The playoffs are like my baby

I'm going to start with what is likely the first piece of actual, legitimate parenting advice found on the Sports Baby blog: sleep training works.

In a previous post I lamented that our sleep training program which was meant to get Sports Baby on a consistent and comforting schedule of naps and sleeps was instead putting him onto a consistent schedule of heartbreaking wailing. Nothing goes better with a crisp spring morning than a confused seven-month-old dropping salty tears on his crib sheets as he stares after the father who has put him down and walked away. It sucked more than Donald Trump's latest dinner date (bravo Seth Myers — I'd recommend watching all of the video in that link but you can fast forward to the 12-minute mark for the Trump evisceration if you like).

Anyway, after two weeks the wailing stopped and the napping started. We used the strategy we found in a book called The Sleep Sense Program written by Dana Obleman who is, I would guess, some sort of powerful She-wizard.

Sports Baby figured the sleeping thing out just in time too, because with him on a regular schedule I've been able to catch a lot of the amazing must-see playoff action going on right now. I can say, with mild exaggeration, that these were the greatest combo NBA/NHL playoff first rounds ever.

In the NBA none of the first-round series went to seven games and yet they were all pretty fantastic with some twists and turns and, most of all, star players putting on a show.

The only sweep was Boston over New York but it had to be the closest four-game sweep I've ever seen, if that makes any sense. The Knicks could have, perhaps should have, won the first two in Boston including game 2, which saw Carmelo Anthony put up 42 points, 17 rebounds and six assists in a losing effort. The Atlanta Hawks upset the Magic in six games even though Orlando's Dwight Howard averaged 27 points and 15.5 rebounds per game. Miami and Chicago took care of business against Philadelphia and Indiana, respectively, in five games but both the 76ers and Pacers put up frisky fights. Toronto hosted a clinic for local seventh graders who then went on to defeat the Raptors in a high scoring affair. "They were just making shots," said head coach Jay Triano. "We maybe needed a little more urgency on defence."

In the Western Conference the Lakers beat the Hornets in six even though Chris Paul nearly stole the show by doing his best Jack Layton impression — the leading a team of nobodies to a very respectable finish part, not the having cancer part. In a game 4 win Paul led all players from both teams in points with 27, assists with 15 and rebounds with 13.

Memphis, the No. 8 seed, toppled No. 1 San Antonio in an upset that would have been shocking if it wasn't so thorough — the Spurs never really had a chance against big men Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph, two former immoveable objects (due to fatness) turned unstoppable forces. Oklahoma versus Denver should have been a thrilling speed race but the Nuggets were unfortunately slowed by injuries. Even so, four of the five games were decided by four points or less as the young Thunder moved on.

And then there was Portland vs. Dallas, a series that featured one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen. Portland's Brandon Roy is a three-time all-star who should be in the prime of his career but instead has become a fringe player due to the fact that his knees retired two years ago. In game 2 of the Dallas series Roy played only eight minutes, scoring zero points, and was reduced to tears as he watched the entire second half from the bench. In game 4, however, Roy returned to glory, scoring 18 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Blazers to a two-point victory after they trailed by 23. If you like sports at all and you haven't seen his amazing performance yet, just watch this video. It may be you with tears in your eyes now. And by the way, the Blazers lost the series in six games.

Now, could you imagine, the NHL playoffs were even better. They may not have had the same star power — that's what happens when you let jackal third-liners cripple the careers of stars like Sidney Crosby — but four of the eight matchups went to game 7. Here in Vancouver it was like a Leonard Cohen song: "The whole damn place goes crazy twice and it's once for the devil and once for Christ."

The devil seeped in when the Canuck-killing Chicago Blackhawks won games 4, 5 and 6 to force game 7 after losing the first three games of the series. Christ appeared just in time for this to happen, saving top-seeded Vancouver the embarrassment of being the first ever city to riot following an opening round loss. As they say, the Luongo works in mysterious ways.

In the end there were no major upsets in the NHL, but every team except for Detroit had to work for their series victories (thanks Coyotes — why can't you be doing all this sucking in a place where somewhere will care that you suck so much?).

Not to be outdone, Sports Baby has put on some must-watch performances of his own. Last week he started crawling and he hasn't stopped since. It's pretty adorable. And when I say he's a must-watch I mean it literally as we now can't take our eyes off him for fear he will crawl over to an electrical outlet and discover what burnt toast feels like.  

Looks like I'll be doing some baby proofing this weekend. I don't mind — the playoff second rounds pale so far in comparison to round one-derful (yeah, that's right — I've already fully embraced the terrible daddy puns).

