This is of interest to Counter Attack as we’ve been tracking Don Garber and Dan Courtemanche’s movements in choreographing a stadium deal in Queens for a while now. There is staunch community opposition there to developing the park in Flushing, and the group in question–the Fairness Coalition of Queens–put out a statement today on the development:

“We welcome Major League Soccer to New York City. We are pleased with their new willingness to consider other sites in New York. The proposal for a stadium inside the heart of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park is deeply flawed and would irrevocably damage a vital community resource.

We look forward to finding a more appropriate home for the team that does not sacrifice public parkland and that does not giveaway parkland to a documented human rights abuser. Lets make this a development that all New Yorkers can be excited about.”

As you can see, the group isn’t hesitant to draw attention to Manchester City’s owners and the human rights record of the United Arab Emirates, which is not a battle MLS, City and the Yankees will want to countenance. Despite the work of MLS in lobbying to develop the area, New York Yankees president Randy Levine said the team could start playing in Yankee Stadium:

Levine acknowledges that Yankee Stadium could serve as interim site for NYCFC in 2015″We haven’t made any decision, but it is a possibility”

— Daniel Barbarisi (@DanBarbarisi) May 21, 2013

Guardian US writer Graham Parker has a great summary of the timeline here.

Ever hear of Clayton Kershaw? Miguel Cabrera? BARRY BONDS? If not, get ready for a real education at the hands of the Getting Blanked podcast, as we uncover these gems and more in discussing the baseballing world at large.

Listen to the podcast directly here.

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Some (underlined) Mint Musical Interludes courtesy of The Constantines and Arts & Crafts Records and Deathwish Records. Check out the full catologue and buy what you like. It’s the right thing to do.

Here are 8 GIFs of pre-rendered cut scenes that EA Sports showed off today, highlighting their new IGNITE game engine . They look good. Not in-game footage, but good. BTW, what is up with the legs in NBA Live?

Read the rest of this entry »

In a dizzying chain of events that it seems only Toronto sports fans have been forced to get used to, the Raptors announced on Tuesday morning that Bryan Colangelo would be relieved of his General Manager duties while maintaining the seemingly higher position of team President.

Read the rest of this entry »

It seems what once looked impossible may now be true, and the Jets really do care about our mental well being.

Frankly, I’m not sure if this world is ready for a full-blown Jets quarterback competition that stretches deep into the August sun. Such an event would prompt end times, and the very Earth on which we live would look something like this…

End days indeed. Also maybe…delicious days?

But with David Garrard gone after he retired due to a still lingering knee injury, one survivor has been voted off the island by default. So now the real competition between Mark Sanchez and Geno Smith has started early during OTAs. That means, mercifully, it could end early too.

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember at the beginning of the NBA season, when I wrote an article tracking the boldest predictions made by some notable basketball prognosticators for the year to come? Probably not, but I sure haven’t forgotten, and with the conference finals finally underway, every one of the predictions mentioned in that article has officially either come true or proven a bust. Unlike some people, we here at TBJ still believe very strongly in accountability, and that those who do not have the past obnoxiously rubbed in their faces are doomed to repeat it, so let’s check back in to see how all of our hoops soothsayers fared with some of their more jaw-dropping (jaw-opening, anyway) predictions.

Sports Illustrated (print only): Knicks in conference finals

So close, SI. This was the longest holdout of the unlikely prognostications I tracked this year, and damned if it didn’t look like a pretty good bet to cash in up until Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semis. Whoever the professional guesser was behind those Sports Illustrated predictions was probably as excited as I was when Iman Shumpert made those three treys in the third quarter on Saturday night, and as infuriated when Kenyon Martin was whistled for that foul with a minute left to ice the game for Indiana. Bummer.

