FanHouse StuartScott

No matter your party's affiliation, there is obviously a fairly clear difference in the presidential hopefuls' sports knowledge. Barack Obama uses sports metaphors, talks of his beloved White Sox and tends to hoop as much as he can, even if it's against Stuart Scott. John McCain obviously isn't one to gloat about his sports teams, mainly because he's an Arizona guy and, well, they aren't exactly expanding their trophy case (even though he did pick the Final Four correctly this year).

That being noted, McCain brought out the big guns yesterday in Ohio, having Brady Quinn appear at the Republican rally in hopes of swinging as many Browns voters as possible, even though it's easy to leave a hanging chad with a paper bag over your face. From the Cleveland Plain Dealer...

McCain and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin, rallied an overflow crowd Wednesday by urging Greater Clevelanders to support the underdog.

And who better to help deliver that message than two members of Cleveland's favorite underdog -- make that underdawg -- team, the Browns. Quarterback Brady Quinn and left tackle Joe Thomas made a surprise appearance at the rally before roaring supporters at the Walter F. Ehrnfelt Recreation and Senior Center.

In the winter of 1989, when dealing with the effects of a blizzard, the people of Raleigh, North Carolina turned to Stuart Scott:

ESPN's Bob Ley interviewed Republican presidential candidate John McCain today at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, as the Worldwide Leader attempts to give equal time to both candidates after Stuart Scott interviewed Barack Obama last month.

The problem, though, is that Scott gave Obama a puff piece, complete with a game of one-on-one that ended with a hug. Somehow I can't see Ley and McCain hugging it out at the NASCAR track.

ESPN tells me they don't know yet when the interview will air, but I'm betting that when it does air, we'll see that Ley asked tough questions, because he's a good journalist. And I'm sure the McCain campaign will use Ley asking McCain tough questions and Scott asking Obama softball questions to bolster their claims that the media is biased against Republicans, because that's been one of the key McCain talking points in the last couple of weeks.

ESPN should have assigned Ley to both the Obama interview and the McCain interview. As for Scott, he didn't realize it at the time, but he was doing McCain a big favor by treating Obama with kid gloves.

From The Windup is FanHouse's daily, extended look at a particular portion of America's pastime.

I don't know if you've been paying attention, but there are some things going on in this country right now that are far more important than whether or not the Cubs will win the World Series, or whether New York will collapse on itself should the Yankees miss the playoffs.

No, I'm not talking about the new Beverly Hills 90210 - though it's nice to see Lori Loughlin getting work - I'm talking about the upcoming election for President of the United States. Yeah, you've probably noticed in the last few weeks that all your favorite crappy sitcoms and celebrity dancing shows haven't been on in favor of a bunch of people giving speeches in front of sycophants. We call these the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

For the first time in my life, I've paid pretty close attention to both of these conventions this year. You see, even though I've never been shy about my feelings about this country of ours, and those who have been chosen to run it, I've never actually exercised my right to be a factor in the decision.

That's right, at 27 years of age, I have never voted in a single election. Not for President, not for Governor, not even for Student Council President in high school. So when November 4th rolls around in two months, I will be stepping into a voting booth for the first time, and though I'm somewhat excited about it, I still face a pretty tough question.

Just who am I voting for?

Following my post in which I criticized the questions that ESPN's Stuart Scott asked Barack Obama, I heard from a few readers who wondered what I thought Scott should have asked. For the record, here are some questions that I think would have been better than "If your vice president had to be an athlete, who would you pick?"

-- As basketball coach at Oregon State, your brother-in-law makes more money than any professor at the school. Why are public universities that receive taxpayer money treating sports as a more valuable commodity than education?
-- The NCAA makes hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Why doesn't it have to pay taxes on that revenue?
-- Do you believe that males and females are equally interested in sports? If not, why should Title IX force schools to give equal numbers of athletic scholarships to males and females? If so, why doesn't Title IX require schools to offer pay equality between male and female coaches?
--You have the support of Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney. Would it be OK with you if Mr. Rooney's family has to sell the Steelers when he dies to pay the estate taxes?
--Sen. Arlen Specter has suggested that legislation is needed to strip the NFL of the antitrust exemption that allows the 32 teams to negotiate television contracts collectively. Would you sign such legislation?
--The federal government has cracked down on online sports gambling. Why is it the federal government's business whether people, in the privacy of their own homes and with their own money, log on and wager on a sporting event?

