Hal Phillips

Rumble in Jungle: The Sound of US Soccer Coming of Age?

on June 24, 2014

Soccer

Even as another brilliant World Cup serves up so many tasty morsels of soccer drama (some of it even inspired by our boys in the golf shirts), let’s remember NOT to get carried away.

This applies to the micro level: I was sitting around my living room Sunday night with three dudes. As the Portugal-USA game careened into injury time, Clint Dempsey having just coaxed his late, go-ahead goal over the line with his chest, these well-meaning but dangerously insouciant fellows were blithely discussing whom we would face in the round of 16! They thought it was over, and for the vagaries of injury time-keeping, it might well have been.

My guests and I were rightly swept up in the pageantry, the goals, the unpredictable results, even the inherent jingoism of this latest World Cup, and god bless us, everyone. They were fine company and this has been the best World Cup in decades. But this was a dangerous bit of hubris. It might take 90 minutes for something to happen in a soccer match, but when it does, we’re talking the blink of an eye.

Truth be told, I was wary of their chicken-counting for another reason: I had been tipped off. We spent a bit too much time grilling hot dogs, eating watermelon and gabbing on the porch at halftime. The game had been DVR’d for safety, convenience and posterity, and so we watched the second half about 4-5 minutes behind live action.

Big mistake.

When injury time came around, and the boys were busy taking this win for granted, my phone began twitching in spasms of text alerts. Something had gone down at the death. I just didn’t know what… What exactly prompts that type of spontaneous eOutreach? When Demps converted 5 minutes before, there were no texts… For all this ominous foreshadowing, I was still stunned by just how late Portugal left it. Last kick of the game. 2-2.

•••

On a macro level, we should support this US squad with complete abandon, regardless of our purported soccer sophistication, because they are ours, they are not very good, and yet they are producing remarkable, dramatic results.

Manager Jurgen Klinsmann has pushed every button correctly. Kyle freakin’ Beckerman is starting at defensive midfielder and looking not the slightest bit too slow for the international game. Jermaine Jones has summoned all his unpredictable energy, skill and menace to pull off a damned convincing impression of Edgar Davids. Dempsey’s swashbuckling game has clearly not been dumbed-down by his move to MLS, and his winning tally vs. the Portuguese was delivered by 20-year-old Seattle Sounder teammate Andre Yedlin, a man few though Klinsi had the balls to actually play during this tournament, much less its key moment.

All this is great for MLS and American soccer, whose World Cup games are drawing crowds to parks and plazas all over the nation and other ways of which no one could have dreamed, even during the game’s “puppy love” moment here in the US, World Cup 1994.

(The game’s “nighttime emissions” moment was Italia ’90 — a huge step forward but ultimately a slightly embarrassing event that, for the U.S., mercifully played out in relative privacy.)

But again, let’s not get carried away.

World Cup 2014 has prompted a creditable response from US Soccer Nation. The scene in and around RiRa, the bar where I watched the win over Ghana in the first group game, would have done any country proud. And there is a real feeling, supported by MLS and the never-lying demographics, that the game truly has cleared a tipping point in the culture.

But American Soccer Love will likely remain a mere quadrennial happening in this country, for decades to come. The sheer mass of our sports landscape provide so little room for another “major” sport. MLS just isn’t a compelling product, not yet.

Most important, the DNA of US soccer is such that the national team has always been the focal point of the sport’s popularity here. Once the NASL died, the national team was all there was — it was the only American soccer focal point. Once we started qualifying for World Cups (thanks FIFA, for expanding the number of CONCACAF bids; and thanks for dinging Mexico for using overage players at the 1989 U-20 World Cup — to the tune banning them from Italia ’90, making US qualification possible), it was the national team that fixated the public’s attention on the game’s qualities.

In a way peculiar to international football, the US national team plays an outsized role in domestic soccer consumption here.

Which is fine. One of the game’s most attractive qualities is exactly that international outlook, the pitting of one nation against another. As American sports fans, we really don’t have that opportunity anywhere else, with any other team sport. We don’t care about world championships in basketball. Indeed, American football and baseball — our national sporting obsession and pastime, respectively — are entirely domestic to the point of insularity. The World Series? A peculiar name when you think about it (and one that really bothers international sports fans).

Precisely because soccer is unabashedly internationalist in its outlook, supporting the national team is that rare opportunity to root for America vs. Some Other Country — in something other than the latest trumped up war. It’s sort of surprising that a nation so stuck on itself, and so militaristic in most every other way, has taken so long to appreciate the allure of this joyously partisan activity. But there were are.

And here we are, staring down the barrel of Germany in our final group game with “all to play for”, a spot in the last 16 and another glorious June weekend of packed bars, communal viewing venues, flag-draping and face-painting. I’m just glad we all lived to see it. Not because it’s the fulfillment of some prophecy, but because it’s damned good fun.

•••

A few thoughts and observations on the first 10 days of World Cup 2014:

• There’s a 50-50 chance that Ghana could effectively put us out of a third straight tournament. Yeah, we stole that game off them in the opening match. Revenge might have been sweet but the last laugh has not yet been assigned. If Germany beats the US on Thursday, and there’s every reason to think they will (they are one of the world’s top 3 sides, and they must get a result to qualify for the last 16 themselves), all Ghana needs to do is beat Portugal and the Black Stars are tied with the Americans on 4 points. Goal difference is the decider. After two games, we’re +1 and they’re -1. But we lose buy a goal, they win by a goal, and it’s a dead heat. Germany beats us by two and we’re toast.