Happy Mother's Day!

Photo: iamatrailblazersfan.com

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy 

Fantasy sports are like my baby

If there's one thing that has held me back from writing the Great Canadian Novel it's my stupid, happy, fulfilled, non-tortured, nourished life that has kept me from grasping the loneliness and isolation needed to make Quill and Quire quiver.

If there's another thing it is fantasy sports.

As I write this I am toggling back and forth every minute or so to a Stattracker webpage and secretly cheering against my favourite baseball team — the Jays, natch — because I own a relief pitcher for their opponent and he is currently in line to record a save.

I've had a fantasy flurry lately, drafting two baseball teams and a playoff hockey squad while also completing stretch runs in basketball and hockey. I know what you're thinking: "Wow Sports Andy, that's a lot of fake teams. You're the coolest person in the world."

Even so, as a husband and now father I sometimes wonder if fantasy sports takes up too much of my time. And now that my friends are rich enough to drink artisanal beers rather than mass-produced swill, they've decided to bump up the league entry fees from zero to something.

I'm not in any $150,000 leagues — yet — but it still does feel kind of odd coughing up 20 or 25 bucks several times a year for fake sports when I have a baby I could be buying books or salmon or replica basketball jerseys for. On the plus side, more often than not I tend to finish in the money in these things so I have actually made more than I've spent. If I were to hazard a guess as to what kind of return I'm getting for my time spent managing my teams, I'd say I make about $0.0000000000001 per week.

I'm very happy to report, however, that I've never left my baby alone in the crib or bathtub or whatever to go and tend to my teams. I wasn't sure this would be the case. Now that I'm on parental leave and home all day I find that I actually have a lot less time to compulsively scan the Internet looking for info on players and matchups and what the weather is like in Baltimore and such. When I was at work with a computer right in front of me it was much easier to sneak a quick peek for one or two hours a day. (Haha, my boss reads this blog — I'm only kidding of course. It was more like one or two minutes a day. Haha. Moving on.)

The one thing I say about fantasy sports to keep myself from feeling like a maladjusted, obsessed addict is that it does help me stay up-to-date on all of the Big Four sports. As someone who writes about sports for a living I feel like this is a good thing.

If not for my playoff hockey pool I'd have no idea who Teddy Purcell is. If you asked me last week who Teddy Purcell is I probably would have guessed that he's a recovering alcoholic lounge singer who briefly made a name for himself in 1997 with a recording of hilariously crooned 2 Live Crew songs. Now I know that Teddy Purcell, one of those guys whose name always should be said in full, plays hockey in the NHL for the Tampa Bay Lightning. I know that this year was his first as a full-time big leaguer and he did quite well, scoring 51 points in 81 games. I know that he went undrafted and hails from St. John's, NL. Important stuff.

I also know that Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Ted Lilly gives up a lot of dingers but always has a pretty good WHIP, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Ramon Sessions played a lot better at home than on the road this year and Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice still does not get all of his team's goal line touches. Scandalous, I know.

How does this help me cover the local sports scene for my job with a community newspaper? I'll get to that later. (Note: by later I mean never.)

Those little details that I learn playing fantasy sports remind me a little bit about having a baby and the little things that I notice now that I never did before.

Walking with a stroller is one activity that introduces you to a whole other world known only to parents and perhaps people riding Segways. Recently while taking Sports Baby on his first ride on Vancouver's Skytrain we joined the little parade of strollers heading for the elevator. I'd never noticed it before but it's an adorable little line that gets tucked away from the dead eyes of the rest of the commuters. At the Marine Drive stop we took one slow elevator up one floor before transferring to another slow elevator to get to the platform. Kind of fun if you have the time to enjoy the view of the Fraser River out of the windows of the elevator. Not so fun if you're rushing downtown for an important sit down with the head of the Vancouver Police Department's anti-gang unit. (We weren't. Why would we take a baby to a business meeting?)

The baby-less have also probably not noticed the swarm of strollers that converge on community centres and libraries like little cup holder-equipped sharks whenever a free class is offered. Thankfully I haven't yet witnessed any stroller rage incidents.

The same little stroller jams can form at malls as parents search out the one washroom equipped with a change table. God forbid there could ever be a nice place that doesn't smell like broccoli farts where I wouldn't have to wait forever and then feel rushed while I changed my baby's diaper.

Wow, my fantasies really are changing.

Photo Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Steve Nash is like my baby

In the movie As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson says to Helen Hunt, "You make me want to be a better man."