ESPN's Stuart Scott interviewed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for a segment that aired on tonight's SportsCenter. It was a major disappointment.

In an interview that was intercut with clips of Scott (wearing Kareem-style goggles) playing one-on-one basketball with Obama, Scott missed an opportunity to conduct some serious journalism and mostly peppered Obama with easy questions that made for simple answers.

Journalists don't have to be attack dogs every time they talk to candidates, but a one-on-one interview with a person seeking the nation's highest office ought to be more substantive than, "If your vice president had to be an athlete, who would you pick?" which was Scott's first question. (Obama picked Walter Payton.)

Earlier MDS noted that the Sports Bog's Dan Steinberg caught up with Stuart Scott at the Earl Woods Memorial Pro-Am yesterday, and like most people at pro-am events, they talked about sports blogs.

Near the end of Steinberg's post on the festivities, he notes that Scott's answer of the day came in an interview with Sports Groove's Mark Gray, "who asked about the criticism Tiger receives for not being outspoken enough." Scott's response:

"All the people who say Tiger doesn't do enough, stop," Scott said. "Shut up. Shut up....He's got about as much money as Oprah, but it's important for him to do something tangible for kids. Tangible."

As much as it pains me, I agree with Scott on this one. For some reason, certain segments of the population think high-profile athletes should have an opinion on every social issue under the sun.

During the "hey, I got an idea: let's lynch Tiger!" fiasco, Jim Brown said Woods "waited until it was politically correct to come out and he should have come out right away." Maybe. Or perhaps Tiger just wanted the whole thing to blow over. Frankly, I have no idea why he didn't hold a press conference denouncing Kelly Tilghman as the next coming of Hitler (or worse, the Celtics), but I can't begrudge the guy for how he ultimately chose to deal with it the matter.

On the day A.J. Daulerio was named Deadspin editor last week, I asked him about a post he wrote at the Super Bowl a year and a half ago in which he described what he read while looking over Stuart Scott's shoulder as Scott sent a text message.

Daulerio said that while he's never heard from Scott about that post, "I heard he was upset, and rightfully so."

However, Scott talked to Dan Steinberg of the D.C. Sports Bog yesterday, and while Scott said he never reads blogs, he also didn't have anything negative to say about them. Steinberg writes:

I told Scott that A.J. Daulerio, his foil from Super Bowls past, had been named Deadspin editor. Scott wasn't immediately familiar with the name. "Whatever," he said, when I explained who he was. "If that's what he wants to do with his life...."

I can't say I'm a big Scott fan, but he comes across in Steinberg's interview as though he's a reasonable guy in his approach to blogs, not a ranting lunatic. Scott's no Buzz Bissinger.

Although the popular sports blog Deadspin has grown into much more than a one-man show over the last three years, it has always been viewed, first and foremost, as Will Leitch's site.

Until today. Leitch is leaving to become a contributing editor at New York magazine, and Gawker Media has announced that A.J. Daulerio, who had served as the site's senior writer, is taking over the top spot.

It's a busy day for Daulerio, but he took a few minutes to talk to me about how he felt when he got the job, where Deadspin is going, and why he thinks Stuart Scott has every right to hate him.

Last week Jason Whitlock noted that Deadspin's Will Leitch, in his recent book, God Save the Fan, "spends an inordinate amount of time telling prominent, successful, well-spoken African-Americans that they're not really black." Whitlock also referred to Leitch's NPR appearance some four months ago, where the same subject had come up.

I'm black, hardly prominent, debatably successful, and relatively well spoken. And I was dumbfounded when I heard the NPR interview. Not because of the sentiment, but because NPR's Scott Simon appeared to have exposed a blind spot in Leitch's thinking. It seemed upon listening that it had never occurred to Leitch that what he was writing might be problematic to some people.

I didn't write about the NPR show. In four years of blogging, I've never written about race and sports, because my focus has always been about the games, the players, the fans.

But I think race does belong in the discussion that's followed Leitch's appearance on Costas Now last week, because so far it seems Whitlock and one lonely blog are the only ones taking the lead. After reading Leitch's response to Whitlock's column, I e-mailed asking if he'd be willing to answer some questions. He agreed, and the short interview is after the jump.