• The Black Stars of Ghana. Good team name. The US needs one. We don’t do this sort of thing in America, mainly because, as stated above, we don’t field international teams very often — in sports about which anyone gives a rat’s ass. The men’s national team has progressed to this level of interest, and so should have one bestowed. There are good names out there: Cameroon’s Indomitable Lions. There are bad names: Australia’s Socceroos (the Rugby Union team is the Wallabees; much better). Names need not be animal inspired. Germany’s national team is known as the Mannschaft (simply “The Team”). Italy has its Azzurri (“The Blues”), Brazil its Selecao (“the Select”). What would embody the American psyche and inform a proper American soccer nickname? There was a guy in the Manaus crowd, against Portugal, dressed as Teddy Roosevelt, in full Rough Rider gear (if you have trouble placing that, think of the Colonel in the classic ‘60s cartoon “Go-Go Gophers”). Rough Riders should be given every consideration, especially for this World Cup, where Theodore so famously visited after his presidency, big guns in tow.

• The most encouraging thing about America’s inspired performance thus far (gutty vs. Ghana, truly sophisticated and creative vs. Portugal) has been the fact that all has been achieved without a decent showing from Michael Bradley. The conventional wisdom strongly held that he was the team’s indispensable man. We couldn’t play with the big boys if he didn’t show up. Well, he didn’t really show up, twice, and others stepped up in his place. I love Bradley’s game. He will come good vs. Germany, which gives one hope.

• This has been the World Cup of Nipples. Thanks to the new skin-tight fashion, and sweltering heat, never before in any sporting event have they been so prominently featured.

• Still reeling from the Portugal game. Realized that the US played a truly great 90 minutes of soccer in that match. Portugal scored after a total brain fart from Geoff Cameron after 5 minutes; we dominated the next 90, and then Cameron watched the equalizing cross sail over his head. It must be said that but for those two moments, the Stoke Man (a Maryland Terrapin, my Terp brother-in-law reminded me today) played an excellent match. Sometimes 90 good minutes are not enough.

• Coaches will often sub guys during injury time to help run out the clock, to use up more time. But referees will often just add 30 seconds to injury time for every sub that comes on during any game. They’ll do the same thing with goals: 2 goals = 2 minutes of injury time. Omar Gonzalez, our tallest defender, was sent on by Klinsmann during injury time. Not only did he not make a difference (indeed, he has come on late three times in the last 2 weeks and the opponent has scored in all three games), that extra 30 seconds of injury time may have extended the game just long enough for the equalizer.

• I can’t help myself, but it’s exhilarating to watch the Mexicans win World Cup matches. They are so into it — the team, the coaches, the fans. It bothers me that they almost certainly do not reciprocate in this regard, even after our completely unnecessary late-game goals vs. Panama in the final Hexagonal qualifier got them into the final pre-World Cup playoff and saved their entire country from mass sporting psychosis. They were all full of love and kisses that night, but methinks they’d love to see us crash out on Thursday. Doesn’t seem right.

• Me? I’m a CONCACAF guy, because I have to be. I live here and support a team in the federation. Accordingly, it warms the cockles of my heart to see Mexico do well, and Costa Rica has been a revelation — already qualified after two games and fending off FIFA drug testers, because no one can believe this superlative run of form. If the US can qualify, that’d be three North/Central American teams in the final 16. Maybe those guys at The Guardian will stop make fun of us now (!). I have mused with my soccer podcast buddies Tom Wadlington and Dave Batista about how difficult playing in Central America truly is — compared to European qualifying. Just how would a team like England fare at an away qualifier in San Jose, or Tegucigalpa, or Mexico City? The final game in Group D might have provided some insight into this, on a neutral field, had the Ticos (pretty good name) not already qualified for the knockout stage, and had England not soiled itself so very quickly and publicly.

• I would have pegged Andre Yedlin, pre-tournament, as pretty much the 22^nd guy on the 23-man World Cup roster. No one expected him to set foot on the field, unless we were getting blown out or playing some meaningless, third group game after being eliminated. Yet Klinsmann threw him on vs. Portugal, with the game and tournament in the balance, and he delivered. Still, I will eat my hat if he exposes young Julian Green to the rigors of World Cup play. The 18-year-old German-American phenom is the property of Bayern Munich, but he has never played a minute for the senior club. He looked beyond skittish in the three pre-tournament warm-up matches. He’s simply not ready. So, why is he on the roster? No one is admitting that Klinsi cut a deal with Julian Green, i.e. “Julian, join the USA long term [he could have declared for Germany] and we’ll bring you to Brazil.” Canny long-term politics but you can’t waste a roster spot at the World Cup. Lo and behold, Jozy Altidore pops a hammy and now we’re short a back-up striker. Aron Johannson — another young phenom, Icelandic-American; vetted in the top Dutch league but basically unproven on the international level — was useless vs. Ghana. Chris Wondolowski is an MLS journeyman. Terrance Boyd was left at home, and so was a fellow named Donovan.

