As I sat on a plane, furiously refreshing SI.com (somehow on an International flight on United, both MLB.com and espn.com were blocked) and watched my favorite team throw away a World Series in the span of like seven pitches, I had to think to myself that I was glad it was happening this way.
Had I not been in a plane, I would have been in a stationary dark room of my basement, trapped in a different way - not 30,000 feet high but unable to move nonetheless. It was probably better, however, to not have the video to really see the destruction in real time. For six innings, Grienke was amazing, but the Astros squandered opportunities against a bad Scherzer, leaving what should have been a 4-0 or 5-0 game at 2-0 and very much in the balance.
I may have time for a full retrospective look at this Astros team and this season, probably the best regular season team I've ever followed (certainly the best Astros regular season team). But just like they did last year in their sullen five game ALCS loss to Boston, they were unable to string together big hits, had a few bats go silent (this time Correa and Bregman, mainly), and lose all their home games in a series. I guess there is some interesting infamy of being the first team ever to go 0-4 at home in a playoff series, but that is not much comfort.
But let's not talk too much about that dismay. At the end of the day, the 2019 Astros still did give me some great moments. Both their walk-off wins over the Yankees in the ALCS were amazing, from Correa doing it way past midnight in the 11th inning, and having an all time HR pimp moment, to the incredible moment that was Altuve's series-clincher. They also gave me a whole host of moments in the regular season, be it every Gerritt Cole start in the 2nd half, or the Verlander no-hitter, or all the blowouts and great moments.
The 2019 Astros weren't without their blemishes of course. Their inability to hit in RISP and lose home playoff games has been a staggeringly sad trend these last two years (of course, this was reversed in 2017, when they won a series where teh home team won every game). And then of course there was that Taubman fiasco, which I have so many stances on. The first is I still heavily rooted for teh Astros. I'm not a fan of them beacuse of their ex-Assistant GM, nor am I a fan of them because of Luhnow - who I'll admit is a brilliant baseball mind but seems to be an unrepentant asshole and who I'm sure is the person behind the pr missteps throughout the Taubman saga. That said, I can put on a brave face but I have to be honest it didn't feel as good rooting for this team. But that is all over now.
The Astros should still be good in 2020. They will lose Gerrit Cole, but they can replace him with a back-from Tommy John Lance McCullers, a hopefully good again Forrest Whitley, a potential return to form from Aaron Sanchez, and who knows what else. The offense should still be very good, with hopefully, finally, a good healthy season from Carlos Correa. A full year of Kyle Tucker too. There is a lot to look forward to as an Astros fan. Yes, they will almost certainly not be as good as the regular-season version of the 2019 Astros, but then again neither were the 2017 Astros, a team that had Dallas Kuechel as their ace for a majority of the season but still won 100 games.
Anyway, while all this was happening, there was an ever more depressing story going on in the world of sports: the gutting of Deadspin. I don't know when I became a loyal Deadspin reader. I think it was after Will Leitch had already left and AJ Daulerio took over as Editor (around the time of the Brett Favre / Jenn Sterger story). I think my first knowledge of Deadspin was from reading Will Leitch's book 'God Save the Fan' which was gifted to me. I started reading it loyally, daily, soon after - along with what I always considered its sister site (or the very least, its offspring) Kissing Suzy Kolber. The latter side closed its doors in 2015 after losing a lot of its writers over the years.
These were tentpole sites for a young sports fan. It truly was sports without 'access, favor, or discretion.' Did I love every move the site made? No, I did not. Despite being heavily liberal as a person, the sites progressive views were somewhat too much. By the way, this is not to say at all that Deadspin should have 'sticked too sports', just that I didn't agree with all their writers views on everything. Which is fine. I still found the site brilliatn, hilarious, pointed, thought-provoking, and required daily reading.
It is not gone in the sense it still exists. I can type in www.deadspin.com and it will take me to a website that looks like the site I loved - probably with a lot more ads. However, it will be new names writing stories, blindly 'sticking to sports.' It will be hollow, it will be fruitless. These first couple days, I've still typed in Deadspin a few times because it is just so familiar to do so. But overtime it will become less and less and soon thereafter it won't happen.
I hope the site gets resurrected somewhere. The writers themselves are all talented enough that they'll land somewhere (which was my feeling about Grantland when it closed as well) but what made it great was the tight vision and voice the site had, the commenters that made it so great, and its fearless style. Of course, there is some import in pointing out that the Deadspin mindset of 2019 would probably despise a lot about the site in 2010, where there was a decent amount of traficking in hot women, lewd stories and bro-ey-ness. Of course, they grew beyond that as their writers did (people like Drew Magary and Barry Petchesky penning open letters bemoaning their past selves), but the sense of in the wild remained throughout.
Deadspin was an everything site for me. I would waste a lot of time there, but also learn a lot with the various longform pieces and exposes. Certainly I'm more knowledgeable about things like the NCAA's cartel-like behavoir, or the dour world of how sports teams 'investigate' sexual assault and domestic violence issues. Of course, beyond all that dreariness, there was also a lot of fun.
Those damn perfect comments. Early on the comments had a life of their own in the Deadspin world, and while every set of commenters would look down on the next set, the overall quality never truly wavered. Laughing and learning was the core to Deadspin's allure, and all that is gone.
I'm really not ready or skilled enough to talk about the ins and outs of Deadspins fight with their PE-owners and new CEO, other than to say that the PE owners have been completely outplayed in this fight. I will forever miss Deadspin. I hope some of the great group of writers find themselves in teh same place so I can read them together. However, even if they don't, hopefully they'll be somewhere being as caustic and insightful and snarky and invasive as possible.
