Grand Slam, Over Easy

Will Serena Williams Cruise to the First True Grand Slam in Tennis Since 1988?

By: Jeff McDonough

The 2015 US Open gets under way on this fine Monday morning, with matches starting at 11 a.m. There are a number of interesting storylines involving legendary players heading into the tournament. Novak Djokovic has established himself as clearly the best men’s player on the planet after years of jockeying for position with his fellow members of the “Big Four” of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray. He enters as a heavy favorite and with a win can become just the fifth man ever to win 10+ Grand Slam titles in the Open Era — the “Open Era” began in 1968 when both professionals and amateurs were allowed to play on tour. He would have a chance for a 2015 Grand Slam himself, if Stan Wawrinka hadn’t played the match of his life in the French Open Final to upset Djoker. This “Grand Slam” that I’m referring to consists of winning the four major tournaments of a single season — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in succession.

The Bryan Brothers, 37 year-old American twins, are the most dominant duo in the history of men’s tennis, with 16 doubles championships together. They are still the #1 ranked team in the world, but have begun to show their age, having only won one major in the last eight Grand Slam tournaments. If the Bryans don’t win the US Open, they’ll fail to win a single major title in 2015, after having won at least one for 10 consecutive years. In the reamaining doubles draws, Martina Hingis has seen a surprising resurgence this year. Hingis, the 34 year-old Swiss, was a former World No. 1 as a singles player, who won five Grand Slam titles in the late ‘90s, including three of four in a dominant 1997 as a 16 year-old. She, much like Djokovic this year, fell short of the Grand Slam after being upset in the French Open Final. At Wimbledon last month, Hingis impressively won both the women’s and mixed doubles championships. She had earlier in the year won the mixed doubles title at the Australian Open, but that was her first Grand Slam title of any kind since 2006. Hingis, fittingly, is the last person to achieve a Grand Slam, when she won all four women's doubles titles in 1998, but with two different partners. That is to bring attention to the fact here that these storylines are fine and good, but everyone’s eyes will be on Serena Williams.

The real tournament, in the minds of a lot of fans, doesn’t begin until Serena’s match tonight at 7 p.m. at Arthur Ashe Stadium, where she will likely massacre the 86^th ranked woman in the world, Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia. That bloodbath, along with the rest of the tournament, can be seen on ESPN2, or online at ESPN3.com. Williams is looking to become the first singles player to win the tennis Grand Slam since Germany’s Steffi Graf in 1988. A win here would also see Williams equal Graf for the most career Grand Slam titles in the Open Era at 22. The world is really her oyster right now. Hell, she’s even dating Drake! ...apparently. But on the tennis court, history is hanging in the balance this year at Flushing Meadows in Queens, NY.

With Friends Like These...

How the Hell is This Show Still So Relevant 20 Years Later?

By: Jeff McDonough

Monday was the 236^th day of the year, as August 24 always is on non-leap years. The significance of this date — beyond being Cal Ripken’s 55^th birthday — is that if you started watching Friends on a strict episode-a-day regimen when Netflix released all 236 episodes after the ball dropped this New Year’s, you’d be all finished! In reality, nobody binge-watches TV this way, with that level of self-control. You either end up getting distracted by something else and flaking on your show, or you power through it in embarrassingly quick fashion with only Doritos crumbs in your bed and a laptop burn on your tummy to show for it.

Regardless, there has been adequate time for anyone interested in doing so to run through the entire series, whether for the first time or the 51^st time. Why does this deal even matter? The episodes have been in reruns nonstop, since even before the show ended, on TBS and Nick at Nite and many local broadcast affiliates. Well, the answer to this question is really a sign of how things are in 2015 in general: we want our content when we want it however we want it.

Survivor Turns 15

A Look at the Finale of the Show's Groundbreaking First Season on Its Anniversary

By: Jeff McDonough

This Sunday marks the 15-year anniversary of the finale of the influential first season of Survivor. On August 23, 2000, corporate consultant Richard Hatch defeated whitewater rafting guide Kelly Wiglesworth on a 4-3 vote from his peers to win Survivor: Borneo and the million-dollar prize. Sixteen Americans had been chosen to live on a remote island for 39 days without any modern comforts and vote each other off one by one until there was one “Sole Survivor” remaining — while millions watched on national and worldwide television. This was truly a revolutionary concept by series creator Mark Burnett and could’ve ended in disaster. This wasn’t a documentary. This wasn’t a game show. This was “reality television.” We had seen isolated incidents of this type of thing permeating into the TV landscape before. COPS had already been on for a decade, but the premise was familiar and it was stashed away on Saturday nights. The Real World thrived in the ‘90s with MTV on basic cable. Survivor was a different animal. It aired in primetime on network TV, serving as the 8 p.m. anchor for a CBS weeknight block, and took the monetary investment of shooting on location with a large production crew on a near-desert island in northeast Malaysia. The success of the show ultimately resulted in the dawning of a new era in television — for better or worse.