• Landycakes and Klinsmann have never seen eye to eye on how American footballers should behave. Donovan took a sabbatical from the game two years ago; Klinsi was reared, played and coached in Germany, where footballers don’t do sabbaticals. I understand the Green negotiation, but there will come a time in this World Cup when the US could have used 30 minutes of Donovan at the end of a game — to hold the ball and more effectively counter-attack with a lead, to change the angle/mode of attack when behind. This is not some sentimental point. That’s why/how older strikers are deployed in tournaments like this: Didier Drogba for Ivory Coast, Kershikov for Russia, Cassano for Italy, etc. I hope this bit of personality conflict, and the way Klinsmann handled it, doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.

New US Soccer Jersey Fitting — For Quick 18

on March 3, 2014

Golf
Soccer

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

As there is little media crossover between the golf and soccer worlds, allow me to relate one such news nugget re. the sartorial tempest now brewing over what the U.S. soccer team will be wearing when they take the field at June’s World Cup, in Brazil.

See above. Apparently this is the new U.S. Men’s National Team home jersey for the upcoming tournament, soccer’s quadrennial world championship. Notice anything familiar about it? Yep, it looks remarkably like a golf shirt — and early returns from soccernistas the world over have not been positive. See here some of the chatter the new shirt has generated online.

One could reasonably argue as to why anyone should care. But considering the blockbuster sales opportunities represented by futbol jerseys, here and abroad, it was an odd choice by U.S. Soccer and its official outfitter, Nike. There are undeniable similarities between traditional soccer jerseys and modern day golf shirts, namely the collar and button-style placket. But it’s odd that U.S. Soccer and Nike would appear to have missed the mark by two years — this looks like something Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson would wear to Brazil in 2016, when golf makes it return as a bona fide Olympic event.

Maybe you’re like me, in that you’re a bit sensitive about golf’s less-than-stellar track record in the duds department. We’ve made some admirable progress in this regard, I think, as it wasn’t that long ago that outsiders considered golf a game for rich white guys in bad pants. It’s unfortunate enough that a) the good folks at Loud Mouth are trying to bring back utterly ridiculous trousers; and b) white belts have successfully wheedled their way back into the golf couture (somewhere, Greg Brady is laughing).

Now we have soccer fans ragging golf, indirectly, for the plain-vanilla, markedly uncool nature of golf shirts, which, thanks to clothiers like Nike, have actually come a long way.

The whole thing is a bit mystifying, and it’s hard to see how golf gains . Nike is known for pushing the envelope with its golf stylings. What could possibly have moved them to put forward something so lacking in flash? If this was an attempt at something retro, I, as a soccer fan, don’t see the reference point. I think it’s safe to say that if one can plausibly wear a soccer shirt for a round at dad’s club, and it doesn’t look out of place beneath a blue blazer, the youth market will not be impressed.

King James Can Restore Vitality to Dunk Contest — By Entering and Losing

on February 14, 2014

Basketball

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

LeBron James can do basketball an honorable and valued service by entering the 2015 NBA dunk contest, not to win necessarily, but to eradicate the stigma of losing.

Today we can agree that All-Star dunk festivities — once the highlight of the NBA’s mid-season bacchanal — have lost nearly all their luster. The big names don’t participate because (and let’s be honest here) they have relatively little to gain, should they win, and much to lose if they cannot better the likes of young, live-legged, would-be journeymen such as Terrance Ross and Ben McLemore.

In an acknowledgement of this misplaced luster, the NBA has basically given an out even to those who will participate this year: Three players from each conference will team up, with the trio that wins being crowned joint champions. There will be a top prize awarded to the individual winner, but he will be dubbed “Dunker of the Night.”

Whatever. This is nearly as bad as Team Figure Skating.

It’s not clear why this dunk-risk-aversion dynamic persists. The league’s best shooters do not appear unwilling to participating in the 3-point competition. There is no loss of face for Stephan Curry should he lose out to some young gun like Damian Lillard, or any of the league’s noted long-distance marksmen (among them this years, Kevin Love, Bradley Beal, Marco Bellinelli and defending champ Kyrie Erving). When Larry Bird won it, he relished the chance to win it again.

The Dunk Contest is different. In the beginning, all the big names did indeed participate. The very first one, at the 1976 ABA All-Star Game, featured this luminary lineup: Julius Erving, David Thompson, Artis Gilmore, George Gervin and Larry Kenon. The NBA revived the circus in 1984 and thereafter Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins didn’t just win, they showed up to defend. The stars started begging off in the ‘90s, though a young Kobe Bryant won in 1997. As recently as 2008, Dwight Howard lent some star power, as did champ Blake Griffin 2011 — but the Clippers big man chose not to defend.

LeBron has for 10 years been notoriously cagey about the Dunk Contest, steadfastly refusing to enter, claiming that he’s an “in-game dunker”, but nevertheless strategically allowing media to see his chops once a year, normally just prior to the All-Star break.

LeBron is so clearly the game’s best player, and its most dominant personality, he can simultaneously restore the profile of Dunk Contest — without winning it. In fact, he should huddle with the judges beforehand and say, “Don’t let me win.” By taking part next year, thereby enhancing the showcase and honorably congratulating a worthy winner, he can show other stars that competing in the Dunk Contest is nothing of a gamble in terms of cred, brand or machismo.

I’ve got nothing against Paul George, Harrison Barnes, Ben McLemore, Terrance Ross and John Wall, all of whom are scheduled to do rim-rattling battle Saturday night. There are several legitimate up-and-coming stars in that field, an you gotta love anyone who attempts the rare 3-point/jam double (Lillard). But I would love to see LeBron compete against these guys, mano-a-mano, along with Josh Smith or maybe a healthy Russell Westbrook. If LeBron commits, other stars will follow — if only to compete against the King, and each other.

