweet?

Although it was not the first instance of Twitter in sports, then-Milwaukee Buck Charlie Villanueva sent out a tweet during halftime and caught all sorts of crazy publicity about how unprofessional the act was. Then Shaquille O’Neal did the same thing all sneaky style because a) he wanted to prove he could get away with it – because he’s an egoist and b) he wished he’d thought of it in the first place.

Then the people that get paid to analyze and illuminate sports analyzed this situation and illuminated the whole tweet development as a vaguely negative phenomenon.

Most of Twitter’s sports press either uses them as any other source or as something slowly sapping the blood from their veins. Many writers feel that athletes like Lance Armstrong suddenly have the power to put them out of business, instead of keeping them working in it.

Armstrong boycotted the journalists at this year’s Giro d’Italia, opting instead to send out progress updated tweets, leaving journalists no choice but to tuck their tails between their legs and quote the feed. You have to assume the sportswriters took to Armstrong’s tweets like a busted investment banker takes to serving venti half-caf’ vanilla lattés at his new Starbucks barista position.

All middlemen think they’re worthwhile. You know who doesn’t? Everyone else. The moral of the Armstrong story is that he didn’t want to talk to journalists, so he didn’t. And the common cycling fan was just as empowered to keep tabs on Armstrong as a credentialed reporter. With the way athletes have branded Twitter into the flesh of their public existence, the role of journalist is shifting right along with the definition of what one is.

Cincinnati Bengal Chad Johnson Ochocinco has already threatened to tweet throughout next season’s games even though the NFL said it won’t be tolerated (shocker). Guys like “85″ have the potential to really blow the roof off of Twitter because fans want these tweets to be “real.” Fans want a revealing look into the life experiences of a pro athlete. And while a lot of stars are too corporately managed to say anything worth anyone’s attention, not everyone will be as vapid. Some of the stars that fail to filter themselves in interviews will likely do the same on Twitter, but with tons more grammatical errors.

Granted, not every tweet scheme is gold. Generally unknown and unliked tennis player, Justin Gimelstob, sent messages to a ball girl to pass along to fellow U.S. player Sam Querrey parked on the sidelines. Querrey then updated Gimelstob’s Twitter feed in-game. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this since Gimelstob himself never posted a tweet. But when you stop to consider the 10 seconds here and there that he used to jot down useless information like scores and one-word adjectives throughout the match, it really didn’t add anything to the fan’s experience of tennis.

And for the scared sports journalists out there who absolutely must attack new social media, your real reason to dislike Twitter isn’t because it threatens sports writing (it doesn’t) but because it encourages athlete’s egos. Gimelstob added nothing with his play-by-play recaps, but he felt he did (similar to how I feel I’m somehow adding to a discussion about in-game tweeting despite most people already having made up their mind about the topic).

If it’s not players mistaking their own narcissism for serving their sport, it’s the media themselves trying to figure out Twitter’s best use. The Washington Post announced Thursday its plans to collect tweets from Nationals fans (all five of ‘em) at the home games over a period of 10 days and then regurgitate them onto the Post. Again, not every use of Twitter is a good one. While I applaud one of America’s most respected news sources for trying … something, this won’t add value. Fans don’t care about random tweets, they care about very specific tweets from specific people (mostly players and important team personnel).

What are we worried about with these in-game tweets? Players becoming distracted? Leaked play strategy for the other team to intercept? Some boneheaded player typing some boneheaded sentiment? All these problems exist already and all have been dealt with. Twitter wouldn’t be any different. What would be different is the unprecedented access to the athlete’s lives. Anyone aware of the reality programming/ tabloid culture we live in understands how our society craves intimate looks into people’s lives. The more famous the better.

But it isn’t just pros getting in on the action. The St. Paul Saints minor league baseball team will host an all social media night where the players and coaching staff are not only allowed, but encouraged to update their Facebook status and send tweety Twitter twittles throughout the game. The pitching coach for the Saints even said he’d tweet while making a trip to the pitcher’s mound.

Sigh.

First of all, it’s a minor league game. I doubt tickets are so scarce that scads of people are forced to stay home watching Twitter feeds of the Saints rattle off for three hours. The fans that care will be there. What are the odds that any of these jokers will have anything to say? Services like Twitter should be an outlet for a pre-existing need, not a void that people should find whatever rubble they can with which to fill it.

But at least the Saints – like the Washington Post – are open to the medium in the first place. It’s a start, right? Every sports outlet in every city throughout the world wants to bring fans closer to their favorite sport, right? Well, ain’t nothin’ closer than the immediate, unedited musings of the athletes themselves.

And although it isn’t a flawless system, it is a promising one that could use a lot more embracing and a lot less chastising.

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Pictures courtesy of Flickr