Then he takes a stiff swig of Jim Beam just before she jumps out of a window (sorry, I've used this link before. I just love watching Helen Hunt jump out of a window. It's also a stellar demonstration of peer pressure).

I may be getting a few different movies mixed up but the important thing is Jack's "better man" compliment. It's lovely, as long as you don't look directly into Jack's crazy, crazy eyes.

I think about that quote a lot that these days as my baby's odometer clicks past six months. My life has changed drastically since he was born. Some of the changes are out of necessity — FYI babies aren't cool with Wu-Tang Clan played at full blast in the car — but many of the lifestyle choices I have made are voluntary changes made with the little guy in mind.

In an earlier blog post I mentioned that babies aren't supposed to watch TV until they are at least two (it's to prevent them from glimpsing Charlie Sheen) but I got around this by watching sports with the baby safely stashed behind a blanket so that he could not see the screen. Since I wrote that, however, things have changed. I no longer watch much TV at all when Sports Baby is awake and aware, meaning I watch a lot less TV these days than I used to. I'm not sure how, but somehow this makes me a better person.

I'm also theoretically a better man because I drink less beer. Given that I could at any time be called upon to pick my baby up without dropping him or perhaps even drive him to the hospital after he eats a used Ricola wrapper, I like to limit myself to two beers maximum. Most days I settle for zero beers. Again the intricacies of the cost-benefit gains of this decision are a little hard to pinpoint but somehow this makes me a better person, or at least a slightly less beer-gutty one. And boy am I going through Scotch by the barrel.

When sober I do love to pick Sports Baby up and fly him dangerously close to our six-foot-high Hobbit ceilings. And though he's no fatty, he is gaining weight at an incredible rate — he's already doubled his birth weight, providing progressive weight training that may finally help me get some of that "old man strength" to go along with my "old man shoulders that dislocate whenever I try to reach into the backseat to grab something."

Now that Sports Baby is eating solid foods my diet has improved as well. We make him steamed vegetables and I sometimes have a bite or two — I no longer need all of my vegetables to be smothered in Caesar dressing. I'm also constantly looking for places to buy "unmedicated chicken." I don't really know what chickens that are off their meds looks like but I imagine them wandering around downtown muttering "they're out to get me, they're trying to kill me, they're going to steal my babies, they want to eat me limb by limb. THE FARMERS, that's who!"

All of these changes are because of my baby, his mere presence driving me to be a better man and a better daddy. He's like a tiny, male version of Helen Hunt. Soon he'll be jumping through little baby windows.

That brings me to Steve Nash. Regular readers of the blog (PS thank you, and sorry for the wait since the last post) will likely have surmised that Nash carries a lot of water in this household. My baby is not named Steve Nash Prest, but let's just say the name made our long list.

The reason that Nash is a two-time NBA MVP is that he makes those around him better. Even at the age of 37 Nash is still passing the ball as well as anyone in the sport, his 11.3 assists per game placing him second in the league.

And it's not just his dazzling playmaking that makes him such a positive figure. Teammates credit Nash with inspiring them to improve their training and diet because they see all of the things he has done off the court to help him be one of the best older players in league history.

A couple of years ago the "Nash diet" became a bit of a craze after teammates Shaquille O'Neal, Grant Hill and Jared Dudley talked about copying Nash's disciplined eating habits. Dudley in particular, a younger player who battled weight problems as a kid, credits Nash's influence with helping him lose weight and improve his game. Nash describes his diet on his Facebook page.

It's a great testament to his leadership and charisma that he can inspire his teammates in so many ways. He's like a grown up, male, basketball-playing version of Helen Hunt, except with better hair.

Now if only he would stop being so damn honourable and demand that Phoenix trade his ass to an organization that is interested in winning the title. You hear me Phoenix? Open up the window! Don't make him crash through it.

Photo Getty Images

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy 

NBA dunk contest participants are like my baby

I'm probably going to say this every couple of weeks for the next 24 years, but I think my baby is getting it.

Can he walk? No. Crawl? No. Sing Justin Bieber songs? Yes, but that's age appropriate. Can he talk? No. Can he toss out witty bons mots . . . Hey! Shut up already with the questions. He's just a frickin' baby.

Last week a fever followed by a cold increased his wah-wah quotient but when the heat subsided and the boogers dried he perked right up and became pretty with it for a five-month-old.