Mexico-NZ Presents Complicated Rooting Interests for US Soccer Fans

on November 13, 2013

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

An American friend will be seated in Azteca today when the Mexicans face New Zealand in the first leg of a home-and-home World Cup qualifier. Earlier this week, he and I exchanged the obligatory musings about bringing along some rain gear, or at least a wide-brimmed hat, to guard against flying bags of urine — especially once he revealed that he’d be rooting for the Kiwis. All well and good to be so declaratively brave in a Facebook exchange; we’ll see how overtly manifest his support will be when the whistle blows.

There are, of course, myriad dramas swirling around the Mexican capital today, as El Tri desperately attempt to punch their tickets to Brazil and quell a national anxiety that has raged for months. Our neighbors to the south stumbled badly throughout CONCACAF’s Hexagonal qualifiers. The security blanket of Stadio Azteca — a place where Mexicans had, until this summer, lost only one time in World Cup qualifying history — has been shredded. They’ve gone through three coaches in three months. Mexicans view World Cup qualification as a birthright, but were it not for the Americans’ last minute victory over Panama in the final qualifier, El Tri would have already been eliminated.

But my friend’s decision to go south and root for the Kiwis begs a more nuanced, decidedly North American question: Should U.S. soccer fans be rooting for the Mexicans today, and next week, when the second leg is played in Auckland?

Yes, the Mexicans are our most bitter regional rivals. But they also represent our confederation, and their failure to qualify would diminish CONCACAF, perhaps diminish the region’s automatic qualifying places for the 2018 World Cup, and certainly diminish this summer’s tournament.

It’s hard not to admire the Kiwis and their grit: They were the only undefeated team in South Africa 2010, grinding out three desultory draws. But the Mexicans — with their hordes of traveling fans, attractive style, outsized national expectations, and seeming inability to play for desultory, low-scoring results — would be the clear choice of neutrals the world over.

But are we, as U.S. soccer supporters, neutrals? Just what are our obligations here?

These questions cannot be soberly addressed without first considering how Mexican fans might react were the roles reversed, for they are anything but neutral on the subject of U.S. soccer.

Let’s boil it down: They hate us.

There is indeed no nuance here for the Mexicans. For 24 hours, perhaps they appreciated the fact that our win in Panama — actually, a tie would have done it — saved their bacon, enabling this last-ditch qualifying opportunity vs. New Zealand. But they don’t give a damn about the confederation or its reputation: If the roles were reversed, the Mexicans would be rooting for New Zealand.

The U.S.-Mexico rivalry is completely unique in this respect: I can’t think of another example where the vitriol is so one-sided. They don’t see the rise of U.S. soccer these last two decades as a boost for CONCACAF, or a means to better prepare their own teams for World Cup performance — an issue of longstanding for the Mexicans, frankly, coming as they do from such a notoriously weak confederation. They don’t see a true rival here in North America as remotely interesting or worthwhile. They don’t see the positive impact of Mexican-Americans — on U.S. rosters, on our style of play — as an ego-boosting reflection of their own soccer prowess.

Mexicans see the rise of U.S. soccer as an affront.

El Tri have even gotten in the habit of playing friendly internationals in the U.S., where huge numbers of expatriates guarantee a sellout — and max revenue for the Mexican Football Federation. For fans of the national team living in Mexico (which is to say, the entire country), this is viewed as yet another indignity.

Soccer is one of the few things Mexicans have always been able to lord over their rich, voracious, imperialist neighbors to the north: tequila, daytime soaps, proper tortillas and futbol. These are people who still revile Landon Donovan for discreetly taking a pre-game piss on a Guadalajara field — 9 years ago. In a youth tournament! They viewed it, and continue to view it, all these years later, as a willful desecration of Mexican soil.

Mexican fans wish us ill, and this broad, cultural dynamic clearly spills over to the players themselves, who understand they are expected to win against the Yanquis, and win big. Failure to do so will subject them to ongoing, perhaps lifelong harassment from their own fans and media. It might cost a coach his job or a player his place in the national team.

There is no real pressure for the U.S. team to perform against Mexico. There is no day-to-day job security at stake, no broad ramifications. Soccer doesn’t yet mean that much to Americans, culturally. That’s not the case for Mexico. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

Watch the Mexican players the next time they face the Americans. After the national anthems, when they make their way down the line — shaking hands as part of the FIFA-mandated, pre-game ritual — there are no smiles and niceties exchanged, not from the Mexicans. They are stoned faced because their compatriots are watching them, ready to pounce on idle chumminess. Observe them after the game ends. If the Mexicans should lose, many pointedly refuse to shake their opponents’ hands. This is very bad form according to the etiquette of international futbol especially. But they know what’s at stake. They can’t afford to be palzy-walzy with the Yanquis — Mexican fans and media would not stand for it.

In fact, should a Mexican player present an American opponent with a truly cheap shot — like the time Ramon Ramirez kicked Alexi Lalas in the balls, in 1997, or when assistant coach Paco Ramirez bitch-slapped Frankie Hedjuk after the Americans eliminated Mexico from the 2002 World Cup — he is hailed as a kind of hero.