Basketball Prospectus (Via ESPN the Magazine): Atlanta Hawks second, Knicks third, Pacers eighth in East / Nuggets first, Timberwolves third, Spurs fifth in West

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope, though partial credit to BP/ESPN for at least predicting a resurgent Knicks and a regular-season-dominant Nuggets, even if the exact placing was off. The Hawks, Pacers and Spurs predictions look just as nutty at season’s end as they seemed at season’s beginning, though it’s hard to give them too much crap for the Wolves guess, given how catastrophic their season was on the injury front. If they’d even been 50 percent healthier, it seems like they could have at least made a push for home court. Kudos to the BP dudes (and/or their computer readouts) for going big on some of these, in any event.

Zach Lowe of Grantland (26 Bold Predictions): Memphis is done, Nikola Pekovic will be a borderline-household name, Phoenix will be league’s most disappointing team

I guess we can give Zach one for three on this one. Despite their poor showing in Game 1 on Sunday, I’d say Memphis has more than put to rest any premature rumors of their demise. And Nikola Pekovic, while having a very solid year, wasn’t really even mentioned for All-Star contention, and probably didn’t make his name known to too many more casual fans than were already familiar with the Montonegrin Madman. But whether or not Phoenix actually was the league’s most disappointing team — again, it depends on if you had any expectations at all for them in the first place — there’s no doubt that they were pretty damn bad, finishing last in the West, so it’d probably be petty to get too particular on this one.

Since Grantland’s No. 1 hoops guy made a whole bunch more of these, and all were at least slightly interesting, let’s do a quick run down of a handful of ones he hit on impressively, and some more that haven’t held up so well:

Steeeeerike!:

1. Lousy market for expiring contracts
2. Omer Asik and Andrei Kirilenko living up to their deals
3. Kevin Durant joining the 50-40-90 club
4. Orlando trading JJ Redick, Thunder shopping Eric Maynor
5. Earl Clark getting minutes for the Lakers
6. Andris Biedrins making more than one foul shot (4-13!!)

Juuuust a bit outside:

1. Thunder re-signing James Harden with less-than-max deal before Oct. 31
2. Gerald Green, one of the season’s feel-good stories
3. Bobcats becoming League Pass darlings
4. Jonas Jerebko, Detroit’s best small forward

Read the rest of this entry »

Not all successful junior coaches are cut out to coach pro hockey, but a certain type should expect to have an even tougher time: “name” junior coaches.

I bring this up in light of the news over the past day or two from Adrian Dater of the Denver Post that Patrick Roy is very likely to be named the head coach of the Colorado Avalanche. Dater relays the news from Stéphane Roy, Patrick’s brother:

“They’re discussing the final details of an arrangement. Colorado is going to be very happy. Patrick is looking for a new challenge,” said Stephane Roy, the younger brother of his famous sibling.

And:

Stephane Roy, who played briefly in the NHL, posted on his Facebook page Monday night, “For all my friends I’d like you to know before the official news spreads that my older brother will be the new coach of the Colorado Avalanch(sic).”

So yeah, it sounds like this is happening.

Roy may very well go to Colorado and succeed, but I can think of a few reasons to be skeptical. Read the rest of this entry »

During my summers off while I was in university, I had a range of horrible jobs: laborer at a gun factory, framer for a residential development, junior member of a concrete cutting crew. During breaks from the often exhausting and always demoralizing duties, I would sit around with the other workers, and together, we’d remind ourselves of the virtues of working with our hands and being able to work toward a visible accomplishment on a day-to-day basis.

While there is certainly some merit to believing such traits to be beneficial, we mostly elevated the glory of our menial tasks for the purpose of justifying our current state and forgetting the bad decisions that led us to physical labor as a livelihood. In addition to fooling ourselves in this manner, we’d mock office workers, imagining their professions to be less honorable than our own.

“How can they feel any measure of self-worth?” we’d ask ourselves.

Ten years later, as part of my job, I would embed a YouTube clip of a Callaway Golf executive putting a golf ball down two sets of staggered stairs and into a cup. If my former co-workers could only see me now.

A seat at the 19th hole for Shane Bacon of the Devil Ball golf blog.