He turned himself into a human bowling ball, rolling halfway across a room to get to something he wanted (never mind that it was a used Kleenex tissue lying beside a garbage can). We started him on solid foods and he's already a pro, gumming down a more varied diet than I eat:

Sports Baby: salmon and broccoli

Daddy: beer and that sticky white cheddar popcorn with the ironic* name Smart Food

The biggest and best change is in the smiles and laughs. It used to be that finding his giggle button to release a laugh was a lot like a drunken freshman stumbling upon his girlfriend's bingo button and unleashing all heaven on the unsuspecting lass — total fluke and one-and-done, the same steps the following night yielding nothing more than awkward stares, crying, and eventually a wet diaper (I'm talking about the baby now again, I think). 

But now Sports Baby laughs when you tickle underneath his chin. He smiles back whenever we smile at him. He scopes out pretty girls, saving the biggest grins for them.

He's no longer a little ball of snot, as my cousin recently called a friend's baby. He's a little ball of awesome.

And speaking of ballers, I thought that Saturday night's NBA slam dunk contest was really good. All of those guys were brining it.

Blake Griffin won with his now famous Kia commercial with Baron Davis throwing him an alley-oop through the car's sunroof as Blake jumped over the hood. Showmanship aside, I actually thought it was one of the weaker dunks of the night and Blake's dunk coach Kenny (the Jet) Smith blamed Baron's pass for messing up the slam (they should have known that the best guy to make a pass inside a car is Stephon Marbury).

Blake had the buzz, but all four of the participants pulled off fantastic dunks. Usually there are at least a couple of duds in there but not this year (accepting the now-inevitable missed attempts that come before many of the makes). In fact, some have argued that DeMar DeRozan and Serge Ibaka, the two guys who didn't make the cut for the finals, had the best dunks of the night.

Check out Ibaka's legit free throw line dunk:

And DeRozan's "Showstopper":    

Like Sports Baby, all of the the contestants are finally getting it after several hit-and-miss years. Now if only the NBA would get it too. Here comes the part where this blog becomes like every other sports blog as I offer a solution that no one will care about to a problem that probably doesn't even exist. Anyway, if dunkers are going to bring it like they did on Saturday I think the contest needs a new format.

First of all, it's stupid that DeRozan and Ibaka didn't get to do as many dunks as Griffin and Javale McGee because their "scores" weren't as high after the first round. The scoring is bupkis (more on that in a second), so there's no way it should be used to eliminate dunkers before the end of the show. There are only four of them anyway. Give them all three dunks so they know what they are preparing for and can bring their best stuff out when they want to.

As for the scoring, the whole Table of Judges throwing up an 8, 9 or 10 thing isn't working anymore, not when all of the dunkers are doing good stuff.

Here's my solution: have the judges rank all of the dunks from best to worst and give the trophy to the person whose cumulative total rank for all of their dunks (or two of their dunks) is the best.

The math would be a little more complicated but all it would come down to is the person with the most dunks favoured by the most judges would win. After every dunk each judge would just have to decide where it fit in. Was Ibaka's free throw line dunk better than Blake's arm in rim dunk? Was the Showstopper (seen here again, but this time in beautiful super slo mo) better than McGee's two balls, two hoops (also in slo mo) dunk?

A cool offshoot would be that on top of having one person win there would also be one particular dunk that would be crowned dunk of the night. Another benefit would be that the first guy to go wouldn't get screwed because the judges have nothing to compare him to. This happened to DeRozan, who criminally got a 44 out of 50, one of the worst scores of the night, for this bit of awesomeness.  

The whole process would give the contest more of a narrative arc as well because each dunk would be compared and contrasted to those which came before it.

Problem solved.

Now if you'll excuse me my dinner is served. And poured.

*Sorry to my Dad, an English prof, if this is the wrong use of the word ironic. I feel like he's the only person on earth who has it nailed. You should have heard him rip that Alanis Morissette a new one. "Those are just coincidences! No wonder your boyfriend dumped you!"

Follow me on Twitter @Sports_Andy

Vancouver is like my baby

My baby has started to, as they call it in the infant industry, "make strange." That's when a baby begins to recognize that the person holding it, looking at it or blowing fart-kisses on its belly is not one of the recurring characters in the drama that is its little baby life.

It's a weird expression, don't you think? Make strange. It sounds so German to me.

"Hey Spatzle face, vy don't you macht strange und schtop schtaring at me vile I macht sexy mit diese apfel strussel?"

It sucks for our friends and family who get an earful of screaming whenever they are reintroduced to the little guy but it's also a great boost to my confidence that I can lord my non-strangeness over everyone else not named Mama.