I’m torn on this subject, because the U.S.-Mexico rivalry is littered with this sort of bullshit behavior from the Mexicans. But I understand their emotional response, even if I don’t respect it. They’re toting baggage that I legitimately cannot imagine.

Indeed, I find myself rooting for the Mexicans when they’re not playing the U.S., in the same way I will surely root for the Hondurans this summer in Brazil. They are North Americans, after all. They carry the banner for soccer in this part of the world. They play with flair, to win. The Mexicans in particular truly do add something to a big tournament, in a way that New Zealand never could.

So, my friend is on his own down there in Mexico City today, as I — and the 100,000 on hand in Stadio Azteca — will be rooting for El Tri over this two-legged qualifier. And part of the reason is, I know this sort of behavior will confound and piss off our Mexicans brothers all the more.

The Long Game: Sox Even Series with Cardinals

on October 31, 2013

Baseball

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

New Gloucester-based video artist Kevin Fowler captures the Red Sox 2013 World Series celebration for WMTW.

I’m not young, but in the long arc of Red Sox fandom, some would argue I’m too young to have bona fide demons.

My family moved to New England in 1972, in time to endure three-plus decades of an 86-year World Series drought. I recall first-hand Luis Aparicio’s stumble around third base, Jim Rice’s broken hand and Joe Morgan’s Series-winning bloop, Bucky Dent’s anomalous three-run homer, Bill Buckner’s unfortunate fielding (Bob Stanley’s equally hair-brained pitching), Roger Clemens’ inability to beat the Bash Brother A’s, and fucking Aaron Boone.

But the Cardinals? Their wins over the Sox in 1967 and 1946 stand as disappointing but amorphous mileposts on a road travelled too long ago. Any Game 7 loss is gut-wrenching, for sure, and here were two of them — each closing the book on efforts to end long title droughts in their own right. But for me, they were just words on a page, disjointed snippets of film.

Even those New Englanders old enough to have experienced the ’67 Series were, it seems to me, happy enough to have simply won a pennant. Save an epic September collapse in 1949, the Sox had not seriously challenged for one in 29 years. Hard to bitch too much when simply contending is pre-emptively dubbed an Impossible Dream.

The 1946 loss to St. Louis is even harder to get worked up about. Yes, Ted Williams hit .200 and apparently Johnny Pesky’s botched relay allowed Enos Slaughter to score the Series-clinching run. At that stage, the Sox had not won a title, nor even played in a World Series, for 28 years. I’m sure it was plenty traumatic, but David Halberstam wrote a book about the epic Sox collapse in 1949, not 1946.

Boston’s World Series wins over the Cardinals in 2004 and now 2013 just don’t feel, to me, like any sort of cosmic payback.

But perhaps they should.

Here is something The Nation should work on: After three titles in 10 seasons, the danger is we might become jaded.

When a century happens to turn, the Sox apparently win like gangbusters. By 1918, they had won five titles and never lost a World Series.

By 2013, the Sox were, again, clearly ascendant: Three titles and The Curse of the Bambino summarily dispatched (actually, this Bambino thing was always a canard; god love him but the true curse kicked in when Ted Williams was born, in 1918, and petered out when he passed away, in 2002). Boston added yet another World Series in 2018.

Cardinal Hate seems to me a worthy emotional exercise. If we can’t muster the venom to keep score with St. Louis, over the course of decades, what sort of Red Sox fans are we really?

A sports grudge is never released. What, are we supposed to stop hating the Yankees now that they actually suck? Surely not. They had their century. This one’s ours. Come 2101, we’ll count championships over the next hundred years — that will decide things.

And I’ve got news for you: This Cardinals team has a veritable boatload of spectacular young pitching. Martinez, Rosenthal, Kelly, Wacha, Siegrest… Every time I turned around, they were trotting out another kid who throws 97 mph and appears settled beyond his years. The veteran Wainwright is a stud. Their closer from the 2011 World Series-winning team, Jason Motte, is scheduled to return from Tommy John surgery. Consider Edward Mujica, Motte’s replacement till Rosenthal beat him out in August: Mujica was an All-Star this year — and he didn’t get a sniff this series. With this sort of extraordinary pitching depth, the Cardinals can trade for, or simply sign, another bat or two. They will be back.

At which point we’ll sort this Best of 5.

Never forget. Never stop keeping score.

10 Questions for Guan Tianlang

on October 23, 2013

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

How many 14-year-olds do you know who warm up for a star turn with Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy by defending the most coveted amateur title in Asia, in hopes of re-punching his ticket to The Masters? That is the quite extraordinary story of Guan Tianlang, who, as we speak, is teeing it up at the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship (AAC) in China’s Shandong province, at Nanshan International GC. The AAC runs Thursday to Sunday — winning it means a Masters invite (Augusta National GC is a tournament organizer) but also a final qualifying slot for the 2014 British Open. So soon as his AAC has concluded, Mr. Guan (surnames first for the Chinese, of course), flies south to Hainan island, where he will participate in a morning Skills Challenge with Messrs. Woods and McIlroy, at Mission Hills Resort Haikou (that afternoon, the two pros will contest The Match at Mission Hills to be held over the resort’s Blackstone Course). Guan, of course, made Masters history earlier this year — competing as a 14 year old and making the cut on golf’s biggest stage. I recently had the chance to sit down with Guan to discuss the state of his game, his travels, his history with Tiger and Rory, and his relationship to Mission Hills, where he’s been a fixture at junior tournaments since 2008 (he’s a native of nearby Guangzhou). Oh, and for the record, all this talk about being a precocious 14 year old goes away this week. Guan turns 15 on Friday, Oct. 25.