The finale that night in 2000, was the conclusion of 13 weeks of unique storytelling and an astonishing 51.7 million viewers in the U.S. tuned in to watch. That is the second most watched episode of television this century so far — that “episode” designation obviously omits special events like the Super Bowl. The only other television show that has had an episode reach 50 million viewers in the post-Y2K era was the series finale of Friends in 2004 at 52.5 million. Even further than that, an estimate was reported by Neilsen that 125 million people tuned in for at least some portion of the Survivor: Borneo finale. That is simply staggering. So what captivated the country so much about Survivor that they tuned in in droves to see how it would end?

Requiem for a Dork

An Ode to Andy MacPhail, the GM Who Brought the Orioles Back to Prominence

By: Jeff McDonough

This moment in the 2015 Baltimore Orioles season could be remembered as the low point from which they rebounded, or as the beginning of the end from which they never recovered. Time will only tell — though I’m leaning toward the latter at the moment. On Wednesday, the O’s fell victim to a no-hitter for the first time in seven years at the hands of the Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma — the second Asian-born pitcher ever to throw a no-hitter after Japan’s Hideo Nomo, who also no-hit the Orioles back in 2001. This closed a turbulent West Coast road trip, where the team lost two games in extra innings — both due to a shallow bullpen that forced ineffectual relievers to remain in the game after they had walked the bases loaded.

With seven players set to hit free agency this offseason — including red-hot slugger Chris Davis, three-time All-Star Matt Wieters and dominant reliever Darren O’Day — this current era of success in Baltimore could possibly be coming to a close. Meanwhile, 90 miles up I-95, the Philadelphia Phillies — currently the worst team in baseball — are beginning a new era with recently-hired Team President Andy MacPhail in charge. He, of course, served in the same role in Baltimore for four years before Dan Duquette took over after the 2011 season. MacPhail was also the man behind the Kirby Puckett-Era Twins teams that won two World Series, serving as general manager from 1985 to 1994. He left Minnesota that year to become President and CEO of the Cubs and presided over the Sammy Sosa-Era in Chicago. While his dozen years there did not result in a championship like his previous post, he did usher in arguably the most successful era of Cubs baseball of the last 70 years — including the 2003 team that found itself five outs from the World Series before exploding into a million pieces.

MacPhail’s four and a half seasons in Baltimore were viewed as pretty unremarkable — both when they ended and while they were going on. Why wouldn’t they be? They were a “rebuilding” team that failed to win even 70 games for five consecutive years. It was the previous regime that had shown at least some promise — after the big signings of Miguel Tejada and Javy López — in the 2005 season, where the O’s were in first place as late as June 23 with four All-Stars before falling off a cliff after the break. And it is this new regime headed by Duquette that has seen the birds end their 14-year playoff drought with three straight winning seasons — and on pace for a fourth. The high water mark came last year after sweeping the Tigers in the ALDS, when the Orioles found themselves in the final four as Vegas favorites to win the World Series. Duquette was named MLB Executive of the Year, so you'd think this column would be all about his accomplishments, right? Well, there’s reason to dwell on MacPhail’s time in B-more, as I’d argue he, not Dan Duquette, is the person most responsible for this current era of Oriole prominence.

Moocherama

John Oliver's Takedown of Public Funding for Stadiums

By: Jeff McDonough

All over the country there are sports franchises that are rumored to be at least considering leaving their current city. The biggest reason given always seems to be because their stadium or arena is too old. This complaint always seems overblown to me. Stadiums cost so much money to build, that to tear down a perfectly functional one seems gratuitously wasteful. When you visit ballparks like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, it is like watching a baseball game in a museum. It doesn’t matter if the game is a blowout because you can get your money’s worth just soaking in the sights. As long as older stadiums have sporadic updates over the years, I am an advocate of keeping them. Even places with much less prestige but that are still viewed as outdated, like Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, are perfectly adequate in my mind. I’ve seen basketball and wrestling there in recent years and had a lovely time. I see no reason why the city would spend the money to tear this place down and construct a new one.

That’s the real issue though. The money so often comes from the pockets of the government, and therefore, the taxpayers. The billionaires who run these teams — often as their secondary or tertiary businesses once they’ve made their fortunes — have the unmitigated gall to ask us to fund their fancy, new, luxury projects. The thinking is that new stadiums and all the events there will boost the local economy. John Oliver, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, asserts that this is a fallacy, in a scathing condemnation of this practice that he delivered two weeks ago. The money from those gaudy naming rights deals that landed Baltimore clunky-sounding stadiums like the aforementioned Royal Farms Arena — or how about when the Ravens called PSINet Stadium home? — often goes to the franchises and not the city. The money from additional events like concerts, well, Oliver points out that they may be only lining team owners’ pockets as well. But you better give them what they want because the threat to move your favorite team to another city always looms.