The city of Vancouver, itself practically a baby at the tender age of 125, made strange when the NBA arrived in town in 1995 in the form of the Grizzlies. As the team approached the city, Vancouver lost it.

"Ahhh, what is that?! Why isn't Trevor Linden on the ice? Wait, where the hell is the ice!? Ahhhhh, black people!" To be fair, most Vancouverites didn't encounter many black people during their formative years in Hong Kong.

The Grizzlies' biggest attraction, literally, wasn't even black (which might help explain why the team is long gone).

Really, who wouldn't make strange at a basketball team fronted by a huge, brush-cutted, white boy hill-billy baller nicknamed Big Country (see photo at top)?

The Grizz fizzled in Vancouver, lasting only six years before moving to

Memphis.

But the basketball radar blipped once again this week in Vancouver when commissioner David Stern mentioned his regrets about losing Vancouver as an NBA city while acknowledging that there have been talks of bringing a team back here.

“We’ve had visits from, believe it or not, Vancouver, where the Canucks are absolutely doing a spectacular job there,” Stern said on ESPN Sports Guy Bill Simmons' podcast on Tuesday in advance of this weekend's all-star game.

He didn't mention that the "visits" were from a couple of homeless guys asking if they could sleep in Stern's garage. (The answer: "No. And if you have to get high you can do it in the alley but then get the hell out of here.")

Actually, the owners of the Canucks made the visit but right now the talks are just talks and all reports seem to indicate that Vancouver is not one of the first choices for a new or relocated NBA team.

It pains me to say it but I don't think an NBA team will be back in Vancouver for a long time. Why? Because ballers don't bounce in the rain, according to a column I wrote for the North Shore News a couple of years ago. I've attached it below for your perusal. I've left it unedited and a few things have changed since I wrote it: the Grizzlies and Thunder are no longer terrible; Portland is now a young and arthritic team, not a young and talented team; and the fledgling B.C. Titans basketball team has now folded. Who are the B.C. Titans you ask? Exactly. I stand by my remarks about Toby Bailey though.

Anyway, enjoy the all-star game. And remember, if you don't want to get screamed at, try not to be so strange.     

Ballers won't bounce in the rain

North Shore News

Sunday, Nov. 23, 2008

Andy Prest

THE loss of two NBA teams from the Lower Mainland-Pacific Northwest area in the last 10 years disturbs me.

(By the way, I think there should be a name for the combined Seattle/Vancouver corridor. SeaVan might work but it's a little boring. What about SeaWeed?)

Of course Vancouver lost their mostly un-beloved Grizzlies to Memphis in 2001, forcing hardcore junkies to travel to Seattle for their NBA fix -- a trip that can take anywhere from three hours to 47 days, depending on border wait times.

Now this season the Seattle Sonics are no more, packed up and carted off to thriving metropolis Oklahoma City. That makes the closest big-time pro hoops team the Portland Trailblazers, which is nice -- because they are a talented young team -- but also terrible because Portland is not close to my house.

Sure the Sonics and Grizzlies were terrible when they left (and still are) but even awful teams are fun to watch for hardcore fans. The good people of Oklahoma get to see Kevin Durant, one of the most exciting young scorers to enter the league since Michael Jordan, blossom into a superstar for a few years before he goes somewhere nice as a free agent. And the people of Memphis they . . . well, they get to watch great players crush the Grizzlies night in and night out.

But what about SeaWeed? More than 5 million people live in or near these two cities but combined they have fewer NBA teams than Charlotte, N.C.?

What's the deal? Maybe the laid back West Coast can't handle games with so much scoring. Maybe basketball players who know how to "make it rain" aren't welcome here.

Whatever the reason, it stinks. Anyone who has taken in an Argyle vs. Handsworth North Shore finals series or stopped by the provincial championships at the Agrodome knows that there is no shortage of love for hoops here.

Maybe there's hope -- a pro team called the Vancouver Titans is set to start play in something called the International Basketball League next year. To give some kind of indication of what kind of talent you might be able to expect, the Titans are holding an open tryout today at SFU. I don't think Steve Nash is going to give up his Phoenix Suns gig to suit up for the Titans anytime soon, but there appears to be some "where are they now" appeal to the league.

Toby Bailey plays for the Los Angeles Lightning. If you know who Toby Bailey is I'd bet you'd pay eight dollars to watch 33-year-old Toby try to dunk on people with the rage pent up from years spent not in the NBA. I know I would.

Well, maybe four dollars.