Q: You are quite famous, internationally, following your performance at the Masters in April 2013. Tell us what you’ve been doing since that time.

Guan Tianlang: The Masters did make me better known than before. I played several PGA Tour events after The Masters, including the Zurich Classic, HP Byron Nelson Championship, The Memorial, and FedEx St. Jude Classic — before taking the whole summer off for fitness training and catching up with school work. I played one Japan Tour event, the Vana H Cup KBC Augusta, after coming back from the States. Now I am going to school as a normal student and getting ready for the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in late October.

Q: The slow-play penalty you incurred during the second round at The Masters gained a lot of attention, as well. How do you view that episode now? Do you play faster, or do you think the penalty was perhaps unfairly applied?

GTL: As I said back then, I respect the decision and I accept it completely. It was a tough day. The weather was bad and it took more time to make the right decision, and you know, it’s The Masters! I have a good routine and I haven’t changed much because of the penalty. But yes, I do pay more attention to my pace and I think I have been doing well on that part. Overall, it was a very valuable experience.

Q: Describe your history with Mission Hills. You have worked on your game there? Competed in tournaments here?

GTL: I have participated in more than 10 junior golf tournaments hosted by Mission Hills, since I was seven. And I won several championships there. The courses are beautiful and challenging. Actually the second time I met Tiger Woods was at Mission Hills Shenzhen. A great memory.

Q: There are many courses at Mission Hills — 12 in Shenzhen and 10 on Hainan Island. Which is your favorite course?

GTL: My favorite one must be the Mission Hills Norman Course. But I haven’t been to the Haikou Mission Hills. I hear it is amazing and can’t wait to play there!

Q: You will appear at a junior clinic and skills challenge prior to Tiger Woods’ and Rory McIlroy’s Match at Mission Hills on Oct. 28. You already have a history with both players.

GTL: Yes, I’ve met both of them before. I met Tiger at the HSBC Championship when I was 12, and we played a par-3 hole together. Met him the second time at Mission Hills Shenzhen and received a trophy from him. And, of course, I got to play with him for 9 holes at Augusta National on the Tuesday of the Masters; it was a dream come true, as everyone knows he is my idol. I haven’t played with Rory before but we had a nice chat at the Masters. He was very supportive and said he wasn’t as good as me when he was 14. He is humble and a very sweet guy. A great player as well!

Q: Have you attended similar junior clinics as a spectator? If so, what did you take away from the experience?

GTL: I have attended some junior golf clinics, when I was younger. The one hosted by Mission Hills with Tiger Wood was one. I can’t say how much in terms of golfing skills I have learned from the instructor, but I shall say the whole experience did inspire and motivate me to practice harder and become a better golfer.

Q: Was Tiger Woods always role model for you? Are you old enough to have the same thoughts about Rory McIlroy?

GTL: Tiger Wood has always been my idol. I believe he is the role model as a golfer for many, many people out there. Look at him: He won 5 PGA Tour events in one year and he is now the world No.1. He is the greatest player of his time and perhaps will become the greatest of all time soon. Rory is such a mature and great player. I can see how much more I need work on myself — to grow into a player like him. Both of them are the players I look up to. I’m very excited to get the chance to challenge them.

Q: What advice did Tiger give you during that Masters practice round — anything that helped you during the tournament, or with your golf going forward?

GL: Yes, it was a great experience and probably the most nervous 9 holes in my life. He is my idol, after all. We did chat a bit during the practice round and also off the course. Lots of advice. But the one piece, as other great golfers also offered to me, is enjoying your game and embracing your experience at The Masters. It was my first Masters journey, and I hope there will be many more coming.

Q: You turn 15 on Oct. 25, just before The Match at Mission Hills. You remain a young man, but do you feel as if golf is more popular today, in China, than it was five years ago? If so, how can you tell?

GTL: I believe so, absolutely. First of all, you can see more and more media are paying attention to the sport. Second, more and more juniors start to pick up the game, which makes the future of golf in China very promising. The golf community in China is expanding with its addition to the 2016 Olympic. Golf will become more and more popular here for sure. It is a great sport, why not?

Q: When will American golf fans see you again? Does your tournament schedule bring you to North America in 2014?

GTL: I hope everyone who supports me will watch me and root for me when I play other events outside the U.S., such as Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship. Augusta National is an organizer [winning this event last year earned Guan his Masters place in 2013] and it is the best amateur event in the region. I am going back to defend my title and I hope they will be watching. I haven’t planned any tournaments in North American next year. Hopefully I will win my ticket back to 2014 Masters.

How MadMen Should Finale, Ultimately

on June 24, 2013

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

It doesn’t honestly matter where Matthew Weiner & Co. picked up the seventh and final season of MadMen. Some might have insisted on 1969, to keep the 1960s ethos in tact — though the series actually started in the late ‘50s. Others 1974, thereby neatly bookending the Dick Nixon Era. But it doesn’t truly matter, because halfway through Thursday’s 2-hour finale , the show should have leapt foward from a chronological ’70something tableau to a recognizably modern day. Maybe the suit jackets might have seemed a bit oversized. In keeping with the way other MM seasons have begun, it’s not exactly clear what year it is.