Had I not been in a plane, I would have been in a stationary dark room of my basement, trapped in a different way - not 30,000 feet high but unable to move nonetheless. It was probably better, however, to not have the video to really see the destruction in real time. For six innings, Grienke was amazing, but the Astros squandered opportunities against a bad Scherzer, leaving what should have been a 4-0 or 5-0 game at 2-0 and very much in the balance.
I may have time for a full retrospective look at this Astros team and this season, probably the best regular season team I've ever followed (certainly the best Astros regular season team). But just like they did last year in their sullen five game ALCS loss to Boston, they were unable to string together big hits, had a few bats go silent (this time Correa and Bregman, mainly), and lose all their home games in a series. I guess there is some interesting infamy of being the first team ever to go 0-4 at home in a playoff series, but that is not much comfort.
But let's not talk too much about that dismay. At the end of the day, the 2019 Astros still did give me some great moments. Both their walk-off wins over the Yankees in the ALCS were amazing, from Correa doing it way past midnight in the 11th inning, and having an all time HR pimp moment, to the incredible moment that was Altuve's series-clincher. They also gave me a whole host of moments in the regular season, be it every Gerritt Cole start in the 2nd half, or the Verlander no-hitter, or all the blowouts and great moments.
The 2019 Astros weren't without their blemishes of course. Their inability to hit in RISP and lose home playoff games has been a staggeringly sad trend these last two years (of course, this was reversed in 2017, when they won a series where teh home team won every game). And then of course there was that Taubman fiasco, which I have so many stances on. The first is I still heavily rooted for teh Astros. I'm not a fan of them beacuse of their ex-Assistant GM, nor am I a fan of them because of Luhnow - who I'll admit is a brilliant baseball mind but seems to be an unrepentant asshole and who I'm sure is the person behind the pr missteps throughout the Taubman saga. That said, I can put on a brave face but I have to be honest it didn't feel as good rooting for this team. But that is all over now.
The Astros should still be good in 2020. They will lose Gerrit Cole, but they can replace him with a back-from Tommy John Lance McCullers, a hopefully good again Forrest Whitley, a potential return to form from Aaron Sanchez, and who knows what else. The offense should still be very good, with hopefully, finally, a good healthy season from Carlos Correa. A full year of Kyle Tucker too. There is a lot to look forward to as an Astros fan. Yes, they will almost certainly not be as good as the regular-season version of the 2019 Astros, but then again neither were the 2017 Astros, a team that had Dallas Kuechel as their ace for a majority of the season but still won 100 games.
Anyway, while all this was happening, there was an ever more depressing story going on in the world of sports: the gutting of Deadspin. I don't know when I became a loyal Deadspin reader. I think it was after Will Leitch had already left and AJ Daulerio took over as Editor (around the time of the Brett Favre / Jenn Sterger story). I think my first knowledge of Deadspin was from reading Will Leitch's book 'God Save the Fan' which was gifted to me. I started reading it loyally, daily, soon after - along with what I always considered its sister site (or the very least, its offspring) Kissing Suzy Kolber. The latter side closed its doors in 2015 after losing a lot of its writers over the years.
These were tentpole sites for a young sports fan. It truly was sports without 'access, favor, or discretion.' Did I love every move the site made? No, I did not. Despite being heavily liberal as a person, the sites progressive views were somewhat too much. By the way, this is not to say at all that Deadspin should have 'sticked too sports', just that I didn't agree with all their writers views on everything. Which is fine. I still found the site brilliatn, hilarious, pointed, thought-provoking, and required daily reading.
It is not gone in the sense it still exists. I can type in www.deadspin.com and it will take me to a website that looks like the site I loved - probably with a lot more ads. However, it will be new names writing stories, blindly 'sticking to sports.' It will be hollow, it will be fruitless. These first couple days, I've still typed in Deadspin a few times because it is just so familiar to do so. But overtime it will become less and less and soon thereafter it won't happen.
I hope the site gets resurrected somewhere. The writers themselves are all talented enough that they'll land somewhere (which was my feeling about Grantland when it closed as well) but what made it great was the tight vision and voice the site had, the commenters that made it so great, and its fearless style. Of course, there is some import in pointing out that the Deadspin mindset of 2019 would probably despise a lot about the site in 2010, where there was a decent amount of traficking in hot women, lewd stories and bro-ey-ness. Of course, they grew beyond that as their writers did (people like Drew Magary and Barry Petchesky penning open letters bemoaning their past selves), but the sense of in the wild remained throughout.
Deadspin was an everything site for me. I would waste a lot of time there, but also learn a lot with the various longform pieces and exposes. Certainly I'm more knowledgeable about things like the NCAA's cartel-like behavoir, or the dour world of how sports teams 'investigate' sexual assault and domestic violence issues. Of course, beyond all that dreariness, there was also a lot of fun.
Those damn perfect comments. Early on the comments had a life of their own in the Deadspin world, and while every set of commenters would look down on the next set, the overall quality never truly wavered. Laughing and learning was the core to Deadspin's allure, and all that is gone.
I'm really not ready or skilled enough to talk about the ins and outs of Deadspins fight with their PE-owners and new CEO, other than to say that the PE owners have been completely outplayed in this fight. I will forever miss Deadspin. I hope some of the great group of writers find themselves in teh same place so I can read them together. However, even if they don't, hopefully they'll be somewhere being as caustic and insightful and snarky and invasive as possible.