What is clear, in this alternate finale, is this: Sterling Cooper & Partners has survived and thrived, perhaps added a name or two, and the agency has taken up residence in chic modern offices high in a glittering Manhattan tower of glass and steel. For 50 minutes of this final hour, in the course of a normal business day, we learn what’s happened to most all the characters who matter, i.e. who remains at the firm, how the hierarchical machinations have shaken out, who’s moved over to or formed competitors, who no longer remains on this mortal coil, who has divorced and remarried whom, who’s aged well and who hasn’t… The pacing is pointedly brisk, recalling the Season 3 episode “Shut the Door. Have a Seat,” when our gang reboots the firm. This pacing is important because frankly there’s a lot of ground to cover (for the viewer, absent all these years) and we want to make clear the agency’s ongoing vitality.

Clues re. the time period dribble out via scene details and workaday conversations at SC&P. For example, the Justice Dept. has just announced it would no longer seek to break-up Microsoft — a fact germane to SC&P because the firm is courting Netscape, which is jittery because a company called Google has just been awarded US Patent 6,259,999 for the PageRank algorithm used in its search engine. The codgers at Sterling Cooper aren’t at all sure, charmingly, what a search engine is.

Bobby Draper has grown up to be a political operative. We see him on TV as chief of staff to Congressman Gary Condit, steadfastly defending a man who would appear to be dying a slow political death while denying an affair with 24-year-old Chandra Levy, now missing for 133 days.

All this catch-up takes place on a single day, a Monday.

The next morning, standing in his Upper East Side apartment, an appropriately aged Don Draper reads the paper in his stylish breakfast nook while a radio plays in the background: Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Afghan Northern Alliance, has been assassinated in Takhar Province. Draper’s young wife frankly doesn’t know who that is. She’s the spitting image of Betty Draper. Or, maybe it’s another brunette…

What we all accept without debate: It’s a late-summer day of rare clarity, made real under a bright, blue, cloudless sky. Don gets out of a cab and bumps into a colleague (Peggy? Roger? Dawn?) outside their NYC office tower. They’ve all got a conference call at 9 a.m. They’re running late. As they hustle inside, the camera pans back from the monolithic revolving doors and reveals, for the first time, that the Sterling Cooper offices are now housed inside the World Trade Center.

Cut immediately to the Sterling Cooper offices burning out of control. Don is knocked out but slowly coing to beside his own desk, lying amid the debris (which includes a bottle of bourbon, a tumbler and a slide carousel). The only real sounds are low-licking flames and the eerie, reedy hum of steady winds, as several ceiling-to-floor windowpanes have been shattered/knocked out by the impact and subsequent blasts of jet fuel. The whole scene is staged and blocked to recall MadMen’s seminal Korean War flashbacks.

Don ultimately does come to. Things are suddenly moving really fast again. MM characters dart in and out, to see if Don’s alive, to express ignorance or disagreement as to what has actually happened, to tell him so-and-so is dead, to inform him they can no longer stay put, to always exude the massive, sincere reverence they have for this man in particular, whom they’re looking to, beside whom they might well die. A group has decided to ignore the “stay put” advice of emergency personnel on the ground — they’re leaving, and they’re taking the stairs. Draper says he’ll be right there.

Alone now, he grabs the bourbon, pours himself a drink and downs it. As he takes one last look around the wreckage that was his office/firm/life, the episode-ending music begins (“Be My Baby,” by Ronnie Spector and the Ronnettes). Don walks past the camera toward what we assume is the door. Instead, he walks to the open window and calmly steps out.

No need to show the trag-iconic footage of that businessman falling from the World Trade Center on 9/11. It is immediately recalled — and provides new meaning to the animated version of that footage we’ve seen at the start of this and every other MadMen episode, including the final one.

The Podbay Door: NHL Down to Four

on June 4, 2013

Further Afield

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

Hello and welcome to The Podbay Door, the audio magazine here at HalPhillips.net. It’s June, and that means the Stanley Cup Playoffs are barreling toward another riveting conclusion. We’re down to four teams and they are arguably the best four, if the regular season is any guide: Pittsburgh vs. Boston in the Eastern Conference Final, and Los Angeles vs. Chicago out West. Of course, the regular season is rarely a trusted guide in NHL matters. Favorites normally have a tough time in the NHL playoffs, which routinely produce a Cinderella, or two. We discuss that trend and this year’s anomaly with hockey sage David DeSmith, whose A Position contributions can be found here. Note that while we recorded this conversation just prior to the start of each Conference Final, technical difficulties kept us from posting until today, with the Bruins and Blackhawks each holding 2-0 series leads. The Bruins’ performance has surely surprised most everyone, Mr. DeSmith especially.

Bruins-Rangers: A Curious Rivalry Renewed

on May 15, 2013

by Hal Phillips 0 Comments

The Boston-New York sporting rivalry, one-sided though it often is (Hub fans invariably care more about beating anything NYC than the other way around), has traditionally taken a backseat on ice. Still, it beggars belief that Bruins v. Rangers — a battle of Original Sixers separated by just 200 miles — has become such a non-entity, largely because the two combatants have not played a single playoff series since 1973, despite having always competed together in the Eastern Conference, or some randomly named facsimile thereof.

That streak ends Thursday night with Game 1 of the NHL’s Eastern Semifinals at the TD Banknorth Garden, and perhaps it will light a fire going forward. If nothing else, it will serve as a stirring flashback for hockey fans of my vintage who remember a time when this was a proper rivalry and home teams wore dark uniforms in their own barn — a practice that had long prevailed back in the day, was abandoned by the NHL in the mid-1970s, but has recently been restored.

The Bruins’ blood rivals are, of course, the Canadiens, whose decades-long torture of Boston peaked just as the Rangers rivalry fell away, in the late 1970s. Those Montreal teams were all-timers, star-studded winners of four straight Stanley Cups (1976-79). The B’s, though very good throughout the ‘70s, simply could not slay them. Even in their heyday, when they netted a pair of Cups, in 1970 and ‘72, the Bruins were never obliged to beat the Canadiens in a playoff series.

Montreal had many rivals during that period, and it only stoked Boston passions further that peut-être Les Canadiens didn’t care that much about beating the Bruins. Today, recent form and some incendiary incidents of thuggery have perhaps stirred in Montreal fans a hatred that matches that of Bruins Nation.

[Indeed, much of Canada has every right to loathe the current B’s following their organ-removing defeats of heavily favored Vancouver in the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals, and Monday’s unlikely Game 7 dispatch of Toronto’s Maple Leafs, in overtime — the Bruins had trailed 4-1, with just 10 minutes remaining. No Canada-based club has won the Cup since 1993, a fact that continues to gall hockey purists (read: 90 percent of the population) north of the border. Maybe derision of the current Bruins can be that one elusive thing all of Canada can agree upon…]

The Bruins of the early 1970s were not so villainous. They were Big and Bad, in an admirable way, and the Rangers — more of a finesse team, built on the refined skills of Rod Gilbert, Jean Ratelle, Brad Park and Vic Hadfield — proved compelling foils. Boston beat them to win the Cup in 1972. Their last playoff meeting was a Ranger victory, the 1973 conference semifinals. As a young Bostonian, I vividly remember resenting the Rangers for unseating the defending Cup champions, a loss that kicked off one of the most frustrating runs of near misses in hockey history. (Boston would lose the 1974 Cup final to Philly before dropping a dizzying succession of playoff series to Montreal, each one more gut-wrenching than the last.)

But any resentment of the Rangers didn’t last.

Terry O’Reilly and his crew famously went into the stands at Madison Square Garden to punch up some Rangers fans in December 1979, but the lack of playoff confrontation — who could imagine it would last fully four decades? — effectively defused the rivalry. The 1975 and 1976 trades that shipped Phil Esposito, Ken Hodge and Carol Vadnais to New York, in exchange for Ratelle, Park and “Nifty” Rick Middleton, further blurred the line between bitter enemy and mere foe.

Montreal became the fixation.

It’s funny how that works: The best rivalries become a sort of long-term competitive obsession, to the exclusion of teams that might well be torturing or otherwise beating you in the moment. Boston endured 39 years between titles (1972-2011), and in that seemingly interminable span they were beaten back by several great teams of longstanding: the Islanders of the early 1980s, Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers… Yet we Bruins Fans never stopped hating on the Canadiens exclusively.

[Another great piece of nostalgia prompted by this year’s playoffs: the return of the Islanders after a long post-season absence. Just seeing their uniforms, admirably unchanged from the glory days, stirred strong memories of Bossy, Gillies, Trottier, Nystrom, Smith and Resch. The Nassau County Coliseum — scene of so many vintage Bruins telecasts delivered via rabbit ears and Channel 38 — remains impossibly small, dark and retro. Their current star, John Taveras, wears no. 91 and, for a brief moment during their first-round loss to the mighty Penguins, I mistook him for Butch Goring…]

The Rangers famously went 54 years without a Stanley Cup before winning one in 1994 (deploying a goodly number of former Oilers, it must be said), and I’ve no idea whether Ranger fans brought with them on that long and painful journey a particular rival, or developed one. Maybe, for a time, it was the Islanders. Maybe it has become the Washington Capitals, whom the Rangers seem to have faced, in the playoffs, every year for the last two decades (though it’s hard to develop a rivalry with a team that has never won anything, ever).

If it’s been the Bruins all along, I feel sorry for them, because we never really noticed.

FootGolf? Yes, FootGolf. Where Do I Sign…

on April 26, 2013

by Hal Phillips 3 Comments

Here’s all I have to say about the advent of FootGolf: “It’s about freakin’ time.” Anything that essentially combines my two favorite participatory sports — and knee-high argyle socks — has my full attention and support.

I knew there was something out there like this, but until I read this piece, I had no idea it was so well developed, and so intrinsically awesome. As a devotee of disc golf, I embrace the game in all its alternative forms. But this one takes it to a new level. There’s even a rule book, to be consulted in the event one’s approach hits the pin and ricochets backward into a lake. (Of course, if that should happen, the ball would be floating on the surface and could presumably be retrieved, prior to a legal drop).

Soccer and golf have a long and distinguished history together. There’s the dreaded foot wedge, of course. And there was that time Alan Shearer played through our group at Gleneagles. I’d love to see him hole out with a proper foot wedge and run the length of the hole with his signature hand held high.

Check out more information here. There’s apparently a FootGolf facility in Las Vegas, but that’s awfully far away. If anyone out there knows where this activity can be pursued here in New England, I’m all ears. After all, there was a FootGolf World Cup held in Hungary in 2012. I now have my sights set on 2016.